All-Japan kicked off the 2023 Champions Carnival today, their annual singles tournament that is the promotion’s most prestigious tournament held each year. It’s primarily a Heavyweight tournament that could reward the winner with a Triple Crown opportunity (and almost certainly will as Triple Crown Champion Yuji Nagata is not entered). They also began a Jr. Heavyweight tag tournament.
Today’s event was held at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo and can be watched on demand on AJPW.TV. Also, they are doing a promotion this month where if you are a new paying subscriber, you get this first month FOR FREE! The fine print: You can’t cancel during the month and you also must pay for next month before you can cancel.
The announced paid attendance was 634. If the venue was 50% capacity as the event was announced ahead of time before pandemic restrictions were lifted, that would be close to a sellout.
Match 1: Hikaru Sato & Dan Tamura beat Atsuki Aoyagi & Rising Hayato and Naruki Doi & Naoki Tanizaki in a 3-way when Tamura pinned Doi.
Match 2: Jr. Tag Battle Of Glory: Kaito Ishida (GLEAT) & Kotaro Suzuki beat Ryo Inoue & Oji Shiiba. Ishida pinned Inoue after a face kick.
Champions Carnival:
Match 3: Block B: Rei Saito beat Takao Omori. Possible squash.
Match 4: Block A: Cyrus beat Jun Saito.
Match 6: Block B: Hokuto Omori beat Shuji Ishikawa by submission.
Match 6: Block A: Yoshitatsu beat T-Hawk (GLEAT) by ref stoppage.
Match 7: Block A: Manabu Soya (Pro Wrestling NOAH) beat Shotaro Ashino.
Match 8: Block B: Ryuki Honda beat Satoshi Kojima (New Japan).
Match 9: Block B: Suwama beat Yuma Anzai.
Main Event: Block A: Yuma Aoyagi beat Kento Miyahara.
The next event is Monday at Hodogaya Public Hall in Yokohama. Live streaming on AJPW.TV will begin at 2:30 AM PT/5:30 AM ET.
UPDATE: A Triple Crown match has been announced for 5/29, so the Champions Carnival winner may face Nagata then. More as it becomes available.
