JPWN Beta: New Japan Updates. Scary Injury at DragonGate. SCU End of the Line. Impact Wrestling PPV Updates.

About this Episode

    <p>I’m Matt Carlins and this is JUST Pro Wrestling News for Wednesday, December 23, 2020.</p>

This update is sponsored by Fight Underground. Search for Fight Underground on Facebook and check out the new fight between Beastman and Justin Idol.

Results from Tuesday’s New Japan show, AEW Dark and news from Impact Wrestling’s “Best Of 2020” show are straight ahead but first…

The cards for both nights of Wrestle Kingdom are set. The final new matches were announced during a news conference earlier today.

Added to Night 1: KENTA defending his Right To Challenge the IWGP U.S. Heavyweight Champion against Juice Robinson. The New Japan Rumble will return with 22 wrestlers...and the final four moving on to a four-way on Night 2 to determine the King Of Pro Wrestling 2021 holder.

Night 2 will also now see El Desperado and Yoshinobu Kanemaru defend the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Championships against Ryusuke Taguchi and Master Wato.

That’ll be 7 matches on both nights. Last year, there were 11 on Night 1...and 9 on the Night 2.

One more note from the news conference...New Japan said ZERO cases of COVID-19 infection have come from ANY of the 78 events it’s held since returning from the lockdown.

New Japan’s final show of the year...and the final stop on its Road To Tokyo Dome tour is being held this morning. We’ll have results in our update tomorrow.

Tuesday’s “Road To” show saw KENTA, Jay White and Gedo beat Kota Ibushi, Juice Robinson and SHO in the show’s main event.

Staying in Japan.. Questions surround the final moments of a championship match at Dragon Gate’s Final Gate show on Sunday. Open The Dream Gate Champion Shun Skywalker appeared to legitimately knock out challenger Ben-K with a forearm. Before the ref could assess Ben-K’s status..Skywalker quickly followed with two standing moonsaults into double knees. Then, Skywalker added a pair of moonsaults from the top rope before scoring the win.

Ben-K was taken from the ring on a stretcher.

Dragon Gate tweeted a brief statement Monday, saying Ben-K “was diagnosed with a mild concussion.”

Ben-K himself later tweeted that he’s recovered, but he will miss some time.

(STINGER: AEW)

An ultimatum for Christopher Daniels from his longtime tag team partner Frankie Kazarian.

(End Is Near For SCU)

That clip from Tuesday’s AEW Dark. SCU then challenged The Hybrid2.

Alex Gracia got her first AEW win on Dark. It was revealed that she will be Hikaru Shida’s opponent on tonight’s Dynamite.

Also tonight, the Young Bucks defend their AEW Tag Team Championships against The Acclaimed...and Chris Jericho & MJF take on Top Flight.

A reminder that tonight’s Dynamite is a late start for east coast viewers - after NBA basketball.

There was a new segment staged as a paid ad by AEW on Tuesday’s “Best of 2020” edition of Impact Wrestling. In it, Tony Khan invited Impact to send some of its wrestlers to Wednesday’s Dynamite.

Other news from Impact last night..

Impact announced that its fans voted Knockouts Champ Deonna Purrazzo as its Wrestler Of The Year.

Manik will defend the X-Division Title in a 3-Way against Chris Bey and Rohit Raju at the Hard To Kill PPV on January 16.

The participants and first-round matches were announced for the Super X Cup tournament at the Genesis show January 9th. Ace Austin vs. Suicide.. Daivari vs. Cousin Jake.. Crazzy Steve vs. Tre Lamar, and KC Navarro vs. Blake Christian.

Just announced late Tuesday for tonight’s NXT - Rhea Ripley vs. Dakota Kai. Tonight’s NXT will open with the tag champs Oney Lorcan and Danny Burch defending against Killian Dain and Drake Maverick in a Street Fight.
WWE announced Tuesday that Sami Zayn’s Intercontinental Title defense against Big E on the Christmas Day Smackdown will now be a lumberjack match.

Mance Warner confirmed to Wrestling Inc.’s Nick Hausman that he did ask for his release from MLW. But it’s not clear when - or if - that will happen. Warner’s last match for MLW was back in March.

Tonight’s MLW Fusion has the Opera Cup final between Tom Lawlor and Low Ki.

That’s JUST Pro Wrestling News for Wednesday, December 23. Our next update comes your way tomorrow morning, so be sure to subscribe to this feed. We also thank you in advance for leaving a glowing rating or review..

I’m Matt Carlins. Thank YOU for listening.