Wrestle Peter Pan (2019)

Promotional poster for the event, featuring various DDT wrestlers

### Tagline(s)

"DDT Pro-Wrestling, "all seats free" big match" (Japanese: DDTプロレス“全席無料”のビッグマッチ, Hepburn: *DDT puroresu "zenseki muryō" no biggu matchi*)

## Information

### City

Tokyo, Japan

**Wrestle Peter Pan 2019** was a professional wrestling event promoted by DDT Pro-Wrestling (DDT). The show took place on July 15, 2019, at the Ota City General Gymnasium in Tokyo, Japan. This was the eleventh Peter Pan and the first promoted under the Wrestle Peter Pan name and was the first Peter Pan event to have its name written in rōmaji, which is DDT's biggest annual event and has been called "the largest wrestling show in the Japanese independent circuit".

The event was headlined by Tetsuya Endo defending the KO-D Openweight Championship against the winner of the 2019 King of DDT Konosuke Takeshita. The event aired live on CyberAgent's Abema TV online linear television service and DDT's streaming service DDT Universe. Wrestlers from DDT's Joshi's sub-brand Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling (TJP) appeared on the show.

The event also featured three other title matches with Sanshiro Takagi facing Super Sasadango Machine in a Weapon Rumble match to crown the inaugural O-40 Champion, DAMNATION (Daisuke Sasaki and Soma Takao) defending the KO-D Tag Team Championship against UraShima (HARASHIMA and Yasu Urano), Akito defending the DDT Extreme Division Championship against ASUKA in a Ippon Fluorescent Light Tube Deathmatch and Toru Owashi defending the Ironman Heavymetalweight Championship in a Rumble rules match.

## Production

### Background

Since 2009, DDT began annually producing shows in the *Ryōgoku Kokugikan* held in the summer under the name Peter Pan, becoming DDT premier annual event and the biggest event in the independent circuit of Japanese wrestling. Following the financial success of the first and following shows, DDT held a show at the Nippon Budokan, which also ended being a success with DDT selling out 10,124 tickets. Since 2013, the event returned to be held at the *Ryōgoku Kokugikan* in August. On December 30, 2018, DDT announced that the event would be renamed to "Wrestle Peter Pan". Instead of the event being held at the traditional *Ryōgoku Kokugikan*, DDT announced that event would be held at Ota City General Gymnasium. The event was the first Peter Pan to have its name written in rōmaji.

Leading to the event, DDT was looking for various sponsors for the show. Their first sponsorship announced on May 28, 2019 with a tax accounting for the dark matches, due to the fact that it wasn't it was never been done before. On the same day, it was announced that Yoshiaki Yatsu, Joey Ryan, Chris Brookes, and Mike Bailey would take part in the show. On June 30, it was announced that Yatsu would not take part in the show after injuring himself during training.

### Storylines

The Wrestle Peter Pan 2019 featured twelve professional wrestling matches that involved different wrestlers from pre-existing scripted feuds and storylines. Wrestlers portrayed villains, heroes, or less distinguishable characters in the scripted events that built tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches.

The Wrestle Peter Pan 2019 was main evented by Tetsuya Endo defending the KO-D Openweight Championship against the winner of the 2019 King of DDT Konosuke Takeshita. In 2013, Endo began teaming with fellow rookie Takeshita, teaming with him in a KO-D Tag Team Championship number one contenders match also featuring Kudo and Yasu Urano, losing to the Golden Lovers (Kota Ibushi and Kenny Omega). Despite losing, Endo and Takeshita eventually formed a team named New Generation Combination and eventually win the KO-D Tag Team Championship two times. Endo and Takeshita also formed the Happy Motel stable with Antonio Honda, and went on to win the KO-D 6 Man Tag Team Championship. Afterwards, Takeshita began being dubbed the "Future of DDT" and started to breakthrough his singles career, leading him to win the KO-D Openweight Championship on May 29, 2016, in his 21st birthday, becoming the youngest KO-D Openweight Champion in history. Meanwhile, Endo began being overshadowed by Takeshita and started to feel as Takeshita's sidekick, leading him to also pursue the KO-D Openweight Championship, but always failing. This culminated on July 17, 2017, with Endo unsuccessfully challenging Takeshita for his KO-D Openweight Championship. After the match, Daisuke Sasaki made his way to the ring, carrying a DAMNATION T-shirt and offering Endo a spot in the group. At the same time, Takeshita offered a handshake as a sign of respect for his longtime friend. Endo pushed Takeshita away, taking the DAMNATION T-shirt instead, attacking Takeshita, joining DAMNATION.

On April 19 at *Max Bump*, Endo and Takeshita faced each other for the KO-D Openweight Championship in a time limit draw. The two met again in the main event of the 2017 Ryōgoku Peter Pan, where Takeshita defeated Endo to retain the KO-D Openweight Championship. On April 4, 2019, at DDT Is Coming to America, Takeshita lost the KO-D Openweight Championship to Endo's DAMNATION stablemate Daisuke Sasaki. Afterwards, Endo cashed in his "Right to Challenge Anytime, Anywhere" contract, on Sasaki to win the KO-D Openwight Championship. Afterwards, Endo began defending the KO-D Openwight Championship against the other holders of the Right to Challenge Anytime, Anywhere Contract. Meanwhile, on May 19, Takeshita defeated Endo's DAMNATION stablemate Soma Takao in the finals to win the 2019 King of DDT, earning his spot the main event for Peter Pan. On June 16, Endo successfully defended the KO-D Openweight Championship against Sanshiro Takagi. Afterwards, Endo pretended to suffer an ankle injury, leading Takagito to replace him in a match against Takeshita and Chris Brookes on June 30. At the event on June 30, after Takeshita won the three-way match, Endo revealed that he wasn't injured after attacking Takeshita with a crutch and laying him out with the *Torture Rack Bomb*. On July 6, Endo and Takeshita faced off in a six-man tag team match, which ended with Endo submitting Takeshita to win the match.

On June 7, it was announced that UraShima (HARASHIMA and Yasu Urano) would be facing DAMNATION (Daisuke Sasaki and Soma Takao) for the KO-D Tag Team Championship at Peter Pan. On June 30, Sasaki and Takao defeated Nautilus (Naomi Yoshimura and Yuki Ueno) to retain the KO-D Tag Team Championship, setting up the match for Peter Pan. Afterwards, UraShima confronted DAMNATION, leading Takao to act like he had bad memories during his time at Smile Squash, despite Takao having turned on HARASHIMA to disband the stable.

On May 19, it was announced that Danshoku Dino would be facing Shinya Aoki. Leading to the event, Dino tried to become immune to all martial arts in order to defeat Aoki. As part of his plan, he faced various professional wrestlers with martial art and combat sports backgrounds in gauntlet matches. On June 30, during the last round of the gauntlet match, Pokotan appeared to cheer Dino. Afterwards, Dino told that he would have the most ridiculous match with Aoki. Afterwards, Pokotan layed out Dino with "*Sleeper hold*", who afterwards, was revealed to be Aoki and told Dino that he didn't like that idea.

On May 25, Akito defeated Antonio Honda in a Yogi Yogi Deathmatch to win the DDT Extreme Division Championship. Afterwards, ASUKA challenged Akito to a title match, leading DDT Assistant Producer Hisaya Imabayashi to announce the for Peter Pan. However, Akito struggled to accept it and started arguing with Imabayashi, but he eventually ended up accepting the match. On June 30, Akito and ASUKA faced off in a tag team match, where ASUKA pinned Akito to win her team the match. Aftwerwards, Akito announced that their match would be a IPPON Lighttube Deathmatch. On July 7, Akito and ASUKA faced each other in a tag team match, where Akito pinned ASUKA.

In June 2019, DDT president Sanshiro Takagi and Super Sasadango Machine were putting together their match for the event, Sasadango felt a championship was needed to make it important, but he also wanted to inspire the DDT fans of their age and tell them they could still perform. The later announced the creation of the O-40 Championship which was considered a parody of NJPW's IWGP U-30 Openweight Championship that existed during the mid 2000s.

## Event

**Other on-screen personnel**
 Ring announcer
 Referees
 Daisuke Kiso

First on the undercard was an exhibition match presented by Hotel Cent Inn Kurashiki between trainee Keigo Nakamura and Kota Umeda.

Next was a six-woman tag team match presented by JPA, an accounting management company, featuring Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling talents.

On the main card, Saki Akai faced Yoshiko from SEAdLINNNG.

Next, Akito defended the DDT Extreme Division Championship against ASUKA in an Ippon Fluorescent Light Tube Deathmatch in which a single light tube was used. Per the rules, whoever would break the tube would be declared the loser of the match.

Before the next match, a backstage segment was shown in which Toru Owashi, the then Ironman Heavymetalweight Champion, broke up an argument between Gorgeous Matsuno and masked wrestler Furitsuke Kamen. Matsuno and Furitsuke began fighting until Furitsuke was unmasked, revealing that he was actually Lucky Ikeda, a well-known *tarento*. In the confusion, Ikeda pinned Owashi to become the 1,375th champion.

During the Rumble rules match, the title went from Ikeda to Matsuno to Tomomitsu Matsunaga to Mad Paulie and then to Kazuki Hirata before Hirata was eventually eliminated by Yukio Sakaguchi. Michiaki Nakano from Souken Holdings, a sponsor of the match, presented Sakaguchi with the match prize then tried to pin him but Sakaguchi stopped him.

Next was a match dubbed "2nd Generation Human Windmill vs. 3rd Generation Taihō" between Hideki Suzuki (whose nickname is "The 2nd Generation Human Windmill") and Yukio Naya (the grandson of Taihō Kōki, the 48th yokozuna in the sport of sumo wrestling).

Sanshiro Takagi faced Super Sasadango Machine in a Weapon Rumble match in which various weapons secretly chosen by the participants beforehand were being introduced one after another at regular intervals. This was a title match for the inaugural O-40 Championship, a title reserved for wrestlers over 40 years old.

Next, mixed martial artist Shinya Aoki faced Danshoku Dino in a match with special rules. The match was limited to ten rounds lasting three minutes each, every odd numbered round would be fought under strict fighting rules with no pins allowed and every even numbered round would be fought under regular professional wrestling rules with "courtship" allowed. Mina Shirakawa was the ring girl for the odd numbered rounds and Yuki Iino was the "ring boy" for the even numbered rounds.

Next, DAMNATION (Daisuke Sasaki and Soma Takao) defended the KO-D Tag Team Championship against the team of HARASHIMA and Yasu Urano in a match sponsored by Souken Holdings.

In the main event, Konosuke Takeshita challenged Tetsuya Endo for the KO-D Openweight Championship. Takeshita won the bout and was granted a 2,000,000 yen prize and one year of Blackout products by Casting Dot JP Co., Ltd., the sponsor of the match.

## Notes

1. ↑ In this context, a light tube breakage.
2. ↑ Matsuno becomes the 1,376th champion.
3. ↑ Matsunaga becomes the 1,377th champion.
4. ↑ Paulie becomes the 1,378th champion.
5. ↑ Hirata becomes the 1,379th champion.