Hot Shirt Coming Through, Janela’s Violent Vacation, BURNING Vs The 37KAMIINA All Month

A few things I want to mention before going into the updates. First, I was a guest on Alan4L’s ProWres Paradise over at PWTorch this week. The show is behind their VIP subscription and it is the latest episode in Alan’s “30 4L 30” series that is dedicated to talking about significant wrestling careers over the last 30 years. What if I told you our subject was the life and times of Kota Ibushi? We cover everything from his DDT days right up to his comeback in GCW last weekend with some extra trivia in between. I even try to clear up some misconceptions about his life that people have wondered about the last few years (mainly I really doubt he comes from a rich family). So for any PWTorch subscribers reading this, you can go listen to the episode here.

(Also fun little note, while we were recording this the news of WWE’s business merger with UFC broke online. However we did not find out about it until after we finished recording. Talking about Ibushi for 150 minutes needed the absolute focus he deserves, you know.)

Second, I will be going on holiday to Canada soon and will be away for two weeks. There will be a news post on Thursday before I go. I’m bringing my laptop so if I comfortably have the time to posts results, news and other stuff I will do so. Otherwise things might be kept to the Twitter account while I’m busy going on a loop around all the different Toronto sports teams. I have tickets for the the Impact PPV happening there too so I get to add Canada to the list of countries I’ve seen wrestling in.

And lastly, speaking of travelling. It looks like most of the DDT wrestlers have returned safely to Japan. Daisuke Sasaki took a detour to Texas though where he wrestled and hung out with Sam Adonis & Hernandez. I’ll find out more for the next DDT Around The World article. The Tokyo Joshi Pro roster though had their flight cancelled and their tweets suggest they are waiting a long time at the airport for the next plane ride home.

Now onto the news.

DDT “APRIL FOOL 2023”, 09/04/2023
Tokyo Korakuen Hall

1. MJ Paul & KANON Vs Antonio Honda & Kazuma Sumi
2. Rukiya Debut Match: Yuya Koroku Vs Rukiya
3. Toru Owashi, Kazuki Hirata & Gota Ihashi Vs Akito, Shinichiro Kawamatsu & Toy Kojima
4. Harimao Vs Eruption!: Kazusada Higuchi, Ryota Nakatsu & Yuki Ishida Vs Yukio Sakaguchi, Saki Akai & Hideki Okatani
5. Special Single Match: Yuki Ueno Vs Yuni
6. Special 8-Man Tag Match: Tetsuya Endo, Jun Akiyama, Kotaro Suzuki & Yusuke Okada Vs Naruki Doi, Chris Brookes, Joey Janela & Takeshi Masada
7. WORLD HINO CLASSIC ~Finals~: Yuji Hino, “brother” YASSHI & Makoto Oishi Vs Yuki “Sexy” Iino, Danshoku “Dandy” Dieno & Yumehito “Fantastic” Imanari
8. KO-D Tag Team Titles: MAO & Shunma Katsumata (c) Vs HARASHIMA & Keigo Nakamura

An unusual training practice was held by HARASHIMA for Keigo Nakamura during the week. A pot of boiling water was in the room and HARASHIMA left a shirt to soak inside it. He instructed Nakamura to put the boiling hot shirt on as fast as he can. If he succeeded then he will be prepared to handle ShunMao’s sauna heat. Nakamura understood and was able to put the shirt on despite scalding himself. He then told HARASHIMA it was his turn to do it next but HARASHIMA said he came here to train, not put on a shirt! They went on to complete their practice session as normal.

Gota Ihashi replaces the injured Yukio Naya in Match #3. If I were DISASTER BOX I’d be asking if there’s another replacement available.

The trainee Rukiya Ikeda has decided on his official ring name. He will officially be simply known as Rukiya when he has his debut match.

DDT “MAX BUMP 2023 TOUR IN SHINJUKU”, 15/04/2023
Shinjuku FACE

1. Special Single Match: Kazuki Hirata Vs Yuni
2. Elimination 8-Man Tag Match: Tetsuya Endo, Jun Akiyama, Yusuke Okada & Yuya Koroku Vs MAO, Shunma Katsumata, Yuki Ueno & Toy Kojima
3. Falls Count Anywhere Scramble Bunkhouse Street Fight 6-Man Tag Team Death Match: Sanshiro Takagi, Joey Janela & Takeshi Masada Vs Yukio Sakaguchi, Antonio Honda & Hideki Okatani

A busy weekend awaits for Joey Janela when he comes back to Japan. His first match back in the country for DDT will be a Scramble Bunkhouse Street Fight. The match is happening to prepare Janela, Sanshiro Takagi & Takeshi Masada for the Current Blast Death Match they are having against Atsushi Onita the following day. Since the first match is going to be a Street Fight, every wrestler has been told to go find an outfit different from their wrestling gear to fight in.

A lot of BURNING versus The 37KAMIINA matches to look forward to this month. It kicks off with a big Elimination Tag Match between the two groups.

Yuni’s wrestling career hasn’t been around for long but in the days before he became El Unicorn he already developed a rivalry with Kazuki Hirata. That rivalry is now being brought back for the next chapter of Yuni’s career.

DDT “MAX BUMP 2023 TOUR IN FUKUOKA”, 22/04/2023
Fukuoka Kasuga General Sports Center

1. BURNING Vs The 37KAMIINA!: Tetsuya Endo, Jun Akiyama & Yuya Koroku Vs MAO, Shunma Katsumata & Toy Kojima

More clashes between the two units. These are being done to promote the upcoming DDT Universal and DDT Extreme Title matches. Yuki Ueno will be missing this show due to the stage show he’s a part of.

Azul Dragon and Rayne Leverkusen will both be on the show.

DDT “MAX BUMP 2023 TOUR IN OSAKA”, 29/04/2023
Osaka 176BOX

1. BURNING Vs The 37KAMIINA!: Tetsuya Endo Vs Yuya Koroku Vs MAO & Yuki Ueno

Dragon and Leverkusen will also be on this show along with Naruki Doi and an Osaka masked wrestler called Tsutenkakka. He is named after the local Tsutenkaku Tower and is apparantely authorised by the tower’s management to fight on behalf of the landmark. He was part of the No Fee Rumble DDT held back in February.

DDT “MAX BUMP 2023 TOUR IN HAMAMATSU”, 30/04/2023
Shizuoka Create Hamamatsu Hall

1. Hamamatsu Specialty Special 6-Man Tag Match: HARASHIMA, Yukio Sakaguchi & Hiroshi Yamato Vs Kazusada Higuchi, Chris Brookes & Yuki Ishida

Leverkusen will be on the show along with Mari Manji from Yanagase Pro Wrestling. She was originally from PURE-J.

Must See Matches: Episode 44 – ASUKA (VENY) vs. Akito

Hey, I got to be a podcast guest for the first time in a while. The Must See Matches Project asked its followers to list, well, the must see matches in pro wrestling. DDT found its way into the project thanks to the IPPON Lighttube Death Match between Akito Vs Asuka getting enough votes to qualify. Many thanks to Mark Buckeldee & Kieran Lefort for inviting me on. I had plenty of fun recording the episode with them.

Jamie from DramaticDDT joins Mark and Kieran on a very special episode, for reasons we get into, to cover the ASUKA vs. Akito IPPON Lighttube Death Match from DDT’s Wrestle Peter Pan 2019 on July 15, 2019; the ONLY singles match these two have ever had! PLUS: The politics of covering Japanese wrestling, blow-up dolls, a dip into ancient DDT history, the comedy genius of Yukinori Matsui, Sugi/Yoshitsune/El Blazer, and much more!

Follow the Must See Matches Project @MustSeeMatches

Of course, here’s the match itself if you haven’t seen it yet.

A Bunch Of Recent Video Interviews

I gathered together a few recent Youtube interviews from DDT & TJPW related figures. I don’t know how often this will be happening so I’ll probably keep future videos to single posts rather than bundling them all together every month.

All Real Wrestling Podcast: Konosuke Takeshita talks DDT pro, AEW, Dream match, Future goals & his love for Cinnabon – ARWP 92

Kotatsu Studios: [Kotatsu Studios PILOT SERIES] Shota Interview (August 22, 2022)

Joseph Montecillo: An Interview with DDT’s Kazusada Higuchi

Fightful Wrestling: Yuka Sakazaki Talks AEW, Japan, More | 2022 Interview

Music of the Mat #119: DDT Wrestling Vol. 2

This week I was invited onto the Music Of The Mat podcast to talk about several entrance songs used in DDT. Some of the subjects include the boss music of Konosuke Takeshita, explaining why the song for Chris Brookes is enhanced by Japan’s TV production, how much I love Yukio Sakaguchi’s victory theme and we even unearth Saki Akai’s past vocal talents from some unlikely places. Music Of The Mat is a unique podcast among the wrestling community that I highly recommend going back through the catalogue for. A lot of thanks to Andrew Rich for inviting me onto the show. It was a blast.

On this episode of Music of the Mat, Andrew is joined for the first time by Jamie O’Doherty (Dramatic DDT) for another look at some themes from DDT Wrestling! With the 25th anniversary of the company only a few months away, Andrew and Jamie discuss the state of the company in 2021, the strong roster of talent at their disposal, and of course get into a grab bag of various themes for Konosuke Takeshita, Tetsuya Endo, Danshoku Dieno, Saki Akai, Jun Akiyama, and more!

Follow Music of the Mat on Twitter: @MusicoftheMat

Wrestling Omakase: WWE Summerslam And DDT Wrestle Peter Pan W/ Jamie

I was invited back onto the Wrestling Omakase podcast to review both WWE Summerslam and DDT Wrestle Peter Pan from this past weekend. The topics gave me an opportunity to compare the two companies and explain why I like DDT’s version of sports entertainment far more than WWE’s efforts. We also give our thoughts on CM Punk’s triumphant return, tackle the two title match disasters (you know the ones), I come up with jokes that have Rodney Dangerfield rolling in his grave and my Tokyo Joshi Pro knowledge gets briefly put to the test near the end. Many thanks as always to John Carroll for letting me on the show. I always have a blast since I rarely do podcasts and talk about this stuff out loud.

This week on Wrestling Omakase we reviewed the alleged and the actual biggest party of the summer- WWE Summerslam and DDT Wrestle Peter Pan!

The Wrestling Omakase Patreon is your best source for coverage of Japanese wrestling, from yesterday and today. Our series covering every Tokyo Dome main event in order is pulling up on the end of the 1990s, and we’ve just recently put up all sorts of great episodes- Misawa vs. Kawada! Antonio Inoki’s retirement! Riki Choshu’s retirement! And much more! We discuss the main events of each show in detail but also talk about everything else going on in Japanese wrestling around that time, so you can relive the nWo Japan split, Inoki’s ill-fated UFO promotion and a lot more as you follow along with us. Plus, coming up in September will be daily audio coverage of the G1 Climax and NOAH N-1 Victory tournaments, which you’ll only find on the Patreon. And finally, don’t forget that you get more full episodes on there too- every week there isn’t a new show on the free feed, there’s a full length episode exclusive to the Patreon! You can get all of this right now for only $5 at http://patreon.com/wrestlingomakase

John is joined by returning guest Jamie (@JamieOD), who of course runs the English language DDT resource Dramatic DDT. John & Jamie start out by discussing CM Punk’s return to wrestling for AEW from this past Friday, as John touches on what it was like to see him come back after following along with his early career in Ring of Honor (most of which they attended live). Then the two of them turn their attention to the first main topic of the episode, as they review WWE Summerslam from Las Vegas in detail. They go over each and every match on the show, discussing the good (a couple strong matches), the bad (yet another crappy WWE live crowd) and the ugly (the complete destruction of Bianca Belair and the total debacle that was Goldberg/Lashley). Also as John types up this episode description they just remembered they forgot to talk about the Miz & Morrison/Xavier Woods segment, so they just wanted to note here that it absolutely sucked.

Once WWE’s out of the way they head over to the land of DDT for a much more enjoyable overall show, Wrestle Peter Pan from Kawasaki. They again review every match in detail including the electric current bat match with Onita, the teenage wrestlers, a trio of fantastic matches, and the Saki Akai/Yuji Hino storyline that was better “storytelling” than anything the storytellers of WWE pull off nowadays. Finally, they wrap things up by taking some of your mailbag questions on both promotions, as Jamie explains why DDT’s comedy is superior to WWE’s and much more.

Wrestling Omakase: DDT Year In Review 2019

As we approach the year’s end and DDT winds down their 2019, I got the chance to talk about it on the Wrestling Omakase podcast. DDT’s schedule around Christmas and New Year’s gets very busy so I usually don’t have the enthusiasm to write my opinions on the previous twelve months. However this podcast was the perfect time and place to chat about just that. Treat this as my year in review for mostly DDT (the other brands get a few mentions here and there). A lot of thanks go out to John Carroll for inviting me onto the show. I always have a great time getting to hang out with him one way or another.

We kick things off this week with our DDT Year in Review 2019! John is joined by returning guest Jamie (@JamieOD) of the Dramatic DDT blog (@DramaticDDT), who brings nearly a decade of experience covering all things Dramatic Dream Team to the table! John and Jamie go through all the major DDT shows of the year, including the Korakuens and major events, plus identify a few matches worth watching on some lesser-known shows as well. How did DDT’s 2019 compare to last year? Who were the standouts and how are the young talent on the undercards progressing? Once we finish recapping 2019, including right up through November 24th’s latest Korakuen Hall show, we look ahead to the upcoming D-Ou league (DDT’s equivalent of the G1) which starts in just a few short days. We run down all the participants and cards and give some guesses at who might come out on top. We also briefly discuss the annual New Year’s Eve tag shuffle tournament with BJW, going over the teams for that as well. Then we give our awards picks for DDT’s 2019, and at least one name on both of our Wrestler of the Year lists may surprise you. Finally we wrap things up by answering all of your mailbag questions on a ton of different DDT-related subjects. It’s all things DDT all the time, this week!