How I Met Your Puroresu is a series dedicated to providing background information on matches in hopes of broadening horizons. These matches will be no longer than that of a sitcom as to not overwhelm a first time viewer.
Company: Big Japan Pro-Wrestling
Show Title: Death Mania VII
Match: Astronauts (Takuya Nomura & Fuminori Abe) vs Twin Towers (Shuji Ishikawa & Kohei Sato)
Stakes: BJW Tag Team Championship
Length: 16 Minutes
Production Date: December 20, 2020
Air Date: December 28, 2020
In a year riddled with awfulness, the Astronauts winning the BJW Tag Team Championship was the bright spot that the company desperately needed. For years, the inability to create new stars has plagued BJW’s reputation to the point where most have written them off completely. The best chance they have is to push their young star, Takuya Nomura, to the moon.
Now at 27-years old, Nomura has been a bright prospect, in the country as a whole, for several years. Trained in part by Hideki Suzuki, Nomura employs a style much different than BJW’s old guard. Where the traditional BJW heavyweights such as Daisuke Sekimoto, focus their energy on power moves, Nomura focuses on counters a la the ‘catch as catch can’ training from Suzuki.
All the work began to pay off on January 1st, the first match of the new year, when Nomura blocked Sekimoto’s lariat and caught him in a suplex to win the Toshiwasure! Tag Team Shuffle. This was a monumental moment which kicked 2020 off with hope of a new guard on the rise.
The following month fell witness to Nomura’s third failure to capture the BJW Strong Heavyweight Championship; this time to the head of the new guard, Daichi Hashimoto. All hope seemed to be dashed once again for Nomura as he was forced to wait six months before he received his next title shot. When that chance finally came, Nomura found himself up against a familiar foe.
Daisuke Sekimoto is the most decorated tag team champion in BJW’s 25-year history. With ten individual reigns to his name, he’s now found himself up against first time challengers: the Astronauts (Takuya Nomura & Fuminori Abe). A beloved up-and-coming team, the Astronauts had spent several years making a name for themselves years before finally receiving their opportunity to become champions.
Out to prove New Year’s wasn’t a fluke, Nomura once again caught Sekimoto in a suplex, and this time it started a championship reign. Standing alongside Sekimoto in the match was Kohei Sato, a man Nomura is all too familiar with and the next mountain for Nomura to ascend. This time however, Sato wouldn’t be teaming with Sekimoto. Instead, he’d call upon an old friend: a man by the name of Shuji Ishikawa.
Shuji Ishikawa’s history in BJW is one of legend. Considered to possess one of the greatest BJW Death Match Heavyweight reigns of all time, Ishikawa (along with Kohei Sato) also holds fame for his BJW Tag Team Championship run as one-half of the Twin Towers. The team holds the third longest reign in the title’s history and the second most defenses all time. The two haven’t shared a BJW ring since 2017 but all that’s about to change.
These four have all held the ring together in different facets, but never in a straight two-on-two, and not once has either member of the Astronauts scored the fall over a member of the Twin Towers. Nomura pinned Daisuke Sekimoto twice this year but his next challenge is a completely different animal.
Twin Towers is not just a clever name. Both Ishikawa and Sato stand at over 6-foot-4 and more than 260-pounds each. Meanwhile, Nomura, the bigger man of his team, is recorded at 5-foot-9 and 200-pounds. This is the ultimate test of Nomura’s ‘catch as catch can’ training to this point in his career. He stands no chance in going toe-to-toe with either of the Towers. He will need to be creative.
Will Takuya Nomura be able to find a way to hold onto his title and usher in a new era of BJW?
