{"id":137974,"date":"2025-07-12T12:01:04","date_gmt":"2025-07-12T16:01:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=137974"},"modified":"2025-07-12T12:01:04","modified_gmt":"2025-07-12T16:01:04","slug":"ddt-rock-in-ring-2025-preview-7-13-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2025\/07\/12\/ddt-rock-in-ring-2025-preview-7-13-25\/","title":{"rendered":"DDT ROCK IN RING 2025 Preview (7\/13\/25)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">DDT will emanate once again at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo for their ROCK IN RING show. The show will stream live on <\/span><a  href=\"https:\/\/www.wrestle-universe.com\/en\/lives\/sibi1DzcWMLcgWEqUiUny1\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wrestle Universe<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, kicking off on July 13 at 11:30 a.m. JST\/ July 12, 10:30 p.m. ET. Headlining the card is the first defense of the new KO-D Openweight Champion crowned two weeks ago and the much-anticipated clash for the Universal Championship.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>DDT ROCK IN RING 2025 Full Match Card<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">KO-D Openweight Championship: Kazusada Higuchi (c) vs. HARASHIMA<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">DDT Universal Championship: Minoru Suzuki (c) vs. Shinya Aoki<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Special Six-Man Tag Team Match: Yuki Ueno &amp; Akito &amp; Takeshi Kaisei vs. Daisuke Sasaki &amp; Hideki Okatani &amp; Mj Paul<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Special Six-Man Tag Team Match: Masashi Takeda &amp; Ilusion &amp; Haruto Sakuraba vs MAO &amp; KANON &amp; Kazuma Sumi<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Special Tag Team Match: Kosei Fujita &amp; Takeshi Masada vs To-y &amp; Yuya Koroku<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Six-Man Tag Team Match: Yuki Iino &amp; Yukio Naya &amp; Yuki Ishida vs Chris Brookes &amp; Jun Akiyama &amp; Daichi Satoh<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">3-Way Match: Danshoku Dieno vs Super Sasadango Machine vs Kazuki Hirata<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dark Match: Naomi Yoshimura &amp; Antonio Honda vs Soma Takao &amp; Yuni<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Higuchi Faces a Familiar Foe for First Title Defense<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Two weeks ago, Kazusada Higuchi won the KO-D Openweight title for the second time in his career at Korakuen Hall after defeating Chris Brookes. After the post-match beers, Harashima came to congratulate and challenge the new champ to a title match, which Higuchi accepted.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These two men are no strangers to one another, as they\u2019ve wrestled five times before, with the champion winning four times. All four wins by Higuchi were in the D-Oh Grand Prix and the King of DDT tournaments. Harashima\u2019s sole victory over him was in a match also for the Openweight title back in 2016, which he will look to repeat to further his own record to 11 reigns.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>Big First-Time Ever Match for the Universal Title<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For the first time ever, Minoru Suzuki and Shinya Aoki will fight in a pro-wrestling match. It\u2019s not just an ordinary singles match because the DDT Universal Championship will be on the line, which Suzuki won at Judgement last March 20.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Aoki is a legend of Asian MMA who made his DDT debut in 2018. He will look to capture his third singles title with the promotion against a living legend in his own right in Suzuki, who was also an MMA fighter. This match is expected to be hotly contested and could very well be DDT\u2019s match of the year.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>Kosei Fujita Steps into the DDT Ring for the First Time<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In another first, NJPW\u2019s Kosei Fujita will make his first appearance in DDT. He will team up with Schadenfreude International\u2019s Takeshi Masada to take on DDT Extreme Champion To-y and Yuya Koroku.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Schadenfreude International and Fujita\u2019s unit TMDK have ties, as their respective leaders, Chris Brookes and Zack Sabre Jr., have teamed together in DDT last year. This will be another exciting cross-promotional team-up, this time between its two up-and-coming young stars in Masada and Fujita.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>Kaisei Takechi and Haruto Sakuraba in Action<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Two Japanese celebrities, Kaisei Takechi and Haruto Sakuraba, decided to step into the world of pro-wrestling via DDT last year, but they have never been on the same card. That will all change at ROCK IN RING, as they will be competing in separate tag matches.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For the third time, Takechi will team with Yuki Ueno, and joining them is Akito, to take on the Damnation T.A. trio of Daisuke Sasaki, Hideki Okatani, and MJ Paul. This marks the 27-year-old\u2019s fourth match ever, all of which have been as part of a tag team.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Meanwhile, Sakuraba will wrestle only his second match after debuting at Ultimate Party last December as the newest member of Damnation T.A.. He will team with freelancer Masashi Takeda and Ilusion against Strange Love Connection\u2019s MAO and KANON, partnering with Kazuma Sumi.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4>More from LWOS Pro Wrestling<\/h4>\n<p class=\"p1\"><em><span class=\"s1\">Header Photo \u2013 DDT Pro-Wrestling \u2013 Stay<\/span><span class=\"s1\">\u00a0tuned to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/\" target=\"_self\"><span class=\"s2\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/span><\/a> for more on DDT ROCK IN RING and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. You can watch Pro Wrestling NOAH, DDT, TJPW, and more on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ddtpro.com\/universe\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span class=\"s2\">Wrestle Universe.<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DDT will emanate once again at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo for their ROCK IN RING show. The show will stream live on Wrestle Universe, kicking off on July 13 at 11:30 a.m. JST\/ July 12, 10:30 p.m. ET. Headlining the card is the first defense of the new KO-D Openweight Champion crowned two weeks ago [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5576,"featured_media":137986,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6505,13,2192],"tags":[9453,5968,9452,4902],"class_list":["post-137974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ddt-pro","category-international","category-wrestling","tag-ddt-rock-in-ring","tag-harashima","tag-kaisei-takechi","tag-kazusada-higuchi"],"modified_by":"Chinyere Okafor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5576"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137974"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137987,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137974\/revisions\/137987"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}