As NJPW's nears the end of the road to Wrestle Kingdom 20, they will be doing so with two notable absences, as former IWGP Heavyweight Champion Tetsuya Naito and former IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Champion BUSHI left the company in 2025. Despite being free agents since May, the two men had only wrestled in RevPro in 2025, but they returned to Japan on New Year's Day and immediately won gold in Pro Wrestling NOAH.
Naito and BUSHI brought Los Tranquilos de Japon to NOAH's The New Year event in Tokyo's Nippon Budokan and defeated former GHC Heavyweight Champions Naomichi Marufuji and Kenoh to win the GHC Tag Team Titles. After the match, the infamously lax wrestler admitted he and BUSHI have no real plan for their time in NOAH.
The win marks both men's first titles in Pro Wrestling NOAH. Kenoh and Marufuji were only 19 days into their reign as tag champions, having bested Team 2000x's Masa Kitamiya and Takashi Sugiura in December. Naito and BUSHI disbanded Los Ingobernables de Japon, following their departure from NJPW, taking on the Los Tranquilos de Japon name for their duo. Fellow members Shingo Takagi and Hiromu Takahashi have since teamed up with the War Dogs, while Yota Tsuji is currently set to challenge IWGP World Heavyweight Champion Konosuke Takeshita at Wrestle Kingdom 20.
Wrestle Kingdom 20 will be the first to not feature Tetsuya Naito since 2013. Wrestle Kingdom 8 was the last Wrestle Kingdom to not feature Naito on the card. BUSHI's absence will be less notable, on the other hand, as he has not been on a Wrestle Kingdom card since 2023.
