{"id":10845,"date":"2019-01-02T07:07:03","date_gmt":"2019-01-02T12:07:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/?p=10845"},"modified":"2019-01-02T01:16:40","modified_gmt":"2019-01-02T06:16:40","slug":"all-japan-new-year-wars-night-one-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/2019\/01\/02\/all-japan-new-year-wars-night-one-review\/","title":{"rendered":"All Japan New Year Wars &#8211; Night One Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Before the show started, Jun Akiyama announced that Shuji Ishikawa has officially signed full-time with All Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"text-align:left\">The undercard was fun, but missable, so here are some brief notes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Danji Tamura and Atsushi Aoyagi impressed in\ntheir debuts in a losing effort against Atsushi Aoki and Hikaru Sato<\/li><li>Gianni Valletta and Black Tiger VII defeated Jake\nLee and Hokuto Omori, but Omori continues to get better with every match and\ngain the fans respect<\/li><li>Masanobu Fuchi, Osamu Nishimura and TAJIRI\ndefeated Jun Akiyama, Atsushi Maruyama and Kotaru Suzuki in a fun,\ncomedy-filled tag match<\/li><li>Lee won the New Year\u2019s Battle Royal, last\neliminating Yutaka Yoshie<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Kento Miyahara, Naoya Nomura, Yuma Aoyagi, and Yoshitatsu def. KAI, Takao Omori, Black-Menso Re, and Zeus<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This match is the prelude to the January 3 title matches,\nwhere Miyahara defends the Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship against KAI.\nNomura and Aoyagi will defend the All-Asia Tag Team Championships against Omori\nand Menso Re. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This match did not do enough to build excitement for those\nmatches. The crowd in Korakuen Hall was hit-or-miss throughout the show. Their\nexcitement did not get close to peaking in this match, despite it featuring\nMiyahara and Nomura, two of the most popular stars in the company right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">All eight guys brawled all over the building. Miyahara and\nKAI brawled into the bleachers, which were not well lit. At times during this,\nthey could be heard brawling in the background. The camera never cut to them\nbecause of how dark that part of the building was. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nomura got the win for his team, pinning Omori. After the\nmatch, all the champions and challengers stared each other down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Koji Iwamoto \u00a9 def. Yusuke Okada to retain the World Junior Heavyweight Championship<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/KIYO-1.jpg?resize=696%2C392\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10849\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Okada entered to a mild ovation. He was not ready to be in\nthis position. There were obvious signs of jitters from him, plus the crowd did\nnot react to anything he did in this match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With that said, this was a heck of a match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The story was, Iwamoto is a better wrestler by leaps and\nbounds. It did not take much effort for him to take control early on. Whenever\nthey would exchange strikes, Iwamoto\u2019s were significantly more effective. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Iwamoto managed to out-wrestle Okada at every turn, but\nOkada kept coming back. He kept finding ways to escape holds and kick out after\ngetting hit with a big move. When he made his comeback, it felt like it meant\nsomething because he kept getting beat at every turn, and now was his chance to\nwin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A headlock judo throw by Iwamoto early on set up him being\nable to work over Okada\u2019s neck for most of the match. In the end, another headlock\njudo throw put Okada away for good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A good showing by Okada, but he still has plenty of work to\ndo to be on the same level as Iwamoto.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Violence Giants (Suwama and Shuji Ishikawa) \u00a9 def. The Bomber (Dylan James and Joe Doering) to retain the World Tag Team Championships<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On paper, this is a match between four big dudes that could potentially\nbe excellent, but it could also be slow and lumbering. In execution, it was a\nslow, but pretty good tag team match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Violence Giants were very over, as usual. Korakuen Hall\nloves Doering and today was no different. That left James as the odd-man out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is not too much to say about this match. It was four\nbig guys lumbering around and occasionally hitting big moves and firing up the\ncrowd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ishikawa pinned James to win the match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Afterwards, Daisuke Sekimoto and Yuji Okabayashi (also known\nas Strong BJ) hit the ring to challenge for the titles. Strong BJ were the\nchampions in late 2017, but then Okabayashi got injured and they had to vacate\nthe titles. Okabayashi returned to action recently so it makes sense that these\ntwo would lay claim to the titles they never lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What did you think of the show? Leave a comment below and let us know!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":10846,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[717,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ajpw","category-featured"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9jnWd-2OV","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/VGTB.jpg?fit=%2C&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10845"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10850,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10845\/revisions\/10850"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}