Dome-Quake 2001: WrestleFile Historical Verdict

TEAM2000's Hiro Saito, Tatsutoshi Goto and AKIRA defeated Shiro Koshinaka, Osamu Nishimura and Yutaka Yoshie in 13:52 to open Dome-Quake at Sapporo Dome on July 20, 2001. The six-person result belongs to those exact three-per-side groups, not to TEAM2000's separate junior tag champions later in the show. WrestleFile scores the opener C+ / 6.8, a support-level verdict on a ten-bout card. Gedo and Jado would go on to win the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship over Liger and El Samurai in match four; the opening trio's win was not that title transfer. The distinction makes the TEAM2000 results useful without attributing an unauthorized championship.

Tadao Yasuda defeated Michiyoshi Ohara in 6:14 in the contest billed First Quake - Decision at Dome-Quake 2001. The result is a short singles victory early in the Sapporo Dome card, rather than an IWGP championship contest or an undocumented knockout. WrestleFile assigns C / 6.3, among its lower scores that night. The two junior championship changes came later, when Gedo and Jado won the junior tag belts and Masayuki Naruse defeated defending singles junior champion Minoru Tanaka. The heavyweight and heavyweight team titles stayed with Fujita and Tencozy. Yasuda-Ohara's winner, duration and billing supply enough historical specificity without borrowing those results.

Tatsumi Fujinami, Riki Choshu and Osamu Kido defeated Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kenzo Suzuki and Shinya Makabe in 10:43 in the New Japan Tradition - Kido Memorial contest. Its six participants span an established trio and a younger opposing side; the source identifies three wrestlers on each side, not a general battle royal or championship match. WrestleFile graded it C+ / 6.5. It was the third match at Dome-Quake 2001, immediately before the junior tag title change in favor of Gedo and Jado. Preserving Kido's named inclusion and the opponents' identities prevents a memorial pairing from being collapsed into generic New Japan undercard prose.

TEAM2000's Gedo and Jado defeated reigning IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions Jushin Thunder Liger and El Samurai in 19:06 to WIN the belts. The fourth Dome-Quake 2001 match carries WrestleFile's B / 7.5, the highest saved score on the ten-match card. Gedo and Jado were challengers, not defending champions. This title switch is distinct from the fifth match, where Masayuki Naruse took the IWGP Junior Heavyweight singles title from Minoru Tanaka. Meanwhile, Tencozy kept the heavyweight IWGP team belts later, and Fujita retained the heavyweight singles championship in the final. The four separate championship lineages must be recorded accurately.

Masayuki Naruse beat defending IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion Minoru Tanaka in 11:27 to WIN the individual junior championship at Sapporo Dome. WrestleFile's C+ / 6.9 marks this fifth match below Gedo and Jado's stronger-rated junior tag title victory immediately before it, but both bouts produced new champions. Naruse did not win the junior tag belts, and Gedo and Jado did not take Minoru's singles championship. These two title transfers occurred before later retentions: Tencozy successfully defended IWGP heavyweight tag against Taiyo Kea and Jinsei Shinzaki, and Fujita defended the IWGP Heavyweight singles belt against Don Frye. Those source outcomes make the 2001 card more than its headline match alone.

Gary Goodridge defeated Manabu Nakanishi by technical knockout in 6:06 in Dome-Quake's Second Quake - Wild Beast Crash contest. TKO is the listed outcome, not a regular wrestling pin, tap-out or an unspecified knockout, and no title was at stake. The short meeting received WrestleFile's C / 6.3, placing it among the supporting combat-style attractions at the 2001 Sapporo Dome event. The next billed Quake bout featured Mark Coleman defeating Yuji Nagata without a specified finish. Two junior championships had changed earlier; the later IWGP heavyweight and tag defenders remained champions. Distinguishing the named fighting result from those four belt stories keeps the history precise.

Mark Coleman defeated Yuji Nagata in 7:59 in the Third Quake - Fusion bout at the July 20, 2001 Sapporo Dome show. The record credits Coleman with the victory but does not identify a specific pinfall, knockout or submission, so one should not be invented. WrestleFile grades it C / 6.3, similar to the earlier Gary Goodridge-Manabu Nakanishi crossover bout, which explicitly ended in a TKO. The difference in documented finish types is important. Coleman's result was not for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship: Kazuyuki Fujita held that belt and beat Don Frye in the main event, while Tencozy kept their separate tag titles in match eight.

Tencozy's Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Satoshi Kojima defeated BATT representatives Taiyo Kea and Jinsei Shinzaki in 16:28 to retain the IWGP Tag Team Championship. WrestleFile assigns the eighth Dome-Quake bout B- / 7.4. The heavyweight tag champions entered as incumbents and left with the same titles, unlike the earlier junior team championship where Gedo and Jado took the belts from Liger and El Samurai. Masayuki Naruse also won the separate junior singles championship from Minoru Tanaka in the fifth match. The title change-versus-retention contrast is part of the event's documented progression, and the BATT challengers shouldn't be described as new IWGP heavyweight team champions.

Masahiro Chono defeated Keiji Muto in 16:09 in the BATT-versus-TEAM2000 summit singles contest, the penultimate match of Dome-Quake 2001. WrestleFile's B- / 7.1 is a middle-to-strong appraisal of this heavyweight program at Sapporo Dome. Chono was the winner and Muto the losing opponent; no championship transferred through the match. The final contest would see Kazuyuki Fujita retain the IWGP Heavyweight Championship against Don Frye, while Tencozy had retained the heavyweight team belts immediately before Chono-Muto. Two junior championships had changed earlier, so Chono's singles result should not be assigned a title outcome absent from the saved card.

Kazuyuki Fujita defeated Don Frye in 7:22 to retain the IWGP Heavyweight Championship in Dome-Quake's July 20, 2001 main event at Sapporo Dome. WrestleFile assigned B- / 7.3, a different rating from the event's highest-graded contest, Gedo and Jado's B / 7.5 junior team title win earlier in the card. Fujita entered as champion and kept the heavyweight belt; his victory was not one of the two junior championship transfers. The heavyweight team champions Tencozy also successfully defended against BATT's Taiyo Kea and Jinsei Shinzaki in match eight. This ending preserved New Japan's two heavyweight titleholders while changing both junior champion lineages earlier that evening.