Highlight
Although it seems like a long time ago now, at the start of February Kris Wolf announced that she would be retiring after her current tour, so I wanted to pay tribute to one of the most influential figures in my own fandom. Like many people, Kris was the person who really led me to Stardom, and by extension joshi wrestling. I had heard of Io Shirai before that, but it was primarily through seeing clips of Kris’ promos that I came to start watching Stardom. I was going to say that everyone should go to Stardom World to watch some of Kris’ old matches and promos, but Stardom have just updated their streaming service and are in the process of re-uploading most of their back catalogue, so that might have to wait. When the old matches are back online though, everyone should go to Stardom World to watch some of Kris’ old matches and promos. I think her most (in)famous promo was when she expressed a desire to eat some children, but there are so many great promos out there waiting to be discovered. In terms of match recommendations, one of my favourite matches was the triple threat match against Kagetsu and Mayu Iwatani when Kris won the High Speed Title in early 2017. Her High Speed title reign was one of my favourite parts of Stardom in 2017. Selfishly I’m sad to see her retire, but I hope that Kris enjoys life after wrestling and wish her and her wife all the best going forward. Pro Wrestling Eve have a retirement show planned (with hints that Act Yasukawa may be involved) and hopefully Kris gets the great send-off she deserves.
In recent weeks there has been quite a bit of, not undeserved, negativity around certain aspects of joshi fandom, and being able to critically examine your own fandom is important. Stardom looms large in a lot of people’s views of joshi wrestling, particularly given their current expansion moves in the US, and the success of Kairi Sane and Io Shirai. However, I’d like to take the opportunity to highlight some of the other joshi promotions, in particular Marvelous, Seadlinnng, and Sendai Girls’ Pro Wrestling. All three promotions are primarily run by women – Chigusa Nagayo, Nanae Takahashi, and Meiko Satomura specifically – and feature some of the best wrestling in the world. Marvelous has some of the best rookies on the planet in Mikoto Shindo and Mei Hoshizuki, and has their own streaming service at https://freshlive.tv/marvelous. At 600 yen a month it costs less than £5 to support them. Seadlinnng unfortunately doesn’t have their own streaming service, but they do air shows on Nico Pro quite regularly. Sendai Girls’ do have a streaming service, but they haven’t uploaded recently, instead they have been putting up shows on their YouTube channel. Something that can get lost in the debates surrounding women’s wrestling in Japan is the importance of wrestling promotions for women run by women, so I would strongly recommend people to support these promotions as well as the bigger companies.
Recap of the Month
Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling ran a very good show on February 23rd with another excellent name – Be Updated to the Future, the Future, the Future. I didn’t rate this show quite as highly as a lot of other people did, but it featured some really good matches at the top end of the card. Yuka Sakazaki and Mizuki continued to stand out in their tag team title defences – they have to be the best joshi tag team of the year so far – and they had an excellent match against the team of Reika Saiki and Marika Kobashi. Miyu Yamashita defended her Princess of Princess title against Nodoka Tenma, in what was a bit of a short match, and then extended a challenge to Yuka Sakazaki for the TJPW show in Hakata in March. Arguably the biggest development at this show however, was the return of Rika Tatsumi, and her subsequent betrayal at the hands of Hyper Misao. Misao was Rika’s return opponent, and before the match she asked Rika to form a tag team with her if she won. She couldn’t get the job done, and it seemed like they were going to go down the route of respect in a hard-fought defeat. However, following Sakisama’s match against Miu Watanabe, Misao turned on Rika and joined Sakisama, finally cutting up her mask in ring and throwing it away. She has now re-dubted as Misao (different kanji) with a complete makeover as Sakisama’s follower, which promises to be one of the most interesting stories in TJPW going forward.
Recommend Match: Yuka Sakazaki and Mizuki vs. Reika Saiki and Marika Kobashi, Be Updated to the Future, the Future, the Future, 23/2
Title matches were the order of the month in Stardom, with a total of five different title matches across February. The month opened in Kyoto with Momo Watanabe defending against Jamie Hayter in an excellent Wonder of Stardom title defence. Momo and Utami Hayashishita also defended the Tag Team titles against Mayu Iwatani and Arisa Hoshiki at Korakuen. Hazuki defeated AZM in a very good High Speed title match on the same show, whilst Mayu also won the Women of Honor title in Miami against Kelly Klein, and then defended it in Japan against Konami. Finally, Utami defended the SWA title against Bobbi Tyler at the Osaka show at the end of the month. Mayu’s match against Konami was probably the best of all the title matches, although Momo vs. Jamie was also well worth watching. Jamie Hayter has really come into her own in Stardom now that she joined Oedo Tai.
Recommended Match: Mayu Iwatani vs. Konami, NewYear Stars 2019, 24/2
The biggest development in Ice Ribbon in February was the emergence of Tsukushi as the number one contender to Maya Yukihi’s IcexInfinity title. Tsukushi won a really good best two out of three falls match against Maika Ozaki and Satsuki Totoro at the Yokohama Ribbon show on February 9th, and then spent the rest of the month taunting Maya about the fact that she is going to beat her at Ice Ribbon’s Korakuen Hall show on March 31st. Tsukushi drew first blood in a six-man tag match in Osaka on February 17th, when she pinned Maya with a Harukaze. Tsukushi is really great at being a prick, and the upcoming title match should be really good. Risa Sera also announced her marriage to BJW deathmatch wrestler Yoshihisa Uto in Yokohama, although she assured everyone that didn’t mean that she was planning to retire. Elsewhere, the Tsukasa Fujimoto-Andreza Giant Panda love affair was featured in the Muscle Mania DDT show, when Andreza won a battle royal to join the boy-band Junretsu but then got kicked out of the band at the end of the show due to his indiscretions with Fujimoto. Despite Tsukasa’s attempts at denying the rumours the story, which began at the Tokyo Sports Awards in January, continued to gather steam.
Recommended Match: Tsukushi vs. Maika Ozaki vs. Satsuki Totoro, Yokohama Ribbon, 9/2
The Seadlinnng Korakuen Hall show from January finally aired in February, and it was one of my favourite shows of the year, in particular the tag team title match between the champions Arisa Nakajima and Ayame Sasamura and the challengers Miyuki Takase and Yumiko Hotta. The Beyond the Sea title match that headlined the show between Nanae Takahashi and Yoshiko was somewhat forgettable, but the undercard was great, in particular the high speed triple threat match between Kaho Kobayashi, Tsukushi, and Mei Hoshizuki. Sad news came out in February however, when it emerged that Ayame Sasamura had a fracture in her foot, which forced Sasamura and Nakajima to relinquish the tag team titles. Hopefully they can pick up where they left off when she returns, because their team was one of the best parts of 2019 so far. In February Nanae successfully defended her singles title for the second time against Gatoh Move’s Yuna Mizumori, which led to a challenge from ASUKA for the March Korakuen Hall show. When it was announced that the tag team titles were to be vacated Miyuki Takase and Himeka Arita challenged Arisa Nakajima and a partner for the vacant titles, and Sae from Nagoya Joshi Wrestling stepped up to partner Nakajima in March. Both matches promise to be good, and while I expect Nanae to retain I wouldn’t be surprised to see Takase and Arita pick up the win. It seems like there’s a growing Seadlinnng vs. Actwres Girlz feud going on right now, which is adding a bit of an edge to the matches between the two promotions. Seadlinnng also ran their first show in Niigata at the start of February and managed to sell-out the venue, which is good to see them expanding outside their Tokyo base.
Recommended Match: Kaho Kobayashi vs. Tsukushi vs. Mei Hoshizuki, Let’s Get d!!!2019, 20/1 (aired in February)
Sendai Girls’ Pro Wrestling had one of the best matches of the month at their February 3rd show in Shinkiba 1st Ring, when Beauty Bear (Chihiro Hashimoto and Mika Iwata) took on Sareee and Hiroyo Matsumoto. The match was an absolutely savage 30 minute time-limit draw. Sareee has been absolutely tearing it up in her recent matches for Sendai Girls’ and Diana (although Diana basically never makes tape so we’ve only been able to see clips of those matches, the Sareee vs. Aja Kong match in particular looked brutal). In this match she seemed to have a personal vendetta against Beauty Bear and Mika Iwata in particular, maybe because Iwata has the same colour scheme as she does. Go out of your way to find this match if you like stiff, murder matches, you will not be disappointed. Hopefully at some point that Aja Kong vs. Sareee match will be uploaded somewhere, because it looked amazingly violent.
Recommended Match: Beauty Bear (Chihiro Hashimoto & Mika Iwata) vs. Sareee & Hiroyo Matsumoto, 3/2
Marvelous ran only one show in February, which saw Takumi Iroha and Rin Kadokura defeat the three excellent Marvelous rookies, Mikoto Shindo, Mei Hoshizuki, and Maria, in the main event. However, Marvelous wrestlers appeared in plenty of different promotions, including Takumi Iroha and Chigusa Nagayo appearing at DDT’s big Judgement show. Nagayo and Iroha lined up opposite each other in a six-man tag match that featured the veterans in Nagayo, Sanshiro Takagi, and Ryuji Ito take on the young upstarts of Soma Takao, Mad Paulie, and Iroha. This was one of my favourite matches on a strong card, and seeing the reaction that Chigusa got when she walked out in Ryogoku was amazing, and made me wish I’d be alive to see the heyday of the Crush Gals myself. Iroha’s team won after Soma Takao pinned Takagi, and post-match Chigusa revealed that Mad Paulie was her type to the delight of wrestling fans everywhere.
Recommended Match: Takumi Iroha and Rin Kadokura vs. Mikoto Shindo, Mei Hoshizuki, and Maria, 13/2
Quick Hits
Wrestler of the Month: Sareee
Show of the Month: Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling, Be Updated to the Future, the Future, the Future 23/2
Tag Team of the Month: Yuka Sakazaki and Mizuki
Match of the Month: Chihiro Hashimoto and Mika Iwata vs. Sareee and Hiroyo Matsumoto
Best Storyline in Pro Wrestling: Tsukasa Fujimoto’s affair with Andreza Giant Panda
