Ryōgoku Peter Pan (2015)

Promotional poster for the event, featuring various wrestlers

**Ryōgoku Peter Pan 2015** was a professional wrestling event promoted by DDT Pro-Wrestling (DDT). The event took place on August 23, 2015, in Tokyo at the Ryōgoku Kokugikan. The event was the seventh event under the Peter Pan name and the sixth promoted under the Ryōgoku 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 Kudo defending the KO-D Openweight Championship against his *Shuten-dōji* stablemate and winner of the 2015 King of DDT Yukio Sakaguchi. Another high-profile match scheduled for the show featured HARASHIMA facing NJPW's Hiroshi Tanahashi as part of a working relationship between DDT and NJPW. The event aired live on Fighting TV Samurai as a pay-per-view (PPV) and later aired on tape delay at TV Tokyo.

The event also featured three other title matches with Antonio Honda defending the DDT Extreme Division Championship against Masa Takanashi in a Blindfold Bra Stripping Tiger Trap Deathmatch, Team Dream Futures (Keisuke Ishii, Shigehiro Irie, and Soma Takao) defending the KO-D 6-Man Tag Team Championship against #OhkaEmpire (Danshoku Dino, Super Sasadango Machine and Ken Ohka) and Strong BJ (Daisuke Sekimoto and Yuji Okabayashi) defending the KO-D Tag Team Championship against Golden☆Storm Riders (Kota Ibushi and Daisuke Sasaki). The event also featured one of the matches of Genichiro Tenryu multi promotional "Retirement Road" tour.

## 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. Leading to the event, it was announced that the event would air on tape delay at TV Tokyo, on October 18.

### Storylines

The Ryōgoku Peter Pan 2015 event featured ten 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 Ryōgoku Peter Pan was main evented by Kudo defending the KO-D Openweight Championship against his *Shuten-dōji* stablemate and winner of the 2015 King of DDT Yukio Sakaguchi. On June 28, both Ken Ohka and Yasu Urano cashed in their own Right to Challenge Anytime, Anywhere contracts, leading to a three-way match, where Kudo lost the KO-D Openweight Championship to Ohka. However, as he was not pinned in the match, Kudo retained his "Right to Challenge Anytime, Anywhere" contract and immediately afterwards cashed it in for a singles match, where he defeated Ohka to regain the title. Later that night, Sakaguchi defeated Konosuke Takeshita in the finals to win the 2015 King of DDT, setting up the main event for Peter Pan. The following day, it was announced that their match would be sponsored by real estate corporation Good Com Asset, with the winner being rewarded ¥2,000,000. Tensions began arising between Kudo and Sakaguchi, with Kudo started to question whether or not Sakaguchi deserved an opportunity for the title after Sakaguchi entered in a losing streak, which began on July 5. On July 11, after *Shuten-dōji* unsuccessfully challenged Team Dream Futures (Keisuke Ishii, Shigehiro Irie, and Soma Takao) for the KO-D 6-Man Tag Team Championship, Kudo was furious towards Sakaguchi for being pinned in the match, leading Sakaguchi to request to be removed from the match. Afterwards, Shigehiro Irie requested to have an opportunity for the KO-D Openweight Championship, leading DDT General Manager Amon Tsurumi to book a match between Sakaguchi and Irie, with the winner facing Kudo at Peter Pan on July 19, which Sakaguchi won, leading him to regain his confidence. During this storyline between Kudo and Sakaguchi, their *Shuten-dōji* stablemate was Masa Takanashi caught in the middle of Kudo and Sakaguchi, with Takanashi usually acting as a peacemaker between the two. On August 9, Kudo, and Sakaguchi faced each other in a six-man tag team match, which Kudo's team won. Afterwards, Kudo and Sakaguchi decided to put aside their differences before the event.

Also on June 28, Hiroshi Tanahashi made a surprise an appearance for DDT to announce he would be appearing at Peter Pan. Afterwards, he challenged his DDT counterpart HARASHIMA to match at Peter Pan, which he accepted. The match marked Tanahashi's second appearance at Peter Pan since the previous years Ryōgoku Peter Pan. Billed as the "ace of DDT vs. the ace of NJPW", both HARASHIMA and Tanahashi were seen as the leading stars of their respective promotions with HARASHIMA holding the KO-D Openweight and Tanahashi the IWGP Heavyweight Championships a record of seven times in both titles history as well other accomplishments in their respective promotions.

On July 5, Golden☆Storm Riders (Kota Ibushi and Daisuke Sasaki) defeated Happy Motel (Antonio Honda and Konosuke Takeshita) to become the 1º contenders to KO-D Tag Team Championship. Afterwards, reigning KO-D Tag Team Champions Strong BJ (Daisuke Sekimoto and Yuji Okabayashi), who were in attendance confronted Golden☆Storm Riders. In their final match before the event, Strong BJ teamed with Big Japan Pro Wrestling's Hideoyoshi Kamitani in a winning effort against Golden☆Storm Riders and Suguru Miyatake. Meanwhile, Sasaki faced Okabayashi in a singles match, which Okabayashi ended up victories. On August 20, in a press conference, before the match, Sasaki claimed that he and Ibushi had a 65% chance of winning the match, which Okabayashi responded by stating that he and Sekimoto would crush the challengers with 120% of their strength before are arguing over percentages.

On August 8, Danshoku Dino and Super Sasadango Machine asked Ken Ohka to team with them in order to challenge Team Dream Futures (Keisuke Ishii, Shigehiro Irie, and Soma Takao) for the KO-D 6-Man Tag Team Championship at Peter Pan, but Ohka refused due to DDT being Ganbare☆Puroresu's enemy. However, after Ohka won an eleven-man falls count anywhere match, Ohka decided to accept Dino and Sasadango's request. On August 20, in a press conference, before the match, Ohka took offense of complement made by Keisuke Ishii dared him to slap him, which he did, followed by Soma Takao. Ohka then dared Shigehiro Irie to hit him, leading Irie to give him a headbutt. The challengers left to get Ohka some treatment but he returned and dared Irie to headbutt him again, which he did.

On February 7, 2015, it was reported that Genichiro Tenryu had decided to retire from professional wrestling with his final match scheduled to take place later in the year. In the meantime, he embarked on a multi promotional "Retirement Road" tour that would make a stop at Peter Pan. On June 28, it was announced that Genichiro Tenryu would team with Sanshiro Takagi and Saki Akai in a mixed six-person tag team match at the event with their opponents being revealed on a later date. Takagi's original idea was for Akai facing Tenryu in a match. On July 21, it was announced that Kazusada Higuchi, Meiko Satomura, and Shuji Ishikawa would face Akai, Takagi, and Tenryu at the event.

## Event

The dark match was a King of Dark Championship match between "Hollywood" Stalker Ichikawa from Dragon Gate and Gota Ihashi. Per the rules of the championship, losing the match caused Ihashi to retain the title.

On the main card, the second match of the evening was the debut match of Mao Inoue and Mizuki Watase.

The next match was a Rumble rules match in which tag teams competed by entering the match one after another at regular intervals. Amongst the participants were The Great Kojika from Big Japan Pro Wrestling who teamed up with Gorgeous Matsuno, and Aja Kong from Oz Academy who teamed up with Makoto Oishi. The match also saw the professional wrestling debut of LiLiCo, a comedian and TV personality who had already taken part in several DDT events in previous years.

The next match was a "Blindfold Bra Stripping Tiger Trap Deathmatch" sponsored by Uchicomi! in which Antonio Honda defended the DDT Extreme Division Championship against Masa Takanashi. In this match, both participants were blindfolded, wore a bra and a giant tiger trap was set up in the middle of the ring. There were no pinfalls or submissions and the only way to win was to be the first to completely remove their opponent's bra.

In the next match, Tetsuya Endo made his return after suffering a leg injury in April.

The next match was the sixteenth match of the "Genichiro Tenryu Retirement Road" tour that saw the participation of Meiko Satomura from Sendai Girls' Pro Wrestling.

The eighth match saw Strong BJ (Daisuke Sekimoto and Yuji Okabayashi) from Big Japan Pro Wrestling defend the KO-D Tag Team Championship against the Golden☆Storm Riders (Kota Ibushi and Daisuke Sasaki).

In the next match, HARASHIMA faced Hiroshi Tanahashi from New Japan Pro-Wrestling.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `PeterPan2015CM`
2. ↑ Grabianowski, Ed. How Pro Wrestling Works . *HowStuffWorks, Inc.*. Discovery Communications. Retrieved on 2014-09-13.
3. ↑ 天龍源一郎　現役引退を決意  (in Japanese). *Daily Sports Online*. Kobe Shimbun (2015-02-07). Retrieved on 2015-02-07.
4. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `DDT2015PL`
5. ↑ *ja:DDT “両国ピーターパン2015～DDTより愛をこめて～” 8/23 両国国技館大会その３* (in Japanese). *Extreme Party*. Retrieved on 2020-01-29.