donsem43
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Everything posted by donsem43
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A bunch of weird joshi wrestling stories the last few days: - Giulia to WWE isn't surprising when you remember that her jump from Ice Ribbon to Stardom was fueled by the desire to perform on a bigger stage, so her going from wanting to be a star in Japan to being a star world-wide makes sense. I thought something was up when she dropped the World of Stardom title to Tam Nakano in April. I figured that either something was wrong with her neck forcing her to retire or Bushiroad and her couldn't come to an agreement on a contract. Then, in the summer she starts talking about wanting to work more in the U.S. Meltzer saying she wouldn't be available till March makes sense since she jumped in October so added six months and that takes you to March. - I don't know what to make of the Sareee story. She's the current Beyond the Sea champion and just beat Sendai Girls champ Mika Iwata this past weekend. At this point, her going back to WWE wouldn't be all that surprising. Sukeban is whatever it is. I've only watched the trailer and it came off as an anime version of WOW. There will probably a Between the Sheets Patreon special about it in twenty years. - Now there is the Megan Bayne is under AEW contract story that Stardom is denying. People are really keeping the porch light on for a AEW/Stardom relationship that Stardom seems to want nothing to do with. Never mind that AEW does less than nothing with TJPW. The funniest way this could end would be Bayne lying about her contract status in order to be booked by Stardom. - Oh, I almost forgot Miyu Yamashita showing up on NXT sitting right behind the announcers but making sure to wear a hat so that no one would recognize her.
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Tiffany Stratton lifted a good chunk of her gimmick, need to develop some new shtick.
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Something that might be interesting to people on this board, even if you don't follow current joshi. Arsion will make it's return for one show to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the promotion with various alumni making appearances if not working a match.
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I imagine there will be an announcement soon that she's officially a member of the Stardom roster. Rossy has stated before that he gives new wrestlers a six month probationary-like period before they sign. I'm sure the recent run of injuries, (Saya Kamitani's dislocated elbow, Utami Hayashishita's cervical hernia and now Starlight Kid's injured ankle) played a part in the decision. Stardom does have a ridiculous amount of optionality with its roster right now so it would be hard to argue with them going with most anyone on the roster.
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A lot of what Asuka is going off on happened before Kairi even had her very first match.
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"...what I told you is true, from a certain point of view." Obi-Wan Kenobi Surprised Asuka has gone this long without publicly popping off. Given how her career in Japan went there had to be times when being lumped in with the rest of joshi wrestling touched a raw nerve.
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Stardom had Kairi for a little more than a year and they didn't use her to put over any of their existing stars. It's astounding that they didn't decide to have Kamitani beat her last fall much less having her draw with Utami Hayashishita. Anyway, I hope Kairi got a nice, hefty pay raise for going back to WWE.
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Decided to take a flyer on this year's TJPW Princess Cup tournament and ended up being pleasantly surprised by the in-ring quality. It says something when a Mizuki/Miyu Yamashita match ends up being the least match in the first round that doesn't involve a comedy worker. The best match so far was the Shoko Nakajima/Suzume on the 7/16 show. Nakajima runs hot/cold for me but she's been absolutely tremendous both here and her second round match versus Rika Tatsumi. Meanwhile, Suzume is the most underrated wrestler in joshi. It amazes me how western joshi fandom fails to know she exists. She's really become a workhorse for TJPW and is starting to come off as a legit star when she's in higher profile matches. Even the matches that I would typically pass over without an honest look have been surprisingly quality stuff. Yuki Kamifuku/Nao Kakuta on the 7/17 show legit shocked me by being pretty good. Kakuta is the definition of average while Kamifuku has been terrible since the end of her International title run but they both put it together here. Kamifuku even managed to hang with Miu Watanabe in her quarter-final match. So, overall, if you have Wrestle Universe these show are worth checking out even if the TJPW presentation puts you off.
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Recommend checking out the Generation Struggle 8-Woman tag main event from today's (June 4) Stardom show. More for being a breath of fresh air after years of stilted unit based tags and just the flat out weirdness of the booking for the last couple of months. Highlights being the Giulia/Utami Hayashishita, Syuri/Suzu Suzuki, and just Maika's overall performance. Hopefully there is more stuff like this in the near future but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for it.
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Going to post some links to non-Stardom stuff that people need to check out. A lot of joshi promotions have been posting relatively recent stuff on the their YouTube channels sporadically. Takumi Iroha vs. Itsuki Aoki - Marvelous - 08/08/2022 Stardom fans pushed the idea that Mina Shirakawa was the most improved wrestler in the world, personally think she wasn't in the top 3 in joshi. In fact, Itsuki Aoki lapped her pretty easily as she went from being someone who I wasn't sure if she was suppose to be a comedy wrestler or not, to coming off as a legitimate title challenger in a main event as she was here. Of course, it helps that she maxed out the level of stiffness for her strikes but she as managed to harness her natural charisma to carry herself in such a way that she comes off as a big time threat. Someone to keep an eye on for sure even if she's hard to track because she bounces between so many promotions. Hanako Nakamori vs. Hikari Shimizu - WAVE - 05/29/2022 I've been a big Shimizu fan for a while and was a bit disappointed that she didn't get a profile boost after a strong performance against AZM in their High Speed title match at the last Stardom Sumo Hall show. She has the potential to be a KAIRI type of star who can draw fans into matches through her personality. Most Nakamori performances are forgettable but every once in a while you'll get a top tier performance like the one here.
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Given who the new owners are, I wouldn't be surprised if they try to wrangle more money out of foreign governments. Now is the time to do it because with government restrictions for international travel disappearing, countries that had sizable tourism before the pandemic are going to be eager to run big events like WWE to use as advertising. You're basically taking the old 'sold show' concept from the territories and running it on a global scale. Hopefully they're learn some lessons from dealing with the Saudis. I'd be interested in see how much they charged for tickets compared to how much the same tickets would be in the U.S. That might be one of the main reasons they've stayed away from that market. If other entertainment options in the area are relatively cheap, then they might not have been able to find a price point that would make it worth it. -
I'm not accusing Rossy and/or Bushiroad of blatant racism. The point I was trying to make is that it's funny to me that you're running a show at one of the biggest areas in Japan, which can't be cheap, that you justify not booking a wrestler because you need to keep costs down. It also just a coincidence that said wrestler doesn't look like a lot of the foreign wrestlers that the company books. I don't know, operating for 12+ years (2.5 under Bushiroad ownership) and booking 40ish (a very rough estimate) foreign wrestlers is "too early to draw conclusions" then when is? 35 years and 120 wrestlers?
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Bushiroad probably had the money when they thought they were getting Mandy Rose, but then they found out it was Naomi and suddenly they need to keep costs down. Honestly, go count how many dark skinned women Stardom has booked over the years then compare that to the number of blonde white women. Since the news broke that Mercedes was signing with Bushiroad, Stardom has brought in three white women, two of them blonde.
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The back half of this year's Catch the WAVE tournament was tremendous! All of the the block matches from the 7/1 and 7/3 shows, plus the final on 7/17, are well worth the time to watch. The true standouts were the Suzu Suzuki vs. Haruka Umesaki, Nagisa Nozaki vs. SAKI (my new personal joshi MOTY,) and the final of Suzu Suzuki vs. Miyuki Takase. Unfortunately, Nozaki blew out her knee applying a gogoplata in her last block match with SAKI so not only did she miss the final versus Suzu Suzuki but will probably be out for at least the next year. Sad news for arguably the most underrated wrestler in joshi.
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So I've finished up watching everything that I'm probably going to bother to watch from the first half of this year in joshi wrestling. It's been kinda of a disappointing year on the whole considering how the previous two years exceeded expectations with pandemic restrictions and shut downs while the number of higher quality matches happening has felt more spare with there being more shows run. Stardom had some great stuff but when you consider the talent depth that they have now, plus the number of big shows that they run, I can't help but feel they were capable of more. TJPW got off to a strong start but has been booking more matches based on star power rather than in-ring quality in an attempt to draw better as capacity limits are gradually being lifted. Sendai Girls has had a strong, consistent quality but it feels like they've been holding off on big matches until it is worth running bigger buildings so I'm expecting an even better second half of the year from them, which would be something. The rest of joshi wrestling has been pretty baron for high-end matches. Hopefully, this picks up in the second half of the year. Anyway, here is my top 10 for the year with the full list linked in my signature. Tam Nakano vs. Natsupoi - Stardom - June 28 Syuri vs. MIRAI - Stardom - January 29 Hikari Noa vs. Maki Itoh - TJPW - January 4 AZM vs. Koguma - Stardom - May 8 Saya Kamitani vs. MIRAI - Stardom - May 28 Chihiro Hashimoto & Yuu vs. Mika Iwata & Miyuki Takase - Sendai Girls - June 16 Tsukushi Haruka vs. Ibuki Hoshi - Ice Ribbon - January 16 Chihiro Hashimoto & Yuu vs. DASH Chisako & Hiroyo Matsumoto - Sendai Girls - February 27 Hanako Nakamori &Arisa Nakajima vs. Rina Yamashita & Miyuki Takase - PURE J - March 20 Chihiro Hashimoto & Yuu vs. Mika Iwata & Manami - Sendai Girls - February 20
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Recommend watching the Stardom show from this weekend if only to see the "cage" that Stardom uses for their cage matches. Think of the one from the Lawler/Savage in mid-80's Memphis.
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Outrageous real-life heeling it up
donsem43 replied to JerryvonKramer's topic in Pro Wrestling Mostly
Pro wrestling style build to the Angels/Mariners bench clearing brawl on Sunday. (Age restricted due to a Costco case-sized amount of f-bombs.) -
Catching up on Stardom, the 5/28 show was one of the best top to bottom big show that they have done. Saya Kamitani vs. MIRAI was fantastic. Kamitani's best title defense and continues MIRAI's miracle run of strong performances this year. Really enjoyed Syuri vs. Risa Sera as well, even if it could have been better with a hot, vocal crowd and some blood. Before I forget, make sure to check out the High Speed title match from the 5/8 show. Super under the radar match. Koguma's best performance since she came back and also one of AZM's best of her career. As far as the two cage matches, I'm expecting a wild spotfest with STARS vs. Queens Quest, while I don't know what to expect from Tam Nakano vs. Natsupoi. Highly doubt Bushiroad would allow blading and neither of them have show any worthwhile brawling skills so who knows what they are going to do.
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The Korakuen Hall 60th Anniversary Joshi Show was pretty entertaining, mostly for having different women either team up or match up with others that they had never worked with before. Only match one might want to go out of the way to see is 200kg (Chihiro Hashimoto & Yuu) vs. Stardom's MIRAI & Ice Ribbon's Maika Ozaki. Super fun heavyweight style match with lots of power moves. Especially surprised at Hashimoto giving a far bit to MIRAI (who was arguably the most over woman on the show,) not just for the fact that they work for different companies but also considering how little experience (less than 3 years) that MIRAI has. There was a confrontation between Hashimoto and Syuri after the match so maybe this was planting seeds for a Sendai Girls/God's Eye feud in the future.
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Finished watching last weekend's Stardom show that wrapped up the early rounds of this year's Cinderella tournament. Booking of this year's tournament has been bland. Nobody has gone on a true underdog run in this tournament even with the large field and the over the top rule making it easy to book upsets. While the four that made it to the semis aren't main-event regulars, they all come off as lucky due to draws that ended up taking out almost all of the top contenders. It doesn't help that for the second straight year, there is a World title match (Syuri vs. Hemika) that is going to overshadow the finals. With that being said, all of the four remaining would be interesting winners. Koguma has never challenged for either of Stardom's top two titles. Hazuki is slowly but surely regaining the form she had before she left in 2019 (I didn't buy into the "HAZUKI IS BACK!" Rehtoric after her match with Utami Hayashishita.) Natsupoi has never had a World title shot. While MIRAI is just coming off challenging in January, she's gotten extremely over very quickly and Rossy has a history of not being afraid of pushing someone earlier than expected. One other thing about the last Stardom show was the crowd. Even though everyone in the crowd was wearing masks, the building was packed. No spacing in the seating, capacity limits seemed only to be a technicality. While there was no active cheering for anyone, there was audible laughing at comedy spots. It was the closest thing to a pre-COVID show since early 2020. It certainly added to the show.
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Night 1 was a solid show but Night 2 had clearly better matches. Utami Hayashishita vs. MIRAI, Momo Watanabe vs. Hazuki, KAIRI vs. Starlight Kid, & Syuri vs. Mayu Iwatani were all just as good or better than the best match of Night 1, Momo/SLK vs. Hazuki/Koguma tag title match. Honestly, These big Stardom shows have become like Marvel movies in that they have a consistent quality to them, well maybe not as processed, mainly cause they don't veer too far off the path that they've created. Although, it's harder to get excited for them cause you know what to expect. It will be interesting to see what happens with KAIRI from here. I assume that she is going to be around for at least a couple of years so how do they go about booking her? Does she challenge Saya Kamitani right away for the Wonder of Stardom? Does she win the 5*GP and challenge Kamitani then or challenge Syuri for the World title? Does she join an existing unit or form her own, although with Syuri starting a unit would give Stardom seven total which seems a bit much? Whatever the case will be, I hope they do more than what they did with Hazuki when she return. Hazuki cut a bunch of interesting promos teasing a homegrown vs. outsiders feud but that ended up going nowhere. Also, one thing the people don't bring up with Stardom's growth is the number of sponsors that they are getting now. I don't know how big of companies they are but they are definitely an improvement over Soft On Demand.
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Comments that don't warrant a thread - Part 4
donsem43 replied to TravJ1979's topic in Pro Wrestling
So do they just have rights to the commercial releases? Pretty sure AJW didn't release comm versions of full shows before '89 and after '98. Not belittling this, just wanting to keep my expectations muted. -
Watched the TJPW Grand Princess show from last weekend. Overall, it was a solid show focus more on celebrating the promotion and the accomplishment of running a show at Sumo Hall. The main event for the Princess of Princesses title between Miyu Yamashita and Shoko Nakajima got off to a slow start seemingly because of Nakajima taking a shot to her ribs or side. Once she gets past that the match really picks ups with the finishing stretch being tremendous. Definitely something worth checking out. If you haven't watched TJPW lately and are looking for an easy sample without signing up for Wrestle Universe, they posted the top two matches from this year's 1/4 show: Hikari Noa vs. Maki Itoh - International Princess title Miyu Yamashita vs. Mizuki - Princess of Princesses
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If you haven't checked it out yet, GAEA's YouTube channel has been uploading stuff at a fairly regular rate. The uploading was scattershot at first but they've seemed to settled into a regular chronological order now. At the moment they are in the middle of 1998 so they should be up to Lioness Asuka showing up to kick off the well known GAEA/SSU feud. Unfortunately it only looks like the footage they kept was what was used for either TV or comm tapes, so there is a fair number of matches that are joined in progress or clipped. Also, this channel here has older joshi from various companies and eras. A far bit of it is matches that either haven't been uploaded or have been taken down elsewhere.
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If anyone is interested, I started a new match list for this year. I've really enjoyed Sendai Girls this year and TJPW has been good. Found Stardom to be underwhelming for the most part.
