Power Struggle 2012: WrestleFile Historical Verdict

Time Splitters captured the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship from Forever Hooligans in 6:20 at Power Struggle 2012. KUSHIDA pinned Rocky Romero after the I-94, with Alex Shelley beside him against Romero and Alex Koslov. The title switch gave the challengers the belts immediately after they had won the Super Junior Tag Tournament, rather than after a long championship match. Romero and Koslov were making their third defense of this reign. The C+ rating recognizes a decisive and important junior-tag change while accounting for the short runtime. It was one of two junior championship changes on the Osaka card; Prince Devitt took the singles belt later from Low Ki. The event's junior tag result should not be mixed with the heavyweight tag defense, in which Killer Elite Squad retained.

CHAOS won the ten-man undercard tag when Toru Yano pinned Manabu Nakanishi with the Akakiri in the contemporary 7:20 result. Yano teamed with Takashi Iizuka, Tomohiro Ishii, YOSHI-HASHI and Jado against Nakanishi, Jushin Thunder Liger, Tiger Mask, Captain New Japan and Negro Casas. The win belonged to this CHAOS five-man team, not to Nakanishi's side, and it awarded no championship. An alternate English match table lists 7:50, whereas contemporary Puroresu Spirit and Japanese BBM event listings give 7:20; the discrepancy concerns runtime, not winner or pin recipient. This makes the C-level contest a brief faction match rather than a significant singles-title moment, a useful distinction amid the card's five championship bouts.

Minoru Suzuki and Taichi defeated Yuji Nagata and Ryusuke Taguchi in 9:53 in a Suzuki-gun supporting tag match. Taichi is credited with the Low Fly Flow as the decisive offensive move, but sources differ about whose shoulders were down: same-day Puroresu Spirit and the Japanese BBM report list Nagata, while Pro Wrestling History names Taguchi. Rather than assert a disputed fall recipient as settled, the result can identify Suzuki and Taichi as winners with the recorded time and flag the disagreement transparently. This was not the IWGP heavyweight title match, and it did not give Suzuki-gun the tag championship; the separate Killer Elite Squad defense occurred immediately afterward. A C+ grade reflects a compact faction encounter whose basic outcome is established even as one match-detail citation requires reconciliation.

Killer Elite Squad, Lance Archer and Davey Boy Smith Jr., successfully defended the IWGP Tag Team Championship against former champions Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Satoshi Kojima in 13:12. Archer pinned Tenzan after the Killer Bomb, so Tencozy did not regain the belts at Power Struggle 2012. The defense was the champions' first, according to contemporary Japanese results, and it belonged to the heavyweight tag division rather than the junior-tag title switch in the opener. The B- evaluation credits the consequential retention and clear final fall without treating it as a championship change. For a reader following the title picture before Wrestle Kingdom 7, this result helps distinguish the two tag-belt stories on the same card: Time Splitters became new junior champions, while Archer and Smith stayed champions.

Prince Devitt defeated Low Ki in 13:45 to regain the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship, giving Power Struggle 2012 its second junior title change after Time Splitters won the junior tag belts. Contemporary coverage lists a small-package hold for Devitt's decisive pin; it does not describe a submission. Low Ki's reign ended on his first defense, and Devitt became the title's 66th recognized champion. Afterward, Devitt proposed a three-way championship contest involving himself, Low Ki and Kota Ibushi, keeping the three rivals connected to the division's upcoming Tokyo Dome program. This was separate from Kazuchika Okada defending a challenge-rights certificate and Hiroshi Tanahashi retaining the standard IWGP heavyweight title. The B- mark reflects a genuine singles title reversal and the direction it set for the junior rivalry.

Laughter7, Kazushi Sakuraba and Katsuyori Shibata, defeated Togi Makabe and Wataru Inoue in 5:26 at Power Struggle 2012. The short tag was a non-title meeting between Sakuraba and Shibata's returning team and an established New Japan pair, separating it from the junior championships decided earlier and the three headline matches still to come. Inoue was the defeated wrestler, but there is a source-level disagreement over how the stoppage was credited: contemporaneous Puroresu Spirit reports Sakuraba earning a referee stoppage via submission, whereas Pro Wrestling History attributes a technical knockout to Shibata. That disagreement should not be silently resolved by inventing a definitive winning move. Its C grade reflects the short duration and limited direct title consequences while preserving the unusual cross-style pairing.

Kazuchika Okada pinned Hirooki Goto in 15:43 with the Rainmaker to protect his right to challenge for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship at Wrestle Kingdom 7. The prize was the Tokyo Dome challenge-rights certificate rather than the championship belt itself, so this should not be labeled an Okada title win. Goto's failure to take the certificate kept Okada positioned to face champion Hiroshi Tanahashi, provided Tanahashi retained against Yujiro Takahashi later in Osaka. That dual-stakes arrangement gave the final three matches interconnected consequences: a challenge-rights defense, an Intercontinental title defense and the IWGP heavyweight main event. The B- evaluation recognizes the clear result and future-card consequence without retroactively crediting Okada with a championship he had not yet won.

Shinsuke Nakamura retained the IWGP Intercontinental Championship against Karl Anderson in the penultimate Power Struggle 2012 match. The contemporary result gives 17:32 and identifies the Boma Ye as Nakamura's winning move; an alternate published match table reports 17:36, a small archival timing conflict rather than a different winner. The retention kept Nakamura champion while Okada defended his separate Tokyo Dome challenge-rights certificate and Tanahashi later retained the IWGP heavyweight belt. Afterward Nakamura proposed Kazushi Sakuraba as an Intercontinental challenger for Wrestle Kingdom 7, connecting this Osaka defense to the Tokyo Dome program. The B- score acknowledges an established singles championship and the 17-minute contest without folding the Intercontinental title into the heavyweight lineage.

Hiroshi Tanahashi retained the IWGP Heavyweight Championship over Yujiro Takahashi in 25:06 in the Osaka main event, finishing with the High Fly Flow. This was Tanahashi's fifth defense of the reign and was not a meeting with Toru Yano: Yano had been involved in the 2011 Power Struggle main event, whereas Yujiro challenged in 2012. The correct opponent is important because the result, together with Kazuchika Okada's earlier win over Hirooki Goto, established Tanahashi versus Okada as the Wrestle Kingdom 7 title match. The B+ and 8.4 score appropriately emphasize the card's longest contest and direct championship consequence. The outcome should not be described as a new heavyweight champion or as the winner of a nine-match tournament.