Three More Competitors Advance to Next Round of the AJPW 2026 Royal Road Tournament

By: Lewis Carlan

On Sept. 12th, 524 fans filled the Kurobe City General Sports Center Main Arena as All Japan Pro-Wrestling held it’s second night of the 2026 Royal Road Tournament.

Three more first round bouts were scheduled to see who would be joining Kento Miyahara, Go Shiozaki & Timothy Thatcher in the next round of the elimination tournament.

In the main event, Ryuki Honda faced Kuma Arashi to earn the right to face Kento Miyahara in the 2nd round of the tournament. As expected this was a hard hitting battle between two heavyweights that nearly lasted twenty-two minutes. With a number of close falls in a match that could have gone either way, Honda hit his patented Final Vent finisher on Arashi to win the match and advance to the second round.

Honda celebrated his win with a little dance and then addressed the crowd to close out the event.

Honda, who has been the runner-up in the last three consecutive Royal Road Tournament’s has vowed that this will be his year to finally win the whole thing.

In other first round tournament action, Daisuke Sekimoto defeated Shotaro Ashino after hitting his Big Bang Catastrophe to advance to the second round. In addition, Xyon punched his ticket to round 2 of the tournament as he got past his HAVOC partner Oddyssey following a diving headbutt.

There are still two first round tournament bouts that will be contested on Sept. 13th as Jun Saito faces Yuma Aoyagi and Rei Saito battles Yuma Anzai.

The second round is set to begin on Sept. 16th and conclude on Sept. 17th. Here are the bouts fans can expect for round two:

Sept. 16th

• Timothy Thatcher vs. Winner of Rei Saito vs. Yuma Anzai
• Daisuke Sekimoto vs. Winner of Jun Saito vs. Yuma Aoyagi

Sept. 17th

• Kento Miyahara vs. Ryuki Honda
• Go Shiozaki vs. Xyon

Here are the full results for the AJPW 2026 Royal Road Tournament first round on Sept. 12th courtesy of purolove.com:

• Ren Ayabe & Hokuto Omori defeated Toyama Black Ramen Man #1 & Toyama Black Ramen Man #2 (6:54) as Ayabe Ramen Man #1 & Ramen Man #2 pinned.
• Hideki Suzuki, Timothy Thatcher & Yasutaka Yano defeated Kento Miyahara, Rising HAYATO & Shota Kofuji (12:52) after a toe hold from Thatcher against Kofuji.
• AJPW World Jr. Heavyweight Title & All Asia Tag Team Title Skirmish: Jun Saito, Rei Saito & Seiki Yoshioka defeated Yuma Aoyagi, Yuma Anzai & Dan Tamura (13:45) after a La Magistral by Yoshioka against Tamura.
  
• Royal Road Tournament – Round 1: Daisuke Sekimoto defeated Shotaro Ashino (13:18) with the Big Bang Catastrophe.
  
• Royal Road Tournament – Round 1: Xyon defeated Oddyssey (11:18) with a diving headbutt.
  
• Royal Road Tournament – Round 1: Ryuki Honda defeated Kuma Arashi (21:57) with the Final Vent.