page_title: Ōdō Tournament
section_title: 2013
hierarchical_section_title: Ōdō Tournament / 2013
caption_attribution_description: English: Yokozuna Akebono at his retirement ceremony. Photo by Philbert Ono.
context_page_description: Ōdō Tournament is a professional wrestling tournament held annually by All Japan Pro Wrestling since 2013. The single-elimination tournament is a spiritual successor to the Open Championship tournament, which was held in 1975. Typically, the winner of the tournament earns a future match for the Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship.
context_section_description: The 2013 Ōdō Tournament took place between September 11 and 23 and featured sixteen wrestlers. The participants and brackets were revealed on August 11. Included were the reigning Triple Crown Heavyweight Champion Suwama and four outside wrestlers; Mexican AAA representative Dark Cuervo, American freelancers D'Lo Brown and Low Ki and Austrian freelancer Bambi Killer. As part of the openweight nature of the tournament, Atsushi Aoki, Kotaro Suzuki and World Junior Heavyweight Champion Yoshinobu Kanemaru from AJPW's junior heavyweight division also entered the tournament. The tournament marked the first tour under an AJPW contract for longtime freelancer Akebono, who signed his contract on September 1. On September 15, Suwama, the reigning Triple Crown Heavyweight Champion, was eliminated from the tournament in the second round by his former Last Revolution tag team partner Joe Doering. After being eliminated from the tournament on September 16 by Akebono, Low Ki was sidelined for the rest of his AJPW tour with an abdominal injury. The injury eventually led to Low Ki announcing his retirement from professional wrestling on October 14 due to AJPW supposedly not honoring their contractual obligation of medical care. He, however, returned to the ring the following summer. On September 23, Akebono defeated Go Shiozaki in the finals of the tournament to become the first Ōdō Tournament winner. Following the win, Akebono went on to defeat Suwama on October 27 to win the Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship for the first time.
caption: Akebono, the winner of the 2013 Ōdō Tournament
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