According to a report from Japanese news site Puroresu Today which I them confirmed confirmed via the venue’s website, Shinjuku Face in Tokyo is holding a special pro wrestling event on 7/31 to celebrate the venue’s 20th Anniversary. The venue, used for both theater performances and combat sports events (martial arts and pro wrestling), The event will feature participation and cooperation in production from several promotions including New Japan, All-Japan and DDT. And it looks like WWE is letting Shinsuke Nakamura return to Japan to take part too.
The full card was announced today and is scheduled to feature 5 matches with participation from at least 6 promotions including women’s promotion OZ Academy. The main event will feature New Japan, All-Japan & DDT together as New Japan’s Hiromu Takahashi teams with DDT’s Chris Brookes to face All-Japan’s Atsuki Aoyagi & DDT’s Yuki Ueno. The card is as follows:
Daisuke Sasaki, Illusion & Hideki Okatani vs. Toru Owashi, Kazuki Hirata & Makoto Oishi
Minoru Suzuki & Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Jun Akiyama & Taita (?) Kobashi
Mayumi Ozaki, HARASHIMA & Yukio Naya vs. Sakura Hirota, Antonio Honda & Takeshi Masada (with Sanshiro Takagi)
Kuroshio TOKYO Japan vs. MAO
Hiromu Takahashi & Chris Brookes vs. Atsuki Aoyagi & Yuki Ueno
Tickets are now on sale. It’s not known if there will be any live or on demand broadcast but hopefully matches will show up on one or more of New Japan World, AHPW.TV or WRESTLE UNIVERSE given participation. But with CyberFight Corporation listed as a co-producer of the event the most likely hope seems to be WRESTLE UNIVERSE.
After previously being a live event venue called Liquid Room from 1994-2004, it closed in 2004 then was renovated and re-opened as Shinjuku Face on July 29, 2005 and is an event hall on Floor 7 of the Humax Pavilion in the Shinjuku area of Tokyo. The venue’s listed capacity for martial arts events including pro wrestling is 511 (but typical max capacity for wrestling is 500) and 471 for theater/performing arts. It hosts both major promotions and independent promotions. The event will come just 2 days after the official 20th anniversary of the venue’s opening. You can find out more about the venue at its official website (in Japanese), shinjuku-face.com.