Wrestle Kingdom II was the second annual Wrestle Kingdom event put on by NJPW, in their traditional slot at the beginning of the year. Wrestle Kingdom II took place on January 4, 2008, and showed that the company were keen on establishing a WrestleMania-like brand for their biggest show of the year.
This year’s edition featured a big crossover between NJPW and TNA. TNA stars like AJ Styles, Christian Cage and Abyss all had big matches on the card, although the show’s main selling point was the clash between two fo the “Three Musketeers” in the main event, when Hiroshi Tanahashi battled Shinsuke Nakamura for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship.
One of the key matches in the show see Kurt Angle defending a version of the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. This is referred to as the “IWGP Third Belt”, and as actually the title belt that Brock Lesnar won form Kazuyuki Fujita in 2005. Lesnar took the belt to the Inoki Genome Federation, where he lost it to Kurt Angle in 2007. (Click the link to learn more about how Inokism ruined NJPW).
This page will detail the star ratings for Wrestle Kingdom II. This will detail Dave Meltzer’s star ratings from the Wrestling Observer, as well as match ratings from Cagematch, and our own star rating too. Any matches Dave Meltzer did not give a rating for is labelled “Not Rated”.
AJ Styles, Christian Cage & Petey Williams vs RISE (Milano Collection AT, Minoru & Prince Devitt)
- Dave Meltzer’s Star Rating – Not Rated
- Cagematch Rating – 6.21 Stars
- Atletifo Rating – 2 Stars
Wataru Inoue vs Christopher Daniels
- Dave Meltzer’s Star Rating – Not Rated
- Cagematch Rating – 6.80
- Atletifo Rating –3 Stars
Manabu Nakanishi vs Abyss
- Dave Meltzer’s Star Rating – Not Rated
- Cagematch Rating – 5.20
- Atletifo Rating – 1 Star
Katsushi Takemura, Masato Tanaka, Tatsuhito Takaiwa & Yutaka Yoshie vs Koji Kanemoto, Ryusuke Taguchi, Takashi Iizuka & Tiger Mask
- Dave Meltzer’s Star Rating – Not Rated
- Cagematch Rating – 5.44
- Atletifo Rating – 1.5 Stars
Team 3D (Brother Devon & Brother Ray) vs Great Bash Heel (Togi Makabe & Toru Yano)
- Dave Meltzer’s Star Rating – Not Rated
- Cagematch Rating – 5.56
- Atletifo Rating – 2 Stars
Legend (AKIRA, Jushin Thunder Liger, Masahiro Chono & Riki Choshu) & Tatsumi Fujinami vs Great Bash Heel (Gedo & Jado) & Voodoo Murders (Shuji Kondo, TARU & YASSHI)
- Dave Meltzer’s Star Rating – Not Rated
- Cagematch Rating – 5.30
- Atletifo Rating – 1.5 Stars
Great Muta vs Hirooki Goto
- Dave Meltzer’s Star Rating –
- Cagematch Rating –
- Atletifo Rating –
Giant Bernard & Travis Tomko (c) vs The Steiner Brothers (Rick Steiner & Scott Steiner)
- Dave Meltzer’s Star Rating – Not Rated
- Cagematch Rating – 6.45
- Atletifo Rating – 3 Stars
Kurt Angle vs Yuji Nagata
- Dave Meltzer’s Star Rating – 4 Stars
- Cagematch Rating – 8.14 Stars
- Atletifo Rating – 4.5 Stars
Shinsuke Nakamura vs Hiroshi Tanahashi
- Dave Meltzer’s Star Rating – Not Rated
- Cagematch Rating – 8.40
- Atletifo Rating – 4 Stars