Cero Reviews DDT King Of DDT 2021 Second Round

[cero2k]

DDT King Of DDT 2021 Second Round
June 20, 2021
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan

Yuki Iino & Yuya Koroku vs. Hideki Okatani & Yukio Naya - 5.5/10
Basic opener with the rookies, good stuff all around even with Naya moving so awkward sometimes and Iino doing his stuff. Okatani pinned Koroku for the win

DDT Iron Man Heavymetalweight Championship Delayed Entry Battle Royal
Shinya Aoki (c) vs. Makoto Oishi vs. Antonio Honda vs. Toru Owashi vs. Mad Paulie vs. Kazuki Hirata vs. Yukio Sakaguchi vs. Chris Brookes vs. Saki Akai - 4/10
Prior to the match, we saw that Mad Paulie had brought special tonics for everyone in the match, most ignored the drink, except a couple. We didn't know what any of that was until later in the match when it was revealed that the tonics would turn you into citizens of Planet Paulin.

This match, even if it's for the title, you actually have to pin or submit the champion, over the top rope doesn't change the title, and if by some reason the champion is eliminated OTR before the match is over, someone can win the match, but not the title.

Match started with all the Earth wrestlers coming in one after the other, mostly doing spots. With help from from the wrestlers involved, Hirata managed to pin Aoki, both to eliminate him, and to win the title. After some more entrants, Mad Paulie and Mad Anton came out, revealing the nature of the tonic. Paulie seems to be able to control Anton, or at least there is some mimic magic happening.

Eventually, it all comes down to Hirata eliminating everyone except Paulie and Anton after the latter's Gon The Fox story sets up Hirata to toss Brookes, Akai, Owashi, and Oishi over the top rope. Hirata survives wrestling both Anton and Paulie, ending with all three in the apron and being eliminated together, but none of them was the winner, when the last participant came out, a Planet Paulin Yukio Sakaguchi, who won by default.

Post-match - Mad Paulie, Mad Anton, and Mad Sakaguchi chased around Hirata.

Danshoku Dieno vs. Yusuke Okada (w/Kiyoshi Hayashishita) - 5/10
Kiyoshi Hayashishita is indeed Utami Hayashishita's father, but his notoriety comes from an old show called Tsûkai! Big Daddy. He is in Okada's corner because Dieno attacked him in his restaurant and took over his place, and so Okada is backing Hayashishita.

This was the 6 minute midcard version of Akiyama vs Dieno, with Okada working serious, but failing to counter most of Dieno's groping style. It makes sense, Okada is not as strong as Akiyama, and so Okada fell to Dieno's attacks and ended up with his trunks halfway down his butt, being humped by Dieno, asking Kiyoshi for help. Kiyoshi jumped in and aided Okada, but Dieno ended up tricking and dodging Okada, and so Okada mistakenly made out with Kiyoshi, giving Dieno the opening to win with the Gay-do Clutch.

Post-match - Okada apologized for losing and Kiyoshi told him that sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but you're a good kisser.

Akito & Naomi Yoshimura vs. DAMNATION (Nobuhiro Shimatani & Soma Takao) vs. The 37KAMIINA (Shunma Katsumata & Yuki Ueno) - 7.5/10
This was a movez match, Australian tag rules in place. It was a lot of action from everyone. Katsumata is soon getting a tag title match, Ueno and Soma seem to still be warm between each other, and they're definitely trying to keep Akito and Yoshimura strong for something, but beyond that, there didn't seem to be anything in particular that they were building, at least not that I noticed knowing as much as I know from the upcoming cards.

Some highlights were Ueno and Yoshimura working together for the first time in a while. A lot of the stuff with Soma and Ueno, Yoshimura being a big boi, and for my personal enjoyment, anything that Nobu did. Finish came down to Akito destroying Nobu's knees until he got the submission.

DDT Iron Man Heavymetalweight Championship Match
Kazuki Hirata (c) vs. Shinya Aoki - Dud
This was impromptu and it happened while it should had been the intermission, and it really wasn't a match since it was the Heavymetalweight title and 24/7 rules are in effect. What happened was that Hirata came out running away from Mad Paulie, Mad Anton, and Mad Sakaguchi. Hirata took them out, but as he was celebrating, Mad Aoki came out and choked him out.

Aoki regains the Heavymetalweight title.

Announcements - GM Imabayashi did his announcements with a dead Hirata in the ring. We're getting DRAMATIC SURVIVOR 2021 and TENJIN WARS 2021 in September. Yoshiaki Yatsu came out, who is building a team to challenge for the 8-Man titles, we got the reveal that Hiroshi Yamato is joining him and so is Akito, who came out to the ring. They all have amateur wrestling background. For the 4th spot, Nakamura said he was making his return from injury that night and wanted to be part of the team. Yatsu accepted since Nakamura once participated in an amateur wrestling tournament, even if he lost in the first round.

If you need a reminder, Yoshiaki Yatsu was an 80's wrestler that recently lost a leg to diabetes in 2019.

King Of DDT Second Round Match
Tetsuya Endo vs. Kazusada Higuchi - 8.5/10
This was awesome. The speed high flyer vs the power golem of a man. It was a fantastic display of power by Higuchi, who even with Endo getting so much offense in, it was still Higuchi catching Endo midair at the end, on various occasions, and eventually getting the win with the Brain Claw Slam.

King Of DDT Second Round Match
Konosuke Takeshita vs. MAO - 6/10
I was super disappointed in this match, it was a good wrestling performance, that showed glimpses of a great story, but a story that they never got to. These two are part of the friendly 37KAMIINA group, so it was understandable that MAO would think this was a friendly match, while Takeshita was taking this as serious as the actual title match you earn for winning the tournament.

I kinda hoped that the match would eventually lead to MAO getting serious, but that was what I never saw in MAO, as great of a wrestler he is, he doesn't have that switch that guys like Take or Endo or Sakaguchi have that can allow them to be funny in a match, serious in the other, MAO is always MAO and that is the spotty fun guy. 80% of this match, he kept trying to trick Takeshita so he could connect a punch, and because of that lack of drive, I never got into his offense in this match. MAO was having an exhibition match, Takeshita is trying to win a championship.

Sucks for MAO, a wrestler that can't get serious when necessary, will never break the glass ceiling.

King Of DDT Second Round Match
Jun Akiyama vs. Daisuke Sasaki - Dud, but a good angle.
I called it! Sasaki had been getting built for Akiyama, and he got the win here. There wasn't much to the match, but I did like how they got there and it works as a building block for a proper title match between the two down the road.

What happened here was that about 2 minutes into the match with Sasaki failing to hurt Akiyama, Sasaki almost lost the match if not for Paulie that pulled the referee. Akiyama dealt with Paulie, but it gave Sasaki the opening to low blow Akiyama twice and roll him up for the upset pin. Sasaki advances and has a pin on Akiyama.

King Of DDT Second Round Match
HARASHIMA vs. Yuji Hino - 9.25/10
What a great match this was, even if the roles were somewhat reversed throughout the match, with Hino coming off as a valiant fighter, working through the pain until he won, and HARASHIMA, being the vicious attacker that had it won and lost it. This wouldn't feel so weird with any other two wrestlers, but HARASHIMA is always portrayed as the babyface ace of the promotion, and for the most part, Hino has been the big baddy since coming back.

The match built around HARASHIMA destroying Hino's legs early on and working on the limb for most of the match. Hino would make a comeback based on strikes, until it eventually hurt HARASHIMA enough. Most striking exchanges would see HARASHIMA do a lot of strikes, while Hino would take down HARA with a single on, and so with time, they piled up and HARASHIMA was the hurt one. At the end, the power moves of Hino were too much for HARASHIMA, who just couldn't keep Hino down regardless of how much he went for the knockout knee to the face.

Semifinals drawing - With the four semifinalist set, we now had the random pairing via random drawing. Sasaki and Takeshita both got blue balls first, so it was obvious that both Hino and Higuchi would have red.

Sasaki vs Takeshita and Hino vs Higuchi are your semifinals. Perfect for a Takeshita vs Higuchi finals, but they also built Take vs Hino for months in tag matches, and maybe we finally get the singles.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
Good show from DDT, it was fun, it had great wrestling, it had some developments that will come to fruition in the future, and it gave us Mad Sakaguchi. Wrestle Universe subscription paid off with this show alone.