Summary

Kazusada Higuchi has asked fans to keep his April 5 retirement ceremony at Korakuen Hall more restrained than a typical wrestling farewell. The former KO-D Openweight Champion requested that there be no photo session, no autograph session, and no paper streamers thrown into the ring after the main event.

The ceremony is part of DDT Pro-Wrestling's upcoming Korakuen Hall card, which is built around Higuchi's retirement. As previously explained when Higuchi discussed his diagnosis, he is stepping away from in-ring competition after doctors warned that continuing to wrestle could be life-threatening because of a subluxation involving his first and second vertebrae.

Higuchi's plans for the April 5 farewell

Higuchi is not scheduled to wrestle in the retirement match itself. Instead, his Harimao faction-mates will compete on his behalf, and the retirement ceremony will take place after the main event.

His request removes two of the usual post-show fan interactions and also rules out one of Japanese wrestling's most familiar visual tributes, the paper streamer toss. That should give the night a more formal tone, with the focus staying on the match, the ceremony, and Higuchi's final appearance in front of the Korakuen Hall crowd.

What it means for DDT and Harimao

For DDT, Higuchi's request makes the April 5 show less about celebratory extras and more about the weight of the retirement itself. With Harimao wrestling in his place and the ceremony set to close the night, the promotion is clearly positioning the event around honoring Higuchi's place in the group and in DDT rather than stretching the farewell into a longer fan-session sendoff.

That also puts more emotional pressure on Harimao's role in the main event. Because Higuchi will not be competing, his stablemates effectively carry the in-ring side of his goodbye while he remains the center of the ceremony that follows.

Sources

As reported by Fightful.