12/28/2025

© HansenCamingsoo

NOAH

Bitesize Round-up

We have a review of Kaito Kiyomiya’s 10th Anniversary show on 7th December where Kaito battled against his long-term foe Kenoh in an excellent ironman match. On the same show, NOAH debuted three new rookies, Yuto Koyanagi, Hiroto Tsuruya and Midori Takahashi, so we take a look at their first ever matches. At a weirdly loaded show with a blacked out crowd in Nagoya on 14th December, Daga and Daiki Odashima defended their GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Title against Team 2000X (Jun Masaoka & Tadasuke) while Kenoh and Naomichi Marufuji also defeated Team 2000X (Masa Kitamiya & Takashi Sugiura) to become the new GHC Heavyweight Tag Team Champions.

The series of house shows within the last few weeks set up the remaining matches for the New Year’s show at Nippon Budokan, which we have a preview of in our lead article. OZAWA returned to in-ring action on the 23rd December Korakuen Hall show, which we also have a review of. The verdict is, we’re back baby. Even though the OZAWA match wasn’t necessarily the match of the night, it felt right that it was the main event and that OZAWA closed out the show. Even all of Team 2000X’s gimmicks worked in that match, proving that with OZAWA at the helm of that unit, it still actually has some legs, but without him, it is dire. Tetsuya Endo was as over as ever, the GHC Junior Heavyweight Champion Hiromu Takahashi and his challenger AMAKUSA went to war, Daiki Odashima locked up with New Japan’s Daiki Nagai, and two of the rookies, Hiroto Tsuruya and Midori Takahashi, got absolutely destroyed by the uncs MaruKen (Kenoh and Naomichi Marufuji). While the first half of the show was alright, the second half of the show was awesome.

© NOAH

Kaito Kiyomiya’s 10th Anniversary

7th December 2025
Company Announced Attendance: 1,290
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan
Designation: Key Show
Recommended Matches: Daiki Odashima vs. Yuto Koyanagi, Kaito Kiyomiya vs. Kenoh

Kaito debuted on 9th December 2015 at Differ Ariake, a building which closed in 2018 and located right next to NOAH headquarters. 10 years later, and while he has been put largely on the backburner in favour of OZAWA, KENTA and Yoshiki Inamura, he has had some bright spots in 2025 going up against OZAWA in some of the best stuff in NOAH this year, outside of the junior heavyweight division which has mostly been great.

Having just lost to GHC Heavyweight Champion Yoshiki Inamura in Sendai, it would seem Kaito’s title ambitions will have to be on hiatus for just a bit longer, but he had planted the seeds for a double turn with OZAWA. Whether NOAH pulls the trigger on that is anyone’s guess, as the booking has become unpredictable and erratic with the introduction of external elements such as Hankerford and Tankerford from NXT. Away from all that, Kaito wanted his own self-contained produce show to celebrate his anniversary. His own bubble away from the woes of his failures to re-capture the title in 2025. In doing so, Kaito booked himself in a 60-minute ironman match with the one and only, Kenoh.

I am not a fan of 60-minute ironman matches. It is insanely difficult to execute correctly, but Kaito and Kenoh are both very good wrestlers, so I was willing to provide the benefit of the doubt. While I haven’t watched enough ironman matches to have this in some of the best ironman matches of all time, it was excellent. The first 10 minutes were well-paced. They kept my interest and the crowd were into the proceedings. They were feeling each other out and adapting to each other as the match continued. For example, Kaito would skin the cat, wowing the crowd successfully the first time. On the second attempt, Kenoh, wiser to it, would boot Kaito off the ropes and proceed to kick his ass around the arena. Kenoh was a total bully for the next several minutes, which is a role he excels in. Kaito fought back as the two exchanged stiff kicks. 20 minutes in and both were sweating. They’ve worked hard without a single pinfall to show for it. It wasn’t a boring twenty minutes, but if the match had ended I’d say it was just “good”. In my view, that’s pretty great for a match you know is going 60 minutes, especially when Kaito had wrestled another two times on the night. After the 20 minute mark, Kaito dropkicked Kenoh out of the sky as he was going for the P.F.S. before Kaito followed up with the Tiger suplex for a nearfall. Kenoh responded with a series of Kenoh Specials (roll-through STF) to try and get the first pinfall or submission. After some great selling from Kaito, Kaito tapped. 1-0 to Kenoh.

Kenoh hit a Manji kick and a dragon suplex for another nearfall. As a reminder, Kenoh knocked out OZAWA with the new Super Manji Kick (a Manji kick to the face), in what I will say was the best finish of 2025 across any promotion. Kenoh was really feeling it with the kicks, but Kaito dodged, sending Kenoh’s foot into the ringpost. Kaito thought he could take advantage but was immediately met with another dragon suplex, this time on the outside. Kenoh climbed the turnbuckle, selling his foot, and launched off with a P.F.S. to Kaito who was lying outside the ring. Kaito couldn’t make the 20 count in time, 2-0 to Kenoh. This part of the match was great with a lot of drama. The match obviously slowed down a bit at this point. They were 40 minutes deep, and Kaito must have been exhausted. They filled in the time with some very big spots they could sell for a while, such as an avalanche reverse DDT. This is part of the reason I don’t like 60-minute ironman matches and why they are so hard to pull off, but the crowd were never lost, so you have to commend Kaito and Kenoh for that. Leading up to the third fall, Kaito attacked Kenoh’s injured leg before planting Kenoh with a dangerous Doctor Bomb in which Kenoh almost landed on his head. It looked so brutal that Kaito had enough time to hit the Skywalker Elbow to make it 2-1 to Kenoh.

The two upped the ante as they traded release Tiger suplexes and open-handed strikes before Kenoh dropped Kaito with a head kick and landed a P.F.S for a nearfall. Out of nowhere, Kaito locked in a figure-four jackknife pin for a very cool pinfall, evening things up with 17 minutes remaining. They killed some time, but not in the usual “do nothing” way. Nope, they started shoot slapping each other around the face. If you want to get your breath back and fill some time, that is a pretty good way to do it that keeps the viewer engaged. The crowd were still chanting Kaito’s name, which seemed to resurrect Dark Kaito, the smiling, no-selling version of him. A character that went nowhere when he debuted against OZAWA during the year (I was hoping it’d lead to a cool double turn but it never did). He no-sold Kenoh’s offence to put Kenoh on the backfoot for a while. After being forced to break a top-rope sleeper hold, Kaito was rocked by Kenoh’s high kick and then pinned again with Enrin, Kenoh’s double knee moonsault super finisher. That was sick. 3-2 to Kenoh and 10 minutes to go. While I’m not a fan of really long submission holds, Kaito was in the Kenoh Special for a few minutes and the crowd were screaming for him constantly, so it was very effective for the Korakuen crowd. Kaito came back with a series of Shining Wizards, standing ones, off the turnbuckle and finally the Shining Lancer. 3-3 with 5 minutes to go. Kaito locked in a figure-four for a couple of minutes, before they began slapping each other in the hold. After the hold broke, Kenoh rocked Kaito with a nasty high kick, as he had done so many times during the match. He then finally hit the Super Manji kick, and Kaito kicked out at 3.1, with the pinfall counting (as it should have). 4-3 to Kenoh with a minute to go. The final minute was a dash for Kaito to crawl back a pinfall. It was like watching a rookie match with how many cradles and backslides he tried. Kaito hit the Shining Lancer but could not get the pin in time, making Kenoh the winner.

Outside of the couple of minutes of stalling, which is inevitable in pretty much every match going this long, this match didn’t feel like 60 minutes. It was paced well, and both worked incredibly hard. I would say this was an excellent ironman match, but you may need to already be biased towards liking the work of both wrestlers to get the most out of it. I cannot imagine the match being a crazy one to show your friends who are parachuting in just due to the match length, but they did pretty much as well as you can do with the format.

After the match, when Kaito was closing out the show, the Good Brothers (Doc Gallows & Karl Anderson) appeared. They attacked Kaito and hit the Magic Killer on him, twice. Jack Morris came out to help Kaito to the back as the show closed. This is not as bad as the Hanky & Tanky adventure, but almost.

© NOAH

As well as celebrating Kaito Kiyomiya’s 10th anniversary, Kaito built towards the future by featuring the debut of three NOAH trainees in Midori Takahashi, 19, Hiroto Tsuruya, also 19, and Yuto Koyanagi, 25. According to NOAH’s profiles, Takahashi began watching wrestling when he was 13 and then entered Kenoh’s NOAH Rookie Audition in 2023 but failed to pass. Kenoh offered for Takahashi to retake the test, which he passed in February 2024. They waited until they graduated high school before joining NOAH in 2025. His background is soccer. Hiroto is the brother of UFC fighter Rei Tsuruya and the son of Hiroshi Tsuruya who competed in MMA and has trained other talents. Hiroto has a background in many mixed martial arts such as wrestling, BJJ, sambo and kickboxing. Koyanagi took part in the second NOAH pro wrestling seminar in February 2025 before joining as a trainee. He has a background in baseball and amateur wrestling. Takahashi and Tsuruya faced each other while Koyanagi took on Daiki Odashima, who we know regularly trains with them in the dojo. There are a lot of interesting notes from OZAWA’s interview in Shupro #2390 about the NOAH training system which we discuss within the NOAH New Year’s show preview in our lead article. One particular note was that rookies weren’t allowed to use elbow strikes before, but in these debuts they used those strikes as normal, so NOAH’s practices were evolving.

In the first match between Daiki and Koyanagi, Daiki made Koyanagi look like a million bucks because Daiki is that guy. There were loud chants for Koyanagi and the crowd was molten hot. It seemed NOAH fans had been waiting for this. I loved watching Daiki and Koyanagi grapple. As I learnt with Seri Yamaoka’s debut against her trainer, MIRAI, it’s important not to get carried away as the rookie will still be green in several other areas of wrestling, but Koyanagi looked great at the mat wrestling. Koyanagi threw Daiki with a great belly-to-belly suplex before attempting a German suplex with a little amateur wrestling flair on it but Daiki countered. In particular I thought Koyanagi’s selling was good, which is always the thing that sets rookies apart. Daiki submitted Koyanagi with Part 0 of the Rolling Olympic Hell. The crowd and Daiki made this debut awesome. Daiki Odashima has inherited a series of finishers from his trainer Tamon Honda which is a bit of a nightmare to translate. There are basically different stages to it, and it roughly translates to Spinning or Rolling Olympic Hell. Some are submission holds, some are cradles and clutches. It’s called ‘Kaiten Jigoku Gorin’ in Japanese. He picked it up from his trainer, Tamon Honda. Honda had 9 parts to the move. Part 0 is the stand-up arm-triangle (kata-gatame), throwing the opponent backwards into an uranage and then either pinning them or cranking on the modified arm-triangle for a submission (Daiki did the latter here). Part 1 is where he takes the legs and then rolls the opponent onto their back while locking the leg. Part 2 would be a rolling cradle variation. Part 3 is a double ankle hold variation, etc.

Takahashi and Hiroto had a bit of an uphill battle in facing themselves, with no standout rookie to make them look better. The crowd started on Hiroto’s side, given his family’s name. While their grappling also looked good, in particular Hiroto’s, their striking was much more what you expect out of green rookies. Hiroto caught Takahashi in a single leg Boston crab, which he had teased several times throughout the match. This was a good showing for the two rookies. Hiroto appears to be very popular, so the win for him made sense. Hiroto said that he learnt the move from years of BJJ.

All Rebellion (Alejandro, Harutoki, Kai Fujimura & Kaito Kiyomiya) took on Andy Wu, Jack Morris, Junta Miyawaki & Naomichi Marufuji, with each member of Rebellion having an opponent in mind. Alejandro wanted Marufuji, Kaito wanted Junta, Harutoki wanted Morris and Kai wanted Andy Wu (Kai debuted in WRESTLE-1, which was Andy’s home promotion). They all got what they wanted at various points during this showcase, ‘house show vibes’ match. Junta made things a bit spicy when he rocked Kaito with some open-handed strikes. Kaito pinned him with the Tiger suplex as retaliation.

Kiyomiya turned back the clock in the opener as he faced Hitoshi Kumano who was his debut opponent. Kiyomiya wore the rookie trunks to go up against his senior, who themselves debuted in NOAH in February 2013. Kumano took some time off during the pandemic but subsequently left the company. He re-appeared at the May Budokan show in 2024.

© amam

NOAH Thanksgiving 2025

23rd December 2025
Company Announced Attendance: 1,498
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan
Designation: Key Show
Recommended Matches: Hiroto Tsuruya & Midori Takahashi vs. Kenoh & Naomichi Marufuji, AMAKUSA & Daiki Odashima vs. Daiki Nagai & Hiromu Takahashi, Kaito Kiyomiya & Tetsuya Endo vs. Masa Kitamiya & Yoshiki Inamura

NOAH went out with a bit of a bang, putting on one of the best Korakuen Hall shows since the July double header. The final NOAH Korakuen Hall show of the year and the last one before heading into the big Nippon Budokan show on 1st January was supposed to be headlined by an “Ultimate Showcase” match with Kaito Kiyomiya and Tetsuya Endo taking on Masa Kitamiya and GHC Heavyweight Champion Yoshiki Inamura. To be honest, I was not sure what the reasoning behind picking these four was. I imagined it was the champions of 2025, minus OZAWA, plus the N-1 Winner in Kitamiya, and Endo, because he’s cool? Well, it all made sense after the opening of the show. OZAWA kicked off the show to loud “OZAWA” chants. He came out and said that he couldn’t believe it was the main event of the last show of the year and said “let me join” to a big pop. The match was changed to Kaito, Endo and Inamura against Team 2000X (Masa Kitamiya, Tadasuke & OZAWA). As OZAWA made his entrance, things felt right again. I had actually forgotten how much I had missed him. The crowd was torn between OZAWA and Inamura, although OZAWA was slightly favoured. OZAWA was at his usual antics, trying to lick Kaito, copying Inamura’s moves and feigning his foot injury. This match was Team 2000X at its best, which is rare, but this match worked. As Inamura was doing his running lariat, sprinting across the ring like a beast, Tadasuke hit him in the back with a chair which got massive heat, and Kitamiya came in and destroyed both him and Endo. OZAWA then hit The Real Rebel (Phoenix splash) for the win. We’re back, baby.

As a side note, Endo is incredibly over in NOAH and he has been ready for a GHC Heavyweight Title challenge, or reign, since the N-1. He did already challenge in June last year but somehow he has gotten even more popular. I’m actually not sure about him going into KENTA’s unit, he feels like he is someone who should have his own unit.

KENTA and Takashi Sugiura faced off to commemorate their 25th anniversaries. The crowd chanted for Takashi to begin the match. After KENTA teased tapping out to Takashi’s ankle lock, they stood up and threw bombs at each other. KENTA started leathering Takashi with open hand strikes and buzzsaw kicks, attempting to knock Takashi out. Takashi, still part of the heel Team 2000X faction, then smacked KENTA around the face with a chair several times before pinning KENTA with the Olympic Slam. I expect this to lead to a feud between Team 2000X and KENTA’s new faction (himself, HAYATA, Tetsuya Endo & Ulka Sasaki). This was a good match but fell behind the preceding two matches.

Ahead of their bout on New Year’s Day, AMAKUSA and GHC Junior Heavyweight Champion Hiromu Takahashi found partners for a preview tag, Daiki Odashima and Daiki Nagai respectively. This match had a LOT of heat. AMAKUSA and Hiromu went to war and chopped the absolute crap out of each other, leaving AMAKUSA with a bright purple chest. The Daikis took after their senpais and also wrestled hard. After Hiromu delivered a nasty Death Valley Driver to AMAKUSA on the apron, a bump reminiscent of Saya Iida’s brainbuster bump just weeks earlier in STARDOM, Daiki tried to hit Dead End (delayed German suplex) on Hiromu, but Hiromu evaded the move before hitting the Time Bomb on AMAKUSA for the win. When watching Daiki Odashima, it is impossible to come away not being impressed by how well he wrestles despite only debuting just over a year ago.

Rookies Hiroto Tsuruya and Midori Takahashi, who both debuted on 7th December, went up against the GHC Heavyweight Tag Team Champions MaruKen (Kenoh & Naomichi Marufuji). MaruKen gave the rookies the tour of Korakuen as they brawled through the crowd, which is rare for rookies to do. As someone who loves his rookies, this match was great and props need to be given to NOAH for how MaruKen has been used recently, as this is the perfect role for them. Kenoh of course can still go, but we’ve seen it all and it’s time for some new blood on top. Beating the crap out of rookies with the Vice President is exactly how it should be. Hiroto’s chest was completely and absolutely destroyed. Kenoh tapped out Midori with the Kenoh Special. This was awesome and honestly one of the best NOAH matches of the year. After the match, BUSHI came out with a masked person, teasing that it was Tetsuya Naito, but it was rookie Yota Koyanagi. BUSHI misted Kenoh and then said he would bring Naito on New Year’s Day. Talk about a deflated crowd.

© lucy_sbin

Undercard

Manabu Soya continued his descent into madness as he came out dressed like a Christmas tree for the “NOAHful GIFT Christmas Battle Royal.” Soya is going through a mid-life crisis because he misses YO-HEY, so he has been dressing like him and doing his moves. YO-HEY dressed as a Christmas tree last year. So, there you go. He stood in the corner doing nothing for about 10 minutes. Kazuyuki Fujita was dressed as Santa. Do you need to know any more? Wait, you do? Okay. They were part of the last four, alongside Black Menso-re and Shuhei Tanagiuchi, who was celebrating his 20th anniversary. Santa handed Shuhei a sack. Shuhei looked through it and then found his mask, turning him into Maybach Tanagiuchi. He was disqualified for strangling the referee. Menso-re got lariated by Santa. This left Santa versus the Soya Tree.. Fujita got mad, removed the Santa stuff and choked Soya Tree out.

Team NOAH (Atsushi Kotoge & Hajime Ohara) faced off against Team 2000X (Jun Masaoka & Tadasuke), who were coming off a GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Title loss to Daga and Daiki Odashima. Team NOAH on the other hand were attempting to bounce back following the departure of Go Shiozaki. Tadasuke lowblowed Kotoge behind the referee’s bag and pinned him. I guess since Tadasuke was pulling double duty they didn’t bother doing anything here. I’m not even sure why I wrote this paragraph about it.

After Eita beat Kai Fujimura, he admonished Kai for just “being the same” as six months ago when Kai challenged the then GHC Junior Heavyweight Champion Eita in April 2025. Kai fought back in the opener in a six-man tag, taking it to Eita and setting him up for Will Kroos. Kroos’ moves still get the biggest pop out of any move in Japan in 2025. I am not exaggerating. As Kroos climbed the turnbuckle for his splash, the whole crowd was shrieking in unison. Kroos finished Eita off with the splash. Eita sold it amazingly and was dead for a while after the match, needing to get dragged away.

© medamayaki888

New Japan Pro Wrestling

Bitesize Round-up

See our lead article in this issue for a preview of Wrestle Kingdom 20.

In the past few weeks since the last issue, New Japan have been running their annual World Tag League. There were some excellent matches throughout as the tournament exceeded expectations. After what many felt was a weak second half of the year in 2025 from a booking point of view ( beginning at Dominion at June), the in-ring action has not slowed down with several fantastic matches each month. There were a lot of fun pairings which led to dynamics that would give each match some extra heat from the crowd. The eventual winners were TMDK (Ryohei Oiwa & Zack Sabre Jr.) who beat Gabe Kidd and Yota Tsuji in the finals on 14th December. TMDK will cash in their shot at the IWGP Tag Team Title held by the Knockout Brothers (OSKAR & Yuto-Ice) at “New Year’s Dash!” on 5th January.

Dash is seen as the launching point for 2026, with the tag title match a major component of it.

Contract season is also upon us, with reports on New Japan talent’s future status already hitting American news outlets. So far, Self Made have reported that IWGP Tag Champions The Knockout Brothers have received an offer from WWE, whilst Fightful have published their now annual report of David Finlay considering his options. Due to the late renewal of a number of deals in 2025, negotiations will take place with a variety of talent across the first half of the year rather than just the early spring. Whilst we would hope that the loss of some top names and less usage of international talent may lead to stronger leading offers to current talent whose deals are set to expire in the coming months, much of the financial situation around the company (and indeed the wider Japanese business climate) has not changed, meaning that negotiations will still prove to be challenging, even with a number of talent who are already set on staying with the company.

STARDOM

Bitesize Round-up

We have several accompanying features and previews for STARDOM in this issue. In our lead article Tim Hunter takes us through the 29th December card at Ryogoku Kokugikan. As we head into awards season, there are two further features exploring Taro Okada’s case for Booker of the Year written by Chris Whitehead, and we take a look at Starlight Kid’s year in a feature written by David Hayter. In addition to the Sumo Hall show, Stardom will have Wrestle Kingdom Week shows on 24th December at Korakuen Hall, 25th December at Bellesalle Shinjuku, two shows on 3rd January at Shinjuku FACE and two back-to-back shows at Korakuen Hall on 10th and 11th January.

While it will be explored further in those articles, a key piece of news coming out of STARDOM this week is Saya Kamitani being named as the woman to ever win the Tokyo Sports MVP since its inception in 1974. As we explored in our last issue at length, Saya has worked hard to become a conduit for new fans following the promotion with her successful media engagements, such as on Friday morning talk show “Love It” and “Oni Renchan” where she initially went viral. This has resulted in increased media coverage of STARDOM, reflected in Weekly Pro Magazine’s (Shupro) news rankings for the year of 2025 where there were 16 STARDOM-related news events out of their top 100, outnumbering New Japan and NOAH’s tally of 9. In terms of popularity of “match results” being accessed by fans, STARDOM had 24 events in the top 100, second to New Japan with 35, which is an incredibly impressive number for a women’s promotion in Japan. All Star Grand Queendom’s results page had the most hits, followed by Marigold’s Grand Destiny fueled by IYO SKY and Mayu Iwatani, indicating a massive shift of momentum as two women’s promotions topped the list.

In terms of Saya’s personal popularity, as explored in the previous issue her hard drawing case is difficult to statistically determine, but her soft draw case is very well established, indicated no more by fan engagement on social media and the media, leading to her achieving 7 front covers for Shupro in 2025, tied with OZAWA, leading Hiroshi Tanahashi on 5 front covers. With Saya’s strong media campaign, all of this contributed to her historic Tokyo Sports MVP win. Notably, the press conference held by STARDOM to commemorate the award was the first time that Saya had positively credited Tam in helping her get to where she is today. Saya thanked her parents and then Tam Nakano, saying that she was the driving force for Saya in 2025 and that she was carrying Tam’s pro-wrestling life on her back. Saya (correctly) stated that the current version of her does not exist without Tam Nakano. Saya finished her tribute by saying that she wanted to tell Tam “I won MVP” and that she hoped it would reach her.

© STARDOM

STARDOM Nighter In Korakuen

8th December 2025
Company Announced Attendance: 1,519
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan
Watch On: STARDOM World
Designation: Key Show
Recommended Matches: Ami Sourei vs. Saya Iida, Aya Sakura, Natsupoi & Yuna Mizumori vs. Chi Chi, Miku Kanae & Sareee
Review By Tim Hunter

If I had to summarize this STARDOM show from Korakuen Hall in one word it would be “vibes”. The vibes are almost immaculate right now for the promotion and despite some major players in Starlight Kid, Momo Watanabe and Hanan still being out injured it feels more complete and refreshed with the comebacks of Maika, Xena, Anne and Matoi on this show, than it has in a while.

The latter two opened the main show after a good but rather unremarkable pre-show bout between Ema and outsider Yuuki Mashiro and it has to be said how impressive their showing was for two rookies with less than 40 matches between them, both returning after 8 and 10 months of injury time respectively. Where even veterans would show ring rust after such a long time off, it was really impressive what these two showed here. This should really also break open a renewed discussion about STARDOM’s ability to train and produce rookies and young wrestlers, as we had already discussed in issue #1 of the newsletter. Not only was this straight singles match where Matoi tapped out Anne with a single-leg boston crab excellent for what it was, but also in other parts of the show Kikyo Furusawa and Akira Kurogane look like they already belong with the big dogs of the promotion. Akira especially was also highlighted and elevated in a major way during the Goddesses of STARDOM tag league. The STARDOM 2025 rookie class, while maybe not having someone on the level of a Senka Akatsuki or Seri Yamaoka still manages to handily erase any sort of doubts or fears over the future of the promotion not being in good hands.

Next on the card was the first trios match of the evening where Neo Genesis defeated a mixed team of God’s Eye and Kikiyo Furusawa. This match mainly existed to highlight the progress of Kikiyo who as I said earlier already looks like she could hang with some of the major veterans of the promotion. AZM very mercilessly attacked with all her high speed finesse, leaving Kikiyo no room to slack whatsoever, but everything worked out almost perfectly. This wasn’t the match of the night or anything, but it certainly overdelivered for it’s spot on the card and I liked it better than the actual trios (Artists of STARDOM) title match. After the match Yuna Mizumori came to the ring to finally challenge Mei Sera for the High Speed title. The two have been paired together in the tag league and seemed to have become frenemies through that experience, so Mei gleefully accepted the challenge for December 24 at the next Korakuen Hall show. This should be very good.

After a pretty unremarkable tag match where FWC with a seemingly reinvigorated Hazuki defeated Momo Kongo and Yuria Hime from STARS, former social media mega star Fuwa-Chan appeared in the ring to challenge Hazuki to a match at Dream Queendom on 12/29. More on that in our preview section on the front page. Hazuki, who is Fuwa-Chan’s trainer of course accepted and with Hazuki’s current form I have no doubts that it will be an excellent re-debut for Fuwa.

In what turned out to be another set up match for Dream Queendom, the Cosmic Angels (Natsupoi, Aya Sakura and Yuna Mizumori) defeated the Ito Dojo invaders Sareee, Chi Chi and Miku Kanae in a magnificent match with a rather shocking finish when Natsupoi pinned Sareee with a straight jacket German suplex. This was, as we would learn later, done to set up their singles match on December 29th. This match had a lot more going for it than just Natsupoi and Sareee’s story though, as Chi Chi and Aya Sakura have had a bitter rivalry since last year and Yuna Mizumori had been keen on getting revenge on Sareee for an incident in 2019 and has been going after her ultra hard lately. So all these little micro-conflicts combined into one trios match made for amazing dynamics and extremely heated exchanges between these two teams. I highly recommend anyone who decides to pick and choose from this show to absolutely check this one out.

To somewhat cool off from the heat we had the light hearted entertainment portion of the evening when Mi Vida Loca defeated God’s Eye in a ten man match. We also had some classic rivalries brew up in this one when Saki Kashima once again drew the ire of Bozilla, as well as maybe the beginning of new rivalries in Syuri and Rina Yamashita who seem to be very much into each other judging from their meetings in the ring lately. They were once again taking a big portion of the match to beat the tar out of each other and it leaves a mouth watering desire for an IWGP singles match between those two at some point in the future. Maybe the highlight of the match however, as is not unusual for MVL matches, was Itzuki Aoki who is just becoming more and more comfortable in STARDOM and is showing why she is beloved as an absolute entertainment machine on the indies.

© STARDOM

In what may have been the thing many people would have been most looking forward to before the show, we finally had the in ring return from Maika after her Tommy John surgery in our next match. She teamed up with an X which turned out to be her long time stablemate Xena, who hadn’t been seen in the promotion for about 18 months due to injury, and the Cosmic Angels pairing of Saori Annou and Goddesses of STARDOM tag league winner Sayaka Kurara. Together they took on the H.A.T.E. quadruple of Saya Kamitani, Natsuko Tora, Ruaka and Azusa Inaba. This was an excellently booked match. Not only in the set up which served as a preview for both the red belt and the tag title match at Dream Queendom as well as Maika’s war plans against H.A.T.E. that she made known in her return promo, but also the finish of the match was perfectly done. In a match with two clear options for the loss in Ruaka and Azusa Inaba on the heel side, it would be none other but the red belt champion and main star of the promotion herself, Tokyo Sports MVP Saya Kamitani to take the pin at the end of the match by the returning Maika after a wrist clutch Michinoku Driver. This didn’t serve to undercut Saori Annou either, who was essentially the main factor leading up to the finish as she foiled a chair attack from Saya Kamitani and turned it right around on her with a thunderous weapon shot. While the rest of the match wasn’t anything special, this ending sequence served really well to set up everything for the future.

In the semi-main event we had in my eyes the only minor blip on this show, when Rina, Fukigen Death and Konami defended the Artists of STARDOM championships against the ExV team of Rian, HANAKO and Waka Tsukiyama in almost 22 minutes. This match was very clearly designed as a Rian spotlight match who fought tooth and nail against Rina for basically 80% of this very long bout. While that is a very commendable goal in the grand theme of talent elevation that STARDOM is doing so well right now, it became apparent rather quickly that Rian simply is not in any position yet to have a big babyface hero performance over 20 minutes and maybe she is just in general not the type of wrestler who ever will be. And that is totally fine too, but the match would have greatly benefitted from being cut short by several minutes, after it very obviously fell apart. Additionally to Rian not quite being at the skill level required for a match like this I have also a major suspicion that something unplanned happened during a top rope double knee stomp from Rina when Rian was squished and got the wind knocked out of her, failing to kick out on the following pin. She seemed to be dead weight for several minutes after the spot until she regained her composure, but the match had already fallen apart at that point. Maybe the referee should have just counted to three when she was unable to kick out in time as she was the loser in the end anyway. This is where promotions can clearly learn something from WWE’s NXT.

The main event however was another absolutely fantastic bout. In a Wonder of STARDOM championship number 1 contender match Saya Iida faced Ami Sourei in an absolute war. This was essentially modelled after classics the likes of Kobashi vs Sasaki or Higuchi vs Hino with Saya and Ami just chopping the absolute hell out of each other, lighting each others’ chests up all throughout the match, but in combination with some completely ludicrous spots like an insane looking apron brainbuster and deadly looking head drops. The match was laid out magnificently to build to a big climaxing fighting spirit spot where they exchanged crazy lariats and pin reversals until Saya Iida finally hit a sickening brain buster to get the well earned win. This hit the spot perfectly, it did not go a second too long or too short and it was an exhilarating experience, low level match of the year contender. Absolutely worth checking out, not only for fans of the promotion. Both of these wrestlers were essentially on an equal level as lower end white belt challengers, but Saya Iida had gotten herself over with the crowds in a big way over the past couple of weeks which was more than evident once more on this Korakuen evening, so I am most certainly inclined to agree with the decision to go with her for the big Sumo Hall spot, even if she is still the vast underdog to win that match. She definitely did everything humanly possible in this match and the weeks leading up to it to convince any doubters of her worthiness of that spot.

Overall this absolutely was a two thumbs up show and a high recommendation. STARDOM is firing from all cylinders and it is just such a joyous thing to watch right now.

© STARDOM

Natsu & Saori vs. Team 200Kg ~ First And Last Fight

18th December 2025
Company Announced Attendance: 284
Shin-Kiba 1st RING, Tokyo, Japan
Watch On: STARDOM World (likely uploaded after a few weeks) or PPV

In a somewhat hurried fashion, Natsupoi and Saori Anou held a produce show, with the assistance of STARDOM as with their 10th anniversary show, in order to face Team 200kg for the first and final time. Given the emergency booking which was not on the calendar just a few weeks back, it might be that Poi and Saori forgot that Yuu’s retirement was impending on 28th December – who knows? Either way, it gave us the highly anticipated match up in the main event in front of less than 300 fans. Poi offered her signature pose to Team 200kg who reciprocated, starting off the encounter with some sportsmanship. The crowd was hot for this match. Like with all Team 200kg matches I review in the Asia section of this newsletter, the first five minutes were a total blur and melded into an amalgamation of Yuu spots that I am unable to break down. And, as with a lot of Team 200kg matches, the last five to ten minutes were really damn good. Saori and Yuu traded stiff chops, Yuu squished Poi with a deadly cannonball and Poi launched Hashimoto with a beautiful release German suplex before attempting to capitalise on a classic Team 200kg miscommunication with the Fairy-ing Ring. Yuu bailed Hashimoto out and hit her double sidewalk slam. Poi was then hit with the Team 200kg Press and a lariat but still kicked out. Hashimoto then went for a Last Ride, but Poi countered with Fairy Blink but struggled to get the pin, allowing Hashimoto to counter by smothering her and holding her down in a shoot-style pin. After the match, the team exchanged pleasantries and Poi said that Hashimoto’s words to her on 31st May had stuck with her, to be “obsessed with winning”, and Poi said she would crush Sareee on 29th December.

Elsewhere on the card there was a smattering of Sendai Girls talent and younger STARDOM wrestlers battling it out. Ranna Yagami was given the toughest challenge of having to overcome the perennial bridesmaid in Mika Iwata, who is the strongest soldier out of all Sendai Girls wrestlers given her ability to endure losing again and again in her decade wrestling under Meiko Satomura. This was not the first time that Ranna has faced difficult singles challenges, as she has had to face the Sun God Sareee twice in 2025, but Iwata wrestles a style that Ranna is familiar with. In fact, Ranna is probably the wrestler in STARDOM that wrestles most like Mika Iwata which built some intrigue as to how the match would go. After Ranna landed her first kick to Iwata’s back, Iwata just smiled. On the second kick, she laughed at Ranna’s attempt. Ranna sat down, inviting Iwata’s signature kicks. This quickly evolved into a back and forth battle with kicks, not just inside the ring but outside too. This was a pretty good match with Ranna knowing how much she has improved in the last year in delivering a singles match like this with Mika Iwata. It is not a high-level match, but highly enjoyable and if you are a fan of Ranna, it’s worth the watch. After blasting Ranna with three brutal kicks, Iwata lifted Ranna up and hit Raion for the win.

Fresh off their returns on 8th December, Xena and Maika led their unit into friendly battle to help sharpen their skills ahead of the Future Title match between stablemates HANAKO and Rian, with Xena on Rian’s side and Maika on HANAKO’s side, reforming the Hai High Mate duo. After being criticised for her bland promos and quite a rough outing on the 8th December Korakuen Hall show, Rian has been attempting to inject some fire into her game and she refused to shake HANAKO hand before the match. She then launched herself at HANAKO like a twerp missile off of the bell. There were some great little moments from Rian in this match, like hugging HANAKO’s right leg in a failed attempt to prevent being put in the Boston crab. The crowd got behind Rian and she was given a lot in this match. I think her performance was better than the last show. It was quite funny to see Rian do a fighting spirit spot after HANAKO’s big boot, only to be lariated and folded in half by the JP Coaster for the loss. After the match, HANAKO told Rian that there was a large gap between them and that it would be embarrassing for her to lose to the “current Rian.” Maika called out Team 200kg and challenged them to show up at the next Korakuen Hall show on 24th December.

Rookies Ema Maishima and Kikyo Furusawa faced off against the future of Sendai Girls in Manami. The Sendai Girls World Junior Champion YUNA was there too. While Manami is an 8-year veteran, this was a good chance for rookies Ema, Kikyo and YUNA to shine. As one of the champions in the match, rookie YUNA got the win with her missile dropkick finisher. (YUNA is not a rookie. But she wrestles like one and so is labelled as such.)

While Ema and Kikyo had to contend with Sendai Girls, the rest of the 2025 STARDOM class clashed in a tag match as Akira Kurogane and Yuria Hime faced Anne Kanaya and Matoi Hamabe, the latter two also returning on the 8th December show. I found myself, once again, entranced by Anne Kanaya and the way she moves. It is really difficult to believe this was her 10th match. Her selling is great, and specifically the way she wrestled with Yuria in the opening sequence was fluid and did not look like the movement of a rookie. She either practices a ridiculous amount for her matches, or she is a natural talent. Either way, the result is great. This was a fine opener showcasing the future of the promotion as Akira pinned Matoi with the half-hatch suplex.

© onlylovewakana

Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling

Bitesize Round-up

On 10th December, TJPW announced that Moka Miyamoto was retiring. Miyamoto defeated Suzume for the International Princess Title on 21st July at Summer Sun Princess and was booked for some subsequent shows but pulled from them suddenly. The title was vacated in August which Arisu Endo went on to win. Miyamoto will not be holding a retirement ceremony, but she did provide some comments thanking the fans for supporting her and that she wanted to walk a new path.

Sareee will be participating in Grand Princess at Ryogoku Kokugikan on 29th March 2026. Sareee has two previous appearances in the promotion in 2020. TJPW also announced that Lei Ying Lee, who is the TNA Knockouts Champion, would also be making an appearance.

TJPW has officially announced their next US tour from 17th March to 22nd March, adding two shows to the Dallas and Houston stops they made in 2025, making it four shows in total. They will be holding shows across two days in Austin at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival which is held from 13th March to 18th March. This is the week before Grand Princess ’26. Their previous US tour was highly successful, including drawing their biggest crowd ever at the Dallas show on 13th July 2025. Tokyo Story USA, who helped deliver that tour, will once again be partnering with them. The previous comments from Tokyo Story USA did indicate an April tour. It’s unclear if they changed tactic or intend to run both the pre-Grand Princess US tour and also “Wrestlemania Weekend”.

TJPW’s tag team tournament, the 6th “Futari wa Princess” Max Heart Tournament, takes place in January and February with 12 teams. The tournament will have 4 first-round matches on 17th January in Yokohama Radiant Hall, 4 second-round matches on 25th January at Ryogoku KFC Hall, 2 semifinal matches on 31st January in Shinjuku FACE, and the final on 14th February at Korakuen Hall. The first four teams have been announced as current Princess Tag Team Champions Ober Eats (Yuki Kamifuku & Wakana Uehara), former Princess Tag Team Champions and winners of the 2nd tournament Daydream (Miu Watanabe & Rika Tatsumi), former Princess Tag Team Champions and winners of the 4th tournament Daisy Monkey (Arisu Endo & Suzume) and the current challengers to the Princess Tag Team Title “Spring Thunder, Raging Fire!! Prism Greed” (Yuki Aino & Haru Kazashiro).

“Wrestle Kingdom” Week Preview

On 27th December, TJPW will be at Shinjuku FACE hosting a Princess Rumble with two surprise entrants. Max The Impaler and Ram Kaicho have already been announced for the Rumble. Additionally, Kakeru Sekiguchi makes her 5th TJPW appearance of 2025.

TJPW usually has a killer 4th January show that tends to steal Wrestling Kingdom Week, and with the card announced, it is set up to very much do the same once again. The show is main evented by probably the biggest match TJPW could put on between two TJPW wrestlers as Miu Watanabe defends her Princess of Princess Title against Suzume. As we wrote about in our Wrestle Princess VI review in the last issue, TJPW has completed a changing of the guard and rubber stamped Miu as the ace with her second reign. With that, Miu has charged into battles with wrestlers you would not normally see in the main event at Korakuen Hall such as Yuki Aino. Suzume is another name that was elevated with the International Princess Title in 2025 but since dropping the title to Miyamoto at Summer Sun Princess, Suzume has consistently and gradually made her way up the card and finally challenged her close friend in Miu.

Miu is undoubtedly one of the best wrestlers in the world. On her ace-making run, she has experimented with a slightly heelish twist on her previous character, regularly referring to herself as “Miudarella”, the most Princess of Princesses. The most glamorous, the most beautiful, the most princessy. She’d annoy reporters and ring announcers, hounding them if they thought she was a princess. This character has achieved its goal of helping Miu raise the rest of the roster up with her, now that the old guard have stepped down, as we saw in her Tokyo Princess Cup Final against Arisu Endo and her defence against Yuki Aino. But, Miu has also not shied away from reverting back to her regular self against outside challengers such as J-Rod and Matcha. That versatility means that it is practically impossible for Miu to have a bad Princess of Princess Title match and she has figured it all out. Against her close friend, Miu has been caught with the Ring A Bell (a jumping cutter) in preview tags and thoroughly rocked, exposing a weakness in her game and giving Suzume a route to victory. Suzume is a small, agile, amazing underdog who has found ways to escape Miu’s impressive giant swing by grabbing the ropes mid swing. Against Suzume, I expect Miudarella to look to dominate the match and get the crowd behind Suzume, while Suzume finds different ways to land her Ring A Bell. Given this is an ace-making run, I expect Miu to defend successfully as there are still others she can help elevate that Suzume would be unable to do. On the other hand, Suzume may be the one they will want to give instant credibility to by having her beat Miu.

MIRAI will make her first TJPW appearance since September 2021 as she faces Suzume’s Daisy Monkey partner in Arisu Endo for the International Princess Title on 4th January at Korakuen Hall. At the 3rd December press conference, MIRAI said that she was very excited to face Arisu, who is from Fukushima prefecture which neighbours her beloved Iwate prefecture. They argued briefly over which prefecture was bigger. MIRAI’s career started in TJPW in May 2019 and had some matches with and against Arisu Endo in 2021 before leaving for STARDOM. This is a stylistic dream match, as MIRAI’s hard-hitting style combined with Arisu’s top-tier selling gives this match a chance to outshine even the main event.

Hyper Misao and Shoko Nakajima will have their annual 4th January match. Expect shenanigans. The good kind. The show was also scheduled to involve the debuts of Anri and Shion Kanzaki, who were due to be teaming with Uta Takami and rookie Ren Kontasu respectively. Anri’s debut had to be delayed and as at the time of writing the card changes were not finalised. This will be Konatsu’s first ever 4th January show. At a press conference on 3rd December, Konatsu mentioned that she was nervous as she had never had any classmates in her intake and now would immediately have two juniors for her first 4th January show. Konatsu also mentioned that the two had been in the dojo for seven months, and so were not that much behind her. Shion mentioned Shoko Nakajima and Miu Watanabe as her inspirations, while Anri mentioned Ober Eats (Yuki Kamifuku & Wakana Uehara) and Miu Watanabe. Speaking of Ober Eats, they will defend their Princess Tag Team Titles against Haru Kazashiro and Yuki Aino. If Wakana successfully defends against Haru, it would mean she has beaten almost all of her 2023 classmates in a Princess Tag Team Title match since she won the titles in September. Only Mifu Ashida is left.

Finally, on 10th January at Shinjuku FACE, the Princess of Princess Title match for Grand Princess ‘26 on 29th March will be decided by unannounced participants in an unannounced match format.

© TJPW

TJPW Live in Bangkok

13th December 2025
Company Announced Attendance: 327
The Circus Studio, Bangkok, Thailand
Watch On: Wrestle Universe (PPV)
Designation: Key Show
Recommended Match: Matcha vs. Miu Watanabe

As TJPW leads the way forward in South East Asia (SEA), they followed up their show in Malaysia in November with a show in Bangkok, Thailand, collaborating with Thai promotion SETUP. It wasn’t as extravagant as the TJPW show in Malaysia which also had collaborations with the idol group KLP48 and the support of DDT and some of their roster members, but the show had its own charm to it, and any show inspiring more people to take up wrestling in SEA is a step forward. Supporting promotions such as SETUP is how the next generation of stars are born. Diana has a Taiwanese wrestler called Syan Syan under contract who is one of the biggest prospects in the scene, and she took up wrestling in 2024 after watching women wrestlers in New Taiwan Entertainment Wrestling (NTW). The first ever woman wrestler in Taiwan was Princess Pistachio, who debuted in 2022, so you can see how quickly new stars can be created by just being inspired from attending live shows. TJPW should be given a lot of credit for leading the charge. The show was a PPV priced at ¥2500 (around £12 or $16). While I cannot say any match blew me away, I was more than happy to support TJPW’s initiative of growing the industry that we all love.

Prior to the show, the Princess of Princess Champion Miu Watanabe and her challenger on this show, SETUP’s top woman star, Matcha, held a press conference in English, so Miu does speak a bit of English, if you were wondering. Matcha is the current SETUP All Asia Women’s Champion and the only two-time champion, so she is very much the home promotion’s star and showed no deference to Miu as she refused the handshake at the start of the match. After being stretched out in an over-the-knee backbreaker, Matcha decided to play dirty, grabbing Miu by her ponytail and launching her into the crowd. Miu reversed the second Irish whip, sending Matcha into the ringpost, but Matcha would return a diving crossbody off the apron to regain control of the match. There was a rare mistiming from Miu on jumping to sell a hairwhip throw across the ring, so Matcha decided to repeat the spot. After teasing the giant swing earlier in the match, Miu caught Matcha mid-sprint and transitioned it into an awesome backbreaker before swinging the larger Matcha around with ease (it is seriously the best swing in wrestling today). Matcha caught Miu with a Cross Rhodes to catch her breath. They blasted each other with chops before Matcha dropped Miu with an awesome running lariat. Matcha followed up with a sick German suplex and an even sicker backdrop suplex, with Miu bumping so hard that she fell out of the ring. By the time Matcha brought her back into the ring, Miu had enough energy to grab the rope on the pin. Matcha tried to finish things off, but Miu countered with a Laser Beam chop and tried lifting Matcha for a Tear Drop. Matcha countered and hit another beautiful backdrop suplex with Miu almost landing on her neck. Matcha went for another signature move but Miu countered once again with the Laser Beam chop and managed to hit the spinning Tear Drop for the win. This was the standout match on the show.

The show was kicked off by Uta Takami against Yuki Kamifuku, with the crowd firmly on the side of one of TJPW’s best underdogs (Uta, if it wasn’t obvious). Nevertheless, Kamiyu did have some fans given that she is one of the most prolific Japanese wrestlers who has consistently made trips to wrestle in SEA countries such as the Philippines, Malaysia and China, Thailand, as well as holding titles in both Singapore and Vietnam in 2025. After failing to put on the Koala Clutch, Kamiyu put Takami away with the Famouser.

As well TJPW hosting their own shows in the region they have frequently sent talent to work on the shows of SEA promotions, which was how Kaya Toribami and Miyu Yamashita won the IWA Japan SETUP World Tag Team Championship at SETUP’s TOKYOSQUARE show in Japan on 14th November. They defended their titles against two former SETUP All Asia Women’s Champions in Pom Harajuku and Raku. Well. You’ve probably seen this one before. It was a total Pom and Raku match. Kaya and Miyu didn’t want to wake the sleepy Raku up so they tried to sneak up on her, but Pom came up from behind and tried to win with unsuccessful roll-ups. They later brawled in the crowd with Pom coming out with boxing gloves and tried to kill Miyu with punches. The match returned to normalcy, where basically every single move Miyu performed generated loud pops from the Thai crowd. Miyu pinned Raku with the Skull Kick to retain the titles.

Two-time Singapore Pro Wrestling’s (SPW) Queen of Asia Champion, Alexis Lee, attempted to topple the “Big Kaiju” Shoko Nakajima and win the MLW World Women’s Featherweight Champion from her. Alexis Lee had made four prior appearances in TJPW, including unsuccessfully challenging Yuki Kamifuku for her SPW and Vietnam Pro Wrestling’s titles in May 2024. Alexis also went on to challenge for the Princess Tag Team Titles in 2025 alongside Matcha. Lee attacked Shoko off the bell, garnering some heat. As she is Singaporean and not from the home promotion of SETUP, and Shoko is well beloved, this was a smart decision. Alexis wears half skeleton-half Singapore colours ring gear, as well as painting half her face as a skeleton. Despite expecting some dangerous death-defying suicide dives from Alexis like another half-dead skeleton boy, it was Shoko who launched herself at Alexis with a tope suicida. While there were some rough moments from Alexis, the crowd did not seem to care and were just happy to see some live wrestling with top stars, and who can blame them? Alexis moved the referee in front of Shoko’s shotgun dropkick, knocking him out. She then bit Shoko before delivering a Sister’s Abigail, before realising that she had in fact caused the ref bump. She then tried to hit Shoko with a title shot but that failed. Shoko went for a 619 but Alexis held up the title to block it and finally it Shoko with the title across the face. Alexis hit the running double knee strike and the referee slowly woke up and counted to 2.99, but Shoko kicked out and the crowd erupted.

Finally, Daisy Monkey (Arisu Endo & Suzume) beat Shino Suzuki and Yuki Arai in a match which continued to display Shino Suzuki’s improvement as she went toe-to-toe with the #1 contender for the Princess of Princess Title, Suzume. Of course, Suzume would eventually pin Shino with the Ring A Bell.

© HansenCamingsoo

DDT

Bitesize Round-up

The current ace and Wrestler of the Year candidate Yuki Ueno (missing off of prominent ‘30 under 30’ lists despite being eligible at the time) successfully defended his KO-D Openweight Title against the ace-in-waiting Takeshi Masada on 21st December at Korakuen Hall. Masada is the complete package. In order to succeed in DDT, you can’t just be good at wrestling. You have to be entertaining on every show, creative, handsome (DDT probably has a higher proportion of women viewers than any other in Japan, see his image above), hardworking (they tour a lot), and a good wrestler. In 2025, Masada has ticked every single box, from doing silly bits with his puppet Bunbun at Ueno Park, to knocking it out of the park with one of the best selling performances in 2025 against Minoru Suzuki in Yokohama on 6th December. He has tied up his year neatly with a cute bow in challenging the current ace Yuki Ueno, putting on a performance that will surely be referenced to when he finally is ready to take the top title…

Well, he is ready now, but there is no need for DDT to rush it. DDT would rather capitalise on the stardom of Kaisei Takechi and attempt to follow the trail of Saya Kamitani in pushing into traditional media such as network TV and media publications which usually ignore wrestling. With DDT targeting a Tokyo Dome show in the next couple of years, as STARDOM is, this is a smart strategy. Masada is the long-term ace, and he can wait and continue to get even better as he is only three years into his career, which is insane. On the other side of things, Ueno has fully cemented his status as the top guy and is still learning himself how to put on main events that peak at the right time as well as delivering promos that better fit the build. He has everything else down pat, including incorporating a bit of a heelish attitude to be a real roadblock to the amazing young talent that DDT has accrued, very similar in a way to their sister promotion TJPW where Miu Watanabe is the mirror image of Ueno. DDT has an absurd embarrassment of riches when it comes to young talent, once again similar to STARDOM, which is why both promotions have been the best in Japan in 2025, are headed to the Tokyo Dome, and will surely continue growing throughout the next decade.

We have a full review of the build to that match as well as the show itself.

Soma Takao will be taking time off starting in January 2026 to focus on treatment for an old injury to his left knee.

DDT have announced their Korakuen Hall schedule for 2026. There will be a total of 17 shows (after 14 in 2023, 15 in 2024 and 16 in 2025). Interestingly, on 22nd March there will be both a day and night show. That is normally around the date that one of the biggest shows of the year, “Judgment”, is held, so the big show will be a Korakuen double header. They later announced it would be a 5-hour special so it’s possible they just booked both slots so they don’t have to cut the card short for the evening booking. Also, there are two weekday evenings on 15th April and 9th December which DDT rarely does. Additionally, DDT announced that they would be running Ryogoku Kokugikan twice in 2026, on 11th August for “Peter Pan” and 3rd November for “Ultimate Party”, again indicating their ambition to run Tokyo Dome.

The D Generations Cup 2026 kicks off at the 5th January Shinjuku FACE show, with the wrestlers split into two blocks. DDT has some of the best young talent in the scene so the tournament is always a good showcase. While Yuya Koroku did challenge Chris Brookes for the KO-D Openweight Title following his 2025 win, the tournament winner in 2026 will receive a shot at the DDT Universal Title. This could be Ilusion’s year, although he is in the ‘Group of Death’, one of these groups is not like the other.

“Wrestle Kingdom” Week Preview

DDT’s “Wrestle Kingdom” Week starts at Shinjuku Face on 24th December, which kicks off the road to the 3rd January Korakuen Hall show with preview tags between Strange Love Connection (KANON & MAO), their honorary member Kazuma Sumi, and 37KAMIINA (To-y & Yuki Ueno). Given Kaisei Takechi’s busy schedule, he will only be appearing on 3rd January for the KO-D Six Man Tag Team Title that 37KAMIINA hold and will try to keep from SLC and Sumi. That show also has the long-anticipated singles match between the original twerp Ilusion and O-MENZ rapper and dancer Kumadori, another ‘celebrity’ wrestler (he’s nowhere near as popular as Takechi). It has been delayed a few times due to unfortunate illnesses and circumstances. This show will have happened by the time the issue is out but the reviewer is currently on a plane to Tokyo, so have the card anyway in case you weren’t sure if you wanted to watch it.

DDT makes the unusual trip west, away from Tokyo, towards Nagoya for a double header. Taking place on the 27th and 28th January, these will be aired on VOD on 30th and 31st December on Wrestle Universe. These are more like your house shows which are a load of fun but not mandatory viewing unless you are a DDT sicko. Although with that said, there is a very rare defence of the KO-D Ten Man Tag Team Title on the 28th December show, as D Generations (Daichi Sato, Kazuma Sumi, To-y, Yuki Ishida & Yuya Koroku) defend against DAMNATION T.A. Daichi Sato is standing in for Keigo Nakamura, currently on excursion. I watched every show this year and forgot that these titles existed and that D Generations even held those titles.

The 3rd January show will be a mystery vortex show aside from the already announced main event for the KO-D Six Man Tag Team Titles with Kaisei Takechi, To-y and Yuki Ueno defending against KANON, Kazuma Sumi and MAO. Konosuke Takeshita will also make an appearance and Takeshi Masada will be leaving Schadenfreude International and beginning his own journey to the top. It will probably be an amazing show so consider adding it to your schedule.

BE AMBITIOUS ~Autumn Battle Rhapsody~

21st December 2025
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan
Watch On: Wrestle Universe
Designation: Key Show
Recommended Match: Takeshi Masada vs. Yuki Ueno

DDT held their final Korakuen Hall show of the year on 21st January, main evented by the blockbuster match (at least for me) for the KO-D Openweight Title between champion Yuki Ueno and challenger Takeshi Masada. The build for this match can be followed through the review on 3rd and 14th December, but the short of it is that Ueno has developed a more heelish attitude, especially since dispatching Kazuki Hirata at “Dramatic Infinity” in September. He understands that he is now the ace and it is his responsibility to elevate people. You can see my thoughts in previous reviews, but Masada has been intentionally sheepish and scatter-brained in the build. This has deliberately not been set up as an ‘ace-in-waiting topples the ace’ feud, and is clearly more of a taster feud to set Masada on his long journey before he can win his first title. Therefore, as a Masada-head, while I didn’t fully enjoy Ueno’s promos and Masada’s responses, if it plays into a longer storyline arc when he finally captures the titles, then that makes all the sense in the world. The build did mean that it was very clear who was winning this match, though. That didn’t make me any less invested in my special little guy, Masada, making Ueno show some ass (figuratively, which I have to state explicitly since it’s a DDT review).

Masada was immediately out of the gate and tried to put Ueno away with a Chikara KOBU Mukimuki, but Ueno wriggled his way out. Ueno went on to bully Masada outside and inside the ring, delivering hammer and anvil elbows to Masada’s neck, Blackpool Combat Club-style. Following that, I thought I was settling in to see Masada sell and sell and sell, just as he had against Minoru Suzuki, but then after receiving a snap German suplex and an awesome looking rebound Canadian destroyer from Ueno, Masada fought through to deliver a Zack Sabre Jr.-style penalty kick to Ueno. Masada continued the comeback with a flatliner on the apron and a swan dive dropkick. Masada then landed one of the scene’s most beautiful German suplexes onto Ueno for a nearfall. Ueno snapped back, intercepting Masada’s triangle kick with a half-and-half suplex and a frog splash, before locking in the sleeper hold that he submitted Masada with in Shinjuku on 3rd December. This time, he broke the hold. After finally landing his triangle kick, Masada slapped Ueno around the face, ran the ropes but was knocked down by Ueno’s perfect dropkick.

The last few minutes of this match had all the heat in the world as the two hit countered each other’s moves, including Masada kicking out of Ueno’s fierce lariat at one. Masada hit a Canadian Hammer (Canadian backbreaker into an inverted powerslam) into Chikara KOBU Mukimuki which was the best nearfall of the match and made my mouth drop. Masada needed to go one step further and set Ueno up for the Super Chikara KOBU Mukimuki, but Ueno countered into an incredible super Frankensteiner for a nearfall. Ueno then quickly locked in the WR, but backed out of it, wanting to send a message to the ace-in-waiting. He then launched a lethal dropkick to Masada’s head, the same way he had ruthlessly put away Super Sasadango Machine on the last Korakuen Hall show. He thumped Masada with an elbow, waiting to see what the ace-in-waiting would do, and Masada responded with a thudding elbow of his own. This was what Ueno had wanted to bring out of Masada. After trading open-handed strikes, Ueno knocked Masada away with another brutal dropkick before finally deciding to finish Masada off with WR. This match was excellent. Ueno is the undisputed ace of DDT, one of the best champions in the world and one of the best workers in the world. Thankfully, he has been reading my columns and listening to Wrestling Omakase where I pleaded with him to shorten his match lengths. This match was the perfect length and peaked at the right time. It was 21 minutes but it didn’t feel like it. That seems to be the sweet spot for Ueno’s matches, rather than the 28 minute plus marathons he likes to do. Now, can you shorten your promos please, Ueno?

Daisuke Sasaki came out and challenged. They shook hands and then Sasaki lowblowed him. Chris Brookes came to the rescue and was about to hit Sasaki with the belt but stopped. Brookes then handed Ueno his belt back but slapped him around the face. This set up a three-way for the 25th January Korakuen Hall show, which will be a two-falls match, with the first fall for the Universal Title and the second fall for the KO-D Title. That is a very interesting match. I am thinking Ueno may lose the Universal Title there. Additionally, backstage Masada announced that he would be leaving Schadenfreude International on the 3rd January show. I am hoping that this is because he will lead his own unit. It would not be good if he joined 37KAMIINA or Strange Love Connection as that’d be a step back in his development. While D Generations is technically not a faction, he is the perfect person to lead a new group of D Generations talent, namely Yuya Koroku, Daichi Sato and Kazuma Sumi, all without units and all standouts of the D Generations group. To-y and Yuki Ishida have units, Hinata Kasai is a rookie and Rukiya is Rukiya.

F-SWAG, consisting of FREEDOMS wrestler Gaia Hox and freelancer Jun Masaoka challenged Strange Love Connection (KANON & MAO) for their KO-D Tag Team Title. This was a great match with cool spots, such as Gaia avoiding MAO’s over-the-referee cutter by doing a handspring. Gaia was the best person in this match with some great selling and bumps. Gaia tried to win the match by smacking KANON over the head with the F-SWAG danger sign, but MAO broke up the pin with the same sign. After a brief struggle, KANON impressively delivered LONELY DEZIRES to Gaia for the win. The Apex came out to challenge for the tag team belts next on 25th January at Korakuen Hall.

Following the 3rd December show, Yasu Urano became the unofficial DDT Extreme Champion (a division in which there are new rules for each defense) and took the belt from To-y, although it’s unclear if it will actually count as a reign as it was after the show and Akito wasn’t happy about it, instead telling them to sort it out at Korakuen Hall. To-y wants the title back to continue his gambling addiction, saying that being the DDT Extreme Champion allowed him to create gambling rules without using his own money. However, this title match wouldn’t allow him to turn a profit by gambling. After a back-and-forth “Rock, Paper, Scissors” (janken) battle on social media using AI generated videos, the victor Yasu Urano would select the rules of the DDT Extreme bout with champion To-y. The rules were that every 2 minutes, a specific move was the only valid way to win the bout. The moves would be selected at random from posts using a Twitter hashtag. If the match ended in a draw, Urano would win. In the first “slap” round, To-y accidentally slapped referee Matsui, who returned the favour. Both survived the round. Then, the “Gorgeous Superstar Elbow” round, where both To-y and Urano failed multiple times to hit it correctly so Matsui would not count the pin. This was a bit painful. In the reverse pin round, they traded back and forth backslides. The next round was the Kojima Wonderland and, as that’s To-y’s finisher, Urano just ran away. They both survived the round before the next round named “referee’s brainbuster,” where To-y or Urano could only win if Matsui hit a brainbuster on one of them. Matsui’s facial expressions were on point as always here. To-y poked Matsui up the butt to give him a lift and allow him to pick Urano up in a brainbuster outside the ring. Then To-y lifted Urano onto the turnbuckle and got Matsui to give him a brainbuster from the top rope for the win. This was another successful match for To-y, who looks to be going on a historic DDT Extreme run.

DAMNATION T.A. (Daisuke Sasaki, Demus, Hideki Okatani & Ilusion) took on the “Match 2” legends in Danshoku Dieno, Kazuki Hirata, Super Sasadango Machine (SSM) & Toru Owashi. Toru tried to hit Hirata with a chair during his entrance but referee Matsui stopped him. The “Match 2” legends decided that they would attempt to be a mean heel unit to try and counter DDT’s only heel unit, DAMNATION T.A. They were completely destroyed within a few seconds as Hirata submitted to Sasaki. As DAMNATION T.A. were preparing to leave, Hirata convinced him to restart the match. On the second attempt, they missed with the weapons (because they are not very good at using weapons) and Sasaki was about to submit SSM but his evil heel teammates broke up the pin. Demus, who usually bites nipples, pulled out SSM’s straps to reveal his nipples, but did not like the old man’s nipple so put the straps back on. Then he decided “a nipple is a nipple” and dug in there, real good. Later, SSM’s mask was taken off to reveal very evil-like facepaint with scared DAMNATION T.A., but particularly Demus whose expression was hilarious. Hirata then ordered Dino into the corner and pulled down his pants to reveal the same facepaint, well I guess asspaint, on Dino’s ass. Hirata tried to Irish whip Demus into Dino’s ass but failed, going into Dino’s ass himself. It was all downhill from there and Hirata was pinned by Ilusion’s swanton bomb.

New Japan legend Yuji Nagata, 57, and DDT co-founder Sanshiro Takagi, 55, faced DDT veteran HARASHIMA, 51, and the Tokyo Sports Rookie of the Year, Kaisei Takechi. Nagata is associated with Takagi’s Super Japan Pro Wrestling side-project. Takechi was sporting new music for this tag match alongside the uncs. We all know that Takechi is a pretty good rookie. But, since Takechi has won an award, I think now I am allowed to criticise some of the things he is not good at. Striking is definitely one of them, with weaker elbow strikes than Hinata Kasai. To be fair, Hinata has had three times as many matches as Takechi. From all accounts, including his interview that he gave to Shupro a few weeks ago, Takagi is trying to make Takechi a superstar. That was made obvious here as he ate Takechi’s flying elbow (like a phenomenal forearm) to get pinned. After the match, Nagata wished Takechi well in the Tokyo Dome on 4th January, where he will be competing in the NEVER Openweight Six Man Tag Team Rambo.

Antonio Honda, Chris Brookes & Hinata Kasai faced Harimao (Kazusada Higuchi, Naomi Yoshimura & Yuki Ishida) and Shinya Aoki & The Apex (Yuki Iino & Yukio Naya) in a three-way nine-man tag. This was probably the most featured that Hinata has been as he kept running at Iino only to get his head taken off with a lariat. For some reason, Aoki really wanted to play with Iino’s nipples. It might be that he got indoctrinated by Demus.

Minoru Suzuki returned to a DDT Korakuen Hall show for the first time since losing the DDT Universal Title to Yuki Ueno. After getting owned by Ueno at Ryogoku Kokugikan on 3rd November, it was only fitting that Minoru was relegated to the opener, teaming with Akito against Jun Akiyama and Yuya Koroku. Koroku, probably the best worker out of the young talent in DDT, has been on the backburner in recent months. There was a slight attempt to reignite him in this match as he brawled with Minoru. Koroku looked great in this match stepping up to Minoru and I hope it’s the first of many to come.

17-year-old Yuni, who had taken a study break, returned in the dark match teaming with Kazuma Sumi and Soma Takao against Daichi Sato, Rukiya and Tomomitsu Matsunaga. Of course, he looked as athletic as ever. Takao won with a flash pin on Matsunaga.

© All Japan Pro Wrestling

All Japan Pro Wrestling

Bitesize Round-up

The World’s Strongest Tag League came to an end on 10th December. All in all, the Tag League has been surprisingly entertaining. When a new VOD was released, I wasn’t groaning or gritting my teeth about what I’d get, I was strangely excited. The tournament grew on me throughout its duration, largely due to the effort the wrestlers were putting into it. I ended up recommending far more matches than I expected to recommend (actual: four, expected: zero), and I even had fun watching some Davey Boy Smith Jr. matches. Who would’ve thought? The only part of the tournament I lamented were the World Tag Team Champions themselves, Bad HAVOC (Oddyssey & XYON), and I’ve unfortunately reached the end of my rope when it comes to Oddyssey matches. Naturally, they ended up making it to the finals undefeated with a record of 5-0, meeting Titans of Calamity in the final. My words in the last issue were “Okay, there’s no way Titans of Calamity don’t win.” Well, I guess it pays off to follow the product, since the Titans beat Bad HAVOC in the final to win the World’s Strongest Tag League 2025. I’m not quite sure why Bad HAVOC made it to the finals if they were going to get beaten. They could’ve been eliminated with a few draws to keep the Titans/HAVOC match fresh, rather than having to run the match twice in a row, but that’s a nitpick. It was the first time a foreigner had won since the 2018 team of Joe Doering and Dylan James.

The Titans have not been as bad as Bad HAVOC (who I’ve given that moniker to distinguish them from Good HAVOC (Go Shiozaki & Shotaro Ashino)). Talos has been one of the best finds All Japan has made all year. He’s over and is a pretty good worker. No complaints from me. There have been a few wobbles where I wish Titans sold a bit more, but that’s not really on them as Japan loves that dynamic. Ayabe has been notably a bit more lethal with his strikes, almost showing delight when inflicting punishment on his puny opponents. I’m not saying he’s a world beater, but all in all it’s been good. XYON is not the problem. He is over, and his offence is entirely inoffensive. Oddyssey, however, can quite literally not keep quiet and spends most of his matches yapping on the sidelines or to the crowd, while barely giving his opponents anything. Look no further than their match against Atsu@Haya (Atsuki Aoyagi & Rising HAYATO) which I actively hated. But, when you consider the breadth of the whole tour, Bad HAVOC were only six matches of the tour, so it’s not as if it was enough to blemish the entire tournament, which was largely good and much better than the Royal Road tournament which had some stinkers (also involving Oddyssey).

There was an interesting column in Shupro #2389 which explored the issues All Japan is facing, namely in its intake of new talent. All Japan opened up a recruitment drive on 7th December, with tests held on 21st December. The article noted that former Triple Crown Champion Yuma Anzai, who debuted in 2022, is actually the most junior member of the roster. With that, the article reported that Anzai is still doing rookie duties such as doing laundry and organising water for their practices. Anzai accepts these jobs without complaining, but the article posits that it stifles growth as no matter how much of a star you are, if you’re doing those jobs you’ll always be seen as a rookie. They note that New Japan and NOAH have a successful cycle that keeps things moving, but All Japan’s lack of a talent cycle is why it struggles to be seen as a major promotion. It should be noted that while Anzai does rookie jobs, he also helps with trainees in the dojo. In Shupro #2390, President Tsuyoki Fukuda took a look back at All Japan’s 2025 and highlighted how happy he was that All Japan could return to being the promotion associated with “big foreign wrestlers” by bringing in Talos, Oddyssey and XYON (one of these is not like the others). Fukuda is pressed about Anzai’s duties but says that they will stay the course, since even if they reduce the barrier to entry, it’s still difficult to remain a wrestler, so they want to ensure that rookies know what they are signing up for. He also said that the business risk is too big if they aim for Ryogoku Kokugikan or Nippon Budokan so they have no immediate plans to target bigger arenas. Their 2026 “big match schedule” will be largely the same as 2025.

© w9QWouVwjN8027

“Wrestle Kingdom” Week Preview

The first major All Japan show on “Wrestle Kingdom” Week is New Year’s Eve at Yoyogi National Gymnasium #2 in Tokyo. The main news coming out of the announcement of the cards is not positive. All Japan is making it pretty difficult to follow them as a product as they announced dates for disgraced former NOAH rookie Yasutaka Yano, who was fired after a sexual misconduct case. He now wrestles under a mask and goes under the name KURAMA. He had not wrestled for a notable promotion in Japan before this booking, so All Japan are taking it upon themselves to reintegrate Yano into Japanese wrestling. Lovely. This has caused many fans to rightly boycott attending or watching the show he is main eventing on 3rd January against Atsuki Aoyagi for the World Junior Heavyweight Title.

Elsewhere on the 31st December show, Cyrus makes his return to the promotion after not competing for All Japan since 3rd January 2025. The most exciting part of the card are the top three matches. In the first, former Triple Crown Champion Jun Saito takes on Go Shiozaki. While I’m not expecting fireworks, I do expect it to be a solid battle heading into the top two matches. Go Shiozaki in particular has had a great run since joining the promotion with several recommended matches.

In the semi-main event, Dragongate invaders ISHIN and Yoshiki Kato take on one of the most underrated tag teams in Mu-chan & Sei-chan (MUSASHI & Seiki Yoshioka). While I have had some criticisms for MUSASHI and especially Yoshioka in singles matches during his reign, as a duo they are undeniably good and had some absolutely great matches during the Tag League and even before that during their feud with the Aoyagis and Rising HAYATO. All of that was some of the best stuff in All Japan throughout the year. Yoshiki Kato revealed that he was denied by All Japan before becoming a cop which led to him returning to the industry and going with Dragongate instead. The promo he cut at Korakuen Hall on 10th December was great and the crowd loved it. ISHIN is a naturally charismatic heel, one of the most entertaining actually, so their challenge to Mu-chan and Sei-chan for the All Asia Tag Team Titles would be able to steal any show on any given night.

But – not on a night that is main evented by the current ace, the Triple Crown Champion, Kento Miyahara, defending his title against the ace-in-waiting Yuma Anzai. This is one of the matches I regret not getting tickets to see, as I decided to watch Ice Ribbon in the morning instead and stick to my “one show a day” rule, which was a difficult, long-winding, grueling negotiation carried out throughout the year with my wife. This match is going to be awesome. It just is. They have great chemistry, Kento feels like he is more over than he normally is and I don’t get the “oh Kento is champion again” feeling. It feels fresh, perhaps because it is in contrast to Jun Saito’s never-ending run in 2025 which had maybe one defence I really enjoyed against Hideki Suzuki. Then, from Anzai’s point of view, he never has a bad match. He is the most clear next ace of the company with no one even close to him. The crowd loves him, he’s a handsome devil who draws the girls*, which is becoming an important story in Japan’s live show attendances (see DDT), and he’s one of the best wrestlers on the roster only three years into his career. He is the guy. Given how young he is, it wouldn’t be a travesty for Anzai to lose this match, but Anzai did beat Kento to defend the Triple Crown in May 2024, so it’s not unprecedented for Anzai to beat Kento. They are 1-1 in singles, and as Paul Völsch mentioned on the Emerald Flowshow podcast, it would be an interesting story for Anzai to be the guy that keeps beating Kento, especially if they have another five to ten years in the rivalry. They could go either way and that’s another thing that will make this match exciting.

*(Editor’s Note: WTF I just searched him and uhhhhh, yeah.)

On the 2nd January, All Japan is running Korakuen Hall with a slightly understated card. The main event will be Oddyssey and XYON defending the All Japan World Tag Team Titles against the World’s Strongest League winners Titans of Calamity (Ren Ayabe & Talos). The standout matches will likely be Daisuke Sekimoto vs. Ryo Inoue, who has been receiving a sustained push for the past few months, and Go Shiozaki vs. Shota Kofuji, which could be an initiation match for Kofuji as he looks increasingly likely to be signed by All Japan.

The 3rd January show, also at Korakuen Hall, is looking even more out of juice with a bunch of tag matches. The singles matches are Daisuke Sekimoto vs. Shotaro Ashino, which will definitely be the match of the night, and the unwelcome sight of Atsuki Aoyagi defending his World Junior Heavyweight Title against KURAMA. This might be one to skip and just watch the Sekimoto and Ashino match on demand after.

© All Japan Pro Wrestling

World’s Strongest Tag League – Semi-Finals & Finals

Company Announced Attendance: 1,307
10th December 2025
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan
Designation: Key Show
Recommended Match: Daisuke Sekimoto & Dan Tamura vs. Go Shiozaki & Shotaro Ashino

All Japan’s annual Tag League wrapped up where it started, at Korakuen Hall, for the final show of the year at the venue. I’ve said it before, but I think All Japan has the hottest crowds in Japan relative to the level of its product. The All Japan crowd absolutely elevates all their matches, especially in Korakuen Hall and Shin-Kiba 1st RING. It was no different for this show, which turned it into an easy watch. The low point was perhaps the main event, given I have not really enjoyed the Oddyssey and XYON combo much during the tour. However, I cannot say the same for the crowd who were invested in the match and cheered loudly for the teams as they brawled over Korakuen Hall. This was one of those matches I could not get into personally, but it obviously worked for the live crowd and it was likely Bad HAVOC’s best performance this tour. Talos aimed to wow as he connected with a diving lariat onto Oddyssey, to the shrieks of the crowd, before Ayabe went for the Death Roulette onto XYON but XYON countered. Ayabe eventually got the Death Roulette, winning the tournament. It was a good match and overdelivered. If you do not have a predisposition to dislike everything Oddyssey does, you may enjoy it even more. The Titans said they are going after Bad HAVOC’s titles next.

The Triple Crown Champion and most over person on the roster, Kento Miyahara, teamed up with Hideki Suzuki and Ryuki Honda against Davey Boy Smith Jr., Kengo Mashimo and Naoya Nomura. This was basically splitting three Tag League teams down the middle and pitting them against each other, as Kento and DBS, Hideki and Kengo, and Ryuki and Nomura were all paired together during the tour. This was basically wrestled like an all-star match for the crowd. By that I mean everyone was over, everyone got a turn but there weren’t many, if at all, storyline implications. Honda and Nomura were the best part of this match by quite a mile as they went to war with each other with thunderous lariats, elbows and brainbusters. Kento caught a flash pin on DBS to win the match. Kento called out his next challenger, which had already been decided, to the ring. As Anzai was leaving, Kento attacked him and hit a Shutdown suplex on him, just to show him who was boss.

Dragongate’s Gajadokuro (ISHIN, Madoka Kikuta & Yoshiki Kato) made a rare All Japan appearance as they clashed with Jun Saito, Naruki Doi and Yuma Anzai. There was some history here, as Anzai had gone up against these Dragongate opponents in 2025 already on the 24th September Gate of Miyane 2 show where he faced Dream Gate Champion Kikuta and Kato. Then, on 7th November at Naruki Doi’s anniversary show, whose roots are in Dragongate, the Saito Family faced Gajadokuro, while Anzai faced the ace, YAMATO, so the opponents for this rare cross-promotion match all made sense. Kikuta competed in the Champions Carnival in 2025, but this time he was returning as the top heel and champion in his home promotion. He had turned heel at “Dead or Alive” in Dragongate in May, while he was in the Champions Carnival. I am not sure if it’s just my hearing, but I am pretty sure the crowd were chanting for Kikuta when he tagged in to go up against Naruki Doi, so he might still be quite over among the All Japan faithful. Kikuta was at his best with Anzai. He’s had quite a middling title reign with some bright spots, but never quite hitting the potential he clearly has. But when he was in the ring with Anzai, he was operating at a higher level. Kato got the pin on Doi.

After the match Kato cut a promo with the crowd going wild with a lot of laughter. He said that he once got rejected by All Japan, then became a cop before joining Dragongate. He asked the crowd where he worked and one smart fan gave the correct answer, to which he was impressed. Kato rambled about Nagano prefecture before saying he wanted to stick it to All Japan by winning the titles that ISHIN’s hero Giant Baba once held. He called out the All Asia Tag Team Champions Mu-chan and Sei-chan (MUSASHI & Seiki Yoshioka). MUSASHI accepted, while ISHIN said they would challenge as “Icchan and Yocchan”. Anzai said that he would take the Triple Crown from Kento and then nominate Kikuta as his first defence.

Daisuke Sekimoto returned from an injured leg after a few months. It was initially reported as a broken leg, so unless he has Wolverine-like healing powers, this was an unusually fast return, or it was a mistranslation and it was just a fracture, or some other injury, to his right leg. He teamed with Dan Tamura against the Good HAVOC team of Go Shiozaki and Shotaro Ashino for an explosive, hard-hitting tag match. For two puro modern day legends, the last time Shiozaki and Sekimoto met was in the NOAH Tag League in 2020, and they have only met in four matches before this one. This match was so great. The crowd (and I) loved Shiozaki and Sekimoto chopping the hell out of each other. It wasn’t just chops, they exchanged stiff lariats (Dan’s forte) and German suplexes. It was just classic puro. There was a sick combination as Ashino landed a stellar uppercut to Sekimoto, which re-routed Sekimoto to a shotgun chop from Shiozaki, into a German suplex and lariat combo onto Sekimoto. Then, it was Dan’s turn to go up against the monster Shiozaki who slapped Dan’s chest raw, before Dan retaliated with his signature lariats. Shiozaki dodged the final lariat and countered with a brainbuster. Dan kicked out to the roar of the crowd, but Shiozaki’s Gowan lariat capped off an excellent match.

There was an all G Boys clash as Hokuto Omori & Kuma Arashi faced Kuroshio TOKYO Japan and Takashi. There was an angle after the match where the Uptown Boys (Jiro & Tachibana) appeared to split from Hokuto-gun (Omori, Arashi and Takashi).

In the opener, four of the most over people in the company that attract most of the women’s demo for All Japan – Atsuki Aoyagi, Rising HAYATO, Ryo Inoue and Shota Kofuji – took on a group of ugly, but fun, vets in Hikaru Sato, MUSASHI, Seigo Tachibana and Seiki Yoshioka. Inoue, who has been getting somewhat of a push in recent months, had the crowd chanting his name as he started the match. Given how many over wrestlers were in this match, it ended up being pretty great, with Tachibana’s fun striking exchanges a big highlight for me. Atsuki pinned Tachibana with the Firebird splash for the win.

Dragongate

Bitesize Round-up

The King of Gate tournament wrapped up on 3rd December as Gianni Valletta was crowned the winner of the tournament, first beating Riiita and then ISHIN on the same night at Korakuen Hall. Voices of Wrestling’s Case Lowe has written a great retrospective on Gianni Valletta if you want to know about his background. He is only the second foreign winner in the tournament’s 20-year history and the first since Ricochet in 2013.

We have full reviews of every show and match, and a list of recommended matches from the tournament in our last issue. In short, it was a solid tournament with a few standout matchups. All in all, I think I would hand the MVP of the tournament to either JACKY KAMEI and Yuki Yoshioka who performed at a high level in multiple matches, but a shoutout does need to be given to the winner Valletta who had some of the best matches of his career in a single night.

The Open The Triangle Gate Tournament took place over the last few weeks after PSYPATRA (Gianni Valletta, Homare and Shun Skywalker) vacated the title due to an injury suffered by Homare. The format was a round-robin tournament leading to a finals match between first and second place. The teams competing were PARADOX (BxB Hulk, Dragon Kid & YAMATO), Natural Vibes (Kzy, Strong Machine J & U-T), Love & Peace (Ben-K, Hyo & Mochizuki Jr.), D’Courage (Dragon Dia, Ryoya Tanaka & Yuki Yoshioka) and Gajadokuro (Jason Lee, KAI & Kota Minoura). While there haven’t been any blowaway matches, it’s been an enjoyable watch, although a handful of the matches did not make tape and were for the live audience. In the end, the finals were contested by Gajadokuro, Natural Vibes and Love & Peace in a three-way on 27th December at Kobe Sambo Hall, with Love & Peace finally earning championships after being inarguably the best in-ring unit in the world. Right after winning, they followed up with a great match against former Mochizuki Dojo members Akihiro Sahara, Daiki Yanagiuchi & Ryu Fuda.

There was a feature in Shupro #2389 with Ryo Saito talking about Dragongate’s year. The main theme highlighted was about Dragongate co-operating with other promotions such as New Japan, All Japan and NOAH, all while being able to run their own shows without a problem, indicating their current roster depth. He also highlighted Hiroshi Tanahashi’s interactions with Yuki Yoshioka, who was identified as a potential ace for the promotion going forward by both the editor-in-chief and Ryo Saito himself. Finally, Saito admitted that while attendance didn’t grow that much in 2025, they feel they have momentum on their side. Saito highlights the conservative nature of Dragongate from the business point of view, in contrast to their in-ring work. Saito implies that this will continue to be the case and will continue co-operating with other promotions.

As the odd promotion out, Dragongate are one of the few promotions not running any shows in Tokyo during “Wrestle Kingdom” Week, preferring to stay in their base of Kobe while taking time off. After the Open The Triangle Gate finals on 27th December, and another show in Kobe on 28th December, Dragongate have shows on the 8th and 9th of January in Kobe Sambo Hall, and then on the 11th January at EDION Arena Osaka #2, in Osaka. Dragongate’s next big show is at Fukuoka International Center on 23rd February, an event normally held at the end of the year.

© Dragongate

King of Gate Finals

3rd December 2025
Company Announced Attendance: 1,051
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan
Watch On: dragongate.live
Designation: Key Show
Recommended King of Gate Matches: Gianni Valletta vs. Riiita, Gianni Valletta vs. ISHIN

In what might be considered an upset, the Maltese man Gianni Valletta was crowned the King of Gate 2025 Champion after having a great night with two recommended matches. Gianni had returned to the promotion as a surprise in October and swerved the top-heel unit Gajadokuro (previously Z-Brats) by joining Shun Skywalker’s PSYPATRA unit and causing chaos. Gianni set up a match with former Z-Brats teammate and Open The Dream Gate Champion Madoka Kikuta for 16th December at Korakuen Hall. Gianni made his way to the finals by stomping through Riiita, who launched himself at Gianni early on in the match with a tornillo and a Vuelo de Aguila. Riiita, who advanced to the finals due to an injury to YAMATO in the semi-finals, was spurred on by YAMATO who had reassured him that he deserved to be there. It might not have felt that way for Riiita as he was bullied and thrown away. Riiita even attempted YAMATO’s pose before telling Korakuen Hall he was going to suplex Gianni, a classic YAMATO spot, but Gianni blocked it and then threw Riiita outside of the ring onto a few seconds. Gianni tried to finish Riiita with the King Kong Knee Drop, but Riiita dodged. Gianni hoisted Riiita up for a Last Ride, but Riiita countered with Riiitanic for a great nearfall. Unfortunately, despite the scare, Gianni lariated Riiita into next week and then landed the King Kong Knee Drop for the win. This was a great David vs. Goliath archetype of a match.

ISHIN delivered his own upset in the semi-finals by defeating the pre-tournament favourite in Yuki Yoshioka. Given that Yoshioka’s storyline of 2025 has been one of redemption following his lowest points in the post-Dead or Alive season in May and June, one would not be blamed for assuming Yoshioka would go on to win King of Gate and then ultimately dethrone Madoka Kikuta. However, Yoshioka knocked Kikuta out of King of Gate in the first round, meaning if Dragongate wanted to book that match, they could still do so, or they could simply close that chapter with the King of Gate match, which would feel a slight bit underwhelming. That is also the word I’d use to describe the first 5-7 minutes of his match with ISHIN in the semi-finals. ISHIN walked over Yoshioka at a slow, Kikuta-like pace before the match picked up speed and Yoshioka showed off parts of his aggression and speed that have allowed him to have a great tournament up to that point, ending a blistering sequence with his Battle Hook lariat. Yoshioka went for the High Fly Flow, which no one had kicked out of, and technically, still didn’t, as ISHIN was hit with the move but flash pinned Yoshioka immediately after.

The final match between Gianni and ISHIN began as soon as Gianni entered the ring and he attempted to finish ISHIN off early with the King Kong Knee Drop but ISHIN evaded and rolled outside the ring. Gianni dominated ISHIN over the next several minutes, both outside and inside the ring. The former Brave Gate Champion ISHIN then turned back the clocks as he staggered Gianni with a dropkick before following up with a rare tope suicida. Gianni narrowly rolled back into the ring on a 19-count, so ISHIN connected with a rare diving double foot stomp and a superfly splash for a nearfall. Due to that excellent moment in the match, ISHIN’s hometown crowd finally rallied behind him, in contrast to the semi-final match with Yoshioka. Gianni was fighting for his life and so he tossed ISHIN into the turnbuckle with a deadly brainbuster. ISHIN feigned being hurt, but as Kota Minoura distracted the referee, ISHIN misted Gianni, before hitting a low blow and a lariat for a great nearfall. The crowd was at their peak, the atmosphere was hot and ISHIN attempted his signature bridging German suplex, but it wasn’t enough. Gianni regained control of the fight as he turned ISHIN out with a stiff lariat, hit the Iron Claw slam and then the King Kong Knee Drop EX, for what you’d think was the win. ISHIN mustered all his strength to be one of the few to kick out of the deadly move, and the first this tournament. Gianni went to the top rope for an incredibly rare Super King Kong Knee Drop EX, the Double EX, to finish ISHIN off.

After winning the tournament, Gianni did something he doesn’t do very often at all as he picked up a mic and yelled for Kikuta to come out. Gianni spoke in Maltese, English and Japanese, which is an extremely funny bit, before challenging Kikuta. Kikuta responded that he had no idea what language Gianni was speaking but he would accept the challenge. The crowd loved this. Let’s be honest, this isn’t really a huge main event or anything like that, but it will be a lot of fun and perfect for the final Korakuen Hall show of the year.

Undercard

The undercard was largely skippable, with most of the matches set up to simply give some certain wrestlers momentum. A team reminiscent of the Toryumon days in Don Fujii, Genki Horiguchi, Masaaki Mochizuki, Susumu Yokosuka and Yasushi Kanda were roundly beaten by Gajadokuro (Jason Lee, KAI, Kota Minoura, Madoka Kikuta & Yoshiki Kato). The crowd was hot for the finish of this match between Minoura and Genki, as Genki almost won with the Backslide from Heaven. After the match, Kota Minoura cut a rare promo announcing Gajadokuro’s intention of running through all over units to win the vacant Open The Triangle Gate Tournament.

PSYPATRA (Shun Skywalker & El Cielo) beat Dragon Kid & YAMATO in a fun five-minute match. El Cielo landed a spinning Tombstone Piledriver onto Dragon Kid while Shun was cackling loudly at ringside, out of sight of the camera but very much within audio range of the microphones. This was to just establish El Cielo with a big win over Dragon Kid. YAMATO seemed fine following his stinger in the 26th November quarter-final in Omuta.

Dragongate debuted a new rookie in November, going by the name of Jiro Shinbashi, who plays a ‘salaryman’ gimmick. Shinbashi was known as Ryuta Sugihara, 23 years old from Izumo in Shimane prefecture, and is part of the 2025 class alongside Kazuma Kimura. As “Section Manager at Sugihara Trading”, he wears a suit, hands out business cards and regularly has conversations with his clients on the phone, often interrupting the flow of the match to do so. In most of his matches, the opponent loses their temper with his antics and breaks his phone, causing him to hulk up and show off his athletic chops. While debuting a new rookie as a lower-card comedy gimmick is risky, the gimmick actually works and well, not everyone can become the next ace. In an industry that is not reliant on TV rights, but instead on ticket sales, it is important to have a well rounded card and Jiro Shinbashi plays his role well. Shinbashi, one month into his career, had not won a match yet despite being the Open The Owarai Gate Champion, which is a championship decided by who was the funniest. He asked the crowd for support so that he could win a match and give a positive report back to his boss. During the match, Shinbashi received a call from his boss as he forgot to put his phone on silent. An enraged Punch launched Shinbashi for a flying headscissors, which Shinbashi continued talking his client through. Punch then broke the phone, angering Shinbashi. Shinbashi launched his signature dropkick and business shirt schoolboy but it wasn’t enough. Punch hit Shinbashi over the head with Shinbashi’s lunch box before pinning him. Shinbashi’s sell of the lunch box hit was awesome.

Open The Triangle Gate Tournament

Dragongate kicked off a three-date tour in Sapporo launching the beginning of the Open The Triangle Gate Tournament. The tournament was set up to crown a new champion following PSYPATRA’s forfeiture of the titles due to Homare’s injury. While the tournament was ongoing, Open The Dream Gate Champion Madoka Kikuta and Gianni Valletta were building towards their fight on 16th December.

© Dragongate

Fantastic Gate 2025

16th December 2025
Company Announced Attendance: 1,051
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan
Watch On: dragongate.live
Designation: Key Show
Recommended Match: Demus & Luis Mante vs. JackyRiiita (JACKY KAMEI & Riiita)

Following his King of Gate victory, Gianni Valletta went to war against Open The Dream Gate Madoka Kikuta in the main event at Korakuen Hall. Gianni was part of the Z-Brats faction led by Shun Skywalker, before Kikuta betrayed Shun and took over as faction leader at “Kobe World”. Since then, Gianni has gone on to join Shun’s side in PSYPATRA, so while this match was about Gianni cashing in his King of Gate title shot, it was also about Kikuta exacting revenge for Gianni switching sides. I haven’t been the biggest fan of Kikuta’s Dream Gate matches. They’ve been slow, plodding and lacking intensity. With Gianni as the opponent, I thought the risk of repeating that was low given Gianni isn’t going to sit around and sell for Kikuta for twenty minutes. After an apron chokeslam and a King Kong Knee to Kikuta on the outside, it was Kikuta’s turn to be on the backfoot. Gianni tried to put Kikuta away with the Iron Claw Slam into the King Kong Knee Drop but Kikuta kicked out. Gianni emulated exactly as he did against ISHIN and climbed the ropes for Double EX, the avalanche King Kong Knee Drop, but Kikuta rolled out of the way and responded with three hip attacks. The two giants traded lariats before Kikuta hit the rolling lariat which had not been kicked out of during Kikuta’s Dream Gate reign, but Gianni survived it. After follow-up hip attacks, Kikuta unleashed another deadly rolling lariat to defend his title. This was probably one of Kikuta’s strongest defences so far given the dynamic with Gianni and needing to sell him as a threat and keep his gimmick strong. However, it still wasn’t a match I was blown away by and I much preferred the King of Gate final match between ISHIN and Gianni.

After the match, El Cielo came out to challenge Kikuta. The mysterious masked wrestler picked up a mic and held it to his mouth, but it was Shun Skywalker’s voice that came out of the speakers. ISHIN ran in with a mic and thought he was smart for calling it out. Shun appeared and told ISHIN to be quiet while El Cielo spoke and then, while sitting on the laps of some happy women, blatantly started vocalising for El Cielo. That was pretty funny. While it wasn’t officially announced, it was clear that El Cielo was being set up to face Kikuta next.

The best tag team on the planet and the Open The Twin Gate Champions JackyRiiita (JACKY KAMEI & Riiita) faced Demus and Luis Mante. Demus is a Mexican wrestler who was on tour with DDT. Demus is an excellent base, as he already proved in this very Japan tour when he faced Kazuma Sumi in DDT on 9th November in Kumamoto. What made this match work is that Mante is also just as good as a base, so the challengers allowed the best team in the world to shine even more than they usually do. JackyRiiita looked incredible. On the finishing stretch, Jacky hit a super springboard Frankensteiner onto Mante, allowing Riiita to land a Mysterio Rana onto Demus. Jacky dropkicked Mante to the outside before following up with an amazing flying headscissors from the top rope to the outside. This left Riiita to hit the Poisonrana into Riiitanic for the win.

PARADOX (BxB Hulk, Dragon Kid, Kagetora, Naruki Doi & YAMATO) were beaten by Gajadokuro (ISHIN, Jason Lee, KAI, Kota Minoura & Yoshiki Kato) in under 5 minutes. Gajadokuro were on a three-match winning streak in the Open The Triangle Gate tournament. Gajadokuro topped the standings with 6 points (3-1), PARADOX had 2 points (1-3) and D’Courage had 0 points (0-2). Love & Peace (Ben-K, Hyo & Mochizuki Jr.) took on Natural Vibes (Kzy, Strong Machine J & U-T) on this show in a tournament match. With both teams on 2 points (1-1), the winner of the match would be in a strong position and control their own destiny towards making it to the final at Kobe Sambo Hall on 27th December. This was a rematch between the two units that put on the Match of the Year contender at Korakuen Hall in May, as they fought over custody of Hyo. While not as fast-paced and spectacular as that encounter, it was still great. It was worked quite slowly as they were working towards a time-limit draw, but it wasn’t in a boring way as I was shocked when the “3 minutes remaining” call was made. The last four or five minutes were awesome and reminiscent of their battle in May. Hyo and U-T had an electric back and forth countering each other’s pins with the Samson Clutch and the Pacienca not enough to put the other away. The crowd were at a fever pitch as the time-limit was approaching. Ben-K and Kzy ran the ropes before knocking each other out with a simultaneous spear and uppercut, with the bell ringing indicating a time-limit draw. This result also made the most sense as it then meant that all three teams of D’courage, Natural Vibes and Love & Peace could make 2nd place following D’courage vs. Natural Vibes and D’courage vs. Love & Peace as the remaining tournament matches.

PSYPATRA (El Cielo & Shun Skywalker) dominated the former Open The Twin Gate Champions D’courage (Dragon Dia & Yuki Yoshioka) in just over 5 minutes. This felt like a throwback to earlier in the year where Shun was running through everybody in the lead up to his Kobe World challenge. I am guessing that Yuki is still going after Kikuta at some point, so Dragon Dia was mainly the one that was getting destroyed.

The Open The Owarai Gate Champion Jiro Shinbashi faced a mystery opponent who was revealed to be Ultimo Dragon. The current storyline is that Jiro has not won a single match. The Owarai Gate Title switches hands depending on which wrestler is funnier, i.e. by which wrestler has the loudest crowd applause. Ultimo lifted Jiro up for a powerbomb but Jiro got a phone call from a client. After the confusion, Jiro handed Ultimo his laptop carrier and pulled an Eddie Guerrero, pretending to be hit by it. The referee disqualified Ultimo. After the match, Ultimo was about to leave but had to be reminded that the title was awarded based on laughs. Ultimo tried to get the crowd not to cheer for him, but of course they did. Ultimo was handed the belt and won his first title in Dragongate (it’s a comedy title, which is what the word ‘owarai’ means). Ultimo then immediately vacated it as he said he could not keep up with the level of competition in the Owarai division. Ultimo told Jiro to find an opponent for the next Korakuen Hall to decide the next champion. Alright, not the best Jiro match, but acceptable.

The opener was a showcase of the young talent in Dragongate as Daiki Yanagiuchi and Open The Brave Gate Champion Ryoya Tanaka faced rookie Kazuma Kimura and Ryu Fuda. Fuda and Daiki were in Mochizuki Dojo together before its disbandment a few months ago, with Fuda going on to challenge Tanaka for the Brave Gate Title in Sendai and Daiki having his own challenge against ace YAMATO earlier in the year. After a fun match with fast-paced action, Fuda pinned his former stablemate with the new finisher he debuted earlier in the year, the pumphandle driver which Jae on commentary is calling “Hiryu”.

We do not have a review of the 27th & 28th December shows at Kobe Sambo Hall as we are on holiday, so here are the results for the finish of the tournament.

© _noa__o0

Marigold

Bitesize Round-up

At a double header in Sapporo, Victoria Yuzuki and Mayu Iwatani defended their United National Title and Superfly Title against Misa Matsui and Hummingbird respectively. The Hummingbird match in particular was awesome.

Utami Hayashishita returned to the promotion after some time off following “Grand Destiny”. She set up a match with Chika Goto for the 3rd January show. Other than that, the past few weeks have simply been a lot of preview tags ahead of the big “Wrestle Kingdom” Week show.

“Wrestle Kingdom” Week Preview

Marigold will kick off their “Wrestle Kingdom” Week shows at Korakuen Hall on 27th December where they will be hosting a one-day tag team tournament. The champions, Darkness Revolution (CHIAKI & Misa Matsui), will receive a bye. This is essentially a non-canon tournament, in Rossy Ogawa’s own words it is “separate” from the 3rd January show. So it’s probably skippable if you’re just interested in the meaty storylines of Marigold.

(EDIT from the future: I was live at the show and it is exactly as I said above. Rossy even booked multiple time-limit draws and double count outs, just for fun. The wrestling was pretty good, but there was nothing outstanding on the show. Of course, no full review because I’m on holiday. Mai Sakurai and Minami Yuuki were ill so the card was changed.)

Then, Marigold will host their annual New Year’s Eve party show which goes on through midnight at Shinjuku FACE. This is another fun show on the road to the 3rd January. The reason for that is most of the build for 3rd January has already been done, with lots of preview tags and even a press conference already taking place. The show will be held at Ota City General Gymnasium, where the promotion will be hoping to do at least 1,500 to 2,000. Any more than that would be a great success. They are going up against STARDOM at Shinjuku FACE in afternoon, the tailend of the All Japan Korakuen Hall show, and if fans want to catch the start of the DDT Korakuen Hall and STARDOM Shinjuku FACE evening show, then they will likely need to leave the Marigold show early. So while it is not a lot of direct competition, aside from the first STARDOM Shinjuku FACE show which only holds under 500 people, Marigold has a clear runway to do a decent number.

The show has a solid card. Not near as good as “Grand Destiny,” but good nevertheless. The show will be main evented by Miku Aono defending her World Title against Mai Sakurai. Let’s cut to the chase. Miku Aono is one of the best champions in wrestling today. She’s remarkably consistent, hasn’t missed a single Marigold show since its inception, hits hard, and gives it her all on every single match. She is her. As for the challenger, Mai Sakurai has totally transformed her image around in the past six months. I’d say it largely started during the Dream Star Grand Prix where she put on a lot of respectable performances against Chanyota, Miku Aono, Misa Matsui and MIRAI. She then formally announced her arrival as a reformed act in her “Grand Destiny” match against Victoria Yuzuki and the preceding preview tags where she was probably the biggest sicko on the entire roster in terms of how hard she was going. Mai has not slowed down after challenging Miku Aono as the two have beat the hell out of each other in the lead up to this show. I am not sure about a MOTYC just because I think Mai Sakurai still hasn’t quite hit that level, but this match will undoubtedly be very good. A fun fact is that they faced off for the United National Title on the same 3rd January show in 2025, with Mai Sakurai winning that match. Also, Mai Sakurai debuted in AWG against Miku Aono in 2020. This is a well booked, well built main event. No complaints from me. At the press conference on 18th December, Miku Aono climbed on the table to declare that she was the summit that Mai Sakurai needed to climb. Mai climbed the table before getting slapped around the face. A pull-apart brawl ensued.

Mayu Iwatani turns back the clock and adds another instalment into her feud with Takumi Iroha, following their matches in STARDOM. Those matches are part of the reason that Mayu has a ‘zombie mode’ where she refuses to quit. Years later, Takumi Iroha is the ace, booker, head coach, AAAW Champion and AAAW Tag Team Champion of Marvelous, as well as the GHC Women’s Title holder in NOAH (it’s basically a “Monday Magic” title at this point). Takumi has been having a great year under the radar (because people don’t watch Marvelous). I would be absolutely shocked if this match did not steal the show.

The United National Champion Victoria Yuzuki defending against SYOKO Koshino is an odd one, to be honest. The former Flying Penguin and singer SYOKO Koshino was kept strong by winning a lot of matches; in fact, she is unbeaten since debuting in October. This is another of those scenarios where the level of push does not appear to match the ability of the person being pushed. Within all of those matches I have not seen anything to indicate she is above many of the other available wrestlers on the roster for this spot. But, it is what it is. It will be a good match because Yuzuki will work hard and hopefully Koshino falls back down the card slightly after.

There is also an all-Darkness Revolution tag match for the Twin Star Title. They have been main-eventing almost every house show that I can remember with CHIAKI taking the pin. It’s a part of the card I am not personally invested in. Misa Matsui and Rea Seto are standout performers, but the matches have mostly been structured around highlighting CHIAKI, who was already kept very strong in tag matches leading to their title win at Grand Destiny. As a team, CHIAKI and Misa Matsui are 15-0 in a streak that started in May 2025.

Utami Hayashishita and Chika Goto battle in a singles match, marking Utami’s first major match since Grand Destiny. Since losing the world title and coming back, Utami has been in full goofball mode, which long-time STARDOM fans might recognise when Utami decides to just mess around when there is no pressure on her to be the one carrying the company. During the press conference she said this was probably the first ever non-special singles and non-title match she has had on a big show. That does sound right. She then proceeded to measure Chika Goto’s butt size which turned out to be 110cm. They then measured Utami’s butt, which was 114cm, so Utami stole Gochika’s butt gimmick.

Finally, in other matches, we have Megaton going up against a mystery opponent “Fan Favourite K”. I’m not going to bother guessing given the last time Marigold staff member Sonny teased the mystery opponent starting with “Sh” and then it turned out to be Sareee. I don’t care enough to predict anymore. CoCo returns to the promotion in maybe my most anticipated match, an undercard six-person tag involving the future of Marigold with Seri Yamaoka, Shinno, Kizuna Tanaka, Komomo Minami and Yuuka Yamazaki all taking part. Then, in the opener, Natsumi Showzuki and Kouki Amarei make their returns from injury. Kouki had a separated shoulder in September, so that seems like a quick turn around which is not good news considering that she did not look great even before that injury. Showzuki has been out since “Shine Forever” on 24th May, although she did come back briefly on 17th June just to beat the crap out of Ryoko Sakimura and see if she actually had any fight left in her (she did not, she quit the company soon after).

© Marigold

True Victory 2025

6th December 2025
APA Hotel & Resort Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan
Recommended Match: Hummingbird vs. Mayu Iwatani
Designation: Key Show

Marigold held two shows in one day up in the north of Japan as they ensured that each show would be main evented by a title match, and they built towards some further matches for the next big show on 3rd January.

Afternoon Show

In the main event of the afternoon show, the United National Champion Victoria Yuzuki defended her title successfully against Misa Matsui. Misa had pinned Yuzuki in her defence of the Twin Start Championship at Korakuen Hall on 17th November to earn the right to challenge. Misa had just done a Sukeban show in Miami on 3rd December before flying back for the Hokkaido shows. Despite it being a Misa singles match, of course she had to throw Yuzuki into the chairs, Darkness Revolution-style. Misa began attacking Yuzuki’s leg with figure-four leg locks and stretch mufflers. After a series of stomps off the turnbuckle to Yuzuki, Misa then hit the MDK (Michinoku driver) for a nearfall. She drilled a knee strike onto Yuzuki who kicked out at 1, which she has a tendency to do too often. Yuzuki won with the Victory Shooting, with her legs landing right onto Misa. I’m sure it’s meant to be a senton where she lands on her back, but hey, she’ll get there. This was a good match, let down by the completely absent Hokkaido crowd, as is often the case.

Kizuna Tanaka, Seri Yamaoka and Yuuka Yamazaki faced Komomo Minami, Mayu Iwatani and SYOKO Koshino. First of all, this is why I was surprised that Nagisa Tachibana beat Yuuka on 24th November. Yuuka is constantly thrown into semi-main and main events of shows like it’s nothing. She is not treated at the same level as Nagisa. Koshino submitted Kizuna with the Texas Cloverleaf.

World Champion Miku Aono continued her preview tags with Mai Sakurai. There are a lot of preview tags, and to be honest, I didn’t mind it. Maybe it makes it less special when they meet, but I prefer Marigold’s way of building title matches. It’s a personal preference, but I feel like it rewards those who follow all the house shows. When Utami and MIRAI, and Utami and Miku did the same, because I had watched all the preview matches, I was certain they would have a great match, and they did. But it wasn’t just what was in the previews, they took it up a notch and had callbacks to their previews, and seeing that in real time is rewarding. Miku teamed with Hummingbird while Mai teamed with Nao Ishikawa, which was funny as Nao is Miku’s regular tag team partner. At least Nao is out of the openers. While Miku and Mai did what they always do during these tags – hit each other hard – Hummingbird picked up a win ahead of her evening title shot. First she drilled Nao with a tornado kick, which she had pinned people with before, but when that wasn’t enough, she won with a brand new move, a modified casadora roll-through called “Rakka Teicho”.

Chika Goto and Minami Yuuki, the next Twin Star tag team challengers, went to a double count out draw with one half of the Twin Star Champions in CHIAKI, and her teammate Nagisa Nozaki. I apologise for not being able to bring a review to you for this match as I saw it was a 15-minute double count out with Darkness Revolution involved and I skipped it.

Gaki Nyan Mask beat Megaton in the opener. Gaki Nyan Mask is a freelancer who regularly wrestles in Hokuto Pro Wrestling based in Hokkaido. Hokuto Pro recently announced a talent exchange agreement with Diana.

Evening Show

In the main event of the evening show, Hummingbird received probably the biggest opportunity of her Marigold career to date as she took on Mayu Iwatani for the Superfly Title. The only other elevated position I remember Hummingbird being in was when she faced Ai Houzan and RIKO on a Marvelous show at Shinjuku FACE, with Hummingbird representing Team Marvelous. Of course, her and Ai Houzan did not do so well together and RIKO and Yuzuki carried the match, but she was put into the position nevertheless. Hummingbird largely delivered in this spot against Mayu. Mayu was of course in total bully mode, but Mayu is great at selling for the opponent’s comeback, which she did so here. Hummingbird’s comebacks were hard-hitting, and her selling during Mayu’s bullying was compelling. I thought it was really smart for the two to focus on a physical style of match rather than a bunch of lucha high-speed moves. There were a lot of nearfalls which the previously dead Hokkaido crowd came alive for. Of course, in reality, she never had a chance, and there was no point in the fight where I was convinced otherwise, which definitely detracts from the match, but it was an enjoyable Superfly Title main event and worth checking out.

Newly established tag team, Gochika and Yuuki, teamed up with the champ Miku to face Mai, Seri Yamaoka and Victoria Yuzuki in another world championship preview for 3rd January. Mai and Miku went slightly harder than usual as Miku drilled stiff lariats into Mai’s neck, and Mai responded with her backdrop suplex and the STO-STF combo. Miku levied a brutal buzzsaw kick that sounded like it knocked Mai out. This preview was more notable than the others as Miku then proceeded to destroy Mai with a middle-rope Styles Clash to gain some momentum ahead of their title match, pinning Mai in a preview tag for the first time.

In a battle of the most overpushed midcarders in Joshi today, CHIAKI faced SYOKO Koshino. This was a tough one to predict who was going to win. CHIAKI is a Twin Star Champion, protected in tag matches but quite weak in singles matches, whereas Koshino is the Hatman’s (Rossy Ogawa) new favourite wrestler. In the end, I predicted Koshino, and that is what happened as Koshino caught CHIAKI with a flash pin. This was Koshino’s first ever singles match under the new gimmick, and she called out Yuzuki for the United National Title. They did the gimmick where Yuzuki would decide on 10th December after facing her in a tag match, but it’s essentially happening. What a decision to have Koshino fight for the promotion’s secondary singles title at Ota Ward City Gym on 3rd January. Crazy.

Kizuna Tanaka and Yuuka Yamazaki lost to Darkness Revolution (Misa Matsui & Nagisa Nozaki) as Nagisa knocked Yuuka out with the Kenka Kick. Gaki Nyan Mask lost to Nao Ishikawa and Komomo Minami beat Megaton with the Komo clutch on the undercard.

The Road to Ota Ward

The following shows contained a lot of preview tags. I mean, a lot. That’s not a bad thing, they were mostly enjoyable, especially the ones between Mai Sakurai and Miku Aono. Oh, and Utami’s back.

Japanese Independents

Match of the Issue for Japanese Independents

© yanagisawa_00

Chihiro Hashimoto, Sareee & Takumi Iroha vs. Mio Momono, Rin & Yuu – Marvelous, 21st December at Shin-Kiba 1st RING

Bitesize Round-ups

Here is a round-up of news from the Japanese independent scene. Feel free to Ctrl+F “Key Show” if you want to skip to the reviews for the big shows, or expand any promotion you are interested in and follow the link to the reviews for that promotion!

Note, recommended matches are in order of my own enjoyment of them, rather than chronological.

Other Miscellaenous News

Baka Gaijin & Friends

On 2nd December, Chris Brookes’ self-produce brand “Baka Gaijin + Friends” held its 3rd anniversary titled “Vol. 26 Who Wants To Live Forever?” in a packed out Shinjuku FACE. In the main event of the no-ring show, Chris Brookes and Zack Sabre Jr. went to a 20-minute time-limit draw. Zack spoke about how he met Chris, when Chris attended one of Zack’s seminars and that while they always had the ‘senpai’ and ‘kohai’ type of relationship, Chris was always more creative than Zack. Zack also mentioned that the reason they chose DDT’s Peter Pan for their singles match is he didn’t want to make it seem like he was using his pull to bring Chris into New Japan and wanted it to be somewhere special to Chris. Chris commented that he thought Shinjuku FACE is the ceiling for the promotion as it’s the largest crowd he felt they could do while not ruining the vibes of the Baka Gaijin show which is built on surprises, twists and turns, whereas he may have to announce cards and ruin surprises if he ran buildings such as Korakuen Hall.

Ganbare Pro Wrestling

While we have only checked in intermittently on Ganbare Pro, a former DDT sister promotion, they headed full-steam into their end of year Korakuen Hall show with Dragongate legend Masaaki Mochizuki as their Spirit of Ganbare World Openweight Champion. Mochi successfully defended against Keisuke Ishii in the main event. YuuRI celebrated her 5th anniversary against one of the best wrestlers in the world, Sareee. The rookies, Shota Kawakami (class of 2024) and Sentaro Motoshima (class of 2025) were on opposite sides of an opening tag including all-stars such as Jun Kasai, Mizuki Watase and Munetatsu Nakamura. Sentaro is the first GanPro rookie to debut after the promotion became independent from CyberFight. Elsewhere, BASARA duo Ryota Nakatsu and Takumi Tsukamoto lost their Spirit of Ganbare World Tag Team Championship against Shinichiro Tominaga and former World Openweight Champion Yumehito Imanari.

BASARA

Speaking of Ryota Nakatsu’s promotion, BASARA, they were holding back to back shows on 27th and 28th December. Some highlight matches were 2AW duo Ayumu Honda and Kengo Mashimo losing their Iron First Tag Team Championship against the home promotion’s Daiki Shimomura and Takumi Tsukamoto and Ryoka Nakatsu losing his Union MAX Championship to Shuji Ishikawa.

FREEDOMS

FREEDOMS ran their traditional “Blood Christmas” show at Korakuen Hall on 25th December main evented by Violento Jack defending his KING of FREEDOM World Title against Masashi Takeda. New Japan duo Gedo and Shingo Takagi made a special appearance against deathmatch legend Jun Kasai and Toru Sugiura in a hardcore tag match. Jun said he wanted to see Gedo from his W★ING days where he burned an opponent, and not ‘unc’ Gedo. 20-year-old freelancer Reiya Igarashi was put into a prominent match as he teams with former KING of FREEDOM World Champion Tomoya Hirata against FREEDOMS owner Takashi Sasaki and multi-time tag champion Mammoth Sasaki. The Ganbare Pro and FREEDOMS rivalry continues as Mizuki Watase faced Yasaku Ito in a deathmatch.

Kenji Fukimoto will be going on hiatus from 3rd January due to a worsening pre-existing condition.

Los Tranquilos de Japón

Tetsuya Naito and BUSHI announced a new trainee for Los Tranquilos de Japon named RYUSEI, who appeared with Naito and BUSHI at Tokyo Comic Con 2025 on 6th December. RYUSEI will debut in early 2026, with them targeting January. Naito was asked if he would consider wrestling in Japan in 2026, and of course, his response was a nonchalant “Who knows?” Naito said that he was thinking that RYUSEI’s debut would be overseas, where Naito has been applying his craft and trying to show new audiences what he’s about. Tranquilos de Japon were also announced for NOAH’s Nippon Budokan show on 1st January 2026.

Michinoku Pro Wrestling

Michinoku Pro Wrestling held a show at Korakuen Hall on 12th December with an announced attendance of 1,150 (based on pictures, this is probably accurate). The company introduced two new trainees, Kuu Kumagai, 20 years old from Yahaba Town in Iwate prefecture, and Kakeru Hosonuma, 23 years old from Saitama City in Saitama prefecture. MIRAI faced her previous K-DOJO mentor TAKA Michinoku, losing in 11:42 to a Michinoku Driver II, the first time he pulled out the move against a woman wrestler (so he says). After the match, Azusa Inaba appeared to build up their match for 28th December in JTO. Fujita Hayato announced he would return in 2026 after being out since January 2024. Marigold’s SYOKO Koshino made an appearance in the 20th instalment of the “Space War” in the main event. The gimmick has been running annually since 2006.

Their next Korakuen Hall show is on 12th June 2026 titled “Viva Mexico” which will celebrate Japanese lucha libre.

JTO

On 9th November, Azusa Inaba defended the JTO Girls Title against fellow JTO wrestler Aoi. Aoi is a charismatic, unique wrestler and a great worker on top of that. Given the lack of depth on the JTO roster, Azusa, Aoi, Tomoka and Rhythm had been having a series of matches with each other, in tags and singles, over the course of the summer. The JTO Girls title is the top title for the joshi in JTO, with the Queen of JTO Title having unique rules, a division which Azusa is also a champion of. While historically the Queen belt was all there was, Azusa has made it clear which belt means more to her. This was the second time Aoi was challenging Azusa in her over one-year reign, and she put everything she had into trying to topple Azusa as the two beat the hell out of each other. Aoi’s selling of Azusa’s submission holds was fantastic and added drama to the fight. Azusa hoisted Aoi up for a beautiful German suplex for a nearfall, before following with her signature bicycle kick for the win.

Azusa defended her Queen of JTO Title on 21st December against HisokA for her second defence.

On 28th December, JTO hosted a show at TOKYOSQUARE in Itabashi, Tokyo, where MIRAI defeated Azusa Inaba for her JTO Girls Title. That’s the title contested under normal rules. We will see when JTO decide to upload it.

ZERO1

After holding the quarter finals in venues such as Shinjuku FACE and Shin-Kiba 1st RING, ZERO1 will be holding the finals of their “Furinkazan 2025 Tag Tournament” at Oriental Hotel Tokyo Bay in Urayasu, Chiba, a smaller capacity than both Tokyo venues. The tournament will crown the promotion’s new Intercontinental Tag Team Champions, as the titles are currently vacant and had to be retrieved back from 2AW. The new champs will be the 51st in its lineage. Jinsei Shinzaki & Hayabusa beat Masato Tanaka & Van Vert Jack in the first round, with Shinzaki & Hayabusa advancing after Hayabusa pinned Van Vert Jack with the Firebird Splash. BJW’s Daichi Hashimoto and Yuya Aoki made it to the second round before also losing to Hayabusa and Shinzaki via Firebird Splash. On the other side of the bracket, Junya Matsunaga & Tsugutaka Sato beat Mammoth Sasaki and Yuki Toki to make it to the finals, held on 27th December at Shin-Kiba 1st RING. Junya & Sato overcame Hayabusa and Shinzaki to win the tournament and become the new Intercontinental Tag Team Champions. UK independent wrestler JJ Gale was knocked out of the first round in his Japan debut.

On 2nd December ZERO1 announced that Yoshikazu Yokohama, who was out long-term with an undisclosed illness, completed successful surgery and is now rehabilitating following a diagnosis of ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament of the cervical spine (OPLL). The timing of his return is unclear but they said they would not rush and are aiming for a full recovery. We wish him the best in his recovery.

In Shupro #2389, Masato Tanaka talked about ZERO1’s rebirth. He mentioned that while they still struggle to draw crowds, the fact they have a dojo and dorms for the younger wrestlers and foreign wrestlers to live in is a huge positive for them after they had to rebuild.

Former deathmatch wrestler Mitsuhiro Matsunaga has joined the committee planning Megumi Kudo’s 40th debut anniversary on 17th October 2026 at Yoyogi National Gym #2, which is a big arena. Kudo also announced that a book commemorating the anniversary will be published in 2026.

GLEAT

CIMA is leaving GLEAT at the end of his contract on 31st December. CIMA will make some appearances in 2026 to make up for the six he missed at the end of 2025 due to injury. Following CIMA, the contracts of Ryo Aitaka, Executive Director Kiyoshi Tamura and Masato Yoshino will also expire on 31st December. Aitaka will become a freelancer and is expected to continue making appearances for GLEAT. Yoshino served as the Commissioner of the GPROWRESTLING division, serving on the GLEAT Championship Belt Management Committee. GLEAT says that no successors have yet been decided for the Executive Director and Commissioner roles. Additionally, GLEAT has ended its paywall, with content becoming free on their YouTube as of 30th December. That’s always a good sign of the times.

GLEAT held the 7th instalment of their “LIDET UWF” show with all matches following UWF shoot-style rules. The show also included some Actwres girl’Z representation given the link between Katsuhiko Nakajima and AWG booker Sakaguchi. There was a talent from the Venus theatre group on the show as Nanao Matsuhashi faced AWG’s Rico Fukunaga. Ice Ribbon and AWG wrestlers work with Venus for their performances, which will culminate in their biggest performance yet on 4th January (going up against Wrestle Kingdom 20). Nanao was understandably a bit timid against Rico, which didn’t make for a great UWF Rules match. Chii Aoba and Yukina Uehara had a much better bout, with Chii launching Yukina with a great backdrop suplex, before Yukina took Chii down and transitioned into an armbar for the submission win. AWG Champion Marino Saihara took on her Actwres 5 teammate in Sakura Mizushima, who was partaking in her first UWF Rules match. Sakura wasn’t amazing. Let’s just say I prefer her in standard wrestling. It was funny that Sakura got a 2 points lead despite looking far less comfortable in the format. Marino was awesome, because she is awesome. In the main event, Katsuhiko Nakajima and Shinya Aoki clashed in a UWF Rules tag team match. Nakajima and Aoki were very fun in this environment, with Aoki mocking Nakajima and opening up his chin for strikes before being rocked by Nakajima’s kicks. Interestingly, Nakajima submitted to the full-nelson Aoki clutch.

GLEAT crowned new G-INFINITY Tag Team Champions in a four-team one-day tournament at “G PROWRESTLING Ver. 100” on 13th December. Former G-REX Champion Kaito Ishida and KAZMA SAKAMOTO beat current G-REX Champion El Lindaman and Takehiro Yamamura in the final. The titles had been initially vacated by Yamamura and Issei Onitsuka as Onitsuka was fired for undisclosed reasons. Then, CIMA and Kuroshio TOKYO Japan won them, but then, due to an injury to CIMA (according to GLEAT), the titles were vacated again. CIMA and Jiro had beaten Brass Knuckles JUN and Ryuichi Kawakami for the titles, so JUN and Kawakami were positioned for the titles, but then JUN broke his jaw just after announcing intentions to go for them. To call the titles cursed would be an understatement.

El Lindaman will defend his G-REX Title against TJP on 30th December at Shinjuku Face on the “Ver. 21” show. Katsuhiko Nakajima will defend his LIDET UWF World Title against Ryo Aitaka and Kotaro Suzuki challenges Minoru Tanaka for his G-RUSH Title on the same show. “Ver.22” will be held at EDION Arena Osaka #2 on 10th January.

Prominence – Risa Sera’s Retirement

Risa Sera is retiring on 12th January 2026. We’ve covered her travels over the past half-year extensively in this newsletter. The short of it is that it has been quite a remarkable period, perhaps for not the reasons you expected. On 13th July on a WAVE afternoon show, Risa Sera tore her ACL and MCL in her right knee when trying to lift up Yuki Miyazaki, who is quite large, a Michinoku Driver. Sera buckled, while still making sure Miyazaki landed safely. They took off her leg gear and carried her out on a table, which was used as a makeshift stretcher. She returned for the evening show on that same day but did not do much. She pushed through that injury and honoured every single booking, while continuing to take extra bookings. She had one of Diana’s best matches of the year just a week later in a six-person tag in her hometown, Sera in Hiroshima (that’s where her name comes from), where she trusted her Prominence teammate Mochi Natsumi to work over her leg with Sera’s hometown crowd screaming in support of Sera. It was a phenomenal performance and something that rarely happens because wrestlers don’t work through serious shoot injuries like that (because it’s ridiculous to do so). Unfortunately, that was a one-off as the injury was a massive hindrance for the rest of Sera’s retirement where she was unable to work to her usual level, although she did at least tie up storylines across multiple promotions ahead of her retirement. It was a commendable effort by Sera to soldier on.

On 16th December, Sera participated in her last Prominence show where she held a 60-minute ironwoman gauntlet match with the first 30 minutes under Hardcore rules and the final half-hour under Deathmatch rules. The match was pretty great. There were some slow parts when The Great Sasuke came out and they ran out of time to do their spots, but there were plenty great 5-minute bouts, such as with Hazuki, Itsuki Aoki, Jun Kasai, VENY and Suzu Suzuki. The match ending with Suzu was probably my favourite part.

On 12th January at Korakuen Hall, she will team up with long-time partner Maya Yukihi to face Chie Ozora & Miran and Rydeen Hagane & SAKI in a three-way tag team match, before retiring against Suzu Suzuki in the main event.

Sportiva Arena

On 21st December in Sportiva, a Nagoya-based promotion, Kotaro Sawada debuted against Sportiva’s other (excellent) rookie Ali Najima in a 10-minute exhibition match.

Kyushu Pro Wrestling

After the debut of Mamu Tagirihime, 32, on 3rd August, Kyushu Pro Wrestling has added a new woman, Sayaka Hoshino, to their brand new joshi division, dubbed “Kyujo”. Kyushu already announced auditions on 20th December which would be held by TAJIRI and supervised by Meiko Satomura and have now extended auditions to continue through to March 2026.

P.P.P. TOKYO

P.P.P. TOKYO will be running TOKYOSQUARE in Itabashi on 2nd January, with Chanyota facing MIRAI, Tyson Maeguchi & ZONES facing Riara and Yukimitsu Takahashi, Non Toraga facing Marika Kobashi and a rumble including Kentaro Hachisu, Echika Miyavi, YuuRI and some mystery additions.

Strong Style Pro Wrestling (SSPW)

SSPW held “vol. 37” on 4th December which celebrated their 20th anniversary. They drew a massive 1,668 fans at a packed-to-the-brim Korakuen Hall. Not really, they more than double their attendance figures. STARDOM drew a legit super no-vacancy sellout of 1,639 earlier this year, so that should give it away if you’re not familiar with Korakuen Hall attendances. Jaguar Yokota and Spark Rush (Sareee & Takumi Iroha) faced Ai Houzan, NØRI and MIRAI. Sareee and NØRI continued their mini-feud across SSPW and Kyushu, while Sareee also built up to her match with MIRAI in Tochigi Pro at Korakuen Hall on 1st January 2026. They have only met once before in a tag match in May 2024 in the immediate aftermath of Marigold’s launch. Elsewhere, Super Tiger and Masashi Takeda became the inaugural SSPW World Tag Team Champions, defeating Kazunari Murakami and Yoshiki Takahashi in the main event.

Super Japan Pro Wrestling

DDT founder Sanshiro Takagi’s pet project, Super Japan Pro Wrestling, continues (unfortunately) with a show on 29th December at Shinjuku FACE. New Japan’s Taiji Ishimori will team with the Brahman Brothers (Kei & Shu) against Shuji Kondo, Ken Ohka and Super Japan regular Mac Matsushita.

Tenryu Project

Tenryu Project soldier on after they hosted their final Korakuen Hall show on 4th November. On 20th December at Shin-Kiba 1st RING, the show had two title matches as Hikaru Sato failed to take Koji Iwamoto’s International Jr. Heavyweight Title and Kengo & Yuya Susumu lost their International Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Titles against Takuro Niki & Yusuke Kodama. In backstage comments after the show, Genichiro Tenryu said that he really wants to ask the men’s wrestlers how they felt about the MVP being taken by a women’s wrestler (referring to Saya Kamitani’s Tokyo Sports Awards MVP). To be fair to Tenryu, the promotion does at least book women on almost every show, but you do sort of see that old attitude come through where men should feel offended that they lost to a woman.

Asuka Pro Wrestling

Asuka Pro Wrestling, a promotion run by independent joshi wrestler Arisa Shinose and her dad Mitoshichi Shinose, is running TOKYOSQUARE on 7th January. JTO’s Azusa Inaba will be teaming up with WAVE’s Saran against PURE-J’s Chie Ozora and T-HEARTS’ Miku Kanae.

Fortune Dream 11

Kenta Kobashi’s produce show, “Fortune Dream”, is held yearly in April at Korakuen Hall and always includes top joshi stars on the card. The 11th instalment on 16th April 2026 will have a three-way match involving Sareee. The Tokyo Dome CEO, Yoshikazu Kitahara, was at Tokyo Comic Con 2025 with Kobashi for the announcement as it will be the 60th anniversary of Korakuen Hall hosting pro wrestling events.

Kanreki Festival

“Kanreki Festival” was held on 1st December at Shinjuku FACE. It celebrated the turning of 60 of the Jumping Bomb Angels duo, Noriyo Tateno and Itsuki Yamazaki, with Noriyo’s 60th birthday in particular falling on 1st December 2025. It also celebrated 40 years since they were paired together in All Japan Women’s Pro Wrestling. There was a lot of nostalgia on the show, including a battle royal involving all of their friends and favourites such as Aja Kong, Jaguar Yokota, Michiko Omukai, Mima Shimoda, Takako Inoue and more. But, the actual reason I picked up this show was for two matches highlighting the future. In the main event, Team 200kg (Chihiro Hashimoto & Yuu) faced Sareee and SEAd’s rookie Selene Misora. Sareee and Hashimoto had just had a MOTYC weeks prior. Selene Misora is someone who I write about that is interesting because of her ‘mean’ attitude, which is not normal for a rookie. She likes hitting hard, she doesn’t back down to vets and she’s confident. Naturally, she was paired with VENY in SEAd, who is of the same archetype. In an interview with HypeTalkTV, Selene said Sareee was the wrestler she enjoyed most. So that all tracked. Now fast forward and she has had a singles match with VENY, is teaming up with her, and now teaming up with Sareee, all before she’s even had her 10th match in her career. She doesn’t even have a Cagematch profile yet. She’s definitely my favourite rookie, not because she’s the best rookie, I just love watching her. That makes sense when, surprise, Sareee and VENY are my two favourite wrestlers – that’s my archetype of wrestler.

The match itself was a typical Team 200kg layout, with the added spice of Sareee and Hashimoto exchanges and Selene. Selene’s selling was great. You might expect a rookie to freeze in such a spot but she carried it like well and sold for all of Team 200kg’s silly spots well (like the Yuu steamroller). I would’ve liked Selene to lay in her forearms into Hashimoto a bit more, as she did against VENY, but alas, we will get there. The second match on the show that pulled me in was WAVE’s Honoka defending her POP Title (the PURE-J title not the TJPW title) against SEAd’s other ‘rookie’ (over 1 year of experience) in Miria Koga. Honoka is one of the best underdog babyfaces on the independent scene, while Miria is still working her way through making improvements (see our SEAd section). This would be the first time Miria challenged for a title, so I wanted to make sure I saw this milestone for her. Miria, who’s idol is Syuri and tries to emulate her style, showed a bit more intensity than usual, but Honoka completely stole the show with her selling, evoking images of Starlight Kid’s selling when Miria had Honoka in a stretch muffler. This was a good showcase for both in front of a hot Shinjuku FACE crowd, but Miria still has some way to go with being less wooden.

I wasn’t going to talk about Cohaku & Miku Kanae versus Dump Matsumoto and ZAP, but then I saw Dump stab a fork into Cohaku’s forehead and she started bleeding immediately. That must’ve genuinely hurt. The Jon Moxley way of getting blood, just stabbing yourself in the forehead, except this was done very clearly on camera.

UWF 40

To celebrate UWF’s 40th anniversary, there will be an event held at Shosen Book Tower, Akihabara, Tokyo from 24th December to 12th January 2026. Items like t-shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies, mugs, keychains, towels, caps and acrylic stands will be available. Some will be re-issued versions of previous merchandise.

NicoPro Grand Prix 2025

NicoPro awarded their Grand Prix 2025 awards on 13th December. The awards aim to shine a light on wrestlers who mainly wrestle on their streaming platform, as well as wrestlers who are unlikely to receive publicity elsewhere, so it’s only fitting that Social Suplex reports on it to the lovely English-speaking audience. The nominees were selected by a fan vote with the final winners chosen by a panel consisting of Minoru Fujita, Yasu Urano and Fuminori Abe. Dove Pro’s Yusaku Ito won the MVP, a wrestler better known for his deathmatches in promotions such as BJW. The best bout award went to Hikaru Sato versus Fuminori Abe on the Astronauts’ show “Kakuto Tanteidan IV ~ Straight Ahead” on 23rd October. F-SWAG (Gaia Hox & Jun Masaoka) were voted best unit, Yasu Urano’s 25th Anniversary Tournament on 16th November was selected as best show and 2AW’s Yuka Satsuki won best newcomer. They also introduced an award to highlight a wrestler’s “presence in the scene”, whether by social media or popular promos, and that award went to 2AW’s Ayato Yoshida. Finally, Ryo Kawamura won the Lifetime Achievement Award after his retirement on 29th November.

Christmas Charity Pro Wrestling at a Children’s Home

On 21st December, an event was held in Ito City within the Shizuoka prefecture with the goal of delivering a Christmas present to the children at Kawana’s children’s home. The event was run through volunteer donations and has been ongoing for 11 years. Best Friends (Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto) made an appearance, singing and conducting a wrestling exercise class. Their respective promotions (SEAdLINNNG and Ice Ribbon) sent some wrestlers to put on some matches, including ICExFinity champion Manami Katsu teaming with SEAd rookie Selene Misora against Arisa Shinose & ZONES, as well as Makoto facing Yuki Funa in a singles match. Atsushi Onita made a surprise appearance at the end to talk to the kids. The event started because kids from the facility went to see Onita wrestle in Hamamatsu 11 years ago, then a businessman who runs a transportation company in Ito City and supports the project annually heard the kids at the facility feel sad about the wrestlers not coming back there despite their promises, so they organised the event to be an annual thing.

© Marvelous

Marvelous

“Wrestle Kingdom” Week Preview

As a quick 2025 round-up, Marvelous have used 2025 to build towards a massive 2026 celebrating their 10th anniversary as they book Yokohama BUNTAI, a 5000-capacity arena, on 5th May 2026. The company has focused on pushing Senka Akatsuki as much as it can and she has become a featured main eventer in the promotion while her rookie colleague Sora Ayame slowly works on her own game and other “young” wrestler Ai Houzan, 4 years into her career, still toils away in the openers.

Marvelous are holding just one show during Wrestle Kingdom Week – 28th December at Korakuen Hall. Chigusa Nagayo has teased that something will take place on the show which sets them up for their run-in to Yokohama BUNTAI. Who knows what that is, but knowing Chigusa, it’s probably not news worthy. The card looks great. I’m not just saying that because I’ll be there, but because it has a lot less weird and comedy matches on the undercard than I’m used to for a Marvelous show, where usually it’s 50% of the show.

I don’t think this will be the show of the weekend, but I do think the rookie showdown between Senka Akatsuki and Seri Yamaoka will be my favourite match of the year. It is the best ongoing rivalry in all of wrestling today, and they will finally get their hands on each other in a singles match. Every single time the two wrestlers touch, the crowd explodes. They have something special that I’m not sure any other duo in wrestling have. It is an achievement that Seri and Senka, both 19, have played their characters to perfection throughout the nine-month feud which began on 30th March at Korakuen Hall in Marigold. These young performers have portrayed their characters better than most industry veterans despite being 19-year-old rookies. It is a ‘lightning-in-a-bottle’ feud. There are veterans such as Mio Momono on record talking about how jealous they are for not having a similar rivalry. It’s a rivalry that really takes you back to the All Japan Women’s days. If I would ask the reader to pick any match from the Wrestle Kingdom Week to watch, I would implore the reader to watch this match. If you don’t care about rookies, then, well, 1) you’re no fun and 2) your loss.

In the main event, Spark Rush will defend their AAAW Tag Team Title against Magenta, who have been a thorn in their side for months. The tipping point was when Magenta locked Spark Rush up against the walls of Shin-Kiba 1st RING on 3rd December. This match took quite a long time to set up, given it was being teased almost six months ago. We got there eventually. Magenta, the subject of criticism regarding their heel turn, will undoubtedly show up and put on a great match against Spark Rush. RIKO in particular is likely even better as a heel than a babyface and has had a very strong run in 2025 putting in great performances left and right. That is less true for heel Maria, who has struggled when finding out the best times to turn it on and not rely so heavily on the ‘lazy and uninterested’ gimmick. I expect Magenta to win this match heading into 2025, which frees up the double champion Takumi to defend the AAAW Title at Yokohama BUNTAI in 2026. When Spark Rush was first formed, I figured that they were building towards a Sareee and Takumi singles match as they teased it in their early matches, but they never went anywhere with it. This would be a good time to begin the road to Yokohama BUNTAI and that is as good a match as any to main event their 10th anniversary show with. The only thing I can’t quite piece together is who would be taking the pin, considering Takumi is a double champion and Sareee is the most in-demand freelancer in the scene. It’s an interesting main event, that’s for sure.

As at the time of writing, Mio Momono is partnering with X. Given that Rin Kadokura returned as Mio’s partner on 21st December, also billed as an X, Rin would be a good guess.

© tohru0618

Sendai Girls

“Wrestle Kingdom” Week Preview

Much like Dragongate, Sendai Girls prefer taking care of business in their home region during the busy Wrestle Kingdom Week, with only one show taking place in Tokyo right at the end of the holiday period on 11th January, at Shin-Kiba 1st RING, when most people have flown home and gone back to work (for posterity, I am previewing shows between 24th December and 11th January as ‘Wrestle Kingdom Week’. Yes, a week is actually two weeks.)

On 26th December, Sendai Girls is running a show from their home venue of Sendai PIT. The show will host Team 200kg’s final ever match, as well as them defending their Sendai Girls World Tag Team Title against Bob Bob Momo Banana. If I had a dollar for every tag team that had one of their members retire with the tag team titles in 2025, well, I’d have one dollar (Maika Ozaki and Tae Honma in WAVE). I expect that dollar amount to increase to two, just from how Yuu has sold for her opponents on her retirement run. I would love to be proven wrong and see Yurika Oka finally beat Team 200kg for the first time in her career. But, it’s just not how some people like to do business. Each match on Yuu’s retirement run has solidly been built around her greatest hits and not about elevating the talent she is in the ring with. This is her retirement run afterall. While it may be a personal preference that I have not enjoyed this run, it is obvious that she is a well-loved wrestler for the domestic fans and her presence will be missed by them on the shows. While Yuu teamed with Chihiro Hashimoto for the first time in Manchester in 2019 and soon after formed the Team 200kg team, it would not be until 2025 that Yuu was made an official member of the Sendai Girls roster as she began her retirement road.

The rest of the card is also looking quite strong, with appearances from STARDOM’s rookie Ema Maishima, Marvelous’ rookie Senka Akatsuki and Red Energy face Chi Chi and Hazuki in the semi-main event which would be an excellent match.

The card for the 11th January show has not been announced.

© OZ Academy

OZ Academy

“Wrestle Kingdom” Week Preview

OZ Academy is the destination promotion during Wrestle Kingdom Week. It is tradition to go to one of their shows and experience it live, because it is a promotion that entirely gears its booking and show structure for the live crowd. Despite being one of the few joshi promotions with an actual streaming rights deal with GAORA, they only tape one show a month at Shinjuku, or more if it coincides with a Korakuen Hall show. The rest of their shows are tour stops where they hope to draw in crowds by word of mouth and their reputation, with none of them making tape anymore.

Their frantic, high-octane brawls in the crowd and chaotic use of weapons make them a premier promotion to try to catch if you are in Japan. That is encapsulated perfectly by the semi-main event of the 30th December Korakuen Hall show which will see Seiki-gun (Mayumi Ozaki & Saori Anoi) take on STARDOM’s Goddess of STARDOM Tag Team Champions H.A.T.E. (Natsuko Tora & Ruaka). The build to the match was because Ruaka stole the OZ Academy Openweight belt which belongs to Saori Anou, all the way back in August. Saori still hasn’t got it back yet. Saori, kicked out of Seiki-gun in December 2024, found her way back into the unit as they rebuilt themselves to take on the outside threat of H.A.T.E. Now, they will take part in a “Total Tag Destruction” match, which is a two-on-two bout and, unless the referee deems something especially dangerous (they never do), any and all weapons are allowed. Well, that just sounds like a No DQ match I hear you say. Also, once one of the participants is pinned, the referee will start a ten-count. The match only ends when someone is pinned and then down for a ten-count. Alright, it’s just a Last Woman Standing tag match plus a pin is required.

That match will likely overshadow a main event (unless the card order changes) which will see Red Energy (Mika Iwata & Miyuki Takase) challenge Gojizones Union (Hiroyo Matsumoto & ZONES) for their OZ Academy Tag Team Title. Red Energy made the challenge after Gojizones Union successfully defended against Phantom Limit (AKINO & Misa Kagura) on 19th October at Yokohama Budokan. Both of these teams are very good so there is no chance this is a bad match.

On the undercard, Sareee makes her second OZ Academy appearance of 2025 in a singles match against Seiki-gun member Kakeru Sekiguchi. Given that this is second on the card, I am not expecting much, especially as Sareee has a lot of bookings during Wrestle Kingdom Week.

EVO

EVO runs shows once a month at Shin-Kiba 1st RING. They very rarely run shows at bigger shows at Shinjuku FACE, so they are the least ambitious of all the independent promotions and since they are only a few years into operation, they understand what they can and can’t do. All their shows are available on their streaming service.

© SEAdLINNNG

SEAdLINNNG

“Wrestle Kingdom” Week Preview

SEAdLINNNG’s (SEAd) sole show during Wrestle Kingdom Week takes place on 26th December. In the main event, homegrown talent Honori Hana (debuted in December 2024 with a 3 year absence) and her regular partner Unagi Sayaka will attempt to win the Beyond The Sea Tag Team Title from Mio Shirai and Natsu Sumire. The dynamic between Honori and Unagi has been one of tough love, with Unagi constantly admonishing Honori for not showing enough fire when she is supposed to be leading SEAd forward. In particular, Unagi has said that Honori’s promos are boring and repetitive.

At the press conference on 19th December, Honori attempted to switch things up by reading a promo from her phone. Honori explained that she did not want to be an accessory relying on Unagi and instead wanted to step out from underneath her shadow. As the homegrown talent, Honori felt that it had to be her to be the one to win, not Unagi. Mio fired back calling Honori boring for reading a statement and that none of that was going to help SEAd’s press conference get reported on. While Mio was ranting about how boring Honori was, a Shupro reporter took a photo, and Mio pointed out that that was how to get buzz and that as the homegrown talent, it’s on Honori to get that attention. (God I can’t wait to be there live and see Honori beat the crap out of Mio, again.) Honori grabbed Mio by the hair and Mio apologised before Honori calmed down. Natsu then sarcastically congratulated Honori on such a boring speech and said that rather than try to elevate the homegrown talent like a good freelancer should do, she’d have the match that she wants. (God I can’t wait to be there live and see Honori beat the crap out of Natsu.)

In the semi-main event, the 2nd most experienced homegrown talent, Miria Koga (debuted in June 2024) teams up with SEAd regular Ayame Sasamura and Beyond The Sea Champion Hiroyo Matsumoto to take on AJW legend Mima Shimoda, and Las Fresa de Egoístas (Makoto & VENY). At the press conference Miria said her goal was to challenge Matsumoto for the title on 13th January.

In my most anticipated match, one of my favourite rookies right now, Selene Misora (debuted in June 2025), crashes at full speed with the new darling of the independent scene, Michinoku Pro’s MIRAI. Selene is cut from the cloth of talent such as Sareee, VENY and Manami Katsu, and in fact, those are three wrestlers she has already tagged with 6 months into her career, so the company knows it too. As I want to keep reiterating, that does not mean she will turn out as good as those wrestlers, just that you can see the same fiery attitude in her matches. Going up against MIRAI is excellent booking by SEAd and their treatment of Selene so far has been A+ and one of the most exciting things about the promotion. Even her promos stand out compared to Miria and Honori. She answered the reporters confidently and spoke about how she wants to devour the tasty opportunity provided to her. She knows about MIRAI wrestling the men in Michinoku Pro and her answers weren’t the usual template answers you get from the others.

The last of the SEAd contracted talent, Yuki Funa (debuted in March 2025 but was out for 4 months), takes on freelancer and long-time SEAd regular Nagisa Nozaki. While Yuki is probably the greenest in the ring out of the four, she carries herself with an unshakable confidence, which makes sense as she is the eldest (28). In an interview with HypeTalkTV released this week, she also showed off some of her English which surprised me. After calling Nagisa beautiful, Yuki said that she prides herself on being the visual representation of SEAd and that’s how she stands out from the other three. She used the word so much that the reporter pointed it out. I am not expecting much out of this much, but given Yuki’s recent media appearances, I will be cheering her on.

Also, CoCo, who broke out due to an appearance in SEAdLINNNG which got her booked onto a Marigold Fukuoka tour which lead to a Mayu Iwatani Korakuen Hall match, is back in SEAd in a seven-person battle royal also including Shawncapture’s Ikuto Hidaka, Ka Kedita, La Pidita, Mei Suruga, SUGI and the awesome YuuRI.

All in all, this is a very good card from SEAd that focuses on their young talent, which is undoubtedly the correct strategy. They even did not want Matsumoto defending the title on this show just so Honori Hana could get all of the spotlight which is something I think is admirable.

This show already happened before the issue went live but we kept the preview in case people would still be interested in the background. I had a lot of fun live and it was a great show, and I hope to do a write-up when I’m back from Japan!

© arrinaimyon1

Ice Ribbon

“Wrestle Kingdom” Week Preview

Ice Ribbon’s year can be rounded up into two neat storylines. One revolves around the ICExFinity Champion Manami Katsu. In 2025, Katsu has been the ace of the promotion with a lot of the storylines centering on her. Katsu is from the 2010s era of hard-hitting joshi but resurfaced surprisingly in 2024 as part of Ice Ribbon. She started off as aloof, uninterested, cold-hearted and just wanting to beat people up. It was in complete contrast to the vibes of the promotion which has the slogan “Happy Ice Ribbon!” In a show of solidarity against this behaviour, the roster would never allow Katsu to close a show, despite her being champion throughout 2025. One of the best storylines of the year has been Misa Kagura, fresh off becoming a freelancer after leaving JTO, poking and prodding Katsu to figure out what makes her Katsu. Why is she the ace? What makes her so good? What makes her tick? Kagura’s entire goal was to learn what it took to make it to the top of a promotion so that she could do the same early in her new freelancing journey. They went on to do a 20-minute time-limit draw the day before their Korakuen Hall main event and put on two great matches back-to-back. After Katsu defended the title, she finally proclaimed that she did in fact love Ice Ribbon, and that was why she did everything she did. Kagura had the answer to her question, to become the top of a promotion, you have to truly love it and give the promotion your all. It was a beautifully told story with great matches and immediately changed my perception of Misa Kagura.

Where is Katsu now? The other competing top dog in Ice Ribbon is Ibuki Hoshi, the 22-year-old daughter of Ice Ribbon veteran Hamuko Hoshi. Ibuki was on a collision course with Katsu before she injured her ACL and had to pull out of the scheduled Korakuen Hall main event. What would Ice Ribbon do? It was down to Ibuki’s Prime Link tag team partner, Kaho Matsushita. Kaho is also 22, but has never won the ICExFinity Title unlike Ibuki. That made her lack confidence. The new and improved Katsu coaxed Kaho out of her shell and encouraged her to challenge on 26th October at Korakuen Hall. It was a great match in which Kaho showed that she is capable of delivering a main event, although it was clear that Kaho was a downgrade from Ibuki. Months later, and Katsu had just finished defending her title against Kirari Wakana. Katsu wanted to nominate Kaho as her challenger for Ribbonmania on 31st December, but instead, Totoro Satsuki and Misa Kagura came out to claim a title shot. Katsu set up a four-person tournament, including Kaho and Miku Kanae to see who would challenge. At a show which we have a review for in this issue, Kaho came out as the victor, launching her into another match with Manami Katsu at Korakuen Hall.

The other story of 2025 has been the slow but steady rise of Ice Ribbon’s rookie Kirari Wakana. Kirari was placed in a seven-match series against notable freelancers: UK independent wrestler Blueshe, Miyuki Takase, Unagi Sayaka, Rina Yamashita, Kaori Yoneyama, Haruka Umesaki and Maya Yukihi. Each match was better than the last, and I remember criticising her performance in the Yamashita match where she struggled to fight back against Yamashita and had weak forearms. However, each match, she would level up. She tried to keep hitting a double diving foot stomp, but would fail. In the fifth match against Yoneyama, Yoneyama would dive out of the way at the last second. Then, finally in the sixth match against Umesaki, Kirari hit the move for an amazing nearfall. Despite losing all seven matches, Kirari felt comfortable enough to go after Katsu, ultimately failing but having a great match. Now, the returning Yuka has decided to choose Kirari as her opponent. The short of it is that Yuka is tired of seeing Kirari as a Tsukushi-cosplay, since Tsukushi was Kirari’s favourite wrestler. Yuka wrestled Tsukushi, she finds it offensive and wants Kirari to be herself. Kirari was offended by Yuka’s promo and accepted the fight. These top two matches are extremely well built and will surely deliver.

Elsewhere, as reported in our last issue, Hamuko Hoshi requires hip surgery and so wanted one last match with her close friends from back in the day, reforming Lovely Butchers with Mochi Natsumi to take on Azure Revolution (Maya Yukihi & Risa Sera). If Hamuko can return, she will, but she isn’t counting on it. Akane Fujita defends her FantastICE Title against Tsukina Umino in a rematch of their October Korakuen Hall match, but likely with different rules, not known as at the time of writing. Bad Butts (Ancham, Crea & Yappy) settle their ‘blood’ feud with Arisa Shinose, Misa Kagura and Sumika Yanagawa. This is your standard babyface versus heels feud, with Bad Butts the only heel unit in Ice Ribbon. Expect (badly executed) interference, weapon usage and referee bumps. Elementary school student Mase Hiiro goes for her first title facing Kaori Yoneyama and Makoto for the Triangle Ribbon Title, and there’s a ‘Big Girl Showdown’ between Big Haruka and Mizuki Kato against Totoro Satsuki and Yuna Manase. Finally, Diana’s prodigy, Miran, teams up with Moe Hiiro against Miku Kanae and Ice Ribbon’s other elementary schooler, Riko.

Ice Ribbon New Ice Ribbon #1460
7th December 2025
TOKYOSQUARE, Itabashi, Tokyo Japan
Watch On: Ice Ribbon Live (PPV or 1 month after with a subscription)
Designation: Key Show
Recommended Match: Kaho Matsushita vs. Miku Kanae

Ice Ribbon decided the direction of the main event of Ribbonmania on 31st December at Korakuen Hall as Kaho Matsushita became the #1 Contender following a mini one-day tournament at TOKYOSQUARE. Kaho, 22, one of the trainers in Ice Ribbon and a former staff member, is in a tag team with Ice Ribbon’s other trainer and future ace in Ibuki Hoshi. Ibuki was due to face Manami Katsu at the 26th October Korakuen Hall show but suffered an ACL injury in training and pulled out. Ice Ribbon improvised and put Kaho in the spot. Kaho had no confidence and didn’t think she was good enough, but Manami Katsu, previously the cold-hearted bully of Ice Ribbon, demanded that Kaho take that spot and face her. While Katsu would be victorious, it was an important chapter in Kaho’s story who gained a lot of confidence from the experience. Kaho is not the most exciting or dynamic wrestler, but she is a solid hand who needs more of these experiences to attempt to up her game.

After the Yokohama Ribbon show on 24th November where Katsu defended against rookie Kirari Wakana, Katsu attempted to nominate Kaho Matsushita as the Ribbonmania challenger. Kaho responded saying that on this occasion, she refused to be nominated and would demand the challenge herself. With Kaho about to make it official Katsu, she was interrupted by Totoro Satsuki and Misa Kagura, all who wanted to stake their claim to the ICExFinity Title. Katsu decided to have them face off against each other for the right to face her in the Ribbonmania main event for the title, and also included Miku Kanae as the fourth participant. Kaho had faced Katsu for the title in October when Ibuki Hoshi had to pull out due to an ACL injury, Kagura had faced Katsu for the title in August, in one of the best storylines in Ice Ribbon in 2025, and Totoro had her own attempt against Katsu in February. Miku was the only fresh challenger among the four tournament participants. At the start of this show, the four wrestlers would participate in a random draw to set up two singles matches. The winners would advance to the final with the winner facing Katsu on 31st December at Korakuen Hall. Given the past histories, Miku Kanae was my preferred pick, but I could live with Kaho or Kagura. Totoro, I could not live with.

Misa Kagura had drawn Kaho Matushita and Miku Kanae went up against Totoro Satsuki. In the former bout, after some heavy blows delivered back and forth, Kagura went for her Misa Haretokidoki senton but missed. Kaho reversed it into a crucifix pin to no avail, but pinned Kagura immediately after with a sit-out cradle. At this point, everything was set up for Miku to be the ultimate babyface in the world. Totoro was the last person I had wanted to face Katsu (at a show I will be attending live), and we had just seen Kaho against Katsu, and while it was good, Kaho had a certain ceiling she was unable to break through. I desperately wanted Miku to beat both Totoro and Kaho and win the mini-tournament. I was on the edge of my seat for Miku and Totoro’s match. I was living and dying with every nearfall. When Miku was thrown around the crowd early on, I received some hope. I figured, okay she’s going to make a classic babyface comeback. Back in the ring, Miku hit a jackknife pin but with no locomotion so it was a weaker version of her finisher and Totoro kicked out immediately. It was back and forth with Miku getting some offense in with her crossbody, which made me nervous. If Miku was winning, surely they’d want to make it more one-sided to Totoro. I was getting worried. Then, Miku sprinted at Totoro full speed and launched over her head with a front-flip, transitioning it into a sit-out cradle. One, two, three! I was saved from a Totoro main event at Korakuen Hall. Worst case scenario was a Kaho rematch against Katsu, which I would take over a Totoro main event any day of the week.

I was in a much better, relaxed mood for the final now that Totoro had been eliminated. However, I still badly wanted a Miku Kanae victory to give the fans the first-time match up, one in which Miku would undoubtedly be a great babyface to Katsu’s bullying. Given that mindset, this match was excellent and completely overdelivered on my expectations. These two went all out and Miku probably looked the strongest and most confident she has looked in 2025 as they allowed her to actually… wrestle. It was as if Miku had flipped a switch and realised “oh, I can do all my offense now.” Kaho tried to put the heat on Miku with long submission holds, one after the other. Out of nowhere, Miku launched Kaho with a sick German suplex and dropped Kaho on her head. I literally screamed. At my count, it’s the seventh German suplex I’ve seen Miku throw in 2025, one in a March dojo show, a Korakuen Hall show, a Kamata show, another dojo show, one in STARDOM against Akira Kurogane, one in Sareee-ISM against Akira Kurogane, and now another against Kaho in Itabashi. After that sick suplex, Miku did a rare kip-up. She wasn’t messing around. She climbed the ropes and hit a Swanton bomb, but unlike the ones she did in STARDOM recently, this was more reminiscent of her AWG days where she kept her arms down by her side and squished Kaho. After witnessing Miku ascend before my very eyes, there were a series of nearfalls and jackknife pins from Miku where I was sure she was taking it home. Miku then went for a casadora but Kaho transitioned it into her very own rare German suplex. After a series of small packages from Miku, Kaho locked in the Fanfare. I was expecting a kick out as it was not the modified Fanfare, but even then, Miku’s bridging kick out was awesome. Then, Kaho lined up the modified Fanfare and hit it. I knew it was over as soon as it connected. While I was disappointed, this match was awesome and I was willing to give Kaho a chance to break through that ceiling.

Arisa Shinose, JTO’s HisokA (who has made several Ice Ribbon appearances this year) and Tsukina Umino went up against the oddball team of ICExFinity Champion Manami Katsu, her previous challenger Kirari Wakana, and Bad Butts (the heel faction) leader, Yappy. Yappy was quite well behaved and previewed her Korakuen Hall match with Shinose with back and forth action. Kirari paired up with Tsukina Umino, making me think she would be inserted into Umino’s FantastICE feud with Akane Fujita as a third person. Just as I thought that Kirari’s diving double foot stomp finisher would put Umino away, it broke up at the last second. Kirari won with a flash pin onto Umino, clutching her legs into a tight cradle. After the match, Yuka, who is returning after a decade, came out to the ring. It was an awesome promo that got me even more excited to see Yuka. She spoke about how she saw Kirari for the first time during her seven-match series. She thought how dazzling and incredible Kirari was and it shocked her. Yuka said that they had been training together and she saw her old self in Kirari. She then asked Kirari whether she could be her opponent on 31st December. She then pulled back her hand, and said “well, that’s what I wanted to say.” She went on to say that Kirari had told her that Tsukushi was her favourite wrestler. Yuka felt insulted by that. Tsukushi was not someone Kirari could casually say that she admired. Yuka had wrestled Tsukushi while she was active and felt Kirari was some botched tribute act. Yuka stated that Kirari was nothing like Tsukushi. She doesn’t want to do her comeback match against some weak homage of Tsukushi, she wants to come back against Kirari Wakana. She then extended her hand to Kirari again. Kirari replied that Yuka had no right to say any of that, and that she would show Yuka who Kirari Wakana is. She then stormed off without shaking Yuka’s hand. This was awesome.

Arisa Shinose is recruiting people to help her face Bad Butts at Ribbonmania. After Kagura’s defeat against Kaho, Shinose exploited the situation by manipulating her Chiapuri friend into joining her (tongue-in-cheek, it was a cute promo, it was just funny that Arisa chose straight after Kagura’s upsetting loss to recruit her).

Elsewhere, Mase Hiiro continued preparations for her Triangle Ribbon bout at Korakuen Hall, where she will face Kaori Yoneyama and Makoto, by facing fellow elementary schooler Riko as well as her own sister, Moe, in a Triangle Ribbon match. Mase pinned Riko with Mase Histral.

© hiroyukikai1

Diana

“Wrestle Kingdom” Week Preview

Diana has more shows on Wrestle Kingdom Week than most joshi independent promotions, but they’re not in Tokyo. Instead they will be at their home venue of Post di Amistad in Kawasaki, Kanagawa, much like Dragongate and Sendai Girls not bothering with the Tokyo rush. There will be a “Future Sight #41” show on 26th December, “vol. 101” on 28th December, “vol. 102” on 4th January and “vol. 103” on 11th January heading into a big show on 24th January at Culttz Kawasaki. The cards are announced for “Future Sight #41” and “vol. 101” are announced which will see the first true unit vs. unit battles when Grace of Royalty (Haruka Umesaki & Misa Kagura) face Nanami & Mizuki Kato on “Future Sight #41”, and then Grace of Royalty (Haruka Umesaki & Miran) face Nanami Hatano & Kyoko Inoue, who have still not named their unit, on “vol. 101”. As discussed in our “vol. 100” review, Diana has vacated all titles (except Miran’s Crystal Title) so that all wrestlers start on an even playing field.

vol. 100

14th December 2025
Post di Amistad, Kawasaki, Japan
Watch On: Diana Live
Designation: Key Show
Recommended Match: Debbie Keitel vs. Haruka Umesaki

On a landmark 100th instalment of their regular shows at Post di Amistad, Diana held two title matches to mark the occasion. In the main event, Haruka Umesaki successfully defended her title against Debbie Keitel. Keitel pinned Umesaki in the main event of the 5th October Korakuen Hall show as Caffeine and Crush (Ayako Sato & Keitel) defended their WWWD Tag Team Championship against Chobuki (Umesaki & Unagi Sayaka). Caffeine and Crush vacated their titles immediately after and Keitel made her challenge (the titles are still vacated as of today, which will end up being important). The match was finally announced for “vol. 100” over two months later. There wasn’t quite a set-up for this match and it was rather just announced out of nowhere (or maybe there was an angle on social media, which I do not follow). The background is clear though. Keitel is part of the heel group, Invader or Innovator (INVA), and Haruka Umesaki leads her own faction called Grace of Royalty. They have different ideologies and are opposed. The formation of INVA is what kicked off the unit war in Diana and led to Umesaki creating her own faction, so as the right hand woman of INVA’s leader, Ayako Sato, there was an in-built storyline which served as the background for the match. 

Off the bell, Keitel sprinted at Umesaki with a big boot, but Umesaki dodged and landed her signature elbow strike to Keitel and followed up with a dropkick to Keitel. The fight spilled outside the ring as Keitel threw Umesaki around Post di Amistad, into cheers, signs, whatever she could. Such a brawl is a rare sight in Post di Amistad. Keitel was ruthless, hungry for the title she had been gunning for the whole year during her Diana tenure. Whereas Keitel was ruthless, Umesaki displayed urgency and her selling was on-point in this match. Once Umesaki finally broke out from underneath Keitel’s onslaught, Umesaki ran full sprint at the ropes to connect with her basement dropkick. Keitel then made the mistake of engaging Umesaki in a forearm battle, an unwise decision given Umesaki is one of the hardest forearm strikers in the scene and takes pride in them. Keitel pleaded for clemency but instead was met with a ferocious dropkick into a vertical suplex. Learning her lesson from that, Keitel prompted an exchange of chops instead, but it ended the same way, as Umesaki hit a brutal dropkick. Keitel’s faction, INVA, then interfered, but Keitel accidentally sprayed Sato with the coffee mist. Umesaki took advantage of the chaos, landing a bridging German suplex. The match picked up a frenetic pace with Keitel hitting Midnight Espresso, well sort of as there was no sit-out component which allowed Umesaki to kick out. Keitel followed up with a knee strike but Umesaki’s fighting spirit allowed her to fight through and hit the very rare super finisher, Blast, for the win (it is a leg-hook and half-nelson clutch suplex).

After the match, Umesaki wrapped her belt around the top rope, exactly as Caffeine and Crush had done after their match at Korakuen Hall. She then announced that she would be vacating the belt. On the same show, Kyoko Inoue defended her WWWD Elizabeth Title against Himiko and Jaguar Yokota as she pinned Himiko with the Niagara Driver. The title is only available to be challenged for by those aged 40 or above. After the match, Kyoko announced she would be vacating the belt. That meant that as of the end of this show, all three belts were vacated in the promotion. That might sound crazy to you Diana is entering their 15th anniversary in 2026 and have four major shows booked at Culttz Kawasaki (a venue where SEAd draw around 600 and NOAH over 1,500) and Korakuen Hall. The first of these shows is on 24th January at Culttz Kawasaki. Umesaki gave her reason as that she wants all the units and everyone in the promotion to start the 15th year anniversary at an equal level and she wishes to become a double champion from scratch. Given the big 2026 ahead, Diana is rolling the dice and trying to spice things up, which I think it’s important for promotions of Diana’s size to do. The unit war slowly brewing since July feels like an intentional part of those plans as it seems to be peaking just at the turn of the year, with recruitment happening slowly over the past few months, and only Nanami’s unit the only one not to be named. This didn’t feel like a swerve for the hell of it. While I was certainly not expecting Umesaki to vacate, I have to reserve judgement and see what they have planned. That being said, one of the things that does need to be criticised is that Diana was setting up a storyline where Umesaki would defend against every member of the Diana roster because the title had been out of the company for almost a year. I was really looking forward to Kyoko and Nanami being the final few hurdles and how they’d approach it, but it seems like they quietly scrapped that idea. Umesaki and Nanami is a big match, so hopefully they build to that for the first title match for the vacant WWWD Championship in 2026.

Elsewhere, Nanami Hatano teamed with her stablemate Mizuki Kato against Miran and a mystery partner, who turned out to be CMLL’s Olympia. Olympia was due for a tour with STARDOM, which normally means the CMLL wrestler ends up taking some dates with some independent promotions, which is what Dark Silueta did regularly. Olympia is an impressive powerhouse wrestler who looked good in her AEW match with Mercedes Mone, and is one of CMLL’s better woman workers (which unfortunately is a low bar to reach). It is incredibly difficult for the women in CMLL to improve, so despite wrestling for four years and having almost 250 matches, it’s hard to say that Olympia is experienced. Olympia seeing exceptional young talent such as Miran and wrestling with vets, such as Ayako Sato and whoever she will work with in STARDOM, will inevitably help her. Olympia looked fine in her debut with no hiccups. I won’t say she looked amazing, but she held her own. There were some questionable spots, such as intentionally missing a seated senton to then just skin the cat and it the senton anyway. However, it was a fine first appearance.

Now, in a match contrasting the tag match involving Diana’s young stars, rookie Anna faced veteran Ayako Sato. Anna is still extremely green and I am not sure why Diana debuted her. She very much struggles with selling and does not look comfortable at all in the ring. Anna failed her pro test two times and received a scolding from Jaguar Yokota and Kyoko Inoue on the second fail. Then, she passed on the third try on 21st September and was immediately thrown into her debut at Korakuen Hall on 5th October, weeks after the pro test. She disappeared for over a month and has now returned in a series of uncertain performances, which feels like they are throwing her to the wolves and seeing how she fares. It is a brutal environment to have to learn rapidly in front of a viewing audience, and she is very young at age 16. I’m rooting for her. But the matches are rough. The one thing I can say Anna does well is she lays her forearms in. So even the least experienced rookie in the scene today has better forearms than Saya Kamitani. This match was surprisingly long before Sato won with the missile dropkick.

© hiroyukikai1

WAVE

“Wrestle Kingdom” Week Preview

WAVE are running two events over Wrestle Kingdom Week, alongside co-producing a third which will be Yuki Miyazaki’s retirement show. Miyazaki’s heyday was the 2000s where she competed for NEO Women’s Pro Wrestling before retiring at the end of 2010. She returned from retirement (or rather a hiatus) joining WAVE full-time in 2015. She has mostly been a wrestler that has integrated comedy into her style, alongside a tendency to do hardcore and deathmatches. Miyazaki announced her retirement ten months ago and has been on her retirement road ever since, ticking off bucket list items, such as facing Jun Kasai in a deathmatch, one at a time. Other items on Miyazaki’s bucket list included facing one of WAVE’s contracted younger talents for the Regina di WAVE Title, which she achieved when she took on Cohaku in September before losing to her own move, the moonsault, seemingly inheriting the move from Miyazaki before she had even retired and using it directly on her. Miyazaki’s ‘shame hold’ or ‘embarrassing hold’ where she holds the opponent’s head near her crotch while opening their legs has been passed down onto DDT’s Danshoku Dino. In an interview to Shupro in issue #2390, Miyazaki intended to retire the move given the changing times, but she found someone who could withstand the abuse for doing such a move in 2025, meaning Dino was the right man for the job.

The first of three Wrestle Kingdom Week shows is at Shinjuku FACE on 26th December where Miyazaki will compete in a five-person gauntlet, each 10 minutes. It is actually her final WAVE event as her retirement show is a produce show. The gauntlet will be against 15-year-old CoCo, who has popped up everywhere and blown people away with her athleticism, Regina di WAVE Champion Itsuki Aoki, DDT co-founder Sanshiro Takagi (given Miyazaki’s links to DDT early in her career), WAVE’s long-term staff member Yumi Ohka and finally, a tag match where comedy duo and dear friends, Hibiscus Mii and Ranmaru take on Miyazaki and her close friend Shin Sakura Hirota.

The show is followed up by Miyazaki’s retirement on the 1st January at Korakuen Hall, which has been advertised for most of 2025. Miyazaki will wrestle twice on the show, first in a hardcore match where she will team with Hibiscus Mii against Risa Sera and Yuko Miyamoto, then in the main event in a Weapon Rumble Rules match against Shin Sakura Hirota. Miyazaki’s retirement match was always going to be against Hirota. They are from the same generation, the same age and both from Aichi and both incorporate comedy into their wrestling styles. The idea is Miyazaki will wrestle as part of the Brief Sisters gimmick with Hibiscus Mii, before finishing the night wrestling as herself. If you’re someone who loves retirement ceremonies, you’ll probably want to see this show.

Buried in the undercard is quite the banger as Ame-kyun (Haruka Umesaki & Honoka) take on Hazuki & VENY. I am going to have to try and find time to watch that match while travelling through Japan.

The Shinjuku FACE show on 2nd January only has one match announced as at the time of writing, with Risa Sera facing Shin Sakura Hirota.

© AWG

Actwres girl’Z

“Wrestle Kingdom” Week Preview

As at the time of writing, AWG neatly fell out of the date range of our coverage, with no shows available to watch since the release of our last issue. Therefore, we’ll just do our best to highlight what’s upcoming for AWG in Wrestle Kingdom Week and also let you know about some results from shows that have not yet aired, so spoilers alert.

On the 15th December at “ACTwrestling Step 67” in Tokyo, MARU defended her KING Title against Chii Aoba in the main event. All was well, everything made sense, MARU would be heading into the final Korakuen Hall show of the year on 29th December as KING Champion. That Korakuen Hall show will clash with Stardom’s second biggest show of the year, Dream Queendom, which was not a very smart booking by AWG. Clearly, AWG felt they needed to switch things up, as they caused pandemonium on the 20th December in Osaka when they switched not only the KING Title from MARU to Nagisa Shiotsuki, but also the AWG Title from their ace in 2025, Marino Saihara, to her Actwres 5 teammate in Rico Fukunaga. I usually never spoil myself, but given the timing of this issue, I decided to break that rule and read the results of the unaired shows to help give as accurate up-to-date information as I could. I was quite confused when I opened up the results page.

Marino Saihara has been the best wrestler in AWG in 2025. While there have been some small hiccups here and there, she has been the most consistent performer on a show-to-show basis. She also carries herself as the ace, delivering confident promos as the leader of the babyface faction Actwres 5. After she heroically defended her Interim (it’s so stupid) AWG Tag Team Titles against MARU and Ayano Irie in Yokohama on 24th November, Rico Fukunaga, Yukina Uehara and Asako Mia all declared challenges for Marino’s AWG Title. The first one up was her Actwres 5 stablemate and long-time tag team partner in MRC, Rico on 20th December. If Marino defended successfully, it would have been her 6th defense, tying Miku Aono with the record number of defenses of the AWG Title. It seemed like a fitting storyline for the ace heading into the biggest show of the year. Instead, Marino failed, losing to Rico in just over 10 minutes. That match length is not really out of the ordinary in AWG, but without seeing the match, it feels like ending the title reign on a bit of a whimper rather than a bang, especially as Rico has not been one of the most outstanding wrestlers in AWG in 2025. It was Rico’s first ever title.

Then, one of the best acts in 2025, MARU, lost her KING Title on the 3rd defence to Nagisa Shiotsuki, after Nagisa had failed to beat Marino for the AWG Title just weeks before. Nagisa had been slowly elevated throughout the year, so losing the AWG Title challenge made sense, and I suppose winning the KING Title isn’t the worst idea in the world. In another twist, AWG also announced the full card of the 29th December Korakuen Hall show, which would be main evented by the Interim AWG Tag Team Champions, Marino Saihara and Yukina Uehara, defending against Midsummer Breeze (Natsuki & Nagisa Shiotsuki). So the weird thing here is that the match was already announced before the 20th December show, so there’s an aspect where they perhaps didn’t want Marino pulling double duty but also wanted the AWG Title on the show. But now that Nagisa is the KING Champion as of 20th December, but also in the main event, so that title will not be defended on the show. It was decided that MARU, who had just lost her KING Title, would be challenging Rico for the AWG Title. If all of this sounds confusing, it’s because it is. One way to look at this is that we have to remember about the AWG points system, based on in-ring ability, effort, popularity (via merch sales), and luck (a dice roll). The KING Title, according to podcast Actwres Stage hosted by Velkej Bracha and Sondre Bjorn, is not a points title. Therefore, Nagisa can win the “wrestling” match, because she’s good, but lose the “points” title match, which is why she lost to Marino. This is one of the reasons they do this system, because it is a story in itself that they want to tell where Nagisa is good enough to win wrestling matches but still does not have enough points to win the big titles.

Either way, in the end, if Midsummer Breeze wins the tag team titles and MARU wins the AWG Title, then all is well in the world, but the way they got there was confusing, and it would make Nagisa a double champion. It would be a good story for Nagisa to not be able to beat Marino on her own but then with her partner she can overcome that challenge. They would really be going all in with Nagisa, who is a very interesting wrestler. And what an interesting promotion.

After challenging for the KING Title, Chii Aoba is all the way back down the card, but at least it’s not the opener. There’s also a new debutant, confusingly called Marino. She’s from the Venus theatre group that have been running shows. They’re running a play about starting a pro wrestling organisation and it will culminate in a pro wrestling event on 4th January, going head to head with Wrestle Kingdom 20. It’s a collaboration between their own talent, AWG and Ice Ribbon. While some Venus talent have re-debuted in Ice Ribbon, like Yuka, Marino is the first to now debut in AWG.

ChocoPro

ChocoPro #491 ~ Rivals

28th November 2025
TOKYOSQUARE, Itabashi, Tokyo, Japan
Watch On: YouTube (Free!)

ChocoPro crowned new Dream Asia Tag Team Champions as MiyaSoy (Miya Yotsuba & Soy) finally defeated Bellflowers (Makoto & Sayaka), after failing to beat them in their last challenge at Mei Suruga’s 7th anniversary show on 29th May. This was a match with a lot of good twists and turns. Sayaka was at her best as she played the “no BS” bully role, laying in her forearms into Miya. In the end, Miya would win by unveiling a new move, the Oklahoma Stampede, into delivering a Miyahammer to the back of Sayaka to win the first of many titles in her career as she is positioned as the next big thing in ChocoPro next to Mei Suruga.

Kung Fu Panda (Choun Shiryu & Kaori Yoneyama), BestBros (Mei Suruga & Baliyan Akki) and Egg Tart (Chie Koishikawa & Hagane Shinnou) faced off in what would likely determine the next challengers for the Asia Dream Tag Team Title, now held by MiyaSoy. Mei Suruga was at her innovative best, dodging a Doomsday Device-like lariat with a dodge straight out of “The Matrix.” Chie and Hagane won the match, which meant that MiyaSoy called them out after their title win, nominating them as the next challengers on 30th December at TOKYOSQUARE.

Chris Brookes faced SETUP’s Jonathan Johnson in a singles match. Thai promotion SETUP had just held a show in TOKYOSQUARE on 14th November that Johnson competed in the main event of, going to a 15-minute time-limit draw with El Phantasmo. This was Jonathan Johnson’s 100th match, while Chris has been active in attempting to grow the South East Asia scene, including appearing on the DDT/TJPW/MYPW and KLP48 collab on 15th November in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Johnson is the IWA World Heavyweight Champion and his entrance music is Till’ I Collapse by Eminem. That’s pretty sick. His IWA title was not on the line in this match. Johnson immediately attacked Chris during his entrance as the two brawled around the ring. In the end, Johnson couldn’t overcome Chris, who he refers to as “papa”, and had to submit to a high-angle Boston crab.

Sayaka Obihiro provided some much needed veteran support to the rookie duo of The Weaklings (Hyori Yawata & Kaho Hiromi) as they all pulled their weight to stack a pin on Tokiko Kirihara, who partnered with Erii Kanae and Minoru Fujita. There was also a Gokigen Pro storyline overlap as Antonio Honda faced his Daisetz unit teammate in Ryuichi Sekine. Sekine is married to former TJPW star Nodoka Tenma (Yuki Aino’s sister). After the main event, Hiyori continued to try to challenge for a title but instead Obihiro stopped her and said she would team with her to build results.

PURE-J

“Wrestle Kingdom” Week Preview

PURE-J will have two shows during Wrestle Kingdom Week at Itabashi Green Hall on 27th December and 5th January. The card for the 27th December is not anything you need to go out of your way to see. The other show is on 5th January at Itabashi Green Hall. The only announced match is the ace, Hanako Nakamori going for her sixth PURE-J Openweight Title reign as she faces SAKI in the main event.

PURE-J CLIMAX 2025

14th December 2025
Company Announced Attendance: 581
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan
Watch On: “@TB3_official” YouTube (membership required)
Designation: Key Show

This show was the opposite of a climax. It was a descent into hell.

The reason I started watching PURE-J was for Crea. She had an up and down 2025 including a significant loss streak as she was struggling to find herself in PURE-J and couldn’t decide whether she would take on her heel persona from Ice Ribbon or her straight-laced babyface character that had previously given her success in PURE-J. Crea was floundering without her tag team partner, AKARI, after they split up in August. But after a long-winding road, Crea finally challenged SAKI for the PURE-J Openweight Championship as her babyface character. I would like to say this story made a lot of sense while following all the shows, but it was a bit all over the place and I’m not sure if they knew the final destination. But, Crea is the standout wrestler on the rise in PURE-J so it was the correct challenger for the final Korakuen Hall show of the year. I was worried whether Crea would limit herself as she does so very regularly, especially as her heel character, or if I would see the Crea that went all out in her first few Ice Ribbon appearances of 2025. This was Crea’s first ever Korakuen Hall main event in her seventh year as a wrestler, so I was hoping for the latter.

Crea gave me what I was looking for off the bell as she German suplex’d SAKI and exchanged stiff elbow strikes to start the match. It was quite funny seeing SAKI try to go toe-to-toe with Crea. It was even worse later when they brawled on the outside, and SAKI would land her soft strikes on Crea who would reply with nuclear weapon-style slaps. Unfortunately, since it takes two to tango, I cannot add this as a recommended match as it did not quite reach that bar. It’s SAKI in a 20+ minute match. But, this was the Crea I started watching PURE-J for. She was a total badass in this match and with the right dance partner, there is no stopping her. The match dropped off once SAKI was the one dishing out offence until Crea intercepted SAKI on top of the turnbuckle, slapped her around the face and muscled another German suplex onto the champion. SAKI fought back with an avalanche brainbuster, but it wasn’t enough to put down Crea who dropped SAKI with a running boot and struggled to hoist SAKI up for her signature delayed German suplex (really, THE move that got me into PURE-J). After a Northern Lights suplex and a splash, Crea was ready to deliver the final blow. She lifted SAKI up, spun her around and then dropped her on her neck. Somehow, SAKI kicked out of the protected finisher. At this point, it felt like the match had missed its peak. Why SAKI could not just lay down for the delayed German is beyond me, but the match went several more minutes as SAKI had to bully for a bit longer, which is a role I would find Marko Stunt more credible in than her. SAKI finally hit her running brainbuster over 25 minutes into the match and then dropped a diving knee on her head to retain the title. Jesus. I’m typing this live and not going back to edit. What a disappointing result. The only way this decision makes any sense is if Crea is off to another promotion. That would make sense given her random booking over the past six months. Crea has been in PURE-J for SEVEN years and still hasn’t won the title. What are we doing here?! What is the point?! It’s SAKI. SAKI. Why does SAKI need a lengthy title run in 2025, in a company she’s not even contracted to? Why is she going over the 25-year-old wrestler with a bright future who’s stuck with them for SEVEN years? I’m crashing out. Is this how Hangman fans felt at Full Gear? I don’t care if the other matches get uploaded later. I’m not finishing this show. Terrible stuff. Crea was awesome. SAKI, I hope you step on a lego brick.

Okay, I did watch this one before the SAKI match so I’ll keep the notes here. A month before her retirement, Risa Sera led her mentee, Chie Ozora, into battle for the Daily Sports Women’s Tag Team Championship, attempting to wrest the belts from Kobayashi-gumi, comprised of Hanako Nakamori & Kaho Kobayashi (Nakamori’s real surname is Kobayashi). Chie had been on a journey in 2025 as Sera had sent ‘assassins’ to train Chie up in preparation for this moment. Chie had some victories, such as against Sera’s Prominence teammate, Mochi Natsumi. She even challenged for the PURE-J Openweight Championship against SAKI, albeit unsuccessfully, before finally succumbing to Sera herself in the final challenge. Sera had announced that she would pass on the moniker of “Azure Blaze” to Chie. This was one of the most well-built stories in PURE-J in 2025.

In the match, after getting annoyed at Sera’s antics, Kaho decided to attack Sera’s “injured” knee. Sera suffered ACL and MCL injuries in July but continued to wrestle. She is moving much better now, but is clearly still holding back. It does make matches like this a bit more difficult to watch, but Sera can still hit hard. She laid in her forearms and delivered a clonking headbutt to Nakamori before tagging in Chie who nailed Nakamori with a German suplex. Despite a spirited effort from Chie going up against the ace of PURE-J in Nakamori, even with a win over her in a preview match, Chie could not deliver when it mattered. Nakamori pinned Chie with the Requiem Driver.

The rest of the matches had not been uploaded as at the time of writing.

After holding the Daily Sports Women’s Tag Team Championship earlier in 2025, Ganbare Pro’s duo of Moeka Haruhi and Yuna Manase returned to the promotion alongside their colleague YuuRI defeating the PURE-J team of Leon, Momo Tani and Rydeen Hagane.

MIRAI made her PURE-J debut beating one of PURE-J’s best workers in AKARI.

After experiencing an unfortunate injury on a dojo show on 3rd August, Jenne competed at Korakuen Hall just a week later, before going on hiatus. She returned on this show and teamed with Arise Shinose against Cherry and KAZUKI.

Rookie Mia had a 3-minute exhibition match against AKARI to open the show.

BJW

“Wrestle Kingdom” Week Preview

We will not be covering the BJW Korakuen Hall shows on 30th December, 31st December and 2nd January like we normally do as our staff will be in Japan resulting in more targeted coverage in the next issue. The “King of Deathmatch World Grand Prix II” takes place on 31st December. This year, it is a tag team tournament.

© MCW

Oceania News

In our last issue, we mentioned that Caveman Ugg vacated the Melbourne City Wrestling (MCW) World Title in unfortunate circumstances as he stepped away to focus on a length recovery. That occurred during the lead-up to “End Game”, which was held on 7th December at Melbourne Pavilion. Four men vied for the top title in the wake of that announcement: Robbie Thorpe, Dusk, Slex and Matt Hayter. Thorpe capped off an excellent year in 2025 as he won the “Ballroom Brawl,” the “Fight to Survive” match, and beat out the other three men to become the new MCW World Champion. Three-time MCW World Champion Slex was in Thorpe’s ICON$ unit before being betrayed but couldn’t get the job done. Water Rapids (Mitch Waterman & Ryan Rapid) defended their MCW Tag Team Title in a three-way ladder match against The Dropouts (Scott Green & The Tuckman) and The Natural Classics (Stevie Filip & Tome Filip). The Dropouts last competed in MCW at the 2024 instalment of “End Game.” In the other title match on the card, Adam Brooks, who has since been announced for MLW “Battle Riot” in February, defended his Intercommonwealth Title against Ricky South. There was some history here as Ricky South had beaten Adam Brooks in a best-of-five series between MCW and Pro Wrestling Australia (PWA) in 2021. Then, Brooks had beaten South a month later, and that is where they left it until “End Game” where Brooks proved he was the better man.

MCW’s next three shows at Thornbury Theatre are their anniversary show on 21st February, “New Horizons” on 28th March, “High Stakes” on 23rd May, while “Ballroom Brawl” will take place on 4th July at Melbourne Pavilion.

Following their own biggest show of the year, “Battle For Supremacy XIX”, Riot City Wrestling (RCW) announced that they will host an event called “ReAnimated” to celebrate their 20th anniversary in January 2026.

New South Wales’ Pro Wrestling Australia (PWA) were at the Factory Theatre in Marrickville on 5th December for “Kick-Ons 2025”. The Tuckman successfully defended his Soul of PWA Title against Jack J. Bonza in a battle of the “redheads.” Tuckman had rejected Bonza’s offer of joining their redhead alliance. After New Japan’s Robbie Eagles called out Scott Green for trying to become a “reality TV star,” he put a beating on Scott Green to beat him in the opener of the show. North Shore Wrestling continued their dominance as Big Fudge, Jessica Troy and Shay Kassidy could not overcome them even with the help of Mick Moretti.

Allie Katch makes her PWA debut on 27th December in Mount Pritchard, Sydney.

PWA’s annual Colosseum tournament, delayed from the usual October, will take place in February 2026.

Perth-based promotion Explosive Pro Wrestling (EPW) held one of their biggest shows of the year, “ReAwakening XXIV” on 13th December in Willeton, Perth. Lucas Fantasia won the EPW Invitational Tournament, defeating Mikey Broderick in the final, while Dustin Connors beat Rogan Karguis for the EPW Coastal Title. In the main event, James Hartness retained the EPW Heavyweight Title against Marcius Pitt in a steel cage.

EPW’s next show is on 31st January at The Point in Merriwa. After crashing out of the EPW Invitational Tournament semi-finals, both Damian Slater and Solomun Blackwell look to bounce back in a best two-out-of-three-falls match. The EPW Tag Team Title will be defended by The Purveyors Of Workrate (Chris J. Lazareth & Elijah Henry) against Australian Takeover (Julian Ward & Kaz Jordan) in a first for EPW – a double dog collar match.

World Series Wrestling’s Rise Against tour takes place from 15th May to 18th May 2026, from Adelaide to two stops in Melbourne and finishing in Sydney. The WSW Australian Champion, WSW World Heavyweight Champion Matt Cardona, WSW Tag Team Champions The Parea (Eli Theseus & Gabriel Aeros), The Good Brothers, Bishop Dyer, Nic Nemeth, Shotzi Blackheart, Priscilla Kelly, Killer Kross, Scarlett Bordeaux, Man Like DeReiss, Myla Grace and the Moose have also been announced for the tour.

© Vietnam Pro Wrestling

Rest of Asia News

Vietnam Pro Wrestling (VPW) celebrated their 10th anniversary, “Vietnamania” on 6th December. There are a lot of clips of the show on their Twitter. On a show headlined by four title bouts, Ares beat the head coach and co-founder of Singapore Pro Wrestling, “The Statement” Andreuw Tang, to become the new VPW Openweight Champion. Ares beat Tang with the Stormbreaker (yes, Will Ospreay’s move). In the main event, US independent wrestler Viva Van, who regularly makes the rounds in South East Asia, defended her VPW Women’s Title against Crystal on the show.

Malaysia Pro Wrestling (MYPW), who held a show with TJPW in Kuala Lumpur in November, held “SHOWCASE 1” on 21st December which was a one-hour showcase of the future and current talent of MYPW. Singapore Pro Wrestling’s (SPW) Tag Team Champion Big Good Jack (BGJ) made his MYPW debut on the show. MYPW, SPW, SETUP Thailand and Vietnam Pro Wrestling (VPW) regularly exchange talent with each other.

Meanwhile, in MYPW’s rival promotion, APAC, they held the show “Ascent” on 13th December at Esi Grand Hall in the Spacerubix in Puchong. They will also hold “WrestleLegion 2” at the same venue on 14th February. APAC was created by former MYPW owner Shaukat in 2020. Of course, he bills himself as “Master of All” and has (presumably) booked himself to tear through some people before getting his hands on Double K. Shaukat beat Singaporean vet NYC on his path of revenge. Mercedes Mone is still an APAC champion as she holds the APAC Women’s Title formerly held by Nor Phoenix Diana. Diana faced Viva Van on the “Ascent” show.

TJPW partnered with SETUP Thailand for a show in Bangkok on 13th December. We have a full review of that show in our TJPW section on this page. Jonathan lost his IWA Japan SETUP World Title to Shivam on “Episode 25: A Hard Day’s Night” on 29th November.

On 30th November, Diana held a show in Taiwan in collaboration with New Taiwan Pro-Wrestling (NTW) at Chuto Plaza Hotel. It was mostly a normal Diana card, but of course it also included Syan Syan, who is under a dual contract with both promotions, and Kuumu, who debuted in June and has wrestled in Diana this year. Grace of Royalty (Haruka Umesaki & Syan Syan) teamed with Unagi Sayaka against Invader or Innovator (Ayako Sato, Debbie Keitel & Kuumu) who are rival units in Diana.

NTW’s next show is their 14th anniversary held at their Zhongli Dojo. Syan Syan will face Chanyota in a match I hope makes their YouTube. Along with Chanyota there are other PPP Tokyo representatives up and down the card, as well as the Austrian, Barbarossa.

Diana announced that Singapore-based promotion, Grapplemax, will be joining their existing alliance with NTW (Taiwan), Wrestle BINGO (Hiroshima) and Hokuto Pro Wrestling (Hokkaido).

FREEDOMS’ duo Jun Kasai and Takashi Sasaki became the Top of Puzzle Tag Team Champions at the FREEDOMS x Puzzle Pro collaboration show at the Puzzle Pro Dojo on 29th November.

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