Last week, Naoya Nomura announced that he wouldn’t be medically cleared to compete in this year’s Champion Carnival for All Japan Pro Wrestling and a replacement would be made soon. There were rumors about someone from another promotion that could come jump in to take his place. This was a possibility or someone like Koji Iwamoto would take over. It looks like both of those things wouldn’t be the case. On March 4th, a press conference was held and they would finally reveal the replacement for Naoya Nomura. The decision involved the inclusion of the former Junior Heavyweight Champion, TAJIRI. TAJIRI has spent a lot of time in AJPW over the past couple of years. It looks like he’ll be apart of the heavyweight scene during Taijri and time in the AJPW Champion Carnival tournament.
This wouldn’t be the first time he would take part in a heavyweight tournament as he was apart of the G1 Climax in 2010. Tajiri and his involvement in the AJPW Champion Carnival tournament isn’t something new.
He will also be in the same block as his tag partner, Gianni Valletta. While TAJIRI isn’t expected to win this tournament, don’t count him out to play the spoiler for some of his opponents in this match. The Japanese Buzzsaw is known to have a few surprises and if you’re familiar with him and I sure hope you are, he shows he can still go in the ring for a man his age.
As of right now, the Champion Carnival is still scheduled for April 6th with no plans of postponing it as of this time, so be sure to watch out for it when it airs if you wish to follow the tournament.
