Titles change hands at NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 18

New champions were crowned in all seven title matches at NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 18 in Tokyo Dome on Thursday. 

In the main event, Tetsuya Naito defeated SANADA in 25:42 to win the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship. Naito, the G1 Climax 33 winner in August 2023, won this iteration of the top prize in NJPW for the first time after hitting Destino and beating his former LIJ stablemate via pinfall. 

After the main event, EVIL attacked Naito with help from Dick Togo to establish himself as the likely first challenger of Naito's reign. SANADA helped Naito dispatch EVIL and Togo before leaving the ring to Naito for a roll call and celebration. 

The first IWGP Global Heavyweight Champion was also crowned on the show as David Finlay pinned Will Ospreay in a three-way also involving Jon Moxley to christen the new title. The debuting Nic Nemeth and Finlay had a skirmish after the match to set up Nemeth as Finlay's likely first challenger. 

El Desperado pinned Hiromu Takahashi in the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship match to win the title and kick off his third reign with that belt. 

NJPW Strong Openweight Tag Team Champions Hikuleo & El Phantasmo defeated IWGP Tag Team Champions Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI on the card in a double title match to win IWGP gold.

Tama Tonga captured the NEVER Openweight Championship at the Tokyo Dome for the second consecutive year, defeating Shingo Takagi to begin his third reign with the NEVER title. 

New NJPW president Hiroshi Tanahashi is once again a champion after defeating Zack Sabre Jr. to win the NJPW World TV Championship in the second match of the main card. Tanahashi becomes just the second man to hold the title as Sabre was the lone champion in the title's first 365 days after its inception at Wrestle Kingdom last year. 

In the main show opener, Catch 2/2's TJP & Francesco Akira regained the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship, defeating Clark Connors & Drilla Moloney of Bullet Club War Dogs. 

On the pre-show, Toru Yano, Great-O-Khan, Taiji Ishimori, & YOH were the final four in the New Japan Ranbo and will now do battle in a four-way at New Year Dash to crown the first KOPW 2024 Champion.

Our full report from Wrestle Kingdom 18 is here.