September felt like a long month in the world of wrestling. As always, there were a shitload of shows, with some great performances on them. However, we’ve also lost two people far before their time. I can’t sit here and claim to be experts on either Butcher or PAC’s wrestling careers, and there are better people to dive deep on them than me, but they’re both wrestlers I have some sort of connection to. On top of that, they were, by all accounts, decent human beings. It’s hard not to be sad when we lose good ones.
Elsewhere, it was another impressive month for Mio Momono, Emi Sakura put on a masterclass and Reina Takano continues to impress. Enjoy!
Sayaka Obihiro vs Minoru Fujita, ChocoPro #542 (2/9/26), ChocoPro
There’s a lot of love for Sayaka Obihiro in Ichigaya Chocolate Square. I hate throwing out words like reliable because they always feel like a backhanded compliment, but it’s true. You can rely on Obi. Around the time of the pandemic, I started to worry that her days as a wrestler were growing short. The injuries seemed to be piling up, and with her love of cooking, I assumed she would retire to do that instead. Thankfully, I was wrong, and multiple new generations of wrestlers are coming through in a world where Obi is around to guide the way. It’s a calming thought.
Yet I still think Obi gets somewhat overlooked as a wrestler. Perhaps it’s her fondness for comedy, or that her most successful work has been in tags, but she rarely gets the plaudits that other similar joshi veterans do. Obi has been good for a long time. However, I would argue she is never better than when playing the underdog. Her best singles matches, the ones I regularly think about, have placed a her at a massive disadvantage. Perhaps the prime example of it was Emi Sakura’s 25th Anniversary show, when Obi stepped in after Yoneyama caught COVID and faced the full brunt of her boss’s displeasure. As she gave everything she had to give her long-term mentor the match she deserved, Obi almost stole the show.
And it’s because when Obi’s back is against the wall, there’s a real grit to her wrestling. Not necessarily in the way she approaches matches, she’s doing a lot of the same stuff, but in the way she carries herself. While it’s impossible to say where her selling of exhaustion in this match ended and her actual exhaustion began, the result was the same either way. On a muggy night in Ichigaya, Obihiro looked like someone clinging on. She was always at a disadvantage. The scarred and battered Fujita has both size and weight on her. Yet, Obi never stopped. She fought until she couldn’t fight anymore. How can you not love that person?
I can’t imagine Ichigaya without Obi. That day will come. In the end, the lad with the big clock is the only undefeated wrestler, but I hope it’s not soon. It will be a slightly less wonderful place without her around. She embodies a lot of what makes ChocoPro great. Funny, talented, and willing to put the graft in despite being at the bottom of the pile. I’ve said before that Ichigaya is held together by sticky tape and love, and it feels like a lot of that love revolves around Sayaka Obihiro, and that’s a hell of a legacy by itself.
Kaori Yoneyama & Honoka vs Kakeru Sekiguchi & Misa Matsui, Gokigen Pro Gokigen Amistad #34 Matsuzawa-san & Minoru Fujita’s Birthday Show (4/9/26), Gokigen Pro
Friday night Gokigen is a lovely time. Kanagawa is a bit of a trek for me, but the vibes around one of these shows make it worth the effort. Who doesn’t want to start the weekend with Yoneyama?
I’ve previously described people like Yone and Emi Sakura as slowing down, so I’m going to take a second to clarify what I mean. To be clear, that isn’t a polite way of saying they’re bad now. They’d still both rank highly on my list of favourite wrestlers. It’s more about them adapting to age. Yone can no longer go out and wrestle at a million miles an hour every week. Instead, she has to pick her spots, deciding when to turn on that burst of pace and using that huge wrestling brain to find other ways to get where she wants to be. It’s the point I make about Aja Kong all the time. She might not be who she was 30 years ago (who the fuck is?), but she’s found another way to be brilliant. While certain people love to dismiss older wrestlers (particularly when they’re women who they don’t face), Yone is as interesting now as she’s ever been.
And I think this match was a great example of how she has adapted. They went back to classic tag tactics, having Kakeru and Misa isolate Yoneyama for the first half of the match. Everyone did a great job of building up to Honoka’s entrance to the ring (including Honoka herself, who was constantly active on the apron), and when she finally got in, it paid off. I haven’t kept a close eye on her career, but at some point, she became a good wrestler. She’s light on her feet, has a knack for comedy, and (even under the mask) is a naturally sympathetic face. Yone used her perfectly here, letting her play the plucky underdog against two bigger and more experienced wrestlers.
Obviously, there was also some silliness in there – this is Gokigen – as everyone got caught up in doing Misa’s trademark charging up (no idea if it has a name), but the wrestling was also to a high standard. They even pulled off one of my favourite near-falls in a while, as Yone and Honoka unleashed synchronised O’Connor Rolls, only for Kakeru to reverse Yoneyama’s. It forced Honoka to desperately escape from her own pin attempt and make the save. The timing was immaculate. Mostly, though, it was just a load of fun. A frantic 11 minutes of wrestling that ticked a whole lot of my boxes. Gokigen isn’t the easiest stuff to find online (it’s an expensive company to watch), but if you’re ever in Tokyo, I couldn’t recommend them more.
Miya Yotsuba vs Makoto, ChocoPro #543 (9/9/26), ChocoPro
I always enjoy it when people like Makoto return to Chocolate Square. It’s easy to forget that she spent years wrestling there. Her style may have changed quite a lot since then – she was a pure comedy wrestler when she debuted – but she’s as comfortable in that room as anyone is. Which is why it made perfect sense for her to stand in for Emi Sakura ahead of her title match with Miya. She was one of the final tests before the big boss graced Japan with her presence.
It was a role she flourished in. Makoto isn’t quite the bully that her trainer is, but she’s a physical, hard-hitting wrestler, and she was happy to indulge in a touch of Sakuraism. In among the usual boots and dropped knees, she made sure to throw in some scratching and tea time. It was a veteran dropping by to remind Miya that while she’s at the top, she’s not guaranteed to stay there.
And being handed that challenge worked for Miya. She is a good wrestler who has improved a lot during this title run, but her best stuff still comes when she’s fighting up to someone else’s level. Yotsuba has the confidence to try to match someone like Makoto beat for beat, and that makes for an exciting match. You can always tell when something is getting a good reaction in Ichigaya by how many wrestlers are crowded around the door (for the really great stuff, they start migrating to the windows), and there wasn’t much space left by the end of this one.
Miyu Yamashita, Yuki Arai & Sakura Hattori vs Arisu Endo, Suzume & Kira Summer, TJPW Fall Tour 2026 ~ Ray of Hope ~ In Shinkiba (12/9/26), TJPW
Yuki Arai is in an interesting place. I still don’t love a lot of her big singles matches. While they’re not bad, she has yet to stir my emotions in the way most of TJPW’s former champions have. We all know how popular she is, and TJPW has benefited from that, but she’s far from my ideal. However, she is increasingly great in these build-up tags. I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again: the tag wrestler version of Arai feels very different from the singles one. She’s got an edge that doesn’t always come through in her big matches.
And we saw it here against Suzume. It’s the little moments, like her responding to Suzume blocking a big boot by powering through, brutally stamping the bee into the mat. That display of force is the closest she’s felt to someone like Miyu Yamashita. It’s a top wrestler bullying her way into control of the match. Of course, it’s also the perfect way to set up against someone like Suzume – a naturally sympathetic wrestler who benefits from working from underneath. It gave me hope that their match is going to work.
Elsewhere, this sowed the seeds for Yamashita vs Endo for whatever that Eve belt is. That’s got a huge ceiling right now. Arisu has had a great year, standing out in matches against established names, and Miyu is as close to her best as she has been in a while. The only downside is that it feels like the time to pull the trigger on Endo getting the big win. I hate to approach the match with such a behind-the-scenes mindset, but it seems unlikely Eve would be interesting enough to switch their belt to Arisu at this point, so she’s probably going to once again look heroic in defeat. I’m very open to being surprised, though. (Sadly, as we now know, I was not.)
My final praise is for Kira Summer, who is starting to find a bit of consistency. I’ve always said she’s at her best when she plays to her power, and we saw that here. She was throwing people around, dishing out hard hits, and generally put on one of the stronger performances I’ve seen from her. If she keeps this up, she’ll be someone to keep an eye on in the next year or so because she could make herself hard to ignore.
Mio Momono vs Leah Knight, Marvelous (14/9/26), Marvelous
My viewing experience for this match isn’t repeatable unless you’re a friend of the Momono family. I watched it sitting next to Mio’s granny, with whom I’d shared a few words in Japanese during the break. To say she was invested in the match would be an understatement. She spent most of it engaged in what felt like a one-sided conversation with Mio, cheering her on and, if I was getting the gist of it right, making her thoughts about Leah Knight clear.
It made what was already almost a guaranteed hit even better. Everyone knows I’m a sucker for a Mio main event, and Marvelous have realised they can use the West Coast Pro title as a special attraction on these smaller shows. This had all the ingredients for a good one, too. Knight is bigger and stronger than Mio, putting Marvelous’s hero in the underdog role she so flourishes in. Throw in the danger that West Coast Pro might decide they want the belt back at any moment, and I bit on some of those false finishes. A feeling that was intensified by not being sure how Granny Momono would react if Mio lost.
And Knight isn’t brilliant. She’s alright, and young enough in her career that I’m sure she’ll improve, but she struggled to fill the meat of this match. It dragged, and while having Momono take the beating was the right call, you kinda wanted her to take control of things a touch earlier. Either that, or shave those minutes off entirely. If you get to that frantic Mio comeback quicker, it’s a stronger match.
Thankfully, those moments were good enough that, in the long term, I won’t remember the slower middle. Momono is fully in the swing of things right now. When she’s in this kind of form, you can throw her out there with anyone, and she’ll get something out of it. With an athletic, powerhouse young wrestler like Knight, this was never going to be bad. The circumstances surrounding it only added to that.
Reina Takano vs Soy, 20th Anniversary Tour (15/9/26), Sendai Girls
I’ve been a fan of Soy since she first turned up in ChocoPro, buzzing with excitement at having made it to her favourite wrestling company. However, I did have one concern in those early days. Soy is clearly meant to be a powerhouse. It’s there for everyone to see. However, she seemed far too nice to take up that mantle. The great joshi bruisers have mean streaks (or are just outright mean), and I couldn’t imagine Soy becoming that person. She was the wrestler who gave crying kids dropkick awards. Thankfully, I’ve been proven wrong. Soy still seems lovely, but she’s started to channel that aggression in the ring.
And that made her a perfect opponent for Reina. This is one of those easy matches where you know exactly how it’s going to go, and that’s where the satisfaction comes from. Wee Reina, with all her rookie pluck, goes up against someone bigger and stronger than her. As has been the case for all of her young career, the fans were firmly in her corner, yelling enthusiastically at every desperate dropkick and wildly thrown boot. However, Soy was just too big and too powerful. At one point, she walked dismissively over the rookie’s prone body before splashing her mercilessly, showing just how far ahead of her she was. It was great.
I think everyone knows Sendai has something with Reina. She’s incredibly popular, and the reaction when she finally wins will be huge. They’re also, thankfully, smart enough to know there is no rush to get there. Reina’s vulnerability is what makes her beloved. Every defeat, every bully who walks over her, and every desperate attempt to steal away with the win is going to add to that support. At this point, it is all about the journey, and it’s one that a lot of people are willing to take with her.
Emi Sakura vs Miya Yotsuba, Phoenix Rises (20/9/26), ChocoPro
Emi motherfucking Sakura.
There was never any doubt, obviously, but if you needed proof that Emi Sakura could adapt to age, this was the match. In fact, this was the match where, more than ever before, Sakura turned her age into an advantage. Up against the younger, stronger and quicker Yotsuba, Emi drew on all those years of experience and produced a masterclass. It was outstanding.
And so much of this was about Emi not being able to keep up. At the Ichigaya before this show, Miya caught Sakura off guard. She came roaring out of the blocks, putting her boss on the back foot in a way that has very rarely happened in Chocolate Square. It felt like Sakura had missed the memo. That she hadn’t quite realised who Miya had become in the months she’d been absent. Of course, things were never going to be that simple.
For this was a match of traps. Of rule-bending, stalling and luring Yotsuba into Sakura’s world. Time after time, it looked like the boss had run out of ideas. At one point, she simply lay on the mat, crossing her hands over her chest as if to accept her fate and allow the ten count to run out. Of course, that infuriated Miya so much that she continued the fight, stumbling into another ploy, proving once again that Sakura is always a step ahead. You might think you’ve finally got her, that you’ve found the answer to every eye rake and hair pull, but she always has another plan.
And Miya was great here. She played that frustration brilliantly, and while I’m sure some have moaned about her title run coming to an end against the veteran, this was exactly what she needed. Wrestlers develop when they’re challenged, and Miya came up against someone who she couldn’t simply bash her way through. She’s grown a lot over the course of this title reign, becoming someone who feels worthy of standing at the top of the company, and I have no doubt this will only continue her development. It’s just that on this day, she was outclassed by a master.
There is a real art to growing older in wrestling. I’ve talked about it already this month, but there is a section of joshi fans who tend to dismiss anyone who shows even the slightest sign of ageing. We all know why. However, the greats, the likes of Aja Kong, Jaguar Yokota and Mayumi Ozaki, know how to adapt to time. To change what they do and still produce something that might be different to what they did before, but is also brilliant. Emi Sakura belongs in that conversation. Yes, she’s worked most of her career on a smaller scale than them, but there aren’t many who can match her accomplishments, both in and out of the ring (and I’m not talking about title wins), and it’s only snobbery that excludes her from their ranks. The proof of how great Sakura is has always been there, but this is yet more of it. She might not be hitting 450s or Moonsaults in 2026, but her genius is still there for all to see.
Mio Momono & Tatami Baba vs Takumi Iroha & Daisuke Sekimoto, Leo Isaka Anniversary Show (21/9/26), Marvelous
2026 Daisuke Sekimoto isn’t really the guy you want in this match. I still have a lot of love for big Daisuke, but he is beat up, and I can’t help imagining what a younger Sekimoto vs Mio Momono could have been. Even if he were just a touch more mobile, you would have had the potential for something special. However, there was still some magic to this. Sekimoto is a mountain of a man, and Mio is a wee menace. That’s a pairing I want to see.
And this match realised that was the key to all of this, and while there wasn’t enough of Mio vs Sekimoto, they were smart enough to build to the moment when she managed to throw the giant with a German Suplex. I don’t care how much Sekimoto helped her out there – it was damn impressive. Look at the size difference between them! Momono getting the big man off his feet was impressive alone. Sometimes a spot like that is all it takes to make a match feel special. You feel like you’ve seen something incredible.
Because truthfully, a lot of the rest of this didn’t quite click. Baba never seemed to be on the same page as Mio, and there were a couple of awkward sequences because of that. You obviously had the natural chemistry between Iroha and Momono to fall back on, and that’s always a good time, but the whole thing felt like what it was: a thrown-together match of people who don’t know each other that well. However, when I look back on this year of wrestling, I suspect the image of Mio suplexing Daisuke will be part of it. Not because the match was perfect, but because the moment was, and on this day, that was enough.
Jon Moxley vs Orange Cassidy, Dynamite (30/9/26), AEW
I don’t know how you do this. I mean, truthfully, I don’t know how you do any wrestling match. Sure, I can pick out what I think is good or bad about it, but actually sitting down and constructing one? And then physically acting it out? It’s witchcraft to me. To do all that days after suddenly losing a close friend is even more incredible. It was impressive that everyone on this card was able to do so, but for Mox and Orange Cassidy, opening the wrestling portion of the show after the ten-bell salute – that’s mind-blowing. I’d be a fucking mess. I was one! And I was watching at home, having never met PAC.
And I think what’s most impressive about this, when you take into account the circumstances, is the lightness. They played into Cassidy’s history with PAC while also adding a Mox spin. On a difficult day, they made people laugh, and while PAC might rightly point out that it’s their job, that’s still damn impressive. It’s no secret I don’t watch much AEW, but the way Moxley carried himself throughout this show is further proof that the man is the realest wrestler out there. He gets it. And on a day about his departed friend, he managed to be Mox while paying tribute and giving the fans exactly what they wanted. That’s a great wrestler.
It hardly needs to be said at this point, but PAC was also a great wrestler. Someone capable of doing the incredible. However, what’s always impressed me about PAC is that he also knew when not to do the incredible. He could have easily spent his career as a generational high-flyer, making that shit look better (and more painful) than anyone. Instead, he adapted. He learnt how to take that physicality and open himself up to a whole new way of approaching wrestling. There have been a load of incredible PAC clips going around, from those that show how funny he was to Black Arrows that blow your mind, but one of my favourites is from an episode of AEW Dark. In it, PAC climbs to the top rope, slowly steadying himself as the fans rise in anticipation. Then, just as they’re desperate for him to fly, he hops down, locks in a Brutalizer and wins by submission.
That’s a fucking wrestler.
I hate having to write two of these in a month. I hate how much pain a company as young as AEW has had to face. Like Butch, PAC seems to have been one of life’s good guys. Every account I hear talks of a humble, decent human being who made the people around him better. Sure, he was a Bastard, but he was a good one, and it’s still a little hard to imagine wrestling without him.
Past Rambles
Butcher vs Mark Briscoe, Rampage (18/10/24), AEW
I think it’s fairly obvious why I’ve chosen to write about this. Truthfully, I wasn’t that au fait with Andy Williams’ wrestling career. I have, however, been a huge fan of Every Time I Die since I was a teenager. I have seen them multiple times, and they were a fierce live band. Williams always stood out on that stage, a behemoth of a man who you couldn’t ignore. It’s heartbreaking that it’s only through tragedy that most of the world discovered the kindness behind that image. One of the things that has inspired me in the wake of his passing is how many recent examples of his compassion I’ve seen. There were so many messages where he’d reached out to say a few heartfelt words of encouragement or simply pass on some love. We should all do that a little bit more.
Sadly, as I said, I was not that aware of him in the ring. I remember seeing the images when he debuted with Blade and the Bunny in AEW, and thinking how cool he looked, but I never went much further than that. So, I went to his Cagematch, picked a non-pandemic singles match that I thought looked cool, and decided to give it a go.
I’m not about to try and claim this match as some lost classic. It was a warm-up bout for Briscoe ahead of a ROH Title defence with Chris Jericho. They went about ten minutes, and while it’s far from a squash, it was clearly built to highlight the then-champ. Butch, sadly, didn’t even get an entrance, as the show started with him already in the ring. However, the first thing you notice is how these two guys look. Briscoe is obvious. You could show me his shadow, and I would instantly recognise it. Butch, though, is built from a similar cloth. In a world where so many American indie wrestlers look identical, these two look like lads from your local – the type who, you hope, are always on your side. The types who could either be your best friend, or someone you desperately hope you never bump into again.
And Butch got his moments to show that off here. Sadly, the crowd were lukewarm, and even their attempt to liven things up by bringing things to the front row didn’t change that, but he knew his job. When he took control, he hit hard, launching Briscoe into the corner before sending him spinning with a lariat. It was good, simple big lad wrestling, which we’re often starved of thanks to the modern desire to always do more. Honestly, I probably should have picked a match where he was free to really toss someone around, but you still get the impression of him as a physical force. Christ, you just had to look at him to get that. The lad could hit.
In this scenario, though, he also sold well. Smartly, he didn’t always come off his feet. His job was to make Mark look good, but he made him work for it. He forced him to use two or three blows to put him down when others might have needed only one. It was good powerhouse defensive work, and while in an ideal world you maybe don’t use your big man for this job, I’m not going to start to nitpicking several-year-old booking. Certainly not now. It is what it is, and when given a task, Butch proved he could do it.
Mostly, watching this just confirmed for me that Williams was cool as fuck. He came to wrestling late, but it’s not like he would have turned up fresh. Even when you ignore the years on his body, he was in a fucking hardcore band. If you’re not aware, that is not an easy day job. Headbanging along takes a toll on your neck. Yet, he pursued this shit anyway, purely for the love of the game, and he did it to a level most people can only dream of. I’ve no idea where this match ranks in his canon, but it was enough to prove he was good in that ring. And everything I’ve read since his passing suggests he was good out of it, too.
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