Ramblings About’s Matches of the Year 2025: The Best of the Rest

Miu’s swings are a reliable source of good photos. Credit: TJPW

It’s that time of year again, and we kick things off with my best of the rest. These are the matches that aren’t quite my favourite of the year, but if you got me on a different day, they could be. As always, they’re listed in chronological order, and there are a bunch of others that could have made this list (including one that I already wrote about). If you’re feeling the burning need to inform me I’m wrong about something on this list, please don’t bother – it’s not worth either of our time. However, if you’ve got some cool recommendations, I’m always intrigued to hear them.

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26/12/2025 0

Ramblings About’s Matches of the Month for September 2025

It’s a quieter roundup this month, not because of a lack of good wrestling, but because I haven’t had a chance to watch a lot of it. There’s no big, dramatic reason for that, I’ve just been a bit busy. Fingers crossed, I’ll be able to check out a bit more in October. However, I have decided to add a permanent ‘Past Rambles’ section, which gives me a chance to focus on matches that I’ve watched from, well, the past. It makes its debut here with a WCW Women’s Cruiserweight Title match from 1997. So hopefully you enjoy that!

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01/10/2025 0

Ramblings About’s Matches of the Month for August 2025

Endo runs the Miyu gauntlet. Credit: TJPW

Despite heading down to London for a weekend to watch the stuff (don’t expect any writing about that, much beer was drunk), I feel like I didn’t watch as much wrestling as usual in August. There is no grand reason for that. I just never quite got around to a bunch of shows that I’m sure I’ll catch up with eventually. All the same, there were a few matches that I enjoyed. They’re mostly hailing from my usual places, but hey, it’s not like anyone is coming here expecting anything different.

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01/09/2025 0

Marvelous (8/8/25) Review

Sareee looks very confused. Credit: Here

The 8th of August is a special day in Marvelous canon, as it’s when Chigusa Nagayo debuted as a wrestler. In recent years, it has been reserved for Korakuen, and with the feud with Marigold only getting hotter, the roster was out to defend their honour on the anniversary of the start of their boss’s career. Let’s see if they did a good job.

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11/08/2025 1

Ramblings About’s Matches of the Month for July 2025

A photo that tells you everything you need to know about Rika Tatsumi. Credit: TJPW

I had another busy month in July, but unlike the last couple of times that’s happened, this was almost entirely for fun reasons. There was a Japanese exam at the start, but the rest was music festivals and seeing some of my favourite people, so I didn’t have much time to devote to wrestling. Despite that, I think I managed to watch a respectable amount! It’s all fairly on brand, as I didn’t stray too far outside of my usual promotions, but they’re my go-to places for a reason. They’re great.

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01/08/2025 0

Magenta (Maria & Riko Kawahata) vs Takumi Iroha & Ai Houzan, Marvelous (31/5/25)

Tommy was not impressed. Credit: Screenshot

In many ways, the heel turn is the easy bit. You throw a tag team partner through a window, whack someone with a chair or shave off your eyebrows and don some black leather. It’s what comes next that most people struggle with. Especially if, like Maria and Riko Kawahata, you’ve spent most of your career working as an underdog babyface. Suddenly, you’re having to readjust everything you do in the ring, switching to being the one in control and setting other people up for the flurries that you once benefited from. It’s understandable that it would take a while to put that shtick together, but this match, on the typically light-hearted Marvelous tour of Hokkaido, might be the best example of Magenta doing so yet.

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09/06/2025 1

Marvelous 9th Anniversary (5/5/25) Ramblings

I hate reviewing one-day tournaments. The nature of the beast is that you end up with a bunch of short, simple matches that don’t necessarily lend themselves to my usual ramblings. I could, of course, cut it all back, but I don’t really see the point. Writing a 100 words that don’t say anything isn’t quite as mind-numbingly stupid as describing a match move-for-move, but it’s equally valueless. However, there was still stuff I wanted to talk about on this show, so I’m not going to skip it entirely. Instead of the usual shtick, here’s some semi-organised ramblings about Marvelous’s latest trip to Korakuen.

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09/05/2025 2

Ramblings About’s Matches of the Month for March 2025

I thought I hadn’t watched that much wrestling this month, but the length of this list would suggest otherwise. Maybe I was only tuning into the good stuff? It also nips to a few of my less-visited locales, as we stop off in America, Mexico and Germany alongside all the usual Japanese nonsense. Does that sound like a good time? I certainly hope so.

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01/04/2025 0

Ramblings About’s Matches of the Months for January 2025

Arai booting 2025 into life. Credit: TJPW

We’re back for Ramblings Abouts’ first matches of the month for 2025. I apologise for missing a few of these towards the end of last year, but I had some personal shit that took up a lot of my brain space, and I’m sure the two of you who read this didn’t even notice. However, I am back for 2025 and planning to watch far too much of this dumb stuff while also complaining that I didn’t get to see everything I wanted to. Multiple big hitters are missing from this list because I haven’t had a chance to watch them yet, but that doesn’t mean what I have seen loses any value. They’re all great matches, which I recommend going out of your way to see. And if you have any recommendations, stick them in the comments below!

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01/02/2025 0

Ai Houzan vs Senka Akatsuki, Marvelous (12/1/25), Marvelous

I can’t deal with sad Ai. Credit: Screenshot

After they battled to a time-limit draw on January 4th, Marvelous announced that this rematch between Ai Houzan and Senka Akatzuki would be under AJW shoot-pin rules. If you watch any old AJW rookie match (and a few involving more experienced heads), you’ll see the wrestlers properly grappling to get each other’s shoulders down for the three, and my understanding (although I’m far from the expert on this) is that’s because they were. They’re still wrestling (Ai started this match with a dropkick attempt), but there’s a touch of real competition in there.

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12/01/2025 3