AJPW Champion Carnival 2021 4.25

Izanagi vs. Black Menso-re - 4/10

Ok nothing match. Izanagi won with a roll up. It was mostly comedy, but not Yano/DDT type of comedy.

Akira Francesco, Dan Tamura & Koji Iwamoto vs. TOTAL ECLIPSE (Hokuto Omori, TAJIRI & Yusuke Kodama) - 5/10

You wouldn't believe it, but TE actually won cleanly, with a double team move from Omori and Kodama. The match was better that the ones we've had in the other Carnival shows, this was a bit more action and less heel tactics.

Ryuki Honda, Takao Omori & Yoshitatsu vs. NEXTREAM (Atsuki Aoyagi, Rising HAYATO & Yuma Aoyagi) - 6/10

Ah nice! The guy in the tournament ACTUALLY got the win in the multi-person match. It's not that hard to think that the wrestlers in the Carnival should be getting ALL the spotlight during the tournament. It's wrestling, not rocket surgery. Aoyagi tapped out Honda with a Guillotine.

Saito Brothers Introduction - Jun and Rei Saito brothers are twins and huge, they're debuting against Daisuke Sekimoto and Yasufumi Nakanoue on the 5.16 show. Lots of potential, even if twins tend to have it harder as a singles wrestler down the line. Jun Saito has a fantastic voice.

Champion Carnival 2021 Match
Shinjiro Otani [5] vs. Shotaro Ashino [4] - 8/10

This was great. Ashino tried to have a friendly match, but old man Otani always wants to bring it and so he pushed Ashino to get vicious, ending with Ashino submitting Otani with an ankle lock. A lot of back and forward action, a lot of submission and striking from both men. Otani is still my MVP.

Champion Carnival 2021 Match
Kohei Sato [6] vs. Shuji Ishikawa [4] - 6.5/10

Had to watch this match twice because I got incredibly bored on first watch, I've developed a physical bias against Sato. On second watch, I did think the match was good, Ishikawa had so much offense that I enjoyed the Sato beating, he worked over his legs for a while. I wasn't a big fan of the zero comeback win, but at least it was with La Magistral, which could pin anyone at any given time.

AJPW World Junior Heavyweight Title Match
CIMA (c) vs. Hikaru Sato - 8.5/10

And right in the middle of a Champion Carnival, here, have a title match, but I won't complain, it was a great match. This had a little bit of submissions, striking, and aerial. Sato went after CIMA's arm, while CIMA worked Sato's leg to remove his kicking ability. The match saw Sato have most of the control, but CIMA kept coming back with bigger moves to cut off Sato, and then back to the leg, so at the end, CIMA was hitting stuff like Backstabbers and Meteoras, which were doing damage.

At the end, a hurt CIMA started to chase any type of pin to get the win, Sato kicked out of many of them, but eventually, CIMA got the one that kept Sato down.

Post-match - Sato did the right thing and put the title around CIMA's waist. Afterwards, CIMA cut a long promo, challenging Koji Iwamoto to a title match. Iwamoto came out and accepted. Match will be on the 5.16 show.

Champion Carnival 2021 Match
Zeus [6] vs. Jake Lee [6] - 8.5/10

I really really liked this. There are many matches, where even if Lee loses, he looks like he didn't put much effort into the match, but this pair up with Zeus really made it seem like Lee had to put the effort into defeating Zeus, who is a powerhouse and really came strong against Lee. As the match came close to the end, Lee had to really make the effort to take Zeus down, and keep him down, which he did with his running knees, until he landed the big one for the win.

Champion Carnival 2021 Match
Suwama [6] vs. Kento Miyahara [6] - 9/10

Great match, it was the match of the night in a really strong night, and I do think it was the match of the tournament for me so far. Story of the match saw a dominant Suwama work over Miyahara's back, he dominated like the champion he is supposed to be, but Miyahara took all the offense, and as Suwama started to slow down a bit, Miyahara found his chance and came back with attacks to the head, he stared going for knees to the head and Germans. Suwama tried to get the match back in control, but with Miyahara unleashed, he ended eating a Shutdown German and Miyahara pinned Suwama.

Post-match - Miyahara cut his winner's promo.

OVERALL THOUGHTS

This was probably the best Carnival show so far. AJPW does empty arena shows so well, the small amount of people there have soo much more energy than packing a lot of people who can't shout. This still suffered from having 4 non-carnival matches while we could just be done in half the time, but given that I was really high on one of them, I'm willing to excuse them this time. Just this time!