12/28/2025

© Bushiroad

For Your Consideration: Taro Okada, Booker of the Year

By Chris Whitehead

If you drive around Los Angeles during Emmy Nomination season, you’ll see billboards all across town that have been repurposed from the latest fast food deal or any number of our locally famous auto-accident lawyers. Instead of advertising to everyone, they switch focus to advertising only to members of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, with every such billboard showing nothing more than a picture with no text other than the name of the show and “For Your Consideration”. This expensive billboard real estate is taken up in hopes of convincing voters to watch the shows they are supposed to watch before making their votes, because there is so much TV to watch that even the people who vote can’t keep up.

Global wrestling, much like American television shows, also has so much content that viewers and voters are presented with the same level of difficulty in trying to keep up. No one watches everything and everyone usually needs at least some guidance on what to keep up with or catch up on – which is precisely the purpose of this “FYC” article. (I need this exact kind of help keeping up with lucha, for example.)

Before we get into the article proper, let me jump on my soapbox and re-state my opinion that the name of this award should be changed from “Best Booker” to “Best Booked Promotion,” because outside of the US there’s often a lack of clarity about who is the booker, and/or there is a booking team working together. To narrow it down to one person, which may be the wrong person or one of many people, seems unnecessary to me, and naming the best booked promotion would be simpler.

© AEW/WWE

A Wide Open Field

On the November 7th edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer provided his reasons why neither Paul Levesque nor Tony Khan should win Booker of the Year in his publication’s annual awards this year. You can agree or disagree with Dave’s reasons for why those guys should not win, but he is correct. What he didn’t say is who should win, which is why you are reading this article. The winner should not come from America. If you chose to vote for CMLL I would understand completely, but for my money, the candidate to throw your vote behind is Stardom’s Taro Okada.

I first wrote about Okada back in January, for Voices of Wrestling and I covered him a little more in my wrap up of the FiveStarGP in Issue 11 of the Social Suplex newsletter. To briefly recap, for anyone that didn’t read those pieces, Taro Okada came into Stardom as the new Bushiroad appointed company president, transferring over from the Theatre division in late 2023. A few months later, in early 2024, Bushiroad fired Stardom founder and booker, Rossy Ogawa. Okada was then appointed to be the head booker (as well as the president), despite having no previous booking experience. Since then, in less than two years, Okada has completely turned around Stardom’s business metrics, taking them from record low attendances to record high attendances and smartly rejigged the roster to maximize the star potential of key wrestlers. The upswing began in 2024 but went into overdrive in 2025.

In my original article on Okada, I noted my personal philosophy on the three key things a booker needs to do to be successful. If a booker needs to successfully execute on all three of these items to be successful, then presumably the Booker of the Year needs to have done that in very clear and obvious ways? So let’s revisit those three items:

• Roster Management – Who is on the team? What is their role within the team? What is their alignment (heel/babyface)? Are they best suited to that alignment? Who can they be paired with or against for maximum artistic success and commercial value? Another key is pushing the people who are at their peak now while simultaneously working to build the stars of tomorrow.
• Booking Strategy (aka “Creative”) – Roster management choices cover some key elements of the matches one will make and who wins them, but one still has to identify the stories to tell and build and execute booking plans against those stories by deciding who wins, when they win and how they win. Angles should be executed to keep the stories moving, and generally keep enough story elements in the air at any time to ensure that the matches on the shows exist in service of overall creative goals and not in a vacuum.
• Business Strategy & Results – Booking has to serve one’s business goals, which should be long-term and not short-term. Big title matches should take place on the biggest shows, and everything in between should build towards that, with selective use of lower card titles to bolster mid-tier shows. Long-term business strategy should drive booking strategy. Business should grow over time, in a sustainable and organic way.

© STARDOM

Roster Management

In 2025, Okada continued to oversee the elevation of possibly wrestling’s youngest roster. Ordinarily, this is a standard practice for a booker, yet one that is often neglected by many. Admittedly, Okada was also somewhat forced to do it (for the second year in a row), after the loss of his three top stars (two permanently) on a single day in April, with the retirement of Tam Nakano, the departure of Mayu Iwatani and a long term injury to Maika. He later also lost Syuri from the top of the card due to injury for a few months in the summer and also lost wrestlers from the middle of the card, with Mina Shirakawa and Thekla moving to the US, and Xena missing the whole year due to injury.

He plugged those gaps by bringing in Sareee as a hired-gun freelancer, continuing the elevation of Starlight Kid via a 10 month run with the Wonder of Stardom Championship, crowning Momo Watanabe the winner of the 5StarGP, elevating junior wrestlers Rina, Sayaka Kurara and Aya Sakura, bringing in Bozilla after her Marigold run ended, rehabbing Konami’s position on the card, and plugging in perennially-popular wrestlers like AZM, Natsupoi and Soari Anou into big spots wherever needed.

Most importantly, Okada found a way to make Saya Kamitani not just the top star of his company, but to “break wrestling containment” by making her into a national television star. Now, let’s be clear here, Okada (and the Bushiroad machine) may have gotten Saya booked on TV, but he is not some Svengali. What happened once the tv cameras were live is entirely down to Kamitani, as she turned a one-off appearance on ラヴィット! (LOVE It!) a morning variety show broadcast on TBS Television into a months long recurring weekly appearance, ultimately culminating in her having the first women’s wrestling match shown live on terrestrial Japanese TV in 23 years, and the first on TBS in 51 years (vs Hanan, a presumed future top star, also being elevated by this spotlight). Kamitani also made numerous other appearances on Japanese TV during the year, outside of her run on Love It.

Regardless of how Kamitani found her way into those tv studios, Okada’s instinct to make her the cornerstone of his company paid dividends. Could another wrestler have done what she did? There’s no certainty they could. I am an on-the-record lover of Sareee and think she is the best in-ring wrestler currently active anywhere in the world but her serious wrestler shtick wouldn’t work on a lighthearted TV show (although hearing her praise Antonio Inoki on live TV would rock). Mayu Iwatani is the greatest joshi wrestler of her generation but her confused adult act also wouldn’t work in that setting. Maika has proven herself to be maybe the top babyface in Stardom in the last two years but her functional alcoholic mom character wouldn’t work, either. Really, there is no one else on the roster that has the right mix of charisma and vulnerability that Kamitani possesses, and Okada correctly identified this. This was later backed up by the Tokyo Sports “Pro Wrestling GP” Panel voting Kamitani the first ever woman to win their coveted MVP Award, in addition to winning their Women’s Pro Wrestling MVP award.

In addition to helping to create a new TV star, Okada also recruited a former TV star, in an unusually risky move from a man that has been relatively conservative in his moves up to that point. In November, after an undercard match on a Korakuen Hall show, Okada took to the ring to introduce his newest signing: disgraced comedian/influencer/YouTuber Fuwa-chan. Fuwa once headlined a sold out comedy show in the Tokyo Dome. She also competed in two matches for Stardom in 2022 and 2023. That was before she was “cancelled” and had all her contracts ended for grievously insulting a fellow comedian, after which she apologized and removed herself from public life. It turned out she had been in the US and Europe investigating pro wrestling and training at various schools, before later entering the Stardom dojo as a rookie. She will re-debut at Stardom’s “Dream Queendom” 2025 Sumo Hall show on December 29th. This gambit appears to have paid off so far, with clips of Fuwa’s Korakuen appearance and subsequent posts doing big social media numbers, with limited negative comments. Her apology in the ring at Korakuen was thorough and lengthy, and as best as I can tell when using real time translation, seemed heartfelt. If the re-introduction of Fuwa is successful in-ring and without negative fan sentiment, and especially if she can regain any foothold in Japanese popular culture, it could be a masterstroke. If it isn’t, it could be a PR disaster, but the decision to roll the dice shows us a new side of Okada.

Beyond the cementing of his top star and recruiting a celebrity, Okada kept many other plates spinning and spent time diligently elevating wrestlers all year, leading to situations where even if the wrestler hasn’t actually moved up the card yet, they are more over than ever before. (It has likely been a long time since so many wrestlers have been so over at once.) Each of the three annual tournaments (Cinderella Tournament, 5StarGP, Goddesses Tag League) was used to elevate the winner and at least one other person.To cite some examples:

• Momo Watanabe (25) was sent to the US multiple times as a Stardom representative before winning the 5StarGP – an accomplishment at the level of winning a title – and challenging for the World of Stardom title. Her elevation is presumed to be ongoing but paused while she nurses a knee injury.
• Sayaka Kurara (25) won the Cinderella Tournament, elevating herself from a no-longer-a-rookie-not-yet-quite-a-midcarder to a solid midcard wrestler in the process, and parlayed her tournament win into a match with Kamitani for the World of Stardom title in a Korakuen Hall main event. She later went on to win the Goddesses Tag League (with partner Aya Sakura), completing a rare double of tournament wins in a single year.
• Rina (18) was the runner up in the Cinderella Tournament and a semi-finalist in the 5StarGP, who also won the Artist of Stardom (trios) titles later in the year. She also appeared (with Watanabe) alongside Kamitani on one of her many TV appearances. As noted in my article in Issue 11, she was also my 5StarGP MVP.
• Akira Kurogane (25) was a semi-finalist in the Goddesses tag league, with her specific story arc of the tournament being the elevation of her game, from losing falls to winning falls, and earning the trust of her partner Bozilla. She was also the first member of her rookie class to join a unit and was one of the Stardom representatives in WAVE’s annual Catch The Wave tournament.
• Ami Sourei (28) returned from a long injury absence and was re-established in the upper-mid card of the company during the 5StarGP and Goddesses league.

© STARDOM

Booking Strategy (aka “Creative”)

Nakano and Kamitani Make History

On the creative side, the biggest and most successful story told in Stardom this year, and for my money in all of Japanese wrestling, was the retirement of Tam Nakano at the hands of Saya Kamitani, which drew a company record crowd of 7,503 to Yokohama Arena for “Stardom All Star Grand Queendom” 2025. This was, in all likelihood, the biggest attendance for a joshi show since the 1990s (once you throw out some obviously inflated numbers).
To the best of our knowledge, Stardom, like many Japanese wrestling companies, utilizes a wrestler-driven storytelling approach, with the booking team setting the direction and wrestlers largely responsible for story beats and promos (and in the case of Nakano and Kamitani, some borderline unhinged storytelling via social media and Tokyo Sports). Few wrestlers this decade have proven themselves better at this kind of wrestler-driven storytelling than Nakano and few have had the latitude given to them that Okada provided. It’s a credit to Okada’s case as an effective booker to know when and to whom to give this much rope. (As a counter example, I present to you Tony Khan and MJF.)

So while the story beats may be coming from the wrestlers, Okada had to choose Nakano’s opponent and map their series of matches to Stardom’s schedule, likely working in alignment with Nakano who almost surely knew she planned to retire many months, if not a year, in advance. The build to, and execution of, the Kamitani/Nakano retirement story elapsed over a period of ten months, from June 2024’s “Stardom The Conversion” through December 2024’s “Dream Queendom” to the finale in April at “All Star Grand Queendom” 2025. Beyond that period of time, Nakano and Kamitani were tied together for the entire six years during which their careers overlapped, and the feud actually dated all the way back to Kamitani becoming a wrestler in 2019. Rather than recap the full story here, instead I refer you back to Issue Two and Issue Three of this newsletter, where Tim Hunter did an excellent job outlining the characters, their story and their matches and how perfectly plotted and executed this story really was.

It wasn’t just that the booking delivered for this story, it was also that the wrestlers delivered in the ring, multiple times. It feels rare that both the creative and the in-ring both hit their peak together like this, especially for the big culminating match. As I noted in this newsletter’s mid-year awards:

While the bulk of the feud was focused on the two key competitors, the wider story – both before and after Nakano retired – worked in arcs for Nakano’s oldest friends Natsupoi and Saori Anou and Nakano’s favored junior Sayaka Kurara, showing more of Okada’s relentless focus on building the stars of tomorrow while pushing the stars of today.

In addition to Tam Nakano’s magnum opus, Okada kept all his other stories moving, because the Nakano/Kamitani feud of the year was not happening in a vacuum with all focus on it while the undercard starved (a lesser booker might have coasted on such a strong top card.) Instead, there were multiple other excellently told stories in Stardom in 2025. To recap a few:

• Sareee vs Stardom – Sareee finished up her Marigold run in January and almost immediately turned her sights to the IWGP Women’s Championship. This led her to battling Syuri three times in the year (under three different promotional banners) to earn the right to contend for the belt, then winning the belt and finally losing the belt over a seven month period. The first two thirds of those battles were covered excellently in Issue 7 of this newsletter by David Hayter. In between those bouts, she battled H.A.T.E. throughout the 5StarGP with “The Booing” becoming one of Stardom’s dominant themes of the summer (covered by Tim in Issue 9 and Issue 10 of this newsletter), leading to excellent matches with great heat.
• Crazy Stars Implode – “Tag team implodes” is an old trope but when done right is still a very powerful one. The team of Suzu Suzuki and Mei Seira imploded in the spring, leading to a bloodbath blowoff match (covered excellently by Kim Wong for Voices of Wrestling) and had major implications for the Stardom roster with Suzu leaving Neo Genesis to form her own new unit Mi Vida Loca. The addition of another new unit (following the additions of ExV and Neo Genesis in 2024), further expanded options for unit based storytelling in Stardom, and addressed the potential for those options to get stale with the same units in place for years on end.
• STARS Collapse, Rebuild – Speaking of unit overhaul, the departure of Mayu Iwatani left home-army unit Stars without a leader, and years of Mayu’s (kayfabe) failure to be an effective leader led to some of the most emotional (and “shooty”) promo comments of the year, as Hanan and Hazuki both made claims to the role of leader, and during an unforgettable press conference, they exchanged harsh and heartfelt words, leveling accusations that leaned into being legitimately personal, ultimately leaving both of them (and their tag partners) in tears. Following a loss to Hanan and Saya Iida in their tag title match in April, Hazuki and partner Koguma were also out of Stars, leaving only Hanan, Iida and Momo Kohgo in the group. Hanan, looking to build a new home-army in her own image, spent the summer recruiting and bringing rookie Yuria Hime and returning foreign import Bea Priestley into the fold. We will likely see more of what that image is once Hanan returns from an injury layoff.
• H.A.T.E. Reigns Supreme – The premier heels of Stardom had an up year, both in titles held and fan reception, becoming defacto babyfaces in the summer due to Sareee and “The Booing”. Kamitani has held the World of Stardom championship all year, later winning the NJPW Strong Women’s title; Momo Watanabe won the 5StarGP, a championship level achievement; Natsuko Tora and Ruaka captured the Goddess of Stardom tag titles; Rina, Konami and Fukigen Death won the Artist of Stardom trios titles, and finally Konami captured the Wonder of Stardom title. (Yes, that’s right, as of this writing H.A.T.E. holds five of the seven active “main roster” titles.) Konami’s win was particularly noteworthy, capping a re-evaluation of her position in the card as a now serious threat and bully. First she bullied and bloodied Starlight Kid in an unsuccessful challenge for the white belt in March, then she upset Sareee on the 5StarGP opening night, before beating and (kayfabe) injuring Hanan in September putting her on the (actual) shelf for months, then finally challenging and defeating Starlight Kid in a white belt rematch in November. Whoever beats Konami for that belt will come out of it looking tougher and will have “paid the iron price” to earn the championship from her.

While data around “creative” is impossible to use in any real way, because art is in the eye of the beholder and tastes vary, there are a few items that caught my attention when perusing Stardom matches on Cagematch (which, yes, is a flawed reference but still the best one we have). There are, at time of writing:

• Two matches from 2025 in the list of 15 highest rated Stardom matches in company history (tied for the most with 2017)
• Three Stardom matches in the cagematch Top 20 matches of 2025
• Annual ratings for Stardom as a promotion are higher in 2025 than they were in any year since 2021, with significantly more votes this year than any other

© STARDOM

Business Strategy and Results

Early in his tenure running Stardom, Okada noted that he would be making investments into the company that would bear fruit later and that he had developed a five year plan. Part of that plan was to boost attendance in smaller markets as well as for big events in Tokyo, and we have seen this year that another part of that plan was clearly to shift the demographics of the audience (to be younger and more female) as noted in my review of the 5StarGP in Issue 11.

Okada said in an interview in early 2024 that one of his major goals was to have a Stardom event at the Tokyo Dome, which, at the time, felt like a massive stretch goal. While it still feels like a stretch, this year has made it feel viable, because the list of attendance records broken by Stardom in 2025 is long and so staggering as to be almost hard to believe (see list below).

Additionally, Stardom wrestlers have not been shy in talking about a potential Tokyo Dome show, with one of many references to such a show this year coming from Natsupoi, who said she had considered retiring this year but that the thought of main eventing a Tokyo Dome show kept her from doing so.

It seems that 2026 might be too soon to consider running that show, but 2027 or 2028 seem more reasonable, especially if the current momentum is maintained and, if possible, grows even more. The real x-factor here could be the recruitment of Fuwa-chan, who – let me mention it again – has already performed on a sold out Dome event, which makes the risk of rolling the dice on her signing all the more fascinating.

The below chart highlights the monthly total attendance for 2024 and 2025:

In summation, based on all three of my criteria, I consider Taro Okada to be a slam dunk winner of the Booker of the Year award.

While I have your attention, here are some of the other awards that I think have strong candidates from Stardom:

• Promotion of the Year – Stardom
  All the reasons stated above for Okada apply to Stardom winning Promotion of the Year.
• Match Of The Year – Tam Nakano &  Saya Kamitani, April 27th
  As noted above, so rarely has a match been a 5 Star Classic and also the definitive end to what will be remembered as a legendary feud. Don’t forget that it also had maybe the most memorable post-match in years (which absolutely counts as part of the overall match package).
• Flair-Thesz / Wrestler of the Year – Saya Kamitani
• Women’s MVP – Saya Kamitani
• Japan MVP – Saya Kamitani
• Most Charismatic – Saya Kamitani
  Between record breaking show after record breaking show, five-star match after five-star match and network TV appearance after network TV appearance, Saya Kamitani led  the charge for the most successful year in the history of Stardom. Saya’s run atop Stardom has been an unmitigated success so far – thanks to both an all-time selfless “making” of a star by Tam Nakano and the foresight of to conceive this run by Taro Okada.

  Kamitani also competed in WAVE, holding their Regina Di WAVE Championship (top title) for ten months, losing it in August and drawing a larger than usual house for multiple Korakuen Hall shows, in addition to working a sold out Sareee-ISM show and main eventing the sold out NJPW “Night Of Torture Purge” show. She was also booked for the 2026 “Wrestle Kingdom” show, significantly longer in advance than any previous Stardom representative, likely as a ticket drawing star.

  Balancing box-office, in-ring performance, character work and vibes, Kamitani may be having one of the most successful across-the-board years in a very long time and should have a real chance to break the record for highest placement in the Flair-Thesz award by a woman, challenging Manami Toyota’s third place finish from 1995.

  If you don’t agree with me, maybe you agree with the Tokyo Sports Pro Wrestling Grand Prix panel, who named Kamitani the first ever woman to win their prestigious MVP award.

• Best Show – All Star Grand Queendom
  With five matches that I rated 4 stars or higher, including two at 5 stars, two emotional endings (Tam’s career and Mayu’s time with Stardom), a bloody grudge match, and the closing out many carefully plotted threads, “All Star Grand Queendom” wasn’t just the best show of this year—it might be the single best top-to-bottom show I have ever seen.
• Feud of the Year – Tam Nakano & Saya Kamitani
  Having already voted for them for Match Of The Year, for the event that match took place at as Show of the Year, and for one competitor for Wrestler of the Year, Women’s MVP, Japan MVP and Most Charismatic, and for the Booker as Booker of the Year, of course this is the Feud of the Year.
• Most Outstanding Wrestler – Sareee
  Sareee has more matches rated 4 stars or higher than anyone else in my list of matches in 2025. Here’s that list, and beyond these there’s also a high volume of quality tag matches and singles matches on smaller shows.

By Chris Whitehead

© STARDOM

Too Small To Fail: How Starlight Kid Redefined The Image Of A Wrestling Champion

By David Hayter

Starlight Kid’s 2025 may well have reached a premature end. The brilliant and dominant Wonder of Stardom Champion was last seen face down on the mat, screaming in pain, her signature white mask blackened by spray paint as, after a truly valiant effort, she was forced to submit by Konami at “Crimson Nightmare” back in November. Since then, Kid has been given time off to recover from her real-life injuries; the Goddesses of Stardom Tag League has come and gone and, crucially, Stardom’s big December date at Korakuen Hall is now in the rear-view mirror with not even the slightest hint of a return angle. As it stands, Stardom’s leading light is not scheduled to appear at “Dream Queendom”.

Talk about a downer ending, but fear not, Starlight Kid has found herself in far worse positions before. Cast your mind back just two years: Stardom is in turmoil, gates are way down, the internal politics of the company appear to be unravelling and Kid, well, she’s right where she’s always been and always seemed destined to remain. She is Stardom’s adorable little mascot: a nominal heel in Oedo Tai who is nevertheless one of, if not the, biggest merchandise mover in the company and easily the most consistently excellent promo on the roster. And yet, despite her obvious qualities, she remains typecast as a high-speed worker whose ascent to the top of the card is routinely teased, but always kept tantalisingly out of reach.

To make matters worse, she has one of the greatest in-built storylines in the promotion’s history in her back pocket. She was legendary Mayu Iwatani’s tag team partner and kayfabe protégé, her MK Sister; but when Kid was forced to join the Oedo Tai faction in 2021 her loyalties and sense of self began to shift. Mayu would do everything in her power to get her beloved Kid back. Even going so far as to challenge and defeat the entire evil faction in a gruelling gauntlet match just to win her friend’s freedom – but, at the exact moment of reunion, Kid demurred. During their weeks of separation, Kid had come to the realisation that she was sick to the back teeth of living in Mayu Iwatani’s shadow. She not only wanted to break out, find herself and stand on her own two feet, but, in an emotionally charged and incisive promo, she promised to surpass her mentor.

Thus the scene was set for a glorious long-term storyline that would inform and underwrite every step of Starlight Kid’s ascent. The only problem is that the promoter (and possibly Mayu Iwatani) were not playing ball. Despite many great teases and seemingly perfect opportunities for their paths to cross, the seminal passing-of-the-torch feud never really happened. Kid was denied the opportunity to tie up that ultimate loose end and to finally earn the respect of Iwatani by vanquishing her mentor slap bang in the middle of the ring. Instead, she was stuck on a lucrative but dispiriting treadmill that seemed to confine Stardom’s smaller stars, like Natsupoi and AZM, to the top of the midcard, but no further.

© STARDOM

Every Cloud: Starlight Kid Becomes The Face Of The New Stardom

Then things got nasty. When it became clear that Rossy Ogawa and Sonny Gutierrez were on the way out of Stardom in 2024 and that SLK would be staying put, Sonny would take to the Wrestling Observer message board to take direct shots at Starlight Kid’s weight, looks and professionalism, as well as the role of her mother in her career to date, primarily as an advocate for her to get a bigger push.

But every cloud has a silver lining: Kid may have found herself (along with Tam Nakano) at the centre of unpleasantries between the nascent Marigold and the struggling Stardom, but she also had the undivided attention of her promotion’s new and completely untested booker Taro Okada.

What exactly Taro Okada’s booking philosophy is or is not remains to be seen. We cannot truly determine whether he’s a traditionalist or a revolutionary just yet, but one thing is abundantly clear: he knows where the money is. (Editor’s Note: Chris digs into this in his “For Your Consideration: Taro Okada, Booker of the Year” Feature, also in this issue). Joshi, perhaps more than any other variant of professional wrestling, has myriad ways of letting a promoter know exactly who the fans want to see. No wrestlers on earth (no, not even WWE Superstars™) are more commodified than those in Wonder Ring Stardom – whether it’s a pay-to-vote fan poll, a life-sized towel, a cute cartoon standee or a set meal at your local restaurant, there are a thousand and one ways to let Stardom know exactly who you love and who you want to see.

Fans speak with their wallets and Kid was perennially one of the promotion’s biggest merchandise draws, as well as an incredible all-round promotional asset. She might be diminutive in size, but her commercial footprint was gigantic. Funnily enough, whether by accident or by design, as soon as Taro Okada took the reins, the company’s two ultra-popular undersized stars, SLK and Natsupoi, quickly became the centre of attention. By mid-2024, Natsupoi would defeat the implacable Saori Anou to claim the Wonder of Stardom Championship and Starlight Kid would be made the leader of a brand new faction, cast in her own image: Neo Genesis (technically in kayfabe she’d win the right to be the leader at later date, but there was never a question who the centrepiece of the unit actually was).

The new generation had very much arrived: smaller, trendier and ready to redefine the top babyface role.

© STARDOM

The Reign of the White Tiger: The Most Outstanding Starlight Kid

Fittingly, Starlight Kid’s glass-ceiling-shattering moment came against none other than Natsupoi. The pair who’d both been affectionately-but-cruelly dismissed as mascots (Poi for her role as the “little one” in the all-star Donna del Mondo faction and Kid for wearing a mask) would face off in the semi-main event of “Dream Queendom” 2024. The match was a masterpiece, as the two former high-speed stars would combine, not for an action-laden sprint, but for a story-rich epic that was underwritten by a ferocious desire, on the part of both women, to win.

Kid and Poi were perfect dance partners. Kid was blossoming into one of the world’s great technical wrestlers, truly adept at picking apart an opponent’s leg. She would slowly grind her rival into the mat, brilliantly adapting many of her signature presses, throws and dives to target her opponent’s weakened limb. Natsupoi, on the other hand, was already one of the premiere sellers in the entire business, using her blend of sympathy-guaranteeing cuteness and iron-willed determination to simultaneously sell both the pain, and her unremitting desire to overcome it. Poi had also upped her technical game to boot, adding a creative ability to work over the arm that she developed when feuding with her friend Himeka years earlier.

However, on the night, Kid was not to be denied. Poi puffed out her cheeks, gritted her teeth, wailed in desperation, but she would ultimately succumb. Trapped in the Star Suplex, Poi was flung high into the sky only to be brought crashing down with a beautifully controlled bridge and, with the count of three, Starlight Kid was anointed as Stardom’s next top babyface.

“Dream Queendom” 2024 would set the trajectory for the most commercially lucrative year in Stardom’s history. Starlight Kid, dressed head-to-toe in white, would reign supreme as the Wonder of Stardom champion; while the black-clad Phenex Queen, Saya Kamitani, snatched the World of Stardom Championship from (although we didn’t know it then) the soon-to-retire Tam Nakano. Via two brilliant and completely contrasting matches, Taro Okada had set the table for his most marketable babyface and heel tandem to rule the roost for an entire calendar year.

© STARDOM

The Anatomy Of World Class Wrestler

Starlight Kid’s reign would not just be a triumph at the box office; it would be an undeniable critical success in the ring as well. But what makes Starlight Kid so special? Well, there is the obvious, the aspects of her game that have been apparent since day one: her execution is near flawless. Be it bridging suplexes, springboard moonsaults or something as inherently pedestrian as a heel hook, Starlight Kid not only makes offence look gorgeous, but vicious,too. She is always adapting her execution to reflect her internal mental state within the narrative of the match (more on that later), while making sure to get the most out of every sequence without undermining the credibility of the action.

Then, of course, there’s the selling. Kid, as already noted, is tiny, so there is an inherent sympathy in seeing her flung across the ring by (usually) bigger, if not necessarily badder, opponents. Yet even within this natural quality, she adds flair: Kid has an innate ability to go up light for her opponents, but land heavy. She isn’t a spectacularly creative bumper like Saya Kamitani or Michael Oku, instead she has a real knack for landing with a wince-inducing thud. This talent is complemented in turn by her incredible facial expressions. Yes, a good 75% of her face may be covered at any one time, but her mask and impeccable makeup draws attention to her eyes, lips and teeth, respectively – and Kid uses these brief glimpses into her soul to display an incredible depth of resolve and a sardonic malevolence alike. She’s a stylish killer and a sympathetic victim, all in one.

Then there’s my own personal favourite aspect of Starlight Kid’s game – the one element that I believe makes her a match for anyone in the world, be it Konosuke Takeshita, Máscara Dorada or Hangman Page – and that’s her situational awareness. Kid is always telling stories in the ring, and she is constantly adapting her mannerisms, movement speed and even her application of moves to subtly reflect both the macro narrative of the match and the micro drama of the sporting moment.

To give you an example, Will Ospreay and the Young Bucks (among others) will often do what I call super-speed sequences. To peak the crowd and draw a standing ovation, they will run through a typically insane and intricate sequence of moves and counters at blistering speed, with perfect technical precision, usually ending in a double down – and the crowd will absolutely lose their minds. It’s utterly contrived, but totally brilliant. SLK has a hyper-speed of her own, but it embodies entirely the opposite philosophy; without entering into a sequence or spot, at certain points in the match Kid will identify an opportunity and she will try to seize it. Almost imperceptibly, she will increase the speed of her movements, from her gait to the trajectory of her moonsault, right through to the way in which she cranks on a submission hold. This is not Dolph Ziggler bugging out his eyes and scrambling like Scrappy-Doo to make a cover, this is a wrestler noticeably, but subtly, responding to circumstance. Kid will, of course, do the opposite, too; her performance is one of perpetual adaptation to circumstance. Like a true sportswoman, she is always meeting the moment as it presents itself to tell great, internally consistent stories.

Speaking of storytelling, we could of course go on all day about Kid’s qualities, but if there’s one final point to note, it’s her ability to toy with the conventions of professional wrestling. Part of the reason her matches are so compelling is that she is hyper-aware of what fans have been trained to expect – whether it’s the order in which finisher kick-outs happen, what will typically happen next if someone interferes at this exact moment, or what a certain facial expression at the outset or toward the end of the match usually mean. All wrestling fans, whether they know it or not, are constantly subjected to Pavlovian conditioning – and it’s not always obvious (YEET!!!). There are patterns and rhythms we’ve been taught to intuitively understand and accept, and Kid loves to 110% play into them, only to break them ever so slightly at the very last moment.

It’s this flair taking conventional patterns and twisting them out-of-shape that makes the finishes to her matches with the likes of Konami and Tomoka Inaba so thrilling. She doesn’t swerve or distort – instead, she’ll do things ever-so-slightly out of order just to lead you subconsciously in the wrong direction. She never leaves fans feeling seasick because her matches are so beautifully and coherently laid out, but she never succumbs to the pattern either. In many ways she’s like Bret Hart, but, you know, younger, cuter, less bitter and without the five moves of doom.

© STARDOM

The Classics Keep On Coming: The SLK MOTY Factory

From her equal parts heroic and heartbreaking title win over Natsupoi on 29th December 2024 through to her twist-and-turn-laden defeat on 3rd November 2025, Kid has woven a rich tapestry of white belt defences. She would deliver two wildly diverse classics with Konami. Kid’s ultimate defeat to the submission sniper was a masterclass in edge-of-your-seat near-falls and near-submissions, where Kid tried to obliterate Konami’s knee, while her rival sought to snap her arm. The result was gnarly submission warfare taking place within a wildly over-the-top, interference-laden, heel–babyface dynamic. The best spots, save for the incredible near-falls, came from the grappling exchanges that rewarded attention to detail. At times, Kid would lose the pivotal advantage as her own moves would require a level of shoulder tension or a twisting posture that her weakened limb could no longer maintain.

Still, if their clash at “Crimson Nightmare” was defined by intricate detail work, then their first encounter back in March will be remembered for pure blunt-force trauma. It was a classic case of fortuitous juice as the White Tiger found herself leaking blood from under her mask as Konami – and there’s no two ways about this – kicked her directly in the face on at least two occasions. Combine that with a series of nasty landings and the scene was set for one of the great come-from-behind babyface victories of our time, as the plucky Kid was transformed into a mangled, bloodied and bruised husk who simply refused to stay down as her opponent snickered and soaked in the boos.

Not all of Kid’s rivalries were so violent. The hard-kicking Tomoka Inaba, a 23-year-old chic karate fighter destined to be one of Stardom’s next breakout stars, would push Kid to the limit. Inaba would earn a title shot thanks to a shocking upset in the first round of the 5Star Grand Prix, where she forced Kid to submit to her Stranglehold within the final 60 seconds of the 15-minute time limit. The rematch at “Stardom To The World” was (arguably) even better still, as both women teased an array of submission finishes – which smartly played into Kid’s previous defeat to peak the drama – but this time Kid hung on and forced Inaba to tap to her Kokko Kyakusatsu.

Kid would prove incredible throughout 2025, serving up a veritable feast of bridging suplexes against former champion Saori Anou and valiantly surviving a barrage of bombs thrown by the inexperienced giant Hanako. It’s a testament to her talents that her one disappointment was likely her clash with AZM at “All Star Dream Queendom”. Make no mistake, the match was excellent by any measure – well-worked and crisp with hardly a single misstep – but it marked the one occasion where, in trying to cast off their high-speed past, the women neither matched their classic encounters of yesteryear nor truly transitioned into Kid’s new story-rich style. It was a cracking battle, but an oddly generic one in a year full of uniquely crafted gems. In fact, it was surpassed effortlessly by some of Kid’s tag team efforts – notably the five-star-rated classic (per Dave Meltzer) between Cosmic Angels and Neo Genesis back in February, and a wild ASGQ preview tag that saw Kid team with Tam Nakano against the odd couple of Saya Kamitani and AZM.

© STARDOM

Heartache In Togichi Highlights Kid’s Year Of Ultra-Poignant In Ring Storytelling

However, the match that undoubtedly meant the most to Starlight Kid fans—and will likely be the single most beloved match of her entire Wonder of Stardom run—came against future ace Rina at the preposterously named “Path of Thunder”. The event took place in Tochigi, the home prefecture of Stardom’s three sisters Hanan, Hina and Rina; so naturally, each sister was placed into a main event match for the Future, Goddesses and Wonder of Stardom titles respectively. The crowd heat was already through the roof, and Kid was granted the rare opportunity to return to the nominal heel role, with the normally devilish Rina heartily cheered. What kicked the match to the next level emotionally was Rina’s decision to use the biggest match of her career to date to pay homage to dearly departed mentor Hana Kimura.

Rina came to the ring bearing Kimura’s trademark sword, with Hana’s name emblazoned on the screens behind her. It would have been easy for Rina to be overcome by the moment and the weight of representing her lost friend, but – in what would become one of the stories of the year – in the biggest moments, under the brightest lights, Rina not only maintained her composure but thrived.

Rina would push Kid to the limit, throwing bombs, dropping knees and slinging SLK around the ring with glee as her hometown crowd roared her on. Kid, who normally plays the role more akin to Hiroshi Tanahashi or El Desperado, instead found herself in the boots of Ric Flair: bumping and scrambling, less fighting for, and more desperately clinging on to her title. When the match reached its climax, in a final tribute, Rina appeared determined to put Kid away with Hana’s Tiger Lily, but alas, Kid did everything in her power to avoid it and survive. Kid would ultimately come out on top, but the stage had been set for Rina to, sooner rather than later, win the big one with the Tiger Lily (or if not the Hydrangea).

The dream ending to Starlight Kid’s most outstanding 2025 now seems impossible. She is no longer the Wonder of Stardom Champion and she will not be losing her title to Rina to close out the year at “Dream Queendom”. Plans, as they say, change (if they were ever really the plans to begin with). Nevertheless, one missed month and an imperfect ending cannot diminish one of the most brilliant calendar years and title reigns that any wrestler could hope to deliver. Starlight Kid will come again. In fact, I dare say I’ll eat my hat if this time next year she isn’t either the World of Stardom Champion or preparing to win it.

Through wily promos, sumptuous technical wrestling and an incredible narrative artistry, Starlight Kid has overcome the supposed “size issue” that held her back for so very long. She has become not only the top babyface in Stardom and the most Outstanding Wrestler in 2025, but an entirely new mould-shattering archetype for what a top star can be. The undersized, masked wrestler who simply refuses to play into underdog clichés and instead carries herself as a worthy, technically dominant champion, capable of taking her opponent apart one limb at a time. She is the modern-day Danny Hodge and, I have a feeling that, while she was forever denied her crowning victory over Mayu Iwatani, when it’s Rina, Hina or Tomoka’s time to ascend, Kid will happily do the honours.

By David Hayter

© Ward Sutton

The Life of a Sicko

A year of watching over 7,000 matches

By Eric Addy
Social Suplex Newsletter Contributor and Co-Host of Joshi’ing Around with Tim Hunter

If you’ve read the Asia & Oceania section of our newsletter, then “Hi. It’s me. I’m the problem, it’s me.” I’m the guy causing you to scroll endlessly until you find the promotion you’re interested in. I actually had to start partitioning my Google docs into one issue at a time because I had hit the word limit of Google docs. Did you know Google Docs has a limit of 1.5 million character limits? I do. My idea of keeping all of my notes in one document and leaving it separated by tabs so I could easily search for prior things I had written about failed spectacularly about five issues into the project, so I learnt the hard way.

How did I get here?

I have been a lapsed wrestling fan multiple times. After getting burned by WWE around 2016-17 (I imagine I am not alone in this), I was floundering and barely in contact with wrestling until CM Punk persuaded me to check out what was going on with this “AEW” thing. I had vaguely heard about the promotion, but I was so checked out that even when I regularly browsed the “SquaredCircle” Reddit, it really didn’t register with me. I was even refreshing the subreddit during the Okada and Omega matches, but I have no recollection of being interested enough to check it out. WWE had truly broken me. But given how monumental CM Punk’s return was, I decided to give wrestling another shot. AEW renewed my passion for wrestling. I signed up for the Wrestling Observer Newsletter once again and followed along with the promotion. I was never much interested in anything going on in the world of wrestling, and indeed, it’s not like the wider world of wrestling was regularly featured in the only communities I was browsing (“SquaredCircle” and the “F4W Board”). If wrestling outside of the AEW/WWE world was discussed, it was briefly, with not enough passion or intrigue for me to care more about it. That is, until 2024.

In 2024, AEW was really in the doldrums as they were figuring out how to move on past the Punk debacle when a certain user (who I will keep anonymous) kept bumping threads on the F4W Board in random Japanese promotions’ threads saying “X match was sick.” I started wondering to myself – is there more out there? I snuck into the “Stardom General Thread” and would just lurk for a few weeks to see what was going on. I knew about “IYO SKY” and had heard of Stardom in passing through AEW television, but I didn’t really know what it was about at all. New Japan was all I knew about Japanese wrestling. I decided to check out Io Shirai’s catalogue on Cagematch and saw she had highly rated matches with a “Mayu Iwatani”, so I bought a Stardom World subscription and I decided to check out their matches. After finishing their match from 15th May 2016, I didn’t know what the hell I had just watched (laudatory). As far as I could tell, it was two women just deciding that they had wanted to kill each other, taking the sickest bumps imaginable with no regard for their own health. It was dangerous. It was reckless. It was the fastest route to a short career. I wondered how could any parent allow their child to watch that? It was fucking awesome. I wanted more. I became a regular Stardom watcher and enjoyed the promotion along with the regulars of that thread. But again, that nagging feeling in the back of my brain kept returning. That one guy who kept bumping the threads of random promotions every so often saying “X match rocked.” Again, I wondered, there must be more out there? Sure enough, there was, and it was all over from there. I spiralled down a deep, deep hole. It’s a repeating behaviour trait of mine to fully invest into something. It’s all or nothing, and baby, I was all in. From Stardom I found Marigold and Sendai Girls. Then the guy would bump the “DDT Thread: The Only Well-Booked Promotion” promotion. Well, with a title like that, how could I not? I fell in love with DDT and its contrast with any other promotion I had watched. “The vibes were good,” as the kids would say. From there I stumbled into NOAH and watched the crowning of OZAWA live, so I was hooked on that. Watching Marigold launched me into the world of Marvelous as Senka Akatsuki made her Marigold debut in March 2025. I started collecting promotions like Pokémon™ cards (I put a trademark, don’t sue us, Nintendo). The floodgates were open. It was open season. Any and all promotions were available for me to devour. Then, I spotted the Social Suplex Newsletter, and boy, was it like Christmas. One place that covered more promotions than I had ever seen before. I was literally a kid in a candy shop, drooling from the mouth.

At this point, I reflected on the state of wrestling journalism. I had only been exposed to F4W. I did not even know about other networks at that point. I learnt of Social Suplex’s existence through the newsletter and The Trish & Sarah Podcast. As you can imagine with how much I cover in the Asia section, I do not have time for many podcasts (I listen on 2x for this reason). My spare time is dedicated to my wife (yes, I am married and have a job, unlucky if you guessed that I was an unemployed virgin living in a basement with my mother bringing me down chicken tendies. It’s actually my wife that brings me the chicken tendies. So joke’s on you). That being said, I always make time for Trish & Sarah and they were my gateway to the newsletter. But I thought, why is it that I cannot easily find out what’s happening in Marvelous, or Ice Ribbon, or PURE-J? (Sorry if you have a blog that I’m unaware of.) That was when I decided it would be a fun project to pick up these promotions and cover them for people. Unbeknownst to me, I would end up just loving all of them. I reached out, first to Tim Hunter as he was a part of the “Stardom General Thread” on the F4W Board, and then he forwarded me on to Trish to begin my journey. And here we are today.

What’s my goal?

For those surprised at how recently I picked up all of these promotions – well, yes. That’s the point of throwing yourself into something when you have an obsessive personality. Things kind of just happen, very quickly. If you’re worried about the integrity of the reporting given that lack of historical familiarity, then first I’d suggest you read the reviews. But failing that, understandably given how many there are, I will just say I never purport to be a historical expert. I leave that to people who are very good at it, such as the Dramatic DDT website, Velkej Bracha for Actwres girl’Z (and many other promotions) and Japanese-based wrestling podcasts such as Keepin’ It Strong Style, Wrestling Omakase, Emerald Flowshow, Open The Voice Gate and more. I don’t try to pretend I know something that I don’t. What use would that be? I am not trying to start a business or generate any profits. I still don’t have any social media. I don’t have anything to gain by elevating my purported knowledge as there is no monetisation. Anyway, if there was, I’d probably just funnel it into covering more promotions. Instead, I try to focus on what’s happening currently – what the promotions are doing now, where they are going and how I can ensure that people are up to date.

So, why do I cover so many promotions? Why do I have a weekly podcast with my lovely co-host Tim Hunter where we ramble about joshi for 3 (or more) hours? Because I love wrestling. Isn’t it obvious? Every single promotion that I write about, from Marvelous to Ice Ribbon, from All Japan to the smallest produce show, I pretty much love all of their products. If you call bullshit, well, once again, read the reviews. There are certain aspects of promotions that I may not like and will disclose, but as a whole, I love all of it and it brings me joy. My first goal is to enjoy myself and have fun, and I have absolutely been doing so. Equally, my other goal is to inform and attempt to be the change I want to see. As I mentioned when discussing how I got here, it was the lack of widely available coverage for all of the promotions I was getting into that led me down this path. Instead of just lamenting that fact, I wanted to try and actually do something about it, and thankfully, the Social Suplex Newsletter provided me with the opportunity to do so. I will continue on with this goal until inevitably, one day, I will get bored and start to wind down. But while the engine is running and the rubber on the tires is hot and plentiful, I’ll keep on driving.

So, move on from the soppy stuff. What is the life of a ‘sicko’ like?

First of all, the ‘sicko’ label. I do enjoy the label in general. It’s a smart marketing tactic by Tony Khan to empower fans to not feel ashamed of liking niche things and to embrace it, and be loud about it. That’s exactly the type of marketing you want as a challenger brand. However, I do enjoy the fact that I am self-attributing that label. I’m British, so I absolutely loathe coming across as anything other than someone who hates themselves. Self-deprecation is in our nature and I uphold the British duty to self-deprecate very seriously, so it does bring me a bit of pain to call myself a sicko. But it would feel dishonest for me to not do so, given my extensive coverage and apparently, no one reads articles if they don’t have a flashy headline.

Why do I consider myself a sicko? Well, it’s not an exaggeration to say that I have watched an average of 146 matches a week in 2025, as well as writing or talking about at least half of them. That feels like it qualifies for standard usage of the term. While the ‘sicko’ badge was intended to be endearing and embracing, I simply cannot wear it as a badge of honour given how much time has been devoted to this hobby. I wouldn’t change anything, but at the same time I don’t particularly think it’s ‘cool’ to watch so many matches. Sometimes, ‘sickos’ can look down on people who aren’t as ‘sick’ as them. I see other people touching grass and having friends and nod my head approvingly while thinking good…good on you. I am not built for the grass-touching life, but I am of the belief people should do whatever the hell makes them happy since life’s too short for anything else. I apply that to myself too, meaning I don’t have any regrets about how I choose to use my time – but it’s not something to brag about.

With the ‘sicko’ disclaimer out of the way, I first want to provide what a typical week may look like. My week begins on Friday. There is a reason why. I have a spreadsheet, like many of you may also have, that tracks all of my match ratings (more on that later). It has information on WON and Cagematch ratings to help me identify matches I may want to watch that I haven’t already (even though with my current consumption, it is impossible to go back and watch historical stuff unless I drop existing content). WON releases on Fridays, so it was a convenient time for me to file away my matches that I had rated for the week, and begin a new sheet for the upcoming week’s matches. I no longer care much about WON ratings (for all the reasons that are suitable for another feature but not this one, hint: it’s one man’s opinion), so I’m not sure why I’ve kept the habit, but I have. Starting a new sheet for the week means I need to know the upcoming wrestling schedule, so I consult my master markdown file in Oblivion, which has all shows I’m interested in and what time they start. I keep this up to date when I find out about new shows and check all promotion’s schedule pages at least once a week to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Some weeks there are 90 matches I know I’ll be watching, and on other weeks there are 200+. Here’s an example of a particularly nasty weekend I encountered in August, alongside any notes to myself left intact. As you can see, sometimes Marigold’s VOD release schedule gets on my nerves.

One thing to remember is that I’m not only watching these shows, but also taking notes on pretty much all of them, aside from a few exceptions such as New Japan. That means I am normally taking notes and writing the reviews live, since I simply don’t have time to go back and re-watch and retrospectively review the matches. I wish that process was slightly different, as it inevitably reduces the quality of the review, but this is a rare scenario in which quantity is better than quality, given the overall goal I want to achieve of covering as many promotions as possible to get their name out there (and I hope you don’t find the quality too middling, and if you do, feel free to give feedback). While there are downsides, I do love this process as it helps me capture exactly what I was feeling in the moment, and to me, that is the beauty of pro wrestling. To be caught off-guard, to emotionally throw yourself into a moment, to lose your sense of reality. That magic is captured better, for me, when I am reviewing live.

With my schedule and spreadsheet all prepared on Friday, usually a quiet day, I normally sleep early on Fridays to catch the Saturday shows live in the morning. When shows overlap, as in the nightmare schedule above, I am spending a majority of the day watching shows back-to-back with only a few breaks, skipping most entrances and dead air, although I will never skip the start of an AWG show. If it’s an Oddyssey or a Megaton match, I’d probably skip that, too. I did successfully complete that nightmare weekend of shows, during that weekend, you can do the math on how long that took. For those thinking, “How does the wife thing work with this guy? Does he have kids?” Firstly, I warn my wife that there’s a busy weekend, and she does her own thing because – surprise, she has her own hobbies that she can do. Most weekends are not as bad and I have a chunk of the day to binge watch shows like Pluribus with her, or go out to eat. You know, what normal people do. However, on that nightmare weekend in August, she did her own favourite hobby which I cannot stand, which is hiking. I get how much she loves hiking and she gets how much I love wrestling. We respect each others’ hobbies since we’re intending on living together for the rest of our lives, so it seems normal to protect each other’s individuality. That’s at the core of our relationship. Secondly, no, I don’t have kids. That would change things dramatically. But all that is happening is that I am replacing the usual three to four different hobbies most people have with just one big one, and that works well for my brain. It’s what I prefer. I used to play video games extensively, specifically World of Warcraft. I probably have tens of thousands of hours in that game and played it for over fifteen years where it became a significant part of my life, meeting several friends there (yes, in real life too). I quit that recently to focus more on what had overtaken World of Warcraft as my favourite hobby, which was watching wrestling. So there have been sacrifices. Farewell, Azeroth.

On top of doing 3am-to-10am wrestling shifts on weekends, I rely heavily on BBM’s Weekly Pro Wrestling Magazine, also known as Shupro. I have a subscription which helps me keep up to date with any changes in cards or important news I might need to know about from promotions I cover without needing to be on social media myself. I’ll read every single update they push and decide if it’s news that you lovely viewers may want to know about and dig a bit deeper if it’s a subject I wasn’t aware of. Since I’m watching most of the promotions, it’s normally just confirmation of what I got from the show, but you never know. The most important thing is that it’s a centralised place for me to look at, but it has been a great resource. Actually, that’s the second most important thing. The most important thing about Shupro is their provision of transcripts for all promos, which I then translate using your usual machine translators. This helps me provide context to certain matches, and the key thing is, I would not enjoy the promotions and the matches as much if I did not have this context. Watching promotions without knowing what the wrestlers are saying feels like reading a book in another language you don’t know. Wrestlers are artists trying to tell a story. While with Japanese promotions most of the story is told in the ring, there is a key context that arises from their promos that adds emotion and stakes. There are matches that I would think are “just good” that have been elevated to some of my favourite matches of the year with additional context. A good example is Makoto vs. VENY in SEAdLINNNG, where I recall some readers being confused at my inclusion of that in “Moment of the Year”. It was all about the context and the promo Makoto had cut. If I had never translated that promo, I probably wouldn’t have thought much about the match. Translation takes time as I’m having to copy, paste, and cross-check & verify (especially if I’m using it in a review) every single match report, but it’s worth it.

© LookAtChill

Finally, the last part of the puzzle is having a job. I pay for every show I watch. There are very few exceptions with incredibly expensive promotions like WAVE. WAVE prices every single show at ¥3500 (£17 or $22.50). It doesn’t matter if it’s a three-match house show or a six-match Korakuen Hall show. On average, WAVE will run five shows a month, which means you could be spending up to £85/month keeping up with the promotion. There’s no streaming service where they upload later for cheaper, unlike Ice Ribbon, Diana and other promotions. It’s pay that price, or nothing. In particular, if you wanted to watch the entirety of their Catch the WAVE 2025 tournament, including the finals and the winner’s subsequent title challenge, it spanned 17 shows and cost £289. I paid that price. Given the current Japanese yen exchange rates and how historically weak it is against the British pound, I imagine I have paid enough to put GAMI’s hypothetical kids through college. While I would absolutely have no problem with doing so, after that point (via a one-sided consultation with my wife), I decided I should probably relax with WAVE and reduce coverage.

Aside from egregious, insane behaviour from some promotions like WAVE, everything else is manageable and only ends up costing £200-£300/month in total for all subscriptions and PPVs. As I said earlier, I need to watch the shows live or I will definitely fall behind. It’s a bit like a chubby hamster on a wheel and I’m travelling at the perfect speed to not fall off, or a first-time runner on a treadmill. I’ve never been on a treadmill, but I imagine it’s something like that. (Alright, if you guessed that I’m overweight, fine, I’ll give you that one. I have no smart clapbacks for that. I’m just big boned. I give better hugs. Etcetera.) Therefore, I don’t wait for services like Ice Ribbon to deliver the VOD 1 month later, I pay the live PPV price. I don’t have many other expenses so I’m happy to support these small promotions if I’m going to be writing and talking about them, and since they tend to bring me a lot of joy, they deserve the money. This isn’t an anti-piracy rant, just a personal choice. It is totally understandable why fans cannot afford those costs and it is unfortunate that some smaller promotions need to price that way to stay viable. The best example of accessibility is any of the Wrestle Universe promotions, or Actwres girl’Z which only costs ¥1000/month (£5 or $6.50) and you get absolutely everything. But, that is another reason I love doing what I do, helping to bridge that accessibility gap and enable people to follow the promotions. These wrestlers are amazing and kill themselves for very little money. More people should know about their greatness.

What have I learnt?

Alright. Time for the nerdy part. “Wait, it gets even nerdier?” I hear you ask. Yes, yes it does. I love data. It helps me understand things, including my own behaviour. When embarking on this journey to dive deeper into this hobby, I wanted something to look back on and track my change in taste. I don’t know why, it’s just something that entertains me and is interesting. So with the aforementioned spreadsheet of my match ratings, it has been super fun to see what my favourite promotions and wrestlers are, and see if that correlates to my recollection when I’m speaking off the top of the dome. I’m quite a forgetful person, especially if I’m watching 150 matches/week. What I want to answer with the data are questions like “What type of wrestling do I like?” and “What are my favourite promotions?” They sound like simple questions, but before you neurotypicals start yelling “you don’t know what you like?!” That is correct. Well, kinda. I think I know what I like, but I only know for sure when I see the data. I trust my past-self recording my thoughts more than I trust my current thoughts just because I know memories fading can distort current feelings. The matches I love the most are the ones that stick in my memory, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t love another match that doesn’t come to mind immediately.

The above chart shows a list of promotions, ranked by the number of matches I would recommend in 2025. By recommended, I mean the answer to the question “Would I show this to a wrestling fan and be confident they’d mostly enjoy it?” is “Yes.” So, obviously the promotions that put on more matches will be closer to the top, because we’re only considering the volume of matches. That’s not great. It implies, for example, that I “enjoy” All Japan more than I enjoy Actwres girl’Z in that type of ranking. Also, don’t ask me how I got through 330 WWE matches this year before I realised I couldn’t do it anymore. That’s another fault you can spot in this metric, they are pretty high up there which might be concerning.

Now, let’s add in the proportion of recommended matches to total matches and reorder it. Alright, we are getting somewhere. Sareee-ISM is right at the top by a comfortable margin, and that tracks. I love my produce shows, but then there’s a smattering of promotions which don’t feel right in the form of ROH, GCW, NJPW and CMLL. I would call these “parachuting” promotions. I don’t watch all of the matches, but I’m there for big shows, or highly recommended matches. What this suggests is that when I do parachute in, I tend to really enjoy those matches, and well, no shit. I’d say this graph more tells me that parachuting works for me, and that the aforementioned promotions are some of the best for parachuting for my own personal tastes. New Japan is probably still in the running for a favourite promotion given the high number of total matches and the high proportion of recommended matches, but we still need something different. I know my favourite type of wrestling is joshi, and Stardom is one of my favourite promotions, but, because I’ve seen 768 Stardom matches this year (as at the time of writing this article), the proportion of recommended matches is much lower because I am watching every single house show match which I’m much less likely to recommend than another promotion’s big show matches.

So let’s do one more analysis. I want to look at the peak of my enjoyment. When am I happiest when watching? What are the highest rated matches and which promotions do they belong to? Would you look at that, all of my favourite promotions plop out, with Stardom jumping from an unlikely contender to a steadfast favourite given how many of their matches appear in the cream of the crop of my list. Before you comment on WWE, those two matches are Io Shirai matches, and she set me down this sicko path in the first place. But what this tells me is that if I want to experience the highest of the highs, the peak of peaks, then there’s no easy way there except I have to fully immerse myself in all the house show matches, from Matsuyama, Ehime to Sapporo, Hokkaido, as it just magnifies my enjoyment of the top matches. The promotions on this list run a lot of shows, and watching all of those matches seems to lead to me enjoying their best matches even more.

But it’s not just about match quality. Ice Ribbon is one of my favourite promotions, but from collecting this data and looking at it, I now understand that it’s for things other than match quality. It’s just the vibes, man. Vibes don’t correlate one to one to match quality. It often does, but not always. Ice Ribbon has easy to watch 45-minute shows and the bloody song that I can’t get out of my head. Happy Ice Ribbon! But I’m not going to be rating the matches on those shows on the same level as Stardom’s PPVs despite the fact that Ice Ribbon dojo shows are literally my horse tranquiliser. No matter the mood I’m in, they set me straight. In 2025, as part of my sicko year, I’ve recognised that there is much more to my enjoyment of wrestling than just match quality. I already knew that intuitively, but it was refreshing to see it borne out in the data. The fact that Ice Ribbon, ChocoPro, Actwres girl’Z, Marvelous, SEAdLINNNG, DPW, Sendai Girls and Sareee-ISM all appear on that Top 100 Matches list despite running a magnitude of fewer shows than the big boys is proof of how much those promotions resonate with me.

All of this is to say that collecting data has been an extension of the hobby of watching wrestling, it’s been an additional side-hobby. I’m not trying to be a Meltzer with this data, so relax with the “Where’s CMLL?” I have no desire to push my ratings onto others and present them as an objective metric. It’s art, damn it. If you want to give five stars to Cody Rhodes rising from the stage with John Cena draped over his shoulders, then more power to you, Sir. It’s just interesting to see how things change with time and what my tastes were at any given point of time. Learning that the more I invest in a promotion, the higher the peak, has only encouraged me to continue watching more wrestling, rather than less. Unlucky for the wife. She did get ample warning before 1) accepting my proposal (after obtaining six years worth of data on what type of human being I am) and 2) actually showing up to the wedding (after an additional two years to consider “F- this” as an option).

Anything I would change?

No.

What next?

I will be delving even deeper into my passion by flying half way across the world and visiting Japan for the first very time. I intend to soak it in and, for once, not take many notes at all, so apologies in advance for spotted coverage in the next few issues. It will take me some time to get up and running again after I return in mid-January, but my bond with my hobby will be as strong as ever, with a renewed motivation to continue making sure that Social Suplex serves people who just want to find something new and dive in head first as I did (perhaps with more restraint).

Yes, my goal is to have fun and learn about myself. But equally, I want to spread the amount of joy I have had following the most under-covered, under-appreciated promotions in the world. Promotions that barely any other Western outlet wants to cover. Promotions that don’t generate clicks since there’s no financial incentive to cover them. Promotions that aren’t sexy with big production budgets and all-star rosters. Promotions that nevertheless have men and women that put their bodies on the line for pennies and barely livable salaries just to entertain us. One of my favourite wrestlers, Manami Katsu, has had to work a second job as a dental assistant to support her family, while I witness her do shoot headbutts in front of a 30% capacity Korakuen Hall just to make fans feel something and help Ice Ribbon grow. In a media environment that monetises doomerism and proliferates the black pill like aspirin, I’d like to fight back against the preying of people’s negativity and show that there are so many ice cream flavours out there that can provide happiness. You just need to discover them and there’s not enough resources available to help people do that. That needs to change, and Social Suplex will try our best to facilitate that. If I get even a few people into a new promotion, I can die a happy sicko.

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Peter Edge takes a look at how the War Games concept has evolved over time

Asia & Oceania

While OZAWA returned to NOAH, we have previews for every notable promotion’s Wrestle Kingdom Week shows

CMLL

Bárbaro beats Místico and Soberano Jr. to win the Leyenda de Azul, but Soberano cannot be denied