As mentioned elsewhere, I moved to Japan this month! So, hopefully you’ll understand that while I have been going to more live shows, getting time to write about them hasn’t been my main priority. I’ve still managed to have a ramble about a bunch of matches I enjoyed, but there were quite a few that I would have liked to talk about, and simply didn’t have the time. Fingers crossed things will be a bit less frantic next month!
Egg Tarts (Shinno Hagane & Chie Koishikawa) vs Yoridori Hiyori (Sayaka Obihiro & Hiyori Yawata), Choco Museum (25/2/26), ChocoPro
Hiyori’s long campaign for a title shot finally being rewarded already felt like a big moment, but this match took on even more significance in the aftermath. Shortly after, she announced her retirement. I’m gutted, if I’m honest, but you can read more about that here. What it meant for this match, though, was that that you were watching it through the prism of it being Yawata’s one shot at these belts (although she would talk herself into having a go at Rina Yamashita before she hung up her boots). She, somehow, scraped her way into this position, and with the knowledge presumably already in her head that she would be walking away, it was her opportunity to make it count.
And it’s funny, watching this match made me realise that Yoridori Hiyori remind me of Egg Tarts. Not in a stylistic sense. They’re very different teams. No, it’s because Obi has figured out how to channel Yawata. Once upon a time, that’s exactly, both in and out of kayfabe, what Hagane did for Chie. He took that boundless energy and enthusiasm and helped her focus it. Chie was always a fun wrestler to watch, but it was after Egg Tarts’ initial run that she became confident in working title matches at the top of the card. Hiyori needed someone similar. Not because, like Chie, she was in danger of bouncing out of the room, but because of the need of a guiding hand to ground her more exuberant tendencies. Who better for that role than consummate pro Obi? She had the least flashy job in this match, but she was vital to how it went. Obi made sure Hiyori was in place to shine.
Shine she did. Even before the retirement announcement, I don’t think anyone was expecting Yoridori Hiyori to win here. ChocoPro aren’t in the habit of rushing people up the card. Even Mei, the golden child, took years to start racking up the big wins. No, this was all about performance, and Hiyori was great here. In Ichigaya, she’s become something of a panto villain, often facing light hearted boos for her inability to understand her place in the system. However, when she’s in these big matches, you quickly realise those boos hide a well of affection. People want to see her succeed. How could you not? She’s wonderful. And towards the end of this match, when she’s throwing out desperation flash pins in an attempt to catch Chie off-guard, you so desperately want to believe. You want it to be possible for her to win.
Sadly, it wasn’t, but I don’t think that matters. I got into it more when I wrote about her retirement, but Hiyori is, for me, Darejyo. Someone who has admitted she didn’t even know Emi Sakura was a wrestler the first time she met her, but caught the bug and found a niche for herself. She’s going off to do something else now, and I’m sure she’ll be great at it, but her contribution here shouldn’t be undervalued. Yawata represents so much of what makes ChocoPro great, and I’m going to be a lot sadder now she’s gone. However, I’m also delighted she got this moment. She got to challenge for a title, and while she didn’t get to wear it, she proved, nonsense and all, she deserved to be there.
Mei Suruga & Ryoko Sakimura vs Yuki Mashiro & Miku Kanae, Pre-Launch Vol. 1 (1/3/25), ZERO1 Rose Girls Pro-Wrestling
Is this our pure good vibes match of the year so far? It might well be.
Not that long ago, the then-rookie Yuki Mashiro was the Ice Ribbon wrestler I wanted to see crossover with ChocoPro the most. My dream match at the time was Emi Sakura and Lulu Pencil vs Tsukasa Fujimoto and Yuki Mashiro – a battle of the company leaders and their eccentric students. Sadly, that’s now impossible, but getting Mashiro in the ring with Mei is a hell of a consolation prize. And I haven’t even mentioned the fact micmic was also there!
And if you’re going to do this match, it being all about the vibes is perfect. Right from the start, Mei was in pure menace mode, hyping up her rookie pal and attacking Kanae’s streamers. I’ve talked about it a million times, but this is my favourite Suruga. Don’t get me wrong, she’s brilliant in ChocoPro. However, there’s something special about her wandering into other companies to play the goblin. She was a wee prick in this match, antagonising her opponents with biting and showboating. It was great.
She was also the perfect person for Mashiro and micmic to play off. Kanae might be playing the serious wrestler now, but they both come from nonsense stock. However, they’re both a much more innocent version of it than Suruga. Deluded, perhaps, at least in Yuki’s case, but never as cruel. When Mei tried to draw Mashiro into her antics, she more often than not ended up looking confused, while micmic seemed frustrated by this newly discovered irritant. The only person enjoying them was Sakimura, who, like Uta Takami before her, was only too happy to have Mei serve as a bad influence.
I was always going to love this match. The joy of seeing Mei, micmic and Mashiro together was enough to carry it. I feel a bit bad for not focusing more on Sakimura, who I was relatively impressed by, but this was never going to be about her. It was about seeing three wrestlers I love creating good vibes together. If Rose keep delivering on stuff like this, they’re going to be a welcome addition to a crowded scene.
Takayasu vs Kirishima, Day 8 Spring Basho (15/3/26), Sumo
Wrestling is no stranger to stalemates. The trend, in recent years, has been for two wrestlers, usually after a needlessly complex exchange of moves that achieved nothing, to pose across the ring while staring lovingly into each other’s eyes. I’m sure plenty of people did it before Ricochet and Ospreay, but that definitely feels like the moment it was popularised. It’s not just bad wrestlers who do it, though. Sadly, the whole thing has become a trope of the genre.
And this 2-minute or so meatfest of sumo shows you how much better things could be. Sumo doesn’t have time for grandstanding. From the second the gyoji starts the fight, your two rikishi will be in almost constant contact. Most bouts only go seconds, and if you’re going to stand around and stare at someone, they will take the opportunity to fuck you up. However, stalemates aren’t uncommon. It’s just that, unlike wrestling, they come when it actually feels like two people have fought to an impasse. When the only thing they can do for a moment is stand in place, trying to figure out what comes next.
This fight is the perfect example of that. It came when Big Papayasu, who is very much my boy, had survived getting in a muddle early on and managed to wriggle himself back into something approaching safety. His grip on Kirishima’s mawashi is tenuous, but it’s enough to halt the action for a second, the two of them standing in place as they wait for the smallest opening. It’s thrilling. It’s thrilling because, even as they stand still, they haven’t stopped. Look closely, and you’ll see their muscles are tensed, their bodies twitching, as they try to find the position that will give them an advantage. It’s not a moment of showboating. It’s one of tension, where the person who makes a mistake will most likely end up hitting the sand.
It’s something that wrestling could learn from. Obviously, not every stalemate has to take that form, but some of them could. You could turn them from periods of inactivity or showboating to pure tension. Transform them from a battle for cheers to an integral part of the fight. One of wrestling’s problems is that the current generation only draws from their heroes within the sport. There is a whole world, both in and outside of the one inhabited by people in spandex, that they could learn from. The more sumo I watch, the more I’m convinced they could do a lot worse than starting there.
Mei Suruga vs CoCo, Pre-Launch Vol. 2 (20/3/26), Rose Pro Wrestling
A little bit of context for this one. I went to this show on the day I arrived in Japan. On the one hand, that meant I was filled with the excitement, nerves and general buzziness of having just moved across the world. On the other hand, I’d had about 4 hours of sleep over the previous 48 hours. I genuinely dropped off a couple of times during the show, which was no reflection on the quality, but pure exhaustion on my part.
Still, this was my first time seeing the young CoCo live, so I managed to keep my eyes open for most of this match. She’s a 15-year-old masked wrestler who has already turned Rossy Ogawa’s eyes in her direction. On this showing, I can see why. She’s colourful, enthusiastic and a lot of fun in the ring. For her age, she’s pulling off some incredibly impressive stuff and is clearly comfortable taking flight. If you were to be harsh, you’d say there isn’t a whole lot between all of that, but I feel like a dick for even pointing it out. She’s had 37 matches, is a literal teenager, and is already incredibly popular. Who am I to demand perfection at this stage of her career?
There is an easy fix for that problem, too. You put her in the ring with someone like Mei Suruga. At some point, in the last year or so, Mei stopped even pretending to be a babyface. That Ichigaya goblin has escaped Chocolate Square and started to terrorise the world. When the fans clearly sided with CoCo early on, she was irate, to the point where she was threatening to start throwing chairs. She was always going to bully the youngster, but that added a nastier edge to it. Suruga was determined to punish her for daring to be more popular than her.
And that’s exactly what CoCo needs at this point in her career – someone to fill the gaps and leave her free to fly. She’s got time to figure the other stuff out. Right now, as long as you pair her with the right people, she should be given the freedom to be exciting. Suruga did that for her, and it made this the first noteworthy match I’d watched since moving to Japan. I may have fallen asleep a few times, but I suspect that will be enough to make sure I remember it.
YUNA vs Chihiro Hashimoto, Sendai Girls (22/3/26), Sendai Girls
I mentioned this last month, but I have been charmed by the recent behind-the-scenes documentaries following Senjo. Not only are they a fascinating insight into the nuts and bolts of running a wrestling promotion, but they also give you a whole other look at the wrestlers. Some of it is what you’d expect. Big Hash might be softly spoken, but she’s every bit the locker room leader you’d imagine. Oka, on the other hand, is as chaotic as her in-ring performances. That lass must have an iron gut because she should be constantly suffering from food poisoning. The director, Sakagami, has done a fantastic job of highlighting them, as he has a knack for asking the right questions, sitting back and letting their (often deranged) personalities shine.
In amongst that, YUNA sometimes feels like the odd one out. Amongst the junior trio of Oka, Manami and herself, she’s the quiet one. The least experienced of the group, she’s often in the background, diligently tidying the dojo or working away without making a fuss. When they’re training, it’s YUNA who Big Hash and Iwata correct the most, picking her up on tiny details of form that I wouldn’t notice in a million years. At one point, she admits she’s worried that she doesn’t have much of a personality. That there’s nothing about her that’s special. And yet, perhaps because of those worries, she’s the one I find myself being drawn towards. In the most recent episode, she explained how wrestling, particularly Hana Kimura, helped her through the darkest parts of her life. She, like so many before her, has clearly found a home in this beautifully weird world, but still appears to be constantly questioning whether she belongs there.
While I know it’s not that simple, this show was proof alone that she does. The match was originally Yurika Oka’s. However, having received a nasty bump on the head on Friday, Sendai did the right thing and called it off. With Big Hash travelling over from the Sareee-ism show in Yokohama earlier in the day, they announced that it would be replaced with a talk show. However, YUNA had other plans. After an impressive opener against Honoka, she took the mic and demanded this opportunity, delivering an impassioned promo that had Shinkiba 1st ring chanting her name. Later, with Hash running late, it was switched to close the show, and what was already a big moment for her became just that little bit bigger.
And she was fantastic here. In some ways, this was the classic plucky youngster performance, but it was imbued with a slightly different kind of heart. YUNA isn’t Senka Akatsuki or Oka. She’s not going to charge headfirst into a wall. Nor should she. This was a quieter, slower performance. One where she dared to go to the mat with Hashimoto and, in a way I can’t ever really remember from her, felt like she was trying to impose herself on the action. Of course, that’s easier said than done. Even having already competed in a huge main event earlier in the day, Hash is a wall few can scale, and she stood firm for most of this. However, YUNA never gave up. She kept going at Hash, picking away at her, and when she did grab a sliver of control, those chants once again picked up. A packed Shinkiba was willing her on, desperate for her to show what she could do.
I get YUNA. Don’t get me wrong, I adore Oka and Manami. They’re weird (and ever so slightly dumb), but they make me smile. I don’t relate to them, though. I was never, and will never, be like that. They’re the people I imagine wrestlers to be. YUNA, the quiet lass with too many thoughts in her head, is much more like me. Seeing her question herself, and how she can survive in this world of extroverted loudmouths, makes all the sense in the world to me. Getting to see her have this moment, where she not only stood up and demanded a spot, but then flourished when she took it, made me well up. It was a special one, and while we’ll have to wait to see if it’s the start of something, it’s proof that she is in the right place.
Miya Yotsuba vs Rina Yamashita, Choco Promise (23/3/26), ChocoPro
Most of the talk around this title change has focused on Miya Yotsuba. Rightfully so. She’s a young wrestler who has been given, by ChocoPro standards, the jetpack treatment. Mei Suruga, who was branded with the genius tag from day one, took almost twice as long to get to this point. Everyone at Ichigaya clearly sees a lot in Miya, and they’re right to do so, even if I do wish she’d ditch the Miya Hammer as a finish. It’s just not impactful enough, folks.
However, I wanted to take a minute to focus on Rina Yamashita. It was a shock when she won the belt. Rina has spent a lot of her career being a freelance challenger. A safe pair of hands that a promotion can rely on to have a pop at the belt when no one in the company is quite ready for that spot. She’s great at it, even if she has, in recent years, tended to tread water. That wasn’t the case in ChocoPro, though. Not only did she win the title, but she was more driven and determined than she has been in ages. Something about this little company spoke to her, and it made this title reign an utter delight. Whether it was battling it out with Emi Sakura and Antonio Honda or developing a soft spot for Hiyori Yawata, Yamashita has been the champion ChocoPro needed. She’s been a badass, and that made this change all the more impactful. You don’t want Miya to beat Suruga yet. That’s for down the road, but because of the work Rina put in, this still felt momentous.
It’s also a change that opens up a whole new intersection of routes to travel down. As I write, the video hasn’t gone up on YouTube yet, but I suspect there will be a focus on a disappointed-looking Suruga at ringside after the match. She sold it well, the conflicting emotions of seeing one of her kids get the title, but knowing that means Miya is drawing ever closer to her spot. What might not get picked up on was Chie, who was crouched in front of me for most of the show. Despite having regained her Asia Dream Tag Titles earlier in the night, she looked pissed. It’s been no secret that Miya was snapping at her heels, and there was clearly a grimace of anger that she managed to snatch this moment before her. Chie’s never been great at hiding her emotions, and at that second, you could tell that she would be chasing Yotsuba until she levelled the score.
Plus, despite my feelings about Miya’s underwhelming finish, it was a great match. Rina, the unstoppable badass, who wrestles unlike anyone in ChocoPro, was a great mountain for Yotsuba to overcome. The new champ has been slowly becoming more unhinged in her presentation, and I think this was the perfect platform to show that, as she hurled herself at her opponent. I have no doubt she’s going to be a great champ, but the foundations for it were laid by Yamashita, and that shouldn’t be forgotten.
Mio Momono vs Rin, Marvelous (30/3/26), Marvelous
It seems I’ve arrived in Japan at a time when I’m going to be treated to an abundance of emotional matches. This was the final singles meeting between Mio Momono and Rin Kadokura. Two gen mates who, as they admitted on this show, haven’t always seen eye-to-eye, but whose careers are intertwined. That they got one last chance to do battle felt right.
And I don’t think I’m being overly harsh on Rin to say she hasn’t hit the heights we’ve seen from her before on this return. That’s not unexpected, though. She was out for three years, during which she moved across the world and had a baby – it would be a miracle if she came back on top form. If you gave her a year, she’d almost certainly get there, but she doesn’t have that. By the time she retires, she’ll have done about 5 months. However, not being as good as she once was doesn’t mean she’s not good. Those instincts don’t vanish. So when you put her in the ring with Mio Momono, there’s still some magic to be found.
Part of that was smoke and mirrors. There was a brawl on the outside, complete with a battle on the Shinjuku Face counters. It’s the kind of thing that hits so much harder in the room. You’re never far from the action in Face, but suddenly the two wrestlers are standing above you, exchanging blows. I don’t care who you are, that’s fucking exciting. However, it wasn’t all that. Mio and Rin did a great job of riding the emotion here. It was a match filled with love, but also with a tinge of spite, a desire from Momono to put down the person who stood next to her for so long. At one point, Mio slapped Rin across the face, and as Kadokura smiled in appreciation at the stinging blow, Momono responded by following up with a headbutt. She wasn’t going to give her long-term rival the satisfaction of enjoying the moment.
It made for Rin’s best match since her return (at least of those I’ve seen), but it’s also probably Mio’s best singles match since her return from injury. With the situation around Rin, it’s easy to put this down to Momono, but it was no carry job. Kadokura met Mio on that level, pushing this from one last friendly bout into more heated and aggressive territory. It was the perfect end to their time together, and as they hugged in the ring afterwards, an end to a rivalry that bubbled away for years. I’m sad it’s gone, but happy that we had it.
Past Rambles
SSU (Chikayo Nagashima, Sugar Sato & Kaori Nakayama) vs Team GAEA (Toshie Uematsu, Sakura Hirota & RIE), G-Panic Special: 4th Anniversary (4/4/99), GAEA
The 4/4 GAEA show in 1999 was a battle for the company itself. After bringing in Lioness Asuka to turn on Chigusa Nagayo, the invading force of SSU convinced Chig to bet it all on this event. Opening things up was a gauntlet-style elimination tag, a match format that Nagayo still uses to great effect today.
Sadly, being the opener on the card, this didn’t have the time the modern efforts have been given. It’s still reasonably chunky, coming in at over 30 minutes, but when you break that down into five separate matches, it starts to sound less impressive. However, it still had one of my favourite GAEA performances yet, coming from a young Sakura Hirota.
The setup here is simple. Uematsu and Sugar Sato kicked things off in a gruelling battle that saw them both throwing out everything they had. It was a genuinely good match in its own right, and while probably not one I’d have picked out to talk about, it is worth a watch. Unfortunately for GAEA, Sato comes out on top, and that’s when you realise the home team might have made a mistake. Following Uematsu is the former Bad Nurse Nakamura, RIE, who is dispatched of fairly easily, and then all their hopes are left on the shoulders of Hirota. Who, at this time, was an eccentric wee rookie who had never won a match. To say they looked screwed was putting it mildly. They’d fucked it.
Except, this is wrestling, and the beauty of this shit is that you get to tell the stories you want. Hirota might not win this match for GAEA (she does eventually fall to Chikayo Nagashima), but before we get there, she puts on a heroic performance. I love Hirota at this time. She’s not gone full nonsense yet (we haven’t seen a cosplay), but she’s a bump freak with an eccentric brain. She gets the shit kicked out of her in most matches, but is remarkably bouncy, taking advantage of the fact she’s still only 21. Sato, despite having already wrestled two people, puts her through the wringer. Yet, Hirota just won’t die. She’s this annoying wee oddity, desperately clinging on through the two falls she wins.
It’s not just Hirota’s performance that works here, though. Uematsu and RIE on the outside also bring a lot to it. When she gets that fall over Sato, they are instantly in the ring, not only to celebrate with the shocked Hirota, but also to protect from the retribution they know is coming. Much like watching Ai Houzan clamber to the top rope to dropkick Mayumi Ozaki, there’s something so satisfying about seeing the good guys snap back. They’re not just going to be trodden all over. There’s beauty in a pure babyface, but so many of them also act like idiots. This is GAEA defending the homestead, and if that mean getting involved in the match to help their weirdest member, they’re going to do it.
And the result is something that feels very real – a moral victory if not an actual one. When Hirota walked into the ring, GAEA looked fucked, and while the result was ultimately the same, her going as far as she did changed the mood. It transforms this from a crushing defeat to a heroic one, and as any small team that’s had to battle against the odds will tell you, the difference between those is huge.
Ramblings About Wrestling 
Leave a comment