- Rising HAYATO and Yuma Anzai (c) defeated Fuminori Abe and Takuya Nomura — Asia Tag Team Championship
- Jun Saito (c) defeated Yuma Aoyagi — Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship
AJPW Excite Series 2025 - Tag 4: WrestleFile Historical Verdict
The factual record, historical context, match-by-match analysis, and WrestleFile verdict.
- PROMOTION
- All Japan Pro Wrestling
- DATE
- February 24, 2025
- VENUE
- Esforta Arena Hachioji Main Arena
- LOCATION
- Hachioji, Tokyo
- ATTENDANCE
- 1,870
- EVENT TYPE
- PPV
Excite Series Tag 4 is the point where All Japan's February tour stops looking like a string of house-show continuations and becomes a destination card. The Hachioji event drew 1,870 fans and carried three championship matches: Jun Saito defending the Triple Crown against Yuma Aoyagi, Rising HAYATO and Yuma Anzai defending the Asia Tag belts against Astronauts, and Yuko Miyamoto defending the GAORA TV title against Kuroshio TOKYO Japan. Add Atsuki Aoyagi's singles win over Rei Saito and another Ren Ayabe pin over Hokuto Omori, and the show has enough consequence across the card to justify an A- historical grade even without a title change.
Event ContextBackground, stakes & historical setting
All Japan Pro Wrestling held the fourth 2025 Excite Series stop on February 24 at Esforta Arena Hachioji's Main Arena in Tokyo. The official result page lists a 16:00 start and 1,870 spectators. All Japan had already treated Hachioji as a major February date in its advance promotion, and ticket notices documented premium seating selling out before bell time. The card was built around three title defenses rather than a single headline match.
Kento Miyahara and Taishin Nagao opened by defeating Naruki Doi and Senor Saito in 8:46, with Miyahara using the Shutdown Suplex Hold. ELPIDA followed with Ryuki Honda, Ren Ayabe and Seigo Tachibana defeating Hokuto Omori, Kumaarashi and Jack Kennedy in 14:22 when Ayabe pinned Omori after Death Roulette. Those first two matches established familiar tour factions while keeping the card moving quickly toward its championship block.
Yuko Miyamoto retained the GAORA TV Championship against Kuroshio TOKYO Japan in 12:59 with a moonsault press. The official result notes mark it as Miyamoto's third defense as the 28th champion. An eight-man tag followed, with Seiki Yoshioka pinning reigning World Junior champion MUSASHI via La Magistral at 11:11. Rising HAYATO and Yuma Anzai then retained the Asia Tag Team Championship against Fuminori Abe and Takuya Nomura in 13:51 when HAYATO pinned Abe after Sid Vicious; All Japan records that as the champions' third defense.
The final two matches carried the strongest singles stakes. Atsuki Aoyagi defeated Rei Saito in their special singles match in 15:31. Jun Saito then retained the Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship over Yuma Aoyagi in 23:48 with Days Gone, completing his second successful defense as the 75th champion. All Japan listed AJPW TV and GAORA SPORTS as the viewing outlets for the event.
Watch, Skim or Skip?
- Kento Miyahara and Taishin Nagao defeated Naruki Doi and Senor Saito
- Ryuki Honda, Ren Ayabe and Seigo Tachibana defeated Hokuto Omori, Kumaarashi and Jack Kennedy
- Yuko Miyamoto (c) defeated Kuroshio TOKYO Japan — GAORA TV Championship
- Hideki Suzuki, Hikaru Sato, Kengo Mashimo and Seiki Yoshioka defeated Shotaro Ashino, MUSASHI, Dan Tamura and Ryo Inoue
- Atsuki Aoyagi defeated Rei Saito
The Card, On the Record
01Kento Miyahara and Taishin Nagao defeated Naruki Doi and Senor SaitoB
Miyahara pins Senor Saito with the Shutdown Suplex Hold at 8:46. The opener is short by design and gives the crowd an immediate established ace without asking the match to compete with the championship-heavy second half. Nagao gets another developmental placement beside a top star, while Doi can work as the experienced opposing anchor without taking the decision. Senor Saito absorbing the fall keeps the major names protected. There is limited long-term consequence, but it is a functional opener with a decisive finish and a useful role for Nagao. The biggest strength is efficiency: under nine minutes, a recognizable winner, and no unnecessary detour before the faction and title stories begin.
SKIM — a brisk Miyahara-led opener that does its job without overstaying.
02Ryuki Honda, Ren Ayabe and Seigo Tachibana defeated Hokuto Omori, Kumaarashi and Jack KennedyB+
Ayabe pins Omori after Death Roulette at 14:22, continuing one of the clearest result threads from the February tour. Ayabe had already pinned Omori in the February 14 Shin-Kiba main event, so repeating the direct result here gives the ELPIDA-North Army issue a pattern rather than a one-night accident. Honda and Tachibana keep ELPIDA's full unit present, while Kumaarashi and Kennedy broaden the opposing side without taking the key loss away from Omori. The match does not need a title to carry consequence because the fall itself advances the hierarchy between Ayabe and Omori. It is the best non-title faction result on the card and a useful bridge from the earlier Excite Series stops into the championship block.
SKIM — Ayabe over Omori again gives the faction program a concrete through-line.
03Yuko Miyamoto (c) defeated Kuroshio TOKYO Japan — GAORA TV ChampionshipB+
Miyamoto retains with a moonsault press at 12:59, and the official result records this as his third defense as the 28th GAORA TV champion. Kuroshio had been used as Jun Saito's injury replacement in the February 14 main event, so the title challenge keeps him relevant after that emergency lineup change instead of dropping him back into an unrelated undercard slot. The match is concise for a sixty-minute championship format, which suits the card because two bigger title defenses still follow. Miyamoto's clean retention reinforces the belt without stealing scale from the Asia Tag or Triple Crown matches. As an archival entry, the defense number is the key value: this is a documented milestone in Miyamoto's reign rather than merely another Kuroshio singles appearance.
SKIM — a compact third GAORA TV defense with useful continuity for Kuroshio.
04Hideki Suzuki, Hikaru Sato, Kengo Mashimo and Seiki Yoshioka defeated Shotaro Ashino, MUSASHI, Dan Tamura and Ryo InoueB
Yoshioka pins MUSASHI with La Magistral at 11:11. The eight-man format looks like connective tissue on paper, but the specific fall gives it more value: MUSASHI was the World Junior champion, so Yoshioka scoring the decision creates a junior-heavyweight result that can be referenced beyond this night. Suzuki and Sato maintain their faction presence against Ashino and Tamura, while Mashimo adds another veteran to the winning side. Because the champion takes the fall, the match is not filler even though no belt is at stake. The short runtime also protects the event's pacing. It does not become a major historical match on its own, but the finish earns a stronger note than a generic multi-man undercard bout.
SKIM — Yoshioka pinning the World Junior champion is the reason to retain this result.
05Rising HAYATO and Yuma Anzai (c) defeated Fuminori Abe and Takuya Nomura — Asia Tag Team ChampionshipA-
HAYATO pins Abe after Sid Vicious at 13:51, giving the 125th Asia Tag champions their third successful defense. The challengers matter: Astronauts are a specialist team, so HAYATO and Anzai beating them carries more tag-team credibility than defeating an improvised pairing. All Japan also gave the match a dedicated press conference in advance, which shows the defense was treated as one of the event's central programs rather than a belt added to the card for decoration. HAYATO taking the deciding fall is an important booking choice because it prevents the reign from reading only as Anzai's championship aura transferred to a team. The match strengthens both the champions' identity and the title's place on a three-belt card. It is the clearest recommendation outside the main event.
WATCH — a meaningful third defense against Astronauts that strengthens HAYATO and Anzai as a team.
06Atsuki Aoyagi defeated Rei SaitoB+
Atsuki Aoyagi pins Rei Saito at 15:31 in the featured special singles match. Placement is important: it sits directly between the Asia Tag defense and the Triple Crown main event, so All Japan treats it as more than an undercard singles experiment. Atsuki getting a direct win over the larger Saito gives him a heavyweight-caliber result without attaching a title or tournament stipulation. It also creates a neat family contrast on the card: Atsuki wins before Yuma Aoyagi challenges Jun Saito and comes up short. Rei can absorb the loss while Jun retains the family's championship position later in the night. The match's long-term consequence is smaller than the title defenses, but the clean result makes it one of the event's better standalone markers.
SKIM — Atsuki earns a useful singles win over Rei immediately before the main event.
07Jun Saito (c) defeated Yuma Aoyagi — Triple Crown Heavyweight ChampionshipA-
Jun Saito retains with Days Gone at 23:48, recording his second successful defense as the 75th Triple Crown champion. The match carries extra context because Jun's quadriceps injury had altered the February 11 and February 14 cards, making a full-length title defense at Hachioji a tangible return to championship business. Yuma Aoyagi is a credible former champion-level challenger, so the defense is not simply a recovery match against a protected lower-card opponent. Jun gets the only bout on the show to exceed twenty minutes, preserving the main event's hierarchy above the other title defenses. The clean result stabilizes his reign rather than forcing another belt change, and it gives the event a definitive closing image. This is the match most likely to matter when tracing Jun's 2025 title chronology.
WATCH — Jun Saito’s second Triple Crown defense anchors the entire Hachioji card.
BOOKING VERDICTA-
The booking strength comes from distribution. This is not a card where everything before the main event exists only to fill time. Three championship defenses create separate reasons to care, and the non-title matches still produce outcomes that connect to the rest of the tour. Ayabe again pins Omori in the ELPIDA-North Army program, Yoshioka pins the World Junior champion in a multi-man match, and Atsuki Aoyagi gets a direct singles victory over Rei Saito immediately before the Triple Crown main event.
The Asia Tag defense is especially useful because it puts the young champion pairing of HAYATO and Anzai against Astronauts, Fuminori Abe and Takuya Nomura. All Japan promoted the match with a dedicated press conference, giving the defense more framing than a late card announcement. HAYATO scoring the pin over Abe protects Anzai from having to carry every decisive moment and gives the team another result that belongs to both partners rather than simply to the former Triple Crown champion.
Jun Saito's main-event defense is the correct anchor. Yuma Aoyagi is credible enough to make the second defense feel like a real test, while Jun retaining keeps the reign stable after the injury issues that disrupted the earlier Excite Series cards. The 23:48 length makes it the only match to cross twenty minutes, so the show preserves hierarchy without stretching every championship bout into main-event scale.
No title change means the card is more consolidation than reset. That works here. Miyamoto, HAYATO and Anzai, and Jun all leave with their belts, but the challengers are not treated as incidental. The show advances secondary claims around Yoshioka, Ayabe and Atsuki while reinforcing the champions. For a tour finale-style major stop, that is coherent booking rather than a collection of unrelated defenses.
CROWD & PRESENTATIONA-
The 1,870 attendance is one of the strongest pieces of context for the event. All Japan's advance notices reported premium and special ringside categories sold out, and a later ticket update added ringside to the sold-out list. That means the announced crowd was backed by visible pre-event demand rather than appearing only as an after-the-fact number.
Esforta Arena Hachioji gives the show a broader presentation than the smaller Shin-Kiba and Fujisan Messe dates earlier in the series. The card also has a clean escalation pattern: two faction tags, the first title defense, an eight-man bridge, the Asia Tag defense, a featured singles match, then the Triple Crown main event. With seven matches and only the main event exceeding twenty minutes, the event has enough variety without feeling padded.
The official result page lists both All Japan Pro Wrestling TV and GAORA SPORTS, which is useful archival context because the event was built as more than a local-only tour stop. WrestleFile treats those outlets as the historical viewing record while avoiding any promise that the same replay pages or subscription terms remain unchanged indefinitely.
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCEB+
The most durable historical point is Jun Saito's Triple Crown reign. This Hachioji match is officially recorded as his second successful defense as the 75th champion, with Yuma Aoyagi falling to Days Gone after 23:48. Because the earlier February cards were affected by Jun's quadriceps injury, the fact that he returned and completed a full main-event defense gives this event additional chronological importance within the tour.
The Asia Tag match matters for a different reason. Rising HAYATO and Yuma Anzai were still establishing their identity as the 125th championship team, and beating Astronauts gave the reign a credible specialist-team defense. All Japan later referenced the February 24 victory when promoting the champions' next defense, confirming that the Hachioji result was part of the title reign's official progression rather than a disposable defense.
Yuko Miyamoto's GAORA TV retention is another documented milestone: the official result page labels it his third successful defense as the 28th champion. Kuroshio TOKYO Japan had been pulled into the Excite Series main-event picture as an injury replacement ten days earlier, so moving from that faction story into a singles title challenge gives his February run some continuity.
The non-title outcomes also create useful markers. Seiki Yoshioka pinned World Junior champion MUSASHI in the eight-man tag, a result that has more archival value than the placement of the match suggests. Atsuki Aoyagi's singles victory over Rei Saito gives the younger Aoyagi a clean heavyweight result on a card where his brother challenged for the Triple Crown. Ren Ayabe's second-week pin over Hokuto Omori keeps the ELPIDA-North Army thread alive.
Taken together, Tag 4 is not historically important because one shocking change happened. Its value is cumulative: three successful title defenses, a large crowd for the series, several protected secondary results, and the restoration of Jun Saito to a full championship main event after injury uncertainty. That combination makes it one of the more useful February 2025 All Japan cards to preserve as a complete event file.
WHAT AGED WELL
- The 1,870 attendance and sold-out premium seating gave Hachioji major-stop scale.
- Three championship defenses spread stakes across the second half of the card.
- Jun Saito returned from the injury-disrupted earlier tour dates to complete a full Triple Crown defense.
- Rising HAYATO scored the deciding fall in the Asia Tag defense, strengthening the champions as a true team.
- Secondary results for Ren Ayabe, Seiki Yoshioka and Atsuki Aoyagi gave the card useful follow-up hooks.
WHAT AGED POORLY
- No championship changed hands, so the event is more consolidation than a turning point.
- The opener carries little historical consequence beyond Kento Miyahara’s win.
- The eight-man tag’s importance rests heavily on Yoshioka pinning MUSASHI rather than the match itself.
- Some February faction threads continued without a definitive payoff on this card.
- Historical streaming listings do not guarantee unchanged replay access today.
RESEARCH VERDICTWhere the Evidence Lands
All Japan Pro Wrestling's official February 24 result page establishes the event identity, 1,870 attendance, full seven-match order, exact match times and finishes, the three successful title-defense counts, and the AJPW TV/GAORA SPORTS viewing record. The official February 17 match-order announcement confirms the complete card and identifies the three championship bouts before the event. All Japan's earlier full-card announcement presents Hachioji as a major February date built around those title matches. A dedicated Asia Tag press conference supplies promotion-specific context for HAYATO and Anzai defending against Fuminori Abe and Takuya Nomura. The official February AJPW TV schedule lists the Hachioji event live at 16:00, while All Japan's February 19 ticket update documents premium, special ringside and ringside categories sold out before the event. The sponsor announcement confirms Medakaya.com as the presenting sponsor. Together these primary sources support the card, attendance, stakes, title-defense chronology and presentation context without relying on generic event indexes. Independent event listings and recaps from Brainbustr, CAGEMATCH and Superluchas separately reproduce the February 24 Hachioji identity and core result structure, providing cross-domain verification alongside All Japan’s primary record.
RESEARCH SOURCESSources & Methodology10 sources
These sources support the event record, historical context, critical reception, and streaming information used throughout this Event File.
- All Japan Pro Wrestling official - Excite Series 2025 Hachioji resultsprimary event identity, attendance, full results, defense counts and viewing outlets
- All Japan Pro Wrestling official - February 24 Hachioji match orderprimary pre-event card order and three-title-match confirmation
- All Japan Pro Wrestling official - Hachioji full card announcementprimary major-card framing and championship lineup context
- All Japan Pro Wrestling official - Asia Tag Team Championship press conferenceprimary championship-program context for HAYATO and Anzai versus Astronauts
- All Japan Pro Wrestling official - February 2025 AJPW TV scheduleprimary live-stream schedule confirmation for the Hachioji event
- All Japan Pro Wrestling official - February 24 Hachioji ticket updateprimary sold-out seating-category evidence before the event
- All Japan Pro Wrestling official - Hachioji presenting sponsor announcementprimary Medakaya.com presenting-sponsor confirmation
- Brainbustr - AJPW Excite Series 2025 Night 4independent date, venue and seven-match result cross-check
- CAGEMATCH - AJPW promotion events listingindependent event identity and Excite Series Tag 4 listing cross-check
- Superluchas - Jun Saito retains Triple Crown for second defenseindependent attendance, full result and title-defense cross-check
WHERE TO WATCHStream This Event
Stream This Event
All Japan Pro Wrestling TV - Archive / subscription terms may vary
GAORA SPORTS - Broadcast / replay availability varies
Historical viewing outlets are preserved as event context; exact replay availability and subscription terms can change.
WrestleFile lists only streaming options we have specifically confirmed. Availability varies by country and can change.