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| MVP Intrusion - Omori's
Redemption Not Final January 10th, 2005 |
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Takao Omori took almost the exact same
path he took during the last Fire Festival, but this time
with a different result in the final. The match today was
to be the final of the #1 Contender tourney for the AWA Heavyweight
Championship. The key word here being was. Switching opponents
from the announced card was the first bit of AWA bureaucracy
that took place today. So just like Fire Festival '04, Omori
faced off against Wataru Sakata in the semi-final of his block.
Sakata had all but won Block A during the Fire Festival until
he choked against Omori in his final match and Omori went
to the finals to face, and eventually lose to, Kohei Sato.
Kohei also relived a Fire Festival moment this show, as
he competed against Otani and won again, using Otani's own
dragon suplex hold for the win. So, once again Omori versus
Sato for a top prize in ZERO-ONE, a match Koehi won that
day back in August after a 22-minute battle.
This time the results were different however as Omori
won with the dreaded Axe Bomber in just under 15 minutes.
As Omori raised his arms in victory, figuring he had erased
his loss for possession of the Fire Festival katana, his
celebration was cut short by ring announcer Okita. A document
was then read from AWA Administrator Oscar David stating
that it has been decided that the final match for the #1
contender of the AWA Heavyweight tournament would be a 3-way
dance featuring the winner of Block A (Kohei) and the winner
of Block B (Omori) against an opponent to be decided by
ZERO-ONE management.
The crowd became restless after hearing this, and Shinjiro
Otani came out to announce that his choice for the 3rd fighter
would be Japanese pro-wrestling MVP of 2004 - Kensuke Sasaki.
Needless to say, Omori and Kohei were not amused. The match
was announced for the "Business Launch" show in Korakuen
Hall on 1/23.
Also on the show, AWA representative Adrian Lynch lost
his singles match against Ryouji Sai, when Sai submitted
him with a leg lock. Tatsuhito Takaiwa faced off against
his trainee, Osamu Namiguchi in a hard fought battle that
saw Namiguchi try to show some power to his teacher. He
managed to last almost 13 minutes AND he kicked out of the
top rope brainbuster.
"E-Style" stands for "Extreme Style" and is a reference
to ECW. The match was a 4-way between Masato Tanaka, current
Jr. Champion Super Crazy and current PWF tag team champions
Ikuto Hidaka and Minoru Fujita. There was lots of brawling
but also much high flying by Crazy, Hidaka, and Fujita.
After the match everybody showed mutual respect. Since it
was every man for himself, Hidaka eventually submitted his
own tag team partner with the Shawn Capture.
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| "Company Pre-Launch Tour" Yokohama, Japan - January 9th, 2004 Kanagawa Yokohama red brick warehouse Attendance: 350 fans |
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| Takaiwa Comes Up Short...
January 8th, 2005 |
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| ZERO-ONE's former Jr Champion, Tatsuhito Takaiwa, finally faced off against current NOAH Jr. Champ Yoshinobu Kanemaru for the belt at NOAH's "Great Voyage '05" show in Tokyo. The two had been looking forward to this match, and from all reports it was an extremely hard-hitting bout. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Takaiwa came out with a
ZERO-ONE towel over his shoulders, and Kanemaru came out swinging
his belt around. There were many stiff strikes and chops,
along with several powerbombs, a body slam on the floor, and
a top rope Death Valley driver on the champ that got a close
2 count.
After the match the two fighters shook hands, and Kanemaru put over Takaiwa in a post-match interview as being faster and stronger than he is... |
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