MUSCLE “MUSCLE MANIA 2019 IN RYOGOKU ~ OUR SECOND CAREER”, 16/02/2019
Tokyo Ryogoku Kokugikan
4,115 Fans – No Vacancy
1. Pedro Takaishi Retirement Match: Pedro Takaishi, Choun-Shiryu & Great Kojika defeated Yasu Urano, Makoto Oishi & Ken Ohka when Kojika pinned Oishi with the Nodowa Otoshi (10:30).
1a. Pedro Takaishi Retirement Match: Shinya Aoki defeated Pedro Takaishi with a Sleeper Hold (8:44).
2. Junretsu New Member Audition 2019 Time Difference Battle Royal: Andreza Giant Panda defeated Kazuyoshi Sakai with the Andreza Press (26:23).
Order Of Elimination: Gorgeous Matsuno, Yuki Ueno, Ken Ohka, Yukio Sakaguchi, Konosuke Takeshita, Makoto Oishi, Saki Akai, Kazusada Higuchi, Antonio Honda, Akito, Tetsu Watanabe, Choun-Shiryu and Kazuyoshi Sakai.
3. Captain’s Fall Anal Explosion Time Difference Web News Posting Tag Death Match: Danshoku Dieno & Ryota Yamazato defeated Muscle Sakai & Kurochan when Dieno pinned Sakai with the Danshoku Driver (16:14).
4. Antonio Honda Vs DJ Nira ended in a Double TKO (23:50).
Where oh where do we begin? Well yeah, from the beginning.
The show began with an introduction from Utamaru. He came out to the theme song from Rocky and talked about how similar Muscle is with the movie series. He asked if Muscle should have come back? When Rocky Balboa’s career ended it was soon replaced by Adonis Creed. Tonight a courageous man named Muscle Sakai is going to prove that Muscle still has life left in it.
After the opening credits the Muscle roster gathered together backstage. Amon Tsurumi announced he has taken office in the Japan Pro Wrestling Committee and with this responsibility he is launching the 2020 Tokyo Wrestlympics! Because the physical burden carried by pro wrestlers is so great, the Wrestlympics can only be held once every 40 years which is why a lot of people have never heard of it. Tokyo will be busy hosting some other sports event in the summer of 2020 so Tsurumi wants to hold the Wrestlympics in January. Tsurumi cannot say where it will take place but he did hint that the Tokyo Dome is booked for two days in January. He didn’t say it was booked by him but the gossip was enough to motivate all of the wrestlers.
Tsurumi wanted the opening match to be a qualifying round for the Wrestlympics. The problem it was also originally planned to be Pedro Takaishi’s retirement match. Takaishi suggested postponing his retirement but Tsurumi rejected the idea. According to Tsurumi pro wrestling retirements must be taken seriously! Muscle Sakai shrugged his shoulders and quietly put on a Super Sasadango Machine mask in response. The retirement match went ahead with Takaishi teaming with Choun-Shiryu & The Great Kojika to take on Yasu Urano, Makoto Oishi & Ken Ohka. Takaishi wanted to go out with a bang and surprised everyone by doing a Flying Hurricanrana to Urano and then a Lionsault onto Oishi. Kojika pinned Ohka with a Choke Slam to win the match.
Takaishi’s retirement ceremony then began. He was presented with a bouquet from Mr. Magic. Next a video message from Choun-Shiryu was shown on the screen. “Wild Thing” played over the speakers but instead of Atsushi Onita coming out we got Naoshi Sano instead. Sano read a letter from Onita specially written for Takaishi. In it Onita said life is a journey and so is retirement. No matter what difficulties lie ahead, Takaishi should overcome it with his capoeira spirit so they can wrestle together!
The ceremony continued until it was interrupted by Amon Tsurumi. He felt Takaishi didn’t do enough in the match to earn his retirement. This is supposed to be serious! But yoy know what, Tsurumi had a back up plan in place for Takaishi to have a proper retirement match. Out came Shinya Aoki! The match began and Takaishi used his capoeira to fight against Aoki’s MMA. Takaishi busted out another Moonsault, this time from the corner to the outside. Aoki pulled out something new as well when he used a Gotch-Style Piledriver. Takaishi was almost counted out but he got back to his feet by nine. Aoki applied a Sleeper Hold and held on until Takaishi was left powerless. Aoki then pinned him for a three count. Takaishi was given a second retirement ceremony with more of his friends and family giving him farewells. One of his friends only came to plug a theatre show he is a part of. When that was done, Tsurumi revealed that Aoki has qualified to represent Japan in the Wrestlympics.
Next up was a contest to qualify for the New TOKYO Rumble that will be held on the Wrestlympics pre-show. The four teams competing were Danshoku Dieno & Ryota Yamazato, Super Sasadango Machine & Kurochan, Kazuyoshi Sakai & Antonio Honda and the trio of Yasu Urano, Makoto Oishi & Ken Ohka.
For Round 1 everyone had to taste two glasses of red wine mixed with protein powder. One glass consists of fresh protein powder belonging to Konosuke Takeshita. The other glass consists of old, stale powder. It was up to the teams to taste both and figure out which was which. Urano, Oishi & Ohka was the only team to pick the wrong answer so they were eliminated.
In Round 2 the contestants were blindfolded and had to guess if the Chops they heard were being done by a first class pro wrestler in his early twenties or a weak former idol in her early twenties. Yamazato, Kurochan and Sakai were held in place by Yuki Iino with their chests bare while Takeshita and Maki Itoh took turns throwing Chops at them. Honda & Sakai got their answer wrong so they were eliminated. Itoh actually screwed up by saying “Here I go” out loud before one of her chops but Honda thought it was a trick so he picked the opposite answer.
For the final round the two teams had to figure out who was responsible for creating the intro video but both teams got the answer right. It was Akinaga Toyomoto. Since there were no tiebreakers ready, Tsurumi decided a wrestling match was needed to determine a winner. However his phone suddenly rang with news that the musical act he booked to perform at the Wrestlympics opening ceremony have split up.
The contest had to be put on hold while Tsurumi solved this problem. Luckily for him Kazuyoshi Sakai is part of a pop band called Junretsu and they were already booked to appear on this show. The group came out on stage, performed a song then asked if they can do the opening ceremony. That’s the good news. The bad news is one of their members left the group last month after it was found out he was involved in a domestic scandal, so they’re one man short. Tsurumi had a solution already prepared and announced that the Junretsu New Member Audition 2019 Battle Royal will begin right now!
A bizarre collection of people entered the match. There was Makoto Oishi, Yuki Ueno, Akito, Gorgeous Matsuno, Kazusada Higuchi, Ken Ohka, Yukio Sakaguchi (he decided to eliminate himself when he was told his tattoos were not suitable for pop idols), Saki Akai, Konosuke Takeshita, Antonio Honda, Andreza Giant Panda, Tetsu Watanabe (dressed as Antonio Honda) and Choun-Shiryu all taking part. Even Kazuyoshi Sakai got in on the action by bringing back his old HG parody gimmick. The match came down to Andreza and Sakai so Sakai got the rest of Junretsu to come in and attack the panda. Andreza had the wind knocked out of him by the train of Lariats but he recovered. Sakai got knocked silly by a Headbutt and was pinned with the Andreza Press.
Andreza is now a member of Junretsu! The group performed another song know that they are a complete act again.
Here is where things went out of control. Tsurumi wants this show to get coverage on popular news sites like YAHOO!, AbemaTimes, and Battle News. So he came up with a bunch of attention grabbing headlines for the sites to post. The websites went ahead and posted these headlines before the described events actually happened on the show itself. Nobody involved in the show wanted to come off as liars so they had to go along with the headlines as they were updated. The first headline? Yamazato and Kurochan were about to take part in an Anal Explosion Match!
Tsurumi decided the match was going to be Dieno & Yamazato against Muscle Sakai (replacing Sasadango) & Kurochan in a Captain’s Fall Anal Explosion Match. Since Yamazato and Kurochan were picked to be the captains that meant only one of them would take the Anal Explosion if their team lost. More headlines were posted online as the match went on. The first headline said Yamazato fainted in the ring in a situation similar to Antonio Inoki swallowing his tongue! Yamazato had to go along with it so he allowed Sakai to choke him out with a Sleeper Hold.
The next headline said Kurochan assaulted an idol and had to be contained by a police officer. Dieno carried a protesting Maki Itoh down to the ring for Kurochan to fight. Shinya Aoki then came down dressed as a cop and he stopped Kurochan with a Triangle Choke.
Headline #3 was breaking news involving suspicious people breaking into Kurochan’s home. Live footage was shown on screen of HARASHIMA and MAO wrestling each other inside Kurochan’s bedroom! It was live because whatever moves were happening inside the wrestling ring were then done inside the bedroom. HARASHIMA gave MAO a Piledriver onto the bed while Dieno gave Sakai the Danshoku Driver in the ring. Dieno pinned Sakai which means Kurochan has to get the Anal Explosion!
Yamazato felt bad for Kurochan. His house is getting wrecked and his ass is about to get wrecked too. The others asked Yamazato if he would take Kurochan’s place. Kurochan said no. That’s when the final headline appeared. It said that Yamazato was so moved by the tearful reactions of the thousands of people in attendance that he volunteered to take the Anal Explosion instead of Kurochan! Yamazato resigned himself to walk up stage and take the blast. Dieno set off the explosion and cried for Yamazato afterwards.
Still with me? Good because it’s time for the main event. Except no main event was planned in advance. Muscle Sakai held a PowerPoint presentation explaining that he brought Muscle back because he has unfinished business with the brand before he inherits his family business. He then talked about how he decided what the main event will be. Sakai wants Antonio Honda to headline a Sumo Hall show so he’s in. They wanted someone Honda could beat so they decided his opponent is DJ Nira!
Nira appeared in the ring accompanied by Rocky Kawamura who was dressed as Rocky Balboa from the movie Creed. Honda had Tetsu Watanabe in his corner. For over twenty minutes Honda and Nira fought their hearts out as dramatically as possible. The Creed soundtrack played as the two fighters threw their final punches in slow motion. The punches struck hit the targets and both men slumped into each other, possibly for a hug as Honda and Nira lost their consciousness. Kawamura and Watanabe had no other choice but to throw in their towels at the same time, meaning the main event was a double knockout.
The Muscle roster revived Honda and Nira so they could celebrate the end of a successful show. Honda introduced Tetsu Watanabe (father of Shoichiro Honda) to Muscle Sakai (“father” of Antonio Honda) and described how much fun his life was today. Sakai thanked everyone in the audience for coming to see the show despite there being no card or special guests advertised in advance.
Everyone went up to the stage to say their goodbyes when Norikazu Fujioka stopped everything with breaking news. This one is for real this time. Tokyo Sports just posted an exposé about Andreza Giant Panda being kissed by Tsukasa Fujimoto at the Tokyo Sports Awards ceremony! Andreza is married and has a kid so this is a big scandal! So big that he is now fired from Junretsu!
Posted by JamieOD 
