King of Pro-Wrestling 2014: WrestleFile Historical Verdict

Kota Ibushi, Yuji Nagata, Togi Makabe and Tomoaki Honma defeated Bullet Club's Doc Gallows, Karl Anderson, Tama Tonga and Bad Luck Fale in 7:48 to open King of Pro-Wrestling 2014. This was an eight-person tag match, not the IWGP tag title contest, even though Gallows and Anderson appeared on the losing side. WrestleFile's C / 6.3 evaluates the brief opening result below the show's championship matches. The card later saw Killer Elite Squad take the separate NWA World Tag Team Championship from Tencozy, and Hiroshi Tanahashi eventually win the IWGP Heavyweight Championship from AJ Styles. The first bout should be retained as its own four-versus-four result without inventing a championship transfer or unreported finishing sequence.

Chase Owens defeated BUSHI in 7:02 to retain the NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship on October 13, 2014. WrestleFile's C+ / 6.7 treats this as an early title defense rather than one of the strongest matches at Ryogoku. Owens was the reigning champion and kept his individual NWA belt; BUSHI did not win it on this date. Another NWA championship, the World Tag Team belt, changed in the following contest when Killer Elite Squad beat Tencozy. The two adjacent NWA title matches therefore ended differently, just as the later junior IWGP tag three-way and junior singles contest were separate successful defenses. That division-by-division result distinction is the important reason to preserve this shorter match.

Lance Archer and Davey Boy Smith Jr., together Killer Elite Squad, defeated reigning NWA World Tag Team Champions Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Satoshi Kojima in 11:22 to win those belts. The third match of King of Pro-Wrestling 2014 produced the first documented championship change of the evening; it was not a successful Tencozy defense. WrestleFile's C+ / 6.9 individual score is modest, but the title transfer is concrete historical information. The prize was the NWA tag championship, not the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship that Time Splitters successfully defended later in a three-way. Two other titles changed later in the card, when Ishii beat Yujiro for the NEVER belt and Tanahashi defeated Styles for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship.

Kazushi Sakuraba and Toru Yano defeated Suzuki-gun's Minoru Suzuki and Takashi Iizuka in 5:30 in the fourth contest of the October 2014 Ryogoku program. WrestleFile scored this short tag match C / 6.3, near the foot of the card's existing evaluations. It supplied a specific pairing from the period's faction roster, not a title match involving the champions elsewhere on the show. Its winner was Sakuraba and Yano, while the opposite team was Suzuki and Iizuka. The following bout was a three-way IWGP junior heavyweight tag defense and needs separate accounting; readers looking for championship stakes can preserve this result without assigning a belt or certificate to either team.

Time Splitters, Alex Shelley and KUSHIDA, retained the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship in an 18:56 three-way against the Young Bucks, Matt and Nick Jackson, and Forever Hooligans, Alex Koslov and Rocky Romero. The six participants formed three teams. WrestleFile's B / 7.5 places this defense among King of Pro-Wrestling 2014's stronger selections. Time Splitters were champions entering and leaving, so neither challenger duo won the junior team belts. The following Ryusuke Taguchi-El Desperado bout was for the individual junior title, also retained by the incumbent, while the night's championship transfers took place in the NWA tag, NEVER singles and IWGP Heavyweight divisions.

Ryusuke Taguchi defeated El Desperado in 12:12 to retain the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship at King of Pro-Wrestling 2014. WrestleFile awarded B- / 7.1 to the sixth match, positioned directly after Time Splitters had successfully defended the separate junior team championship in a three-way. Taguchi was the incumbent and left as junior singles champion; no challenger captured his belt here. It would be incorrect to confuse this defense with the NWA junior title match earlier in the program, where Chase Owens beat BUSHI to retain yet another organization's singles championship. The night's title changes belonged to Killer Elite Squad, Tomohiro Ishii and Hiroshi Tanahashi in their own specified matches.

Tomohiro Ishii beat defending champion Yujiro Takahashi in 17:48 to win the NEVER Openweight Championship in match seven. WrestleFile graded the contest B- / 7.1. Unlike the two consecutive junior IWGP defenses before it, this result replaced the titleholder. Ishii entered as challenger and left with the NEVER belt, giving the event its second recorded title switch after Killer Elite Squad's earlier NWA tag win over Tencozy. The final would bring a third change when Tanahashi defeated AJ Styles for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. Ishii's result should not be described as a defense by the new champion; the order of possession is the point for anyone tracing the NEVER lineage.

Hirooki Goto and Katsuyori Shibata, billed Meiyu Tag, defeated CHAOS's Shinsuke Nakamura and YOSHI-HASHI in 13:49. The late-card tag received WrestleFile's B- / 7.1 evaluation, but did not award an IWGP team title or change Nakamura's individual championship. The victory belongs to Goto and Shibata over the specified CHAOS pair and serves as a link between Ishii's NEVER title win and Okada's separate Tokyo Dome challenge-rights contest. That certificate contest was about a future heavyweight opportunity, not the reigning IWGP Heavyweight belt. A career-chronology viewer can retain this tag as a substantial non-title pairing without attaching title stakes absent from the recorded result.

Kazuchika Okada defeated Tetsuya Naito in 19:17 to retain the Tokyo Dome IWGP Heavyweight Championship challenge-rights certificate. WrestleFile scored the ninth match B / 7.8, its strongest assessment below Tanahashi-Styles in the main event. The prize was the right to challenge for the heavyweight championship at the Dome, not the championship itself: AJ Styles still held the IWGP Heavyweight belt heading into the final match of this Ryogoku show. That main event would see Tanahashi beat Styles to become champion. Okada's certificate defense is consequential because it secured a future title opportunity, but the two separate outcomes must not be folded into one fictitious Okada title victory.

Hiroshi Tanahashi defeated defending IWGP Heavyweight Champion AJ Styles in 27:04 to win New Japan's top singles title at King of Pro-Wrestling 2014. WrestleFile's B+ / 8.4 is the highest saved individual grade on the ten-match card and provides its leading full-replay recommendation. Tanahashi entered as challenger; Styles entered as champion. This was the night's third championship change after Killer Elite Squad won the NWA World Tag Team belt from Tencozy and Tomohiro Ishii took the NEVER Openweight title from Yujiro Takahashi. Okada had defended only a future Tokyo Dome challenge-rights certificate against Naito immediately before this final. The direct title outcome belongs to Tanahashi, not Okada, whose separate opportunity remained for a later date.