Wrestling Omakase: WWE Summerslam And DDT Wrestle Peter Pan W/ Jamie

August 23, 2021

I was invited back onto the Wrestling Omakase podcast to review both WWE Summerslam and DDT Wrestle Peter Pan from this past weekend. The topics gave me an opportunity to compare the two companies and explain why I like DDT’s version of sports entertainment far more than WWE’s efforts. We also give our thoughts on CM Punk’s triumphant return, tackle the two title match disasters (you know the ones), I come up with jokes that have Rodney Dangerfield rolling in his grave and my Tokyo Joshi Pro knowledge gets briefly put to the test near the end. Many thanks as always to John Carroll for letting me on the show. I always have a blast since I rarely do podcasts and talk about this stuff out loud.

This week on Wrestling Omakase we reviewed the alleged and the actual biggest party of the summer- WWE Summerslam and DDT Wrestle Peter Pan!

The Wrestling Omakase Patreon is your best source for coverage of Japanese wrestling, from yesterday and today. Our series covering every Tokyo Dome main event in order is pulling up on the end of the 1990s, and we’ve just recently put up all sorts of great episodes- Misawa vs. Kawada! Antonio Inoki’s retirement! Riki Choshu’s retirement! And much more! We discuss the main events of each show in detail but also talk about everything else going on in Japanese wrestling around that time, so you can relive the nWo Japan split, Inoki’s ill-fated UFO promotion and a lot more as you follow along with us. Plus, coming up in September will be daily audio coverage of the G1 Climax and NOAH N-1 Victory tournaments, which you’ll only find on the Patreon. And finally, don’t forget that you get more full episodes on there too- every week there isn’t a new show on the free feed, there’s a full length episode exclusive to the Patreon! You can get all of this right now for only $5 at http://patreon.com/wrestlingomakase

John is joined by returning guest Jamie (@JamieOD), who of course runs the English language DDT resource Dramatic DDT. John & Jamie start out by discussing CM Punk’s return to wrestling for AEW from this past Friday, as John touches on what it was like to see him come back after following along with his early career in Ring of Honor (most of which they attended live). Then the two of them turn their attention to the first main topic of the episode, as they review WWE Summerslam from Las Vegas in detail. They go over each and every match on the show, discussing the good (a couple strong matches), the bad (yet another crappy WWE live crowd) and the ugly (the complete destruction of Bianca Belair and the total debacle that was Goldberg/Lashley). Also as John types up this episode description they just remembered they forgot to talk about the Miz & Morrison/Xavier Woods segment, so they just wanted to note here that it absolutely sucked.

Once WWE’s out of the way they head over to the land of DDT for a much more enjoyable overall show, Wrestle Peter Pan from Kawasaki. They again review every match in detail including the electric current bat match with Onita, the teenage wrestlers, a trio of fantastic matches, and the Saki Akai/Yuji Hino storyline that was better “storytelling” than anything the storytellers of WWE pull off nowadays. Finally, they wrap things up by taking some of your mailbag questions on both promotions, as Jamie explains why DDT’s comedy is superior to WWE’s and much more.


Dramatic Survivor, A Unit Must Split Up! Dieno And Iino New Team Name, Takanashi Comeback, Sasaki Wants CM Punk?!?

August 23, 2021

DDT “WHO’S GONNA TOP? 2021 TOUR IN SENDAI”, 29/08/2021
Miyagi Sendai PIT

1. Soma Takao, Yuji Hino & Hiroshi Yamato Vs Danshoku “Dandy” Dieno, Yuki “Sexy” Iino & Kazuki Hirata
2. Shunma Katsumata & Antonio Honda Vs Toru Owashi & Naomi Yoshimura
3. Saki Akai & Hideki Okatani Vs Akito & Yuna Manase
4. DDT Teenage Project Special Single Match: El Unicorn Vs Ilusion
5. Junretsu Vs DAMANTION!: Jun Akiyama, Yusuke Okada & Mizuki Watase Vs Daisuke Sasaki, Tetsuya Endo & Mad Paulie
6. Sendai Specialty Special Tag Match: HARASHIMA & Chihiro Hashimoto Vs Yukio Sakaguchi & Yukio Naya
7. Special 6-Man Tag Match: Konosuke Takeshita, Yuki Ueno & MAO Vs Chris Brookes, Kazusada Higuchi & Keigo Nakamura

Now that “WRESTLE PETER PAN 2021” is in the rear view mirror, DDT is starting to shake up a little bit with new champions, new youth, a new team and the threat of existing alliances getting torn apart. We’ll get to each one show by show.

DDT “DRAMATIC SURVIVOR 2021”, 04/09/2021
Nagoya Congress Center Event Hall

1. DRAMATIC SURVIVOR ~ Losers Advance 8-Man Tag Team Tournament – Round 1: HARASHIMA, Toru Owashi, Naomi Yoshimura & Kazuki Hirata Vs Daisuke Sasaki, Tetsuya Endo, Soma Takao & Yuji Hino
2. DRAMATIC SURVIVOR ~ Losers Advance 8-Man Tag Team Tournament – Round 1: Junretsu, Yusuke Okada, Mizuki Watase & Hideki Okatani Vs Konosuke Takeshita, Shunma Katsumata, Yuki Ueno & MAO
3. Danshoku “Dandy” Dieno & Yuki “Sexy” Iino Vs Sanshiro Takagi & Antonio Honda
4. Mad Paulie Vs Keigo Nakamura
5. Kazusada Higuchi & Saki Akai Vs Akito & Yukio Naya
6. Special Single Match: Chris Brookes Vs Yukio Sakaguchi
7. DRAMATIC SURVIVOR ~ Losers Advance 8-Man Tag Team Tournament – Decision Match: Losers Of Match #1 Vs Losers Of Match #2

The name of the show isn’t just there to sound cool. The Dramatic Survivor Unit tournament was revealed to be a reverse bracket where the losing teams advance to the final. Win a match and your team is safe, lose all your matches and your unit must split up! Sanshiro Takagi came up with the idea to avoid DDT getting stale. He wants all the teams to fight for survival and there is no bigger motivation than the survival of your unit! To make things even more riskier, if a champion team is in the disbanding unit they will be forced to vacate their titles too! So if The 37KAMIINA lose and splits up they vacate the KO-D Tag Team Titles. If DAMNATION lose and splits up they vacate the KO-D 6-Man Tag Team Titles. For Junretsu and DISASTER BOX there will be no championships stripped.

GANBARE☆PRO “GANBARE☆JOSHI PRO WRESTLING ~THE WORLD CALLS IT LOVE 2021~”, 04/09/2021
Tokyo Itabashi Green Hall

1. Gatoh Move Pro Wrestling Offer Match: Yuna Mizumori Vs Tokiko Kirihara
2. Ganbare☆Pro Wrestling Offer Match: Keisuke Ishii Vs Shinichiro Tominaga
3. Texas Tornado Street Fight Special Mixed Tag Match: Miss Mongol & Yumehito Imanari Vs Cherry & Shota
4. 3 Way Match: Hong Kong International Police Man Vs Makoto Vs Itsuki Aoki
5. Ganjo Special Tag Match: Yuna Manase & Moeka Haruhi Vs Yuu Yamagata & HARUKAZE

Choun-Shiryu is unable to be on the show due to “circumstances”. His spot in the 3 Way Match is coincidentally being filled by the rarely seen Hong Kong International Police Man.

DDT “TENJIN WARS 2021”, 12/09/2021
Fukuoka Nishitetsu Hall

1. Special 6-Man Tag Team Match ~ DRAMATIC WARS: Yoshihiko, Mecha Mummy & Pokotan Vs Sanshiro Takagi, Toru Owashi & Antonio Honda
2. Special Single Match ~ DDT Vs Ganbare☆Joshi Pro Wrestling: Saki Akai Vs Yuna Manase
3. DDT Extreme Title: Shinya Aoki (c) Vs Kazuki Hirata
4. KO-D Tag Team Titles: Konosuke Takeshita & Shunma Katsumata (c) Vs Danshoku “Dandy” Dieno & Yuki “Sexy” Iino

Back at the Beer Garden shows Danshoku Dieno and Yuki Iino appealed to form a tag team. Their request wasn’t met because they couldn’t come up with a suitable or tasteful team name. Well today they have their team name and also nicknames to match. From now on Danshoku “Dandy” Dieno & Yuki “Sexy” Iino are Pheromones! They immediately challenged Konosuke Takeshita & Shunma Katsumata for the KO-D Tag Titles and got their shot so they would stop annoying the champions.

If the KO-D Tag Titles happen to be vacated because The 37KAMIINA lose the Dramatic Survivor tournament, then the match will be changed into a decision bout to determine the new champions. So at least Takeshita & Katsumata have a chance to reclaim the belts after they are forced to give them up.

DDT “WHO’S GONNA TOP? 2021”, 26/09/2021
Tokyo Korakuen Hall

1. Masahiro Takanashi DDT Return Match: Masahiro Takanashi, Toru Owashi & Danshoku “Dandy” Dieno Vs Yukio Sakaguchi, Saki Akai & Antonio Honda
2. KO-D Openweight Title: Konosuke Takeshita (c) Vs Chris Brookes

The new KO-D Openweight Champion Takeshita took some time to reflect on his latest accomplishment. After finally beating Jun Akiyama, the KO-D Title belt now has a different weight to it and Takeshita feels a different responsibility when it comes to defending it. He is in his best condition because of this pressure and is ready to take on Chris Brookes. He hasn’t beaten Brookes since July 2019 when he defended the KO-D Title against him back then. Brookes has won every singles match they’ve had together since then, which were either championship or tournament matches.

Masahiro Takanashi has become active again since coming back from injury. Not in the ring though because ChocoPro doesn’t have one. He wrestles his first match in DDT since March 2020.

“MASAHIRO TAKANASHI BOX OFFICE YOPPARAI IS BACK”, 01/10/2021
Shinjuku FACE

1. Dragon Sakurabo, “Old Wise Man” Human-Zee & Tiger Jeet Singh-juku Sumidagawa (w/ Haru Miyako) Vs Gota Ihashi & Antonio Honda (w/ Sayaka Obihiro & KUDO)
2. Saki Akai & Rina Yamashita Vs Yuna Mizumori & Mei Suruga
3. Yukio Sakaguchi, ken45° & Manjimaru Vs Isami Kodaka, Daiki Shimomura & Yasu Urano
4. Kenichiro Arai Vs Baliyan Akki
5. Masahiro Takanashi & Chris Brookes Vs Brahman Shu & Brahman Kei (w/ Gorgeous Matsuno)

Third time’s the charm. Takanashi even got to keep the entire card this time.

DDT “GET ALIVE 2021”, 12/10/2021
Tokyo Korakuen Hall

1. DDT Universal Title: Daisuke Sasaki (c) Vs X

After stealing the belt multiple times over the last month, Daisuke Sasaki in now officially the DDT Universal Champion. His first title defence will be on 12th October and he has the right to choose his challenger. He chose CM Punk but DDT cannot make that happen for multiple reasons. Sasaki then picked Minoru Fujita as his back-up choice. Fujita beat Sasaki at July’s DAMNATION produced show so Sasaki wants to avenge that loss. The match is not official yet but DDT will send the challenge over to Fujita.