2024 Joshi Discussion Thread

[assfax]

Now obviously the clash of the Divine Kingdom was amazing but I kinda wish Syuri VS. Slamovich was presented in front of a fresher, rejuvenated crowd.  Even God's Eye superfan had to yawn against his will.  Lotta tired ass motherfuckers out there this week.  Me included.  Love AZM's new ring gear.  Laughed my ass off when the ring crew guy took Momo's baseball bat, twice.

 

I've only watched TJPW since about May last year but I'm pretty sure Raku was never as good as she was on those two Philly shows.  Usually I'm sitting there, kinda stoned, just kinda watching her do her thing in utter bewilderment. I can feel my inner Cornette come to the fore. She ain't Nonoko but at least there seems to be some conceptual continuity recently. The gimmick seems like one of those failed children show hosts from the VHS boom.

[Elsalvajeloco]

The highlight of the week was SLK and Momo in their ring gear in broad daylight, and Momo having to run across the street and try not to get hit. That's what happens when you're wrestling in the middle of the afternoon and not from this country.

[Ace]

And because Momo is a heel, she jaywalked.

 

[mystman]

6 hours ago, assfax said:

 

 

I've only watched TJPW since about May last year but I'm pretty sure Raku was never as good as she was on those two Philly shows.  Usually I'm sitting there, kinda stoned, just kinda watching her do her thing in utter bewilderment. I can feel my inner Cornette come to the fore. She ain't Nonoko but at least there seems to be some conceptual continuity recently. The gimmick seems like one of those failed children show hosts from the VHS boom.

I downright hated Raku before I saw her live in Philly. But then I did, and I think I adore her now. I have no idea what happened, but it did.

Also, Miu Watanabe is goddamn charismatic dynamite!

[dragonzombie]

https://www.f4wonline.com/news/other-wrestling/rossy-ogawa-to-announce-new-promotion-within-the-next-week

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

Tsukasa Fujimoto is back! She will be in an exhibition match on Ice Ribbon's April 20 dojo show, but her official in-ring comeback will be teaming with her Best Friend Arisa Nakajima (which is also Arisa's return match) and Sareee against Hiroyo Matsumoto, Hanako Nakamori, and Miyuki Takase on SEAdLINNNG's April 21 show.

She said she has things she wants to do outside of wrestling so she said that she will return to hiatus at some point, but for now, she's back and will be at all Ice Ribbon shows (as is her role as Ice Ribbon's head of public relations), but will wrestle as long as her duties allow.

The groups for the ICExInfinity title league were also announced, as two groups of five.

Group A:
- Hamuko Hoshi
- Kyuuri
- Misa Kagura [JTO]
- Kaho Matsushita
- Arisa Shinose

Group B
- Totoro Satsuki
- Yappy
- YuuRI [Ganbare]
- Saran
- Asuka Fujitaki

The league starts on April 28, and will wrap up at Korakuen Hall on June 23.

[Kevin Wilson]

Not sure if this is new news or old news, but Diana now has a monthly streaming service for recent shows as well as a backlog going back to the start of 2022 called EveryDiana. 990 yen which seems a little on the high side. I'm surprised they didn't just go the Youtube route like PURE-J, Ice Ribbon, and Marvelous since I would assume they have a pretty small fanbase and it would be easier, but who am I to judge without knowing the financial details. They also still air live shows, so I imagine there will be a gap from when the show airs to when its added to the monthly service (last show had a 30 day wait).

Honestly, if they added events from when they started the promotion I'd buy it in a heartbeat but I don't know who even owns those older shows or if they were taped. But a lot of lost gems for sure in their early days I'd love to watch.

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

Kaho Matsushita has suffered a torn meniscus and ruptured ACL, and will be out for quite some time. The injury occurred on April 10, sadly enough at a practice following the press conference announcing Tsukasa Fujimoto's return to the ring and the ICExInfinity league, of which Kaho was scheduled to be a part.

Kaho will be replaced on tomorrow's dojo show by JTO's Aoi, but no word yet on who will replace her in the league. Leading candidates are Yuki Mashiro and Mifu Ashida, the former of which was seemingly left out due to being the Triangle Ribbon champion and the latter was presumed out due to her acting commitments. Kaho seems to be in good spirits in spite of the injury.

This, in a word, stinks. Kaho is wildly talented and to have her be out with such an injury stinks to see. Hopefully she recovers well and doesn't rush herself back.

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

Several big announcements out of today's Ice Ribbon dojo show:

- Tsukasa Fujimoto will be Kaho Matsushita's replacement in the ICExInfinity league, so she's definitely not going to be taking it easy while she's back.

- The first matches of the league were announced, with Hamuko Hoshi going against Kyuuri from Group A and Saran against YuuRI from Group B on April 28.

- Unagi Sayaka appeared via video to accept Ice Ribbon's love call! She said she wanted MIO in a singles match, and MIO was infuriated by Unagi's challenge, but everyone reminded MIO that she's a referee and the head of player personnel and she shouldn't be fighting international travelers. MIO instead scheduled Unagi's first match to be against Hamuko Hoshi and Saran, and since Yuki Mashiro is responsible for drawing Unagi's attention in the first place, she can be Unagi's partner. That match is scheduled for Yokohama on May 4.

[lostinube]

Rossy Ogawa will make an announcement about his new promotion tomorrow afternoon in Japan (Monday, 4:30 PM JST). It will be live on the Wrestle Universe youtube channel.

 

[lostinube]

His new promotion is called Marigold.

At the press conference there was Giulia, Utami, MIRAI, Mai Sakurai, Nanae Takahashi, Yuzuki (now called Victoria Yuzuki) and Nao Ishikawa.

Their first event, "Marigold Fields Forever," will be held on 5/20 at Korakuen and will be streamed on Wrestle Universe.

The one match announced is Giulia and X vs SAREEE and X. There will be foreign talent on the show.

During the photo op, Fuka and some..Actwresgirlz (I think, maybe, I dunno) showed up and..took part in the picture.

Oh, OK. Earlier in the day, Fuka, CHIAKI, Kouki, Chika Goto, Misa Matsui, Natsumi Sumikawa and Miku Aono all announced that they were leaving the promotion and I guess they are now a part of Dream Star Fighting Marigold.

The foreign talent are: Bozilla, Myla Grace and Zayda Steel.

The Actwresgirlz thing is pretty messy, it seems. They might have given notice yesterday and it was announced that they were leaving a half-hour before the press conference started. The Judas Fuka if you are an Actwres fan, I guess.

 

Edited April 15 by lostinube

[Ace]

Natsumi Sumikawa is still AWG Champ.

 

[lostinube]

Her only defense was yesterday. Cagematch lists the title as vacant but I don't know if that's just someone being proactive based on the news. At the very least, she wasn't carrying the belt to the press conference.

[Ace]

Losing Fuka and The Royal to Marigold's gotta hurt.

[lostinube]

That AWG released an actual statement and not a gif of ACT saying "Fuck you Rossy" on a loop is amazing restraint on their part.

Anyway, here is the inspiration for the promotion name:

 

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

This is an understatement, but that's a pretty major blow to AWG's roster. Wow.

[lostinube]

So the AWG wrestlers are not part of Marigold. Not yet anyway. Fuka denies that they were poached by Rossy.

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

16 minutes ago, lostinube said:

So the AWG wrestlers are not part of Marigold. Not yet anyway. Fuka denies that they were poached by Rossy.

To my knowledge, AWG doesn't work with contracts, so it's arguable if one could be "poached" without a contract, but it reads like one big surejan.gif when taking AWG's statement into account. AWG seems pretty ticked off.

Either way, this throws a whole lot of interesting scenarios out there, especially when you think about who could be working where and with who next.

[nofuture]

Seems more like optics that the AWG wrestlers aren't formally part of Marigold yet.

Either ways, the first Marigold related match will happen in NOAH:

 

[Ace]

Tokyo Sports interview with Fuka, translated.

Spoiler

Since around the end of last year, I've been hearing from the talent that it's "tiring." Pro-wrestling is getting more and more exciting with Actwres girl'z, but what these girls are aiming for is a theatrical environment. Representative (Keiji) Sakaguchi allows us to do our own plays, but he doesn't give us permission to go outside. Although they were no longer a pro-wrestling organization and no longer called themselves pro-wrestlers, all they did was pro-wrestling. Under such circumstances, the talent became confused."

It was during this time that she heard rumors that @rossyogawa
 was starting a new promotion. Fuka said that she herself had some trouble within the company in March and felt that "there was nothing I could do here". She was approached by the talent who said, "I can't do it anymore," and she came to the conclusion, "If everyone is going to leave, I'll just try one last time and be done with it."

"It's not like pulling out or anything. It's like saying to someone who was thinking of leaving or retiring, "Let's do our best one last time.""

On the 12th, Fuka had a discussion with Representative Sakaguchi. She says that she was not planning to leave the company, but to propose that they join two promotions with Marigold.

"There are a lot of girls in Actwres who cannot be scheduled for matches due to the large number of people. I thought that if these girls were to come over here (Marigold), we could use the slots available to give new girls a chance. I wanted to suggest that if the players who gained popularity under Ogawa-san returned, we would all have a good relationship..."

However, before that could be discussed, they were told that the company "would be dissolved because it would be difficult to continue under the current system". When she repeatedly asked, "Will it be dissolved?", she was told, "It will be dissolved on the 14th (in Shinkiba)," so she decided to go to see Ogawa.

"I might be self-flattery, but I think we've got outstanding talent that people in the pro-wrestling world will be surprised to see. I hope to work for Ogawa-san and repay the favor to Actwres girl'z someday."

 

[dragonzombie]

They invaded the Noah Monday Magic brand.

https://dsf-marigold.com/

https://twitter.com/DSF_Marigold

[assfax]

Is Suzu Suzuki going to head that way later or go back to freelancing/Prominence?  Or was it actually confirmed she was leaving?  I'm also glad I don't have to join another streaming service.  Sakuya has been underwhelming everytime I've seen her.  It's like Umesaki where the facepaint gimmick sucks and the regular girl is great.

 

This also makes Asahi's death even more of a "what could have been".  What a bummer.

 

 

[Eivion]

AWG stuff sounds like a mess, Marigold or not. The departures to Marigold does seem to give Rossy more of a solid foundation than he had when he started Stardom in 2010/11.

Still feels weird to see Rossy, Fuka, and Nanae all together again to started a new promotion.

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

1 hour ago, assfax said:

Is Suzu Suzuki going to head that way later or go back to freelancing/Prominence?  Or was it actually confirmed she was leaving?

This also makes Asahi's death even more of a "what could have been".  What a bummer.

Suzu is with Stardom, if I'm not mistaken she's contracted now.

I saw people invoking Asahi on Twitter as a talking point, about how Asahi would have been disappointed by this development, and I don't think that would have been the case at all. Asahi was extremely close with Nao Ishikawa, both from Ice Ribbon and afterwards, and she was close with Misa Matsui. She also openly talked about how her time as a wrestler wasn't over and we'd see "the wrestler Asahi" again someday, not just "the actress Asahi". I fully believe she would've been one of the ones to have left AWG to join up if she was still alive.

[Kevin Wilson]

6 minutes ago, Stefanie Sparkleface said:

Suzu is with Stardom, if I'm not mistaken she's contracted now.

I saw people invoking Asahi on Twitter as a talking point, about how Asahi would have been disappointed by this development, and I don't think that would have been the case at all. Asahi was extremely close with Nao Ishikawa, both from Ice Ribbon and afterwards, and she was close with Misa Matsui. She also openly talked about how her time as a wrestler wasn't over and we'd see "the wrestler Asahi" again someday, not just "the actress Asahi". I fully believe she would've been one of the ones to have left AWG to join up if she was still alive.

Either way I think we can all agree that anyone invoking a recently passed wrestler to push their own thoughts on a situation are probably pretty shitty and should stop doing that. (I don't mean you since you are just responding to it, but anyone that brings it up in the first place)

I'm still a little unclear if the former AgZ wrestlers are officially signed with Marigold, will be Freelancers with Marigold as their main home, or they will be signed but it was such a late development they haven't signed but are going to any moment. I say that partially because Marigold's website roster has all the other wrestlers including Nanae and Nao, but none of the former AgZ wrestlers.