Show Review #2 (TJPW Spring Tour Final 6/22/2025)

Hey y'all,

The world is going to shit right now (when is it not) and I decided to watch the Tokyo Joshi show to cheer me up. I was already planning to watch this one because it was going to be live at an earlier time for me, but I really felt like I needed it today, so I had to watch.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This show was also sadly Sayuri Namba's final with the company. For the uninformed, she is one of the most iconic ring announcers in puroresu and has been with the promotion for what feels like forever. I know she is moving on to do better and bigger things, but I will certainly miss having her around as a great ring announcer as well as a wonderful character in the colorful world of TJPW.

Wakana Uehara vs Kira Summer - SKIPPABLE

WAAKAAANAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! This match was the first of two on the show for a spot in the Tokyo Princess Cup this year.

Wakana Uehara is of course a favorite of mine in the company but I have taken a liking to Kira Summer as well; she's one of the few foreigners in the current joshi world that I've been able to connect with.

This match felt pretty short, even for opener standards. Kira did good at controlling early on before Wakana got her offense in and the crowd was able to get behind her. Simple, but effective way of engaging the crowd for the rest of your show. I'm glad Wakana won as she deserves it 100%.

Toga vs Ivy Steele - SKIPPABLE

This was the second match on the show to be contested for a spot in the Princess Cup.

I do not think Ivy Steele is bad at all and I have thought that she's had fine performances in the undercard tags of bigger TJPW events, but I haven't been able to get behind what she's been doing and a large portion of her work has just been "there" for me. 

Oppositely, Toga is someone that I've thoroughly enjoyed watching matches of this year. She's really moved up my personal lists a lot recently with how she's developed and defined her in-ring style. She can be stiff, is cold and stoic, and has an undeniable fire to her. I think she's neat.

I thought the match was fine with nothing worth revisiting, though I was shocked at the outcome. I feel the Princess Cup could've greatly benefitted from having Toga in it and I wish she also did more in this match. It felt like she held back a lot and was just there as a training dummy for Ivy at points.

Yoshiko Hasegawa vs Uta Takami - FUN

This was originally schedule to be a three way match including Yuki Kamifuku, but plans changed for whatever reason.

Amidst the wave of incredible talent coming up in the joshi scene right now, Uta Takami is a name I wish more (including myself) would remember to bring up. THE future of Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling and she's already got multiple great matches in the past year.

Yoshiko Hasegawa does good at the "more experienced, stronger veteran" role that Uta excels against. Yoppy teaches Uta a lesson in getting roughed up (as usual) and it's fun to watch (as usual) Uta keep running into a brick wall.

Maki Itoh & Ren Konatsu vs Raku & Shino Suzuki - FUN

I think Maki Itoh can be really good sometimes but she didn't do much for me here. From the get go, she's the "serious" one in the match out of everyone, and she's capable of doing so with these three. I do like what she does with the dynamic, but nothing stands out.

I enjoyed Raku sleepy schtick and Shino Suzuki's tour guide stuff, I had fun with it. In hindsight, perhaps I'm being somewhat too harsh on Maki here.

Suzume & Arisu Endo vs Moka Miyamoto & Kaya Toribami - FUN

Daisy Monkey continues to be one of my favorite tag teams in the world. Suzume had a nice reign with the International Princess belt and Arisu Endo is amazing in tag settings. I also have enjoyed seeing Kaya's growth as a wrestler throughout her time in TJPW. Moka Miyamoto is one of the few roster members that I'm iffy on; She's never done anything for me but I also understand I've yet to give her a fair chance. Hopefully that'll change with Summer Sun Princess.

Shoko Nakajima & Chika Nanase vs Rika Tatsumi & Miu Watanabe - REALLY GOOD

This was the biggest Summer Sun Princess preview to me on the card and it was awesome. Rika and Miu is always gonna be a great team-up because they're two of the most skilled wrestlers in the entire world right now, and Shoko Nakajima is da beeg kaiju (this match also made me wonder how she'd fair in a lucha environment).

Chika Nanase is obviously here to take the fall, but at least there's not much of a focus on her during the match so you can kind of forget about that part. I think she's alright herself, but yeah there's not much too look forward to in her performance here.

Shoko takes a lot in this but also has the most exciting offense on the whole show. Maybe she's the best in the company, I don't know.

Match revolved around Rika and Miu finding new ways to torture Shoko and it's really fun, give it a watch.

Mizuki & Hyper Misao & Yuki Aino & Pom Harajuku vs Yuki Arai & Mahiro Kiryu & HIMAWARI & Haru Kazashiro - FUN

Star-studded main event that starts with Misao letting Namba do her intro, followed by Misao forcing her to use the trademark spray on the other team. Namba then excitedly gets the oppourtunity to ring the bell herself. Great start!

I don't necessarily enjoy Yuki Arai's work and am not excited for the PoP title match at Summer Sun Princess, but I thought the bits she did with Mizuki in this match were fine.

I'm sure I've said this elsewhere before, but Yuki Aino has some sick fashion sense.

A lot of the finishing stretch in this match goes to Haru and Pom and surprisingly, out of everyone in this match, Pom gets the win for her team!

This leads into a really emotional graduation ceremony for Namba. She cries, Pom cries, and so does the rest of the TJPW roster, who all come out to support Namba and show her love. If you don't know anything about Namba, watch the final minutes of the show and see how someone that's "just a ring announcer" can be so beloved by the whole roster and she will be dearly missed. I truly wish her the best in whatever's next for her in life.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I know this was less focused than the last show review and my posts in general, but I hope you still enjoyed me getting an excuse to ramble about my favorite TJPW talent. 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.

Show Review! (W*ING The Name Of Wing - Take Off Again 4/22/2001)

I love writing and I want to talk about more stuff I've watched so here's another blog post already.

This one's a little different than the typical "random matches" post. I thought it'd more interesting to do a full show review! Now, the other posts are going to continue as normal, but it'd be nice to also have more concise/organized review posts like this as well.

W*ING (short for Wrestling International New Generations) was founded in 1991 and was one of the biggest deathmatch/hardcore promotions in Japan in the 90s, alongside FMW. Skip ahead some years, and the company stops regularly running shows in June of 1996. They run a show in September of that year and five in 1997, but the company is virtually dead after that.

By 2001, Mr. Pogo restarts the promotion with the show we're watching today. This show was took on the "Take Off Again" subtitle from the company's inaugural "Take Off" tours throughout their history. This particular show aired on Fighting TV Samurai! as "Battle Station" broadcast on 5/8/2001, about 2-3 weeks after the event took place.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Broadcast starts off with some Press Conference footage containing higher-ups and guys like Matsunaga and Mr. Pogo (who's in his Ribera jacket of course) discussing the company reboot, before they cut to some of the roster members posing in front of the W*ING logo.

We also get to see the big names doing autograph signings/meet-and-greets with a pretty large crowd (I couldn't find the exact attendance number, but it's worth noting this show takes place at the Differ Ariake, which would become the home of Pro Wrestling NOAH around this time) of people as they show gets set up before the first match. And finally right before that, we get the whole roster in the ring to kick off the event. (Also holy shit, Leatherface and "Boogie Man" go crazy)

The first three matches are all VERY clipped so I'll be pretty brief with my thoughts on them.

Mongol Man vs Jet Jaguar

Can't say much about this one because we get like a minute (out of eight) of highlights of this match. Mongol Man does Mongolian Chops though so I like. I'm sure he's a lot of fun and while I've never heard of Jet Jaguar before, he has a sick look.

Hiroyoshi Kotsubo vs Hirofumi Miura

We get like three clips from this match; Miura seems like the kind of wrestler I like though: Karate guy that does a tornado DDT and moonsault.

Viking Taniguchi vs Hiroshi Shimada

Two beefy boys hit each other and then leave happily ever after.

Mitsunobu Kikuzawa vs Ryo Miyake - SKIPPABLE

This is the first full match that we get to see and I'm not sure where my expectations were at. I've seen maybe one Ryo Miyake match ever and Kikuzawa would later go on to become Kikutaro in his career.

This is also a Barbed Wire Bat match, meaning that both wrestlers must start outside the ring and then race to grab the barbed wire bat in the center of the ring after a countdown. The issue is, the bat BREAKS about 2 minutes into the match after Kikuzawa swings and misses on Miyake, instead hitting the mat.

To their credit though, the match somehow doesn't completely fall apart after this. Kikuzawa makes Miyake bleed by rubbing the cracked part of the bat (that doesn't have any barbed wire on it, mind you) into his forehead. Miyake gets some offense of his own by just bare-handing the barbed wire bat part and using it on Kikuzawa, before a backup referee throws in a completely new barbed wire bat eventually.

The brawling in the match isn't bad but isn't great, but they do a great job at pacing this around the bat break incident. Both guys do beat each other up to a lot of bleeding and the finish is nice, I can give them that.

Ichiro Yaguchi, Katsumi Hirano & Kazuhiko Matsuzaki vs Fukumen Taro, Masaru Toi & Masayoshi Motegi - FUN

This a Captain's Fall (what that seems to mean in this case that you can only win by pinning/submitting the opposing team's captain, but you cannot do so until you first eliminate their two non-captain members) match with the captains being Kazuhiko Matsuzaki and Masayoshi Motegi. Interesting on paper for a number of reasons: Ichiro Yaguchi's in this, and also it's pretty rare for me to come across a Captain's fall match outside of Mexico.

A lot of it is spent taking a beating early on, but Katsumi Hirano gets the most ring time by far in this match. To his credit, he takes some hard-hitting stuff pretty well, and then reciprocates that energy when it's his turn for offense. Maybe I'm dense, but he strikes me as a guy I'll probably seek out more from in the future, because I'm sure he probably has a match where he just beats up someone crazy-style.

I wish we got more Ichiro Yaguchi in this match but he does get some decent minutes in the final fall. He might be one of the best worst wrestlers ever and I love him for that. Sloppy, a bit too stiff, and his matches can be so scattered sometimes, yet he's still a beast. These don't end up being bugs in his game, they're features.

Yaguchi gets his team the win by pinning Motegi, who is another wrestler I've seen before this and really like.

Hideki Hosaka & Koichiro Kimura vs Boogie Man & Leatherface - FUN

Yeah, Leatherface and Boogie Man still crazy as shit. They start off just moving around the ring crazy before the bell even is rung (by Boogie Man himself), and then the match kind of splits into two. Kimura walk-and-brawls with Boogie Man in front of a crowd outside of the room while Leatherface tosses Hosaka around the chairs ringside. When the havoc cools down, everyone's back to the ring to have a "regular" match.

If there's a gripe I have with this, it's that they don't drag that opening portion out for longer. If things are getting chaotic, let the chaos ensue! If you're so easily able to reel things back in, I have a hard time believing that there was much danger in the first place. It's a bit of an unfortunate dissonance because they make Leatherface and Boogie Man seem like pretty credible threats throughout the rest of the match, of course.

Koichiro Kimura is the most technically sound wrestler in a match where no one else is, and I think I love that. He brings stoicism to an otherwise ridiculous matchup and is also just a good wrestler. He's featured the least, but that almost feels like it's for the best given everyone else that's in this.

Gedo & Jado vs Shoji Nakamaki & WING Kanemura - SKIPPABLE

This is an "Odawara Fire Revenge Bunkhouse Death Match" with no fire in it, nor does it feel like a death match. It is a fun-ish brawl for the most part, which I actually enjoyed much more than the typical Gedo & Jado match. Kanemura and Nakamaki take the crazier bumps (which there aren't many of), and then the match just feels like it goes on too long. Which is funny, considering how abrupt the ending feels.

I wouldn't call this bad, especially when I felt like the brawling stuff was good, but this is not a match I am ever going to revisit or think about again.

Hideki Hosaka, Mitsuhiro Matsunaga, Ryo Miyake & The Winger vs Freddie Krueger, Mitsunobu Kikuzawa, Mr. Pogo & WING Kanemura - FUN

Matsunaga comes out drenched in barbed wire as the king does. This would've been about 4 years before he goes on to the greatest run in wrestling history in ZERO-1, but he still feels like the biggest deal in the world even here. That's obvious because he's Matsunaga and all, but he still feels like a force that needs to be neutralized in order for Team W*ING to get stuff done.

To be honest, this is just what I imagine the embodiment of the "Car Crash" (literally) match aim in TEW to be. You get a crazy weapons-filled fighting throughout the arena that's at it's best when they lean into the "Light Out Moonlight Darkness" part of the "Incredible Tag Scramble Bunkhouse Light Out Moonlight Darkness Death Match" stipulation. Seriously, there are some sickass visuals that come from the lights out portion of the match, including Matsunaga getting the life choked out of him by Freddie Kruger.

In a way, this is the best way that they could've demonstrated what W*ING, or at least this show, was about. Ryo Miyake has the star performance easily because I popped at him bringing the broken bat gimmick back from earlier, and he also takes two cringe-inducing bumps onto a pile of weapons.

Once the match ends, with little interaction between Mr. Pogo and Matsunaga, there's some stuff teased between WING Kanemura and Matsunaga instead. As far as I could tell, this wouldn't come to fruition within W*ING as the two would never share the ring in the 3 other shows the company ran, but they did meet in a singles match later in 2001 (in the "Rainbow Promotion"?) in a "Carribean Barbed Wire Spider Net Board Barbed Wire Board Spike Nail Bat & Barbed Wire Bat Scramble Bunkhouse WING Extreme Falls Count Anywhere Lights Out Death Match" that I'm sure is awesome.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Is this show worth watching for yourself? Outside of the main event, not necessarily. I think the fun matches are fun, but they're just that. The main isn't even particularly that great but it's a cool novelty watch.

Other than that though, thank you for reading my thoughts on this show today; I hope you enjoyed. 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.

Matches I Watched #6 (involving a Fujiwara-Gumi search)

Hey again y'all! Finally getting back into the swing of things with writing and there's been a lot more wrestling stuff interesting me lately, so here I am! 

I'm not really sure what the thought process was behind picking these specific matches, but they just so happened to be what I watched today so let's get to it, shall we?

Beastman & Mad Dog Connelly vs. Bam Sullivan & Matt Tremont (JCW 6/12/2025) - GOOD

I was at the show where these teams had their original matchup last month (at JCW May Flowers 5/11/2025) and loved every second of it. It was an awesome, brutal brawl that riled up a crowd that wasn't going too crazy before that. There, they had the co-main event spot and that was for the worst as it's pretty difficult to follow that up. This time, they got the main event spot and it was even better.

In comparison to their previous match, this one is upgraded in basically every way. More chaos, more violence, and more mayhem. While I loved being there for that first one, I was a bit soured by the no contest finish after a brawl like that. It just didn't make much sense given everything else that happened in the match. Here, the "Mayhem in the Mecca" stipulation definitely allowed for more leniency in that regard and I loved the touch of the music playing throughout the match. Made it feel like it was actually different.

The brawling was great here, even if somewhat simple. Sometimes, simpler is better and that's the case for most of this one. Something in particular that stood out to me was Mad Dog's punching. He's such a good puncher, man.

I understand the point of these tags has been to build up a Mad Dog/Tremont singles, but the matches 100% can stand on their own pretty well. With that being said though, I think that finish does a great job at pushing that rivalry further.

If I had one complaint about the match, it felt like it went a few minutes too long, but I also enjoyed everything in the match so maybe not? What do I know?

This match is awesome, go watch it now.

Keita Yano vs. Tsuyoshi Okada (Dove Pro Still Dove 2/9/2025) - FUN

Was very excited to see Dove Pro release this a few weeks ago as I continue my journey in watching all the Keita Yano matches in 2025 that make tape. I haven't seen much Tsuyoshi Okada before, I believe this is my first time watching him in singles action. Keita, as usual, will be impossible for me to root against.

This is a "KOK Rules" match, meaning that there are 3 rounds, 5 minutes each. With Keita's grappling and Okada's MMA gloves, I can imagine the logic behind this being the basis of this matchup.

I really love the character that Keita Yano portrays, even if it's not always a character per se. He's a scrawny little fella that is almost always physically lesser than his opponents, yet he can sometimes find a way to get past them. In this match, he looks like he's genuinely overwhelmed whenever Tsuyoshi Okada is able to outpower him, both on the ground and on the feet. I think the finish does a great job at showing how this affects his decision-making and aggressiveness.

Nice match, I liked it. God bless Keita Yano.

Daisuke Ikeda vs. Yuki Ishikawa (PWFG 8/12/1995) - GREAT

So I got a kind of interesting story about this one.

First of all, huge thank you/shoutout to Jom and his greatest, most ambitious project yet, Insect's Soul. He put in an incredible effort to shine a light on so much different amazing independent wrestling and I've learned about so many promotions and wrestlers as a result.

This was a notable inclusion on the list for multiple reasons. One, it's an Ikeda/Ishikawa match. Not just any Ikeda/Ishikawa match, but their 2nd ever. Two, it's PWFG and I was kind of shocked to see a promotion like this on the list. I get it wasn't like the biggest organization, but it's probably one of the most well-known, compared to the rest of the companies listed. And three, I could not find this match for the life of me.

You can very easily find almost all of the PWFG broadcasts on VK or Internet Archive, yet this show is weird. It doesn't seem to have been traditionally broadcast/released like the rest of the shows, and nobody had it anywhere I could find online. But, I knew it had to have been taped because Jom's listing for it had included a gif of the match that very much was from a broadcast camera, and also this was a Korakuen Hall show, I'd be shocked if it wasn't recorded anywhere.

Many hours spent searching later, I couldn't even find the show or the match on any of the pages of the tape traders I was aware of either. Losing a bit of hope of finding this (at least, finding it anytime soon), a friend had asked around about the footage in the GWE discord. A few people answered that it probably wasn't taped and that it had been on a lot of people's footage wishlists for a while. Damn.

And then, after like a day or two, somebody just sent a google drive link of the full show. Well then. That story ends there I guess.

Onto the match now.

Jom described this as Ikeda and Ishikawa's "most 'shoot-style' matchup to date" and I could see where he's coming from. Bati-Bati is fascinating because it's not shoot-style, but it's also not not shoot-style, y'know? In a way, a lot of the portrayal of struggle that shoot-style is praised for is demonstrated in a more aggressive, attacking way in Bati-Bati. I don't really understand any of this wrestling stuff much but I think there's a beauty to how that struggle is able to resonate with those who watch. Huh.

The stylistic difference between this and their other matchups make a lot more sense when you also factor in that this is taking place in Fujiwara's promotion. This feels a lot more grapple-heavy than their other encounters and the struggle is best shown through the "escape". When they roll out of the ring (multiple times), when Ikeda needs to push himself as close to the ropes as he can to get out of a submission, when Ishikawa has to counter Ikeda's counters. It's all meaningful and inspiring?

You do get some of the Ikeda/Ishikawa experience, like when they start slapping each other while Ikeda mounts Ishikawa or when Ishikawa roundhouses Ikeda for a knockdown, but even then it's different still.

Yes, this is an interesting watch for the novelty alone. It's the 2nd ever Ikeda and Ishikawa singles match and it's in PWFG. But you also get a really good wrestling match that displays another side of what these two can do to each other.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you for reading my thoughts on these matches today; I hope you enjoyed. 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.

More Matches? Yes. (Fujiwara, Sangre Chicana, and an Instant Classic)

Hey y'all! It's been a little bit longer since the last post, I know. Things have been slightly hectic lately and so some of the stuff I've been working on had to take some small delays. Fortunately though, I did want to get out a post today because I need to scratch that writing itch somehow.

The biggest reason I couldn't write much earlier in the week is because I haven't really been watching much lately. The past couple weeks have mostly been recent CMLL stuff that I've really loved, but didn't have anything to say about it other than "I recommend these matches." Two of these matches were watched only because they were suggestions from friends (as part of a mini wrestling "book club", if that makes sense).

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Super Tiger (UWF 9/7/1984) - EPIC

In response to a Matt D tweet a few weeks back that was about how a spot from a Mike Bailey vs. Kazuchika Okada match felt sport-like as opposed to feeling "real", I asked if there was anything in wrestling that could do both: make things feel real but also feel like a competition. Most of the responses were answers of shoot-style and to be fair, it makes sense. 

I thought about that a lot throughout this matchup largely because of how I already perceive Fujiwara. He's not a wrestler that seems to care for the competitive nature of shoot-style, but does a hell of a job at making what he does feel real. Rather than it feel like he just wants to out-wrestle his opponent, I almost am horrified (in the best way) at how he would instead prefer to crush whoever stands across from him.

I know it's too easy to say this (especially when it comes to shoot-style stuff), but the match truly does feel like a fight instead of a wrestling match. And I love that. Fujiwara spends the early portions of the match trying to murder Sayama and I wince at how brutal that offense looks. When Sayama gets the upper hand, he does the same and it's even more disgusting. It goes beyond the "beat the hell out of each other" scale and enters the "are they shooting???" territory in my mind.

Something that will occur throughout these matches today is my praise for the selling. Super Tiger does a great job at getting his ass beat and making you feel bad for him but the star of this show is Fujiwara by far. What sticks out is the selling of his exhaustion. For a feeling that is so common and one that the audience can relate to, I don't think there's many wrestlers ever that have sold it great. Fujiwara is on that very short list of those who can though. As I'm watching him lay there after getting destroyed by Tiger's kicks and knee drops, I start to feel like I just went through a war myself.

For someone like Fujiwara who has kind of always been an evil bastard wrestler in my eyes, I do feel sorry for him while Sayama is laying it in on him (even after Fujiwara was being just as evil to him earlier in the match!). If that's not a testament to how strong his selling is here, I don't know what is. To me, that's what selling is for.

MS-1 vs. Sangre Chicana (EMLL 50th Anniversario 9/23/1983) - EPIC

I've tried to deep-dive Sangre Chicana before but just have never gotten around to doing so, which makes me all the more glad I got to watch this recently. Both him and MS-1 are names that I've heard have some of the bloodiest brawls in all of lucha history and if there's anything I love most in wrestling, it's two awesome punchy guys making each other bleed throughout any venue.

It's a 2/3 falls hair vs hair match, and most of the first fall is spent with MS-1 keeping Chicana outside the ring after catching him off guard during his entrance. An interesting note-to-self is that throughout this ordeal, MS-1 looks scared. His body language makes him seem anxious. Almost as if he attacked Chicana before the bell because he knows he wouldn't stand a chance otherwise.

Once again, this is another match that serves as a masterclass in selling fatigue and exhaustion. Sangre Chicana showcases fantastic selling but also some of the best striking I've ever seen in wrestling. Every single punch is exaggerated just enough that all of them mean something without going too overboard that it would become cartoonish.

And they don't call him SANGRE Chicana for nothing; he bleeds buckets in this one. The visual of the bleeding itself looks awesome but what follows is even better. Throughout the course of the match, it feels like Chicana is getting stronger in real-time as soon as he starts to see his own blood. It's astoundingly easy to get behind him during this, really leaving me with wanting to watch more of his work. Only the best of the best can flip a switch and get everyone behind their big comeback solely through their bleeding (and punching).

Excellent match; maybe one of the greatest ever?

Sareee vs. Ranna Yagami (Stardom 6/8/2025) - GREAT

Let me be clear, I do love Ranna Yagami and she's someone that I do always want to cheer for. But I understand that Stardom is behind when it comes to their trainee quality compared to the rest of joshi promotions. Marvelous has Senka Akatsuki and Sora Ayame, Pro-Wrestling Evolution has ZONES and Chi Chi, Marigold has Seri Yamaoka and the recently debuting Shinno showed so much in her debut match against Mai Sakurai. While I don't think Stardom produces bad talent, their current, more lenient approach has certainly led to some of their rookies being lapped by those coming out of some of the more traditional dojos.

Sareee seems to agree too. In an interview with Tokyo Sports prior to this match, she was quoted as saying, "“Stardom wrestlers overwhelmingly lack the fighting spirit that is an important part of joshi puroresu. I have no choice but to train Ranna Yagami thoroughly in the 6/8 Korakuen show!" [credit to Shigeo on twitter for translating this quote]

Even though the interview is in-character, I think there's some truth to what she's saying. In fact, the part that sticks out the most is that she says she will "train Ranna Yagami" in their match. Sareee truly does care about the joshi scene and is not saying these things just to chastise the talent coming up in Stardom. She's trying to prove a point and push these rookies to be stronger and get further.

The best compliment I can give a match like this is that it was very reminiscent of an 80s AJPW match with the same dynamics: fiery young boy getting killed by much more experienced, grumpier old man. The match quite literally starts exactly how I'd want something like that to start, with Ranna instantly getting on the offense before Sareee could even finish making her entrance.

And going back to that point I said about Sareee wanting the best for these rookies and wanting to further them, my favorite part of this match comes pretty early on. After Ranna catches her off guard in the beginning, she continues to get some offense in on the outside. Right when she lands a couple of forearm strikes, you see the biggest smile grow on Sareee's face to the extent where she can't even hide it. She looks like a proud mom because she knows very well what she has done. She unlocked something in Ranna and pushed her. That might be my favorite wrestling moment this year.

While this match continues to be even better from there, that's the stuff I wanted to talk about for today. If you want a more in-depth look at this match, I highly suggest checking out my friend Zeph's blog when they publish their own thoughts about it!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you for listening to my thoughts on some random matches today; I hope you enjoyed reading! 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.