After pulling off a successful first day of Peter Pan action, DDT were back for round two. Sadly, this one didn’t end in a boneyard, but I have no doubt that there will be plenty of nonsense for us to get our teeth into.
It feels like a million years since we’ve had a Tokyo Joshi show and my God am I glad to have them back. Few things fill me with as much joy as a couple of hours spent with TJPW, so let’s stop blathering and start watching.
March 2020 might be the month the wrestling died, but there was still a remarkable amount of the stuff despite that sad state of affairs. There was certainly more than enough to make up my monthly top ten, and if you’re looking for something to pass the time, well, I guess you better read on because that might not be the case in April.
I haven’t stopped feeling weird about Japanese companies going back to hosting live wrestling shows, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy having the Up Up Girls kick off a show. Tokyo Joshi was back in front of fans and, to celebrate, were giving us the next chapter in the feud of the year. Misgivings or not, it’s hard not to enjoy that.
The world is fucking weird at the moment and, as of today, I don’t have a job, so if you like my rambles, get ready to see a lot more of them. With that weirdness, there are suddenly a lot of people with a hella lot of time on their hands. Now, I don’t normally do listicles on this website because, well, why would I? I spent some time in the trenches of making money by writing for WhatCulture, and it ain’t much fun. However, what better way to spend all that free time than by getting into everyone’s favourite pseudo-sport, wrassling! Usually, when people try to get you into wrestling, they’ll go straight to WWE. There is a decent chance they’ll show you Mick Foley being thrown off a cage because of the wrestling fan’s innate need to prove it’s not fake. However, that’s dumb, and WWE sucks. So, I’ve decided to put together a list of matches, all of which you can watch for free, that might tempt you to fall in love with this world that gives me so much joy.
I think this is probably the most diverse match of the month list I’ve put together yet. In the past, I’ve had star ratings to work by when figuring this out and, honestly, I think that was restricting the way I did it. Now, I’m just pulling out the notebook and picking the ten that have stuck with me the most. So, welcome to a rather different, but certainly not worse, round-up of my favourites matches from last month.
Fresh off my favourite show of the year so far, Tokyo Joshi were back in the Dojo for another tournament. This time the roster was split into teams based on the colour of their attire, with wins earning two points, draws one and a loss none. The team with the most points at the end of the night would win themselves a day pass to a theme park, so that’s exciting. Will it be more hotly contested than the free meal? Time to find out.
These DDT Dojo shows have been so much fun that I’m not entirely sure they need to go back on the road. Sure, it probably wouldn’t be a great business decision, but they could figure it out, right?
With Tokyo Joshi joining DDT in having shows cancelled by the coronavirus scare, they decided to give us a wee treat in its place. A one-day tournament that aired live from the Dojo with the winner receiving dinner coupons for Genghis Khan Kirishima, hence the convoluted name. It was taking place under what I shall refer to as snappy rules which were as follows:
Two count falls for the first three rounds with five minute time limits and janken tie-breakers.
Three count falls for the semi-finals with five minute time limits and one count fall tie-breakers.
Three count fall for the final with a ten minute time limit and a one count fall tie-breaker.
Thanks, as always, to ddtpro_eng on Twitter for all the translations.
Shows packed with tag matches are the kind that I might generally breeze past without feeling the need to review, but this one was headlined by Lana Austin’s title shot, which brought a sparkle that caught my eye. Throw in a couple of other exciting developments, and out of nowhere, this became one you wouldn’t want to miss. Why? Read on to find out.