–> “NJPW 40TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR ~ ROAD TO TOKYO DOME” <--
NJPW, 12/20/12 (Samurai! TV)
Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium #2
1,610 Fans – Super No Vacancy
1. Sho Tanaka vs. Yohei Komatsu went to a draw (10:00) when the time limit expired.
2. Tiger Mask & BUSHI beat Hiromu Takahashi & Takaaki Watanabe (8:41) when BUSHI used the Reed Road on Watanabe.
3. Yujiro Takahashi & Jado beat Wataru Inoue & Captain New Japan (8:00) when Takahashi used a Bukko Nuki German suplex hold on Captain.
4. Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Satoshi Kojima & Manabu Nakanishi beat Toru Yano, Takashi Iizuka & YOSHI-HASHI (10:39) when Iizuka was DQ’d.
5. Yuji Nagata, Hirooki Goto & Jushin Thunder Liger beat Minoru Suzuki, TAKA Michinoku 
& Taichi (11:17) when Liger used a shotei on TAKA.
6. Shinsuke Nakamura & Tomohiro Ishii beat Togi Makabe & KUSHIDA (14:41) when Ishii used a brainbuster on KUSHIDA.
7. Kazuchika Okada & Gedo beat Hiroshi Tanahashi & Ryusuke Taguchi (19:18) when Okada used the Rainmaker on Taguchi.
* Toru Yano is saying that he will bring former IWGP Heavyweight Champion, Bob Sapp, to the Tokyo Dome in January as a mystery partner which means he could replace a CHAOS member in the six man tag. Sapp once headlined a New Japan Tokyo Dome show when he was the biggest thing in Japanese pop culture, but his star has long since fallen and if he does appear it’ll be in the planned opening match. New Japan chairman Takaaki Kidani is considering bringing back MMA fighters to New Japan in 2013 to challenge top stars after publicly backing Sakuraba and Shibata and opposing President Sugabayashi who has done so much work to make New Japan an honest pro wrestling group again. This is all a storyline with no telling where it’ll lead, my only hope is if MMA fighters do appear next year the booking will be a lot less reckless than what happened in the 2000s which put New Japan’s whole existence in danger. Dave Meltzer says it could possibly see Kidani as a heel owner in an nWo style group with Antonio Inoki possibly used as a retired version of Hulk Hogan.