Kropotkin's Beard

I finally caught up with Tanaka vs Fujita. First ⅔ are very deliberate & slow in a way that saw me going to my phone quite a bit & getting distracted, never a good sign. And then Honestly though, booking Kazuyuki Fujita to go 30 would've been a lousy idea 20 years ago. This match was longer than the combined 3 matches of his first IWGP reign.

When it comes to TJPW, they have a lot of colourful characters & it's very much a "fun" promotion rather than a Sendai Girls or SEAdLINNNG style more traditional joshi vibe. Which isn't to say there aren't really talented wrestlers there, between Shoko Nakajima, Miyu Yamashita, Rika Tatsumi, Magical Sugar Rabbits (Mizuki & Yuka Sakazaki), & then you have Maki Itoh who is slightly below that top tier but also has huge star vibes & is very good now (even without considering how far she's come along). For individual matches, Miyu Yamashita vs Shoko Nakajima from 19th March this year is a good place to start, and if you've got that show up then the Magical Sugar Rabbits vs Hakuchumu (Rika Tatsumi & Miu Watanabe) really good too. The Yamashita vs Maki Itoh match from last year's Wrestle Princess, their biggest event of the year, from the 9th October, is also extremely worth watching, especially with the prematch VT that explains their backstory (Miyu was there on day 1 in TJPW, she was Itoh's first opponent)

That has the potential to be fantastic.

Fortunately there's one more show on Friday & then there's a lull until the 23rd & then the next show is the 24th with the last block matches on the 29th. Funny that today's show was already the half-way point I've honestly been deeply into everything so far. Just thoroughly enjoying it. Miyahara vs Nomura & Lee vs Irie were both fabby.

So I guess Ultimo Dragon gets to play nanny to NOAH young boys doing IWRG & other Mexican indy dates.

The 9th April GLEAT G Prowrestling Ver.21 show with 60 Seconds vs BULK Orchestra is going to be on their Youtube tomorrow at midday UK time, which I guess would mean 7am US East Coast

Very much in the "not for everybody because it's Dragongate" school of thought, but if you like that style they have started uploading at least one match per show from the shows they run that aren't taped for Gaora or the DG Network. Probably the best of the recent ones is this from the 3rd April show in Kanazawa featuring Natural Vibes (Big Boss Shimizu, Genki Horiguchi, Jacky Funky Kamei & Kzy) vs the new heel unit Z-Brats (BxB Hulk, Diamante, SB KENTo & Shun Skywalker) It's just an example of the sort of multiman tag that Dragongate does so well, it's fun, exciting, a bit of comedy, fast-paced action that showcases a healthy mix of younger talent (JFK & SBK both debuted at the end of December 2019 & are both 22), guys firmly established now & then your veteran who is on the downside of his career (Horiguchi & Hulk respectively). The start of the video also has a Susumu Yokosuka vs Konomama Ichikawa which I really enjoyed but even more than most DG, I get that a Stalker Ichikawa comedy match isn't for everyone.

I just caught the 20th March Ice Ribbon from Korakuen & got to say, the Muscle Venus reunion vs Hamuko Hoshi & Makoto, first time Fujimoto & Hikaru Shida had tagged since 2014 & it was fantastic, delivering nostalgia, emotion & as a stand alone match between 4 great wrestlers. Not on the same level but the title match between Tsukushi Haruka & SAKI of Color's is real good too. Last thing to mention is that ASUKA & Takumi Iroha vs Maria & Chikayo Nagashima from 22/3 Marvelous is a Tag match well worth catching

I think Nomura vs Yuma is my Match of the first 3 nights. Just a hellaciously violent sprint that had me on the edge of my seat throughout, oohing & aaahing at the glorious slaps. Agreed that Kento vs Suwama was a letdown though. Not bad, but it's Kento vs Suwama, there's expectations even with Suwama slowing down. I think the early surprise has been Shuji Ishikawa: he's meant to be cooked and yet I loved him vs Irie & thought both him vs T-Hawk & him vs Lee were real good. I'm thoroughly enjoying the tournament so far.

I had completely erased from my brain that AAA were booking a show with Canek & Rayo de Jalisco Jr & Villano IV. I am morbidly fascinated to see Psycho Clown vs Canek

Cody Rhodes, Big Japan Deathmatch Champion. I'm kidding, he's far too young for BJW to give an extended push to.

I loved Katsuhiko Nakajima vs Go Shiozaki from January 1st NOAH, Kenoh vs Kaito Kiyomiya on the same card, Takashi Sugiura vs Masato Tanaka from 1/1 Zero1 as well as Fuminori Abe vs Shoki Kitamura from that show. There's also January 3rd AJPW Tag Title Match between Runaway SUPLEX & NEXTREAM, a great NOAH Singles with Shiozaki vs Sugiura from 27th January. GLEAT have a show from 22nd February with El Lindaman vs T-Hawk. 7th March has Shingo Takagi vs Tomohiro Ishii in the New Japan Cup which is great. There's also a fun (modern) All Japan style match for the Open The Dream Gate belt in Dragongate from 4th February which isn't the best but is really good & and absolutely unDG like clash between KAI & Takashi Yoshida (former Cyber Kong & a guy I often dreaded watching until super recently) There's honestly a lot of good shit to check already this year.

I find AJPW.TV good value, especially with the Carnival coming. I don't know if this will be the case going forward but they film every show they run for it at present, which has meant 4 to 6 shows most months during COVID. Smaller shows like when they run 2AW Square or Saitama tend to go up as VODs, usually within 24 hours. And then you get Korakuen Hall, Yokohama Hodogaya Hall & Shinkiba 1stRING & stuff like today's Ota Ward Gym show live. This month had 4 live & 2 VOD, There's not much of an archive really if that's what you are interested in. So it basically goes back to when the service launched, either 2017. Though there is some stuff from the Mutoh era, not full shows IIRC. Not the greatest site for navigating those archives but I could be missing a trick because I mainly use it to keep up with the current shows

Tsukasa will be missed but as you say, she has more than deserved taking a break even if entirely selfishly it makes me sad. I'm utterly fascinated to see what is next for Ice Ribbon. Talking of Fujimoto, the most recent SEAdLINNNG show, from Friday 18th March, is well worth a watch. Opener is Crea & Ryo Mizunami vs Ayame Sasamura & Makoto, which is a solid little match, then there's the traditional High Speed match with ASUKA, Yoshiko & Kaori Yoneyama, and those matches are always extremely silly fun and pop me every time more or less. So if you enjoy stupid shit, deffo worth a look though I accept it's very much not to everyone's taste. Final 2 matches, we have Arisa Nakajima tagging with both Fujimoto & Hanako Nakamori, 2 people she tags with regularly. They go against Hiroyo Matsumoto, the always loud Itsuki Aoki & young Asahi from Ice Ribbon. There's a bit of comedy at the beginning and then the match gets properly going and is basically what you'd want from a match with these women in it, and the finishing stretch with Arisa beating on Asahi is really good. Finally the main event has Riko Kawahata of T-Hearts against SEAdLINNNG's own rookie Riko Kaiju. And to prove they deserves this spot they beat each other up & I thought it was great. Top to bottom a good show

Aren't Progress independent again? Smallman is still involved with NXTUK but I think Progress got bought up by some guy who used to run Wrestling Travel & IIRC is on the board at Tranmere Rovers. Might have been in January

Satoshi Kojima is the only choice for me.

I am way behind on the Cup, having yet to see any of the 2nd round, but of 1st round matches I thought there were 3 standouts: Desperado vs Okada, Ishii vs Takagi & Jado vs Owens. Obviously the latter stood out for the wrong reasons, poor Jado shouldn't be made to wrestle anymore. Ishii vs Takagi is the sort of match that is exactly like their previous matches but fortunately is a match I could watch a thousand times more without being bored by.

Didn't they do this before? I have memories of a show in Cardiff the same day as an AEW PPV, that was the same day there was a big Wales rugby union game on in Cardiff which meant there weren't actually very many hotels available in the city for wrestling fans, because rugby internationals are organised months & months in advance. OK, Cagematch has let me answer my own question. 31st August 2019, & not only was there both AEW All Out in Chicago & NXT UK Takeover in Cardiff, New Japan were running Royal Quest in London & that's why I remember this, because NJPW announced the London show & then WWE rushed in afterwards to say "what a coincidence, we're also announcing a show in the UK that same day!"

There was some chat on Twitter yesterday that Rina Yamashita was going to be out for a while with 5 broken ribs but it turns out that was a mistranslation & it's actually Taro Yamada of 666 who sometimes wrestles in a gimmick as Rina Yamada. Which as someone who thinks Yamashita is one of the best things going in joshi is a bit of a relief.

Yes, he's not appeared in the UK at all since NXTUK kicked him to the curb way back, which is why he's turned up in Mexico now. I know he did a date for Bandido's promotion last year & they got absolute pelters for it on social media which I guess has more impact on them because Bandido works in the US a lot. So they put him under a mask & people recognised him immediately because I think he was wearing the same gear, which is amazing really, so that Big Lucha bridge must be burnt now. Away from bad people, GLEAT have just finished streaming their most recent show, G Prowrestling Ver.19 so it should be available as a VOD now. Thought that the whole show was fun but for me the standout watch was a UWF Rules match between Soma Watanabe & Seichi Ikemoto, who is an old MMA guy that appeared on a couple of Pride Bushido & Dream shows way back when those promotions existed. It reminded me of watching early Pancrase with the heavy palm strikes, though this was obviously a work (as opposed to Pancrase being only a work some of the time).

I have incredibly low standards for wrestling production. A one camera show & that one camera isn't even a hardcam? Sure, if the wrestling is good I'll sit through it. Old ROH DVDs where they had clearly never heard of colour balancing or lighting (never mind the quality of in-ring promos being nil). Grainy rips of 5th gen tapes of ECW TV so I can watch it with the proper music like God intended. Whatever. But this modern era of WWE, I just cannot do it. Physically I can't. It makes me feel mildly nauseous. Not massively ill or anything, but it induces the same sort of feeling I sometimes get if I'm sitting in the rear seat of a car with & reading. All this motion & rapid cuts, it's just an unpleasant experience. When I have bothered to check a hyped NXTUK match it doesn't seem quite as intolerable but I have genuinely no idea why they choose to film their TV like that. OK, I have some idea but I think they are seriously wrong, it just doesn't work.

I think Nakajima vs Shiozaki from 1/1 is the best match I've seen so far in 2022, and I'd also recommend Kenoh vs Kiyomiya from the same show, and actually the 6 man Tag with Sugiura, Sakuraba & KENTA vs Kitamiya, Inaba & Inamura is real good too just for the KENTA & Inamura interactions. Outside of that show Shiozaki vs Sugiura from 27/1, & Shiozaki vs Tanaka from 9/2 are my standouts. Others were a tiny bit higher than me on Go vs Kenoh from 11/2, and for outside of the Heavyweights I think Harada vs Tadasuke from 9/2 is well worth your time. Finally I'd go out on a limb & say that Nakajima vs Fujita is fun if you completely detach yourself from the booking & context.

With Tsukushi Haruka also apparently talking of retiring soon, Prominence seemingly gone after being unimpressed about IR COVID protocols when they last appeared for them, Maya Yukihi a part-timer now, if Tsukasa does retire then that's a phenomenal blow for them. There's young talent there but the top of the card has taken a huge beating & losing Fujimoto probably ends my interest in the promotion at least. And if she does retire I'd sure miss her Best Friends team with Arisa Nakajima, even if they aren't regular partners anywhere right now.

Hadn't noticed that this was here so I'll just repeat my thoughts that I posted in the General Discussion thread. I'm surprised & a little sad that KAZMA didn't make the cut, & I did hope they would find a spot for another GLEAT regular, be it Hayato Tamura or Takanori Ito. And hell, a bit of 2AW representation from Kengo Mashimo or Ayato Yoshida would've been fun, I really enjoyed the match on the Chiba AJPW show at the end of last month which had THE RULE of Irie & Yoshida against The Brothers Aoyagi & was hopeful we'd get Ayato in the Carnival. The other name I'm slightly surprised didn't make the cut is Koji Doi, he was in last year & I thought he did a good job. That said, Nomura is great, any chance I get to see him makes me happy. It's a pretty exciting field. Right now I think Block A is pretty wide open. Jake Lee, Ryuki Honda & Shotaro Ashino all feel like possibilities to me, probably it's too soon for Honda to get another shot but they are high on him. I think Ashino needs the win more because as much as I've enjoyed Runaway SUPLEX in singles match they have done a pretty poor job booking him as "guy who always falls at the last hurdle", & I think he can be more than that. Obviously nobody in All Japan is going to be a massive draw, it's got its ceiling & if Kento can't break it then nor can anyone else unless the promotion goes on a signing spree & brings in some bigger names & puts a lot of cash into promoting. But for what All Japan is Ashino would be a fine TC champion, & it's not like the top of the card is overflowing with dudes under 40. Block B, to me, is Yuma Aoyagi's to lose. But I could be totally wrong & they decide to save his Triple Crown shot for the Anniversary Show & have him win the Royal Road Tournament in September instead. In which case I'd want them to have Nomura win & challenge for the belt but I'm not sure that's likely so just fall back to choosing Kento because with All Japan, when in doubt, Kento wins. And then I'd have him lose to the Block A winner. Predictions aside, I'm really looking forward to this tour but then I'm pretty high on All Japan in general right now. It's a fun promotion to watch & they do finally have a group of younger guys who seem to be on the bubble which could finally let Shuji & Suwama not have to kill themselves quite so much to keep the promotion going.

Finally remembered this place exists, & can report that insane looking ZERO1 Sumo Hall got another match somehow, & it should be extremely tasty. It's good their shows (I'd have said big shows but this year they seem to have cut way back on the paid shows?) On the Carnival, I'm a bit surprised that KAZMA didn't make the cut, I assumed he was a lock. They could easily have extended the field by 1 in each block & included him & Yoshida or if Yoshida is reluctant to leave Chiba for what All Japan pays then one of the GLEAT crew, be it Ito or Tamura. Still thrilled that Nomura is in this year.