Home » News Archive » News from 10/25/06 to 10/31/06

Injury Default - KAGETORA!

October 31st, 2006

Originally scheduled for tomorrow night in Fukuoka, Japan KAGETORA was to challenge Minoru Fujita for a shot at the AWA World Jr. Heavyweight championship title.

Sadly KAGETORA was injured today in the main event of the El Dorado show in Tokyo today and will be unable to wrestle.

The title match for tomorrow will now be a 3-way dance between champion Fujita, Takuya Sugawara and Fujita's regular tag team partner Ikuto Hidaka.

Shelley & Sabin V1 Lightweight Tag Defense!

October 29th, 2006

ZERO1-MAX International Lightweight tag team champions Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin made their first defense yesterday at St. John's Hall in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, for Night 2 of UWA Hardcore Wrestling's "Grand Prix Tournament." In a non-tournament title match the champs faced off against Toryumon Mexico's Ultimo Dragon and Kazuchika Okada on the 5th match of the show. The battle lasted thirteen minutes and twenty-nine seconds when Sabin pinned Okada with the "Cradle Shock" after Shelley hit a top rope double stomp while Okada was on Sabin's shoulders.

Shelley and Sabin captured the ZERO1-MAX International Lightweight tag team titles on August 25th, from Ikuto Hidaka and Minoru Fujita at the "MAX LAND - Progress" show in Korakuen Hall. The match was very well received by the fans who attended the show, many of them reporting it was one of the better tag matches seen this year. You can visit the UWA Hardcore Wrestling website here. Pictures can be seen here.

Fantastic Tour '06 - Last Event!

October 28th, 2006

ZERO1-MAX returned to Tokyo's Korakuen Hall for the "Final Game" of the 2006 Fantastic Tour. At the top of the card was the European Wrestling Association (EWA) World Heavyweight title match between Takao Omori and the returning Chris "Bambikiller" Raaber. Back on July 7, Omori travelled to Austria to battle for the title and lost in the 7th round to Bambikiller.

This time is was Omori who won the victory, after 3 rounds of hard striking by both fighters. After scoring his Axe Guillotine driver, Omori then hit the Axe Bomber for the win. Omori then got on the microphone and said he looks forward to returning to Europe to defend his new title.

The Semi-main event was the 10-year in the making confrontation between current AWA World Jr. champion, Minoru Fujita, and former WWE World Cruiserweight champion, Yoshihiro Tajiri. The match went over 20 minutes with each wrestler getting in their offense, including brawling outside the ring. Fujita scored the BONEYARD early and the tombstone piledriver, with TAJIRI countering with the Tarantula and handspring elbow. Eventually Fujita accidentally bumped the referee giving TAJIRI a chance to unleash his Poison Mist attack which he then followed up with his powerful Buzzsaw kick and the pinfall.

After the match TAJIRI said it took 10 years for the two fighters to meet in the ring once again, and added shouldn't take another 10 years. He said when ZERO1-MAX returns to Korakuen Hall in November for the 11/24 "Explosion '06" show that he'd like to appear again.

For the 5th Match of the show, Team STONEHENGE united to battle the team of Yoshihito Sasaki and Daisuke Sekimoto with some surprising results. 2005 Tenka-Ichi winner, Yoshihito, won the match when after Sekimoto speared Ryouji, they performed a "union German suplex" on him but couldn't get the 3 counts. Sasaki then hit a "Hercules Cutter," followed by Sekimoto getting in another German suplex. As Ryouji rose to his feet from this powerful double attack, Yoshihito met him with a powerful lariat and got the 1-2-3!

After the match, Yoshihito got on the microphone and said while he's considered a Junior in ZERO1-MAX his heart makes him a heavyweight. He said he feels that by defeating Ryouji he should have the November 11 UN Heavyweight title match against Kohei Sato instead. The crowd cheered for Yoshihito after the match.

Match #4 was the return of the unholy tag team of Kazunari Murakami and Mitsuhiro Matsunaga. At the 9/22 "Relieve" show in Korakuen Hall these two teamed up to destroy Takao Omori. They then united along with BML's Katsumi Usuda at the 10/19 show in Iwate, where after Usuda was pinned by Yoshihito "Mr Danger" attacked his own tag team member for being pinned by stabbing him repeatedly. A little bit of foreshadowing Murakami should have noted.

Now it falls to Team EMBLEM to try and defeat the atrocious combo, and upon immediately entering the ring EMBLEM attacked their opponents, and began brawling in the crowd!. Tanaka using a chair on "Mr. Danger" and eventually getting him back in the ring, using a chair and punching the already bloody Matsunaga down in the corner. Emblem took control, managing to double team "Mr. Danger" and Tanaka then hit the running elbow, a brainbuster and the "Super Fly" frog splash but could only get 2. Otani then delivered the face wash only to be cut off by a surprise fork attack into his left leg by Matsunaga! Matsunaga repeatedly stabbed Otani numerous times in the leg and dragged him back to his corner.

At this point Murakami entered the ring and began punching and kicking Otani, and managed to knock Tanaka out of the ring as he came to the assistance of his tag partner. While this was going on, Matsunaga continued his fork attack and began strangling Otani with his cloth belt. Tanaka quickly snuck around and attacked Matsunaga with a chair, only to be attacked by Usuda who was at ringside It was here Matsunaga accidentally stabbed Usuda, and then intentionally stabbed him!

Apparently in a fit of blood lust Matsunaga tried to stab Murakami with the fork. Murakami was greatly angered by this and landed a punch to Matsunaga's face. Otani, taking advantage of the crack in his opponents alliance landed a missile dropkick on Murakami followed by two rapid-fire Dragon suplexes for the pinfall.

In a rage Murakami chased after Matsunaga who fled to the Korakuen Hall parking lot. And as the two fought in the parking lot Matsunaga launched a fireball in to Murakami's face and continued to flee.

The third match was a junior tag match of Ikuto Hidaka and Tatsuhito Takaiwa versus El Dorado's Takuya Sugawara and KAGETORA. The match was hard-hitting and high-flying until KAGETORA, in the midst of a black box attack, accidentally hit his partner Sugawara. Hidaka was then able to get the pinfall on Sugawara. After the match KAGETORA blamed the loss on Sugawara's error by saying he has a AWA World Jr. Heavyweight title match against Minoru Fujita and might be better as a singles wrestlers rather than a tag team wrestler.

MAX Capacity made his debut in ZERO1-MAX, all 300 kgs of him. Before he arrived in Japan MAX Capacity sent an e-mail to the ZERO1-MAX offices telling them that since it's a long flight to Japan and due to his size it's difficult to use Airport bathrooms that he'd stopped eating. He then explained that means he will arrive in Japan very hungry and would need lots of food. So he came to ring last night for his handicap match with a liter of Coke and two buckets of KFC chicken. When he removed his shirt the crowd let out a gasp of surprise!

Using his massive girth to his advantage he hit corner splashes, body splashes and sentons to crush his opponents, finally pinning Nami with a elbow drop for the win. Kamikaze was unable to break up the pin in time as he was on the outside of the ring recovering from having 300 kg forcefully dropped on him.

The opening match saw Tomoaki Honma and Fuyuki Takahashi defeat Rikiya Fudo and Shota Takanishi in 7½ minutes when Honma used a Boston Crab on Takanishi.

Matsunaga vs. Yoshihito Stipulation - Barbwire!

October 25th, 2006

"Mr Danger," Mistuhiro Matsunaga once again sent a scrawled FAX to the ZERO1-MAX offices in Tokyo today. The electronically sent missive was addressed to Matsunaga's November 1st opponent, Yoshihito Sasaki.

It reads:

Yoshihito Sasaki,

On 11/1 we will have a no-rope barbwire deathmatch. Revenge is mine.

- Mitsuhiro Matsunaga

Matsunaga is obviously referring to the 2005 "No-rope Barbwire Spider Net & Barricade Board Double Hell Death Match" in Osaka where he was defeated by Yoshihito. After terrorizing ZERO1-MAX for months in late 2005, Matsunaga tore through Young MAX, even defeating Hirotaka Yokoi in a no-ropes barbwire match. Finally at the culmination of what became "Stop the Matsunaga," Yoshihito dropped him with the Argentine Coaster on a barbwire spider-net for the win.

A few weeks ago in Sendai on 10/12, Yoshihito teamed with Takao Omori to take on Murakami and Matsunaga in a tag match. Yoshihito took a fireball from Matsunaga that night, and then submitted to the Cobra Claw.