All Japan Pro-Wrestling will be holding their final show of the Summer Action Series 2 tour on August 30. The event will be airing live on AJPW TV from Korakuen Hall at 11:30 JST (Aug 29: 7:30 pm PDT, 10:30 pm EDT; Aug 30: 3:30 am BST. You can subscribe to AJPW TV for the monthly price of 900 yen. However, many Japanese wrestling companies’ streaming services will charge on the first of every month. Therefore, I would suggest that any potential subscribers sign up on the 1st of September, otherwise they will be double charged.
Match 1: Tag Match
Yuma Aoyagi & Atsuki Aoyagi
vs.
Akira Francesco & Rising HAYATO
Every undercard match of this show has at least one Champion Carnival participant in it. In this case, it is Yuma Aoyagi, who has had a rather uneventful 2020 outside of his title match against Kento Miyahara near the beginning of the year. Whether or not he will continue to have an uneventful year is yet to be seen, but I’ll go into that when I do my full preview of the Champion Carnival. Nevertheless, I expect Yuma to get the win here, with HAYATO likely taking the fall.
Match 2: 6-Man Tag Match
Yoshitatsu, Yusuke Okada & Carbell Ito
vs.
Ryouji Sai, Hikaru Sato & Takashi Daimonji
A Pro-Wrestling Land’s End centered match here with both Ryouji Sai and Takashi Daimonji being Land’s End regulars. This is kind of a weird match-up and perhaps even weirder to someone who may not regularly watch All Japan. The casual AJPW viewer may be wondering, “Who the hell is Carbell Ito?” Well, you may have seen a Carbell sign on AJPW ring aprons when watching shows. Carbell is one of All Japan’s sponsors and Carbell Ito is the owner of said sponsor.
So yeah, quite a bizarre match here on the card but I’m genuinely interested in seeing how it all plays out. It’s also neat to see more interactions between Okada and his former stablemate Sato. And I personally have never seen Takashi Daimonji in action before, so I’m curious as to how his output will look in this match. As for who wins, I’m thinking it’ll be Yoshitatsu.
Match 3: 8-Man Tag Match
Takao Omori, Masanobu Fuchi, Black Menso~re & Osamu Nishimura
vs.
Enfants Terribles (Shotaro Ashino, Kuma Arashi, Yusuke Kodama & Hokuto Omori)
The outsiders, the invaders, Enfants Terribles face off against the older legends (and Black Menso~re). The big question that this match will answer is can Enfants Terribles continue gaining momentum? Things have been on an upswing for this group since they’ve been picking more wins after the very bizarre string of losses they suffered last month. Considering both Ashino and Arashi are participating in the Carnival this coming month, it would be silly for either guy to take the fall. The non-participating Kodama and Hokuto are open season for taking a fall, however.
Match 4: Tag Match
JIN (Jake Lee & Fuminori Abe)
vs.
Purple Haze (Zeus & Izanagi)
The recently crowned All Asia Tag champions, Zeus and Izanagi find themselves against a potential future challenging team if Lee or Iwamoto pick up a victory here. This is something, however, that I do not see occurring. Without spoiling too much of my Champion Carnival preview article, I see Jake Lee as someone who will do quite well in terms of points (I’m talking, potentially making the finals) so I’m thinking they’ll have Lee wrapped up in that. Therefore, I see Purple Haze getting the win here, hell let’s have Izanagi get the winning fall again.
Match 5: Austrian EWA Intercontinental Title Match
The 16th Champion, TAJIRI
vs.
The Challenger, UTAMARO
I’m honestly very surprised that this title match was put on this card and not put on the August 23 VOD-only, since TAJIRI’s last EWA Intercontinental Title match was put on a VOD-only show last month. But hey, it gives us another singles match on this card and a match that has stakes involved. Even if the stakes are a C-level title in All Japan, it’s better than nothing. TAJIRI has been holding this EWA Intercontinental title for 419 days now, and I believe that reign will continue on because I cannot see All Japan doing a title change for a title that doesn’t even belong to them. Though if they did, I admit it would be kind of funny.
Match 6: AJPW World Junior Title Match
The 53rd Champion, Koji Iwamoto
vs.
The Challenger, Dan Tamura
This here is the match I am most looking forward to. I think the All Japan Junior Title has gotten a much needed shot in the arm with Yokosuka’s recently ended reign as well as a crop of interesting challengers. Enter another challenger to add to that crop: Dan Tamura. As the newest member of Evolution and the 5th Asunaro Cup winner, Tamura has a lot of momentum on his side. But as the newest World Junior champion, Iwamoto also has a fair amount of momentum. I think it will be Iwamoto continuing his reign here as it’s too early to have another title change.
Main Event: AJPW World Tag Team Title Match
The 87th Champions: Violent Giants (Suwama & Shuji Ishikawa)
vs.
The Challengers, Kento Miyahara & Kuroshio “Ikemen” Jiro
As a complete opposite of the World Junior Title match, this is a match that I’m not particularly excited for. Is it my anti-Jiro bias shining through? Maybe, but I think even if I enjoyed Jiro, I wouldn’t be very excited for this main event. These shenanigans with Jiro just feel so below Kento Miyahara. What’s interesting about this match is this is the only one on the card where a Champion Carnival participant has to take a fall. Well, I mean they could do a time-limit draw but, All Japan, please don’t do that. As for who can take that fall? It has to be Jiro because he’ll likely be playing spoiler for someone in the Carnival anyways, so he doesn’t get negatively affected by a loss.
