All Japan Pro Wrestling would start off 2021 with their annual New Year’s Wars events, and our first one happened on January 2nd. Our main event for this event was the World Tag Team Champions, Suwama, and Shuji Ishikawa, defending their titles against the Real World Tag League winners, Kento Miyahara and Yuma Aoyagi.
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A little bit of history happened between Kento and Yuma last year when Yuma would turn heel to betray Kento after retaining the Triple Crown Championship. Ten months later, the two would reconsider getting back together as a team, and to try and regain trust for one another, they would take part in the RWTL. On top of winning the whole thing, Yuma has earned an opportunity to face Suwama for the Triple Crown Championship, which was scheduled for the January 3rd show. During a press conference before the show, Violents Giants would announce that they would disband as a team forever if they lose the titles.
Your new World Tag Team Champions!
— AJPW International (@ajpwint) January 2, 2021
Nextream! @KentoMiyahara and @attack_on_yuma!#ajpw #ajpwint #ajpwtv pic.twitter.com/MlS38BRxbh
They had a great back and forth match to start off the new year, and we would have new champions crowned once Yuma would apply the End Game on Suwama, causing the referee to call the match since the champ was passed out. This would be Yuma’s first time winning the World Tag Team Championship, while this is Kento’s third time with three different partners.
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Kento Miyahara & Yuma Aoyagi Win AJPW World Tag Titles
Now that Yuma was able to submit the Triple Crown Champion, it gives him that much-needed momentum going forward in the main event the next day. Fans were expecting an eventual betrayal for Yuma again in this match, giving him that heat leading to the Triple Crown match the next day. After the match, BJW’s Daisuke Sekimoto and Abdullah Kobayashi would make their way to the ring to challenge the new champions since they defeated them on the first night of the RWTL back in November. No official date yet, but it’ll be a hell of a match. Congratulations to Kento and Yuma on winning the titles, and good luck to Yuma on his upcoming match with Suwama.
Now that Suwama and Shuji lost the match, they have agreed to split up as a tag team and focus on individual things for the time being. They have been a tag team since 2017 and were one of the best Japanese wrestling teams. They have won the Tokyo Sports Awards three years in a row as Best Tag Team, four-time AJPW World Tag Team Champions, and won the Real World Tag League together twice in 2017 and 2019. It’s sad to see them go, but I am thankful for the three years they’ve given us with great tag team wrestling. Thank you, Violents Giants.
As an added bonus, here is the full match of what happened on that show. Hopefully, witnessing the tag title match with a great match to boost makes you want to follow AJPW this year.
