DOUKI successfully defended his IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship for the first time ever on Wednesday, overcoming Taiji Ishimori as part of a NJPW Road To Destruction card from the Sendai Sun Plaza Hall in Japan.
The defending champ bridged a Suplex de la Luna to earn the pinfall victory, ending a main event that lasted more than 22 minutes in total.
The win was DOUKI’s first title match since dethroning El Desperado in July. The junior division has been mostly out of the spotlight for the past few weeks as the G1 tournament was the promotion’s main focus.
DOUKI had never beaten Ishimori prior to Wednesday, marking another big victory in what has already been a breakout year for him. The duo had met four previous times in past Best of the Super Junior tournaments, but Ishimori had prevailed in each encounter.
The celebration for DOUKI was short-lived, as House of Torture’s Yoshinobu Kanemaru attacked him in the ring after the match.
Earlier in the night, SANADA called for a match against Zack Sabre Jr. as part of NJPW Royal Quest following their 10-minute clash in a tag match. Jake Lee also prematurely exited a tag bout, with Tokyo Sports reporting that he suffered an injury to his right knee.
Here are the quick results (via Cagematch.net)
- Daiki Nagai vs. Masatori Yasuda (Draw) (10:00)
- Tiger Mask & Tomoaki Honma def. Katsuya Murashima & Shoma Kato (7:35)
- Francesco Akira def. TAKA Michinoku (6:35)
- Just 5 Guys (SANADA & Taichi) def. TMDK (Kosei Fujita & Zack Sabre Jr.) (10:02)
- House of Torture (Dick Togo, EVIL, SHO, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Yujiro Takahashi) def. Hiroshi Tanahashi, Toru Yano, Boltin Oleg, Ryusuke Taguchi & Shota Umino (9:50)
- CHAOS (Hirooki Goto, Tomohiro Ishii & YOSHI-HASHI def. Bullet Club War Dogs (David Finlay, Gabe Kidd & Jake Lee) (8:26)
- Los Ingobernables de Japon (BUSHI, Hiromu Takahashi, Shingo Takagi, Tetsuya Naito & Yota Tsuji) def. United Empire (Callum Newman, Francesco Akira, Great-O-Khan, Jakob Austin Young & Jeff Cobb) (12:50)
- DOUKI def. Taiji Ishimori (IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship) (22:21)
