2025 Wrestling Week 13

 Yuki Ishikawa & Nobuyuki Kurashima vs Masao Ando & Takahiro Tababa, Tatsuo Nakano Anniversary Show 3/23

Tatsuo Nakano just casually books everyones dream match. I think every since I found out about Tababa and Ando existing I've fantasy booked them showing up in BattlARTS, so now we got this crossover finally and it's really cool. This is mostly cool grappling although Ando and Tababa still lay in some vicious kicks here and there. Ishikawa is still a superstar at grappling and he does pick some cool submissions from the big boys. And he is not afraid to get kicked really hard by Tababa. Kurashima looks good as always - I mean, I guess he is around Andos age and not as old as Ishikawa, but since he is such a perennial undercarder I keep being surprised what a fine wrestler he is. Tababa just bowling into people with reckless shoulder blocks was highly amusing. Overall nothing mindblowing here but a good ~12ish minutes of indy shootstyle action from our heroes which is more than one can ask for in 2025. Still, one has to wonder how good Yuki Ishikawa vs Masao Ando in 2001 could have been.

 

2025 Wrestling Roundup

Cosmo Soldiers YouTube Channel

 Cosmo Soldier vs Kenta Kosugi, KAGEKI 5/6/2023

Very good match with Kosugi looking like a beast and Cosmo trying everything in the book to crack him down. Soldier hanging on to headlocks and sleeperholds and booting Kosugi in the face early on reminded me of a smartly worked early 90s AJPW match. Soldier was hitting insanely hard, both trying to crack Kosugis jaw with european uppercuts and laying really hard kicks into his body, and he had a few classy moments such as a really graceful sweep into a submission, as well as a great upside down scarecrow submission hold. Kosugi powering out of Soldiers holds was epic and he looked like a monster manhandling Soldier and ragdoll tossing him into the buckles. It builds to this really nasty finish with Soldier trying to chop through Kosugis neck with weird sideway hitting lariats and Kosugi just trying to chokeslam him through the ring. Really good, honestly probably the best singles match I’ve seen of our man Cosmo.

Cosmo Soldier vs Yoshikazu Taru, WYF 10/5/1997

Pretty fun 5 minutes. This was probably the most asskicking I’ve seen Taru dish out. He sure was confident putting a beating on Soldier here. Soldier can hit some quick takedowns but he eats lots of hard kicks and even karate chops from Taru. It looks like it’s gonna be a one sided trashing but the Soldier is able to land an awesome punch to the head and then fly recklessly into TARU with his awesome fast flip dive. It looks like Soldier can mount something, but then he knocks himself loopy while trying a suplex and seconds later is KO’d by a big Taru high kick. Fun for all the things people like indy scum wrestler vs karateka matches, and condensed into 5 minutes too.

Cosmo Soldier vs Makoto Saito, WYF 1997/5/18

This appears to be taking place in the WYF Dojo, so that alone is amazing to see. The match is fun too, as it’s basically raw unpolished BattlARTS style. Lots of tight grappling and evil strikes with both guys weaving in some big moves to keep it exciting. Saito looks really cool here, really peppering Soldier with sharp kicks. Soldier tries a few things, some come off well, like his out of nowhere headscissor takedown, some are slightly ill fated, but the spirit was there. Nothing here locks planned and it’s just really raw and uncooperative stuff. Not for the faint of the heart but sometimes a raw messy fight like this cleans the soul.

Assorted EAGLE Pro

 

Shoji Ohno vs Hiroyuki Kondo, EAGLE Pro 2/28/2021

This was from the plague era, so they wrestled in the empty EAGLE Pro dojo. I love Shoji Ohno now, I am not super familiar with Hiroyuki Kondo since he is another very elusive guy, but I thought Kondo was cool when he was in BJW 20 years ago. And oh my god this is a great match! They start with 10 minutes of ground wrestling like a classic NJPW match from the 90s and these two are really interesting to watch twist each other up on the ground. Kondo is really cool here – at one point he tried to snap Ohnos wrist with a headbutt that looked really good. Eventually it devolves into Kondo damaging Ohnos arm and Ohno damaging Kondos leg. This makes things further interesting both guys would try to go for their signature moves but couldn’t hit them because of the limb damage. Rarely do you see the logical conclusion of limb damage drawn to the end, and it really paid off in making this match more exciting. Kondo even hit a an arm-breaking piledriver on Shoji Ohno, which was amazing. Ohno is as straight forward as we know him from Mutoha. He doesn’t have the palm rushes yet, but he throws a lot of closed fist punches, and he is already really cool, he had this awesome reversal of an attempted russian legsweep. This was just the kind of minimalist, technical pro wrestling I really like, really it’s a gem considering what a small stage it was put on for.

Shoji Ohno vs Hiroyuki Kondo, EAGLE Pro 9/24/2023

Another match between them, and this one is in front of an audience. It’s also great! It’s also a pretty different beast from the 2021 match. Here, Shoji Ohno is a dirty heel bastard, and he has learned how to palm strike. So Ohno spends the whole match pummeling the hell out of Kondo with his hard as stone palms, even mocking a little girl in the audience. Crusher Takahashi is also with Ohno, ready to beat on Kondo with a kendo stock. Kondos only chance is to dismantle Ohnos arm and lock in the Scorpion Armlock. We get to see some great arm attacks from Kondo, including him busting out the arm breaking piledriver again, and there were a few great moments. The one problem was that I thought Kondo should’ve been slowed down more by Ohnos assault to his leg, but it wasn’t a huge problem. Kondo also busts out a great senton to Ohnos arm. Another really unique, cool as hell match from Shoji Ohno.

Hiroyuki Kondo & Kazunori Yoshida vs Leo Isaka & Takahiro Katori, EAGLE 2018/12/16

Another cool match from EAGLE Pro, based on what I see the promotion seems really cool. From what I gather Kondo and Yoshida are the veteran stalwarts of the promotion, with Yoshida being the founder of the company and Kondo its long time ace. Isaka and Katori are SHOCK DA HEROES, the budding young hotness of EAGLE, and they are trying to upset the veterans. This is a really good sprint, lots of spectacular moves but it’s really made by the veterans vs rising stars story. Kondo once again looked like the king of unorthodox arm attacks here, busting out an awesome Russian Legsweep targeting the arm. Yoshida may be some kind of best kept secret of the japanese indies, he has all these amazing looking rope climbing springboard moves, and also brings a trampolin for assisted springboard moves, he’s really graceful and awesome to watch. Isaka and Katori are mostly outgunned but I liked the few bits of offense they got in this too. Check this out if you want to spend 10 minutes watching some fresh wrestling.

2025 Wrestling Week 12

 Yu Shimizu vs Leo Isaka Marvelous 3/16

A lot of big matches happening in March 2025, and here I am, excited to watch Yu Shimizu vs Leo Isaka. This was a bit slow but solid and had a really good ending. Shimizu has really come into his own providing lots of cool moments with his dragon sleeper/reverse DDT work and his rear naked choke is the best I've ever seen. Isaka is a fun fast moving babyface. It kind of rules to have a short mens match like this on a joshi card.

Meiko Satomura vs Chihiro Hashimoto, 3/21

It's Meiko on her way out vs her top student. Obviously it's a great match. Great straight forward hard hitting pro wrestling. Hashimoto is clearly Meikos best opponent in recent years and this was probably their finest match together. Hash with her grappling skill and sheer physicality really forces Meiko to show more intensity of her own. Some genuinely violent strikes, sick head kicks and Chihiro trying to take her head off with vader hammers here. Loved the constant teasing of the basic German Suplex and something like a basic powerslam from Hashimoto being a huge nearfall. I assume this was ran in a much too large building so the heat was a little subdued early on, so the crowd coming alive with a big Satomura chant breaking out late in the match was awesome. Plenty of great spots and transitions without becoming too cute, I also loved the sleeper hold. What really makes this pop as a great match is the 'passing off the torch aspect' with Hashimoto trying to topple her teacher and Meiko being so unwilling to just lay down and stay down for the 3 and trying her damndest to win the title even on the brink of retirement. Great stuff and easily one of the finest matches not just of the year but of the decade so far.

Yumiko Hotta vs VENY, Seadlinnng 3/20

Yumiko Hotta main eventing a big show in a cage match. Why? I don't know, but I'm watching it. Hotta is 58 years old. She really can't bump, she doesn't even do cool kicks anymore. They just chuck metal objects at each others heads, bleeding, Hotta punches through a chair, they use a rickety ladder to try and climb the cage... some outside interference happens and a bunch of other girls storm into the ring, one of them diving off the cage. VENY is a psychotic hero in this, taking the gnarliest bump and also moonsaulting off the cage with nobody really catching her. When she hits the red mist on Hotta it looks like she spray vomited blood on her. I can't tell if this was any good but I sure enjoyed the spectacle of it, so it was good.

Sareee vs Syuri, Sareee-ism 3/10

I'll start with the positives: they both have plenty of great looking offense and a fair amount of intensity. They really blast each other with everything they've got for 30 minutes and there are a few murderous headbutts. Maybe I was too tired while watching this, but this match just didn't click for me. It starts bad enough with the super generic beginning - perfunctory matwork where nothing happens, some lucharesu-flavoured running exchange before they exchange snapmares and kick each other in the back a lot. It gets better later on, but aside from their offense there is not really much too hook me in. There is some semblance of psychology with Sareee attacking Syuris leg to slow her down, but Syuri never really sells any of it and quickly goes back on offense anyways. Syuri keeps going for armlocks but again Sareee never really sells it and at some point the submissions start to feel like padding. With the lack of a story or focus and the only selling point being how many moves these two can hit in a lot of minutes I started to zone out. Plus, 30 minutes was far too long for this, especially since they both lack offense, so Sareee must have hit like a dozen meaningless uranages in this. At 20 this could've been pretty good, at 30 this made the most bloated early 2000s NOAH matches look fresh and conservative.

Mariah May vs Toni Storm, AEW 3/9

Fun psycho bumpfest with plenty of blood and gross out carnage. I imagine this is how people felt watching Ian vs Axl Rotten in ECW. Brawling or subtleness were non existant but this has enough broken bottle to the crotch to make up for it. Actually thought the one broken glass punch was pretty sick so it was funny they didn't continue with the taipei stuff. I also liked May constantly selling the self-damage and the hip attacks were actually nasty looking and felt innovative. Not something I would want to watch again because I would get desensitized to piledrivers and headdrops but they made the most of what they had.

 

2025 Wrestling Roundup

Kentaro Shiga Matches

 

Kentaro Shiga vs. Yoshihiro Takayama, NOAH 8/19/2000

This ruled. Basically a semi shootstyle bout with Shiga trying to get underneath Takayama for a flash submission, and Takayama being a monster crushing him everytime he hit back. This was still early NOAH where Akiyama had choked out Misawa on the debut show so all submissions were hot nearfalls. There were even some savage bare knuckle punch exchanges. Awesome 7 minutes, young and hungry Shiga was great.

Kentaro Shiga vs Takao Ohmori, NOAH 10/7/2000

Another really cool, crafty Shiga performance. He was working this like Regal, spending 5 minutes going after Ohmoris arm in cool ways, with Ohmori doing a nice job that he really doesn’t want to get pulled into Shigas armlocks. Not many have named Takao Ohmori as a great wrestler in 2000 but he does look mighty fine here. I loved how he chucked Shigas annoying ass over the top rope like a piece of shit and his big dropkick and thrust kick looked great. Last couples minutes were really good with Shiga busting out some Kenichiro Arai in Mutoha level stuff like an awesome flying headscissor into an armbar, a cool straight jacket pin and throwing punches. Really cool finish too where Shiga powers out of a full nelson but gets flattened by the Axe Bomba.

Kentaro Shiga vs Daisuke Ikeda, NOAH 10/8/2000

I like this little run of singles matches Shiga was getting in 2000. He continues to try his submission master act, but Ikeda is stubborn and Fujiwara trained so Ikeda keeps reversing him. NOAH Ikeda is always a bit weird to see him engaging in rope running and some of the weird things he tries (he hits a suicide dive in this) but his reversal to Shigas leglock was spectacular, and he hit one absolutely disgusting kick on Shiga. Pretty fun.

 

Kentaro Shiga & Tamon Honda vs Jun Akiyama & Yoshinobu Kanemaru, NOAH 3/17/2002

A 13 minute match that felt like a 5 minute sprint. Really good stuff here, you get the usually fun Shiga vs. Akiyama interactions where anytime Shiga gets the upper hand it feels epic, plus an insanely fired up Honda. Honda running in early to save Shiga and bust Akiyama with a huge Dead End in like the first 2 minutes was awesome. I really liked how they set your expectations for Akiyama to end up getting worked over but avert them. Shiga eating a piledriver on the ramp while Honda was unable to help him was also great. I also loved Hondas hot tag tagging Akiyama with hard clotheslines, and how Akiyama and Kanemaru would constantly attack his bad knees to cut him off. We get another cool Olympic Hell spot, and Honda averting another Akiyama assault in cool fashion. Shigas constant submissions were great and his deadly finishing move was completely unexpected. It felt like a big stepping stone for Shiga.

2025 Wrestling Week 11

 Hanako Nakamori & Leon vs Crea & Moeka Haruhi, Pure-J 3/9

Really good go-go tag with lots of quality exchanges throughout. Everyone here is really fun to watch. Nakamori still has vicious kicks, Crea is a really fun energetic enforcer booting people in the face, and Leon hasn't lost anything in all these years. I wasn't familiar with Haruhi but she was pretty cool too, she had some really violent double stomps and cool ways to stretch opponents. They bust out some bigger spots than you'd expect from a dojo show and the finish is a damn finish. Real quality stuff, just all 4 of them going hard and it was really cool.

Chon Shiryu & Leon vs Mei Suruga & Baliyan Akki, Choco Pro 2/2/225

This was a MOVEZ~ match but it was a pretty fun one. Shiryu is still really awesome and can bust out awesome exchanges and nifty things like no tomorrow. Enjoyed Leon a lot as always, her team with Shiryu is really random but they have some cool moments together. The cutesy act of Akki and Suruga isn't for me, but they also did some cool stuff especially Suruga. The finish was really cool as the constant double team assisted moves blew back up in their face and it was the kind of nifty touch Shiryu is so damn good at pulling off.

Yuta Oya & Ali Najima vs Konaka & Shinya Ishida, Sportiva 2/26

Another week, another quality match from Sportiva. These 4 guys are some of my favourites in the world to watch so it's really nice to see them all square off in a tag match. First half is really solid, we get to see Konaka grappling with Najima which is always cool, while Najimas skillset is stil basic he will only get better wrestling guys like Konaka on the regular. I like how Shinya Ishida is always a total dick to Oya, fully taking advantage of his blindness to attack him. The 2nd half is really really good - I don't know what got into them, but Ishida suddenly starts wrestling like Yasushi Sato and busting out a bunch of awesome Russian Leg Sweep variations, even a cool Russian Leg Sweep into a submission hold. Konaka would join he madness with some Russian Leg Sweeps of his own and even a Russian Leg Sweep into a pin. Both these guys wrestled Sato a lot, and sadly I don't think we have any of the Sato vs Ishida and only a few Sato vs Konaka matches, but if that was not a distant homage to the Russian Leg Sweep god then I don't know. Some really nifty counters in this, especially those around Oyas signature sidewalk slam and harai goshi. Those are two cool moves to build nifty counters around. Really cool, really unique stuff that would absolutely recommend everyone to check out, don't sleep on this just because it happens in a tiny sportsbar, it's easily some of the best wrestling around.

 

2025 Wrestling Roundup

RIP Osamu Nishimura

 

Osamu Nishimura & Keiji Mutoh & Tadao Yasuda vs. Shinya Hashimoto & Yuji Nagata & Junji Hirata (NJPW 10/15/1995)

Really awesome match for a 12 minute 6 man tag. Nishimura isn’t Mr. Muga yet, he’s clad in blindingly silver gear and wrestles a more generic but energetic style. He puts the heat on Hirata early on, and then challenging Hashimoto. Hashimoto won’t tag in for a while, until he’s finally had enough and a hellish vengeance is unleashed on Nishimura as he just gets destroyed but he still hasn’t enough and dropkicks Hash in the back of the head. Awesome. Yasuda is also pretty great here like a more massive version of Taue, sumo rushing people and putting the boots to Hash. Mutoh doesn’t do shit in this match and it’s for the better. I also enjoyed Nagata and Hirata delivering straight forward punishment. But in general this is a really awesome ‘Hash fucks everyone up’ match and another chapter in the book called Why Shinya Hashimoto is the GOAT.

Osamu Nishimura & Manabu Nakanishi vs Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Masahiro Chono, NJPW 6/5/2002

This is a legendary match in Osamu Nishimuras career, which for some reason has never been available in full until NJPW made it just now available on NJPW World. Bit sad they waited until Nishimuras death to release that, but this is an absolutely amazing match. Namely it is famous because of that moment where Nakanishis leg is injured and he leaves the match, leading Nishimura to remove his boots and turn into a barefoot grappling demon, but there’s lots of amazing wrestling surrounding it. I’ve never been super big on the non-Hashimoto, non-Fujinami side of NJPW heavyweight wrestling, so I was surprised how well Nakanishi, Tenzan and Chono did here. There is some really cool Chono/Nishimura grappling, people don’t think of Chono as much of a grappler but he does have that Lou Thesz heritage and he gets into some pretty interesting stuff with Nishimura. They work this in a very old school, almost Jim Crocket feeling fashion, not as in that there’s a ton of holds or something, but rather that everyone here really works to make the maximum out of basic things such as strikes. I also really appreciated that Tenzan and Nakanishi didn’t do any braindead endless chop exchanges, instead what we got was far more interesting with Nakanishi kind of bullying Tenzan with his own mongolian chops, and an angry Tenzan sometimes angrily shoot headbutting him. First half the match had lots of good stuff, also because I am used to modern wrestling being a trained monkey show even something as simple as Chono working over someone with knees in the corner was refreshingly straight forward. There were a few great moments, in particular Nishimura almost choking out Tenzan. They did a great segment with Nish really wrenching the fuck out of Tenzans neck, and Nakanishi coming in to smash Tenzans head into the mat like a gorilla was just perfect. They also do a nice job increasing the stakes of the match, with Chono going for his yakuza kicks early on and increasing the pressure on Nishimura, while Nishimura ends up taking a big beating. A really good energetic 1^st half that sets up the amazing second half which has the legendary barefoot warrior Nishimura moment, as well as an amazing Nakanishi performance. It feels shameful that Nakanishis performance here is rarely brought up among the greatest ever, but his leg selling really was that fucking good, and him smashing Tenzan to a bloody pulp may be one of the Top 10 greatest moments a match has ever had. Stretch run is absolutely fantastic working the crowd into a frenzy and also has the greatest nearfall for a backslide ever. They really drove the point home going for minimalism and getting the maximum out of the basics, that point is especially hammered home when Chono hits like 10 Russian Leg Sweeps on Nakanishi, followed by Nishimura repaying him with 10 barefoot dropkicks. An enraged Nishimura throwing the referee around and punching a bloody Tenzan in the face is about as good as wrestling gets. Amazing amazing match, I cannot say enough to emphasize how cool this was, just about the perfect broadway, never boring, interesting all the way through with some amazing moments and wrestling hewn in and Nishimura being just the best in his stubborn glory.

Osamu Nishimura vs Kazuo Yamazaki, NJPW 12/10/1995

You look at this match up and think “this sounds like a technical clinic”. But this is 1995, Nishimura is basically a young lion who looks like a lankier version of Muto, and he has not yet become the embodiment of MUGA. Instead of holds Nishimura bitchslaps Yamazaki and then it turns into both guys throwing down, with Yamazaki throwing bombs with his aggressive headbutts and razor sharp kicks and Nishimura throwing hands and blasting him with dropkicks. It’s a fun look at what could have been though MUGA Nishimura is still cooler. Nishimura shocks the crowd with how much he is able to beat up Yamazaki but then he goes for suplex and Yamazaki pulls him into a Fujiwara Armbar which he cranks as far back as I’ve ever seen a Fujiwara Armbar being pulled back for the tap. Just about a 5 minute match but it was really cool and this kind of ‘it can end at anytime’ stuff is what kept NJPW exciting in the 90s.