Industry | Professional wrestling |
---|---|
Founded | 1997 |
Founder | Sanshiro Takagi |
Headquarters | Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan |
Area served
|
Japan |
Owner | Sanshiro Takagi |
Website | www.ddtpro.com |
DDT Pro-Wrestling (DDTプロレスリング DDT Puroresuringu?) is a Japanese professional wrestling promotion founded in 1997 by Sanshiro Takagi. DDT, also written as D2T, stands for Dramatic Dream Team, which was the promotion's official name from 1997 to 2009. It became one of the top names in Japanese indy wrestling by creating a unique Sports Entertainment style with a Japanese puroresu flair to the matches.
DDT started producing pay-per-view digests of its product on DirectTV during late 1999 to 2003 when they finally got a timeslot on Samurai TV, Japan's premier sports channel which shows professional wrestling from both Japan and the United States.
The cards' matches tend to be a mixture of Japanese lucharesu (a mix of lucha libre and traditional puroresu), worked shoot-style, hardcore brawling and comedy matches. DDT is in many ways a parody of American pro wrestling, particularly WWE, using over-the-top gimmicks (most notably Danshoku Dino) as well as unique match types including a hardcore match in a campsite (which featured use of bottle rockets as weapons), an "Office Deathmatch" (where the ring was set up to resemble a section of an office building, complete with cubicle walls and computers), and a "Silence Match" (where wrestlers were forbidden to make loud noises, resulting in slow-motion chops and punches and featuring the commentary team speaking in a faux-whisper).
DDT was the parent promotion of Union Pro Wrestling, which held events approximately twice a month, and is the parent of Tokyo Joshi Pro, which was founded in June 2012.
DDT celebrated its 15th anniversary on August 18, 2012, by holding its first ever event in Nippon Budokan.
On August 17, 2015, it was announced that Union Pro would be folding after its 10th anniversary event on October 4, 2015. Three days after its folding, Union was replaced by a new promotion named Pro Wrestling Basara, which launched in January 2016.