Wrestle Peter Pan (2021)

Promotional poster for the event, featuring various DDT wrestlers

### Tagline(s)

"This is DDT Pro Wrestling!" (Japanese: これがDDTのプロレスだ!, Hepburn: *Kore ga DDT no puroresuda!*)

## Information

### City

Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan

**Wrestle Peter Pan 2021** was a professional wrestling event promoted by CyberFight's sub-brand DDT Pro-Wrestling (DDT). The show took place on August 21, 2021, at the Fujitsu Stadium Kawasaki in Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan. This was the thirteenth Peter Pan and the third 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 Jun Akiyama defending the KO-D Openweight Championship against the winner of the 2021 King of DDT Konosuke Takeshita. The event aired live on CyberAgent's Abema TV online linear television service and DDT's streaming service Wrestle Universe. This was the first Peter Pan event to take place outside of Tokyo.

The event also featured two other title matches with Yuki Ueno defending the DDT Universal Championship against Daisuke Sasaki and Eruption (Kazusada Higuchi, Yukio Sakaguchi, and Saki Akai) defending the KO-D 6-Man Tag Team Championship against DAMNATION (Tetsuya Endo, Soma Takao, and Yuji Hino).

## 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 March 28, 2021 with the event taing place at the Fujitsu Stadium Kawasaki on August 21, 2021. The venue is 6,000-seat high school football stadium built on the site of the Kawasaki Stadium used by Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling for its annual Anniversary Show from 1991 to 1997. On June 7, 2021, DDT announced that event would include two rings, with one ring being reserved for a Explosion Deathmatch, which featured Atsushi Onita for the first time in the promotion's history. Later thst day, it was announced that TAMURA and Raimu Imai from Pro Wrestling HEAT-UP would both be taking part of 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.

### Storylines

The Wrestle Peter Pan 2021 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 2021 was main evented by Jun Akiyama defending the KO-D Openweight Championship against the winner of the 2021 King of DDT Konosuke Takeshita. The storyline behind the match dates back to June 2020, when Takeshita challenged Akiyama to a match, which culminated into a feud, where Takeshita suffured back-to-back losses to Akiyama by submission, with the later being on December 27 in the finals of the 2020 D-Oh Grand Prix. Takeshita then started a stoyline, where the losses to Akiyama had broken him mentally, causing him to enter a slump. Despite forming the the 37KAMIINA stable, a frustrating string of bad results, led Takeshita to sabbatical month to American promotion All Elite Wrestling (AEW), before returning in May. Following his return, Takeshita started to have more success, winning the 2021 Ultimate Tag League and the KO-D Tag Team Championship with 37KAMIINA stablemate Shunma Katsumata, before defeating Yuji Hino on July 4 in the finals to win the 2021 King of DDT, earning his spot the main event for Peter Pan. On August 15 at Summer Vacation, Takeshita and Shunma Katsumata defeated Akiyama and Yusuke Okada to retain the KO-D Tag Team Championship. Leading to the event, it was announced that Kenta Kobashi would be a special guest to witness the main event. During Akiyama's title defenses that Kobashi witnessed, Akiyama never loss. Also, prior to the title match, Takashita stated he wanted to prove there was no correct answer for professional wrestling, the DDT style can be just as effective as *King’s Road* was for Akiyama.

On June 10, during the first round of 2021 King of DDT, Daisuke Sasaki defeated DDT Universal Champion Yuki Ueno, after cheating to win the match. On July 15, following another loss to Sasaki in a tag team match, Ueno challenged him to a title match for the DDT Universal Championship at Peter Pan in order to win back his pride and having a fair match, which was made official by DDT General Manager Hisaya Imabayashi, before shaking hands. Afterwards, Sasaki low blowed Ueno, before stealing the DDT Universal Championship belt in order to humiliate him even further. On July 23, Ueno pinned Sasaki during a tag team match, before asking for Sasaki to return the title belt, which he refused. On August 17 during a press conference, Imabayashi convinced Sasaki to return the title belt, in order to sign the match contract but Sasaki did not attend the signing. Instead he a pre-tapped message to Ueno, before attacking him and stealing the title belt again.

On July 18, DAMNATION (Tetsuya Endo, Soma Takao and Yuji Hino) successfully defended the KO-D 6-Man Tag Team Championship against MAO, Shunma Katsumata and Yuki Ueno. Afterwards, Eruption led by Saki Akai, challenged DAMNATION to a title match. Endo accepted under the condition that Eruption would never appear in Shiroishi again if they lost. This led to Hisaya Imabayashi making the title match official at Peter Pan. The match also reignited Endo and Higuchi's rivalry. Hino stated Eruption were competing with a handicap, due to having a woman on their team.

In June, it was announced that Atsushi Onita would pe competing in an exploding ring deathmatch at the event. This led Onita to ask DDT to book the match at the pre-show, due to the preperations for the match. In December 2020, comedian Kuro-chan pinned Onita in an Electric Current Explosion Deathmatch. Afterwards, Kuro-chan avoided all of Onita’s calls for a rematch. Sanshiro Takagi needing to find wrestlers for the pre-show explosion match, as a throwback to the days when FMW held its anniversary shows at the Kawasaki Stadium, Takagi announced the rematch. Kuro-Chan did not wanted to take part of the match, but his manager Super Sasadango Machine convinced him to take part, after revealing that Hikari Noa wanted to team with him. Tetsuhiro Kuroda was also announced for his team. Meanwhile, it was announced that Onita would be teaming with Takagi, Akito and Maki Itoh.

On July 15, the DDT Variety Team began challenging each other into various matches at Peter Pan, following a match that ended in a no contest between Danshoku Dino and Kazuki Hirata and Antonio Honda and Toru Owashi. However, DDT General Manager DDT General Manager Hisaya Imabayashi explained to them that there were not many spots available for the matchcard left for singles matches, leading Hirata to suggest two simultaneous singles matches in two rings, which Imabayashi, who appreciated the idea, announced the match for the event.

The event also included the debut of two trainees El Unicorn and Ilusion, as part of DDT's Teenage Project, a talent scouting program designed to lay the foundation of an upcoming new DDT sub-brand. El Unicorn was believed to have already worked for DDT under the name Yuni.

## Notes

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Both matches took place simultaneously in two different rings.
2. ↑ The double match was restarted a second time as a regular six-man tag team bout.