It’s finally happened. The Suruga and Momono dominance of Ramblings About’s Wrestler of the Year that has been in place since Lulu Pencil’s 2020 has come to an end. Sure, you could argue there are some caveats: Mio spent most of the year injured, and Mei is probably number three on the list, but it remains true. We have two new faces in place for me to ramble about excitedly. Who are they? Scroll down and find out (or just look at the image).
Shoko Nakajima
The run that cemented Shoko as my Wrestler of the Year started back at Ittenyon, with her annual nonsense match against Hyper Misao. It’s become such a fixture of the calendar that they announced next year’s one on the same show, safe in the knowledge it was where we would end up. 2025’s edition saw them battle in a Lumbersnake Death Match, which began with Poison Sawada Julie cast a snakey spell on Shoko, transforming her into Shoko Nakajama. The match was, of course, a delight, as Misao battled back against not just evil Shoko, but a host of other TJPW wrestlers who had fallen prey to Julie’s magic. However, come the end, despite Misao’s victory, it seemed that Nakajima would be stuck forever in her new slithery form, due to Julie not having enough of the antidote required to turn her back.
What Poison Sawada Julie hadn’t considered was that our Shoko had made a promise. A promise to win the tag titles with Hyper Misao, finally fulfilling the dream Kyoraku Kyomei have held on to for so long. There may not have been an antidote, but there was the power of friendship, and Shoko broke free of the serpent’s bewitchment to set up the angle that dominated the first part of her year. She and Misao would finally complete their goal, beating Pompaler to win the Max Heart Tournament before toppling 121000000 to take home the belts. It was a run that, truthfully, saw Shoko often play second fiddle to Misao, but that’s part of what makes her so brilliant. She is not only an outstanding wrestler in her own right, but she is also the ultimate support. When it’s time for her to step back and fill in the gaps, opening up the road for her friend’s glory, she does it better than nearly anyone.
Not that it was alone in defining her year. Shoko has long been the best worker in TJPW, but she was granted the freedom to show it in 2025. Look no further than her MLW Title match with Kaya Toribami for proof. Kaya has, for a while now, established herself as something of a lower card gatekeeper. She’s the kind of person you can slot into any tag or pair up with any rookie, and you know she’ll keep things on track. However, there has always been an inkling that the bird could do more. If she could come out of her shell just a little bit, there was another level for her to reach. Trust Shoko to be the one to get that out of her. We saw a more focused and aggressive Toribami in that match, as she attacked Nakajima’s arm and showed a whole new side to her game. It’s a common theme for TJPW’s younger wrestlers to look more comfortable working with Nakajima than any of their other seniors, presumably because she’s the one who is always hanging around the dojo, but this was more than that. Nakajima helped Kaya finally show the world the wrestler she can be.
She’s not alone, either. Shoko finds a way to bring the best out of nearly everyone she wrestles, whether it be mediocre foreigners or Miu Watanabe. She’s able to go out and do the fireworks stuff, flying through the air and exchanging big hits, but she’s just at home on the mat, trying to work her way through Miu’s defence or wrestling Uta with one hand, literally, behind her back. That’s before we get to her dealing with Pom turning up in a dinosaur suit, or how gleefully she follows Misao into her various schemes. There’s nothing I wouldn’t trust Nakajima to do, and while TJPW has bigger names, I don’t think there is another wrestler who is more important to the company than her. Watch every rookie that has come through in the last few years, and you will see Shoko’s fingerprints all over them.
And she does it all without ever losing a sense of who she is. Someone as good as Shoko could easily become a perfectly polished wrestler, boring in their ability to do everything, but that’s not her. She’s still as exciting to watch as she ever was. Capable of putting together long-running feuds with Miu and also of schooling rookies. For years, I’ve been stubbornly persistent that Mio Momono is the best wrestler in the world, but with her spending most of 2025 on the bench, Shoko has taken that crown. Sadly, we’re unlikely to see them battle one-on-one in 2026 to decide who wears it next year, but if they want to compete for it in other ways, then that could only be a good thing for the rest of us.
Uta Takami
I was worried it was a bit boring to select two TJPW wrestlers for this dubious honour, but, well, I can’t deny feelings. Shoko lapped most people this year, but the one person who managed to keep up with her, clinging to her leg like the wee koala she is, was Uta Takami.
And Uta is at a very different stage of her career than Shoko. You could argue that in 2025, Nakajima was running victory laps, showcasing her brilliance after already establishing her legacy. Takami is at the other end of the spectrum, desperately trying to prove that, amongst the growing list of exciting young wrestlers around right now, she is the one that everyone should be paying attention to. As she squeaks and flops her way through matches, she’s still trying to show the world what she can do.
What’s amazing is just how much is already there. I’ve said it before, but Uta is a sponge. She’ll wrestle someone, whether it be Mei Suruga or Miu Watanabe, and by the next match, she has already taken what she learnt from it, run it through the Takami filter, and added it to her game. The Suruga example is obviously the big one there. It’s got to the point where I feel like she has to have had some secret Darejyo past that we were unaware of, as even the way she moves around the ring feels like it has touches of Sakuraism to it. She has that scrambling elegance that characterises a lot of Ichigaya graduates, and it’s hard to imagine that she picked that up so quickly from the limited time she and Suruga have spent together. Yet, it’s undeniably there, shining bright for all to see.
The TJPW influences are easier to understand, but no less impressive. In my best of the rest list, I highlighted her vs Miu Watanabe, a match that seemingly sees Uta mature in real-time. The moment when she wraps her legs around Miu’s arm while in the Koala Clutch, pinning it in place to stop her getting to the ropes, isn’t something I can imagine seeing from a TJPW rookie just a few years ago. It’s the kind of thing Nakajima would have done, and while I don’t want to talk too much about their match together (spoilers, but I’m going to be doing so very soon), let’s just say that I liked it an awful lot.
Most of all, watching Uta wrestle is a constant delight. I love the faces she makes when locking in the Koala Clutch, the endless supply of squeaks that come out of her and how she flops around after moves. She also commits to this stuff like few others. Takami is a tiny wee thing, but watch her throw a dropkick, and you’ll realise she’s from the Mizuki school of putting her own body into it. The more I watch her, the more convinced I am that she will be rising the ranks no matter what, but if she doesn’t, she’ll have a future as a brilliant nonsense wrestler. That kind of commitment is key to the silliness.
And providing she stays healthy and doesn’t decide there is something else out there for her, she will go far. Uta is doubly exciting to watch because this is just the beginning. She’s figuring things out, putting the pieces in place, and considering the strides she’s already made, it really does feel like she could become something special. I’m betting on it, and if you have any sense, you will too.
Watch Tokyo Joshi Pro: https://www.wrestle-universe.com/en/videos?labels=-tjpw.
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