NJPW X AEW Wrestle Dynasty Match Canceled Due To Injury
Coming up on January 4, 2025, NJPW will be presenting the 19th edition of their biggest annual event, Wrestle Kingdom. The night after Wrestle Kingdom will be the inaugural NJPW x AEW Wrestle Dynasty event, featuring several wrestlers from guest promotions including STARDOM, CMLL, and ROH. Unfortunately, one of the NJPW x AEW matches that was set to take place has now been cancelled due to injury. AEW's Matthew and Nicholas Jackson (The Young Bucks) were set to challenge United Empire for the IWGP Tag Team Championship at Wrestle Dynasty. Yesterday, NJPW announced that one half of the IWGP Tag Team Champions, HENARE, suffered a knee injury. Today, Fightful reported that HENARE's partner Great-O-Khan released a statement regarding the injury and the state of the IWGP Tag Team Championship, along with confirming the status of the Wrestle Dynasty match:
"We were the sole leader in the WTL and were the closest to winning. However, [HENARE] was injured the day before the final match and lost everything. I will probably have to give up the belt. The January 5 Tokyo Dome will also be cancelled." Great-O-Khan referred to the NJPW World Tag League #1 contender's tournament that will be concluding soon, where the winners of the tournament receive a title shot for the IWGP Tag Team Championship at Wrestle Kingdom on January 4; those winners would face the Bucks the following night. The WTL finals take place this weekend, with Tetsuya Naito and Hiromu Takahashi facing Gabe Kidd and SANADA.
Although the initial match announcement for Wrestle Dynasty was the Bucks vs. United Empire, there was a chance that United Empire could have lost the tag titles at Wrestle Kingdom to the WTL winners, which would have caused a change to the title match at Wrestle Dynasty. There could be a booking conflict brewing too, as Gabe Kidd, who could possibly be IWGP Tag Team Champion at Wrestle Dynasty, is booked to face the returning Kenny Omega that night which would put Kidd in store for a very long show.