| Wild Burning | |
|---|---|
| Tag team | |
| Members | Jun Akiyama Takao Omori |
| Billed heights | 1.90 m (6 ft 3 in)- Omori[1] 1.88 m (6 ft 2 in)-Akiyama[2] |
| Combined billed weight | 220 kg (490 lb) |
| Debut | March 25, 1993 |
Wild Burning is atag team composed of Japaneseprofessional wrestlersJun Akiyama andTakao Omori. Although Akiyama and Omori have been using the team name since 2013, their team goes back almost to the era of their debut inAll Japan Pro Wrestling in the early 1990s. The name is a portmanteau of their previous stablesBurning (Akiyama) and Get Wild (Omori).
Akiyama and Omori's first match as a team happened on 25 March 1993, defeatingMasao Inoue andSatoru Asako. One year from that date, they started teaming regularly. Their first championship was earned on 29 January 1995, defeatingThe Fantastics in a tournament final for the vacantAll Asia Tag Team Championship, a reign that would go on to 1076 days.
Despite his team with Omori, Akiyama's talent ensured that promoterGiant Baba would lead him into pushes by teaming with established stars, namelyMitsuharu Misawa andKenta Kobashi. While holding the Asia tag team title, Akiyama would team with Misawa to win theWorld title on 23 May 1996. After Akiyama & Misawa dropped the title a few months later, Akiyama went back to defending the Asia tag title with Omori until they dropped it on 9 January 1998 toJohnny Smith andWolf Hawkfield. Following this loss, Akiyama decided to focus on his team with Kobashi and the World tag team titles, while Omori briefly became a member of the Holy Demon Army team ofToshiaki Kawada andAkira Taue, until finally establishing a loyal partnership withYoshihiro Takayama as No Fear. Despite that, they teamed on-and-off until 19 January 1999, when they teamed withJinsei Shinzaki to beat Smith,Johnny Ace andBart Gunn.
As Akiyama and Omori found themselves on opposite sides of the spectrum followingGiant Baba's death andMitsuharu Misawa taking control of the promotion, they could only team on and off and often in six-man matches. The last time they were part of a team happened on 12 April 2000, when Akiyama teamed up with Omori andYoshihiro Takayama to beat Misawa,Yoshinari Ogawa andDaisuke Ikeda, until the mass exodus toPro Wrestling NOAH happened.
On 19 February 2012, at the 2ndAll Together show, they teamed for the first time in 12 years, in a brave loss to Akiyama's former partner Kobashi andKeiji Mutoh. At the time, Omori was teaming withManabu Soya in AJPW, where he had returned in 2011.
Due to the split of theWrestle-1 promotion under Mutoh, Soya abandoned Omori, and thus the stage was set for a regular re-formation of the former Asian tag team championship unit. On 28 June 2014, Wild Burning defeatedJoe Doering andSuwama to win the long-elusiveWorld Tag Team Championship. They vacated the title shortly before the 2014World's Strongest Tag League and won the tournament, regaining the title.
Akiyama and Omori remain allied as Wild Burning but have competed against each other in singles matches, namely during theChampion Carnival 2000 and in the 2014 decision match for the vacantTriple Crown Heavyweight Championship.