Cero Reviews DDT MAX BUMP 2021

[cero2k]

DDT MAX BUMP 2021
May 4th, 2021
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan

Cheer Up Kikutaro Match
Antonio Honda vs Kikutaro vs Danshoku Dieno - No rating, but fun.
For those living under a rock, KIkutaro had some migration problems when he was denied entry to the US (where he lives), he was handcuffed and taken to jail for two days until he could be sent back to the Japan. Right now, his house, car, and all properties in the US are in limbo, he can't comeback for now, and so for all these real life situations, DDT booked a match to try and cheer up Kikutaro.

The 'match' was just a series of things that Dieno and Honda did that kept reminding Kikutaro about prison, and so GM Imabayashi kept interrupting the match to stop Dieno and Honda from doing those things. Eventually, Kikutaro had enough and won the match with his newly learnt move, the Prison Lock.

AKITO vs Mad Paulie - 6.5/10
Good short match, Paulie had a lot of offense due to his size advantage, but at the end, Akito made a short comeback and won by submitting Paulie with the Goliath Bird Eater. Akito hadn't landed a lot of offense, but what he had, had been on the knee of Paulie. Akito looked fantastic in this match, power and technique.

KO-D 8-Man Tag Championship Match
Team Thoroughbred (Sanshiro Takagi, Chikara, Yukio Naya, & Yakan Nabe) vs Keigo Nakamura, Hideki Okatani, Toi Kojima, & Yuya Koroku - 4.5/10
The challengers are literally the 4 youngest and greenest rookies in the promotion, yet everyone except Koroku has more matches under their belt than Nabe. Takagi came out driving the Dramatic Dream Mobile for some reason, and I just realized that the front wheel needs so air.

Match was really chaotic to think that it was on purpose, I do think that putting so many rookies, Nabe, and Chikara who also isn't that great together in the same match, caused a lot of miscommunication, add to that that we had a referee bump, and it just got worse. However, this match ended with the pair up of Takagi vs Nakamura, and it was quite good and kinda redeemed the match. Takagi pinned Nakamura with a Sunflower Bomb.

Kenoh Promo - Right after the match, Kenoh, newly recovered from COVID, jumped in the ring and got face to face with Takagi. These two have a history together. Takagi being his president, Kenoh apologized to him for the troubles he cause for getting sick with COVID. Takagi pulled him up and hit a stunner.

Takagi told him that this isn't the Kenoh he knows and that he heard Kenoh wasn't interested in CyberFight Fest. Kenoh told him that no one in NOAH is excited about wrestling with DDT, even Takeshita said that about Kiyomiya, KONGOH would rather wrestle someone from NOAH. Takagi said that at CyberFight Fest, he was booking KONGOH vs a DDT and he had to oblige. Kenoh said there was no one in DDT that could take on them, and that's when Yukio Sakaguchi walked out and got in Kenoh's face. Takagi said that they're ready for an all out WARFARE!

It's gonna be KONGOH vs Sanshiro Takagi, Yukio Sakaguchi, Kazusada Higuchi, Yukio Naya, Hideki Okatani, Akito, & Naomi Yoshimura.

DAMNATION (Daisuke Sasaki, Tetsuya Endo & Yuji Hino) vs. Eruption (Kazusada Higuchi & Yukio Sakaguchi) & Yuki Ino vs. The 37KAMIINA (Konosuke Takeshita, MAO & Shunma Katsumata) - 8/10
This was great, it had one more person from the 8-man match, and yet, it was far less chaotic. The match was kept to either two or three people in the ring, rarely did we see more people than that inside the ring. Having said that, there was constant action outside the ring. Everyone had short times to shine, I particularly enjoyed the stuff with Iino vs Take. At the end, the 37KAMIINA triple teamed Iino, ending with a spike piledriver from Take for the win.

Post-match - Take said that it's been a month and he is back from his excursion to the US, he has learned a lot and ready for the Ultimate Tag League and the CyberFest match.

DDT Extreme Championship / DDT Ironman Heavymetalweight Championship Title vs Title Match
Chris Brookes (c) (w/Masahiro Takanashi) vs. Saki Akai (c)(w/ERUPTION) - 8/10
While Brookes is indeed the Extreme champion, and that gives him the right to add any stipulation to his title defenses, he decided that this should be a singles match so that if Akai wins, there are no excuses and Akai takes full credit, and not the reliance of gimmicks. The story of Akai making the challenge was that she wanted to pull her weight in the team and elevate herself, and because of that, Brookes wanted Akai to do it by her own strength.

The match ended up being more of a submission match than anything else, a couple of kicks here and there, but this was mostly both Brookes and Akai chasing a submission win. Most of Brooke's submissions are like the Octopus Stretch, that can target several areas at the same time, so he did a lot of that, hurting Akai's neck, arms, and legs. Akai herself did a lot of work on the arms of Brookes. Final minutes saw both chase their signature moves, with a lot of counters, but at the end, it was Brookes that hit the Praying Mantis Bomb and got the win.

This was arguably Saki Akai's best match ever.

DISASTER BOX (HARASHIMA, Kazuki Hirata & Toru Owashi) vs. Junretsu (Jun Akiyama & Makoto Oishi) & Yusuke Okada - 7/10
This match is building HARASHIMA and Akiyama for their CyberFight Fest match, and so the stuff with HARASHIMA and Akiyama was great, but it really wasn't long. Most of the match was spent with Oishi and Okada working over Hirata with submissions, with Owashi distracting the referee so that he wouldn't notice Hirata tapping out. At the end, it came down to Hirata and Oishi, with both men trading roll ups until Oishi hit a big Crucifix Bomb for the win. Ok match, if not for the champion and challenger being in it, I'd say this belonged way lower in the card.

Ueno vs Takao Build Up Video - It implied that Takao has been drunk with Strong Zero ever since, and so his comments about winning the title and defending it in Mexico or against Mirko Cro Cop shouldn't be taken seriously.

DDT Universal Championship Match
Yuki Ueno (c) vs. Soma Takao - 8.5/10
Really good match. It was all about how these guys are so similar to each other, throughout the match, if Takao blocked something in a way, Ueno would also do the same later on. Coming in to the match, Takao had shown disrespect to Ueno, not really respecting him as a wrestler, and so a lot of those mirror spots, were part of Ueno overcoming Takao, showing that he was better than him, showing that all that Strong Zero poured on Ueno hadn't gotten to him, and at the end, defeat him.

And just in case people still wonder why everyone sees Ueno as a young Ibushi, he did an unnecessary moonsault from the entrance setup.

My one gripe with this match was the unnecessary pushing of the referee, it didn't really lead to anything nor it was necessary. They were trying to give the wrestlers some edge and make it seem like this was heated, but it just came of as dickish.

Post-match - Ueno said that he had said he wouldn't enjoy wrestling Soma, but it was such a hard fight, that he ended up loving it and would love to do it again.

Imabayashi asked him if he had a new challenger in mind, and Ueno asked for Akito, who said that he hadn't challenged anyone in the Sauna Club because he wasn't sure he could best them anymore. Ueno told him that if he doesn't think he can best them, the walk away, so Akito told him, wow wow, I said I can't best you, but I can still beat you, I made a career from breaking legs and doing anything to win matches, and this is no different.

Since the Ultimate Tag League is starting in a couple of days, this match will take place until that is done, May 29 at Fukuoka.

Ueno closed the show with the 37KAMIINA.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
Good show, it was the first big show without a crowd, so once again, some matches suffered from it, but I also think some others benefited from it. This show kinda felt like they are stalling for the tag league and the CyberFight Fest. Having said that, what we had was quite enjoyable and I'm sure this show is gonna go unnoticed to a lot of people, given that there were two other shows, way more newsworthy going on.