Yes, I’m going to talk about Mio Momono again. No, I won’t apologise about it. If any other wrestlers ever get that good, I promise to go on about them incessantly, too.
I’m sad to admit it, but Mio is making glorious failure her trademark. Even when she succeeds, it’s inevitably followed by a crushing fall. As a fan of the Scottish football team, it’s all painfully familiar, and as I’ve firmly attached myself to the Momono express, I feel like I’ve cursed myself to spend even more time with my head in my hands dreaming about what could have been. I can’t help it. Mio makes me care, and it doesn’t matter if I try to sit back to watch from a position of detached cool – she always succeeds at drawing me in.
Her latest stumble into defeat came in a three-way with Maria and Riko Kawahata, which was contested as a series of singles matches where you had to defeat both opponents back-to-back. It’s a style that Mio has had some success in, although when I say success, I mean she was part of a fantastic version with Miyuki Takase and Sakura Hirota in a 2021 Catch The Wave play-off. She still lost. Glorious failure, remember? This time, though, battling against two of her juniors, everything seemed set up for her to win and earn the right to take a tilt at getting the AAAW Title back in her hands by defeating Takumi Iroha.
It wasn’t to be. Much like in that Catch the Wave match, Mio was incredible. I get so used to praising her as a scrappy wee underdog that it’s easy to forget how good she is at going on the offensive. When Kawahata jumped her at the start, it only seemed to tighten Momono’s focus as she started drawing on the devil lingering under the surface of her bright gear and cheeky grin. Everyone finds Mio loveable, and for good reason, but she will happily bounce on your head while yelling to the world about how much she adores the Minions.
And yet, in what is becoming a recurring theme in her career, she couldn’t get over the line. After seeing Kawahata off in the first match, Momono was in the perfect position to do the clean sweep against Magenta. Yet, when paired off with Maria, a wrestler she’s beaten countless times before, she couldn’t find the killer blow. Instead, she kept stumbling into submissions, getting dragged further and further from the ropes until there was no escape. She got choked out in the centre of the ring, and from the cusp of victory, she’d grasped defeat. Then, in the final fall, when Kawahata had earned her a second chance by beating Maria, history repeated itself. She couldn’t find the move that would put Riko away, and the longer the match went, the more mistakes she wandered into. She took one too many kicks to the head and one too many German Suplexes, so when Riko hit the Moonsault, there was no chance of kicking out. When it mattered, Mio couldn’t get it done.
It’s been the story of Momono’s last year. She seemed to have burst through, defeating Chikayo Nagashima for the big one, but then, when she was finally at the top of the mountain, Mayumi Ozaki turned up and ripped it all away. Since then, she’s stumbled again and again. In fact, her only success has come when she’s moved outside of her home promotion, finding a degree of freedom by playing into her weirdness with Yurika Oka as Bobubobu Momo Banana. You don’t have to spend long watching Mio Momono to realise how passionate she is about Marvelous, and for a wrestler who thrives on joy and freedom, the pressure of that love seems too much. When she cares that deeply, she finds herself falling short.
I want to make it clear this isn’t a rant about booking. Who knows what Marvelous’s long-term plans are for Mio, but I trust them enough to go with it. To sit back and enjoy the ride rather than agonising over the beats. Because for all I opened this by talking about having my head in my hands, the truth is that it’s a temporary thing. Much like when I watch Scotland or Aberdeen, I don’t care about Mio Momono because I want to see her win. I care because of how she makes me feel. Yes, those moments of elation are beautiful, but it’s not the be-all and end-all. Christ, if they were all I cared about, I’d support Man City and Takumi Iroha. Nah, everything else around it is what’s important, and there are few people better at failing gloriously than Mio. Win, lose or draw, she throws herself into matches, committing 100% no matter what has been asked of her. People have suggested that there is a chance Momono doesn’t understand this stuff is a work, and when you watch her on the biggest stage, giving her heart and soul to everything she does, you can believe it.
So yea, Mio might never be the Ace or get that year-long title reign, but I don’t need her to have that shit. It would be nice, but it’s a bonus. I just need her to be Mio Momono and all the brilliance that entails.
Marvelous have a Nico channel where you can watch older shows and a YouTube Membership where they upload videos. You can also buy access to live streams here.
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