The 8th of August is a special day in Marvelous canon, as it’s when Chigusa Nagayo debuted as a wrestler. In recent years, it has been reserved for Korakuen, and with the feud with Marigold only getting hotter, the roster was out to defend their honour on the anniversary of the start of their boss’s career. Let’s see if they did a good job.
After missing a few shows due to illness, it was great to have Chig back to kick things off and take her place on commentary. She announced they’ll be running Yokohama Buntai for the Marvelous anniversary show next year, which is a big venue for them to do. I hope they make up for not doing the Iroha vs Momono match in Nagoya last year, but I suspect it will be Iroha vs Big Hash or Sareee.
Chikayo Nagashima defeated Itsuki Aoki and Valentina Rossi in a three-way match
Valentina Rossi might be the most New Jersey person to ever wrestle at Korakuen Hall. Have I researched that claim? No. Am I going to? No. If someone has a legitimate counter-argument I might pretend to care. Whether it’s true or not, she’s the latest foreigner to find their way to Marvelous and benefits from being tall. To be honest, at this point, it’s her primary attribute. She’s clearly got a lot of personality, but her work in the ring so far has been awkward at best, as she often looks like someone trying to remember her lines. This was only her second show in Japan, so she might loosen up as she gets into the swing of the tour, but she hasn’t blown me away yet.
Elsewhere, I’m sad to report that despite aligning herself with Magenta, Chikayo Nagashima still has eyebrows. I don’t think her veteran status should save her from the razor. She and Aoki were, to put it somewhat bluntly, taking it easy here. They generally leaned into the comedy of the match, messing around with the foreigner and occasionally bursting into a few seconds of wrestling before slowing it down again. They were the opener on a show that was in no way about them, so they were happy to coast through, making sure the fans didn’t leave too disappointed, but not bothering to wow them either.
I probably sound more down on this than I am. It was fine. I enjoyed the karma of Aoki having described Rossi as a ‘baka gaijin’ only to have the match whisked away from her because she followed Nagashima’s instruction to climb the turnbuckle, leaving Chikayo free to steal the win. It was a nice full-circle moment, finishing off a perfectly acceptable opener, which no one will be talking about in two days, never mind in two weeks.
Verdict: A Fine Start
Yumehito Imanari & Levi Shapiro defeated Yosuke Santa Maria & Jiah Jewell
I’d be lying if I said I predicted that Yosuke Santa Maria wrestling on Leo Isaka’s produce show would lead to Chig becoming her biggest fan, but I should have seen it coming. Years of listening to Nagayo chuckle away on commentary have given me a pretty good grasp of her sense of humour, and Santa Maria ticks a lot of those boxes. Chig spent the pre-match yelling her name in the way countless young women have Nagayo’s over the years. With her Dragon Gate schedule seemingly light (I’m not clued in enough to know the deal there), no one should be shocked if she joins the likes of Aoki and Unagi on the Marvelous’ regulars list.
It wasn’t just Chig either. Santa Maria’s antics were the most popular part of this match. The wrestlers struggled to get the fans into this, with even likeable charisma bomb Yumehito Imanari getting little from them. However, the exception to the rule was Santa Maria, who was consistently able to draw out the reactions she was looking for. You could argue a lot of it was low-hanging fruit, and a bit of Japan’s love of gay panic nonsense, but it was working. Whether it was following up a series of weak chops with a humdinger or accidentally planting a kiss on Jiah Jewell, she was the one bringing the fans to life.
And I think the problem was that there just weren’t enough people whom the fans cared about around her. Throw a Leo Isaka, or even Titus Alexander, in there, and they might have been able to bring things to life, helping to elevate what was mainly alright source material. Instead, you had Levi Shapiro, a nineteen-year American veteran making only his second appearance in the company, and Jiah Jewell, who isn’t unpopular, but hasn’t got over to the extent of someone like Titus. It meant you had one of those situations where neither the match nor the crowd ever really got up for this, so it mainly puttered along to the finish. There was some perfectly acceptable wrestling along the way, but nothing that you’ll feel the need to get excited about.
Verdict: Yosuke Santa Maria Is Popular
Team Marigold (Utami Hayashishita, Seri Yamaoka, Miku Aono, Victoria Yuzuki & Komomo Minami) defeated Team Marvelous (Mio Momono, Riko Kawahata, Maria, Ai Houzan & Sora Ayame) in a gauntlet match
When it comes to trying to review them, these gauntlets sit in a similar space to something like a Royal Rumble. Trying to talk about it all is a fool’s errand, and while I suppose I could split it up into individual matches, I’d then have the opposite problem. So, I will only be focusing on the stuff that I want to talk about. I’m sure if you’re desperate for a blow-by-blow account, you can find one of those reviewers who thinks they’re a play-by-play commentator (yes, I’m pretending any of them pay attention to Marvelous).
The major flaw here is that I don’t think Magenta being in this match helped it. They’re still in the process of figuring out their heel shtick, and having to act like they don’t care in the midst of a big inter-promotional war hurt the whole thing. Riko, in particular, eventually got there, as she couldn’t stop herself from being drawn in when facing off against Miku Aono, with whom she has a lot of history, but it did hurt the pacing of the match. You want these things to ramp up, both teams getting increasingly desperate as their numbers dwindle, but Maria and Riko feel detached from the Marvelous roster, making it hard to believe they care. I suspect the decision to have them attack their teammates in the aftermath was, at least in part, a response to that issue.
My other big flaw was that the result annoyed me, which isn’t technically a fault of the match, but Marigold should not be beating Marvelous. It’s spiritually wrong, especially when it’s Utami pinning Mio (more on that later). You could argue, correctly, that this simply shows I’m invested in the feud, but I don’t care about your dumb logic. All Marvelous vs Marigold matches should end with Mio Momono bouncing on the heads of these rubber-glove-loving weirdos.
Anyway, onto the good. Losing Senka Akatsuki for both this and the Marigold tournament was a bummer, but I thought Sora Ayame stepped up in her absence. Coming in, I quietly expected her to be blown away by super rookie Yamaoka, but she held her own. While they leaned a bit too heavily on throwing forearms, Seri at least made sure hers thudded nicely, and Ayame slapping her around the face made up for some of the weaker ones. More impressive was how comfortable Sora looked on the mat, not only keeping up, but managing to show a bit of herself when they were down there. While things were rough around the edges, that’s part of Seri’s charm. She’s got everything she needs to do succeed and it’s fun to see her put it together, figuring out what works for her and what doesn’t. Yamaoka is one of the first things about Marigold that has made me intrigued to watch more often, and I hope that Rossy and co don’t sand down those edges so far that she morphs into another one of their wrestlers.
Similarly, Ai Houzan turned up strong here. She was handed a tough spot, as her job was basically to come out and lose to Miku Aono. Yet, she made sure to still leave her mark, getting some big reactions towards the end as she nearly snuck out with the win following a La Magistral. It was the kind of response that made me kind of wish they’d gone with that for the finish, as her picking up the three could have been a huge moment for her. Sadly, that wasn’t to be, but I still think Ai is sneakily having her best year yet. She’s managing to assert herself more, taking control with a flurry of headbutts or showing some pluck as she refuses to be kicked into oblivion. Long-term readers will know how much I adore Houzan, so maybe it’s my own biases coming out, but I remain convinced she’s getting there.
Of course, the star of the show was Mio Momono. I was sure this was setting up for her to run through the two remaining Marigold rookies, Victoria Yuzuki and Komomo Minami, before being beaten by Utami, but they decided Minami wouldn’t be wrestling today. While that added to my frustration with the result, it didn’t stop Mio from shining. She and Yuzuki blasted through a high speed exchange, and to give the Marigold wrestler her credit, she kept up. I won’t point out that Momono is just back from injury because that would be cruel, but as someone who has always found Yuzuki bizarrely off-putting, I was at least impressed that she wasn’t blown away.
The interesting thing here, though, was Momono vs Utami. It’s probably no surprise to anyone that it’s been a long time since Utami Hayashishita has done anything for me. Her bloated epics are not to my taste, and while I can appreciate aspects of her wrestling, I can’t remember the last time I was drawn into one of her matches. Until now, anyway. Shockingly, being positioned as a badass powerhouse in a fast-paced showdown with Momono is exactly where Utami should be. She spent most of this match chasing Mio’s shadow, swinging wildly as Mio danced around her, and it was great. Even better, when she did get a hold of Momono, she made sure to hit her hard, throwing her across the ring or wiping her out with a lariat. It wasn’t anything you haven’t seen before, but both were perfectly cast in their roles, and it made for a thrilling final act.
After claiming I wasn’t going to go into detail about everything, I almost did, but here we are. It leaves this as a flawed match that still did more than enough to be worth your time. Would I have done some things differently? Yes, of course, Mio would have won at the point where she no-sold a bunch of Utami’s stuff and then hit her with a trio of Germans, but I can’t have everything. It was still a hell of a match, and while I don’t think it reached the heights of Marvelous’s previous two gauntlets (both of which are fantastic), it is still more than worth your time.
Verdict: Stupid Result, Very Good Match
Spark Rush (Sareee & Takumi Iroha) fought Team 200kg (Chihiro Hashimoto & Yuu) to a time-limit draw and retained the AAAW Tag Titles
All my frustrations with this match can be summed up by the random wander to the outside that these four took after they’d already been wrestling for over twenty minutes. In the right hands, crowd brawling can fucking rule. There’s nothing like seeing two pissed off people barrelling through chairs, hopefully bleeding all over the place, while members of the public scatter out of their way. This wasn’t that. It was the kind of crowd brawling you get at the start of a main event tag on a house show where they’re trying to make sure the fans in attendance go home talking about how close they got to the action. Yes, there was a chair or two thrown, but it never felt dangerous. It felt designed to fill time.
That’s something that can be said about a lot of this match. When, fairly early in the proceedings, Takumi and Sareee started working over Big Hash’s arm, I groaned. Few things are a more surefire indicator that we’re going long than that. Do you think it played into the rest of it? Of course not. Not only is asking Big Hash to work without the use of one of her arms daft, but it’s just not how these matches are structured. They’re a meander into a sprint, an attempt to build to something with seemingly no understanding that you need a foundation for the rest of it to work.
And there was good stuff here. All four of these women can throw a strike, while you get little moments of genius like Yuu catching a spin-kicking Iroha with a judo throw (which may have been a mistake, but they styled it out). Plus, for all my moaning about it, there was excitement in those final minutes. Those exchanges of big moves, bringing the crowd up as they go, are hard not to get wrapped up in. The problem is that every time I watch one, I’m a little bit more detached, and I’ve seen a lot of them now. I so desperately want to like this stuff. To feel the excitement of the person in Korakuen who spent the final few minutes of the match seemingly screaming incoherently, so wrapped up were they in the action. However, for every moment that works for me, there are several that are just a chore. That feels like four people extending out something that could be great in fifteen minutes to fill thirty for the sake of it.
These wrestlers have the potential to do something special. Big Hash is one of the people I trust to curb Sareee’s excesses, and when Team 200kg are at their best, they’re perhaps the best tag team in the world. I think if you cut this down, forced more of a structure onto it, and let Hash lead the action, it would work. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that. Instead, it was a bloated, often dull affair that only occasionally sparked into something more. I’m sure many people will like it more than I, but if you’ve given your time to the gauntlet, I’d recommend turning the show off afterwards.
Verdict: It Did Nothing For Me
Overall Show
For me, that was a bit of a one-match Korakuen. Thankfully, that match was multiple showdowns knitted together, so I didn’t come away too disappointed. The one flaw with these gauntlets, particularly when you have a roster as small as Marvelous’s, is that they don’t leave you with much space for the undercard, so that was all a bit bare. Then, well, there’s the main event. I’m fully expecting that a lot of people will like it a lot more than I did, so despite what I said above, you probably should give it a watch if you’re less grumpy about that stuff than I am.
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