DDT “VIDEO TEAM BOX OFFICE – BETAMANIA”, 23/04/2018
Shin-Kiba 1st RING
172 Fans – No Vacancy
1. Goodbye Fukuda…Honorable! Crushing! Explosion! Special Exhibition Match!: Keisuke Ishii defeated Ryuhei Fukuda with a Baseball Chop (8:24).
2. Universal Serial Bus Title: Deepthroat (c) (w/ Genome Soldier A & Genome Soldier B) defeated Yumehito Imanari with the Doctor Bomb (10:50).
3. DT-YUTA Produce Match ~Rotten Bad And Rotten Edge~: KUDO defeated 726 with the Backspin Kick (8:32).
4. Betamania Death Match: Isami Kodaka defeated DT-YUTA with the Steel Cans Assisted Giga Ladder Break (12:22).
The unsung heroes of DDT are the members of its video team. The three main members of the crew are made up of men who have all at some point or another been pro wrestlers. After spending so long behind the cameras and hype videos, they were finally thrown a bone and got the chance to present their own wrestling show.
In the main event DT-YUTA was to take on a mystery opponent in a Betamania Death Match. His opponent was Isami Kodaka! The two share a history going back to Union Pro and their last match together took place on 7th March, 2009. Chairs, ladders, steel cans and a camera covered in barbed wire supported by a stand made out of lighttubes were all used as weapons. YUTA almost won with a Jackhammer but Kodaka kicked out. Kodaka reversed another Jackhammer into a Vertical Drop Brainbuster. He climbed the ladder with a steel can and landed the Giga Ladder Break for the win. Kodaka checked to see if YUTA was okay. He said without the Video Team, neither DDT or BASARA would be as interesting. He then struck YUTA over the head with a lighttube to show his appreciation. YUTA talked about when he quit Union 9 years ago he told Kodaka that he was taking a different road. Kodaka told him back then if YUTA made that decision by himself then it was the right decision. YUTA will always remember that moment.
726 was back in the ring for his first wrestling match since 2010. His match with KUDO was straightforward and 726 was able to hold his own for a while. KUDO won and he shared a beer with 726 afterwards. 726 said the match left him tired and he would have died if it lasted another 5 minutes. He said if KUDO’s wrestling tonight was a score of 100 points then 726’s score was 60 points.
“A Yumehito Imanari Match”: The introduction video showed Imanari being attacked somewhere. The enemy known as Deepthroat stole his USB key and held him in an Iron Claw to wipe out his memory. Imanari regained consciousness inside Shin-Kiba 1st RING dressed in special agent gear and armed with a cardboard box. He received a radio call from Hirotsugu Suyama explaining he must retrieve the USB to regain his memory. Two Genome Soldiers were about to approach the ring so Imanari hid underneath the box. The hiding spot worked at first but soon the Soldiers found him and they began to fight. Suyama called back to say he discovered a murder weapon beneath the ring. Imanari looked and found a steel chair to even the odds. Suyama kept calling to remind Imanari of his favourite wrestling moves as well as instructing him to counter attacks. The radio call was then interrupted by Nonoko on another frequency. Imanari got rid of the Soldiers by knocking them out with Sleeper Holds. Another interruption came from Keiko Takeshita, the mother of Konosuke Takeshita! She sent a message of encouragement to Imanari. Make it out alive and she will give all of her 85kg body to him, Konosuke will never know (Konosuke was watching the match in the venue and tweeted that she really weighs 90kg). After that, Deepthroat appeared. The messages from Suyama were getting faint and Imanari struggled to fight against the final boss. The messages got more and more distorted as Suyama figured out that nanomachines were interfering with the signal. In a flash he was gone and in his place was a video message of Sanshiro Takagi instructing Imanari to go buy snacks for the DDT office. That message made Imanari regain his memory then and there. He remembers who he is and what he must do. He must go shopping! But first he has to win his match. Deepthroat then immediately Choke Slammed Imanari and pinned him with the Doctor Bomb. Imanari? Imanari?! Imanaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarii!!!!
After the match Deepthroat consoled Imanari. He admitted he was really Kazusada Higuchi and there was a reason he took Imanari’s USB. He wanted Imanari to regain the hot soul of a pro wrestler and the USB featured something very important. He showed it on the screen. It was a picture of Imanari with Mitsuharu Misawa and Kenta Kobashi taken back when Imanari was a junior high school student. Higuchi wanted Imanari to remember the feeling he had when he met them. Imanari said he always wanted to be a pro wrestler but he had so much on his plate and he got a job on DDT’s video team instead. However thanks to DDT and Ganbare☆Wrestling, Imanari is now able to live his dream and do both! Higuchi handed him over the USB and Imanari accepted it as if it was a championship. He then remembered he had to go shopping for snacks.
Ryuhei Fukuda relied entirely on the rest of the video team to help him out against Keisuke Ishii. When Fukuda was at risk of losing to a Cobra Twist, the team played a hidden video of the referee Yuya Okada talking to an unidentified woman. Apparently this was something Okada did not want anybody to see. Yusuke Kubo attacked Ishii while the ref was distracted. Fukuda then got the upper hand on Ishii by throwing power in his eyes. More scandalous videos kept Okada distracted while the Samurai! TV cameramen stopped Ishii from doing a Power Bomb. Ishii fought them all off and struck Fukuda with a big baseball pitch of a chop to keep him down for the count. Fukuda thanked Ishii for the match and told a story about how he joined DDT’s video team. He got the job even though he was not a wrestling fan. He also did not get along with some of his colleagues at first. It was when Ishii and Shigehiro Irie brought him out for a meal that Fukuda began to open up and get out of his shell. He wished Ishii luck in his Independent World Jr. Heavyweight Title match happening later this week.
Minoru Fujita and Shinichiro Tominaga were the MCs for the show. They weren’t quite sure what to do with their roles but were still able to move the show along. Their final words to close out the show were “Well, pro wrestling is really nice.”
The show ended with all of the Video Team taking up their equipment and going back to work.
Posted by JamieOD 
Dramatic DDT 