ALL JAPAN PRO WRESTLING
DYNAMITE SERIES 2022
JUNE 12, 2022
KORAKUEN HALL
TOKYO, JAPAN

Watch: AJPW.TV

50TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL SIX-MAN TAG TEAM TOURNAMENT ROUND 1
TAKUYA NOMURA, FUMINORI ABE & KOSUKE SATO DEF. HIKARU SATO, DAN TAMURA & RYO INOUE (7:45)

Inoue tried to start for his team, but Tamura wouldn’t let him and threw him out of the ring. That didn’t bode well for their team’s chemistry. Hikaru Sato and Nomura provided some fun shoot style sequences. Inoue finally got tagged in and valiantly tried to take on Nomura but he tapped to a Nomura Boston Crab.

A fun opener, but these guys could have really put on a banger with more time. It also would have been nice for Kosuke Sato to have gotten some more time in the ring to show what he can do. ***

50TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL SIX-MAN TAG TEAM TOURNAMENT ROUND 1
YOSHITATSU, TAJIRI & BLACK MENSO~RE DEF. TAKAO OMORI, ATM & ARATA (7:18)

Yes, ATM is doing a money gimmick and he even came out with a money gun. I think he might be Carbell Ito in a new gimmick. Arata hails from JUST TAP OUT. ATM tried to offer Menso~re an envelope full of money, but used it to trick him. ATM then started handing out the envelopes to people in the crowd. That’s one way to get over. ATM also handed an envelope to the referee who then did a fast count when ATM tried to roll up Menso~re but Menso~re still managed to kick out. That got some laughs from the crowd.

There was some miscommunication between Arata and Omori and this allowed Menso~re to hit the Air Raid Crash on Arata for the win. This was inoffensive but basically a comedy match. **¾

50TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL SIX-MAN TAG TEAM TOURNAMENT SEMI-FINAL
SHOTARO ASHINO, RYUKI HONDA & SEIGO TACHIBANA DEF. TAKUYA NOMURA, FUMINORI ABE & KOSUKE SATO (10:27)

Honda and Tachibana finally convinced Ashino to wear some sunglasses out for his entrance as he had resisted it before. This featured a lot of Sato then Tachibana getting worked over. There was a very good Abe vs. Ashino sequence in the middle of this. There was a great spot where Ashino went for a top rope overhead belly-to-belly superplex on Sato but Sato resisted so Honda got in there with an assist by hitting the Final Event on Ashino. Sato got a ton of air on that. Ashino soon got the Ankle Lock on Sato for the submission. Good stuff. ***½

50TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL SIX-MAN TAG TEAM TOURNAMENT SEMI-FINAL
STRONGHEARTS (T-HAWK, SHIGEHIRO IRIE & ISSEI ONITSUKA) DEF. YOSHITATSU, TAJIRI & BLACK MENSO~RE (10:04)

Onitsuka tried to be a prick to Yoshitatsu but then ended up getting worked over for a while. Things then picked up to a pretty quick pace. StrongHearts are good at putting together an exciting match even with limited opponents. Onitsuka and T-Hawk hit what looked like a double team Night Ride on Menso~re then Irie followed that up with a Cannonball dive into the corner to get the pin. Simple stuff but StrongHearts made this good thanks to their dynamism. ***¼

ALL ASIA TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP
TOTAL ECLIPSE (HOKUTO OMORI & YUSUKE KODAMA) © DEF. NEXTSTARS (ATSUKI AOYAGI & RISING HAYATO) (12:11)

After a Twitter poll, Aoyagi and HAYATO’s new team name is NextStars. It’s rather fitting because both of them have been breaking out this year.

There were some great tag matches and a HAYATO vs. Omori singles match leading up to this. It’s probably my most eagerly awaited match on the show.

After a furious start that featured brawling on the outside, HAYATO got worked over by Total Eclipse. Aoyagi made the hot tag and went on a great run of high flying moves including an Orihara Moonsault to the outside. Another great spot was when Omori went for a Headscissors Drop on HAYATO but Aoyagi hit a springboard dropkick on Omori.

There was a great closing stretch between HAYATO and Omori with lots of reversals and near falls. But after HAYATO kicked out of a Dragon Suplex Hold, Omori followed that up with the Muso Issen for the victory. The champions succeed in their V5 defense. I was a little surprised at this result as I expected NextStars to win. This was pretty damn good, but could have been even better with a few more minutes. ***¾

50TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL SIX-MAN TAG TEAM TOURNAMENT FINALS
STRONGHEARTS (T-HAWK, SHIGEHIRO IRIE & ISSEI ONITSUKA) DEF. SHOTARO ASHINO, RYUKI HONDA & SEIGO TACHIBANA (16:00)

Ashino and T-Hawk started and had some great sequences. Ashino was still salty over his loss to T-Hawk in the Champion Carnival. Onitsuka got worked over by the still as of yet unnamed Ashino-led faction. From there, this turned into a frantic spring with lots of double teams and everyone getting in the ring to hit their big spots.

A big dive to the outside from Onitsuka onto Ashino and Honda allowed T-Hawk to isolate Tachibana then pin him after the Night Ride.

After the match StrongHearts were given a giant novelty check for ¥3,000,000 which was cool because you don’t see those in Japanese wrestling very much these days. This was a fitting final to a tournament that turned out to be a lot of fun. ***¾

CHAMPION CARNIVAL WINNERS PREMIUM SIX-MAN TAG
JAKE LEE, YUMA AOYAGI & SHUJI ISHIKAWA DEF. KENTO MIYAHARA, SUWAMA & MINORU SUZUKI (20:33)

The gimmick of this match is in its title. Suzuki is the only person in this to have won more than one Champion Carnival as he won two back-to-back in 2009 and 2010. Suwama won in 2008 (and had a fantastic final against Hiroshi Tanahashi in one of Suwama’s best matches ever). Ishikawa won in 2017, Miyahara in 2019, Lee in 2021 and Aoyagi, the newest winner, in 2022.

Suzuki being on this show and not at Dominion, is a sign that now the borders are open, New Japan is letting all of the old guys do their thing in other companies. You’re seeing it with Kojima in NOAH and of course Yuji Nagata and Tiger Mask will be working All Japan.

Early on, Ishikawa and Suzuki slapped the shit out of each other. Miyahara, as he usually does when he ends up teaming with other big names, didn’t have the smoothest relationship with Suzuki here. There was a brawl on the outside very early on, and Suwama and Suzuki used a chair on Ishikawa and Lee. In a rare occurrence, Miyahara became the member of his team who was worked over for an extended period. Ishikawa and Suzuki had some fun sequences. Not only did they stiff each other, it was cool to see Suzuki use his technique to be able to take on the giant.

A miscommunication between Suwama and Suzuki led to them brawling on the outside while Miyahara was left to fend for himself. Miyahara got triple teamed and a running knee from Ishikawa, The Fool from Aoyagi, and then the D4C from Lee led to Lee pinning Miyahara, building up to their Triple Crown match on June 19.

I thought everyone worked relatively hard here, but once Suwama and Suzuki started fighting each other, it was clear where this was going. But there’s always a novelty to seeing Suzuki interact with All Japan’s top wrestlers. ***½

FINAL THOUGHTS

This show drew an attendance of 999 which is the highest for All Japan in Korakuen Hall since the pandemic started. That’s a good sign given this show did not have a Triple Crown match on it.

During the show, the final announced match for Champions Night 4 was revealed and it is Ryo Inoue vs. former Dragongate wrestler Oji Shiiba.

What we had here was another good top-to-bottom show from All Japan. While it was light on big title matches, the action was solid and it was building up to bigger shows. Going into another show at Ota Ward Gym, the company feels like it has much more momentum than going into previous shows there. The attendance for that show will be very interesting to see in terms of how fans are responding to the company’s new direction and run of great matches.