New Japan will be presenting Wrestling Dontaku 2026 this weekend from Fukuoka International Center, and there are some major AEW stars set to be performing on Night 1 and Night 2 of the event.
Will Ospreay will be joining Great-O-Khan and HENARE this to face Tatsuya Matsumoto, YOSHI-HASHI and Hirooki Goto and Andrade El Idolo will be challenging Yota Tsuji for the IWGP Global Heavyweight Championship in the main event of the first night.
Night 2 will also feature Konosuke Takeshita defending his NJPW WORLD TV Championship against Chase Owens.
Wrestling Dontaku 2026 runs across two nights this weekend at the Fukuoka International Center in Japan. It’s one of NJPW’s annual marquee events, traditionally held over Japan’s Golden Week.
How can I watch Wrestling Dontaku?
The show streams worldwide on NJPW World, New Japan’s official subscription platform. Both nights are available live with English commentary, and the platform retains the shows on demand afterwards.
Which AEW stars are appearing at Wrestling Dontaku?
Three major AEW names are on the card: Will Ospreay, Andrade El Idolo and Konosuke Takeshita. Ospreay is in a six-man tag on Night 1, Andrade challenges for the IWGP Global Heavyweight Championship the same night, and Takeshita defends his NJPW WORLD TV title on Night 2.
John LaRocca and Garrett Gonzales return with a brand-new Fight Game to discuss some of the most interesting topics in pro wrestling.
We gave out our thumbs up and thumbs down for the week before focusing on this past weekend’s Wrestle Kingdom 20.
We talked about Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kazuchika Okada being near perfect, the poetry of the book-end feud, Yota Tsuji beating Konosuke Takeshita, and the debut of Aaron Wolf.
The following are live spoilers from AEW Rampage in Boston (taped after Wednesday’s Dynamite) as well as several Ring of Honor bouts taped before the show.
AEW Rampage results:
The Undisputed Kingdom (AEW International Champion Roderick Strong and ROH Tag Team Champions Matt Taven & Mike Bennett) defeated Top Flight (Dante & Darius Martin) and Action Andretti
This will be the main event of the show, but it was taped first. After Mercedes Mone closed the show, it took a long time for the crowd to get into this. Even local boy Taven wearing a Larry Bird jersey didn’t help.
This was fine, but didn’t have any heat until the last few minutes. The one notable and expected spot was Top Flight and Andretti hitting a dive sequence onto the Undisputed Kingdom on the outside of the ring.
The end came when Taven and Bennett hit a spike piledriver on Andretti followed by Strong hitting End of Heartache to give the heels the win.
Afterward, Taven ran into the crowd in a manner which looked like he was going after a fan but it was friends and family that came out to see him.
AEW Women’s Champion Toni Storm & Mariah May (w/ Luther) defeated Little Mean Kathleen & Kayla Sparks
As expected, the fans loved Storm and May. This was a squash with a lot of Storm and May’s attack focused on LMK. The end came when Storm and May hit back-to-back hip attacks on Sparks followed by Storm Zero by the champion with May getting the pin.
Afterward, Deonna Purrazzo came out and introduced her mystery friend alluded to during her Dynamite promo: Thunder Rosa. The heels ran away and Purrazzo said that they will see Storm and May “next week.”
Konosuke Takeshita (w/ Don Callis) defeated Komander (w/ Alex Abrahantes)
This was fine and mainly a squash for Takeshita until Komander got into it and then, this turned into a really fun match. Komander countered what appeared to be an avalanche move off the top rope into a stunner. He later hit his rope walk moonsault for a nearfall.
Takeshita wasn’t to be denied, catching Komander spinning off the ropes into a blue thunder bomb for another close nearfall. This continued to get good late as Komander hit a flying Canadian destroyer that was awesome. The end came when Takeshita nailed his opponent with an elbow, followed by a power bomb, a running knee, and another blue thunder bomb for the pin and win.
Callis got a loud “f**k you, Callis” chant during the match. Afterward, he got into it with Jericho at ringside with Chris Jericho (on commentary) running him off, eventually chasing up the stage while Callis ran beside it so he couldn’t get him. Callis slipped as he was making his escape, but it was hard to tell if it was intentional.
Orange Cassidy & Trent Beretta (w/ Chuck Taylor) defeated Dark Order (Evil Uno & John Silver)
This was a comedy match that was pretty much standard fare until the last few minutes. Early on, it was focused on Uno and Silver not wanting Cassidy to get into his pockets with Silver putting his hands in Cassidy’s pockets to block. All the Best Friends eventually got in for a group hug that included referee Bryce Remsburg.
A funny organic sequence happened around Uno’s jacket. He threw it at Cassidy and it ended up in the ropes. Remsburg grabbed it and tried to toss it out, but failed as it got caught up in the ropes again. He then tried again and the same thing happened. After gaining the advantage, Uno took an opportunity to grab the jacket and put it back on which appeared to crack up the announce team.
This also featured some dives late including a top rope flip by Uno to the outside.
In the end, Beretta got the pin on Silver to pick up the win.
The crowd was very full for the majority of Rampage with very few empty seats until the final match. Even then, the lower bowl was fairly full.
Due to the LED boards on the ring, it was a very quick changeover to Rampage.
Massachusetts native Bobby Cruise handled ring announcing duties for both Rampage and ROH.
Excalibur, Tony Schiavone and Jericho were on commentary. Jericho came out to Judas to get his pop and was booed by a pocket of the crowd, similar to what happened on Dynamite during his backstage promo with Hook.
The crowd was into the surprise of Shirakawa making her ROH debut.
After watching the opening match between MJF and Konosuke Takeshita on AEW Dynamite, Les Thatcher goes old school and discusses the best way to both hide (and use) a blade without it being seen on worldwide TV.
We also discuss the greatness of the Cody Rhodes and Paul Heyman segment from this past Monday’s WWE Raw and why everyone in the company should be at their best with a potential sale looming.
Konosuke Takeshita, who holds the unique distinction of nearly winning the Rookie of the Year award while still in high school, appeared on tonight’s AEW house show in Jacksonville.
Takeshita was in for these tapings while taking a break from Japan and is scheduled on a few more shows. He was at the tapings yesterday and worked but the matches were taped with no fans. Many have talked of him as the best young heavyweight in Japan.
Takeshita, who once had thoughts about going to the Olympics in the decathlon, is one of the top stars of the DDT promotion in Japan, where he’s held their top prize, the KO-D Openweight championship, on four occasions.
In 2013, while still in high school, Takeshita was named Rookie of the Year in Japan and lost by four points in the Observer balloting that year to current New Japan star YOH. In 2014, a match with he and Tetsuya Endo vs. Kenny Omega & Kota Ibushi was named Japanese independent match of the year. More recently, he’s had two high-profile singles matches with Jun Akiyama.
