Tag: pro wrestling

AEW Rampage 11/10/23 Results

Here are the quick results from tonight’s LIVE AEW Rampage in Oakland, CA (tomorrow’s Collision will be TAPED after the broadcast, also both shows are expected to be LIVE ON FRIDAY next week due to the Full Gear PPV on 11/18):

Match 1: Ricky Starks vs. Preston Vance
Result: Ricky Starks beat Preston Vance

Chris Jericho pre-taped interview. He’s in or on his way to Japan to face Konosuke Takeshita in DDT tomorrow.

Match 2: Ruby Soho vs. Red Velvet
Result: Red Velvet beat Ruby Soho

Match 3: The Kingdom vs. 2 jobbers
Result: The Kingdom beat 2 jobbers. Squash. Went only about 55 seconds.

Main Event: FTR vs. El Hijo De Vikingo & Komander
Result: FTR beat El Hijo De Vikingo & Komander. Cash Wheeler pinned Komander after Big Rig. House Of Black promo followed the match to wrap it up. During the match, Vikingo hit his head at an awkward-looking angle on the announce table after a suicide dive and looked a tad unsteady in a couple spots.

End Show.

New Japan Pro Wrestling “Lonestar Shootout” Results (11/10/23)

New Japan is back in the US today for their next STRONG LIVE event, Lonestar Shootout. Following up on last month’s Fighting Spirit Unleashed, it’s another loaded event with 5 title matches among a 12-match lineup. First up, the STRONG Tag Team Championship is on the line as Hikuleo & El Phantasmo defend the titles against West Coast Wrecking Crew (Jorel Nelson & Royce Isaacs), who want to bring the titles back stateside away from the Japan mainstays. Second, STRONG Openweight Champion Eddie Kingston will defend the title against the legendary Satoshi Kojima, who has already firmly established the Bread Club in Texas. The third title match is a highly-anticipated show stealer candidate as NJPW WORLD TV Champion Zack Sabre Jr. goes for his 16th (!) successful defense against Mike Bailey, who basically continues to do nothing but have MOTY candidate matches all the time. In the 4th title match, IWGP Women’s Champion Mayu Iwatani travels to the US from Stardom to defend against CMLL standout Stephanie Vaquer, who earned her chance at the title with a victory in Las Vegas. Finally in the main event, NEW NEVER Openweight Champion Shingo Takagi will defend the title against AEW’s Trent Beretta.

Today’s event will be held at Curtis Culwell Center in Garland Park, TX (Dallas/Ft. Worth area) and can be watched LIVE on New Japan World in Japanese. It was originally planned to be a PPV on the service but following yesterday’s (bumpy of course) major update/relaunch of the New Japan World service it was decided to make is available for all with no additional purchase required. Those who purchased the PPV before on the service will get refunds (I never saw/had that option). With the pricing changes at the relaunch yesterday a new subscription will now cost $9.99/month if you go through their website, or as much as $12.99/month going through app stores. It will also be available LIVE on FITE in English only for $19.99. There will also be a FREE 30 minute pre-show before the event on FITE, which also is part of the New Japan World broadcast, and it also will be available on the New Japan World YouTube channel. The pre-show is headlined by another rivalry match between Fred Rosser & Tom Lawlor. Only 2 of the matches have longer than 30 minute time limits, but based on last month as well as the pre-show I anticipate this event having a total running time of around 4 hours.

Today’s lineup:
Pre-show:
Matt Vandagriff vs. Barrett Brown
Fred Rosser vs. Tom Lawlor

Main show/PPV:
Mascara Dorada, Tiger Mask 4 & Atlantis vs. Hechicero, Rocky Romero & Ultimo Guerrero
Kevin Knight, KUSHIDA, Tanga Loa & Tama Tonga vs. Clark Connors, Gabriel Kidd, Alex Coughlin & Chase Owens
Toru Yano vs. Joey Janela
Mistico vs. TJP
STRONG Tag Team Champions Hikuleo & El Phantasmo vs. West Coast Wrecking Crew for the titles
STRONG Openweight Champion Eddie Kingston vs. Satoshi Kojima for the title
NJPW WORLD TV Champion Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Mike Bailey for the title
Jon Moxley & Wheeler Yuta vs. David Finlay & KENTA
IWGP Women’s Champion Mayu Iwatani vs. Stephanie Vaquer for the title
NEVER Openweight Champion Shingo Takagi vs. Trent Beretta for the title

Refresh this page occasionally for the latest results.

Updates below will begin at 4:30 PM PT/7:30 PM ET.

4:05 PM PT UPDATE: After some initial connection issues on their end, the live stream has successfully launched in pre-show mode. I am testing the new Apple TV app and will be using that initially to stream the event. The presentation is the same as watching it in a web browser.

4:30 PM PT UPDATE: Live updates begin now…

We are LIVE from Curtis Culwell Center in Garland Park, TX. Your hosts are Haruo Murata, Milano Collection A.T. & Miki Motoi. (If you’re watching in English on FITE, your hoses are Walker Stephens & Veda Scott)

The paid attendance will be announced after the event. The configuration looks to be for around 3400 at most (using a half-arena setup), so based on ticket sales through yesterday I’m thinking it’ll be in the range of 2800-3000. (UPDATE: The announced paid attendance was 1027. Was I ever off…much smaller setup than I expected, and there seemed to be a lot of ringside seats left today which surprised me)

Pre-show:
Match 1: Matt Vandagriff vs. Barrett Brown
Result: Barrett Brown beat Matt Vandagriff

Match 2: Fred Rosser vs. Tom Lawlor. 20 minute time limit
Result: Fred Rosser beat Tom Lawlor

Quick break for end of pre-show.

PPV/main show:
The opening match rundown video misspelled David FInlay’s last name as Finley.
Match 1: Mascara Dorada, Tiger Mask 4 & Atlantis vs. Hechicero, Rocky Romero & Ultimo Guerrero. 20 minute time limit
Result: Mascara Dorada, Tiger Mask 4 & Atlantis beat Hechicero, Rocky Romero & Ultimo Guerrero. Dorada pinned Hechicero after Shooting Star Press.

Match 2: Toru Yano vs. Joey Janela. 20 minute time limit
Once Yano entered the ring Janela sneak attacked him. Janela with microphone. After finding Yano’s pants were loaded with rolls of tape, he demanded a No DQ match. The change was made and the match is now No DQ.
Result: Toru Yano beat Joey Janela

TJP interviewed backstage.

Quick break to reset the ring after that last match. Toru Yano likes to remove the tunbuckle padding (New Japan uses velcro-attached padding in the corners)

Match 3: Kevin Knight, KUSHIDA, Tanga Loa & Tama Tonga vs. Clark Connors, Gabriel Kidd, Alex Coughlin & Chase Owens. 20 minute time limit
Result: Clark Connors, Gabriel Kidd, Alex Coughlin & Chase Owens beat Kevin Knight, KUSHIDA, Tanga Loa & Tama Tonga. Connors pinned Knight after an assisted piledriver.

Match 4: STRONG Tag Team Champions Hikuleo & El Phantasmo vs. West Coast Wrecking Crew (Jorel Nelson & Royce Isaacs) for the titles. 30 minute time limit
Result: STRONG Tag Team Champions HIkuleo & El Phantasmo beat West Coast Wrecking Crew to retain the titles. Phantasmo pinned Nelson after an errant Isaacs belt shot (ducked and hit Nelson). V2 for the champs.

Match 5: Mistico vs. TJP. 30 minute time limit
Result: Mistico beat TJP by submission

Match 6: STRONG Openweight Champion Eddie Kingston vs. Satoshi Kojima for the title. 30 minute time limit
Result: STRONG Openweight Champion Eddie Kingston beat Satoshi Kojima to retain the title. V7 for Kingston. Next up: Apparently Gabriel Kidd, who came out and laid out Kingston with the title belt. Kidd with microphone afterwards then a piledriver. Kidd finishes by saying David Finlay sent him out to win gold. Sounds like this could happen in January at the next US event in San Jose, CA.

Trent Beretta interviewed in the back as he arrives.

Match 7: Jon Moxley & Wheeler Yuta vs. David Finlay & KENTA. 30 minute time limit
Result: Jon Moxley & Wheeler Yuta beat David Finlay & KENTA. Moxley pinned KENTA after Death Rider.

Match 8: NJPW WORLD TV Champion Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Mike Bailey for the title. 15 minute time limit
Result: NJPW WORLD TV Champion Zack Sabre Jr. beat Mike Bailey by submission to retain the title. V16(!) for Sabre. Ended with only about 5 seconds left until the time limit.

Match 9: IWGP Women’s Champion Mayu Iwatani vs. Stephanie Vaquer for the title. 1 Hour time limit
Result: IWGP Women’s Champion Mayu Iwatani beat Stephanie Vaquer to retain the title. V2 for Iwatani.

Main Event: NEVER Openweight Champion Shingo Takagi vs. Trent Beretta for the title. 1 Hour time limit
Result: NEVER Openweight Champion Shingo Takagi beat Trent Beretta to retain the title. V1 for Takagi. Post-match, Takagi with microphone. In English, as he did when he won the title last time, he demanded a next challenger appear. At the end the lights went out, so it appears we have our answer: G.o.D…specifically, Tama Tonga. With microphone. REMATCH! (Takagi beat Tonga last month in Las Vegas to win the title) Takagi said “OF COURSE! At Tokyo Dome!” We’ll see if New Japan makes this official. Afterwards, Takagi produced a cowboy hat and wore it in the ring while posing for photos and waving to the crowd to end the show.

Including the pre-show and post-main event stuff, the event ran about 4 1/4 hours total. As far as the initial new NJPW WORLD experience, I give it a 9.9 out of 10. No issues with the stream once it began, quality was a little better than before (the ringside video camera quality was noticeably improved), the only thing I would like is improved DVR functionality-specifically being able to press left/right on my Apple TV remote to rewind/fast forward 10 or 15 seconds at a time. Right now it’s going way too far either way when I try to prevision jump back. But a very minor complaint at that. Almost perfectly passed my first test.

The next US event scheduled is Battle In The Valley on 1/13/24 in San Jose, CA. Tickets are on sale now. Broadcast plans TBA.

The next event in Japan is Anjo Rainy Days tomorrow at Tosho Arena Anjo in Aichi. This may be a Kazuchika Okada hometown event. The matches will not be announced ahead of event time. There will be no live or on demand broadcast.

Impact Wrestling 11/9/23 Results (Updated)

Here are the quick results from tonight’s Impact Wrestling in Chicago:

This episode was taped on 10/22 and wraps up (or should) the fallout from Bound For Glory.

There was no YouTube pre-show this week.

Match 1: Tasha Steelz beat Deonna Purrazzo. There are already clips of them doing a brief twerk-off/booty shaking showdown on the socials, which alone makes this match worth watching.

Alex Shelley promo.

Bullet Club promo. Santino Marella interrupts, then so do Kenny King & Sheldon Jean. King wants a rematch for the Impact Digital Media Championship. Some bantering & bickering leads to Santino making Bullet Club vs. Jean & King for the Impact Tag Team Championship next week.

Match 2: Crazzy Steve beat Impact Digital Media Champion Tommy Dreamer by DQ. As a result, Dreamer retains the title. It ended after Dreamer used a fork on Steve.

Jonathan Gresham interviewed backstage.

Match 3: Brian Myers beat Joe Hendry.

Will Ospreay interviews. Next week he faces Josh Alexander. OHHHHH YEAH!

Match 4: Eric Young beat Eddie Edwards. Alisha Edwards misfired on a Singapore Cane shot to end it.

Myers argues with Moose backstage. Heath interrupts and confronts Myers. Moose interjects himself between them and Heath says he’ll take on both of them and heads off to find Santino.

Sonny Kiss interviewed backstage. Trinity shows up after overhearing Kiss setting sights on the Impact Knockouts Championship. Trinity says she’ll try to make it happen next week.

Match 5: Dirty Dango & Oleg Prudius beat 2 jobbers. Squash. Dango actually joined commentary until right before the end of the match after it started and let Prudius destroy the jobbers.

Jordynne Grace promo. Bully Ray interrupts her. Then KiLynn King also cuts in. King talks up facing Bully but Bully tries to talk her down. Then Steve Maclin shows up. He calls Bully soft again. Threats exchanged before Maclin leaves followed by King.

Rascalz promo. They introduce Myron Reed as their new member and apparently will face “some luchadors” next week.

Main Event: Impact World Champion Alex Shelley beat Jonathan Gresham to retain the title.

Next week: Impact Tag Team Champions Ace Austin & Chris Bey vs. Kenny King & Sheldon Jean for the titles, Will Ospreay vs. Josh Alexander, Rascalz vs. Laredo Kid, Black Taurus & Juventud Guerrera, Moose vs. Heath, Sonny Kiss vs. Trinity in a NON-TITLE match and Steve Maclin & KiLynn King vs. Bully Ray & Jordynne Grace.

Next up is IPWF Throwback Throwdown 4 Saturday in Toronto, Canada, which will be the next TV tapings. This will have a retro/old school theme with some wrestlers portraying fictional prior-times wrestlers. The episodes will air at a later date. Depending on whether or not there will be an episode on 11/23 (Thanksgiving Day in the US), they may be taping up to 4 weeks of content or will have to come up with some other stuff to get them to Final Resolution, the next monthly live event, on 12/9. There also aren’t any more TV tapings being advertised until 1/14 when they return to being TNA Wrestling with Hard To Kill on 1/13. Both 1/13 & 1/14 events will be in Las Vegas, NV.

UPDATE: Clarified match 2 result to note that Crazzy Steve won by DQ. But because it was a DQ, Tommy Dreamer retains the Impact Digital Media Championship.

AEW News: Women’s Wrestler Gone?

According to AEW’s website and changes on her social media profiles, The Bunny may be gone from the promotion. She is no longer on AEW’s roster page and has removed such references from her social media bios.

Signing in 2019 after wrestling in Impact Wrestling as Allie (and also the indies), The Bunny appeared on only 3 matches this year, missing 6 months due to injury after losing a title match to then-AEW Women’s Champion Jamie Hayter. No word on her future plans, although she is married to The Top Ratings Draw in AEW aka The Blade.

Regarding New Japan Lonestar Shootout Broadcast Plans (Updated x2)

After originally planning to air it live, the New Japan World Twitter account hd announced that, due to issues with the relaunch of the updated service, the live broadcast in Japanese tomorrow will not happen. It now will be ON DEMAND ONLY. That means the only way to watch live will be in English on FITE for $19.99. On the flip side, it does mean 4-5 hours more of the illustrious (and just awesome) Veda Scott on commentary!

The broadcast begins with a FREE pre-show at 4:30 PM Pt/7:30 PM ET with the PPV beginning 30 minutes later.

UPDATE: For now at least the event is back on New Japan World as live in Japanese. A couple hours ago it was not on any version I used (web, mobile app, Apple TV app, Roku app. Haven’t tried Android app yet on my Kindle Fire HD but that may not yet be working properly) We’ll see what happens.

UPDATE 2: More clarification from the official Japanese New Japan account and that of President Takami Ohbari: Originally the live broadcast was going to be a PPV, although I never saw such an option to purchase it on New Japan World. That is no longer the case. It will be live on the service in Japanese only with no additional purchase required, you just have to be a subscriber to the service. If you purchased the PPV on World already, you will get a full refund.

Dragon Gate 11/9/23 Results

Dragon Gate continued The Gate Of Evolution 2023 Tour today with their monthly Tokyo event.

Today’s event was held at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo and can be watched on demand on DRAGONGATE NETWORK.

The announced paid attendance was 1353, a legit sellout.

Match 1: Punch Tominaga beat Daiki Yanagiuchi.

Match 2: BIGBOSS Shimizu & U-T beat Genki Horiguchi & Takashi Yoshida. Shimizu pinned Horiguchi after Power BOSS.

Match 3: Ultimo Dragon, Don Fujii & Kagetora beat Susumu Mochizuki, Yasushi Kanda & Kenichiro Arai. Kagetora pinned Kanda after Kagenui.

Match 4: YAMATO, Dragon Kid, Shuji Kondo & Eita beat Kota Minoura, Ben-K, BxB Hulk & Naruki Doi. YAMATO pinned Ben-K after Onmipotent & Luminescent Frankensteiner.

Match 5: Yoshiki Kato beat Masaaki Mochizuki by DQ.

Match 6: Kzy, Strong Machine J, Jason Lee & JACKY “FUNKY” KAMEI beat Madoka Kikuta, Yuki Yoshioka, Dragon Dia & Ryoya Tanaka. KAMEI pinned Tanaka after JFK.

Main Event: In a handicap match, Luis Mante beat Shun Skywalker, KAI, H-Y-O & ISHIN by pinning ISHIN.

The next event is Saturday at Matsuyama Community Center in Ehime. There will be no live or on demand broadcast.

After the event, according to the Dragon Gate Official English Twitter, H-Y-O left the Z-Brats faction and changed his ring name to 豹, pronounced “Hyo” like his prior ring name and is the Japanese kanji for “Panther”. For now I likely will refer to him as Hyo in future posts. Hyo also will get the next shot at Open The Brave Gate Champion ISHIN. That match will happen on 12/5 at Korakuen.

Injury Report: Temporarily Blind Destino

According to a Twitter post liked by New Japan’s Japanese account, Tokyo Sports reports New Japan’s Tetsuya Naito was recently hospitalized but discharged today. Right eye surgery. Upper muscle paralysis that causes double vision. It’s the second time this year he’s had surgery there. Out indefinitely. He will not be part of the upcoming World Tag League this year and, since this is partly why Naito got it done now, he should be 100% in time for Tokyo Dome on 1/4. Translation made it sound like best-case for a return post-surgery is as little as 2 weeks.

More as it becomes available.

AEW Dynamite 11/8/23 Results

Here are the quick results from tonight’s AEW Dynamite in Portland, OR:

MJF interviewed backstage before the opening. Adam Cole calls MJF then Daniel Garcia stares down MJF before heading to the ring, then Roderick Strong & The Kingdom interrupt.

Match 1: AEW World Champion MJF vs. Daniel Garcia for the title
Result: AEW World Champion MJF beat Daniel Garcia by submission to retain the title.

Match 2: Darby Allin & Sting vs. The Outrunners
Result: Darby Allin & Sting beat The Outrunners. Squash.

Toni Storm & Hikaru Shida interview with Tony Schiavone. Pre-recorded and in black & white per Strom’s demand. Contract signed for Full Gear.

Match 3: Swerve Strickland vs. Penta El Zero M. During entrances commentary announced Adam Page is banned from ringside
Result: Swerve Strickland beat Penta El Zero M. Afterwards, Adam Page came out and attacked Strickland with a chair, also using it on security as they intervened before sending Strickland off the stage and through a table with Deadeye.

Don Callis-Kenny Omega promo. They incorporated footage from the video game “Yakuza: Like A Dragon”, which elevated the typically high promo video quality even further.

Renee Paquette interviews Chris Jericho & Kenny Omega but The Young Bucks interrupt quickly. They eventually talk into a tag match at Full Gear-if Jericho & Omega win, The Bucks lose their guaranteed future AEW Tag Team Championship opportunity. If The Bucks win, Jericho & Omega must split up. Renee REALLY enjoyed this.

Match 4: ROH TV Champion Samoa Joe vs. Keith Lee for the title
Result: ROH TV Champion Samoa Joe beat Keith Lee by ref stoppage (technical submission) to retain the title. Afterwards, Joe announced the ROH TV Championship is now VACANT. He’s giving it up to go after the AEW World Championship.

Orange Cassidy promo.

Match 5: Gunn Club vs. Bollywood Boyz
Result: Gunn Club beat Bollyeood Boyz. Squash. Lasted just a few seconds.

Jon Moxley promo.

Match 6: Julia Hart vs. Red Velvet
Result: Julia Hart beat Red Velvet

Mariah May is introduced backstage. She signed with AEW after recently leaving Stardom (Japan). She says she’s here because of Toni Storm so RJ City says he’ll introduce May to Storm next week.

Main Event: Jay White vs. Mark Briscoe for White’s AEW World Championship shot at Full Gear
Result: Jay White beat Mark Briscoe to keep his title shot. MJF cleaned house afterwards until White bailed. After this, masked assailants attacked The Acclaimed & Billy Gunn backstage as “The Devil” appeared again to close this clip. MJF ran to the back and found The Acclaimed & Gunn laid out (Anthony Bowens got thrown through a window here) as Samoa Joe walked in on cue, smirked and walked off to end the show.

Next week: Jon Moley & Wheeler Yuta vs. Orange Cassidy & Hook.

Friday on a LIVE Rampage from Oakland, CA: FTR vs. El Hijo Del Vikingo & Komander. Saturday’s Collision will be TAPED after the show. Spoilers to follow Saturday morning.

As the show wound down, Mariah May got the #AllElite graphic on social media. Those who don’t follow Stardom or the international scene closely probably haven’t heard of her. Understandable.

A better show than last week, everything was consistently at or above average with nothing bad or that you need to skip. Strickland-Penta and Joe-Lee were really good matches. Right between C+ & B- but no real complaints.

Dragon Gate 11/8/23 Results

Dragon Gate continued The Gate Of Evolution 2023 Tour today with a house show in Nagano, also a 5th Anniversary event for Dragon Dia.

Today’s event was held at Suzaka Municipal Gym in Nagano. There is/was no live or on demand broadcast.

The paid attendance has mot yet been announced. (UPDATE: The announced paid attendance was 404, a full house/near sellout)

Match 1: Kota Minoura, Ben-K & BxB Hulk beat Kzy, Strong Machine J & U-T. Ben-K pinned U-T after Golden Rose.

Match 2: ISHIN & Yoshiki Kato beat Genki Horiguchi & Kagetora. ISHIN pinned Horiguchi after Death Penalty.

Match 3: Ultimo Dragon, Dragon Kid, Luis Mante & Don Fujii beat Masaaki Mochizuki, Susumu Mochizuki, Yasushi Kanda & Ho Ho Lunz Mante pinned Lun after MCK.

Match 4: YAMATO & Punch Tominaga beat BIGBOSS Shimizu & Jason Lee. YAMATO pinned Lee after Gallaria.

Main Event: Madoka Kikuta, Yuki Yoshioka & Dragon Dia beat Shun Slywalker, KAI & H-Y-O. Dia pinned H-Y-O after DDDDT.

The next event is tomorrow at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo. Live streaming on DRAGONGATE NETWORK will begin at 1:30 AM PT/4:30 AM ET.

All-Japan News: Final Real World Tag League Team Revealed

When All-Japan announced the 10 teams for this year’s Real World Tag League last weekend in Hokkaido, only 9 were revealed as one team was TBA. That 10th entry was revealed today…Katsuhiko Nakajima & Hokuto Omori. For those looking forward to the very intriguing matchup against Kento Miyahara & Yuma Aoyagi-who Nakajima next defends the Triple Crown against and who he beat to win the Triple Crown, respectively-you’re waiting a while. It’s not until the final day on 12/6. But they have a potential teaser of what could follow on 11/23 when they face Jun & Rei Saito-if Nakajima & Omori win the tournament they should get a rematch against the Saito Bros for the All-Japan World Tag Team Championship.

The tournament begins Sunday (Saturday night US time) at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo and will be streamed LIVE on AJPW.TV Saturday at 6:30 PM PT/9:30 PM ET.