(Francesco) Akira is one of the rising stars of the Italian wrestling scene, an Italian athlete who recently returned from Japan where he spent two months wrestling for All Japan Pro Wrestling. There has been a lot of noise on Italian sites about it, however, no one has gone deep into it, summarizing or analyzing what happened on those tours. I am here today precisely to fill this void: we will recount Akira's story in AJPW, focusing on the high profile matches and commenting on them.
In December "Francesco Akira" is announced for the "Junior Battle Of Glory" which will take place in February the following year. The Junior Battle of Glory is a tournament very similar to the Best Of Super Junior of the NJPW: ten different cruiserweight competitors are put into two groups of 5 participants and fight against each other one on one, winning points and trying to finish first in the two groups; in the end the two record holders of Group A and Group B will compete to win the final. Our red-haired friend will be part of block A along with: TAJIRI, Atsushi Maruyama, Yusuke Okada and AJPW World Junior Heavyweight Champion Koji Iwamoto. It unleashes pride in Italian fans and curiosity in AJPW fans who are unfamiliar this Italian star in the making.
Time passes and, on February 7th, Akira debuted in AJPW, during day 1 of the Excite Series (the tour in which the Junior Battle of Glory will take place). The Italian debuts in a 4 vs 4 match and the thing that makes this debut important is the fact that, since the first meeting, the Italian athlete has been fighting alongside the Triple Crown Champion Kento Miyahara.
In the 8 man tag match we can see: Miyahara, Akira, Black Menso-Re and YoshiTastu battling against the EVOLUTION, a stable that Miyahara has been in a feud with: Suwama, Hikaru Sato, Yusuke Okada and Shuji Ishikawa; during the match Akira spends more time in the ring among those of his team, creating a certain hype for what he would bring to the table in his subsequent matches.
Francesco Akira makes his debut as a single competitor against TAJIRI on February 10th, between the former WWE and Akira there seems to be a lot of affinity and this match is indeed successful. Akira performed well, utilizing some offensive moves that I had never personally seen him do. In the end, however, TAJIRI wins. Despite the defeat, I have as a belief that, perhaps one day in Italy, these two will sooner or later face each other again.
The second match sees the Italian get his only two points against Atsushi Maruyama, personally it is also the match that I liked not so much among the others Akira’s match. Quite slow, with just an explosion towards the end and a conclusion via double Knee, a move with which the Italian does not usually finish the matches. In the third match, however, Francesco lost by the hand of the champion Koji Iwamoto managing to pull up a very good contest. In the fourth and last meeting we see Akira vs Yusuke Okada, the two entertain well and bring out some funny spots, but even here ours is not able to take home the victory.
Despite having won only one match out of four, opinions for the Italian seem quite positive.
In March, Francesco continues to wrestle on AJPW cards and there are two matches I want to talk about specifically:
The first, I think, is the best match an Italian athlete has ever had in Japan - against Atsushi Aoki. A very amusing confrontation with excellent psychology where Aoki optimally targets the Italian's leg with the latter trying his best to mount a comeback, ultimately failing to turn the tide of the match.
The other match that I want to discuss is Akira’s encounter against Naoya Nomura, not so much for the quality that the match itself, which was very limited by the short time of the bout, but because of the importance of this meeting. In fact, Nomura (only a few days later) would face Kento Miyahara for the AJPW title, making his win over Akira a step to solidify him as a challenger, I find it an excellent proof of the good reputation he has carved out for us.
In his last match, Akira fought alongside the AJPW Junior Heavyweight champion Koji Iwamoto. Despite the defeat here too, I find it a very good way to end our countryman's tour.
At this point, how do you describe Francesco Akira's stay in Japan? Certainly it is something good for the too often mistreated Italian movement. But coming to the single, Akira comes out of Japan as a talented - even if still young - interesting, he was not treated as any young lion, he was indeed well exposed and managed to catch attention even from journalists of the caliber of Dave Meltzer. This, in my opinion, could only be the beginning for Akira's career, I hope to be able to see him again in AJPW one day.
In addition to this summary of Akira's adventure in Japan and AJPW, we interviewed Francesco to learn more about his journey. The interview is exclusive to the Patreon section and to read it you can join our Turn Tweener Army for 1 $ with which you will have exclusive content for a whole month! To join, just click on this link >>> https://www.patreon.com/turntweenerarmy