Soma Takao To Leave DDT In September

Soma Takao is set to leave DDT next month.

DDT Pro Wrestling announced on Thursday that longtime wrestler Soma Takao will depart the promotion and become a freelancer at the end of September. The 38-year-old is scheduled to appear on eight more DDT shows, with his final match set to take place on September 27 at DDT’s final event at Shinjuku FACE.

Takao made his DDT debut on August 23, 2009, at DDT’s Ryogoku Peter Pan event, where he teamed with Keisuke Ishii and Yukihiro Abe to defeat Goya Ihashi, Shigehiro Irie, and Tomokazu Taniguchi.

During his 17-year career with the promotion, he has won the KO-D Tag Team Championships three times, the DDT Iron Man Heavy Metal Championship four times, and the KO-D Six Man Tag Team Championships an incredible eight times. Six of those reigns came as one-third of the popular Team Dream Failure alongside Ishii and Irie.

Takao has mostly been downcycled over the past couple of years, aside from another KO-D Tag Team Championship reign in 2023/24. While nothing has been confirmed at this point, some fans expect him to eventually join several of his contemporaries in Ganbare Pro Wrestling sometime down the line.

Elsewhere in DDT Pro Wrestling, MAO recently dethroned Yuki Ueno to capture the KO-D Openweight Championship, marking the biggest singles victory of his career. You can read more about that here.

As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on Soma Takao’s future following his DDT departure as soon as we hear more.