For people wishing Kenny would defend the IWGP US title more, he’s only wrestled 4 Singles matches this entire year. 2 of those were IWGP US Title matches.

16 comments

1. Nah fam he needs to put someone over cuz he snuck out on Impact and AAA and i love Omega to death

2. Doesn’t excuse the fact that the US title hasn’t been seen on New Japan shows for five months, and it won’t be seen for a minimum of six or seven if Ospreay beats him (lol).

   Old Jericho worked more dates and had more defenses as a part-timer.

3. People forget how many injuries Omega has had and how many surgeries and therapies (including stem cell therapies) he’s had to do just to get back to this point. He’s more of a special attraction than a full-time performer these days; he’s never going to be able to do the amount of matches he was able to do in his heyday. I’m thankful he is still capable of working like he did at WK this year. NJPW probably figures might as well save him for the big ones and get the most value out of him.

4. Okie dokie. I just think it’s kinda funny how while Kenneth’s a great name to put it on the infrequency of defenses just kinda cool it down to the level it was before. Midcard title gonna midcard.

5. This definitely puts things in perspective and makes a lot more sense considering Kenny’s injuries.

6. I think it’s cool when titles are won by wrestlers from other companies, but if that’s the plan they are going with, I wish frequent title defenses and more appearances in Japan could be worked into the equation. Not just a matter of “lol that belt is in the US, it’ll be back in a few months.”I know Kenny has had injuries, but just moving forward.

7. Then vacate the title. Doesn’t matter to me, KOPW and TV have been awesome.

8. It sounds like putting the belt on him was a bad idea in the first place then, who would have guessed.

9. This shows how bad of a decision it was to give him the title, Ospreay made it the 2nd most important title in NJPW ( could argue most important on quality of matches ) and now it’s as cold as ice. Such a bad decision.

10. I have no problem with Kenny himself slowing down and have only few matches but great, that man is basically kept together with hope and prayers. I’d personally rather see him wrestle like 3 times a year but as healthy as possible.

    The problem is not Kenny with his light schedule, it’s New Japan that put a belt on a guy from a different promotion in a light schedule. It’s fair that New Japan fans complain that a belt basically went MIA.

    But if we have to wait ages, at least in the meantime, New Japan should have a storyline to make the people care about the belt and hype up the public for when the defends will happen.

11. Tbh at this stage I don’t really care. I don’t really give a shit about titles. They can be reheated easily enough. We’ve got great value out the tv title and kopw anyway.

    What I do care about is ospreay in very likely his last year with the company being stuck in a feud that literally cannot go anywhere for 6 months. It has drained all interest I have in ospreay pretty much and now I think they should just move okada on to shota and ren for the rest of the year and restart ospreay with okada next year if will re signs

    I’ll say what I said at the time how does it help ospreay within new japan to lose at kingdom and win the title in Canada on a Monday in the eastern hemisphere??? There is going to be significantly less fans watching from Japan clearly.

    If it’s about building up ospresy for aew then cool but that shouldn’t be happening on the biggest new japan event of the year

12. I get the idea behind this post, but if you’re trusted to hold a belt, you should be trusted to defend it in it’s native promotion.

13. It cooled off Ospreay hard for me. Which is a shame because he was the most interesting Guy in NJPW until this derailed him.

    But NJPW will never learn.

14. He shouldn’t have won it. Injuries caught ip to him years ago. He’s like Naito now, he can turn it on maybe 10 times a year but can’t go hard every night. AEW was always gonna get most of his singles matches for the year. NJPW shouldn’t have put the strap on him. (But it’s also very possible he wouldn’t have done the match without being guaranteed the title.)

15. i’ll say this every time this comes up, but the same people defending kenny in this situation are the same ones who shit all over NJPW and Karl when Karl signed to WWE while NEVER champ.

16. How does this change the fact that has barely defended the title since winning it?