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I wonder what Kevin's gonna think of Baby Meiko with the flailing arms? Hope he knows to hit fast forward for Sakura Hirota matches unless she's doing a parody version of another wrestler.

Pretty sure it was the 10/18/2014 show. Pretty sure I saw Michiko Miyagi working as a ring girl in the video clip--this was just before her debut and way before the Cassandra gimmick, so no crazy hair & makeup yet. I actually never heard (or don't remember) the Kagetsu going to Marvelous rumor, although I think at some point there was a Sendai Girls storyline going where Kagetsu went off and trained with Chigusa to learn how to beat Meiko (which never happened). Not sure if there's hard feelings between Kagetsu and Meiko and/or Chigusa. It is true that Kagetsu has never been booked to work Senjo or Marvelous since she went freelance, while Ryo Mizunami's worked some Sendai Girls shows recently despite going to WAVE. I think Miz even brought Hiroe Nagahama with her to train in the Sendai dojo for a week or so a while back. Remember, Mizunami actually debuted in GAEA, using her real name Ayane Mizumura, about 6 months before GAEA closed shop. She never got past bland rookie in blue swimsuit stage, then was temporarily inactive and studying to be an athletic trainer before resuming her career in Sendai then eventually WAVE. My understanding is by the time Miz came along in GAEA (there was another rookie that debuted a bit before her whose name I don't recall) that Meiko & Toshie Uematsu were doing all the training, and Uematsu eventually ended up in WAVE, so I think Miz regarded both as mentors.

As announced on DASH Chisako's twitter feed, Sendai Sachiko gave birth to a baby girl. Congrats to Sachiko and Auntie DASH! https://twitter.com/dashchisako/status/818769686984699904

I'm not surprised at all that C-Hash lost to Aja--this seems straight out of the GAEA playbook where youngster gets her big win, then gets put back in her place and gets to chase and get her ass kicked for a few years. Miyagi and Shida should be cool because Cassandra is so effing weird. I actually kind of want to see Cassandra teamed with Chisako in a tag team because they are the two darker, weirder ones in Sendai Girls and I'm not very enthusiastic about KAORU at this point. Would have loved it if Sachiko hadn't retired (or we at least had gotten that Shirai Sisters vs Jumonji Sisters tag with everyone in their prime), but she decided to start a family and is expecting. Photos I saw on Twitter indicate the Kimura/Bolshoi vs Chisako/KAORU match was pretty emotional, as it's Kyoko's last Sendai match and she was very close to both Chisako & Sachiko. Meiko & Syuri are scheduled for singles again in March.

The Dynamite Kansai show ended up selling out Korakuen Hall. Announced attendance of 2100, including adding 100 seats for VIPs (I think this was mostly to accomodate joshi & ex-joshi wrestlers). Tons of retirement pictures on twitter. Use #ozアカデミー to find. Also several, along with results in Japanese, here: http://ameblo.jp/nakamura-hiroyuki/entry-12225686215.html Major match in terms of current OZ Academy storylines was Hikaru Shida & Syuri beating Hiroyo Matsumoto & Rina Yamashita with Shida getting the pin on Hiroyo, who just became OZ's singles champ. This sets up Hiroyo defending the singles title on Jan. 8 at Shinjuku FACE against so-to-be-retiring Kyoko Kimura (so little chance of a title switch) and then Shida/Syuri defending their OZ tag titles against Hiroyo & Kagetsu (seems like a random partner for Hiroyo, as Kagetsu's been with Mission K4) at the next Korakuen Hall show on January 25. Main event was Kansai vs Mayumi Ozaki, they went 32 minutes. Looks like a lot of usual Ozaki nonsense in the early part of the match (misting Police by accident, that sort of stuff). I bet it's still a decent match, as Ozaki can still bring in when she wants to, and I doubt she'd half-ass Dynamite's retirement match. Huge amounts of streamers and pretty much a whos-who of joshi past and present with the gifts and hugs.

Keep in mind PUNQ is pretty damned stingy with the snowflakes

Off the top of my head, joshi who would have had their primes between 1998-2009 (I'm sure to forget people) Momoe Nakanishi (AJW) Azumi Hyuga (JWP) Yoshiko Tamura & Misae Genki (NEO) maybe Ayumi Kurihara (was around a few years past 2009) A lot of the ARSION roster had their peak in this period who either debuted before and/or hung around afterwards: Mariko Yoshida, Ayako Hamada, AKINO, Candy Okutsu, Hiromi Yagi, Yumi Fukawa, Michiko Ohmukai, even GAMI was probably at her best Maybe some Jd' people like The Bloody, Sumie Sakie, Megumi Yabushita Maybe some GAEA/OZ people like Sugar Sato, Toshie Uematsu, Carlos Amano, Ran Yu-Yu Surely not all of these would make a Top 100 list, but some would certainly make mine. I think the hardest thing about these lists is: a) how to rank those that are active and in their prime and still adding to their case--the Kanas and Io Shirais of the world b) how to rank those that are still active but haven't been in their prime for years--do you penalize people like Dynamite Kansai and Kyoko Inoue for hanging on for too long while people like Hikari Fukuoka & Sakie Hasegawa quit while still young and thus never had a mediocre back-end to their career

Do PUNQ's reviews still exist anywhere on the net? Oh, and the 11/9 Sendai Girls show is great. You'll want to watch everything except the ubiquitous Alex Lee match. Even the Eiger comedy match is a bit better than usual, because Hikaru Shida. Also, it was clipped pretty hard. C-Hash and Miyagi really came through in the main event, and I was a bit worried about them being able to pull off a Korakuen worthy main. The semi-main is a great tag between Meiko & Ayako vs Aja & Hiroyo. I'm a bit worried that DASH Chisako is becoming too enamored with the idea of being a hardcore wrestler, though.

Oh, and a random early-card match I really liked recently was a tag in JWP from their 11/3 Korakuen Hall show. Yako Fujigasaki & Mika Shirahime (can I just call her Iwata until she wins a damn match?) vs Sumire Natsu & Maya Yukihi. I've always thought Yako was just a generic scrub, but this is the first match of her career where I gave a damn. Her new gimmick (which is a bit insulting) is that she's sort of the ugly duckling and hates all of the pretty "idol" wrestlers. She wouldn't shake hands or participate in the pre-match photo, and in fact assaulted Natsu from behind. She even used her own teammate Mika basically as a weapon in this match, and had a pull-apart post-match with Natsu, and she really convinced me that she wants to kill Sumire. Sumire, for her part, is pretty good at hot bitchy girl and I could see her ending up in the Ozaki faction in OZ Academy, playing sort of the Mio role (or farther back, the Hiren role).

The Sendai Girls show at Hakata Star Lanes already had announced (was announced at the Sendai Sun Plaza show) a tag title defense as the semi-main (DASH Chisako & KAORU defending against Hikaru Shida & Syuri in the never-ending struggle between Chisako & Shida) and a #1 Contender's match as the main event, with Meiko vs Aja. I'm guessing this is here to help pop a good crowd and that Aja's gonna win and probably then win the title off of C-Hash (she might get another throwaway defense in beforehand), and then they'll make her chase a while. While most of the promotions now have the singles titles onto younger workers (STARDOM: Io, Sendai: C-Hash, Oz: Hiroyo, JWP: Arisa), WAVE still has there's on Yuu Yamagata (I think)--I'd think this should get moved to Ryo Mizunami. DIANA moved their title from Kyoko Inoue to Kaoru Ito, but does anywhere really care?

My take-aways from the past couple of Sendai shows. 1. Shirahime Mika (i.e. Mika Iwata) is pretty damn good for a rookie. I'm glad Meiko finally has a "kicker", I always found it a bit strange that it took almost 10 years to get a trainee with a kick-based offense. I understand Mika's young and they are doing the prolonged losing-streak gimmick, but it must suck for her to job twice a show while Chihiro gets the title. It's a bit frustrating to watch Mika lose to mediocre scrubs like JWP's Yako Fujigasaki. 2. Cassandra Miyagi is still more gimmick than worker, but she lives that freakin' gimmick! It's like she took the best parts of the Eiger character and added in some Toshie Uematsu and some just random weirdness. I heard her song (yes, she followed the long line of joshi turned singer) and it sucks, though. 3. Here's what I got out of the tag team tournament. a. It's too bad Sendai Sachiko retired. Jumonji Shimai >> Chisako + someone else. b. It's too bad Kyoko Kimura is retiring. c. It's too bad KAORU hasn't retired. Not sure how I feel about DASH Chisako learning the tired old OZ Academy faux-hardcore style. I think I'd rather seen Chisako team with Miyagi than with KAORU. 4. I like Chihiro's matwork and I see why she's the rookie that gets the super push (between the legit freestyle wrestling background and being built like a brick shithouse and looking like she'd break most joshi in half), but the end of the match with Meiko was pretty flawed and to me made the win seem more fluky than I think they intended. If they were putting the title on her, she should have gotten a win off of some decent veteran first (yes, she had a lot of "time limit draws" with people that I guess weren't willing to do a job). My guess is Chihiro will get in a few successful defenses (Miyagi, maybe Yoshiko) then get her ass kicked against a big name vet, probably Aja or maybe Nanae and then get to chase for a year or two before getting the title back.

Jodie just announced as being on the next season of Dancing With The Stars.

I haven't posted here in a few years, but I wanted to chime in with names of some current (and just retired) tag teams and factions: Jungle Pirates--Kairi Hojo/Jungle Kyouna (STARDOM--Hojo is one of their current main three and Kyouna is probably their best rookie) Thunder Rock--Io Shirai/Mayu Iwatani (STARDOM--the other two main members) Hyper-Destroyers--Hiroyo Matsumoto/Kellie Skater/Evie (STARDOM--trios champs with free-lancing Hiroyo teaming with gaijin; Skater used to team with Tomoka Nakagawa in 3G (Global Green Gangsters) before Nakagawa retired) Jumonji Shimai--DASH Chisako/Sendai Sachiko (real life sisters from Sendai Girls; Sachiko just retired; I've also heard Sendai's three rookies called the Three Musketeers, although it appears Cassandra Miyagi's new heel gimmick is that of a crazy weirdo loner, not really lending itself to tag teams; I could see them teaming Mika Iwata & Chihiro Hashimoto as pretty girl/power girl team) Best Friends--Arisa Nakajima/Tsukasa Fujimoto (current JWP champs, with Nakajima as JWP's ace and Fujimoto as Ice Ribbon's ace) Avid Rivals--Misaki Ohata/Ryo Mizunami (both in WAVE, another pretty girl/power girl team) Las Aventureras--Ayako Hamada/Yu Yamagata (WAVE veterans, both were rookies together back in the ARSION days) Wild Snufkin--Command Bolshoi/Kyoko Kimura (occasional team with JWP's veteran and freelancing Kyoko) Mission K4--Sonoko Kato/AKINO/Kagetsu/Kaho Kobayashi (babyface faction in Oz Academy, the first two are long-time vets that often tag together, although Sonoko is the singles champ right now; the latter two are youngsters that also often tag together) Ozaki-gun--Mayumi Ozaki/Yumi Ohka/Arisa Nakajima w/Mio Shirai, Mika Nishio, Police (Ozaki's heel faction, Nakajima was just brought in to replace the now-retired Mio, although it appears Mio will be used as a heel referee)

Someone on another board went and called the JWP show "fun" but didn't really elaborate on it. STARDOM is running two year end show, one at IMP Hall in Osaka and the other at Korakuen. The Osaka show has Kaori Yoneyama vs Yuhi for the High Speed title and Nanae Takahashi/Miho Wakizawa vs Kyoko Kimura/Act Yasukawa for the tag titles. Korakuen has Kimura/Alpha Female/Female Predator "Amazon" vs Wakizawa/Hiroyo Matsumoto/Mayu Iwatani for the trios titles, Act vs Kelly Skater for the "white belt", Yoneyama vs Natsuki*Taiyo in a match that will be for the High Speed title if Yone still has it, a generational battle with Nanae & Meiko Satomura vs Yoshiko & Kagetsu, and a title unification match between red belt holder Io Shirai and the new JWP champ Arisa Nakajima. That match has "time-limit draw" written all over it--I don't think either one is going to hold both titles.

Chigusa Nagayo had a press conference today. She's producing a new show, which will feature KAORU's return from a 3 year absence AND a Chigusa vs Dump reprisal (you didn't really think Chigusa would never wrestle again, did you? I think her middle name is "Funk"). I could see people like Kagetsu and Takumi Iroha being Chigusa's lieutenants. I wonder if they'll dig up some old-school AJW heels to team with Dump. Bull Nakano would be awesome for nostalgia and she was at the press conference, but my guess is that she won't actually work the match. Isn't Ota Ward Gym a pretty big building? The first video is press conference w/Chigusa, Kandori, Takako, KAORU; The second video is press conference w/Chigusa, Dump, Bull, the old AJW heel ref; ~~~FIGHT~~~ between Dump & Chiggy (I'm guessing that Dump basically provokes and goads Chiggy into coming back for one more match) Anyone that understands and can translate spoken Japanese would be loved! CHIGUSA NAGAYO PRODUCE "Marvelous Night VI: That's Women's Pro-Wrestling" March 22, 2014 Tokyo Ota Ward Gymnasium 1. Chigusa Nagayo, X, & X vs Dump Matsumoto, X, & X 2. Sakura Hirota vs Eiger 3. X, X, & X vs X, X, & X 4. DIANA Offer match: Kyoko Inoue & Sareee vs Yumiko Hotta & Mima Shimoda 5. DASH Chisako & Sendai Sachiko vs Natsuki*Taiyo & Io Shirai 6. Shinobu Kandori, Meiko Satomura, & X vs KAORU, Takako Inoue, & Ayako Hamada