Kadaveri

The simple reason why Ogawa has stuck around women's wrestling forever is because it's the only industry he has ever worked in. He doesn't know anything else. After 1997 he started putting on a suit and presenting himself as this serious businessman, but really he was a 19 year old wrestling nerd who went to shows, somehow got himself a paid job doing photography/office work for AJW and then just never left.

I am pretty fascinated by you ranking Toshiyo Yamada so high! Could you explain why?

I've followed much of her career in real time and have spent the last few months watching as much of her older stuff as I can find. My conclusion is Arisa Nakajima is the best Joshi worker to debut after 2000 and is easily making my Top 50. I still have a lot of sorting out to do on my list, but as of now I'd say she could land anywhere between 21-50. One of the weaknesses of her case is a lack of top top tier matches. It might partially be due to environment, it's not like Joshi worker who peaked after the mid-90s is really any better. One of the problems with the modern Joshi scene is (as well as there being less top tier workers in general) it's been splintered into a dozen promotions or so after the 2005 collapse so all the best wrestlers rarely work with each other, either because their promotions aren't working together, or if they are, politics gets in the way of having Top Star vs. Top Star matches. It's a shame for example that Arisa never had a singles match with prime Chihiro Hashimoto, Mayu Iwatani or Suzu Suzuki, and her one singles match with Io Shirai was a time limit draw which, although still really good, had an exhibition vibe to it. The huge strength Arisa has though is her consistency. She almost never has bad matches. That's why I've decided to make her case by providing a list of 100 matches covering her entire career. I'm not expecting many people to actually watch all 100, but the nice thing about her is you can just pick a bunch at random and, unless you just hate the style, I think you'll be impressed. There's plenty of good matches that aren't on this list as well, I'm sure some fans will be annoyed at me leaving off some of the Tsukasa Fujimoto singles matches, but I thought 4 of those was enough. Arisa debuted in 2006 for AtoZ, which is the promotion which trained her. However it closed down almost immediately afterwards and she moved to JWP. There's not much footage of her in 2006 (afaik this is the earliest footage of her) and it's mostly tag matches where she does little but get pinned so I've started at 2007. She got 'next big thing' hype already, being both far better than any of the other JWP rookies (see the match vs. Mayuka Nizeki for instance) and when she was put in the ring with veterans she was already having main event worthy matches. Her variety was also very impressive, for instance being able to have a quality matwork based match with Mariko Yoshida on 11/11/07, and then on 5/4/08 she's having a great barbed wire death match in the Mayumi Ozaki style, and then see 6/13/08 where she's put into a 30 minute draw and it's good stuff. The most famous moment from this early part of her career is her match with Yumiko Hotta on 12/28/08, mainly because of the entrance gateway spot, which got replayed over the years quite a lot. Shortly after this, Arisa would take a break from wrestling to - in her words - 'be a normal person'. She would return for JWP in 2012. As A Rookie 1. Arisa Nakajima & Azumi Hyuga vs. Meiko Satomura & Tyrannosaurus Okuda (Sendai Girls 10/5/07) **** 2. Arisa Nakajima vs. Yoshiko Tamura (JWP 11/2/07) *** 3. Arisa Nakajima vs. Mariko Yoshida (IBUKI 11/11/07) ***1/2 4. Arisa Nakajima vs. Mayuka Nizeki (JWP 12/9/07) **3/4 5. Arisa Nakajima vs. Haruka Metsuo (NEO 12/9/07) ***1/4 6. Arisa Nakajima & Command Bolshoi & Devil Masami vs. Azumi Hyuga & Dynamite Kansai & Mayuka Nizeki (JWP 2/10/08) ***1/4 7. Arisa Nakajima vs. Command Bolshoi (JWP 3/16/08) **** 8. Arisa Nakajima & Chikayo Nagashima vs. Bambi & Mayumi Ozaki - Barbed Wire Death Match (Hirotsugu Suyama Produce 5/4/08) ****1/4 9. Arisa Nakajima vs. Ryo Mizunami (Sendai Girls 5/23/08) ***3/4 10. Arisa Nakajima & Kana vs. Kaori Yoneyama & Leon (JWP 6/13/08) ***1/4 11. Arisa Nakajima & Pinky Mayuki & Yumi Ohka vs. Hiroyo Matsumoto & Io Shirai & Ryo Mizunami (JWP 9/23/08) ***1/4 12. Arisa Nakajima vs. Yumiko Hotta (JWP 12/28/08) ***3/4 Return To Wrestling 2009-11 were pretty dire years for Joshi so the scene was delighted to have a lost great hope return to the ring. I don't think she quite hit it out the park immediately, and some of her return matches she feels like a spare peg due to the layout (I left off some very good matches with her in because they don't showcase her well). The moment she really starts shining is when she becomes part of the feud with Emi Sakura/Ice Ribbon. She brought a level of heat and intensity to things that most of her contempories couldn't match. She'd get way better at this over time. The match on the 9/11/12 Kana Produce show is her best performance (and one of the best Joshi matches of that year). I'm not as big a fan of the 12/24/12 Emi Sakura fan as some other people, I felt it got a bit too bloated, but I've included it because it's very important for her career and I still think it's good. 13. Arisa Nakajima & Manami Katsu vs. Leon & Rabbit Miu (JWP 5/20/12) ***3/4 14. Arisa Nakajima & Hikaru Shida vs. Command Bolshoi & Hikari Minami (JWP 7/28/12) ***1/2 15. Arisa Nakajima vs. Emi Sakura (JWP 8/12/12) ***1/2 16. Arisa Nakajima & Command Bolshoi vs. Emi Sakura & Kaori Yoneyama (JWP 8/19/12) ***3/4 17. Arisa Nakajima & Syuri vs. Kana & Kagetsu (Kana Produce 9/11/12) **** 18. Arisa Nakajima & Command Bolshoi vs. Hanako Nakamori & Maury (JWP 10/28/12) ***3/4 19. Arisa Nakajima vs. Emi Sakura - JWP Openweight Title (JWP 12/24/12) ***1/4 JWP Ace - 1st Peak 2013 is when Arisa becomes one of the best wrestlers in the world and imo the best Joshi worker at the time (Io Shirai will push her and beat her for that #1 spot in the years to come, but I don't think she hits that level until 2015). I don't think anyone else at the time was putting so much heat into her feuds and then delivering with high quality matches pretty much every time. Her match with Yumiko Hotta on 4/14/13 is by the best match Hotta had had in many years and she's never come close to that level since. Hotta can't really bump so Arisa has to get her ass kicked and thrown all over the place, and she's able to work a match like this while still coming across as really tough. There's a tremdenous hint of malice and violence in how she wrestles (she'll get the nickname 'Violence Queen') later. The main focus of this period will be her feud with Kana. The match on 8/18/13 should be watched first for context, and it's a great match in its own right. Their match on 12/15/13 is a true classic. If someone said it's the best Joshi match of the 21st Century I'd think that perfectly reasonable. It's chaotic, it's brutal, at times it's unhinged. Everyone who saw that match never forgot it, so much that whenever Arisa and Kana would interact in later tag matches the crowd would get super tense just seeing them square up again. And when they tagged together they'd still act like they hated each other. But around that insane brawl you can also see an excellent babyface vs. babyface matwork match with Command Bolshoi on 7/28/13. Arisa had a lot of 'student vs. mentor' style matches with Bolshoi that never turned into a feud, and this is one of the best. The intergender barbed wire death match Arisa has on a Kana Produce show on 2/25/14 isn't really to my tastes although I still really enjoyed it and others may like it more than me. It's certainly a good look at Arisa outside her usual style. I'm a huge fan of Arisa's performance in the 6/28/15 match against Hiroyo Matsumoto. Unlike a lot of her contempories she actually takes Hiroyo's larger size into account. A moment in the match I really liked is when Arisa does multiple top rope dropkicks, but doesn't wait for Hiroyo to get into position, she just hits her while she's still on the floor. She then follows this up with an awesome slow and struggling-against-adversity German Suplex. Check it out. A match I still included because it is very good, but it is a bit disappointing, is the match against Meiko Satomora on 7/30/15. You'd think these two could have a classic, but unfortunately it's worked like Meiko just beating midcarder when she's in between title matches. While we're on negatives, if there's 1 negative comment I'll make about Arisa, especially around this time (she'll drop it later), is I wish she didn't throw so many rolling German Suplexes. She's hardly the worst offender, but it strikes me as odd that she'll do this for a nearfall (it never wins a match), but then pin people with a single German later on. 20. Arisa Nakajima vs. Kayoko Haruyama - JWP Openweight Title (JWP 2/17/13) ***1/2 21. Arisa Nakajima vs. Yumiko Hotta - JWP Openweight Title (JWP 4/14/13) **** 22. Arisa Nakajima vs. Misaki Ohata - Catch The Wave Tournament Final (WAVE 7/15/13) ***3/4 23. Arisa Nakajima vs. Command Bolshoi (JWP 7/28/13) **** 24. Arisa Nakajima vs. Kana - JWP Openweight Title (JWP 8/18/13) **** 25. Arisa Nakajima & Hanako Nakamori vs. Kana & Meiko Satomura (JWP 11/24/13) **** 26. Arisa Nakajima vs. Kana - JWP Openweight Title (JWP 12/15/13) ****3/4 27. Arisa Nakajima vs. Io Shirai - JWP Openweight Title (Stardom 12/29/13) ***3/4 28. Arisa Nakajima & Jun Kasai vs. Ayako Hamada & Ryuji Ito - Barbed Wire Death Match (Kana Pro 2/25/14) ***1/2 29. Arisa Nakajima vs. Kyoko Kimura - JWP Openweight Title (JWP 4/20/14) **** 30. Arisa Nakajima & Kana & Meiko Satomura vs. Hanako Nakamori & Kayoko Haruyama & Leon (JWP 8/17/14) ***3/4 31. Arisa Nakajima & Rabbit Miu vs. Hikaru Shida & Kaho Kobayashi (Kana Pro 10/7/14) ***3/4 32. Arisa Nakajima vs. Hanako Nakamori - JWP Openweight Title (JWP 10/26/14) ***1/2 33. Arisa Nakajima vs. Tsukasa Fujimoto - JWP Openweight Title (JWP 12/28/14) ****1/4 34. Arisa Nakajima & Kana vs. Hikaru Shida & Syuri (Kana Pro 2/25/15) **** 35. Arisa Nakajima vs. Hiroyo Matsumoto (Hiroyo Matsumoto Produce 6/28/15) ****1/4 36. Arisa Nakajima vs. Hikaru Shida (JWP 7/11/15) ***3/4 37. Arisa Nakajima vs. Meiko Satomura (Sendai Girls 7/30/15) ***1/2 38. Arisa Nakajima, Rina Yamashita & Ryo Mizunami vs. Kana, Hikaru Shida & Syuri (Kana Pro 9/15/15) ***3/4 Enter Best Friends In 2015 Arisa formed a tag team with the Ice Ribbon top star Tsukasa Fujimoto called 'Best Friends'. They'd remain a regular tag team right up to Arisa's retirement, and imo are the best Joshi tag team of the era. It's very impressive that Arisa goes straight from being the best singles worker on the scene to being the best tag wrestler the moment she made that more her focus. Also, in 2016 we had an angle where Arisa joined Mayumi Ozaki's heel faction in Oz Academy. This was a bit odd to me, as she's a babyface everywhere else, but it's an opportunity to see her work in the different environment, even if the environment of '2010s Mayumi Ozaki shenanigans' is not very conduce to good matches. Arisa's match with Sonoko Kato on 1/10/16 is a good showing from her, despite the nonsense and interference trying to drag things down they still do have a good match. This all leads to Arisa and Mayumi Ozaki having a JWP Openweight Title match on 4/3/16, which you can add the Arisa's resume of getting incredibly good matches out of aging veterans who weren't really having quality matches anymore. 39. Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto vs. DASH Chisako & Sendai Sachiko - JWP Tag Team Titles (JWP 12/27/15) **** 40. Arisa Nakajima vs. Sonoko Kato (Oz Academy 1/10/16) ***1/4 41. Arisa Nakajima vs. Rabbit Miu (JWP 1/13/16) ***1/2 42. Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto vs. Kazuki & Rydeen Hagane (JWP 1/17/16) **** 43. Arisa Nakajima vs. Mayumi Ozaki - JWP Openweight Title (JWP 4/3/16) **** 44. Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto vs. Emi Sakura & Nanae Takahashi (Ice Ribbon 5/4/16) ****1/4 45. Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto vs. Nanae Takahashi & Yoshiko (JWP 7/24/16) ****1/4 46. Arisa Nakajima vs. Ryo Mizunami (SEAdLINNNG 9/28/16) **** 47. Arisa Nakajima vs. Yoshiko (SEAdLINNNG 10/16/16) ***3/4 48. Arisa Nakajima vs. Command Bolshoi (JWP 12/18/16) ***3/4 49. Arisa Nakajima vs. Hanako Nakamori - JWP Openweight Title (JWP 12/28/16) **** Move to SEAdLINNNG In 2017 switched promotions to SEAdLINNNG. For her fans this was certainly a good move. She'd been JWP champion for most of the last 5 years and had wrestled everyone multiple times. What more was there left to do? As well as getting to see her with a few new opponents, this move also changed her position on the card. Whereas in JWP she was the top star, in SEAdLINNNG the top star was unambiguously Nanae Takahashi. Arisa would have to compete for the #2 spot with Yoshiko, and it's not clear that she'd even win that battle. Some fans were annoyed about this, but I think Arisa switching out of the Ace role to someone who could show a bit more vulnerability and was more of a tag wrestler actually helped freshen her up and she slotted into the role easily. The Best Friends vs. Nanae Takahashi & Sareee match on 5/5/17 is one of the most blowaway unexpected amazing matches from this list. Sareee fans should also check it out to see how early she was showing signs of greatness. It's a worked in the classic Zenjo style where they build to a big expected rythmnic finishing stretch where you're biting on every nearfall and never overstays its welcome. The rematch on 7/14/17 didn't recapture the magic but it's still great. The other highlight of this period is Arisa's feud with Misaki Ohata. It started as Best Friends vs. Avid Rival (the team of Ohata and Ryo Mizunami) feuding, until Nakajima and Ohata just, well, getting really mad at each other turned into something more heated. Arisa is really talented at building actual heated feuds, rather than just a series of matches. On 8/11/18 we have another one of those student-mentor babyface-babyface matwork matches with Command Bolshoi, and this one I think is the best of the lot. Check out Bolshoi's brilliant counter of the double footstomp. I've cut this period off with Arisa's feud with Nanae Takahashi, which culminates in a Hair vs Hair match on 11/2/19. Anyone familiar with Joshi should know that's the biggest stipulation match there is for the scene, and it's a pretty famous modern match. Their title match on 11/1/18 is the true classic imo though. These two are perfect rivals for each other. It wouldn't be fair to throw Takahashi in with those 'aging veterans' I mentioned earlier as she still was a great wrestler at this point, but still her matches with Nakajima are her best series in the 2010s. They both have a delightful love for stiff violence that they bring out of each other. 50. Arisa Nakajima & Nanae Takahashi vs. Hiroyo Matsumoto & Ryo Mizunami (SEAdLINNNG 3/16/17) ***3/4 51. Arisa Nakajima vs. Tsukasa Fujimoto (Ice Ribbon 3/26/17) **** 52. Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto vs. Nanae Takahashi & Sareee (SEAdLINNNG 5/5/17) ****1/2 53. Arisa Nakajima vs. Hiroyo Matsumoto (SEAdLINNNG 5/24/17) **** 54. Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto vs. Nanae Takahashi & Sareee (SEAdLINNNG 7/14/17) **** 55. Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto vs. Misaki Ohata & Ryo Mizunami (SEAdLINNNG 8/24/17) ***1/2 56. Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto vs. Misaki Ohata & Ryo Mizunami (Ice Ribbon 8/27/17) ***3/4 57. Arisa Nakajima vs. Tsukasa Fujimoto (SEAdLINNNG 12/13/17) ****1/4 58. Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto vs. Hiroyo Matsumoto & Misaki Ohata (SEAdLINNNG 2/9/18) ***3/4 59. Arisa Nakajima vs. Misaki Ohata (WAVE 2/12/18) **** 60. Arisa Nakajima vs. Misaki Ohata (WAVE 4/7/18) **** 61. Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto vs. Command Bolshoi & Yoshiko (SEAdLINNNG 4/18/18) ***1/2 62. Arisa Nakajima vs. Command Bolshoi (PURE-J 8/11/18) ****1/4 63. Arisa Nakajima vs. Rina Yamashita (SEAdLINNNG 10/3/18) ***3/4 64. Arisa Nakajima & Takumi Iroha vs. Hanako Nakamori & Nanae Takahashi (SEAdLINNNG 10/17/18) ***3/4 65. Arisa Nakajima vs. Nanae Takahashi - SEAdLINNNG Beyond The Sea Title (SEAdLINNNG 11/1/18) ****1/2 66. Arisa Nakajima vs. Nanae Takahashi (SEAdLINNNG 4/28/19) ***3/4 67. Arisa Nakajima vs. Mei Hoshizuki (Marvelous 5/12/19) ***1/2 68. Arisa Nakajima vs. VENY (SEAdLINNNG 5/29/19) ***1/4 69. Arisa Nakajima vs. Takumi Iroha - SEAdLINNNG Beyond The Sea Title (SEAdLINNNG 9/18/19) **** 70. Arisa Nakajima vs. Nanae Takahashi - SEAdLINNNG Beyond The Sea Title, Hair vs. Hair (SEAdLINNNG 11/2/19) **** Covid Era and SEAdLINNNG Ace It's unfortunate that Arisa's run as SEAdLINNNG Ace (now Nanae has stepped back somewhat) happened to coincidence with the covid pandemic, so most of it happens in front of no/almost no fans or silent crowds due to the restrictions of the time. She spends most of 2020 in a feud with Yoshiko, who had recently become a Japanese social media celebrity from her side hustle as a TikTok chef (not making that up this actually happened). Their 1/24/20 match happens right before the pandemic restrictions so kinda wins MOTY by default due to it having a loud crowd. Yoshiko can be a bit hit or miss because she's a big unsophisicated brute of a wrestler and you kinda have to work her style or the match won't be good but Arisa is one of the best at going along with that kind of match. By the time the covid restrictions are lifted around early 2022, I think Arisa had lost a step or two. She's still a great wrestler, but she's not one of the best wrestlers in the world like she was for most of 2013-19 (I think covid era too hard to judge). SEAdLINNNG as a promotion was pretty badly hit by the pandemic ruining business plans and them losing wrestlers, so in 2022-23 it's pretty much the Arisa Nakajima show. These aren't the years when she was the best as a wrestler, but she still has a lot of great matches due to the constant opportunities she was getting. Two impressive performances here are her title defences against Riko Kaiju and Ayame Sasamura on 5/13/22 and 3/20/23, where she guides two younger wrestlers to the best singles matches of their careers to date. Her title defense on 8/25/23 against Sareee ended up being her last great singles match, and might actually be her most famous match in Western fandom due to Sareee getting a bit of a following at the time after her recent departure from WWE. 71. Arisa Nakajima vs. Yoshiko (SEAdLINNNG 1/24/20) ****1/2 72. Arisa Nakajima vs. VENY - SEAdLINNNG Beyond The Sea Title (SEAdLINNNG 6/13/20) ***3/4 73. Arisa Nakajima vs. Yoshiko - SEAdLINNNG Beyond The Sea Title (SEAdLINNNG 7/13/20) **** 74. Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto vs. Hiroyo Matsumoto & Yoshiko (SEAdLINNNG 10/3/20) **** 75. Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto vs. Saori Anou & Tsukushi (Ice Ribbon 10/31/20) **** 76. Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto vs. Sareee & Yoshiko - SEAdLINNNG Beyond The Sea Tag Team Titles (SEAdLINNNG 11/27/20) **** 77. Arisa Nakajima & Nanae Takakashi vs. Honori Hana & Riko Kawahata (SEAdLINNNG 4/26/21) ***1/2 78. Arisa Nakajima & Nanae Takahashi vs. Makoto & VENY - SEAdLINNNG Beyond The Sea Tag Team Titles (SEAdLINNNG 5/26/21) **** 79. Arisa Nakajima vs. Nanae Takahashi (SEAdLINNNG 7/11/21) **** 80. Arisa Nakajima vs. Hanako Nakamori (SEAdLINNNG 10/13/21) **** 81. Arisa Nakajima & Hanako Nakamori vs. Cherry & Leon (PURE-J 11/11/21) **** 82. Arisa Nakajima & Riko Kaiju vs. AKARI & Hanako Nakamori (PURE-J 11/23/21) **** 83. Arisa Nakajima & Kaoru Ito vs. Ayako Sato & Hanako Nakamori (PURE-J 2/6/22) ***3/4 84. Arisa Nakajima & Hanako Nakamori vs. Miyuki Takase & Rina Yamashita (PURE-J 3/20/22) **** 85. Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto vs. Ai Houzan & Yurika Oka (Korakuen Hall 60th Anniversary Show 4/15/22) ***1/2 86. Arisa Nakajima vs. Tsukasa Fujimoto (SEAdLINNNG 4/29/22) ***3/4 87. Arisa Nakajima vs. Riko Kaiju - SEAdLINNNG Beyond The Sea Title (SEAdLINNNG 5/13/22) ***3/4 88. Arisa Nakajima vs. Hiroyo Matsumoto - SEAdLINNNG Beyond The Sea Title (SEAdLINNNG 12/28/22) **** 89. Arisa Nakajima vs. Mio Momono (Marvelous 2/21/23) ***1/2 90. Arisa Nakajima vs. Ayame Sasamura - SEAdLINNNG Beyond The Sea Title (SEAdLINNNG 3/20/23) ****1/4 91. Arisa Nakajima & Takumi Iroha vs. Ayame Sasamura & Riko Kaiju (SEAdLINNNG 4/30/23) ***1/2 92. Arisa Nakajima & Itsuki Aoki vs. Riko Kawahata & Sareee (SEAdLINNNG 7/26/23) ***1/2 93. Arisa Nakajima & Takumi Iroha vs. Kairi Hojo & Sareee (Sareee-ISM 8/4/23) ***3/4 94. Arisa Nakajima vs. Sareee - SEAdLINNNG Beyond The Sea Title (SEAdLINNNG 8/25/23) ****1/4 Retirement Run On 1/11/24 Arisa suffered a bizarre neck injury in a SEAdLINNNG tag match. It wasn't clear what had happened initially, she just collapsed on the apron during the match seemingly unable to move and couldn't continue. What happened is about a minute before she'd gone for a top rope double footstomp, hit the mat on her feet, but her momentum carried her through and she banged the top of her head on the mat. It happens so quickly you could skip a frame and not even see it but it was enough to hurt her bad, bad enough that apparently she was advised by doctors to retire. But she came back for one last retirement run and a bunch more quality matches to sink our teeth into. The match on 6/12/24 is hard to explain. It's actually a tag match that turns into a trios match that turns into a 6vs6 tag, but I'm counting it as 1 match as it's presented as one complete package and is really a load of Arisa's fellow 2006 debutees and a few friends having one last big match together. The kind of match that tugs at the heart strings if you've been following the scene for a while. Her retirement match on 8/23/24 probably couldn't have gone any better really. Best Friends tag together one last time against two of Arisa's most frequent opponents. The finishing stretch is really long and is mostly Arisa doing big kickouts, but it works because every time she kicks out it means her career gets to go on just a little bit longer and I wanted her to just keep kicking out so she never has to retire. But we know how it ends 95. Arisa Nakajima & Sareee vs. Hanako Nakamori & Kaoru Ito (Ito Dojo 5/12/24) ***1/2 96. Arisa Nakajima, Makoto, Maya Yukihi, Mima Shimoda, Nagisa Nozaki & VENY vs. Ayame Sasamura, DASH Chisako, Rina Yamashita, Syuri, Tsukasa Fujimoto & Yuki Mashiro (SEAdLINNNG 6/12/24) ***3/4 97. Arisa Nakajima & Leon vs. KAZUKI & Rydeen Hagane (PURE-J 7/5/24) ****1/4 98. Arisa Nakajima & Hiroyo Matsumoto vs. Ayame Sasamura & Itsuki Aoki (SEAdLINNNG 7/26/24) ***3/4 99. Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto vs. Mio Momono & Riko Kawahata (Sareee-ISM 7/29/24) **** 100. Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto vs. Hanako Nakamori & Hiroyo Matsumoto - Arisa Nakajima Retirement Match (SEAdLINNNG 8/23/24) ****1/4 The further into her career you go I'd say Arisa Nakajima stands out more and more because of what she represented. She worked almost her entire career as a babyface and top star, but she's almost a brutal and ruthless menace. She got people to cheer for her out of awe at the levels of violence and rage she put into her wrestling. Whereas Joshi mostly evolved into these big epics based around fancy moves and counters (e.g. Stardom), Arisa's appeal was more about seeing her angrily and ungracefully beat the snot out of her opponent until they couldn't resist any more. Not all her matches were like that of course (the Bolshoi series for example is a lot more... civilised), but it's her forte, and the more she stuck to the style of wrestling she believed in the more I respected her and what she stood for. Yes she will be high on my list.

What I find particularly impressive about Senka is she has all these great performances while still wrestling as a rookie. For most of her run her offense has consisted of nothing but pin attempts, shoulder tackles, lariats and bodyslams, and unless she's wrestling a fellow rookie she spends at least 75% of the match selling. Usually when people are praising great rookies it's because they just fast forward to wrestling like they're an established star and do good at it.

My dude this site has been around for 20 years and you can go back and find some of the most active posters arguing for Cena back in the 2000s. Disagree if you want, but you're wildly misunderstanding the kind of people posting here if you think you're talking to childhood Cena fans. From my viewpoint, it was actually the older fans who were most pro-Cena in the 2000s (of those online, so not including kids). It was specifically the generation of fans who got into wrestling in the Monday Night Wars as teenagers who seemed to viscerally resent him.

Well she's had a couple of MOTYC calibre matches in the last few months now and they were totally different to each each stylistically. If Mariah May vs. Toni Storm isn't the #1 women's match to ever take place outside Japan it's probably #2.

They do a lot of 6/8/10 man tags, not many multi-mans.

Mio Momono The best pure babyface of her era and even just that doesn't quite do her justice. From very early on in her career she'd developed a distinct personality that she incorporated into her matches brilliantly. She's an over-energetic little pest who does things like screaming her opponent's face to throw them off. Done by almost anyone else her gimmick would just be annoying but she pulls it off and makes you think it's just her real personality. She's also an incredibly athletic cardio machine despite not looking like one and takes some incredible bumps. Her feud with Mayumi Ozaki in 2023-24 came closer than anyone to the visceral and emotional vibe of the Chigusa Nagayo vs. Dump Matsumoto feud. vs. Maruko Nagasaki - SEAdLINNNG 5/5/17 vs. Takumi Iroha - Marvelous 11/3/19 w/ Yumi Ohka vs. Hibiki & Sareee - WAVE 12/27/20 w/ Mei Hoshizuki & Rin Kadokura vs. Chihiro Hashimoto, DASH Chisako & Mika Iwata (Elimination) - GAEA 6/13/21 vs. Miyuki Takase vs. Sakura Hirota (Tomoe Battle Rules) - WAVE 6/29/21 vs. Chikayo Nagashima - Marvelous 5/3/23 vs. Mayumi Ozaki - Marvelous 8/7/23 vs. Mayumi Ozaki - Oz Academy 4/28/24

Chihiro Hashimoto Debuted in 2015, by 2017 had succeeded Meiko Satomura as the top star of Sendai Girls and still holds that position as of 2025. She has an amateur background and incorporates those skills into her pro-wrestling about as well as anyone in her era. She tremendous raw power/strength that makes her suplexes look especially damaging. In 2023-24 she's been out of the main title picture for a while, her tag team with Yuu (Team 200kg) is one of the best tag teams in the scene, and Chihiro is definitely the better of the two. vs. Meiko Satomura - Sendai Girls 9/24/17 vs. Sareee - Sendai Girls 6/8/19 vs. Mei Hoshizuki - Marvelous 8/20/21 vs. MIRAI - Stardom 2/4/23 w/ Yuu vs. Mio Momono & Yurika Oka - Sendai Girls 2/11/24

Here is my Top 100. I might add new matches later on. ****1/2 1. Darby Allin & Sting vs. Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson - AEW 3/3/24 2. Demus vs. Mad Dog Connelly - ACTION 4/4/24 3. Bryan Danielson vs. Eddie Kingston - AEW 3/3/24 4. Mayumi Ozaki vs. Mio Momono - Oz Academy 4/28/24 5. CM Punk vs. Drew McIntyre - WWE 10/5/24 6. Nanae Takahashi vs. Sareee - Marigold 12/13/24 7. Bryan Danielson vs. Jon Moxley - AEW 10/12/24 8. Bryan Danielson vs. Swerve Strickland - AEW 8/25/24 9. Mayu Iwatani vs. Sareee - Stardom 4/27/24 10. Bryan Danielson vs. Zack Sabre Junior - NJPW 2/11/24 ****1/4 11. Bryan Danielson vs. Will Ospreay - AEW 4/21/24 12. Bryan Danielson vs. Jeff Jarrett - AEW 8/7/24 13. Blue Panther vs. Ultimo Guerrero - CMLL 11/30/24 14. Chihiro Hashimoto & Mika Iwata vs. Mio Momono & Sareee - Sendai Girls 1/7/24 15. El Cuervo vs. Pedro Portillo III - IWA Puerto Rico 11/21/24 16. HARASHIMA vs. Yuki Ueno - DDT 17/3/24 17. Bryan Danielson vs. Hechicero - AEW 2/3/24 18. Hechicero vs. Zack Sabre Junior - CMLL 6/22/24 19. Sami Zayn vs. Gunther - WWE 4/6/24 20. Blue Panther vs. Hechicero - CMLL 6/11/24 21. VENY & Chihiro Hashimoto vs. Mayu Iwatani & Sareee - Sareee-ISM 9/2/24 22. Hideki Suzuki vs. Yuma Anzai - AJPW 6/24/24 23. AJ Styles vs. Cody Rhodes - WWE 6/15/24 24. PAC vs. Bryan Danielson - AEW 7/3/24 25. Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto vs. Hanako Nakamori & Hiroyo Matsumoto - SEAdLINNNG 8/23/24 26. Demus vs. Lunatik Xtreme - Zona 23 1/21/24 27. Nanae Takahashi vs. Sareee - Marigold 9/23/24 28. Rei Saito vs. Yuma Anzai - AJPW 8/3/24 29. Bryan Danielson vs. Kazuchika Okada - NJPW 1/4/24 30. Kris Statlander vs. Mercedes Mone - AEW 12/28/24 31. AZM & Takumi Iroha vs. Natsupoi & Sareee - Sareee-ISM 7/29/24 32. Arisa Nakajima & Leon vs. KAZUKI & Rydeen Hagane - PURE-J 7/5/24 33. Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto vs. Mio Momono & Riko Kawahata - Sareee-ISM 7/29/24 34. Christian Cage, Luchasaurus & Nick Wayne vs. Cash Wheeler, Daniel Garcia & Dash Wilder - AEW 2/3/24 **** 35. 1 Called Manders vs. Mad Dog Connelly - SLA 1/26/24 36. Hook vs. Samoa Joe - AEW 1/17/24 37. Blue Panther vs. Bryan Danielson - CMLL 4/5/24 38. Chad Gable vs. Sami Zayn - WWE 6/15/24 39. Sami Zayn vs. Gunther - WWE 10/7/24 40. Kris Statlander vs. Mercedes Mone - AEW 11/23/24 41. Atlantis Jr vs. Hechicero - NJPW 2/19/24 42. AJ Styles vs. Cody Rhodes - WWE 4/2/24 43. Blue Panther, Mistico, Ultimo Guerrero & Volador Jr vs. Bryan Danielson, Claudio Castagnoli, Jon Moxley & Matt Sydal - CMLL 3/29/24 44. AKINO vs. Mio Momono - Oz Academy 1/7/24 45. Chihiro Hashimoto & Yuu vs. Mio Momono & Yurika Oka - Sendai Girls 2/11/24 46. Bryan Danielson & Claudio Castagnoli vs. Konosuke Takeshita & Kyle Fletcher - AEW 4/20/24 47. La Parka vs. Rush - Lucha Libre Elite 4/21/24 48. Mercedes Mone vs. Willow Nightingale - AEW 5/26/24 49. Bozilla vs. Sareee - Marigold 10/24/24 50. Kento Miyahara vs. Yuma Anzai - AJPW 5/29/24 51. HARASHIMA vs. Shinya Aoki - DDT 10/20/24 52. Jon Moxley vs. Orange Cassidy - AEW 11/23/24 53. Masa Kitamiya vs. Tomohiro Ishii - NOAH 1/2/24 54. Ludwig Kaiser vs. Sheamus - WWE 6/3/24 55. Hechicero vs. Zack Sabre Junior - Revolution Pro 8/24/24 56. Mio Momono & Tomoko Watanabe vs. Ryo Mizunami & Sonoko Kato - Marvelous 3/30/24 57. Konosuke Takeshita vs. Mike Bailey - MLP 10/19/24 58. Chihiro Hashimoto vs. Sareee - Sareee-ISM 1/16/24 59. Miu Watanabe vs. Ryo Mizunami - TJPW 9/22/24 60. Mei Seira vs. Yuna Mizumori - Stardom 10/27/24 61. Natsupoi vs. Starlight Kid - Stardom 12/29/24 62. Hazuki vs. Mercedes Mone - NJPW 12/15/24 63. Arisu Endo & Suzume vs. Miu Watanabe & Rika Tatsumi - TJPW 2/10/24 64. Claudio Castagnoli & Jon Moxley vs. Dash Wilder & Dax Harwood - AEW 3/3/24 65. Samoa Joe vs. Swerve Strickland - AEW 4/21/24 66. Kazuchika Okada vs. Will Ospreay - AEW 12/28/24 67. Aja Kong & Sareee vs. Manami & Meiko Satomura - Sendai Girls 11/17/24 68. Miu Watanabe vs. Miyu Yamashita - TJPW 3/31/24 69. Christian Cage vs. Daniel Garcia - AEW 3/3/24 70. Riko Kawahata vs. Takumi Iroha - Marvelous 9/29/24 71. Masha Slamovich vs. Miyu Yamashita - TJPW 1/4/24 72. Malakai Black, Brody King & Buddy Murphy vs. Daniel Garcia, Cash Wheeler & Dax Harwood - AEW 1/27/24 ***3/4 73. Chikayo Nagashima, DASH Chisako, Drake Morimatsu & Tomoko Watanabe vs. Maria, Mio Momono, Riko Kawahata & Takumi Iroha - Netflix 9/12/24 74. El Hijo de Fishman vs. Mascara Sagrada - Riba Auditorio 3/22/24 75. Fuminori Abe vs. Roderick Strong - DPW 5/19/24 76. Miu Watanabe vs. Shoko Nakajima - TJPW 5/6/24 77. Randy Orton vs. Gunther - WWE 8/31/24 78. Pete Dunne vs. Sheamus - WWE 10/7/24 79. Sheamus vs. Gunther - WWE 5/6/24 80. Jon Moxley vs. Josh Barnett - GCW 6/22/24 81. AJ Styles vs. Randy Orton - WWE 5/10/24 82. Hazuki & Koguma vs. Mei Seira & Suzu Suzuki - Stardom 5/5/24 83. Kofi Kingston vs. Gunther - WWE 5/13/24 84. Darby Allin vs. Konosuke Takeshita - AEW 1/3/24 85. Bozilla & Sareee vs. Giulia & Utami Hayashishita - Marigold 5/20/24 86. Bron Breakker vs. Sami Zayn - WWE 8/12/24 87. Adam Page vs. Jeff Jarrett - AEW 7/3/24 88. Mascara Dorada vs. Stuka Jr - NJPW 2/19/24 89. Mercedes Mone vs. Stephanie Vaquer - AEW 6/30/24 90. Io Shirai vs. Utami Hayashishita - Marigold 7/13/24 91. Chihiro Hashimoto & Mika Iwata vs. Nanae Takahashi & Yurika Oka - Sendai Girls 3/24/24 92. Orange Cassidy vs. Roderick Strong - AEW 3/3/24 93. Manami & Ryo Mizunami vs. Mio Momono & Yurika Oka - Sendai Girls 7/15/24 94. AZM vs. Mayu Iwatani - Stardom 8/18/24 95. Pete Dunne vs. Sheamus - WWE 8/19/24 96. John Hawking vs. Savio Vega - IWA Puerto Rico 12/28/24 97. Daniel Garcia vs. Kyle Fletcher - AEW 12/25/24 98. Go Shiozaki & Jun Akiyama vs. Naomichi Marufuji & Takashi Sugiura - NOAH 6/19/24 99. Aja Kong vs. Yurika Oka - Sendai Girls 3/8/24 100. Daniel Garcia vs. Maxwell Jacob Friedman - AEW 9/7/24

I recently rewatched this (probably for the 4th or 5th time) and I loved it more than ever. Involuntarily fist-pumping as Steamboat intervened to alert the referee to Punk still moving his arm. It's a moment that really works if you watched the Punk vs. Steamboat feud beforehand capping off with the Punk face-turn. It feels like a moral lesson almost than Punk deciding to 'be that man' and defend Steamboat ended up getting him a reward that he couldn't possibly have predicted, so it's not like he was being cynical about it or anything. Joe was also pitch-perfect in this. His strikes look like he's totally demolishing Punk and really puts over what a great effort Punk was putting in to actually get any offense together. But it's not like Joe was invincible either, he shows just enough chinks in the armour to make you believe this isn't a lost cause. The moment where he illegally uses the ropes was amazing, especially the crowd reaction. This is one of the best matches ever. *****

I've only watched the first two episodes and I've enjoyed it a lot so far. I don't think it being a bit historically inaccurate is a big deal really, everyone knows these things are semi-fictional. The stuff they've changed (e.g. compressing the timeline) is justifiable when you've got to tell this story in 5 episodes to a mostly unfamiliar audience. Toshikuni having a bigger role than he did in real life makes sense for an 'adaptation' because you don't have the time to flesh out the characters of all 4 Matsunaga Brothers. The Jaguar-Sato drama wasn't even that far off the truth. I think they communicated the audience that this is promotion where not all the matches have predetermined winners and the older stars who aren't drawing anymore get ruthlessly put to pasture. That's the truthful substance of it. That they got that across by fudging the details a bit to get it across within the time constraints doesn't really matter. I say all this as a massive Zenjo nerd.

Can you imagine the reaction of the ROH fans if Kobashi actually did a sneaky coward heel gimmick and got the win after throwing salt in Joe's eyes.

Chris Jericho was like a better version of Sid Vicious in that he was generally a lot more over than his talent level would normally warrant as he had the knock of disappearing for long periods whenever fans were close to tiring of him. Now he's gone and been a consistently pushed act for 5 years in the same promotion and, oh no.

Black Sabbath are in as a band.

I'd really like it if he wrestled the way he did against Rey Mysterio all the time. Angle's true disposition is he's a super-intense bully and bringing that aspect of his personality to the forefront created much better flowing matches than when he got obsessed with trading finishers/pretty reversals for the sake of it with Benoit etc... Or that brief 2006 WWECW run was also a much more optimal version of Angle than his default mode. The more frustrating thing about him really is he does show potential to have been a real top tier wrestler, in some ways I think he did actually get it, but there's just this aggravating bit of brainworms going on that stops him ever reaching his potential except in some specific circumstances. He's a very high-level prop wrestler, by which I mean wrestlers who have a certain set of talents/abilities but needed to be used in the correct way to really get high-level stuff out of them. There's certainly room for in wrestling, might even make towards the bottom of my list if I'm feeling generous towards them in 2026. The Summerslam 2001 match vs. Austin I think is a great example of Kurt being in that kind of role. Austin is the main driver of the match narrative and his performance is the best thing about it, but calling it a "carry job" or something like that would be grossly unfair. Angle's talents elevate the whole thing to higher level that the vast majority of wrestlers are capable of. For all the criticisms of his selling, he has a great selling performance in this match, and that's not his only great selling performance, his flaw is more than he doesn't seem to have a good sense of when he should be selling, so left to his own devices we often get total messes like those TNA Jeff Hardy matches.

Roman's an increasingly weird case because the period where I think he's a Top 15 worker in the world was 2015-18 when half the internet insisted he sucked. That's where the bulk of his case is made to me, even if his contribution to The Shield is a bit underrated at this point. 2019-21 he's still pretty good at times, though the Bloodline stuff can get pretty grating with his stopping in the middle of matches to deliver his monologues. But it's really his huge run as the Ace of a booming WWE in 2022-24 that throws everything off, it's by far his most successful run where he's given tremendous opportunities, but that's the run where this guy just sucks. I liked the Brock Summerslam match a lot but other than that it's the most boring Ace run in WWE history to me. He insists on slowing every match to a crawl whenever it looks like it might be getting interesting, and the constant Bloodline interference and shenanigans just becomes a bit of a joke before long.

The AEW run has really added to his case, probably the best run of a 60+ wrestler in US wrestling history. He definitely wasn't making my list without that but I think he might sneak in now. I don't think he had a single match which didn't at least deliver, and the way he reinvented himself in his 60s as some daredevil maniac old man is really astonishing. Yes he was protected by only ever wrestling in tags, but really that just tells you that other companies should be doing that with their older wrestlers who can still go in other ways. And despite that Sting did have quite a lot of ring time in a lot of these tags. When his run first started I suspected he was just gonna be on the apron 90% letting Darby do the heavy lifting before he gets in for a hot tag and hits his signature stuff, you know the drill, but that wouldn't be a fair characterisation of his run at all. The FTR match at Grand Slam 2021 was the first one when I was really realising that Sting is simply a really good tag wrestler.

Dude if you don't like a wrestler don't put them in your Top 100 Ever list. And I'm gonna use that as a jumping off point because I've never experienced the feeling that I'm being peer-pressured by some astroturfing campaign into saying a wrestler is "objectively" great like with Will Ospreay the last year or so. It's really quite weird. I've actually seen him live many many times in 2013-16 when he was a regular on the UK indies and I can't remember ever having strong feelings about him. He was just a guy. If people enjoy his style of wrestling then more power to them but it's not something that interests me at all. To me his kayfabe character is "guy who is phenomenally great at every aspect of wrestling" (I wonder if that makes people think he's actually that in real life), like you've put in a cheat code to give your video game character maxed out stats on everything. It all feels aimed at people who mainly appreciate the most surface elements of pro-wrestling (e.g. athleticism and moves) which most obviously require "real" skill to uninitiated eyes, but there's no pro-wrestling soul to any of it. He's like the culmination of "sports entertainment" over pro-wrestling. I don't believe in any of it. The comparisons with Misawa feel bizarre to me as I simply cannot imagine ever believing in a Will Ospreay comeback the way I get sucked into e.g. Misawa's big comeback against Taue 4/15/95. Misawa has a certain level of vulnerability and determination to struggle against the odds that Ospreay can't convey because nothing ever really affects him. I don't hate it, there are a bunch of Will Ospreay matches I thought were really good, but the overall package is a bit boring and uninspired to me.

Marvelous 2/18/18 Review Not a good show so let's just get this over and done with. Megumi Yabushita vs. Miki Tanaka The most entertaining part of this match was the start where Miki was upset that Megumi wouldn't shake her hand so pushes her in the back very petulantly. The match itself was largely just sitting around in bodyscissors and half crabs. Bizarrely there was a moment where Miki was out of breath from being in a submission so long that she needed to stop for a moment and Megumi even passed her a bottle of water and let her catch her breath in the ropes for about 30 seconds before restarting. I don't know if that was meant to be funny or what but it ended up just making Miki look useless. 1/4* Chikayo Nagashima & KAORU vs. Momoe-chan & Rin Kadokura This was a pretty good showing considering who is involved, especially when the match was actually dragged down a bit by Tommy doing her annoying "Nooooooooooooo!" schtick way too much making herself the centre of attention. I thought Rin looked good on her hot tag and she even got a believable nearfall on Chikayo which got a big reaction from the audience and it felt like she was getting over a bit. **1/4 Sakura Hirota vs. Pandita This was just stupid. DUD Kyuri, Maruko Nagasaki & Mio Momono vs. Natsumi Maki, Tomoko Watanabe & Yuu Yamagata Natsumi has now joined Level 5 following the events of the last show and is fighting Mio Momono's army of hyper-active dungaree-clad little pests. I couldn't help but notice Kyuri was all over the place with her timing multiple times in this match and constantly slowed everything to a halt whenever she got involved. She's probably always been the least of these 3 who regularly tag together but I've never seen it be this obvious. The best segments here were when Mio and Natsumi faced off and we got lots of cool battles over rollups, and Tomoko coming into to lariat everyone was fun. I actually don't remember Yuu doing anything heh. This was mostly good except when Kyuri was making a mess of things. **3/4

Danhausen would probably be featured more if he weren't constantly injured.

It's funny how after hyping up the "Bidding War of 2024" for so long, 2024 arrived with MJF's value having completely tanked.

Marvelous 1/28/18 Review Back to watching stuff from the beginning again. I know most of this stuff isn't going to be good but I still get some enjoyment out of seeing the core roster develop and knowing where they'll end up. Kakeru Sekiguchi vs. Megumi Yabushita This match feels like it's only here to get Megumi and the W-Fix crew a bit of heat. The match is predictably very one-sided as Kakeru is from Actwres girl'Z and less than a year into her career here. Unfortunately Megumi isn't interesting on offense enough to make this entertaining, her beatdown segment goes on way too long and just kinda buries Kakeru more than anything else. We do get a finishing stretch which was ok but too little too late to salvage this. * Miki Tanaka & Sakura Hirota vs. Tomoko Watanabe & Yuu Yamagata Dumb low-effort comedy match where the comedy was mostly unfunny. I will concede there was one funny moment where Sakura tried to have Miki catapult her as offense only to be bounced back into taking and inadvertent backbreaker from her own partner, mainly coz of the absurdity of it. But apart from that this was a waste of time. 1/2* We next have a segment where Chigusa introduces the American wrestler Aja Perera, who'll be wrestling for Marvelous under the name Momoe-chan. She is now working for WWE as the referee Daphanie LaShaunn if anyone recognises that name, I never pay attention to WWE's referees. Chigusa also shouts at ASUKA/VENY who is in the crowd for some reason. Chikayo Nagashima & KAORU vs. Mio Momono & Yumi Ohka First time seeing BOSS To Mammy! More used to seeing them in Pro-Wrestling WAVE. At the start of the match W-Fix hand out masks to everyone, not wrestling masks I mean the "don't spread infectious diseases" masks and Mio gets upset about it. I don't know what's going on exactly but am finding this funnier than the actual comedy match. This was pretty fun I guess but it had some awkward moments where the action just kinda stops. Surprised that Yumi got the win in this one I assumed Mio would be taking the pin. ** Natsumi Maki & Tae Honma vs. Rin Kadokura & Takumi Iroha (NEW-TRA) Natsumi and Tae are both from Actwres girl'Z and debuted in 2015. I'll just note that NEW-TRA's entrance is delightfully dorky. They come out in light-up LED clothes holding glowsticks and dance to their electric mix of Dvorak's New World Symphony, but the lighting is really low so you can barely see them apart from the lights so we just have to use our imagination that they're doing really cool dance moves heh. This was mostly a good match, I thought Natsumi looked pretty good with her selling here and she took a huge bump on the neck off one of Takumi's Germans. The issue with the match though is none of it really seemed to flow together even if everyone played their roles fine. **3/4 In the post match they did an angle where it looked like Natsumi joined up with Tomoko Watanabe & Yuu Yamagata's LEVEL 5 group. We'll see if that goes anywhere. Another nothing show though.

Heh well remembered. Marvelous 9/12/23 Review Hibiscus Mii & Maya Yukihi vs. Maria & Riko Kawahata Firstly it's a bit weird how Maya went from main eventing a Stardom PPV to working the opener of Marvelous shows in about 6 months, and that's been her trajectory all across the scene. What happened there? There's a funny moment at the start where Mii & Maya make their entrance but Chigusa has a word with them, dunno what was said but it resulted in them going to the back and doing their entrance all over again but doing sexy dances to the ring this time (I saw sexy because Chigusa was shouting "YEAAHHHH SEXXXYYYYY" all the way through this so that was clearly the intention). Well it looked like they were all having fun The match itself wasn't much, although there was a nice energy to it. The most memorable moment was Maria messing up a springboard strike move but just about saving herself from landing badly. *3/4 Bryan Ishizaka vs. Leo Isaka Thought I'd give this a chance. Eh. Probably shouldn't have bothered. This match was in two halves. The first was a ringside brawl which absolutely sucked. They worked at about 0.25 speed with zero energy. The total opposite of a "wild" brawl. The 2nd half they got in the ring and had a decent basic match, but previous few minutes left a bad taste in my mouth. * Azusa Inaba & Tomoko Inaba vs. Itsuki Aoki & Yuu A battle of the little kickers vs. the power wrestlers. This went a bit too long and got repetitive at parts but it was a good match and they were throwing their strikes well. I thought Aoki looked better than Yuu when it was time to exchange some clobbering as she was working with the Karate Sisters and reacting to them rather than just doing her usual spots regardless of what they were doing. *** Ai Houzan & Unagi Sayaka vs. Ayame Sasamura & Sandra Moore We start off with the long awaiting Sandra vs. Unagi showdown. It goes down with Unagi saying she wants to teach Sandra some Japanese and whispers something into her ear, but then attacks her as Sandra tries to teach what she learned. They then both miss some moves and tag out. Heh ok. The best part of this match was Unagi getting clobbered by Ayame. Ayame hits hard. It looks like we're going to get a strike exchange but after taking some hits Unagi just goes for a codebreaker rather than hit back, which I thought was a good twist. **1/2 Chikayo Nagashima & Takumi Iroha vs. Mio Momono & Tomoko Watanabe (AAAW Tag Team Titles) Packed main event for a small show here. The energy in the room really changes as soon as this starts, right from the entrances the crowd seems to have got a lot more hyped and serious all of a sudden. There's a bit of a scary moment early on where Takumi backs Tomoko into the ropes for an Irish whip, but something goes wrong and Tomoko's neck gets caught under the top rope. Takumi puts her in a headlock on the ground and Mio quickly runs in to stomp on Takumi, fights Chikayo in the corner and forces Takumi to come over and throw her out of the ring. I guess this was really just buying Tomoko a bit of time to recover from the ropes mishap but it was an organic way to do it, as by the time that's all over it's clear Tomoko is fine and they get back to fighting. I'm steering away from going into play-by-play mode so I'll just say everyone has their working boots on here and things are laid out logical to produce a great match. One spot I'll highlight is this little bit where Tomoko has Chikayo up on her shoulders to take a crossbody from Mio but it gets countered into a pin. Very Chikayo counter. It's also notable how, even though she's still the underdog, Mio takes a lot more of the match than she would have done a year ago. There's a good few minutes where she's just kicking Takumi ass and I'm not sure I remember her ever straight out be in control of Takumi for so long before this. There's a big turning point where Tomoko catches one of a Takumi's kicks to turn it into a dragonscrew and then follows up with a Figure 4. Mio tries to hold Chikayo back from breaking it up for a while but eventually she gets through, how hard she was fighting to break up that figure 4 sells how much trouble Takumi's in. It gets worse for her when she takes another Tomoko dragonscrew in the ropes, followed by a Mio dropkick to the knee on the apron and then another dragonscrew. The story of that match now is that Takumi's knee is hurt and she needs Chikayo to take the lead for the rest of the match. That's where we get Mio's big control segment on Takumi about 11 minutes in working the leg, with Takumi having to be saved by Chikayo running in to break things up. This whole layout has thrown expectations out the window. Takumi's the Ace of the company but circumstances have pushed her down to the bottom of the totem poll. There's a moment where it looks like she's about to get a comeback in, hoists Mio on the top turnbuckle to do something but her leg gives out climbing up the ropes and it all falls apart, Chikayo has to run in again to take out Mio to keep Takumi in the game. The finishing stretch is fantastic. Mio looks like the best babyface in the world in those last 5 minutes or so. I read the main narrative of this match is Mio really wants to show she can hang with Takumi as an individual rivalry, and she certainly achieves that. However, this was a tag match, and her constantly gunning for Takumi meant Chikayo could constantly wreck things for her and her and Tomoko weren't working as a team as well as Mio and Tomoko weren't. You can interpret this as Mio leveling up, but also showing she has some immaturities holding her back. It's great stuff and a great match. ****1/4

Marvelous 9/3/23 Review Hikari Shimizu & Riko Kawahata vs. Itsuki Aoki & Rina Amikura Hikari and Rina are both former Actwres girl'Z wrestlers who're now part of the Colors offshoot unit. We get the obligatory comedy but they get it out of the way early. For some reason Rina seems to only do two moves for the first half of this match, bodyslams and that screaming splash move. There's a pretty entertaining chop exchange where Riko bares her chest and demands Rina hit her after demeaning her a bit. Decent enough. ** Ai Houzan & Maria vs. Nightshade (Handicap Match) Marvelous have screwed up uploading the match it's been put up at 1.5 speed. What a silly company. Shame coz this is surprisingly good. Right from the start Nightshade terrifies Ai by just screaming at her when she goes to shake hands. Ai doesn't want to fight Nightshade anymore and begs Maria to start the match. The rest of this is Ai & Maria treating Nightshade like a puzzle, trying to figure out ways to bring this monster down. They show some great camaraderie and I thought Ai looked particularly good here, at one point she defends herself by poking Nightshade in the eye but she'd been such a good babyface in the buildup that it didn't feel like she did anything bad. I liked the moment where Maria has the idea of airplane spinning Ai to use her as a weapon to whack Nightshade in the head with. Plus another good Nightshade showing. *** Chikayo Nagashima, Takumi Iroha & Unagi Sayaka vs. Mio Momono, Sandra Moone & Tomoko Watanabe Mio is disappointed that he attempt to spin into her streamers didn't work. We get some birthday girl bullying at first with Team Mio grabbing Unagi and bullying her in the ropes while shouting 'Happy Birthday', but eventually Mio starts overdoing it so Chikayo & Takumi feel the need to step in. This is a really well laid out trios match. Everyone gets in the match for about the right amount of time. The best part is the Mio vs. Takumi exchange. They make sure Sandra vs. Unagi never happens heh, Sandra's main contribution was a good suicide dive while a ringside brawl was happening. Tomoko & Chikayo are both solid. There was a nice moment where Takumi was going for her leg-lariat off the ropes, but annoying Unagi trying to be helpful misunderstood the assignment and grabbed Sandra Moone to hold her against the ropes, inadvertently saving her from the leg-lariat. Takumi looked pissed. I don't remember seeing this spot before done exactly like that, and it was pleasingly character specific. I also liked a very simple exchange between Mio and Chikayo where it's just a couple of knees, but it's really good how Chikayo follows through on the push-off to deliver the knee, and then Mio sells it with perfect timing to get up in time to take the 2nd one but without ever looking like she's waiting for it. Good work. This whole thing was a real good main event without anything especially good about it. ***1/4