Promotions Watched: AJPW, NOAH, DDT, Dragon Gate, Ganbare Pro
Back in the Top 10 business after a hectic past two months. Plenty of good wrasslin’ to kick off the new year, with All Japan and DDT battling it out for top 5 supremacy. The AJPW title matches landed big time this month, while DDT’s Yuki Ueno seems to be making an early WOTY run with 3 appearances on the list. On the NOAH front, the company couldn’t match their epic January of last year (Go/Kaito, Harada/Togo), but still delivered a truckload of solid wrestling, including a few burners that flew straight under the radar. Not a lot of Dragon Gate this month. The booking has been as enjoyable as ever, but not many of their January matches stuck with me. Keep an eye on that La Estrella kid though.
The Top 10
- Suwama vs. Yuma Aoyagi – Triple Crown (AJPW 1/3/21)
- Koji Iwamoto vs. Fuminori Abe – AJPW Jr. Heavyweight Title (AJPW 1/24/21)
- Yuki Ueno vs. Yusuke Okada (DDT 1/23/21)
- Go Shiozaki & Naomichi Marufuji vs. Daisuke Harada & Atsushi Kotoge (NOAH 1/15/21)
- Yuki Ueno vs. Shota – DDT Universal Title (DDT 1/9/21)
- Keisuke Ishii & Shigehiro Irie vs. Shota & Asuka (Ganbare Pro (1/17/21)
- Suwama & Shuji Ishikawa vs. Kento Miyahara & Yuma Aoyagi – AJPW Tag Team Titles (AJPW 1/2/21)
- Go Shiozaki, Takashi Sugiura, Naomichi Marufuji & Kaito Kiyomiya vs. Kenoh, Katsuhiko Nakajima, Masa Kitamiya & Manabu Soya (NOAH 1/10/21)
- Takashi Yoshida, KAZMA SAKAMOTO & SB Kento vs. Kzy, Susumu Yokosuka & Genki Horiguchi – Triangle Gate (DG 1/13/21)
- Katsuhiko Nakajima vs. Junta Miyawaki (NOAH 1/23/21)
Honorable Mentions
1. Konosuke Takeshita, Yuki Ueno, MAO & Shunma Katsumata vs. Shota, Akito, Keisuke Ishii & Kazuki Hirata (DDT 1/3/21)
2. Kenoh & Manabu Soya vs. Masakatsu Funaki & Masato Tanaka (NOAH 1/31/21)
3. Kazusada Higuchi & Yukio Sakaguchi vs. CIMA & Soma Takao – KO-D Tag Titles (DDT 1/9/21)
4. Daisuke Harada vs. Hajime Ohara – GHC Jr. Heavyweight Title (NOAH 1/10/21)
5. Ikuto Hidaka vs. Keisuke Ishii (Ganbare Pro 1/9/21)
