Another month down, another group of fantastic matches that I want to ramble about. The wider wrestling world has been busy over the last thirty days, but, as usual, not much of that made the cut (although there is a taste of New Japan). I actually watched most of Forbidden Door, but was it as good as a WAVE show in front of 80 people? I think we all know the answer to that.
ASUKA vs Cohaku, NAMI 1 (1/6/23), WAVE
I don’t think it’s too harsh to say that this year’s Catch The Wave hasn’t established itself as an instant classic. There have been good matches, a few of which snuck towards great, but it hasn’t (at the time of writing) produced a whole lot of must-see wrestling. Two years ago, we had Mio Momono, Sakura Hirota and Miyuki Takase in a block, while in 2022, the Future grouping was a reliable source of bangers. This time around, things have been a bit more spread out.
Thankfully, the last matches on this show were the exception to the rule. It started with two physical as-hell battles in SAKI vs Takase and Sasamura vs Aoki before topping it all off with this lovely piece of classic wrestling storytelling as the taller and stronger ASUKA bullied the smaller and faster Cohaku. It was a pairing that stood out on paper, and they lived up to that potential, Cohaku dashing around the ring, trying to keep one step ahead of ASUKA only to end up being hoisted over her head and dumped over the top rope. No one will declare it an original idea, but sometimes the classics are the classics for a reason, and when you’ve got wrestlers this talented, the odds are they’ll do something great within that framework.
It’s also a perfect example of why tournaments are great. ASUKA and Cohaku had wrestled before, in Marvelous, WAVE and SEAd, and even had a match back in March of this year, but Catch the Wave allowed them to have a showdown with stakes. Sure, you can make anything meaningful if you need to, but it’s so much easier when there’s something as simple and understandable as points on the line. It ramps it up a notch, so when Cohaku lays into some stiff forearms before ASUKA responds by booting her in the head, it’s easy to understand the passion behind it. That’s the simple genius behind wrestling tournaments, and why, even when CTW isn’t blowing me away, I’ll still make an effort to tune in for every show.
I haven’t watched New Japan regularly in years, but the internet seems to be buzzing about a return to form, and this match looked fucking cool, so I decided to check it out.
In that sense, it delivered. New Japan gave these six the time and space they needed, and regardless of taste, there were some ridiculously talented dudes in there, so it would be hard not to get at least some enjoyment out of it. Who doesn’t want to see Okada being manhandled by Claudio? However, it’s also something that I don’t really feel the need to review. New Japan receives plenty of attention from people more knowledgeable about it than me, so if you want to get into the nitty-gritty of the action, I’d suggest seeking out one of them.
I would, however, like to comment on the feeling of returning to a product that has very obviously moved on since I was last watching regularly. The most obvious example of that was the involvement of Master Wato, Shota Umino and Yuta Tsuji in the three main matches, a group which I have a degree of inbuilt affection for after following their rookie years. While I can’t comment on the other two, Umino is far from the finished product. He feels like a band on their first album, full of potential but still a smashing together of various influences rather than something unique. However, I found seeing him in this spot rather heartwarming regardless, especially as it seems to have brought out grumpy cunt Okada, who, in his desire to beat up youngsters, has become more interesting than he’s been in years.
And yet, for all that’s changed, so much has remained the same. Whether it’s Ishii doing Ishii stuff or Chris Charlton being an atrocious commentator, there was plenty for me to recognise. Some things shift, but others remain static, and while some of that is good, other parts of it remind me why I stopped caring about this stuff when I did. I’m not about to claim all my favourite wrestling companies are constantly evolving, but for whatever reason, the stale bits of New Japan bother me more than similar things would elsewhere.
I don’t know what point I’m trying to make. That some things change, but others remain the same? That’s hardly a revolutionary idea. I guess I am simply rambling about the feeling of seeing something that you cared about deeply once but now have only a passing interest in. It’s like bumping into an ex three years later, which is a small enough period that they’re still the person you knew, and a few feelings linger, but far enough apart that you could never go back. Although I probably shouldn’t be that dramatic, they have just booked Eddie Kingston for a G1, which is something I’d quite like to see. Maybe there’s a chance that will be the moment New Japan win me over again because for all that this match had its upsides, it didn’t go quite that far.
Mizuki vs Daydream (Rika Tatsumi & Miu Watanabe), Stick Out ’23 (11/6/23), TJPW
Handicap matches are hard to balance. Unless you’re aiming to get your newest hoss over by having them smash a couple of nerds, you have to figure out a way to make everyone look good. Lean too far one way, and you’ve left two wrestlers looking like chumps because they couldn’t win despite having the advantage. Do the same in the other direction, and you’ve just sent someone out to the wolves to take their beating and show little to no fight while doing so. In an ideal world, you want the person with the disadvantage to find a way to narrow the odds before eventually succumbing to the numbers game, all while making everyone involved look great. The problem is that most people aren’t good enough to pull that off.
Thankfully, Mizuki and Daydream are. I don’t think the TJPW lot gets enough credit for how they build their matches, but those at the top of the card are consistently brilliant at it. Here we saw Mizuki at her tricksy best, darting around Miu and Rika before tempting her adoring simp Tatsumi over to her side. She spent this entire match doing everything she could to separate them, and there were moments (before Daydream could assert their dominance) when I thought she might win. On top of that, this thing went over seventeen minutes, and Mizuki was involved in all seventeen of them. She was working something resembling a tag match pace but all on her lonesome, which was incredibly impressive.
I can’t imagine I was alone in thinking it was a strange decision to go ahead with this as a handicap match after Sakazaki’s injury, but it turned out to be a bit of a masterstroke. Was this as good as MagiRabbi vs Daydream would have been? No, almost certainly not, but it was different. We probably won’t see another match like it in TJPW this year, and there is some value in that. These three were thrown a curveball and found a way to smash it out of the park, which they deserve a shitload of credit for.
If you want to read my full review of Stick Out, you can find it on Marshmallow Bomb.
Chie Koishikawa vs Shinno Hagane, ChocoPro #316 (11/6/23), Gatoh Move
I adore Chie Koishikawa. She’s in the small group of wrestlers whose matches often take me three times longer to watch than they should because I’m constantly rewinding to rewatch some small thing that’s she done. The difference between Chie and the rest of that group is that the thing I’m rewinding to see is as likely to be a silly noise or a weird facial expression as it is a moment of wrestling. Don’t get me wrong, she’s becoming a cracking talent, but I would enjoy watching Chie hang out in an empty room.
That adoration meant my emotional involvement in this match was sky-high. It wasn’t quite Mio Momono challenging for the AAAW Title, but that was mainly because I never really expected Chie to win this. Challenging her Egg Tarts’ partner Shinno Hagane, she was looking to prove herself his equal, not his follower, which was more important than her winning the belt. Of course, if she had won it, I’d have been off, jumping around the room like an idiot, but I wasn’t coming in looking for that. I was looking for Chie to prove she belongs at this level.
It was a test she passed with flying colours. Chie stepped up to that main event style, bringing the intensity needed for a title match while retaining all her beautiful, weird Chie-ness. That was most clear in how she attacked Hagane’s leg, spotting an opening early on before relentlessly pursuing it, setting up for her Stretch Muffler. It was some fantastic limb-worked, backed up by decent selling, and Chie made no attempt to hide how proud she was of it. In fact, when Hagane stopped to show off the bruises already forming on his thigh, Chie was caught on camera pulling one of those wonderful faces, delighting in the damage she’d caused.
So yea, Chie lost, but that was the twentieth most important thing about this match. What mattered was that she went out and wrestled that style, hanging with a wrestler like Hagane but never losing sight of the Chie we love. For too many people, making that step involves blunting who you are to fit into the space, but the great ones can do so while remaining themselves. I’m not about to claim Chie’s nailed that, she’s got a long way to go, but on her first attempt, she did better than you could hope. If she can keep this up, she’ll remain one of my favourites for a long time to come.
Mio Momono & Takumi Iroha vs Mayumi Ozaki & Saori Anou, Sweet Revenge (11/6/23), Oz Academy
After years of no contact between Marvelous and Oz Academy (widely assumed to be because of a falling out between Mayumi Ozaki and KAORU), Oz Academy’s big bad wandered into Marvelous’s last Korakuen and, in classic Ozaki style, left Takumi Iroha covered in blood. In response, Marvelous’s biggest hitters stepped into enemy territory, and you can probably figure out what happened next. It is Oz Academy.
There was a feeling running through this match that no matter how talented Mio and Takumi are, they were massively out of their depth. Wild brawls are Ozaki’s thing, she’s been doing them her entire career, and while they have had their moments, it’s one of the elements of GAEA that Marvelous hasn’t drawn on. Right from the start, when their attempt to get the jump on Ozaki and Anou backfired, it was clear that they were battling uphill. It wasn’t just them, either. Maria seconded them at ringside, and when Maya Yukihi and Kakeru inevitably made their presence known, she stayed rooted to the spot, vainly attempting to get the ref’s attention even as her roster mates were getting the shit kicked out of them. It’s a world they’re not used to, and Ozaki made them pay.
More importantly, who doesn’t want to see Mio and Takumi dragged into a wild brawl? I assume everyone has now seen the photos of a bleeding Momono, but what that misses is that on the VOD, the actual blood-letting took place off-camera, leading to the badass moment where she reappears on screen, dragging herself onto the apron with her face smeared in the red stuff. As you’d imagine, Ozaki showed the new AAAW Champ roughly zero respect (a theme that is becoming a recurring point in her title reign), and whenever she (or Takumi) tried to drag this back to being a wrestling match, Ozaki was right there to smash a chair over their heads or wrap a chain around their necks. She had no interest in that, and they didn’t know how to respond.
There are always those who will whine about how Oz Academy does things, but I put them in the same box as those who complain that TJPW’s booking is somewhat conservative. They ain’t changing, and if you haven’t figured that out, you’re being so willfully stupid that you’re the one in the wrong. Besides, this fucking ruled. Ozaki dragged Mio and Takumi down to her level, and with this only being the start of the feud between them all, I am very excited to see where it goes next.
Cherry vs Kaori Yoneyama, Detras De Lazona Vol. 11 (17/6/23), WAVE
As mentioned above, most of these smaller Catch the Wave shows have been somewhat ordinary this year. That feeling perhaps explains how exciting I found this wee showdown between Cherry and Yoneyama, but I still think it’s worth highlighting. They didn’t go for anything big or fancy but went out and delivered the well-wrestled bout you’d expect from two pros.
And they built it around Cherry repeatedly going after Yone’s leg, finding all sorts of inventive ways into submissions. It seemed the perfect tactic, allowing her to cut Yoneyama off at every turn, dragging her down to the mat and preventing her from building a head of steam. However, towards the end, Yone scrambled her way into a plan B, drawing Cherry into an exchange of flash pins, a world she has made her own over the years. It was simple, solid storytelling wrapped in a tight ten-minute package.
Sadly, it wasn’t perfect. Yoneyama could have gone a bit further when selling her leg, and there were some weak forearms (although I don’t particularly blame them for not beating each other black and blue on this tiny stage). However, none of that took away from this being a smartly put-together match on a show that was, on the whole, fairly forgettable. It’s what you’d expect from wrestlers like Kaori Yoneyama and Cherry, but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable when they deliver.
Ibuki Hoshi vs Kaho Matsushita, Ice Ribbon #1284 in SKIP City (18/6/23), Ice Ribbon
I won’t often start one of these by focusing on the negatives, but on this one occasion, I think it makes sense. This may have been in the middle of the card, but it was very obviously Ibuki and Kaho’s attempt to have a ‘Great Match’. The kind that, one day, will headline Ice Ribbon shows. Unfortunately, in their attempts to do so, they fell into a few traps. If anything, it felt like they had too many ideas for the sixteen minutes they had to fill, as they packed the action full of everything from arm work to fighting spirit spots out of Germans. It got to the point where the more impressive ones didn’t have time to breathe before something else came barrelling along, ready to bump them out of the way. For example, Hoshi’s selling of the attack on her arm started brilliantly, as she held it awkwardly at her side, getting across that it was bothering her without any over-the-top theatrics. However, as the match moved onto something else, she was forced to jettison that, unable to keep up that work while dealing with the next chapter.
And yet, despite all that, I really liked it. I’d even say its flaws are a big part of what drew me to it. It was cool when they laid into each other, and there was plenty of that, but even more appealing was the sense of two young wrestlers attempting to figure this shit out. Yes, I will often deride that style of wrestling, so it makes little to no sense for me to enjoy them attempting to mimic it, but I can’t help finding Kaho and Ibuki incredibly likeable. That same likeability then makes me want them to succeed. To wander out and nail everything they are going for. And sure, they didn’t quite do that, but they have all the ingredients to get it right in the future. Plus, despite everything that’s gone down at Ice Ribbon, I still trust the people behind the scenes to curb the worst of their instincts and help them whittle this down to a genuinely great match-up.
Ibuki vs Kaho has the potential to be The Pairing for Ice Ribbon in the future. It’s no secret that the company has been through a lot in the last few years, and honestly, I’m still not 100% sure what I think about it all. However, the right noises are coming out from the right people, and there is hope they can get back to a position where the behind-the-scenes nonsense isn’t front and centre. When they do, these two will be called upon to lead them into a new era, and this match was an exciting sign of what that could mean.
Yappy vs Totoro Satsuki, Ice Ribbon #1284 in SKIP City (18/6/23), Ice Ribbon
Totoro and Yappy worked as a perfect contrast to the Ibuki and Kaho match. Where the youngsters were throwing stuff across the wall, trying to figure out what sticks, these two knew how their bread was buttered. The second the bell rang, they charged across the ring to bash into each other, setting us up for a good old-fashioned hoss fight.
It meant it’s unlikely that anyone will be classing this as a ‘Great Match’, capital letters and all, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be a good one. Wrestling can be epic and fancy, and that (even if it doesn’t tend to align with my tastes) can be great, but there is as much joy to be found in watching two big lasses go to war. In her first title shot, Yappy played to her strengths, and it made for a really fun match with a nice little story beat at the end, as she took a little bit too long to go for the kill, letting Totoro come back and retain the belt. There was no galaxy-brain thinking here, but there didn’t need to be because it all worked.
On top of all that, Yappy might be one of the most likeable people in wrestling right now, and that makes a difference. I wanted her to do well, and I wanted to like this match. That’s not to say it was secretly rubbish, it wasn’t, but that having an emotional connection to what you’re watching is always going to make a difference. I came into this rooting for a wrestler I like, so when they delivered, it’s only natural that I enjoyed it. Much like Chie, Yappy winning the belt never really felt like it was on the cards, but I wanted her to get the opportunity to show what she could do, and it was great to see that finally happen.
I contribute regular reviews to Marshmallow Bomb, so if you’d like to read more of my writing, you can subscribe here: https://marshmallowbomb.substack.com/
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