All Japan 45th Anniversary Show

The All Japan 45th Anniversary Show was a professional wrestling event promoted by All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW). The event took place on August 27, 2017, at Ryōgoku Kokugikan in Tokyo, Japan. It was the 45th anniversary since the promotion was borned.

The event featured five matches for contested championships. In the main event, Shuji Ishikawa defending the Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship against the Kento Miyahara. The other matches featured TAJIRI defending the World Junior Heavyweight Championship against Ultimo Dragon, Naoya Nomura and KAI against Strong BJ (Daisuke Sekimoto and Yuji Okabayashi) for the vacated World Tag Team Championship, Hentai Jieitai (Atsushi Aoki and Hikaru Sato) defending the All Asia Tag Team Championship against Taka Michinoku and Black Tiger VII and Osamu Nishimura defending the BANG!TV World Heavyweight Championship against Naoshi Sano, Yutaka Yoshie, Abdullah Kobayashi, Rikya Fudo, Kazuhiro Tamura, Rey Paloma, Carbell Ito, Atsushi Maruyama, Aizawa #1, Dinosaur Takuma, Kotaro Yoshino, Mitoshichi Shinose, Akiyori Takizawa and The Great Kojika.

Background
The All Japan 45th Anniversary aired in Japan through AJPW's TV boardcasting channel, Fighting TV Samurai, with Japanese language commentaries. The event also aired on tape delay on Japanese TV Gaora Sports to be launched.

Storylines
The All Japan 45th Anniversary featured professional wrestling matches that involved different wrestlers from pre-existing scripted feuds and storylines. Wrestlers portray villains, heroes, or less distinguishable characters in the scripted events that build tension and culminate in a wrestling match or series of matches.

The All Japan 45th Anniversary was main evented by Shuji Ishikawa defending the Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship against Kento Miyahara. On April 30, Shuji Ishikawa defeated Joe Doering to win the Champion Carnival. Both man had both grown an issue and win both the prelude matches with Ishikawa getting most wins. Later on May 21, Ishikawa defeated Miyahara to win the Triple Crown Heavyweight Champion for his first time after the match, Jake Lee challenged Ishikawa, during the show Suwama defeated Miyahara and stated on his intensions to reclaim the Triple Crown Champion, after Ishikawa defended the title against Lee, Suwama challenged Ishikawa in which he accpted. On July 17, Miyahara defeated Joe Doering after the match, Miyahara challenged Ishikawa into a rematch. which he accpted and was made offical to be on the promotion's 45th anniversary show. Meanwhile, both Ishikawa and Miyahara had claim both wins against each other.

The All Japan 45th Anniversary also featured a match for the World Junior Heavyweight Championship, where TAJIRI will defend the title against Último Dragon. On July 17, Hikaru Sato defended the World Junior Heavyweight Champion against Minoru Tanaka after the match TAJIRI appeared and challanged Hikaru and appeared to show respect to, only to spit a green mist to his face and posed with his title and the match was set to be official on July 30. Both had gain each others wins during the prelude matches and even sometimes TAJIRI tried to provoke Hikaru. Later on July 30, TAJIRI defeated Hikaru to win the World Junior Heavyweight Champion, thus making TAJIRI's first title win in AJPW since his pursuits back in 2010. After the match, Último Dragón challanged him and he aacpted and later the match was made offcial. During the press confrence in the finals of a tournament and to win the Open The Brave Gate Championship for the first time. In the past in 2014 when Flamita was the Open The Brave Gate Champion, he would defeat Kagetora to make is third title defense. Flamita reign as Open The Brave Gate Champion ended when he vacated the title after Flamita left the belt in the ring in protest, following his ninth defense ending in a disqualification. Since then Kagetora has challenged for the Open The Bave Gate Championship twice, falling to win the championship, while Flamita took a hiatus from Dragon Gate and returned on 2016 joining the Tribe Vanguard stable and also unsucessfully challenging the Open The Bave Gate Championship once. On June 10 during the semifinals of the King of Gate tournament Kagetora challenged Flamita into a match with his Open The Bave Gate Championship on the line. However Flamita was in Mexico so he asked his Tribe Vanguard stablemate Kzy to pass him this message. Then Kagetora started to make challenges for his title including Kzy and Kaito Ishida. Eight days later Flamits's Tribe Vanguard stablemate BxB Hulk announced that he would return to Japan next week. Flamita's return match took place on June 22, when he, YAMATO, BxB Hulk and Kzy defeated Naruki Doi, Big R Shimizu, Ben-K and Kotoka in a eight-man tag team match. Then on July 1 Kagetora and Flamita settled their match to be at the Kobe World Pro Wrestling Festival.

Another title match would see CK-1 (CIMA and Dragon Kid) defending against the Open The Twin Gate Championship against DoiYoshi (Naruki Doi and Masato Yoshino). This match was set up during Dragon Gate's Rainbow Gate tour on the seventh day on July 1, when, after DoiYoshi called out CK-1 challenging them to a title match, which CIMA one-half of the reigning champions accepted the challenged. On May 28 Doi and Yoshino made their tag team match return defeating RyoSuka (Jimmy Susumu and Ryo "Jimmy" Saito). Both teams have one victory against each other. The first time both teams faced each other was during the 2007 Summer Adventure Tag League, were CK-1 won. The second time both teams faced each other was on 2012 during 6 Unit Warfare One Night Tag Tournament, were this time DoiYoshi won. During this space of time DoiYoshi won the Summer Adventure Tag League three times and twice the Open The Twin Gate Championship and even broke up two times after Doi turned on Yoshino twice but they reunited in 2017 forming the stable MaxiMuM. While CK-1 broke up once and they reunited on 2016 after Kid joined CIMA's Over Generation stable and later the two even won the Open The Twin Gate Championship and retaining until now. This will be the third time that this two teams faced each other.

In the Open The Triangle Gate Championship match will be VerserK (El Lindaman Shingo Takagi and Takashi Yoshida) against the winners of a tournament early in the show. On July 1 Lindaman, Yoshida and Takagi defeated MaxiMuM (Big R Shimizu, Ben-K and Naruki Doi) to win the Open The Triangle Gate Championship. Before MaxiMuM lost the titles MaxiMuM was feuding with Jimmyz and later also with Over Generation. Then VerserK also joined this feuding challenging MaxiMuM for the Open The Triangle Gate Champions. Later Gamma made a challenge for the Open The Triangle Gate Champions on Over Generation's behalf. Then after Lindaman, Yoshida and Takagi won the Open The Triangle Gate Champions the Jimmyz challenged for the Open The Triangle Gate Championship. This followed up with with Gamma challenging for the Open The Triangle Gate Champions on Over Generation's behalf with his partners being Eita and Takehiro Yamamura, who early in the show Yamamura got the win against the Jimmyz and also Kotoka challenged for the Open The Triangle Gate Championship on MaxiMuM behalf and early in the show Kotoka and Masato Yoshino defeated CIMA and Dragon Kid after Eita interfered in the match, and it was backfired and an errant superkick allowed Kotoka to pin CIMA. After the that Tribe Vanguard also followed up with a challenge for the titles. Then the champions VerserK since they didn't wanted to defend the titles in a five-way match, Takagi proposed a tournament were the wining team would face VerserK later on the show for the titles then the general manager Takayuki Yagi announced a the tournament were the winners would face VerserK later on the show and the tournament matches would be competed under two count rules. Other matches at Kobe World Pro Wrestling Festival (2017) include Masaaki Mochizuki, Don Fujii, Jimmy Kanda and Jimmy K-ness J.K.S. taking on Kaito Ishida, Yuki Yoshioka, Shun Skywalker and Hyou Watanabe. The full card of the event was announced on July 7.