The True Tall Tales of Talos: Being and Beating The Best

Editor’s Note: Jack Talos first reached out to Slamwrestling.net months ago and informed us he would be doing a tour for the All-Japan Pro Wrestling promotion. After taking some time off, he returns for more adventures on his second tour in the Land of the Rising Sun.

While he was featured in recent news with his tag partner, Ren Ayabe, coming stateside to be in the 40th anniversary of The Crockett Cup, we’ll be focusing on his tag journey against a very important tag team in All Japan, The Saito Brothers. Talos insisted we go into this before anything else.

Again, we will not argue with a seven-foot giant.

By Jack Talos – For Slam! Wrestling

To Be The Best You Have To Beat The Best

75 days.

That’s how many days the Titans of Calamity had been AJPW tag team champions prior to March 15th. Also, for 75 days, I had to hear the same question everywhere I went.

“Can the Titans of Calamity really be called the best, considering they’ve never beaten the undisputed best team in AJPW, the Saito Brothers?”

To be honest, it’s a fair question. Rei and Jun Saito, The Saito Brothers, have sat atop the AJPW tag team mountain for as long as they’ve been a team and are rightfully considered two of the best in the world at what they do. Two former Sumo wrestlers: They’re big, they’re strong, they’re smart, their teamwork is bar none, and they have a champions pedigree that’s hard to deny.

But we are the Titans of Calamity! We embrace challenges and aren’t intimidated by anything or anyone. So… after 75 long days of hearing that question asked, on March 15th at Korakuen Hall, in front of a packed house, both in attendance and watching at home, we finally got to put that question to bed.

Now, Ayabe and I are no strangers to tough fights. We’ve taken on HAVOC, The Hokuto Army, and even “Evolution” with Hideki-San and Suwama-San, but we clearly understood that this one was different. Because we knew that for these two, there is a sense of ownership over these belts, and they wanted them back. Two of the best in the world were preparing to throw everything they had at us to take back what they felt was theirs, and we were gonna show them exactly who owns these belts now.

In the locker room the morning of the match, Ayabe and I sat in near silence, preparing for the battle to come. We’d gone over our game plan time and time again before this day, and now there was very little left to say as we sat watching the show on TV.

Finally, as the show neared its climax and the main event was set to go, Ayabe-San and I made our final preparations, shook hands, and headed to the ring. We came out to a packed house and an energy that is hard to describe. The kind of energy that only comes from people who know they’re about to watch something special happen. We made our way to the ring and went through the regular ceremonies for this type of occasion.

And then….the bell rang.

Now, as I always say in these columns, I’m not gonna go into great detail of the match as I think the best way to enjoy them is to catch them yourself. With that said…what slug fest!

Jun and I started the show trading massive blows before Ayabe and Rei took over, laying into one another like two bears, which eventually took us out of the ring and into the audience.

From there, we would have a back-and-forth battle with each team vying for the smallest advantage. Finally, after 20 minutes of absolute carnage, we caught them. We delivered the critical strike to both brothers by nailing each with a double choke slam, followed up with Ayabe-san’s “death roulette” on Jun Saito to secure the win!

And with that, we’d done it. We had proven we were the best team in Japan by beating the undisputed best. After, we took our moment to celebrate between ourselves, as we knew there was no denying who we were and what we’d accomplished at this point.

We’d done what we always said we would do. We’d won the 2025 World’s Strongest Tag Team Determination League. We’d become the All Japan Pro Wrestling Tag Team Champions and then went on to solidify our places as champions by beating the best Japan had to throw at us.

But now that journey takes its next steps. Because The Titans Of Calamity aren’t satisfied with just being the best in Japan.

We intend to continue to prove ourselves as the best and most dominant tag team force on earth. So we’ve decided to take our talents to America at the invitation of Billy Corgan and the NWA to Forney, Texas on April 4th for yet another historic and prestigious tag team tournament “The Crockett Cup” where the Titans Of Calamity will compete alongside teams like The Good Brothers[Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson], The Colóns [Epico and Primo], and The Immortals [ “ to bring home the gold and to show everyone we’re not only the best in Japan, but the best in the whole damn world!