Two More Names Announced for War of the Worlds

KUSHIDA is back for more hot ROH/NJPW action
Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein

The New Japan Pro Wrestling visiting party has reached six men, as two more names have been added to the fray for Ring of Honor's War of the Worlds. Joining Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kazuchika Okada, Jushin "Thunder" Liger, and Tetsuya Naito are young boy on eternal excursion Takaaki Watanabe and one-half of the Time Splitters KUSHIDA. Both wrestlers are returnees from last year's NJPW tour of ROH, so they bring familiarity and critical acclaim to the fray. KUSHIDA especially has been hailed as one of the best parts of last year's cards, and boy, will he be returning to some interesting story implications.

Just last week, Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian captured the ROH Tag Team Championships from frequent NJPW visitors reDRagon (Kyle O'Reilly and Bobby Fish) and recruited Chris Sabin to join them in a stable called KRD. Sabin, as you may or may not know, formed one-half of the Motor City Machine Guns with Alex Shelley, who is, well what do ya know, the other half of the Time Splitters with KUSHIDA. Shelley hasn't been formally announced yet, but given this development, I would be shocked if some match between KRD and the Time Splitters wasn't announced just to tap into history.

As for Watanabe, he's been on excursion since late 2013 and almost barely qualifies as being NJPW talent at this point, but the counterpoint is who cares, he's pretty good at this wrestling thing. He's been a fixture at Inspire Pro Wrestling to the point where he seems like a roster member. Watanabe served as fodder for Michael Elgin last year in Toronto and was a part of a trios match in New York. With four opportunities to wrestle, will he be given a bigger stage and more of an opportunity to sink his teeth into the major part of the roster? Time will tell.