It’s official: NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 10 at the Tokyo Dome on January 4th will be available in English, but they’re making a different play from what they did for this year’s show. Kevin Kelly announced on his latest podcast that he and Matt Striker, the voices of ROH and Lucha Underground, respectively, will return as NJPW’s English announcing team. They debuted last month at the King of Pro Wrestling event. The show will air live on NJPW World in both languages, unlike this year’s event, which aired in Japanese on that service and in English on traditional pay-per-view via a deal with GFW. It remains to be seen if NJPW will ad a proper English version of the website, as right now it’s still in Japanese with an English Google Translate button.

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Kelly made the announcement at the 1:39:39 mark of the podcast, saying that “On January 4th, I, once again, am going back to New Japan Pro Wrestling…I’m going to be part of the broadcast team for Wrestle Kingdom 10 (NJPWorld broadcast). I’m very excited…” Acknowledging the criticism that he sounded too new to the NJPW product last time, he added that “I’ll be more comfortable next time, and I think it will be much improved.”

Last year’s GFW production, with Jeff Jarrett producing, was called by Jim Ross and Striker to rave reviews. For King of Pro Wrestling, NJPW made the hiring on their own. Mauro Ranallo and Josh Barnett, who call NJPW’s American TV show on AXS TV, were not contacted. The AXS deal is with TV Asahi, NJPW’s broadcast partner in Japan, and not the promotion itself. ROH, on the other hand, which Kelly works for, is effectively NJPW’s American affiliate promotion.