After the traditional post-G1 Climax break and the annual tour of Hokkaido, NJPW presents the first major show on the road to Wrestle Kingdom 21 – Destruction in Kobe. Let’s check it out.

It should be noted that there’s a flu bug that’s going through the NJPW locker room that has affected two of the previously announced matches on this show. There was supposed to be a kickoff tag team match featuring the four Hontai Young Lions, but Yushin Hatazawa is sick, so the match was canceled. Also, the match that was supposed to pit Taichi, Yuya Uemura and Aaron Wolf against Ryohei Oiwa, Zack Sabre Jr. and Kosei Fujita has been changed to Taichi and Wolf vs. Oiwa and Sabre, since Uemura is sick and Fujita has a knee injury. (Fujita’s scheduled match against Wolf at King of Pro-Wrestling in two weeks has not yet been canceled, so one has to assume at this point that it’s minor.) Let’s hope the week break NJPW has after Destruction is enough to get it out of the promotion.

Shota Umino, Boltin Oleg, El Desperado, Mistico & Toru Yano vs. HOUSE OF TORTURE (Ren Narita, SANADA, DOUKI, SHO & Dick Togo)

Thankfully, we get to hear Mistico’s wacky hold music one more time before he returns to Mexico. Yano is back to his comedy persona, of course, as Most Violent Player Yano never sticks around for long. This is a solid showcase for the babyfaces but not terribly compelling, and Umino pins Togo with the Second Chapter.

YOH, Ryusuke Taguchi & Master Wato vs. Unbound Co. (Robbie X, Taiji Ishimori & Gedo)

After YOH beat Ishimori in Sapporo to defend his IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship, Robbie X issued a challenge, and the two of them will face off for the title at Korakuen Hall on October 7. Wato pins Gedo pretty quickly with a diving uppercut, which everyone seems a bit surprised by, so Gedo may have suffered a legitimate injury and called an audible in the ring.

Unbound Co. (Yuto-Ice, OSKAR & Daiki Nagai) vs. United Empire (HENARE, Great-O-Khan & Zane Jay)

By beating the MVPs in that wild brawl in Muroran on September 19, the Knockout Brothers earned an IWGP Tag Team Championship match with HENARE and Great-O-Khan on October 6 at Korakuen Hall. Also, the United Empire injured OSKAR’s knee in a subsequent preview tag in Sapporo. This is a fun, heated affair that Unbound Co. wins when Yuto pins Jay after hitting Cruella. After the match, Great-O-Khan attacks OSKAR and threatens a Con-chair-to to his knee, but Yuto makes the save and then the two sides battle to a stalemate. Yuto cuts a promo afterwards, accusing the champions of not using the titles to make any money, and suggests that the Knockout Brothers can make money anywhere. He also makes some disparaging remarks about AEW and says that he wants Will Ospreay to come back to NJPW, which he reiterated backstage. In response, Great-O-Khan said Ospreay – who is, in fact, one third of the NEVER Openweight six-man tag team champions, with HENARE and Great-O-Khan – would be back soon.

Aaron Wolf & Taichi vs. TMDK (Ryohei Oiwa & Zack Sabre Jr.)

Taichi has been bugging Oiwa about having a singles match, and Oiwa eventually agreed to change this match to a singles bout if Taichi could pin him in a preview tag during the last few shows of the Hokkaido run, but Taichi ended up missing those shows with the flu, so this is still a tag match. This one is very good, though relatively brief – Sabre has a fun sequence with Wolf, but the focus is Taichi vs. Oiwa. Eventually, Oiwa counters a Dangerous Backdrop attempt with the side headlock; Taichi escapes, but falls victim to The Grip shortly thereafter, and that earns Oiwa the pinfall win. As usual, Taichi is super bummed by the loss.

Jeff Cobb [Unbound Co.] vs. Callum Newman [United Empire]

This is a grudge match resulting from the returning Cobb’s disdain for Newman turning United Empire heel. Both guys come to the ring solo, as they allegedly want to hash this out mano-a-mano. Mid-way through, Newman does his running dropkick to a seated Cobb on the outside, but shortly thereafter, Cobb throws Young Lion Tatsuya Matsumoto at Newman to regain the advantage. (This is a callback to the time Cobb did the same thing at Battle in the Valley 2025 to prevent El Phantasmo from beating the count back into the ring, forcing a double countout; interestingly, the Young Lion he threw then was Zane Jay.) Newman appears to tweak his knee a minute or so later, but he carries on and eventually wins with Make Way after nearly running Cobb into ref Kenta Sato and then hitting Cobb low while Sato was cowering in the corner. After the match, Newman leaves his sword in front of President Tanahashi, for some reason. This was very good, and Cobb looked like he hasn’t missed a beat, though it remains to be seen if the Newman knee injury is a) legit, and b) significant.

NJPW World TV Championship: Konosuke Takeshita (c) vs. Shun Skywalker [HOUSE OF TORTURE]

This is a fast-paced back-and-forth match with a very awkward spot in the middle where Skywalker appears to legitimately kick Takeshita in the face. Of course, the HOUSE makes its presence known, with Narita and Togo interfering in the later portion of the match, and Skywalker eventually wins Skyfall, a falling DDT maneuver that’s unfortunately one of those moves that looks like the guy giving it is actually taking it. After the match, the entire HOUSE attacks Takeshita but gets run off in fairly short order by Yano. Yes, only Yano. It felt weird, like Yano was going to turn on Takeshita, but it didn’t happen. This was mostly good despite the HOUSE nonsense and the hiccup with the kick.

Shingo Takagi [Unbound Co.] vs. Claudio Castagnoli

We now enter the War Dragons vs. Death Riders portion of the evening. Takagi blames his relatively poor G1 showing on a pinfall loss to Castagnoli in a tag team match on AEW Collision a week or so beforehand, so he challenged Castagnoli to a singles match to make it right; simple as that.

Castagnoli dominates much of the early-going with his power, but Shingo stands up to him and goes toe to toe with him throughout the middle portion. Toward the end, Castagnoli hits a really impressive gut-wrench superplex and the giant swing, and he gets a believable near-fall with the Ricola Bomb, but Takagi manages to avoid the Neutralizer and eventually hits the Pumping Bomber, the Burning Dragon and Last of the Dragon to score the pin. This was terrific, and both guys looked great.

In post-match comments, Takagi challenged Jon Moxley.

IWGP Global Heavyweight Championship: Gabe Kidd (c) vs. Drilla Moloney [Unbound Co.]

These two are longtime bros, but now Kidd is a heel and Moloney is defending the lion mark in much the same way as Kidd did in 2025. This is a rematch from G1 Climax 36, Night 2, when Moloney pinned Kidd to earn this shot.

They exchange stiff blows to start; Kidd tries to coax Moloney to the outside, but Moloney does his best to keep it in the ring. Eventually, though, they end up outside and Kidd backdrops Moloney through the timekeeper’s table; Tanahashi glares at Kidd the entire time. Kidd works on Moloney’s lower back for a while, but Moloney makes a brief comeback using a sling blade and an elbow drop. Kidd regains control, but after a few minutes, Moloney comes back with a Gore, a pop-up power bomb, another Gore and a Drilla Killa, but while Kidd was up for the Drilla Killa, he kicked ref Marty Asami, so the visual pinfall is not counted. Kidd hits Moloney with the belt and then tries to put Moloney away in the ring, but he falls victim to another Drilla Killa; a recovered Asami counts two, but Kidd’s hand is just barely under the ropes. This kills the crowd because you essentially need one of those curling measurement devices to see where Kidd’s hand broke the plane, so many of those in attendance probably didn’t understand what happened. Kidd comes back and hits several piledrivers, but Moloney kicks out of each one, which gets the crowd back to a degree, but then Kidd hits a fisherman buster for the pinfall. This was a good match until the overbooked finish, and I’m afraid the outcome might hurt Moloney, since it very much felt like this should have been his moment.

After the match, Kidd cuts a promo, declaring that he’s not coming back until Wrestle Kingdom because nobody is good enough to beat him. Shota Umino, who Kidd beat for the title and who Kidd (dubiously) claims to have concussed during that match, comes to the ring, and after some jawjacking, they fight, with Umino getting the upper hand with a big lariat. Presumably, this will lead to a match sooner rather than later.

IWGP Heavyweight Championship: Yota Tsuji (c) [Unbound Co.] vs. Hirooki Goto

Oiwa joins the Japanese-language commentary team at ringside; he’ll face the winner of this match at King of Pro-Wrestling on October 12. This is another rematch from G1 Climax 36, Night 2, when Goto beat Tsuji to earn the right to challenge for this title. Tanahashi reads the championship declaration, and away we go.

The crowd is firmly behind Goto as the match begins. They start out with basic, hard-hitting stuff, and Tsuji takes an advantage early with a tope suicida, driving his back into the guard rail. Back in the ring, Tsuji hits three uranage backbreakers and applies the Boston Crab, but Goto eventually gets to the ropes. Goto eventually battles back, getting two with a Muramasa, but Tsuji cuts him off again with a curb stomp. Goto catches Tsuji with a reverse GTR, but they hit simultaneous lariats for a double-down. Tsuji regains the advantage and gets two with the Marlowe Stomp. Goto stuffs an attempt at a top rope hurricanrana by Tsuji and responds with a Kaiten for a near-fall. Goto tries to put Tsuji away, but Tsuji hits a short Gene Blaster out of a mid-kick by Goto, and then Tsuji hits a full Gene Blaster for a near-fall. Tsuji gets two with Silver Linings, then gets another near-fall with the Guerrero Special. Goto blocks a Fire Blaster attempt with a kick, then hits an E. Honda overhand chop and Shouten Kai for a two-count. Goto stuffs a Fire Blaster attempt, hits a diving headbutt and calls for the GTR, but Tsuji hits a short Fire Blaster, followed by a full Fire Blaster for the pinfall and the championship defense. This was excellent, as you’d probably expect.

After the match, Tsuji and Oiwa face off in the ring to preview the big King of Pro-Wrestling match, and that’s that. Presumably, we’ll get more matches for that show tomorrow morning. I may do a news update this week, but if not, I hope to cover the major matches of the Korakuen shows when I have a chance. See you then!