You would have been forgiven for glancing at the schedule and dismissing this as a routine TJPW visit to Shinjuku, but with Sumo Hall drawing closer and a host of new rookies onboard, this show took on a bit more weight than usual. Two of those kids debuted here, the newly named Kira Summer and Uta Takami. Meanwhile, Chika Nanase was wrestling only her second match after starting her career against Moka Miyamoto on the previous show. Throw in some more build for the big one, and TJPW had a lot going on, so let’s see what went down.
Before we started, Runa turned up to let everyone know that she’d passed her exams! She announced she’ll return to the ring later this month and aims to catch up with Haru after her time off. We also got introduced to Ami Yumoto, who will be debuting at Sumo Hall. She’s a former AKB48 idol who appeared in Tofu Pro-Wrestling, so she’s not coming in blind. It has already been revealed that she’ll be teaming with Nao, a reassuring and violent pair of hands to have alongside you as you’re ushered into this new world.
Arisu Endo & Chika Nanase defeated Nao Kakuta & Kira Summer
I’ll assume Nao messing up and initially entering with Kira when they were supposed to be doing so separately was a way to make her junior feel at ease. She’s such a kind senpai.
With two rookies involved, Kira and Chika got the brunt of my focus here, and they did alright. Nanase’s debut match with Moka was pretty standard fare, and this was more of the same, with the bonus of Kira throwing around her size and power advantage around when she managed to hit a bodyslam on her fellow rookie and catch Arisu off-guard with some forearms. There was an awkward moment when the kids both got caught waiting for the other to do something, but it only lasted a second or two (although it probably felt like an eternity for them). That small mistake aside, it was all solid, basic rookie stuff, which is all you can ask for at this stage of their career.
Unsurprisingly, if you’re looking at it from a purely in-ring perspective, the highlight was Nao and Arisu having a quick dance together, but that didn’t last long and was nothing we hadn’t seen before. The interesting stuff came from seeing how the newbies handled it all, and as they made it through without crying, dropping anyone on their head or hiding under the ring, they passed my strict evaluation. Chika and Kira have a long way to go before challenging the best in this company, but that doesn’t make these early steps any less exciting, and I’m looking forward to seeing where they end up.
Verdict: A Basic But Decent Introduction
Raku & Shino Suzuki defeated Miu Watanabe & Uta Takami
It was time for the Up Up Girls to initiate a new member, a situation the elders always appear to relish. You don’t often see Raku stomping on people’s legs before the Goodnight Express or getting the win via submission, but she ensured Uta Takami knew her place in the pecking order.
That aggressiveness was accentuated by the fact Uta is tiny. I doubt she’s the shortest person on the roster, but she’s a sleight wee thing, and next to her, even Raku and Shino appeared somewhat intimidating. Throw in that she’s already developed a habit of letting out high-pitched screams while selling, and it does feel like they’ve sent a child in to wrestle a group of adults. Wait, that’s exactly what they’ve done. Oh dear. I guess we can just be glad she was on Miu’s team. The Giant Swing would have been terrifying.
What prevents it from being pure bullying is that Uta is feisty. She might be a wee thing, but she is up for the fight and showed more confidence than her fellow teens Haru and Runa did on their first appearances (she is a touch older than them). As you’d imagine, Takami spent most of the match getting beaten up, but when given the chance to attack, those claws came out, and Uta leapt into the fray, showing no fear. Seeing how small she is, my first assumption was that she’d join Shino in being a sympathy magnet, but now I’m not sure. We might have ourselves a scrappy wee underdog, ready to try and bloody the nose off all the biggest wrestlers around, a situation that I would find utterly delightful.
Wherever she ends up, this was the best of the recent debuts. Uta’s presumably been working a lot with her fellow Up Up Girls, what with having to learn all the dances, which probably helped, but she threw herself into the action with a gusto that has already made a fan of me. I’m excited to see every rookie develop, but Uta has established herself as my favourite in the current crop, and I want to see how far that feistiness can take her.
Verdict: Uta Has Teeth
Suzume defeated Kaya Toribami and Mahiro Kiryu in a three-way
In what was, on the whole, a fairly ordinary TJPW three-way, we got a couple of great Mahiro moments. The first came when Kaya and Suzume kicked off a rapid exchange, the two of them flitting between a series of moves while Mahiro sat in the corner, happy to leave them to it until she popped up at the end to put a full stop on it all with a much slower and less impressive version of her own. Even better, though, was when Suzume decided to steal her apologising gimmick, and Mahiro got booed for breaking it up. That buzzy bee nicked her shtick, and somehow, Kiryu was the one who came out the other side looking like the bad guy.
It all speaks to what makes Mahiro Kiryu great. She’s not the best wrestler on the roster, the most charismatic or even the funniest. She can be solid to good at all those things, but if you were putting together some TJPW Trump cards, she’d be bang average in every category. What makes it all work is that Mahiro knows that. She’s not trying to be the best. If anything, she’s embracing being a bit hapless and ordinary, which makes her so much more endearing than every other midcarder vainly striving for something they’ll probably never have. By accepting her limitations, she’s allowed herself to branch off in other ways, and now we can take joy out of her leaning into said ordinariness and the jokes that come with it.
It also meant she was they key figure in an enjoyable match. There was nothing mind blowing here, as you can probably tell by my decision to mainly focus on unpicking Kiryu, but it was some nice, easy watching with a couple of fun moments.
Verdict: Ordinary Mahiro Is Good
Kyoraku Kyomei (Shoko Nakajima & Hyper Misao) defeated Yuki Kamifuku & Pom Harajuku
Pom and Kamiyu are an inherently funny pairing. Imagine those two hanging out backstage. I’m picturing Pom excitedly bouncing about the place while Kamiyu rolls her eyes. It’s a sitcom waiting to happen!
We had some silliness here, too, as Kyoraku Kyomei tried to prepare for their match at Sumo Hall by forcing Max the Impaler’s weaknesses out of Pom. Thankfully, Pom is either a very loyal tag partner or much more scared of Max than Shoko and Misao because she kept shtum, revealing nothing and instead fighting them off by screaming in their ears. That’s another tactic that I imagine would drive Kamiyu particularly insane after a series of wacky circumstances forced them to live together.
Sitcom pitches aside, I have to once again rave about how good Shoko and Misao are. In a company where Daisy Monkey and Daydream are consistently brilliant, they still manage to be my favourite team by being great at everything. Whether they’re being silly with Pom or disorientating Kamiyu with some silky smooth tag work, I am slightly in awe of how good they are. If anything, they still appear to be improving, as the speed at which they were working here felt like a step or two up from what they were doing not that long ago. I’ve no doubt the match with Aja and Max will be full of nonsense, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it stole the show.
As for this match, their performance elevated it significantly, as Kamiyu and Pom were left free to do their thing and fill in the gaps around Kyoraku Kyomei. That sounds like I’m being dismissive of them, but it’s not intended as a slight. Instead, it’s praise for how good Misao and Shoko are. Give them the belts, Koda!
Verdict: Kyoraku Kyomei Are The Best
Rika Tatsumi defeated Haru Kazashiro
Poor Haru. She had put it off for a while, but it was finally her turn to be sacrificed to the Dark God.
It’s not just Rika’s willingness to beat up teenagers (you could argue that’s the job) but the joy she seems to take from it. She was going a bit Michael Owen, trying to lead the fans in chanting her name as she put Haru through her paces. Of course, they responded by getting behind the rookie, which was the right thing to do, but it also might have made her worse. Something inspired her to hide under the ring and wait for the perfect opportunity to leap out and grab Haru’s ankles like the boogeyman dragging her to hell.
Not that Rika had it all her way. Haru has some pluck to her, and while she was fighting the devil, she at least got a few licks in, including an extended armbar that had Tatsumi struggling. There is something about the innocence of youth that convinces them they can fight pure evil, and Haru threw herself at this challenge, surviving the strangling and the leg attacks to dish out a few blows of her own. It was never going to be enough, but I respect her for trying.
It also, jokes aside, makes for one of my favourite match types. Rika is a brilliant bully, while Haru is settling into this plucky underdog role nicely. When she trapped Rika in that clutch that got her the win over Shino, my brain said it couldn’t be the end, but my heart wanted it to be, and that’s half the battle. The Dark God was ultimately sated, but it wasn’t an easy meal, and hopefully, that’s some comfort to Haru wherever she’s ended up.
Verdict: Haru Fought Well
Miyu Yamashita & Moka Miyamoto defeated Wakana Uehara & Toga
The theme of this show seemed to be youth vs experience, as Toga and Wakana got to try to take down two of their seniors. Unfortunately for them, one of the two was the Ace, who doesn’t hold back on those kicks just because you’re relatively new here.
If anything, Miyu seemed to be in the mood to dish out a bit of a humbling. She’s not immune to the charms of younger wrestlers, but she had her game face on, hitting hard and not giving up an inch of space to Wakana or Toga. They both tried to bring the fight to her, but it was a losing battle, as their only real route into this match was through Moka. Even that wasn’t easy, though. She shrugged off Wakana’s first attempt to lock on the sleeper and seemed to be drawing energy from her partner, flaunting her veteran status over these two younger wrestlers (in a good way).
It all meant this match ended up feeling more one-sided than the last. I don’t want to suggest this was Moka and Miyu dishing out some a brutal beating (it wasn’t), but the central idea was that Toga and Wakana were in there with two people they aren’t close to being on the level of. They put up a fight, but where Haru had her moment where it felt like she could spring an unlikely upset, they never really got that idea across. At this point in their career, the best they can hope for is to go out on their shield, and they managed that at least.
Verdict: The Ace Puts The Kids In Their Place
Yukiniki (Ryo Mizunami & Yuki Aino) defeated Mizuki & HIMAWARI
One of the advantages of TJPW’s policy of avoiding regularly working with freelancers is that when we get a run like this one from Aniki, it feels special. Every one of those entrances is savoured, and whenever she’s in the ring with someone new, there is a frisson of excitement to it. Okay, she and Mizuki have (according to Cagematch) technically wrestled before, but it was at a Sportiva Curry show in 2018, so I think it’s safe to say this was a fresh showdown.
And it works because Aniki is perhaps the most reliable pro in the scene today. Of course, this wasn’t her and Mizuki going all out, but it didn’t have to be (although if they want to do that, I won’t complain). It’s new enough that the two of them biting each other or playing off the size disparity is enough, and the occasional stiff chop or full-throttle dropkick is just a taster of what that match could be. The combination of their charisma and the surprise at getting to see them carried it a long way.
Plus, Aniki’s presence great for the less experienced wrestlers. HIMAWARI is the obvious one, although I’m sure she wasn’t enjoying those chops, but don’t discount what working with Mizunami is doing for Aino. Over the years, Yuki has slowly figured out how to use her power, but having someone like Aniki, who is so good at that, next to her is only going to help. She’s getting to learn under a charismatic powerhouse who can party and beat the shit out of you, which can only be a good thing.
It all made for a damn good main event. The Mizuki vs Aniki stuff was the easy highlight, and I hope we do get to see those two mix it up again somewhere down the road, but HIMAWARI and Aino played their part, too, embracing their chance to hoss it out in the final act. It was one of those outings where all the pieces came together nicely, and while Mizuki vs Aniki was the headline-grabber, I’d happily watch any of these pairings again.
Verdict: A Strong Main Event
Overall Show
As I said at the top, this felt a bit more important than your typical Shinjuku show. The kids all did a solid job in their debuts, although Uta stole the show, while the rest of the card leaned into that mixture of youth and experience. My highlights (outside of the rookies) were the main event and Haru vs Rika, but I reckon you could make an argument for most of it, which has to go down as a sign of a good show.
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