It’s almost time. NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 12 is just hours away. Anyone with a computer can watch via NJPW World. If you would rather watch on your TV, you can do so via Google Chromecast or through an Amazon Fire TV.

Note: scroll down to the bottom of this page for the NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 12 preview show.

Date: Thursday, January 4, 2018
Pre-show: 2 am eastern
Main card: 3 am eastern.
Price: NJPW World costs ¥999 per month ($8.90 USD).

The main card will run approximately 5 hours. Everything will stream live on NJPWWorld.com. You can choose Japanese or English commentary.

The card:

New Japan Rumble (opening match) – this is a Royal Rumble style match. It’s usually at the beginning of the show as an appetizer for the main card. This match usually features some surprise entrants. Haku was a surprise entrant last year.

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship
Roppongi 3K (Sho and Yoh) (Champions) vs. The Young Bucks (Matt Jackson and Nick Jackson)

NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship
Bullet Club (Bad Luck Fale, Tama Tonga and Tanga Loa) (Champions) vs. Chaos (Beretta, Tomohiro Ishii and Toru Yano) vs. Michael Elgin and War Machine (Hanson and Raymond Rowe) vs. Suzuki-gun (Taichi, Takashi Iizuka and Zack Sabre Jr.) vs. Taguchi Japan (Juice Robinson, Ryusuke Taguchi and Togi Makabe)

Cody Rhodes (with Brandi Rhodes) vs. Kota Ibushi

IWGP Tag Team Championship
Killer Elite Squad (Davey Boy Smith Jr. and Lance Archer) (Champions) vs. Los Ingobernables de Japon (Evil and Sanada)

NEVER Openweight Championship – loser must shave his head
Minoru Suzuki (Champion) vs. Hirooki Goto

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship
Marty Scurll (Champion) vs. Hiromu Takahashi vs. Kushida vs. Will Ospreay

IWGP Intercontinental Championship
Hiroshi Tanahashi (Champion) vs. Jay White

IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship
Kenny Omega (Champion) vs. Chris Jericho

IWGP Heavyweight Championship
Kazuchika Okada (Champion) vs. Tetsuya Naito

Thanks to Jacobs_Bawks on Reddit for posting the sign-up process.

Sign-up Process:

1. Go to www.njpwworld.com
2. Select the ‘EN’ option at the top. Once the page is translated, click the ‘Sign Up’ button.
3. Enter the Email address you want to be associated with your NJPW World account. That address will receive a confirmation email (split Japanese/English) with a confirmation link.
4. Once you click the confirmation link, you are sent to a profile setup page. Click ‘Confirm’ once you are done, then click it again.
5. You will be taken to the ‘Payment Methods’ section. Select the option you want ‘PayPal’ or ‘Credit Card’, then you will be taken to a payment setup page. Enter your info.
6. You are done! You now have access to NJPW’s archives and liveshows for the month of January (and beyond!)

Notes on NJPW World:

1. 10-20 minutes before the show (pre-show, in this case), a golden banner will appear on the front page with Japanese and English commentary links for the show.
2. The payment period for this service starts on the first of every month. This means, regardless of when you sign up, you will be charged when you first join and at the turn of the month.
3. The search bar function is broken and still has not been fully-integrated into English. If you want to find a specific show/match, use the ‘Show’ tab which is sorted by most recent, or use NJPW’s extensive ‘Tag’ search. You can access these pages from the ‘Menu’ drop-down menu from the top-right.
4. After a show has concluded, the VoD is available within 30 minutes on most occasions.
5. Your subscription for the month of January will get you Wrestle Kingdom 12, New Year’s Dash on January 5 (the RAW after Wrestlemania equivalent), the New Japan/CMLL co-produced Fantasticamania shows in mid-January (three shows), and two back-to-back New Beginning PPV shows on January 27/28th.
6. Unlike in the West, companies in Japan do not own their tape libraries. Large chunks of New Japan’s library is owned by companies they no longer have deals with, so there are large gaps in the tape library. New Japan has promised to expand the archives in 2018 and every new show gets on World, but as-of-now there is not a lot of pre-2012 material on the service. YouTube, Dailymotion, Rutube, the RealHero Archive, and other means will have to suffice for some of it.
7. New Japan works with a lot of other companies. Most times, the work of New Japan stars in promotions such as RPW and RoH gets added to NJPW World though with a region lock most times. They also stream a lot of CMLL shows, and if you want to watch those you can find a proxy to bypass the region lock.

Membership Cancellation:

• Follow this link. This is the membership withdrawal page. There is an option to delete your account, but deleting your profile page does not end the membership. FOLLOW. THAT. LINK.

Schedule through March:

January:

• Wrestle Kingdom 12 (Jan 4)
• New Year’s Dash (Jan 5): RAW after Wrestlemania equivalent. Usually one title match (NEVER Trios Title) but it is usually the most story-heavy show of the year and sets the stage for the next several months/year.
• Fantasticamania (Jan 19, 21, 22): Co-produced, mostly non-canon tour between CMLL and NJPW. Light-hearted, more comedy, not for everybody.
• The New Beginnings in Sapporo (Jan 27, 28): Many of the titles will be defended, with the remainder being defended in Osaka (unless a title is defended more than once). Initial post-WK feuds will be settled and the undercards will set up the story for New Beginnings in Osaka. The cards are not out so which of the two is bigger has yet to be determined.

February:

• The New Beginnings in Osaka (Feb 10): The end of The New Beginnings tour, usually headlined by the Intercontinental title, and featuring all the titles not defended on the previous two New Beginnings shows. Osaka is one of the hottest crowds in Japan, and usually gets great cards so this may be the best show of the tour.
• Honor Rising (Feb 23, 24): A two-night collaboration between NJPW and RoH in the mecca of pro wrestling, Korakuen Hall. A few titles from both companies will be defended in interpromotional battles. The shows are mostly inconsequential, mostly, but the style is not a rapid departure from traditional NJPW the way that the Fantasticamania shows are so these are usually decent spectacles.

March:

• 46th Anniversary Show (Mar 6): Lower-level title defenses (NEVER, Tag, Jr Tag, Trios) with a special main event. Historically, the Heavyweight Champion and Junior Heavyweight champion collide in the main event. Last year, it was Kazuchika Okada vs Tiger Mask W (Kota Ibushi) in a non-title match. Who knows what it will be this year.
• New Japan Cup (Mar 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18, 21): New Japan’s first big tournament of the year. 16 heavyweights in a single elimination tournament to determine who takes on a singles champion of their choice at Sakura Genesis, NJPW’s first A-level show after Wrestle Kingdom. Last year the first two nights split the first round, at four matches a night followed by one match headlining the next four house shows (released on VoD), with the Semi-Finals and Final shows containing the last three matches which are broadcast live. There are 9 shows this year rather than 8, so the format may be different.
• Strong Style Evolved (Mar 25): NJPW coming back to America for another show. NJPW has made it a large goal of theirs to expand into the West, so this show may be surprisingly loaded.

Here is the NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 12 preview show: