DDT Street Wrestling In Tokyo Dome Returns
Tokyo Dome Cup is a 4-person team gauntlet match, where every team that participates puts in 1 Million yen into the jackpot. Final team will take away 5 Million Yen.
This was the first pair up, it happened on the TD field. Brahman are comedy weapon wrestlers and Matsuno can barely move, so there wasn't a lot of wrestling in this first match, just a bunch of comedy spots. I particularly laughed out loud when Kei tried to play bowling with everyone and ended up hitting Shu by mistake, everyone was just cracking out. Takeshita especially corpsed for most of the match. At the end, MAO pinned Matsuno to advance.
Saki Akai Appearance - She is selling beer on the stands, but her prices are high (2 Million Yen), Katsumata complains, and earns himself a kick from Akai.
This was my favorite match of the gauntlet, it felt really chaotic in a good way, it had the better near falls of the night, and in a way, this was the most violent match, and it helped that it took place in the upper halls, where all the food is, since it left less space for people to run around away from spots. The TJPW was a great combo team, Yamashita as the champion went against the KO-D Champion Takeshita; Hikari Noa and Katsumata, being the deathmatch loves of the teams faced off and did some deathmatch spots; MAO paired up with Yamashita in a Karate fight, Misao did voodoo on Katsumata, Itoh worked with MAO and built an awesome spot with MAO breaking a plastic box on her head and she no selling it. That's probably just half of everything that happened, but at the end, it was a splash from Kastumata on Misao that eliminated the TJPW team.
Saki Akai sells beer again - Beer is now going for 3 Million Yen. Katsumata and Akai brawled until she drops him down the stairs.
Koji Tanaka was the surprise member of the Aoki/Higushi/Hirata team. He is a kickboxer from RIZIN. There wasn't much to this match, the match started in the bullpen but it was really just there for a few minutes while the brought in Koji and he did some spots. They quickly left the pen. When they made it to the field again, from the darkness appeared Yoshihiko, who apparently wasn't part of any team since it went straight for Aoki, but it took out the 37KAMIINA too. Kouzi knocked it out. When everyone was down, Hirata betrayed Kouzi because he wanted the arena for himself to dance. Once all that was done, Ueno pinned Hirata for the win.
This could had been better given the teams, but they used it more for certain spots. I think they were trying to give the T37K a bit of rest.
After the match, Kouzi said he was jumping from RIZIN to DDT, which I doubt, but it would be fun.
"Opening" pitch - Jun Akiyama came out. Junretsu is not in the match, but he came out for tonight's opening pitch. Kenta Kobashi will be batting. Sink that in, Jun Akiyama on the mound and Kenta Kobashi in the batter's box in the Tokyo Dome. Akiyama is terrible at batting and almost took out Kobashi, so they almost came to blows and decided not to keep going. The shaking of Akiyama and Kobashi's hands shook the earth and everyone fell down.
Wrestleball Rules
Wrestleball Rules are hard to explain, but it's technically an elimination match, but you're not actually eliminated if you get pinned. It kinda works like 'outs' in a baseball game. Another tricky detail is that pins can only happened during play time, that is after you bat, you can get pinned between your hit and making it safe to a base.
T37K won 4:3, with Takeshita eliminating Imanari last. Endo is not really part of the Pheromones, but he joined in and even had his jockstrap on. Wrestling-wise, it wasn't all that amazing, the baseball factor slowed things and kept cutting off the action to go bat, but it was still lots of fun. At one point a Brazilian carnival spilled into the field during a little brawl.
Winner Takes All
We suddenly got an announcement that the winning team would all wrestle each other and whoever won chose to take the money, or at least choose what to do with the money.
As soon as the match started, the Tokyo Dome representative came down to charge Imabayashi for the use of the Dome because they had gone overtime. The total was 5 Million Yen, so while the wrestlers fought for the money, they didn't notice that Imabayashi used the money to pay the Tokyo Dome expenses instead.
This was freaking great, I couldn't ask for something better to watch on a Sunday morning. Wrestling can be so fun when you allow yourself to enjoy and not take wrestling so seriously. I love these promotions.
The 37KAMIINA (Konosuke Takeshita, Shunma Katsumata, Yuki Ueno, & MAO) vs Brahman Brothers (Brahman Kei & Brahman Shu), Chris Brookes & Gorgeous Matsuno - 5/10
This was the first pair up, it happened on the TD field. Brahman are comedy weapon wrestlers and Matsuno can barely move, so there wasn't a lot of wrestling in this first match, just a bunch of comedy spots. I particularly laughed out loud when Kei tried to play bowling with everyone and ended up hitting Shu by mistake, everyone was just cracking out. Takeshita especially corpsed for most of the match. At the end, MAO pinned Matsuno to advance.
Saki Akai Appearance - She is selling beer on the stands, but her prices are high (2 Million Yen), Katsumata complains, and earns himself a kick from Akai.
The 37KAMIINA (Konosuke Takeshita, Shunma Katsumata, Yuki Ueno, & MAO) vs 121000000 (Maki Itoh & Miyu Yamashita), Hikari Noa & Hyper Misao - 7/10
This was my favorite match of the gauntlet, it felt really chaotic in a good way, it had the better near falls of the night, and in a way, this was the most violent match, and it helped that it took place in the upper halls, where all the food is, since it left less space for people to run around away from spots. The TJPW was a great combo team, Yamashita as the champion went against the KO-D Champion Takeshita; Hikari Noa and Katsumata, being the deathmatch loves of the teams faced off and did some deathmatch spots; MAO paired up with Yamashita in a Karate fight, Misao did voodoo on Katsumata, Itoh worked with MAO and built an awesome spot with MAO breaking a plastic box on her head and she no selling it. That's probably just half of everything that happened, but at the end, it was a splash from Kastumata on Misao that eliminated the TJPW team.
Saki Akai sells beer again - Beer is now going for 3 Million Yen. Katsumata and Akai brawled until she drops him down the stairs.
The 37KAMIINA (Konosuke Takeshita, Shunma Katsumata, Yuki Ueno, & MAO) vs Kazusada Higushi, Shinya Aoki, Kazuki Hirata, & Kouzi - 5/10
Koji Tanaka was the surprise member of the Aoki/Higushi/Hirata team. He is a kickboxer from RIZIN. There wasn't much to this match, the match started in the bullpen but it was really just there for a few minutes while the brought in Koji and he did some spots. They quickly left the pen. When they made it to the field again, from the darkness appeared Yoshihiko, who apparently wasn't part of any team since it went straight for Aoki, but it took out the 37KAMIINA too. Kouzi knocked it out. When everyone was down, Hirata betrayed Kouzi because he wanted the arena for himself to dance. Once all that was done, Ueno pinned Hirata for the win.
This could had been better given the teams, but they used it more for certain spots. I think they were trying to give the T37K a bit of rest.
After the match, Kouzi said he was jumping from RIZIN to DDT, which I doubt, but it would be fun.
"Opening" pitch - Jun Akiyama came out. Junretsu is not in the match, but he came out for tonight's opening pitch. Kenta Kobashi will be batting. Sink that in, Jun Akiyama on the mound and Kenta Kobashi in the batter's box in the Tokyo Dome. Akiyama is terrible at batting and almost took out Kobashi, so they almost came to blows and decided not to keep going. The shaking of Akiyama and Kobashi's hands shook the earth and everyone fell down.
Wrestleball Rules
The 37KAMIINA (Konosuke Takeshita, Shunma Katsumata, Yuki Ueno, & MAO) vs The Pheromones (Danshoku 'Dandy' Dieno, Yuki 'Sexy' Iino, Yumehito 'Fantastic' Imanari, & Tetsuya 'Hercules' Endo) - 6.5/10
Wrestleball Rules are hard to explain, but it's technically an elimination match, but you're not actually eliminated if you get pinned. It kinda works like 'outs' in a baseball game. Another tricky detail is that pins can only happened during play time, that is after you bat, you can get pinned between your hit and making it safe to a base.
T37K won 4:3, with Takeshita eliminating Imanari last. Endo is not really part of the Pheromones, but he joined in and even had his jockstrap on. Wrestling-wise, it wasn't all that amazing, the baseball factor slowed things and kept cutting off the action to go bat, but it was still lots of fun. At one point a Brazilian carnival spilled into the field during a little brawl.
Winner Takes All
Konosuke Takeshita vs Shunma Katsumata vs Yuki Ueno vs MAO - Dud, but a perfect ending.
We suddenly got an announcement that the winning team would all wrestle each other and whoever won chose to take the money, or at least choose what to do with the money.
As soon as the match started, the Tokyo Dome representative came down to charge Imabayashi for the use of the Dome because they had gone overtime. The total was 5 Million Yen, so while the wrestlers fought for the money, they didn't notice that Imabayashi used the money to pay the Tokyo Dome expenses instead.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
This was freaking great, I couldn't ask for something better to watch on a Sunday morning. Wrestling can be so fun when you allow yourself to enjoy and not take wrestling so seriously. I love these promotions.