Getting back into Ice Ribbon is one of my wrestling goals for 2025, and one of the early joys of that has been watching more Bad Butts. I would never have conceived the idea of Yappy embracing her dark side because it seems to be the antithesis of her lovely public persona, but Ancham and her have got something with this pairing. They’re managing to be cool while retaining enough of a bumbling, heelish nature that they never slip into the tired trope of bad guys who are desperate to be cheered. Plus, on an Ice roster full of plucky young underdogs, having two experienced bullies to go after them will never be a bad thing.
And while this outing saw them facing off, it was influenced by their work as a team. I always feel like heel partners facing off can go one of two ways. You can either Taichi and Taka Michinoku it and try to nonsense your way out of fighting, or you can aim to one-up each other. With Yappy taking to Twitter beforehand to explain how she wants to stand as equals and not have to rely on Ancham to win, it was clear how this one was going, and they promptly both went for the cheap shot to get us started.
It made for one of those rare matches that would have benefited from being a few minutes longer. Yappy and Ancham are a good stylistic pairing, as it’s always going to come down to power vs technique, and when you throw in them both making liberal use of the already infamous Bad Butt’s sign (of which I believe there has been multiple copies due to people running into them with their heads), there were a lot of ideas here. For the ten minutes this match went, there was very little downtime, and while that’s impressive, it almost could have used some space to let things settle in. Towards the end, they engaged in an extended battle over a Figure Four that they were forced to throw away in the aftermath because they were running out of time and needed to get into the finishing stretch. Even just thirty seconds to sell the effects would have made a difference.
Thankfully, this was good enough that even with that issue, it still rocked. The last couple of years have seen Yappy really click into how to use her size and power advantage, laying moves in that little bit thicker and dictating the flow of the match more. Now, when she’s caught, it’s because someone is quicker or a touch more technically adept than her, something Ancham is perfectly suited to exploit. Even then, Yappy made her work for it, not just giving up her arm to a submission hold but forcing her to fight to lock it on. Ancham’s selling was also spot on, going all googly-eyed as she flopped to the mat from a Yappy lariat. There was a real sense of them pushing each other, and if that one stood back or hesitated for even a second, the other would leap on it mercilessly.
Matches like this are why Ice Ribbon Dojo shows are such a great watch. Yes, you get people like Kyuri messing around (and she’s brilliant at it), but you also get wrestlers being given some space to show what they can do. Yappy and Ancham are a great team and already had a really good singles match under their belt at the March Korakuen last year, but this suggested that if they had the opportunity and fifteen minutes, they could top it easily. Whether they’re together or on opposite sides of the ring, they’re a pairing that Ice can do a lot with, and I hope they keep getting the opportunities to prove that’s true.
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