All Japan - The House Baba built

[Stopspot]

Some short notice changes to the card for this Saturday's big show:

Yuji Okabayashi, one half of the world tag champions. Has been forced to vacate the title because of dislocating his shoulder at a Big Japan show. His partner Sekimoto will instead bring in Mr. BJW, Ryuji Ito as his partner to now face Wild Burning (Akiyama and Omori) for the now vacant belts.

In other news, Toshiaki Kawada, one of the four pillars of All Japan's epic 90s era will make a rare appearance at Saturday's show. Kawada has basically been away from wrestling entirely since Misawa's death in 2009, having quietly walked off into the sunset to run a restaurant instead. The last time he was seen at a show was for Akira Taue's retirement in 2013. Even opting to no show his mentor, Genichiro Tenryu's retirement in 2015. He will sign autographs and be part of the celebration of Omori and Akiyama's 25th anniversary as wrestlers.

 

[Stopspot]

Updates from the Yokohama show that has now aired (If you have Fite TV you can view it on there for $4.99).

Nomura and Aoyagi retained the All Asia tag belts over the Pervert Defense force (Aoki & Sato). There also seems to be trouble in paradise between Aoki and Sato, teasing a break up angle just before the junior tag league which they have won 3 years in a row. Aoyagi and Nomura defend the belts next against a team of South Korean wrestlers hand picked by Ryoji Sai on November 3rd.

TAJIRI beat Ultimo Dragon to regain the junior belt. He will now defend against Yohei Nakajima on November 5th.

Jun Akiyama and Takao Omori beat Daisuke Sekimoto and Ryuji Ito to win the vacant World tag belts in their 25th anniversary match. They will defend the belts next against the winner of the World's strongest Tag League which starts in late November. Daisuke Sekimoto will team with BJW's Takuya Nomura to take on BJW's Hideyoshi Kamitani and Daichi Hashimoto (son of Shinya Hashimoto) on the November 9 Korakuen show to determine which team gets a spot in the league (Sekimoto was previously taking part teaming with the now injured Okabayashi).

In the main event Joe Doering defeated Suwama to win the Triple Crown belt for a second time. This marked Joe finally fulfilling his comeback goal from his battle with brain cancer, which saw him out of the ring for all of 2016.

Yoshi-Tatsu has laid down the challenge for the triple crown (yes, really), and will get his match on November 9 if he can get passed Jun Akiyama on November 5th.

The attendance was 1817. Which is a okay number considering how long it has been since AJPW ran anything major in Yokohama, but obviously not great compared to what they used to draw there way back. They return in February and are running it on October 21st 2018 as well, so they are looking to build on the Yokohama market next year with Sumo hall being closed for a lot of the year for renovations.

In bad news: AJPW trainee Yuki Kanzaki, has had to cancel his debut on November 11 due to them discovering he has a subdural hematoma (this is what took out NJPW wrestler Katsuyori Shibata). They discovered it early on so hopefully Kanzaki can make a full recovery and return to wrestling, something he promised to do after breaking down in tears at the press conference where they announced this sad piece of news. AJPW president Akiyama told him that his life is more important, and promised him a job with AJPW for life should he want to remain involved in wrestling after having his surgery. So odds are we will still see Kanzaki at AJPW shows in the future, only as a referee or similar. What makes this suck even more is that he was scheduled to debut in his hometown.

 

[Mike Thunder]

@Stopspot

 

[Stopspot]

@Stopspot

Yeah, most companies in Japan have experienced continued positive trends in attendances (BJW, AJPW, NJPW, DDT & Dragon Gate being the notable ones). NJPW's popularity is obviously a key contributor. It has caused fans to seek out other promotions, which have helped these other promotions grow their fanbases as well. All Japan managed to put 1.3 thousand people in Korakuen head to head with New Japan running Sumo Hall this month. That would not have been possible 2 years ago. Another factor is most companies are running more shows this year than last year because of this mini-boom. So obviously the total attendance number will be up.

The only "major" companies not experiencing this trend is NOAH, Wrestle-1 and Zero-1. For various reasons (W-1 only run 4 shows a month, NOAH has no clear top star to act as a draw and their brand is hurt. And Zero-1 is Zero-1).

 

[Leo C]

I hope AJPW does an awesome number when they go back. I think they would've done a better number if Kento was in the main event or if the Suwama/Doering build had been better.

 

[Leo C]

@Stopspot when does Jake come back mate

 

[Stopspot]

@Stopspot when does Jake come back mate

Projections are somewhere around May-July

 

[Stopspot]

Old Zen Nihon ran Korakuen today. Here are some factoids.

Attendance was 1241 with Yoshitatsu challenging Joe Doering for the Triple Crown in the main event. Great number considering using a untried draw in Yoshi on top and doing it on a week day with no national holiday that meant people were off work. Doering won in 11 minutes with Yoshi putting up a valiant effort against the giant bruiser.

Masashi Takeda and Atsushi Maruyama won the jr tag battle of glory, beating Aoki and Hikaru Sato and also cutting Sato and Aoki's winning streak in the tournament off (Aoki and Sato have won the 3 previous tournaments in a row). A shot at the All Asia belts are probably in the winners future.

Okami (Daichi Hashimoto and Hideyoshi Kamitani) won the BJW spot in the AJPW tag league, beating Daisuke Sekimoto and Takuya Nomura. Daichi then started shit with Aoyagi Yuma whilst ringside for the semi main event, so there's another future challenger team for the All Asia belts.

And earlier in the week TAJRI defended the junior heavyweight belt against Yohei Nakajima. No new clear challenger has stepped up as of yet.

Up next is a special anniversary show for Zeus this weekend in Osaka. And then the real world tag league kicks off on the 19th.

 

[Stopspot]

The World's Strongest Tag League/Real World Tag League (both perfectly petty names) is underway in All Japan, kicking off on the 19th of November in Sapporo in front of a crowd of 2130 people. Kea/Doering, Hashimoto/Kamitani, and KAI/TAJIRI are pulling off with the early lead with 4 points each. KAI is also picking up some heavy wins, having pinned Kea and Suwama in league matches and Ryoji Sai and Yoshi Tatsu in singles matches on this tour. So it looks like he is being prepped for a shot at the Triple Crown belt, possibly at one of the new year shows.

The Big Guns beat the reigning world tag champions in their first league match, and Zeus has since also bested Omori in singles action, so even if they don't win the entire league Big Guns look like possible future challengers for the tag belts, as do Miyahara and Yoshi Tatsu, who have picked up respective singles wins over Omori and Akiyama. So that's two possible tag title matches for the new year shows as well. And Manabu Soya and Black Tiger 7 have also laid down another challenge for the Asia belts after beating Aoyagi and Nomura in the league.

Atsushi Maruyama (aka the guy who has had the most title shots in all japan this year) has received a shot at Tajiri's junior belt on the Fan Appreciation show on December 17.

 

[Stopspot]

Point 1. I live.

Point 2. All Japan are launching their own streaming service, AJPW TV with a goal of launching it in March but there is no set date yet. It will have live streaming and the modern day stuff will be up there. The classic stuff most likely not due to all the red tape and negotiations with various owners.

Point 3. The Champion Carnival is coming up. And this year's lineup is pretty nuts.

A block is fucking stacked with Dragon Gate's Shingo Takagi and freelancer Yuji Hino slotting in with the rest of block meat. Expect stiff strikes and power moves.

B Block is not as stacked but still nice. The big additions are Akiyama coming out of CC retirement to fill in for the injured Omori and NOAH's Marufuji showing up. Marufuji started his career in All Japan in 1998 so this is his 20th anniversary and he is crowning it with working his first carnival. Former Pro Wrestling Zero1 talent James Raideen is also joining in on the fun, now working as Dylan James.

The Carnival starts April 7 and ends April 30th.

 

[Stopspot]

AJP ran their final show of the 2018 Junior Battle of Glory today in Osaka, packing out the smaller Edion Arena (Edion Arena 2) with 845 fans in attendance. Some highlights and newsbits:

Shuji Kondo won the tournament. The Wrestle-1 representative beat last year's winner Koji Iwamoto to seal his first ever win of the tournament despite previously competing in All Japan for about a decade. Kondo will now receive a shot at junior champion Atsushi Aoki at the big Saitama show on March 25.

The Big Guns defeated Kento Miyahara and Yoshi Tatsu to win their 4th world tag team titles. The YoshiKen team sadly fell at the first defence, becoming the 3rd straight team to do so. Question is if The new champions will not fall to the same curse as Ryoji Sai cam out and laid down the challenge for the belts. He will team with the debuting Dylan James to challenge for the belts at a yet to be set date (Saitama being likely).

Jun Akiyama and Yuji Nagata (aka the stern old man team) will also defend their Asia tag belts in Saitama. Their opponents will be Takao Omori and Manabu Nakanishi from New Japan. This makes for an interesting dynamic since Nagata and Nakanishi are a tag team in New Japan, and Akiyama and Omori are multiple time tag champions together themselves as Wild Burning.

All Japan will run the bigger Edion Arena (Edion Arena 1) on July 29. The bigger stadium takes about 8000 people if you run it with the absolute full set up (which all japan obviously wont). So expect them to aim at around 2000 people.

 

[RedDwarfTechy]

All Japan will run the bigger Edion Arena (Edion Arena 1) on July 29. The bigger stadium takes about 8000 people if you run it with the absolute full set up (which all japan obviously wont). So expect them to aim at around 2000 people.

It's awesome to see New Japan and Wrestle-1 work with AJPW. Very surprised the Wrestle-1 representative won as well.

Really cool that they are getting around 2k in numbers soon. Gotta start making time to watch them again.

 

[Stopspot]

It's awesome to see New Japan and Wrestle-1 work with AJPW. Very surprised the Wrestle-1 representative won as well.

Really cool that they are getting around 2k in numbers soon. Gotta start making time to watch them again.

They are certainly trying out running more shows in 2-5 thousand seater stadiums this year. Some shows will pay off real well and some will do just around 1500 most likely. But this is the year to experiment since there won't be a sumo hall show this year due to the building being closed for most of the year for renovations.

Allows them to build the brand in other parts of the country.

 

[Stopspot]

AJPW TV, All Japan's new streaming service launches on March 19 (this upcoming Monday) and the focus will be on the current day product (no news on classical content, which is logical since it is locked up in ownership red tape).

The big Saitama show on 3/25 is confirmed to stream live on AJPW TV. All shows from the upcoming Champion Carnival will also air, with the shows on 4/7 (opener), 4/15, 4/20, 4/21, 4/22, 4/25, 4/29, and 4/30 (final) all being streamed live. The remaining shows will not be live but will be available on demand. The big news here is that shows that are also scheduled for airing on Samurai and Gaora are going up. That's big news that they got their two major TV outlets (especially Gaora) on board.

It will cost 900 yen ($8.49) a month and will be view-able on PC, smarthphone, and tablets. It will accept both credit card/debit card and paypal. And if you sign up in March everything you watch will be free! Including the big show in Saitama. First charge will be made in April.

@RedDwarfTechy @Jacob Fox

 

[RedDwarfTechy]

AJPW TV, All Japan's new streaming service launches on March 19 (this upcoming Monday) and the focus will be on the current day product (no news on classical content, which is logical since it is locked up in ownership red tape).

The big Saitama show on 3/25 is confirmed to stream live on AJPW TV. All shows from the upcoming Champion Carnival will also air, with the shows on 4/7 (opener), 4/15, 4/20, 4/21, 4/22, 4/25, 4/29, and 4/30 (final) all being streamed live. The remaining shows will not be live but will be available on demand. The big news here is that shows that are also scheduled for airing on Samurai and Gaora are going up. That's big news that they got their two major TV outlets (especially Gaora) on board.

It will cost 900 yen ($8.49) a month and will be view-able on PC, smarthphone, and tablets. It will accept both credit card/debit card and paypal. And if you sign up in March everything you watch will be free! Including the big show in Saitama. First charge will be made in April.

@RedDwarfTechy @Jacob Fox

Nice deal in March! Guessing AJPW will be removed from the drive?