6/29/2025

© New Japan Pro Wrestling

New Japan Pro Wrestling

Dominion

June 15th, 2025
Osaka-Jo Hall, Osaka, Japan
Company Announced Attendance: 6,525
Watch On: New Japan World
Review by Conor McFall

I don’t know much about cosmetics, but Hirooki Goto must be the most expensive lipstick in the world right now because his title reign is the only bright spot in what has been a torrid booking run for New Japan this year. And really, this is a company that has been beset by booking issues for years. Now, in 2025, those issues are really coming home to roost. That’s going to be a constant theme going through this review. But while poor decisions of the past – as well as wider issues financially and with talent retention – have led us to this point, the booking choices on this show were genuinely pitiful. In the pages of this newsletter, I discussed the nature of heat and how many bookers get way too caught up in generating heat while forgetting that there is supposed to be a babyface pay-off. I argued that the whole point of heat in the first place was to achieve catharsis through babyface triumph. On that basis, The House Of Torture are a complete and utter failure of what a heel group is ultimately supposed to achieve. Yes, they cheat and they bullshit and they generate heat. But the whole point is that they eventually have to be vanquished. But no. EVIL lost to company president Hiroshi Tanahashi at “Wrestle Kingdom” at what people thought could be a blow-off for the group. They then lost a civil war cage match against the War Dogs which, again, would have been a natural conclusion for the faction. But coming out of “Dominion”, New Japan’s second biggest standalone show of the year, they are as strong as they have ever been, adding THREE new members and vanquishing their main rival David Finlay in a brutal destruction. In a time of uncertainty, HoT seem to be a weird Hot Topic comfort blanket for Gedo, whose time as a booker has surely come and gone. As I look up and down this card, I see some decent matches amongst the crap but no real signs of hope in the immediate future for this flagging company. The problem with NJPW booking right now isn’t just that they make bad decisions, but that they make no decisions. Everything is half-hearted and slow-moving to a degree that one would get the sense that this is a company plagued with indecision about what is to come next. It’s viable to slow play pushes when you’re strong on top – but when you lose Kota Ibushi, Jay White, Will Ospreay, Kazuchika Okada, Tetsuya Naito and soon Hiroshi Tanahashi in a four year period, the sense of urgency to create stars should be obvious. But instead, the company has largely pissed around for most of that time. And what’s worse, I also have reservations about almost all of the younger stars who will now be pushed out of necessity. These are dark times for New Japan.

House Of Torture vs War Dogs

People know by now that not one, but two of the biggest shitters on the roster joined House Of Torture here, as the repackaged Don Fale was their mystery partner and Chase Owens turned on his own team for reasons. But let’s talk about SANADA. Two years ago, he walked into this event as the IWGP World Heavyweight Champion in the midst of the biggest push of his career, leading a faction of his own. His opponent was the returning Yota Tsuji, who many advocated should have won on that day. He didn’t and is now not particularly any more over today than he was then. Meanwhile, SANADA’s faction no longer exists and he is in House Of Torture working opening match tags and wearing Seth Rollins-esque comedy outfits. In other words, the SANADA push of 2023 was a complete waste of everybody’s time. Just like this match. *

TMDK vs El Phantasmo and Shota Umino

This match had four competent pro wrestlers working a solid tag team match, which put it a street ahead of the opener. ZSJ is a much better wrestler than SANADA, but his title reign was not a business success so I have an abiding fear that he, too, will soon end up largely back to the same midcard spot he occupied prior to his big push. That’s the final big time jobs from Okada and Naito meaning absolutely nothing there. We also have to talk about Shota Umino, because I think he’s a perfect poster boy for all that has been wrong with New Japan booking. People talk about his look, his poor performances and his nepo baby bona fides as reasons for why his push hasn’t taken. But can we also consider the fact that he never fucking wins anything? He returned to lose a United States Championship match against Will Ospreay before not doing much for a year, leading to another US Championship match against Ospreay where he…lost again. Throw in some TV Championship failures and an IWGP Championship failure and then suddenly you’re looking at someone who, in kayfabe, can’t get over the line in big matches. And that’s before he was just announced as the Tokyo Dome IWGP challenger after zero booking support, leading into another massive defeat. There’s something to be said for a slow build, but just banging it into your audience’s head that these guys are losers is so stupid. Oiwa has not had the same high profile opportunities but has also lost multiple NEVER and TV title challenges. These belts are effectively pointless and kick around between the same midcard faces, and yet none of your new young talents can get a sniff of them? It reeks of a booking regime that doesn’t have faith in the talent. Anyway, this match was well worked and ended with – LOL – Shota Umino getting beaten clean. ***¼

© New Japan Pro Wrestling

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Yuya Uemura

People say that Tana has looked better recently, and I suppose that is true, but it’s still sad to see him not be able to bend his knees and constantly have to pull up his tights because he has no ass anymore. This match was relatively well worked as pure babyfaces of past and future faced off. I hoped that this would be a spot for Tana to hand the Hontai keys to his heir apparent but we just have to keep beating these guys, it seems. I know that Yuya will get his win back in the G1, but God almighty, this company is allergic to a push. Tana’s win during the pinning sequence came as such a surprise that I thought it was a botch, with Uemura selling it like he didn’t think he had lost, adding to my confusion. But the story was that the wily ace still had a few tricks up his sleeve. ***

House of Torture vs Master Wato & YOH

In what is already an infamous moment, Kanemaru faked an injury to be replaced by the returning Douki. What do you do when an underdog unexpectedly gets over as a big babyface and then is injured in heartbreaking fashion during the biggest match of their career? Oh yeah, bring them back as a heel with no angle. Given my discussions about heat earlier here and in other articles, it’s worth noting that the crowd was absolutely DEAD for this. This is the first of two occasions where House bullshit turns this crowd stone cold. It’s also worth noting that, in kayfabe, the House of Torture were allowed to fake an injury, bring in a new member and then basically work the match as a handicap match with complete impunity. There’s nothing more annoying than hearing the commentators doing the same old indignant routine pretending to be outraged about this nonsense. Even in kayfabe, the company has acknowledged how much people hate this crap, with President Tanahashi promising to cut out the HoT cheating. So at what point does even the kayfabe heat go on the company for allowing this to go on for years? The fans certainly aren’t buying it anymore. This match was the same old. Counterproductive garbage. *

Tomohiro Ishii & Taichi vs Callum Newman & Great O’Khan

This started kind of slowly, but it could be because the crowd was arctic after that previous mess. Even with all the undercooked pushes of the next generation, it could easily be argued that Taichi is the most underutilised member of this roster. This crowd absolutely loved him and lived and died on his nearfalls. You’ll notice that I don’t have a ton to say about the work on this card because most of it is just standard issue New Japan without much to comment on. However, this was probably the second or third best match on the show once it got warmed up, as the crowd were willing Taichi to victory in a hot closing stretch, a victory he duly delivered. ***½

© New Japan Pro Wrestling

Oleg Boltin vs Konosuke Takeshita

This was a rematch of their NEVER title match from “New Beginning”, since when Oleg has done a grand total of absolutely nothing. I actually think this was the slightly stronger of the two matches. It’s hard to tell how good Oleg is because they keep these matches simple, but that’s the right approach for the classic NEVER formula: two big guys hitting each other hard and throwing each other around. Oleg will always look credible in that format, though being in with one of the best workers in the world helps. Dropping the title also frees up Takeshita as a potential G1 winner. My one issue here was the finish – after all the hard strikes and throws these guys give each other, Boltin’s lame forward roll does not seem strong enough to keep a beast like Takeshita down for a three count. Oleg is coming on nicely but he needs a new finish. ****

EVIL vs David Finlay

This is a company obsessed with tenure, which is why typecast midcarders like SANADA, ZSJ and Finlay were prioritised for pushes ahead of younger acts, who are currently being typecast as midcarders as they wait for their turn to get elevated. Finlay’s elevation was the most controversial of the three and was greeted by skepticism in most quarters. The guy’s look still isn’t great but over the last twelve months, he has been New Japan’s most consistently good worker and has patented a hard hitting style that makes him look like a killer, to the point where he seemed like a slight favourite to beat Hirooki Goto for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship earlier this year. Alas, it has all been for naught, as he was buried so thoroughly in this disastrous match that I half expected Billy McBelfast to show up with a Lambeg drum on “NXT” this week. Aside from being a boring, plodding brawl that did not live up to the dog collar stipulation, this match also insults your intelligence as well as wasting your time. These two fought back and forth for over twenty pointless minutes before the five million members of House of Torture just run in and beat the shit out of Finlay and his meagre crew. Why did they not just do that at the start? The ending rendered the match pointless, the result rendered the War Dogs cage match victory pointless and House of Torture ending the night stronger than ever renders every babyface in this company pointless. Finlay is killed when the morbidly obese Fale splashes him through a table. He is then carted out of the arena at a glacial pace. All the while, the crowd is as raucous as a funeral, the only sound to be heard is my screaming for Gedo to be put out to pasture. One of the worst matches of the year. Dogshit. -**

Yota Tsuji vs Gabe Kidd

This match had, frankly, weird vibes. After their barnstormer at “New Beginning”, expectations for this were high – but at no point did it reach the level of that earlier match. The finishing section ended up being strong enough to get the crowd into it but, initially, they were completely dead. I don’t blame that on the performers – the crowd had sat through some of the worst wrestling of the year for the prior 30 minutes. However, I do wonder if a bit more energy out of the gate would have won them over or if the right approach was just to let them slowly regroup. It’s hard to know because, as the match was starting to heat up, Gabe Kidd threw in one of the most embarrassing botches of the year when he completely whiffed on a senton, jumping right over Tsuji, who was laying across the top rope. The crowd sat in awkward silence. Kidd was decent in this match, but he was back to some of his annoying overacting tropes, too. Tsuji has charisma but there are also issues here. I think his weird plastic hat and coat – vaguely modelled on a 1940s private detective because his favourite coffee shop is named after Phillip Marlowe – looks very naff. And Chandler is one of my favourite authors. It also concerns me that Tsuji’s signature offence often just doesn’t look good. That little backbreaker combo he does before his stomp couldn’t break an egg, his jumping footstomp from the ropes also frequently looks awkward, and his finish is right out of the Adam Copeland running hug school of crap spears. Honestly, he’s a big dude. Just keep it simple and hit people hard. This never really got going like their previous encounter, but Gabe winning the title at least frees up Tsuji to be a major contender in the G1. ***

© New Japan Pro Wrestling

Hirooki Goto vs Shingo Takagi

Now this was some pro wrestling. These guys just wrestled with a different degree of intensity than everyone else on the card and the crowd responded in kind. Goto is still over in the buildings, although attendance was down by around 700 from last year, so maybe interest is waning more broadly. People did a lot of fantasy booking of a Shingo heel turn and title win that may have been interesting, but as this show went along, my deepest horror at the thought of him joining House of Torture made me more than satisfied by the straightforward Goto win. I did bite on one near fall from a Shingo DVD; but otherwise, this was again a pretty definitive finish for the champion, a trademark of his defences throughout this reign. You can probably imagine what a Goto vs Shingo match looks like in your head and get pretty close to what this was like, but it was a high end version of it and probably Shingo’s best performance in a while after he’s been largely going through the motions recently. ****¼

This show was less than the sum of its parts, with some truly atrocious booking. This company feels like it’s on autopilot, digging its head in the sand and repeating the same old patterns, but worse. With so many major stars gone and the factions in a mess, it’s beyond time for bolder booking. But it seems like lazy, path-of-least-resistance creative is the order of the day. It also seems like they got halfway through repackaging Shota Umino and they just…forgot? It all just smacks of a booking office that is divided, indecisive or just plain out of ideas. The Goto thing has really carried the company this year and it largely fell on their laps. With a boring G1 line-up and the prospect of a big House of Torture push on the horizon, if the Goto reign is indeed softening, this company could be in for a really brutal second half of 2025. The one note of optimism is the announced signing of Aaron Wolf, an Olympic gold medalist judoka and legitimate sporting celebrity in Japan. This is roughly equivalent to when WWE signed Ronda Rousey. He will undergo training for the rest of the year and debut at Wrestle Kingdom. In a way, it would be frustrating to see this booking team have a ‘get out of jail free’ card after five years of pissing about and achieving nothing. However, one big signing is not going to be enough to get them off scot-free if the creative does not improve. And the main event exodus, combined with the failure to successfully push anyone new, means that Wolf is going to be short of credible rivals to draw against even with a rocket push. This is a company that has not successfully established a new main eventer since probably Jay White in 2019. It’s almost like they’ve forgotten how to. Make no mistake, this rubbish show was a sign of dark days for New Japan, even if there is a sliver of a silver lining on the horizon.

Full Results

Katsuya Murashima & Shoma Kato defeat Daiki Nagai & Masatora Yasuda (8:15)

House Of Torture (Don Fale, Ren Narita, SANADA & Yujiro Takahashi) defeat BULLET CLUB War Dogs (Chase Owens, Clark Connors, Drilla Moloney & Taiji Ishimori) (6:44)

TMDK (Ryohei Oiwa & Zack Sabre Jr.) defeat El Phantasmo & Shota Umino (11:23)

Hiroshi Tanahashi defeats Yuya Uemura (9:30)

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Titles:
House Of Torture (DOUKI & SHO) defeat Master Wato & YOH (c) (10:52)

IWGP Tag Team Titles:
Taichi & Tomohiro Ishii defeat United Empire (Callum Newman & Great-O-Khan) (c) (12:46)

NEVER Openweight Title:
Oleg Boltin defeats Konosuke Takeshita (c) (13:12)

Dog Collar Death Match:
EVIL defeats David Finlay by TKO (23:05)

IWGP Global Heavyweight Title:
Gabe Kidd defeats Yota Tsuji (c) (23:25)

IWGP World Heavyweight Title:
Hirooki Goto (c) defeats Shingo Takagi (28:25)

© New Japan Pro Wrestling

Death Pain Invitational

24/06/2025
Company Announced Attendance: 1,481
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan
Watch On: NJPW World

El Desperado and Jun Kasai bonded in blood for the final time in a Match of the Year contender at Korakuen Hall on 24th June. The show was co-promoted by NJPW and FREEDOMS. Despe and Kasai have now had 7 matches opposing each other since 2019 in various types of deathmatches. Their most famous one took place on 12th September 2022 in front of 1,940 rabid fans in Yoyogi National Gymnasium #2. In that match, Kasai started the match by ripping off Despe’s mask and attacking him with various weapons in a brutal fashion. With each blade jammed into his forehead, with every fork plunged into him, with every sharp razor sliced across his back, with every wooden skewer sticking out at the top of his head, Despe persevered and his fighting spirit grew. It was Despe’s superior wrestling ability that saw him through that bloody trial and allowed him to pick up the win.

In the 3 years and 3 further times they have faced each other, Despe’s ability to turn to his darker side grew. This was apparent in their three way deathmatch with Masashi Takeda earlier this year on 10th March. All 3 delivered brutal punishment to each other – equally. It was a communion of blood, rather than a more lopsided affair like Despe and Kasai’s renowned 2022 bout. However, Despe lost. He went to FREEDOMS to request a rematch and once again lost in a tag match against Kasai on 2nd May. This was Despe’s last chance at going out on top against Kasai. No match could better encapsulate Despe’s attitude shift over the last few years than his final bout with blood rival Jun Kasai. That urge that Despe has had to satiate, the itch that he’s had to scratch, all came to a head on 24th June in front of 1,481 fans at Korakuen Hall, in a Fluorescent Light Tubes & Glass Board deathmatch.

Despe was dressed in all white, a homage to his former self in their 2022 match. Not even a few minutes into the fight, Kasai cracked some fluorescent light tubes over Despe’s head and Irish whipped him into barbed wire boards. In one of the first callbacks, these barbed wire boards were set up in the same spot as their 2022 match, and it was also one of the first sequences in that match. After forcing broken light tubes into each others’ foreheads, they teased throwing each other through the glass board. Kasai, willingly, like the mad man he is, grabbed Despe and crashed through the glass board with him. Kasai’s murderous streak kicked in as he started aggressively cutting Despe with a shard of the glass.

© New Japan Pro Wrestling

Despe isn’t like his 2022 self anymore, he doesn’t stay on the back foot. In this match, Despe pressed the advantage, giving Kasai a spine buster on some light tubes, before throwing some more light tubes in Kasai’s face as he ran the ropes. 2025 Despe is in control and out for blood. However, Despe pushed too far, making a mistake by deciding to go for an ambitious frog splash on Kasai. Kasai, the deathmatch legend that he is, took the opportunity handed to him and ran into Despe with a set of light tubes which splattered into thousands of fragments. Kasai sets up the next glass board delicately onto a set of chairs. In the next callback of their previous classic, Kasai executed a dangerous, brutal but beautiful looking Tiger Destroyer, plunging Despe through the glass board. It was a board full of forks in their previous bout. It was clear that the duo were heavily inspired by their previous bout as it formed the bedrock for this match; but instead, every single spot had been made more dangerous, daring and violent.

In a perfect example of that – in the last match, Kasai, with goggles on, splashed on Despe, crashing him into a board of cut up soda cans. This time, Kasai set up a tall ladder so that he could execute the splash from an even greater height. However, Despe smartened up on this occasion and met Kasai at the top and knocked him off onto a table decorated with Despe’s roses. When Kasai got back into the ring, Despe immediately hit a Pinche Loco for a 2 count. Despe went for another Pinche Loco but Kasai countered and hit Despe with his own Pinche Loco. Of course, it did not finish there. Kasai cracked open a light tube, like cracking open a cold one, and in Popeye fashion, bladed his chest with it in order to power up. This newfound energy led Kasai to nail a brutal Tiger Piledriver for a 2 count.

Chekhov’s ladder then came into play. Kasai climbed the ladder he previously set up and put his goggles on. Despe was still downed from the piledriver. Kasai saluted the crowd and launched off, crashing onto a set of light tubes on top of Despe. The mat had transformed into a hue of white and red paste as the blood had mixed with the light tube dust. At this point, Despe and Kasai had the crowd at their absolute peak. Kasai spiked Despe with two cross-armed piledrivers. The crowd (and likely everyone at home) for at least a few seconds believed Kasai was actually going to win an NJPW title. In one of the best kickouts in a while, Despe barely lifts his shoulder up. Kasai became enraged and started breaking light tubes over his head, his knee and the floor. Kasai decided he just needed to add a little spice, so he placed down a pack of light tubes for a final cross-armed piledriver. Despe fought Kasai trying to cross his arms and transitioned it into a sickening B-Driver, dumping Kasai’s head straight through the light tubes. This was yet another callback, as in 2022 Despe drove Kasai’s head into a board of blades. But Kasai kicked out at one. Both men went into a frenzy, breaking tubes over their heads. This was the moment of the fight where it would be acceptable for you to stand up and start pacing around, wherever you were.

© New Japan Pro Wrestling

Despe and Kasai decided to give the crowd one more hope spot. Despe planted Kasai with a reverse Tiger Driver into another Pinche Loco. Kasai defied Despe once again, flipping him off. The crowd, at a fever pitch, chanted “Kasai!”. Despe delivered his own Tiger Piledriver to Kasai – and with a final Pinche Loco, it was all over. Truly one of the best deathmatches of all time.

Tanahashi presented Despe with the Junior Heavyweight title, but he did not want to hug Despe because of the blood and glass sticking out of his body. The crowd booed Tanahashi furiously. Tanahashi then opened up his jacket and hugged him, walking away with blood all over his formerly pristine white business shirt. Despe then said the following to Kasai:

Kasai replied saying that their lives have become entangled in all the right ways and that because of Despe, even though he is much his junior, chasing him has made him the man he is today. Kasai was hoping their last singles match would never come, and that he’ll now have a hole punctured in his heart that cannot be healed; he is scared he will lose the will to become stronger without Despe. Kasai started crying. Kasai asked Despe for one last favour. Kasai, ever the optimist, said that his golden age will be in 10 years from now. Kasai invited Despe to “Death Pain Invitational 2” at Korakuen Hall in 2035, in a beautiful gesture. They kiss on the lips and go their separate ways again – but are forever bound in blood.

Backstage, Fujita told Despe that he is proud that he believed in Despe, and he’ll be waiting for him in the ring. Kasai wrapped things up reflecting on how after being 27 years underground, he main evented a New Japan Korakuen Hall show for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight title. He finished by saying age doesn’t matter, and he’ll see us all in 2035. Perfect professional wrestling.

© BBM

The theme of the undercard was NJPW vs. FREEDOMS. Gedo teamed with Taiji Ishimori to take on FREEDOMS President Takashi Sasaki and Mammoth Sasaki. Gedo has some history with Takashi from his time as a rookie in FMW. They last met in a ring 17 years ago.

Kosei Fujita, the NJPW Best of Super Juniors 32 (BOSJ) winner, decided not to spectate from home as the champion he is due to fight gets his death wish. Fujita decided to have a tune up match on the same show against one half of FREEDOMS stable “F-SWAG”, Jun Masaoka. The match started with loud “Fujita!” chants as he entered Korakuen Hall with his BOSJ trophy. Masaoka set the tone by slapping Fujita around the face early in the match. It was more of a gritty, hard hitting junior heavyweight match. Masaoka tried to sneak a low blow victory behind the referee’s back but Fujita kicked out. Fujita locked in the modified camel clutch to tap out Masaoka.

© New Japan Pro Wrestling

In classic Suzu Suzuki fashion, she showed up as the mystery X to team with “Mi Vida Loca” teammate Rina Yamashita, in a TLC match against FREEDOMS duo Kenji Fukimoto and Masashi Takeda. She was bleeding within a couple of minutes. Suzuki had a match scheduled for STARDOM the day after in Osaka. That’s why we love Suzuki. Don’t show this match to the wrestling fans who say intergender matches don’t work; their minds would be blown. Takeda was awesome and gave a lot to put Yamashita and Suzuki over. After a lot of kick outs making the “Mi Vida Loca” duo look like killers, Takeda put Yamashita away with the Reverse U-Crush. This match was great.

Full Results

Six or Nine (Master Wato & Ryusuke Taguchi), Daiki Nagai & Katsuya Murashima defeat Dragon Libre, GENTARO, Kengo & Tatsuhito Takaiwa (10:38)

Mammoth Sasaki & Takashi Sasaki defeat BULLET CLUB War Dogs (Gedo & Taiji Ishimori) (8:44)

Kosei Fujita defeats Jun Masaoka (9:50)

Hardcore:
Kenji Fukimoto & Masashi Takeda defeat Rina Yamashita & Suzu Suzuki (17:25)

Oleg Boltin & Toru Sugiura defeat Tomoya Hirata & Toru Yano (9:22)

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title Fluorescent Light Tubes Glass Board Barbed Wire Deathmatch:
El Desperado (c) defeats Jun Kasai (29:31)

© New Japan Pro Wrestling

NJPW News

New Japan Pro Wrestling held a press conference on June 23rd to announce the signing of Aaron Wolf, a 29 year old former judoka who had captured Olympic Gold for Japan in a home Olympic Games back in the summer of 2021. Wolf’s triumph would lead to him becoming a household name, with regular appearances across media and around the country.

Wolf had commenced training before the agreement was announced and is set to debut with the promotion on the biggest stage, as part of “Wrestle Kingdom 20”. Bushiroad CEO Takaaki Kidani proclaimed that the show will be “the end of one era and the beginning of another”; that the arrival of Wolf is being compared (in regards to importance) to the retirement of Hiroshi Tanahashi tells you how highly they value this signing and the level he will be pushed at from the outset. He had been present at this past year’s Tokyo Dome show, which had sparked rumours that discussions between Wolf and the company had finally resulted in him being signed, but it was only after Wolf had announced his retirement from judo earlier last month that the deal was completed.

There was an immediate impact to Wolf’s signing, with his debut at “Wrestle Kingdom 20” leading to the event being aired live by TV Asahi on January 4th, 2026. This will be the first live airing of a Tokyo Dome show since 2004. It reminds me somewhat of the business difference that Ronda Rousey made to WWE in regards to securing the “Smackdown” deal with Fox Sports. Rousey was also a ratings draw for the promotion, with her success in taking to the sport and her name value leading to WWE management moving slowly forward in their archaic presentation of women’s wrestling they had previously been stuck in.

There will be equal hope here that Wolf can have a similar type of impact and take to wrestling in much the same manner. It feels particularly important for NJPW that he succeeds, bearing in mind the current transition period the company finds itself in and the lack of new main eventers/business movers that have come through in recent years (be it that a number have been hampered by booking, in particular having to wait behind older upper midcarders for opportunities at the very top). There will be no waiting for Wolf, and seemingly there is no animosity in regards to it, with senior New Japan wrestlers already raising their hands to assist in his training.

16 names were announced at “Dominion” on June 15th for this year’s “G1 Climax”, leaving 4 spots to be determined from qualifying matches to fill out the field. Qualifiers this year are straight shoot outs for tournament spots, as opposed to the mini tournament we saw last year during the “New Japan Soul” tour. The crowd in Osaka reacted to the announcements of Konosuke Takeshita and Hiroshi Tanahashi, who will be taking part in his final G1 Tournament, but there were no other surprises in the lineup, which will lean heavy on Tanahashi to draw houses in what is a more eclectic set of locations and venues this year than on previous tours.

The lack of talent who are not currently contracted to New Japan has been put down to financial constraints, as well as wanting to focus on their own talent by multiple New Japan sources; however, the decision was not well communicated, with both a main eventer and upper midcarder from AEW having raised their hands to participate in the tournament and receiving very little communication on the status of their involvement before the field was announced. This is somewhat inexcusable considering that most New Japan talent had received their schedule for the G1 tour over a month before the announcements were made.

Two qualifying matches took place on June 23rd in Korakuen Hall, with Drilla Maloney overcoming Tomohiro Ishii in their third match of the year and Callum Newman defeating Ishii’s tag team partner Taichi in the other matchup. The omission of Taichi is particularly disappointing, being that he has made clear his wish to be involved with the tournament and his in ring performances during the Dontaku tour in particular. The recent IWGP Tag Title win by Ishii and Taichi appears to be a move to give them something whilst not being in the tournament.

This is not to say that either Newman or Maloney should not be part of the tournament, Newman should be a given considering he challenged just one month ago for the IWGP World Heavyweight Title at “Wrestling Dontaku” and Maloney has moved up to heavyweight this year and already has a victory over Shingo Takagi, but it is more difficult to defend Ishii or Taichi not being part of the tournament with the likes of SANADA in there and a real possibility that Chase Owens very well could be. Owens will face YOSHI-HASHI on the Tokyo Budokan show in Adachi on July 4th, whilst Ryohei Oiwa will now face Satoshi Kojima for the final spot, after Don Fale was forced to return to New Zealand after a death in the family. There is a possibility that Fale may return for the tour as part of the undercard tags. His departure does not mean any change to the upcoming tournament lineup. We send condolences to Fale and his family.

Confirmed names for the G1 and their Blocks

© New Japan Pro Wrestling

Hiroshi Tanahashi will challenge Gabe Kidd for the IWGP Global Title he won at “Dominion” on July 4th in Adachi, Tokyo. The match will be the main event on the Tokyo Budokan show, in a date that momentarily disappeared after the announcement of Tetsuya Naito’s departure from the company (this is his home arena) but was quickly re-added to the calendar. Kidd made the challenge to Tanahashi during his post match promo in Osaka, building off the real life history of Tanahashi trying to support Kidd whilst he was battling mental health issues during the Covid pandemic.

Tanahashi’s first ever Produce show, “Tanahashi Jam”, now has an IWGP World Heavyweight Championship match, as Hirooki Goto and Zack Sabre Jr. will meet on June 29th, in pro wrestling’s farewell to the Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium, for their third title match of the year. The match is the follow up to the draw in California last month which had a widely derided finish. Oleg Boltin will make his first defense of the NEVER title he took from Konosuke Takeshita at “Dominion” against Yuji Nagata, whilst El Phantasmo was due to host an open challenge for the NJPW TV Title, but he suffered a knee injury on June 19th when executing a springboard moonsault. The wrestler is not sure whether the injury occurred during take off or landing, but it is an unwelcome setback brought upon by general wear and tear for the Canadian, who has now been kept off the last week of cards in order to recover.

“Tanahashi Jam” will air on TV Asahi but not live on New Japan World. It will arrive on World at a later date, despite this not currently being advertised.

After his brutal deathmatch with Jun Kasai and finally gaining a victory over the veteran wrestler, El Desperado will meet “Best of the Super Juniors” winner Kosei Fujita on the final night of the NJPW Soul Tour in Korakuen Hall on July 6th. The IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship will headline the show, as per the strategy of running high profile Junior shows at Korakuen Hall rather than including their title bouts on the big name shows. The Junior Tag Titles are also set to be defended here, as House of Torture’s SHO and DOUKI face a rematch against former champions YOH and Master Wato, whilst Hiroshi Tanahashi takes on another Junior competitor as part of his retirement tour: Tiger Mask.

Hiromu Takahashi will be part of the Shinjuku FACE 20th anniversary event on July 31st, where he will team with DDT’s Chris Brookes against Yuki Ueno and Atsuki Aoyagi. The card will feature wrestlers from OZ Academy, All Japan and Uptown alongside DDT and New Japan talent.

© Pro Wrestling NOAH

NOAH

Monday Magic Episode 3

16/06/2025
Shinjuku FACE, Tokyo, Japan
Watch On: Wrestle Universe

The third episode of “Monday Magic” continued the trend of an enjoyable show with fun to great matches. There were two surprises in this episode. The first was the 3rd ever GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions Ikuto Hidaka and Minoru Fujita making their return to NOAH after 3 years. The other surprise was Fuminori Abe making his NOAH debut, one half of one of the best tag teams in the world, the Astronauts. Abe faced former GHC Tag Team champion Ulka Sasaki in a great main event.

Sasaki, a former MMA fighter with eight UFC bouts, naturally started the match on the ground with Abe. Abe, a skilled grappler in his own right, held his own before turning the tide with his trademark open handed strikes. Abe slapping Sasaki in the face sparked a fiery response which is not often seen from Sasaki. Sasaki delivered some excellent strikes here, which has often been lacking and he should lean into that aspect of his offense more often. It’s easy to forget he only has 18 months of experience in pro wrestling. This was the best Sasaki match I have seen to date. All 14 minutes were engaging and filled with quality action. Abe once again proved his pedigree by drawing out such a performance from Sasaki.

Danny Duggan, the British wrestler hoping to punch a ticket into the N1 tournament, returned to “Monday Magic” to face Alpha Wolf and Saxon Huxley in a three way match. Alpha Wolf was without his brother, following Dragon Bane’s concussion inflicted on the 5th June Dragongate Korakuen Hall show. It was a fun opener, although it left me wanting to see a longer singles match between Alpha Wolf and Duggan.

The Marvelous contingent continued making “Monday Magic” appearances, as Amira, Johnnie Robbie and Riko Kawahata appeared. Kawahata was in her usual NOAH gimmick as the Great Sakuya. The other Marvelous guest over recent weeks, Sadie Gibbs, posted on social media that she had finished her tour. Kawahata teamed up with one half of the Sendai Girls Tag Team Champions, Miyuki Takase, who has now appeared in every “Monday Magic” season. Amira has a great Northern Lights Suplex but is still early in her career, while West Coast Pro Women’s Champion Johnnie Robbie already feels TV-ready. As expected, Takase delivered a strong performance.

The touring Marvelous men’s side (Robert Martyr, Ryan Clancy and Titus Alexander) also had an outing against NOAH regulars Masa Kitamiya, Shuji Kondo and rookie Daiki Odashima. Before the match started, I thought to myself that Alexander and Odashima would deliver my favourite moment. I was happy to be proven right when Odashima was tagged in and they had a brief but awesome Greco Roman-style tussle. It fully captured the vibes of “Monday Magic”. Overall, this match was excellent, my favourite of “Monday Magic” so far. The match highlighted everyone that it needed to: the three Marvelous Americans and Daiki Odashima. This was also Martyr’s best performance on his tour so far. 

© Pro Wrestling NOAH

A regular of this “Monday Magic” season, 18 year old British wrestler Archie Cole wrestled Kaito Kiyomiya. After a tope con hilo where he went flying, the crowd chanted “Archie!”, showing he is already connecting well with the Shinjuku FACE crowd. This match, by default, was already good as it started off with bully Kaito beating Cole around. However, Kaito did not finish Cole off, instead surprising him with a leg roll clutch.

Full Results

Alpha Wolf defeats Danny Duggan and Saxon Huxley (11:06)

Great Sakuya & Miyuki Takase defeat Amira & Johnnie Robbie (10:22)

Robert Martyr, Ryan Clancy & Titus Alexander defeat Daiki Odashima, Masa Kitamiya & Shuji Kondo (15:37)

Kaito Kiyomiya defeats Archie Cole (10:20)

Passionate RATEL’S (HAYATA & YO-HEY) defeat Ikuto Hidaka & Minoru Fujita (13:02)

Ulka Sasaki defeats Fuminori Abe (14:24)

© Pro Wrestling NOAH

Monday Magic Episode 4

23/06/2025
Shinjuku FACE, Tokyo, Japan
Watch On: Wrestle Universe

The fourth episode of “Monday Magic” was probably the weakest so far in terms of in-ring action, but it had its moments that built towards the season finale, “Wrestle Magic” on 30th June. A full card is still not known.

GHC National Champion Galeno returned in the opener. His last appearance was on the Sumo Hall show on 3rd May. He’s only had one match since on the 31st May, with his brother, El Hijo de Dr. Wagner Jr., in AAA in Mexico. He had been advertised already for the 5th July show at Shinjuku FACE, so the return was telegraphed and not a surprise. He successfully defended his title against Alpha Wolf in a solid match.

Junta Miyawaki teamed up with Manabu Soya against Daiki Odashima and Tetsuya Endo, who made his “Monday Magic” debut. After hitting an assisted sitting senton on Miyawaki, Odashima asked Endo to do a backflip pose with him, which he executed flawlessly. He then delivered three deadlift gutwrench suplexes to Miyawaki. Odashima is awesome. Miyawaki rallied and put Odashima away with back to back bridging German suplexes.

HAYATA challenged Shuji Ishikawa for his GHC Hardcore title at “Wrestle Magic” on 30th June.

Former GHC Junior Heavyweight Champion Eita went up against MAZADA, one of NOSAWA’s longtime tag team partners. MAZADA currently wrestles in AJPW as Senor Saito, as part of the Saito family with Naruki Doi, Jun & Rei Saito. It was a comedy match.

Next up we had Marigold’s trio of Miku Aono, Miyuki Takase and…Megaton? I skip the Megaton matches on Marigold’s undercard so she follows me to NOAH? I cannot escape her anywhere. They took on the Marvelous trio of Riko Kawahata (as the Great Sakuya), Sora Ayame and the GHC Women’s Champion Takumi Iroha. This is a continuation of the Marigold and Marvelous interpromotional rivalry, in which case, couldn’t Riko Kawahata wrestle as herself?

Iroha was great in this match, and not only because she kicked Megaton in the face. Great Sakuya sprayed Takase in the face with her green mist for the second week in a row. This time she was disqualified. Takase challenged Kawahata to a tag match at “Wrestle Magic”, where Takase will tag with her usual partner, Mika Iwata. Presumably Kahawata will team with Maria as Magenta. Marigold’s former Superfly champion Victoria Yuzuki came out to challenge Iroha for the GHC Women’s championship at “Wrestle Magic”. It’s worth noting that Mayu Iwatani said on social media that she went to hospital after being in pain and was diagnosed with a broken rib. They were building to Iroha and Iwatani at some point, as at Marigold’s Korakuen show, Iwatani said that she wanted the GHC Women’s title. Yuzuki might be a replacement, as she is known as Iwatani’s protege.

KENTA made his “Monday Magic” debut in a lightly worked comedy match where he played up his “oolong tea” spitting gimmick. He brawled with Maybach Taniguchi (Shuhei Tanaguchi). Mummy came out strangling KENTA with a chain. Kenoh rushed out in flip flops to help KENTA. KENTA won after he sprayed Tanaguchi with “oolong tea”. KENTA teased a “Wrestle Magic” appearance.

Danny Duggan, Robert Martyr, Ryan Clancy and Ulka Sasaki clashed with Archie Cole, Dragon Bane, Kaito Kiyomiya and Titus Alexander. All have appeared on previous episodes of “Monday Magic” this season. The wrestlers got the crowd to chant for every country represented in this 8-man tag, Japan (Sasaki & Kiyomiya), Mexico (Bane), USA (Clancy, Martyr & Alexander) and the UK (Cole & Duggan). This match was very good and comparable to AEW’s all star multi-man party matches. Alexander pinned Clancy with the impressive Big Ugly (e.g. Chaos Theory). NOSAWA came out with the flags of each represented country and everyone posed to close out the show.

Full Results

GHC National Title:
Galeno (c) defeats Alpha Wolf (9:18)

Junta Miyawaki & Manabu Soya defeat Daiki Odashima & Tetsuya Endo (12:42)

Eita defeats MAZADA (8:15)

Megaton, Miku Aono & Miyuki Takase defeat Great Sakuya, Sora Ayame & Takumi Iroha by DQ (8:59)

Street Fight:
KENTA defeats Manabu Soya (9:47)

Archie Cole, Dragon Bane, Kaito Kiyomiya & Titus Alexander defeat Danny Duggan, Robert Martyr, Ryan Clancy & Ulka Sasaki (13:49)

© Pro Wrestling NOAH

NOAH 25th Anniversary ~ Memorial Voyage 2025 In Osaka ~

21/06/2025
Company Announced Attendance: 929
EDION Arena Osaka #2, Osaka, Japan
Watch On: Wrestle Universe

NOAH’s show on 21st June scored its highest attendance ever at EDION Arena #2 in Osaka. This is yet another indication of the renewal NOAH has had in 2025 under OZAWA’s stewardship. However, as OZAWA did not main event this card, some will attribute its success to the main event tag consisting of 4 NOAH stalwarts, Kaito Kiyomiya & Kenoh versus the reunited team of KENTA & Naomichi Marufuji.

The tag team match was a light-hearted display that served to satiate your nostalgia while also indicating who the current flag bearers of NOAH are. Kenoh and KENTA have been tagging for months as “KenKen”, so they got a big reaction when they were both tagged in. Kiyomiya’s dark side, that he debuted against OZAWA at Korakuen Hall on 3rd June, made a return as he no-sold KENTA’s slaps while smiling. They may try making that a longer term thing. Kenoh tried hitting a Shiranui on Marufuji but slipped on the ropes, landing upside down on the turnbuckle. KENTA took the opportunity to blast his former partner in the face with his signature dropkick. The closing stretches were good, as Kiyomiya executed a top rope frankensteiner on Marufuji, before Kenoh and Kiyomiya locked in submissions to try and force the double tap out. KENTA was in striking range of Kenoh who was holding Marufuji in a crossface, so KENTA clobbered him until he let go. Kenoh pinned Marufuji after landing his double foot stomp from the top rope, twice.

After the match, Kenoh picked up the mic and said he wasn’t going to close the show out because he’s not the champion, and called out OZAWA. When OZAWA arrived, Kenoh reminded him that OZAWA told him he was going to teach him pro wrestling, how to get people to come and watch them, but there were orange seats available at Korakuen Hall on 3rd June. Kenoh taunted OZAWA saying that he held his own produce show on 15th April that sold out within one hour. Kenoh said he’ll show him how to get people to watch. Kenoh challenged OZAWA for 19th July at Korakuen Hall. OZAWA said that NOAH was failing because of people like Kenoh. OZAWA accepted so that he can humiliate Kenoh so badly he won’t want to show up in NOAH again.

Earlier in the show, OZAWA teamed with 2000X to fight PASSION RATEL’S. After defeating Daiki Inaba & Manabu Soya two times in previous weeks, backstage, Daga & Takashi Sugiura challenged them for their GHC Tag Team titles.

YO-HEY successfully defended his Junior Heavyweight title against Osaka native Atsushi Kotoge. Kotoge was coming off his 20th anniversary match against Super Delfin at Korakuen Hall on 3rd June. This match was good, but skippable. Kotoge controlled the early part of the match after throwing YO-HEY into barricades on the outside of the ring. YO-HEY eventually turned the tables with a tope con hilo. The crowd were into the closing stages as they wanted their hometown wrestler to win the title, though there were still significant YO-HEY chants. Kotoge kicked out of YO-HEY’s Bamboo Dragonfly (corkscrew splash) which put away Eita at Sumo Hall. A simple dropkick follow-up finished Kotoge off.

© Pro Wrestling NOAH

British wrestler Will Kroos made his debut in Japan against super rookie Daiki Odashima. This was the match of the night at just over 5 minutes. Odashima tried to suplex Kroos but Kroos locked in the gutwrench hold and hurled him off, twice. Kroos caught Odashima mid air and blasted him with a fallaway slam, but without the falling away part. Odashima has such an intense babyface comeback and is an amazing seller for someone with his level of experience. The crowd were gasping at every move Kroos hit on Odashima. It was great and it instantly made Kroos. How a rookie is putting over new wrestlers so well is really impressive in itself.

Kazuyuki Fujita faced Masa Kitamiya in singles action. Their last singles meeting was in Korakuen Hall on 6th November 2024. Fujita had a 2-0 record over Kitamiya in singles. There were several minutes of leg submissions which felt a bit out of place in a match where you’d expect just 10 minutes of the two forearming each other. They did eventually get to the stiff lariats, which was fun. Fujita finished Kitamiya off with penalty kicks. Backstage, Kitamiya said that he has acted as the Scouting Director for NOAH and always fought with them in mind, but having lost again, now 3 times to Fujita, he is starting to doubt himself.

Osaka native, Harutoki re-appeared in NOAH for the first time in 2 months as he teamed with his All Rebellion teammates to take on Los Golpeadores & Tetsuya Endo. Harutoki was out for some time and missed the Sumo Hall show on 3rd May due to meningitis. This match was also Dragon Bane’s return to action following a concussion on the 5th June Dragongate Korakuen Hall show.

The match was a fun showcase. During one of the sequences, Alpha Wolf landed a lionsault on Alejandro, and Dragon Bane & Endo followed up with synchronised moonsaults. Dragon Bane picked up exactly where he left off before his injury. Harutoki fell head first on a tope suicida, it is a miracle there was not another serious injury. It was a combination of him overshooting and the catchers being too close to the ring. Dragon Bane won with the Santa Maria Driver on Kai Fujimura. After the match, Team 2000X’s Tadasuke and Owadasan appeared with one of Dragon Bane’s masks and challenged them for their GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team titles.

Full Results

AMAKUSA, Junta Miyawaki & Ulka Sasaki defeat Eita, Hajime Ohara & Super Crazy (6:14)

Alpha Wolf, Dragon Bane & Tetsuya Endo defeat All Rebellion (Alejandro, Harutoki & Kai Fujimura) (14:06)

Will Kroos defeats Daiki Odashima (5:29)

Team 2000X (Daga, Owadasan, OZAWA, Tadasuke & Takashi Sugiura) defeat Passionate RATEL’S (Daiki Inaba, HAYATA, Manabu Soya, Saxon Huxley & Yuto Kikuchi) (11:04)

Kazuyuki Fujita defeats Masa Kitamiya (12:07)

GHC Junior Heavyweight Title:
YO-HEY (c) defeats Atsushi Kotoge (17:25)

All Rebellion (Kaito Kiyomiya & Kenoh) defeat KENTA & Naomichi Marufuji (20:03)

NOAH House Show Notes

The only house show in previous weeks was on 22nd June, the day after their live Osaka special. The main notes from that show are that, although Odashima continues to be pinned (normal as a rookie), all the tag matches he is in are built around showcasing him (not normal as a rookie). He teamed with HAYATA against AMAKUSA & Junta Miyawaki. The crowd were all on Odashima’s side with loud chants of “Daiki!”. He got a nearfall on AMAKUSA and you could visibly see people in the crowd get animated when they thought he was going to win. He is 0-28 in singles matches since the start of his career and 7–61 in total. Odashima winning a marquee singles match at Korakuen Hall would be monumental.

Will Kroos had some fun power spots with Kazuyuki Fujita. So far on both shows Kroos has been on, the crowd has gasped each time he has gone for his running senton. It does look very brutal for a guy his size.

Kenoh tapped out Daiki Inaba, one half of the GHC Tag Team champions. Inaba has lost every single match since becoming a champion.

The main event was a champion vs. champion singles match between OZAWA and YO-HEY. It was a good match but it is not “must-see”. It was a very “house show” match. OZAWA won with the Real Rebel.

NOAH News & Upcoming Shows

NOAH’s next live streamed event is on 5th July at Shinjuku FACE. It’s mostly a house show card. One notable match is the “Battle of the Daikis”, Daiki Inaba vs. Daiki Odashima; who will snap their losing streak? The GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship will be defended by Los Golpeadores (Alpha Wolf & Dragon Bane) against challenges Team 2000X (Owadasan & Tadasuke).

We will have a preview in our next issue of NOAH’s two nights at Korakuen on 19th and 20th July. The marquee matchup is Kenoh vs. OZAWA for the GHC Heavyweight Championship.

© STARDOM

Stardom

News

Natsupoi faced off with Saya Kamitani at Stardom’s June 25th in Osaka, telling the current World of Stardom Champion that she wishes to not only become the top champion in the promotion, but also the ace of the company. Kamitani replied that it was too late for Natsupoi now that she has the red belt. Stardom’s next big event is in Sapporo on July 21st, making it the most likely date for Kamitani’s 4th title defense of the year so far.

Bozilla, formerly a breakout star in Marigold, made her in-ring debut for Stardom as part of her new stable Mi Vida Loca, in a 3 way tag match in Osaka against trios from God’s Eye and H.A.T.E. Bozilla teamed with Akira Kuragane in what was to be a losing effort, after her tag partner was pinned by Ami Sourei from God’s Eye.

Mi Vida Loca leader, Suzu Suzuki, told Tokyo Sports this week that she watched Bozilla’s acclaimed match with Megan Bayne at “Joey Janela’s Spring Break 9” in Las Vegas back in April and was so impressed that she took to Facebook to make contact.

In the show’s main event, Goddesses of Stardom Champions Saya Iida and Hanan retained their titles against challengers Tropikawild, and they will now face Natsuko Tora and Ruaka as their next challengers.

Former World of Stardom Champion Maika announced in the past week that she has successfully undergone Tommy John surgery on an elbow injury which has been plaguing her for 3 years, leading to her finally making the decision to go under the knife after the Yokohama Arena show in April. Recovery time is lengthy, with an expectation she will be away from the ring for 9-12 months following the operation for her recovery. Maika isn’t staying away, though, returning already on June 21st, to the commentary booth.

AZM missed the Numazu show on June 14th and the Mairaba show on June 15th due to health concerns. She was cleared to return ahead of “The Conversion”. Saki Kashima was unable to compete on the June 21st show in Yoyogi and was replaced by Kiyoka Kotatsu.

New IWGP Women’s Champion Sareee told Tokyo Sports this week that she wishes to participate in this summer’s “5 Star Grand Prix”, stating:

Sareee is the strongest potential addition from the freelance ranks to this year’s line up and would help to provide an additional attraction for the tournament.

Momo Kohgo & Yuria Hime will challenge Waka Tsukiyama & HANAKO for the NEW BLOOD Tag Team Championships on July 4th at “STOMPING Presents: NEW BLOOD 23” in Itabashi.

© TJPW

Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling

Spring Tour 2025 Final

June 22nd, 2025
Ryogoku KFC Hall, Tokyo, Japan
Company Announced Attendance: 365
Watch On: Wrestle Universe

TJPW’s “Spring Tour” wrapped up in Tokyo last weekend with the final first-round qualifying matches for this year’s “Tokyo Princess Cup” in the undercard for a show that was built around announcer Sayuri Namba’s graduation. Ryogoku KFC Hall was sold out, as both fans and wrestlers said goodbye to Namba, with most of the festivities being before and after the show’s main event 6 man tag that saw Hyper Misao, Mizuki, Pom Harajuku and Yuki Aino team against HIMAWARI, Mahiro Kiyru, Yuki Arai and Haru Kazashiro.

Before the match had even begun, Hyper Misao had challenged Namba’s superhero skills and Mizuki and Yuki Aino brought her the ring bell to open the match, just as Misao was mid-pin on Haru Kazashiro. Kazashiro did escape after the bell was rung, but it was a fun, light hearted start to the match that did get more serious the longer it went on. Mizuki’s team got the win with a last hit for Pom Harajuku, who was the most moved by the match being part of Namba’s goodbye. Harajuku was already emotional as she brought Namba into the ring, which made Sayuri exclaim that she was going to end up crying as well. Harajuku had worn the same ring gear that she did during her debut 7 years ago, having started out in TJPW at the same time as Namba, as well as Kiryu and Haruna Neko.

Namba then took the microphone to talk about how she will always treasure her time with TJPW, thanking everyone in the company for making her time so special there. Sayuri Namba is moving to Canada now that her TJPW career is over and was seen off in beautiful fashion, with a bouquet presentation from Aino and Raku, a commemorative album given to her by Kiryu and Suzume, before the entire roster and staff gathered in the ring to announce her name and officially end her time in TJPW.

© TJPW

Ryogoku KFC Hall also saw the return of Daydream in the ring, as Miu Watanabe and Rika Tatsumi teamed together once more ahead of the Princess Tag Title challenge at “Summer Sun Princess” next month. The pair were victorious in their return tag bout against one half of the tag team champions in Shoko Nakajima, alongside Chika Nanase. Tatsumi put Nanase away with the dragon sleeper, leaving Nakajima with the impression that she needs regular tag partner Hyper Misao in order to defeat Daydream.

There was less success for upcoming International Princess Title challenger Moka Miyamoto, who had gotten a pin on champion Suzume a few weeks back. The pair met once more in a tag match that this time resulted in Suzume pinning Miyamoto clean, after a flying facecrusher was followed by a Ring A Bell, earning her Daisy Monkey team the victory.

In the undercard of the show, Raku became obsessed with a sheep doll attached to Ren Konatsu’s belt, and Ivy Steele and Wakana Uehara came through the first round of “Tokyo Princess Cup” qualifiers. Steel’s victory was the shock of the round, defeating Toga after falling to her in their previous meeting. Steele countered a rock bottom, hitting a snap enzuigiri followed by a spinning pumphandle back drop to claim victory and move on in the tournament. Uehara put away Summer with a banana pillow, in a match which had been delayed previously due to Summer suffering an injury.

Yuki Kamifuku missed the show due to a foot injury but is still scheduled for MLW’s show in Queens on Thursday night. Her 3 way match with Yoshiko Hasegawa and Uta Takami instead became a singles match that was won by Hasegawa.

Full Results

Tokyo Princess Cup 2025 Qualifying Tournament First Round:
Wakana Uehara defeats Kira Summer (6:56)

Tokyo Princess Cup 2025 Qualifying Tournament First Round:
Ivy Steele defeats Toga (8:33)

Yoshiko Hasegawa defeats Uta Takami (7:17)

Raku & Shino Suzuki defeat Maki Itoh & Ren Konatsu (9:03)

Daisy Monkey (Arisu Endo & Suzume) defeat Kaya Toribami & Moka Miyamoto (11:49)

Hakuchumu (Miu Watanabe & Rika Tatsumi) defeat Chika Nanase & Shoko Nakajima (12:33)

Hyper Misao, Mizuki, Pom Harajuku & Yuki Aino defeat Haru Kazashiro, HIMAWARI, Mahiro Kiryu & Yuki Arai (12:21)

TJPW News

Sayuri Namba will make one final set of appearances with TJPW after graduating from the promotion on June 22nd, announcing the US Tour shows in the Houston and Dallas areas for the 10th, 11th and 13th of July. Picking up Sayuri Namba’s domestic duties will be 24 year old Rise Shirai. The Kawasaki native will debut as an announcer on June 28th.

Mizuki, Shoko Nakajima, Hyper Misao, Suzume, Maki Itoh, Miu Watanabe, Yuki Kamifuku, Raku, Pom Harajuku, Arisu Endo, Yuki Arai, Moka Miyamoto, Shino Suzuki and Wakana Uehara are confirmed for all 3 events. Miyu Yamashita will miss the second Houston date on the 11th, the same night as Ring of Honor’s “Supercard of Honor” and GCW’s Dallas show.

A number of guests have also been announced for the tour: Vert Vixen will be a part of all 3 shows, whilst Kaylia Capri will work both Houston dates. Maya World, Alejandra Quintanilla and Yuka Sakazaki will all be part of the show in Forney, Texas, on July 13th.

All 3 shows will be streamed live on Wrestle Universe, in what is being described as a trial effort. The previous US shows back in April in Las Vegas were screened on Triller+ as they were part of the Collective; however, this is still the latest example of a promotion looking to stream US shows live in-house rather than relying on the struggling platform. The April shows have also been added to the Wrestle Universe library this week as well.

The preliminary qualifying round for the “Tokyo Princess Cup” was completed on June 22nd, with 8 wrestlers moving onto the second round and 4 tournament spots up for grabs in the upcoming matches. Moka Miyamoto vs Kaya Toribami, Haru Kazashiro vs Ivy Steele, Wakana Uehara vs Shino Suzuki and Pom Harajuku vs HIMAWARI will decide which 4 wrestlers round out the tournament field.

TJPW’s next big show, “Summer Sun Princess 2025”, at Ota City Gymnasium on July 21st, has added further matches to the card. Miyu Yamashita, currently on excursion in the US, returns to Japan to face Billie Starkz in her return to the promotion for the first time in 2 years. Also returning is Max the Impaler, who will be teaming here with Pom Harajuku against Andreza Giant Panda and Raku. Max had teamed with Raku back in the US in April and will now face her back in Tokyo. The team of TeaDK (Chris Brookes and Emi Sakura) will wrestle yet-to-be-named opponents, with the entire show being broadcast live on Wrestle Universe.

Yoshiko Hasegawa will face the entire domestic roster in a 1 vs 27 handicap match on July 8th in Shinjuku FACE for her retirement match.

© DDT Pro Wrestling

DDT

CHARISMANIA II

18/06/2025
Shinjuku FACE, Tokyo, Japan
Watch On: Wrestle Universe

DDT has one major “heel” faction, called DAMNATION T.A. They’re not like House of Torture, Death Riders, H.A.T.E or Z-Brats. The best way to describe them is that they are the goth kids at school, but instead, as they grew tired of being bullied, they themselves have become the bullies. The member that captures this most is Ilusion – a masked, impressionable idiot, who while small in stature with a massive losing record, will talk a big game, and say “fuck you” while flipping everyone off during a diving dropkick. He is egged on by their enigmatic, charismatic leader, Daisuke Sasaki. Sasaki whispers in the ears of his fellow misfits, “You’re not going to let him speak to you like that, are you Ilusion?”, causing Ilusion to go into a swearing fit of rage and look even more like an idiot. Self-awareness is not their strong suit. In a quest for more popularity from the cool kids, and to show the world his boundless charisma (or lack thereof), Sasaki & his friends held the second installment of his produce show, “CHARISMANIA II”.

The show was silly, short with some really good moments. There was a bit of everything for everyone. By far the highlight was the main event between Daisuke Sasaki, and his master, his sensei, the “Wrestling Master” Dick Togo, in what was billed as the “Greatest Wrestling Match Ever”. It wasn’t. But it was also really damn good. This was the second singles match between the two, with the last occurring in 2017. Their most recent outing together was teaming to take on 37KAMIINA duo Yuki Ueno and Konosuke Takeshita on 17th May (the latter is an honorary member). That was also an excellent match. Watching Dick Togo wrestling seriously is a pleasure. There is something gripping about a 55-year-old showing that they can still go at a high level, similar to Masaaki Mochizuki in Dragongate. Sasaki normally leaves his shirt on during matches, taking it off when he takes the opponent seriously. The shirt was off here before the bell rang.

Dick Togo was showing off in this match. He found creative ways to get out of holds and apply his own, including keeping Sasaki in a headlock while he did a headstand. Togo even showed his student the dark arts of brawling, as he threw him around the arena before landing an over the top rope senton. The crowd showered Togo in adulation, and he had them in the palm of his hand. Sasaki tried to employ some DAMNATION T.A. tactics, as he pushed the referee into Togo while Togo was on the top rope. Sasaki then superplexed Togo to the outside of the ring onto all of Sasaki’s minions. Back in the ring, there was a great moment where Togo fought out of Sasaki’s La Mistica, before landing a deafening lariat. Sasaki kicked out of 1 before collapsing. The referee counted as both men were downed, but both slowly made it to their feet. The closing stretch of the match was the highlight. Togo unexpectedly landed his own La Mistica on Sasaki to the roars of the crowd. Sasaki found the ropes but was hit by a pedigree and a diving senton. Somehow, Sasaki was still alive. All it took after that was a simple right hand for Togo to pick up the win.

© DDT Pro Wrestling

Sasaki told Togo that it appears that 20 years of a career is still not enough to surpass the master, so he would like 5 more years. Togo reminded Sasaki that even though he is getting older, he will always keep evolving. Sasaki ended the show announcing his next event at Korakuen Hall on 2nd October.

Elsewhere, in the opener, the match had to be stopped as Naohiro Katsumi suffered a legitimate arm injury. We wish him the best in his recovery.

There was a “Lucha Libra Worldwide” match which involved two luchadors who have been touring mainly with Michinoku Pro Wrestling, Sangre Azteca Jr. & Pantera Jr., and two DDT wrestlers, Ilusion and Kazuma Sumi (masked as Sumi Caras). The story of the match was just trying to unmask Sumi Caras. He was eventually unmasked and received a low blow by Ilusion.

The Brahman Brothers (and Yuki Ueno cosplaying as one) were in action. There was a lot of water thrown around and the crowd had to wear rain jackets, as per usual for their matches. Their matches are a complete clown fiesta. This was no different. It’s not possible to put a Brahman Brothers match into words.

In a “Big Boys Burger” match, the meaty boy of DAMNATION T.A., MJ Paul, collided with Ryoma Tsukamoto and So Daimonji. Minoru Fujita, who is not a meaty boy, was also in this match as a member of DAMNATION T.A. (sort of). Tsukamoto has been appearing on the DDT “D Generations” shows and mainly is a JTO wrestler. Daimonji appeared in the BJW “Ikkitousen Strong Climb” final at Korakuen Hall on 22nd June against Leyton Buzzard in a losing effort. MJ Paul won with his reverse splash.

Isami Kodaka, a well known deathmatch wrestler in BJW who now makes BASARA his home, took on new DAMNATION T.A. member Hideki Okatani in a hardcore match. This match was not very good. It was quite routine and going through the motions from spot to spot. This was highlighted the most when Okatani was driven through a table with a piledriver and just shook it off, not even in a “fighting spirit” sort of way. Okatani is a good wrestler, maybe just not hardcore.

Full Results

Yasu Urano defeats Naohiro Katsumi (5:26)

Ilusion & Sangre Azteca Jr. defeat Pantera Jr. & Sumi Caras (11:14)

Brahman Brothers (Brahman Kei & Brahman Shu) & Brahman Ueno (Yuki Ueno) defeat Akito, Mataro Suzuki & Takayuki Ueki (12:49)

DAMNATION T.A. (Minoru Fujita & MJ Paul) defeat Ryoma Tsukamoto & So Daimonji (14:01)

Hardcore Match:
Isami Kodaka defeats Hideki Okatani (12:21)

Dick Togo defeats Daisuke Sasaki (23:33)

© DDT Pro Wrestling

DDT House Show Notes

On 12th June, DDT continued their D Generations series, which features freelancers, Ganbare Pro Wrestling talent, and showcases DDT’s younger talent “D Generations,” namely To-y, Takeshi Masada, Yuya Koroku, Daichi Sato, Yuki Ishida, Kazuma Sumi, and Yuni. They are currently in a rivalry with the “Young Communication” generation, consisting of Shigehiro Irie, Keisuke Ishii, Soma Takao, and Shota. “D Generations” entered this show with 0 wins and 5 losses against them.

These “D Generations” shows are usually light on comedy and high on workrate, and this one was no different. 16-year-old Daichi Sato continued his rapid progress by going to a time limit draw with Soma Takao, who seemingly only decided to start working after 7 or 8 minutes. Kazuma Sumi and Takeshi Masada main evented against freelancer and ex-DDT wrestler Shigehiro Irie and Ganbare Pro Wrestling’s Shota. The outsiders dominated the matchup early, and there was little offence from Sumi. Masada got the hot tag, and once he was in the ring with Irie, the match’s pace picked up significantly. Masada secured the win over Shota. Out of all the “D Generations” talent, Masada shows the most potential for a future KO-D Openweight Championship reign. The win in the main event took “D Generations”’ record against “Young Communication” to 1 win, 6 losses, and 1 draw. Masada said their goal was for “D Generations” to have a clean sweep against “Young Communication” on a show.

On 15th June, DDT held a show at Higashi Ward Plaza Hall in Niigata. The main news from the show is that To-y beat Niigata native Super Sasadango Machine (SSM) to become the new DDT Extreme champion. For this championship, normally the holder decides the rules. However, SSM decided that he had enough of an advantage being in his hometown so he allowed To-y to decide the rules. To-y settled on a best 2 out of 3 falls. In the first fall, the first person to spit out their milk would lose. During an irish whip, SSM removed his mask to reveal Aja Kong facepaint which caused To-y to laugh, spill the milk and lose the fall. In the second fall, the first to get put into the trash can would lose. SSM was pushed into the trashcan but couldn’t fit, then they broke it with a body slam. Eventually, SSM fell into a suitably-sized trash can after a headscissors from To-y. In the final fall, the first to 100 back chops would win the belt. When on 99 chops, SSM turtled up so that To-y could not chop his back. To-y went to the top rope and feigned a diving elbow, causing SSM to roll over and expose his back for the final chop. To-y said he’d only accept nominated challengers that have a following of over 5,000 on Twitter. The challengers Hikaru Sato, Kentaro Hachisu, Mikiya Sasaki (with Shota) and Yasu Urano were then put into a Twitter poll. Hikaru Sato won and will challenge on 15th July.

Elsewhere, Yuya Koroku and Yuki Ueno had their first ever singles match. It was a bit underwhelming as there were some sloppy moments from the two who are usually on top of their game. After winning, Ueno put over Koroku. Chris Brookes & Kazusada Higuchi had another preview tag, this time much more light-hearted. Higuchi did a front flip kip up.

DDT News & Upcoming Shows

The full card for the upcoming Korakuen Hall show on 29th June is as follows:

Highlights include the debut of AEW’s MxM Collection, a preview tag between Suzuki and Aoki ahead of their 13th July Korakuen Hall bout, the return of Yuki Iino vying for the tag team titles against the Astronauts, and Higuchi once again going for the top title. We’ve covered the background for that match in the previous issue. Poison Sawada JULIE will be in attendance to unveil the new DDT Iron Man Heavy Metal belt (DDT’s 24/7 championship).

© All Japan Pro Wrestling / Tokyo Sports

All Japan Pro Wrestling

Super Power Series 2025

18/06/2025
Company Announced Attendance: 1196
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan
Watch On: ajpw.tv

All Japan in 2025 has been in a bit of an odd state. It’s not been bad, but it’s not been amazing. This Korakuen Hall show is no different. The best way to describe current All Japan is that every show is basically a house show, you’re going to have some fun and see some good action, but you’re not going to see any Match of the Year contenders. Even on the Korakuen Hall shows, you’d be lucky to see something outstanding at the top of the card.

This theme runs through other parts of the card. World Junior Heavyweight Champion Seiki Yoshioka is obviously very good, but his matches do not seem to reach their full potential. Instead they accelerate quickly for the first minute, move at a slow speed for the next 12 minutes, before accelerating again for the finish, leaving it too late to hit max speed. At a time where rival promotions such as NOAH are packing Korakuen Hall, it leaves you wondering whether All Japan can find the star or pairing to hit that top level again.

In 2024, despite a lot of low points, All Japan’s shining star was former Triple Crown champion Yuma Anzai, who you could regularly rely on to put on an amazing match at the top of the card. In 2025 he was relegated to the All Asia tag title scene, and still was often the highlight of the shows. Now, along with disbanding his ELPIDA faction on this show, he has also announced an excursion, destination unknown, from 1st July to 31st August. With the lack of oomph and intensity in the promotion, All Japan will be hoping that Anzai can breathe some fresh air back into this promotion, without going back to the Kento Miyahara well. Their other main eventer, Yuma Aoyagi, is content doing a lot of comedy on the undercard. To be clear, All Japan is by no means bad, or doing poor business. This show was good. But they have a lot of unfulfilled potential in their reserves that they should be tapping into, in order to become great.

The promotion is trucking along at its own pace with Jun Saito at the top. Jun is undoubtedly one of the most popular wrestlers on the roster, but you would be hard pressed to argue that any of his title defences have lit the world on fire. However, the most recent one against Hideki Suzuki is likely one of his best. The initial feeling watching this live was that this was more on Suzuki rather than Jun, with Suzuki putting in one of his best performances. That being said, it does take two to tango. Is Jun turning a corner that will reignite some intensity in All Japan?

© All Japan Pro Wrestling

The early parts of the match were Suzuki trying to find chinks in Jun’s armor, in order to catch him off guard with a surprise submission. After minutes of getting worked over, Suzuki almost tapped Jun out with the tarantula hold – which the crowd loved. Later, Suzuki managed a pile driver to finally gain a foothold in the match. Suzuki locked in the crossface on Jun and then transitioned into a sleeper hold, which is the same move Jun passed out to in the preview tag on 15th June. This time, Jun found the ropes.

The last 5 to 10 minutes of this match were excellent. While Jun was on the top ropes, Suzuki ran up to counter, but Jun headbutt him. Suzuki shook it off and delivered a double underhook suplex from the top rope. Jun summoned his fighting spirit and speared Suzuki. In the closing stretches of the match, Suzuki realised that he could do real harm by delivering brutal elbows to Jun’s gut (Okada-Omega style if you’ve watched AEW recently). Jun, desperate to stop Suzuki, powered Suzuki to the other corner of the ring, and started smashing him in the face with open handed palm strikes, with the crowd going crazy. This was a great callback to twin brother Rei Saito knocking out Suzuki at the Champion Carnival finals last month with the same strikes. Suzuki managed to land more body blows and a dangerous backdrop suplex to escape. Suzuki once again locked in the sleeper, with the crowd thinking it was over. Suzuki let go of the hold to pin Jun, but this time Jun kicked out at 2. Jun hit the running knee and a jackhammer, but Suzuki mustered his own fighting spirit and kicked out at 1. Jun finished Suzuki off with Dying Light.

After the match, Davey Boy Smith Jr. came out to challenge and everyone watching at home collectively groaned, but Yuma Aoyagi interrupted him. Jun proposed they fight each other, and so on 21st July they will have a #1 Contender’s match. Smith Jr. lost the Triple Crown title to Jun in quite a terrible match earlier in the year. As Jun was finishing up and asked for his sweets, Ryuki Honda came out to bring them. He challenged Jun, and Jun accepted. They are set to fight for the Triple Crown on 21st July.

© All Japan Pro Wrestling

Naruki Doi and Seiki Yoshioka had a solid match for the World Junior Heavyweight Championship. It felt a bit routine, and Yoshioka has developed a clear formula for his matches which produce good, but predictable bouts. Yoshioka’s rope running at least is quite impressive so they did a few spots based on that, including being intercepted by a spinebuster from Doi. They are in separate blocks for the upcoming Junior Heavyweight tournament, so Doi vowed to win his block and challenge again.

The perennial All Japan main eventers, Kento Miyahara & Yuma Aoyagi, relegated to the tag division for Jun’s benefit, defended their titles in a comedic, but decent, match. The challengers, Dragongate’s Z-Brats (Madoka Kikuta & KAI) did a lot of their usual brawling and hitting the champions with chairs behind the referee’s back. Kikuta was protected here given he is on a monster heel run in Dragongate, so KAI did most of the work, including eating the pin. As with most of the defenses so far, it was Kento winning with the Shutdown Suplex Hold. Hokuto Omori and Talos came out after the match to challenge, with Talos speaking in Japanese to say he wants a championship. The crowd popped for his Japanese, and he’s doing a good job on his tour so far. That match is scheduled for 17th July. Backstage, Kento teased a “renewal” of the belts.

Full Results

Atsuki Aoyagi, Rei Saito & Takuya Nomura defeat Davey Boy Smith Jr., MUSASHI & Shota Kofuji (7:59)

Baka No Jidai (Fuminori Abe, Hikaru Sato, Seigo Tachibana & Yuko Miyamoto) & Kengo Mashimo defeat Dan Tamura, Ryo Inoue, Shotaro Ashino, Suwama & Xyon (11:25)

ELPIDA (Ren Ayabe, Rising HAYATO, Ryuki Honda & Yuma Anzai) defeat Hokuto-gun (Hokuto Omori, Kuma Arashi, Takashi & Talos) (11:29)

AJPW World Junior Heavyweight Title Match:
Seiki Yoshioka (c) defeats Naruki Doi (15:40)

AJPW World Tag Team Title Match:
Business Tag Team (Kento Miyahara & Yuma Aoyagi) (c) defeat Z-Brats (KAI & Madoka Kikuta) (16:44)

Triple Crown Title Match:
Jun Saito (c) defeats Hideki Suzuki (20:52)

© All Japan Pro Wrestling

Super Power Series 2025

15/06/2025
KBS Hall, Kyoto, Japan
Watch On ajpw.tv

At the famous KBS Hall in Kyoto, All Japan crowned two new champions. Takashi defeated Yuko Miyamoto to become the GAORA TV Champion; and in a great main event, the Aoyagi Brothers (Atsuki & Yuma Aoyagi) beat ELPIDA (Rising HAYATO & Yuma Anzai) to win the All Asia Tag Team Championship, which in retrospect was a sign of things to come for ELPIDA.

The main event started slow, with extended crowd brawling and long heat segments. The match found its rhythm at the 15 minute mark, with Yuma and Anzai’s hard-hitting German suplexes on each other and the high-paced junior heavyweight-style action between Atsuki and HAYATO. The final 5 to 10 minutes were excellent. Standout spots included Anzai’s delayed German suplex, assisted by HAYATO’s springboard dropkick and HAYATO’s near-fall on Atsuki from a back-to-belly piledriver. In the closing stretches, Atsuki delivered a superkick, Poisonrana and Fisherman Driver for a 2 count, before hitting a Fire Bird Splash (450) to secure the win. While both teams delivered, this match shone a spotlight on Atsuki and HAYATO ahead of the upcoming junior heavyweight tournament.

Although the TV title switched hands, that match will not be recapped in this review. It was a Takashi match. A 15 minute Takashi match. The crowd loves Takashi. Great. The result now means that Takashi will defend his title at Dragongate’s biggest show of the year, Kobe World, on 13th July. To his credit, he is very over with the attending crowd, and that alone warrants a place on the card, as promotions live and die by their live attendance.

In a solid preview for the future title matches, Hideki Suzuki, Hikaru Sato & Seiki Yoshioka defeated Jun Saito, Naruki Doi & Rei Saito. Suzuki repeatedly looked to choke out Jun, found the rear naked choke on Rei and then got the pin after securing a third choke on Jun. Suzuki then mockingly ate Jun’s post-match snacks in front of him, which added insult to injury. Backstage, Rei asked Jun, “Are you okay? You got beat up,” to which Jun simply replied “June 18th, Korakuen Hall. Hideki Suzuki – DOOM”.

Earlier in the night, the opener between Dan Tamura & Ryo Inoue and Fuminori Abe & Seigo Tachibana overdelivered, with fun sequences between Inoue and Abe.

Full Results

Baka No Jidai (Fuminori Abe & Seigo Tachibana) defeat Dan Tamura & Ryo Inoue (8:31)

ELPIDA (Ren Ayabe & Ryuki Honda) defeat Shotaro Ashino & Xyon (11:01)

Hokuto-gun (Hokuto Omori, Kuma Arashi & Talos) defeat Davey Boy Smith Jr., Kento Miyahara & MUSASHI (13:17)

GAORA TV Title:
Takashi defeats Yuko Miyamoto (c) (15:07)

Hideki Suzuki, Hikaru Sato & Seiki Yoshioka defeat Saito Brothers (Jun Saito, Naruki Doi & Rei Saito) (15:34)

All Asia Tag Team Title:
Atsuki Aoyagi & Yuma Aoyagi defeat ELPIDA (Rising HAYATO & Yuma Anzai) (c) (26:02)

© All Japan Pro Wrestling / BBM

Shinkiba Ragnarok – The Era of Idiots vs. Hokuto-gun

24/06/2025
Shin-Kiba 1st RING, Tokyo, Japan
Watch On ajpw.tv

On 24th June, All Japan held a show where only members of the Baka no Jidai and Hokuto-gun factions could wrestle. Ultimately, it is recommended to watch this show if you exhaust all other options and have a lot of time to kill, and only in those circumstances. There was a lot of basic comedy (as is the trend in All Japan), although there were some wrestlers who worked harder than usual; in particular, AIZAWA NO. 1 had a good back and forth striking exchange with Abe in a tag match that the crowd were really into. It felt like a show that would be far more fun to be at live.

Aja Kong and Kengo Mashimo were the only freelance additions, although Kong has teamed with Hokuto-gun before and Mashimo has teamed with Baka no Jidai, so they are considered honorary members, respectively. Suzuki tried Takashi’s deathly strikes and failed. Takashi got whacked over the head with Aja’s trashcan and then rolled up by Suzuki.

The semi-main event had some fun moments such as Omori copying all of the gimmicks of the (former) ELPIDA members. It was Omori’s last match of his 20s, and it was a no contest, which he was unhappy about.

The main event was a Rumble involving all Baka no Jidai, Hokuto-gun members and apparently the referees too, as they were thrown out. Takashi came back later as the replacement referee. The show closed out with chants for Taishin Nagao, which was really heart-warming.

Full Results

Talos defeats Seigo Tachibana (3:30)

Baka No Jidai (Fuminori Abe & Hikaru Sato) defeat Hokuto-gun (Aizawa NO. 1 & Jack Kennedy) (12:11)

Baka No Jidai (Hideki Suzuki & Yuko Miyamoto) & Kengo Mashimo defeat Aja Kong, Hokuto-gun (Kuma Arashi & Takashi) (14:40)

Hokuto Omori vs. Yuma Aoyagi – No Contest (15:36)

Battle Royal: Aja Kong defeats Aizawa NO. 1 and Daisuke Kanbayashi and Fuminori Abe and Hideki Suzuki and Hikaru Sato and Hokuto Omori and Jack Kennedy and Kengo Mashimo and Kimitoshi Ogata and Kuma Arashi and Seigo Tachibana and Takashi and Talos and Yuko Miyamoto and Yuma Aoyagi and Yuya Okada (13:36)

AJPW News & Upcoming Shows

All Japan announced that Taishin Nagao is still in intensive care after being hit by a bus on 31st May. We wish him all the best in his recovery.

All Japan’s junior heavyweight tournament will be renamed “Zennichi Jr Festival 2025”. 10 participants will be split into two blocks and will compete in a round-robin league at five shows, from July 17th at Korakuen Hall to July 26th at Shin-Kiba 1st RING. The final between the winners of both blocks will be held on August 3rd in Ota Ward Gym, Tokyo. The full schedule of matches has been released. The blocks are as follows:

The next AJPW show is on 17th July at Korakuen Hall, kicking off the tournament and hosting a Tag Team Championship match with Kento & Yuma defending against Omori & Talos.

© Dragongate

Dragongate

Rainbow Gate 2025

14/06/2025
KBS Hall, Kyoto, Japan
Watch On: dragongate.live

Dragongate returned to touring after their two-night stint at Korakuen Hall. At one of Japan’s famous venues, KBS Hall, the highlight of the show was Love and Peace’s Ben-K defeating D’courage’s Yuki Yoshioka in singles action. Ben-K dominated most of the match until a tope con hilo from Yoshioka evened the contest, leading to a back-and-forth battle. Ben-K and Yoshioka are members of the “Reiwa Six” class, named by Madoka Kikuta after his Dream Gate win in 2023. Ben-K reminded Yoshioka that despite being on different teams, they share a bond as classmates. He encouraged Yoshioka to rise again after his setbacks this year, continuing the long-term storyline of Yoshioka’s climb back to the top.

Natural Vibes leader Strong Machine J continued his crusade against Z-Brats for humiliating him at Korakuen Hall. He teamed with Flamita to face two parts of the new Open the Triangle Gate champions, ISHIN and Yoshiki Kato. After taking out the referee, Kato unmasked Flamita, who had to cover up. Bendito and a masked Luis Mante came out to help, and Mante gave Flamita the mask so Flamita could finish the match with a Fire Bird Splash (450) on Kato for the win. After the match, Bendito, Flamita, and Luis Mante challenged the Open the Triangle Gate champions Z-Brats (Homare, ISHIN, and Yoshiki Kato) at “Kobe World” on 13th July. Despite initial protests from ISHIN that they aren’t a real unit, the GM made it official.

In the main event, PARADOX (BxB Hulk, Dragon Kid, and YAMATO) lost to Z-Brats (Jason Lee, Kota Minoura, and Madoka Kikuta) when Kikuta pinned BxB Hulk. Shun came out to tell us all once again that YAMATO will be presenting him with the title at “Kobe World”.

Elsewhere on the show, Z-Brats continued their dominant run with the trio of rookie Homare, KAI, and Shun Skywalker beating Love and Peace (Hyo, JACKY KAMEI, and Riiita) in 5:23.

Two new Dragongate trainees of the 2025 class, Ryuta Sugihara and Kazuma Kimura, both 23, kicked off the show in an exhibition match.

Full Results

D’courage (Dragon Dia & Ryoya Tanaka) vs. Natural Vibes (Kzy & U-T) – Time Limit Draw (15:00)

Bendito & Luis Mante defeat Susumu Yokosuka & ULtimo Dragon (8:22)

Z-Brats (Homare, KAI & Shun Skywalker) defeat Love And Peace (Hyo, JACKY KAMEI & Riiita) (5:23)

Ben-K defeats Yuki Yoshioka (14:39)

Natural Vibes (Flamita & Strong Machine J) defeat Z-Brats (ISHIN & Yoshiki Kato) (8:09)

Z-Brats (Jason Lee, Kota Minoura & Madoka Kikuta) defeat PARADOX (BxB Hulk, Dragon Kid & YAMATO) (14:45)

© Dragongate

Rainbow Gate 2025

15/06/2025
ACROS Fukuoka, Fukuoka, Japan
Watch On: dragongate.live

Dragongate ran two shows in Fukuoka on 15th June which continued current storylines, as well as setting up the Twin Gate and Triangle Gate matches for “Kobe World”. After beating Z-Brats in a 10-man tag elimination match on the evening show, Love & Peace were added to the Open The Twin Gate and Open The Triangle Gate matches at “Kobe World” on 13th July. The Twin Gate champions, Jason Lee & Kota Minoura will now defend against Ben-K & Hyo. The Triangle Gate champions, Homare, ISHIN & Yoshiki Kato, will defend against JACKY KAMEI, Mochizuki Jr. & Riiita, as well as the already announced Bendito, Flamita & Luis Mante in a three-way.

The 5v5 tag match was a fast-paced battle following the Dragongate house style. The Z-Brats initially dominated outside the ring. Momentum shifted when Riiita eliminated ISHIN and JACKY KAMEI’s tope con hilo cleared the Z-Brats out, giving Love & Peace a brief upper hand. After 2 eliminations in 14 minutes, the match then saw rapid eliminations on both sides, with Homare playing a key role by taking out JACKY KAMEI with a superkick, and eliminating Riiita with a roll up, after hitting him in the head with a metal plate. In the closing moments, despite interference and distractions from Z-Brats, Ben-K and Hyo rallied together, with Hyo securing the final pin on Kota Minoura after a decisive spear from Ben-K. Following the result of the match, GM Ryo Saito officially announced the aforementioned “Kobe World” title matches.

Following Ben-K’s encouragement on the previous show, Yuki Yoshioka and D’courage stablemate Dragon Dia were still unable to overcome Z-Brats (Homare & Shun Skywalker) during the day show, as Yoshioka succumbed to rookie Homare’s signature superkick. His losing streak continued after being pinned by Flamita’s Fire Bird Splash on the evening show.

Natural Vibes leader Strong Machine J once again got his chance to face Madoka Kikuta. Strong Machine J teamed with stablemate Kzy to take on Kikuta and Z-Brats leader Shun Skywalker. However, Strong Machine J bit off more than he could chew, and they were defeated within 5 minutes. Shun and Kikura are both being kept quite strong heading into “Kobe World”. On a later show it was confirmed that Kikuta will face Strong Machine J in a No Disqualification match at “Kobe World”.

The new trainees, Kazuma Kimura and Ryuta Sugihara, had another exhibition match to kick off the night show.

Full Results (Day)

Love And Peace (Ben-K, Hyo & Mochizuki Jr.) defeat Natural Vibes (Kzy, Strong Machine J & U-T) (9:49)

Genki Horiguchi & Ultimo Dragon defeat Z-Brats (Jason Lee & Yoshiki Kato) by DQ (6:04)

Z-Brats (Homare & Shun Skywalker) defeat D’courage (Dragon Dia & Yuki Yoshioka) (10:38)

JACKY KAMEI, Riiita & Ryoya Tanaka defeat Bendito, Flamita & Luis Mante (13:58)

Z-Brats (ISHIN, KAI, Kota Minoura & Madoka Kikuta) defeat PARADOX (BxB Hulk, Dragon Kid, Susumu Yokosuka & YAMATO) (16:08)

Full Results (Night)

Natural Vibes (Flamita & U-T) defeat D’courage (Dragon Dia & Yuki Yoshioka) (10:26)

PARADOX (BxB Hulk, Susumu Yokosuka & YAMATO) defeat Bendito, Genki Horiguchi & Ultimo Dragon (8:04)

Ryoya Tanaka defeats KAI (5:23)

Luis Mante defeats Dragon Kid (12:24)

Z-Brats (Madoka Kikuta & Shun Skywalker) defeat Natural Vibes (Kzy & Strong Machine J) (4:28)

Elimination: Love And Peace (Ben-K, Hyo, JACKY KAMEI, Mochizuki Jr. & Riiita) defeat Z-Brats (Homare, ISHIN, Jason Lee, Kota Minoura & Yoshiki Kato) [5:3] (22:08)

© Dragongate

Prime Zone Plus #14 ~ ISHIN’s Super Dungeon

20/06/2025
Kobe Lapis Hall, Kobe, Japan
Watch On: dragongate.live

Dragongate’s lighthearted “Prime Zone+” show returned on 20th June for another installment. The show was revived in 2024 and held monthly, although now it is more sporadic. This was the 14th edition of the revived show, the 2nd of 2025 and the 28th to be held at Kobe Lapis Hall. This edition was called “ISHIN’s Super Dungeon” where ISHIN acted as the GM.

ISHIN opened up the show, sporting a tie, and cut a promo. The returning Akihara Sahara interrupted him. Sahara is a rookie in the same trainee class as Homare. He was last on a house show on 1st June. This was a fun 3 minute sprint with Sahara jumping out of the gate with a big lariat on ISHIN. ISHIN won with a schoolboy rollup.

Love & Peace stablemates Mochizuki Jr. and Riiita had a game of one-upmanship as they started off by trying to roll each other up several times before getting out of breath. Riiita tried to convince Junior to do a Fosberry Flop to the outside. After some back and forth, Junior won the argument and beat up Riiita when he got back into the ring. When the tables turned, Riiita didn’t hesitate and hit a sliding dropkick on Junior. The last few minutes were good. Riiita ended up getting the win after trading a series of 2-count rollups with Junior. Riiita won a Nintendo Switch 2 box that was empty and only had a picture of ISHIN straight after a sauna.

In the semi-main event, Z-Brats Open The Twin Gate champions (Jason Lee & Kota Minoura) took on Love & Peace (Ben-K & JACKY KAMEI). This was a more traditional Dragongate Z-Brats match and even ended in a DQ when Minoura beat up the ref before he could count 3. Minoura shoved the titles in the face of Ben-K, who is challenging them at “Kobe World” with Hyo.

ISHIN was the special referee for the main event between D’courage (Dragon Dia & Yuki Yoshioka) and Z-Brats (KAI & Yoshiki Kato). The match went exactly as you’d expect from that first sentence. Slow counts, allowing interference, ISHIN overselling when Dia lightly pushed him, you name it.

Full Results

ISHIN defeats Akihiro Sahara (2:50)

Madoka Kikuta defeats Mondai Ryu & Syachihoko Machine (7:14)

Riiita defeats Mochizuki Jr. (10:32)

Love & Peace (Ben-K & JACKY KAMEI) defeat Z-Brats (Jason Lee & Kota Minoura) by DQ (9:12)

D’courage (Dragon Dia & Yuki Yoshioka) defeat Z-Brats (KAI & Yoshiki Kato) (11:36)

© Dragongate

Rainbow Gate 2025

22/06/2025
Kobe Sambo Hall, Kobe, Japan
Watch On: dragongate.live

Dragongate returned to the familiar Kobe Sambo Hall for the first time since April to continue filling out the rest of the “Kobe World” card.

The main news coming out of this show is awaiting updates on Shun Skywalker’s status. During his six-man tag, teaming with Homare & Madoka Kikuta against Natural Vibes (Kzy, Strong Machine J & U-T), Shun was lifting up U-T above him before buckling. Strong Machine J went to pick him up for the next spot but Shun rolled out of the ring. He was not shown on camera after that, and the action stopped in the ring for about a minute before Homare jumped in and continued the match. He was carried backstage with the support of a second. Shun is currently booked in the main event of “Kobe World”, so Dragongate will be hoping it was just a sprain rather than a muscle tear. The six-man tag also built to Kikuta and Strong Machine J’s match at “Kobe World”, which the GM announced will be a No Disqualification bout after the two could not stop brawling with each other and the match ended in a countout. Kikuta is really in his element as a heel; his offence looks mean and he is a credible monster heel. Kikuta stood out great in this match. Credit to Case of the Open The Voice Gate podcast for putting the idea out there of a heel Kikuta versus face Shun Skywalker down the line, which sounds awesome.

The standout match on the show was D’courage (Dragon Dia & Ryoya Tanaka) taking on Love & Peace (Hyo & JACKY KAMEI). The Dragongate house style has a really high floor, but all four were excellent in this match. There was a crazy sequence where Jacky hits a springboard frankensteiner on Dia, Tanaka lands a missile dropkick on Jacky and then Hyo catches Tanaka with a diving cutter. In what is a continuation of Tanaka’s elevation up the card, Tanaka pinned Love & Peace co-leader, Hyo, with Cross Saber. Tanaka then called out U-T to set up the Brave Gate title match at “Kobe World”. Tanaka mentioned that he has a lot of momentum and wins. He told U-T that he lost to him back in the Brave Gate tournament but he’s a different person now. The GM made it official.

Yuki Yoshioka’s road to redemption continued in his opener with Masaaki Mochizuki. Yoshioka began the match refusing to shake Mochizuki’s hand, signaling his intent to not play nicely. Yoshioka worked over Mochizuki’s left leg, so like the experienced veteran he is, Mochizuki switched to blasting Yoshioka with his right leg instead. Yoshioka tried to no sell a Twister, leading to him getting slapped right across the face. Yoshioka tried to tap Mochizuki out by putting his worked left leg into a leg lock, but it ended in a time limit draw. Mochizuki showed Yoshioka respect after.

Full Results

Masaaki Mochizuki vs. Yuki Yoshioka – Time Limit Draw (15:00)

Royal Rumble:
Takashi defeats Akihiro Sahara and BxB Hulk and Daiki Yanagiuchi and Don Fujii and Mondai Ryu and Ryu Fuda and Syachihoko BOY and Yasushi Kanda and Yosuke Santa Maria (8:36)

PARADOX (Kagetora & Susumu Yokosuka) defeat Z-Brats (KAI & Yoshiki Kato) by DQ (2:54)

Bendito, Flamita & Luis Mante defeat Love And Peace (Ben-K, Mochizuki Jr. & Riiita) and Ho Ho Lun, Ho Ri & Reach Tominaga (6:33)

Natural Vibes (Kzy, Strong Machine J & U-T) defeat Z-Brats (Homare, Madoka Kikuta & Shun Skywalker) by Count Out (10:52)
D’courage (Dragon Dia & Ryoya Tanaka) defeat Love And Peace (Hyo & JACKY KAMEI) (13:24)

PARADOX (Dragon Kid, Naruki Doi & YAMATO) defeat Z-Brats (ISHIN, Jason Lee & Kota Minoura) (15:52)

Dragongate News & Upcoming Shows

Takashi defeated Yuka Miyamoto for the GAORA TV Championship in AJPW on 15th June, meaning that it will now be defended at “Kobe World”.

We will have a “Kobe World” preview in our next issue. As of now, here is the full card following the last few weeks of shows:

Shun Skywalker is off of the 3rd July Korakuen Hall show, fuelling speculation about his availability following his injury on the 22nd June Kobe Sambo Hall show. In Shun fashion, he tweeted that “Shun Skywalker does not feel pain” and that he had no need to have preliminary battles with YAMATO. Shun Skywalker did show up in NJPW at Tanahashi’s produce show, “Tanahashi Jam”, on 29th June. While he might be working injured, he was cleared to wrestle here. If he is actually injured, he did his best to hide it. He didn’t do much, but he did execute some explosive bicycle kicks which would be quite hard to do with a serious knee injury. Shun is doing everything he can to throw doubt into the result of the main event at Kobe World. The full card for that 3rd July Korakuen show is as follows:

Nine months into his career, Homare is being put in a huge spot, a singles match with the champion in the main event of a Korakuen Hall show.

© Marigold

Dream Star Fighting Marigold

Marigold 1st Anniversary Series ~ Burning Desire

17/06/2025
Korakuen Hall, Toyko, Japan
Announced Attendance: 912
Watch On: Wrestle Universe

Review by David Hayter

Marigold’s largely enjoyable, if lightweight, return to Korakuen Hall as part of their 1st Anniversary Series already feels like ancient history—a reminder of a time when the promotion was riding the wave of Mayu Iwatani’s debut, Nanae Takahashi’s fabulous retirement ceremony, and the unveiling of yet another super rookie in the form of Shinno.

Make no mistake: life is still good in Marigold, as Mayu continues to prove herself a draw. Attendances are genuinely up, to the point where the company’s habit of releasing inflated figures feels counterproductive, disguising signs of legitimate growth. Unfortunately, the past fortnight has brought a string of bad news: Mayu Iwatani announced she had suffered broken ribs shortly after Marigold confirmed that standout talent Natsumi Showzuki would be undergoing shoulder surgery, while Ryoko Sakimura would miss time.

Iwatani Sparkles As Rookies Continue To Outshine Established Talent

Rampaging rookie Senka Akatsuki continues to be an absolute scene stealer as this Marigold versus Marvelous dream tag, which should have been built around the first tantalising taste of the upcoming Utami Hayashishita vs Takumi Iroha champion vs champion match, instead provided the backdrop to more of Senka’s unruly hijinks.

The press conference that announced this match had already gone endearingly off the rails by the time Senka took the stage, but the rookie managed to one up the yoga poses and feats of strength that had preceded her, by removing her street clothes to reveal her wrestling attire (creating a wonderfully surreal visual), only to then get right up in Seri Yamoaka’s face and rip her top off!

Simply put, it’s hard to take your eyes off Senka; she wrestles like a toddler giddily stampeding her way towards oncoming traffic. Marigold rookie Seri cannot match Senka’s wildness or the heaviness with which she deadweights her body, but she can absorb and withstand her insanity. She is an ideal counter force to Senka, the perfect young grappler, ready to take a beating and endure, showcasing the trademark PASSION~! that Nanae instilled in her protégé prior to her retirement. Sora Ayame is less distinct, but she works undeniably hard, taking a strong beating from Utami and Mayu Iwatani, who really laid in their strikes with relish.

Unfortunately, it has to be said that this tremendously enjoyable main event felt lightweight for a Korakuen Hall supershow. There were flashes of brilliance as Iroha uncorked her signature strikes, Senka ran wild with shoulder tackles and Mayu played her greatest hits, but overall this match felt more like a pleasant tour show main event, rather than anything especially memorable. While Utami and Iroha teased several confrontations, they delivered little direct action. Instead, Mayu and Utami were left to weather a storm of shoot pins from Senka. Utami eventually picked up the win with the BT Bomb, as Mayu held Iroha in the corner and forced her to watch the referee count 1-2-3.

© Marigold

Magenta Give Marigold Some Much Needed Dirt Under Their Nails

Marvelous stars and Marigold Twin Star champions Magenta continue to be a revelation. Their ring work remains middling-to-good, but the team of Maria and Riko Kawahata have leant Marigold a much needed sense of edge. They offer a filthy sense of punk sleaze – with their modernist makeup and roughhouse style standing out from the bright and cheerful aesthetics that dominate in Marigold.

Mai Sakurai and Chanyota were Magenta’s opponents at Korakuen, but unfortunately the teams seemed to accentuate each other’s weaknesses. Chanyota’s work was clunky, and both teams struggled with their ring positioning and rhythm for the majority of the match. The action picked up during Sakurai’s hot tag—she always showcases great fire on offence—and Kawahata matched her aggression with impressive kicks. The throws and dramatic timing were less convincing, but the final four minutes are certainly worth a watch, even if the first ten are skippable.

Magenta retained their titles when Kawahata nailed a great-looking moonsault on United National Champion Mai Sakurai, likely earning a singles title shot in the process.

Selene Flora Standout On A Frustratingly Thin Undercard

Marigold is slowly but surely building its roster of stars, but without Nanae Takahashi and with just a couple of injuries, the undercard feels underpowered and short of must-see matches.

Hummingbird & Ryoko Sakimura opened the show by picking up a win over Nagisa Tachibana & Natsumi Showzuki in a match that started sloppy, but picked up with some engaging flash pinfall exchanges late on.

Victoria Yuzuki seems determined to single-handedly salvage the Marigold undercard, and alongside Kizuna Tanaka as Selene Flora, she delivered waves of crisp aggression and energy. Rea Seto and Komomo Minami have improved and are trying hard, but they remain heavily reliant on their opponents to carry the action. Despite some botched grappling and sloppy strikes, the crowd was thoroughly entertained by the time Kizuna hit the Re-Dream for the victory.

One can only hope the Megaton story is approaching its end point, as she fell to defeat to Darkness Revolution in an awkward and uninspiring match. Misa Matsui is effective as a loveable villain, but her character is too sweet to ever garner genuine heat and it’s hard to think that anyone would genuinely choose to ironically boo her and cheer Megaton. CHIAKI and Kouki Amarei are typical of Marigold’s first wave of talent acquisitions: Kouki looks incredible but is still struggling to get through matches competently since returning from injury, while CHAIKI has a distinct aesthetic but is unremarkable in the ring.

Chika Gota delivered one of her best big swings of career to date on Yuuka Yamazaki, en route to a tag team victory alongside Minami Yuuki. Unfortunately, when Mirai wasn’t in the ring the action was so-so, but that’s understandable as Chika and Yuuka need more time in-ring to improve. Chika would pick up the win with the chokeslam, but the match felt like it was ultimately designed to get Gota & Yuuki’s call and repeat chant over, rather than wow the crowd with in-ring prowess.

Miku Aono keeps the momentum rolling following her big victory over Nanae Takahashi with a strong and decisive win over Erina Yamanaka via the Styles Clash. Erina’s performance unfortunately wasn’t worthy of her position on the card, but that fact actually made for a fun dynamic as Erina would land a weak kick and Aono would respond by laying in a heavy shot in response. It’s hard to say that Aono looked impressive because her opponent’s selling and bumping did her no favours, but she worked very hard to inject drama into this clash. To Erina’s credit, she nailed an absolutely picture-perfect dive from the top rope to the floor and has an impressive ability to bridge.

Full Results

Hummingbird & Ryoko Sakimura defeat Nagisa Tachibana & Natsumi Showzuki (7:33)

Selene Flora (Kizuna Tanaka & Victoria Yuzuki) defeat Komomo Minami & Rea Seto (11:05)

Darkness Revolution (CHIAKI & Misa Matsui) defeat Kouki Amarei & Megaton (7:54)

Chika Goto & Minami Yuuki defeat MIRAI & Yuuka Yamazaki (12:35)

Miku Aono defeats Erina Yamanaka (10:13)

Marigold Twin Star Title Match
Magenta (Maria & Riko Kawahata) (c) defeat Chanyota & Mai Sakurai (14:53)

Mayu Iwatani, Seri Yamaoka & Utami Hayashishita defeat Senka Akatsuki, Sora Ayame & Takumi Iroha (18:21)

Marigold News

Marigold has 14 confirmed names for this year’s Dream Star GP tournament that opens in Osaka on August 2nd. Mayu Iwatani, Utami Hayashishita, Mai Sakurai, MIRAI, Miku Aono, Kouki Amarei, Victoria Yuzuki, Seri Yamaoka, Chika Goto, Kizuna Tanaka, Nagisa Nozaki, CHIAKI, Misa Matsui and Chanyota will all compete in the 2nd year of the tournament, which will retain its two block format in the run up to the final in Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, on September 14th.

© Marigold

Natsumi Showzuki was originally announced as part of the lineup but has had to withdraw after suffering a dislocated right shoulder, labral tear and a partial avulsion fracture, meaning she will require surgery and will likely be out of action until the turn of the year. A gauntlet was due to be held on June 28th for the last spot, with Nao Ishikawa, Hummingbird, Rea Seto, Komomo Minami, Yuuka Yamazaki, Nagisa Tachibana, Yuuki Minami, and Senka Akatsuki of Marvelous battling it out for the final spot. With Showzuki’s injury, this field will now be split into two gauntlets, with the winner of each advancing to the tournament Block stage.

© Marvelous Pro Wrestling

Japanese Indies

Marvelous Pro Wrestling

Marvelous in Kariya

21/06/2025
Kariya City Industrial Promotion Center Aioi Hall, Aichi, Japan
Watch On Wrestle Universe (maybe in 3 weeks) / Zaiko

Marvelous held a show main evented by Senka Akatsuki and Johnnie Robbie for the West Coast Pro Women’s Championship. With only 4 matches on the card and a runtime of just over 2 hours, owner Chigusa Nagayo has unfortunately found a way to stall out the shows and still offer them as a full PPV option. The main issue is the Wrestle Universe upload schedule. As of writing, there are only shows from April 20th, May 5th and May 20th on the service. The May 20th show was uploaded on June 6th, which indicates a 2 and a half week upload delay (which is certainly better than some other joshi promotions of a similar size). That being said, the Hokkaido shows from May 30th and June 1st are yet to be uploaded 3 weeks later, so the schedule is also likely to be inconsistent. Putting aside the argument about value delivered via PPV, the show was fine, with a great main event.

Senka Akatsuki is good. She is a top Rookie of the Year contender alongside Dragongate’s Homare and NOAH’s Daiki Odashima. We all know this, we write about it here every issue. What has been more interesting to find out on this show is the disparity between her and fellow rookie Sora Ayame, as well as how good Johnnie Robbie is. Ayame has often been clumped into the super rookie bucket with Senka, albeit not having as much to show for it. Her offence is limited, but where she does excel at is making you believe she is in pain, although it is still a struggle figuring out if she is selling, or genuinely hates taking submissions. It was not her day on this show, having a poorly mistimed dropkick and some weak looking offence, before being brutalised by Amira’s chops and holds (as an aside: Amira’s striking has improved significantly in just over a month). On the other hand, Senka has now main evented 3 shows in a row, and has been selected as Marvelous’ potential entrant to Marigold’s singles round robin tournament, the “Dream Star Grand Prix”. Senka’s elevation in the past month has been really good booking by Nagayo, slowly putting her in more prominent positions. It was only just over one month ago that Ayame pinned Senka, but it feels like forever. They will team together to go after Sareee & Takumi Iroha’s tag team titles on 27th June.

© Marvelous Pro Wrestling

Johnnie Robbie has been excellent on her tour with Marvelous. From the first match she had in Japan, it was obvious that she would fit in, and she has not slowed down. Her match with Senka was great, with some callbacks to their previous interactions in Hokkaido, where Senka beat Robbie with her smothering pin in order to earn this shot.

Robbie started this match by slapping Senka and disparagingly calling her a rookie. Senka pushed Robbie over and went for her signature pin, but Robbie rolled out of the way, knowing exactly what was coming. One of the defining aspects of Senka is that she is not flashy. Her offence is very basic: forearms, shoulder tackles, pin attempts and lariats. But she finds a way to get the absolute most out of them through her expressions, which is very old school and why many have taken such a liking to her. Robbie played the heel really well in this match, but knew exactly when and how to put Senka over, as Robbie’s struggle to get out of a later smothering pin was great. Robbie picked up the win to defend her title with a powerdrive knee into her double knee drop finish. Throughout the match the crowd was the loudest it had been all show, with chants of “Senka!”.

Robbie told Senka to keep getting stronger and that she’ll be number 1 one day, echoing the sentiment she told Senka in Hokkaido that everyone knows she’s the best rookie around. It seems as though Nagayo is fully aware of her overseas (and domestic) popularity, and ready to strap a rocket to Senka’s back. The interesting part will be how Mio Momono interacts with Senka on her return. If Takumi Iroha is Marvelous’ ace and 1A, then Momono is the 1B option. Momono announced that she would be returning on July 13th at Shin-Kiba 1st RING. She’s been out since February 9th after an injury during a Sendai Girls’ tag main event, meaning she’s missed all of Senka’s popularity explosion. If Senka is being more featured, sometimes even relegating Iroha out of the main event, it is exciting to think about how Momomo will fit into this new picture. With the Marigold partnership, Sareee’s involvement, Momono’s return and Senka’s rise in popularity, Marvelous are well on their way to delivering a successful Korakuen Hall show in August.

© Marvelous Pro Wrestling

Takumi Iroha got stuck in the back of a lorry during her three-way with Evil Magenta (Maria & Riko Kawahata). Magenta threw her into a lorry and closed it. Mio Momono tried to open it but failed and asked some staff, who struggled for a while to open it. The referee had to practice the slowest counting of their lives before Iroha was finally freed on a very generous 19 count. The finish was also quite funny. Iroha stacked them on top of each other, Roman Reigns-style, so when 3 was counted, Iroha’s music played. Iroha was saying that it was technically Kawahata that pinned Maria, because Kawahata was the first person on top of Maria? That logic was quite confusing, but that was the storyline. Kawahata refused to have her hand raised because she didn’t want to be the one to beat Maria, and Maria looked disgusted. The match was an entertaining circus from top to bottom.

For notes on the other match on the card, Titus Alexander is still very good. His strikes are crisp, he’s athletic, he has good charisma, and he can really work. It was a good match. Ryan Clancy’s pose is quite over, and Robert Martyr has been heeling it up a bit, making it difficult to fully gauge the crowd’s response to him. After rewinding several times, it is still unclear how deathmatch wrestler Yusaku Ito started bleeding, but I suppose that is part and parcel of being a deathmatch wrestler.

Full Results

Ai Houzan & Amira defeat Itsuki Aoki & Sora Ayame

Ryan Clancy & Titus Alexander defeat Robert Martyr & Yusaku Ito

Riko Kawahata defeats Maria and Takumi Iroha

West Coast Pro Women’s Title: Johnnie Robbie defeats Senka Akatsuki

Marvelous News & Upcoming Shows

Magenta retained the Marigold Twin Star championships at Korakuen Hall on June 17th, beating Chanyota & Mai Sakurai. Sakurai said she wanted to put her United National Championship on the line against Riko Kahawata. Takumi Iroha, Senka Akatsuki & Sora Ayame faced Mayu Iwatani, Utami Hayashishita & Seri Yamaoka on the same show in a losing effort. Senka was the highlight of that match (if it needs to be explicitly stated). Hayashishita challenged Iroha to a title vs. title match at the next Marigold Korakuen Hall show.

Senka will compete in a gauntlet on June 28th to determine the last two entrants of the Marigold “Dream Star Grand Prix”. It’s very likely she wins her match, which should give her a lot of exposure over the next few months. The partnership with Marigold has been very beneficial to Marvelous.

Sadie Gibbs posted her goodbyes to Marvelous on social media, which explains why she was not on the June 21st show. The other touring contingent (Amira, Johnnie Robbie, Robert Martyr, Ryan Clancy & Titus Alexander) are only on the matchcard posters up until June 27th, although as always, that is subject to change.

Senka is due to compete in Tenryu Project on 26th June, teaming with DASH Chisako against Hiroyo Matsumoto & YUNA.

Marvelous’ next show before our next issue is on 27th June. In the main event, Sareee & Takumi Iroha defend their AAAW Tag Team titles from the rookie duo of Senka Akatsuki & Sora Ayame. This will make it 4 main events in a row for Senka, if anyone is keeping count. It will be the first time Sareee and Senka have had a match since Sareee destroyed Senka on her debut on 27th October 2024. Nagayo continues to book her men’s matches like it’s a DDT produce show. Chikayo Nagashima makes her Marvelous return following her eye injury.

© Sendai Girls

Sendai Girls

20/06/2025
Sendai PIT, Sendai, Japan
Watch On Wrestle Universe

Meiko Satomura’s promotion is not one that is going to have blow away cards every single time, but they will almost always have at least one match that makes you raise your eyebrows in excitement, and the undercard will work hard to put on solid matches. It has been one of the most watchable promotions for quite some time. Satomura and her promotion’s standing mean they have access to a wide pool of freelancers and other promotion’s talents, transcending any political divides. The only major joshi promotion that has not had their talent appear on Sendai Girls in recent times is Marigold (unless you’re counting Nanae Takahashi’s retirement road).

In the main event, and the match of the night, Marvelous’ duo of Takumi Iroha & Senka Akatsuki took on Team 200kg (Chihiro Hashimoto & Yuu). Yuu has recently announced her retirement for December 28th. Senka continues to increase her exposure and make appearances in other promotions as Marvelous start to strap a rocket to her back, promoting her to their main events in recent weeks. One interesting note is that Senka is challenging Iroha for her AAAW Tag Team championship on June 27th, but they are putting that to one side for Marvelous’ sake.

Senka started with Hashimoto in a first ever matchup. It did not let us down as Hashimoto almost snapped Senka in half with a Liontamer after dominating the grappling. There were a lot of “Senka!” chants, and this isn’t her home promotion, so it’s not just a nerdy bubble we’re in where Senka is a rising superstar. Senka, with trademark confidence, ordered Hashimoto to run the ropes and hit her with a shoulder tackle, as a test of strength. Senka of course gets bounced and rebounds off the ropes in pain. The crowd starts laughing when Senka later tries to body slam Yuu and eventually eats a senton for her troubles. Senka managed to take Hashimoto down with a back body drop into a lariat before attempting her signature smothering pin. Seeing Hashimoto struggle before reversing it and trying the same was awesome. Iroha had to save Senka from Hashimoto’s shoot pin before Hashimoto took Senka’s head off with a lariat for the win. As always, Senka went after Hashimoto after the bell. Iroha doesn’t even bother holding her back anymore.

This match was built around Senka taking on the heavyweights to get the crowd behind her. It is not only rare for rookies to be regularly given this spot, but even rarer for them to look so comfortable in it.

Stardom’s Aya Sakura is rapidly improving, having had a standout match with Sareee at Natsupoi & Saori Anou’s 10th anniversary show on May 31st. She beat EVO’s Chi Chi for the Sendai Girls Junior Championship on March 19th but his is only her first defence of the title. YUNA, normally relegated to the promotion’s openers, was given the opportunity to prove herself here. Sakura successfully defended her title in a back and forth matchup. YUNA tried to put Sakura away with submissions on multiple occasions while Sakura responded with her trademark karate kicks, which were too much for YUNA to handle.

© Sendai Girls

Following Unagi Sayaka & Yurika Oka’s loss to Red Energy (Mika Iwata & Miyuki Takase) for the Sendai Girls Tag Team titles, Sayaka took on Iwata in singles action. Iwata bullied Sayaka for much of the fight with hard kicks. Sayaka wrestled control back by locking in submissions targeting Iwata’s leg. The story was that in order to make things even, Sayaka needed to weaken Iwata’s kicks. That was, in fact, the case as they went to a good time limit draw. They continued to fight after the bell, so there might be more matches between the two coming up.

Reiwa Ultimate Powers (DASH Chisako & Hiroyo Matsumoto) teamed with Yura Suzuki to take on the regular tag team of Manami & Ryo Mizunami as well as ZONES in the next match.

For a small update on the current happenings with some of these wrestlers, Suzuki competed in her first “Catch the WAVE” tournament match on June 15th against Miyuki Takase in an eye opening performance. Matsumoto challenged Makoto for her title in SEAdLINNNG, and ZONES is competing to be the first ever champion in her home promotion of EVO on July 5th. Matsumoto and ZONES are also a tag team in OZ Academy, vying for the tag team titles in the promotion. They also said they would face each other to try and become as strong as possible, and this 6 woman tag is one iteration of that.

Miku Kanae trains out of the Ito Dojo, along with Chi Chi. As Sareee is a trainer there, Kanae is often booked on all the Sareee-ISM shows, but more recently has appeared mostly in Ice Ribbon and SEAdLINNNG. Kanae made her Sendai Girls debut on this show against Yurika Oka, perhaps signalling her moving up the ladder of joshi promotions in terms of popularity. As if Sareee’s influence on Kanae wasn’t obvious enough, she has started to slowly incorporate some of her moves, including the basement dropkick, although it doesn’t look as murderous.

The match was fine, but Kanae is best at getting beat up, and Oka isn’t the person to do that. They are too alike. Oka put in one of the best babyface performances of Sendai Girls this year when she had to finish a tag match by herself following Mio Momono’s injury on February 9th. Momono is scheduled to return on July 13th in Marvelous.

Full Results

Yurika Oka defeats Miku Kanae (7:55)

Manami, Ryo Mizunami & ZONES defeat DASH Chisako, Hiroyo Matsumoto & Yura Suzuki (10:37)

Sendai Girls Junior Title:
Aya Sakura (c) defeats YUNA (12:42)

Mika Iwata vs. Unagi Sayaka – Time Limit Draw (15:00)

Team 200kg (Chihiro Hashi QQmoto & Yuu) defeat Senka Akatsuki & Takumi Iroha (15:27)

© SEAdLINNNG / BBM

SEAdLINNNG

Early Summer Games 2025!
17/06/2025
Shinjuku FACE, Tokyo, Japan
Watch On seadlinnng.com

After a bit of a lull in the first half of the year, SEAdLINNNG put on a show with “Early Summer Games”, capped off with an amazing main event. This show was built around the main, after Makoto’s incredible promo on the last show to set up her taking on stablemate VENY for the Beyond The Sea Championship. Makoto, despite spending 7 years in SEAdLINNNG, had not once challenged for the top title, simply because she felt she was not good enough to do so. After continuously not being mentioned alongside VENY as one of the best, Makoto decided enough was enough and she needed to take the title from VENY to prove to everyone that she was on her level. VENY, feeling bad that her best friend felt that way, accepted.

In the press conference days before the show, VENY said that this match would strengthen their team, Las Fresa de Egoistas, even more. VENY attributes part of their stable’s success to Makoto’s ability to pick up the promos on VENY’s behalf, as VENY is outspoken about not enjoying doing promos and believes she is bad at them. It is VENY and Makoto’s 3rd singles match against each other, with a 1-1 record so far, with the last singles match between them taking place back in 2022. Makoto closed out the press conference saying that she had recently watched an anime, “Demon Slayer”, and a demon in that show, Daki, made her think about VENY and how to take her down. VENY delivered a cold, quick-witted reply: “cut off my head”.

The match opened with a collar and elbow tie up, but the grappling stalemate did not last long. VENY, never one to hold back, sent an early message with a thunderous slap. After kicking out at one, Makoto bailed to the outside, visibly second-guessing her decision to challenge “big match VENY”. Nevertheless, VENY showed no mercy, immediately booting her off the apron, quickly following up with a moonsault to the floor, then escalating the violence by throwing chairs and thrashing Makoto around the arena.

The tide turned as Makoto found an opening when VENY was arrogantly pulling her around by the hair. Makoto hurled VENY into chairs on the outside and hit a stunner on the ropes followed by a spear on the apron. While slowly getting back up during the referee count, VENY smiled. She may have gotten more than she bargained for by pushing Makoto to find a darker, more aggressive side of herself. When VENY bit Makoto’s fingers in a submission and later smashed her with a chair behind the ref’s back, it felt like she was teaching Makoto a lesson: this is what it takes to be the champion.

Makoto ate another slap to the face. She tried to fire up with forearms, but VENY brushed them off and gave Makoto a stiff elbow to the face. VENY seemed poised to end it with a moonsault press, only for Makoto to frantically grab her ankle. VENY shrugged her off and went for the moonsault again. Makoto ran up to VENY and delivered a brutal top rope German suplex. Feeling that she was in the ascendancy, Makoto hit a violent fisherman suplex that had the crowd gasping as VENY almost landed on her head. As VENY regained awareness of her surroundings, she landed a flurry of kicks before a big boot, only for Makoto to nearly steal the win with a roll-up. VENY was stunned.

Then came the defining moment. VENY smiled whilst getting to her feet, feeling a sense of pride about Makoto’s performance. In that moment of vulnerability, Makoto sprayed red mist straight into VENY’s face and planted her with a Death Valley Driver. It was symbolic, visceral, and what Makoto felt she needed to do to cut the demon’s head off. VENY kicked out, but she would not last long. She tried to rally with one last Tiger Suplex, but Makoto countered, head kicked her, then delivered not one, but two more Death Valley Drivers. VENY stayed down for the 3 count as the crowd exploded.

Makoto collapsed into tears as she received the title and trophy, overcome by the weight of emotions after finally proving herself. It took her 7 years in SEAdLINNNG to get to this point. VENY, quiet and seated in the corner, looked on during Makoto’s post-main promo. Makoto turned to VENY and asked her if they could now stand side by side. VENY slowly got up, embraced Makoto, and kissed her on the cheek. It was a perfect closing note.

Hiroyo Matsumoto was named the next challenger, stepping forward for SEAdLINNNG’s 10th anniversary on August 22nd at Korakuen Hall. A classmate of Makoto’s and a fellow early Ice Ribbon colleague, Matsumoto said she was inspired by Makoto’s promo in Shin-Kiba on the last show and wants to face her once more, refusing to retire quietly.

© SEAdLINNNNG

Misora Selene, a 20-year-old trainee with a judo background, made her debut, facing Stardom’s Koguma, who made her own debut in SEAdLINNNG in 2013. Despite her rookie status, Selene received loud support from the crowd, who are eager for new talent to emerge in the promotion. Koguma, ditching her usual “Kuma” gimmick, took on a more serious demeanour and played the big bully. Selene showed fire with roll-ups and forearms, but Koguma ultimately shut her down with a top rope splash. It was a solid showing for Selene, though it’s early days and there is a stacked rookie scene in joshi wrestling this year.

The high-speed match between La Pidita, Ka Kedita, and YuuRI featured the usual comedic spots. Natsuki Taiyo got her obligatory moves in. Ka Kedita (Kaho Kobayashi) was entertaining in her role, while the match itself suffered from some sloppiness, particularly from YuuRI.

Mio Shirai and Natsu Sumire continued their alliance to face Unagi Sayaka and Honori Hana. The action spilled outside and even involved retired ace Arisa Nakajima who, after being hit with the elastic ribbon, slapped Shirai. Much of the match focused on Hana getting worked over, but she showed noticeable fire and looked more believable in her role following her recent title match loss to VENY. That could be placebo, but she looked great here.

In trios action, Ayame Sasamura, Itsuki Aoki and 17-year-old Madison Marley faced Hiroyo Matsumoto, Miku Kanae and Nagisa Nozaki. This followed Marley’s betrayal of her former partners (Makoto & Nagisa Nozaki) at the last show. Marley looked more confident here and she’s oddly good at displaying her disgust at Nozaki’s yearning for friendship. The match featured some excellent sequences, especially from Kanae and Sasamura, who had a strong closing stretch. Sasamura picked up the win after a series of near falls with a bridging fallaway slam.

Miria Koga continued her trial against Stardom’s H.A.T.E. faction, this time facing co-leader Natsuko Tora. Tora dominated the match with brawling both inside and outside the ring and repeatedly refused to end the bout by lifting Koga’s head before the 3rd count. Tora finished her with a top rope splash, just like the other Stardom wrestler, Koguma, did on this show to Selene. Another loss for Koga, but a good performance that kept the audience invested.

Full Results

Koguma defeats Selene Misora (10:35)

Ka Kedita defeats La Pidita and YuuRI (7:52)

Mio Shirai & Natsu Sumire defeat Honori Hana & Unagi Sayaka (13:17)

Ayame Sasamura, Itsuki Aoki & Madison Marley defeat Hiroyo Matsumoto, Miku Kanae & Nagisa Nozaki (14:12)

Natsuko Tora defeats Miria Koga (13:46)

SEAdLINNNG Beyond The Sea Title:
Makoto defeats VENY (c) (17:43)

© Pro-Wrestling Evolution

Pro-Wrestling Evolution

Shinkiba Tournament #35

19/06/2025
Shin-Kiba 1st RING, Tokyo, Japan
Watch on evolutionofficialfc.com

EVO kicked off their tournament to crown the first Evolution Strong Women’s Champion on this show. The tournament matchups are Momoka Hanazano vs. Soy and Chi Chi vs. Natsu Sumire in the A block, and then Chanyota vs. Chika and Aki Shizuku vs. ZONES in the B block. There were no surprises here, as the tournament continued to build towards the inevitable Chi Chi vs. ZONES final. This show was short and perhaps lacking the usual quality expected from EVO, although there was nothing bad on the show.

Momoka Hanazano defeated Soy in a match where you could see either person winning coming into it. Soy, who is becoming a real crowd favourite, started aggressively with heavy chops and a Boston Crab;, a notable move in EVO kayfabe as the last time we saw Miyuna before she retired was in Soy’s Boston Crab that legitimately injured her. The match spilled outside early, where Hanazano blasted Soy with a party popper. After a striking back and forth where Soy came out on top, Hanazano rallied with five consecutive basement dropkicks. Soy regained control of the bout before succumbing to the powerful roll-up. The result likely protects Soy from a potential loss to Chi Chi, whom she hasn’t faced in singles competition since October 2024. In a promotion with 6 full-time wrestlers, creatively, it’s easier losing to a freelancer than other roster members. As she exited, Hanazano flipped Soy off from the ramp, adding a petty exclamation point to her victory.

EVO’s Chika faced P.P.P. Tokyo’s Chanyota in a solid but not great match. Both wrestlers had some momentum coming into this match, with Chanyota’s performances in Marigold finding her praise from fans and Chika has had consistent outings in EVO against freelancers. Chika surprisingly controlled large portions of the bout, albeit largely with shoulder tackles and body slams, but the match soon turned into Chanyota just throwing a lot of lariats at Chika. For the finish, Chanyota locked in a crossface. Chika attempted to power through the crossface, which fired up the crowd, but she collapsed and tapped out. This match was good but its repetitive structure did take away from it. Chanyota picked up the expected win to set up a future match against ZONES.

In classic EVO fashion, what folllowed was another stiff, punishing tag team match from the Violent Giants (Shuji Ishikawa & Suwama). Kickboxer Tyson Maeguchi opened with sharp kicks before being powerbombed twice by Shuji, then trapped in a double crab by Suwama as Ishikawa kept Kentaro Hachisu at bay. A spirited double-team sequence followed with Hachisu and Maeguchi landing a German suplex, a splash, a spear and a buzzsaw kick on Suwama, but Ishikawa broke it up. Suwama shook it off, dropping both with brutal chops and nearly put Tyson away with an insanely stiff lariat before deciding to finish the match by choking him out. A good, hard-hitting tag that stuck to the Violent Giants’ signature formula in EVO so far.

© Pro-Wrestling Evolution

Chi Chi made her taped EVO return following injury with a routine win over Natsu Sumire in a match that never quite got out of second gear. Sumire rejected the handshake and played up being a more serious heel, in contrast to her work in SEAdLINNNG. There was one moment where Chi Chi tried to shoot pin Sumire for a period of at least 30 seconds, which is a sequence which has been popping up in different promotions recently. Sumire, after hitting Chi Chi with her whip behind the ref’s back, seemed to forget that she was a heel and gave the crowd her Bronco Buster, which looks horrible but always gets a reaction. Chi Chi showed off how good she is by putting Sumire away with a Northern Lights suplex, into an exploder suplex before finishing off with a backdrop suplex.

Aki Shizuku returned to EVO for the first time since its 2025 relaunch to face ZONES in their third singles encounter. Shizuku has won the previous two. The match began slowly with mat work and shoulder tackles, before picking up after the five-minute mark when ZONES landed a jumping lariat and the fight spilled to the outside. Later, after trading lariats, Shizuku landed a superplex and followed up with more strikes, only for ZONES to snatch a surprise win. Like ZONES’ previous bout with Iwata, the crowd response was muted early on but built to a strong finish, with fans clearly behind ZONES in the final moments. This was a good match with a great last few minutes.

The #36 Shin-Kiba show on July 5th will include both semi-final matches, Chi Chi vs. Momoko Hanazono and Chanyota vs. ZONES, as well as Suwama vs. DDT’s Shinya Aoki and Shuji Ishikawa & EVO regular Dan Tamura vs. DDT’s HARASHIMA & Yukio Naya. The first Evolution Strong Women’s champion will be crowned in the main event.

Full Results

Evolution Strong Women’s Title Tournament First Round:
Momoka Hanazono defeats Soy (10:15)

Evolution Strong Women’s Title Tournament First Round:
Chanyota defeats Chika (9:49)

Shuji Ishikawa & Suwama defeat Kentaro Hachisu & Tyson Maeguchi by referee’s decision (13:21)

Evolution Strong Women’s Title Tournament First Round:
Chi Chi defeats Natsu Sumire (9:33)

Evolution Strong Women’s Title Tournament First Round:
ZONES defeats Aki Shizuku (14:23)

© Ice Ribbon

Ice Ribbon

After The Rain, Ribbon 2025 – Ice Ribbon #1426

21/06/2025
Company Announced Attendance: 330
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan
Watch On Ice Ribbon Live

On their 19th anniversary, Ice Ribbon held a great show, albeit once again in front of a sparsely populated crowd, with an announced attendance of 330. The first two rows of the orange seats in Korakuen were barely filled. There is a lot of sentiment around the promotion as if it is on its death throes, but this type of attendance is not foreign to Ice Ribbon. Ice Ribbon have already cut down their Korakuen Hall dates in 2025 from 6 to 5. In 2024, their largest Korakuen Hall attendance, 1,088, was with Mayu Iwatani on the card defending the IWGP Women’s title against Tsukasa Fujimoto, the former face of the promotion, making it difficult to compare the year-on-year numbers. Their non-Mayu Iwatani cards drew similar numbers between 300 and 500. It’s unlikely we will see Ice Ribbon adopt a brand new strategy, and we can rely on 4-6 Korakuen Hall dates, with PPVs held at smaller venues such as Kitazawa Town Hall.

While these attendances may not be unusual for Ice Ribbon, there is a problem in that their top stars are speaking about the attendances in post-match interviews. Their current champion and ace, Manami Katsu, has spoken several times about how frustrating it is that she feels unable to grow the attendance numbers. Her challenger, Akane Fujita, mentioned in post-match comments that it might be strange for her to say as a freelancer, but she is sad that more people do not get to see how amazing Katsu is. With their top champion making such comments, as no wrestler wants to perform in a 20% capacity building, it is something Ice Ribbon will have to look at rather than just assuming business as usual.

Another factor in Ice Ribbon’s attendances may be the disparity between the matches they put on the undercard at Korakuen Hall, compared to the top matches. It is probably the largest disparity out of any of the joshi promotions. On March 29th, they had some quite terrible matches on the undercard, with Kyuri versus YuuRI in particular fighting over their spray cans. It is a match that should be in front of the IR Dojo crowd in Saitama, rather than at Korakuen Hall. This year, while the card was more rounded out, there was a match that existed purely to set up a future match at a smaller venue. Totoro Satsuki accidentally squashed the ref leading to a DQ and a title challenge for Minoru Fujita’s Triangle Ribbon Championship at a later date. It is an interesting strategy if growing Korakuen Hall attendance is your goal.

It is not an issue with talent. Ice Ribbon has several really good workers, several of which are under 30. Diana has a smaller roster, arguably with less young talent, but finds a way to draw bigger crowds to Korakuen Hall. Then again, they run it 2-3 times a year at most. So with Ice Ribbon it may be a possibility to reduce the number of Korakuens even further if they want to increase attendance and profit from the shows, considering Korakuen Hall’s rent fee. All these are observations rather than explanations, and while Ice Ribbon continues to figure it out, we can all enjoy the talent they have to offer.

© Ice Ribbon

Manami Katsu, the current ace and ICExInfinity Champion, is one of the hardest-hitting “sickos” currently. It can be said with reasonable confidence that you could drop Katsu into any joshi promotion and she would do well. The easiest way to describe her is as “Temu Sareee”, but in a complimentary way. She’s the primary reason I watch Ice Ribbon. Katsu defended her title against Akane Fujita. The background between the match is that both are familiar with each other from almost a decade ago, and Fujita said that she used to be scared of having matches with Katsu, so this title challenge was about overcoming that. It is Fujita’s 4th challenge, and Katsu’s 4th defence. The preview tag from June 7th where they decided to shoot headbutt each other told you exactly how this main event would go.

There were several sequences of brutal brawling, such as Katsu misfiring a lariat into the ringpost, later giving Fujita a double foot stomp from the stage, and of course, not just one, but 3 headbutts. The most notable one was when Katsu was forearming Fujita in the face hard, but Fujita started to block them before delivering a brutal headbutt. Katsu kicked out and tried a rollup, just trying to survive, but failed. Katsu found a stiff rolling lariat, only for Fujita to fire up but get caught with a stunner. Katsu delivered the avalanche tiger suplex into her diving elbow for the win. After the match, mutual respect was shown. Fujita said if it weren’t for COVID, she would have retired, but she’s glad she didn’t so she could main event Korakuen Hall with Katsu. It was a really great match, if you can stomach the admittedly disgusting headbutts.

© Ice Ribbon

Prime Link is a new tag team consisting of Ice Ribbon’s brightest young stars, Ibuki Hoshi, 22, and Kaho Matsushita, 22. They were given the marquee “Las Fresa de Egoistas” tag match against Makoto & VENY. This match was likely the match of the night. VENY did not care what size the crowd was, she was as violent as always, including biting Matsushita’s head in the background while Makoto and Hoshi were in the ring. The first portion of this fight built to Hoshi’s hot tag, after she got knocked off the apron at least 3 times. Once in, she delivered brutal chops to VENY, turning her chest red, and causing Makoto to not want to tag in. By far the highlight of the fight was when Hoshi was going for a diving crossbody before VENY violently dropkicked Hoshi out of the air, in one of the most perfect “mid-air” interceptions I’ve seen. Even though they lost to the top tier team of Makoto & VENY, it’s hard to see anything but a bright future for Hoshi & Matsushita.

© Ice Ribbon

While technically not part of the Ice Ribbon roster, the last current standout of the crop that wrestles there regularly is Ancham. She is a great worker with a good look. Ancham is part of the “Bad Butts” faction. Of course, we could do without the butt-focussed offence, but at least it’s limited to one spot a match with Yappy, the other half of International Ribbon Tag Team Champions. In the preview tag on June 7th, the PURE-J team of AKARI & Crea pinned the 3rd member of Bad Butts, Banny Oikawa. Crea looked like an absolute monster in that match, and so while hoping for the same at Korakuen Hall, it never quite materialised. This match was good, but their preview tag was actually a few steps better.

Ice Ribbon’s current rookie, Kirari Wakana is going through a best of 7 series against top joshi talent. Her 3rd match in the series at Korakuen Hall was against prominent freelancer Unagi Sayaka. Sayaka has been working a lot with younger talent, such as Honori Hana in SEAdLINNNG, rather than big marquee matchups. She played the bully role really well in this match, allowing Wakana to showcase her babyface fire. Bully Sayaka is not something you usually see, so it was an interesting dynamic. At one point she gave Wakana a brutal submission before pinning her, but stopping her own count at 2 in order to follow up with her finisher. There is still some way to go for Wakana, as she’s only 19. Fujimoto announced that her next trial will be against Rina Yamashita on 26th July in Yokohama.

In the opener, we had the Hiiro sisters team up with Arisa Shinose to take on Kiku, Miku Kanae & Riko. Kiku is 47 and only started her career a few years ago, similar to Himiko in Diana. Riko is 11 and the Hiiro twins are similar ages, although Mase is even younger. It’s much more common in joshi promotions to start at very young ages (see Stardom’s AZM, Starlight Kid, etc.). Whereas in the US, Billie Starkz and Nick Wayne are the most known performers who were wrestling when they were 13 or 14 years old, but there aren’t many other examples. Ice Ribbon currently has 3 young trainees wrestling regularly, the other two besides Riko being the Hiiro sisters, Moe and Mase. They tend to be given higher spots on the Dojo cards, mixing it up with the top stars, but on Korakuen Hall shows they are relegated to the opener.

Mase Hiiro in particular is very young, her age is not known but she cannot be more than 7 or 8 years old. These matches aren’t about workrate, but rather the joy of watching the roster have fun with Mase. It’s a similar dynamic to playing with your young niece or nephew. These types of matches work well on the smaller dojo shows in front of 50 people. Everyone in the building, including the wrestlers, are smiling and enjoying themselves. Unless Katsu is facing one of the younger wrestlers, then it’s just Katsu beating them up, which Riko found out on the last dojo show. Moe is the standout of the really young trainees, as she won the tag with a great looking Cutie Special.

Full Results

Arisa Shinose, Mase Hiiro & Moe Hiiro defeat Kiku, Miku Kanae & Riko (10:38)

Minoru Fujita vs. Totoro Satsuki – No Contest

Las Fresa de Egoistas (Makoto & VENY) defeat Ibuki Hoshi & Kaho Matsushita (15:22)

Unagi Sayaka defeats Kirari Wakana (13:36)

International Ribbon Tag Team Title Match:
Ancham & Yappy (c) defeat AKARI & Crea by referee’s decision (14:10)

ICExInfinity Title Match:
Manami Katsu (c) defeats Akane Fujita (19:02)

© Ice Ribbon

New Ice Ribbon #1425

14/06/2025
Ice Ribbon Dojo, Saitama, Japan
Watch On Youtube (membership required)

Ice Ribbon’s final appearance at the dojo before their big Korakuen Hall event was a short 40-minute show with some solid action. In the opener, JTO’s Sumika Yanagawa, who unsuccessfully challenged Manami Katsu for her ICExInfinity Championship on June 25th, made an appearance taking on 11-year-old Riko. Yanagawa announced that she would be leaving JTO at the end of June.

Ice Ribbon standout, Ancham, teamed with Miku Kanae against Arisa Shinose and Totoro Satsuki. Kanae sold a lot as the underdog and got destroyed by Satsuki’s lariat.

Another one of Ice Ribbon’s best workers, 22-year old Kaho Matsushita, faced 19-year old rookie Kirari Wakana, ahead of Wakana’s match against Unagi Sayaka at Korakuen Hall. Even with Ice Ribbon’s small roster, this was their first singles match-up. Wakana is still quite limited in her offence and Matsushita carried much of this match.

Ibuki Hoshi and Misa Kagura took on ICExInfinity Champion and ace, Manami Katsu and Mase Hiiro. Kagura recently stole Mase’s glitter stick, so Kagura tried to entice Mase with a shiny bracelet saying it’s better than Mase’s glitter stick. Things briefly got serious when Katsu tagged in to take on Hoshi, who she defended the title against on March 29th. Katsu landed a brutal backdrop suplex and superkick on Hoshi. Mase held her own admirably, clinging onto Hoshi with a rear naked choke like a backpack and later attempting a Fujiwara armbar. It’s quite impressive Mase does not forget her spots or look lost, even if she’s not grown enough to be athletic at all. Hoshi secured the win with a running knee on Mase. Post-match, Katsu buried Kagura’s bracelet, urging Mase to shine through her wrestling instead of wanting the bracelet. Katsu then reflected on her deep attachment to her current title reign as it’s the first title she’s held in 11 years. In a fitting end, she tried to rally the roster to the ring, only for no one to respond, until Hoshi took the mic and brought everyone out, showing that even the locker room is a little scared of Katsu. It’s a running gimmick that Katsu has not closed out a show in a while.

Full Results

Sumika Yanagawa defeats Riko (7:54)

Arisa Shinose & Totoro Satsuki defeat Ancham & Miku Kanae (8:27)

Kaho Matsushita defeats Kirari Wakana (7:39)

Ibuki Hoshi & Misa Kagura defeat Manami Katsu & Mase Hiiro (11:06)

© Diana

Diana

Vol. 89

15/06/2025
Post di Amistad, Kawasaki, Japan
Watch On Diana Live

Diana returned to Post di Amistad for their regular show, however this event held a World Championship match featuring champion Risa Sera defending against challenger Kaho Kobayashi. Kobayashi issued the challenge after Sera’s successful defense against Haruka Umesaki on April 27th at Korakuen Hall, highlighting that it had been 11 years since their last singles match. Kobayashi is a freelancer primarily active in Diana, PURE-J, SEAdLINNNG, and WAVE. Kobayashi showcases a versatile blend of power and lucha-style moves developed from her time in Mexico with CMLL. She also regularly competes masked as Ka Kedita in SEAdLINNNG. Risa Sera, originally from Ice Ribbon and notable for her stable Prominence, has appeared in Stardom and currently splits her time mostly between Diana and WAVE. With Sera set to retire on 12th January 2026, this title reign could serve as her final prominent run.

The title match opened with a prolonged stare down. The theme of the fight was Sera gaining momentum with high-impact moves such as her Air Raid Crash, and Kobayashi gaining some respite by targeting Sera’s leg. Mid-match, however, things took an unexpected lighter turn when Kobayashi playfully kicked Sera’s injured leg, creating a somewhat jarring shift from the serious early exchanges. The match regained intensity towards the end, highlighted by Kobayashi kicking out at one following Sera’s Death Valley Bomb. Sera secured the victory with another Air Raid Crash. Although the pacing felt disjointed at points, the match delivered a solid defense for Sera, even if it felt somewhat like a filler.

Here is a short introduction to Diana’s roster. Himiko, 53, remarkably began her wrestling career at Diana aged 50. Mizuki Kato, 26, is actively booked across various promotions. Ayako Sato, 39, is among Diana’s best workers, with her career dating back to 2001 in All Japan Women’s Pro-Wrestling (AJW). Diana, as with other smaller Japanese promotions, relies heavily on freelancers while actively developing younger talent like 17-year-old Yuma Makoto (who is currently out injured). Diana notably launched the career of one of the world’s best, Sareee, who debuted on Diana’s inaugural show against the legendary Meiko Satomura, having just turned 15. Diana’s standout workers alongside Sato include 24-year-old Haruka Umesaki, a former World Champion with a 474-day reign, and the rapidly progressing 18-year-old, Nanami Hatano, who is currently one-half of the Tag Team champions and likely the next in line for a long reign.

In the opener, Himiko & Kato faced Sato & Irish wrestler Debbie Keitel. Keitel is currently touring with Diana while also making sporadic appearances in Sendai Girls and Stardom. Keitel pinned Kato after executing an impressive Midnight Espresso (a lifting double underhook facebuster).

Umesaki & Nanami teamed up on this show in a losing effort to legendary veterans Jaguar Yokota, 63, and Diana owner Kyoko Inoue, 56. Both former AJW stars, Yokota has been with Diana since its inception in 2011. Notably, the veterans showed commendable effort, with Yokota even taking a bridging German suplex from Umesaki. The effort from the veterans is a bit higher in Diana than what is seen in other promotions due to the size of their roster and needing to get stars over.

At the 14th anniversary Korakuen Hall show on April 27th, Inoue announced their ambitious goal to reach 1,000 trainees before Diana’s 15th anniversary. Two new trainees, Milly & Anna (who will get new names if they make it to their debut), had a short exhibition prior to Vol. 89, indicating Diana’s continued focus on training up talent.

Full Results

Ayako Sato & Debbie Keitel defeat Himiko & Mizuki Kato (16:54)

Jaguar Yokota & Kyoko Inoue defeat Haruka Umesaki & Nanami Hatano (13:44)

World Woman Pro-Wrestling Diana World Title Match:
Risa Sera (c) defeats Kaho Kobayashi (13:33)

© Diana

Kyoko Inoue Triumphal Return

21/06/2025
Shelter Nanyo Hall, Nanyo, Japan
Watch On Diana Live

Diana held their annual June show in Yamagata for owner Kyoko Inoue and Ayako Sato’s homecoming (but mainly Kyoko). It was a good show, albeit with no outstanding matches. The ring was making what can only be described as a clown car horn noise every time a wrestler ran the ropes, but after a while it was easy to zone out.

Kyoke Inoue, coming up to her 37th year as a professional wrestler, teamed up with Aja Kong (38 years of experience) and Sonoko Kato (30 years of experience). Kato has announced her retirement show for November 23rd. They faced Diana top star Haruka Umesaki as well as Ayako Sato and Himiko. It was mainly a fun party match, with all the spots you’d expect with the wrestlers involved. Sato hit Kyoko over the head with her metal trash can lid, and Aja Kong bonked people with her metal trash can.

The match of the night goes to current Diana Tag Team Champions Nanami Hatano & Rina Amikura against Takako Inoue & 20-year-old Taiwanese wrestler Syan Syan. Despite her age, Takako, 56, did a lot in this tag match rather than just leaving it to Syan. However, the Syan and Nanami pairing really carried this match with a series of nearfalls in the last few minutes of the match. After some back and forth of running the ropes, Syan caught Nanami, tripping her up and rolling her up with her legs. Every single person in the crowd thought this was the finish but Nanami had a great 2.99 kickout. Nanami fought back and hit her bridging Northern Lights suplex for the win. Great last few minutes, although it was a bit routine before that. Nanami is clearly improving with each match and continues to impress.

© Diana / llpw-x

Takako Inoue has been signed to Ladies Legend Pro Wrestling-X (LLPW-X) since 2005, which is Shinobu Kandori’s promotion (yes, most of the joshi indies are owned/run by former AJW/GAEA legends. That experience is probably one of the main reasons they are excellent at training talent).

NORI, 26, also part of the LLPW-X roster, opened the show against Diana’s Mizuki Kato. Kato has a lot of the typical “big wrestler moves” as you’d expect, but she could take it to another level by adding a cannonball, or running sentons, which Chika at EVO has already done within a year of beginning her career. NORI is a good worker, her strikes look great and she has a good look. It is a shame that LLPW-X is even less visible than Diana. NORI did compete in Marigold’s “Dream Star Grand Prix” in 2024, so we hope she wrestles in other promotions more regularly. NORI won here with a great step up enziguri.

Another wrestler to highlight is Ayame Sasamura. You can see Sasamura regularly in SEAdLINNNG as one half of their Tag Team champions, but she is signed with 2AW, a very small promotion based out of Chiba. Sasamura has great expressions, a good look, a lovely german suplex (instantly +50 points) and is the absolute workhorse of all tag matches she is in, the engine of the match so to speak. There is a great interview with HypeTalkTV on YouTube where Sasamura talks about Arisa Nakajima being her favourite wrestler, and wanting to become a pro wrestler just so she could hit people legally. She also says her favourite thing about joshi wrestling is the ability to be presented as “shining stars” and “cute”, yet still hit very hard. That sums her up to a tee. She is turning 30 this year, the sooner a major joshi promotion picks her up, the better.

© Diana

Sasamura faced Irish wrestler Debbie Keitel who has been touring with Diana. Debbie Keitel is a good over-the-top, “pantomime” archetype of heel. She’ll argue with the ref, be really aggressive while beating up the babyface, but in the end she gets her comeuppance pretty much every single match. She is the type of wrestler that would fit in with a show like NXT really well. Depending on your tastes that sentence could be interpreted either way, but it is meant to be complimentary, in that it is her character work that shines. She is still a good worker. Anyway, Sasamura versus Keitel was a good match, but it had the deflating finish of a double count out. They played off each other really well to deliver a solid comedy match with some good workrate.

Full Results

NORI defeats Mizuki Kato (11:37)

Ayame Sasamura vs. Debbie Keitel – Double Count Out (14:49)

Merry The Kid, Seiki Yoshioka & YAMASE defeat Aizawa NO. 1, Greed & Yuki Nishizaki (11:57)

Nanami Hatano & Rina Amikura defeat Syan Syan & Takako Inoue (14:01)

Aja Kong, Kyoko Inoue & Sonoko Kato defeat Ayako Sato, Haruka Umesaki & Himiko (13:26)

Diana Upcoming Shows

On June 27th, Diana are hosting the 35th edition of their “Future Sight” series, focusing on young wrestlers from a variety of promotions. The upcoming card includes some JTO and Ice Ribbon wrestlers. Note that Misa Kagura will be a freelancer having announced on June 24th that she will be leaving JTO at the end of June

© WAVE

Pro Wrestling WAVE

Itabashi Surprise

15/06/2025
TOKYOSQUARE, Tokyo, Japan
Watch On Confetti Web

WAVE continued their “Catch the WAVE 2025” tournament on a show with 2 preview tags and 3 tournament matches. All tournament matches were at least good, aside from Akira Kurogane being easily beaten by Mari Manji.

In the main event, Kohaku (0-0-1) took on Mio Shirai (1-0-1) in the Earth Block. Kohaku is one of WAVE’s top stars and has challenged for the title four times, most recently against Saya Kamitani on January 1st. If you’ve watched a lot of Shirai’s matches since her return, it’s easy to zone out of her matches, but she did well here to match Kohaku’s intensity. Kohaku hit a great basement dropkick, Sareee-style, that sent Shirai flying to the outside. There was an exchange of forearms and stiff big boots, one of Shirai’s landing especially hard which the crowd loved. Kohaku landed a bridging Northern Lights Suplex but Shirai kicked out. Shirai tried to pick Kohaku up in a fireman’s carry, but Kohaku rolled Shirai through into a headscissors submission and Shirai tapped out, ending her tournament. The remaining three are tied in the Earth block, but it’s hard to see Kohaku not making it through.

The standout match on this show was in the Mercury block between Stardom’s Hazuki (1-0-0) and Rina Amikura (as part of Colors but regularly wrestles in Diana and is one half of their Tag Team champions). Amikura flew out of the blocks, delivering a gutwrench suplex to Hazuki as soon as the bell rang, but Hazuki quickly turned the tide with her running senton and facewash combination. Amikura returned the favour hitting her own running senton. One guy in the crowd was really into Amikura and screamed “Ami” repeatedly throughout every submission hold. Amikura used Hazuki’s own diving senton for a near fall. Amikura squashed Hazuki multiple times in the corner, with splashes and cannonballs. In the end, Hazuki managed to sneak a win with her Hazuki Stral roll-up (modified La Magistral). Amikura, frustrated, attacked Hazuki after the bell. A good match with great pacing and intensity. Koguma left doing the Kuma dance with Yuka Miyazaki, leaving Hazuki stranded in the ring, confused. Hazuki and Miyazaki are both on 6 points going into their deciding head-to-head match later in the tournament.

In Saturn Block action, Miyuki Takase and Yura Suzuki fought to a double count-out. Suzuki earned 2 points for her shorter career while Takase received 1. Suzuki was making her tournament debut. This match was quite good. Suzuki opened with sharp kicks, which Takase initially invited before countering with a series of chops. Takase transitioned to methodical legwork with a variety of leg submissions. Following the damage to her leg, Suzuki adjusted with arm-focused offence such as armbars to neutralise Takase’s lariat, and hit an impressive overhead uranage. The match spilled to the outside. Suzuki went for another high kick and landed it, but then collapsed from the pain her leg was in. The ref’s count hit 9 and both scrambled to get into the ring, but it ended in a double count out. It was 18-year-old Suzuki’s best singles match to date, and definitely one of her more convincing performances.

Mari Manji (0-1-0) defeated Stardom rookie Akira Kurogane (0-1-0) to move to 5 points (1-1-0) in the Uranus block. Mari Manji uses the swastika on her gear, which might be jarring to Western viewers but the symbol is still somewhat used in its original religious context in the East. Manji controlled most of the match and no-sold much of Akira’s early attempts at offense. Akira briefly fired up with a sharp head-and-arm suplex, but Manji cut off the comeback and sealed the win with a running senton and lariat.

For notes on the preview tags, the first tag involved Natsu Sumire and Itsuki Aoki corrupting the innocent Haruka Umesaki into bullying 16-year-old Saran. Umesaki held Saran in place in order to receive Sumire’s terrible Bronco Buster, but Saran jumped out of the way and landed it on Umesaki. Sumire also hit Umesaki by accident in the face with her whip. Later, Sumire was holding Asuka Goda so Umesaki could attack Goda, but Goda jumped out of the way so Umesaki stopped. Umesaki then thought about it, and ended up giving Sumire a stiff elbow in a moment of karma. Umesaki is due to take on Sumire in tournament action at a later show.

In the second preview three-way tag match, Yuko Sakurai made her WAVE debut, having not yet had a tournament match. Her first tournament match was on the show after, on June 22nd.

Full Results

Haruka Umesaki, Itsuki Aoki & Natsu Sumire defeat Asuka Goda, Honoka & Saran (14:58)

Cherry & Yumi Ohka vs. Risa Sera & SAKI vs. Yuki Miyazaki & Yuko Sakurai – Time Limit Draw (20:00)

Catch The Wave 2025 Uranus Block Match:
Mari Manji [5] defeats Akira Kurogane [2] (9:46)

Catch The Wave 2025 Saturn Block Match:
Miyuki Takase [4] vs. Yura Suzuki [2] – Double Count Out (10:52)

Catch The Wave 2025 Mercury Block Match:
Hazuki [6] defeats Rina Amikura [1] (8:42)

Catch The Wave 2025 Earth Block Match:
Kohaku [3] defeats Mio Shirai [3] (10:08)

Okayama WAVE

22/06/2025
Okayama Mirai Hall, Okayama, Japan

WAVE’s Okayama show on June 22nd was not available for purchase on the Confetti Web service at the usual time and was a day late. Without being able to review the show for this issue and with upcoming further tournament matches on 28th and 29th June, we will provide the results below.

Marika Kobashi goes top of the Pluto block after beating WAVE’s Asuka Goda. Goda finishes the tournament with 0 pts and 3 losses, while Kobashi finishes on 5 pts (1-2-0). Ayame Sasamura, on 5 pts (1-1-0), can win the Pluto block with a win or a draw, as she has a shorter career than Kaori Yoneyama so at minimum will pick up 2 pts if she doesn’t lose.

Saran beat Catch the WAVE debutant Yuko Sakarai in the Neptune block. Saran, 5 pts (1-1-1) will go through to one of the 3 three-ways on 13th July unless Sakarai, 0 pts (0-0-1) wins all her remaining matches.

Kaho Kobayashi and Natsu Sumire went to a draw in the Uranus block. Anyone except Shin Sakura Hirota can still win that block.

Full Results

KAZUKI, Kyusei Ninja Ranmaru & Yumi Ohka defeat Cherry, Chi Chi & Hiragi Kurumi (0:07)

KAZUKI, Kyusei Ninja Ranmaru & Yumi Ohka defeat Cherry, Chi Chi & Hiragi Kurumi (1:47)

Cherry, Chi Chi & Hiragi Kurumi defeat KAZUKI, Kyusei Ninja Ranmaru & Yumi Ohka (14:36)

Catch The Wave 2025 Pluto Block:
Marika Kobashi [6] defeats Asuka Goda [0] (8:37)

Catch The Wave 2025 Neptune Block:
Saran [5] defeats Yuko Sakurai [0] by Count Out (12:01)

Catch The Wave 2025 Venus Block:
Kaho Kobayashi [4] vs. Natsu Sumire [2] – Time Limit Draw (15:00)

Kohaku & SPiCEAP (Maika Ozaki & Tae Honma) defeat Honoka, Risa Sera & Yuki Miyazaki (22:57)

WAVE News & Upcoming Dates

All of Yuma Makoto’s matches have been forfeited due to injury. That means if Momoka Hanazono beats Yumi Ohka in the last match of the Mars block, there will be a 3 way tie, all on 6 pts and with records of 2-0-1. WAVE hasn’t explicitly said what happens in that scenario. If Unagi Sayaka was making it through originally, they needed Makoto to beat Ohka. Now that that can’t happen, either plans change and Ohka goes through, or they have to deal with the 3-way tie in maybe an additional triple threat with the winner topping the block.

Diana’s Nanami Hatano is replacing Yuma Makoto on the undercard of the next few matches.

Here are the upcoming tournament matches.

Current Standings of Catch the WAVE 2025 as of 07/06/2025

© AWG

Actwres girl’Z

ACTwrestling In Osaka

22/06/2025
176BOX, Osaka, Japan
Watch On Actwres girl’Z App

The “ACTwrestling In Osaka” show was held on June 22nd at 176BOX, an arena regularly run by other smaller joshi wrestling companies such as Marigold, WAVE and OZ Academy. The show did suffer from a complete lack of crowd heat compared to the Shin-Kiba shows. It was a step down from its previous three shows with a rough undercard, but it had a good ACT Game tournament main event between two top teams, Sakuramochi (Naru & Sakura Mizushima) and MRC (Marino Saihara & Riko Fukunaga).

All 4 are members of the top babyface faction, “Actwres-5”. Saihara is the holder of AWG’s primary title, the AWG Championship while Mizushima holds the secondary title, the KING of Ring Entertainment title. Each member of the faction has their own colours. In this case, it’s Blue (Fukunaga) and Red (Saihara) against Green (Mizushima) and Pink (Naru). The 5th member Yui Tensho has not wrestled since the March 16th Korakuen Hall show.

Fukunaga recently challenged Mizushima for the KING of Ring Entertainment championship in a losing effort. They wrestled each other for an extended period of time in this tag, picking up where they left off. There were some good exchanges when Fukunaga got a 2 count with a bridging Tiger Suplex and Mizushima returned the favour with a bridging Northern Lights suplex. After Naru went for her crucifix bomb, Saihara shook her off, nailed Naru with a high knee and then landed a bridging German suplex for the win. The win means MRC move on to the next round of the tournament.

Beastz Rebellion member Nene Arahara went up against Nagisa Shiotsuki in the semi-main event. They both debuted on the same show on 13th February 2022. This was only their second singles match against each other. For someone who is not a power wrestler, Shiotsuki has really good sounding chops. Arahata hit Shiotsuki with a standard vertical suplex, and the referee counted 3 before Shiotsuki kicked out. Given how confused Arahata looked, it can be assumed AWG referees are told to shoot count and Shiotsuki was late on the kickout. The alternative is quite a deflating finish out of nowhere.

Natsuki and Anri, who looked impressive in their last outing, took on Rio and Yukina Uehara. Rio, only 6 months into her career, is a promising rookie. On the other hand Uehara, while favoured by AWG and Act in particular, is further behind in her ability. Natsuki is probably the best worker in AWG and holds a lot of these tag matches together. This match was solid with some highlights such as Rio serving up some great chops to Natsuki. Anri used the diving seated senton as her finish, which could use some workshopping. While Anri is not bad, she is still a rookie and the match lost a bit of steam once she was in there with the green Uehara. But a lot of AWG seems to be trial by fire and learning by doing. The match would likely have been better had Anri and Uehara not worked the majority of it. Uehara asked Anri for a singles match after, which they basically did by working over 10 minutes of the tag together. Natsuki, normally the glue, was not given the ring time necessary here to make this tag match great.

One of the key players of AWG, Act, teamed with Beastz Rebellion member Ayano Ire to face Asako Mia and Erisa Nagai. Ire and her teammate Nene Arahara were knocked out of the ACT Game tournament by Sakuramochi. Act was unimpressed by Mia’s attempts at a submission hold, meaning that I have at least one thing in common with Act. Once Mia tagged Nagai in, the match began. Unfortunately, Mia interrupted it multiple times. This match was not very good. The best part was Act blasting Mia with a lariat.

AWG trainer and another key player, Mari, took on Nanami Togi, who has almost 2 years of experience but no wins at all. Mari was in control for the vast majority of this match, giving Togi the opportunity to show her ability to sell and make a comeback. The latter of the two did happen. Togi showed some good fire in her comeback, even if the journey to get there was somewhat lackluster. Togi’s version of selling seemed to be “playing dead”.

Full Results

Mari defeats Nanami Togi (8:13)

Act & Ayano Irie defeat Asako Mia & Erisa Nagai (8:54)

Anri & Natsuki defeat Rio & Yukina Uehara (13:35)

Nene Arahata defeats Nagisa Shiotsuki (8:14)

ACT Game Second Round Point Tag Team:
Marino Saihara & Riko Fukunaga defeat Naru & Sakura Mizushima (14:47)

AWG News & Upcoming Shows

The current standing of the ACT Game tournament, which is to crown the first AWG Tag Team champions, is as follows:

If you’re looking to jump into the tournament before the Korakuen Hall show on August 13th, then the July 11th show is a good starting point with two top teams against each other.

In other news, on June 13th as part of Tomoko Watanabe’s first produce show at Shinjuku FACE, there were two all-AWG matches. In the first match, Naru & Natsuki faced Riko Fukunaga and Yukina Uehara. Naru pinned Fukunaga after landing a moonsault press in 6:51. In the second match, a points match, the two champions, KING of Ring Entertainment Champion Sakura Mizushima and AWG champion Marino Saihara faced off in singles action. Mizushima pinned Saihara in 6:42. Both matches were short showcases for the produce show. Sometimes in the AWG world, it’s best not to overthink some matches and results, and just enjoy the wrestling. This is one of those times. There is not a way to make sense of the champion vs. champion match other than striking it out as non-canon (but then why is it a points match? Only AWG knows).

© BJW / BBW

BJW

Ikkitousen Strong Climb 2025 Final

22/06/2025
Company Announced Attendance: 504
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan
Watch On BJW Core / YouTube

Former Rev Pro wrestler Leyton Buzzard became the first gaijin winner of BJW’s “Ikkitousen Strong Climb” tournament in a great match with So Daimonji. The tournament alternates between the Strong division on even years and the Deathmatch division on odd years, although as the tournament was not held in 2023, the pattern has now flipped.

This year’s prize was fought between tournament debutants. The winner of the tournament traditionally earns a future shot at the World title of whichever division the Ikkitousen that year is centered around. The World Strong Heavyweight Championship is currently held by Daichi Hashimoto in his 3rd reign with the 4th most cumulative days holding the title. After the match, Buzzard challenged Hashimoto for the title on August 24th in Aichi.

Daimonji has challenged for the title twice, both ending in losses to Yuji Okabayashi, the last of which came in 2023. Daimonji has only faced Hashimoto once in singles action, back in 2023. Buzzard is on his second extended tour in Japan with BJW and has challenged for the World Strong Heavyweight Championship once, losing to Yuya Aoki at the start of 2024, and has never had a singles match with Hashimoto. Both finalists represented a fresh challenge to Hashimoto. Buzzard came into this match strong going undefeated in his block with 3 wins. Daimonji had 2 wins and 1 loss to Hideoyoshi Kamitani.

Daimonji and Buzzard are also both familiar with each other as part of the same “Project: Havoc” stable that was formed in 2023, and this played into the story of the match. Each dodged the other’s finisher to start the match, as Daimonji countered Buzzard’s Buzz Killer and Buzzard ducked underneath Daimonji’s Black Rain lariat. After landing awkwardly, Buzzard sold his leg. Daimonji caught that same leg on a kick, before deciding whether he should attack it or not and opting not to. Later on, Daimonji was faced with the same dilemma, and decided to attack the leg with elbows, a splash and a leg lock, all while apologising to his stablemate. This added to the story of how prestigious the tournament is to both men. There was a contingent of British fans supporting Buzzard. At one point Daimonji went up to them to confront them. The two laid in their strikes, and at one point grabbed each other’s hands so they could give each other defenceless elbows. After superkicking Daimonji several times to down him, Buzzard climbed the ropes to deliver the Fire Bird Splash (450).

Hashimoto defended his title against BURST Pro Wrestling’s owner Towa Iwasaki. Hashimoto has been competing in Iwasaki’s BURST since 2021 and they’ve met each other in singles action there 3 times. Hashimoto has won all 3 times, in addition to a 4th time in Tenryu Project. Both are also familiar with each other from their time in ZERO-1, before Iwasaki, on track to become their ace, left to start his own promotion. Hashimoto nominated Iwasaki after refusing to participate in Ikkitousen, saying he’d instead wait for the winner.

This match was very slow paced, it was about endurance from heavy strikes inflicted on each other rather than speed. It began around 80 minutes after the start of the show so, as the semi-main event, they did have a lot of time to kill. There were some nice lariats from Iwasaki, including one that turned Hashimoto inside, out which the crowd bought as a finish. Other than that, it was quite a routine defence with little drama.

The BJW Tag Team Championships were vacated when Madman Pondo had scheduling conflicts. His partner, Dale Patricks, teamed with stablemate and BJW Death Match Heavyweight Champion AKIRA to challenge for the vacant titles. They were unsuccessful in reclaiming the belts for their stable, “BAKA GAIJINS”, as they lost to Kankuro Hoshino and Ryuji Ito.

© BJW

Polish wrestler Jacob Crane continued the build to his Junior Heavyweight Championship match with current holder Kosuke Sato on July 27th at Korakuen Hall. They had some great fast paced action in a 6 man tag and then continued to brawl after the bell, ending with Crane holding the title high.

Two luchadors who have been touring Japan recently are Pantera Jr. and Sangre Azteca Jr. They have mainly been wrestling in Michinoku Pro Wrestling with some appearances in DDT, but are now in BJW. They faced off against each other in a six man tag. Yasufumi Nakanoue hit a stiff lariat on Azteca Jr. to pick up the win in this one.

Rookie Koshiro Asakura, 27, opened the show facing former World Strong Heavyweight champion Yuya Aoki, who previously had a 529 day title reign with the title. Asakura crashed out of the Ikkitousen with 0 wins, while Aoki picked up 1 win out of 3 matchups. This is the first singles match between the two since their exhibition match before Asakura’s debut. Asakura held his own, as he slapped Aoki in the face soon after the bell rang. The two beat the hell out of each other for just over 5 minutes before Aoki put him away.

Full Results

Yuya Aoki defeats Koshiro Asakura (5:10)

Abdullah Kobayashi & Astronauts (Fuminori Abe & Takuya Nomura) defeat Kazumi Kikuta, Mari Hana & Masaya Takahashi (5:12)

Pantera Jr., Ryota Hama & Yasufumi Nakanoue defeat Hideyoshi Kamitani, Hiroyuki Suzuki & Sangre Azteca Jr. (9:09)

Kazumasa Yoshida, Kosuke Sato & Tatsuhiko Yoshino defeat Jacob Crane, Kaji Tomato & Ryuma Sekimo (7:11)

BJW Tag Team Title Concrete Block Death Match:
Kankuro Hoshino & Ryuji Ito defeat AKIRA & Dale Patricks (12:30)

BJW World Strong Heavyweight Title:
Daichi Hashimoto (c) defeats Towa Iwasaki (15:52)

Ikkitousen Strong Climb 2025 Final:
Leyton Buzzard defeats So Daimonji (21:26)

BJW News

BJW president Eiji Tosaka gave an interview after the Korakuen Hall show on June 22nd about Daisuke Sekimoto’s health and contract status. He reiterated that Sekimoto was discharged a few days after his injury on May 29th and has had several checkups, including MRI and CT scans. After examinations, Sekimoto was reported to have no major or fatal injuries. To be on the safe side, Sekimoto decided to undergo another examination weeks later with no further problems found. Following those examinations, Tosaka and Sekimoto discussed the accumulation of his 26 year career, and so they decided to have further examinations by a neurosurgeon. The neurosurgeon provided the diagnosis that he would be fine to resume wrestling. Following those diagnoses, Tosaka and Sekimoto discussed his career, with both coming to the agreement that he would enjoy the latter stages of his career as a freelancer. Sekimoto has been considering this for a few years already before this point.

Tosaka announced that Sekimoto will not be wrestling in July and all other previous bookings will not go ahead. They have sent Koshiro Asakura as a replacement for an annual tournament in Sendai, “Gold Festival”, that Sekimoto enjoys participating in. They have asked companies to ask again in July, so Sekimoto’s return is not determined as of yet. August would be the earliest return timeline but they are evaluating his progress as each day comes. Sekimoto’s BJW contract expires at the end of June. Tosaka also said that Sekimoto would like his return match to be in BJW. The tone of the comments were that this was a mutual decision and BJW simply wanted Sekimoto to have the ending to his career that he deserves, and that he’d still be wrestling in BJW in the future.

Other News From Asia

Oceania

PCW Australia will run “Carnage” on June 28th, with a main event of a Falls Count Anywhere match between The Black Diamonds and Rapid Fire, in what should be the end of the feud between the 2 teams. Aysha will also defend the PCW Women’s Championship against Charlie Rose in a 2 out of 3 falls match, whilst Tommy Hellfire will defend the National Championship against Jake Taylor, who returned to the promotion on the last show. The tag titles will be the target of Bush and Cletus, as they take on current champions The Marauders.

The Bastard Brothers are the new Renegade Tag Team Champions after defeating the Ambush on June 15th at Renegades of Wrestling’s “Indestructible”.

© Renegades of Wrestling / Digital Beard

The show was headlined by Tarlee challenging Indi Hartwell for the Renegades Women’s Title. Tarlee put up a valiant effort, cheered on by the local crowd, but was ultimately unsuccessful in capturing the belt against her well travelled opponent. Renegades’ next show will be “Eye Of The Storm” on August 2nd.

Masada will be debuting for NHPW in Perth, Australia on July 19th, taking on Jebediah Clark.

© MPW

Asia

APAC Wrestling in Malaysia have announced their first match for “Slamfest ‘25” on August 30th in Mont Kiara, on a show which had promised heavy WWE ID involvement when it was announced back in May. WWE ID-signed Kylie Rae will take on APAC Women’s Champion Nor “Phoenix” Diana on the show, with further WWE ID talent announcements expected to follow.

Rival Malaysia Pro Wrestling has announced “Full Throttle” for July 12th for the KuAsh Theatre in TTDI with the headline match up being Da Butcherman challenging MYPW World Champion Carlo Cannon after Da Butcherman got a win over the reigning Champion over in Singapore last month. An Extreme Rules stipulation has been added to the title bout.

There will also be a first appearance since turning heel and joining multi company group Real Global Threat for Emman Azman. Azman has been looked at as the “heart and soul” of Malaysian Pro Wrestling before his turn and will now have to face his home crowd during a tag match against LxP. There will also be a rematch from “New Breed 3”, as Lana XO looks to avenge Poppy Shay’s victory in their previous matchup.

Middle Kingdom Wrestling have made a number of further announcements for their appearance at V1 Speedfest on June 28th, as they make their debut in Tianjin, China. XiaoJieMen, an artist, cosplayer and current pro wrestling trainee will be the special guest on a show that will feature Wade Massen challenging Wangtao for the MKW Belt & Road Championship, as well as Ho Ho Lun making the first defense of the MLW World Championship he won at their last show in Beijing against Zombie Dragon. Dragongate duo KZY and Strong Machine J will challenge PSE (Sunny Z and Benji) in the international matchup on the show.

MKW have also sought out the services of New Japan and Stardom commentator Walker Stewart once more, with the Beijing show “Battle of the Decade” now available on Youtube, in full, with English commentary.

New Taiwan Pro Wrestling opens their new venue on June 28th with “Scorching Fires”, a show that is being produced in cooperation with Singapore company Grapplemax. Grapplemax’s most talked about prospect, Simon Siah, will take on another young talent in Alex Cool on the show, in what will be Siah’s debut with the company. Lucifer will team with Grapplemax’s Singapore Champion Shawn Phang to take on New Taiwan Tag Champions Moon Circus in the company’s first event since April.

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