Another month, another host of matches that I think you should be watching. There are a couple of wildcards included, but the majority of it is me watching my usuals. It’s a lot of TJPW, ChocoPro and GAEA. Meanwhile, we’re entering match of the year territory, as I am, as always, running late in starting to put together my list. It’s a year where I don’t have an obvious front runner, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, as there is a load of stuff I really love. I’m excited to watch them all again.
Emi Sakura 30th Anniversary Gauntlet Match, Cult Heroine (30/10/25), ChocoPro
My admiration for Emi Sakura is no secret. She’s pivotal to so much of what I love about wrestling, and I often trace back my change in taste to the first trip I ever took to Ichigaya Chocolate Square on January 1st 2020. Spend five minutes browsing this site, and you will quickly find me praising, if not Sakura, then at the very least something she created. So, her 30th Anniversary Show was always likely to be one I loved. What I didn’t expect was to love it quite as much as this.
And the main event wasn’t the only great moment on this show. Sakura opened proceedings against her current youngest charge, Kaho Hiromi, and even with less than five minutes, they continued to show their sparky chemistry together. It was made doubly special by Kaho entering with a host of the Darejyo kids, leading her chibi cohorts into Shinjiku FACE in a lovely moment. Mei Suruga vs AZM was also a load of fun, although I continue to believe that, out of all of Mei’s goblin pals, her best chemistry is with Momoka Hanazono. It was a really great show, but what made it special was this main event. Thirty years is a long time to try and condense down, but with this match, Sakura did as good a job as anyone could.
Part of that was down to the people involved. Riho obviously had to be there, while getting Momoe to do one of her cameos was a delightful touch, and I know I wasn’t the only person to start crying the second Aoi Kizuki’s music hit. Everyone here, from her close friend Yoneyama to her current Ace, Mei Suruga, has played a part in those thirty years. However, I also adored how Sakura wrestled this match. On a day based around celebrating her, it would be so easy to lean into the cheers, but that’s not her style. For this whole show, from her wrestling a child to being outfoxed by Aoi Kizuki (no one undercuts Sakura better than Aoi’s relentless cheerfulness), Sakura made herself the punchline of the joke. On her 30th anniversary, she constructed a show around her being beaten up and laughed at by some of her closest friends and a child.
It was all brilliantly Emi Sakura. I’m not going to claim she’s always got it perfect. Her ChocoTalk with Yunamon, which took place during the build to this event, proved there are still some wounds that haven’t healed, and she may have misjudged how to get the best out of some people over the years. However, more often than not, Sakura has proven to be the master of this stuff. Whether you’re eight or forty, strong or weak, weird or determined, there is proof that Sakura can find a home for you in wrestling. She’s one of a kind, and this match, from its silliest moments to its best, was a celebration of all of that. I hope we get to see the 40th and the 50th because I’m not sure I can imagine a wrestling world without her in it.
Bozilla vs Saki Kashima, Crimson NIghtmare (4/11/25), Stardom
I don’t watch much Stardom these days, but I feel like I should probably go back and watch everything that Saki Kashima and Bozilla have done together. I’ve long held a soft spot for Kashima. Even before she adopted this anti-wrestling persona, I was a big fan of her getting increasingly irate at Sumire Natsu’s insistence that she wrote and sang Saki’s banger of a theme. However, she’s become a lot more than that. In many ways, she is the antithesis of the way Stardom’s style has evolved. As they’ve moved towards bigger and brasher matches, she’s ran in the opposite direction. Yet, she’s clung on, sticking around through pure charisma. How many people can honestly say they’ve managed to make not wanting to wrestle into something that works for them? Saki can.
The second easy joy of this match is that it features Bozilla hoying Kashima about the place. I doubt she still uses the Pink Beansprout moniker, but there was a reason she picked up that nickname. Saki is not big. So letting Bozilla loose to see what she can do to her was always going to be a good time. I’ve only seen bits and pieces of the big lass, but my favourite stuff is when she keeps it simple, relying on the fact she’s twice the size of everyone in Japan to do the work for her. Kashima is the perfect opponent for her to do that against both because of her size and her weaselly ways. Sure, not everything they did here was smooth or perfectly executed, but that worked for them. A match like this is allowed to be sloppy.
Finally, you got the spark of Kashima actually trying. Maybe it’s because she was pushed into a corner, but there was a moment early on when she kicked out after a superplex that got a reaction because, perhaps more than any other wrestler, everyone expected Saki to stay down. Instead, she pulled herself up and fought back, not toe-to-toe, but perhaps desperate-roll-up-to-powerful-lariat. Who knows whether it was pride or instinct, but there was a part of Kashima that refused to go down without a fight. At least up until the moment she was hoisted up for a powerbomb and quickly submitted when she realised there was no other way out. Still, seeing Saki face her worst nightmare and find the courage to, at the very least, look it in the eye was a lot of fun.
Chie Koishikawa vs Sayaka, ChocoPro #488 (8/11/25), ChocoPro
When a wrestler returns from injury, they really have two comebacks. There is the obvious one, the initial return to the ring. Then there is the moment when they shake off the rust and are back at as close to 100% as a wrestler can be. This match felt like the second one of those for Chie. It’s been a while since her return from the injury she sustained falling off a ladder back in June, but until this match, she’d been protected, as they’ve allowed her the space and time to get back to full fitness. I’m not suggesting Chie has been rubbish, far from it, but there hadn’t been that standout performance. Until this match, anyway.
It wasn’t planned, either. Chie vs Sayaka was thrown together at the last minute due to sickness. It was an opportunity that they seemed more than happy to take. They only had ten minutes, but it was ten minutes of packed action, as Chie sprang across the mat at the bell. These two know each other and Ichigaya well, having trained and wrestled together for their whole careers, and they showed no qualms about pushing the pace. Within a minute or two, they’d taken the fight to the outside, Chie using the Darejyo dropkick mat to deliver one in the alley by the window, something I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone take advantage of before. The whole thing had the feel of people grabbing an opportunity to shine.
And I love that feeling – the sense of wrestlers locking in and making the most of their time. Watch the way Chie goes after Sayaka’s leg, constantly twisting and shifting to deliver the most pain possible. Even when they pause for the seemingly obligatory strike exchange, Chie makes sure to deliver an extra slap to the leg, never forgetting her focus. You can tell how wound up she is by how noisy she’s being, and every move was punctuated by a yell. With Sayaka holding one half of those tag belts, there was a real desperation to get the win, and it looked like she was doing everything right to pull it off. It felt like that right up until the moment Sayaka had her scouted just a little too well and caught her, ending that hope in the blink of an eye.
That all made for ten minutes of exciting, well-wrestled action that was a pleasure to watch. When wrestlers are as comfortable as Chie and Sayaka are together, sometimes it can all feel a bit too easy, but there was none of that here. The whole thing still had the feel of a battle even as they answered each other’s questions. It was a perfect Ichigaya main event, and while I obviously don’t want Mei getting ill, it turned out to be a bit of a blessing in disguise. Now it’s time for Chie to start working her way back to some of those belts.
Arisu Endo vs Uta Takami, All Rise ’25 (9/11/25), TJPW
In my review of this show, I talked about the power of sincerity in relation to Shino Suzuki. Today, I want to focus on something similar, but slightly different, which is the delight of enthusiasm. Uta Takami is enthusiastic. Whether it is her idol stuff with the Up Up Girls (Puroresu), wrestling or ice cream, Uta approaches everything with a wide-eyed excitement that is incredibly endearing. One only has to look through her Twitter page to see that. It’s packed with dodgy photoshopping, her attempts to translate various Up Up Girls’ (Puroresu) songs or just a general enthusiasm for life. Uta never seems to tire of it all.
And while you need more than enthusiasm to be good at something, it can’t hurt. Uta looks like she’s enjoying herself out there. Even in the middle of this match, when her face was contorted up, showing every emotion in her head, there was a sense that Takami was having the time of her life. She’s 18 years old, basically a kid, but has found herself on a wild journey, and it warms my heart to see how much she seems to appreciate it. Like a sponge, she is absorbing everything she comes across, improving her wrestling and getting to the point where her presence in this title match already doesn’t feel at all weird.
Sure, Uta was never going to win here, but we all know that’s like the 10th most important thing about a match. I have my favourites, and I nearly always want them to succeed, but I’m willing to put that to one side if I enjoy the journey. When the Wee Koala was throwing everything she had at Arisu, scrapping and squeaking her way through the action, I wasn’t worried about where it was going because I was having too much fun. That Uta appears to feel the same, only makes it better, and let’s hope that enthusiasm is never blunted.
Toni Storm, Mina Shirakawa, Kris Statlander, Jamie Hayter, Willow Nightingale & Harley Cameron vs Mercedes Mone, Marina Shafir, Megan Bayne, Thekla, Skye Blue & Julia Hart, Blood & Guts (12/11/25), AEW
I love to pick out small moments that represent a match, and the one that stood out here was Jamie Hayter entering the ring with a bag of thumbtacks. When she whacked someone with said bag, it exploded, spraying tacks across the mat. I can’t imagine that was the plan. If nothing else, they covered a particularly awkward area. However, the fact they just got on with it, played perfectly into the messiness of this match. Wild brawls like this shouldn’t be clean and polished. They should be dirty and awkward and filled with moments where it feels like everything is going a bit wrong. It’s violent, not beautiful.
And this was violent. Just look at Skye Blue, coated in her own blood, to see that. Those women went out there and had a fight, one that wasn’t full of particularly spectacular moves, but had loads of shit that looked like it hurt. I don’t watch much AEW, it’s not really for me, but I do respect their willingness to put stuff like this on air. They’re not afraid to show the grimy side of wrestling. While none of what they do is actually truly alternative (it’s an alternative to WWE, sure, but the genuine alternative stuff happens in tiny rooms, not on national TV), this is the closest they get to that. They send people out to bleed, and I don’t care what you say, that is always going to be cool as hell.
Plus, they stole the Lulu and Emi Pencil finish. Fine, I imagine it’s been done elsewhere, but that’s what I’ll always associate it with, as Storm gave up not for herself, but for Mina Shirakawa. It’s a damn good way to close a match, one of my favourites, and it put over just how dangerous Marina Shafir is, something that was backed up by her performance (she seems cool as hell). I wasn’t hugely aware of a lot of the people involved in this (beyond the obvious faces), and they’re clearly not all great wrestlers, but they brought the right attitude to it. One where they were willing to take the bumps, bleed when called upon and die when the time came. You can’t ask for much more than that.
Chihiro Hashimoto vs Sareee, Chihiro Hashimoto 10th Anniversary Show ~ KAIBUTSU A DECADE (16/11/25), Sendai Girl
I fucking love Big Hash, folks. Ten years into her career, she’s one of the best big match wrestlers in the world.
Showings like this are the perfect example of why. I’m often harsh on Sareee, but the reality is that I think she’s a good wrestler who benefits from being channelled. Few people channel her like Hashimoto. While Sareee’s instincts are to attack, attack, attack, Hash is brilliant at cutting her off. She halts that Sareeeist onslaught with a perfectly timed throw or submission. It makes her work for it, building up to the onslaught of forearms and suplexes that every Sareee match eventually finds. It all means so much more when it’s been delayed for even a little bit.
And it’s not like Hash can’t do that stuff, too. She’s one of the few wrestlers Sareee can’t outright bully. I’m very unmoved by 90% of strike exchanges these days, but when Hash and Sareee lay into each other, it’s hard not to wake up. There’s no light slapping blows here. No, this is a world of meaty thuds, as they do everything they can to cave in each other’s chests. If you’re going to hit someone, make it look like it fucking hurts, and at least wake up the primal part of my brain that can’t help but enjoy that.
Sensibly, Sareee and Hash kept this simple. There was some leg work from Sareee, which included a great Hashimoto escape from a leg lock, as she not only scrambled to the ropes, but beat away at Sareee’s leg to set it up. However, it wasn’t sustained enough to feel like it should hinder her for long. These two went out there to deliver the fireworks, and when matches like this have gone too hard on working a body part in the past, it’s almost always been discarded when the fuses are lit. It’s much better for everyone involved to acknowledge that it’s not at the core of what they do.
Sadly, that also hints at where this match fails. While I think they chose the better of those two options, the even better choice is to remove it entirely, cutting the time by a few minutes and tightening everything up. The match went about 20 minutes, and I can’t help feeling that the one that went 16 to 18 minutes would be even better. Fireworks displays don’t go on for hours for a reason, and I think the same should be true of wrestling. These things work best when they’re fast and brutal.
Still, while this won’t go down as my favourite Big Hash vs Sareee match, it’s one of those things that is kind of hard to deny. I like watching them hit each other. I want to be more intellectual than that, but I can’t. It’s sometimes just that simple. The moment at the finish, where Hash pauses mid-Albright, holding Sareee in the air for what was probably a second, but felt 20 times that, before bringing her crashing to the ground, was perfect. It’s simple, brutal wrestling done well, and even if it’s flawed, sometimes you just have to accept that it works for you anyway.
Team 200kg (Chihiro Hashimoto & Yuu) vs Syuri & Lady C, Sendai Girls (18/11/25), Sendai Girls
Here’s something I didn’t expect to do when I turned this match on, but I want to talk about Lady C. I rolled my eyes a bit when I saw she was in this. Syuri’s work outside of Stardom is my sweet spot with her, so watching her get into it with Hash and Yuu was predictably enjoyable, even if they weren’t going all out on a small show in Sendai. However, Lady C seemed like a rubbish choice to fill the ‘obviously getting pinned’ role. I’ve got nothing against her, but my memories of her all involve a gangly, uncoordinated rookie, a role so many tall wrestlers seem to occupy early in their career. So I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed her work here.
That’s not to say that she’s suddenly become a great wrestler. She’s still Lady C. However, she’s learnt to hit all the classic tall lass moves (mainly the big boots) and no longer moves around the ring like she’s not sure what her limbs are doing. Plus, we got to have some fun with her Giant Swing (Miu needn’t worry too much). First, there was her attempt to get Yuu up, which I’m pretty sure was a deliberate comedy move, as it ended with Big Hash slapping her around the head and calling her an idiot. Even more enjoyable, though, was the attempt to swing Hash. I suspect, in Stardom, you don’t have to worry too much about doing the move to heavyweights, but what we ended up with was closer to her scraping the top of Hashimoto’s head along the mat. Now I think about it, that might actually hurt more.
And I appreciate that none of this is exactly a description of great wrestling, but I enjoyed it. Sometimes a match works for you regardless of its flaws. Perhaps it’s because my expectations for C’s performance were at rock bottom, but I came out of this feeling strangely warm towards her. She was arguably massively out of her depth here, but she plugged away, doing everything she could to keep up. Her not quite managing it only added to my affection. Am I about to seek out her matches? Probably not, I suspect that would ruin the fun, but I won’t groan if I see her name again.
As an aside, if you’re looking for a more conventionally great Team 200kg match, the one with FWC from Mika Iwata’s Anniversary event is where you’ll want to go. It’s my favourite thing FWC have done outside of Stardom so far. I just didn’t have much more to say about it than that.
Miyu Yamashita & Shoko Nakajima vs Yuu & Yuki Kamifuku, Inspiration #10 (19/11/25), TJPW
There have been a couple of retirements in recent times where I couldn’t help feeling a tinge of sadness at who wasn’t there. Tsukushi saying goodbye without any final interactions with Emi Sakura and KAORU going without ever seemingly mending the bridge between her and Mayumi Ozaki were the big ones. Obviously, I have no idea of the actual circumstances behind these things. Perhaps promotional politics hide that people do keep in touch behind the scenes, or there are some very good reasons why they don’t. However, from the outside looking in, it’s sad to see someone go without being able to celebrate important parts of their career. All of which meant I was delighted to see Yuu get this last chance to wrestle in a TJPW ring. It was her first appearance in the company since her departure in 2018, and it was a fitting way to close that particular circle.
They also delivered a fun match! There was a degree of everyone enjoying messing around together after so long, but they couldn’t help ramping it up as they went along. Yuu hits hard, so when that started, everyone else naturally followed her down that road. I’m not about to declare it one of my matches of the year, or anything as elaborate as that, but the whole thing was enjoyable, and never dragged despite going to a time limit draw. It made me a touch sad that Yuu couldn’t have had a Yuna Manase deal, where she popped back in now and then to mess around with the new generation. I’d love to see how far she could throw Uta.
There is no point getting sad about that, though. Instead, this is a chance to be happy about something that looked unlikely to come to pass. Yuu got one last chance to meet with old friends and rivals in the ring, and if anything good is coming out of her hanging up her boots, that’s it. Sometimes the vibes are more important than the actual match, and this delivered a little bit of both, so it gets the thumbs up from me.
Miu Watanabe & Uta Takami vs Shoko Nakaijma & HIMAWARI, Uta Takami’s Hometown Triumphant Performance – Million Stone Smile in Kanazawa (22/11/25), TJPW
The hometown magic strikes again. Wrestling in Kanazawa for the first time in her career, managed, if anything, to make Uta even squeakier and floppier than usual. With a sympathetic crowd behind her, she went all out on the dramatic babyface selling, relishing in the cheers of her people. It was a fun performance as she got the rare chance to be the centrepiece of a main event.
It was made possible, though, by Shoko Nakajima. There is something about Uta that brings the bully out of Shoko. We saw a touch of it when she decided to wrestle with one hand behind her back during their Korakuen meeting, but it took on an even more violent edge here. The Big Kaiju was downright cruel. Yanking the wee squeaky one into the steel cables that attach the turnbuckles to the ring post was particularly malicious, but there was a touch of that to everything Nakajima did. If you’re being kind, you’d say that Shoko clearly sees something in Uta and wants to bring it out of her. If you were being mean, you’d say that having an expressive wee squeaker to beat up is just too much fun.
Whatever Shoko’s motivations are, it worked. These fans didn’t need much encouragement to get behind Takami, but every time Shoko ramped up the cruelty, they got a little bit louder. In a match with veteran scene stealer HIMAWARI and a taste of the wonderful Shoko and Miu rivalry, all the key interactions felt like they came between Nakajima and Takami. They were the two people I wanted to see in that ring the most, and while it probably left Uta with a few new bruises, that’s a small triumph for her. She continues to shine whenever she’s given the space to do so.
Hiyori Yawata vs Kaho Hiromi, ChocoPro #490 (23/11/25), ChocoPro
The self-professed Weaklings faced off in the opener, and it was a blast. This isn’t one for your spreadsheet freaks. There was some sloppiness around the edges, particularly towards the end, but I don’t give a shit about that. Truthfully, I don’t know why I continue to make caveats for these people. I can’t imagine any of them are finding their way here, and they certainly aren’t interested in discovering how a kid and an eccentric can come together to create something fun.
What shone here, though, was how inventive both Hiyori and Kaho are. It’s sprinkled throughout this, from Kaho slipping under a bridging Hiyori and sitting up to knock her off balance to Yawata spending a decent chunk of the match going after Aoi Kizuki, figuring the referee was more of her enemy than her regular tag partner (at least I think that was her logic). Hiyori and Kaho are perfect Ichigaya wrestlers. They’re people whose entire careers are built around making a lot out of a little, and you can throw them out there for five minutes, comfortable in the knowledge that they will fill in with fun.
It’s not all wacky fun, either. There was the struggle of Kaho pulling herself along by the mat to escape a hold, or even that final sloppiness that played out as they battled to get into a pin. I don’t think it was intentional, but in a match where one wrestler is significantly bigger than the other, because the other is a 12-year-old, there is something wonderfully simple about the finish coming from Hiyori simply powering Kaho down for a three. It was hardly an AJW shoot-pin finish, but it was closer to it than a lot of stuff is. My point is that we have countless wrestlers capable of putting on a smooth, beautifully executed five-minutes that might generate a few good GIFs. There aren’t many who can go out and have a Hiyori vs Kaho match.
Past Rambles
Chigusa Nagayo vs Mizuki Ishii, G-Territory (31/5/25), GAEA
Mizuki Ishii appears to have vanished into the mists of time. This match was her debut, but she doesn’t have a Cagematch profile, and even the Japanese Wikipedia page for GAEA only lists her as a member of the roster before never mentioning her again. She doesn’t have her own page. Maybe someone with better Japanese could unearth more, but as of now, this match appears to be the only proof we have of her career.
I wish I could claim it as a lost classic. That I could sit here and wax lyrical about how, maybe in another world, Ishii became something special. I can’t. It’s decent, at times even good, but it doesn’t do much to differentiate itself from a million other debut matches. Ishii goes up against the boss, shows a bit of fire, gets the shit kicked out of her, and goes down when it’s time to go down. She’s better than most, but she’s also nothing special. It’s a perfectly solid debut match.
Yet, maybe it’s me becoming a big old softie, but watching her cry at the end of the match as Chig raises her hand, made me a little bit sad. I don’t know what ended Ishii’s career. Maybe it was an injury, or maybe she figured out it wasn’t for her. However, at that moment, it clearly meant something to her. I’ve seen a bit of how hard it is to make your debut for Marvelous, and I don’t think it’s a secret that Chig has joined me in getting softer in her old age. We’ll all seen GAEA Girls. You couldn’t make it to the ring in GAEA unless you gave a damn. At some point, wrestling was this lass’s world, and I’m glad the GAEAISM channel chose to preserve a touch of it. Of course, maybe she now wants nothing to do with it. 1998 was a long time ago – she may have had several different lives since then. However, I like to pretend that she watches it sometimes. That she can look back on the day that she shared a ring with Chigusa Nagayo and smile. For that moment, she was a wrestler, and that’s more than most can say.
Chigusa Nagayo vs Sakura Hirota, Spiral Arts (21/6/98), GAEA
One of the great joys of going through old GAEA has been following the progression of Sakura Hirota. She has always been one of my favourite wrestlers, even if I’m having to pretend her political career doesn’t exist, and seeing how the cake was made is a whole load of fun. She started as this tiny, awkward rookie, doing all the things that joshi rookies do. Then, over the first couple of years of her career, she came to life. At this stage, in mid-1998, she’s not quite the Hirota we know today. She hasn’t yet unveiled her knack for cheap cosplay or gone full nonsense, but her personality is bleeding into her wrestling. Maybe it’s the pink swimsuit, but the person she actually reminds me of is Mio Momono. She’s clearly a great wrestler, but there is an eccentricity there that can’t be ironed out of her.
And to be fair to GAEA, they’re making no attempt to do so. It’s no secret, and I’ve already mentioned it above, that GAEA was a hard place to come through. It’s not just in the documentary, though. Chig is regularly harsh on her pupils in the ring, berating them for mistakes and laying things in. Yet, in among all that, you can tell she has a real soft spot for Hirota. I’ve mentioned in the past that she still cracks Chig up today, and that has been there since day one. There is a short doc on the GAEA channel, following them on tour in 1997, that is particularly focused on her, and you get to see her opening the show with Nagayo and Hokuto struggling (and failing) not to laugh behind her. She’s always been adept at undercutting the self-serious nature of some of her seniors, and one suspects that was a big part of what allowed her to survive.
As for this match, it’s around five minutes long and a bit of a joy. Hirota is a constant source of energy, bumping around for Nagayo’s big offence and throwing out some really fun spots. At this point, she loves nothing more than leaping off places arse first, with seemingly little to no care if there is anyone to catch her, but she also counters a Chig powerbomb attempt by gnawing on her forehead. For all I suggested that Hirota perhaps got it easier than some, Nagayo doesn’t hold back. Some of those blows come in hard, and she has no qualm about powerbombing Hirota’s soul out of her body for the win. You do sometimes get the impression that the wee bump freak weirdo was quite an easy option for people to throw about the place at this point.
Mostly, though, this is about showing off another part of the Hirota journey. About watching her slowly figure out who she is and creating the wrestler that is still going today (and will still take a big bump in search of the laugh). She’s one of a kind, and while yes, I don’t necessarily agree with her political party of choice, I find it hard not to love Sakura Hirota.
Chigusa Nagayo vs KAORU, Alpha Plus (19/7/98), GAEA
In case it’s not obvious, I’m a fan of the GAEAISM YouTube channel and its many treasures. One of the best parts of its existence over the last few years has been the shift that the widespread, easy availability of footage from GAEA has caused. You now see wrestlers like Chikayo Nagashima getting their due for years of brilliance. However, perhaps the person to benefit the most, is KAORU. Outside of the bubble, it felt like her retirement passed unremarked upon by most, but in recent years, her matches with people like Aja Kong have seen her widely recognised as one of the leading lights in this time. It’s a correct opinion.
And doing this chronological watchthrough of the promotion makes it clear how vital KAORU was to GAEA. In the early days, it was a company comprising a handful of legends and a bunch of rookies. KAORU was the exception to that. She may have debuted in 1986, but she wasn’t a era-defining figure like Chigusa Nagayo or Devil Masami. Instead, she was a much more low-key addition to the roster, which is what GAEA needed. They needed a calm head to pair up with these rookies or help keep tag matches together. In those early years, KAORU was vital for keeping everything on track. She was a model of consistency in a company that often favoured chaos.
What becomes clear when going through the scattered footage, though, was that KAORU was too good for that role. Whenever she gets a glimpse of that spotlight, she shines, and while the story of her first few years was that she couldn’t quite get over the hump, she got closer with every attempt. This match was her latest attempt to take down Chigusa Nagayo, and while it only went ten minutes or so, she was within a hair of getting the job done. It’s KAORU’s match. Right from the bell, she goes hard on Chig, hitting an Excalibur on the outside before going after the arm. At this point in her career, Nagayo is a powerhouse, bullying the smaller wrestlers on the roster, but KAORU won’t let her. She’s too quick, too dynamic to be held in place.
Now, I have to be honest, if I stumbled upon a GIF of the final minutes of this match, I would roll my eyes. They get a bit carried away, swapping big moves and even bigger no-sells. However, that’s where context comes in. It is about KAORU’s desperation. She knows she has to go big to put Nagayo down, so she keeps getting up. The problem? Chig matches her blow for blow. Do I love it? No, not really, but the fans in that room do, as they roared for every stagger to their feet. It’s hard not to get wrapped up in that, and while I would probably have ended it all on the devastating avalanche powerbomb Nagayo hit, sometimes you have to go with the fun. Either way, the match as a whole serves as more proof of how good KAORU was, and it’s nice that the world is now acknowledging that.
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