DDT wraps up 2024 with their year-end blowout event today, Ultimate Party 2024. It certainly will be just that as outside of their annual 5 Hour Anniversary Event and WRESTLE PETER PAN it will be their next-biggest event on the schedule in terms of match quantity and quality with 11 matches in all scheduled. The main event will be Chris Brookes defending the KO-D Openweight Championship against Daisuke Sasaki. The Damnation TA leader got the better of Brookes in early tag matches but the champ took the rubber match in the final face-off, but now that all means nothing as we find out who will end 2024 with the top title. Before that, new KO-D Tag Team Champions will be crowned as MAO & To-y face Tetsuya Endo & Yuya Koroku for the titles, culminating a headed rivalry that’s developed between the young To-y & Koroku lately. Elsewhere, Tokyo Joshi Pro participation is set for a crossover match against DDT thanks to Super Sasadango Machine visiting TJPW recently, and two new music entertainment athletes will make their pro wrestling debuts today and so much more, including Pro Wrestling NOAH participation as Kenoh has been Kenoh lately and will be here to take down “fake wrestling” DDT in his words.
There was a late change to the card yesterday as the scheduled DDT Extreme Championship match between Danshoku Dieno & Great-O-Khan in an unofficial match is now off due to Khan injuries suffered in New Japan Sunday. Invisible Man is the replacement and it will now be a NON-TITLE match…although it would have originally been anyway as said original match would not have been recognized by DDT, even if a title change happened.
Today’s event will be held at Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo and can be watched LIVE on WRESTLE UNIVERSE in Japanese and English. Voice actors Tetsu Inada, Kentaro Kumagai and Kyoka Moriya will be guests on Japanese commentary. Additionally, as an experiment of a new feature, fans attending the event can use their smartphones to listen to the live commentary on WRESTLE UNIVERSE while watching the event. The event will also feature musical performances by NwA Jr. (made up of DDT wrestlers) and O-MENZ (before Kumadori debuts as a wrestler). Between the 11 matches and other stuff, plus no intermission, this is going to indeed be one of their longest events of the year and for those in the US will be a likely all-nighter with a total running time of close to 5 hours, maybe not that much but a minimum of 4 hours. I may or may not make it through so anything I miss will be added tomorrow morning,
Today’s lineup:
NwA Jr. debut song performance (they just released a CD in Japan)
Demus & Illusion vs. Yuni & Kazuma Sumi
Shuji Ishikawa, Tomomitsu Matsunaga & Shinichiro Kawamatsu vs. Masa Takanashi, Daichi Sato & Yuki Ishida
O-MENZ Kumadori Debut Match: Kazuki Hirata & Kumadori vs. Makoto Oishi & Akito
Rika Tatsumi, Hyper Misao & Pom Harajuku (Tokyo Joshi Pro) vs. Super Sasadango Machine, Toru Owashi & Antonio Honda
Haruto Sakuraba Debut Match: Haruto Sakuraba, MJ Paul & KANON vs. HARASHIMA, Yuki Iino & Takao Soma
Jun Akiyama vs. Yukio Naya
Shinya Aoki & Keigo Nakamura vs. Kenoh & Yu Owada (Pro Wrestling NOAH)
Danshoku DIeno vs. Invisible Man. Kentaro Kumagai & Tetsu Inada will be at ringside
Yuki Ueno vs. Takeshi Masada
MAO & To-y vs. Tetsuya Endo & Yuya Koroku for the KO-D Tag Team Championship
KO-D Openweight Champion Chris Brookes vs. Daisuke Sasaki for the title
Refresh this page occasionally for the latest results.
Updates below will begin at 9 PM PT/midnight ET. The live stream is scheduled to begin 30 minutes prior to the event.
UPDATE (Pre-show): Kentaro Kumagai will not appear as scheduled. The always-vague poor health.
8:30 PM PT UPDATE: The live stream has begun. We should be going to the venue in about 15-20 minutes.
8:52 PM PT UPDATE; Live updates begin now, we join a couple minutes late…
We are LIVE from Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo, Japan. Your hosts are Haruo Murata (joining later), Satoshi Dairaku, Kagehiro Osano, Kyoka Mariya, and Tetsu Inada was supposed to be on commentary but appears to have been replaced at least for now by Marika Tani. Your English hosts are Baliyan Akki, Christelle Ciari & Ash Mann. Dairaku may be taking over late again if the event runs long as Murata has to be at Korakuen Hall by 1:30 AM PT/4:30 AM ET for a Tokyo Joshi Pro live broadcast on WRESTLE UNIVERSE (same for Akki on the English side).
The paid attendance will be announced after the event. It’s not full capacity setup as they’re using the lower level box seats at 33-50% capacity (2 per box instead of the 4-6 for sumo) and also 1/4 of the venue is blocked off for the setup, so that means full capacity would probably be maybe 6000. What I can see in the lower level appears to be mostly full, most of what was left today was upper level seating. It looks like it’ll be a good number, my initial guess will be a minimum of 4000. (UPDATE: The announced paid attendance was 3579, a full house/near sellout)
GM Imabayashi begins with the opening announcements.
NwA Jr.-Shunma Katsumata, Yuni, Kazuma Sumi-come out to perform a song from their debut CD just released. Fun little number, will be fun to see if they can give Up Up Girls a run for their money. They do the opening shout to lead into the opening movie. DDT has also announced the album, consisting of 2 songs, will be available for download/streaming, at least in Japan, beginning tomorrow at 7 AM PT/10 AM ET.
The matches begin at 9:13 PM PT/12:13 AM ET. Tetsu Inada joins commentary before the first match begins. So Marika Tani presumably is a replacement for Kentaro Kumagai, which I won’t complain about.
Match 1: Demus & Illusion vs. Yuni & Kazuma Sumi (with bonus NwA Jr. performance). 30 minute time limit
Result: Yuni & Kazuma Sumi beat Demus & Illusion. Sumi pinned Demus. UPSET ALERT!!!
Match 2: Shuji Ishikawa, Tomomitsu Matsunaga & Shinichiro Kawamatsu vs. Masa Takanashi, Daichi Sato (HEAT UP) & Yuki Ishida. 30 minute time limit
Result: Shuji Ishikawa, Tomomitsu Matsunaga & Shinichiro Kawamatsu beat Masa Takanashi, Daichi Sato & Yuki Ishida. Ishikawa pinned Ishida after Fire Thunder.
Match 3: O-MENZ Kumadori Debut Match: Kazuki Hirata & Kumadori (with O-MENZ performance as part of his entrance) vs. Makoto Oishi (Independent/Freelancer) & Akito. 30 minute time limit. O-MENZ can be described as a Japanese take on the iconic Jabbawockeez music/dance group as the performers wear Kabuki-style masks.
Result: Akito & Makoto Oishi beat Kazuki Hirata & Kumadori almost instantly. Akito pinned Hirata. Afterwards, Kumadori with microphone. Promo which sounded slightly muffled due to his headgear. Which led to…
Match 3 (again): O-MENZ Kumadori Debut Match: Kazuki Hirata & Kumadori vs. Makoto Oishi (Independent/Freelancer) & Akito. 30 minute time limit
Result: Kazuki Hirata & Kumadori beat Makoto Oishi & Akito. Both pinned Oishi after a Kumadori twisting legdrop off the top rope. Comedy match with O-MENZ joining in the post-match victory dance to HIrata’s music. Impressive debut nonetheless.
Your new host is Haruo Murata, taking over for Satoshi Dairaku for now.
The DDT team for the next match gets a pep talk from GM Imabayashi until the TJPW squad shows up and Pom Harajuku lays them all out. Taped a few minutes ago. Which led to…
Match 4: Rika Tatsumi, Hyper Misao & Pom Harajuku (Tokyo Joshi Pro) vs. Super Sasadango Machine, Toru Owashi & Antonio Honda. 30 minute time limit. Representative Tetsuya Koda is seconding the TJPW team.
Result: Rika Tatsumi, Hyper Misao & Pom Harajuku beat Super Sasadango Machine, Toru Owashi & Antonio Honda. Tatsumi pinned Honda after a slow-motion assisted Missile Hip. At one point in the match Koda & GM Imabayashi had a comedy face-off/going at it in the ring. DDT comedy at its finest.
Match 5: Haruto Sakuraba Debut Match: Haruto Sakuraba, MJ Paul & KANON vs. HARASHIMA, Yuki Iino & Takao Soma. 30 minute time limit. It appears HARASHIMA is the current DDT Iron Man Heavymetalweight Champion so title changes are possible
Result: Haruto Sakuraba, MJ Paul & KANON beat HARASHIMA, Yuki Iino & Takao Soma. KANON pinned Soma after Michinoku Driver.
Match 6: Jun Akiyama vs. Yukio Naya. 30 minute time limit
Result: Jun Akiyama beat Yukio Naya by submission
Match 7: Shinya Aoki & Keigo Nakamura vs. Kenoh & Yu Owada (Pro Wrestling NOAH). 30 minute time limit
Result: Kenoh & Yu Owada beat Shinya Aoki & Keigo Nakamura. Kenoh beat Nakamura with Kenoh Special. Kenoh & Aoki brawled all over the lower level of the Kokugikan throughout this match.
Quick break to clean up all the carnage in the front rows. Japanese commentary has some fun to entertain the fans.
Match 8: Danshoku Dieno (with Tetsu Inada) vs. Invisible Man (Toumei Ningen). 30 minute time limit
Result: Invisible Man beat Danshoku Dieno. This essentially was Dieno having a match by himself with Haruo Murata’s running commentary on the speakers for fans to follow along and more. More DDT comedy at its finest.
Satoshi Dairaku is your host once again, probably the rest of the way.
Match 9: Yuki Ueno (with new entrance music) vs. Takeshi Masada. 30 minute time limit
Result: Yuki Ueno beat Takeshi Masada
Match 10: MAO & To-y vs. Tetsuya Endo & Yuya Koroku for the vacant KO-D Tag Team Championship. 1 Hour time limit
Result: MAO & To-y beat Tetsuya Endo & Yuya Koroku to win the KO-D Tag Team Champinonship. MAO & To-y become the 85th KO-D Tag Team Champions. To-y pinned Koroku after Kojima Impact.
Main Event: KO-D Openweight Champion Chris Brookes vs. Daisuke Sasaki for the title. 1 Hour time limit
Result: KO-D Openweight Champion Chris Brookes beat Daisuke Sasaki to retain the title. V1 for Brookes. They went over 35 minutes. Next up: The winner of a 4-way on 1/3, with the title match on 1/26.
The next event, the first of 2025, is Friday at Korakuen Hall. Live streaming on WRESTLE UNIVERSE will begin at 1:30 AM PT/4:30 AM ET.
UPDATE 2: Backstage after the event was over…
Kazuki Hirata beat DDT Iron Man Heavymetalweight Champion HARASHIMA to win the title. Hirata becomes the 1703rd Champion.
And then…
Sanshiro Takagi beat DDT Iron Man Heavymetalweight Champion Kazuki Hirata to win the title. Takagi begomes the 1704th Champion.
