NJPW Death Pain Invitational - June 24, 2025

[Chris]

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship set for Death Pain Invitational!​

Title match official for Korakuen special

The June 24, Korakuen hall final singles showdown for El Desperado and Jun Kasai has begun to take shape, after a sudden surprise from Kasai, and a press conference request from Desperado.

This year, Kasai has twice scored direct pinfalls over the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion, in three way and tag team environments. That prompted Desperado to request one more singles match with the Crazy Monkey, what would be their third after a fateful 2019 no contest and 2022 TAKA Taichi Despe Mania rematch.

Desperado had vowed to win Best of the Super Jr. 32, and then to use his trophy win as leverage to nominate Kasai as his next challenger. That didn't come to pass, with Kasai appearing at the BOSJ final to assure the champion that it was the man holding the belt rather than the belt itself he was after. All the same, as eventual winner Kosei Fujita declared that he had no interest in wrestling an IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion preoccupied with other matters, Desperado would make a request to the IWGP Committee to put his title on the line in Korakuen,

Now the match is on, in what should be a new water (or should that be blood?) shed for the junior heavyweight championship. The ruleset for this contest is currently to be announced, but with the event itself bearing the branding of the Death Pain Invitacional at Kasai's suggestion, one could imagine the kind of punishment both will go through on June 24.​

 

[Comrade Khan]

Njpw banner death show, what a time to be alive

 

[Kairi HoHo]

Oh boy this one is going to be a Match where both guys will be feeling it for Months after the way they go versus each other.

 

[Chris]

DEATH PAIN Invitacional (June 24) Preview​

Chaotic night on NJPW World PPV

Last June, the Despe Invitacional saw El Desperado produce one of the most chaotic cards of 2024, or any other year for that matter. Just over 12 months removed, Desperado requested Korakuen hall and the co-operation of NJPW and FREEDOMS once more, this time to see the culmination of a rivalry between himself and Jun Kasai, and for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship!
Watch LIVE on NJPW World PPV! (No subscription needed. Separate purchase required. English to follow on demand)

Main event: IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship- Light Tube + Glass Board + Alpha Deathmatch- El Desperado vs Jun Kasai
Singles record: 1-0-1 Desperado

This year, El Desperado's reign with the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship has seen the title and the division's breadth and diversity truly highlighted. Lucha styled action against Templario, scientific wrestling and guts against Kosei Fujita and Francesco Akira, hardcore with Clark Connors; all have seen sensational matchups with the highly sought after junior title on the line. Yet tonight a new watershed will be passed, and new levels of bloodshed will coma along with it.

El Desperado's first collision came all the way back in the spring of 2019, with a no contest that saw Desperado break his jaw on the fist of Kasai and miss that year's Best of the Super Jr. tournament. With business left undone the two would finally face off one on one in 2022 with Desperado taking the win. It was during a year where Desperado had spread dark and tattered wings into the hardcore and deathmatch realms, a realm where Jun Kasai reigns. Both men knew that this was Kasai's turf, and with each collision, Desperado learned a valuable lesson from the king of deathmatch charisma, who expressed to the masked man that deathmatch wrestling was not about death but instead living life to the fullest.

That life lesson led the two to team together on occasion in 2023, but it was this year that saw them opposite one another again. In March at Barb Sasaki's Anniversary event, a wild glassboard and light tube tag match saw Kasai victorious over Desperado; two months later in FREEDOMS, Kasai beat Desperado again in a three way with Violento Jack. Kasai was reasserting the cdominance over his own domain, and Desperado resolved to have one more singles match to see if he could finally overcome the Crazy Monkey.

Desperado requested that the IWGP Junior Heavyweight title be on the line, as well as the stipulations: light tubes, glass boards and more. With the conditions laid out by the champion, Kasai now truly feels as if he is the challenger in more ways than simply fighting for a title he has never won, nor indeed had considered competing for. Yet will Kasai have command over his domain by the end of the night, and will that domain extend to all of junior heavyweight wrestling?

4th Match: Boltin Oleg & Toru Sugiura vs Toru Yano & Tomoya Hirata

A stark contrast to the main event, a semi main event tag team battle nonetheless represents powerhouses from both NJPW and FREEDOMS. Former King of FREEDOM World Champion Tomoya Hirata teams with Toru Yano to face Yano's one time NEVER 6 Man Championship teammate and current NEVER Openweight Champion Boltin Oleg and another former King of FREEDOMS champion in Toru Sugiura. Will NEVER Champion Boltin be a target of not only a teammate in Yano but an outsider in Hirata?

3rd Match: Hardcore- Rina Yamashita & X vs Masashi Takeda & Kenji Fukimoto

Two time King of FREEDOM World Champion and former GCW Ultraviolent Champion Masashi Takeda teams with deathmatch veteran Kenji Fukimoto to face another former GCW Ultraviolent Champion and current Mi Vida Loca member in STARDOM, Rina Yamashita. Yamashita is bringing a surprise partner to Korakuen for this hectic hardcore bout- who will it be?

2nd Match: Kosei Fujita vs Jun Masaoka

Best of the Super Jr. 32 winner Kosei Fujita takes on a former King of FREEDOMS Junior Heavyweight Champion in Jun Masaoka in the second match of the night. As Fujita has spread his wings in other promotions including DDT of late, he again pushes into new boundaries at Death Pain, before no doubt taking a good look at who emerges out of the main event with the IWGP Junior Heavyweight title.

1st Match: Takashi Sasaki & Mammoth Sasaki vs BULLET CLUB War Dogs (Taiji ishimori & Gedo)

The first match of the night's main card will see a pair of FREEDOMS icons in Mammoth Sasaki and FREEDOMS president Takashi, facing the War Dogs' Taiji Ishimori and Gedo. While this is Ishimori's first enoucnter with the (unrelated) Sasakis, Gedo is familiar with Takashi Sasaki from a pair of meetings in Onita Pro and NJPW's Lock Up brand in the 2000s, and has battled Mammoth Sasaki several times way back in the old days of FMW in the 1990s. It's quite a reunion to start off the evening.

Kickoff Match: Ryusuke Taguchi, Master Wato, Katsuya Murashima & Daiki Nagai vs Tatsuhito Takaiwa, GENTARO, Dragon Libre & Kengo

A special free kickoff will see a Hontai team of predominantly junior heavyweights (the recently 100kg Katsuya Murashima excepted) taking on FREEDOMS and independent competition. A Best of the Super Jr. entrant way back in 2006, GENTARO's addition is an interesting one here, as is a classic power junior, former IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion and inaugural IWGP Jr. Tag Team Champion Tatsuhito Takaiwa.​