All-Japan runs the second half of their year-opening New Year doubleheader today in Tokyo. There are 2 title matches today, one of which was further hyped yesterday and that’s the main event, where Atsuki Aoyagi defends the All-Japan World Junior Heavyweight Championship against KURAMA, the latest masked independent outsider to step up to take a big-time shot. The second semifinal sees the just-returned Daisuke Sekimoto challenge Shotaro Ashino in a potential hoss fight for the GAORA TV Championship.
There has been a last-minute change to the originally annoucned card for today: After they were announced as part of the upcoming Zennichi Jr. Festival tag team tournament, Naruki Doi & Kota Sekifuda have been added to the first match, which originally was a 6-man tag match. It’s now an 8-man tag.
Today’s event will be held at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo and can be watched LIVE on AJPW.TV in Japanese. There are just 6 matches today with the intermission coming at the halfway point, so even though there are 2 title matches I expect the running time to be about the same as yesterday, in the range of 2 1/2-3 hours.
Today’s lineup:
Yuko Miyamoto, Fuminori Abe, Seigo Tachibana & Kota Sekifuda vs. Rising Hayato, Dan Tamura, Shota Kofuji & Naruki Doi
Hokuto Omori, Kumaarashi & Cyrus vs. MUSASHI, Seiki Yoshioka & Ryo Inoue
Hideki Suzuki, Kengo Mashimo & Hikaru Sato vs. Xyon, Odyssey & Go Shiozaki
Intermission
Ren Ayabe, Talos & Yuma Anzai vs. Kento Miyahara, Jun Saito & Ryuki Honda
GAORA TV Champion Shotaro Ashino vs. Daisuke Sekimoto for the title
All-Japan World Junior Heavyweight Champion Atsuki Aoyagi vs. KURAMA for the title
Refresh this page occasionally for the latest results.
Updates below will begin at 6:30 PM PT/9:30 PM ET. The live stream is scheduled to begin shortly before the event.