I love Tenryu Project. And I mean EVERYTHING about Tenryu Project: the shitty video quality, the singular hard cam shot, Tenryu's raspy 75-year old voice being the only telligible on the audio side of things.
More importantly though, Tenryu Project produces booking that feels catered to me. One of my favorite wrestlers active today, Keita Yano, primarily works there. Some of my favorite joshi, such as Aja Kong, DASH Chisako, and Chi Chi have all been getting matches there. There's a large sense of unpredictability when it comes to their tournament matchups as you really don't know what you're gonna get.
As Genichiro Tenryu is being celebrated these days more than ever by fellow puro legends with his appearances at the Giant Baba Memorial Show and Kenta Kobashi's Fortune Dream 10 Produce, I figured there's no better time than right now to take a look at what the promotion's been putting out this year.
Keita Yano & Kengo vs. Hikaru Sato & Yuya Susumu (Tenryu Project Tenryu Festival 2/2/25) - FUN
This was a return match for the aforementioned Keita Yano, who was coming off a 5-month hiatus. I don't know the exact details of why he left, but I feel it's one of those things that shouldn't be speculated on in the first place. Either way, he looked like he hadn't missed a single day from what we could see in this one. He unfortunately does the least out of anyone in the match (it felt that way to me at least), but still does maximize his minutes, so to speak. I especially noticed his work in the beginning of the match with his stalling on the outside. It felt like I was watching someone truly get back into the swing of things in real-time.
I am familiar with Kengo by name only, this was the first time watching him wrestle. I must say, he made me a fan in this one. His grappling was slick and expressive, but in a way that still allowed for him to show that he knows what he's doing on that side of things. The whole time I was thinking "I really like these two as a team; hope they have a singles match at some point" and it seems that they indeed did have a singles match some weeks after this!
I don't really have much to say about Yuya Susumu. He is not bad at all, but has the least focused performance in my opinion. I just wasn't really moved by what he did and I reckon that'll change if I watch another match of his that doesn't have these guys in it.
Hikaru Sato's biggest problem in recent years has been inconsistency. You never know what kind of effort you're gonna get from Sato. Even when he does try harder, it's sometimes too much leaning towards that kickboxing direction that I tend to not care much about from him (ironically).
Despite this, I still enjoy watching him because I can still take something away from his individual performance. While I didn't think his work here was anything special, I did appreciate some of the intricacies of what he was going for tag-wise. At one point, Susumu is trying to reach the ropes so Sato tries to lean on them to push them closer to him before the ref sees this and stops it. He also builds to the eventually matchup in the ring between himself and Yano straight from the beginning with his calling-out of Keita after he misses the chance to face him early on. It's small, but it gives more character to these interactions within the tag match environment, rather than it just being "oh well's here 4 different singles matches in one".
Nothing in this was too crazy to justify going out of your way to seek it out, but I would suggest giving this one a watch if any of these guys interest you or if you come across this show for whatever reason. Fun little match!
Naoki Tanizaki & Yusuke Kodama vs Oji Shiiba & Takuro Niki (Tenryu Project Light My Fire Vol 10 2/20/25) - GOOD
This was my introduction to the Junior Heavyweight division of Tenryu Project, and was a match to decide the next challengers for the International Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Titles (held by Kengo and Yuya Susumu at the time of this show). The matchup starts off with your typical "feeling out" lock-ups and matwork, but I have to give credit where it's due: Naoki Tanizaki gives Oji Shiiba nothing in this opening sequence, making it feel different than the usual approach that would be taken here.
I'd argue that most of the match is just basic fundamentals and fairly by-the-numbers, yet it became easy for me to look past that because of the intensity both teams brought. Tanizaki and Kodama heeled things up big time and I loved their performances, especially Kodama's. Shiiba and Niki were the fighting underdogs that were looked down upon by the heels but still kept trying to prove themselves and they did. There were even a few points that wowed Tenryu on commentary!
The only "issue" I had with the match was Shiiba spamming that one running kick he does (you'll know it if you see it) throughout it. Mix things up for once, please! He does take a beating here though, I'll give him that.
Otherwise though, I thought this match demonstrated exactly what I'm looking for from modern Junior wrestlers. You can still be quick and have high-octane action while giving me something to latch onto and walk away with. For this match specifically, I left realizing I have to watch more of Tanizaki and Kodama (but generally I feel I need to look more into everyone in this match).
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Before I end this post, I wanted to give a minor blog update. I realize this entry is a bit more "themed" and less random than the other 3 in this series so far, and that is for a reason. It felt easier for me to write about these two matches when viewing them in the grand scheme of Tenryu Project and what it's about. I don't plan for all the future posts in this series to be as organized/themed as this one, but it was something I wanted to do as a little precursor to a larger themed project that I'm working on for the blog.
Anyways though, I hope you enjoyed reading this! If you didn't, that's alright too. Let me know if you have any thoughts, criticisms, ideas, or whatever in the comments or get in touch with me on my Twitter page!
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