At a press conference earlier today for their 9/9/23 major event at Ota City General Gum in Tokyo, DDT possibly made an Atsushi Onita exploding deathmatch for the event. Onita & Sanshiro Takagi discussed this at the presser-it took quite a bit to make it happen because the match will be indoors (usually these matches are outdoors or in partially open venues due to smoke and other issues) but Onita had a further demand-that Jun Akiyama be the opponent or Takagi FIRE him. The FIRE part resulted in some DDT comedy because that’s Takagi’s catchphrase/slogan and presumably Onita wanted Akiyama fired if he didn’t accept the match. Takagi said he’ll talk to Akiyama. According to DDT, the last time an indoor deathmatch happened in Tokyo was in 2015. It becomes the second official match for 9/9 along with a KO-D Openweight Championship match. Who defends will depend on the 7/23 result and opponent is TBA.
Also at the presser were MAO & TAKA Michinoku ahead of their match at WRESTLE PETER PAN on 7/23. This is their first meeting since their first in May 2017, which TAKA won. TAKA, now coming up on 50, currently splits his time between his Just Tap Out (JTO) promotion and New Japan.
