Marvelous didn’t sit back and enjoy the success of their May Yokohama Buntai show for long. Before the crowd had even left the room, they’d already turned their attention towards Korakuen, declaring ambition goal to sell it out. Unfortunately, that didn’t quite happen, but it was damn close. I don’t have the stats to hand, and they tend not to release attendance statistics, but I’d be surprised if this wasn’t one of their highest-selling Korakuens. The room was busy, so let’s ramble about how the wrestling went.
Mika Iwata defeated Ruka Amahane
When I think of why I love wrestling, moments like a near-full Korakuen loudly voicing their approval as a thirteen-year-old rookie slams someone are at the fore of my thoughts. There are larger rooms that can generate great atmospheres, but Korakuen is special. It’s a place that can, and will, come together as one, willing their chosen wrestler on to success. I can’t imagine how thrilling it must be for someone like Ruka to be the focus of that love.
And Iwata was the perfect opponent for this moment. She’s all snarling faces and stiff kicks. What Ruka can do is still limited by her age, but Iwata made sure that didn’t matter. While she wasn’t able to kick her in the head, she could lay them in enough to the body to make it clear it hurt. Plus, those limitations are working to her advantage. When left with a tiny playbook, you have to make the smallest things mean something. Even a strike as throwaway as a weak forearm takes on significance when it comes from an exhausted kid desperately throwing everything they have out there.
In a perfect world, this is the kind of match we’ll rewatch in ten years when Ruka is the grumpy veteran putting some new kid through their paces. It will be her turn to feel the satisfaction of ushering Korakuen into a rookie’s corner. Of course, wrestling is rarely perfect, so who knows whether that will happen, but that doesn’t make it any less special. Ruka’s first time in that famous ring went as perfectly as you could hope. She was fiery and impassioned, and even though she lost, you can bet more than a few people came away determined to root for her. You can’t ask for more than that.
Verdict: Loved It
Kohei Sato defeated Yosuke Santa Maria
If you’re a Marvelous fan, you’ll have gotten very used to the Yosuke Santa Maria shtick over the last year or so. She’s Chig’s current favourite, and even with Leo Isaka injured and Titus Alexander back in America, there was a spot for Maria on this card. The match hit all the beats you’d expect, from the gay panic to the deliberately weak chops, and people seemed to have a good time with it, even if it is hard to get too excited about it all.
To be fair, Sato did make sure there was at least one memorable moment. He set up the finish here by seemingly going for a kiss, only to deliver a shoot headbutt instead, leaving Yosuke free to be piledrived into next week. It was a surprisingly violent spot in a previously light-hearted match, and felt like something that would be more at home in KTDan than second on a Marvelous card. You need a bit more than that to make something a must-watch, but it should make for a good clip.
I neither hated nor loved this. It was a perfectly acceptable eight minutes of wrestling that ticked all the boxes you’d expect it to tick.
Verdict: One Headbutt Aside, It Was What You’d Expect
Itsuki Aoki, Ayame Sora & Sweet Caroline defeated Chikayo Nagashima, Yurika Oka & Ai Houzan
One of the nice things about watching wrestlers tour Japan is that you get to see them improve in real time. I’ve no idea how often Sweet Caroline competes back home, and she doesn’t have a Cagematch profile yet, but the consistency of a company like Marvelous or Sendai Girls makes a huge difference. Don’t get me wrong, she’s still at the beginning of her career. I wouldn’t be investing massively in her stocks quite yet. However, she’s clearly got better over the last three months. Her kicks are a bit crisper, while she moves around the ring with more confidence. This was her last match in Japan, and she goes home in a much better place than she arrived.
Outside of that, I have mixed feelings about the result of this match. On the one hand, Sora getting a shock win in Korakuen is great. On the other, it’s another defeat against a junior for Ai Houzan. It would have been nice to have both my favourites come out the other side looking good. Plus, it’s getting a bit sad to see Ai consistently being booked to lose and then getting berated for always losing. It feels like a bit of a no-win situation.
As for the match, it was enjoyable enough. We didn’t get the Team Yellow dance, but it was nice to see them all back together, and Oka is a perfect person to throw out as the comic foil in a midcard tag. Nagashima, meanwhile, continues to defy her age, and I’m so glad she didn’t retire when she was considering it before. Even in a stake-less affair like this, you can tell how good she is. Throw her together with someone like Aoki, and you’re guaranteed something at the very least decent.
It was ultimately Sora’s moment, though. The crowd bit on all her roll-up attempts, and she’s getting better at deploying her shin kicks without overexposing them. I’m also amazed that she’s managed to make that spinning version look good. It should be completely ridiculous. We’re at the point now where, at least in Japan, she no longer feels like the second rookie behind Senka. She might not be as far up the card, but she’s carving out a spot for herself. It’s a good one, too.
Verdict: Enjoyable, Even If It Hurt Ai
Echika Miyabi & Leah Night defeated Magenta (Maria & RIKO)
In the aftermath of this match, Echika finally relented, revealing she’d already shaved off her eyebrow and is joining Magenta. She maybe could have revealed that before beating them, but I guess that’s wrestling logic.
Anyway, this was another Magenta special. Miyabi is on the path to being a good wrestler and has improved a lot in the last year or so, and Night looked alright, but they both benefitted greatly from Magenta working their arses off to make them look better. I’ve said it before, but Maria and RIKO are two of the more consistently entertaining wrestlers around. Yes, they like to spend time messing about, leaning into the shtick. However, when the moment comes, they’re a really great tag team. They’ve got that uncanny ability to be in sync without everything feeling pre-planned and choreographed. This wasn’t anything incredible – the important stuff all happened after the match – but they made sure it was always engaging.
I did have one grumble about it all – the finish. RIKO hit a moonsault only to have Echika suddenly revive enough to bundle her through into a pin. It’s nothing new, but it always annoys me. If the move is enough to win the match, how is Miyabi in any condition to throw out that counter, especially when it’s not an attack that provides the momentum to make the switch? Maybe it’s one of those things you just need to accept, but it always feels a bit lazy to me.
Anyway, that aside, this was a decent match. Night didn’t do anything particularly memorable, but she didn’t mess up either, and the whole thing was very watchable. While Maria and RIKO deserve to be involved in something more significant, it was all about setting up Miyabi joining them, so fingers crossed there are plans in place.
Verdict: Magenta Are Great
Takumi Iroha defeated Senka Akatsuki
I might sometimes give the impression that I don’t rate Takumi Iroha. That’s not true. She frustrates me. Iroha, against the right opponent, when she’s funneled positively, is a great wrestler. When she’s given a bit more freedom and left to her own devices, she has a tendency to make bad choices. Thankfully, Senka Akatsuki is proving the perfect person to do the funneling. She’s an uppity youngster who needs to be put in her place, and that’s one of Iroha’s better roles.
And so much of what makes Senka great can be seen in the smaller moments of this match. Like the part where Iroha throws her out of the ring, turning away as she expects Akatsuki to take a second to catch her breath, only for her to come charging straight back in, unwilling to stop the fight for even a second. Unlike the last match, I also adored the finish. Senka has the heart. She will never give up. However, at this point in her career, her body isn’t there yet. Iroha outlasted her, surviving because when the onslaught got too much, Senka just couldn’t get up. Her heart was still going, but her legs had gone.
Much like the opener, they built a lot of this around the simple stuff. The long exchange of standard suplexes, the two of them going back and forth until they were exhausted, only to both bridge out of the double pin that followed, could have so easily felt contrived. Yet, it worked for me. It worked in the same way the best strike exchanges do. I bought into it as two stubborn bastards refusing to budge an inch. They weren’t doing it for the sake of doing it; they were doing it because neither one wanted to give the other the satisfaction of winning.
That’s why these matches suit Iroha. Outside the ring, she seems like a lovely person, but at her in-ring best, she’s a dick. Cocky and abrasive, confident in the knowledge that she is the chosen one of Chigusa Nagayo (even if she is going through a stage of teenage rebellion). Senka riles her up because she refuses to accept that. In her rookie gear, she dares to think she can stand level with Iroha. Even more importantly, Senka backs it up. She opened this match by reversing Iroha’s first headlock into a backdrop, and from then on, Takumi was always on her toes. Aware that this kid could launch a surprise at any moment. When she lets loose at the end, putting Akatsuki down for good, she was punishing her for everything that came before. For daring, even for a second, to stand toe-to-toe with the Ace.
This was fantastic. It was Takumi’s best singles match of the year and yet more proof that Senka is becoming someone you can’t miss. You don’t see many big matches like this. Something this stripped back and simple. It had more in common with the opener than it did with Iroha vs Sareee. However, it worked. It worked because certain ideas always do. A young kid, one with all the potential in the world, coming up against the veteran at the top of the pile, who has it all to lose, is a story everyone understands, and this was a near-perfect example of it.
Verdict: Brilliant
Sareee defeated Mio Momono
If you told me that there was some genuine tension between Mio Momono and Sareee, I’d buy it. There was a pettiness to the violence in this match. Mio and Sareee seemed to lay everything in, making those stomps that little bit more vicious or grabbing every opportunity to hoy a chair at each other. It felt nasty. Which, of course, is always a good thing.
And much like Senka and Takumi, I think Mio is one of the people who inspires the best of Sareee. Yes, towards the end, this did indulge a few of her flaws, as there were probably a couple too many false finishes. However, Sareee excels when she has someone to bully. Mio, as perhaps the best pure babyface in the world, on home turf, is the ideal person for that. She’s not a rookie who is going to be kicked around the ring, but she’s nearly always battling from underneath, desperately trying to find the distance she needs to build momentum. Sareee going for her, hammering away with those forearms and dragging her into a fight, is a great dynamic. The clash of styles makes the pairing.
It’s probably no surprise that this was still the Mio show for me, though. She was brilliant. I think Momono’s injuries have only enhanced the desperation that has always been at the core of her wrestling. This is her life. The only thing she wants. And there is a growing sense, particularly in the way she talks about wrestling, that it could be pulled away from her. That plays out in the way she approaches matches. Mio believes in Marvelous more than nearly anyone, perhaps even more than Chigusa Nagayo, and she is willing to lay her heart in the centre of that ring to prove it. Sareee can hit her as hard as she wants, but Mio won’t crumble. She cares too much.
Which I think is why it’s okay that, when it comes to the big stage, she tends to stumble. If I had my way, Mio would be Marvelous’s Ace. For all Takumi’s talents, she’s never moved me the way Momono does. However, I don’t think that suits her. She’s made to be the chaser. To be the dreamer who will keep going and going until she gets there. People don’t love Mio because she wins. They love her because of her heart. They love her because of how much she cares. They love her because they believe she will keep going, no matter what. Sareee is positioned as this all-powerful force of wrestling, hammering down on everyone around her, and she can be very good at it, but that’s a hard person to care about. Mio, on the other hand, is the most obvious hero in the world. She’s a tiny wee buzz ball who refuses to take no for an answer.
Anyway, I loved this. I’ve not really thought about what my favourite matches of the year are yet, but I’d be shocked if this isn’t thereabouts come the end of 2026. It was Mio Momono at the top of her game, paired up with someone who is everything she isn’t, and that’s a combo I’m rarely going to turn away from.
Verdict: She’s Still The Best In The World
Overall Show
A really good Korakuen. In a perfect world, you bulk up that midcard a little bit. I’d have liked at least one more match in there with some weight behind it rather than the random tags we got, but they were all solid wrestling matches. Besides, between the opener and the two closers, you had three matches that I really loved. Marvelous might not have the momentum that Sendai Girls do right now, but they’re putting out some good wrestling.
Marvelous have a Nico channel where you can watch some older shows and a YouTube Membership where they (might) upload videos. You can also buy access to live streams here and find shows on Wrestle Universe.
