Rambles about the wonderful world of wrestling.
Confession time. I was determined going into 2025 to watch more Ice Ribbon, but, as is often the case, I failed. Time, money and all those other boring things got in the way. However, with Ribbonmania closing out the year, I decided to pop back in, see what was going down and have a ramble about it. With that in mind, I apologise if I’m missing any context here. I’m sure there’s someone else out there who can fill in the gaps.
Continue reading “Ice Ribbon Ribbonmania (31/12/25) Review”
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!
Continue reading “Ramblings About’s Matches of the Month for September 2025”
It doesn’t matter if the month is long or short – I always get to the end of it feeling like there are at least twenty matches I haven’t got to yet. Despite that, I think February’s ramble has a nice selection of gems to get excited about. There’s all the usual stuff (Ice Ribbon, ChocoPro and TJPW), but also a bit more lucha, a touch of New Japan and a trip over to Evolution, who are becoming one of my favourite promotions outside of my typical fare to keep up with. Hopefully, there is something there that you’ll enjoy, and if you think I’m missing anything particularly exciting, drop it in the comments.
Continue reading “Ramblings About’s Matches of the Month for February 2025”
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!
Continue reading “Ramblings About’s Matches of the Months for January 2025”
Getting back into Ice Ribbon is one of my wrestling goals for 2025, and one of the early joys of that has been watching more Bad Butts. I would never have conceived the idea of Yappy embracing her dark side because it seems to be the antithesis of her lovely public persona, but Ancham and her have got something with this pairing. They’re managing to be cool while retaining enough of a bumbling, heelish nature that they never slip into the tired trope of bad guys who are desperate to be cheered. Plus, on an Ice roster full of plucky young underdogs, having two experienced bullies to go after them will never be a bad thing.
Continue reading “Yappy vs Ancham, New Ice Ribbon #1395 (18/1/25), Ice Ribbon”
June is over and done with, and like every month, it’s been busy for the old wrestling. I can’t pretend this month’s roundup is particularly eclectic, as I’m staying fairly close to my usual haunts, but there is still plenty to enjoy in there. Give it a read, and let me know if there is anything you think I need to see.
Continue reading “Rambling About’s Matches of the Month for June 2024”
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.
Continue reading “Ice Ribbon After the Rain (23/6/24) Review”
Watching this match, I couldn’t shut up the nagging question in the back of my mind: ‘Why don’t I love it?’ Two of the best joshi tag teams of recent years got fifteen minutes to clash heads in Shinjuku, and I wanted it to be incredible. Instead, it was good, maybe even great. While those descriptors typically aren’t an issue, they’re not what I pictured. Is it fair to expect the extraordinary? No, but I can’t pretend I didn’t.
Continue reading “Team 200kg (Chihiro Hashimoto & Yuu) vs Best Friends (Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto), Sendai Girls (9/6/24) Review”
Somehow, March is over and done with, making it time for another roundup of my favourite matches from the past thirty-one days. We’re entering the busy portion of my working year, so I haven’t seen everything I would have liked, and a show like Grand Princess happened a touch too late for it to make the list (although, keep an eye on the site for a full review), but there is still plenty to get your teeth into. Enjoy!
Continue reading “Ramblings About’s Matches of the Month for March 2024”
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.
Continue reading “Ice Ribbon #1337 (23/3/24) Review”
Ramblings About Wrestling 