Kosuke Sato Retains BJW Jr Heavyweight Title Against Jacob Crane, Both Stars Comment Following Match

By: Lewis Carlan

On July 27th, Big Japan Pro-Wrestling held an event at the famed Korakuen Hall with over 500 fans in attendance. One of the featured bouts was a BJW Jr Heavyweight Title bout between the current champion Kosuke Sato and his challenger Jacob Crane.

Crane, who became the first Polish wrestler to compete for a title in Japan, had been very vocal over the past few weeks about his desire to become the next BJW Jr. Heavyweight Champion. Crane indicated that he would be a true leader for the BJW Jr Heavyweight division and felt confident that he would defeat Sato.

Sato was making his first defense of the title he won back on May 5th when he defeated Ikuto Hidaka for the belt. This is the first BJW title reign for Sato since he made his debut back in 2019.

Despite being confident and quite possibly over confident, Crane did not fulfill his goal of becoming the BJW Jr. Heavyweight Champion. Sato proved to be too much for the challenger and he defeated Crane in a little over twenty minutes with the Bloody Sunday.

Crane suffered a scary cut mid way through the match but appeared to be ok afterwards.

Crane took to social media to offer a show of respect to Sato and he vowed to continue his pursuit of the BJW Jr. Heavyweight Title

From Jacob Crane:

“Today we showed the Pro Wrestling world what BJW Junior Heavyweight division is all about. We fight, we bleed and we overcome barriers. Despite losing tonight, I am proud of how much fire we both brought out of each other. Thank you Sato, let’s fight again soon.”

Sato took to X as well and thanked Jacob for the match as well thanking the fans for attending the event. He also nominated his next opponent.

From Kosuke Sato:

“Thank you for attending the Korakuen Hall event. I somehow managed to defend my title for the first time. Surely, because people can never be perfect, they are beautiful, fun, and painful. Jacob, thank you for fighting me. NEXT is Isami Kodaka…! I said it on my own, so I don’t know what will happen!”

Prior to the bout, both Sato and Crane engaged in a war of words as well as a number of hard fought preliminaries that led up to their championship bout. It appears that both competitors have gained mutual respect for one another following their July 27th bout.

Sato and Crane brought out the best in each other and it’s only a matter of time before we see these two back in the ring facing off in another BJW Jr Championship bout.

Here are the full results for the BJW July 27th event at Korakuen Hall courtesy of purolove.com:

• Kaji Tomato & Kota Sekifuda defeat Tatsuhiko Yoshino & Ryuma Sekimo (8:21) after Tomato’s speed against Sekimo.
• Hardcore Match: Kankuro Hoshino & Channing Decker defeat Masaya Takahashi & Kazumi Kikuta (6:52) after a G Shock Latch by Hoshino against Takahashi.
• Ryota Hama defeats Koshiro Asakura (6:49) with an Ookido Press.
• Leyton Buzzard, Takuya Nomura, Fuminori Abe & Yuya Aoki defeat Daichi Hashimoto, Hideyoshi Kamitani, Yasufumi Nakanoue & Kazumasa Yoshida (14:00) after Buzzard’s Buzz Killer against Hashimoto.
• BJW Jr. Heavyweight Title: Kosuke Sato (c) defeats Jacob Crane (20:54) with the Bloody Sunday (1st defense).
• Daisuke Sekimoto Return Match: Daisuke Sekimoto & So Daimonji defeat Ryuji Ito & Abdullah Kobayashi (15:46) after a lariat of Sekimoto against Kobayashi.

BJW events can be seen on BJW Core subscription streaming service.