My first full month in Japan made for a live show-heavy collection of matches. There are only a couple of things here that I wasn’t in the room for, as I’ve been enjoying the advantages of living in a city that tends to have multiple options a day. I suspect that does alter the way I approach writing about them, but hopefully you still find it interesting!
Mei Suruga vs Honoka, PHASE3 Reboot 7th ~ NAMI 1 (1/4/26), WAVE
We’ve been here before, folks! Yup, it’s Mei Suruga coming into another promotion, getting annoyed that people dare cheer for their young favourite, and using that to fuel something great. It’s the Mei Special.
The difference between this and the CoCo match from last month, is that Honoka feels more like an active participant. CoCo was there to hit her high spots, but otherwise was plugged into the Suruga experience. Honoka, who was celebrating her 3rd anniversary, could do a bit more than that. She pushed back at Mei. Prodding at her, winding her up, and even managing to keep up in a frantic final exchange. It was only Suruga having one extra trick that got her the win here, and there were moments where the Honoka upset started to feel possible. She, a bit like Suruga, has a bit of bite underneath her kawaii exterior, which made for a really fun showdown.
It’s the smaller moments that really made this shine, though. Things like Mei staring down a fan who was daring to continue chanting for Honoka or the way Suruga focused her double stomps to go after the arm. I know there’s an argument that I’ve spent so long praising the Apple Goblin that it’s become a bit old hat, and my claim that she’s in particularly great form isn’t going to hit that hard, but she really is right now. I’ve seen a lot of her recently, and she’s something speical. It almost looks effortless at this point, as you could throw her in the ring with basically anyone right now, and I’d trust her to pull something out of them. She is that good.
None of which should be seen as a dismissal of Honoka. I’ve seen her a couple of times since arriving in Japan, and I’ve been really impressed. I haven’t watched much WAVE recently, so her development has somewhat passed me by, but she’s becoming one of those faces I’m always happy to see on a card. The problem with a company like WAVE, and the freelance schedule she’s working, is that she may not get the opportunity to get her teeth into anything. To have a series of matches with someone who brings something different out of her. A bit of anger or pettiness. However, at the moment, she went in there with Suruga and didn’t seem out of place. At this point, that’s a pretty big compliment.
Mei Suruga vs Tokiko Kirihara, ChocoPro #514 (5/4/26), ChocoPro
Mei Suruga and Otoki have some of that magical chemistry. It’s the kind where two wrestlers who don’t seem a natural fit, click. I have a lot of time for Otoki, but she has settled into her role in the world of ChocoPro. She’s a lower midcard wrestler who can be plugged into a spot (usually alongside Honda as part of Black Commenici), but who is unlikely to ever linger at the top of the card. Absolutely none of which is an insult. She came to wrestling in her 40s, and by the sounds of things, had a hell of a life before that. She’s doing great.
And yet, against certain opponents, Otoki does become more than that. For years, it Akki who excelled at bringing that out of her – as he was more suited to lean into that MMA-inspired offence. Then, to celebrate her 50th birthday, she got a shot at Mei Suruga’s Super Asia Title, another match I was at live, and discovered this unique chemistry. Mei and Otoki don’t work because the Apple will roll around with Kirihara and exchange kicks. They work because that’s exactly what she won’t do. For all Suruga’s talents as a wrestler, she is not a grappler or a kicker, and those are the exact things Kirhara can provide. So when she gets in the ring with the Suruga, she leans on them hard, and it scares Choco’s Ace.
Much like that title match from back in 2024, this was all about Suruga coming in cocky. Beforehand, she declared that while she respects Otoki, she’s a loser, while Mei is a champion. It was an attitude she kept right up until that first kick connected with her leg, at which point it fled. Otoki knew it, too. She mocks Mei early on, daring her to try and stand and trade blows. Everyone, most of all Suruga, knows she can’t do it. However, there is obviously a part of her that wants to. That can’t resist being dragged into something she’s not suited to. Or at least there is for a second or two, but when a few more kicks connect, she quickly goes on the run.
It turns this match into a simple battle of wills. Otoki wants to keep it on the mat. To focus on taking Mei’s legs from under her and tapping her out. Suruga wants to dive into wrestling nonsense. She’s the one who takes things to the outside, and starts using Ichigaya to her advantage. Even when Otoki regains control in the alley, she lifts Mei up and carries her back into the middle of the room, slamming her down hard. It’s a classic case of styles making fights, as the contrast between these two is what makes it interesting. Otoki isn’t a better wrestler than Mei, but she is better at this particular thing, and there are moments here where that looks like it might be enough.
Like all great Ichigaya matches, it’s also one that does a lot of the simple things right. The perfect example was the extended Figure Four spot that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Giant Baba and Destroyer match, both wrestlers managing to reverse the pressure multiple times before Otoki rolls them into the wall. It’s wrestling 101, but it works, particularly in a room that was more than willing to fall into step behind the underdog. No one controls Ichigaya like Mei Suruga, and she had people biting on some brilliant nearfalls, with the reversal of the Momoe Clutch being a particularly impactful one. Even in defeat, this was Otoki’s day, and just like back in 2024, she proved that when the tap on the shoulder comes, she can be more than the role she tends to occupy.
YUNA’s Heroic Squat, Senjo Spirit – Road to Nippon Budokan Episode 20 & 21 (5&4/4/26), Sendai Girls
It was only a matter of time before I dedicated a whole section to one of these. The first two episodes of Senjo Spirit released in April were a great example of what makes these mini-docs special. Episode 20 focused on a training session. We’ve seen quite a few of these now, but I can’t imagine ever tiring of them. If watching a Darejyo stream is an example of how you might start on the road to being a pro-wrestler, watching Big Hash and Iwata pick up on the smallest minutiae of form is the pro-class. They’re pointing out things that I would never notice. Plus, they’re both clearly great teachers. They patiently explain the issue, show how it should be done and give the wrestler the time to figure it out. There’s no yelling or belittling, and it feels a far cry from the dropkick delivered in GAEA Girls. They’ve mentioned a new rookie is starting soon, and Big Hash is leading her group wrestling classes, but I really hope they get more people under their tutelage. It’s hard to imagine them not producing exciting talent.
The second video then followed them all to a sushi restaurant. Again, we’ve seen meals before, but the only group one we had was the New Year Party, where Meiko and all the staff were present. While there was still that senior-junior divide at this particular meal, it was a much less pronounced thing. Hash and Iwata are comfortable bantering back and forth with YUNA and Oka, and it’s clear how much affection the two youngsters have for their wrestling parents. Oka, in particular, is bursting with pride that these are her seniors, and it’s revealed later in the episode that she had been sending Big Hash late-night messages asking if they could do additional training sessions together. I don’t think it’s positioned as prominently as it is with ChocoPro or TJPW, but there is a real sense of camaraderie around the Senjo roster. They clearly care about each other. And that care allows them to give everything to wrestling.
Which brings us to the part I’m designating the match here. A lot of Big Hash’s approach appears to be fairly traditional, packed full of neck bridges and bumps, but she does seem to have a soft spot for a random exercise. During this training session, she had the wrestlers squat while someone else was standing on their thighs for a whole minute. It looked like hell. Something that was highlighted by poor YUNA, who is easily the smallest and lightest member there, clinging on during her first attempt, shaking like a leaf in a storm. She made it, though. She made it not only through that first one but through two subsequent horrendous efforts, too. By the end, she was barely surviving, everyone in the room yelling support as she somehow made it to the finishing line. It was a heroic display, and another example of why YUNA is becoming one of my favourites. The more she shook, the more I was desperate for her to succeed.
It’s also just a reminder that these wrestlers are ridiculous. I’m in alright shape at the moment (I jog and walk fairly regularly), but watching them warm up is enough to send me to an early grave. Oka, on the second of these episode, tells a story about Mio Momono snapping at her for getting sulky at her own lack of progress, and it’s insane to me that she thinks she’s stalling. She works her arse off in every session and is already capable of buzzing around a ring for a full title match, never stopping to catch her breath. I guess that’s why she’s a wrestler, and I write about it. They’re just built differently.
Sayaka vs Kaho Hiromi, ChocoPro #515 (11/4/26), ChocoPro
Watching this match reminded me of Balliyan Akki’s appearance on friend-of-the-site Flukpe’s Miracle Apricot podcast many years ago. In that (and I’m paraphrasing here), he talked about having to adjust to working in Ichigaya. No one wanted to see him go out and barrel through a RinRin or Lulu Pencil (as it would have been then). In a straight fight, it’s over in seconds, but the audience in Ichigaya doesn’t want a straight fight. They want you to convince them that the underdog can win.
Sayaka did a fantastic job of that here, helped by another impressive performance from young Kaho. It was a match of ducking and diving, Hiromi doing everything to stay out of Sayaka’s grasp. If they stood face-to-face and exchanged strikes, we all know how it would end, but Kaho is not going to do that. She’s going to crawl through Sayaka’s legs or tire her out by drawing her into running around the venue. In other words, they find a way to make this match between a grown woman and a child exciting.
It helps, of course, that the Ichigaya crowd are more than willing to go with it. If fans treated this like it was stupid, it could easily start to feel that way. However, ChocoPro’s audience loves what they do. The wrestlers are trained by Emi Sakura, but so are the people who make the journey to Ichigaya for every show. I’ve been there a lot since I moved to Japan, and a lot of those faces are becoming familiar to me from seeing them again and again. They’ve created an audience that appreciates what Sayaka and Kaho were doing here, and that’s all part of the magic.
DASH Chisako vs Kuroshio TOKYO Japan, Sendai Girls (12/4/26), ChocoPro
People tend to write about wrestling as if it exists in a void. There is a lot of ‘this match is good because of X and bad because of Y,’ which is not how anyone approaches art in reality. How many lemon sours I’ve drunk, whether I’m watching it with friends, how tired I am, what’s happened that day, there are infinite things that can affect how I feel about something. For this match, my enjoyment was altered significantly by being sat next to a wee lad and his dad.
Because if I’m honest, this was the DASH hardcore match. Ikemen was a solid opponent, able to get both laughs and willing to hit the big spots, but if you’ve seen it before, you know what you’re getting. That’s not necessarily a criticism. I like DASH’s hardcore matches, but it’s not really enough to excite me anymore. If I’d watched this from home, I would almost certainly have written about Big Hash vs Syuri, which was another great example of Hashimoto being the expert at collaring frustrating big match wrestlers and making them work smarter.
However, I didn’t watch it at home. I watched it at Korakuen, next to the aforementioned wee lad, who, until this point in the show, had barely uttered a peep as he watched the show. Then, DASH launched a chair at Ikemen’s head, and that kid woke up. He yelped and squealed his way through the rest of the match, delighting in every huge spot as his dad chuckled away next to him. I’ve obviously got no idea how many wrestling shows he’d been to before, but it felt like someone discovering something they’d never even imagined, and loving every second of it.
And how can you not take pleasure in that? I’m sure everyone reading this has been there. I remember watching the TLC matches for the first time and being in awe of what I was watching. Christ, DASH herself is fairly open about those matches being the inspiration for a lot of what she does. The difference? This lad was in the room. A dad with a willingness to take him along to a joshi wrestling show meant that he got to witness this whole new world first-hand, presumably setting him up to rush to school the next day and tell everyone about what he saw. That’s so fucking cool.
It made me view this anew. Yes, DASH has her spots. You know she’s leaping from a ladder in the ring to the floor and you know she’s going to be piling chairs on people, but having seen them before doesn’t make it less spectacular. I get anxious climbing a ladder to paint a ceiling – it’s wild that I’ve been desensitised to the sight of someone jumping off one. Sometimes you need someone who hasn’t been there a million times before to remind you how incredible a wrestler is. That wee lad did that for me on this show.
Chris Brookes & Banana Kaichow vs Ram Kaichow & Onryo, 666 Vol. 160 (14/4/26), 666
Putting Chris Brookes in the ring with short people is always a win. Look, I think Brookes is a talented bugger, even if he is a hat thief, but if he spent his entire time in Japan simply standing next to small wrestlers, I’d still think he had a strong career. If he added the big boot spot where his partner’s foot doesn’t connect because Chris’s legs are so long, he’d at least make a top 100 of my favourite wrestlers. It’s really that simple.
This match had the double pleasure of Brookes also being unable to tell the difference between Ram Kaichow (whose birthday it was) and Banana Kaichow (whose birthday I don’t know), leading to all sorts of antics. At one point, Chris figured it out by giving Banana’s willy a wee flick, which is actually fairly mundane by 666 standards. I saw more of Ken Ohka on this show than I ever intended to. By the time Ram was wearing a bald cap, it was hard not to fall for this match. Especially as Onyru somehow managed to power through it all, doing his thing regardless of the nonsense happening around him.
It’s also a good example of why I really like 666. In my experience, they don’t work on tape half as well as they do live. Part of that is just the vibe of the place. It’s a promotion that is openly LGBTQ+ friendly, and while I can’t say for certain, I suspect there is a portion of their fanbase that are primarily 666 fans. I see some of the faces I spot at tons of wrestling shows around Tokyo at these events, but there are a lot of other faces that look more like they’ve slipped out of the alternative music scene and into their 666 merch. Now, obviously, I don’t know a fraction of the people who go to wrestling in Tokyo, and I certainly don’t attend every promotion, but the idea makes sense to me. They have carved out a niche for themselves, and it’s a damn cool one. It’s the kind of place I would have so loved to find as an unsure teenager, trying to figure out where I stood in the world.
And not to get too into my personal admin, but that’s why they’re on the list of companies I will try to make every show of. Having moved to Tokyo, I have had to at least somewhat limit my wrestling watching. I do want to do other stuff now and then. However, there are certain companies that will always take priority, and because of what I said above, 666 are one of them. You’ve got to support something this cool.
Senka Akatsuki vs Chris Hero, West Coast Pro vs The World (16/4/26), West Coast Pro
Once again, Senka turns up on WrestleMania Weekend and has a match that gets everyone talking. This year, there was a touch of luck to proceedings. With Dani Luna having to drop out, Senka was left without an opponent. On a weekend where countless names were in town, West Coast Pro didn’t just grab someone off the street. Instead, for the first time in 2 years, Chris Hero strapped on his knee pads and hit the ring.
So much of this match is about the visual. Hero dwarfs Senka. He’s taller, thicker, obviously stronger, and the sight of them across the ring from each other tells you everything you need to know. She was smaller than Aja Kong, but that’s nothing compared to the gap here. For the first few seconds of this match, Senka paces from side to side, seemingly unsure how to approach this mountain of a man. Of course, she ultimately settles on the only way she knows how. Head first.
There has been some chatter online that Senka hasn’t improved over the last year. Until I saw it being opined on Twitter, it hadn’t even occurred to me, but I guess I can see where it comes from. If you’re comparing her to Seri Yamaoka, Senka might seem to have stalled. She’s still wearing that rookie garb (despite her and Ayame recently claiming they were getting new gear, only to reveal it was just a new swimsuit each), and she hasn’t greatly expanded her repertoire. While videos of Seri flying over the top rope catch the eye, Senka is still relying on the basics, even if she has added a few more of them to her arsenal.
I think that’s ignoring a hell of a lot of work, though. When everyone went wild for Senka last year, I found myself in the weird position of being one of the voices of reason about a Marvelous wrestler. Senka was great, but she was raw. A sprint with Aja was the perfect way to display her to the world because in longer matches, where she was taking more offence, it became clear that she wasn’t yet able to sell the toll her style of wrestling should take on her body. In the last year, she’s started to get that. As I said above, she still charges into everything, but now you feel the damage it inflicts more. It’s not perfect, and she’s still got a tendency to get carried away, but she’s starting to understand the importance of struggling.
And that’s all over this match. Everything Senka does is a challenge. Even throwing a forearm at Hero is like hammering her arm into an old oak. That battle is what makes this work. It’s why when she improbably lifts Hero for a suplex, there are fans in attendance literally leaping into the air with joy, unable to believe what they’re witnessing. I’ve spoken a lot recently about the joy of live wrestling, and this is the rare match I wasn’t at, but it’s still there on the tape. Everyone in that room is committed to being in Senka’s corner, living and dying on what she can do. She might not be the one called Hero, but she’s certainly that to everyone in attendance.
Credit for that also has to go to the big man. Hero has, in his past, leaned towards grandstanding. Going bigger and longer to prove a point. Here, there is none of that. It would have been so easy for him to steal the show. To transform that surprise return into a huge entrance before he reeled out all his flashiest moves. In some ways, you wouldn’t have held it against him. However, Hero does the opposite. He dials everything down, marching straight to the ring, taking his spot and relying on his pure presence to tell the story. Even his gear is stripped back, looking like he didn’t even bother changing out of what he was wearing backstage. Hero understood that, on this day, Senka was the focus, and it’s the measure of a great wrestler that they not only figure that out, but know exactly how to highlight it. Akatsuki did her part brilliantly, but Hero set her up for it, and both of those things deserve credit.
Best Bros (Baliyan Akki & Mei Suruga) vs Chie Koishikawa & Shota Kawikami, ChocoPro #517 (21/4/26), ChocoPro
I think I’ve made this point a lot over the years, but Ichigaya Chocolate Square is a small place. It’s easy to know that, though, but it’s harder sometimes to actually visualise it. Unless you’ve been lucky enough to sit in that front row, you don’t realise quite how unique an experience it is. You’re not just close to the action – it’s on top of you. If you’re there, someone is going to end up standing on your toes or using you for support. You will feel the breeze of a body flying by. It’s impossible to avoid.
And while Ichigaya is hardly the home of hard-hitting wrestling, it means when those blows do come in, you feel them. You can’t really work loose there. It’s too obvious. Not that Akki and Mei had any intention of doing that in this match. Beforehand, Mei declared that while Chie was a champion, Kawikami was merely young, so Best Bros would focus their efforts on him. It was a blow that Akki happily followed up, dismissively declaring him a young boy. It also set the stage for this match, as that poor lad took a beating. Between Mei stamping all over his legs and Akki laying into his chest with chops, it was brutal. Every blow was wince-inducing, with one chop even sending Kawikami tumbling out the window to wipe out a fan (who was, thankfully, okay, and received many an apology afterwards). The poor lad suffered for our sins.
It’s hard not to enjoy that. It’s simple and obvious, but it taps into that animal part of the brain that thrills in seeing people beat the shit out of each other. I know it’s not for everyone, but, well, it works for me, and I can’t imagine many wrestling fans don’t at least revel in it a little bit. It also worked for Kawikami. He’s popped up in Choco before, but he is a youngster, and I’ve seen very little of him. However, it’s hard not to root for someone whose chest is turning a shade of red that would usually indicate you should make a trip to the doctors in front of your eyes. In the same way that it’s thrilling, it’s also the easiest way to generate sympathy in the world, and the lad sold it all perfectly (probably because he wasn’t actually having to sell).
Chihiro Hashimoto vs Yurika Oka, Sendai Girls (25/4/26), Sendai Girls
It’s really hard to put into words just how much affection I have for Yurika Oka at the moment. I was a fan already, but the Senjo documentary series has really amplified that feeling. The glimpses we get into her chaotic lifestyle and how much she cares about this stuff make it impossible not to root for her. Then, the footage of her in the aftermath of her head injury in a match against Veny, where she looked so tiny and scared lying on a stretcher surrounded by worried wrestlers and her mum, sealed the deal. I think I’m going to be an Oka fan for life.
And it helps that she’s getting really good. I think it’s easy to assume that someone like Oka has a ceiling. That, with her silliness, she’s maybe destined to be a tag team wrestler, or someone who gets a shot at the top but never settles there. However, it’s clear she wants more than that. Whenever someone in Senjo talks about her, they mention how hard she works, and you saw that in this match. She approached Big Hash in a whole new way, going after her arm and trying to match the company Ace on her own terms. It’s easy for Oka to scamper about, firing off dropkicks, and there was plenty of that, but she also wanted to wrestle Hashimoto. She wanted to show the world that she could stand on an equal footing with her.
Oka came surprisingly close, too. This was one of those special live experiences. One where you realise the whole room is in a wrestler’s corner. It wasn’t fuelled by a dislike of Hashimoto. In fact, in some ways, it’s the ultimate respect. Everyone there knows how strong Hash is. She doesn’t need their support. Oka, hurling herself at that brick wall, needed the crowd in her corner. She needed them willing her on, pushing her to keep going, no matter how hard she was hit. It’s the kind of crowd that you get swept up in, forgetting that you know how this will end. Everyone was desperate for Yurika to do the impossible, and when she came within inches of doing so, they forgot that it was so. The crowd, and Oka and Hash’s performances, made it feel possible.
As always, Hashimoto deserves credit for that, too. She’s so good in these matches. We’ve seen it against Yuna, Manami and now Oka. It’s not just the youngsters she gets the best out of, though. From Syuri to Sareee, Big Hash is often the one who shepherds people into line, finding the route to the best match for them. Not that I think this will be Oka’s best match. She’s got a long way to go, and she ain’t about to stop. In the aftermath, with her cheeky show of defiance as she referred to Hashimoto as Chihiro (a moment that reminded me of her tag-team partner, Mio Momono, talking to Red Granny (Meiko Satomura) after being defeated by her), Oka made it clear she’s going to keep chasing her senior, doing everything she can to catch up. I, for one, won’t be betting against her.
Senka Akatsuki vs Ai Houzan, Marvelous (26/4/26), Marvelous
I was far too hungover to deal with the emotion of this match.
I’ve talked plenty of times about disliking the shoot-fall match between these two that got all kinds of attention. Yes, I think it ultimately helped Ai’s career, but I never want to watch it again. However, that’s not me saying I don’t think they’re good together. I loved the match they had before that one, and it was absolutely no surprise that I loved this one, too.
A lot of that is down to the thing that made the shoot match feel so cruel – Ai’s desperation. She knows the way the wind is blowing. She knew it in January last year, and it’s even more obvious now. No matter how hard she tries, and she tries very hard, Senka has overtaken her. She’s appeared, with all that big, goofy, muscly Labrador energy (all affectionate), and barged her way through the typical pecking order. Marvelous fans love Ai, but everyone knows who the star is, even if they might not be willing to admit it.
It’s a feeling that permeated this match. Houzan approached it in the right way. She came out of the gates meaner, throwing Senka across the ring by her hair and driving her boot into her face. It was an attempt to reestablish the order of things. To put this youngster in her place. The problem is that Senka won’t stop. As everyone who wrestles her quickly learns, she’s a force of nature, the type that you need to bring the big guns out to put down. It didn’t matter what Houzan did; the dynamic slowly shifted, Ai slipping into her role as the underdog. It was summed up by Houzan firing up and Senka flinching back, a bemused look on her face, like the little dog had snapped when she wasn’t expecting it.
However, there was also acceptance here, at least at the end. In the aftermath, with Ai losing once more, she and Senka stayed in the centre of the ring, whispering to each other. Who knows what was said, but it was followed by bows and shows of respect, so while Houzan let out a roar of frustration, it wasn’t the heartbreaking scream we heard last time this happened. It felt like an acknowledgement. An understanding of the way of things, but crucially, not a settling with it. From Ai’s life story, from her career so far, we know that she wants more and that she is going to keep fighting to get it. Senka might have overtaken her, but Ai will always be there, desperately trying to keep up. Whether she manages or not, it’s what makes her an easy wrestler to love, and that’s a victory in itself.
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