2024: Douki starts the year in Just 5 Guys, is a good hand, has a cool look, just won the Best Body award (which def is about to help his booking lol). Starts building steam by beating Hiromu in the J5G vs. LIJ series and repeats it in BoSJ where he even makes it to the semi-finals. Douki naturally gets hot through the first half of the year until they pull the trigger and he beats El Desperado to win his literal first title ever in a huge moment. It doesn't stop there as he gets to beat vet Kanemaru, young gun Master Wato, SHO by revealing he's magic, and beats the final of the top three guys in the division, Taiji Ishimori, to clearly show he's now on that level. He beat literally everyone the division had in 2024, crowd loved him while doing it, he was clearly now one of those top guys. I'm sure going into Wrestle Kingdom was gonna lose to El Desperado but you can't be champ forever and that's totally okay. Instead we get the tragic injury that ruined what I think easily would have been match of the night and puts him on the shelf. It's awful. But the one silver lining is that Douki was already over, a big hero's return to reclaim his title would be one of the easiest slam dunk stories for the coming year, and could even further cement him as "the guy" if he were to do it at like Wrestle Kingdom 20.
So how does he finally return?
He just kinda shows up.
As a heel.
In House of Torture.
I love HoT, they aren't the problem. The problem is Douki being heel at all when the crowd loved him, plus he spent all of 2024 cleanly beating everyone the division had so it's not like he needs to rely on antics to win. It's also the how, SHO Has a mystery partner and it's just… Douki. He just kinda walks out, and you can hear the crowd like anti-react, they're just like "Why?" b/c rightfully why the fuck is that happening? Also the final death knell to Just 4 Guys despite Douki showing up to TAKA Taichi Mania like a month or two prior. The Just 5 Guys downfall is awful all around but at least SANADA leaving can be justified that he can't physically wrestle a non-garbage style much anymore, Douki had everything going. Douki eventually gets to beat Despy and reclaim the IWGP Jr. title and it's like, whatever. If you had told me last year Douki would be double Jr. and Tag champ I'd be pumped to hear he was continuing his trend upward, I'd never guess it'd be this bad.
So that leaves us to where we are now. With Douki IWGP Jr. Champion, IWGP Jr. Tag Champion, just went completely undefeated in Super Junior Tag League. And the crowd cares so little that the only Jr. match announced for Wrestle Kingdom is a fatal four-way number one contender's match for Douki's belt.
by AnvilPro