Confession time. I was determined going into 2025 to watch more Ice Ribbon, but, as is often the case, I failed. Time, money and all those other boring things got in the way. However, with Ribbonmania closing out the year, I decided to pop back in, see what was going down and have a ramble about it. With that in mind, I apologise if I’m missing any context here. I’m sure there’s someone else out there who can fill in the gaps.
Miran & Moe Hiiro defeated Miku Kanae & Riko
Twenty-five-year-old Miku Kanae has nine years on the next oldest person in this match and fourteen on the youngest. Funnily enough, she’s still not the most experienced wrestler in it. Miran debuted about six months before her (and it’s even longer if you follow the silly logic of micmic only debuting after she left AWG). I know these kinds of stats aren’t surprising to long-term joshi fans. These things just become the norm when you’ve been watching for a while. However, I always think it’s worth remembering how young these incredibly talented kids are. I approach these matches expecting to treat them like a debut or an exhibition, but more often than not, I don’t have to do anything of the sort.
Of course, if you’re coming here expecting a certain style of wrestling, you’re not going to get it. Ice, like all companies working with kids, rightfully limit what they allow them to do. Eleven-year-old Riko isn’t going to be taking any wild bumps. However, she’s doing more than you’d expect. She moved around the ring well and even hit a nice dropkick from the second rope. Even more impressive was Moe Hiiro, who, like her sister, seems to be something of a natural. When she was in the ring with micmic, you could easily forget how young she was, as it felt like something you could slip into any number of opening matches happening in Japan this week.
Kanae and Miran are less surprising. They’ve both been around long enough that everyone knows they’re good, and I have a particular soft spot for micmic. They deserve credit for working so well with the youngsters. A huge part of allowing them to wrestle is being able to trust their opponents and partners to look after them, and they did exactly that. Their work made for an enjoyable opener that breezed by.
Verdict: A Great Wee Opener
BIG DEKAI (Yuna Manase & Totori Satsuki) defeated Mizuki Kato & Big Haruka
Big lass match!
Sometimes you want a match to surprise you, and on other occasions you want it to hit the exact beats you’d expect. This was the latter. These four lasses did a lot of yelling and bashing into each other, and what more can you ask for? It’s exactly what they should be doing.
I haven’t seen much of Big Haruka, who is one of the many wrestlers from the Taka production line, but she looked solid here. JTO has always at least somewhat existed to train wrestlers who will get picked up by bigger companies, and she already feels like someone you can imagine in Stardom. At the moment, though, she’s in a decent wrestling company and provided a touch of agility to the hoss-off. She’s fairly light on her feet for her size (sadly, we didn’t get to see what her first touch is like, but I imagine it’s also decent) and impressed up against Totoro. Mizuki Kato, meanwhile, has come a fair way since I first saw her. This was one of the more confident performances I’ve seen her give, as that joyous personality shone alongside her wrestling.
As for BIG DEKAI, they’re a team you can rely on. Totoro and Manase know exactly what they’re doing, and while they weren’t going to be busting a gut in the second match on the card, they didn’t take it easy either. They gave the kids some shine, then lariated them into next week. Job done, home in time for tea.
Verdict: Hoss Fight!
Kaori Yoneyama defeated Makoto and Mase Hiiro to win the Triangle Ribbon Title
There is no world in which I am not going to love a match where Yone pretends to be on the side of a child for 99% of it, only to betray her at the death. That is great wrestling.
And I was already a big fan of wee Mase Hiiro. She’s bursting with the joy of being a kid doing something she loves, and from her elaborately choreographed entrance routine to the way she wrestles, I always leave her matches with a smile on my face. That same innocent enthusiasm was also the perfect contrast to Yone’s inevitable goblin ways. You had to know the betrayal was coming, but every time Mase chose to side with Yone over Makoto or saved her from a pin, it just made the conclusion that little bit more painful.
Credit also to Makoto, who, better than nearly anyone, manages to straddle doing this stuff and also booting people in the head in SEAd. Anyone who has seen her early Ice Ribbon career will know that she was born in the nonsense, and her exasperation at having the veteran goblin and a child continually get the better of her was a lot of fun. There can’t be a better pair for Mase to learn from than those two.
It was a slight match, coming in at about six and a half minutes, but it made me smile a lot, so it gets the thumbs up from me.
Verdict: Joyous
Misa Kagura, Sumika Yanagawa & Arisa Shinose defeated Bad Butts (Yappy, Ancham & Crea)
I talked fairly recently about how your impression of a wrestling match is often made with the eyes, and this is a perfect example of that. A single glance tells you where you stand here. The black-clad Bad Butts were facing off against the colourful princesses. Pick your side.
And after a more light-hearted start to the show, this match had some bite behind it. My understanding is that these groups have been clashing for a while, and that sliver of tension made a big difference. Everyone was a bit more fired up, hitting a bit harder and looking to prove a point. On top of that, the clear divide gave everything a very traditional wrestling feel. Bad Butts – despite having promised to be on their best behaviour – didn’t take long to go for the kill. The first opportunity they got, the ref was shoved in front of a charging Misa Kagura, and Yappy went to town with that sign, braining all three opponents.
I know people tend to baulk against any kind of cheating in puro, but I have zero issue with it here. Ice Ribbon don’t rely on this stuff at all, and when it is used, it’s for a reason. Bad Butts might be the cooler team, but they’re also the baddies, so having them go for the shortcuts makes all the sense in the world. Yappy, Ancham and Crea are all great hands, the kind of people you can rely on to anchor any match, and while their opponents weren’t an inexperienced trio, they got more over on the strength of Bad Butts’ work. Every time Bad Butts cheat, the princesses eventual victory gets that little sweeter.
It was simple, well-worked pro-wrestling that ticked all the right boxes. If anything, I would have liked to see them get a little more time, as the ending did feel a bit sudden. Hopefully, Yappy trying to keep whacking Arisa with that sign afterwards means we’ll get at least a bit more somewhere down the line.
Verdict: Well-Worked Stuff
Tsukina Umino defeated Akane Fujita to win the FantastICE Title
In a period where Ice Ribbon takes more flak than most, and its failures are often shared far and wide, Tsukina Umino has gone underdiscussed as one of their great successes. I wasn’t alone in noticing how much more comfortable she seemed when she made the swap from WAVE to Ice back in 2022, but even then, I couldn’t have predicted how far she’d come. She’s flourished in the years since, developing her rather unique style and becoming something entirely unexpected.
And most of the matches I’ve seen Umino in during that time have had her work heel, but she was the clear babyface here. Fujita is bigger and stronger, and on top of that, she’s been holding that FantastICE title for a long time. Sure, for part of that, it was basically on ice (pun not intended), as her/Prominence’s relationship with the company had broken down, but the point still stands. It was a chance for an Ice Ribbon wrestler to bring it back into the fold.
With that opportunity hanging in the air, Umino was great here. Akane is a physical wrestler, someone who could easily bulldoze her, but she met her head on, literally at times. She was always the underdog, but it was a tenacious performance. Every time it looked like Fujita was in place to push her advantage, smashing her way to victory, Umino found a way to survive. To cling on and keep herself in the fight. Even when she was dragged into standing and trading strikes, a risky move for someone who was so out-gunned, she gave as good as she got, rearing back to bring two hands cracking down on Fujita’s chest.
I’m also proof that it worked. I might not be a total newbie, but I haven’t followed this story. I don’t know the beats they’ve hit, but when Umino finally turned the tide, having survived some thudding headbutts on the way, I was right behind her, willing her on towards victory. The tears she shed when she finally got over the line told you how much this meant to her, and it was impossible not to be delighted for her. She’s come a hell of a long way, and this was well deserved.
Verdict: A Great Moment
Azure Revolution (Risa Sera & Maya Yukihi) defeated Lovely Butchers (Hamuko Hoshi & Mochi Natsumi)
With Risa Sera hurtling towards retirement and Hamuko Hoshi and Maya Yukihi set to take time off for surgery, Ice Ribbon got the band back together one last time. These two teams were a large part of Ice’s hottest period, and before anything else, it was really just a pleasure to see them in the ring together again.
And I suspect how you feel about this will depend on whether you’re au fait with those matches. If you’re new here and lack that little nostalgic bump, you’re not going to get as much out of this. It’s still a good match, perhaps even a great one at times, but they were playing the hits. Running through all the bits that come naturally from that clash between the cool of Azure Revolution and the wine mum enthusiasm (or granny in Ham’s case) of Lovely Butchers. The longer it went on, the more in the zone they got, but it was never going to reach the heights of those earlier efforts.
I don’t think they should be expected to, either. They’ve got more years on the clock, and Ham and Maya are both working hurt, but more importantly, that’s not what this match was about. It was a chance for old friends and rivals to go out there and have fun together one last time. They could have stunk the place out (and, once again, they very much didn’t), and it would have still been worth it for the hugs at the end. Sometimes there’s shit more important than a thrilling final act. With there having been a lot of water under a lot of bridges within the various relationships that had to come together to make this work, I’m just glad that it happened. Everything else was a bonus.
Verdict: Lovely
Kaho Matsushita defeated Yuuka and Kirari Wakana to win the ICEXInfinity title
2025 was the first year in a long time where it felt like Ice made it through without grabbing attention for the wrong reasons, so it almost feels fitting that their final match of the year fell apart at the last minute. Sure, this isn’t quite on the level of some of those previous disasters, but it’s still a kick in the teeth for your biggest show. Manami Katsu getting ill meant the main event had to be changed, and Ice responded by jamming it and Kirari Wakana vs the returning Yuuka together. It wasn’t wrestled as a traditional three-way dance, but instead under the rules where you have a series of singles, and have to pin both opponents in a row to be declared the winner.
It means, even more so than usual, that this has to be taken in context. Wakana is a talented young wrestler, but she’s not someone who would typically be headlining Ribbonmania. Yuuka, meanwhile, hadn’t wrestled since July 2016. They were both being thrown in at the deep end. Taking all of that into account, I thought they did an impressive job. Was it perfect? No, but they hit more good than they did bad.
A lot of that was down to the structure of the match. Smartly, they opened with Wakana vs Yuuka, meaning that we still got a version of the bout they’d originally booked. They also let Kirari control a decent chunk of that action, going after Yuuka’s arm and making sure the returnee was able to save energy for the big moments. There was a very real chance she’d blow up having to work two matches on her first day back, but they protected her nicely. Yes, they had a bit of trouble towards the end, as they couldn’t pull off Wakana’s finisher until the third attempt. However, they never panicked, keeping everything under control and eventually getting there.
The real star here was Matsushita, though. She must have been gutted, as, through no one’s fault, she lost her big main event against the dominant Katsu. However, she never showed it. Up against two tired wrestlers, she was a rock, adjusting to any issues and keeping the momentum going. She was presumably set to play a very different role originally, as she was coming in as the underdog. However, she still managed to create some doubt, giving Wakana some fun close calls off flash pins before really letting Yuuka shine in the final fall. I think if you were going in blind, you would have never guessed how long Yuuka had been away for, and while she obviously deserves a lot of credit for that, so do her opponents.
Ultimately, though, the belt went where I assume it was headed all along, Kaho picking up the win and starting her first reign. It’s been clear since she stepped into the company that this was her destiny, so it’s lovely to see it pay off. That she did it with a performance she wasn’t expecting to give, but excelled in anyway, suggests she is more than ready for the honour. Considering everything around this, I think these three could walk away from this match with their heads held high. They did a damn good job.
Verdict: Fair Play To Them All
Overall Show
2025’s edition won’t go down as one of the great Ribbonmanias, but I think it can be classed as a good one. Ice Ribbon are still rebuilding, and with the announcement that they’ll be doing fewer Korakuens in 2026, they seem to be accepting their place in the wrestling landscape. I think that can only be a good thing. There is the core of a really good roster here, sprinkled with great pros like Yappy and Totoro, so I think they have the potential to go far. They just need the time and the patience to get there. In the meantime, I had a really nice time with this show, and I’m going to really try to watch more Ice in 2026.
You can watch Ice Ribbon shows here: https://iceribbonlive.ctpfs.jp/
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