DDT Effort, Friendship, and Victory In Nagoya 2021

DAMNATION (Hiroshi Yamato & Nobuhiro Shimatani) vs. Keigo Nakamura Toi Kojima - 5.5/10

I'm still not sold nor comfortable with DAMNATION Yamato, he used to be such a handsome man, now he looks like a creep. Good short match, Nobu and Yamato seem to have been working on tag team work a bit. Yamato pinned Kojima for the win with a Fisherman Suplex pin.

Antonio Honda & Saki Akai vs. NEO Itoh Respect Army (Chris Brookes & Maki Itoh) - 5/10, but incredibly fun

Akai came out to Honda's theme, Brookes to Itoh's. Let me listen to their themes!!

Story of the match was that this is Itoh's first match against Honda, so when Honda went for the injury spot, Itoh didn't sell it, thanked him for his services to the industry, and got medics to take him away, so the match turned into a handicap match until Akai called for Honda to return.

There was a play into the Gon the Fox story, where it met Gonko, the female Fox, and they fell in love, and right before they were about to kiss, Brookes and Akai stopped them, only to be pushed together for what could had been a romantic moment, but turned awkward when Brookes said it was gross, obviously insulting Akai and breaking my mind as to who would call Akai gross.

Last minute saw Brookes and Honda do some near falls before Brookes locked in the Calamary Stretch for the win.

DDT Megatonweight Singles Match
Yuji Hino vs. Yuki Iino - 7/10

Oh meaty meaty boys going at it in what is the Megantonweight division. This was a lot of slapping, chopping, shoulder blocks, and a couple of big slams for the big pops. They worked on each other's backs until Hino kept Iino down for the win after hitting the fuckingBOMB.

Post-match - Iino was disappointed in losing, but promised to beat him when they wrestle again.

KO-D Six Man Tag Team Title Match
Akito, Kazuki Hirata & Shota (c) vs. Danshoku Dieno, HARASHIMA & Sanshiro Takagi - 8/10

Shota has shaved his head and now looks like the missing child of Chavito Guerrero and Gedo. Story behind this match is that Akito, Hirata, and Shota are a generation of DDT wrestler that never really made it to the top, and they wanted to wrestle the team of three men that carried DDT on their backs for years, Dieno, HARASHIMA, and Takagi.

This was a mixture of Dieno comedy and good wrestling. On one side, Dieno had been training for this match, so he pulled some strong butt attacks and kissing strikes, mostly against Akito; on the other hand, we had Hirata and HARASHIMA with straight up good wrestling. Shota and Takagi kinda just came in and out for the bigger spots.

Finish of the match saw Dieno and Akito trade kisses and strikes, ending with Akito going for a kiss submission, transition it to an Anaconda Vice, and while kissing Dieno, submit him for the win.

Post-match - Akito cut a promo saying that with this win, while it's not enough to surpass what their opponents have done for DDT, they have also added their part and they ARE DDT.

DAMNATION came out, all of the stable. They said that this team was a disgrace in terms of calling themselves DDT and implied that DDT stands for DAMNATION Dream Team. They said that since DAMNATION has no titles now that Endo lost his, they're going to win these instead with their strongest team - Endo, Soma, and Hino.

Shota responded that Hino could probably take them all out and that yeah, Endo was a main eventer, but that they were not gonna stand aside and asked Imabayashi to book the match. 3.14, Korakuen Hall. Akito/Hirata/Shota vs Endo/Soma/Hino.

Toru Owashi & Yukio Naya vs. DAMNATION (Mad Paulie & Soma Takao) - 7/10

Good match, Owashi worked his ass off in this match, he did no comedy. Naya, who looks so awkward now that he has lost ton of weight, looked to be improving, but he still needs a lot of experience and a new gear designer. The match was mostly big lads doing big lads wrestling, with the exception of Soma I guess. At the end, Naya got the win over Paulie, much to my surprise. Of all 4 men, Naya was the least to take the win in my opinion.

Sauna Club (Shunma Katsumata & Yuki Ueno) vs. DAMNATION (Daisuke Sasaki & Tetsuya Endo) - 8/10

Really fun match. I thought that they were gonna use this match to set up Sasaki, or even Endo as Ueno's new Universal title challenge, but it wasn't the case, and it ended up being Endo beating Katsu with a Yurikatame.

After the match, Endo specifically said he had no interest in Shunma's title, he wanted the 6-man championships.

#STRONGHEARTS (CIMA, El Lindaman, Shigehiro Irie, & T-Hawk) vs. Junretsu (Hideki Okatani, Jun Akiyama, & Makoto Oishi) & Yusuke Okada - 9/10

This was great and scary, it was one of those matches that you start wondering if they're stiffing each other or what. Not only is CIMA teasing Akiyama and Okada with his newly won AJPW Jr. Heavyweight title, but some of the strikes that Irie landed on Okada looked stiff, then Akiyama is out there headbutting Irie, and to end it all, Okada straight chased around Lindaman for two Olympic laps at full speed. It was just crazy.

All of STRONGHEARTS were awesome, but in addition, Okada was all energy, while Akiyama and Oishi kept the workrate up. At the end, Okatani who hadn't been in the ring, came in, got completely decimated by a 4-man combo from STRONGHEARTS for the finish.

Post-match - Super troll CIMA teased Akiyama and Okada with the AJPW title. Akiyama congratulated him about it and headbutted Irie for no reason. CIMA teased Okada to get a singles match for the title.

KO-D Tag Team Title Match
Eruption (Kazusada Higuchi & Yukio Sakaguchi) (c) vs. Sauna Club (Konosuke Takeshita & MAO) - 9.75/10

Holy shit, this was fucking awesome! Now that Nautilus is no more, I feel strongly enough to say that Eruption are the best tag team out there, they're just fucking unstoppable and the Sakaguchi/Higuchi pair up is a perfect compliment for each other.

This match was 4 wrestlers, all proficient in different styles, bringing them all together for a full actioned packed match. Story here was that early on, MAO dropped Sakaguchi with a Package Piledriver on the apron, taking him out for a while, that Higuchi had to battle out by himself like the tough sonnavagun that he is. Eventually Sakaguchi came back, but he was just too hurt, so Higuchi had to come in again and had a tremendous fight with Takeshita, straight up those last minutes may be some of the best I've seen all year, and potentially 2020 too.

Post-match - Higuchi and Sakaguchi put each other over, Sakaguchi said that they won thanks to Higuchi, who answered, only because you saved me when I needed. Saki Akai was barely in tears.

HARASHIMA came out and asked to be the next in line, him and Yuji Okabayashi! Eruption accepted the challenge, but Imabayashi needs to work out dates with BJW before giving us a date.

OVERALL THOUGHTS

Great show! Great wrestling and comedy top to bottom, they closed the show with a legit MOTYC and the best tag team match I've seen all year. It's a shame that this show didn't draw as much, it's earlier in a work day (tomorrow is a holiday, but still) and in Nagoya, that aside from NJPW, has been drawing less than 500 people on an average.