Cero Reviews DDT Wrestle Peter Pan 2021

[cero2k]

DDT Wrestle Peter Pan 2021
August 21, 2021
Fujitsu Kawasaki Stadium, Kawasaki, Japan

Keigo Nakamura & Yukio Naya vs. Hideki Okatani & Yuya Koroku - 4.5/10
Good solid match, anything between Nakamura in the ring was good. Naya got the win with a chokeslam.

Electric Current Explosion Deathmatch
Akito, Atsushi Onita, Maki Itoh & Sanshiro Takagi vs. Hikari Noa, Kuro-chan, Super Sasadango Machine & Tetsuhiro Kuroda - 3/10, but fun.
This is happening because Kuro-chan beat Atsushi Onita in a Rojo Wrestling show in an upset win, and so we have the rematch here, but being that this stadium has a history with FMW matches, it was fitting to go all out and get some explosions and people involved.

This was mostly chaotic shenanigans to get into explosions. Hikari Noa was the MVP, she looked awesome, even if her team lost. Her and Itoh did a sword fight with the explosive barbwire bats and it was a great looking spot.

Kenta Kobashi Speech - He just introduced the show and kicked off the action. The previous matches were indeed dark matches.

DISASTER BOX (HARASHIMA & Naomi Yoshimura), El Unicorn, Raimu Imai & Yusuke Okada vs. Ilusion, Mizuki Watase, TAMURA, Yuji Okabayashi & Yuki Iino - 6.5/10
This match had a lot of things going on for them. This was the debut of El Unicorn and Ilusion, so we got a pair up between them. We had also seen a rivalry between Yoshimura and Iino since Yoshimura's return, so we got to see that pair up. And lastly, HARASHIMA and Okabayashi were recently tag team champions and now wanted to wrestle each other, but not in a feud way. This is really all about introducing Ilusion and Unicorn, who I take it are the better wrestlers from the DDT Teenage Project. Unicorn is legit 13 years old and already doing dives.

Unicorn pinned Ilusion with a delayed Meteora stomp.

Double Ring, Double Singles Explanation - Let me explain this before we get into the matches. These four men wanted to make it to the card in singles matches, but since the card was already somewhat packed, they came up with the idea of setting an extra ring, so that they could wrestle at the same time.

Double Ring, Double Singles match
Antonio Honda vs. Toru Owashi AND Danshoku Dieno vs. Kazuki Hirata - Dud
Just to add to the magic, and save on time, Honga and Dieno came out at the same time, both of their themes played, as did Owashi and Hirata. The match only went seconds with both matches ending with a school boy pin. I really wanted to see this play out longer.

Post-match - Imabayashi ran down and berate the wrestlers for making them put on a second ring and promoting these matches and it was all for a 5 second match. He told them that it was a pain in the ass to broadcast two rings at the same time on Wrestle Universe. Imabayashi restarted the matches, but they'd take on the same ring.

Double Ring Double Singles match
Antonio Honda vs. Toru Owashi AND Danshoku Dieno vs. Kazuki Hirata - Dud
This was going on, but the referees started to get on each other's way until they almost came to blows and it was the wrestlers that had to ask for the no contest in order to separate the referees.

Post-match - Imabayashi came up again and ruled that in order to give the fans a match, this was now a 3-on-3 and he was going to be the referee of the match.

Antonio Honda, Referee Daisuke Kiso & Toru Owashi vs. Danshoku Dino, Kazuki Hirata & Referee Yukinori Matsui - 4/10, but soo fun.
This was short, but effective. Both referees had some spots where they looked strong-ish, but it all came down to Matsui having a pin over Kiso, only for Matsui to break his own pin to deliver one final Brainbuster on Kiso, but it worked against him, because Kiso reversed it into a cradle and got the win.

Hardcore Tag Team Match
Chris Brookes & Jun Kasai vs. The 37KAMIINA (MAO & Shunma Katsumata) - 7.5/10
The story of this match comes from Kasai making some derogatory comments about the increase and quality of hardcore matches in DDT as of late. Mostly because they use boxes and legos and not skewers. Katsumana, the resident deathmatch wrestler, who actually just finished his participation in a deathmatch tournament, decided he and MAO were going to show Kasai what they were about.

Match was mostly back and forth, but Kasai definitely had the biggest spots of the match. MAO and Katsumata had A LOT of Lego and container boxes that they used in many forms, while Kasai was more of a traditional deathmatch wrestler and had skewers and a freaking handsaw. Of course, there was also many tables and chairs being used, Brookes at one point had a ladder and he had come in with a sickle, but only used it on a spot. In a way, Brookes really felt outside his comfort zone, during the skewer spot where everyone ended with them, Brookes just felt like it wasn't his thing, but he went along with it nonetheless. Finish saw Brookes and Kasai hit synched Praying Mantis Bombs, with Brookes being the one getting the pin over MAO.

Post-match - Kasai put over MAO and Katsumata and thanked them for the nice summer memory.

KO-D 6-Person Tag Team Championships Match
DAMNATION (Soma Takao, Tetsuya Endo & Yuji Hino) (c) vs. Eruption (Kazusada Higuchi, Saki Akai & Yukio Sakaguchi) - 7/10
This was a bit of a heartbreak, the layout and finish made perfect sense and logic, but it was just heartbreaking. Coming in, the story with ERUPTION has been that they've been losing quite a bit, they lost both the 6-Person titles, the tag titles, and none of them have been able to capitalize on the several tournaments they've been involved in; whereas, DAMNATION has been having somewhat of a run ever since Hino returned back in December. The story for this match in particular was that DAMNATION was targeting Saki as the weak link of the team and in the case of Hino, didn't even acknowledged her when in the ring, which fired up Saki astronomically. So in this match, I wasn't expecting Saki to pin Hino or anything, but I figured they could win the titles, Higuchi could easily pin Soma.

What happened instead, was that Soma and Endo cancelled out Higuchi and Sakaguchi from the match, leaving Saki versus Hino for also the second half of the match, and it was all about Hino slowly starting to take her seriously and if she wanted to be chopped, he would obliged, but also Saki having hope spots, just kicking and kicking Hino as much as she could. Eventually Hino pinned Saki.

Post-match - Hino told Saki that she was a tough wrestler.

DDT Universal Championship Match
Yuki Ueno (c) vs. Daisuke Sasaki (w/Mad Paulie) - 7/10
The reason why Sasaki is walking out with the championship belt is becasue he stole it from Ueno, don't think he's the champion yet.

This was crazy and not for good reasons. The match started with some good wrestling, fast paced and all, but then out of nowhere, after a belt shot from Sasaki, Ueno bladed and it became a bloodbath of a match. He was pouring for most of Sasaki's heat run, and it wasn't until Ueno started to make a comeback that I noticed that he was bloody, but it was mostly drying up and eventually, a lot of it just came off.

In addition to being busted open, match was all about Ueno having to deal with the cheat that Sasaki is, countering low blows, constant referee bumps, taking on Paulie when he would interfere, and when he had survived everything and was finally closing in on the win, Sasaki out of nowhere hit La Mistica, completed the double underhook crossface, and submitted Ueno right there in the middle of the ring.

I think Ueno already had a good run with the title and could be moving forward to challenge for the KO-D title soon, but going back to Sasaki is a big mistake. He already had the title before and it was a bore, and if this is a case of being a transitional champion, I would have much rather seen Ueno get beat by that other wrestler. And it's not like Ueno didn't have challengers left, there is no reason why someone like HARASHIMA couldn't put over Ueno in a title defense.

KO-D Openweight Championship Match
Jun Akiyama (c) vs. Konosuke Takeshita - 8.75/10
Almost a year ago when Akiyama came in to the promotion, Takeshita was his first big feud, which led to Akiyama defeating Take in what would earn Akiyama a shot at Endo's title, which he would win and defend until today. Takeshita would start a path of learning that would eventually take him to winning this year's King of DDT and earning a shot at the man that he couldn't beat a while ago.

This match was all about how Takeshita has pretty much grown to be a young Akiyama. Most of his movements in this match mirrored that of Akiyama, from the Akiyama-innovated Blue Thunder Bomb to spamming the high knee. The match layout was basic, Akiyama got a nasty DDT on the apron early on and started working Take's neck and head all match, until Take made a comeback, and also started working Akiyama's head until they were trading knees. The match ended pretty much like most Akiyama matches end, with him taking down his knee pad and spamming the knee over and over again until Akiyama wasn't able to stand up. Akiyama's roaring desperation to keep going was fucking awesome, every wrestler should learn from him.

Post-match - Before Akiyama would leave, Take got the mic and said that he will elevate DDT even more and hopes that Akiyama will do so with them. Akiyama just told him that he'll get him back.

Chris Brookes came out and congratulated Take, he brought up that Take hasn't defeated him since 2019 and they're 3-1, so why not make it Brookes vs Take for the first defense. Take accepted, so it's on for the 9.26 Korakuen Hall show.

Imabayashi announced that DDT will have their first show in the Yoyogi Gymnasium #2 before the end of the year. It's a 3K capacity venue in Shibuya.

Take closed the show saying that in the last year, he had gone through a lot, from losing confidence in himself, to finding new friends, and rebuilding himself up.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
I mentioned it on WRPX prior to the show taking place, that this event wasn't making as much noise as it had in previous years, Akiyama vs Takeshita was a big deal, but the rest of the card wasn't much to talk about. The show definitely delivered in terms of entertainment and wrestling, but the three championship matches aside, I didn't really see anything that felt like the end of a story or the beginning of one. If you want to have a good time watching wrestling, this is a good suggestion for this weekend that was somewhat chill.