Las Vegas 4/16/26

I ended up arriving to Las Vegas, Nevada on the night of April 16th and like I mentioned in the last update the goal was to make the main event of the Vegas Death Match Invitational with Jun Kasai and El Desperado teaming up to take on Nick Gage and Matt Tremont as well as Masashi Takeda and Rina Yamashita in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Glass Boards Death Match. There was a flight delay so that meant I pretty much any other delay would mean I would miss the show all together. I ended up getting off the plane, finding a taxi right away and went straight to the room where the show was at the Horseshoe as I did not have time to even check in. I ended up walking in right as they were doing introductions for the main event so I was able to get to see the main live and how electric the crowd was for the match as the match was just complete nonstop chaos in a good way. I left after the show and did not notice that Jun Kasai and Masashi Takeda were at the booths taking pictures so that was a regret to miss that. I ended up checking in to my room and getting dinner at the hotel before heading back down to the room for the next show.

The MDK Fight Club would begin at midnight that night with Megumi Kudo receiving her Death Match Hall of Fame plaque and Hayabusa teaming with Masato Tanaka against Bear Bronson and Mr. Danger in the main event. This show had a much different vibe but I enjoyed it. It was a lot more laid back, there wasn't as many people there and it being midnight and there were a handful of FMW fans that approached me during this show recognizing that I got to talk for a couple of minutes which was nice. There was a woman behind me sitting by herself the entire night just drinking a beer and I felt that along with the show just being in the middle of the night defined the vibe of the show.

The next day I attended WrestleCon at the hotel and that was a fun experience. After taking a group picture with Hayabusa, Masato Tanaka, and Megumi Kudo together I made sure to pay them all and get a single picture with each of them as well wanting to support their visit to America. I also ended up meeting with Dragon Kid which we talked about Hayabusa and their CD that they put out as well as showing him the brown Hayabusa jacket that I have and talking about Kid being the referee that ran into the cage during the Onita/Hayabusa Kawasaki Stadium show after the explosion had set off and Go Ito was unable to continue being the referee. I also got pictures with Yuji Nagata, Kazuchika Okada, Demolition, The Sandman, and Mick Foley. I talked to Mick about his May 5, 1996 Kawasaki Stadium match with Kanemura with Mick giving Kanemura all the credit for the match as he was the one that put it together after being a last minute replacement for Mitsuhiro Matsunaga his original opponent for the show.

The final show that I attended was Joey Janela's Spring Break X and I was lucky to get a seat on a bleacher as tickets for actual seats went fast and this building was packed with people which again was a much different vibe as it seemed like most of the people at this show were more ICP fans/Juggalos than I had previously seen. Hayabusa would end up having his match match with Atticus Cogar which I found the second half of the match entertaining. I was getting exhausted and knew there was no way I was going to be able to make the entire show as I ended up staying for The Sandman retirement which I did not love like everyone else as I wish they had used more of the former ECW guys that had a history with Sandman that were already in Vegas than GCW guys that I had no idea who they were although that's just a me thing but it didn't seem like too many people in the crowd knew who a bunch of the people coming to the ring were besides ICP and Mick Foley at the end. I ended up heading out after that due to a lack of sleep over the previous two days and headed back to the room to go to sleep. The next morning I ended up meeting a woman from Las Vegas who showed me around the city the rest of the day before I headed out. We are both going to Minneapolis for WrestleCon for the SummerSlam weekend as I want to meet Jinsei Shinzaki and Jushin Liger for the first time although I think that might be the only wrestling related thing I will end up doing for that trip.