Current Joshi Talk

[sek69]

8 hours ago, Jmare007 said:

Is it fair to say that Stardom has been the most successful Japanese promotion during the pandemic? It kind of feels like it but I don't follow Joshi beyond results/gates so I'm very on the outside looking in.

Kairi coming back should be a nice boost for them too.

A combo of not having so much tied in to foreign stars and Bushiroad buying them at the right time to soften the blow of not running shows due to pandemic reasons made them one of better suited promotions around. 

[Kadaveri]

14 hours ago, Jmare007 said:

Is it fair to say that Stardom has been the most successful Japanese promotion during the pandemic? It kind of feels like it but I don't follow Joshi beyond results/gates so I'm very on the outside looking in.

Kairi coming back should be a nice boost for them too.

I'm pretty sure Stardom is the only company of its size (or larger) which has increased its live attendence numbers during the pandemic. That's pretty wild, and makes me wonder how well they could have been doing if the pandemic hadn't held things back.

[Tenese Sarwieh]

Stardom 2/23 show had an easy notebook hovering in MOTY territory. AZM/Starlight Kid was nothing short of excellent. These two have perfect chemistry and did enough that kept you satisfied but left you wanting more in the future. This has a strong chance to rival Utami/Syuri for one of Stardom's greatest feuds.

[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.

[kas]

Sendai Girls is so consistent, every show has at least one match worth going out of your way to watch

[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

 

[Tenese Sarwieh]

Enjoyed both nights of the World Climax from Stardom. They did Starlight Kid well making her look good in defeat against KAIRI. Also, the build with Giulia and Suzu Suzuki has been great and has me anticipating the deathmatch between the two. 

 

[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.

[Kadaveri]

Arisa Nakajima & Hanako Nakamori vs. Miyuki Takase & Rina Yamashita PURE-J 3/20/22 was a terrific stiff match with a great start when Arisa refuses to shake Miyuki's hand. Check it out if you can.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

1. Tam Nakano vs. Natsupoi - Stardom - June 28

2. Syuri vs. MIRAI - Stardom - January 29

3. Hikari Noa vs. Maki Itoh - TJPW - January 4

4. AZM vs. Koguma - Stardom - May 8

5. Saya Kamitani vs. MIRAI - Stardom - May 28

6. Chihiro Hashimoto & Yuu vs. Mika Iwata & Miyuki Takase - Sendai Girls - June 16

7. Tsukushi Haruka vs. Ibuki Hoshi - Ice Ribbon - January 16

8. Chihiro Hashimoto & Yuu vs. DASH Chisako & Hiroyo Matsumoto - Sendai Girls - February 27

9. Hanako Nakamori &Arisa Nakajima vs. Rina Yamashita & Miyuki Takase - PURE J - March 20

10. Chihiro Hashimoto & Yuu vs. Mika Iwata & Manami - Sendai Girls - February 20
     

[El-P]

After watching the last few big Stardom shows with both Tam Nakano vs Natsupoi matches and the awesome Saya Kamitani vs Starlight Kid title match (Kamitani is getting better and better, great babyface performance here, and Starlight Kid is just ridiculous, she's what, 21 ?), the biggest match of the week-end, the Summer and really the year thus far to me is Syuri vs Tam Nakano. Nakano has low-key been one of the best worker in the world these last two years, she would sure deserve a run with the red belt. 

[El-P]

That Stardom in Showcase show was certainly different, and really I was thinking that's actually what I want to see sometime from pro-wrestling. They got a DJ (no, not DJ Ran and she wasn't all up in yo area either) to mix some music, every match had a special theme, some of it more serious like the hardcore match between Donna del Mondo and Prominence or the "I Quit" match between Syuri and Kurumi Hiragi (which has a really interesting finish, as Hiragi finally quit out of fear of being thrown off the stage, which I thought was quite a cool idea to play on fear instead of pain, Syuri did thrown her anyway afterward), some of it a lot less so. The Cosmic Angels match was a mix between comedy, burlesque and actual pro-wrestling, with interesting dynamics between the players (Mino, oh, Mina). And I thought I had seen one of the most absurd match ever before the four way falls count anywhere match, in which there was actual fight *inside* a giant inflatable structure, costume swapping, figure-four on an inflatable slide and whatnot.

That kind of completely absurd stuff taking place in a major promotion kinda makes me long for the days of the pandemic era (yeah, I just said it) where the context allowed you to try some completely new stuff to play along with the ever expanding pro-wrestling notebook. And made me kinda miss LU too.

[donsem43]

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.

[Kadaveri]

AOI & Tomoka Inaba vs. Maika & MIRAI from the Just Tap Out show yesterday was incredible. If you said it was the best match any of those four have ever been in I'd be fine with that.

[El-P]

I was all about praising Saya Kamitani's work and say about how she had some Steamboat in her.... and then she botched her finish on poor MIna Shirakawa.... twice. The second one is one of the worst thing I've seen in a while. Poor Mina's mouth and jaw was shattered. Hopefully not broken, but it obviously was absolutely brutal. Poor girl. She was having probably her best single match ever too. 

Syuri vs MAIKA was a terrific main event. 

I very seldom watch entire Stardom shows, but they always are pretty satisfying in overall quality. Can't wait until the chanting comes back though (same for NJPW).

[El-P]

The end year show has Syuri vs Giulia, which should be awesome (they will beat the hell out of each other, let's be real) and KAIRI vs Hayashishita, which should be awesome too. The rest of the card looks pretty fun as well, but these two matches could end up being the last MOTYC, before 2023 kicks off with WK and the earliest MOTYC (at very least).

[El-P]

There's apparently no hype on PWO about Stardom anymore, but the show on Sunday is gonna be the biggest joshi show in years, with a killer top line-up. Of course a big part of the intrigue is whether Moné keeps her title against Mayu, in which case that means she signed for one more match, as Giulia already challenged her. Now that would be quite the big time main event, whenever it occurs. And from there, who knows ? Does she really want to come back to WWE under *gasp* Vince ? 

Mina Shirakawa vs Saya Kamitani could see the end of Kamitani's reign (and streak of terrific defenses), as it would be quite the closure for Mina, who has improved a lot in the last year or so and who had her face shattered last time they met. And of course Giulia vs Tam Nakano, which on paper looks like a total killer match, but not the time yet for Nakano, although it will have to come eventually, I guess. 

Clearly one if not the most interesting show until the Summer.

[sek69]

Mercedes seems to be enjoying being in Japan, so I can see her signing with AEW with one of those "can work for New Japan as long as there's no conflict" deals. I suppose WWE could have been an option while Vince was in exile, but unless some major bridge-building I don't see her going back. 

A straight New Japan deal seems unlikely since by all accounts she was making big money for the matches she did, and while her matches have been good she hasn't brought the same level of eyeballs someone like Jericho did when they showed up. 

[Timbo Slice]

There will be a time where Meiko’s contract runs out and she faces Mercedes and it’ll be the single biggest women’s match in years. 

[SirEdger]

On 4/18/2023 at 3:06 PM, sek69 said:

Mercedes seems to be enjoying being in Japan, so I can see her signing with AEW with one of those "can work for New Japan as long as there's no conflict" deals. I suppose WWE could have been an option while Vince was in exile, but unless some major bridge-building I don't see her going back. 

A straight New Japan deal seems unlikely since by all accounts she was making big money for the matches she did, and while her matches have been good she hasn't brought the same level of eyeballs someone like Jericho did when they showed up. 

Mercedes tweeted yesterday that she was looking to move full-time to Japan, so draw your own conclusions. Doesn't mean an AEW deal wouldn't be likely though.

[sek69]

So it looks like they really wanted to sign Trinity Fatu but they are under pressure from Bushiroad to keep the costs down. I suppose she wasn't just there to cheer on her BFF at the Tokyo Dome after all. 

I also wonder if they are being told to keep the costs down also partly due to how women's wrestling is viewed in Japan. It's cool that they got to do matches on New Japan shows, but you can tell the crowds are still getting used to women and men's matches on the same show.  It does seem like Mercedes helped bump up the NJPW World subs a bit, so that's why I assume they're going to do what they can to keep her around. It would be something if she ends up being involved in improving the standing of women's wrestling in two different countries.