Pro Wrestling NOAH’s latest blowout event, DESTINATION 2022, is now in the books. Besides featuring multiple title matches, it marked the return of Keiji Muto for the beginning of the end as The Living Legend began his series of the final 5 matches of his incomparable 40-year career.
Today’s event was held at Nippon Budokan in Tokyo and can be watched on demand on WRESTLE UNIVERSE in Japanese. The live broadcast was in English only outside Japan due to it being an ABEMA exclusive in Japan. The first 2 matches can also be watched FOR FREE on YouTube.
The announced paid attendance was 3215. With everything else happening today including New Japan and other events, and considering capacity limits and the layout of the venue, this sounds like a much-needed good number for the promotion-I’d say this represented around 75% capacity. In addition to the hosts, the guests on commentary included Rina Matsuki, Jushin Thunder Liger, Naomichi Marufuji, Mohammed Yone & Akitoshi Saito. (At this time the replay, which includes pre-show coverage, has a total run time of just over 5 hours) If you want to skip the pre-show, you can jump ahead to about the 30 minute mark.
Also, before the event it was announced that the GHC Heavyweight Tag Team Championship is now VACANT. Previous champions Michael Elgin & Masa Kitamiya vacated the titles because Elgin would miss the event. Unspecified. The scheduled title defense against Hideki Suzuki & Timothy Thatcher would now be for the vacant titles with Yoshiki Inamura replacing Elgin.
Match 1: Shuji Kondo, Tadasuke, Hi69 & Hajime Ohara beat Daisuke Harada, Atsushi Kotoge, YO-HEY & Extreme Tiger. Kondo pinned Harada after a King Kong lariat.
Match 2: Hijo de Dr. Wagner Jr., Rene Dupree, Simon Gotch, Stallion Rogerse & Anthony Greene beat Kazushi Sakuraba, Masaaki Mochizuki, Shuhei Taniguchi, Daiki Inaba & Kinya Okada. Greene pinned Okada after Walkin Talkin Flying. Inamura was to have been in this match but due to the tag title situation, Sakuraba was added as a replacement.
Match 3: Eita & Kotaro Suzuki beat Yoshinari Ogawa & Yuya Susummu. Eita pinned Ogawa after Numero Uno.
Match 4: Ninja Mack beat Dante Leon.
Match 5: In a Hardcore Match, Rob Van Dam & Masato Tanaka beat NOSAWA Rongai & SUper Crazy. Van Dam pinned NOSAWA after 5 Star Frog Splash.
Match 6: Go Shiozaki, Takashi Sugiura & Kazuyuki Fujita beat Masakatsu Funaki, Katsuhiko Nakajima & Manabu Soya. Fujita pinned Soya after a powerbomb.
Match 7: PRO WRESTLING LOVE FOREVER 1-THE FINAL COUNTDOWN: Kaito Kiyomiya beat Keiji Muto by submission. The proverbial torch has officially been passed to The Supernova.
Match 8: Hideki Suzuki & Timothy Thatcher beat Masa Kitamiya & Yoshiki Inamura by ref stoppage to win the vacant GHC Heavyweight Tag Team Championship. Suzuki & Thatcher become the 61st GHC Heavyweight Tag Team Champions. Suzuki beat Inamura with a sleeper hold.
Match 9: GHC Jr. Heavyweight Champion HAYATA beat Seiki Yoshioka to retain the title. V3 for HAYATA. Next up: Kondo. Kongo Kondo, haha.
Kaito Kiyomiya joined commentary for the final match.
Main Event: Kenoh beat GHC Heavyweight Champion Satoshi Kojima to win the title. Kenoh becomes the 40th GHC Heavyweight Champion. And somewhere deep within CyberFight Corporation, one of Sanshiro Takagi’s worst nightmares has come true…Hahaha.
Next up is the STAR NAVIGATION 2022 Tour starting Thursday at Korakuen Hall. This will be an ABEMA-only broadcast with replay on WRESTLE UNIVERSE at a later time, meaning there will be no live broadcast outside Japan. The only match announced so far is an Open The Triangle Gate (Dragon Gate) Championship match. Additionally, a post-event press conference for today’s event and match announcements for the upcoming N-1 VICTORY Tournament will be streamed FOR FREE on YouTube beginning tomorrow at 1 AM PT/4 AM ET.
