The older I get and the more comfortable I become in my opinions, the more I realise how little appeal your big, main-event style matches have for me. That’s not to say they can’t be great and that there isn’t catharsis in those moments, but it’s not the stuff I naturally gravitate towards. My eye is much more likely to be caught by intrigue like this. A rookie (who has less than ten matches under their belt) vs the best wrestler in the world who, before the show, was openly relishing in the idea of being booed for bullying her.
Continue reading “Mio Momono vs Senka Akatsuki, Marvelous (22/11/24) Review”Mei Suruga vs Sayaka, ChocoPro 400 Day 2 (5/10/24) Review
Mei’s second title defence was the real test of her reign. Wrestling Miyuki Takase is easy. She rarely dips below a certain level and, with it taking place in a ring, you know what that match will look like. That’s not to suggest it wasn’t good or exciting – it was – but there was a comfort level there. Arguably, wrestling Sayaka in Ichigaya should be similar. It’s their home, and most of the sixty-plus times they’ve faced off before have taken place there. However, with that belt on the line, things change. We’ve never seen Sayaka in a high-profile one-on-one match before, and it’s always intriguing to see how someone adapts to that pressure.
Continue reading “Mei Suruga vs Sayaka, ChocoPro 400 Day 2 (5/10/24) Review”Miya Yotsuba vs Emi Sakura, ChocoPro 400 Day 1 (4/10/24) Review
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.
Continue reading “Miya Yotsuba vs Emi Sakura, ChocoPro 400 Day 1 (4/10/24) Review”Ramblings About’s Matches of the Month for September 2024
September’s matches of the month is one of the more diverse selections I’ve put together recently. We’ve got everything from rookies doing their pro-test to mask matches in Arena Mexico. There is even one match that happened in August! I never claim these things are definitive, but I would like to imagine this one has something for everyone, and hopefully, you’ll discover at least one match you haven’t seen. Enjoy!
Continue reading “Ramblings About’s Matches of the Month for September 2024”TJPW Wrestle Princess 5 (22/9/24) Review
I know it’s how time works, but I’m still unsure how a year has passed since Miyu Yamashita defeated Mizuki for the Princess of Princess title at Wrestle Princess 4. Yet, somehow, here we are, Wrestle Princess 5. Neither Yamashita nor Mizuki were in the main event, as the shining new face of Miu Watanabe looked to defend her title from outsider and Princess Cup holder, Ryo Mizunami. Elsewhere, Tokyo Joshi’s favourite god and ghost married couple go head-to-head, Pom has got some big pals, and Daisy Monkey’s title reign faces its biggest threat yet. Sounds like a good day, right? Let’s find out if it was.
Continue reading “TJPW Wrestle Princess 5 (22/9/24) Review”Mio Momono’s Glorious Failure

Yes, I’m going to talk about Mio Momono again. No, I won’t apologise about it. If any other wrestlers ever get that good, I promise to go on about them incessantly, too.
I’m sad to admit it, but Mio is making glorious failure her trademark. Even when she succeeds, it’s inevitably followed by a crushing fall. As a fan of the Scottish football team, it’s all painfully familiar, and as I’ve firmly attached myself to the Momono express, I feel like I’ve cursed myself to spend even more time with my head in my hands dreaming about what could have been. I can’t help it. Mio makes me care, and it doesn’t matter if I try to sit back to watch from a position of detached cool – she always succeeds at drawing me in.
Continue reading “Mio Momono’s Glorious Failure”Gatoh Move – To The Future

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.
Continue reading “Gatoh Move – To The Future”Unagi Sayaka & Minoru Suzuki vs Jun Kasai & Minoru Fujita, Unagi Sayaka Produce Show (2/9/24) Review
The main event of Unagi Sayaka’s latest produce show was a flawed affair. It didn’t need the twenty-six minutes it was handed, which meant there was an abundance of filler as everyone wandered around trying to fill space. However, what it got right, it got really right. When you’ve got Minoru Suzuki and Unagi dripping blood all over the place, the Eel’s blonde hair turning red while Suzuki had streaks of it running down his chest, you can get away with a few flaws.
Continue reading “Unagi Sayaka & Minoru Suzuki vs Jun Kasai & Minoru Fujita, Unagi Sayaka Produce Show (2/9/24) Review”Ramblings About’s Matches of the Month for August 2024
August saw me attend some wrestling live as I put myself through the nightmare that was an MJF vs Will Ospreay match to see AEW at Wembley, alongside a wee jaunt to RevPro and EVE. More on that later. It was also another relatively busy month for me, so I haven’t quite hit everything I would have liked to see, but that’s just how it goes. There’s still plenty of good wrestling to enjoy!
Continue reading “Ramblings About’s Matches of the Month for August 2024”Best Friends (Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto) vs Hiroyo Matsumoto & Hanako Nakamori, Arisa Nakajima’s Retirement (23/8/24), SEAdLINNNG

A couple of years back, I had some minor surgery that required me to be anaesthetised. As you’d imagine, I can’t remember the moment of going under, but I do have a memory of the dream I was having as I woke up. In it, I was being hunted. I can’t recall why, but I do know who was doing the hunting. Arisa Nakajima. While I don’t believe Nakajima typically spends her spare time chasing down fellow humans, I think the fact she found her way into my nightmares speaks to part of what made her such an outstanding wrestler. She felt real. She’s so real that whenever I saw her outside of the ring cracking a smile or doing everyday tasks, it caught me off guard. In my head, Arisa is a killer. Someone devoted to the style of wrestling she believes in, and the idea that she’d ever not be in that zone almost never occurred to me.
Continue reading “Best Friends (Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto) vs Hiroyo Matsumoto & Hanako Nakamori, Arisa Nakajima’s Retirement (23/8/24), SEAdLINNNG”







