It’s a quieter roundup this month, not because of a lack of good wrestling, but because I haven’t had a chance to watch a lot of it. There’s no big, dramatic reason for that, I’ve just been a bit busy. Fingers crossed, I’ll be able to check out a bit more in October. However, I have decided to add a permanent ‘Past Rambles’ section, which gives me a chance to focus on matches that I’ve watched from, well, the past. It makes its debut here with a WCW Women’s Cruiserweight Title match from 1997. So hopefully you enjoy that!
Mio Momono vs Ai Houzan, Marvelous (6/9/25), Marvelous
Long-term readers will be aware that Ai Houzan is one of my wrestlers. A rookies that I connected with the second they debuted and have been firmly in the corner of ever since. Through her initial nerves, her career-stalling, her interviews about what sounds like a tough childhood and the devastating loss to Senka Akatsuki in a shoot-fall match, Ai is someone I can’t help but support. She also fascinates me. I’m obviously projecting here, but everything I see of her suggests someone who perhaps cares too much. Who has found a home in wrestling and is so desperate to hold tight to it that she gets in her own way. A scroll through her Twitter certainly suggests that she’s an overthinker, someone who constantly beats themselves up for their mistakes, even as she gives everything she has to improve. I found Ai easy to root for even before I’d witnessed all of that, but with every little thing I learn, she earns my support that bit more.
And I don’t think I’m alone. For one thing, her colleagues all seem to adore her. There is a protectiveness around Houzan, from the other wrestlers and Chigusa Nagayo, but also a wish to push her. To find a way to get her out of her own head and turn her into the wrestler they’re sure she can be. I’ve made my feelings about the cruel nature of the aforementioned shoot-fall match pretty clear, but I don’t believe for a second there was anything malicious about it. I think it was an attempt to light a fire under her, and for all that I found the match uncomfortable, I think it’s hard to argue it didn’t work. She is having the best year of her career and is starting to be trusted by Marvelous to pick up those wins and build a bit of momentum. Sure, she’s still struggling to get through the ceiling that she’s been trapped under for so long, but she’s chipping away at it, making cracks and slipping an arm or her head through to the other side.
Which is what made me so excited for this match. Ai and Mio couldn’t really be more different. Momono is an instinctive wrestler. Someone who, and I saw this with all the affection, looks like she turns her brain off when she enters the ring. Mio doesn’t need to think about who she is. She knows. It’s everything Ai isn’t, and yet, Mio has always been her best opponent. Perhaps because of her instinctive nature, she’s able to pull Ai out of her shell, forcing her to go with the flow a bit more. Part of it is probably that Mio was also involved in Houzan’s training, as Ai seems to relax in the ring with her, but I also get the impression that Houzan relishes the challenge from someone she respects and is comfortable with. Momono didn’t go easy on her in this match, as she pushed the pace the whole way through, but Ai matched her blow for blow, staying in the fight until the bitter end.
When Ai is able to get into that headspace, you can see why the Marvelous roster has faith in her. She’s great. She’s a scrappy, frantic wee wrestler who throws everything into it. Like anyone coming through under Chig, she has a great base of wrestling knowledge, but she’s rough around the edges in all the right ways. Not to lash out at other companies, but there are a lot of cookie-cutter wrestlers out there who are barely distinguishable from each other. If you were to show me Ai’s shadow wrestling, I would instantly recognise her. The way she moves around the ring, launching herself into things, is uniquely her.
I appreciate that I’ve barely talked about the match itself, but you can trust me that it’s good. Ai felt closer to Mio than she ever has before, and while the gap is still significant, I’m a hell of a lot more confident that our Houzan will be okay than I was this time last year. She’s battled through the rough patch of her career and finally seems to be coming out the other side. Whatever comes next, you can guarantee I’ll be there, cheering her on regardless.
Arisa Shinose vs Riko (6/9/25), Ice Ribbon
I’m not going to sit here and claim this was an instant classic. If you’re the type who has a checklist of things you want to see in a ‘great’ wrestling match, it’s not really going to be for you. It was a sub-7-minute opener on an Ice Ribbon Dojo show featuring a child. I don’t want to denigrate that. I fucking love shows from the Ice Ribbon Dojo, and this one delivered a particularly joyous hour of wrestling, but it’s something that benefits from emotional attachment. We’re at a time when it’s easier than ever to leap into a match from any period of history and assess its greatness, which is the perfect way to miss the context that brings this stuff to life.
Take this, for example, in which Arisa Shinose bullies a child. So far, it’s the kind of match you can see in quite a few wrestling promotions across Japan. If you change the word child to rookie, you’ll see it in them all. It’s a staple of the genre. You may recall, however, that Shinose debuted in 2022, immediately got injured, and wouldn’t return to the ring regularly until around a year later. When she did, I don’t think it’s harsh to say that she didn’t look entirely comfortable. She’s young, she only turned 20 this year, and having been hurt before, it was only natural that she seemed unsure of herself. There were times when I watched her wrestle and couldn’t escape the feeling that she was teetering on the verge of tears for the entire match.
So, having not been as good at keeping up with Ice Ribbon as I’d like recently, this match was something of a revelation. This Arisa, the one who was stamping on a child’s foot and taking every shortcut available to her, was nothing like the old one. She was confident and comfortable in the ring, revelling in the boos she (rightly) received for her antics. Shinose’s hardly the biggest wrestler in the world, but with a literal 11-year-old across from her, she was able to use her presence to come across like the meanest person in the room. It was good, simple wrestling with a plucky underdog performance from Riko, and it was brought to life by knowing how far Shinose has come. Shedding her nerves to make something like this possible. Those advancements are for the people who are there every week, and while wrestling can be admired in a vacuum, the context can make it so much better.
Rika Tatsumi vs Uta Takami, Autumn Victory in Kitazawa (7/9/25), TJPW
September 7th was a good day for Uta Takami. She kicked off with a spirited performance against Mizuki and then had the pleasure of Rika Tatsumi trying to kill her. It doesn’t get much better than that!
Sometimes you know exactly what a match is going to look like and simply want the wrestlers to colour in the picture. Rika vs Uta is that for me. The squeakist, pluckiest wee rookie TJPW has against a demon who revels in wrapping her hands around people’s throats. I have so much time for Takami, as she might be my favourite of a ridiculously strong TJPW generation, but I needed to see Tatsumi bully her. Uta’s shining optimism vs Rika’s twisted violence is a match made in heaven.
And they gave me everything I wanted. These two know exactly who they are. That’s hardly new information when it comes to Rika. She’s had this figured out for years. There’s a reason she’s brilliant in everything from lower card nonsense to main events, and it’s because everything she does feels natural. Even very good wrestlers come across as contrived at times, but Tatsumi’s every move feels like the exact move she should be making. Even when she catches me off guard, like when she flopped to the ground at the start of this match, complaining that she was tired having already wrestled early in the day, it makes perfect sense. Of course, Rika would try to draw overly enthusiastic Uta in and take advantage. She wants to get this over and done with as quickly as possible.
More impressive, though, is Uta. Not just because she’s a rookie but because she’s still a kid. Having a grasp of who you actually are is hard enough at that age, never mind figuring out who you are when you clamber into a wrestling ring. And yet, everything Uta did also felt real. From her excitedly showing Rika she still had the energy to wrestle to her squeaks of distress as Tatsumi cruelly choked her with a microphone cable, it was a genuine and brilliant performance. I’ve no idea what her ceiling is, but she could easily spend an entire career doing this, and she’d be one of the most entertaining wrestlers out there.
Stuff like this often gets overlooked when it comes to praise. A formula match where everyone knows the beats they’re going to hit. It takes talent to make something formulaic special, though. Rika and Uta have that talent, and this was 10 minutes of wrestling that I will happily watch again and again.
Arisu Endo & Yuki Arai vs Miyu Yamashita & Haru Kazashiro, I Want to Save Everyone with a Smile – Arisu’s Great Aizuwakamatsu Parade (13/9/25), TJPW
I’ve been writing about wrestling for longer than I’d care to admit now, but I’m still not quite sure what the most important part of a great match is. Wrestlers, place, story, mood, it’s all stuff that can play its part. However, what I do feel comfortable in claiming is that a hot crowd can elevate anything. Put one of the worst matches you’ve ever seen in front of a room that is rabid for every second of it, and it might just start to fool you – particularly if you’re in said room. You don’t even have to go as far as rabid, really. I’ve been won over by some pretty awful wrestling simply because I was watching it near a small gang of enthusiastic children.
This match wasn’t the worst one you’ll ever see; it already had a lot going for it, but it also had the magic of taking place in Arisu Endo’s hometown. A hometown that was incredibly excited to have its wrestling daughter return. From her elaborate entrance, to the pre-match flowers, to the chanting of her name, Aizuwakamatsu wanted Endo to feel the love. They cheered her offence, gasped when she was booted around by Yamashita and willed her to keep going towards the end. In turn, the other wrestlers knew who to centre the action around. It was structured so that she both ate a heat section, surviving both Yamashita’s kick and Haru’s attacks on her arm to build sympathy, and got to have a big comeback, overcoming everything to get the win. I mentioned in my Wrestle Princess review that it featured the rare Arai match that wasn’t about her, but this was a proof of concept. To her credit, she realised it, too. While she got some time to do her thing, she primarily sat back and let her partner shine. Safe in the knowledge that Endo was more than capable of doing so.
To throw in one quibble, I am a little bit sad that it happened before Endo won the title. That’s not anyone’s fault. Schedules are figured out and venues are booked long in advance, and I’m sure if TJPW could go back and do it the other way round, they probably would. Still, Endo returning home with a shiny new belt on her shoulder would have turned something that already felt a little bit special into even more of a celebration. Christ, maybe, they should have just had the match here. Let Endo beat someone actually decent, and then have her first defence be against Priscilla Kelly. Would that have hurt Wrestle Princess too badly? I can’t imagine so.
None of that is a real complaint, though. Life rarely manages to line things up that perfectly, and this doesn’t lose anything because there wasn’t a title in its vicinity. It was about Endo getting to show up in front of her people, and they came out for her, elevating what I’m sure would have already been a good match into something with a bit of magic in it. That’s the power of a great crowd, and on this day, Aizuwakamatsu held up their end of the bargain.
Rika Tatsumi vs Pom Harajuku, Wrestle Princess VI (20/9/25), TJPW
Rika vs Pom represents my favourite aspects of Wrestle Princess. Yes, the main event was incredible, Arisu Endo finally got over the line, and Wakana ate a burger. However, what made that show special was that it put so many of the smaller things I love about TJPW in a position to succeed. It had Mei Suruga corrupting Uta Takami; Mahiro Kiryu and Shino Suzuki shining in the Ironman Battle Royal, and HIMAWARI bursting into a match with Aja Kong with all the personality in the world. Sometimes big shows feel like they book the main events and then have to figure out where to slot everyone else, but this was one where the undercard was full of people getting their moment. That was never more true than in this wee nonsense fest between Pom and Rika.
And the sell here is simple – Pom, the eternal three-year-old who excels at getting beaten up, against Rika, the devil. You don’t have to have watched much TJPW to figure that this was going to be a lot of Pom trying to shenanigan her way out of Rika’s attempt to strangle her. They delivered on that promise, too. However, sometimes what you want is done in a perfunctory way, and sometimes it’s done better than it has ever been done before. It’s why there are good AC/DC albums and bad ones, despite all of them ultimately adhering to most of the same ideas. This match was Harajuku and Tatsumi’s Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, not their Black Ice. It was one where Tatsumi’s hubris caught up with her, and Pom, who continues to astound even me with how far she’s come, got everything right. They were funny and weird, but they also built to a huge moment of release, as against all odds, the underdog with a sack of colourful balls pulled it off.
Of course, TJPW aren’t the first company to find a way to highlight their midcard weirdos. One of my favourite New Japan feuds back in the day was Toru Yano’s tormenting of Minoru Suzuki every time they crossed paths. However, the vast majority of these things are done for a cheap gag. They’re forgotten before the night is done. With TJPW, it felt like something Pom had earned. A recognition that, while she is, at her heart, a nonsense wrestler, she’s earned the right to moments like this. Is she about to be given main event spots and the chance to hold the belt? No, of course not, but on her day, she’s allowed to take advantage of the bully who is more focused on beating her up than getting the win. And that’s a wonderful thing.
Bobubobu Momo Banana (Mio Momono & Yurika Oka) vs FWC (Hazuki & Koguma), Big Show in Sendai (23/9/25), Sendai Girls
Truthfully, it was always going to be basically impossible for this match to live up to my high expectations of it. I’ve talked a lot about enjoying Hazuki’s appearances outside of Stardom, but I am just as excited about Koguma being around. She’s been one of the highlights of my limited Stardom viewing in recent times and feels like someone who could really thrive in the current scene. Putting the two of them across the ring from Bobubobu Momo Banana feels like it should be the easiest maths in the world.
However, expectation often comes up against reality. It was a first-time meeting between teams from very different backgrounds with little experience of working together in any form. To add to that, it was the opener (I assume for scheduling reasons, but I haven’t checked that) and only got eleven minutes. I don’t want to suggest they were thrown out in a rough spot. They’re all more than talented enough to make anything work. It just perhaps wasn’t conducive to this being an instant classic. They were in a position to be good rather than great.
And it was good, but it was good with hints that it could be even better, which is why, despite starting with a whole load of caveats, it still makes this list. While the dynamic was not one I expected, it was one that instantly worked for me. FWC could not be arsed with Mio and Oka’s shit. Early on, when they faked out on their dives to the outside to slap their arses dismissively at the Stardom wrestlers, Hazuki stared up at them in disgust while Koguma turned her back and walked away. Koguma, in particular, is no stranger to a touch of nonsense, but there was something about these two wee menaces that seemed to piss her off, and it came sneaking out throughout this match. As she set up for the dual boots through the ropes, she was grinding her fist into Oka’s head and later used her own bear shenanigans to shove a boot into Mio’s back. I’m not suggesting FWC worked this match like crotchety old veterans putting two kids in their place, but there was some needle there, and I want to see that explored more.
That is ultimately my feelings about this match as a whole. It was a good first outing. A proof of concept that, with a little bit more work and these four getting to know each other better, could be turned into something special. Will we get the chance? Well, Mio is pushing for a match with Hazuki, so that feels like a good place to start.
Past Rambles
Toshie Uematsu vs Yoshiko Tamura, Pro-Wrestling Dream Future ~ The Dream & Future ~ 2nd Junior All-Star Show (19/7/97), GAEA
I have been (very slowly) making my way through the GAEAISM YouTube channel in chronological order for a while now, and if you’re not making use of that incredible archive, you’re missing out. The more I watch, the more I’m convinced GAEA might be the greatest promotion of all time. A huge part of that comes from the way they interact with other companies. Like Marvelous in 2025, the GAEA roster comes to life when presented with an outside force, making this Junior All-Star show the perfect place to find some hidden treasure.
And there are a few good matches from this card on the channel, but this is my pick of the bunch. Toshie Uematsu facing off with AJW’s Yoshiko Tamura for the WCW Women’s Cruiserweight Title. It’s safe to say the belt itself never quite took off. Uematsu initially won it in America, but it quickly became a GAEA title in all but name, before being quietly ushered out of frame. However, from what I’ve seen so far, the matches outperformed the gold.
A huge part of what makes this one work is Uematsu’s performance. She kicks this match off like she’s on a timer. There’s a sense that she knows if Tamura takes control, she’ll keep it, and then Toshie will be in trouble, so she wants to keep things frantic. She’s gnawing on arms and attempting to draw Tamura into wild strike exchanges. Perhaps it’s because at this point she’s been defending GAEA’s honour against Mayumi Ozaki’s Oz Academy for months, but Uematsu appears to want to turn this into a brawl rather than be dragged into wrestling Tamura.
Unfortunately for her, she was right to do so. Tamura never dominates this match, but she always feels like the person who knows what she’s doing. In contrast to Uematsu’s scatter-shot and desperate offence, Tamura’s is calculated, taking the champ down to the mat and attacking her leg. As the damage mounts up, it becomes an increasing issue, adding even more panic to the champ’s approach. Her actions, which were already desperate, get more and more so. It’s like she’s a drowning woman, watching the shore vanish as she dips below the surface, and the pain shoots up and down her leg.
That dynamic that could make the title change feel inevitable, but that ignores how good Toshie is. Even as this match slips away from her, as she grasps her leg in pain, she never gives up. She lets out screams of agony, but still charges forward, desperately looking for a way through even as Tamura cuts her off, shutting down every opening she finds. At one point, she leaps from the top, crashing into Tamura on the floor before falling back, weeping from pain and slamming her fist into her leg, trying to force it into holding up for just that bit longer. It can’t, but Uematsu goes out on her sword, proving herself even as she can barely stand in defeat.
This is great. To draw a line to the present, Uematsu gives the kind of performance I can imagine Mio Momono giving, two generations of Chig students with similar talents for selling how much they care. Tamura, meanwhile, may not have been the focus of this review, but was the perfect opponent, providing a direct contrast to the more emotional champ while also getting across her shock that Uematsu was still going. It’s easy, when going through history, to skip over things like two young wrestlers battling for a title no one remembers, but if you’re willing to take a risk now and then, you’ll sometimes find gold like this.
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