New Japan continued the Road to WRESTLING DONTAKU Tour today with a mid-major event featuring 2 title matches and the announcement of the entire Best Of The Super Junior 30 field.
Today’s event was held at Hiroshima Sun Plaza Hall in Hiroshima and can be watched on demand on New Japan World.
The announced paid attendance was 1614.
Match 1: Aaron Henare & Great-O-Khan beat Boltin Oleg & Oskar Leube. Henare beat Leube with Ultima.
Match 2: Yoh, Toru Yano, YOSHI-HASHI & Hirooki Goto beat Dick Togo, Sho, Yujiro Takahashi & EVIL. YOSHI-HASHI pinned Togo after Shoto.
Match 3: Taiji Ishimori, KENTA & David Finlay beat Master Wato, Hikuleo & Tama Tonga. Finlay pinned Wato after INTO OBLIVION.
Match 4: Shane Haste, Mikey Nicholls & Zack Sabre Jr. beat Jeff Cobb & Aussie Open. Haste pinned Kyle Fletcher after Tank Buster.
Match 5: Shota Umino, Ren Narita, El Desperado & Minoru Suzuki beat Tomoaki Honma, Togi Makabe, Tomohiro Ishii & Kazuchika Okada. Umino pinned Honma after Deslider.
Match 6: Taichi & SANADA beat BUSHI & Shingo Takagi. SANADA beat BUSHI with Skull End.
Match 7: Tetsuya Naito beat DOUKI.
Match 8: Kevin Knight & KUSHIDA beat IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Champions Francesco Akira & TJP to win the titles. Knight & KUSHIDA become the 71st IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Champions. Knight pinned Akira after Culture Crush.
Main Event: IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Champion Hiromu Takahashi beat Yoshinobu Kanemaru to retain the title. V4 for Takahashi. This went over 30 minutes. That also means it’s now officially official-IWGP World Heavyweight Champion SANADA vs. Takahashi for the title on 5/3 at WRESTLING DONTAKU. SANADA added a stip that had Kanemaru won the title, he got the title shot instead.
Before the title matches, the Best Of The Super Junior 30 field was announced. It’s 20 entrants in 2 blocks of 10 this year, standard round-robin format.
The entrants:
Block A: Hiromu Takahashi, TJP, KUSHIDA, Ryusuke Taguchi, Taiji Ishimori, Sho, Titan, DOUKI, Lio Rush, Mike Bailey
Block B: Francesco Akira, El Desperado, BUSHI, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Yoh, Robbie Eagles, Master Wato, Kevin Knight, Clark Connors, Dan Moloney
Takahashi is the defending tournament winner and will be going for 4 straight triumphs and 5th in the last 6 years, although being the current Jr. Heavyweight Champion works heavily against him.
The tournament runs 5/13-5/28 with all events broadcast live on New Japan World.
The next event is “Wrestling Satsuna no Kuni” Saturday at Kagoshima Arena in Kagoshima. The event will be headlined by Aussie Open vs. Shane Haste & Mikey Nicholls in an Aussie Aussie Aussie! affair for the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship and Shingo Takagi vs. Taichi once again for the KOPW 2023 Championship, this time in a Takagi Triad Match where the first to earn 3 of these 5 finishes-pinfall, submission, countout, stoppage, KO-wins. Live streaming on New Japan World will begin at 1 AM PT/4 AM ET.
