It was the end of an era today in Japan as The Living Legend, Keiji Muto, took his final curtain call and retired after nearly 40 years in wrestling. If there was a major accomplishment to be won in Japan, he probably won it and more since coming out of the New Japan Dojo in 1984 as part of the famed 3 Musketeers with Masa Chono and the late Shinya Hashimoto. The puroresu world came together today under the Pro Wrestling NOAH banner to wish Muto a fond farewell.
Today’s event was held at the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo and can be watched on demand as a PPV ONLY on WRESTLE UNIVERSE. You have one week to watch. No word on when/if a non-paywall version will be available. But you can also watch the first 5 matches FOR FREE on YouTube.
The announced paid attendance was 30,096.
Match 1: Masa Kitamiya & Daiki Inaba beat Yoshiki Inamura & Yasutaka Yano. Kitamura pinned Yano after Saito Suplex.
Match 2: Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling Provided Match: Yuka Sakazaki, Miyu Yamashita, Shoko Nakajima & Rika Tatsumi beat Mizuki, Maki Itoh, Miyu Watanabe & Yuki Arai. Sakazaki pinned Arai after Magical Girl Chicken Bastard. (For The Love Of God…)
Match 3: Jake Lee, Jack Morris & Anthony Greene beat Takashi Sugiura, Satoshi Kojima & Timothy Thatcher. Lee pinned Thatcher after a skewered front high kick.
Match 4: Yoshinari Ogawa, Eita, HAYATA, Chris Ridgeway & Daga beat Atsushi Kotoge, YO-HEY, Seiki Yoshioka, Alejandro & Junta Miyawaki. Ridgeway beat Miyawaki with a leg capture chicken wing. This marked the return of HAYATA from an injury that cost him the GHC Jr. Heavyweight Championship last year in a match against Ninja Mack.
Match 5: DDT Provided Match: MAO, Shunma Katsumata, Yuki Ueno & Toui Kojima beat Tetsuya Endo, Hideki Okatani, Yuya Koroku & Takeshi Masada. Ueno pinned Masada after WR.
Match 6: Naomichi Marufuji, Hijo de Dr. Wagner Jr. & Ninja Mack beat Shun Skywalker, KAI & Diamante (Dragon Gate). Wagner pinned KAI after a moonsault press.
Match 7: Kenoh, Katsuhiko Nakajima & Manabu Soya beat Kento Miyahara, Suwama & Yuma Aoyagi (All-Japan). Kenoh pinned Aoyagi after PFS.
Match 8: NOSAWA Rongai Retirement Match: Gedo & Taiji Ishimori (New Japan) beat NOSAWA Rongai & MAZADA. Ishimori pinned NOSAWA after Bloody Cross.
Match 9: Hiromu Takahashi (New Japan) beat AMAKUSA.
Match 10: Kazuchika Okada (New Japan) beat Kaito Kiyomiya. This was changed last-minute to No Time Limit. (It went about 16 1/2 minutes)
Main Event: Keiji Muto Retirement Match: Tetsuya Naito (New Japan) beat Keiji Muto. They went almost 30 minutes. Which led to…
Impromptu Special Match: Masa Chono beat Keiji Muto by submission in 97 seconds. Tiger Hattori was special referee. Proper sendoff, no better way than against his fellow Musketeer, still the coolest cat in the house after all these years.
Just as I was about to post this, GHC Heavyweight Champion Kaito Kiyomiya vs. Jake Lee for the title was announced for 3/19.
The next event is 3/9 at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo. This is currently scheduled to be an ABRMA-only live broadcast, so it should be available on demand on WRESTLE UNIVERSE immediately after the event.
UPDATE: Some notes from post-match comments:
Satoshi Kojima says he is now done on NOAH. Immediate future TBA.
Junta Miyawaki reportedly is returning to Mexico and will stay there indefinitely for further training and experience.
Lee made a GHC Heavyweight Championship challenge after Okada-Kiyomiya.
Some NOAH crossover matches were hinted at for the 2/27 All-Japan event, in particular with Kongo involvement. Possibly an All-Japan World Tag Team Title match involving Soya & Kenoh and maybe Miyahara-Nakajima, who have a lot of history from their days in Kensuke Office/Diamond Ring.
Muto says his retirement is definite and no in-ring comebacks. He plans to continue training for health reasons (he has two artificial knees and needs to keep his leg strength built up to be able to keep walking). Before his comments he received a ceremonial flower bouquet from SKE48 member Jurina Matsui, who occasionally is a guest commentator for events on ABEMA & WRESTLE UNIVERSE.
UPDATE 2: The Dragon Gate Official English Facebook Page reports Diamante suffered an elbow injury during his match. Hijo de Dr. Wagner Jr. expressed concern for Diamante in post-match comments. Out at least the rest of this week and off Dragon Gate events tomorrow and Saturday.
UPDATE 3: The 3/9 event will now be LIVE on WRESTLE UNIVERSE in English only. It’s an ABEMA-only stream in Japan.
