Various: NJPW Declaration of Power Full Card, BTW Co-Owner on Ricky Steamboat’s In-Ring Return, Indies

Oct 5, 2022

NJPW Announces Full Card for Declaration of Power

New Japan Pro Wrestling recently announced the full card for their Declaration of Power event, which takes place on October 10th at the Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo, Japan.

NJPW Declaration of Power will air live on New Japan World starting at 4:00AM EST.

Ren Narita Comeback match – Ren Narita, Robbie Eagles, & David Finlay vs. DOUKI, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, & El Desperado
Dangerous Tekkers (Taichi & Zack Sabre Jr.) vs. TMDK (Bad Dude Tito & Shane Haste)
Master Wato, Ryusuke Taguchi, Hikuleo, & Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Dick Togo, SHO, Yujiro Takahashi, & EVIL
YOSHI-HASHI & Hirooki Goto vs. Great-O-Khan & Jeff Cobb
BUSHI, Hiromu Takahashi, SANADA, & Tetsuya Naito vs. United Empire (Francisco Akira, TJP, Aaron Henare, & Will Ospreay)
KUSHIDA vs. Taiji Ishimori
Provisional King of Pro Wrestling 2022 Championship Who’s Your Daddy match – El Phantasmo vs. Shingo Takagi (c)
Kazuchika Okada vs. JONAH
IWGP World Heavyweight Championship – Tama Tonga vs. Jay White (c)

BTW Co-Owner Comments on Ricky Steamboat’s In-Ring Return for Upcoming BTW Event

A recent episode of The Business of the Business podcast featured Big Time Wrestling co-owner Steve Perkins as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Perkins thoughts on the process that led to WWE Hall of Famer Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat coming out of retirement to wrestle at their upcoming Return of the Dragon event this November.

“So, and some of it, I’ll get into it as much as I can [Perkins said about Ricky Steamboat’s in-ring return] but obviously, everybody had heard about Ricky possibly getting back into the ring for Ric’s ‘Last Match’ and it didn’t happen for whatever reason and you know, it’s probably for a myriad of reasons that most the internet doesn’t get right but didn’t happen. But that allowed me to know that, hey, Ricky’s not against this. Ricky’s capable of doing this. This was close because Ricky’s agent was a friend of mine, Tony Hunter, who’s an agent for a lot of guys too. Bret [Hart] and I happened to be in Knoxville for a Comic Con and I was there with Bret. I just started asking Ricky questions and Ricky wasn’t adverse to doing it and I just went to Ricky and said, ‘Ricky, this night’s going to be about you. This is a night about Ricky Steamboat.’ We’re gonna do it at the [J.S.] Dorton Arena and that’s just a historic place for Ricky Steamboat, it’s an historic place for Jim Crockett. The amount of one-hour draws Ricky and Ric [Flair] probably had there is, you know, insurmountable, the number of times they probably went 60 minutes and it’s just a historical building and a great place and I said, ‘Ricky, it’s gonna be a classy thing. It’s gonna be all about you and we’ve got a hell of a lot of talent that’s gonna wanna jump on board and be around this’ so I took quite a bit of time to convince him and come to terms on it but it’s gonna be incredible. I know in my head who’s committed to be there and it hasn’t fully been announced because we’d love to get promos filmed first but… the talent on the card doesn’t end with Ricky Steamboat. It could be Ricky Steamboat in one match and you could take the ring down and go home and everybody would get their money’s worth because I don’t know if you’ve heard, I don’t think Ric Flair could have been more correct about it but when Ric was asked on his podcast about it, Ric said, ‘Hey, Ricky Steamboat wouldn’t be getting in the ring to do this if he wasn’t going to do it right and wasn’t gonna look like a million bucks’ and Ricky trains, Ricky works out, Ricky doesn’t have carbs after lunch. Ricky takes his body seriously now so, I guarantee no one will be disappointed by Ricky Steamboat in the ring.”

Perkins also stated that he has not held any talks with Ric Flair over the idea of Flair wrestling another match.

“I have spoken to Ric since Ricky said he was going to wrestle. I have not spoken to Ric Flair about wrestling Ricky Steamboat. That’s what I’ll say. But ideally, in a perfect world, yeah, you’d have Ricky Steamboat wrestle Ric Flair but, you know, that’s also a perfect world.”

Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com

Misc. Wrestling News & Notes

WWE NXT announcer Vic Joseph and backstage interviewer McKenzie Mitchell revealed on Instagram that they recently got married in Italy.

Game Changer Wrestling recently announced that Lio Rush will be making an appearance for the company at their Fight Club 2022 events on October 8-9 in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Actor Holt McCallany reportedly was recently added to the cast of the upcoming film The Iron Claw based on the Von Erich family, according to Deadline.com. It was reported that McCallany will be portraying Von Erich family patriarch Fritz Von Erich in the film.

Wrestling legend Dory Funk Jr. reportedly is currently planning to release a new book featuring more storied from his wrestling career, according to PWInsider.

FITE TV and Pro Wrestling TV recently revealed that they will be airing Lucha Libre AAA’s upcoming Triplemania XXX: Mexico City on October 15th live on their services in the United States. FITE TV is charging $29.99 and PWT is charging $19.99 to watch the event.

DEFY Wrestling recently announced a new match for the card of their Kingdom Come event on October 29th in Seattle, Washington:

Minoru Suzuki vs. “Filthy” Tom Lawlor