Tag: pro wrestling

New Japan News: NJPW STRONG Archive Now On FITE

Good news for fans of New Japan’s now-discontinued NJPW STRONG TV series who don’t subscribe to New Japan World: The entire archive, up to and including this year’s Capital Collision event, is now available on FITE for FITE+ subscribers. Previously you had to pay to watch episodes or but bundle packs that usually consisted of 4 episodes for the price of one, although New Japan has also been releasing past episodes weekly for free on YouTube.

FITE+ is FITE’s subscription service available for $7.99/month or $69.99/year and, for the amount of combat sports content included, both live and on demand, is an indescribable bargain.

Link to the full press release:
https://www.fite.tv/article/huge-stash-of-njpw-strong-events-now-on-fite/

BREAKING: NOAH Wrestlers Departing

Pro Wrestling NOAH announced on Twitter a short time ago that Kinya Okada & Yasutaka Yano are leaving the promotion, presumably effective immediately. It seems to be by mutual agreement but no further details were released. An official statement has also been posted on NOAH’s website but that also said nothing further.

More as it becomes available.

DEVELOPING: New Japan Headed To Mexico

On today’s episode of their weekly “CMLL Informa” news program, airing every Wednesday afternoon on YouTube, Mexico’s CMLL promotion announced they will host New Japan for a special edition of the FANTASTICAMANIA series on June 30 at Arena Mexico in Mexico City, Mexico. 6 matches will make up the event as follows:

Hombre Bala Jr., El Runaz & Capitan Suicida vs. Okumura, Dark Magic & Akuma
Lluvia & Zeuxis vs. Jarochita & Stephanie Vaquer
El Satanico vs. Tiger Mask
El Desperado vs. Mascara Dorada 2.0
Titan, BUSHI & Tetsuya Naito vs. Mistico, Atantis Jr. & Soberano Jr.
CMLL Historic Welterweight Champion Rocky Romero vs. Volador Jr. for the title

Broadcast plans TBA but CMLL normally puts their Friday events on YouTube up 2-3 days after the events. (Live streams are possibly geoblocked outside of Mexico). The event is scheduled to start at 6:30 PM PT/8:30 PM CT/9:30 PM ET (Mexico City is in the US CT time zone) which means this would be a late Saturday morning event in Japan.

AEW Dynamite 5/31/23 Results

Here are the quick results from tonight’s AEW Dynamite in San Diego, CA:

Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli & Wheeler Yuta beat Lucha Bros & Bandido. Yuta pinned Bandido with a seatbelt hold. Bandido managed to hanging vertical suplex and hold Yuta for ONE FULL MINUTE during the match.

Swerve Strickland beat Trent Beretta & Big Bill in a 3-way by pinning Beretta.

Don Callis has turned Konosuke Takeshita full heel. A noteworthy Kazuchika Okada name drop here.

Orange Cassidy & Darby Allin beat Bishop Kaun & Toa Liona. Allin pinned Kaun after Coffin Drop. Sting returned post-match.

Tony Khan’s next major Collision Announcement was made…See I’m A Punk. Crowd reaction was very loud and, because they were not in Chicago, mostly negative.

AEW TBS Champion Kris Statlander beat Nyla Rose to retain the title. Already teasing Taya Valkyrie getting another chance.

Adam Cole & Britt Baker beat Chris Jericho & Saraya. Mixed tag rules meaning only the same sex was legal at all times, no intergender stuff. Cole pinned Jericho after BOOM.

While not as much PPV fallout as I hoped for (only a taped MJF promo again) this was a fine episode. Nothing must-see but nothing must-skip and I was entertained throughout.

Friday on Rampage: All Championship Edition! An AAA Mega Championship 3-way title match (El Hijo Del Vikingo vs. 2 others who I didn’t catch because they sped through announcements), New Japan STRONG Women’s Champion Willow Nightingale vs. Emi Sakura for the title, NJPW WORLD TV Champion Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Action Andretti for the title and ROH Pure Champion Katsuyori Shibata vs. Lee Moriarty for the title. Rampage is back at regular time (Fridays at 10 PM ET/PT) going forward with only one more potential NBA/NHL pre-emption this season: That could be in 2 weeks on 6/16 if the NHL Stanley Cup Finals needs a Game 6 (TNT has all Finals games this year).

Next week: AEW International Champion Orange Cassidy vs. Swerve Strickland for the title and Jay White vs. Ricky Starks with Juice Robinson and FTR banned from ringside. Also there are 2 more non-televised house shows this weekend. Toni Storm claimed she will be defending the AEW Women’s Championship at one or both events.

Pro Wrestling NOAH 5/31/23 Results

Pro Wrestling NOAH continued the SUNNY VOYAGE 2023 Tour today with an event that promised a Stormy Voyage of a main event as a heated rivalry resumed.

Today’s event was held at Shinjuku Face in Tokyo and can be watched on demand on WRESTLE UNIVERSE.

The announced paid attendance was 455. A legit advance sellout. No same-day tickets were sold.

Match 1: Manabu Soya beat Taishi Ozawa. Borderline squash, it went just 88 seconds.

Match 2: Yoshinari Ogawa, Chris Ridgeway & Daga beat Shuji Kondo, Hajime Ohara & Hi69. Daga pinned Hi69 after a piledriver. (Update: After this match/event Hi69 left Kongo)

Match 3: Sean Legacy beat Stallion Rogers.

Match 4: HAYATA & Eita beat Dante Leon & Junta Miyawaki. HAYATA pinned Miyawaki after 403 Impact.

Match 5: Go Shiozaki, Kaito Kiyomiya, Masa Kitamiya, Daiki Inaba & Yoshiki Inamura beat Naomichi Marufuji, Takashi Sugiura, Shuhei Taniguchi, Mohammed Yone & Akitoshi Saito. Kiyomiya pinned Saito after Shining Wizard.

Match 6: GHC Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Champions YO-HEY & Tadasuke beat Atsushi Kotoge & Seiki Yoshioka to retain the titles. Tadasuke pinned Kotoge after Good Looking Piledriver. V2 for the champs. Next up: Chris Ridgeway & Daga. That match will happen on 6/22 at Korakuen Hall.

Main Event: Kenoh vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima went to a 45 minute time limit draw.

The next event is ALL TOGETHER AGAIN, a New Japan/All-Japan/NOAH crossover event for charity, on 6/9 at Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo. Live streaming on New Japan World as a PPV will begin at 2 AM PT/5 AM ET.

The next NOAH standalone event is 6/10 at Yokohama Radiant Hall in Yokohama. Live streaming on WRESTLE UNIVERSE will begin at 12:30 AM PT/3:30 AM ET.

Injury Report: DDT King Is Down

Injuries have been hitting tournament winners and especially DDT hard recently. The latest one to go down is recent KING OF DDT winner Chris Brookes. Dislocated right shoulder suffered this past weekend. Out at least 3 weeks but no return date set. Changes for this weekend’s events have been made.

More as it becomes available.

Dragon Gate 5/29/23 Results

Dragon Gate wrapped up the Hopeful Gate 2023 Tour today with the final event of the month.

Today’s event was held at Fukui Industrial Hall in Fukui. There was no broadcast.

The announced paid attendance was 228.

Match 1: YAMATO & Dragon Kid beat Diamante & H-Y-O. YAMATO pinned H-Y-O after Omniscient & Omnipotent Frankensteiner.

Match 2: BIGBOSS Shimizu beat Daiki Yanagiuchi.

Match 3: Jason Lee & JACKY “FUNKY” KAMEI beat Takashi Yoshida & Ho Ho Lun. KAMEI pinned Lun after “JACKY” Knife.

Match 4: Shun Skywalker, KAI & ISHIN beat Kzy, Strong Machine J & U-T by DQ. J DQ’d. Ref assault.

Match 5: susumu Mochizuki & Yasushi Kanda beat BxB Hulk & Kagetora. Kanda pinned Kagetora after Candy Magic.

Main Event: Madoka Kikuta, Yuki Yoshioka & Dragon Dia beat Kota Minoura, Ben-K & Minorita. Kikuta pinned Minorita after a rolling lariat.

Next up is the Rainbow Gate 2023 Tour, the promotion’s June series, starting Thursday at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, the first half of a doubleheader there. Live streaming on DRAGONGATE NETWORK will begin at 2:30 AM PT/5:30 AM ET.

All-Japan 5/29/23 Results

All-Japan wrapped up the Super Power Series today with a major event headlined by 3 title matches.

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

The announced paid attendance was 834.

Match 1: Yuto Nakashima, Kosei Fujita & Ryohei Oiwa (New Japan) beat Hikaru Sato, Dan Tamura & Ryo Inoue. Fujita pinned Inoue with a German suplex hold.

Match 2: Satoshi Kojima, Yoshitatsu, Rising Hayato & Oji Shiiba beat Toru Yano (New Japan), Black Menso-re, Mitsuya Nagai (Dradition) & Kotaro Suzuki. Kojima pinned Menso-re after a lariat.

Match 3: Shuji Ishikawa, Ren Ayabe & Oskar Leube (New Japan) beat Jun Saito, KONO & Toshizo. Ishikawa pinned Toshizo after Fire Thunder.

Match 4: Yuma Anzai beat Ryuki Honda.

Match 5: Kento Miyahara & Yuma Aoyagi beat Minoru Suzuki & Hokuto Omori. Miyahara pinned Omori after Snake Limit.

Match 6: Atsuki Aoyagi beat All-Japan World Jr. Heavyweight Champion Naruki Doi to win the title. Aoyagi becomes the 65th All-Japan World Jr. Heavyweight Champion.

Match 7: All-Japan World Heavyweight Tag Team Champions Kenoh & Manabu Soya (Pro Wrestling NOAH) beat Suwama & Rei Saito to retain the titles. Kenoh pinned Suwama after PFS. V2 for the champs.

Main Event: All-Japan Triple Crown Champion Yuji Nagata (New Japan) beat T-Hawk (GLEAT) to retain the Triple Crown. V2 for Nagata.

The next event is the All-Japan 51st Anniversary event Saturday at Machida Gym in Tokyo. Broadcast plans TBA.