DDT King Of DDT 2020 Final!!
August 23, 2020
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan
Antonio Honda vs. Toru Owashi vs. Tomomitsu Matsunaga vs. Kazuki Hirata vs. Yukio Naya - Dud
This had more dance moves than wrestling moves. The match started with some wrestling, Honda did the Gon The Fox story, but quickly after that, the match became Naya doing a wotagei dance while Hirata tried to do his dance, and then everyone joined in to the wotagei, but behind Naya, where he could not notice, Hirata and Honda started fighting with Hirata pinning Honda for the win.
Imabayashi Announcements - He ran down some show dates, he announced some Youtube Q&As, announced Ultimate Party 2020 for November 3rd. Imabayashi announced Katsumata vs Mecha Panda, so he brought out Katsumata for comments, which he said he didn't really understand what was going on, but he'd break the panda into pieces. Panda sneaked up behind him, Katsumata couldn't hurt it, but the Panda took down Katsu with one move, force fed coffee beans, and left.
After that, Imabayashi brought out Chris Brookes to talk about his upcoming title defense against Drew Parker. He spoke really good Japanese, my boy is learning! He said that Drew is his friend, but he is coming in representing BJW, and he'll defend DDT's honor and retain the title.
DDT Korakuen STAAATOOO
King Of DDT 2020 Semi Final Match
Tetsuya Endo vs. Kazusada Higuchi - 8/10
Nothing warms my heart more than seeing Saki and Sakaguchi come out and see Higuchi to the ring. They just feel like a really close team.
This match did a good job at making Higuchi look strong, like he was on his way to the win in the same dominant way he had been defeating his opponents, but at the end, Endo managed to lock in a version of a Yurikamome and submitted Higuchi. Endo took a nice beating here.
King Of DDT 2020 Semi Final Match
T-Hawk vs. Akito - 7.5/10
Great match, completely focused on limb work. This and the previous were kinda short since T-Hawk and Endo were saving themselves up for later. This was mostly a technical match, Akito chased many of his leg submissions, beautifully deconstructing T-Hawk's legs; whereas, T-Hawk worked the midsection, chasing the Night Ride, which he eventually landed for the win.
Dieno & Seigo Plot Strategies - Dieno is still asking about Seigo's haircut. Dieno said he knows Sakaguchi's weak spot.
Danshoku Dieno & Seigo Tachibana vs. Eruption (Saki Akai & Yukio Sakaguchi) - 5/10
So Sakaguchi is a know hardcore corpser, he can't keep a straight face for the life of him, yeah, this badass tattooed ass kicker can' keep a straight face. So Dieno and Seigo's tactic? -- pantyhose masks!
Story of the match was that Dieno's tactic worked perfectly and Sakaguchi couldn't do anything in the match, so Saki had to wrestle most of the match against either man. Dieno and Seigo at one point tied up their pantyhose and used them to clothesline Sakaguchi, but it led to Sakaguchi having a small hope spot where he pulled the masks off. Unfortunately for Sakaguchi, the finish saw Dieno put the pantyhose mask on the ref, so Sakaguchi couldn't keep a pin down, and instead got rolled up by Dieno.
Dieno, Seigo, & Yoshiko vs ERUPTION for the 6-Man titles incoming.
DAMNATION (Daisuke Sasaki, Mad Paulie, Nobuhiro Shimatani & Soma Takao) & El Lindaman vs. DISASTER BOX (HARASHIMA, Naomi Yoshimura & Yuki Ueno), Chris Brookes & Minoru Tanaka - 7/10
This was fun. We got some good hoss fighting between Paulie and Naomi, who now has colored hair again. Ueno was babyface in peril, while HARASHIMA, Tanaka, and Brookes all had their little time to shine, especially HARASHIMA who got the win. I really really wanted to see Brookes vs Lindaman here since there is a big size difference, but not in a hoss vs small guy type of thing, they'd both be able to go fast. Tanaka was great, no news there.
Post-match - Imabayashi made the announcement that at Ultimate Party 2020, it'll be HARASHIMA & Naomichi Marufuji vs Soma Takao & CIMA! Marafuji vs CIMA!!! Ultimate Party is gonna be great.
Brookes seemed to be really honored to team with Minoru Tanaka.
ALL OUT (Konosuke Takeshita & Shunma Katsumata), Keigo Nakamura & Shinya Aoki vs. Junretsu (Hideki Okatani, Jun Akiyama, Makoto Oishi & Mizuki Watase) - 8.5/10
This was sooo fucking good, far more than it deserved, because looking at the participants, it's 50% of rookies. This was primarily built around the feud between Akiyama and Takeshita, but there is also a small hidden rivalry between Nakamura and Okatani. So it was a lot of people coming in and out, letting Takeshita and Akiyama take on pretty much everyone and themselves to build them up, but at the end, it was Takeshita and Oishi with a great striker vs technical contrast.
There was one really special moment that I didn't see coming, but I do understand everyone's reaction. Suddenly in the ring, Aoki and Akiyama got tagged in with an empty bar, and the whole room went quiet, it was that quick realization that oh shit, Akiyama and the legit grappler are going for it. They seemed to shoot a little bit, Akiyama had double the size, but Aoki kept finding a way into a Kimura position and eventually got Akiyama's back and locked in a Sleeper before things got broken out. I can totally believe that Akiyama himself requested a go at Aoki.
Post-match - Takeshita said that Junretsu and ALL OUT are 1-1, so he challenged Akiyama to a one-on-one match between each other. Akiyama accepted for Ultimate Party 2020!
King Of DDT 2020 Final Match
T-Hawk vs. Tetsuya Endo - 9/10
Fantastic match. #DAMNHEARTS implodes into DAMNATION vs #STRONGHEARTS for this one. Endo worked the neck relentlessly, T-Hawk worked the arms and arguably the chest. Actually, Endo fought Higuchi and T-Hawk in the same show, that is NOT good for your health, the chest area to be more precise. They pretty much went back and forward, even in the end when they started spamming their finishers, Endo kicking out of the Night Ride and NR End, and T-Hawk actually kicking out of the ACNH (Yes, Animal Crossing: New Horizon is the name of the move), yet he was able to kick out of the SSP.
I'm not gonna lie, as soon as Endo won vs Higuchi, I figured he'd win the whole thing since it be weird to lose the final against the guy who is already winning a title shot, but smartly enough, Endo early on before the tournament said that if he won, he'd call out Kenny Omega of all people, and that's as good as a reverse Red Herring you can throw to make us give attention to someone else.
Completely unrelated and inconsequential, but T-Hawk fought two DAMNATION guys in today's show.
Post-match - Endo got his ¥1.000.000 check. Imabayashi asked him about who'd he called out. Endo brought up Omega, but Imabayashi said he'd try, but it's gonna be hard for pandemic reasons. Endo said that he has a backup, but that he'll call him out later if Omega chickens out.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
It was a great show, I was pleasantly surprised that all the tag matches turned out to be soo good. I somewhat figured that it be a tournament show where that is the highlight, but I was mistaken.
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