The Japanese Golden Week holiday tradition continues, and just like last year, we’re going all out for two nights in Fukuoka! It’s Wrestling Dontaku!
WRESTLING DONTAKU 2019
May 3 & 4 2019
Fukuoka, Fukuoka International Center
Friday May 3 6PM Start
Saturday May 4 3PM Start
Night two of Wrestling Dontaku in Fukuoka will be headlined by a rematch of the New Japan Cup final as Kazuchika Okada faces SANADA. That New Japan Cup final on March 24 was a thrilling affair that saw SANADA push Okada to his very limits before finally being felled by the Rainmaker. Okada made the best of his New Japan Cup win by defeating Jay White in front of a raucous Madison Square Garden crowd at G1 Supercard to lift the IWGP Heavyweight Championship for the fifth time.
Okada’s very first act as champion was to state that he wanted to face SANADA for the title as soon as possible. In five singles matches together, SANADA has inched closer to beating Okada, without quite managing the task yet. Now, closer than ever before, he stands a chance to stop Okada’s reign before it even begins to approach the 12 defence streak he had with the title last time.
Tomohiro Ishii will face EVIL in the semi main event. This all spills from an eight man tag match at the final day of the New Japan Cup, where Ishii and EVIL tore into one another with vicious blows. Two of the toughest strikers in the game will go to war in this match; the last two times they did in March 2016, Ishii walked out victorious in both matches, but will the same happen three years on?
Before that bout, there will be a rematch of the prior night’s battle between Rocky Romero, SHO and YOH and Shingo Takagi, BUSHI and Tetsuya Naito. With an IWGP Junior Tag Team Championship match still fresh in the memory, and Bets of the Super Juniors right in front, RPG 3K and BUSHI and Takagi will be particularly eager to make an impact.
In the fifth match of the evening, a junior heavyweight dream team of Dragon Lee and Will Ospreay will be facing Taiji Ishimori and… ‘X’. Lee and Ishimori will be feeling the effects of their prior night’s main event IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship match, but Ishimori has an interesting trick up his sleeve in the form of his mystery partner.
Keen eyed viewers of the series of videos that played during the New Japan Cup may have their own theories as to who ‘X’ will be. We’ll soon find out the truth, a year removed from Ishimori himself being revealed as the Bone Soldier in the same building at Dontaku 2018.
In the fourth match of the night, Juice Robinson, Mikey Nicholls, Tomoaki Honma and Hirooki Goto will take on Jay White, Hikuleo, Bad Luck Fale and Chase Owens. This Bullet Club and CHAOS/Hontai hybrid team have been at each other’s throats for the entire tour; how will this final match play out? And what does the Switchblade have up his sleeve as he ends his first tour without the IWGP Heavyweight Championship?
Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa and Jado will face Togi Makabe, Toru Yano and Jyushin Thunder Liger in what’s sure to be an emotional night for Liger. The Fukuoka native will be wrestling the last Dontaku match of his career here before retirement in the Tokyo Dome in 2020.
We’ll also see ten man tag action as Jeff Cobb, YOSHI-HASHI, Toa Henare, Tiger Mask and Ryusuke Taguchi go up against Taichi, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Minoru Suzuki, El Desperado and TAKA Michinoku.
The fiery Young Lions will kick off the night’s action as Yuuya Uemura and Yota Tsuji face Ren Narita and Shota Umino.
