Dramatic DDT

DDT “SUMIDA DRAMATIC DREAM! ~FREE SEATING PRO WRESTLING SHOW~”, 04/11/2024
Tokyo Higashin Arena (Sumida City Gymnasium)
2,200 Fans – Super No Vacancy

1. Maruto Potori Foods Presents Tag Match: Yuni & Kazuma Sumi defeated Keigo Nakamura & Yuki Ishida when Sumi pinned Ishida with a School Boy (8:25).
2. Special Tag Match ~ Touchi-kun & Oshinari-kun & Higapyon Pro Wrestling Debut Match: Oshinari-kun & Higapyon defeated Touchi-kun & Pokotan when Oshinari-kun pinned Pokotan with the Diving Hip Drop (5:19).
3. Daisuke Sasaki, KANON, MJ Paul & Demus defeated Tetsuya Endo, Yuki Iino, Masahiro Takanashi & Yuya Koroku when Sasaki submitted Takanashi with La Mistica Crossface Lock (11:31).
4. STOMPING Presents Tag Match: Soma Takao & Makoto Oishi defeated Toru Owashi & Kazuki Hirata when Takao pinned Hirata with a School Boy (11:06).
5. Special Single Match: Ilusion defeated Takeshi Masada with the Swanton Bomb (10:11).
6. Tokyo Higashi Shinkin Bank Presents Special 6-Man Tag Match: Jun Akiyama, Yukio Naya & Shinichiro Kawamatsu defeated Satoshi Kojima, Akito & Antonio Honda when Kawamatsu pinned Honda with the Shitamachi Rocket (13:13).
7. Toho Kogyo Presents Special 6-Man Tag Match – Reiwa Meiji Restoration: Yuki Ueno, Shunma Katsumata & To-y (2) defeated HARASHIMA, Danshoku Dieno & Super Sasadango Machine (0).
-. Iron Man Heavymetalweight Title: Super Sasadango Machine defeated Yuki Ueno (c) with a School Boy (3:26 pm).
*Super Sasadango Machine becomes the 1,687th champion.
7a. To-y pinned Danshoku Dieno after the Shunkoji Wonderland (2:51).
7b. Iron Man Heavymetalweight Title: Shunma Katsumata pinned Super Sasadango Machine (c) with the Totonou Splash (11:44).
*Shunma Katsumata becomes the 1,688th champion.
-. Iron Man Heavymetalweight Title: Yuni defeated Shunma Katsumata (c) with a School Boy (3:43 pm).
*Yuni becomes the 1,689th champion.
8. KO-D Openweight Title – Houset Co., Ltd Presents: Chris Brookes defeated Shinya Aoki (c) with the House Piano Death (21:44).
*Shinya Aoki fails in V4. Chris Brookes becomes the 84th KO-D Openweight Champion!

A free to attend show was put together by DDT and sponsors at Higashin Arena to kick off the road to Sumo Hall happening at the end of the year. It featured a major title change in the main event with Chris Brookes defeating Shinya Aoki to become the new KO-D Openweight Champion almost a year after his first reign ended! While the match started off in a calm manner with a lot of mat work, it soon went out of the ring where Brookes put Aoki through a table with a Piledriver. Back in the ring Aoki relied on limb holds to counter Brookes, escaping the Praying Mantis Bomb by using a Side Hammerlock to take control and trap Brookes in the Manjigatame. He used the Full Nelson Hold to try and get a pinfall but Brookes kicked out of two. In return Brookes hit the Somato but Aoki kicked out for a nearfall as well. Brookes was able to put Aoki in the Octopus Hold and switched it over to the House Piano Death, keeping Aoki locked in until the champion had to give up.

Aoki took the loss well and presented Brookes with the KO-D Title belt after the match. Brookes was then told by Hisaya Imabayashi he will defend the title at “ULTIMATE PARTY 2024” on 28th December. Daisuke Sasaki entered the ring with a chair but sat down on it and congratulated Brookes instead of attacking him. Sasaki said Brookes talks a lot about love, romance, dreams and other things like that. The ring doesn’t need any of that stuff so Sasaki will win the title and bring DDT back to being the mess that it should be! He wants to fight Brookes on the biggest stage and challenged him for Sumo Hall. Brookes accepted and even shook Sasaki’s hand without incident.

Backstage Brookes praised Aoki for being incredibly strong. But Brookes had a dream of winning the title again and today it came true. Over the last year he dislocated his shoulder and recovered from a tumor but he was able to overcome all of that to become the champion again. His outlook on life and death has changed because of the last year. He also thinks DAMNATION T.A is just a bunch of B and C class wrestlers so he doesn’t think Sasaki can beat him for the title. Aoki is proud of how his title reign went. The belt is a championship, not a medal so he knew the hard work wasn’t over when he won it. Sasaki however is sick to his stomach of all the love and dreams stuff going on in DDT right now. He isn’t actually interested in becoming KO-D Champion again but he wants to mess up Brookes. His threat is Brookes will have Christmas but he won’t make it to New Year’s!

At some point in the day before the venue doors were open to the public, Yuki Ueno won the Iron Man Heavymetalweight Title from Danshoku Dieno. Then at the start of the show Dieno and his team declared they are the Reiwa Meiji Restoration that will overthrow the “government” that is The 37KAMIINA! He demanded that their match in the semi-main event should be Best 2 Out Of 3 Falls so nobody can blame losing twice on a fluke. The first fall ended with a double pin on both sides at the same time. To-y pinned Dieno after doing an assisted Kojima Wonderland with Shunma Katsumata while Super Sasadango Machine was pinning Ueno with a School Boy. Daisuke Kiso ruled The 37KAMIINA as the winners of the fall because To-y and Dieno were the legal wrestlers. Sasadango pinning Ueno didn’t count towards the match but was still accepted as an Iron Man Title change, making Sasadango the new champ! The second fall had Katsumata take the Somato from HARASHIMA, the Danshoku Driver from Dieno and the Lehman Shock from Sasadango but his partner made the save. Katsumata fought back on Sasadango and pinned him with the Totonou Splash to give The 37KAMIINA a clean sweep and become Iron Man Champ in the process. All it cost the team was To-y being sacrificed to Dieno’s antics. Yuni then surprised Katsumata with a Roll Up after the match to take the title from him.

Satoshi Kojima was one of the guest attractions for the show and he was advertised in advance so there was no need to call him “X” beforehand. His presence brought memories back to Antonio Honda of the TenKoji Police arresting the Monster Army back in 2012. This time they were teaming up but Honda was still missing some courage. He wanted to quit the match from the moment he had to square off against Jun Akiyama. A stark difference to Shinichiro Kawamatsu wanting to fight Kojima. Yukio Naya stopped Kojima’s momentum with a Choke Slam so Honda tried to summon Gongitsune. Akiyama blocked Honda but that caused Kojima to do the Gongitsune Eye Poke to him instead! He then intercepted Kawamatu’s Axe Bomber with the Lariat but Naya came back to cut him off. Akiyama got his hands on Honda to give him the Exploder Suplex and Kawamatsu recovered to hit Honda with the Shitamachi Rocket and pin him.

This new version of Ilusion is being described by Sasaki as the little demon who sold his soul to the Devil. He tried to avoid fighting Takeshi Masada early in their match and intentionally Dropkicked the referee from behind so the rest of DAMNATION T.A could run interference. Masahiro Takanashi was already in Masada’s corner for the match so he was there to run counter-interference. However DAMNATION T.A had the numbers advantage and KANON distracted the ref long enough for Ilusion to give Masada a Low Blow, Sasaki to give him the Pedigree and Ilusion to hit him over the head with a chair. The ref was let go in time to see Ilusion do the Swanton Bomb onto Masada and get the three count. Ilusion taunted the fans for being quiet and attacked Masada even more to make them boo him. He then said SCHADENFREUDE International are going to live in a dark future from now on and Masada should never show his annoying face to him ever again!

A lot of the matches on the show had different sponsors which is how DDT was able to have free attendance. Match #4 was sponsored by a wrestling themed social networking app called STOMPING. A masked representative from the company named Stomping Mask introduced the match and watched on to see Makoto Oishi & Soma Takao beat Toru Owashi & Kazuki Hirata. Oishi admitted during the match he was in a bad mood so Hirata convinced him to wear a pair of Hirata GO! glasses to get rid of his stress. They both danced until Takao rolled up Hirata from behind to pin him. Backstage Stomping Mask complained to Hirata for not doing a good job to promote the app. Hirata attacked and unmasked him to reveal it was Hisaya Imabayashi all along!

DAMNATION T.A also won their 8-Man Tag Match earlier in the show. With Demus added to their lineup they had someone who could go toe to toe with Tetsuya Endo with lucha while KANON & MJ Paul were able to handled Takanashi & Yuya Koroku. Sasaki finished things off for Takanashi by dropping him with the Pedigree and submitting him with the Crossface Lock.

Three mascots made their pro wrestling debut in Match #2. On one side, DDT’s own mascot Pokotan teamed up with Touchi-kun from the Japan Self-Defence Force. Their opponents were Oshinari-kun from the Oshinari Shopping District and Higapyon from the Tokyo Higashi Shinkin Bank. Pokotan had no problem fighting Oshinari-kun but didn’t want to attack the cute rabbit Higapyon. Touchi-kun didn’t approve of how violent Pokotan was acting anyway so the three mascots all stood up to Pokotan. They knocked his head off and Oshinari-kun pinned Pokotan with the Diving Hip Drop. Pokotan saw the error of his ways after the match and the four of them all posed for the audience.

Kazuma Sumi is learning new ways to use the School Boy on his opponents. He was able to spin Yuki Ishida into the cradle to take the three count from him in the opening match. Sumi said he will continue to polish this move even more so he can pin his seniors with it from now on. Yuni was happy with his performance because today is his last match before he wrestles in America for DDT’s tour in Seattle next week. He wants to make a name for himself when he wrestles Gringo Loco and Konosuke Takeshita in his two matches over there. Ishida admitted he underestimated Sumi and Keigo Nakamura also said they have no excuses for losing today.

It was announced that Yuki Iino will face New Japan wrestler Tomohiro Ishii at Korakuen Hall on 22nd December! Iino said he is really looking forward to the heavyweight fight and wants everyone to come see it. He wants to end the year by beating Ishii and then win at Sumo Hall so he can keep on BURNING.

There was an intermission performance by members of the idol group KLP48. They are a sister group of AKB48 based in Kuala Lumpur and today was their first ever performance in Japan.

Akito spoke to the wrestling media after the show. He revealed Sanshiro Takagi saw companies like Kyushu Pro running sponsored shows in their own regions which inspired him to try it out with DDT in Tokyo. Akito thinks there were mistakes made but they are able to learn from them. He will give it some thought before deciding if DDT will hold this event again next year. The goal is to get people excited for DDT’s shows at Korakuen and Sumo Hall at the end of the year. The attendance number above isn’t accurate because people were allowed to come and go from the venue as the show went on. Akito said 1,600 seats were set up and the room could take 1,800 people in total at all times. So the extra 400 to make it 2,200 are considered to be people who came in during the show after other people left (the DDT site briefly had the number at 1,800 as the match results were coming in before quickly changing it to 2,200 after the show had ended).