The next challenger to Brookes’ title is Akai.
Saki Akai is on her retirement tour that wraps up in November. Along the way, Akai captured the KO-D and AJPW TV Six-Man Tag Team Championships with Yukio Sakaguchi and Hideki Okatani.
Following Chris Brookes’ defense of the KO-D Openweight Title at DDTs 9/9 event, he nominated Akai as his next challenger. Also, on September 30th, Brookes, Masahiro Takanashi and Mei Suruga are challenging Akai, Sakaguchi and Okatani for the KO-D Six-Man Tag Titles.
Dramatic Dream Dragons welcomed Brookes onto their podcast and he spoke about Akai’s pending retirement. When he first heard about it, he was surprised but not surprised because she brought it up in prior conversations but Brookes did not think there was weight behind those words. He stated that wrestlers say things like that all the time.
It was kind of a surprise but kind of not a surprise (Saki Akai announcing her retirement). I remember even for like the last couple of years, she would, in conversation, constantly bring up that, ‘Ah, I’m this old now’ and, ‘Hmm, I don’t know how much longer I’ll be wrestling.’ But a lot of people talk like that in wrestling all the time and you think it’s just kind of lip service and they’re just saying it to say it or whatever but, when she announced that she was gonna be retiring, I was definitely surprised. I think when I look back at four years in DDT and the matches I’ve had in DDT, definitely the one with Akai is one that stands out to me…
Brookes won the KO-D Openweight Title in the main event of Wrestle Peter Pan. He reflected on the pressure he felt headlining that show. To read his comments, check out POST Wrestling’s coverage article.
If the quote in this article is used, please credit Dramatic Dream Dragons with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcription.
