Looking at Puroresu in September 2013

A look at Puroresu in September 2013



New Japan will hold their Road to Destruction tour from September 5th to September 28th. The company will hold their Destruction 2013 on September 29th. The main event is Kazuchika Okada making his fourth defense of the IWGP Heavyweight Championship against former 2-time champion Satoshi Kojima. The show will also feature a series of rematches including Shinsuke Nakamura defending the IWGP Intercontinental Championship against Shelton Benjamin, Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Prince Devitt, Toru Yano vs. Minoru Suzuki, and Masato Tanaka defending the NEVER Openweight Championship against Tetsuya Naito who will put up his January 4th Tokyo Dome title shot.

(Thoughts: The main event looks good and the matches should be fun but this is lazy. The IC Title match is the weakest as Nakamura's current gimmick doesn't do it for me and Benjamin is stale. It's also sad that New Japan has one of the most stacked rosters yet they insist on doing 15,000 rematches. Quality wise, the matches should be good but it would be nice to get some fresh stuff outside the main event.)

All Japan will be hold their Royal Road 2013 - Open Championship tour which will run from September 11th to September 23rd. The show will feature a single elimination tournament with the winner possibly facing Suwama for the Triple Crown at the 41st Anniversary Show on October 27th (as long as Suwama doesn't win it). The participants include Suwama, SUSHI, KENSO, Joe Doering, Akebono, all five members of Burning as well as some outsiders including D-Lo Brown, Bambikiller, Low Ki, and Kento Miyahara.

(Thoughts: Should be an interesting tournament. Not sure who will win but it could build a credible challenger for Suwama.)

Pro Wrestling NOAH will hold their Shiny Navigation 2013 tour from September 7th to September 23rd. The event will feature not one but two GHC Heavyweight Title matches. GHC Champion KENTA will defend the championship against one-half of the tag team champions Shane Haste. The winner will face the other half of the tag team champions Mikey Nicholls. Also on September 16th, New Japan's Jushin Thunder Liger and Tiger Mask IV will return to defend the GHC Junior Tag Team Championship against Daisuke Harada and Hitoshi Kumano.

(Thoughts: Nice to see the GHC Heavyweight Championship being defended twice this month. It's also a good move since KENTA continues to look like a dominate champion which NOAH desperately needs and it doesn't hurt Haste and Nicholls since they're a tag team and thus out of their element. It's also nice to see NOAH give their up and comers a chance to shine against legends cause NOAH can always use more stars to build.)

Keiji Mutoh's new promotion WRESTLE-1 will debut in September with the first show being held on September 8th. The promotion will feature the All Japan wrestlers that left the company following the June 30th Sumo Hall show.

(Thoughts: I don't know about this promotion. Mutoh had to sell All Japan for a reason and the Japanese Wrestling scene has a lot of promotions. This promotion comes off like Inoki's IGF promotion with Mutoh being in the Inoki position. Like Inoki, his promotion was running out of money, he had to sell, then he didn't like what the new owners were doing, so he quits and forms his own company and run it his way.)

ZERO1 will hold their Tenka-ichi Junior heavyweight tournament on September 6 and September 16th.