In many ways, the heel turn is the easy bit. You throw a tag team partner through a window, whack someone with a chair or shave off your eyebrows and don some black leather. It’s what comes next that most people struggle with. Especially if, like Maria and Riko Kawahata, you’ve spent most of your career working as an underdog babyface. Suddenly, you’re having to readjust everything you do in the ring, switching to being the one in control and setting other people up for the flurries that you once benefited from. It’s understandable that it would take a while to put that shtick together, but this match, on the typically light-hearted Marvelous tour of Hokkaido, might be the best example of Magenta doing so yet.
And it wasn’t the big stuff that worked here, but all the little touches. It was Kawahata dragging Ai over to torment her just out of reach of Takumi before fleeing the second Iroha threatened to come through the ropes. Even better, was that when the Ace made her way back to the apron, Kawahata made sure to grab Houzan again, removing any chance of her making the tag. Then there was Iroha having her legs yanked out from underneath her when she first tried to turn the tide and the way they bumped around for the Ace when she finally got to unleash. Slowly but surely, Magenta are figuring out what works in this role, and while Hokkaido was too polite a crowd to go all out in booing them, I’ve got faith that eventually the Marvelous fans will give them what they want.
They were also blessed with an ideal pairing to try it out on. I’ve detailed my issues with Takumi Iroha before, but she suited to the role of an Ace cannon, fired into matches to turn the tide. It’s why her most appealing work this year has involved dispatching Marigold scrubs and booting Sora Ayame around the ring. Pair that up with the likeable, sympathetic and brilliantly bullyable Ai, and you’ve got a perfect team to experiment with your heel shenanigans on. If anything, Magenta could have cranked it up a couple of notches. There was a moment where Iroha messed up a kip-up before playing to the crowd for round two, which should have been the perfect opportunity for Kawahata to deny them what they wanted. Funnily enough, considering the Ryan Clancy vs Veny match later on the card, that might have been enough to actually draw some boos.
Still, this was an encouraging showing from the newly heel team, and I was a big fan of them stealing the countout victory by burying their opponents under chairs before forcing Tommy to raise their hands. I know a lot of wrestling fans believe that anything other than a clean finish is automatically a bad thing, but that’s daft, and heels finding shortcuts is play number one. They sensed that the momentum was turning and did what they needed to get out of there in one piece. I don’t know if I’ll ever get my true wish of Magenta becoming a full-blooded, LCO and Dump Matsumoto-inspired pairing, but they’re starting to put their pieces in place, and if they keep going in this direction, I have faith that they’ll eventually flip the table and ruin everybody’s fun.
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Ramblings About Wrestling 
It is interesting watching Dark Magenta finding their footing and style. I was also thinking Kawahata should have cut off that second kip up attempt by Iroha or at least nailed her with a kick to the face as she got to her feet.