Destruction in Kobe (2014) was a

professional wrestling Professional wrestling is a form of theater that revolves around staged wrestling matches. The mock combat is performed in a ring similar to the kind used in boxing, and the dramatic aspects of pro wrestling may be performed both in the ring or ...

pay-per-view (PPV) event promoted by

New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) is a Puroresu, Japanese professional wrestling Professional wrestling promotion, promotion based in Nakano, Tokyo. Founded on January 13, 1972, by Antonio Inoki, the promotion was sold to Yuke's, who later sold it to Bushiroad in 2012. TV ...

(NJPW). The event took place on September 21, 2014, in Kobe, Hyōgo at the

Kobe World Memorial Hall or World Hall is a multi-purpose arena located in the Chūō-ku Ward of Kobe, Japan. It has a maximum capacity of 8,000 people and is optimized for large-scale meetings, sport events, trade shows and concerts. It is located on the artificial is ...

. The event featured ten matches, three of which were contested for championships. It was the eighth event under the

Destruction Destruction may refer to: Concepts * Destruktion, a term from the philosophy of Martin Heidegger * Destructive narcissism, a pathological form of narcissism * Self-destructive behaviour, a widely used phrase that ''conceptualises'' certain kin ...

name and the final NJPW internet pay-per-view broadcast internationally by

Ustream IBM Watson Media (formerly Ustream and IBM Cloud Video) is an American virtual events platform company which is a division of IBM. Prior to IBM acquisition, it had more than 180 employees across San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Budapest offices. ...

Production

Storylines

Destruction in Kobe featured ten

professional wrestling matches Many types of wrestling matches, sometimes called "concept" or "gimmick matches" in the jargon of the business, are performed in professional wrestling. Some gimmick matches are more common than others and are often used to advance or conclude a ...

that involved different wrestlers from pre-existing scripted feuds and storylines. Wrestlers portrayed

villains A villain (also known as a "black hat" or "bad guy"; the feminine form is villainess) is a stock character, whether based on a historical narrative or one of literary fiction. ''Random House Unabridged Dictionary'' defines such a character a ...

heroes Heroes or Héroes may refer to: * Hero, one who displays courage and self-sacrifice for the greater good Film * ''Heroes'' (1977 film), an American drama * ''Heroes'' (2008 film), an Indian Hindi film Gaming * ''Heroes of Might and Magic'' ...

, or less distinguishable characters in the scripted events that built tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches. Originally announced top matches of the event saw

Kushida is a Japanese professional wrestler and former mixed martial artist, better known by his mononymous ring name Kushida. He is currently signed to New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), as well as Impact Wrestling. He is best known for his tenure in NJP ...

defend the

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship The is a professional wrestling world junior heavyweight championship owned by the New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) promotion. "IWGP" is the acronym of NJPW's governing body, the . Only wrestlers under the junior heavyweight weight-limit may ho ...

against

Ryusuke Taguchi is a Japanese professional wrestler, trained by and currently performing for New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW). He is a former two-time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion, seven-time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champion and three-time NEVER ...

Hiroshi Tanahashi is a Japanese professional wrestler. He works primarily for New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW). Widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, his accolades in NJPW include a record setting eight reigns as IWGP Heavywei ...

and

Katsuyori Shibata is a Japanese professional wrestler, mixed martial artist and professional wrestling trainer. In professional wrestling, he is known for his hard hitting offense. He is currently working for New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW). In NJPW, he is a f ...

face off in a

2014 G1 Climax The is a professional wrestling tournament held each August by the New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) promotion. Though it has sometimes been held as a single-elimination tournament, it is usually (and currently) held as a round-robin, with winners ...

rematch and

Bad Luck Fale Simi Taitoko Fale (born 8 January 1982) is a Tongan-New Zealand professional wrestler and former rugby union player. He currently works for New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) as . In NJPW, he is a three-time NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Champio ...

make his first defense of the

IWGP Intercontinental Championship The was a professional wrestling championship owned by the New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) promotion. "IWGP" is the acronym of NJPW's governing body, the . The title was officially announced on January 5, 2011 and the Inaugural Champion MVP was c ...

against previous champion Shinsuke Nakamura. Nakamura had defeated Fale during the 2014 G1 Climax, taking himself to the finals and eliminating Fale from the tournament. On September 8, NJPW announced that a match between

Bullet Club (stylised as BULLET CLUB), sometimes shortened to BC, is a professional wrestling stable primarily appearing in the Japanese promotion New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW). In the United States, the group currently appears on NJPW events run by the co ...

Doc Gallows Andrew William Hankinson (born December 22, 1983) is an American professional wrestler, who is currently signed to WWE, where he performs on the Raw brand under the ring name Luke Gallows. Hankinson began his career in 2005 and participated i ...

and Karl Anderson and

Chaos Chaos or CHAOS may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Fictional elements * Chaos (''Kinnikuman'') * Chaos (''Sailor Moon'') * Chaos (''Sesame Park'') * Chaos (''Warhammer'') * Chaos, in ''Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy'' * Cha ...

Kazuchika Okada (born November 8, 1987) is a Japanese professional wrestler currently signed to New Japan Pro-Wrestling. Okada is a five-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion where his fourth reign with the championship is the longest in history at 720 days. He also h ...

and

Yoshi-Hashi is a Japanese professional wrestler. He currently works for New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) as Yoshi-Hashi (stylized in all capital letters), where he is a former IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Champion alongside Hirooki Goto. As well as a former ...

would be contested for the former's

IWGP Tag Team Championship The is a professional wrestling world tag team championship owned by the New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) promotion. "IWGP" is the acronym of the NJPW's governing body, the . The title was introduced on December 12, 1985 at an NJPW live event. The ...

, instead of being the non-title match it was first announced as. This came as a result of Yoshi-Hashi leading Chaos to a ten-man elimination tag team match win over Bullet Club on September 5, after which he challenged

Yujiro Takahashi , is a Japanese professional wrestler. He is currently signed to New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), where he is a member of Bullet Club and its sub-group House of Torture. Takahashi entered New Japan in November 2003 with an extensive amateur backgr ...

to a match for his

NEVER Openweight Championship The is a professional wrestling championship owned by the New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) promotion. NEVER is an acronym of the terms "New Blood", "Evolution", "Valiantly", "Eternal", and "Radical" and was an NJPW-promoted series of events, which ...

, while Okada added his own IWGP Tag Team Championship challenge to Gallows and Anderson.

Event

The event featured several matches in the ongoing storyline rivalry between the Chaos and Bullet Club

stables A stable is a building in which livestock, especially horses, are kept. It most commonly means a building that is divided into separate stalls for individual animals and livestock. There are many different types of stables in use today; the ...

, including the opening six-man tag team match, where Chaos'

Alex Koslov Alex Sherman (born January 21, 1984) is a Moldovan-born retired professional wrestler and color commentator, currently working for New Japan Pro-Wrestling under the ring name Alex Koslov. Koslov has mainly worked in Mexico from 2005 until 2008 ...

Rocky Romero John R. Rivera (born October 28, 1982) is a Puerto Rican-American professional wrestler and former mixed martial artist. He is currently signed non-exclusively to New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), better known by his ring name Rocky Romero (ロッ ...

and

Tomohiro Ishii is a Japanese professional wrestler currently signed to New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW). He also makes additional appearances for All Elite Wrestling (AEW). He is also known for his work with the independent Fighting World of Japan Pro Wrestling ( ...

defeated Bullet Club's Matt Jackson, Nick Jackson and Yujiro Takahashi. Also featured during the event was

Toru Yano , is a Japanese professional wrestler, trained by and currently signed to New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), where he is the KOPW 2020 and the provisional KOPW 2021. He is a four time NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Champion. He is also a three- ...

's rivalry with his former partner

Takashi Iizuka , better known by his ring name , is a Japanese retired professional wrestler. He is best known for his 33-year career in New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), where he was a three-time IWGP Tag Team Champion. He has also worked for Pro Wrestling Noa ...

, which had also branched into a rivalry between Yano's new partner

Kazushi Sakuraba is a Japanese professional wrestler, mixed martial artist and submission wrestling, submission wrestler, currently signed to Rizin Fighting Federation and Pro Wrestling NOAH, Pro Wrestling Noah, where he was formerly one-half of the former GHC T ...

and Iizuka's Suzuki-gun stablemate

Minoru Suzuki (born June 17, 1968) is a Japanese professional wrestler and former mixed martial artist, currently working for New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) as a freelancer. In NJPW, Suzuki has held the IWGP Intercontinental Championship as well as twice hol ...

. During the event, the two teams faced off in a tag team match, where Yano cheated his way to a win over Iizuka. The first title match of the event saw Ryusuke Taguchi defeat Kushida to win the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship for the second time in his career and first time in seven years, becoming the 69th champion. Following the match, Taguchi and Kushida shook hands, before they were attacked by the Suzuki-gun trio of El Desperado,

Taichi Tai chi (), short for Tai chi ch'üan ( zh, s=太极拳, t=太極拳, first=t, p=Tàijíquán, labels=no), sometimes called " shadowboxing", is an internal Chinese martial art practiced for defense training, health benefits and meditation. T ...

and

Taka Michinoku (born October 26, 1973), better known by his ring name (with his first name usually stylized in all capital letters), is a Japanese professional wrestler and former mixed martial artist. Michinoku is known in North America for his work for t ...

, building up an

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship The is a professional wrestling tag team championship owned by the New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) promotion. "IWGP" is the acronym of NJPW's governing body, the . The title was introduced on August 8, 1998, at an NJPW live event. The IWGP Juni ...

match between Kushida and Alex Shelley, the Time Splitters, and El Desperado and Taichi at Destruction in Okayama. In the second title match, Bullet Club's Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson made their sixth successful defense of the IWGP Tag Team Championship against Chaos' Kazuchika Okada and Yoshi-Hashi, after Yujiro Takahashi interfered to attack his upcoming NEVER Openweight Championship challenger Yoshi-Hashi. The event also featured two big singles match between some of NJPW's top heavyweights. In the matches,

Togi Makabe , better known by his ring name is a Japanese professional wrestler, trained by and currently performing for New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), where he is a former one-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion, two-time IWGP Tag Team Champion, two-time ...

and his tag team partner

defeated

Hirooki Goto is a Japanese professional wrestler. Since his debut, he has wrestled primarily for New Japan Pro-Wrestling. He is also known for being the longest reigning NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Champion with his Chaos stablemates, Tomohiro Ishii ...

and his tag team partner

, respectively. Following his win, Tanahashi announced he was ending his one-year-long self-imposed exile from the

IWGP Heavyweight Championship The was a professional wrestling world heavyweight championship owned by the New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) promotion. "IWGP" is the acronym of NJPW's governing body, the . The title was introduced on June 12, 1987, in the final of an IW ...

picture and was now looking to get a shot at Bullet Club's reigning champion

A.J. Styles Allen Neal Jones (born June 2, 1977), better known by his ring name AJ Styles (also stylized as A.J. Styles), is an American professional wrestler. He is currently signed to WWE, where he performs on the Raw brand. Regarded as one of the best ...

. In the main event of the show, Chaos' Shinsuke Nakamura defeated Bullet Club's Bad Luck Fale to regain the IWGP Intercontinental Championship, winning it for the record-setting fourth time.

Reception

Dave Meltzer David Allen Meltzer (born October 24, 1959) is an American journalist who reports on professional wrestling and mixed martial arts. Since 1983, he has been the publisher and editor of the ''Wrestling Observer Newsletter'' (''WON''). He has als ...

of the ''

Wrestling Observer Newsletter The ''Wrestling Observer Newsletter'' (''WON'') is a newsletter that covers professional wrestling and mixed martial arts. Founded in print in 1982 by Dave Meltzer, the ''Wrestling Observer'' website merged with Bryan Alvarez's ''Figure Four W ...

'' called the match between Hiroshi Tanahashi and Katsuyori Shibata a "must-see", writing " crossed the line for me as far as stiffness goes, and kind of bugs me because Tanahashi is smart enough to know the pitfalls of that kind of a match and following it. But as far as what they did when it comes to doing a simulated fight, it was incredible". The match was eventually given a rare five-star rating by Meltzer.

Aftermath

On September 30,

announced it had ended its pay-per-view service, making Destruction in Kobe NJPW's final event broadcast by its largest international internet pay-per-view provider.

Results

References

External links

The official New Japan Pro-Wrestling website
{{New Japan Pro Wrestling events, Destruction 2014.1 2014 in professional wrestling September 2014 events in Japan