NJPW’s second biggest show of the year is coming up on Saturday 9th June, and it’s promising to deliver one of the best matches in the company’s history, and perhaps in the history of the wrestling business. Kazuchika Okada will attempt to continue to make history and successfully defend his IWGP Heavyweight Championship for an incredible 13th time as he faces his greatest opponent, Kenny Omega. The history between these two men goes all the way back to 2016, where Omega would shock the world and defeat Hirooki Goto to become the first gaijin winner of the G1 Climax tournament. His reward for doing so was a main event match in the Tokyo Dome at Wrestle Kingdom 11 for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship against Kazuchika Okada, who at that time was only 199 days and one defence into his now 717 day reign as champion.

Okada defeated Tetsuya Naito to regain the IWGP Heavyweight Championship for the fourth time at Dominion in Osaka-jō Hall on 19th June 2016 and following the disappointment of not winning the G1 26, he would face and defeat NOAH’s Naomichi Marufuji at King of Pro-Wrestling to ensure his position in the main event of Wrestle Kingdom 11. Omega on the other hand would successfully defend his G1 winner’s briefcase against Okada’s Chaos teammates YOSHI-HASHI and Goto, in a rematch of the final.

At Wrestle Kingdom the two would compete for 46:45 in what is, for me personally, the best wrestling match I’ve ever seen. Never have I been more invested and captivated by a match than this one. Okada would retain after being forced to hit four Rainmakers on Omega, but regardless of result, this match left the wrestling world stunned and had everyone singing the praises of Kenny Omega.

Kenny would then take off the month of February while Okada only barely survived against a returning Minoru Suzuki and his Suzuki-gun faction. Omega returned and would seek to earn the opportunity to face Okada again by winning the New Japan Cup, but fell at the first hurdle in defeat to Tomohiro Ishii. Okada would defeat the eventual tournament winner Katsuyori Shibata in a classic and then go onto defeat Omega’s Bullet Club stable mate Bad Luck Fale at Wrestling Dontaku 2017, and it was at this event the two crossed paths once again. While Omega and members of Bullet Club helped the fallen Fale, Okada himself made the challenge for a rematch. He felt that after Wrestle Kingdom fans were talking more about Omega, and that he needed to prove himself and beat Omega again because of that.

In a six man tag two days before their long anticipated rematch, The Elite trio of Omega and The Young Bucks would defeat Okada and Roppongi Vice (Rocky Romero and Berretta), and afterwards Omega would stand tall above Okada, stopping himself from putting the champion through a table with the One Winged Angel out of mercy, saying afterwards that he wanted to beat Okada at his best, fair and square.

At Dominion 6.11 in Osaka-jō Hall, it could be said that the two men put on an even greater wrestling match than the one they had inside the Tokyo Dome. Going into the rematch, it was heavily assumed that Omega would win and an eventual third match would take place sometime later that year or at Wrestle Kingdom 12 in January 2018. The match at Dominion was a wrestling masterpiece; it is a classic that needs to be seen to be truly appreciated as words can do it very little justice. The arrival of the Bullet Club down to ringside in support of Omega emphasised the feeling that he’d become the 66th IWGP Heavyweight Champion and having failed to hit the One Wing Angel on Okada in Tokyo, he was seconds away from winning with the move here, prevented only by Okada’s foot touching the bottom rope. They wrestled past 46:45 and Okada found himself moments away from winning when the bell rang to signify the 60-minute time limit had been reached.

Many felt that the ending of Okada trying to pin Omega should have been reversed as it showed Okada to be the more likely to win, and that that particular story would have befitted Omega instead. If anything, it showed here that something had changed after Wrestle Kingdom: Okada couldn’t beat Omega.

At this point in their rivalry Okada had won one, both men had drawn one, and when they were placed in the same block in the G1 Climax 27, their match on the penultimate day saw Omega finally get his win over Okada in a fantastic match where the IWGP Heavyweight Champion, who like Omega, wasn’t 100% after a draining tournament, and was systematically battered by “The Cleaner” and pinned after a brutal One Winged Angel. With this win Omega would go onto face and lose to Tetsuya Naito in the G1 27 final, who would face Okada instead at Wrestle Kingdom 12.

While Okada prepared for Naito defending his championship against EVIL, Omega would defend the IWGP United States Championship that he’d won in Long Beach, California in early July against Berretta and then be shockingly challenged by Chris Jericho who he would face on January 4th in a No Disqualification match.

When Wrestle Kingdom 12 came and passed, Okada’s defeating of Naito saw him break the record of combined days for longest reigning IWGP Heavyweight Champion, he’d face and defeat SANADA, while Omega would lose his IWGP United States Championship to ‘Switchblade’ Jay White, and be attacked by Cody, which triggered the true start of the war inside Bullet Club. The attack by Cody was stopped by Kota Ibushi, who would then embrace with Omega and reunite to reform the Golden☆Lovers tag team, and this took Omega out of IWGP Championship pictures in the meantime. At Sakura Genesis, Kazuchika Okada would retain the IWGP Heavyweight Championship against New Japan Cup winner, Zack Sabre Jr., and thus equal the record for most defences of the title in a single reign at 11. He was immediately challenged post-match by the holder of that record, Hiroshi Tanahashi, who he would defeat at Wrestling Dontaku in a true passing of the torch matchup to take his amount of defences to 12, and with no NJPW wrestlers making a challenge post-match, the champion would again challenge Omega.

Mindful of the draw in Osaka last year, Okada suggested that they get rid of the time-limit stipulation to which Omega agreed, and in return he threw out the challenge of making this match a best two out of three falls match where the better man will be definitively decided

Speculation is rampant as to how long these two will wrestle for at Dominion, with many believing we’re destined to see 75 – 90 minute masterpiece, while there are some thinking we could be left stunned with two quick pin-falls in a much shorter match than expected. Regardless of match-time, Kazuchika Okada and Kenny Omega are guaranteed to leave the world talking about them.

Will Okada continue his legendary title reign, or will Omega finally achieve his destiny of becoming IWGP Heavyweight Champion in his quest to “change the wrestling world”? We will find out in this immense match on 9th June, and I can’t wait.