Kohei Sato wins 2004 Fire Festival!

Perhaps the biggest win of his career thus far, Kohei Sato won the annual Zero-One Fire Festival tournament today, beating out top outsider Takao Omori in the finals with a German suplex hold at 22:04! It was a tough road for Sato, but in the end he only registered ONE loss to veteran Shiro Koshinaka on the opening day of the tournament. Here are the complete results for the tournament from day one:

7/27/2004
Block A - Takao Omori (1) VS Hirotaka Yokoi (1) went to a 30 minute draw
Block B - Shiro Koshinaka (2) beat Kohei Sato (0) with a ground cobra twist at 8:32
Block A - Satoshi Kojima (1) VS Tetsuhiro Kuroda (1) went to a double countout at 13:02
Block B - Masato Tanaka (2) beat Kintaro Kanemura (0) with a rolling elbow at 11:07

7/29/2004
Block A - Hirotaka Yokoi (3) beat Tetsuhiro Kuroda (1) with a spinning sleeper hold at 11:10
Block B - Kohei Sato (2) beat Kintaro Kanemura (0) with a German suplex hold at 9:11
Block A - Satoshi Kojima (3) beat Wataru Sakata (0) with a Lariat at 14:52
Block B - Shinjiro Ohtani (2) beat Shiro Koshinaka (2) with a German suplex hold at 10:56
*Masato Tanaka gets injured during a tag match and can't continue the tournament*

7/30/2004
Block B - Shinjiro Ohtani (4) beat Masato Tanaka (2) by forfeit
Block A - Tetsuhiro Kuroda (3) beat Takao Omori (1) with a modified Samson clutch at 11:16
Block B - Shiro Koshinaka (3) VS Kintaro Kanemura (1) went to a double count out at 5:34
Block A - Wataru Sakata (2) beat Hirotaka Yokoi (3) with a diving foot stomp at 9:50

7/31/2004
Block B - Shiro Koshinaka (5) beat Masato Tanaka (2) by forfeit
Block A - Wataru Sakata (4) beat Tetsuhiro Kuroda (1) with a diving foot stomp at 15:10
Block B - Takao Omori (3) beat Satoshi Kojima (3)with the Axe Guillotine Driver at 19:06
Block A - Kohei Sato (4) beat Shinjiro Ohtani (4) with a triangle choke hold at 17:32

8/1/2004
Block B - Kohei Sato (6) beat Masato Tanaka (2) by forfeit
Block A - Satoshi Kojima (5) beat Hirotaka Yokoi (3) with a Lariat at 14:34
Block B - Takao Omori (5) beat Wataru Sakata (4) with an Axe Bomber at 7:17
Block A - Kintaro Kanemura (3) beat Shinjiro Ohtani (4) by pinfall at 1:18(!!!)
Fire Festival Finals: Kohei Sato beat Takao Omori with a German suplex hold at 22:04

Like All Japan's Champion Carnival earlier this year, the Fire Festival was marred by the injury of Masato Tanaka. How will Zero-One follow up on Sato's success? Will he be the youngster that finally gets the big rub? Or will Hashimoto continue to push himself and Ogawa above all while guys like Ohtani, Tanaka and the like continue to bust their chops in the mid-card?

Credit: Strong Style Spirit for the results