Fire Festival

Himatsuri (火祭り) is an annual professional wrestling round-robin tournament held by Pro Wrestling Zero1 to determine the top wrestler in the promotion, typically contested in late July/early August.

Within the English-speaking professional wrestling world, the tournament is commonly referred to by its translated name Fire Festival.

The winner of the tournament is presented with the "Fire Sword", which they carry for the following year until the next Festival.

The winner, Satoshi Kojima, is to date the only "outsider" to win the Fire Festival, representing AJPW.

This would end up being Masato Tanaka, who also went on to defeat Sai and win the tournament.

On July 20, it was announced that Ikuto Hidaka would be replacing Kazunari Murakami, who was forced out of action after just one match due to a head injury, due to finishing in fifth place in the fan vote.

In a similar situation to the 2006 tournament, Block A ended in a full tie with four points, leading to a five-way match on August 2 to determine the finalist.

It featured ten participants in two blocks, including outside participation from Big Japan Pro Wrestling's Daisuke Sekimoto, New Japan Pro-Wrestling's Manabu Nakanishi and Togi Makabe and Dragon Gate's Masaaki Mochizuki.

As a result of a tie for the lead in Block B, a three-way match between Nakanishi, Takao Omori and Masato Tanaka would be held on the final day to decide the finalist; Tanaka won the match by pinning Omori, and would defeat Makabe in the final.

Both ties would be decided in a three- or four-way match on the night of the tournament.

It featured twelve participants in two blocks and was contested for the vacant World Heavyweight Championship.

It featured twelve participants in two blocks, including outside participation from Big Japan Pro Wrestling's Daisuke Sekimoto and Kazuki Hashimoto, freelancer Hideki Suzuki and Wrestle-1's Kai.

2006 winner Masato Tanaka hoists the ceremonial Fire Sword