Following the precedent set last year when I named Mei Suruga and Pom Harajuku my wrestlers of the year, I’m back with another dive into the performers who defined 2023 for me. Honestly, if you’ve been paying attention to anything I’ve said over the last twelve months, there will be no surprises here, but it’s still fun to dive into exactly why I think these two are so special.
Asako Mia
Is Asako Mia a competent in-ring wrestler? Honestly, I don’t know. With someone like Lulu Pencil, you always got the impression that if she were to work a standard gimmick, she would be a low-to-middling rookie. There were flashes in her matches where something would be executed just a bit too smoothly, as that Darejo training took over and reminded you that Emi Sakura doesn’t let people appear in her company unless they can wrestle. With Asako, though, I have no idea what she’s actually capable of. I also don’t care. Asako Mia doesn’t need to be able to pull out flawless chain wrestling or craft an epic. If anything, I want her to do the opposite. What makes her unique is that she appears to exist on a different plane of reality from the rest of the AWG roster, and it’s one I want as many glimpses of as possible.
While Asako made her debut in 2022, this was the year she was let loose to show the world what was going on in her head. It started with the Kairi Hojo cosplays, a shtick that only got better with her indignant declaration that she doesn’t know who that is. However, that has proven to only be the stepping stone that brought us to The Great Asako, as thanks to a touch of good luck (who could have seen NOAH doing an angle built around Muta’s daughter?), her search for her Papa has taken on a life of its own. It doesn’t matter that Muta and NOAH presumably don’t know who she is. The fact that every time they tweet about that story, the replies are flooded with mentions of Asako never fails to bring me joy. It has seemingly emboldened her to take it as far as she can, which has already given us the wonderful match with Muscle Chiaki, in which both wrestlers were more interested in whatever they had going on than actually wrestling.
And we haven’t even touched on Asako as Asako, the plucky wee rookie who strongarmed the company Ace into joining her unit for the trio’s tournament, positioning herself front and centre between Miku Aono and Kira An. Either of them could break her like a twig, but she got away with it through pure gumption and a seemingly bemused desire from them to see where all this was going. I previously described her as having the unearned confidence of Yuuki Mashiro, the brashness of Maki Itoh and the incompetence of Lulu Pencil, but the important part is that she’s also uniquely Asako. She’s a wee weirdo who has ended up in the bizarre world of wrestling and is now determined to twist it to fit her vision, whether everyone else likes it or not.
And I know that for many, Asako isn’t what they picture when they talk about wrestlers of the year, and there are plenty of other people, from Rika Tatsumi to Fuminori Abe, who could be on this list. However, much like Pom last year, I can’t think of anyone who has given me as much joy in the last twelve months as Asako Mia has. She’s a genius, and who knows how much of that genius is intentional and how much is just her wandering through life, trying stuff out, but also, who cares? She makes me laugh, and I can’t wait to see what nonsense she has planned for 2023.
Mio Momono
I don’t think we realised until Mio Momono’s return from injury halfway through last year just how close we were to losing her. She admitted that there were moments when she thought it was over, and as someone with ambitions to wrestle until she is 100, one can only imagine that most people would have thrown in the towel. Spend any time watching Momono, and you quickly realise that wrestling is her life, and the idea that she might have had to walk away from that is heartbreaking. However, it also makes what she has done in the last twelve months even more extraordinary. Mio hasn’t only returned, but she’s risen back up the ranks, proving herself time after time to still be one of the best wrestlers in the world.
And when I think of Mio’s 2023, I think of an avalanche. One that starts with a pebble shifting at the top of a hill and ends in a crescendo of falling rocks, trees and who knows what else. The pebble in Mio’s case was a defeat to Tomoko Watanabe on the 25th of January, a match she’d come into with an air of cockiness and left having been bulldozed by the veteran. It was also the moment that inspired Chigusa Nagayo to set her up with a trial series that would eventually lead to her winning the AAAW Title from Chikayo Nagashima and later losing it to Mayumi Ozaki. That gave her a run of singles matches against everyone from Kaoru Ito to Arisa Nakajima, each of which brought something new and exciting as Mio prepared for the biggest challenge of her career. I don’t doubt she could go and have better matches than the one she had with someone like Nakajima, but they were in service to the story, and it worked brilliantly. Idiots will tell you this is the year Marvelous ruined Momono thanks to her dropping the belt to Ozaki, but anyone who pays attention will tell you it was the year they positioned her front and centre, readying her to stand next to Takumi Iroha as the face of this company.
The constant through it all was that Mio was incredible. Whether she was being sat on by Ito, thrown around by Chihiro Hashimoto or left a bloody, crying mess by Ozaki, Momono approached every match like it was her last. People have joked that she doesn’t realise wrestling is fake, and when you see her stumbling about the place, barely able to stand but stubbornly fighting on, you believe it. She lives and breathes this stuff, as dedicated to a tag match in Shinkiba as a Korakuen main event. It’s not just the serious bouts, either. As anyone who has read my match of the year roundup will know, I am just as big a fan of Mio’s nonsense, and with her Halloween produce show and that wonderful tag match with Sumika Yanagawa vs Tomoko Watanabe and Unagi Sayaka, Mio gave us plenty of that. She was able to be both the cheeky little menace who danced around with a towel and the screaming goblin who tried to hit Tomoko with a wrench after she kicked her in the shin. There’s a reason Chigusa refers to her as Chucky.
Through it all, the Marvelous fans have taken Mio under the wing, showering her with love even at her lowest ebb. I was lucky enough to see her live twice this year, and on the SEAd show, there was at least one fan who looked ready to charge the ring and have it out with Veny in an attempt to defend Momono’s honour. She has an innate likeability alongside her prodigal talent that makes it impossible not to fall in love with her, and I’m mainly just grateful that I’m getting to watch her on this run, smashing it out of the park every match and rising to the place where she deserves to be. She’s incredible, and whether it’s 2023 or any other year, Mio Momono is one of the best wrestlers in the world.
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