Although MAO is scheduled to defend the DDT Universal Championship next month in Tokyo, he may not make it there as champion. US independent promotion Circle 6, in a post by MAO in Japanese and translated to English by DDT on the socials, has announced MAO will defend the title against Nate Webb on Sunday in Hollywood, CA. MAO will also participate in the promotion’s 12/30 event in Los Angeles. Tickets may still be available on Circle 6’s website (this will be a 10 PM PT/1 AM ET event with no TV/streaming scheduled).
Tag: DDT
DDT 12/24/23 Results (Updated)
DDT runs their penultimate event of 2023 today and will finish up the preliminary round of the D KING GP 2023 as well. It’s gotten a little less dramatic because today’s lineup has become decimated by injury and illness and that will affect the tournament, namely Block B-Rei Saito was in a must-win situation today but got gifted a free win because opponent Chris Brookes is out doe to injury/illness (malignant tumor in abdomen). And before a must-win for both that screwed MAO because he now can’t advance to the Final even if he beats Yukio Naya because of tiebreakers (he lost to Saito). So Naya advances if he wins, Saito advances if MAO wins or it’s a draw. Yusuke Okada is also out due to illness and Yuki Ishida, just after coming back from injury, is back on the shelf again long-term. There is plenty of other stuff happening today but the focus is the tournament: In Block A, 4 still have a chance to advance so it almost certainly will come down to tiebreakers after the matches unless the simplest scenario occurs, that’s Kazusada Higuchi winning to advance. But if it’s Yuki Ueno & Daisuke Sasaki tied at the top *should both win and Higuchi lose), things get interesting because their match result was a draw.
Today’s event will be held at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo and can be watched LIVE on WRESTLE UNIVERSE in Japanese. Japanese actor Takumi Momose will be a special guest on commentary. There are 2 title matches although one is for the DDT Iron Man Heavymetalweight Championship, and I think they’ll want to be done in time for viewers to switch over to Tokyo Joshi Pro’s event later today so I anticipate the total running time being 2 1/2 to 3 hours.
Today’s lineup:
Yukio Sakaguchi & Rukiya vs. MJ Paul & KANON
Battle Royal for the DDT Iron Man Heavymetalweight Championship. Participants announced so far: Toru Owashi, Sanshiro Takagi, Kazuki Hirata, Kazuma Sumi, Akito, TBA (open recruitment slots), presumably Great Koji (current champion-supposedly is really Toi Kojima)
Rei Saito vs. Hideki Okatani
KO-D 6-Man Tag Team Champions Jun Akiyama, Danshoku DIeno & Makoto Oishi vs. Masa Takanashi, Antonio Honda & Takeshi Masada for the titles
D KING GP:
Block B: MAO vs. Yukio Naya. Naya advances with win. Otherwise Saito advances
Block A: Daisuke Sasaki vs. HARASHIMA. Sasaki must win
Block A: Yuki Ueno vs. Yuki Iino. Ueno must win
Block A: Tetsuya Endo vs. Kazusada Higuchi. Higuchi advances with win
Refresh this page occasionally for the latest results.
Updates below will begin at 6:30 PM PT/9:30 PM ET.
6:23 PM PT UPDATE: Live updates begin now…
We are LIVE from Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan. Yours hosts are Haruo Murata, Kagehiro Osano and special guest Takumi Momose.
The paid attendance will be announced after the event. The crowd is still filing in but they’re using their usual reduced capacity setup opposite hard-camera and it’s Christmas Eve so that may keep the crowd down (although the Tokyo Joshi Pro event after this is now a legit advance sellout). I’ll estimate it’ll be around 500. (UPDATE: The announced paid attendance was 761, a full house/near sellout)
The matches should begin in about 15 minutes.
The matches begin at 6:33 PM PT.
Match 1: Yukio Sakaguchi & Rukiya vs. MJ Paul & KANON. 30 minute time limit
Result: MJ Paul & KANON beat Yukio Sakaguchi & Rukiya. KANON beat Rukiya with a cobra twist.
Match 2: (At least a 7 man) Battle Royal for the DDT Iron Man Heavymetalweight Championship. Staggered entry. Over the top rope elimination rules in effect. No time limit. Participants (order of entry): Kazuki Hirata, Toru Owashi, Akito, Kazuma Sumi, Sanshiro Takagi, DDT Iron Man Heavymetalweight Champion Great Koji (Toi Kojima), Poison Sawada JULIE
Order of elimination: Akito by Takagi, Sumi by Takagi, Hirata by Takagi, Takagi by JULIE, Kojima by JULIE to win the title, JULIE by Owashi to win the title
Result: Toru Owashi wins to win the title, last liminating Poison Sawada JULIE who beat Great Koji to win the title. JULIE became the 1597th Champion. Owashi becomes the 1598th Champion. And inadvertently left without the title belt so GM IMabayashi had to retrieve it and run after him.
Your new host is Ken Kato for now.
Match 3: Rei Saito (All-Japan) vs. Hideki Okatani. 30 minute time limit
Result: Rei Saito beat Hideki Okatani. Glorified squash.
Match 4: KO-D 6-Man Tag Team Champions Jun Akiyama, Danshoku DIeno & Makoto Oishi vs. Masa Takanashi, Antonio Honda & Takeshi Masada for the titles. 1 Hour time limit
Result: KO-D 6-Man Tag Team Champions Jun Akiyama, Danshoku Dieno & Makoto Oishi beat Masa Takanashi, Antonio Honda & Takeshi Masada to retain the titles. Oishi pinned Honda with a rollup after reversing a rollup. V1 for the champs.
Quick break for GM Imabayashi’s opening-at-mid-event announcements.
D KING GP 2023 Block B: Rei Saito beat Chris Brookes by forfeit (withdrawal-injury).
Match 5: D KING GP 2023 Block B; MAO vs. Yukio Naya. If Naya wins, he wins Block B and advances to the Finals. If MAO wins or it’s a draw, Rei Saito advances. 30 minute time limit
Result: Yukio Naya beat MAO. As a result, Naya wins Block B and advances to the Finals. Naya had the tiebreaker over Saito by winning their match. He will face the Block A winner on 1/4/24.
Match 6: D KING GP 2023 Block A: Daisuke Sasaki vs. HARASHIMA. Sasaki must win. 30 minute time limit
Result: HARASHIMA beat Daisuke Sasaki. Sasaki is OUT. That means Yuki Ueno can now win Block A with a win AND Kazusada Higuchi loss.
Match 7: D KING GP 2023 Block A: Yuki Ueno vs. Yuki Iino. Ueno must win. 30 minute time limit
Result: Yuki Iino beat Yuki Ueno. As a result, the main event winner wins Block A.
Main Event: D KING GP 2023 Block A: Kazusada Higuchi vs. Tetsuya Endo. The winner wins Block A (Endo would have tiebreaker with a win). If it’s a draw, Higuchi wins Block A. 30 minute time limit
Result: Tetsuya Endo beat Kazusada Higuchi. As a result, Endo wins Block A and will face Naya in the Finals.
Afterwards, Naya, who had been watching from one of the entrances, came to the ring to join Endo and GM Imabayashi in the ring. Promo time.
The Final is on 1/3.
After all this, “All I Want For Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey is played as the roster comes out in Santa outfits, hats and more with goody bags filled with candy and goodies to be thrown into the crowd. Referee Dsiauke Kiso even brings out a small tree. Kazuki Hirata with microphone to deliver Christmas greetings & wishes to the fans. And then he attacked Toru Owashi with the tree! Which led to…
The Christmas Tree beat DDT Iron Man Heavymetalweight Champion Toru Owashi to win the title. The Tree becomes the 1599th Champion. The entire roster made the pinfall, but the tree was directly on top of Owashi and declared the champion. Takagi with microphone. He said a few year-end words before handing off to Ueno for the KO-D Openweight Champion’s send-off. He had the fans all stand and led the roster in a shout of “Merry Christmas, Thank You!” followed by a 2023 highlight video to end the event with the final sendoff: Thank You To DDT Universe And Have A Happy New Year!
The next event is 12/31 with a year-end 1-day 6-man tag team tournament. There will be no live broadcast (unusual because it’s at Korakuen). Before commentary signed off to end the broadcast, it was announced that SKE48 member Marika Tani will return as a guest on commentary for the 1/3 event.
UPDATE: In post-match backstage comments shared on the socials, Daisuke Sasaki claimed he was going to retire. Maybe in a year. We shall see if anything comes of this.
Injury Report: Another Last-Minute DDT (Updated x2)
It’s that time of the year when nasty stuff really gets going around. It’s also happening in Japan and unfortunately DDT has been forced to make another last-minute card change as they just announced Yusuke Okada is off tomorrow’s (today US time) event. Illness. He was to have been in a battle royal for the DDT Iron Man Heavymetalweight Championship assuming plans didn’t change (you never know because of the 24/7 nature of the title. Probably will be no replacement. Hopefully won’t miss any further events as there is a week until the next event.
UPDATE: Shingles per DDT’s English Twitter. Ugh, that bastion of old age. Out indefinitely.
UPDATE 2: On a related note, they also have announced Hikari Noa is now off tomorrow’s (late tonight) Tokyo Joshi Pro event. The always-vague poor health/physical condition. She was to have teamed with Toga to face Suzume & Arisu Endo. The match is now Toga vs. Suzume and Endo has been added to what was a Mahiro Kiryu vs. Haru Kazashiro match to make it a 3-way.
Injury Report: DDT Just Keeps Getting DDT’d
DDT is just having horrible luck with injuries the last few months. That continues today and it’s a major one-Chris Brookes is now out. Abdominal pain that turned out to be a tumor. Surgery to happen ASAP. Out several weeks. This means he is out of his final D KING GP Block B match Sunday and Rei Saito gets a win by forfeit. Saito will now face Hideki Okatani instead and will wait for the MAO-Yukio Naya result to determine who wins Block B.
Injury Report: Return Quickly DDT’d
And yet another DDT wrestler goes down again…and this one after a short comeback. Just one month after he returned from injury, Yuki Ishida is out again. Lumbar disc hernia. Out indefinitely.
More as it becomes available.
DDT 12/17/23 Results
DDT continued the D KING GP 2023 today with the penultimate event of the prelim round.
Today’s event was held at Sakurajuji Hall Yatsushiro Multipurpose Hall and will be available on demand on WRESTLE UNIVERSE Wednesday. There was no live broadcast.
The announced paid attendance was 282, a super full house/very near sellout.
Match 1: Yukio Sakaguchi & Hideki Okatani beat Takao Soma & Kazuma Sumi. Okatani beat Sumi with a dragon sleeper.
Match 2: Chris Brookes, Akito & Takeshi Masada beat Danshoku Dieno, Makoto Oishi & Kazuki Hirata. Masada pinned Oishi after a triangle kick.
Match 3: Tetsuya Endo, Jun Akiyama & Yusuke Okada beat HARASHIMA, Yukio Naya & Rukiya. Endo pinned Rukiya after a rotating torture rack bomb. This was Akiyama’s final match as a member of the Burning faction, or at least such match teaming with Endo in the faction.
D KING GP:
Match 4: Block A: Daisuke Sasaki beat Yuki Iino.
Match 5: Block B: MAO beat KANON.
Main Event: Kazusada Higuchi & Yuki Ishida beat Yuki Ueno & Toi Kojima. Higuchi pinned Kojima after Brain Claw Slam.
Standings Update for tournament: In Block A, Sasaki stays in it with the win and 4 still have a chance on the final day. Scenarios to win are as follows:
Higuchi (6 points): Advances with win (Endo). Also advances with draw and Sasaki win.
Ueno (5 points): Advances with win (Sasaki) and Higuchi loss or draw.
Sasaki (5 points): Advances with win (Ueno) and Higuchi loss.
Endo (4 points): Advances with win (Higuchi) and Ueno/Sasaki must end in a no points scenario (double DQ or no contest).
In Block B, KANON is now OUT thanks to the loss today so it’s 3 tied for the lead. Their scenarios to win:
MAO (6 points): Advances with win (Naya) and Rei Saito loss or draw.
Naya (6 points): Advances with win (MAO).
Rei Saito (6 points): Advances with win (Brookes) and MAO win.
The next event is 12/24 at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo. The card is subject to change last-minute due to a DDT Iron Man Heavymetalweight Championship battle royal being scheduled (the title has legit 24/7 rules and can be won anytime, anywhere by anything as long as a referee is present). Live streaming on WRESTLE UNIVERSE will begin Saturday at 6:30 PM PT/9:30 PM ET. Live results will be provided here.
DDT 12/16/23 Results
DDT continued the D KING GP 2023 today with an event in Fukuoka.
Today’s event was held at Nishitetsu Hall in Fukuoka and will be available on demand on WRESTLE UNIVERSE at a later date. There was no live broadcast.
The announced paid attendance was 355, a full house/near sellout.
A pre-show match was provided by Kyushu Sangyo University Pro Wrestling Research Department with a bunch of masked wrestlers.
Match 1: Yukio Sakaguchi & Takao Soma beat Yukio Naya & Yusuke Okada. Soma pinned Okada.
Match 2: MAO, Toi Kojima & Vanvert Jacques beat Azure Dragon, Akito & Kazuma Sumi. Kojima pinned Sumi after Kojima Wonderland.
Match 3: D KING GP Block B: Kazuki Hirata beat Chris Brookes.
Match 4: D KING GP Block B: Rei Saito beat KANON.
Match 5: Jun Akiyama, Danshoku Dieno & Makoto Oishi beat Hideki Okatani, Yuki Ishida & Takeshi Masada. Oishi pinned Ishida with a tornado clutch.
Match 6: D KING GP Block A: Kazusada Higuchi beat Yuki Iino.
Match 7: D KING GP Block A: Yuki Ueno beat HARASHIMA.
Main Event: D KING GP Block A: Daisuke Sasaki beat Tetsuya Endo by submission.
Standings:
Block A:
1-Higuchi, 3-1, 6 points
2-Ueno, 2-1-1, 5 points
3-Endo, 2-2, 4 points
4-Sasaki, 1-1-1, 3 points
5-HARASHIMA, 1-3, 2 points (OUT)
6-Iino, 1-2, 2 points (OUT)
Block B:
1-Naya, 3-1, 6 points
2-Saito, 3-1, 6 points
3-MAO, 2-1, 4 points
4-KANON, 2-2, 4 points (OUT)
5-Brookes, 1-3, 2 points (OUT)
6-Hirata, 1-4, 2 points (OUT). Finished.
The winner of each block advances to the Finals. Block A will come down to Endo-Higuchi on 12/24. If Higuchi wins, he advances. If Endo wins, he needs a Ueno loss or tie on 12/24 (Iino) to advance on tiebreakers. If Ueno wins, he needs Endo to beat Higuchi to advance. If Endo wins and Ueno draws, that makes it a 3-way tie but the tiebreakers would go to Endo. Sasaki still has a chance if he wins both his remaining matches, then he would also need an Endo win and Ueno loss or draw. In Block B, it’s still up in the air. Naya still advances with a win in his last match (MAO) while Saito must win (Brookes) and Naya must lose to advance (Naya has tiebreaker). MAO can advance by winning both his remaining matches (Naya, KANON) and Saito must lose or draw. Saito has tiebreaker over MAO. KANON is technically out because while he beat Naya, he lost to Saito.
The next event is tomorrow at Sakurajuji Hall Yatsushiro Multipurpose Hall in Kumamoto. Tomorrow’s tournament matches are Sasaki-Iino and MAO-KANON. There will be no live broadcast. When the on demand replay is available there will be an intermission after the 4th of 6 scheduled matches.
News: United Japan Pro Wrestling Industry Group Formed
Just after Mitsuharu Misawa formed Pro Wrestling NOAH in 2000, he would spearhead the creation of an alliance to attempt to better facilitate cooperation between Japanese promotions. Today a new such alliance was formed to modernize those efforts-the United Japan Pro Wrestling Industry Group.
The initial membership will consist of the following promotions: New Japan Pro Wrestling, All-Japan Pro Wrestling, Pro Wrestling NOAH, Dragon Gate Pro Wrestling, Big Japan Pro Wrestling, DDT Pro Wrestling and its affiliated sub-brands (Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling & Ganbare Pro Wrestling) and Stardom. Seiji Sakaguchi is the founding chairman with the executive offices based at New Japan Pro Wrestling HQ and New Japan Chairman Naoki Sugabayashi serving as executive chief.
The biggest thing for fans to get excited about here is a joint event scheduled for 5/6/24 at Nippon Budokan in Tokyo under the United Japan Pro Wrestling banner. More details forthcoming.
New Japan’s English website has posted a press release with much more about this new alliance, read the full statement here:
DDT 12/9/23 Results
DDT continued the D KING GP today with an event in Osaka.
Today’s event was held at Osaka Azalea Taisho in Osaka and will be available on demand on WRESTLE UNIVERSE Tuesday. There was no live broadcast.
The announced paid attendance was 245, a full house/near sellout.
Match 1: Danshoku Dieno & Makoto Oishi beat Akito & Kazuma Sumi. Oishi pinned Sumi after Death Penalty.
Match 2: Daisuke Sasaki & MJ Paul beat Yuki Iino & Tsutentakku by DQ. Iino DQ’d. Ref assault. Tsutentakku was a last-minute replacement for the absent Rukiya (poor physical condition).
Match 3: Chris Brookes, Antonio Honda & Takeshi Masada beat MAO, Toi Kojima & Illusion. Masada pinned Illusion.
D KING GP Block B:
Match 4: Rei Saito (All-Japan) beat Kazuki Hirata.
Match 5: KANON beat Yukio Naya by ref stoppage (TKO).
Match 6: All-Asia Tag Team Champions Yukio Sakaguchi & Hideki Okatani beat Jun Akiyama & Yusuke Okada to retain the titles. Okatani pinned Okada after Quetzalcoatl. V1 for the champs. Next up: Kojima & Atsushi Onita…which, like it or not, means electric blast death match because Onita can’t do straight wrestling anymore. And frankly hasn’t since roughly the 1990s.
D KING GP Block A:
Match 7: Kazusada Higuchi beat HARASHIMA.
Main Event: Tetsuya Endo beat Yuki Ueno.
Standings:
Block A:
1-Endo, 2-1, 4 points
2-Higuchi, 2-1, 4 points
3-Ueno, 1-1-1, 3 points
4-Iino, 1-1, 2 points
5-HARASHIMA, 1-2, 2 points
6-Sasaki, 0-1-1, 1 point
Block B:
1-Naya, 3-1, 6 points
2-KANON, 2-1, 4 points
3-MAO, 2-1, 4 points
4-Saito, 2-1, 4 points
5-Brookes, 1-2, 2 points (OUT)
6-Hirata, 0-4, 0 points (OUT)
The winner of each block advances to the Finals. Everyone still has a chance in Block A. It’s probably going to come down to Endo-Higuchi on 12/24. Note that if Ueno & Sasaki ultimately tie for the top spot, they will have a rematch because they went to a draw. In Block B, it’s Hirata NO! as the DDT Extreme Champion is not surprisingly out of it already, he’s mainly been here for the jobber/comedy role. Naya would have ended it with a win today but is still in control, however he does still need to win his last match (MAO) and now needs a KANON loss or draw in one of his remaining matches (MAO, Saito). Brookes is now out because he loses the tiebreaker to Naya, his only hope would have been to tie with KANON as that is his only tiebreaker (he would also lose to MAO). Saito has the tiebreaker over MAO but loses to Naya. The advantage is now with MAO, who was not in action today, just because his last two are Naya & KANON. If he wins both, he advances on tiebreakers.
The next event is at Nishitetsu Hall in Fukuoka. There will be no live broadcast.
Injury Report: DDT Super-Last-Minute Change
DDT had announced a very last-minute change for tomorrow’s event in less than 2 hours from this post: Rukiya is now off the event. The ever-vague poor physical condition/poor health. He was to have teamed with Yuki Iino to face Daisuke Sasaki & MJ Paul. Tsutenkakka (who I have erroneously called His Excellency Tsuten from translations) is the replacement.
(There is no love broadcast on WRESTE UNIVERSE for the event. It should be available on demand Tuesday)
