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The Pacific Rim Pro Wrestling Podcast is back!
Fumi Saito talks to me about the success of both Queen of Villains in Japan — the story of wrestling legend Dump Matsumoto — as well as the Mr. McMahon docuseries on Netflix.
Plus, CIMA & Shingo, Davey Boy Smith Jr., Wrestle Kingdom & Wrestle Dynasty take shape, NOAH’s Yoshiki Inamura heads to NXT, Fumi’s new book on Rikidozan, and much more.
We’ve been gone awhile, so we tried to make up a lot of ground.
Click Here to Listen (sub needed)
There is a new AJPW Triple Crown Champion.
Davey Boy Smith Jr. defeated Yuma Aoyagi to win the title today at AJPW Giant Series 2024 in Sapporo. He is now the 74th champion in the title’s history.
The finish saw Aoyagi get near falls off a Fisherman buster and a series of pinning combinations, followed by Smith hitting consecutive Saito suplexes and then his Bulldog Bomb for the win.
Smith is the seventh foreigner to win the AJPW Triple Crown, joining a list that includes Terry Gordy, Stan Hansen, “Dr. Death” Steve Williams, Big Van Vader, Taiyo Kea, and Joe Doering.
Aoyagi’s second reign with the title finishes after 79 days and two successful defenses. He defeated the 2023 WON Rookie of the Year, Yuma Anzai, for the belt at AJPW Summer Action Wars in August.
Smith started with AJPW at the end of 2023 and returned for the annual Champion Carnival tournament. He placed second in the A block with a 5-3 record. He signed a deal with the promotion this summer that extends through January and the start of the year shows.
Dave Meltzer has a premium article up on the site now for subscribers on Davey Boy Smith Jr. signing a deal with All Japan Pro Wrestling.
MLW’s Davey Boy Smith Jr. has undergone emergency surgery to remove part of his appendix and colon according to a social media post.
After it was announced Thursday that Smith was forced to withdraw from Saturday’s MLW Slaughterhouse event where he was scheduled to challenge Alex Kane for the company’s World title, Smith posted on Instagram that he had gone emergency surgery.
Smith says that he went in to the hospital expecting to have surgery for appendicitis, but that he also discovered that he was suffering from diverticulitis and that part of his colon would have to be removed.
Smith posted on Instagram:
I wanted to inform everyone officially I needed to have Emergency surgery ⚕️ ❤️ late last night for appendicitis + appendix removal, to find out it was diverticulitis as well. I have had part of colon removed with some of my appendix as well for the procedure . Folks this was one of the most painful experiences of my life, but I’m glad I got it done. A burst appendix can lead to serious complications too. I’m sad to announce my withdrawal from the @majorleaguewrestling World Title Match vs. Alex Kane this weekend in Philadelphia as well . Hopefully I can get this same opportunity in the future when I’m back healthy, and so sorry to my fans, these things happen and was not something I ever want to endure again! Trust me! The was a 12/10 in the pain scale. Arigatou. I’m in stable condition now, but I am still in immense pain I’ll keep everyone posted with updates.
Thanks for everyone reaching out to me also.
-Harry
https://www.instagram.com/p/p:CyUcej1JwIR
Davey Boy Smith Jr. was set to return to WWE under a new name before he was released.
The 36-year-old wrestled a dark match for the promotion on July 16, 2021 but was later let go that November without having appeared on television. During an interview with Inside the Ropes, Smith says he was set to wrestle under the name “The Stampede Stud” before being part of talent cuts that fall.
Following his dark match, Smith says he spoke to Senior Manager of Talent Relations for WWE, John Cone, about his future in the company.
“John Cone said ‘the next time you are going to come to SmackDown it’s going to be your debut’, you did really good [in your dark match], Vince really liked it”
“So I was like, great, I’ll just wait and then they asked me to do a dark match in Tampa and they were going to do some backstage vignettes with me and my father’s leather vest.”
Smith continued to say that his return got stalled after he had a bad case of COVID-19. He said this led to his return falling through the cracks.
“Then I was kind of forgotten about, I came to TV one or two times… I was waiting to come back and then they called and Johnny [ Laurinaitis] said he wasn’t a fan of it [his release], he wasn’t happy with the list of names he was given but it wasn’t from him.”
“I don’t know what they were waiting for, the only thing I was told was, I was going to be debuting on SmackDown and they were going to call me ‘The Stampede Stud’.”
It just never happened, it wasn’t my fault. I showed up more than in shape. I saw Vince and he was like “oh you’re looking good kid.”
Smith is currently wrestling in the NWA as part of the Commonwealth Connection tag team with Doug Williams. They will challenge La Rebelion for the NWA World Tag Team Championships on Saturday at Alwayz Ready. Smith and Williams made it to the finals of the Crockett Cup back in March. They’ve since won two straight matches on episodes of Powerrr.
Four teams have advanced to the semifinals of this year’s Crockett Cup.
The semifinals for tomorrow will have The Cardonas (MSK and Mike Knox) taking on The Briscoes, while La Rebellion (Mecha Wolf and Bestia 666) will face The Commonwealth Connection (Doug Williams and Harry Smith).
La Rebellion advanced after defeating The Tate Twins and PJ Hawx. Hawx competed by himself in the second round match when his father, Luke, suffered a concussion in the first round. The Briscoes defeated The NOW (Hale Collins and Vik Dalishus) and The Dirty Sexy Boys (Dirty Dango and JTG). The Cardonas defeated Mims & The Pope and The Fixers (Jay Bradley and Wrecking Ball Legursky), while The Commonwealth Connection defeated The Ill Begotten (Rush Freeman and Alex Taylor) and Gold Rushhh (Jordan Clearwater and Marshe Rockett).
Here is the full card for tomorrow’s NWA Crockett Cup card:
Harry Smith (Davey Boy Smith Jr.) and Aurelian Smith Jr. (Jake Roberts) have settled their differences after a phone conversation set up by Bret Hart when Hart and Roberts were at an autograph session.
Roberts agreed to drop all charges on Monday for an incident at WrestleCon where the two had a heated exchange of words and Smith threw coffee at Roberts and Roberts’ daughter went after Smith, who walked away.
Smith had been upset about things Roberts had said about his father on a podcast with Roddy Piper.
Both privately apologized to each other over the incident and Smith agreed to do a public apology, which he did before his IWGP Tag Team title match in Kumamoto, Japan that took place early Sunday.
“I’d like to announce publicly and officially that I spoke with Jake Roberts on the phone today and we squashed heat we have for what happened at the WrestleCon event,” wrote Smith. “I apologized and said I would apologize publicly as Jake agreed he would be dropping any charges pressed against me. I’m a man of my word and I’d like to say sorry to any fans that I stressed with this situation also. I wish Jake all the best and glad that we squashed the heat. I actually had spoken to Roddy Piper before he passed away about the podcast Jake and he did. I’m certainly glad we worked things out, as Roddy died [not] long after.”
