AJPW 4/8/2005 Results

The first day of the 2005 Champion Carnival got off to an interesting start. The first tournament match of the show saw Love Machine Arashi defeat Jr. heavyweight Shuji Kondo in an great openweight match. Kondo was outsized, but showed his strength on several occasions as he bodyslammed and vertical suplexed the 300lbs plus Arashi! But the masked veteran overcame his opponent on this night as he powerbombed Kondo for the win to get his first points of the Tournament. The next Carnival match saw Keiji Mutoh beat RO&D's Buchanan. The big gaijin had the power advantage, but Mutoh's skill and experiance won out as he contantly attacked Buchanan's legs with low dropkicks and figure-four leglocks before scoring the win with his trademark Shining Wizard. Toshiaki Kawada totally dominated Tomoaki Honma in their Carnival match, beating him quikly with a barrage of kicks and strikes before winning the match with a powerbomb just over 10-minutes into the match. Kawada commented after the match that his opponent the next day would be Keiji Mutoh, so he wanted to end the match quickly to keep himself fresh, as Mutoh himself had a very tough contest against Buchanan which went almost 20 minutes. Jamal scored his first Carnival win over veteran Hiroshi Hase. Jamal dominated early with his size and power before Hase moved in and attacked and stretched the big man with a series of submission holds. Jamal battled back with big power moves and won the match surprisingly with a big release German-suplex. The final Carnival match of the day was the highly anticipated Satoshi Kojima - Kensuke Sasaki match. Sasaki dominated Kojima early on with big suplexes and backdrops, but Kojima rallied back and countering Sasaki's powerbomb attempts and hitting the Koji-Cutter followed by several backdrops of his own. Sasaki would battle back with a lariat and hit a Tornado-bomb for a near fall, but Kojima would rally back and score a big upset win with his trademark Lariat. The match was voted best tournament match of the night by the fans in attendance. AJPW Champion Carnival - 4/8/05 Tokyo Korakuen Hall TARU & “brother” YASSHI beat Kaz Hayashi & Taichi Ishikari in 13:48 when TARU pinned Ishikari with a head kick. 68% Champion Carnival '05 - Block A: Love Machine Arashi (2) beat Shuji Kondo (0) in 11:26 with the Arashi-otoshi. 70% Champion Carnival '05 - Block B: Keiji Muto (2) beat Buchanan (0) in 19:16 with a Shining Wizard. 84% Nobutaka Araya & Shigeo Okamura beat Hideki Hosaka & Nobukazu Hirai in 28:13 when Araya pinned Hosaka with a moonsault press. 97% Champion Carnival '05 - Block B: Toshiaki Kawada (2) beat Tomoaki Honma (0) in 10:04 with a powerbomb-pin. 62% Champion Carnival '05 - Block B: Jamal (2) beat Hiroshi Hase (0) in 14:03 with a release German-suplex. 61% Champion Carnival '05 - Block A: Satoshi Kojima (2) beat Kensuke Sasaki (0) in 14:02 with a lariat. 90% Day 1 Point Standings: Block A Satoshi Kojima - 2pts Love Machine Arashi - 2pts Kensuke Sasaki - 0pts Tiayo Kea - 0pts Shuji Kondo - 0pts Giant Bernard - 0pts Block B Keiji Mutoh - 2pts Toshiaki Kawada - 2pts Jamal - 2pts Hiroshi Hase - 0pts Buchanan - 0pts Tomoaki Honma - 0pts