Would you have changed anything about KENTA’s initial run?

20 comments

1. For how it’s ended up, no. I think Kentas had a pretty good time since his rejection and heel turn

2. Other than the pandemic not happening and wiping out 6 months of New Japan right after he challenged for the title, no, not so far.

3. I would remove the pandemic

4. Knowing nothing about Kenta’s previous run in Japan but knowing his accomplishments I thought he would have been a bigger deal than where he is now. When he debuted in NJPW I thought he would be a main eventer similar to AJ Styles’ run.

   Given his poor initial few months he’s done pretty well to be a main stay in mid card.

5. I would make him world heavyweight champion in 2020 instead of Naito’s second reign…He deserves it

6. The only loss he had was his epic face theme. If Finlay ever boots him out for not being savage enough he needs to bring that back.

7. He needed to be older and more bitter much earlier

8. Would have had him win the title instead of Evil.

9. No, it lead to the very reserved Japanese audience breaking the country’s law and screamed their heads off during the Pandemic Era. Nothing will ever beat that pop, imo. Sure, we’ve had louder ones, but these are people that stick around sporting events and clean up for free. Reserved, shy, and follow the rules. They threw all that out the window for Shibata kicking KENTA’s ass

10. I love KENTA so this hurts to say but he’s run has kinda sucked. So I change it to make it good

11. I’d have him win more

12. I’d have him beat Naito for the titles to add insult to injury but the pop Naito gets for winning them back would’ve been huge

13. I’m a gigantic KENTA mark, so I would have had him win the title at some point. While the attack at WK got tons of heat, he was never winning it off Naito just after, but he could have been the one eventually

14. Not terrible, but I do wish he won the Heavyweight title even if it was just for a short stint. Hell, if built up he could still definitely win it. He at least has more of a chance than Murder Grandpa or Shibata. 😢

15. Yes. I would have had the crowd cheer for him so he could be a babyface and we would have had more Shibata.

16. We need that noah kenta

17. I wouldn’t have had him ruin the LIJ role call at WK. I would have waited for when they were ready to take the belts off of Naito and then would have started the feud and had Kenta win the championship.

    Also, I would have rebooked his WK match with Tana and made it a more traditional match. Not sure why they decided to book a hardcore match with two older wrestlers with little to no experience with that kind of match.

18. Made him a champ

19. Looking back at his Cagematch his first few months after the heel turn were kind of hit and miss. He got concussed winning the Never belt from Ishii, had a disappointing match with Ibushi likely thanks to that concussion (though Meltzer liked it, so YMMV), had a really boring match with Yohsi-Hashi at a US show and was partners with Yojiro in Tag League. On the plus side he had a rematch with Ishii that was good and Tag League led in to the feud with Goto.

    So, don’t get hurt and have a better opponent in the US and you have a much better 2019.

20. Yes. Would have made him 5 years younger.