Wrestle Peter Pan 2022

Promotional poster for the event

### Tagline(s)

"A star that burns midsummer nights." (Japanese: 真夏の夜を、燃やす星。, Hepburn: *Manatsu no yoru wo, moyasu hoshi.*)

## Information

### City

Tokyo, Japan

**Wrestle Peter Pan 2022** was professional wrestling event promoted by CyberFight's sub-brand DDT Pro-Wrestling (DDT). The show took place on August 20, 2022, at the Ota City General Gymnasium in Tokyo, Japan. This was the fourteenth Peter Pan and the fourth promoted under the Wrestle Peter Pan name, 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 Kazusada Higuchi defending the KO-D Openweight Championship against Tetsuya Endo. The event aired live on CyberAgent's Abema TV online linear television service and DDT's streaming service Wrestle Universe. The event also featured two other title matches with Masahiro Takanashi defending the DDT Universal Championship against Yuki Ueno and Joey Janela defending the DDT Extreme Division Championship against Shunma Katsumata in a Special Hardcore match.

Due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the event had some restrictions in attendance, following the declaration of the State of Emergency in Japan.

## Production

### Background

Since 2009, DDT began annually producing shows in the Ryōgoku Kokugikan held in the summer, following the promotions financial success of the first event. This led to the event, becoming DDT's premier annual event and the biggest event in the independent circuit of Japanese wrestling. Since 2019, the event was renamed "Wrestle Peter Pan", the Peter Pan shows have been broadcast on pay-per-view (PPV).

Wrestle Peter Pan was officially announced on April 18, 2022 with the event taing place at the Ota City General Gymnasium on August 20, 2022, marking DDT's return to the arena and Tokyo area with last Peter Pan event held at the arena being in 2019. On May 1, at Mega Max Bump, it was announced Dick Togo would be appearing at the event, marking his first appearance for the promotion since May 26, 2019. On May 22, DDT announced that Kota Umeda would return to the promotion for the first time in 3 years. On June 19, it was announced that Joey Janela would take part in the show. On July 3, DDT announced on that Konosuke Takeshita was going to return to the promotion at the event.

As part of a storyline, on July 7, DDT's President Sanshiro Takagi publicly admitted that only 497 tickets had been sold to the event. Takagi announced that he wanted the promotion's attendance numbers to return to their previous numbers before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and as such in order to motivate the roster into selling more tickets, the quality of DDT’s company lunch boxes were determined by the number of tickets were sold for the show.

#### Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, other wrestling promotions began to cancel or postpone their shows in an attempt to prevent further spreading of the COVID-19 virus. At the end of February 2020, DDT began holding shows with no audience and only essential staff present. DDT's sister promotion Pro Wrestling Noah began holding shows behind closed doors in an empty TV studio under NOAH TV name, with the shows being streamed in the DDT Universe. The 2020 Wrestle Peter Pan event was originally to take place at the Super Saitama Arena in Saitama solely on June 7, 2020 but in May DDT started doing the same as NOAH, with all of their programming being relocated to the DDT TV Show Studio. On April 23, DDT announced that the 2020 Wrestle Peter Pan would be postponed, due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, following Japan's declaration of State of Emergency, before on May 16, the event was rescheduled to take place on June 6 and June 7, with the event being moved to the DDT TV Show Studio in Tokyo, without an audience and the event would be broadcasted live on AmebaTV and CyberAgent's streaming service Wrestle Universe. On May 25, 2022, DDT announced that cheering crowds would return on July 7 due to change in Japan's governament COVID-19 regulations.

### Storylines

The Wrestle Peter Pan 2022 featured 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 2022 was main evented by Kazusada Higuchi defending the KO-D Openweight Championship against Tetsuya Endo. On July 3, 2022, Higuchi defeated Naomi Yoshimura in the finals to win the 2022 King of DDT and become the new KO-D Openweight Champion. After being recognized by DDT's President Sanshiro Takagi as the symbol of DDT's strength, Higuchi decided to nominated Tetsuya Endo as his first challenger at Peter Pan. Afterwards, Endo made his return from injury, confirming his in-ring return on July 24, after being sidelined with a concussion for a month. On July 24, after making his in-ring return from injury, Endo confronted Higuchi following his match, thanking him for the oppurtunity, before turning down his nomination, only for Endo to challenge him instead, setting the main event of Peter Pan.

In June 2022, Sanshiro Takagi teased that an international wrestler would be making his debut for DDT at Peter Pan. That wrestler was revealed on June 19 to be Joey Janela, with his opponent being Shunma Katsumata in a hardcore match. In response to the announcement, Katsumamta began calling himself as the "The Happy Boy", as a parody to Janela's nickname "The Bad Boy". Initially announced as a hardcore match, after Janela defeated Akito to win the DDT Extreme Division Championship, Katsumata challenged Janela to put his title on the line for their match, which DDT's General Manager Hisaya Imabayashi accepted, setting up the title match at Peter Pan.

On July 24, after successfully defending the DDT Universal Championship against Yusuke Okada, Masahiro Takanashi was looking for challengers from the younger generation, leading him to nominate Yuki Ueno as his next challenger for his title at Peter Pan, as in his view, Ueno was the opponent he could not miss in DDT's newest generation of wrestlers. Okada himself had originally brought him up as his potential next challenger if he became champion.

On July 7, following a eight-man tag team, Yukio Sakaguchi, invited Saki Akai into the ring in order for to make a request. She got the attention and asked to team with him at Peter Pan, which he accepted, due to being the coach for the DDT roster, but on the condition that it was a mixed tag team match. The following day, ASUKA and Chris Brookes were announced as their opponents.

On July 16, Naomi Yoshimura proposed a reunion with Kota Umeda and Keisuke Okuda at Peter Pan, with whom he worked with in DDT's former sub-brand DDT New Attitude (DNA). During their time in DNA, Yoshimura led a stable name Naomi Kingdom, where Okuda was part of the unit and Umeda was their biggest rival. Three days later, DDT announced their opponents would be his former partner HARASHIMA and Eruption's Hideki Okatani and Yukio Sakaguchi. On August 3, at a press conference, Okuda revealed that Yoshimura and Kazusada Higuchi's where reminding him their time at DNA. Afterwards, he began provoking Sakaguchi, leading to a brawl between both sides, with Sakaguchi threatening to use a glass bottle on Okuda.

On July 3, Konosuke Takeshita announced that he would be returning to DDT temporarily at Peter Pan. Over the following weeks, Daisuke Sasaki, who opposed Takeshita's return, invited his master Dick Togo to return to DDT to team with him and DAMNATION T.A KANON to face Takeshita, offering a olive branch to Togo. This led to Takeshita chosing MAO and Yasu Urano as his partners, with Urano being picked due to particularly knowing Sasaki and Togo ring styles.