Hello all
Some days ago I made a post that got a bit of attention (scopely_you_are_losing_touch_with_your_playerbase).
But my post did not focus enough on what can be done to help alleviate some of the problems we are seeing in the game right now. So therefor I will try to do a better job of that in this post. It’s not going to be perfect, probably not even close, but I really hope it can spark a discussion that Scopely, Cerebro in particular, can take some points from and try to make this game that we like so much, and make it that much better.
Before we go into the nitty gritty, I would like to say thank you for all the positive feedback I got on the last post. I had feared that it there would be a lot people throwing mud at each other or starting to bash Scopely. But most of you kept it sober and constructive, so I hope we can keep that tone.
With that said, this post can be a bit more dividing of the community, cause we all have one thing that we think is the most important thing to fix. And some of the solutions I am going to propose might not hit the spot for you or at all, but I hope it sparks a discussion.
This is going to be a long post, and I know that it will not go down as well as the first one, for one it is simply too long, but also because it gets too focused on what changes I would like to see. Cause we can all agree on that we want changes, but when we then have to discuss what those changes are, then we get more divided. I really want to point out that I don't expect everybody to agree on what I have written. And also that my native language isn't English, but I hope that my points still gets across.
But lets get into it...

Red Stars

We are going to start out with what I personally find to be the biggest issue in the game right now. I know that RTA is a more hot topic right now, but I find red stars to be the biggest issue.
Right now red stars are a double edged sword. Cause when you get the 5+ red drop on the new character you of course get happy. But with the droprates in mind, most of the time red stars leave you with a sour taste.
Getting 3 red stars or lower on a new good character is so deflating that even id you got good pulls on your last 2 characters, that goodwill is out the window straight away.
So what can we do to make red stars a bit better? I think the solution is in the silvegold promotion credits. If silver credits was added to red stars so that when you get a duplicate character, then you also get some promotion credits.
Here is how one solution could be, the numbers might have to change a bit, but this is just the general idea.
1-2 star dupe: 1 silver promotion credit
3-4 star dupe: 2 silver promotion credit
5 star dupe: 3 silver promotion credit
6 star dupe: 1 gold promotion credit
7 star dupe: 2 gold promotion credit
These are just numbers to showcase the idea. If we look at my pulls for Bishop then this is what it would have netted me (all my pulls where dupes apart from the 3 star Bishop):
20 1-2 star pulls = 20 silver credits
19 3-4 star pulls = 38 silver credits
6 5 star = 18 silver credits
Total = 76 silver credits.
Now that is not a lot, and I don’t think that would break the promotion system. But I do think that it would help with the bad feeling about red stars.
With this system red star orbs are still the driving factor, and if you get lucky then you still get happy, but now when you get unlucky, then at least you progressed a bit still by having more promotions credit.
I would also like to get rid of the promotion store. We have enough randomness in the game. If we could promote characters straight from the character screen, then the system would feel a lot better.
I get that the store is probably there to make people burn some cores when they are chasing that on character they want to bring up.
Also, let us update them way faster. Right now over a month passes on most new characters before they are even added to the store.
I think the worries from Scopely is that we would start hoarding, and then only spend on the “best” new characters. But I really don’t see that as a problem in the long run. Cause with the added focus on wider rosters you will still have to bring up more characters instead of focusing on a few.

RTA and the Battlepass

So this is the hottest topic right now, at least with the people that I talk to.
If we look to other games battlepasses are generally a positive thing, but in almost all of them they are also something that you can get done by playing the game as usual. I play PUBG and while the battlepass here is something that divides the community a bit, it is one that I like. Some days I just have to get some kills and I progress. Other days I have to get kills with a crossbow (I’m not good enough to get that done), but its all something I can do by playing the game as usual, I just have to pick up some other weapons than the “meta”.
Battlepasses are created for two things:
· Have people log in every day.
But in MSF people already have to do that, so the battlepass doesn’t do anything at all for that.
· Have people spend extra money, especially in FTP games.
If spenders got the possibility to buy all the prizes we get from the battlepass for 20$ without having to grind it out, then I am 100% sure that way more people would buy it. But with the current way its tied to the RTA I actually think you are just losing money.
The current form of battlepass that is implemented is really just an offer with extra steps.
In MSF you have tied the battlepass to a single gamemode, and that takes all the possible fun out of that game mode. No people I have talked to likes RTA, not 1 person has something positive to say about it actually. But when you ask around, then a lot of people really started to like the balanced draft.
So what can we do to make this a bit better?
Solution 1: make us able to complete the objectives in other gamemodes. And if you really want us to grind the RTA also, then make it count double so that there is an incentive to play it if you want to get it over with as fast a possible.
And that is where I think the biggest problem with RTA is right now. Its not fun, it is only a grind. The way I play it is to open RTA and press auto when I’m at work. I don’t even look at it, I just wait for the winneloser screen to pop up, and then go in and do it again. I get annoyed when people are slow, or if they don’t load in.
As I see it there are 0 positive things about RTA right now. And the biggest problem I have is that no one I asked could actually find a way to make RTA fun with the current setup.
Leagues and events could be a saving grace. But since we don’t even know what Scopley have in mind about these we can’t event try to make that better. I’m afraid that events is just like the battlepass, but I think that leagues could take RTA in the right direction. Cause if you make RTA about winning and trying your best, then its suddenly competitive instead of just a mindless grind.
And I think it goes without saying, but I’m going to do it anyways, please revert the changes you made in 5.1 about quitters.

Doom raid

After my original post I was told that the Doom raid wouldn’t actually be for a limited time. And that changes my view a lot. Cause I do like that there are new and hard/almost impossible challenges. I was only worried if it was a limited that most people wouldn’t ever be able to get in there before it was taken down. But if its there to stay, then I don’t mind the current difficulty, even though I won’t step in there for at least another 6 months at best.
But the point about the prizes still stand. They are simply not enough. Not even close actually. And right now only the top alliances are even able to get them, so you have created a “the rich getting richer” scenario, cause the prizes in there are what makes you able to compete in there.

Availability of new characters

I personally don’t mind the cadence of new releases of characters, new characters are what drives the game forward. But you have to make them available faster. The last couple of releases we have seen them added to orbs pretty fast (Longshot or Shatterstar was even added as their event was going on), and that is a small step in the right direction. But lets take a look at the most grievous current unfarmable character, Beast, he has been in the game for over 7 months (possible longer, I couldn’t find the exact date he was released.) without being farmable. That is simply not good enough.
I know that he didn’t sell that well, and that Scopely has probably tried to wait with making him farmable to see if they could make more money of him, especially now that he actually seems to have a good place on the Axmen, I get it. I personally unlocked Beast at 3 stars, and I have not used him in anything than a throwaway blitz team. Is that fun? Is that something that makes me want to invest further into him? I think you know the answer.
A possible solution to this problem is to add them to some of the stores faster. I understand why you are hesitant to add anything newish to the blitz, raid or arena store. Cause people now have so many credits stockpiled that any further income on them once they are added are out the window. But I think you can add them at a much higher price point in the stores. That does two things:
You now give people something to use their credits on that they actually want, and at a higher price you are getting people to deplete their resources faster and taking both the blitz and arena store economy to a place where we once again have to make decisions on what to invest into. But at least you are giving us something to invest into. As of right now I have 150k blitz credits, so when you added Electro at 500, that wont even make a dent into that economy. But if you added new characters faster at a premium price, lets say 5-10,000 credits. Then you are giving us something to invest in, and you are bringing the economy to a better place. They of course shouldn’t stay at the premium price forever, at given intervals they should have their prices reduced until they hit the 500 credits that normal characters in the store has.
I personally don’t mind that a few select characters are orbs only for a while. I get why they are that. But I also understand the frustration that a lot of players feel about orb only characters. I only mention this so that a discussion can spark from it.
If we look at the prices on buying new characters I think we can all agree that they are too high. But I get why they are high and I don’t think that will change. I personally don’t find it to be that big of a problem, but I understand why a lot of people do. I also think the problem would be alleviated a bit, if we could start farming them in one way or the other sooner. Then players who really want the newest characters can pay and be ahead of the meta, and the people who can’t/won’t pay can still try to catch up without having to wait half a year, where the ones they can now farm are probably power crept anyway.

New player problems

This is only something that I have heard a bit about, and only mention it so that others can chime in.
But right now there is a huge scarcity of blue ability mats. And there is no real good way of farming or even buying them.
I think the problem stems from the powerlevel of characters, so now newer players don’t have to spend time on the lower raids that actually give these mats like we did when we started out. It doesn’t take a long time for a new player to be able to get into an alliance that does at least U6 or even U7, where these mats aren’t something they get.
A simple solution that I could see working out is to simply remove green and blue ability mats from the game. I doubt that Scopley are making any money on these mats, and for people that have played a long time these mats are a non issue and never will be cause we have pretty much infinite of them.
As I said, I don’t know too much about this problem as I only just heard about it on a stream not so long ago. But I wanted to add it to the list anyways. And there are probably more new player problems that I don’t even know of. So please add that to the discussion below, but also please try to be constructive about it, not just “We want more”.

Skillitary/new teams videos

We like that we can see new teams in action, but when you showcase them you have to be upfront about them. Skillitary has left a sour taste in the mouth of most people who bought into them.
Yes, they can win against Marauders if brought up to the same level, but its still a gamble and more luckbased than playing with actual skill (on pun(isher) intended). But if you miss that first disrupt on Stryfe, then the whole team just crumbles. So if you showcase a new team as the new team to take out the “big bad”, then they have to at least be able to punch up a bit on them. I’m not saying that they should just win 100% of the time, but with Skillitary they even struggle on punch downs.
If Shadowlands turn out to be as big of a letdown as Skillitary I think that will make you lose a lot of goodwill and at this point in the game, that will be very hard to gain back.

War

I am generally pretty fine with war and how it plays out. There are two pain points that keeps popping up tho. The most obvious one is the matchmaking sometimes makes you go up against unwinnable opponents. And that does make it feel very bad. But I also understand why you can’t always have it close to your own TCP. Cause who would the top alliances ever face if it was only trying to match on TCP?
If it was changed to only factor in TCP, then we would suddenly have alliances in the top leagues, who where a 10th of the biggest alliances, but they would never have to face them because of the TCP difference. So the current matchmaking system is probably the lesser of the two evils. And yes, I know that it is very demoralizing to get 50m+ punch-ups week after week. But I think that stems from a problem that is unfixable, and that is the huge TCP difference between alliances. If we take a look at Legion_of_Cabal they currently have a combined TCP of 400 million. If we look at the 100th most powerful alliance they right now have a combined TCP of 251 million. That is such a huge difference that war matchmaking will just not ever be perfect.
The second pain point of war is time spent. And in that also when you have to spend that time. Luckily my own alliance aren’t too focused on war, we are only G4. Most of the time we face alliances that wont clear us and we wont clear them. But higher up in the leagues, clearing as fast as possible is the only way to win. And that means getting on every time new energy is available, also if that means disrupting your sleep schedule to do that. I personally would never do that at where I am in life, but I understand why. I was fighting for world first in WoW back in the day, so I get why people do it. The problem is that they have to do it 3 times a week. Instead of just, in the case of WoW, when new content comes out. Its just not healthy.
I don’t have any experience in high level war in MSF, so I hope that some of you that do can weigh in on this with ideas how to make it better.

Resource bottlenecks

This is a sore point for everybody in the game. I think we all understand why bottlenecks are a thing, and we all probably understand that it is also a necessary thing in a game to have something to grind for. But in the current state of the game, there are simply way too many bottlenecks.
My proposed solution would be as follows:
Get rid of green and blue ability mats. They serve no purpose anymore other than hindering new players from catching up. Then when the next level of ability levels are introduced, then you can add new currency for that and have us start out on the same level. Spenders will then be able to get a head start as always, and that is fine. Also take away the gold cost for leveling up abilities, or at least lower them.
Get rid of training mats all together. Or change it so that they are the only currency needed to level up characters. It simply can’t be both gold and training mats unless they are giving them out a bit more freely. And I know it’s a balancing act, cause you don’t want people to have too many resources, and if we had infinite resources, that would also be bad for the game, as there is nothing fun in having everything given to you.
If the above are implemented, then I don’t even think you have to make any changes to the gold we gain now.
We of course don’t know how much money you make out of creating these scarcities, and I get it if the metrics show that you can’t just make them go away. But then at least acknowledge the problem that players are feeling about the bottlenecks. You don’t have to fix it in one big swoop.
Gear is another bottleneck, but one that I personally find better balanced. Sure, right now getting G15 isn’t easy, but I also don’t think it should be easy. A change that I would love to see however is a better way to be able to focus on the gear that we need. Right now its all random, even the offers you made us are random. But again, I get if your metrics show something else and that you are doing this to make the most profit. But sometimes the most profit is not the way to go, if the cost is that you lose players by doing it.

Help us help you

In my first post I stayed away from mentioning bugs on purpose. Bugs will happen, and if you address them as fast as possible then that is probably ok.
But you have a limitless amount of people who would gladly help you test upcoming patches for free. Right now you even have an envoy program that you clearly aren’t using to its full potential. Have them help you out with testing new features.
Just look at ISO8, when you first announced it people where up in arms about it. But you decided to have the envoys weigh in, and it has been the best and most polished feature you have ever brought out.

Finishing remarks

Right now the game is in a rut, I don’t think that is up for discussion. It is natural for a 3 year old game, mobile at that, to lose players over time. But I still believe that you, Scopley, have the bones of a game that could live on for a long time. But you need to treat it a bit more as a game than as moneymaker. It can be both, and it can be successful at both.
Make it fun again, that’s what games are about, entertainment. There has to be things that are hard or almost impossible to get, but it just can’t be every aspect of the game.
You said you wanted to look at reducing the low quality screen time, and then added RTA. I hope you can see how that makes us have trust issues.
I know this post isn’t perfect in any way, and I am very well aware that it might not change a thing. But I do hope that will, I really really do.
If you made it all the way to the end, then thank you for reading it all, or at least skimming the points that you feel are the most important.
And please, again, lets have a civil discussion about the issues we as players feel. And remember that even if we feel something is wrong, it might not actually be wrong for the game.

This is just mock draft 1 and we're a long way from the actual draft so I'm open to criticism, position suggestions, player evaluation disagreements, etc. Let me know what you think (third round explanations deleted due to word count restraints).

1. Jacksonville Jaguars - QB Trevor Lawrence, Clemson. Lawrence is in the discussion for best QB prospect of all time and will be the pick.
   
2. New York Jets - QB Justin Fields, Ohio State. I'm working under the assumption that Deshaun Watson will not be traded. After a deep dive into analytics and spending way too much time breaking down game tape, I personally would go with Fields over Wilson. But, they have virtually the same grade and I would not be shocked by either player being picked.
   
3. Denver Broncos (from Miami via Houston) - QB Zach Wilson, BYU. With Zach Wilson still on the board at pick 3, John Elway, George Paton and the Broncos go all in to get their franchise QB. If your division rival is lining up Patrick Mahomes under center, you need to do better than Drew Lock to compete. The Broncos have a franchise left tackle to anchor their line, and a very talented young group of weapons. They've build a roster friendly to a franchise QB, so the timing is right to make this move for Denver. As the Rams have proven, you don't need first round picks to build a roster that competes for championships.
   
4. Atlanta Falcons - OT Penei Sewell, Oregon. I 'm not sure this move will be popular with Falcons fans, but here goes. With the Broncos trading up and taking the last of the top QBs in this class off the board, the Falcons suddenly have a difficult decision to make. Do you take a raw, inexperienced QB like Trey Lance, or do you take best player available? Here I have the Falcons going best player available because Matt Ryan is still a top QB, and due to his contract situation he's going to be on the roster for at least two more years. That gives them a bigger window to add more talent to the roster before selecting Ryan's replacement. And it would probably be prudent for the Falcons to build a roster then get a QB, rather than get a QB and build the roster after, when the QB prospect in question is a project. Unfortunately, there are no pass rushing prospects who really fit here, although Dean Pees' defense should help to mask that deficiency some and there are good value prospects who should be available on day 2. A.J. Terrell had a promising rookie season, but beyond him they need both depth and talent at CB so one of the top CB prospects is an option here. However, for Arthur Smith's new offense getting a prospect like Sewell is too good of an option. With his contract being easy to move on from, I'm projecting the Falcons cut James Carpenter and select Sewell to move to guard to start his career. This gives them a lot of talent on the offensive line and a lot of flexibility in the future. Should Matthews begin to decline, they can move on and slide Sewell out to left. If McGary doesn't get better in his third year, Sewell could be a long term replacement there. And the main factor that led me to making this pick is that Arthur Smith didn't take the Atlanta job to rebuild. He's got a really good QB in Matt Ryan and Sewell at guard gives the Falcons the best chance at closing out the Ryan era on a high note.
   
5. Cincinnati Bengals - OT Rashawn Slater, Northwestern. Thanks to the Broncos trading up for Wilson, the Bengals are guaranteed at least one of the top offensive line prospects in the class being on the board, and although Sewell is gone at 4 Slater is still an excellent prize at 5. As tempting as it may be to reunite Burrow and Chase, the Bengals have to protect their franchise QB. Ideally, Jonah Williams is healthy, but after two years he's had a tough time staying on the field so a guy like Slater who can play any position on the line is perfect here.
   
6. Philadelphia Eagles - WR Devonta Smith, Alabama. While I do think it would be smart for the Eagles to draft a CB here, I think Nick Sirianni's odds of surviving in Philly will go way down if he can't fix Wentz. I also think Roseman knows his job is tied to the success of Wentz, given the contract he gave to Wentz. Because of that I've decided to go with a WR here. If I'm being honest, I'm not entirely sure that Smith is the best WR prospect in this class. It's really close between the top 3. However, I think the areas in which Smith excels make him the best fit for Sirianni's offense.
   
7. Detroit Lions - WR Ja'Marr Chase, LSU. While QB was expected to be a target, thanks to the acquisition of Jared Goff the Lions do not need to draft a QB here. In fact, I think it's pretty unlikely that the Lions pick a QB here. Jared Goff has had success in the NFL and he's helped lead his team to a Super Bowl, he may not be a top QB but he's a capable starter. Given the influx of draft capital, the Lions cap situation, and the fact that Goff's contract is virtually unmovable for the next two years they are likely going to use this window to build the roster back up. While I think a CB could be a good fit here, they did just draft Okudah last year who should be given a chance to grow in a new defense, especially since the transition from college to the NFL takes longer at that position. Micah Parsons is tempting here too, as linebacker is a need for the Lions. But given the cap situation and the fact that Kenny Golladay, Marvin Jones, Mohamed Sanu, and Danny Amendola are all set to be free agents, I've decided to give the Lions a WR. Not only does this give the Lions a cheap, young, and talented option at WR (allowing them to move on from some of those would-be free agents), he's also arguably the top prospect left on the board.
   
8. Carolina Panthers - CB Patrick Surtain II, Alabama. There are a lot of options the Panthers could go with here. I debated between Micah Parsons and Surtain here because while I think the Panthers defense should improve next year, they're still missing consistent ILB play as well as a true #1 CB. Ultimately I chose Surtain over Parsons based on positional value given similar position on my board. I also chose Surtain over Farley because I think he's a better fit in Phil Snow's defense. He's physical and sticky in coverage, and I think he would be a great complement at cornerback to go with safety Chinn. I think OL could be considered here, but I'm not sure reaching for OL when there is better value at other positions of need makes sense. Trey Lance could be an option here, but I (perhaps incorrectly) think Fitterer and Rhule will pass on a QB if they can get a top defensive prospect. This would effectively buy another year for them to build up the roster if they choose to go with a QB in the first round of 2022.
   
9. Miami Dolphins (from Denver) - LB Micah Parsons, Penn State. Thanks to a number of trades, real and mocked, the Dolphins have a lot of draft capital and they can use some of that to get weapons for Tua Tagovailoa. But here, they take the best player still on the board. Brian Flores loves to blitz, and Parsons is one of the best blitzing linebacker prospects in years. Jaylen Waddle would be a good pick here too, but the fit is too perfect for me to pass here.
   
10. Dallas Cowboys - CB Caleb Farley, Virginia Tech. The Cowboys offense will not be a problem with Prescott back in the lineup. The defense needs a lot of work though, so as tempting as Kyle Pitts may be the Cowboys will almost certainly go defense here. The Cowboys have some cornerbacks set to be free agents but they are not worth re-signing. Farley is the best cornerback on the board and is a great value here for Dallas. The Cowboys could look at a couple other positions on defense, but they won't find the value they'd be getting in Caleb Farley.
    
11. Chicago Bears (from New York Giants) - QB Trey Lance, North Dakota State. With the 49ers pick looming, the Bears pull the trigger to move up and get their QB. The Bears have Nick Foles under contract for two more years but he can be cut after next season. Given that situation, the Bears can afford to sit Lance for at least a year and let him develop. He's got all of the tools to be a great QB, but due to the fact that he only played one year at the FCS level, he falls to 11.
    
12. San Francisco 49ers - CB Jaycee Horn, South Carolina. Injuries decimated a roster that is talented enough to compete for championships when healthy, so the 49ers can afford to focus on needs. Horn might be seen as a reach here by some, but the drop-off at cornerback is huge and the 49ers need to address the position in the offseason with so many impending free agents. Regardless, Horn is an excellent prospect and be a good pick for first time DC Ryans.
    
13. Los Angeles Chargers - OL Alijah Vera-Tucker, USC. Justin Herbert emerged as one of the most promising young QBs in the game despite poor offensive line play. The Chargers need to improve the line, so they can't justify reaching for a tackle because of positional value. They just need to take the best lineman on the board, and that's Vera-Tucker. There's some discussion as to whether he can make it as a tackle at the next level, but most have him projected as a guard. Wherever he plays, he should be an upgrade for the Chargers.
    
14. Minnesota Vikings - EDGE Kwity Paye, Michigan. The Vikings would love to improve their interior offensive line, but there's better value on day 2, so the Vikings go with a pass rusher here. The Vikings had one of the best defenses in 2019, and a big part of that was the pass rush. Last year however, the pass rush was ineffective and the defense fell apart. Getting Danielle Hunter back and pairing him with Paye while rotating D.J. Wonnum and Jalyn Holmes in could restore the Vikings pass rush and help get them back to the postseason.
    
15. New England Patriots - LB Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, Notre Dame. Although he played in a different scheme at Notre Dame than Bill Belichick uses, Owusu-Koramoah is one of the most versatile defenders in the class. He has shown the ability to rush the passer, drop back in coverage, and his elite sideline to sideline speed for the position that makes him an ideal linebacker against modern offenses. The Patriots need to get younger and faster on defense. As much as I want to add a weapon like Waddle or Pitts to the Patriots, I'm just not convinced that Belichick will actually do that in the first round.
    
16. Arizona Cardinals - EDGE Jaelan Phillips, Miami (FL). With Haason Reddick and Markus Golden both set to hit free agency, and Chandler Jones coming off of an injury, heading into his age 31 season, and on the final year of his contract, the Cardinals pass rush is inevitably going to look different in the next couple of years. With a prospect as good as Phillips on the board, drafting him to replace Jones and re-signing Reddick will give the Cardinals a formidable pass rush for the foreseeable future. If the Cardinals want to continue to close the gap with the Rams and Seahawks, they can't let their pass rush decline.
    
17. Las Vegas Raiders - WR Jaylen Waddle, Alabama. Every year a couple players drop farther than they should. This year, one of those players is Jaylen Waddle. The Raiders need to improve their defense, and there are some tempting players on the board for the Raiders to take, such as Gregory Rousseau. But the Raiders outside threats could have been better this year, and Jon Gruden will jump at the opportunity to put Waddle with Waller and Ruggs. Waddle is up there with the best weapons in this class, so this is a great value for the Raiders at 17.
    
18. Miami Dolphins - WR Kadarius Toney, Florida. Having already landed one of the best defensive players, Miami now turns its attention to surrounding Tagovailoa with the talent to thrive. The Dolphins got good production from DeVante Parker and Mike Gesicki, but could upgrade the rest of their receiving corps. Toney is electric and gives the Dolphins a playmaker over the middle of the field, which is exactly what Miami could use to help Tagovailoa grow.
    
19. Washington Football Team - TE Kyle Pitts, Florida. Washington didn't get their QB in this draft, but they get incredible value at 19 in Pitts. Besides Terry McLaurin, Washington doesn't really have a true playmaker at receiver so Pitts would immediately upgrade the offense. Given how good Washington's defense is, if they can't get a QB by trading up their main goal should be to improve their weapons and Pitts would be the ideal scenario.
    
20. New York Giants (from Chicago) - EDGE Gregory Rousseau, Miami (FL). The Giants biggest need is probably their wide receiver room, but with the top prospect on the board being a pass rusher, the Giants go with one of the highest upside defensive prospects in the class in Rousseau. The Giants don't have a lot of talent on the edge, so they fill a need here.
    
21. Indianapolis Colts - OT Christian Darrisaw, Virginia Tech. The Colts have boasted one of the best offensive lines in the NFL in recent years, and with Anthony Castonzo retiring, the Colts will want to keep their line in top shape by drafting his replacement. His length, athleticism, and intelligence make him the preferred tackle target for the Colts here.
    
22. Tennessee Titans - EDGE Joseph Ossai, Texas. The Titans are a very good team, and most improvements that could be made would be to improve depth. But the one area the Titans desperately need to improve if they want to legitimately compete for championships is their pass rush and defensive line. Ossai is the most explosive pass rush prospect left on the board who can fit with their defensive scheme.
    
23. San Francisco 49ers (from New York Jets via Seattle) – QB Mac Jones, Alabama. The 49ers move up to get the guy they believe can be their next franchise QB. In this scenario, the 49ers were targeting Trey Lance at 12, but because of the Chicago trade, they opted instead to take Horn, who is higher on the draft board and can help their secondary which will be losing some pieces to free agency. When Mac Jones gets past Washington at 19, they believe they can move up into the mid-20s for a reasonable value and get their QB. The best value in terms of trading draft capital is at 23, and they have to make this move to get ahead of Pittsburgh who could potentially take Jones to replace Ben Roethlisberger. The 49ers are now without a pick until the 5th round, but it's worth it to secure their QB of the future.
    
24. Pittsburgh Steelers - OT Jalen Mayfield, Michigan. The Steelers cap space isn't great right now, although Roethlisberger restructuring his contract will help. In any case, the Steelers are going to have to move on from some players, and one that makes sense is Alejandro Villanueva. He's played well, but he's going to be 33 next year, and rather than paying a veteran LT salary with tight cap space, it makes sense to draft his replacement. Mayfield is very technically sound and is nasty, two things that have defined Pittsburgh offensive line play over the years. There may be concern about him playing right tackle at Michigan, but as Jedrick Wills proved for the Browns, a move to left tackle is possible for a top prospect. Running back is also a possibility here, but there's better value in later rounds.
    
25. Jacksonville Jaguars (from Los Angeles Rams) - S Trevon Moehrig, TCU. The Jaguars weren't accidentally the number one pick. They were terrible on both offense and defense, and with so much early draft capital they don't have to reach on players in the name of protecting Lawrence at all costs. The Jaguars have some nice weapons on offense, and there will be good offensive line prospects on the board in the second round. They need to improve their secondary badly, and Moehrig is an immediate impact player with good versatility, and would be an instant upgrade over Josh Jones, who should not return to the team in 2021. Moehrig is arguably the highest graded prospect left on the board, he has a high floor, he's ready to play right away, and he fills a need.
    
26. Cleveland Browns - LB Zaven Collins, Tulsa. The Browns have a lot of holes on defense, and linebacker in particular is an area that they need to address. Despite being massive for a linebacker, Collins is quick and athletic and can play in coverage. He also has good pass rushing ability, which is an area that Cleveland needs to improve opposite of Myles Garrett. His versatility makes him valuable in multiple packages which should help him get on the field early, something that Cleveland should value at the end of the first round given that their competitive window is open.
    
27. Baltimore Ravens - EDGE Azeez Ojulari, Georgia. The Ravens need to give Lamar Jackson better weapons on the outside, but with such a good, deep running attack, the Ravens can afford to wait until the second round. The Ravens have several pass rushers set to become free agents, and they won't be able to bring all of them back. In any case, the Ravens could use an upgrade at the position anyway. Although Ojulari played in 4 man fronts, his size, speed, and athleticism make him a natural fit as an edge rusher in a 3 man front defense. His energy is also a great fit for the Ravens defense.
    
28. New Orleans Saints - EDGE Jayson Oweh, Penn State. The Saints have the worst cap situation in the NFL and because of that they're going to lose some key free agents. One guy that they almost certainly will not be able to retain is breakout DE Trey Hendrickson, who registered 13.5 sacks in 2020 and should be in line for a nice raise on the free agent market. Oweh has tremendous upside due to his freakish athleticism, explosiveness, and length. He's a bit raw, and will need some time to develop, but with Cameron Jordan on the opposite side of the line Oweh is the type of player the Saints can afford to target.
    
29. Green Bay Packers - WR Tutu Atwell, Louisville. Aaron Rodgers covers the deficiencies of the wide receiver room well, but the Packers do need to improve their weapons. Adams and Tonyan are good pieces, but St. Brown, Lazard, and Valdez-Scantling can't be the secondary options at wide receiver. Adding an electric slot receiver in Atwell makes sense given the profile of the rest of the receivers on the roster.
    
30. Buffalo Bills - EDGE Joe Tryon, Washington. The Bills have a very complete roster, but they could definitely improve their pass rush. Getting to the quarterback, namely Patrick Mahomes, will be the Bills best chance of getting over the hump and into the Super Bowl. Tryon is a nice scheme fit, and should be able to see the field instantly, something a contender like Buffalo will be looking for here. I was tempted to mock a running back here, as there's great talent left on the board, but I think the Bills are more likely to ride with their 3rd round picks from 2019 and 2020, Singletary and Moss.
    
31. Tampa Bay Buccaneers - DT Levi Onwuzurike, Washington. The Buccaneers have a loaded offense, so the focus should be on the defense, specifically the defensive line. With Gholston having only one more year on his contract, and Suh set to be a free agent, a high upside 3-tech like Onwuzurike makes a lot of sense here. Not to mention, a team that is good enough to make the super bowl can afford to draft BPA, and Onwuzurike is among the best players still on the board here.
    
32. Kansas City Chiefs - OL Alex Leatherwood, Alabama. Kansas City needs to start getting younger on the offensive line. Both Eric Fisher and Mitchell Schwartz are under contract for 2021, but after that they're free agents. Leatherwood has shown the versatility to slide in anywhere on the line, and could be a day one starter for the Chiefs wherever they need him. This pick could also be used on another weapon or a defensive player, but the value here is too good for Leatherwood.
    

Round 2

1. Jacksonville Jaguars - DL Dayvion Nixon, Iowa. One of the hallmarks of Urban Meyer's Florida and Ohio State teams were deep, talented defensive lines. The Jaguars have a few nice pieces in Josh Allen and Doug Costin, but overall the unit needs to improve. Nixon is one of only a few interior defensive line prospects who offers high upside impact, and getting him here at the start of the second round is good value.
   
2. New York Jets - CB Greg Newsome II, Northwestern. The Jets have problems with their cornerbacks. Their best cornerback is set to be a free agent, but even if he returns he's only a slot corner. Bryce Hall has shown a lot of promise, but there's not much on the roster behind him. Newsome is a smart, instinctive corner who will fit into Saleh's scheme nicely, and should be ready to compete for a starting role early.
   
3. Atlanta Falcons - RB Najee Harris, Alabama. While it may be unlikely that there are no running backs in the first round (hasn't happened since 2014), I think this draft is so talented that it could happen. As I said earlier, I think the Arthur Smith will try to make win now moves and having a power running game is an important part of Arthur Smith's offensive philosophy. Najee Harris is the top running back on the board and the top prospect left on the board, so everything from fit to value is excellent here for Atlanta.
   
4. Miami Dolphins (from Houston) - RB Travis Etienne, Clemson. Another running back off the board, this time it's the electric back from Clemson. Having already added Toney, now the Miami offense gets arguably the top receiving back in the class. This move makes the offense one of the fastest in the league, and the combination of Etienne and Gaskin gives the Dolphins one of the best young running back rooms in the league.
   
5. Philadelphia Eagles - CB Eric Stokes, Georgia. I nearly went with a CB in round 1 for the Eagles, but it was too hard to pass up on a receiver. The Eagles have a nice CB1 in Slay, but he's getting older and the rest of the CB group needs to be upgraded. Stokes has the ideal size, speed, and length that teams are looking for on the outside and has the experience to challenge for a starting spot early.
   
6. Cincinnati Bengals - EDGE Patrick Jones II, Pittsburgh. The Bengals already added a top offensive lineman for Burrow, but they have to address the defense early on. Even if the Bengals re-sign Lawson, they need to have more talent on the defensive line to get pressure on opposing QBs. Jones is a good scheme fit and his versatility makes him an attractive option here in the 2nd round.
   
7. Carolina Panthers - LB Nick Bolton, Missouri. The Panthers add another impact playmaker for Phil Snow's defense, a guy who could fill the void that they were unable to fill after Keuchly's retirement. There are several options here, but Bolton at 39 is incredible value and the Panthers jump all over a guy with first round upside.
   
8. Miami Dolphins (from Denver) - C Landon Dickerson, Alabama. Ted Karras is set to be a free agent, but Miami can upgrade the center position here and get the best prospect at the position in the draft. Dickerson has positional versatility and is well respected for his leadership so this is a great value and culture pick for Miami.
   
9. Detroit Lions - CB Aaron Robinson, UCF. Robinson has the ideal size and length that NFL teams look for, and he's got a lot of experience both inside and outside. The production from the Lions CB room was abysmal in 2020, so more talent needs to be added, even if Jeff Okudah makes the expected year two leap.
   
10. New York Giants - WR Amon-Ra St. Brown, USC. Dave Gettleman is a meat and potatoes guy, and he got his high upside defensive lineman in the first round. But he's going to have to start giving Daniel Jones weapons if they really believe he's the future. Obviously getting Saquon Barkley back will help, but the wide receiver room is aging, and Amon-Ra St. Brown is an outside receiver with WR1 potential who can inject youth and talent into that position group for the Giants.
    
11. New York Jets (from San Francisco) - OG Wyatt Davis, Ohio State. The fact that the Jets have a weak offensive line is no secret. Mekhi Becton was a home run draft pick at left tackle last season, but the Jets need to continue adding offensive line talent to avoid their next franchise QB getting killed. Despite another All-American season, Davis' 2020 tape is not as good as his 2019 tape, so he falls to the mid-2nd here. While there are some concerns, he's the best interior offensive line prospect left on the board and he does have upside.
    
12. Dallas Cowboys - DT Christian Barmore, Alabama. The Cowboys defense needs to improve, especially in the run game. Neville Gallimore showed promise, but adding Barmore gives the defensive line a lot more depth and talent. Barmore has the experience to step in right away and produce, something that will be important for the Cowboys who should be looking to win a down NFC East with a healthy Prescott.
    
13. Jacksonville Jaguars (from Minnesota) - TE Pat Freiermuth, Penn State. Friermuth is an excellent pass catching TE, but he's also one of the better blocking tight ends in this class. This versatility addresses two needs for Jaguars on offense. There's a lot of upside in the Jaguars WR room, so adding a playmaker at TE makes sense, especially because their top tight ends are getting older.
    
14. New England Patriots - WR Terrace Marshall Jr., LSU. The Patriots need to address the wide receiver position, and after passing on a WR in the first round they land a falling Marshall with the 46th pick, so the Patriots end up with a great value in the 2nd round.
    
15. Los Angeles Chargers - OT Teven Jenkins, Oklahoma State. The Chargers line was so bad, and the value at 47 is so good, that I'm going to mock the Chargers double dipping at offensive line with their first two picks. Sam Tevi's contract is up, and he was not good enough to re-sign. The Chargers have to upgrade this spot, and getting a guy like Jenkins here is an easy decision.
    
16. Las Vegas Raiders - DT Marlon Tuipulotu, USC. The Raiders need to upgrade the defensive line, especially on the interior where Maliek Collins and Johnathan Hankins were not high impact players. Tuipulotu has great strength and technique, and has three years of starting experience so he should be ready to start right away for the Raiders.
    
17. Arizona Cardinals - CB Asante Samuel Jr., Florida State. Arguably the biggest need for Arizona is cornerback, but with the way the board fell in the first the value was better for other positions of need. Here in the 2nd, they get one of the stickiest corners in the draft. He's a bit undersized, but he's great in man coverage and will be a good scheme fit for Vance Joseph's defense.
    
18. Miami Dolphins - EDGE Ronnie Perkins, Oklahoma. The Dolphins pick for the fifth time in this mock already, and have addressed a lot of needs so far. One area where they could get better is pass rush depth. While Perkins doesn't jump out as an ideal fit in Flores' defensive scheme, he's got the size, strength, and athleticism should allow him to transition to a standup edge rusher, or rotate in on pass rush situations with his hand on the dirt. He's got all the tools to create pressure in the NFL, and would give Flores a weapon that would allow him to get creative with his defensive play calls.
    
19. Washington Football Team - OT Samuel Cosmi, Texas. Washington has an aging line, so getting some youth in the building would be a good strategy. Cornelius Lucas played well enough to have a chance to win the starting LT job in 2021, but he'll be 30 and in a contract year and Morgan Moses will have two years left on his contract. Financially it would make sense to get a long term solution at tackle early in the draft. Cosmi's strengths are a good fit for Scott Turner's blocking schemes.
    
20. New York Giants (from Chicago) - CB Tyson Campbell, Georgia. Using this additional pick acquired from Chicago, the Giants address three of their biggest needs in the first two rounds by taking Campbell to go with Rousseau and St. Brown. There are definitely issues on Campbell's tape, but his assignment's in Graham's defense should minimize those weaknesses while maximizing his strength in man coverage. Campbell has elite size, length, and athleticism, so he has tremendous upside.
    
21. Tennessee Titans - WR Rondale Moore, Purdue. The Titans have a very good offense, but are likely going to move on from Corey Davis after the emergence of A.J. Brown. Adding arguably the most electric playmaker in the draft, Rondale Moore, would help keep the Titans offense among the most potent in the NFL.
    
22. New York Jets (from Indianapolis) - RB Javonte Williams, UNC. The Jets need to add some weapons, and with Jamison Crowder and Denzel Mims on the roster, and better free agent options such as Allen Robinson, Corey Davis, JuJu Smith-Schuster, and Kenny Golladay potentially hitting the market, the Jets can add the best weapon on the board, Javonte Williams. He's excellent in the passing game and should fit nicely with the new running scheme.
    
23. Kansas City Chiefs (from Pittsburgh) - WR Rashod Bateman, Minnesota. With one of the top WR prospects still on the board, and a number of teams ahead of them who could look for a WR, the Chiefs pull the trigger and move up. The Steelers, who have a lot of players headed to free agency, are happy to move down and get more draft picks to try to rebuild the roster with cheaper contracts. Bateman is a good route runner with excellent high point skills, so he's a perfect fit in the offense to replace Watkins.
    
24. Seattle Seahawks - OT Dillon Radunz, North Dakota State. The Seahawks need to make a move on the offensive line at some point, and Radunz is a good prospect here. Cedric Ogbuehi is a free agent, but they could upgrade at RT anyway, and Duane Brown is 35 and only has one year left on his contract. The Seahawks could possibly look at a pass rusher or cornerback here, but the best value on the board is at tackle.
    
25. Los Angeles Rams - LB Baron Browning, Ohio State. There are rumblings that some teams view Browning as a potential first round talent. The athleticism is off the charts, and he's got the speed, explosiveness, length, and motor that NFL teams covet. The upside is undeniable and he's lauded for his character and leadership. Combine that with his experience and versatility, and he's the kind of guy who can come in right away and upgrade the Rams inside linebacker spot, one of the few positions that needs a major upgrade for a team that's going all in to win a Super Bowl.
    
26. Baltimore Ravens - WR Nico Collins, Michigan. The Ravens need to give Lamar Jackson better weapons on the outside, and Nico Collins has elite size and vertical ball skills, something the Ravens are missing at wide receiver. A lot of the best remaining day 2 caliber receivers are better suited for a slot role, so the Ravens pull the trigger on one of the best outside guys left on the board.
    
27. Cleveland Browns - EDGE Jordan Smith, UAB. The Browns desperately need to get some pass rushing help opposite of Myles Garrett. There are some red flags with Smith, but the size and athleticism of Smith make him too good to pass up here. With Collins and Smith, the Browns defense gets a lot bigger, faster, and more talented.
    
28. New Orleans Saints - LB Chazz Surratt, North Carolina. All of the Saints moves are going to be made with the salary cap in mind. One of the obvious cost saving moves is to cut Kwon Alexander. The Saints would save more than $13 million without taking on any dead money. Surratt is an excellent player who provides the Saints good value here.
    
29. Buffalo Bills - DT Jay Tufele, USC. The Bills will want to add a cornerback at some point, but with the way the board has fallen Tufele is too good of a value here to pass up on. The Bills need to get better interior defensive line play, and Tufele fits nicely into Frazier's defensive scheme, so this is a good fit as well.
    
30. Green Bay Packers - CB Ifeatu Melifonwu, Syracuse. The Packers could address a number of positions here, but Kevin King played poorly and is set to become a free agent anyway. Melifonwu has elite size, and has been climbing draft boards. He may be a bit of a project, but we're getting into the range where there are very few instant impact guys left on the board.
    
31. Tampa Bay Buccaneers - C Creed Humphrey, Oklahoma. With Donovan Smith, Ryan Jensen, and Aaron Stinnie's contracts all set to expire either this year or next year, adding some offensive line help makes sense. Jensen is the weakest of the group, and will likely walk in 2021 if the Buccaneers can acquire a top prospect through the draft. Regardless, the Buccaneers are going to have to add more depth to the center group so the talented Humphrey fills a need.
    
32. Pittsburgh Steelers (from Kansas City) - RB Michael Carter, North Carolina. James Conner is set to be a free agent, and it makes financial sense for the Steelers to move on from him. Carter is an excellent value at the bottom of the second round, and he's excellent in the passing game, so he'll be a great fit for the Steelers. Running backs also have the ability to make an impact right away, which is crucial for a team looking to make one last run with QB Ben Roethlisberger.
    

Third Round

1. Jacksonville Jaguars - OT Liam Eichenberg, Notre Dame.
   
2. New York Jets - WR Elijah Moore, Ole Miss.
   
3. Houston Texans - S Jevon Holland, Oregon.
   
4. Atlanta Falcons - EDGE, Carlos Basham Jr., Wake Forrest.
   
5. Cincinnati Bengals - WR D'Wayne Eskridge, Western Michigan.
   
6. Philadelphia Eagles - EDGE Quincy Roche, Miami (FL).
   
7. Miami Dolphins (from Denver) - S Richie Grant, UCF.
   
8. Detroit Lions - LB Cameron McGrone, Michigan.
   
9. Carolina Panthers - QB Kyle Trask, Florida.
   
10. Washington Football Team (from San Francisco) - CB Elijah Molden, Washington.
    
11. Dallas Cowboys - LB Pete Werner, Ohio State.
    
12. New York Giants - OT James Hudson, Cincinnati.
    

XX. New England Patriots - Forfeited

1. Los Angeles Chargers - DT Tommy Togiai, Ohio State.
   
2. Minnesota Vikings - OG Ben Cleveland, Georgia.
   
3. Arizona Cardinals - C Josh Myers, Ohio State.
   
4. Las Vegas Raiders - S Ar'Darius Washington, TCU.
   
5. Miami Dolphins - CB Shaun Wade, Ohio State.
   
6. Washington Football Team - WR Tylan Wallace, Oklahoma State.
   
7. Chicago Bears - OT Walker Little, Stanford.
   
8. Indianapolis Colts - EDGE Hamilcar Rashed Jr., Oregon State.
   
9. Tennessee Titans - DT Marvin Wilson, Florida State.
   
10. New York Jets (from Seattle) - LB Charles Snowden, Virginia.
    
11. Pittsburgh Steelers - WR Shi Smith, South Carolina.
    
12. Detroit Lions (from Los Angeles Rams) - S Hamsah Nasirildeen, Florida State.
    
13. Cleveland Browns - DT Jaylen Twyman, Pittsburgh.
    
14. Minnesota Vikings (from Baltimore) - WR Amari Rodgers, Clemson.
    
15. Cleveland Browns (from New Orleans) - WR Seth Williams, Auburn.
    
16. Green Bay Packers - EDGE Payton Turner, Houston.
    
17. Buffalo Bills - CB Paulson Adebo, Stanford.
    
18. Tampa Bay Buccaneers - EDGE Dayo Odeyingbo, Vanderbilt.
    
19. Pittsburgh Steelers (from Kansas City) - TE Brevin Jordan, Miami (FL).
    

Compensatory Picks

1. New England Patriots - QB Davis Mills, Stanford.
   
2. Los Angeles Chargers - TE Hunter Long, Boston College.
   
3. New Orleans Saints - RB Jermar Jefferson, Oregon State.
   
4. Dallas Cowboys - S Andre Cisco, Syracuse.
   
5. Tennessee Titans - OT Brady Christensen, BYU.
   
6. Los Angeles Rams - CB Israel Mukuamu, South Carolina.
   
7. San Francisco 49ers - EDGE Victor Dimukeje, Duke.
   
8. Los Angeles Rams - OT Spencer Brown, Northern Iowa.
   
9. Baltimore Ravens - DT Tyler Shelvin, LSU.
   
10. New Orleans Saints - CB Kary Vincent Jr., LSU.
    

Trades:
Indianapolis Colts receive: QB Sam Darnold New York Jets receive: Indianapolis 2021 2nd, 5th
This trade value is based on internet rumors and a similar trade in 1987, where the San Francisco 49ers sent a 2nd and 4th round pick to Tampa Bay for 2nd year starter Steve Young. Steve Young was 3-16, with 11 TDs, 21 INTs, a 53.3 comp% and a 63.1 QB rating in two seasons with Tampa Bay but his upside netted a nice return. I think for several reasons, such as the fact that neither Douglas nor Saleh drafted Darnold and the potential to reset the cap window by drafting a 1st round QB, the Jets will trade Darnold. The Colts have a good offensive line and much better weapons than the Jets, so Indianapolis could be a good destination for Darnold after they missed out on Stafford.
***
Denver receives: Houston 2021 1st (3) via Miami Miami receives: Denver 2021 1st (9), 2nd (40), 3rd (71), 2022 1st, 2nd, 2023 2nd
***
Chicago receives: New York Giants 2021 1st (11) New York Giants receive: Chicago 1st (20), 2nd (52), 2022 1st
***
San Francisco receives: Seattle 2021 1st (23) via New York Jets New York Jets receive: San Francisco 2021 2nd (43), 4th, 2022 2nd
***
Kansas City receives: Pittsburgh 2021 2nd (55) Pittsburgh receives: Kansas City 2021 2nd (64), 3rd (95) ***
QB Notes: New England signs Ryan Fitzpatrick Indianapolis trades for Sam Darnold from New York Jets New Orleans re-signs Jameis Winston Washington re-signs Kyle Allen

Obviously this isn't set in England, but spiritually this piece is within my English Football series. The first six episodes covered Nottingham Forest's 21st century woes, the dickpic that consigned Notts County to the non-league, a reignited rivalry between Derby County and Leeds United, Stoke City's legendary shithouse era, the English Golden Generation of the 00s descending into farce, and Wimbledon FC's controversial relocation to Milton Keynes
This spin-off piece follows on from the main question raised by the Wimbledon FC/MK Dons saga. When does a club stop being a club? Is it the legal entity or something rather more intangible? These were questions posed with regards to one of the titans of Scottish football earlier this decade.
Background - The Establishment Club
Rangers FC has long cultivated an image as Scotland's 'establishment club', it isn't just a sports team, but an institution that embodies a particular way of living and worldview. Alongside other institutions like the Church of Scotland, the club is perceived as embodying traditional and small-C conservative Scottish values. Alongside Celtic (more on them in a bit) Rangers have dominated Scottish football since the league started. No club other than the two Glaswegian sides has won the league since 1985. Rangers have 54 league titles, Celtic have 51. The joint 3rd best sides (Aberdeen and the Edinburgh pair Hearts and Hibernian) have just four a piece. And yet as a legal entity the club ceased to exist in 2012. What happened? Does Rangers FC still exist?
It would be impossible to tell this tale without telling the tale of the Old Firm and the profound political, cultural, and religious divides involved. Glasgow's two largest clubs have a rivalry that defies comparison to anything in the rest of Scotland or in England. Essentially Rangers FC and its supporters represent Protestantism and British Unionism, while Celtic FC are considered to be aligned with Catholicism and Irish Nationalism. When the two sides meet, the Scottish saltire is rarely flown by supporters. Rangers supporters prefer the Union Jack or Ulster Banner, Celtic fans are likely to fly Irish tricolours. It is as if somebody took the socio-cultural conflict of Northern Ireland and transplanted it into a football ground.
Which is sort of what happened. Ultimately a big factor was migration to Glasgow in the early 20th century - Irish Catholics in Glasgow set up Celtic FC as their club, while Protestants from Northern Ireland (who are historically of largely Scottish extraction) who worked in the shipyards of the Clyde came to adopt Rangers which was located near the shipbuilding areas. Local Scots, being generally Protestant, inclined to support Rangers and many would have shared the religious and political feelings of the newcomers from Northern Ireland. This has meant that at matches both clubs have sections of support who chant about the Northern Irish conflict - some Rangers fans have a 'songbook' including the Loyalist anthem The Sash (which commemorates King William III, the Dutchman invited to become King of England and Scotland who defeated a Catholic army at the Boyne in 1690), while Celtic fans might sing in support of the Irish Republican Army. This involves by no means the majority of supporters, but it is important in setting the atmosphere at games.
Rangers FC had until the late 1980s an alleged policy of not signing any player known to be a Catholic. This led legendary Celtic manager Jock Stein to joke that if offered a Catholic or a Protestant to sign for Celtic, he would sign the Protestant in the knowledge that Rangers would never sign the Catholic. I cannot find evidence of any player ever transferring directly between Celtic and Rangers in the postwar era, with the low number of players who have turned out for both having had a 3rd club in between. Another example of the intensity is the way in which the clubs traditionally share shirt sponsors. This sounds innocuous, but the only way to sponsor one of the clubs without triggering a mass boycott by the other supporters was to simply sponsor both.
No other football rivalry in Britain has a dynamic like this (Liverpool and Everton did to a far lesser extent before about the 1960s, but sectarianism largely died out there decades ago), even in the days when hooliganism was a serious blight on English football it never quite reached the sort of scenes on display at the 1980 Scottish Cup Final.
Which club is the 'biggest'? It is impossible to say. Rangers have had more League titles, but Celtic being the first British club to win a European Cup in 1967 is a fairly potent trump card. What is without a doubt is that they are the two best supported Scottish clubs and their rivalry is possibly like no other.
Chasing the Rainbow
Avid readers of this series will notice a theme. The 1990s were a boom time for football and everyone involved in the sport. TV revenue started to really take off, as did the prizes for winning European competitions. Many clubs sought to capitalise on the windfall and Rangers were no exception.
Their chairman, Sir David Murray, had become one of Scotland's weathiest businessmen by leveraging debts against future revenue. He spent big on Rangers in the hope that they would win a major European trophy and repay his investment. Top players like Paul Gascoigne came to Rangers where before it was fairly rare for big name players from other leagues to move to Scotland. Domestically his investments paid off, from 1989-97 Rangers won nine League titles in a row, equalling the record set by Jock Stein's great Celtic side between 1966-74.
Unfortunately this did not translate to the windfall a Champion's League win would have given. While Murray was bankrolling Rangers, other clubs around Europe were likewise chasing the new massive financial prizes. Rangers came close to getting past the group stage of the new Champion's League format in 1992-93, but no Scottish club would enter a Champion's League knockout round until Rangers do so in 2005-06.
The debts mounted and Murray sought ways to manage the debts and hedge them against future revenue anticipated from TV fees and European prize money. He allowed the Bank of Scotland to buy a stake in the club with a mortgage allowing them to recover their losses in the event of the club defaulting on its repayments. Nothing to worry about, surely? David Murray had become a wildly successful businessman by effectively managing credit lines and debt against future income to fund expansion.
But a far bigger problem was just three small letters.
EBT
Put simply, Employee Benefit Trusts are a way of not paying tax, it was legal in some cases at the time but is generally illegal now.
Murray sought, from 2000, to pay his players through EBTs. This meant that they would be able to offer high net wages to players while cutting tax costs. In Britain most employees have all their tax payments deducted by the employer, so schemes like this and ones where employees are paid in dividends are a way of essentially not paying tax.
By 2010 HMRC had begun to investigate the case, concluding that Rangers may have evaded £49m in taxes, a vast amount for a club already overleveraged in debt in a league not known for being particularly wealthy.
By about 2008 Murray had had enough of Rangers and was looking to sell up. He had gambled and lost huge amounts of money on the club, which was now saddled with huge amounts of debt. The prospect of paying £49m to HMRC if the courts ruled against Rangers deterred any serious buyer and it took some years for a buyer to emerge. Another serious issue was the sheer amount of debt Rangers had to Lloyds (who had taken over the Bank of Scotland), with fans in 2009 threatening a boycott of the banking chain if the bank called in its debts.
Would a buyer emerge and save Rangers from this predicament?
Well, a buyer would emerge in 2011. Not the other bit, sadly.
Enter Craig Whyte
Craig Whyte had once been Scotland's youngest millionaire as a venture capitalist. He bought the club for £1 from Murray but desperately needed to leverage some funds to settle the Lloyds debt, so he borrowed a cool £26.7m against future season ticket sales. This on the face of it should have set alarm bells, even the biggest clubs don't make huge amounts of money on matchday tickets in relation to their massive costs.
Whyte also indulged in a bit of tax fiddling. But rather than setting up an avoidance mechanism and letting the lawyers fight it out, he just stopped sending Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs the income tax payments for the club players and staff. Definitely not the sophistication of Murray.
Matters only got worse. In early 2012 BBC Scotland aired a BAFTA-winning documentary about Whyte and Rangers, which revealed that Whyte had been once banned from working as a company director for seven years. The Scottish Football Association agreed, Whyte was not a 'Fit and Proper' person to own a football club.
At about this time Rangers entered administration. When this happens in Britain, the company's creditors can agree to a 'Company Voluntary Arrangement' (CVA) which essentially means agreeing a plan for the company to continue operating while in administration so the creditors can recover their debts. HMRC, with the outstanding £49m tax case from Murray's era plus the money owed by Whyte's outright failure to pay tax, voted against allowing this to happen.
In the absence of a CVA and agreement with creditors, this meant that Rangers FC as a company ceased to exist in June 2012, with all assets transferred to 'Sevco Scotland Ltd'.
Could this have been avoided? In the end, the £49m owed to HMRC which proved such a millstone has been substantially reduced and the cases around it are still ongoing. But ultimately, Rangers had vast amounts of debt not just to HMRC.
For his part Whyte would be bankrupted by his loan to buy the club and would be faced with a far longer ban on acting as a company director.
Sevco FC?
Sevco inherited everything Rangers had. The players had an opportunity to transfer their employment to Sevco, which also gained Ibrox Stadium and Ranger's membership of the Scottish Premier League.
For the club owned by Sevco to be able to play in the SPL next season, 2/3rds of members had to vote in favour. Clubs such as Aberdeen, Dundee United, and Hearts bowed to fan feeling that Rangers could not continue where they left off. In the end, no club voted in favour of Rangers remaning in the SPL with only Kilmarnock abstaining. This event would generate a huge amount of bad feeling and bitterness from Rangers fans who felt that supporters of other clubs were content to throw them under a bus for reasons not of their making. There was definitely a sense of schadenfreude from supporters of other clubs, watching Scotland's 'Establishment Club' go to the wall.
Could Rangers join the Scottish First Division and gain promotion to the Premier League? First Division clubs didn't want to face the consequences of a Premier League problem, so they also rejected it.
In the end, the Scottish Football League allowed Rangers FC to rejoin the league in the Third Division, a largely semi-professional league three divisions below the Premier League. Their first competitive game was a Challenge Cup (competition for the two lower leagues in the Scottish Football League) tie against Brechin City, who represent a sleepy town of just 7,000.
Clawing their way back up
Most of Ranger's players had refused their statutory right to transfer employment to the new company. Nonetheless, the 2012-13 season started well with their first home league game setting a world record for the best attended fourth division match in history as over 49,000 attended Rangers vs East Stirlingshire. A strong league performance saw Rangers confirm promotion into the 3rd tier by the end of March.
2013-14 saw another promotion as Rangers had an unbeaten season in League One (the leagues were renamed at about this time) to secure promotion to the Championship, the first league which would be wholly filled with professional clubs after the mix of professional and semi-professional that plies their trade in Scotland's lower leagues.
Rangers didn't make it three back-to-back promotions as they lost a promotion play-off final 6-1 to Motherwell, one of Scotland's more successful non-Old Firm clubs who had suffered a stint in the 2nd tier.
During this season they met Celtic in the cup. Some Celtic fans placed an advert in a newspaper claiming that the 'Old Firm' was over and while they had enjoyed a rivalry with Rangers FC they did not recognise the new club as the same entity. This caused some controversy, not just with Rangers fans, but with Celtic fans who were indeed looking forward to the first Old Firm in some time. The accusation that Rangers were 'Zombies' or 'Sevco FC' would become a common one from Celtic supporters at games and remains as such.
Rangers won the 2016-15 Scottish Championship to secure promotion, while also beating Celtic in a Scottish Cup semi-final. But, the 'Gruesome Twosome' of Scottish football would once again grace the top flight together.
Same as before?
Celtic had done very well out of the previous few years. They had won a succession of League titles at a canter with the accompanying European qualification giving them financial muscle the other clubs couldn't compete with. Rangers finished a respectable 3rd, but Celtic once again dominated the league.
After an embarrassing elimination out of the Europa League at the hands of a semi-professional side from Luxembourg, Rangers didn't improve on their 3rd place and Celtic won again. It wasn't until 2018-19 that Rangers finished 2nd.
With Celtic winning again.
Could Celtic's domination be broken before they won 10 titles in a row and broke the record jointly held by 1960s-70s Celtic and 1990s Rangers? Perhaps not yet.
2019-20 started well, Rangers had a fantastic run in the Europa League under Steven Gerrard and beat Celtic at their ground for the first time since 2010. COVID put paid to an increasingly close title race with Celtic awarded the title based on Points Per Game with the season abandoned.
This season has very much been Ranger's season though. At the time of writing they seem, barring a miracle/disaster, overwhemingly likely to win the League this year and deny Celtic the coveted ten in a year.
Postscript
Is the Rangers FC of today the same club as that pre-2012? Displays from Celtic fans would say not, and as a legal entity it certainly isn't the same. But UEFA allows for 'sporting continuity' for a club in terms of identity and honours even if the holding company or corporate structure changes. This suggests something that many football supporters would agree with - a club is as much as community asset as it is a company or business and the stories we have looked at explore the issues when the business and the community collide.
Next time, we'll take a look at how Arsenal Fan TV revolutionised football social media while turning their club into a laughing stock

DPi

(Cover photo by Carolina Roots)
Text by Michael McClure (u/M1chaelHM) - Feature Writer
Previous Coverage of the 24 Hours of Daytona from the Editorial Team:
A Not-So-Short History of the 24 Hours of Daytona
A Primer of the 24 Hours of Daytona
Just as we did with Le Mans last year, here are the drivers with Formula 1 connections racing in this year's 24 Hours of Daytona, ordered according to their starting positions for the race.

Mike Conway and Felipe Nasr

Wheelen Engineering Racing No. 31 (Photos by Seamus Cullen)
Starting Position: 1st (DPi), 1st (overall)
After their European single-seater careers failed to take off as they probably had hoped, Mike Conway and Felipe Nasr have found their niche in endurance racing. Though their paths have otherwise rarely intersected, Conway and Nasr combined to take second in the 2018 Rolex 24 and seventh last year.
Conway contested junior championships for a pair of seasons each: after two years in British Formula Ford, he competed in Formula Renault UK, where he finished fourth in 2003 and then dominated the series in 2004, following in Lewis Hamilton’s immediate footsteps as champion (coincidentally, both of them skipped the last round of the season). Conway moved to British F3 for two seasons, achieving a similar level of success: third place in 2005 and a title the following year, plus a win in the 2006 Macau Grand Prix, all of which made the F1 world take note.
In 2007, Conway signed for Super Nova Racing in GP2 while also assuming test driver duties for Honda in Formula One. In his first season, Conway finished fourteenth, taking his only podium at home in the Silverstone feature race. For 2008, Conway switched to Trident Racing, winning the Monaco sprint race but otherwise rarely competing at the front. With his opportunities in Europe drying up, Conway opted for a full-time switch to IndyCar.
He may not have been IndyCar’s most successful driver, nor was he ever the fastest, but Conway became a feared opponent on street circuits in six years in the series. He channeled his past street race successes at Macau and Monaco to win at Long Beach in 2011 and 2014, the latter from seventeenth on the grid. But before the final round of the 2012 season, held at the Fontana Superspeedway, Conway announced his decision to quit ovals. The death of Dan Wheldon at the 2011 IndyCar finale loomed large in Conway’s memory, and the terrifying airborne accidents he suffered at both the 2010 and 2012 editions of the Indianapolis 500 also influenced his decision. After two years of driving only the street and road courses—hardly a viable option, even for someone with Conway’s pedigree—he had to look elsewhere for work.
Conway then opted to focus on endurance racing. He had done an LMP2 campaign in 2013, taking four wins, and made occasional outings in 2014 for Toyota’s LMP1 team, signing as a full-time driver for 2015. Five years later, Conway and his co-drivers José María López and Kamui Kobayashi (more on him later) finally won the title.
In 2009, just as Conway moved across the Atlantic to continue his open-wheel racing career in IndyCar, Felipe Nasr went the opposite direction, moving from Brazil to the UK to chase a place in F1. First, Nasr would secure the Formula BMW crown in dominant fashion, finishing in the top two in all but two races, before stepping up to British F3 in 2010, where he took fifth place. For 2011, he switched to Carlin Racing, winning the title convincingly thanks to his dominance in the first half of the season, before taking second place at Macau that November.
For 2012, Nasr moved up to GP2 with DAMS. His opening season was solid but not spectacular, as he played second fiddle to his teammate, eventual championship winner Davide Valsecchi. He returned to Carlin for 2013 and fared better; despite scoring no victories, Nasr spent much of the championship in second place before his form and luck tailed off in the second half of the season. It would all come together for him in 2014, as he took four victories and a further six podiums in a consistent campaign which saw him nearly pip Stoffel Vandoorne—hailed as one of GP2’s greatest—for second place overall. Nasr’s path to a seat at Sauber in 2015 was not straightforward, as Sauber was going through a hectic period, but ultimately he was confirmed for that season.
At the 2015 Australian Grand Prix, Nasr produced a fine drive to fifth place in a race of attrition, earning him plaudits from around the paddock and comparisons to legendary Brazilian F1 stars. The fourteen points he and teammate Marcus Ericsson bagged that day proved welcome redemption for Sauber, who had endured a scoreless campaign in 2014. Nasr would score points on five more occasions for the team in 2015 and continued with the Hinwil outfit for 2016.
Sauber’s 2016 season went much like their 2014 did: administrative turmoil, low finances, and an uncompetitive car saw Ericsson and Nasr consigned to fighting with the Manor Racing Team cars at the back of the grid. Arguably Nasr’s finest moment that year would come at the 2016 Brazilian Grand Prix, where he finished ninth to score Sauber’s only points that year. On the bright side, it elevated the team to tenth in the constructors’ championship, guaranteeing it much-needed millions in prize money, but the result also proved the final nail in the coffin for Manor, who had been relying on that payment for their survival. In hindsight, it was—by complete accident—an act of great selflessness that cost Nasr his F1 future. He may have saved Sauber, but the lack of prize money meant Manor, to which he was set to move for the following season, was not able to carry on, leaving Nasr without an F1 drive for 2017.
In 2018, rather than continue scrabbling for an F1 seat, Nasr accepted his fate and moved to the United States to compete in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. He won the championship on his first attempt and finished a close second in 2019. In 2020, with his victory at Sebring, Nasr became the first driver to win an international motor race after contracting COVID-19—a list that now features Sergio Pérez and will likely include Lewis Hamilton in the near future as well.
Conway and Nasr will be partnered in the #31 car (photo by Gustavo Oviedo) with reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Chase Elliott and 2016 Rolex 24 winner Pipo Derani.

Sébastien Bourdais

JDC–Mustang Sampling Racing No. 5 (Photo by Seamus Cullen)
Starting Position: 3rd (DPi), 3rd (overall)
You would be forgiven if you did not know Sébastien Bourdais once competed in Formula One. Despite the rich history of French drivers in F1, Bourdais has found his greatest successes on the other side of the pond, primarily in Champ Car.
Bourdais had an excellent junior career some twenty years ago, winning many races in both lower-level French championships and in International Formula 3000. He dovetailed his championship-winning 2002 season in F3000 with testing opportunities at both Arrows and Renault, although neither materialized into an F1 seat. It was at that point that Bourdais moved to North America.
After finishing fourth in his rookie season of CART/Champ Car, he won the championship in each of the following four seasons in increasingly dominant fashion. His career totals include 31 wins, 31 poles, 33 fastest laps, and 44 podiums from 73 races. That run of success easily qualifies as one of the most dominant in USA open-wheel racing history. He would turn out to be the final CART/Champ Car series champion, as the series merged with the Indy Racing League in 2008.
The F1 world took note of Bourdais’ performances, and after a few tests with Toro Rosso, he had signed a contract for 2008. He would be paired with Sebastian Vettel, the team’s young star.
Bourdais had made terrific progress up the grid in his first weekend—running fourth after starting seventeenth—but an engine failure just a few laps from the end meant he was unable to retain the position. Due to an exceptionally high rate of attrition, however, Bourdais was classified seventh, meaning he still scored on début. Sadly, that was as good as it got. While teammate Vettel won from pole in Monza and scored in a number of other races to take eighth in the championship, Bourdais only scored two more points courtesy of a seventh-place finish at the Belgian Grand Prix.
His seat remained uncertain until early in 2009, when it was announced he would return to the team alongside rookie Sébastien Buemi. Things did not really get much better, as Buemi beat Bourdais frequently in both qualifying and races. Halfway through the season he was sacked to make room for Jaime Alguersuari, putting an end to both an underwhelming F1 career and every commentator’s nightmare—two drivers with exceedingly similar names in the same team.
He then drove in an assortment of open-wheel and endurance races before (re-)entering IndyCar in 2011. After two partial campaigns, he made his first full-season assault in 2013. He would find sporadic success in four inconsistent campaigns before switching to Dale Coyne Racing, a small outfit operating on a shoestring budget, in 2017. He would enjoy a promising opening to the season, taking a win and a second from his first two races, but injuries from a massive accident in qualifying for that year’s Indy 500 forced him to sit out the bulk of the season. His highest championship finish thus far in his second IndyCar stint has been a seventh place achieved in 2018.
Bourdais has also had an extensive and highly successful endurance career, both in Europe and in North America. In the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Bourdais scored a class win in GTLM with Ford in 2016 and finished as overall runner-up three times, in 2007, 2009, and 2011. In the 24 Hours of Daytona, Bourdais took an overall win in 2014 and a class win in GTLM in 2017.
He will contest the Rolex 24 with JDC–Mustang Sampling Racing, the same team with which he finished third in last year’s contest. He will be joined by fellow Frenchmen Loïc Duval and Tristan Vautier.

Juan Pablo Montoya

Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian No. 60 (Photos by Seamus Cullen)
Starting Position: 4th (DPi), 4th (overall)
Few other racing drivers can match Juan Pablo Montoya for variety in their careers. Among the myriad high-profile events in which he has competed is the Rolex 24, where he is a three-time overall winner.
Like many other South American drivers of his day, Montoya made his initial steps in racing in championships on the American continent, but the more plentiful opportunities in Europe meant he soon crossed the Atlantic. Solid campaigns in British Formula Vauxhall and British Formula 3 led to a highly successful two-year period in International Formula 3000, where he finished second and first in 1997 and 1998, respectively. Montoya had been tapped as a Williams tester, but the team fell on hard times in the late 1990s, and he would have to wait for a race seat.
In order to keep Montoya busy, Frank Williams agreed to send Montoya to America to drive for Chip Ganassi Racing, with the Williams team receiving CGR’s Alessandro Zanardi in a direct swap. To the shock of the motorsport world, Montoya won the CART championship on his first attempt after taking seven victories from twenty rounds. Technical issues blighted his 2000 season, but he crossed over to rival series Indy Racing League to contest the 2000 Indianapolis 500, which he won with ease.
In 2001, Montoya would get to make his F1 race début with Williams. As he had done in every other series in which he competed, Montoya proved himself a capable driver and a threat to win races. He struggled with unreliability and accidents in 2001, but in the 2002 season he would finish the championship third while taking seven poles, matching the all-conquering Michael Schumacher. 2003 was the closest Montoya would come to mounting a title challenge, as he won two races and scored a further seven podiums to finish in third place, just eleven points off Schumacher.
Montoya struggled to recapture that form in 2004, with the Williams team taking a step back. He would win his final race for the team at the 2004 Brazilian Grand Prix before switching to McLaren in 2005. The relationship was, for the most part, rather toxic. Montoya injured his shoulder while participating in McLaren’s training program, causing him to miss two races; he complained about the steering on his car; and in 2006, with results lacking, his relationship with McLaren broke down completely. He and teammate Kimi Räikkönen incited an eight-car accident at the 2006 United States Grand Prix, after which Montoya and McLaren severed their ties.
Montoya remained in the United States to compete in NASCAR, teaming up with his old boss Chip Ganassi. It was a virtually unprecedented career move, considering the differences in racing style, not to mention culture, between F1 and NASCAR. In seven years at Ganassi’s team he would score two wins, one at each of the road courses—Sonoma Raceway and Watkins Glen International—on the Cup Series calendar. He also competed annually in the Rolex 24, where he scored overall wins in 2007, 2008, and 2013 in Ganassi prototypes.
And then Montoya decided to go back to IndyCar, but not with Chip Ganassi Racing. He would instead move to Team Penske, the Ganassi squad’s longtime rival in American open-wheel racing. The association was broadly successful, as Montoya brought home an Indy 500 win for the team in 2015. Though Montoya led the championship for much of that season, courtesy of his consistent scoring, a late charge from Ganassi’s Scott Dixon saw the New Zealander take the title on a tiebreaker countback at the season finale at Sonoma. It was a cruel way to lose a championship, although Montoya’s CART title in 1999 came about from almost the same circumstances.
After one more season in IndyCar, Montoya shifted to Penske’s new entry in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship for 2017. Although he is yet to win the Rolex 24 since his move, Montoya has brought home fifteen podiums in addition to a championship title in 2019. He left the Team Penske fold at the end of 2020 and joined Meyer Shank Racing for the 2021 edition of the Rolex 24.
That is not the biggest twist in Montoya’s recent career, though. Because a few weeks ago, he announced that he would be joining SP Arrow McLaren for the 2021 Indianapolis 500, at the very same track where fifteen years earlier he quit the team in a huff.
How is that for a reunion?

Alexander Rossi

(Photo by Seamus Cullen)
Wayne Taylor Racing No. 10
Starting Position: 5th (DPi), 5th (overall)
Alexander Rossi is the United States of America’s finest open-wheel racing product of the past decade. The 2016 Indianapolis 500 winner and Andretti Autosport star enjoyed a short stint in Formula One with Manor Marussia in 2015, becoming the first US driver since Scott Speed to compete in an F1 race (and the only one this writer has seen live).
Rossi received a Formula One testing opportunity with Sauber at the age of 17 after winning the Formula BMW World Final in 2008. He finished as best rookie in International Formula Master in 2009 before stepping up to GP3 for the championship’s inaugural season, where he took two sprint race wins en route to fourth overall. Next came a move to Formula Renault 3.5 with Fortec Motorsports, and it was in this championship that Rossi really caught the eye of F1 teams. He took first and second places in the opening weekend at Aragón, and although Robert Wickens and Jean-Éric Vergne would come to dominate the remainder of the season, Rossi scored several more podiums and points finishes to come home third.
Thanks to his impressive 2011 campaign, Caterham snapped him up as their test and reserve driver for 2012. While Rossi would show speed and promise in his F1 testing, the Formula Renault 3.5 he contested with new team Arden Caterham in parallel did not go so smoothly. His sole podium was a third place at Monaco, and the team’s midseason signing of Red Bull junior António Félix da Costa exposed a glaring pace differential between Rossi and that season’s frontrunners.
Rossi would be brought over to GP2 for 2013 as a replacement for the woefully underperforming Ma Qinghua. Rossi managed a third-place finish on début, and strong if inconsistent performances throughout the remainder of the season culminated in a superb win in the Abu Dhabi feature race. But just like in Formula Renault 3.5, his second season in GP2 went considerably worse than his first. After a change of management at Caterham, Rossi was dropped by the team and its GP2 affiliate. His F1 dreams looked to be over.
Fortunately, he was thrown a lifeline by Marussia, and just a month later Rossi would be entered in the 2014 Belgian Grand Prix when Max Chilton experienced sponsorship payment delays. Chilton would eventually race, but Marussia was considering him as a viable replacement if necessary. Unfortunately, Rossi’s next entry arose under the tragic circumstances of Jules Bianchi’s accident at Suzuka, but there too he would be withdrawn as the team decided to leave Bianchi’s car vacant for the weekend.
In 2015, it would all begin to come good. Rossi switched to Racing Engineering to mount a full-season GP2 campaign, and with eventual champion Stoffel Vandoorne untouchable all season, Rossi emerged as the best of the rest. He would also—finally!—receive a call-up to F1 and see out the weekend, doing so on five occasions for Manor Marussia towards the end of the year. His performances were laudable, as he generally had the upper hand against teammate Will Stevens, who was contracted for the full season. Though he did not receive a race seat in 2016, Manor signed him as their reserve. Rossi was the only driver from the team’s 2015 stable retained for the following year.
Rather than wait around in the garage for something to happen, Rossi decided to seek out new racing opportunities back home. He signed a contract with IndyCar’s Andretti Autosport and, after a slow start to the season, pulled off a surprise win at the 100th Indianapolis 500 thanks to a smart fuel strategy. Rossi stood in disbelief in victory lane, unable to grasp the magnitude of what he had accomplished and what it meant for his career. Perhaps that realization would only come a little over two months later, when he rejected Manor’s offer to finish the 2016 F1 season in order to focus on IndyCar.
In the past four seasons, Rossi has marked himself out as one of IndyCar’s best. His title challenges in 2018 and 2019, though ultimately unsuccessful, were superb, showing off his raw talent despite his relative inexperience in American open-wheel racing. The prowess he demonstrated around Monaco back in the F1 feeder series shone again as he dominated both the 2018 and 2019 Long Beach Grands Prix. He has emerged as Andretti’s new team leader, as evidenced by his move to the #27 car previously reserved for team principal Michael Andretti’s son Marco. Most importantly, after an F1 career spent largely as a test driver for the backmarkers, he is making good on his aims to fight at the front of the grid, where he belongs.
Rossi has competed sporadically in endurance racing, with his best result across three previous Rolex 24s being third, which he achieved with Team Penske in 2019.

Kamui Kobayashi

Ally Cadillac Racing No. 48 (Photos by Seamus Cullen)
Starting Position: 6th (DPi), 6th (overall)
Always a fan favorite due to his aggressive style on track, Kamui Kobayashi is currently undefeated at the Rolex 24 after victories in both 2019 and 2020.
On paper, Kobayashi’s junior record was not exactly exemplary. After triumphing in both Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 and Formula Renault 2.0 Italia in 2005—neither in particularly dominant fashion—he moved up to the Formula 3 Euro Series. He finished his two seasons there eighth and fourth, taking a solitary F3 win at Magny-Cours in 2007.
He then stepped into GP2, where his fortunes were mixed. His GP2 Asia campaigns were strong: he scored two sprint race wins his first season and cruised to the title in 2008–2009, his second attempt. In the main series, however, his best weekend would be his first, where he won the sprint race at the 2008 Catalunya round. He never finished a race higher than third thereafter and ended both seasons in sixteenth place overall. The difference in form was shocking.
But the Kobayashi we saw in F1 was far different. As Toyota’s test and reserve driver for 2008 and 2009, Kobayashi would get his big break at the end of the 2009 season, when Timo Glock suffered a back injury. He impressed the paddock with his speed and aggression, scoring points in just his second start. It was rumored that had Toyota stayed in Formula 1 for 2010, Kobayashi was a lock for a race seat.
Things turned out differently, however, and Kobayashi would instead sign for Sauber, the team with which he spent the bulk of his Formula One career. Renowned for his fighting spirit, his overtakes, and his “save of the century” at 130R in Suzuka, Kobayashi would earn a reputation as a fine midfield driver and arguably as Japan’s brightest F1 talent. Only in his final season at Sauber did a teammate—second-year driver Sergio Pérez—overshadow him, but even then Kobayashi managed a front-row start at Belgium and a sensational third place at Suzuka.
Kobayashi did not continue with Sauber into the 2013 season, moving instead to the World Endurance Championship with AF Corse in the LMGTE–Pro category, before securing a surprise return to F1 in 2014 with Caterham. Until the latter stages of the season, Kobayashi had the measure of his rookie teammate Marcus Ericsson, but the car’s performance was such that he could not do much with it. He rarely had an opportunity to show the overtaking prowess for which he became famous, and his F1 career ended with a whimper along with the Caterham team itself.
Kobayashi then went back to his native Japan for 2015 to drive in Super Formula. He has competed there since, although despite his successes in other categories’ Japanese races, a Super Formula victory has thus far eluded him. In parallel, he has also contested full campaigns in WEC for Toyota’s LMP1 team since 2016, where he has been far more successful. He took his first two wins on home soil at Fuji Speedway in 2016 and 2018 and secured the title last season alongside Conway and López. He has finished second three times in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the victory in the French classic still eluding him.
This year, Kobayashi has the dual objective of defending both his WEC title and the Rolex 24 crown. His switch to Action Express Racing for 2021 sees him paired up with a seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion in Jimmie Johnson, along with 2016 IndyCar champion Simon Pagenaud and 2013 DTM champion Mike Rockenfeller.

Marcus Ericsson and Kevin Magnussen

Chip Ganassi Racing No. 01 (Photos by Seamus Cullen)
Starting Position: 7th (DPi), 7th (overall)
This year, Formula One’s favorite Scandinavians of the last decade have paired up for Chip Ganassi’s new DPi entry. Ericsson, who drives in the IndyCar Series for Ganassi, is making a one-off appearance in IMSA, while Magnussen will be contesting the full season with the team. Sharing the car with them will be 2016 IMSA champion Renger van der Zande and six-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon.
Marcus Ericsson began his single-seater career by winning the Formula BMW UK title, where he dominated the second half of the season. After two seasons of British and Japanese F3, securing the 2009 championship in the latter, he moved up to GP2. Excluding a sprint race win in Valencia, Ericsson’s first season brought little in the way of results, but a switch to iSport for 2011 brought him more regular points finishes and even the occasional podium.
By late 2012, Ericsson had blossomed into one of the top drivers in the category. The title fight he was expected to mount in 2013 with DAMS never materialized thanks to exceptionally poor luck in the first half of the season, but his late-season charge showed that he would have had the necessary pace and racecraft.
While Ericsson was working his way through GP2, Kevin Magnussen, who is two years younger than the Swede, was blazing a path through the World Series by Renault. After dominating the Danish Formula Ford championship in 2008, Magnussen took second in Formula Renault 2.0’s Northern European Cup the following year, before finishing third in German F3 and second in British F3 in 2010 and 2011, respectively. In 2012, he made his Formula Renault 3.5 début with Carlin, putting together a strong campaign with a victory, two further podiums, and three pole positions. After setting the pace at the 2012 Young Driver Test with McLaren, it was hard to deny that he was destined for F1.
For 2013, Magnussen signed for DAMS in Formula Renault 3.5, just as Ericsson did the same year in GP2. Magnussen secured the crown in convincing fashion and earned himself a seat at McLaren in 2014.
Throughout his junior career, Ericsson’s modus operandi was to start a season with fairly average results before finding a sudden turn of pace towards the end, at which point he would regularly best his teammates. It was a pattern he repeated in his Formula One career.
At Caterham in 2014, Ericsson spent most of the season well behind Kamui Kobayashi, but at the fateful Japanese Grand Prix in October, he suddenly found a turn of pace and spent the weekend ahead of Kobayashi. He continued to impress at the Russian Grand Prix, and it appeared that Ericsson’s signing had finally been justified.
Magnussen, however, was just the opposite. In his Formula One début, he qualified fourth and finished second, comfortably ahead of teammate and 2009 champion Jenson Button in both sessions. Despite his auspicious beginnings in F1, the same level of success would not materialize for the rest of the year (nor at any other point during his career). Magnussen generally finished behind Button in both qualifying and races in 2014, and at season’s end he had to make way for the incoming Fernando Alonso.
The Russian Grand Prix would be Ericsson’s last appearance for Caterham. The team, along with its chief rival Marussia, went into administration before the United States Grand Prix a fortnight later. Ericsson had been pursuing other options by that point and secured himself a race seat with Sauber in 2015 (check back tomorrow for more on that). He severed his contract with Caterham before the end of the season and in doing so rescued himself from a sinking ship.
Magnussen was retained as McLaren’s reserve driver and, after Alonso’s pre-season testing crash, he had the chance to race in the 2015 Australian Grand Prix. Unfortunately for him, the MP4-30’s Honda power unit blew up on the reconnaissance lap, which meant Magnussen never started the race. He spent the season looking dejectedly at the cameras each time one (or both) of the McLarens suffered yet another mechanical failure.
While Magnussen sat on the sidelines as McLaren’s reserve for the rest of 2015, Ericsson completed his first season with Sauber, of which he spent the majority playing second fiddle to rookie teammate Felipe Nasr. But by 2016 they were much more evenly matched: even though it was Nasr who scored the team’s only points that year, Ericsson generally out-qualified and out-raced him.
Pascal Wehrlein would offer a bigger challenge the following season—a fairly chaotic period in Sauber’s history—but Ericsson held his own admirably, finding his groove and providing Sauber with much-needed stability and level-headedness.
Magnussen and Ericsson would be direct competitors for the first time in 2016, when the Dane secured a lifeline with Renault. It would be an unfulfilling season, however: Magnussen’s best result was seventh in the Russian Grand Prix, and he became increasingly susceptible to rookie teammate Jolyon Palmer’s advances. Feeling uncomfortable at Renault, Magnussen jumped ship to Haas in 2017, where he would line up alongside Romain Grosjean, who had made the very same team switch (albeit when Renault was still Lotus) the year prior. It would prove an inspired decision. Magnussen and Grosjean elevated Haas to fifth place in the Constructors’ Championship in 2018, a season in which Magnussen showed himself to be one of the best midfielders and old-school racers in modern F1.
Ericsson, meanwhile, was trounced by Ferrari protégé Charles Leclerc in the 2018 season. His career at Sauber was undoubtedly kept afloat, if not prolonged, by his backers’ connections to Sauber investors Longbow Finance, but the partnership with Alfa Romeo meant that Ericsson’s sponsorship money was no longer needed to keep the team afloat. Demoted to a test driver role at the rebranded Alfa Romeo Racing, Ericsson has competed full-time in IndyCar since 2019, with sporadic success.
Magnussen and Grosjean, over their four seasons together at Haas, made themselves out to be one of the sport’s most stable pairings. But with Haas desperate for money following the COVID-19 pandemic, both drivers were let go at the end of the 2020 season. Rather than wait around for a reserve role, Magnussen chose to compete in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. It is a direct step rarely seen among ex–F1 drivers these days, but it speaks to Magnussen’s competitive spirit and desire to win.
With such a strong and storied driver line-up, the Ganassi prototype will be an entry worth watching at this year’s race.
Tomorrow, we will cover the rest of the field.
We had the excellent photographers below supplying images to us today, make sure to check out their work.
Gustavo Oviedo
Carolina Roots
Seamus Cullen

Figured there would be a number of these types of threads in the coming days, so I wanted to put one up focusing on one particular area of the postseason: our current free agents. I’m not going to get into free agents that are available(one exception) or that will become available (there will probably be a few names that shouldn’t be on the market this year, but with the cap not ballooning like some teams bank on, they will have to shed some guys). I’m also not going to get into the draft, as that’s an entire thread in and of itself. I just want to toss some ideas out on our current guys and who/how we keep them.
Ok, so I’m no expert with numbers or contracts, but I’m using Over the Cap for my source, so any quibble with the numbers is with their data. As it is, we have 31 guys signed and 28.3 million in cap space. So, what are ideas in increasing that number? The first contracts I will list are the most expensive and that have no dead cap hit, so keep that in mind.
First, the biggest contact people are looking at is D. Smith. At 14M that’s a lot of money, but the Bucs hold all the cards here. First, Smith has played his best season, which regardless of the reason, was a breath of fresh air. The Bucs can approach this three ways; first, they can simply keep a starting LT, whom proved to be trustworthy this season at the cap hit at face value. Second, they could look to extend and restructure things a bit. Third, they can ask themselves if they are comfortable with who they have (after re-signing Stinnie and possibly looking in the draft) and possibly shift someone over to the LT position to free up the 14M. Personally, I’m okay with keeping DS, as LTs don’t grow on trees and looks to finally be playing to his potential. That being said, 14M is a lot. If they can restructure and get it to 10-11, by all means, he could easily be here a few more years.
The second contract looked at should be OJ Howard. I was on board with trading him in the off season when the rumor was a 2nd, but was glad we didn’t just trade him for nothing. That being said, he’s slated to make 6M this year. To put that in perspective, Suh made 8M this year. Now, the kids has a lot of potential, but shoulda, coulda, woulda, doesn't get you much in the NFL. Lots of talented guys never got their chance to shine due to being in the tub year after year, so OJ is in a tough situation. Brate (who could restructure again as he’s set to make 6.5) proved to be reliable and dependable this year and of course Gronk is Gronk. If OJ wants to stay, I think he’ll need to restructure significantly. In the long run it only helps him, as he’s not going to get the contact he wants next year unless he has some stats to back it up. Better to play with this offense on a cheaper deal and build your case at the negotiating table.
Will Gholston is set to make 5.5 in his last year. Possible restructure could be the way to go as I’ve got nothing against him and is a solid player. I merely mention him here as the 5.5 could come off the books with no dead hit and is thus a way to free up money if need be.
Lastly is Jensen. He’s making 10M, but is on his final year. Brady’s center shouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon, so extend him and play with the numbers as needed IMO
Realistically if we don’t outright cut anyone and focus on restructure/extending a number of contracts (Brady and Evans will more than likely and I assume there may be a few others) I would have to assume, that could free up at least 10-12 million, maybe even more. If there are cuts, than that number will go up, but I don’t want to turn this into a algebraic word problem. So, let’s pretend we now have roughly 40 million to work with, how are you spending that money? My priorities:
Primary (in no real order)
-Shaq
-David
-Gronk
-Succup
-AB
Secondary (I want all these guys back, but money may not allow for it)
-Godwin
-Suh
-Fournette
Tertiary (Guys we should bring back and more than likely should be able to money wise)
-Steve McLendon/Nacho
-Aaron Stinnie
-Tanner Hudson
Now, as for my top tier, obviously Shaq is going to get paid. In this Article, it’s clear he wants his fair share and rightfully so. I think the Bucs want to make it work and I’m not sure how back loading contracts works (this is where I’d love for some of you guys to fill in the blanks) or how signing bonuses and incentives can play a role, but I think they’re try their hardest to keep him on board.
-Lavonte also deserves his share and I think they will try and work something out as best as possible. Out of the two, I think David may be wiling to offer more wiggle room number wise, but nothing is certain.
-Gronk will come back on what I hope is a team friendly deal. He’s stated that he’s been living off his endorsement money and hasn’t really used his NFL money all that much, so perhaps that’s enough to convince him to take a friendly deal. Perhaps he can sang a few more endorsements both nationally and locally to help in that as well.
-Succup. Enough said. Sign the man.
-AB. This is where it gets tricky. I’m not going to touch on the character issues with the man as it has yet to become an issue. I’m going with what we’ve seen thus far. If he were to accept a deal that pays him respectably, but allows for things like incentives to balloon his earning, then I see no reason to refuse. If he wants Godwin money, then it might be better just to keep Godwin outright. I think he’ll go with the former or at least in between there somehow which leads to:
-Godwin. Hell of a player and I would love him to stay in TB, but if he’s looking for Hill or Julio money, I’m not sure we can keep both Shaq and Godwin. I’m a defensive guy at heart, so my gut tells me if I had to choose, I’d want Shaq. That being said, if Shaq can’t be retained, Godwin is a hell of a consolation prize. Should they have to part ways with Godwin, I think, given they sign AB, the WR corps with scooter and TyJo should be okay moving forward. My one exception on free agent talk would be the the Larry Fitzgerald pipe-dream NE fans dreamed about for the past decade. The man can still play and with our current depth, he’d be a fine addition to chase that ring on the cheap.
-Suh was instrumental and of course, vital along the D line. His 8M cap hit isn’t that bad when you look at it and if he wants to saddle up for two more seasons at a similar (or help out in any way) I’d be on board. If he wants to sign a two year deal and ride off into the sunset with another team for a nice pay raise, I won’t fault the man, but ultimately, his staying I think is up to him.
-Fournette is an anomaly. I think it’s in his best interest to take a 1-2 year deal to help his stats, as the market this year will not be as kind given the cap isn’t going to jump and allow a team to splurge on such a position. If a team wants to throw money his way, he’s earned it, but I can see them convincing him to stay put for at least another year.
​
-Both Nacho and McLendon played very admirably this year when being thrust into their new role. No one expected them to replace Vita, but they played hard and both I feel warrant a new deal. McLendon may be the easier of the two to bring back given he’s tasted success and is past his prime contact wise whereas Nacho I think will snag a decent contract from a team needing to replace some DL like Bal. Either way, securing DL depth is crucial so I’d like one of them back.
-Aaron Stinnie may very well be the unsung hero of the playoffs. Kid played his ass off when called upon and without question should be back. Whether it’s for depth or, if the Bucs think about dumping Smith’s 14M and shifting the line around, he showed that he can handle his own and may be apart of the shift.
-Tanner Hudson may be insurance, should OJ get axed. Gronk was healthy this year primarily due to not having to take a beating game in game out, but you never know. Either way, it shouldn’t be expensive to sign him.
If they were to sign only the Primary and Tertiary players I think at the end of the day, that would be a win. I would hurt letting the others walk, but again, FA, trades and the Draft might be able to fill the void. If keeping the majority of the roster at the expense of a few other, albeit important players, I think you jump on the opportunity. GMs have to make tough choices and our situation is no different. There will be a few tough choices, choices we're not going to be happy with. It happens. So let's hope for the best and see what happens.
Well, that’s all I have in regards to my take on our free agents. Again, this doesn't take in account other teams’ free agents, trades or draft picks, which could very well only make things even more exciting. I understand that the FA game is a lot trickier than I’ve made it and of course, a good GM must look at the short and long term when making decisions. Of course, the draft and other free agents on the market always play into those decisions, but again, I’m just having fun with staying in the Tampa bubble of sorts. What do you guys think? Who are you keeping? Who goes? What are your methods of working things out?

It’s that time of year once again, snow is falling, bells are ringing, it’s the Holiday Season! That means the wrestling world is beginning to turn its collective head towards the biggest night(s) of the Japanese wrestling calendar. The 15th iteration of Wrestle Kingdom and NJPW’s 30th consecutive Tokyo Dome show on January 4th and 2nd on January 5th is upon us. That also means it’s time for my own equally prestigious 5th annual Guide to Wrestle Kingdom!
So if it’ll be your first or thousandth time watching New Japan, or you’ve been sent this by your friend in a desperate attempt to get you to watch something that isn’t WWE for fucks sake ^ahem here is all you need to know heading into Wrestle Kingdom 15!
The Championships:
This year is the first since 2016 to see any change to the core NJPW title collection with the unification of both top titles at last year’s Wrestle Kingdom and the introduction of the year long KOPW competition.
IWGP Heavyweight & IWGP Intercontinental Championship - NJPW’s top prizes, matched only in prestige by the G1 Climax tournament, were unified a year ago in the Double Gold Dash™ of Wrestle Kingdom 14 by reigning champion Tetsuya Naito. Once again, Naito will have to win on both nights if he hopes to walk out of Wrestle Kingdom 15 still champion. A very steep climb as he takes on the winner of the last two G1 Climaxes Kota Ibushi on night one, before the winner faces the ever opportunistic Jay White on night 2.
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship - The belt for NJPW’s wrestlers under 100kg has continued to grow and grow in importance and prestige in recent years. Currently held by Taiji Ishimori, it will be defended on night 2. The challenger will be decided on night 1, when Best of the Super Junior winner Hiromu Takahashi faces Super J Cup winner El Phantasmo.
NEVER Openweight Championship - A belt for NJPW’s brawlers and hard hitters, the belt has been exemplified by the reigning champion Shingo Takagi’s war with Minoru Suzuki throughout 2020. Takagi’s Tokyo Dome challenger is a man who beat him during the G1 Climax tournament and has since found a new more vicious edge as part of the brand new stable The Empire, Jeff Cobb.
IWGP United States Championship - While held by AEW wrestler Jon Moxley, Covid has meant NJPW have created an interim title of sorts in the form of a #1 contendership briefcase which was won and continues to be defended by KENTA. KENTA is set for a match with Satoshi Kojima after an injury to Juice Robinson ruled him out.
IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship - Dangerous Tekkerz (Taichi & ZSJ) solidified themselves as the new top dogs of the NJPW tag division in the absence of many of NJPW’s foreign tag teams that had become the backbone of the division. However the Guerillas of Destiny, the most dominant tag team in modern NJPW, returned in time for World Tag League this winter, winning the tournament and earning a title shot at the Tokyo Dome on Night 1
IWGP Junior Tag Team Championship - Vacated over the summer following the unfortunate injury of Roppongi 3k’s YOH. Kanemaru & Desperado, who dominated the Jr Tag division in 2018, have re-established themselves as the champions following a win in the Jr Tag League. They face off against the team of Master Wato & Ryusuke Taguchi.
King Of Pro Wrestling - Introduced over the summer by a bored Kazuchika Okada. The title is competed for in gimmick matches voted on by the fans. Such as 3-on-1 handicap matches, no finishers allowed matches or 2-count pinfall matches. At the start of each year (in 2020’s case in August) the first holder is determined in an initial match, the trophy is then defended all year as a linear championship and whoever holds the trophy at the end of the year is crowned that year's King of Pro Wrestling. As we are crossing into a new year, the trophy is now vacant for the start of 2021. Ironically, Toru Yano was crowned the very first King Of Pro Wrestling following a final victory over Bad Luck Fale on the final show of the year. The first 2021 provisional champion will be determined over the two nights of WK, with a 22-man rumble that will stop when we reach the final 4. These 4 will meet on night 2 to crown the provisional champion.
Stables:
For the first time in 5 years, meaning the first time since I started these yearly guides, I have a brand new faction to talk about; taking us up to 6 active factions in NJPW, 3 face leaning and 3 heel leaning groups. Be aware though the face/heel dynamic is a lot more in flux than say your typical western promotion, with alignment changing sometimes on a match to match basis due to things like the town the show is in or a unique rivalry dynamic.
This year also saw the biggest shake up in the existing factions since Jay White assumed control of the Bullet Club in 2018 with EVIL abandoning LIJ. Making 2021 a potentially very exciting year for NJPW.
Los Ingobernables de Japon:
LIJ have become the premier faction in NJPW despite being the youngest until the forming of The Empire. Formed in 2015 by Tetsuya Naito as an offshoot of wildly popular CMLL faction Los Ingobernables, LIJ have established themselves as a serious force to be reckoned with in NJPW. The faction has become increasingly face leaning over the years due to the overwhelming popularity of its members but they still acknowledge their Rudo heritage.

• Tetsuya Naito - 2020 should have been the year of dreams for Tetsuya Naito, becoming the first double champion by finally beating Kazuchika Okada at the Tokyo Dome at last year’s Wrestle Kingdom. However, a post match beatdown by KENTA cut his celebrations short on the night and then in the post covid world being betrayed by his longest standing ally in EVIL. Naito holds the belts still after trading the title with EVIL but things won’t get any easier for him as he will need to defend his title on both nights to remain double champion post WK15 with Ibushi on night 1 and White awaiting the winner on night 2.
  
• Hiromu Takahashi - A wise man once said that if Hiromu were to lead a faction, it would be called Diablo Loco because he’s crazy and with his brain, he’d make everyone around him just as crazy. That craziness has seen Hiromu get results. His high risk style has led him to reclaiming the Jr title at last year’s Wrestle Kingdom, a Best of the Super Junior win and nearly winning the Double Title this year, despite wrestling his first match back from a 16 month neck injury in December of 2019. He’ll need 2 wins at Wrestle Kingdom to regain the Junior Title from Ishimori who beat him for it back in August, facing Super J Cup winner El Phantasmo on night 1 before a potential rematch with Taiji Ishimori on night 2.
  
• SANADA - SANADA’s rise has continued year on year since his arrival in 2016, hitting a new peak by reaching the G1 Climax final this year. Suffering defeat to Kota Ibushi has left everyone continuing to wonder when he’ll finally burst through the glass ceiling and become a bonafide main eventer. His match with former Tag Team partner EVIL, however, is a deeply personal one. The normally stoic SANADA finally lost his cool at the World Tag League finals in regards to EVIL’s betrayal of LIJ and he will be seeking a measure of revenge on Night 2.
  
• Shingo Takagi - The newest member of LIJ joined the group in late 2018, he stormed his way through the NJPW Junior Division going unpinned for 9 months before a defeat in the 2019 Best of the Super Junior Final. Shortly after he went heavyweight and quickly became the heart of the NEVER Openweight title picture going to war with the likes of Goto, Ishii & Suzuki to see him holding the title heading into this year’s Wrestle Kingdom. Takagi will have to defend the gold against Jeff Cobb who has scored falls over him both in the G1 and the World Tag League this year.
  
• BUSHI - Poison mist spitter and owner of really dope masks. BUSHI has established himself as a key part of the LIJ faction even if he doesn’t get the same accolades as his stable mates, in many ways he’s the glue that holds it all together. At WrestleKingdom he’s likely to be in the KOPW New Japan Rumble.
  

Main Unit:
While officially not a faction, this is a loose alliance of all the face wrestlers not in an existing faction that functions like a very large and varied faction in its own right. They often act as the line of defence between nefarious heels and the integrity of NJPW. In year’s past the de facto leader has been Hiroshi Tanahashi but as his star has finally started to fade and the torch has been passed on to “The Golden Star” Kota Ibushi.

• Kota Ibushi - The only man in NJPW to have as tumultuous a year as Tetsuya Naito. Ibushi made history in the fall when he became the first man to reach 3 straight G1 finals and join an elite club to win the tournament not just twice but in consecutive years. Ibushi also made history when he became the first man to lose the G1 Climax briefcase that entitles you to the Main Event title match at Wrestle Kingdom, following defeat to Jay White at Power Struggle. Ibushi however has not given up on his hunt for revenge, revenge for losing on both night’s of Wrestle Kingdom 14 and revenge for Jay stealing his briefcase. Naito looking forward to locking horns with his rival, led to Naito issuing him a challenge for night 1 anyway but he’ll need two wins to walk out of the Tokyo Dome a champion.
  
• Hiroshi Tanahashi - The once in the century talent is not what he used to be, since winning the IWGP Title for the last time 2 years ago, he’s had 2 very underwhelming G1 performances, a tournament he traditionally stays alive in until the very end, including a victory on his road to the title in 2018. As such Tanahashi has been dealing with the difficulty of being past the peak of his career. At Wrestle Kingdom he faces a young and hungry Great O-Khan who has preyed on Tanahashi’s injured knee in the build up.
  
• Satoshi Kojima - One of the most decorated wrestlers of the 2000s, Satoshi Kojima is as mean and hard hitting as they come. Kojima is the only man to simultaneously hold both NJPW’s IWGP Heavyweight championship and All Japan’s Triple Crown, which are historically seen as the two most important titles in Japan, even if that is less true of the Triple Crown in 2020. Following injury to Juice Robinson, Kojima took his chance to challenge KENTA on the final show of 2020.
  
• Ryusuke Taguchi - While NJPW’s head coach is often seen goofing around, he is one of NJPW’s top junior stars when he turns up the heat on big occasions. His recent partnership with Master Wato has seen him get back to one of those occasions as they challenge for the Junior tag team titles on night 2.
  
• Master Wato - He’s blue da ba dee da ba di
  
• Hiroyoshi Tenzan - After Wato bit off more than he could chew in his debut shows by getting into it with Suzuki-Gun, The former IWGP heavyweight champion Tenzan took it upon himself to mentor Wato and has cornered and teamed with him since. There’s also a chance Tenzan may appear in the KOPW rumble.
  
• Henare - Henare was meant to have a breakout year in 2020, he had tons of momentum to end 2019 and even scored a big pinfall at the Tokyo Dome last year. He was ready to make an impact in the first edition of the NJC that got cancelled back in march. He’s returned now towards the end of the year but his momentum has been stilted, the KOPW rumble could be a great chance for him to get back on track.
  

CHAOS:
Since Jay White’s ascent to the top of the Bullet Club in 2018, Chaos has become a more clear cut babyface faction, even having an alliance of sorts with the main unit. Led by Kazuchika Okada, they’ve failed to make a real impact on NJPW in 2020 outside of some undercard success. The main thing to happen to them this year was the betrayal of former member WIll Ospreay.

• Kazuchika Okada - Call this man DJ Kazu because Okada has been suffering from success in 2020. Having been on top of NJPW for the past 8 years, breaking almost every record there is in regards to the IWGP Heavyweight title, Okada has found himself outside the title picture for a prolonged period of time for the first time since he returned from his excursion. As such Okada is in his wrestling midlife crisis trying desperately to find new challenges, inventing the KOPW title over the summer and spending most of the year refusing to do his trademark rainmaker in favour of a new submission move called the “Money Clip”. He failed to reach the G1 final on the final block night after being betrayed by former stablemate Will Ospreay who he will seek revenge against on night 1.
  
• Toru Yano - Curry Chef, Video Producer, Hokkaido Ambassador for Sightseeing and The first ever King of Pro Wrestling went undefeated in defending the trophy after becoming the first ever provisional title holder back in August. Having defeated Bad Luck Fale on the final show of the year he’ll look to start 2021 in the same fashion he ended 2020 and try to become the first provisional title holder of KOPW 2021.
  
• Tomohiro Ishii - Stone Pitbull Tomohiro Ishii really doesn’t need more of an introduction than his nickname. Endlessly aggressive and hard hitting he has become a gatekeeper to the upper echelons of the NJPW card. If you want to win a singles title in New Japan, you’ll likely have to get through Ishii along the way. He is a part of the NEVER 6-Man champions with Goto & Yoshi-Hashi and will be looking to bring a much more no nonsense mindset to KOPW in 2021.
  
• Hirooki Goto - NJPW’s nearly man, Goto is perhaps the most decorated man in NJPW to never win the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, with a notorious 0-9 record with the IWGP heavyweight title on the line. Much like his stablemate Ishii, Goto is incredibly hard hitting, with the added bonus of having one of the best movesets in wrestling. Also like Ishii, Goto is a part of the 6-man champions and will be looking to win the KOPW 2021 provisional title at the dome.
  
• YOSHI-HASHI - YOSHI-HASHI is the eternal underdog of NJPW, returning from excursion on the same night as Kazuchika Okada, YH has had an entirely different career trajectory. It wasn’t until earlier this year that Yoshi-Hashi secured his first ever NJPW title, after 8 years as a main roster guy, when he won the 6-man titles. He’ll be seeing the KOPW 2021 rumble and 4-way as a great chance to push on as a singles guy.
  
• SHO - SHO has had a very mixed 2021, starting the year with an IWGP Jr Tag Title win with his partner YOH in the Roppongi 3k team, it looked like 2020 would be the year the duo solidified themselves as the top Junior Tag Team after multiple short reigns prior. However, Covid and an injury to his partner derailed SHO’s year. Despite this SHO has had impressive showings in both the New Japan Cup and Best of the Super Juniors. SHO has also formed an alliance with Kota Ibushi of people who look 10 years younger than they really are. Scoring the fall in the final match of 2020 signals that 2021 may well be a big year for SHO and he’ll look to kick it off with the KOPW provisional title.
  

Bullet Club:
The Bullet Club is in a very interesting place heading into 2021. Over the summer, in the absence of many key members due to Covid-19, the Japanese members of Bullet Club recruited EVIL from LIJ helping him to a shocking double title reign. This was done without many western members such as leader Jay White being clued in on it. This story could see major developments as soon as New Year’s Dash on Jan 6th and will be a big thing to pay attention to throughout 2021.

• Jay White - Despite missing out on a second straight G1 final in the last A block match, NJPW’s master manipulator made history of his own when he became the first man to take the Wrestle Kingdom main event briefcase from the G1 Climax winner by beating Kota Ibushi at Power Struggle. This puts him in prime position to walk out of Wrestle Kingdom as double champion by facing the winner of Naito/Ibushi in night 2’s main event. For Jay this match is not only a fantastic opportunity to claim NJPW’s top prize but a chance to solidify himself at the top of Bullet Club.
  
• Gedo - The ultimate hype man and some might say the real manipulator within the Bullet Club, Gedo will be in Jay’s corner for the night 2 main event.
  
• KENTA - Between a bitter betrayal of his former best friend Shibata, ruining Tetsuya Naito’s Tokyo Dome Celebrations and just being really fucking obnoxious on twitter; KENTA has reinvented himself since his arrival in NJPW, making him one of the most dastardly villains in the company. “Jon Mock”’s inability to currently defend the IWGP US title has led to KENTA winning a briefcase that makes him the number contender. KENTA has defended the briefcase 5 times, which is more than any US champion has defended the title in a single reign, something which is starting to piss KENTA off. At the Dome he’s facing the legendary Satoshi Kojima, who challenged him after a shot from KENTA’s briefcase injured his initial challenger Juice Robinson.
  
• EVIL - Taking the help of Dick Togo and Yujiro Takahashi to get a shock New Japan Cup win, before officially joining the Bullet Club, EVIL became only the 7th man to hold NJPW’s top prize since the promotion was acquired by Bushiroad in 2012. Although he only managed one defense before Tetsuya Naito reclaimed the gold, you have to feel this wasn’t the last time we’ll see EVIL standing at the top of the mountain. At Wrestle Kingdom it's very personal for EVIL as he faces his former tag team partner SANADA on night 2.
  
• Dick Togo - EVIL’s enforcer will no doubt get involved once again when EVIL faces SANADA on night 2, keep an eye on him at ringside.
  
• Taiji Ishimori - Reigning IWGP Junior champion Taiji Ishimori turned heads when he took the title from Hiromu Takahashi at Summer Struggle, proving he remains a real force to be reckoned with in NJPW’s junior division. Ishimori will be watching very closely on night 1 as his challenger for night 2 will be decided between Best of the Super Juniors winner Hiromu Takahashi and Super J Cup winner and Ishimori’s tag team partner El Phantasmo.
  
• El Phantasmo - The heeliest heel to ever heel, El Phantasmo thrives in being hated. Whether it be bending the rules or throwing a young child’s hat flying across the venue ELP will do whatever it takes to be booed. But he’s also incredibly effective, a back to back Super J Cup winner, ELP will be aching to try and leave WK as Junior champion.
  
• Guerrillas of Destiny - Perhaps the most dominant team in the past decade of NJPW’s tag team division, GoD returned in time for WTL this winter and won it all, earning a Tag Title match against Dangerous Tekkerz for night 1. Tekkerz have made quite an impact in GoD’s absence and so Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa will be looking to reclaim their place on top.
  
• Bad Luck Fale - Still Big
  
• Yujiro Takahashi - In the absence of many of Bullet Club’s key members, Yujiro stepped up over the summer having a feud with Kazuchika Okada. Yujiro also seems to have an affinity for EVIL having made the run in that helped him win the New Japan Cup and partnered with him throughout World Tag League, which will make him interesting to keep an eye on in regards to friction within Bullet Club
  

The Empire:
The Empire is the first new faction in NJPW for 5 years and they look dangerous. Led by Will Ospreay and backed up with two powerhouses in The Great O-Khan and Jeff Cobb they will no doubt be causing havoc throughout NJPW in 2021. The Tokyo Dome will be their chance to make a statement of intent, with Ospreay and O-Khan taking on the last two aces of NJPW Okada and Tanahashi respectively at Wrestle Kingdom.

• Will Ospreay - One of the most dynamic wrestlers going bell to bell, his incredibly fast paced style has wowed audiences for years, impressing Okada so much in a match between them it got him signed to NJPW. Ospreay however had been taking advantage of Okada’s kindness, using him to increase his own wealth and fame. Now that he has that the only thing left for him is to be seen as the very best and as Ric Flair would say “To be the man you gotta beat the man” and so Ospreay turned on Okada. And will get his chance to prove he’s the man on Wrestle Kingdom night 1.
  
• Bea Priestley - A member of Stardom’s Oedo Tai faction, one of just 3 foreign women to have won Stardom’s World of Stardom Championship. Bea is also WIll Ospreay’s girlfriend and played a key role in helping Ospreay beat Okada in the G1 and will no doubt be in Ospreay’s corner on January 4th.
  
• The Great O-Khan - The Great O-Khan is the former young lion Tomoyuki Oka returning from his excursion in the UK. In the UK Oka took on this mongolia inspired character and ran roughshod in Revolution Pro Wrestling, stacking up an impressive 46-0 record. In many ways O-Khan is the Diesel to Ospreay’s Shawn Michaels, despite being an enforcer of sorts now he seems destined to be a key player in NJPW’s future. Having already gone toe to toe with Okada he steps into Wrestle Kingdom night 1 to face off with Hiroshi Tanahashi.
  
• Jeff Cobb - In his time in NJPW, Jeff Cobb has been a relaxed, happy go lucky guy and while his strength and athleticism is very impressive, it has felt like he never quite made the impact he should have in NJPW. However when Great O-Khan was announced to have a mystery partner for the World Tag League, it was revealed to be a Jeff Cobb with a new more violent edge. Having pinned the reigning NEVER Openweight Champion Shingo Takagi in both the G1 and World Tag League, Cobb has earned himself a shot at the gold on night 2.
  

Suzuki-Gun:
Suzuki-Gun have had a pretty great year on paper, holding both sets of tag team titles and Suzuki holding the NEVER Openweight Title over the summer. However, they have failed to make a massive impact on the larger landscape of NJPW. Suzuki managed just 6 points during his G1 campaign and ZSJ had difficulties dealing with Toru Yano for the KOPW title. They’ll be looking to hold on to what they have at Wrestle Kingdom in order to build on it into 2021.

• Minoru Suzuki - ‘The King’ Minoru Suzuki occupies a unique space in NJPW. Despite managing just 6 points in the G1 Climax this year and being over 50 years old, Suzuki remains a threat to every wrestler on NJPW’s roster. At Wrestle Kingdom he’ll likely be looking at trying to become the first KOPW provisional title holder of 2021, a fitting title for Suzuki.
  
• Dangerous Tekkerz - Taichi and Zack Sabre Jr have taken control of the NJPW tag division in the absence of many other top teams but it was done in impressive fashion, coming out on top with a feud against the team of Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kota Ibushi. Will the pair be able to prove they truly are the best when they face GoD on night 1.
  
• Yoshinobu Kanemaru & El Desperado - Following the injury of Roppongi 3K member YOH, Kanemaru and Despy re-established themselves at the top of the Junior tag title division. El Desperado also had a breakout year as a singles guy. With a NEVER Openweight title match against Shingo Takagi and a run to the Best of the Super Junior final where he had a star making performance in defeat to Hiromu Takahashi. The duo will be defending their titles on night 2 against Taguchi & Wato.
  

The Matches:
Now we’ve got through all the wrestlers who will be on the show we need to talk about the actual matches. We’ve got 12 matches spread across the main cards of the 2 nights here’s the rundown.
Night 1
22-Man KOPW Rumble (Pre Show)
With the turn of the new year, Toru Yano has been crowned the first KOPW champion and it is now vacant for 2021. In order to crown who will start the year as provisional champion there will be two matches, one on each night. The first is a 22-man rumble. A new Japan rumble starts with 2 men and adds a new participant at regular intervals like a Royal Rumble but wrestlers can be eliminated by Pinfall and Submission as well as being thrown over the top rope. This match will not have 1 winner however but 4 who will advance to a four way dance on night 2.
Hiromu Takahashi vs El Phantasmo - Number One Contender’s match for the IWGP Junior Championship - Winner Faces Taiji Ishimori on night 2
Over November and December NJPW held two Junior Heavyweight tournaments, The Best of the Super Juniors and the Super J Cup. BoSJ is typically held in May leading into June for the Final but was postponed due to Covid while the Super J Cup was held in the US for the second straight year, pushed into December due to the G1 Climax being held in Autumn. In Japan, Hiromu won his second straight BoSJ adding to his 2018 win (he missed 2019’s tournament due to injury) while El Phantasmo won his second straight Super J Cup. Hiromu is looking to reach a rematch with Taiji Ishimori who beat him for the title in the summer, while ELP makes his first NJPW appearance in Japan since the Covid shutdown and could be on a collision course with his tag team partner.
Dangerous Tekkerz (Taichi & Zack Sabre Jr.) (c) vs Guerillas of Destiny (Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa) w/ Jado
NJPW’s tag team division has had a strong reliance on foreign tag teams such as GoD in recent years. In the absence of those teams, Dangerous Tekkerz established themselves as the new top dogs by convincingly winning a feud against two of NJPW’s top singles stars Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kota Ibushi. GoD have in the past 5 years been incredibly dominant, with 6 reigns to their name, including holding the belts for almost the entirety of 2019. They like many foreign acts returned at the end of the year for World Tag League, where they proved they’re still the bar for NJPW’s tag team division. Will Dangerous Tekkerz prove they belong on top or will GoD retake their throne?
KENTA vs Satoshi Kojima - US Heavyweight Championship #1 Contender Contract Match
With Jon Moxley stuck in the USA and unable to compete for New Japan on American soil, NJPW did the first ever “New Japan Cup USA” to crown a number one contender in the meantime. This position has been defended as an interim title while NJPW awaits an opportunity for Moxley to return. After winning the tournament, KENTA has gone on to make 5 defences, more than any US Champion has actually made in the championship’s history. This fact has somehow doubled the size of the already enormous chip on KENTA’s shoulder.
KENTA was supposed to defend his contract against Juice Robinson but an injury has created a hole that has been filled by Satoshi Kojima. Despite both being 2 of the defining wrestlers of 2000s puro, Kojima and KENTA have scarcely faced each other and have never met in singles competition. And while both are not the men they once were, consider this a dream match of sorts.
Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Great O-Khan - Special Singles Match
It was a commanding win in WTL and a vicious assault on Tanhashi’s left leg on the final show of the tournament that set up this match which will make it a no doubt personal affair at WK15. However, there’s a lot more at stake on a symbolic level when these two meet.
The past 2 years have not been great for Tanahashi since the end of his last IWGP Heavyweight title reign in 2019. Two extremely poor G1 showings for his standards where he managed just 8 points. He lost his first non-title Tokyo Dome match in a decade to Chris Jericho a year ago and was viewed as holding Kota Ibushi back in the Golden Aces tag team throughout 2020. At Wrestle Kingdom this year he finds himself in a very interesting position facing the extremely dangerous Great O-Khan in a match reminiscent of his Tokyo Dome clash with Jay White 3 years ago.
O-Khan debuted at the G1 Climax final to aid Will Ospreay and form “The Empire” faction. And while he may seem secondary to Ospreay right now, it’s no coincidence he’s found himself across the ring from two of NJPW’s biggest names in his first two singles matches in NJPW. The future is very bright for O-Khan and this is a big chance to score a statement win on his road to the very top of NJPW. For Hiroshi Tanahashi, he needs this win to prove that the younger generation hasn’t quite passed him by yet. He was able to beat Jay White 3 years ago but can he stop the more violent O-Khan.
Kazuchika Okada vs Will Ospreay - Special Singles Match
In October 2015, Okada was in the UK to appear for Revolution Pro Wrestling and on that night he faced one of Britain’s fastest rising stars Will Ospreay. Okada was so impressed by Ospreay that he personally brought him into NJPW as a member of the CHAOS faction. Since then the pair had formed a Big BrotheLittle Brother relationship and while Okada established himself as the new Ace of NJPW, Ospreay continued to rise up the ranks himself. Having multiple Junior title reigns and two Best of the Super Juniors wins before making the transition to heavyweight.
Along this period of time the pair had a few more matches, meeting in the traditional IWGP Heavyweight vs IWGP Junior champion anniversary show exhibition match in 2018 and matches in the 2019 New Japan Cup and G1 Climax tournaments. And while in each progressive match Ospreay took Okada closer and closer to his limit, particularly their match at the G1 Climax, much like that first time they met at RevPro, Okada would come out on top. For Ospreay, Okada was always his measuring stick, “To be the man you gotta beat the man” and in NJPW, Okada is The Man. However, what was once seen as his measuring stick at some point he began to view as a glass ceiling.
Fast forward to the final A block night of G1 Climax 30 and Ospreay finds himself once again across the ring from Okada, standing between his Big Brother and a potential spot in the final. Ospreay of course has no intention to throw the match, wanting to prove himself but what no one knew was what he had planned to make sure he finally got his W, a moment he claims was 5 years in the making. The pair go back and forth trading counters and big moves, as they know each other inside and out at this point. However, as has happened every time prior, Okada starts to get the advantage in the closing stretch. At this point Ospreay’s girlfriend, Bea Priestley, who had been watching backstage comes out to cheer Ospreay on. As Okada goes to apply the Money Clip, the submission he had used to put away everyone he beat in the tournament, Bea hops up on the apron to distract the referee before The Great O-Khan, former young lion Tomoyuki Oka, appears from nowhere and lays waste to Okada, allowing Ospreay to hit the Hidden Blade and Stormbreaker to finally get his win over Okada.
While the message has been sent Ospreay knows the manner in which he won doesn’t prove he’s the Best in the World and so wants one more match with Okada and he wants it at the biggest stage possible, Wrestle Kingdom. Okada, eager for revenge, gladly took him up on his offer for what will no doubt be a heated and personal affair between two of the best wrestlers on the planet today.
Tetsuya Naito (c) vs Kota Ibushi - IWGP Heavyweight & IWGP Intercontinental Championship Match
16 months ago, Kota Ibushi won his first G1 Climax tournament and looked set to finally fulfill his seemingly endless potential and win the IWGP Heavyweight championship. However for Ibushi it was not to be and not only did he fail to beat Okada on night 1 of the Double Gold Dash™, he would lose a loser vs loser match on night 2 to Jay White, turning what should have been his crowning achievement into his greatest failure. On that same night it was the man he had spent most of 2019 going to war against, Tetsuya Naito, who would claim his Destino and finally beat Okada in the Tokyo Dome and become the very first Double Champion.
A year on from that first G1 Climax win, Ibushi’s chance to move towards revenge for last year’s Wrestle Kingdom would come with this year’s edition of the tournament. Ibushi made his 3rd straight G1 final. And despite leg injuries sustained against Taichi, Ibushi would beat SANADA and become just the 3rd man to win consecutive G1 Climax tournaments. Ibushi stood on the doorstep of avenging his blunder a year earlier and got his chance at “becoming a God”. As has become tradition Ibushi would defend his briefcase against Jay White who had pinned him in the G1. This was when Ibushi made history for a second time and became the first man to lose the briefcase when White used the ropes for leverage on a roll up to beat him for the 3rd time in 2020. His moment had been stolen.
While this was going on Tetsuya Naito had more than his fair share of issues with the Bullet Club, as his former ally EVIL had jumped ship from LIJ to Bullet Club. The match after Ibushi/White was Naito once again facing EVIL and at the peak of the match Jay would try to aid his Bullet Club ally before a furious Ibushi stormed the ring and chased him off allowing Naito to go on to retain his title. After the match Jay would re-emerge to inform Naito that he would challenge for the title belt on January 5th and invited Naito to do whatever he wanted on night 1 goading him into softening himself up for when they would meet.
Whether it be because Ibushi helped him, because Naito felt Ibushi was robbed by the manner in which Jay cheated or because he just wanted to go to war with the man who pushes him into more danger than anybody else does, Naito went out of his way to challenge Ibushi for January 4th, setting up there first clash in 18 months, this time for NJPW’s top prize. These two won’t hold anything back and the winner will be lucky to still be standing heading into night 2.
Night 2
X vs X vs X vs X - 4-way Match for the Provisional KOPW 2021 Title
Not much to say here, the 4 men from night 1’s rumble will face off in a 4-way match. Winner becomes the first holder of the KOPW 2021 title but will still have a long way to go until the end of the year to be crowned the eventual winner.
Yoshinobu Kanemaru & El Desperado (c) vs Ryusuke Taguchi & Master Wato - IWGP Junior Tag team Title Match
Since his return from excursion in the summer, Master Wato has been going at it with Suzuki Gun’s Junior heavyweights, most recently forming an alliance with Taguchi in hopes of dethroning Despy & Kanemaru. Will Wato & Taguchi win the titles, getting Wato his first piece of Gold on his “Way to the Grandmaster” or will the Suzuki-Gun team continue to run riot on the Junior tag team division.
Shingo Takagi (c) vs Jeff Cobb - NEVER Openweight Title Match
During the G1 Climax tournament Jeff Cobb scored a big pinfall of Shingo Takagi who at the time was not NEVER Champion. Since then, Cobb has only become more dangerous aligning himself with The Empire and leaning in to his more monstrous tendencies and even scored another fall on Shingo during the World Tag League tournament. For Shingo, he’s spent all year fighting for this title against all kinds of opponents, from a speedy junior like SHO to a devastating striker and grappler in Suzuki but this match with Cobb provides a rare situation where he’s outmatched for physical strength and will need to take advantage of his own speed. Will Shingo find a way to overcome Cobb or will The Empire collect their first title belt.
EVIL vs SANADA - Special Singles Match
When EVIL betrayed Naito and LIJ to join the Bullet Club, you would assume that EVIL’s long time tag partner in SANADA would be the most affected by the turn but the ever cool SANADA seemingly blew it off. He avoided getting involved in EVIL’s first two matches with Naito despite heavy Bullet Club interference, even when the pair met with a place in G1 final on the line SANADA stayed relatively calm and managed to secure himself the victory and place in the final. But amidst the chaos of the EVIL vs Naito match at Power Struggle, SANADA had seen enough and made the save and then when the two found themselves on opposite sides at the world tag league final show things went off the rails with the duo brawling all over the place.
It’s also been posited by SANADA that this match can be looked at as a #1 contender match of sorts, so expect the winner to challenge for the double title at New Beginning in early February.
At Wrestle Kingdom, this will be an extremely heated brawl, something that you have to feel will favour EVIL. It was SANADA’s composer that helped him eke past EVIL in the G1 and him losing his composure is often his downfall in high tension situations.
Taiji Ishimori (c) vs X - IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title Match
Whether it be his tag partner El Phantasmo or his enigmatic rival Hiromu Takahashi, Ishimori has often found himself in the shadow of those around him despite his incredible talent and success. Leading into the Tokyo Dome with two separate Junior tournaments taking place in December it is those two men who are again taking center stage ahead of Ishimori leading into Wrestle Kingdom as everyone focuses on the number one contender match between the two tournament winners. This match for Ishimori is a chance to finally prove he’s the best wrestler in the Junior division, whether that’s by beating Hiromu who despite having beaten twice in 2020 keeps stealing his thunder, or his tag partner ELP who seemingly leapfrogged him in the Bullet Club pecking order with his debut last year. Whoever Ishimori ends up facing this will no doubt be a fast paced, exciting and dramatic affair like all Junior title defences are.
X (c) vs Jay White - IWGP Heavyweight and IWGP Intercontinental Title Match
Despite making history as the first man to win the Wrestle Kingdom main event briefcase outside of the G1 Climax tournament and being the person in the strongest position to walk out of the Tokyo Dome double champion. Jay White continues to be overlooked by both Naito and Ibushi who are more interested in their match with each other on night 1 than Jay’s long dramatic English Promos and other attempts at grabbing attention. But this dismissal of Jay may come back to bite the winner of night 1’s main event as not only will they be coming off a no doubt grueling match they’ll be facing the most cunning man in NJPW.
For Jay this is a golden opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, he has a golden chance to become Double Champion and welcome everybody into his new era, a title win could quell any talk of Bullet Club separation if he shows himself to be a strong leader. But Jay should not get too over confident. Naito has proven his endurance in this kind of situation having won two big matches at the Tokyo Dome last year, including one against Jay. Ibushi, meanwhile, will be in a much more violent frame of mind should he be the one to make it to night 2, looking not only for revenge for his defeat against Jay on what will be a year ago to the day but also looking for revenge of Jay almost stealing his Tokyo Dome main event away from him at Power Struggle.
One of NJPW’s biggest stars will walk out of the dome on top of the company, will Naito continue to stay on top of NJPW, will Ibushi get his revenge and become a God or will we all be made to Breathe with the Switchblade in his new era.
Where to Watch
The best place to watch will be on njpwworld.com by signing up in the month of January for 999¥ (~9$) where you can choose between English and Japanese Commentary. The shows will also be available for direct purchase on fite.tv for $19.99 each or $29.99 for both shows.
Night 1 will air Jan 3 11pm PST/Jan 4 2am EST/7am GMT/6pm AEDT
Night 2 will air Jan 5 12am PST/3am EST/8am GMT/7pm AEDT