better in the industry than these two on a big stage in a big-time main event. Just the world's best." According to Garrett Martin of the magazine Paste, Wrestle Kingdom 9 "easily could wind up being the best [wrestling show of the year] when the year is done". He praised Jim Ross, whose "timeless voice cut through the language barrier" for American wrestling fans, and likened his commentary to "reading the first English translation of Homer." Martin commented on the ending of the show, stating that a "broken Kazuchika Okada shambling tearfully back towards the locker room ... made the moment feel real" which displayed that "Okada isn't just a great athlete but a better actor than most who step into the ring, and elevating the entire scripted, choreographed display into something beyond a sport." Martin wrote that New Japan had transcended puroresu and has produced "some of the most passionate and poignant performance art today." Jason Powell of Pro Wrestling Dot Net predicted that even first-time viewers of New Japan would be "thrilled" watching this event. Although the "first half of the night felt rushed and had too many tag matches", the show still held his "interest from start to finish" and its final three matches were "amazing". Powell described several matches as overtaking each other as the night's best as the event progressed: the "very physical" Ishii–Makabe, then Naito–Styles, then Ibushi–Nakamura. English-language commentators Ross and Striker were endorsed as an overall positive. Lastly, Powell thought the "pay-per-view broadcast is fantastic", but he also said some Pro Wrestling Dot Net readers "reported issues with the Flipps app [broadcast] feed for the show. In his review, Vaughn Johnson of the Philadelphia Media Network through Philly.com wrote: "Everything that was presented to the worldwide audience was simple and didn't require anyone to know the Japanese language. Good, quality wrestling is a universal language, and I got the message New Japan sent Sunday loud and clear." According to Johnson, some viewers were "exposed to a product for the first time where the outcomes of the matches are still important, as Okada showed by openly crying after his loss to Tanahashi" in a main event, which was "just as much a spectacle as it was a fantastic match athletic exhibition." He wrote that to call the Nakamura–Ibushi match "physical would be a gross understatement ... It was brutal to watch at times" but