All Japan Pro Wrestling kicked off its year with back-to-back nights at Korakuen Hall highlighted by Suwama retaining the Triple Crown against Yuma Aoyagi on Sunday’s show.
Sunday’s annual New Year’s War card featured Suwama battling back to defeat Aoyagi, one night after being submitted by the challenger. On Saturday, the tandem of Aoyagi & Kento Miyahara won the AJPW tag titles from incumbents Suwama & Shuji Ishikawa with Aoyagi using his End Game guillotine submission to submit the champion.
The Triple Crown match saw Aoyagi attack the throat and neck of the champion featuring a DDT on the apron and subsequently driving Suwama throat into the guardrail.
Aoyagi showed immense fire including a series of rolling German suplexes with the heavier Suwama and showcasing his spinning wheel kicks that led to the end. After landing one flush, Suwama fired off a lariat and hit his closing sequence with aggression that climaxed with one final lariat and Backdrop Hold (bridging belly-to-back suplex) for the pinfall at twenty-six minutes and thirty-six seconds.
Afterward, Suwama was confronted by Shotaro Ashino, who appears the next in line to challenge for the Triple Crown. Earlier in the evening, Ashino teamed with Kuma Arashi & Yusuke Kodama defeating Kento Miyahara, Atsuki Aoyagi & Rising Hayato with Ashino submitting Hayato.
This was not a match that overstayed its welcome with the match breezing by and shifted back-and-forth with the believability of Aoyagi having Suwama’s number.
For these big title matches, the institution of Kyohei Wada as the third man is indoctrinated because of his history. However, there is a fine line between dramatic slow counts and venturing into the feeling of it being uncomfortably slow, the latter occurred multiple times.
Here are the results from both All Japan shows at Korakuen Hall over the past two days (Credit: Purolove.com):
New Year Wars – Saturday, January 2
*Shigehiro Irie & Izanagi over Atsuki Aoyagi & Rising Hayato
*Yoshitatsu, Takayuki Ueki, Ryuji Hijikata & Chikara over Takao Omoro, Black Menso-re, Osamu Nishimura & Ryuki Honda
*Kuma Arashi & Koji Doi over Hikaru Sato & Dan Tamura
*Shotaro Ashino, Hokuto Omori & Yusuke Kodama over Jake Lee, Tajiri & Francesco Akira
*The Bodyguard wins the New Year Battle Royal
*Masato Tanaka over Zeus
*AJPW Tag Team Championship: Kento Miyahara & Yuma Aoyagi over Suwama & Shuji Ishikawa (champions)
New Years Wars – Sunday, January 3
*The Bodyguard & Francesco Akira over Ryuki Honda & Alejandro
*Shigehiro Irie & UTAMARO over Takao Omori & Black Menso-re
*Jake Lee, Koji Iwamoto & Tajiri over Shuji Ishikawa, Dan Tamura & Hikaru Sato
*Shotaro Ashino, Kuma Arashi & Yusuke Kodama over Kento Miyahara, Atsuki Aoyagi & Rising Hayato
*All Asia Tag Titles: Zeus & Izunagi (champions) over Hokuto Omori & Koji Doi
*GAORA Television Title: Jun Kasai over Yoshitatsu (champion)
*Triple Crown: Suwama (champion) over Yuma Aoyagi
