If you keep an eye on the dates for this month’s matches, it will be fairly obvious at what point I got very busy. Thankfully, it’s all for good reasons, which I’ll probably discuss next month when it’s been sorted out. In the here and now, I still managed to get into a fair few matches before life got hectic, touching on a bit of New Japan, CMLL and even American indie wrestling. Of course, there’s also my usual favourites to go alongside them, so don’t assume I’ve sold out quite yet.
Hartley Jackson vs Oleg Boltin, Road to the New Beginning (2/2/26), NJPW
It will be a great year if something else makes me yelp with joy the way Hartley Jackson throwing himself backwards onto the Korakuen orange seats did. What a lad!
And I have a lot of love for Big Hartley. He’s in that gang of wrestlers, alongside the likes of Baliyan Akki, Chris Brookes, the now retired Jumbo Lee Burridge and Drew Parker, who has taken an unusual route into carving out a career in Japan. He flirted with NJPW years ago, but when that didn’t work out, he battled his way into the Japanese indies, got booked everywhere he could and developed a delightful friendship with HARUKAZE. On top of that, despite being a fucking tank of a man, he seems like a proper lovely gent. He’d be up there on my list of wrestlers I’d be excited to have a pint with.
Not that you saw the lovely side of him here. He and Oleg Boltin were out there making Big E proud. It joins the Big Hash and Giant Saya match as our meat slapper of the year, as these two knew exactly what the fans wanted from them. There are times when you should complicate things. When slowing down and thinking through what comes next is the right move. Then there are times when you should forget all of that in favour of charging at the other guy as fast as you can. Listen to the fans in Korakuen when these two clamber into the stand to give themselves the longest run-up possible. They’re fucking loving it.
It made for the kind of match New Japan was lacking when I watched regularly – a twelve-minute, middle-of-the-card Korakuen Hall banger where both wrestlers know exactly what they’re supposed to do. There are no allusions to grandeur here. They were given the exact right amount of time to slam into each other until one couldn’t get up. Every company should be running a match like this at least once a month, and if Big Jackson and Boltin are involved, I’ll probably watch it.
Mistico & Xelhua vs Averno & Difunte, Martes Populares (3/2/26), CMLL
My quest to watch more lucha at least made it into February. That’s a start.
It is something of a formula tag. The heels cheat their way to the first fall, but the babyfaces rally in the second, setting up a fun final act. There isn’t anything here that’s going to blow your mind or alter the way you view tag team wrestling. I’m not about to claim to be an expert on CMLL, but I suspect if you do watch it regularly, you’ll see a whole bunch of these a year. If I keep to my vow to watch more, perhaps a repeat of this match won’t feel all that impressive to me in a few months.
However, formulas exist for a reason, and when they’re executed well, it’s easy to forget you’ve seen them before. Everyone apart from the most blinkered of WWE fans knows how good Mistico is, but it was the rudos who impressed me in the first act. Their shenanigans felt so natural. When a tecnico was facing off with one of them, the other would be shifting into their blind spot, constantly disrupting any momentum before it could be built. There was some flash, Difunte picks up the first fall with a rope walk into a Coast to Coast, but the vast majority of it was just good, solid rudo work. The kind that laid the groundwork perfectly for the tecnicos to be let loose in the second act.
And when they were, they hit their beats perfectly. Xelhua was the supporting actor, but he never felt out of place. It is that Mistico magic that makes it, though. He’s so smooth. Gliding around the ring, holding Arena Mexico in the palm of his hand. I guess, at some point, I will have to stop singing the fans’ praises in every one of these, but god, that place. The only other venue that comes close is Korakuen Hall, as the Mexican fans cheer and boo in all the right places. I’m sure I’ve said something similar before, but when people compare European wrestling crowds to football crowds, it’s generally Americans who have never been to a football match. Arena Mexico is much closer because they feel like they’re actually reacting to the action – ebbing and flowing based on what happens in the ring.
It’s such easy wrestling to watch. Elegant and controlled, as it does exactly what it seeks to do. I could luxuriate in it all day, and fingers crossed, I’ll continue to do so.
Cosmic Angels (Aya Sakura & Sayaka Kurara) vs Mase Hiiro & Moe Hiiro, New Blood 29 (4/2/26), Stardom
I’m always (selfishly) a little bit worried when wrestlers I like start appearing on these New Blood cards. I don’t particularly want to see Stardom snap them up. However, you’d have to be a cold-hearted person not to feel a bit of joy for the Hiiro sisters. With Moe being the older of the two at 14, they’ve already achieved more than plenty of wrestlers twice their age, and are better than even more. It’s natural to go overboard with kids. Unless you’re a dick, you praise them on a sliding scale relative to their age, but like ChocoPro’s Kaho Hiromi, I genuinely believe these two have the potential to be great. They’re already bursting with talent.
This opener, their second appearance in Stardom over that weekend, was the perfect example of why. They’ve both got the spots they’ve perfected, with Mase pulling out a string of rana variants, but they’re also fun and sympathetic. There is a youthful energy to them that it’s hard to dislike. I used to think Mase was the one for whom wrestling came naturally, as she’s blessed with the charisma and confidence of youth, but Moe has already come a long way in a short period of time. She still seems a touch quieter and more reserved, but she’s starting to put things together in the ring. There’s a sense that she’s starting to move beyond the basics and figuring out how to string a match together.
It was also a strong showing from the Stardom duo. I almost certainly have seen both of them wrestle before, but they’ve never made much of an impression. Yet, they adapted to this match brilliantly. It wasn’t just that they accepted the boos of the crowd, but that they started to look for them. Aya Sakura, in particular, reminded me of Maria before she turned heel. On the rare occasions she was free to lean heelish, you could tell she loved it, and I suspect Sakura was thinking something similar here. The more the fans turned against her for bullying these poor, defenceless children, the more she did it. Maybe she does that all the time (I wouldn’t know), but if she doesn’t, it’s certainly an option for her going forward.
And that’s mainly why this works. It’s two older, more experienced wrestlers bullying a couple of kids. You don’t have to be a genius to follow that story. As long as one half is willing to be mean and the other can be sympathetic, it’s an easy win. However, this was a particularly great example of the genre, and that’s to the credit of everyone involved.
Takumi Iroha vs Sora Ayame, Marvelous (5/2/26), Marvelous
One of my favourite things about the first two months of 2026 has been watching something click for Sora Ayame. Long-time readers will know I’ve always been Team Ayame. While the world was going wild for Senka Akatsuki, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something special about her quieter peer. She was still adjusting to wrestling, but with her natural underdog energy and the reactions she was getting from Marvelous fans, it felt like all she was lacking was the confidence to really push herself forward. Now, with the growing love for her booting people in the shin, she’s finding it.
Her opener against the Ace showed off both of those elements of her game. There’s something about Ayame that brings the mean side out of Iroha. In the past, when they’ve teamed, she’s been very adamant about protecting Sora, but the second they’re facing off, she gets violent – laying into those kicks and chops. While she still tends to overly rely on slapping her leg, something she’s never going to lose, it’s never as bad against Ayame. She seems to relish being allowed to bully the quietest member of the roster, even if Chig was booing her heartily from commentary.
And it was that booing that changed the match. Eventually, Nagayo had enough, demanding that Iroha take off her kickpads to open herself up to those shin kicks. As she untied them, Sora started practicing her swing on the corner pad, hammering away at it, something that I can’t imagine her doing even a month or two ago. When Iroha was finally free, she went to work, not only booting those shins, but also grabbing her by the ears and pinching the undersides of her arms. In another’s hands, it would be heel work, but Sora is so clearly the underdog here that everyone reacts to it with delight. She’s narrowing the playing field in whatever way she can, and while Iroha did eventually choke her out, she got a fright before we got there.
It’s all working to turn Ayame into the local favourite. Marvelous fans have a tendency to gravitate towards the put-upon, which makes sense when you consider how many of them grew up Chig fans, and Sora is filling that role. It’s funny, Senka may have taken the red and Sora the blue, but if you were comparing them to 80s Crush Gals, those colours are the wrong way round. Senka is brilliant, and she’s won a lot of fans because of that, but Ayame feels like the wrestler who is most likely to steal your heart.
Ai Houzan vs Mio Momono, Marvelous (5/2/26), Marvelous
I normally try to avoid talking about two matches from the same show, or I’d never get anything done, but this felt like a good exception to the rule. If the opener was a feel-good romp involving a younger wrestler taking it to their senior, this was the exact opposite. It was intense.
In the build-up, Mio repeatedly spoke about not taking it easy on Houzan. She made it clear that she wouldn’t be going out there to have fun or even to have a great match. In what has become something of a running story within Marvelous, she was determined to push Ai. To force her to open up and show what everyone involved in the company seems to believe she can do. With that in mind, she not only ignored Houzan’s attempts to shake her hand but opened this match by dumping her on her head with a German. It was the start of roughly 5 minutes of action that was genuinely quite hard to watch at times.
And the vast bulk of that was Houzan laying into Momono. Mio stood back and let Ai go to town with slaps, elbows and headbutts, none of which were pulled. There was no glee in that onslaught, though. Ai is yelling throughout it all, barely holding herself together as she lays into her mentor and trainer. Mio, meanwhile, stands still, absorbing every hit. That’s where the discomfort comes from. There is this sense throughout the entire match that Ai wants Mio to give her something back, be it a shaken hand or even just a flinch of pain, but Mio won’t budge. She instead delivered the ultimate test of tough love, standing there and taking it all before finishing things when she decided it was time.
I spoke a lot last year about how cruel I thought the Ai Houzan vs Senka Akatsuki shoot falls match was. It upset me in a way I didn’t see coming. This wasn’t quite the same. There wasn’t any of the humiliation that came alongside Ai being pinned by her junior. It’s a bit trite, but this felt like it came from a place of love. Mio has been open about her affection for Houzan, and reiterated that in the aftermath of this match, and I think everything (including that match with Senka) comes from a feeling within Marvelous that Ai has more to give. As a company, they generally avoid funnelling people into predetermined positions (Chig is the trainer who gave us both Meiko Satomura and Sakura Hirota), so if they thought Ai’s ceiling was a well-liked undercard wrestler, I think they’d be alright with that. They clearly don’t, though.
It’s also something I understand. I love Ai-chan. Anyone who has read any of her interviews will know she had a rough time growing up and has clearly, like so many before her, found a home in wrestling. Unfortunately, finding a home doesn’t mean you leave everything that hurts behind, and while I don’t want to start assuming anything, there is clearly something that is stopping her from fully opening up. We’ve seen her crack when she sad, but never when she’s happy, and I hope, more than I hope many things, that one day we get to. Until then, this goes down as the match that made me feel the most this year, even if it wasn’t all necessarily pleasant.
Mad Dog Connelly vs 1 Called Manders, Jersey J-Cup (6/2/26), GCW
Manders and Mad Dog are the kind of wrestlers we don’t get much of these days – violent, brutes who are well-versed in the ancient art of the brawl. If you’ve never seen one of their matches before, they tend to be stiff, bloody affairs fuelled by hate. The kind of thing that feels more at home in one of the old territories than in GCW. It doesn’t take much imagination to slot Stan Hansen or Dick Murdoch into these roles.
Truthfully, I don’t think this cage match is their best work (that would probably go to their dog collar in SLA). The commentary never really sells the action, and the crowd are fairly dead for the majority of the match (they do chant ‘this is awesome’ at one point, but that doesn’t help matters). This kind of wrestling works best in front of a bloodthirsty audience baying for more, but they’re never quite given that. I also didn’t love the decision to venture outside of the cage. It came after the door broke off, so I suspect it was a bit of improv, but if you’re going to book a cage match, have a fucking cage match, you know? There is enough hate between these two that I can easily believe they wouldn’t take the opportunity to leave.
However, none of that really matters. This kind of wrestling is capable of lariating through any problem. It’s grimy, aggressive and bloody, with both men ending up busted open as they lay into each other. Who doesn’t want to watch these two beat the shit out of each other in a cage that looks in danger of falling apart at any moment? The worst of this is still better than most, and while I won’t pretend to have watched the rest of the show, I can’t imagine any of those rare exceptions were present there. I believe these two men want to rip each other apart, and I’m happy to watch them give it a go as often as possible.
Totoro Satsuki vs Mase Hiiro, Ice Ribbon #1472 (7/2/26), Ice Ribbon
My fragmented relationship with Ice Ribbon in recent years (it’s mainly my fault, not theirs) means I don’t talk about it as much, but I hold a similar place in my heart for the Ice Ribbon Dojo match as I do those from Ichigaya Chocolate Square. It’s hardly surprising, thanks to their shared DNA, but it’s some of my favourite wrestling to watch when I need to get away from the world. Yes, part of it is that light-hearted, free-to-mess around attitude, but I think it’s also that both companies train their wrestlers to work in small spaces. People talk a lot about adapting your style to a larger room, but that’s equally true for a small one. There is no point gurning for the back row when they’re within spitting distance.
And this match was pure Ice Ribbon Dojo brilliance. Tiny wee Mase Hiiro facing off with Totoro is a hit on a purely visual level alone. Like wee Mei clambering over Totoro’s namesake in My Neighbour Totoro, there’s a very simple joy in watching how Mase approaches someone that much bigger than her. She found the moves that worked and stuck to them. The repeated double stomps where she seemed to actually bounce off Totoro’s belly, the rana to a kneeling opponent and a realisation that her best bet was to scamper around as much as possible. Totoro could squash her at any time, but to do that, she needed to get her hands on her, and Hiiro made that as difficult as possible.
It also draws attention to just how brilliant Ice have been at working with Hiiro. Again, as much as neither company would thank you for it, the ChocoPro comparisons are obvious. They know how to work with kids. Everyone in that Ice Ribbon Dojo has a knack for taking care of the young’uns while also highlighting their strengths. It’s a real joy to watch. Of course, Hot Shushu also deserve credit, being Mase’s home base. I believe Tanny Mouse is the lead trainer there, and if Hiiro is any indication, she is damn good at it. She’s this tiny wee thing, but she’s so far ahead of where you’d expect her to be at this point in her career. It’s easy to put some of it down to the confidence of youth, but someone has to give them that confidence to begin with, and they’re doing right by that lass so far.
Other matches on this list might be more exciting, violent or technically proficient, but if you’re looking for one to make you feel good, Hiiro vs Totoro will surely do the job.
Hiyori Yawata vs Mei Suruga, ChocoPro #502 (7/2/26), ChocoPro
Fresh off the success of her graduation project (which looked really cool and made me wish my Japanese was good enough to read the boards in the various pictures I saw of it), Hiyori was once again loudly demanding a title shot. With Sayaka Obihiro now on her side, she has turned her attention to the tag titles. Of course, Mei Suruga, who, despite her own Sakuraist upbringing, tends to have a twist of derision towards the Choco wrestlers who lean towards the nonsense, was unimpressed by those demands. She came into this aiming to put Hiyori in her place.
Mei in Ichigaya is always a different prospect. It’s where she feels most at home, and where, when given the opportunity, she’s most likely to lean into her bullying tendencies. Even her beloved protege, Kaho, doesn’t escape it fully in Choco Square, so it’s no surprise that Hiyori gets it bad. However, this match is cruel even by Suruga’s standards. She’s relentless here, twisting and stomping away on the recent arts grad. Mei might deliver everything with a smile (although there’s a tinge of goblin to it), but it’s designed to hurt. To make Hiyori aware that if she wants to step into the big leagues, she’s going to get all of this and worse.
Here’s the thing, though, Hiyori matches it. Not just in that she takes the beating, but that she keeps coming forward, refusing to buckle. It’s easy to take the likes of Yawata lightly. To see them as humorous diversions rather than something that will stick, but this is Hiyori at her most defiant. It means, for the first time in a long time, Ichigaya not only turns against Mei, but also begins to rally behind her victim. There’s a moment when Suruga is twisting Hiyori into a knot, a situation that feels somewhat reminiscent of the great Chris Brookes and Lulu Pencil submissions, where Hiyori gets her foot off the mat to break the hold. As she does so, you can see a fan frantically pointing it out to referee Aoi Kizuki. Not just cheering on Yawata, but actively trying to aid her in her quest.
Hiyori’s offence throughout the match is limited, as she’s mainly trying to survive, but when she does get an opening, we get glimpses of that big brain. I loved her not only bridging out of a Propeller Clutch, but then shuffling forward to drop down on Suruga afterwards. It’s a perfect move for her, a touch silly, but also undeniably effective as she landed heavily on the company Ace. Of course, she would ultimately go on to lose, but this is one of those matches where that’s somewhat irrelevant. It was a career-best ‘serious’ performance from Yawata (up there with the Nonoka match last year), and as the now-booked title match proves, sometimes that’s enough. She’s barged her way into the picture, and if she’s able to keep wrestling like this, she might be harder to shift than Suruga and co realised.
Of course, after I wrote all this Hiyori announced she’ll be retiring at the March. I’ll definitely be talking about that at some point.
Bobubobu Momo Banana (Mio Momono & Yurika Oka) vs Reiwa Ultima Powers (DASH Chisako & Hiroyo Matsumoto), Acceleration (8/2/26), Sendai Girls
With Yuu’s retirement and the end of Team 200kg, Bobubobu Momo Banana are looking for new dance partners. Thankfully, Sendai already have the perfect pair. Reiwa Ultima Powers. DASH and Hiroyo feel like the perfect foil for Oka and Mio’s antics. Those menaces are at their best when provided with a bigger, stronger team to rally against. They relish being the underdogs.
And Reiwa provided that perfectly here. The opening to this saw Mio and Oka try to out-antic their opponents, prancing around the ring, dragging the battle into the stands and eating shit for every attempt. Reiwa Ultima Powers are not the types to be drawn into your nonsense. DASH, in particular, will smack you around the head, as Oka’s recent videos have proven. When Oka challenged her to a sumo bout, something she’s been using to poke sumo nerd Chisako recently, DASH was willing to take part, but didn’t hesitate to practically spinebuster Oka when she came charging in. I’m sure there is a kimarite that would cover that, but it’s not a common one.
What makes Oka and Mio so great, though, is that when the nonsense is smacked out of the way, they will respond by getting serious. The deeper into the match they went, the more they locked in, and I think this was their best performance since Momono’s injury by a fair distance. What I love about them as a pairing is that menace is the perfect word to describe them. You can throw one of them around, knocking them down with a huge hit, but the other one is always there to plug the gap. It was summed up when Chisako climbed to the top only for Oka to appear and hang off her leg, holding her in place for long enough for Momono to recover and drag her down. To beat them, you have to get hold of them both.
To be honest, I didn’t love the finish. Mio’s flash pin after a DASH frog splash just felt a touch cheap. I get that’s kind of the point, that they snuck out with their titles in classic fashion, but I think there are better ways to do it. If you can simply pin someone after they’ve hit a big move, why wouldn’t you do that every time? Still, that wasn’t enough to ruin how much fun I had with this. It felt like Bobubobu Momo Banana back at their best, and with Reiwa Ultima Powers across from them, I hope we’re seeing the start of something that can run and run.
Chihiro Hashimoto vs Senka Akatsuki, Sendai Girls (15/2/26), Sendai Girls
Big Hash is the closest thing we have to the late 90s Aja Kong that I’m talking about below. Not because I think they’re stylistically similar. Hashimoto is not the bully Aja was, or is, and for all that I believe Kong’s technical talent is underrated, she’s no Chihiro Hashimoto. What I mean is that Hash, like Aja in that GAEA run, has a talent for figuring out how to work with people. Against a Sareee or Arisa Nakajima, she’ll ground them, forcing them to work for their more exuberant tendencies. Against a Mio Momono, she’ll play the powerhouse, launching her across the ring and building to those desperate comebacks. Against the younger wrestlers, she is adept at putting them through their paces. Testing them to see how far they can go.
And that’s what Senka needs right now. She’s been riding the wave of hype, right up to winning the Sendai Junior Title, and Big Hash is a giant palm to slap her ego back into place. The opening of this match felt like Hashimoto reminding the rookie of her spot in the hierarchy. They go to the ground, they bash into each other, they pick up the pace, and every single time, Senka finds Hash is a step or two ahead of her. She’s bigger, she’s stronger, she’s a better wrestler. However, the key to all of this is that when Senka does force her way into a spot, Hash is there to give her what she needs. There is a great battle over a crab here, Hashimoto cutting off Akatsuki’s attempts at first, only for her to stubbornly finally force it through, and Big Hash sells that hold like she’s in trouble. Again, like Aja, she knows exactly how much to give, and while it’s not long after that she shuts Senka down for good, the result is still there. For a second, the kid looked like she had a glimmer of a chance.
It also plays into what I think is great about Senka. I’ve said it a million times, but her bull-headed approach to wrestling is the best thing about her. She’ll grapple with Hashimoto like she hasn’t realised that it’s a losing game or slam into her repeatedly despite every piece of evidence suggesting that’s a horrible idea. I don’t know much about her background, or perhaps it’s just the joy of youth, but Senka approaches this stuff like someone who has never failed at anything in her life, so it doesn’t even occur to her that it could happen. So many rookies struggle to assert themselves in the ring. What makes her special is that she’s never even considered whether that’s something she should worry about.
As a final note, that’s not really attached to this match – I’ve recently got into the behind-the-scenes documentary series that Sendai have been doing. It’s wonderful. They all come across well, but quietly spoken, driven and diligent Big Hash is so endearing, while it’s confirmed that Oka is the perfect kind of weirdo. If you haven’t checked it out, I highly recommend it.
Past Rambles
Aja Kong vs Toshiyo Yamada, Restoration (12/11/98), GAEA
I’m preaching to the choir here, but Aja motherfucking Kong, man. It doesn’t matter that she’s regarded as one of the greatest wrestlers of all time – she still doesn’t get enough praise. It’s not just that Aja is brilliant; it’s that she’s brilliant in a way that is so damn watchable. I don’t think I’ll ever tire of watching her tear through other wrestlers, smacking them about the place and launching chairs at their heads. The first half of this match verges on a squash. Kong has an answer to everything Yamada throws at her, swatting away countless leg kicks, throwing her at and through fans and shrugging away her multiple attempts to go for the Reverse Gory Bomb. It’s a display of casual, cruel dominance that makes it feel like Yamada is in an impossible situation. It becomes inconceivable that she could even hurt Kong.
And yet, as the match goes on, you get to see the side of Aja that definitely doesn’t get enough credit. As a handful of those kicks start to find their way through and Yamada begins to gain just a touch of momentum, we see the vulnerability. The bully is rocked and starting to panic. She begins to take risks, hitting an incredible dive through the ropes (that, as all the best dives do, feels less like an act of grace, and more like someone hurling their body towards an opponent) and pulling out a desperation La Magistral. Kong’s most famous work might see her cast as unbeatable, but when the time calls for it, she stumbles and wobbles with the best of them. It twists the match around on its axis, rallying Korakuen behind Yamada as they sense she might just be able to pull it off.
It’s so well done that it almost feels irrelevant that the conclusion swings back towards the inevitable. When Kong wrestles back control of the action, she makes no mistake about it, seeing Yamada off before there is a chance of another one of those kicks finding her head. I’ve been raving about Aja here, but Yamada isn’t far behind her. Even as she’s being tossed around, unable to find even the slightest footing in the storm of Aja Kong’s offence, she is defiant, throwing every big hit she has out there again and again. That eventually it all becomes too much, and that she can’t quite get the job done, doesn’t feel like a failure. She faced off against the very worst the world can throw at you and lived to tell the tale. It might not be victory, but it’s better than most.
Aja motherfucking Kong, man. Just untouchable.
SSU (Aja Kong & Mayumi Ozaki) vs Meiko Satomura & Sonoko Kato, Countdown to Yokohama (22/3/99), GAEA
Fuck it, let’s keep the Aja Kong love going.
To put this match in context, it was part of the ongoing feud between SSU and GAEA. SSU may well go down as the most OP stable of all time. It boasted not only Aja and Ozaki in its ranks, but LCO, Chikayo Nagashima, Sugar Sato, Kaori Nayakaya, and Lioness Asuka. The whole bloody mess was kicked off by Asuka debuting and turning on Chigusa Nagayo, and this match was part of the build to a showdown between GAEA and SSU for control of the company. It was a very American wrestling angle, but one that had definitely raised the heat within GAEA at the start of 1999.
And Aja was brilliant here. Up against the young hopes of Kato and Satomura, she becomes perhaps the epitome of a human wrecking ball. The two youngsters would find a way to floor her for a second, either by combining or throwing out one of their biggest hits, and yet by the time they’d got to their feet, Aja was up, swinging back towards them to crush their hopes again. Yet, this isn’t some no-selling job. At the start of the match, Kong is basically untouchable, but the longer it goes on, the more they begin to wear her down. She goes from taking it easy, dishing out slaps and backfists galore, to showing just that hint of panic. Much like the match with Yamada mentioned above, Kong knows exactly how much to give. She never goes as far as showing weakness (that’s not in her character), but when she has to struggle to escape a Meiko sleeper, she definitely starts to speed things up. While there is no chance of her admitting it, there is a growing realisation that she can’t take these kids lightly.
And Asuka isn’t the wrestler she was at this point. She’s slower, a bit more considered, but when it comes time to throw out those bombs, she’s more than capable. In some regards, it’s not a bad switch for her. She was always a bit too much for my taste, that go-go-go style getting a bit tiring, so seeing her morph into a badass veteran is a nice change. However, this is undoubtedly the Aja Kong show. Asuka ends up feeling like she’s playing support, hitting the ring to dish out a move here or there, but mainly sitting back to see what Kong can conjure up with Kato and Satomura.
It means this, in many ways, works as the perfect prelude to what will come with Aja and Meiko in the future. They have wrestled before this, including one-on-one, but this is the story they will go on to tell for years. It’s one of Kong, the unstoppable monster, being forced to accept that there is a chance Satomura could pull herself to her level. At this point, she’s not there yet, but she comes closer than Aja might be willing to admit.
Ramblings About Wrestling 
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