I don’t trust people whose favourite wrestlers win all the time. Sure, you can appreciate and respect the people at the top of the card, but seeing them as your guy? I find that deeply suspicious behaviour. Does anyone really love Kazuchika Okada? Sareee? Roman Reigns? Even as I ask the question, I know the answer is yes, but I find it hard to imagine what goes on in their heads. I categorise them in the same category as those who support Wrexham despite not being from Wales, or claim to like punk but only listen to pop-punk bands who are statistically likely to have done some noncing. What you’re doing might not be inherently bad, but I don’t particularly want to spend time with you.
I do trust people whose favourite wrestlers are the outsiders, oddities, weirdos and nearly-men. The one who fall short of being the next Ace or carve out a niche for themselves in the midcard. The freelancers who work tiny shows in rooms you’ve never heard of and the deathmatch guys who carve up their bodies for the love of the game. I would trust anyone implicitly if they told me their favourite wrestler was Haruna Neko. That’s a person I want to get to know.
And as the wee cat brings her career to an end, the injuries that have hampered her for the last couple of years finally taking their toll, I’ve been thinking a lot about how important she is to me. How this tiny cat girl, who is often dismissed as, at best, something silly and throwaway, and at worst something to be fetishised, represents what I love about TJPW, and wrestling as a whole. I’ve never done it, but I suspect you can go back through the years of reviews on this site and quite easily find the moment when the way I view this stuff started to change. The switch I make between dissecting wrestling under the context of what the creators of the canon tell us makes it good to embracing what I actually love about it. A huge part of how that came around was slowly, but surely, falling in love with people like Haruna Neko.
Is that because I think she’s a great wrestler? I know I’m supposed to say no now, but actually, yes, it is. Neko was a great wrestler. She was funny and bright, silly and charming, and, now and then, towards the end, she’d powerbomb someone. Even more importantly than that, and I can’t believe I’m ranking anything as more important than a Nekobomb, Neko’s greatness came from an innate understanding of who she was. She was great because she never felt the need to show it. Like the rest of my beloved nonsense squad, Neko didn’t strive to prove anything to anyone. She understood her job, whether that was being bullied by bigger wrestlers, doing bits in three-way tags, or just being a wee cat. Did anyone do any of that better than her across the course of her career? Not really. So fuck your checklist metrics of what constitutes greatness. Neko was great at being Neko.
Her talent at being a wee cat did lead to some brilliantly enjoyable matches, too. Great friend of the site, Unmanned Local Train, recently wrote a piece (which was so spot on that I was a bit annoyed they got in there before me) collecting some of them. The one against Kamiyu is a personal favourite, but I’m also a strong believer in the matches you don’t necessarily remember being just as important. The five-minute special on a house show with a rookie, or a quick squash against Miyu Yamashita. Those are the matches that I believe Neko has always shone in. It was her cattish cock of the head, a look that can mean anything from confusion to give me cuddles to ‘what the fuck do you want from me?’ depending on context. It was her shuffling up to stand next to Namba as her opponent made their entrance, or a set of cute claws desperately scratching at eyes. Every time she stepped into that ring, she delivered a shot of pure wee cat, and it paid off in the affection TJPW’s fans had for her. Go back and watch nearly any show she was on for the last few years and try to find someone who got more streamers than her. You won’t find many.
I don’t want the wee cat’s career to end, but there is also something fitting about it being short and sweet. It makes me smile to imagine that someone somewhere will be sitting next to her in a work environment, completely unaware of this portion of her life. She’s got all the time in the world to go out and live six more lives, and now and then, when she feels like it, she’ll be able to show the people she meets the videos of her in the ring, clawing the eyes of some of the best wrestlers in the world. That’s a hell of a story to tell. And while yes, I don’t meet many people whose favourite wrestler is a wee cat, and the larger wrestling world is mainly oblivious to the cat flap closing on her career, that doesn’t make it any less special. People like me, and hopefully those who read this site, will always have a place in their hearts for wrestlers like her. The ones who fill a gap, make us smile and find greatness in a way that can’t be condensed down into a star rating on a spreadsheet.
Cheerio, wee cat, I’ll miss you.
Watch Tokyo Joshi Pro: https://www.wrestle-universe.com/en/videos?labels=-tjpw.
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