Wrestle Peter Pan (2023)

Promotional poster for the event

**Wrestle Peter Pan 2023** was a professional wrestling event promoted by CyberFight's sub-brand DDT Pro-Wrestling (DDT). The show took place on July 23, 2023, at the Ryōgoku Kokugikan in Tokyo, Japan. This was the fifteenth Peter Pan and the fifth 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 Yuji Hino defending the KO-D Openweight Championship against Chris Brookes. 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 Tetsuya Endo defending the DDT Universal Championship against Matt Cardona and Daisuke Sasaki facing New Japan Pro-Wrestling's El Desperado.

## 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 21, 2023 at Judgment, with the event taking place at the Ryōgoku Kokugikan on July 23, 2023, marking DDT's return to the arena in five years, when the event was held under the Ryōgoku Peter Pan name.

### Storylines

The Wrestle Peter Pan 2023 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 2023 will be main evented by Yuji Hino defending the KO-D Openweight Championship against Chris Brookes. On May 21, Brookes defeated Kazusada Higuchi in the finals to win the 2023 King of DDT, earning his spot the main event for Peter Pan. Afterwards, Brookes announced that he was going to set his sights at the KO-D Openweight Championship. Brookes was pulled from DDT's Yokohama Unlimited Vol. 3 tour due to a shoulder injury, but it was announced that he would be returning before Peter Pan. On June 3, Hino, who was excited for their match, also admitted that he hurt his back, so he proposed that both should agree to give each other time to recover. However, DDT continued booking Hino for matches, leading him to be frustrated with DDT's managment, and promosing to turn their match into Brooks' retirement match, as Brooks did not deserve a title match. On June 13, Hino changed his mind, after Antonio Honda gave Hino a heartfelt speech explaining why Brookes deserved the title match. On July 7, Brookes made his return from injury teaming with CDK teammate Masahiro Takanashi and Hino with Makoto Oishi. The match ended with Hino scoring a direct victory over Brookes, by submitting in the match.

On March 21, Daisuke Sasaki surprisingly announced that while he was injured, instead of staying around in bed, he signed up for a match at Peter Pan, which was revealed to be New Japan Pro-Wrestling's El Desperado in a video package. the two wrestlers had been angling for a match for a long time, after the both faced each other in a tag team match, on December 19, 2022 at TAKATaichi show, where Deseprado teamed with his Suzuki-gun stablemate El Desperado and Sasaki with his DAMNATION T.A stablemate MJ Paul, which ended by disqualification. On May 21, Sasaki urgently called for the media to meet him in the waiting room backstage. There he told them he was waiting for El Desperado to show up, due to NJPW running the next event in Korakuen later in the evening. He claimed he only wanted to meet with Desperado and take a picture together to promote their match at Peter Pan. However the venue staff forced him to leave, despite Sasaki trying to bribe them. On July 7, Desperado made an appearance in DDT confronting Sasaki, before their match at Peter Pan.

On May 14, Saki Akai announced that she was going to retire from professional wrestling on November 12. Before retiring, Akai asked CyberFight's President Sanshiro Takagi a match for she had the most affection the KO-D 6-Man Tag Team Championship, alongside her Eruption stablemates Yukio Sakaguchi and Hideki Okatani, which Takagi accepted.

On May 21, Tetsuya Endo called for DDT to reveal the big announcement that they were teasing regarding a former WWE wrestler challenging Endo. Afterwards, it was revealed, in a video package that Matt Cardona (formerly known as Zack Ryder in WWE) would face Endo for the DDT Universal Championship at Peter Pan. Endo was not impressed, as he expected a big name but the announcment exceeded his expectations in a bad way.

On June 13, during a backstage interview, Yuki Ueno unexpectedly threw out a challenge to The 37KAMIINA stablemate Konosuke Takeshita to a match at Peter Pan. During the year, they had two singles matches, once for a 10 minute exhibition match on January 5 and another for DDT’s show in Los Angeles on March 30.