WWE Tokyo 2024, Night 1 Reactions

The first WWE Japan tour in five years comes to Tokyo

It’s been five long years since WWE came to Japan, five years full of a pandemic, backstage power struggles, and rising new stars. Japan has a reputation as a quiet crowd, but after such a long hiatus they were ready and raring to prove their love to the wrestlers and tell them how much they missed them. The result: a show filled with some great action and fun moments. I was too enthralled to take careful notes, but here are some impressions of the night, with photos by my husband.

The Japanese cosplayers were back after five years to work on their design. There has always been a set of people dedicated to the Wyatt family—in the past I’ve seen Hawaiian shirt Bray and the Fiend. This year we had an amazingly detailed Uncle Howdy and a towering Erick Rowan/Ramblin Rabbit, a beautiful Asuka, a Stardust to haunt Cody Rhodes, and a lot of others.

The opening match was a six man tag between Kevin Owens, LA Knight, and (in a slight surprise) a face-leaning Shinsuke Nakamura. They took on the Bargain Basement Bloodline, who the crowd loathed. The crowd got a very good “Solo sucks” chant going, which Solo should be proud of because Japan isn’t known for booing heels. Before the match, a “We want Roman” chant quickly broke out. In response, Kevin shrugged and started to leave with a “if you want him you don’t want me” look on his face, which does not bode well if a returning-babyface Roman hopes to find an ally there. 

He did relent and come back for a fun opening match. Kevin pulled out the tornado DDT he’s borrowed from Sami and loudly protested every two-count his team got with an outraged “that was three!” Even after taking a beating and resting with his head against the apron he managed to feebly raise three fingers in protest when Shinsuke got a nearfall. In the end Shinsuke got the Kinshasa and the win in front of an affectionate crowd.

The second match was Iyo Sky, accompanied to the ring by Asuka (who’s moving very well!) Asuka demanded we boo Iyo’s opponent, but we didn’t need much encouraging to boo Liv Morgan, who smirked her way to the ring. 

In the end our disapproval did not turn the tide and Liv defeated Iyo, but the former champ would be back again for a second match later in the same night!

The third match brought out Dominick Mysterio (the crowd booed vigorously, though maybe not as much as for Solo) to try and take away Sami Zayn’s Intercontinental championship. They put on a really good long match and had excellent chemistry together, their styles match up really well. Maybe it’s that they both have a sort of melded mainstream/luchador vibe? 

There was a moment where there was a brief pause in the action and an ole chant broke out, and you could see a quick look between Dom and Sami that lead to Dom slowing down, fleeing the ring and glowering to give the chant time to breathe before picking up the pace again—the kind of moment that is harder to do on a broadcast show with strict time limits and pacing. You will be shocked to hear that Sami’s blue Thunderbomb ALMOST got him the pin, but not quite. Sami was also shocked! But eventually Dom ate all of a Helluva Kick to fall to the champion.

One of the hottest matches of the night was the eight-woman tag featuring Bianca Belair, Jade Cargill, Bayley and Japanese legend Meiko Satomura against Iyo Sky, Kairi Sane, Dakota Kai, and Tiffany Stratton. Satomura is one of my all-time absolute faves. It’s hard to put into words, but all of her moves have this amazing mix of elegance and impact, they’re efficient and completely believable. At house shows there’s usually a lot of daylight between wrestlers on strikes and kicks, but when Satomura kicked Kairi’s chest the impact was resonantly, bone-rattlingly authentic. This match was amazingly fun, the crowd was into every second of it, and it got the night’s first “this is awesome” chant, to the very visible glee of the wrestlers. The crowd was especially lavish in their love of the long-absent Kairi Sane and refused to boo her. Even when she wrapped Bianca’s hair around a ring rope to whale on her the crowd could only rise to polite disapproval. 

In the end Satomura got the pin and used that as the opening to challenge Bayley to a championship match on night 2! Bayley accepted what is likely to be a show-stealer. Seriously, find any match by Satomura to watch, they are all fantastic.

Next up were Damian Priest and Rey Mysterio, doing the timeless Davis and Goliath story. Damian leaned into his Goliath role, roaring and bellowing enough that a Japanese fan called out “so scary!” in English. The psychology was classic: Priest didn’t take the legend seriously because of his size, swatting off attacks at first like gnat stings. 

But over time Mysterio schooled him, and the crowd’s very vocal love got under Priest’s skin (“Shut up!” He snapped at the unbending “Six one nine” chants). Rey eventually hit the 619 and should have won but Priest happened to fall with one foot on the ropes. After that he stopped taking Mysterio lightly, countered another six one nine and choke slammed him like he was hoping to drive him through the mat for the three-count. After the match, he helped Mysterio to his feet in a show of respect, and the audience grudgingly applauded him for it.

There was an intermission and then it was the Battle of the Days: New Day versus Judgment Day for the tag team titles. The crowd was pretty limp and wilted at this point after two hours of energetic cheering and booing, and Xavier Woods was the man to being them back. He’s one of the best in the world at working a crowd and bringing their energy back up, just always engaging, always connecting with the fans. 

In the match he was… mischievous, is perhaps the word. He tried to just take the titles and leave before the match, he pounded the mat three times fast with his own fist during a pin and tried to call it a win. It might have been the usual New Day impishness, but it did feel a bit more heelish than usual for him. In the end his shenanigans were not enough to win the titles, however.

The penultimate match was Jey Uso versus Gunther! Another match with lots of great chemistry, Jey and Gunther’s characters are complementary in fun ways. The audience got into the YEETing and Jey played to them, to Gunther’s solemn disapproval. 

Eventually Gunther seemed to be won over by Jey’s playful YEETing and offered to YEET along with him, which Jey unwisely went along with. Jey, you survived years of psychological manipulation by your cousin, how could you fall for this!? But he did, and got sucker-chopped by Gunther to kick off the match.

As it turned out, the crowd loved Jey, but they really loved Gunther a lot too! Support was maybe two-thirds for Jey and a vocal one-third for Gunther. Their styles fit together well in the ring, also great chemistry. In the end, Gunther was able to keep Jey down for three on his march to SummerSlam.

The main event was Cody Rhodes versus AJ Styles in a Battle of the Former Bullet Club Leaders. The last time I saw Cody wrestle in Japan, he dumped a battered Kota Ibushi in my lap and inspired me to shriek a stream of heartfelt obscenities at him. Seven years later he’s a sparkly star-spangled babyface champion and much more likable, but in my heart of hearts I loved him more as a heel. The crowd adored him and sang him to the ring, but as it turned out they may have loved Styles even more! The split audience created one of the loudest crowd responses I’ve ever heard in Japan, including a pretty deafening dual chant of “Let’s Go Cody”/“AJ Styles.” Cody threw Styles over a barricade in what felt very much like an homage to New Japan—actually, the whole match had a very New Japan structure and vibe to it. In the end, Cody hit a Cross Rhodes to retain the championship.

After the match, Cody informed the crowd that he’d be giving a weight belt away to whoever in the crowd cheered the loudest. You may be surprised to hear this, but I assure you it is true—implausibly, the loudest voice was not any of the lustily bellowing dudes, but a tiny Japanese girl in a pink summer yukata, who covered her face in confused delight as she was lifted into the ring to receive the belt and a hug from the champion.

Then Cody received a surprise of his own—a Japanese collector came to the ring, reverently bearing a red silk robe with spangles. It was a robe that Dusty Rhodes wore in Japan, and Cody slipped it on to kneel and kiss the ring, accompanied by loud “Dusty” chants. So okay, maybe he’s good as a babyface too. I guess.

The undisputed champion in his father’s robe thanked us and bid us goodnight, to make our way out into the humid Tokyo evening, tired and happy and looking forward to night 2!