Joshi Puroresu Discussion Thread

[Guest Stefanie Without Stefanie]

I just finished watching the Ice Ribbon dojo show from today, and what a slugfest between Ibuki Hoshi and YuuRI. Highly recommended to check out if you dig hard hitting wrestling, especially for the finish.

I'm also getting on board the hype train for Yura Suzuki, because she was in another solid match today teaming with Asahi against Kaho Matsushita and Misa Kagura. She's got a lot of potential and has her fundamentals down. I didn't know what to expect from a 15-year-old Tatsuhito Takaiwa trainee but I've seen enough of her over the last few weeks to know she's got skills.

[Kevin Wilson]

I know we don't know with certainty the "behind the scenes" conversations but whatever happened with Hikaru Shida and AEW is interesting anyway. When she signed with AEW and before the pandemic hit, it appeared that she was moving to the US and was fully focused on AEW. Then of course she got trapped in the US with everyone else during the pandemic but was a fairly regular participant in AEW, won the championship, etc.  But in 2022, she has wrestled about as many times outside of AEW (10 matches) as in AEW (11 matches) which doesn't even count MAKAI. And she hasn't been on TV since April. I assume it is a situation where AEW is saying "we don't have any set plans for you right now, so wrestle wherever you want" like others in AEW do, but it feels odd that she was such a big part of the promotion (and is a fantastic wrestler that should be featured) but now spends more time in Japan than the US.

don't know when her deal is "up" but makes you wonder if she will re-sign or just return to Japan full time, she seems to really enjoy wrestling in the US though so I would guess she'd continue the hybrid schedule if it was up to her.

[Guest Stefanie Without Stefanie]

15 minutes ago, Kevin Wilson said:

I know we don't know with certainty the "behind the scenes" conversations but whatever happened with Hikaru Shida and AEW is interesting anyway. When she signed with AEW and before the pandemic hit, it appeared that she was moving to the US and was fully focused on AEW. Then of course she got trapped in the US with everyone else during the pandemic but was a fairly regular participant in AEW, won the championship, etc.  But in 2022, she has wrestled about as many times outside of AEW (10 matches) as in AEW (11 matches) which doesn't even count MAKAI. And she hasn't been on TV since April. I assume it is a situation where AEW is saying "we don't have any set plans for you right now, so wrestle wherever you want" like others in AEW do, but it feels odd that she was such a big part of the promotion (and is a fantastic wrestler that should be featured) but now spends more time in Japan than the US.

don't know when her deal is "up" but makes you wonder if she will re-sign or just return to Japan full time, she seems to really enjoy wrestling in the US though so I would guess she'd continue the hybrid schedule if it was up to her.

I believe her goal was to keep doing MAKAI even as part of AEW. There's a tweet from AEW's early days where they actually promoted MAKAI.

I'm not 100% certain but I think MAKAI was shut down for the pandemic, and when things started to reopen, it would have required a lot of time commitment because MAKAI requires a lot of rehearsals and choreography to get going. But MAKAI also didn't really start back up until 2022, so why she was booked so inconsistently after losing the title in May of 2021 is... well.. who knows.

My guess is that they're looking at it as "well, since you're in Japan anyway, do you mind working TJPW since they're our partner?". And since she's doing AEW a favor by working TJPW shows, AEW's letting her work shows she wants to in return, like Ice Ribbon and WAVE. There's an interview with Tsukasa Fujimoto where she specifically said she asked for Shida to come back to Ice Ribbon to help the younger wrestlers learn, so I wouldn't be surprised if Shida and AEW worked out a reciprocal agreement like that - Shida helps an AEW partner in TJPW, then AEW is fine with Shida helping her friend with her company.

(How WAVE enters the picture is anyone's guess, but really, who wouldn't want to hang out with Sakura Hirota.)

[Kropotkin's Beard]

3 hours ago, Stefanie the Human said:

Hikaru Shida, champion once again. She beat Suzu Suzuki at WAVE's 15th anniversary show to become the Regina di WAVE champion. Suzu drops the title in her first defense (she was kind of a placeholder champion; Nagisa Nozaki had to vacate the title due to knee injury and Suzu won it just four weeks ago, so I suspect this was the planned switch anyway).

I can't pretend I'm not sad to hear Suzu has already dropped the title, despite being way behind on Wave shows (pretty sure the last show I saw was from the 1st April)

[Kang]

TJPW:

I will be rooting for Yuki Arai to become a pillar in the future, exceeding everyone else below her. 

Maki Itoh lost to a 17 year old rookie in JCW? 

I don't expect much upward mobility to the card unless women on top start to retire or leave. 

[porksweats]

1 minute ago, Blue Dragon said:

TJPW:

I will be rooting for Yuki Arai to become a pillar in the future, exceeding everyone else below her. 

Maki Itoh lost to a 17 year old rookie in JCW? 

I don't expect much upward mobility to the card unless women on top start to retire or leave. 

Starkz is 17 but she's been wrestling since the end of 2018

[Guest Stefanie Without Stefanie]

34 minutes ago, Kropotkin's Beard said:

I can't pretend I'm not sad to hear Suzu has already dropped the title, despite being way behind on Wave shows (pretty sure the last show I saw was from the 1st April)

I'm probably going to make you sad... sorry... 

But I wouldn't be too surprised if Suzu (or Risa) don't get titles put on them whatsoever going forward. I mentioned that my feeling was that Suzu only got the title as a placeholder because of Nagisa's injury. The way WAVE's been booking the Prominence folks, Suzu's win came from out of nowhere because prior to Catch the Wave, Prominence had been booked as lower card non-threats against comedy wrestlers like Yuki Miyazaki and Hibiscus Mii. WAVE's booking is often questionable and silly, but I don't really think Suzu gets the title in the first place if Nagisa doesn't blow her knee out.

From what I've seen in looking through Japanese Twitter, Suzu and Risa's deathmatch stuff is not looked upon well. It's a strange situation where their Western reputation doesn't align with Japanese fans. Not only that, but there have been concerns about the health of Prominence wrestlers already (Risa's knees, Suzu's shoulder, Akane's back, Mochi's health in general, and Kurumi is a question mark considering her comeback). I don't know if you'll see promoters be willing to take chances on even pushing the five of them considering the style they're working, much less put titles on them. We'll see how things shake out with how Stardom uses Suzu and Risa in the Five Star, but already that seems like it's not being well-received, especially with Stardom booking Suzu to take a TKO loss (which is strange booking for a deathmatch wrestler).

Of course, there's the argument that doing deathmatches can be safe and it's just the visual aspect of them that's shocking, but there's also how scarred up Suzu is starting to get, which can be a concern. But I'd have to think Prominence knew what they were getting into when they went down this road.

[Guest Stefanie Without Stefanie]

3 minutes ago, porksweats said:

Starkz is 17 but she's been wrestling since the end of 2018

Starkz is also pretty great. Strong recommend to check her work out.

[Kropotkin's Beard]

50 minutes ago, Stefanie the Human said:

I'm probably going to make you sad... sorry... 

But I wouldn't be too surprised if Suzu (or Risa) don't get titles put on them whatsoever going forward. I mentioned that my feeling was that Suzu only got the title as a placeholder because of Nagisa's injury. The way WAVE's been booking the Prominence folks, Suzu's win came from out of nowhere because prior to Catch the Wave, Prominence had been booked as lower card non-threats against comedy wrestlers like Yuki Miyazaki and Hibiscus Mii. WAVE's booking is often questionable and silly, but I don't really think Suzu gets the title in the first place if Nagisa doesn't blow her knee out.

From what I've seen in looking through Japanese Twitter, Suzu and Risa's deathmatch stuff is not looked upon well. It's a strange situation where their Western reputation doesn't align with Japanese fans. Not only that, but there have been concerns about the health of Prominence wrestlers already (Risa's knees, Suzu's shoulder, Akane's back, Mochi's health in general, and Kurumi is a question mark considering her comeback). I don't know if you'll see promoters be willing to take chances on even pushing the five of them considering the style they're working, much less put titles on them. We'll see how things shake out with how Stardom uses Suzu and Risa in the Five Star, but already that seems like it's not being well-received, especially with Stardom booking Suzu to take a TKO loss (which is strange booking for a deathmatch wrestler).

Of course, there's the argument that doing deathmatches can be safe and it's just the visual aspect of them that's shocking, but there's also how scarred up Suzu is starting to get, which can be a concern. But I'd have to think Prominence knew what they were getting into when they went down this road.

I mean, Suzu wants a back that looks like Jun Kasai to show off on her wedding day, she absolutely knows what she is getting into.

I'll admit that I didn't expect big things for Risa & Suzu in Stardom while they were also doing their own thing with Prominence, but I'll be honest, smaller groups I kind of assumed those 2 in particular were big enough names to make someone like Wave or Oz Academy or the like to find value with them. 

Realistically, all I care about them is them getting enough time to have good matches.

Obviously there is the fact deathmatches are a niche within a niche & not liking them is totally reasonable, but there also seems a bit of an attitude among a segment of male fans that these pretty young women shouldn't be getting scarred up which just seems a bit patronising. I seriously doubt anyone was griping about poor Abby Jr or Jaki Numazawa disfiguring themselves!

[Guest Stefanie Without Stefanie]

17 minutes ago, Kropotkin's Beard said:

I mean, Suzu wants a back that looks like Jun Kasai to show off on her wedding day, she absolutely knows what she is getting into.

I'll admit that I didn't expect big things for Risa & Suzu in Stardom while they were also doing their own thing with Prominence, but I'll be honest, smaller groups I kind of assumed those 2 in particular were big enough names to make someone like Wave or Oz Academy or the like to find value with them. 

Realistically, all I care about them is them getting enough time to have good matches.

Obviously there is the fact deathmatches are a niche within a niche & not liking them is totally reasonable, but there also seems a bit of an attitude among a segment of male fans that these pretty young women shouldn't be getting scarred up which just seems a bit patronising. I seriously doubt anyone was griping about poor Abby Jr or Jaki Numazawa disfiguring themselves!

I'd agree re: the bad faith concerns being patronizing. The "creepy uncle" segment of the joshi fandom wasn't super interested in Jaki Numazawa being their waifu though, lol.

I do think that goes back to what exact audience Prominence was for. Joshi is a niche, deathmatches are a niche, so you have two niche audiences that rarely intersect and they've created a superniche. At the very least they could have made it extremely weird and given us space wars or Survival Tobita.

But like I mentioned, I think when you're a smaller company like WAVE or Oz, you have to think about whether you invest in someone in positions that require them to draw a house that might not be able to show up. Do you put your booking behind someone who is working safer matches without a ton of bumps or do you book people who the week before might be slamming themselves onto a dozen light tubes or taking bumps onto a barbed-wire board and end up injuring themselves? There's a lot of risk involved.

Edited August 14, 2022 by Stefanie the Human

[nofuture]

4 hours ago, Kevin Wilson said:

I know we don't know with certainty the "behind the scenes" conversations but whatever happened with Hikaru Shida and AEW is interesting anyway. When she signed with AEW and before the pandemic hit, it appeared that she was moving to the US and was fully focused on AEW. Then of course she got trapped in the US with everyone else during the pandemic but was a fairly regular participant in AEW, won the championship, etc.  But in 2022, she has wrestled about as many times outside of AEW (10 matches) as in AEW (11 matches) which doesn't even count MAKAI. And she hasn't been on TV since April. I assume it is a situation where AEW is saying "we don't have any set plans for you right now, so wrestle wherever you want" like others in AEW do, but it feels odd that she was such a big part of the promotion (and is a fantastic wrestler that should be featured) but now spends more time in Japan than the US.

don't know when her deal is "up" but makes you wonder if she will re-sign or just return to Japan full time, she seems to really enjoy wrestling in the US though so I would guess she'd continue the hybrid schedule if it was up to her.

I think it might be a work/residence visa issue since she left the US a bit abruptly and stayed in Japan longer than expected.

Edited August 14, 2022 by nofuture

[Eivion]

I suspect Prominence partially damages their value by wrestling all over too much at once. Usually its best for a groups like that to build their value up in one or two promotions at a time.

[Kang]

DDT

Asuka beat Saki Akai with the Shiranui. Asuka wore some kinda grunge clothes and Saki wore Red, Giant Akai?

[Kang]

The new up up girl

[lostinube]

According to their site history from the end of March 2020 (when Japan started shutting things down) until mid-2022 MAKAI didn't run any shows.

[Kang]

Some women in TJPW are free or not affiliated with TJPW.  Some are affiliated with TJPW and their own agency. 

TJPW has isolationist policy towards other non CyberFight Japan woman promotions.

TJPW doesn't do unit wars. And the only woman Unit they have is a 4 woman music unit. While another unit became a tag, NEO Biishiki-gun.

 

Anyways again, the new TJPW logo debuts this month.

[Kang]

NJPW/Stardom "HISTORIC X-OVER", 20.11.2022
Tokyo Ariake Arena

 

[DEAN]

Emi Sakura vs Mizuki in DPW was fucking awesome.

[Guest Stefanie Without Stefanie]

56 minutes ago, DEAN said:

Emi Sakura vs Mizuki in DPW was fucking awesome.

Well they're both pretty great, so the math here checks out. If Mizuki hit Whirling Candy I suspect that audience freaked out because there really isn't a move like it.

[DEAN]

2 minutes ago, Stefanie Without Stefanie said:

Well they're both pretty great, so the math here checks out. If Mizuki hit Whirling Candy I suspect that audience freaked out because there really isn't a move like it.

Oh yeah.

[Guest Stefanie Without Stefanie]

21 hours ago, Eivion said:

I suspect Prominence partially damages their value by wrestling all over too much at once. Usually its best for a groups like that to build their value up in one or two promotions at a time.

I'd actually argue that they were starting from scratch when it came to value the moment they went freelance. Japanese fans, as has been mentioned before, tend to favor following a promotion over wrestlers, so any name value they had would have required Ice Ribbon fans to follow them wherever they went. This typically doesn't work; Zenjo fans didn't follow Aja Kong to Arsion, Stardom fans didn't follow Nanae Takahashi to SEAdLINNNG, New Japan fans didn't follow Shinya Hashimoto to Zero One, All Japan fans didn't follow Genichiro Tenryu to SWS/WAR, et cetera. Every new promotion is going to effectively start from scratch, but Prominence is confusing the issue by being a half-promotion/half-freelance collective so, like... what are they? Maya Yukihi, Rina Yamashita, Miyuki Takase, and Natsu Sumire aren't helping the cause by running shows under the NOMADS banner, which led to similar confusion... are they a promotion? Are they just a group of friends running self-produced shows? Are they a freelance stable? Same thing with COLOR'S.

Luckily for Prominence they have Stardom, but their bookings have been limited to infrequent appearances, and Stardom only seems interested in using Risa and Suzu, so it's not exactly helpful to the group as a whole. Not to mention Stardom fans, both Japanese and Western, seemed to have no idea who Prominence was. I distinctly remember there being some discussion on Twitter and Reddit about whether Risa Sera's name was actually "Lisa Sera" or not after her first Stardom appearance. So I can't imagine Stardom fans care all that much that Suzu won the Regina di WAVE then lost it to Shida, or that Risa is seemingly unable to beat Kaori Yoneyama in WAVE, because they're not watching WAVE, or Sendai, or Oz. They're watching Stardom. (And if they're happy, I'm happy for them! This is not a bad thing! We should just remember that when we think about a wrestler's popularity in Japan, it's not going to follow from promotion to promotion as it would in the United States.)

I think the main reason why you see Prominence trying to be so active is twofold:

1) The schedule in Ice Ribbon was so consistently busy, they have a lot of gaps to make up. Ice Ribbon wrestlers typically work 100+ matches per year in between Ice Ribbon and guest appearances elsewhere, so Prominence is used to working a busy schedule and is likely taking whatever they can to ensure they have the same kind of schedule they're accustomed to.
2) Stardom isn't booking them with the consistency to fulfill what they're used to, especially not Mochi or Akane, so those missed bookings need to come from somewhere. Granted, Mochi and Akane have also been injury-ridden throughout their careers, so maybe this is a good thing, but Suzu's never had a full calendar year under 111 matches (143 in 2019, 111 in 2020, and 122 in 2021), so to only be at 51 as of today is a lot less than what she'd be used to.

So really, Prominence having to start from square one in terms of their fanbase, combined with presenting themselves in a niche space by presenting themselves as deathmatch wrestlers to an audience that doesn't really cross over, is probably what would be of most harm. They're rebuilding themselves, which will be interesting to see if it works. I'm willing to give it time, but I also think if promotions are hesitant to use them or are booking them to lose to midcarders, it does make a lot of sense considering what's working against them.

[Kang]

Rika's World

https://youtu.be/83dKyATMK7g

The error for embeds is back

[Kang]

D arker Z eh

 

[Kang]

Rika Matsumoto the voice of anime Pokemon's Satoshi (Ash Ketchum in the west)will be on special guest commentary for TJPW's 8.28 show.  

 

Edited August 16, 2022 by Blue Dragon

[Kang]

Utami Nakano is back.