[Ed. Note: Hi!! We’re back and doing this again, even if I happen to live someplace where Coronavirus is still going strong and am thus very uncomfortable about it! We even have a cool new Calendar thing that should make navigating the wrestling show schedule a whole lot easier! Be safe, be happy, watch pro wrestling. — LB Hunktears]
Thursday 6/25: All Japan Pro Wrestling Broadcast 2020 #7
(Streams live at 6:30AM EDT on AJPW TV.)
Many promotions that continued running during the COVID-19 shutdown in Japan chose to do so with a weekly TV show format. Among the promotions that did so, All Japan is the promotion that seems to have gained the most from the switch. They have been running their show from 2AW’s home venue, 2AW Square, and have taken this opportunity to freshen their weekly storylines, as well as debuting new tag team configurations and new wrestlers, many from the now-defunct Wrestle-1 promotion. This episode sees Wrestle-1 star Shotaro Ashino face AJPW talent Yuma Aoyagi in a singles match, a six-man tag with Kento Miyahara, Jiro “Ikemen” Kuroshio & Akira Francesco facing Suwama, Shuji Ishikawa & Yusuke Okada, plus Isami Kodaka & Yuko Miyamoto defending their All-Asia Tag Titles against Yoshitatsu & Wrestle-1’s Seigo Tachibana. The current All Japan product is more than worthy of your attention, due to a newfound variety and creativity that was lacking in their pre-shutdown product.
Saturday 6/27: DDT TV Show #8
(Streams live at 6:00AM EDT on Wrestle Universe.)
All Japan may be the promotion that benefited most from the shutdown, but the one that took to the No People TV show format the most was easily DDT. This new DDT TV Show is a weird, joyous variety show that blends pre-taped, edited segments with in-ring wrestling taped at the Shinjuku FACE venue, resulting in a product that uses the lack of crowd as a strength rather than a limitation. This episode sees Daisuke Sasaki challenging Chris Brookes for his Universal Title, Wrestle-1’s Seigo Tachibana challenging HARASHIMA in a continuing storyline where Tachibana tries to worm his way into DDT, and Nautilus, the team of Naomi Yoshimura & Yuki Ueno defending their tag titles against Tetsuya Endo & Nobuhiro Shimatani of DAMNATION.
