All-Japan kicks of their March tour, the Dream Power Series 2024, today with a mid-major event in Tokyo. It’s light on paper with only 6 matches and with the annual Champions Carnival coming up next month, but 2 title matches headline the event. First, the promotion’s odd couple, Suwama & Hideki Suzuki, defend the All-Japan Word Tag Team Championship against the just-as-odd pairing of Shotaro Ashino & Kuroshio TOKYO Japan. The second title match is the main event as All-Japan World Junior Heavyweight Champion Dan Tamura defends the title against Rising Hayato.
Today’s event will be held at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo and can be watched LIVE on AJPW.TV in Japanese. There will be an Actress Girls provided match before the event begins. These events typically go 2 1/2-3 hours and with just 6 matches I expect the running time to be on the lower end of that range.
Today’s lineup:
Pre-show: Actress Girls Provided Match-Miki Aono vs. Mari Touto (?)
Naruki Doi, Ryo Inoue & Hikaru Sato vs. Funinori Abe, MUSASHI & Seiki Yoshioka
Yuma Aoyagi & Seigo Tachibana vs. Takao Omori & Osamu Nishimura
Kento Miyahara & Ren Ayabe vs. Jun Saito & KONO
Katsuhiko Nakajima & Hokuto Omori vs. Ryuki Honda & Yuma Anzai
All-Japan World Tag Team Champions Suwama & Hideki Suzuki vs. Shotaro Ashino & Kuroshio TOKYO Japan for the titles
All-Japan World Junior Heavyweight Champion Dan Tamura vs. Rising Hayato for the title
Refresh this page occasionally for the latest results.
Updates below will begin at 6:30 PM PT/9:30 PM ET.
6:28 PM PT UPDATE Live updates begin now.
We are LIVE from Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan. Commentary will join later.
The paid attendance will be announced after the event. The crowd is still filing in but the venue looks maybe 60-65% full so far and close to full capacity setup so that would hopefully put it around 1000. (UPDATE: The annoucned paid attendance was 1076)
Actress Girls open the event with their pre-show segment.
Pre-show match: Actress Girls Provided Match
Result: Miku Aono & Koki (?) beat ? & ?. I couldn’t hear the wrestler names over commentary. Aono pinned ? after Styles Clash.
The event now begins proper with muted audio. Most likely this is a Samurai! TV simulcast in Japan as Kagehiro Osano is on commentary.
The matches begin at 6:50 PM PT/9:50 PM ET.
Match 1: Naruki Doi (Independent/Freelancer), Ryo Inoue & Hikaru Sato vs. Funinori Abe, MUSASHI (Michinoku Pro) & Seiki Yoshioka. 30 minute time limit
Result: Fuminori Abe, MUSASHI & Seiki Yohsioka beat Naruki Doi, Ryo Inoue & Hikaru Sato. MUSASHI pinned Inoue.
Match 2: Yuma Aoyagi & Seigo Tachibana vs. Takao Omori (Independent/Freelancer) & Osamu Nishimura. 30 minute time limit
Result: Takao Omori & Osamu Nishimura beat Yuma Aoyagi & Seigo Tachibana. Omori pinned Tachibana after Ax Bomber.
Match 3: Kento Miyahara & Ren Ayabe vs. Jun Saito & KONO (with, in a surprise appearance, TARU). 30 minute time limit
Result: Jun Saito & KONO beat Kento Miyahara & Ren Ayabe. Saito pinned Ayabe after Psycho Break. Rei Saito, who is currently out due to injury (shoulder), made a surprise appearance late to help TARU interfere to set up the finish.
Match 4: Katsuhiko Nakajima & Hokuto Omori vs. Ryuki Honda & Yuma Anzai. 30 minute time limit
Result: Ryuki Honda & Yuma Anzai beat Katsuhiko Nakajima & Hokuto Omori. Anzai pinned Omori with a German suplex hold.
Announcements:
Kaz Hayashi (GLEAT) will appear on 3/30.
The Champions Carnival 2024 field:
Block A: Shotaro Ashino (defending winner), Kento Miyahara, Yuma Aoyagi, Hokuto Omori, Ren Ayabe, Kuroshio TOKYO Japan, Cyrus
Block B: Suwama, Ryuki Honda, Jun Saito, Yuma Anzai, Hideki Suzuki, Hartley Jackson, Road Crew (?)
Intermission. Updates will resume in a few minutes (as of 8 PM PT/11 PM ET).
The matches resume at 8:10 PM PT/11:10 PM ET. A lot of fans didn’t hear the announcement and we see some rushing back to their seats as we rejoin the broadcast. Venue thus is much emptier now.
Match 5: All-Japan World Tag Team Champions Suwama & Hideki Suzuki vs. Shotaro Ashino & Kuroshio TOKYO Japan for the titles. 1 Hour time limit plus Kuroshio’s ridiculous drawn-out entrance that’s at least 5 minutes itself.
Result: All-Japan World Tag Team Champions Suwama & Hideki Suzuki beat Shotaro Ashino & Kuroshio TOKYO Japan to retain the titles. Suwama pinned Ashino with a backdrop hold. V1 for the champs. Next up: Wasting no time coming out, Jun Saito & KONO. TARU with microphone. Challenge apparently made. Seemingly accepted by the champs. But then, wait…TARU had Rei Saito get in the ring…off comes the sling! The Saito Brothers coming to get their titles back! The champs walked off leaving Voodoo Murders in the ring. Rei Saito with microphone from TARU. He caught his support towel from a fan at ringside and gave it to Jun Saito, perhaps a good luck token for Jun in the Champions Carnival. They made it sounds like a tag title match could happen at a future event in Osaka. More to come.
Main Event: All-Japan World Junior Heavyweight Champion Dan Tamura vs. Rising Hayato for the title. 1 Hour time limit
Result: Rising Hayato beat All-Japan World Junior Heavyweight Champion Dan Tamura to win the title. Hayato becomes the 68th All-Japan World Junior Heavyweight Champion. Next up: Possibly MUSASHI, who soon came out to issue the challenge. Accepted. We’ll see what happens as always.
The next event is tomorrow at G Messe Gunma in Gunma. There will be no live broadcast. It will be available on demand on AJPW.TV later in the day.
UPDATE: All-Japan announced major updates/maintenance are coming to AJPW.TV after the event. Functionality will be limited during the update, scheduled from 3/24-3/27, and the service (including watching videos) will be completely unavailable from 10 PM PT on 3/26 until 2 AM PT on 3/27. All times are subject to change. New features will include a new page layout and live chat implementation during live broadcasts. A YouTube video in Japanese with Kento Miyahara & Yuma Aoyagi to explain everything is scheduled to be livestreamed Monday beginning at 3 AM PT/6 AM ET. At this time the cost of the service is expected to remain unchanged at 900 Japanese yen/month (currently around $6 US).
