Recently, after friend-of-the-site Flupke shared some GIFs on Twitter, I came to the realisation that Miya Yotsuba feels less like a product of Mei Suruga and more like one of Mitsuru Konno. If Mitsuru had kept wrestling, taking up her position as Gatoh Move’s ace and working in Darejyo, you could imagine her producing a Yotsuba – a wrestler who still has that Gatoh spirit but is also aggressive and ambitious. Mei and Mitsuru’s big ChocoPro feud, one of the final things Konno did in wrestling, was built around their differing ideologies, Mei’s fun vs Mitsuru’s drive. It’s funny then that Suruga’s first student would come to reflect Konno’s way of thinking as much (if not more) than she does Mei’s.
That conversation was inspired by Yotsuba’s match with Rina Yamashita, but it was equally true for her crack at the boss. She and Emi Sakura were supposed to battle for the title earlier this year, but after a fantastic build, Miya’s injury robbed us of the conclusion. Luckily, with Sakura about to return to America, ChocoPro 400 gave us a glimpse of what we missed. It was an opportunity Miya certainly didn’t waste. She was relentless, refusing to back down from her usually dominant senior. Sakura’s comfort zone, particularly in Ichigaya, is bullying her juniors. She has a power and experience edge, which allows her to dictate the flow of the action. Or at least that’s usually the case. Miya is a hard person to bully. She’s too stubborn and desperate to succeed, and even when Emi beat her down, she refused to budge an inch. As those heavy chops hammered into her chest, Yotsuba stood her ground, firing back and forcing Sakura onto the defensive.
It’s a thrilling thing to see. Even when Mei beat Sakura for the belt, she was never her physical equal. She did it by dancing out of reach, dipping into that genius brain to come up with something Emi had no answer for. With Miya, there’s none of that. She met the legendary owner of the company she works for head-on, staring her down and attempting to go blow-for-blow. There is even an argument to be made that it’s a stupid approach – her stubbornness pulled her into a battle she couldn’t win – but that doesn’t make it any less exciting. Inside the walls of Ichigaya, Emi Sakura rarely feels like she’s fighting to keep control of a match, but Miya forced her to do so. She even had to pull out the big finisher (formerly known as the Ice Driver) to get the win.
While I love ChocoPro’s carefree approach, I think they flourish with a wrestler like Miya to bounce off. She pushes them, taking them out of their whimsical comfort zone and forcing them to fight for it. At this point in her career, she’s still figuring things out and putting all the pieces together, but her future is bright. It’s so bright that you worry she might start to attract attention from elsewhere, as she has all the attributes a Stardom or a Marigold might be looking for. That’s an issue for the future, though. At the moment, we get to relish in watching her batter her way into the ChocoPro ecosystem, refusing to be ignored as she aims for the top. Will she make it? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Thanks to their No Pay Wall initiative, all ChocoPro content is available for free on their YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2HtPsU4U7TNSv2mSbPkj0w
Ramblings About Wrestling 
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