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

Ice Ribbon After the Rain (23/6/24) Review

If you’d asked me at the start of the year to list the things that could help Ice Ribbon get close to filling Korakuen Hall in 2024, I would have got a few hundred deep before even considering the idea of pairing up with Stardom. It’s not that I would have doubted such a strategy’s ability to work, but with Rossy Ogawa involved, the idea seemed implausible. In recent years, Stardom and Ice Ribbon have not got along, and that’s putting it mildly. I would have been more comfortable betting on myself to win the ICExInfinity title than this relationship coming to pass. Yet, here we are. Following on from Best Friends beating Eye Contact at Flashing Champions, Mayu Iwatani stepped into a proper company to take on Tsukasa Fujimoto. By now, I’m sure you all know how it ended, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t still plenty to discuss.

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27/06/2024 0

Ice Ribbon #1337 (23/3/24) Review

After a sparsely attended Korakuen in January, Ice Ribbon returned to that famous old venue backed by what appeared to be a much healthier crowd. With the show headlined by a rare mother vs daughter battle, plus the return of the Triangle Ribbon title and a hoss pairing going after the tag belts, this had the structure of a pre-everything going wrong Ice card, which is what I want to see. Let’s see if the vibes were able to match the potential.

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29/03/2024 0

Ice Ribbon Ribbonmania (31/12/23) Review

2023 was a tough one for Ice Ribbon, as several cracks expanded into fissures. It was such a disaster that I worried we might be about to see the end of a company that I, and many others, have a lot of affection for. However, slowly but surely, things have started to turn around, and with new ownership at the top, there’s the possibility that things might be moving in the right direction. We’re a long way from the heights of a few years ago, and I have my doubts if we’ll ever get back there, but the chance to create a fun and exciting product is there if they can grasp it. What better place to start than Ribbonmania, the show that serves as both their year-ender and year-starter.

Final quick note: I never stopped watching Ice Ribbon entirely (I even went to the Korakuen in August), but I have been more out of the loop than usual, so I may be missing a few slithers of context. Let me know in the comments if I say anything egregiously stupid.

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02/01/2024 0

Ramblings About’s Matches of the Month for June 2022

CyberFest went big on the entrances. Credit: TJPW

Where do these months keep going? I swear I finish one of these bastards up and then two days later have to write another. Still, July continued what I think has been a strong year for wrestling delivering everything from exciting rookies to new champions to violent cage matches. Does that sound like your idea of a good time? Because it’s mine.

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01/07/2022 0

Ice Ribbon After The Rain (26/6/22) Review

Ice Ribbon’s latest trip to Korakuen Hall would see the ICExInfinity title find itself a new champion. With Tsukushi Haruka retaining the belt upon her retirement, the tournament to determine her successor has come down to four names: Tae Honma, Saori Anou, Ibuki Hoshi and Yuuki Mashiro. Who is going to lead Ice Ribbon into a new era? Time to find out.

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27/06/2022 1