Cero Reviews DDT King Of DDT 2021 Final!

[cero2k]

DDT King Of DDT 2021 Final!
July 4th, 2021
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan

KO-D 8-Person Tag Team Championship Match
Chikara, Sanshiro Takagi, Yakan Nabe & Yukio Naya (c) vs. Akito, Hiroshi Yamato, Keigo Nakamura & Yoshiaki Yatsu - 6.5/10
This was a lot better than I expected, we had some decent pair ups here with Nakamura and Nabe. The whole idea behind Yatsu's team was that they were amateur wrestlers, or had some experience, so we got a lot of grappling until the end. Yatsu got the submission win over Naya to win the titles, it's like a way of honoring Yatsu, who has been wrestling with a leg prothesis since losing his leg to diabetes.

I do wonder if a Kamigoye with a prothesis should be a DQ or not.

King Of DDT 2021 Semi Final Match
Daisuke Sasaki vs. Konosuke Takeshita - 7/10
Not great in workrate, but a good story that played into Sasaki's path to this match and a love triangle that could develop between these two and Akiyama. To both Ueno and Akiyama, Sakaki defeated via low blows early on, whether he realized he was going to lose, or was lazy enough to wait for it, he just went for low blows and got the wins.

In this match, he went for the same approach, but Takeshita kept blocking him, countering his attempts to cheat, and even when he tried to go for his crossface, Take kept escaping, everything was going bad to Sasaki, until he finally managed to trick Take into taking out Referee Matsui by accident and get a low blow in, but Takeshita has balls of steel and survived the attack, survived a second low blow, came back with a Chickenwing and submitted Sasaki.

Now, where I find this interesting is that there is a story here with Akiyama falling for Sasaki's tricks, while Takeshita, the one with the less experience of the two, caught everything. Sasaki I would assume would want a title shot since he has a pin on Akiyama, and Akiyama may actually want to defeat the man that pinned him and that Takeshita already defeated.

Either way, Konosuke Takeshita advances to the finals.

King Of DDT 2021 Semi Final Match
Yuji Hino vs. Kazusada Higuchi - 8.5/10
This was the hoss fight you would had expected. A lot of shoulder tackles, chops, big slams, and more chops. They had been building Hino as the ultimate kaiju boss of DDT, he has put down a lot of people, so I was surprised when he won. It was time for Higuchi to do the job and he did, Hino was completely dominant from start to finish, Higuchi had some good offense here and there, but a lot of Hino spots are designed for him to look like a monster against smaller guys, so when doing them with Higuchi, they made Hino look like a bigger deal. Hino won with a Fuckin'BOMB.

Something else that I had previously mentioned was that for months, we saw Hino vs Takeshita in tag matches, always pairing up, but never actually having that singles match, so while the finals could had been between two fan favorites and somewhat breakout stars, they went for the pair up that had some story. I wouldn't complain about either.

Higuchi's chest was a mess at the end from all the chops.

Antonio Honda & Chris Brookes vs. Danshoku Dieno & Yuki Iino vs. Yusuke Okada & Yuya Koroku vs. Eruption (Saki Akai & Yukio Sakaguchi) - 6/Fun
Prior to the match, they did a follow up gag from the last time Mad Paulie had secret tonics that turned wrestlers into citizens of Planet Pauline. This time, it was Dieno who had the tonics there. Brookes and Honda learned the lesson, as did Okada, but Sakaguchi once again fell for it and he convinced Saki Akai to grab one for the road. Akai had a craze to grab men from the audience.

The story of the match was then that some people were trying to force feed the D-Tonic on each other, then you had Akai fighting the urge to become Dieno, and for guys like Brookes and Honda to stop her from pulling her pants down to squat over her opponents. Poor KOroku was actually tossed into the ring so that Dieno and Iino could take advantage of him like that. Eventually, the end came when the D-Tonic worked on Sakaguchi, the Dieno craze came up, and he won with a Dieno Driver on poor Koroku.

D-Oh Gran Prix 2021 II Announcement - We have a second Grand Prix this year! The thing about the GP is that it always takes place towards the end of the year, with the finals happening on the next year, so the year in the name is usually the next year, BUT this time, it's not 2022, it's just part II. I don't know if they have a reason for it.

DAMNATION (Mad Paulie, Nobuhiro Shimatani, Soma Takao & Tetsuya Endo) vs. DISASTER BOX (HARASHIMA, Kazuki Hirata, Naomi Yoshimura & Toru Owashi) - 7/10
Fun match, some good wrestling and a little bit of comedy with Hirata being a geek that Owashi doesn't even want to tag, but that at the end manages to pull his weight and get the upset (?) win over Nobu with a roll up.

We had a good big boi pair up with Paulie and Yoshimura, some Soma vs HARA stuff, and Endo, just being there, looking ripped as fuck.

Wrestle Peter Pan Match Announcement - First match announced is MAO and Shunma Katsumata vs Chris Brookes & JUN F'n KASAI!

Junretsu (Hideki Okatani, Jun Akiyama & Makoto Oishi) vs. The 37KAMIINA (MAO, Shunma Katsumata & Yuki Ueno) - 7.5/10
You watch this match and wonder if Katsumata is a heel just by how annoying he can get with his Neppower every minute, right in Akiyama's face. This same thing made me wondered if Akiyama vs Katsu for the title could still be a possibility, now that Peter Pan is right around the corner and we're crowning a challenger tonight, not to mention that Akiyama already got his win back from Katsu.

The match itself was quite good once it came down to the wrestling, even Okatani looked great, he's a guy that is right there ready to establish himself, he just needs to do something that sheds off the 'rookie' shell.

King Of DDT 2021 Final Match
Yuji Hino vs. Konosuke Takeshita - 9/10
Awesome match with a great story. As I mentioned, Take and Hino have had a history these last months, finding themselves paired up in every 37K vs DAMNATION match, so while we have seen where both men stand in comparison of each other, we have never seen what happens when Hino has to go long with Takeshita, or what happens with Takeshita if no one interrupts Hino's onslaught, and that my friends, was this match.

The match saw Take start strong, trying to get a quick win before Hino could pick up steam, but after a couple of near falls (not that near really), Hino snapped, got pissed off, and that's when everything turned around, Hino started demolishing Take top to bottom. Eventually, Take would kinda make a comeback using his speed advantage to dodge and attack, and while he did manage to hurt Hino a bit, Take was hurting more and Hino was a machine, a stone golem that nothing could stop. Take would go for a German to put him down, and Hino straight up broke the hold, and so in order for Take to win, he had to outsmart, out-speed, and maneuver Hino into a straightjacket German, which he hit and managed to keep on for the 3 count.

Post-match - Hino acknowledged Takeshita's power by tapping him on the shoulder, but also kinda showed that he was caught in a moment where he lost control and lost, but that on any other night, it would had been him on top.

Takeshita got his winner's check for 1M yen, said that going through the tournament gave him the confidence to go after Akiyama, and that he has been away from the K-OD title for too long, but he's ready to go and win it back.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
Great end to the King of DDT tournament, the tournament had been a couple of shows that were hit and misses, but I'd say this was a hit, the comedy was great, the wrestling too, and at the end, we got a great finals match that feels like that point in the year where the new direction sets in and we start the engines. While the end of a tournament, I'd totally recommend this show as a starting point for those wanting to get into DDT, you won't get the jokes, but you'll get the showcase you want.