Ramblings About’s Matches of the Month for December 2022

Wait, that’s not your gimmick. Credit: TJPW

That’s a wrap! My final round-up of the month for 2022 is a bit shorter than the others, thanks to Christmas, end-of-year stuff and probably a few too many beers. Still, there were a few matches that I wanted to shout out, so there is plenty to get your teeth into anyway. Plus, if you do want more, I’ve written about my wrestlers of the year, the best of the rest matches and my match of the year, so give those a read after you’re done with this.

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01/01/2023 0

Ramblings About’s Matches of the Year 2022: The Best Of The Rest

Somehow, we’ve made it through another year, and while I think it’s safe to say all is not well in the world, the wrestling has at least been very good. 2022 was a year of change in the world of joshi, a lot of which was quite anxiety-inducing for someone who takes comfort from this nonsense, but I think we’ve come out the other end of it all with the scene in strong and (more importantly) interesting health. There have also been a lot of incredible matches, and this is my list of the ones that aren’t quite my match of the year but which, on a different day, may well be so. Enjoy!

Quick note: I sorta cheated this year and snuck an extra match in by writing about it elsewhere. The brilliant and lovely Flupke (FlupkeDiFlupke on Twitter) invited me to write about the wonderful Ice Ribbon gauntlet of gauntlets as part of his newsletter. You can find my thoughts (alongside his much better ones) on that here. Then, once you’ve read that, you should also read the rest of his end-of-year stuff, which is equally great.

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29/12/2022 1

Ramblings About’s Wrestler of the Year 2022: Mei Suruga & Pom Harajuku

Having gone back and forth for weeks over who my wrestler of the year was, I managed to whittle it down to two candidates and began the process of figuring out who would be number one. Then, having spent far too long thinking about it, I realised that this award is my own creation, which means I can do whatever I want. Therefore, for the first time ever, Ramblings About Wrestling have two wrestlers of the year, and what a pair they are. The best in the world in 2022, as decided by me, were Mei Suruga and Pom Harajuku.

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27/12/2022 1

Ramblings About’s Matches of the Month for October 2022

October is over, and with it, another month of rather good wrestling. Between Wrestle Princess, the end of the 5STAR and who knows how many smaller events going on over the last thirty-one days, I had plenty to get my teeth into, and fingers crossed that there is something here that will entice you into checking it out too. Enjoy!

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01/11/2022 0

Yuna Mizumori: Finding ChocoPro’s Identity

It’s sometimes easy to forget that when ChocoPro began, there was no feeling (at least as a fan) that this would be a long-term thing. At the time, we thought COVID would be over sooner rather than later, and Emi Sakura throwing a live show on YouTube to highlight Baliyan Akki vs Minoru Suzuki felt like a fun way to pass the day. Those first few shows had no unique identity or distinguishing features but came across as Gatoh Move without the fans and with added squats. However, as it became clear COVID wasn’t going anywhere, ChocoPro began to search for what made it unique. And while they went through a few ideas (Mei Suruga’s arts and crafts period was a personal favourite), they eventually settled on the formula that exists to this day. And the key to finding that formula? Yuna Mizumori vs Emi Sakura.

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30/09/2022 0

Lulu Pencil: Is Caring Enough?

It could have been such a beautiful thing. Credit: ChocoPro

Lulu Pencil isn’t strong, she certainly isn’t a technical genius, and she isn’t that fast. If you were to plug her stats into a wrestling game or put them on a Top Trump card, she’d be lucky to have anything sneak above a one. What she does have, though, is passion. Lulu Pencil cares more than anyone. But is caring enough?

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26/05/2021 2

Happy Birthday, ChocoPro!

The last year is a hard one to reflect upon. On the one hand, it feels like nothing has happened, and yet, at the same time, everything has. The world has twisted and turned, changing in ways that will reverberate for a long old time. In the middle of all that, we’ve all had to find things that keep us going. The stuff that makes getting through each day that little bit easier. For me, that’s been ChocoPro.

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23/03/2021 0

Baliyan Akki vs Konosuke Takeshita

One of my favourite happy/sad feelings is being stood in a music venue, watching a band I’ve seen play to ten people in a pub, ingratiate themselves to an audience a hundred times that size. Even as someone who has played little to no part in their success, it’s a moment that fills you with pride, as you watch something you’ve been a part of break out of its bubble. However, there is also a small, selfish part of yourself, that feels sad. Sad that the thing you love is about to become bigger and more successful than ever before and you’ll never again see them in those tiny venues, feet from the stage as they play directly to you. It’s a feeling similar to the one I got watching Baliyan Akki take on Konosuke Takeshita.

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09/02/2021 2

Farewell, Mitsuru

Mitsuru finding great pleasure in her bleeding hand after slapping Mei across the face.

When Gatoh Move announced that Mitsuru Konno was retiring, it was both a blow and somehow entirely unsurprising. The storyline that defined Mitsuru’s 2020 and pushed her to the MVP award in ChocoPro’s second season was built around her bizarre relationship with wrestling. On more than one occasion, she’d expressed that it wasn’t fun for her, and that what kept her going was the need to figure out what exactly it was that made the likes of Mei Suruga fall wildly in love with it.

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28/01/2021 0

Lulu Pencil’s Hat

Wrestling titles are weird. You don’t need to work to make a football league or an Olympic gold medal feel important. In a pre-determined sport, however, a title only has as much value as the people competing for it give it. It means that in some companies, they are mere props, McGuffins to build stories around, but with no real value. In others, they are everything, the backbone of what they do and the conduits to incredible moments. That feeling you get when you watch your favourite scratch and claw their way to the top, finally winning the big one, well, there are few things like it. Rarely, though, and I do accept that it’s uncommon, those titles are hats.

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20/11/2020 6