Jon Moxley will face Shingo Takagi at NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 21, with the match set for the Tokyo Dome on January 4, 2027. The bout was confirmed after a tag team contest at the 2026 Power Struggle event set the collision course between the two.
At Power Struggle, Moxley and Wheeler Yuta, wrestling as the Death Riders, returned to New Japan Pro-Wrestling to face Unbound Co.’s Jeff Cobb and Shingo Takagi. Cobb ultimately secured the pinfall victory over Yuta to close out the match. According to Fightful, the post-match moments saw Moxley and Takagi face off directly, setting the stage for what followed.
F4W Online reports that Takagi had been calling out Moxley for several weeks prior to Power Struggle, and he used the moment after defeating the Death Riders alongside Cobb to formally lay out the challenge for Wrestle Kingdom 21. With Moxley accepting, the match is now official for New Japan’s biggest show of the year.
Wrestle Kingdom 21 at the Tokyo Dome on January 4, 2027, will mark a significant crossover point between AEW’s Death Riders faction and NJPW’s roster, continuing a run of interpromotional matches between the two companies. Moxley’s history in New Japan, combined with Takagi’s standing as one of the promotion’s most physical competitors, gives the Tokyo Dome crowd a hard-hitting addition to the Wrestle Kingdom 21 card.
The Power Struggle tag match also carried stakes beyond the storyline building toward Wrestle Kingdom, with Cobb’s win over Yuta serving as the final notable result before the Moxley-Takagi feud was made official. No further details on the rest of the Wrestle Kingdom 21 card were included in the available reporting.
