AJPW kicked off 2019 with the first night of their annual New Year Wars. This show included two title matches, and a big eight-man tag team match.
Before the show started, Jun Akiyama announced that Shuji Ishikawa has officially signed full-time with All Japan.
The undercard was fun, but missable, so here are some brief notes:
- Danji Tamura and Atsushi Aoyagi impressed in their debuts in a losing effort against Atsushi Aoki and Hikaru Sato
- Gianni Valletta and Black Tiger VII defeated Jake Lee and Hokuto Omori, but Omori continues to get better with every match and gain the fans respect
- Masanobu Fuchi, Osamu Nishimura and TAJIRI defeated Jun Akiyama, Atsushi Maruyama and Kotaru Suzuki in a fun, comedy-filled tag match
- Lee won the New Year’s Battle Royal, last eliminating Yutaka Yoshie
Kento Miyahara, Naoya Nomura, Yuma Aoyagi, and Yoshitatsu def. KAI, Takao Omori, Black-Menso Re, and Zeus
This match is the prelude to the January 3 title matches, where Miyahara defends the Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship against KAI. Nomura and Aoyagi will defend the All-Asia Tag Team Championships against Omori and Menso Re.
This match did not do enough to build excitement for those matches. The crowd in Korakuen Hall was hit-or-miss throughout the show. Their excitement did not get close to peaking in this match, despite it featuring Miyahara and Nomura, two of the most popular stars in the company right now.
All eight guys brawled all over the building. Miyahara and KAI brawled into the bleachers, which were not well lit. At times during this, they could be heard brawling in the background. The camera never cut to them because of how dark that part of the building was.
Nomura got the win for his team, pinning Omori. After the match, all the champions and challengers stared each other down.
Koji Iwamoto © def. Yusuke Okada to retain the World Junior Heavyweight Championship
Okada entered to a mild ovation. He was not ready to be in this position. There were obvious signs of jitters from him, plus the crowd did not react to anything he did in this match.
With that said, this was a heck of a match.
The story was, Iwamoto is a better wrestler by leaps and bounds. It did not take much effort for him to take control early on. Whenever they would exchange strikes, Iwamoto’s were significantly more effective.
Iwamoto managed to out-wrestle Okada at every turn, but Okada kept coming back. He kept finding ways to escape holds and kick out after getting hit with a big move. When he made his comeback, it felt like it meant something because he kept getting beat at every turn, and now was his chance to win.
A headlock judo throw by Iwamoto early on set up him being able to work over Okada’s neck for most of the match. In the end, another headlock judo throw put Okada away for good.
A good showing by Okada, but he still has plenty of work to do to be on the same level as Iwamoto.
Violence Giants (Suwama and Shuji Ishikawa) © def. The Bomber (Dylan James and Joe Doering) to retain the World Tag Team Championships
On paper, this is a match between four big dudes that could potentially be excellent, but it could also be slow and lumbering. In execution, it was a slow, but pretty good tag team match.
Violence Giants were very over, as usual. Korakuen Hall loves Doering and today was no different. That left James as the odd-man out.
There is not too much to say about this match. It was four big guys lumbering around and occasionally hitting big moves and firing up the crowd.
Ishikawa pinned James to win the match.
Afterwards, Daisuke Sekimoto and Yuji Okabayashi (also known as Strong BJ) hit the ring to challenge for the titles. Strong BJ were the champions in late 2017, but then Okabayashi got injured and they had to vacate the titles. Okabayashi returned to action recently so it makes sense that these two would lay claim to the titles they never lost.
What did you think of the show? Leave a comment below and let us know!
