New Japan continued the Road To DESTRUCTION Tour today with the halfway event of their Hokkaido portion of the tour.
Today’s event was held at ES-CON FIELD HOKKAIDO F NEOBANK GATE Concourse in Hokkaido. There is/was no live or on demand broadcast.
The announced paid attendance was 896, a legit sellout. Not a full capacity setup for the venue as the one photo on New Japan’s Japanese website shows levels of empty seating.
Match 1: Yasutora Yasuda vs. Daiki Nagai went to a 10 minute time limit draw.
Match 2: Ryusuke Taguchi & Tiger Mask beat Katsuya Murashima & Shoma Kato. Taguchi beat Kato with Oh My & Gar Ankle.
Match 3: Tomoaki Honma & Shota Umino beat Jacob Austin Young & Callum Newman. Umino pinned Young after Death Rider.
Match 4: Yujiro Takahashi & Yoshinobu Kanemaru beat TAKA Michinoku & DOUKI. Yakahashi pinned TAKA after Big Juice.
Match 5: Boltin Oleg, Toru Yano & Hiroshi Tanahashi beat Dick Togo, Sho & EVIL. Yano pinned Togo. Sho apparently assaulted Yasuda pre-match during his “ring boy” duties but afterwards Yasuda returned the favor. With perhaps some help from Tanahashi.
Match 6: Taichi & SANADA beat Kosei Fujita & Zack abre Jr. Taichi pinned Fujita with a backdrop hold.
Match 7: Tomohiro Ishii, Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI vs. Gedo, Gabriel Kidd & David Finlay went to a double countout. Which led to…
Match 7 (again): Tomohiro Ishii, Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI beat Gedo, Gabriel Kidd & David Finlay. YOSHI-HASHI beat Gedo with Butterfly Lock.
Main Event: Francesco Akira, Jeff Cobb, HENARE & Great-O-Khan beat BUSHI, Yota Tsuji, Shingo Takagi & Tetsiua Naito. Khan beat BUSHI with Subary Sheep Killer.
The next event is Friday at Obihiro City General Gym in Hokkaido. There will be no live or on demand broadcast.
In other news, the 2024 edition of the World Tag League, the promotion’s annual year-end tag team tournament, was also announced today. Participating teams and matches will be announced at a later date, only the schedule was announced today:
11/19-Asahikaga Municipal Gym, Tochigi
11/21-Funabashi Arena, Chiba
11/22-Yokohama Budokan, Yokohama
11/23-Fujisawa City Chichibunomiya Memorial Gymnasium. Kanagawa
11/24-Korakuen Hall, Tokyo
11/26-Big Palette Fukushima, Fukushima
11/27-Yume Messe Miyagi Main Building Exhibition Hall C, Miyagi
11/28-Lily Arena Mito, Ibaraki
11/29-Twin Messe Shizuoka North Building, Shizuoka
12/1-Osaka Prefectural Gym 2, Osaka
12/2-Kochi Prefectural Gym, Kochi
12/4-Karatsu City CUltural Gym, Saga
12/5-Nobeoka Arena Sub Arena, Miyazaki
12/6-Sun Arena Sendai, Kagoshima
12/8-Grand Messe Kumamoto, Kumamoto
Also interesting-following a recent decision by Pro Wrestling NOAH for an upcoming event, video recording by fans will be allowed for the Korakuen event here. Normally it is prohibited at New Japan events. It appears they will allow fans to do it for certain matches. (The only promotions I know of in Japan that allow video recording are DDT & Tokyo Joshi Pro, but they ask fans to limit recordings to a minute if they are going to upload to social media or send via SMS/text, and not record entrance themes)
