All-Japan kicks off their 2026 today with the first half of their year-opening New Year’s doubleheader in Tokyo. It’s a major event spread over two days starting with a title match today as the All-Japan World Tag Team Championship as Talos & Ren Ayabe get their rematch with Xyon & Odyssey as their reward for winning the World’s Strongest/Real World Tag League, this time for the titles, then the main event will be the annual year-opening battle royal with everyone participating. They also promise to introduce new roster members-whether this means rookies or free agents, we’ll find out.
Today’s event will be held at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo and can be watched LIVE on AJPW.TV in Japanese. This will also be taped for broadcast on Samurai! TV in Japan at a later date. Even with the title match and battle royal (oddly the intermission won’t be before the main event) I sill anticipate this being in the “standard” Korakuen running time range of 2 1/2-3 hours, closer to 3 hours.
Today’s lineup:
Go Shiozaki vs. Shota Kofuji
Hideki Suzuki, Kengo Mashimo & Hikaru Sato vs. Hokuto Omori, Kumaarashi & Cyrus
Atsuki Aoyagi & Rising Hayato vs. KURAMA & MAZADA
Kento Miyahara, Jun Saito, MUSASHI & Seiki Yoshioka vs. Yuma Anzai, Ryuki Honda, Shotaro Ashino & Dan Tamura
Intermission
Daisuke Sekimoto vs. Ryo Inoue
All-Japan World Tag Team Champions Xyon & Odyssey vs. Ren Ayabe & Talos for the titles
New Year’s Battle Royal
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 just before the event starts.
6:25 PM PT UPDATE: Live updates begin now.
We are LIVE from Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan. Commentary will start when the matches begin.
The paid attendance will be announced after the event. It’s a regular weekday morning in Japan and advance ticket sales seem to reflect that, probably not going to be a sellout. But it should still be a decent crowd, I’ll guess based on so far it’ll be around 1000.
Opening announcements begin just after we go live. Commentary begins after the opening call by the ring announcer. After this, the roster comes out to the ring for the annual new year’s greeting to the crowd. Kento Miyahara led this as the President of the wrestlers’ group. During this, he announced that Shota Kofuji has joined the promotion and he came out. Kofuji had been competing as a freelancer and a member of a smaller independent promotion. That makes two official cat people in the promotion along with Hideki Suzuki, who Kofuji has had some fun Twitter bantering with the last few months. Then Shotaro Ashino interrupted and brought out Go Shiozaki, who actually joined the promotion late last year. But now he gets the official year-opening introduction. After years of being NOAH, he is now All-Japan. (UPDATE: Kofuji will also remain a member of the small OSW promotion in addition to All-Japan. Both moves are official as of yesterday) Kofuji just finished his rookie year on Christmas Day.
One correction to the lineup from the opening video for Match 3-it’s MAZADA but on AJPW’s website incorrectly says it’s “Mazda”.
The matches begin at 6:42 PM PT/9:42 PM ET. Rei Saito is a guest on commentary alongside the solo announcer.
Match 1: All-Japan Pro Wrestling 2026 Opening Match: Go Shiozaki vs. Shota Kofuji. 30 minute time limit
Result: Go Shiozaki beat Shota Kofuji
Match 2: Hideki Suzuki (who went crazy attacking the cameramen around the ring with a towel during his entrance), Kengo Mashimo & Hikaru Sato vs. Hokuto Omori, Kumaarashi & Cyrus. 30 minute time limit
Result: Hokuto Omori, Kumarashi & Cyrus beat Hideki Suzuki, Kengo Mashimo & Hikaru Sato. Kumaarashi pinned Sato.
Match 3: Atsuki Aoyagi & Rising Hayato vs. KURAMA & MAZADA (Independent/Freelancers). 30 minute time limit
Result: Atsuki Aoyagi & Rising Hayato beat KURAMA & MAZADA. Aoyagi pinned KURAMA.
Match 4: Kento Miyahara, Jun Saito, MUSASHI & Seiki Yoshioka vs. Yuma Anzai, Ryuki Honda, Shotaro Ashino & Dan Tamura. 30 minute time limit
Result: Kento Miyahara, Jun Saito, MUSASHI & Seiki Yoshioka beat Yuma Anzai, Ryuki Honda, Shotaro Ashino & Dan Tamura. Miyahara pinned Tamura with a shutdown suplex hold.
Intermission.
The matches resume at 7:57 PM PT/10:57 PM PT (about a 12 minute break).
Match 5: Daisuke Sekimoto vs. Ryo Inoue. 30 minute time limit
Result: Daisuke Sekimoto beat Ryo Inoue
Match 6: All-Japan World Tag Team Champions Xyon & Odyssey vs. Ren Ayabe & Talos for the titles. 1 Hour time limit
Result: Ren Ayabe & Talos beat All-Japan World Tag Team Champions Xyon & Odyssey to win the titles. Ayabe & Talos become the 103rd All-Japan World Tag Team Champions. Talos pinned Xyon after a double chokeslam. Afterwards, during the post-match victory promo, Talos called out Miyahara. A mix of Japanese, English and comedy that almost ended with Miyahara getting a double chokeslam. I think the gist of all this is a Triple Crown challenge by Talos.
Promo video for the All-Asia Tag Team Championship fallout from 12/31 when the Dragon Gate duo of Yoshiki Kato & ISHIN won the titles. Of note: New video game background music-in 2025 it was a remix of the theme from “Space Harrier”. 2026? A remix of “Splash Wave” from fellow mid-1980s Sega & Yu Suzuki icon “Outrun”. The video is an announcement of the 2026 All-Japan Jr. Tag Festival Tournament, to be held over 4 events in February & March with 8 participating teams. The participating teams: Atsuki Aoyagi & Rising Hayato, Dan Tamura & Hikaru Sato, Naruki Doi & Senor Saito, Fuminori ABe & Seigo Tachibana, Kota Sekifuda & Toshiyuki Sakuda, Seiki Yoshioka & Yuya Susumu, MUSASHI & Shota Kofuji, Ryo Inoue & Mochizuki Junior. It will be a single-elimination bracket tournament. The Quarterfinals are 2/15 & 2/23, Semifinals on 3/15 and Finals on 3/20.
Main Event: New Year Battle Royal. Everyone in at the start. Over the top rope, pinfall and submission eliminations
Result: Yuma Anzai won, last eliminating Shota Kofuji. Mainly a comedy match but a very entertaining one that even saw Ryuki Honda get eliminated by the referee and the referee then get eliminated by Atsuki Aoyagi despite some impressive acrobatics beforehand. Miyahara, you wonder? Second-to-last elimination by Kofuji.
The second event is tomorrow. Live streaming on AJPW.TV will begin at 6:30 PM PT/9:30 PM ET.