SEKAI NO KAI - Ep #7 ~ TIGER'S Festival + 3 title matches!!

We are getting close to 10/24 and the upcoming TIGER’S FESTIVAL. For some history on the tournament, for many years it was owned by ASTONISHING TIGER!, a literary magazine and imprint of Esuki (絵好き) Media based out of Yokohama. Responding to struggling sales, the staff thought that a one-off pro-wrestling tournament themed around one of the serialized stories from the literary magazine might be a nice way to drum up new business. One of the more popular stories was the Tiger Chronicles, the adventures of a tiger with genius-level intelligence who could teleport to other planets and would appear in humanoid form, only returning to the form of a tiger once back on earth. Pitching the idea of a pro-wrestling event to the corporate executives at Esuki would afford a trial run beginning in 2001. The tournament was an immediate success and ran until 2007 when ASTONISHING TIGER! closed its doors in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis, canceling the planned 2008 show.

This year represents the 25th anniversary of the founding of the literary magazine as well as the 10th anniversary of ASTONISHING TIGER! closing its doors. Hoping to bring the literary magainze back in an ezine format and seeing the widespread boom of pro-wrestling in Japan, Esuki Media decided to hold the one-off tournament once again for promotional purposes. Eight fighters will compete in a single-elimination tournament which includes stalwarts such as Tokyo Zombie, Mike Musket, and Daichi Kusumoto; relative newcomers such as Go Gensai, Frank Dylan James, and Kota X Shoju; and MAX Dojo students KOSUKE and Umetaro Sakamoto. The quarterfinals will be contested under the sport form rules while the semis and final will be fought under traditional pro-wrestling rules.

Let’s not forget some of the other important matches on the card. Jun Vegas and GRIM will square off in singles competition, a singles rematch of the recent encounter with the World Tag Team Championship in play. Additionally, ZENKI and Falcon Hamada will take on Shinjiro Nakama and Balloon Yamazaki. Despite’s Zenki’s win over Nakama on 10/14, the Mountain has vowed that he will roar back stronger than ever.

Let’s take a break and we’ll be back after this messages…

Folks, while we’ve been on commercial we’ve received some late breaking news about MJPW’s schedule from 11/3-11/15. We’ve received a report that it will be referred to as the THREE KINGDOMS tour and consist of a 3-night mini-tour in Ōsaka where each night one of the three titles will be defended. The first night will feature the Jr. title, the second night we’ll have a defense of the World Tag Team titles, and on the third night we will see “Demon Lord” ZENKI attempt his V2 defense of the MAX Heavyweight Championship.

This is big news! Hopefully, we get an official update from GM Masaaki Sano in the upcoming days.