Mei Suruga vs Miya Yotsuba, It’s Timeee (18/7/25), ChocoPro

It’s quite the upgrade. Credit: Screenshot

Conventional wisdom dictates that we all eventually morph into our parents. It doesn’t matter how different a road you might walk down, nature or nurture will lead you back to the door you were born behind. That certainly seems true for Mei Suruga. The deeper into her career Mei gets, the more Emi Sakura creeps into her game. We’ve seen it with her bullying of youngsters in Ichigaya, and now we get the joy of watching her go in as the dominant champion against a wrestler she trained. Miya Yotsuba was Mei’s first student to debut, and while she perhaps doesn’t feel like she’s walking in Mei’s footsteps (more on that in a second), she was desperate to prove herself the equal of her teacher.

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Ramblings About’s Matches of the Months for June 2025

The biggest match of the month, Hyper Misao vs imposter syndrome. Credit: TJPW

After a couple of months where I’ve struggled to put one of these together for various reasons, I feel like I got back into the groove in June. It’s been something of a return to safe ground, as I’m touching on a lot of TJPW, ChocoPro and Marvelous, but there are a couple of other things in there, and I just needed to find my spark again. Fingers crossed you enjoy it, and if you’ve got any cool recommendations that I missed, feel free to let me know!

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Ramblings About’s Matches of the Month for May 2025

The bee and the chappy. Credit: TJPW

For the second month in a row, I’ve left a whole bunch of matches I would have loved to write about on the table. That’s partly because I was still incredibly busy at the start of May, so I’m working my way through my backlog, and partly because my brain hasn’t been playing fair recently, and I’ve been struggling to do, well, anything. However, I did manage to get a few words down, so hopefully, there’s something here to enjoy! Fingers crossed that normal service will be resumed next month.

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Miya Yotsuba vs Emi Sakura, ChocoPro 400 Day 1 (4/10/24) Review

She won’t be bullied. Credit: Screenshot

Recently, after friend-of-the-site Flupke shared some GIFs on Twitter, I came to the realisation that Miya Yotsuba feels less like a product of Mei Suruga and more like one of Mitsuru Konno. If Mitsuru had kept wrestling, taking up her position as Gatoh Move’s ace and working in Darejyo, you could imagine her producing a Yotsuba – a wrestler who still has that Gatoh spirit but is also aggressive and ambitious. Mei and Mitsuru’s big ChocoPro feud, one of the final things Konno did in wrestling, was built around their differing ideologies, Mei’s fun vs Mitsuru’s drive. It’s funny then that Suruga’s first student would come to reflect Konno’s way of thinking as much (if not more) than she does Mei’s.

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Gatoh Move – To The Future

It’s a good gang. Credit: Screenshot

Gatoh Move probably shouldn’t have survived the last five years. When COVID shut down wrestling in Japan as we knew it, things looked bleak for even the big promotions, never mind the tiny one that inhabits an old dentist’s in Ichigaya. Emi Sakura has admitted that she thought it was the end, and honestly, with the world seemingly burning down, would anyone have blamed her for giving up? Thankfully, she’s made of tougher stuff. Instead of curling up in a ball, she took a wild swing, calling on an old friend in Minoru Suzuki and putting on a show intended entirely for YouTube. On that day, ChocoPro was born, and while we didn’t know it yet, Gatoh Move was saved.

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Gatoh Move Road to Korakuen – MAKE@IKUSA (19/6/24) Review

Mei meets a fellow menace. Credit: Screenshot

The build to Korakuen Hall continued as Gatoh Move once again stopped by Shinkiba for a show with all the potential in the world. We now know our main event for Gatoh’s biggest event in years, as Mei Suruga will take on Emi Sakura, but with the boss having returned to America, she’s deputised one of her oldest friends to step in and put her trainee through her paces. Kaori Yoneyama vs Mei Suruga? Yes, please.

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Gatoh Move ‘Road to Korakuen – Apple Ambitious’ (30/5/24) Review

It’s a weird, but brilliant, gang. Credit: Screenshot

That Gatoh Move trip to Korakuen Hall is drawing ever closer, meaning this show served a double purpose. The first is the same as every Gatoh Move event this year, as they pave the road to that big day. As for the second? Well, the Apple Goblin has been wrestling for six glorious years, and it’s time to give her some dues. Not that she was blessed with an easy anniversary showdown, as Best Bros took on Hyakkin Thunders in the main event. Still, if you want to reach the top, you’ve got to deal with the best, and Emi and Masa are certainly that. Let’s see what went down.

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Ramblings About’s Matches of the Month for March 2024

Cheerio to a legend. Credit: AEW

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!

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Gatoh Move ‘Road to Korakuen – Sakura Days’ (13/3/24) Review

The roster is getting bigger. Credit: Screenshot

The Gatoh Move roster has set their feet on the road to Korakuen Hall, a show that isn’t happening until August but has a lot of tickets to shift. To start that journey, we’ve got Mizuki popping into her old stomping ground to say hello, a new rookie making her debut and a main event in which three teams will try to take Best Bros’ tag titles from them. Will someone succeed? Let’s find out!

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Ramblings About’s Matches of the Month for August 2023

Unleash the violence. Credit: Here

August is a slightly different month for my Ramblings About roundup. Since the 18th, I’ve been in Japan, so the second half of this list is entirely made up of matches I’ve seen in person. Seeing something live alters how you view it, and if you’re looking for in-depth analysis over more feeling-based yelling, you might want to go elsewhere. However, I’ve been having a lovely old time, and I still hope there is some value in what I have to say.

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