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The Predator Enters the Fire Festival '10!
June 30th, 2010
The Fire Festival executive committee has announced the final foreign wrestling inclusion in this year's tournament - The Predator. He will participate as a roster member of the IGF (Inoki Genome Federation) and his inclusion was negotiated by Simon Inoki. Despite wrestling in ZERO1 since the beginning in 2001, this will be The Predator's first Fire Festival. He released a statement:
"As soon as I was offered a position in the Fire Festival I cancelled all my other appearances to focus on the tournament. I cleared my schedule and signed on. I plan to let the violence rage so Hashimoto-san will feel it in heaven! I have a lot of memories in ZERO1 and K1 and I want to keep those memories alive by winning the tournament! I also want to win to repay IGF for scheduling me. A warning to all the fans coming to the shows: wear your sneakers so you can run when I enter the hall! The person that doesn't get away gets SQUASHED!"
Fire Festival '10 Remaining Participants! 3-Way Jr. Title Winner & Fan Ballot!
June 29th, 2010
Seven of the ten total Fire Festival '10 wrestlers have already been announced. Following yesterday's Shin Kiba 1st Ring event, several wrestlers made their plea to participate in the annual tournament. Among those were FUNAKI and BattlArts' Munenori Sawa, and even young Kenta Kakinuma which caused quite a stir in the locker room. Despite this President Otani promised he would bring all requests to the Fire Festival Executive Committee at FIRST ON STAGE.
Today that comittee revealed that one of the spots will be filled by a foreign wrestler, but the remaining 2 spots were still up for grabs. They came to an agreement to use the 7/11 ZERO1 International Jr. Heavyweight Title 3-WAY Match between current champion Ikuto Hidaka vs. FUNAKI vs. Sawa as a qualifier for one of these openings.
The other opening will be decided by both fan vote and a qualifying match that will be held at the ZERO1 Dojo and broadcast live July 9th on UStream with the winner participating in the Fire Festival '10. Below is the list of eligible wrestlers for the fan vote.
- KAMIKAZE
- Shito Ueda
- Yuzuru Saito
- Kenta Kakinuma
- Yoshikazu Yokoyama
- Minoru Fujita
- Takuya Sugawara
To vote please send your top 2 choices to info@z-1.co.jp with Fire Festival '10 in the subject line. The deadline for voting will be Monday, July 5th at 12:00PM (Japan time).
Tanaka Pins IWGP Champion Makabe in NJPW! Requests Title Match!
June 29th, 2010
Today at New Japan Pro Wrestling's J SPORTS CROWN OPENWEIGHT SIX MAN TAG TOURNAMENT held in Differ Ariake, ZERO1 heavyweight Masato Tanaka teamed alongside Shinsuke Nakamura and Tomohiro Ishii to win in Round 2 against Togi Makabe, Tomoaki Honma and Austin Creed. Tanaka was actually in trouble near the end of the match, as he just barely survived a powerbomb, a lariat and the King Kong Knee drop from Makabe. Saved by Nakamura and his Boma Ye knee to Makabe, Tanaka then hit the Sliding-D on Makabe and scored the 3 count at just under 15½ minutes.
Following the match, Tanaka politely requested an opportunity to challenge for the IWGP Heavyweight title. Makabe is already scheduled to defend his title on July 19th against Nakamura in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan. Tomorrow the 6-Man Tag Tournament continues and Tanaka's team will face Hiroshi Tanahashi, TAJIRI and KUSHIDA in the semi-finals.
Pro Wrestling Nekketsu Jidai! Part 4
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| FIGHT CARD | ||
| Shinjiro Otani's Nekketsu Kokoro's Pro Wrestling Seminar Single Match |
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| O Shinjiro Otani (ZERO1) |
vs. | Naoshi Sano X (International Pro Wrestling Promotion) |
| (10:44 → Dragon Suplex Hold) | ||
| Mr. X & Mr. XX's Kyodai Kari Tag Match Restart |
||
| Δ Mr. X (Unknown) Mr. XX (Unknown) |
vs. | Kei Sato Δ (Michinoku Pro) Shu Sato (Michinoku Pro) |
| (10:12 →Double Count-Out) | ||
| Mr. X & Mr. XX's Kyodai Kari Tag Match |
||
| Mr. X (Unknown) Δ Mr. XX (Unknown) |
vs. | Kei Sato (Michinoku Pro) Shu Sato Δ (Michinoku Pro) |
| (4:37 → No Contest - Referee Assault) | ||
| Munenori Sawa's Shin Kiba Tanteidan Single Match |
||
| X Munenori Sawa (BattlArts) |
vs. | Daisuke Sekimoto O (BJW) |
| (15:03 → German Suplex Hold) | ||
| Twitter Match Mixed Tag Match |
||
| O Ikuto Hidaka (ZERO1) Sakura Emi (Ice Ribbon) |
vs. | Shoichi Uchida X (Free) Bambi (K-DOJO) |
| (13:07 → Small Package) | ||
| ZERO1 Generation Battle 6-Man Tag |
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| Kohei Sato (ZERO1) O Kenta Kakinuma (ZERO1) Yoshikazu Yokoyama (ZERO1) |
vs. | Ryoji Sai (ZERO1) Shito Ueda X (ZERO1) Yuzuru Saito (ZERO1) |
| (12:42 → German Suplex Hold) | ||
Fire Festival '10! Seven Announced!
June 27th, 2010
The Summer is upon us, and for Pro Wrestling ZERO1 that means the Fire Festival (Himatsuri/火祭り) is fast approaching. The round-robin style tournament is broken into 2 blocks of competitors (Block A & Block B) with the wrestlers within each block facing each other in a singles match.
A Win gains 2 points, a Draw 1 point and a loss 0 points. At the end of the tournament the winner of each respective block will face each other in a final to determine the Winner.
Seven of the ten participants can be announced today. The remaining three should be determined by the end of the week. When the entire roster is revealed the Blocks will also be determined.
Here are the announced names and the years they've participated in previous Fire Festivals.
- Shinjiro Otani (2001-2009)
- Masato Tanaka (2001-2009)
- Kohei Sato (2001-2009)
- Ryoji Sai (2005-2009)
- Daisuke Sekimoto (2001, 2006-2009)
- Yutaka Yoshie (2006-2007)
- Paul Burchill (1st Appearance)
- TBA
- TBA
- TBA
Past winners in this announced group are Otani (3x), Tanaka (3x), Kohei (1x) and Ryouji (1x).
ZERO1 Jr. Heavyweight Title 3-WAY Match! Hidaka vs. FUNAKI vs. Sawa!
June 24th, 2010
The July 11th ZERO1 show will take place on the 5 year anniversary to the day of former ZERO-ONE boss Shinya Hashimoto's death. Already announced for the show were Kohei Sato defending the World Heavyweight Title against Chris Raaber, and Masato Tanaka taking on former WWE/TNA wrestler Shawn Daivari. Then it was announced that ZERO1 President Shinjiro Otani and Ryoji Sai would team to take on two Hashimoto favorites in NJPW's Manabu Nakanishi and freelancer Yutaka Yoshie. Both Nakanishi &smp; Yoshie have also previously participated in Fire Festival tournaments.
Now it has been revealed that Ikuto Hidaka will defend his ZERO1 International Jr. Heavyweight in a 3-way match versus his current tag team partners - FUNAKI and Munenori Sawa! This will be Hidaka's 2nd defense since winning the title at the 2009 Tenka-ichi Jr. Tournament. Following the 6/20 ZERO1 show in Mie as Aibou were being interviewed after their victory Sawa said he plans on having a single match against FUNAKI then next time he is in ZERO1. Hidaka was surprised:
"What? FUNAKI has returned to Texas, but when he comes back to Japan we will continue to tag as the Dragon Ball determined. I also think that when FUNAKI returns he will want to have his first singles match again me."
Sawa then profered the idea - "Then shouldn't all three of us fight at the same time?"
"3-way match!" Hidaka exclaimed in support of the idea. "I will ask the ZERO1 office if we can do it! Even though I wear the Intercontinental Jr. title if a match like that can be scheduled I will take the risk!"
"Good!" Sawa said, "I will wear that Jr. title belt and show it off next to the NWA International Lightweight Tag Team title belt I have!"
"You're lucky I'm your partner in that so I can't take that belt from you!" Hidaka laughed.
Ikuto Hidaka © vs. FUNAKI vs. Munenori Sawa
