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El Cielo & Luis Mante Win Rey de Parejas | Puro Watch Guide

ByAndrew J.T. Gelinas
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Dragongate Japan Pro-Wrestling

The biggest news of the week across Japan happened in Dragongate, as El Cielo and Luis Mante defeated XenisS’s Kota Minoura and Yuki Yoshioka in the Rey de Parejas final on Thursday, September 3, inside Korakuen Hall.

The final show on the RdP tour kicked off with the two deciding semifinal matches. Cielo and Mante were able to fend off PARADOX’s KAGETORA and Susumu Yokosuka, while Minoura and Yoshioka, the team that many had pegged as the eventual winners, took out Gajadokuro’s ISHIN and Yoshiki Kato, the Open the Twin Gate Champions.

With their eventual victory in the main event, Cielo and Mante will take on ISHIN and Kato at Ota Ward (EBARA WAVE Arena Ota) at the flabbergastingly named Dragongate Tokyo Infinity Hectopascal event on Saturday, September 12. The rest of the card will feature the following matches:

  • KZY vs. YAMATO for the Open the Dream Gate Championship
  • Ryoya Tanaka vs. Dragon Kid for the Open the Brave Gate Championship
  • Love & Peace (Hyo, JACKY KAMEI, & Riiita) vs. Genki Horiguchi, Kenichiro Arai, & Yasushi Kanda for the Open the Triangle Gate Championships
  • XenisS (Kota Minoura & Yuki Yoshioka) and the returning Uhaa Nation vs. Gajadokuro (Jason Lee, KAI, Madoka Kikuta)
  • Jiro Shimbashi vs. Minoru Suzuki
  • Natural Vibes (AKEY, GuC, Strong Machine J, & U-T) & Ultimo Dragon vs. PARADOX (BxB Hulk, KAGETORA, Naruki Doi, & Susumu Yokosuka) & Don Fujii
  • Pre-show – Mondai Ryu & Ryu Fuda vs. Ho Ho Lin & Tristan Moody

New Japan Pro-Wrestling

NJPW kickstarted its Road to Destruction tour at Light Cube Utsunomiya on Saturday. The event featured a bunch of preview matches for the upcoming Destruction in Kobe event on September 27.

Aaron Wolf teamed up with TAICHI and Yuya Uemura in a preview trios match against TMDK’s Hartley Jackson, Kosei Fujita, and G1 Climax winner Ryohei Oiwa. The most exciting aspect of this match by far was the interaction between Uemura and Oiwa, as expected, as this was the first time they had touched since the legendary G1 final on August 16.

Jeff Cobb made his first appearance as a member of Unbound Co. when he teamed up with Shingo Takagi to take on United Empire’s Callum Newman and Zane Jay. Cobb and Newman will have a singles match at Road to Destruction.

The main event of the evening was an eight-man tag featuring Unbound Co.’s Daiki Nagai, Robbie X, Taiji Ishimori, and IWGP Heavyweight Champion Yota Tsuji competing against Master Wato, Oleg Boltin, YOH, and Tsuji’s eventual challenger for the big belt in Kobe, Hirooki Goto. Boltin would earn the victory after smashing Nagai with a powerbomb.

The next day, NJPW held its annual Yuji Nagata Produce show, “Blue Justice XIX -Aogi Futotsu-.” Jeff Cobb defeated Zane Jay in his first singles match since facing off with Jimmy Uso on June 27, 2025. The main event of the evening saw Togi Makabe, Toru Yano, and Yuji Nagata defeat Daiki Nagai, OSKAR, and Yuto-Ice.

Osaka Pro Wrestling

Osaka Pro kicked off its annual Tennōzan Tournament on Saturday at Shin-Kiba 1st RING. The single-elimination tournament will run for the next few weeks over four shows and will culminate on September 23. All shows will take place at the beautiful Azalea Taisho Hall in Osaka.

The first show on this tournament tour featured four first-round matchups. Freelance mainstay Van Vert Jack defeated Rogue Nation’s Goliath, last year’s runner-up Kazuaki Mihara then took out two-time Tennōzan winner Tigers Mask, Rogue Nation’s Shu Asakawa defeated Osaka Pro legend HUB, and, in the main event, VerteX’s young dynamo Sho Mizuno fell to his fellow VerteX teammate, Aran Sano.

The remaining first-round matchups will take place this week on September 13, with the following matchups:

  • Kohei Kinoshita vs. Suzaku
  • TiiiDA vs. Toru
  • Ryuya Matsufusa vs. Takoyakida
  • Kuukai vs. Ultimate Spider Jr.

For more coverage from the tournament and everything surrounding Osaka Pro Wrestling, WrestlePurists will keep you updated.

Other News and Notes

As we highlighted this weekend, Korakuen Hall will undergo renovations from the end of January to the beginning of May. The famed arena will be fully closed from January through part of February and later for the entire month of April. So far this year, including the TAKAMANIA EMPIRE show on Monday, Korakuen has hosted 155 shows.

Ganbare Pro Wrestling held its “Spy Game 2026” event at Shin-Kiba 1st RING on Saturday. The main event of the show saw Shuichiro Katsumura and Yuya Susumu make their first defense of the Spirit of Ganbare World Tag Team belts against the joshi tag team of Moeka Haruhi and Rydeen Hagane. The show will be made available to watch on Wrestle Universe on Monday.

Last week, I noted that Junya Matsunaga successfully defended his ZERO1 World Heavyweight Championship against freelancer Koji Doi. I wanted to add that Doi has since been added to ZERO1’s roster as a full-time signing. The 36-year-old has been bouncing around the scene ever since Wrestle-1 went under in 2020.

For coverage from across the Japanese professional wrestling scene, WrestlePurists will keep you updated.