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donsem43

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Everything posted by donsem43

  1. donsem43
    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
  2. donsem43
    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.
  3. donsem43
    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.)
  4. donsem43
    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.
  5. donsem43
    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.
  6. donsem43
    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.
  7. donsem43
    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.
  8. donsem43
    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.
  9. donsem43
    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
  10. donsem43
    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.
  11. donsem43
    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.
  12. donsem43
    I'm biased but she should return to Stardom. It's a buyer's market with a flood of new people in AEW so unless they give her a dollar number that makes it worth it to her she'd be better off waiting till they need fresh talent. Plus, Stardom has a growing profile in the West that will keep her name out there. Not to mention that it would probably a great way to clear her head and refocus her career (and stay off of social media to.)
  13. donsem43
    Of course I post that then go watch the 11/28 Ice Ribbon show and the Tsukushi Haruka vs. Suzu Suzuki main event ends up being absolutely amazing. Definitely must watch stuff, even if you've been very down on Ice Ribbon lately like I have. Edit: Link to the match here
  14. donsem43
    Updated my recommended list for this year. Pretty much caught up other than today's Stardom show and the last big Ice Ribbon show. Not a lot of change at the top of the list but it's up to 49 matches total, which is really good considering the limitations from the pandemic. 1. Utami Hayashishita vs. Syuri - Stardom - June 12 2. Chihiro Hashimoto vs. Mio Momono - Sendai Girls - July 11 3. Utami Hayashishita vs. Maika - Stardom - July 31 4. Chihiro Hashimoto, DASH Chisako & Mika Iwata vs. Mio Momono, Rin Kadokura & Mei Hoshizuki - GAEA - June 13 5. Mio Momono & Rin Kadokura vs. Mika Iwata & Manami - Sendai Girls - September 20 6. Sakura Hirota vs. Miyuki Takase vs. Mio Momono - WAVE - June 29 7. Mio Momono & Rin Kadokura vs. Chihiro Hashimoto & Mika Iwata - Marvelous - May 19 8. Bea Priestly & Konami vs. Hemika & Maika - Stardom - February 14 9. Tae Honma & Maika Ozaki vs. Kakeru Sekiguchi & Miku Aono - Actwres girl'Z - February 11 10. Tam Nakano vs. Starlight Kid - Stardom - July 21
  15. donsem43
    If anyone is interested, I started a list for the best matches in joshi for 2021. I'm pretty much caught up to the Stardom 5*GP and have started watching the TJPW Princess Cup so it kind of up to date. Here's my top 10 for quick reference: Utami Hayashishita vs. Syuri - Stardom - June 12 Chihiro Hashimoto vs. Mio Momono - Sendai Girls - July 11 Chihiro Hashimoto, DASH Chisako & Mika Iwata vs. Mio Momono, Rin Kadokura & Mei Hoshizuki - GAEA - June 13 Bea Priestly & Konami vs. Hemika & Maika - Stardom - February 14 Tae Honma & Maika Ozaki vs. Kakeru Sekiguchi & Miku Aono - Actwres girl'Z - February 11 Tam Nakano vs. Starlight Kid - Stardom - July 21 Tae Honma & Maika Ozaki vs. Hikari Shimizu & Mari - Actwres girl'Z - April 4 Miyu Yamashita vs. Maki Itoh - TJPW - January 4 Tae Honma & Maika Ozaki vs. Momo Tani & Makoto - Actwres girl'Z - April 13 DASH Chisako & Mika Iwata vs. Rin Kadokura & Mio Momono - Sendai Girls - February 23
  16. donsem43
    Personally, this match is Hyuga's best vs Kayoko Haruyama on 4/29/08. Worth checking out the main event of the 5/15/05 JWP show is worth checking out as Hyuga works a more methodical match against Kaoru Ito.
  17. donsem43
    Utami vs. Syuri from the Stardom Cinderella show is the modern Devil vs. Chigusa.
  18. donsem43

    Pantera Surena

    donsem43 replied to Grimmas's topic in Nominees

    Isn't part of the reason for a lack of footage is that there was a ban on women's wrestling in Mexico City that didn't end till the mid-80's? Personally, my favourite is the WWWA/UWA unification match on 9/17/84. This version does have hilariously bad (and subtly racist) English commentary but it is less clipped than the version from the last run of AJW Classics. The only real underwhelming match they had was the hair/mask match.
  19. donsem43
    Way hyped up for the GAEAism show happening on 6/13! It has been built entirely around an interpromotional angle between Sendai Girls and Marvelous and has a very 90's feel to it as you feel like there is actual hate between the two groups. The line up doesn't have anything that jumps out as a potential MOTY but the booking has been so good in the build up that you want to watch the show just to see where everything goes, which is something that is becoming exceedingly rare in modern wrestling. I really encourage everybody to go check out the highlight videos on Sendai Girls' and Marvelous' YouTube channels to catchup on the build to the show.
  20. donsem43
    This is for the WWWD tag titles with the 2AW team of 3A (Sasamura & Shingaki) challenging the champs Luminous. Outside of Best Friends matches, tag wrestling in joshi has been fairly lackluster the last couple of years but this felt like a much needed bright spot. Both Takase and Sasamura were terrific, as you would expect, but both of their junior partners hold up their ends at least. Shingaki, especially, looked good here with her arm work on both opponents. It's nice to see at least some Diana shows start to pop up because you get to see hidden gems like this. ****¼
  21. donsem43
    This was just tremendous! The match worked off the build as it truly felt like a "put up or shut up" moment for Ito. In the end, she came off as someone who is believably tough as opposed to being a gimmicky meme wrestler. Yamashita put in a career best performance here, which was great to see as she had pretty much been coasting for the last while. Would say that this is the best match in TJPW history. ****¼
  22. donsem43
    This was my kind of match. Really enjoyed how it mostly built out of Maika's early arm work and Utami going after the back. You could conceivably say that Maika lost because she stopped going after Utami's arm. They also mostly avoid falling into the typical Japanese main event troupes which was a bit refreshing. ****¼
  23. donsem43
    Kinda weird seeing Satomura go up against a big power wrestler who as happens to be a peer. This gets off to a hot start with them both getting right into each others faces but Meiko gets too aggressive allowing Genki to catch her and press slam her to the floor with no one there to catch her. Most of this match has neither of them not giving the other much room to breathe, if one of them does back off even a little bit she ends up paying for it. The finishing run is a bit more standard than the rest of the match although the actual finish is great with Satomura knocking Genki down to one knee allowing Meiko to hit a sudden Scorpion Rising for the win. I wish these two had a rematch that was the main event of a big show because that could have been something special but this is still a great slugfest on its own. ****
  24. donsem43
    This is the final of a tournament to crown the first ever Actwres girl'Z tag champions that has been ran on various shows the previous few months. SPiCEAP (Honma & Ozaki) have teamed semi-regularly for the last few years and seem to get better each time out with this match here being a true top tier performance. Sekiguchi and Aono do quite a job holding up their end, neither of them is a real standout but they have manage to form a quality team together. Overall, just a flat out tremendous tag match from a promotion that most likely flies under a lot of people's radar. ****1/4
  25. donsem43
    Yoshiko Tamura I was going to nominate her for the last list but there were a few YouTube channels that had quite a few matches of her were all deleted and that nuked my motivation. There's a bit more of her out there now but not a lot so hopefully more stuff pops up over the next few years, especially early '00 NEO. Early in her career, she felt like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole while in AJW as she was a more methodical, mat-based wrestler than the typical worker in that company. Things picked up for her in the rebooted NEO, where she was someone who was influenced by the AJ Classics that were airing at the time as she took the 70's NWA style that was used in AJPW but modernized the moveset and picked up the pace. She also faced pretty much everyone who was any sort of name in the 00's which should be enough for anyone to make up his/her mind about her. vs. Toshie Uematsu - 7/19/97 vs. Azumi Hyuga - 12/24/06 vs. Ayumi Kurihara - 12/31/10
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