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#9 Dragon Lee
Dragon Lee is the current IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion after winning the title at Madison Square Garden, and while putting the current Champion at #9 on the list may seem crazy, Champions in New Japan tournaments don't often fare very well.
This makes a lot of sense, as the tournament is used to elevate a new challenger for the Champion, and given that Lee isn't a generational talent holding that title belt, it's hard to see him walking away a winner in 2019.
Ultimately, we'd love to see Lee in singles competition against most people in the field with the Championship on the line, but simply put, he just isn't going to come out of this tournament on top.
Ospreay, Scurll, Ishimori, Bandido and others are all clearly more marketable for New Japan, and while that doesn't mean Lee's title reign has to end soon, he's just not the talent that those guys are, and it's hard to see him sustaining the quality of bout that those men could over a long tournament.
