Tag: pro wrestling

News: Fujinami Launching New Effort

It seems that Tatsumi Fujinami, 69 with 52 years experience in the ring, is never really going to retire. Still remaining active mainly in his Dradition promotion, Hochi News reports (in a story shared by Dradition) that Fujinami is starting another new promotion, with translation indicating it will be called “Dragon Stadium” and it will feature young wrestlers who recently debuted hand-selected by Fujinami. They mainly will be selected from promotions he is currently active in, which would mean Dradition primarily and possibly others. Fujinami intends to apply training methods he learned from the late Antonio Inoki & Karl Gotch in the promotion and that is “a project to create a new stage for young people that conveys the Dragonism cultivated in the Showa era (which ended 5 years ago in the Japanese calendar) to the present in Reiwa”.

Original source (in Japanese):
https://hochi.news/articles/20230505-OHT1T51030.fhtml

BREAKING: Yuka Sakazaki Leaving TJPW After 2023

At a press conference in Tokyo today, Tokyo Joshi Pro star Yuka Sakazaki made a major announcement: She is leaving the promotion after the 10th Anniversary Event on 12/1 at Korakuen Hall. Sakazaki will be leaving Japan to continue her career overseas. It was also announced her next excursion will run until after the 6/4 event, and the next Princess Tag Team Championship defense for Sakazaki & Mizuki will be on 6/11 vs. Rika Tatsumi & Miu Watanabe.

This most likely hints at Sakazaki going to All Elite Wrestling full-time as she has been a member of the roster since the early days of the promotion, but the coronavirus pandemic kept her away from 2020 until 2022.

More as it becomes available.

Dragon Gate 5/7/23 Results

Dragon Gate continued the Hopeful Gate 20223 Tour today with another non-televised house show.

Today’s event was held at Yokkaichi Kusunoki Ryokuchi Gym in Mie. There was no live broadcast.

The announced paid attendance was 312.

Match 1: Susumu Mochizuki & Yasushi Kanda beat BxB Hulk & Ben-K. Kanda pinned Hulk after Candy Magic.

Match 2: Jason Lee & Strong Machine J beat Genki Horiguchi & Kagetora. Lee pinned Horiguchi after Maximum Driver.

Match 3: Kota Minoura beat Kaito Nagano.

Match 4: Diamante, KAI & ISHIN beat Ultimo Dragon, Dragon Kid & Shachihoko BOY. Diamante pinned BOY after a tombstone piledriver.

Match 5: Don Fujii & Takashi Yoshida beat Shun Skywalker & H-Y-O. Fujii beat H-Y-O with Gedo Clutch.

Main Event: Madoka Kikuta, Yuki Yoshioka & Dragon Dia beat Kzy, BIGBOSS Shimizu & U-T. Kikuta pinned U-T after a rolling lariat.

The next event is Thursday at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo. Live streaming on DRAGONGATE NETWORK will begin at 2:30 AM PT/5:30 AM ET.

TJPW News: Upcoming Wrestler Absences, Notes

Tokyo Joshi Pro announced the full card for the 5/13 house show today (there will be no live broadcast on WRESTLE UNIVERSE) and several upcoming absences were mentioned:
Yuka Sakazaki is headed on another international excursion, which always beings a possibility of a return to All Elite Wrestling. It’s not known for how long yet.
Neko Haruna is off this next event. Knee injury. Out indefinitely.
Runa Okubo will miss this event for what the promotion is calling academic reasons. No word on how long this absence may be for.
For what it’s worth with Sakazaki, the next Korakuen Hall event is not until 6/10 so I would expect her back in no more than 3 weeks as that may be the next Princess Tag Team Championship match as there won’t be one at Summer Sun Princess in July because of Mizuki vs. Maki Itoh for the Princess Of Princess Championship.
on a side note, 6/10 right now is the earliest Miyu Yamashita may return from her international tour. Still no definite timeframe yet but I expect they want her back by July for Summer Sun Princess.

All-Japan 5/7/23 Results

All-Japan wrapped up the Champions Carnival 2023 Tournament today with an incredibly unlikely Final, which would likely determine who gets the next shot at Yuji Nagata for the Triple Crown.

Today’s event was held at Ota City General Gym in Tokyo and can be watched on demand on AJPW.TV.

The announced paid attendance was 2437. They didn’t specifically say this but that probably was at least a full house/near sellout.

Match 1: Yuto Nakashima, Ryohei Oiwa & Kosei Fujita (New Japan Pro Wrestling) beat Ryuki Honda, Ryo Inoue & Oji Shiiba. Fujita beat Inoue with a chicken wing.

Match 2: Atsuki Aoyagi, Rising Hayato & El Lindaman (GLEAT) beat Kaito Ishida (GLEAT), Kotaro Suzuki & Yutani (GLEAT). Aoyagi pinned Suzuki after Firebird Splash.

Match 3: Sayaka Unagi, SAKI & Yoshitatsu beat Hikaru Sato, Kaori Yoneyama & Yuu. SAKI pinned Yoneyama after a diving knee drop.

Match 4: Shuji Ishikawa, Cyrus, Ren Ayabe & Oskar Leube (New Japan) beat Yuji Nagata (New Japan), Satoshi Kojima, Mitsuya Nagai (Dradition) & Black Menso-re. Ishikawa pinned Menso-re after Fire Thunder.

Match 5: Minoru Suzuki & Hokuto Omori beat Yuma Aoyagi & Takao Omori. Suzuki pinned Omori after a Gotch-style piledriver.

Match 6: All-Japan World Jr. Heavyweight Champion Naruki Doi beat Dan Tamura to retain the title. V2 for Doi.

Match 7: KONO beat Manabu Soya (Pro Wrestling NOAH) by submission.

Match 8: Suwama, Jun & Rei Saito beat Kenoh, Hajime Ohara & Hi69 (Pro Wrestling NOAH). Suwama pinned Ohara after Last Ride.

Match 9: Tetsuya Naito & BUSHI (New Japan) beat Kento Miyahara & Yuma Anzai. Naito pinned Anzai after Destino.

Main Event: Champions Carnival Finals: Shotaro Ashino beat T-Hawk by submission to win the tournament. As a result, Ashino will face Triple Crown Champion Yuji Nagata for the Triple Crown. That match will happen on 5/29 at Korakuen Hall.

The next event is 5/13 at Volfert Toyama in Toyama, which likely will be headlined by a Jumbo Tsuruta Memorial Match in which all 6 participants are current or former Triple Crown Champions. Broadcast plans TBA.

Dragon Gate 5/6/23 Results

Dragon Gate resumed the Glorious Gate 2023 Tour today, beginning a new chapter after Madoka Kikuta won the Open The Dream Gate Championship just 24 hours ago.

Today’s event was held at Tsushima City Cultural Center in Aichi. There was no live broadcast.

The announced paid attendance was 336.

Match 1: Susumu Mochizuki & Yasushi Kanda beat Kzy & U-T. Mochizuki pinned U-T after Aqualiner.

Match 2: Ben-K beat Kagetora.

Match 3: Jason Lee & JACKY “FUNKY” KAMEI beat YAMATO & Punch Tominaga. Lee pinned Tomonaga after Maximum Driver.

Match 4: Diamante, H-Y-O & ISHIN beat Ultimo Dragon, Dragon Kid & Genki Horiguchi. ISHIN pinned Horiguchi after Capital Punishment.

Match 5: Shun Skywalker & KAI beat BIGBOSS Shimizu & Strong Machine J. Skywalker pinned J.

Main Event: Madoka Kikuta, Yuki Yoshioka & Dragon Dia beat Kota Minoura, BxB Hulk & Minorita. Kikuta pinned Minorita after a vertical drop high speed piledriver.

The next event is tomorrow at Yokkaichi Kusunoki Ryokuchi Gym in Mie. There will be no live broadcast.

DDT Pro Wrestling KING OF DDT Quarterfinals Results (5/7/23)

DDT continues the KING OF DDT 2023 Tournament today with the Quarterfinals. 24 hours after narrowing the field from 16 down to 8, including some major upsets (Hideki Okatani pulled off a shocker against double champion Shunma Katsumata), it will be narrowed down to 4 after today. The Quarterfinals make up the second half of today’s event, with Okatani vs. Kazusada Higuchi as the main event. The Semifinals will be determined by random draw after the event, so it’s not necessarily going to be what the brackets online suggest. There will be 4 non-tournament matches first including a pre-show dark match.

Today’s event will be held at Shinjuku Face in Tokyo and can be watched LIVE on WRESTLE UNIVERSE. There will likely be no commentary. It may also be a hard camera-only view due to venue size limitations. I was way over on my running time prediction yesterday as I guessed it would go 2 1/2 hours and it only went about 1 hour 45 minutes. Not counting the pre-show match I anticipate another 2 hour event today, so if you need a Saturday Night Live replacement due to the writers’ strike this should suffice. Note the pre-show match is scheduled to start 22 minutes before event time. Odd, I know, but it’s DDT after all.

Today’s lineup (in order):
Pre-Show Match: Yuni & Yuki Ishida vs. Yuya Koroku & Kazuma Sumi

Main Show:
Yuki Iino & Danshoku Dieno vs. Akito & Antonio Honda
Daisuke Sasaki, MJ Paul & KANON vs. Shunma Katsumata, Toui Kojima & Takeshi Masada
Yuji Hino, Tetsuya Endo, Yukio Sakaguchi & Yusuke Okada vs. HARASHIMA, Naruki Doi, Toru Owashi & Kazuki Hirata
KING OF DDT Quarterfinals:
Kotaro Suzuki vs. Yuki Ueno
Jun Akiyama vs. MAO
Sanshiro Takagi vs. Chris Brookes
Kazusada Higuchi vs. Hideki Okatani

Refresh this page occasionally for the latest results.

Updates below will begin at 7:30 PM PT/10:30 PM ET. The Pre-Show Match is scheduled to begin at 7:38 PM PT/10:38 PM ET.

7:20 PM PT UPDATE: Stream start time has been moved up 5 minutes to 7:25 PM PT/10:25 PM PT. Updates will begin shortly.

7:25 PM PT UPDATE: Stream has launched. We should be going to the venue in about 10 minutes.

7:38 PM PT UPDATE: Live updates start now…
We are LIVE from Shinjuku Face in Tokyo, Japan. There is no commentary. Hard camera view only again.

The paid attendance will be announced after the event. The crowd is still filing in as there’s 20 minutes until scheduled start time. Yesterday did roughly 235 so that suggests another crowd in the 225-250 range. (At start time it looks similar to yesterday so probably around 225 again)

The pre-show match starts a couple minutes later than planned at 7:40 PM PT.

Pre-show Match: Yuni & Yuki Ishida vs. Yuya Koroku & Kazuma Sumi. 15 minute time limit
Result :Yuni & Yuki Ishida beat Yuya Koroku & Kazuma Sumi. Ishida pinned Sumi after a palm strike.

Updates will resume at 8 PM PT or when main show matches begin.

The main show matches begin at 8 PM PT/11 PM ET.

Match 1: Yuki Iino & Danshoku Dieno vs. Akito & Antonio Honda. 30 minute time limit A ton of pre-match comedy stuff with Iino trying to be “Sexy” again but apparently he still has to be “NOT SEXY!”
Reslut: Yuki Iino & Danshoku Dieno beat Akito & Antonio Honda. Iino beat Honda with a sleeper hold. Nonstop ridiculous Pheromones comedy match. Kept everyone laughing the whole way through.

Match 2: Daisuke Sasaki, MJ Paul & KANON vs. Shunma Katsumata, Toui Kojima & Takeshi Masada. 30 minute time limit
Result: Daisuke Sasaki, MJ Paul & KANON beat Shunma Katsumata, Toui Kojima & Takeshi Masada. KANON pinned Kojima after Sleepy Hollow.

Match 3: Yuji Hino, Tetsuya Endo, Yukio Sakaguchi & Yusuke Okada vs. HARASHIMA, Naruki Doi, Toru Owashi & Kazuki Hirata. 30 minute time limit
Result: Yuji Hino, Tetsuya Endo, Yukio Sakaguchi & Yusuke Okada beat HARASHIMA, Naruki Doi, Toru Owashi & Kazuki Hirata. Sakaguchi pinned Hirata after PK following an Endo Torture Rack Bomb during Hirata’s comedy dancing with HARASHIMA. Hilarious ending.

Match 4: KING OF DDT Quarterfinals: Kotaro Suzuki vs. Yuki Ueno. No time limit
Result: Yuki Ueno beat Kotaro Suzuki. As a result, Ueno advances to the Semifinals.

Match 5: KING OF DDT Quarterfinals: Jun Akiyama vs. MAO. No time limit
Result: Jun Akiyama beat MAO. As a result, Akiyama advances to the Semifinals.

Match 6: KING OF DDT Quarterfinals: Sanshiro Takagi vs. Chris Brookes. No time limit
Result: Chris Brookes beat Sanshiro Takagi. As a result, Brookes advances to the Semifinals. Largely hardcore comedy outside the ring.

Quick break for ring cleaning.

Main Event: KING OF DDT Quarterfinals: Kazusada Higuchi vs. Hideki Okatani. No time limit
Result: Kazusada Higuchi beat Hideki Okatani. As a result, Higuchi advances to the Semifinals.

GM Imabayashi returns tot he ring to announce the Semifinal pairings, which are by a random draw once all 4 participants return to the ring. Colored balls will determine the matches. Higuchi draws first…red. Akiyama second…blue. Brookes third…blue. That means Ueno, who was last, got red. So the Semifinals are Higuchi vs. Ueno and Akiyama vs. Brookes. The Semifinals and Finals will be on 5/21 at Korakuen Hall.

The next event is 5/14 at TKP Garden City Chiba in Chiba for an ONLY WE/Yuji Hino 20th Anniversary Event. There will be no live broadcast.

Post-show note: The announced paid attendance was 206.

Ganbare Pro 5/6/23 Results

Ganbare Pro was back in action today with a house show only 24 hours after their Golden Week blowout event, with the first Spirit Of Ganbare World Tag Team Championship match the headliner.

Today’s event was held at Takashimadaira Community Center in Tokyo and will be available on demand on WRESTLE UNIVERSE at a later date. There was no live broadcast.

The announced paid attendance was 68.

Before the matches began, clarification from yesterday’s event: Although he made the next challenge, Isami Kodaka WILL NOT get the next Spirit Of Ganbare World Openweight Championship shot right away. He’ll have to earn it by beating Sotatsu Nakamura on 5/28 with the winner getting the next shot.

Match 1: Hong Kong Domestic Policewoman beat Hong Kong International Policeman and Itabashi Dangerous Policeman in a 3-way by pinning Itabashi Dangerous Policeman. Comedy match of course.

Match 2: Moeka Haruhi & HARUKAZE beat YuuRI & Reala. Haruhi pinned Reala after a diving foot stomp.

Match 3: In an Elimination Match (over the top rope rules in effect), Mizuki Watase, Ken Ohka, Keisuke Ishii & Shinichiro Tominaga beat Tatsuhiro Takaiwa, Yumehito Imanari, Takao Soma & Sotatsu Nakamura. Order of elimination (all by over the top rope), Takaiwa by Ohka, Soma by Tominaga, Watase & Nakamura together, Imanari by Ishii. Ohka/Ishii/Tominaga win.

Match 4: Shuichiro Katsumura beat Takuya Wada.

Main Event: Spirit Of Ganbare World Tag Team Champions Hikaru Sato & Tyson Maeguchi beat Dan The Dad & Cody Lang to retain the titles. Maeguchi pinned Lang after a buzzsaw kick. V1 for the champs.

The next event is 5/28 for the monthly tripleheader at Oji Basement MON*STAR in Tokyo. This time there is a Yumehito Imanari produced event along with the normal event and wrestlers group-produced event. There will be no live broadcasts.

GLEAT 5/6/23 Results

GLEAT returned to Tokyo today for the latest G PROWRESTLING event, the 51st as they draw closer to their major summer event on July 1 (the GLEAT 2nd Anniversary event).

Today’s event was held at Shinjuku Face in Tokyo and can be watched on demand on YouTube. You can also watch below FOR FREE (since they were back in Tokyo it was a free live broadcast, video courtesy of the GLEAT Official YouTube Channel. Skip ahead to 15:45 in the video below to get to the beginning of the event):

The announced paid attendance was 319.

Match 1: Takanori Ito & Masato Kamino beat Kaz Hayashi & Issei Onitsuka. Ito pinned Onitsuka with a German suplex hold.

Match 2: Sayaka Unagi beat Yukari Hosokawa by submission.

Match 3: Yusuke Kodama beat Jun Tonsho & Shinsuya (?) in a 3-way by beating Tonsho.

Match 4: Jun & Rei Saito (All-Japan Pro Wrestling) beat Minoru Tanaka & Yu Iizuka. Rei Saito pinned Iizuka after Drill-A-Hole Piledriver.

Match 5: T-Hawk & El Lindaman vs. Tetsuya Izuchi & Soma Watanabe went to a 20 minute time limit draw.

Main Event: In an Elimination Match, Ryichi Kawakami, Hayato Tamura, Check Shimatani, KAZMA SAKAMOTO & Quiet Storm beat Kaito Ishida, Kotaro Suzuki, Yutani, Hartley Jackson & MAZADA. Order of elimination: Suzuki, Storm, Jackson, KAZMA, Kawakami, MAZADA, Tamura, Yutani, Ishida. Bulk Orchestra wins with Shimatani the only man left.

The next event is 5/14 at Sapporo E-One Stadium in Hokkaido with T-Hawk vs. Check Shimatani for the G-REX Championship. The rest of the card is TBA. Broadcast plans TBA (if not live streamed then it should be available on demand on YouTube a few days later).

DDT Pro Wrestling KING OF DDT 2023 Round 1 Results (5/6/23)

DDT kicks off the annual KONG OF DDT 2023 Tournament today, a single-elimination bracket-style singles tournament to determine the strongest wrestler in DDT. This year’s tournament has 16 participants (not everyone who wanted in got in, at least according to Saki Akai on her Twitter-she wanted in but got left out) and all will be in action today as the entire Round 1 makes up today’s event. Yuki Ueno vs. Naruki Doi will be the main event but on paper the highlight match seems to be Match 5, which is Jun Akiyama vs. Tetsuya Endo in an all-Burning affair, and all winners move on to tomorrow’s Quarterfinals. Kazusada Higuchi is the defensing tournament winner.

Today’s event will be held at Shinjuku Face on Tokyo and can be watched LIVE on WRESTLE UNIVERSE. It’s not known if there will be any commentary. All the matches have no time limit so it’s hard to predict how long the event will run, my guess will be about 2 1/2 hours.

Today’s lineup (in order, all matches are KING OF DDT Round 1 matches):
Yusuke Okada vs. Kazusada Higuchi
Shunma Katsumata vs. Hideki Okatani
Sanshiro Takagi vs. Yukio Sakaguchi
HARASHIMA vs. Chris Brookes
Jun Akiyama vs. Tetsuya Endo
MAO vs. Takeshi Masada
Kotaro Suzuki vs. KANON
Yuki Ueno vs. Naruki Doi

Refresh this page occasionally for the latest results.

Updates below will begin at 8 PM PT/11 PM ET.

7:55 PM PT UPDATE: Live updates begin now.

We are LIVE from Shinjuku Face in Tokyo, Japan. There is no commentary.

The paid attendance will be announced after the event. Not a sellout although the super seats and counter seats sold out, I’m guessing based on opening shots and crowd noise it’ll be in the 250-300 range.

The matches will begin shortly.

The matches begin at 8 PM PT. All matches are KING OF DDT Round 1 matches. No time limit. Looks like hard camera views only today.

Match 1: Yusuke Okada vs. Kazusada Higuchi
Result: Kazusada Higuchi beat Yusuke Okada by ref stoppage (KO-headbutt). As a result, Higuchi advances to the Quarterfinals and will face the Shunma Katsumata-Hideki Okatani winner.

Match 2: Shunma Katsumata vs. Hideki Okatani
Result: Hideki Okatani beat Shunma Katsumata. As a result, Okatani advances to the Quarterfinals and will face Kazusada HIguchi. This was mostly an outside the ring brawl scattering the crowd all over the place.

Match 3: Sanshiro Takagi vs. Yukio Sakaguchi
Result: Sanshiro Takagi beat Yukio Sakaguchi. Very short match (under 4 minutes). As a result, Takagi advances to the Quarterfinals and will face the HARASHIMA-Chris Brookes winner.

Match 4: HARASHIMA vs. Chris Brookes
Result: Chris Brookes beat HARASHIMA. As a result, Brookes advances to the Quarterfinals and will face Sanshiro Takagi.

Match 5: Jun Akiyama vs. Tetsuya Endo
Result: Jun Akiyama beat Tetsuya Endo. As a result, Akiyama advances to the Quarterfinals and will face the MAO-Takeshi Masada winner.

Match 6: MAO vs. Takeshi Masada
Result: MAO beat Takeshi Masada. As a result, MAO advances to the Quarterfinals and will face Jun Akiyama.

Match 7: Kotaro Suzuki vs. KANON
Result: Kotaro Suzuki beat KANON. As a result, Suzuki advances to the Quarterfinals and will face the Yuki Ueno-Naruki Doi winner.

Main Event: Yuki Ueno vs. Naruki Doi
Result: Yuki Ueno beat Naruki Doi. As a result, Ueno advances to teh Quarterfinals and will face Kotaro Suzuki.

Much faster event than I expected, the matches went just 1 hour 45 minutes total.

The Quarterfinals are tomorrow. Live streaming on WRESTLE UNVIERSE will begin at 8 PM PT/11 PM ET with live results posted here.

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