2025 Wrestling Week 3

 
Suzume vs Yuki Arai, TJPW 1/4/2025

I don't think I've ever watched TJPW before, and I don't know anything about these two. Sometimes that is the best wrestling you can watch. Arai is the taller one and Suzume is the shorter more energetic, and they build around this with Arai cutting off her opponent with boots and somewhat more methodical work, while Suzume would try to hit quick dropkicks and lock in slick octopus hold variations. They both seem to have a pretty basic skillset, with Arai in particular looking pretty awkard here and there, but Suzume seems pretty good. Honestly considering that I thought this was a pretty decent match with actually a few cool moments. Most importantly there was a decent structure in place as Suzume gained the advantage using her explosive speed but was slowed down when she ate a bodyslam on the floor, allowing Arai to work her over in a bit more methodical fashion, with Suzume then making cool comebacks. Perhaps Suzume was a bit too fast considering Arai was attacking her legs, but it's joshi shit is like that sometimes. I really liked how Suzume kept going for those arm stretches to weaken Arai and set up her running offense. Arai was hit and miss, she had some kind of full nelson slam that was really bad looking, but the story of her booting Suzume in the face was something to get into and she had a pretty sweet moment where she caught Suzume with an axe kick. Overall a pretty decent match and I like how they actually ended it with just 1 finisher.

Thekla vs Athena, STARDOM 1/3/2025

Well... I kinda feel bad for not liking this, because on paper it looks like a cool match. I've liked Thekla since she came out of that basement promotion in Vienna to become a superstar in Japan, although I've not kept up with her STARDOM work, and Athena seems like someone I would like from the reviews she gets. Well, this match basically started as big move after big move, and already a few seconds in the pace had slowed to a halt. The moves looked good, but I prefer something a bit more competetive with a basic buildup instead of watching two wrestlers hit moves. Also, there was a ton of hokey acting and melodramatic soap opera facial expressions, which is about my least favourite thing in current wrestling. I thought Athena looked good when she was clubbing her opponent, but some of the offense in this match was also pretty thigh-slappy. Towards the end they actually pick up the pace by running through moves faster and busting out some slick reversal. There was also a really weird sequence around a cross arm driver. Heel faction shenanigans come into play with no real consequence, so yeah that is a LOT of what I don't like in a match.

Seri Yamaoka vs MIRAI, Marigold 1/3/2025

Well, this is Seri Yamaokas debut match. We don't know much about her, except that she has a background in amateur wrestling, so of course I had to watch. Opening goings of this were very fun with a lot of solid ground grappling and Yamaoka constantly attacking the arm. I loved the half crab/boston crab being treated as a dangerous submission that did serious damage to Yamaokas back. MIRAI had solid offense and some good kicks. Won't blow your mind if you've seen UWF, but it's that matches like this can still happen on a big stage. Yamaokas forearms were pretty weak but overall, she showed promise as she went Tamon Honda  a few times on her opponent with some cool leg lace submission variants.  Ultimately the match ended up going waaaay too long at 22 minutes and it was really long in the tooth towards the end with MIRAI spending forever in Yamaokas holds and Yamaoka kicking out of like half a dozen of MIRAIs big moves. It's really weird, if this were ARSION in 1998 Yamaoka would be sent to train with the BattlARTS and PANCARSE guys and turn into an awesome wrestler within 6 months, but in 2025 things are uncertain. Maybe she will turn into the joshi version of Tamon Honda, maybe she will end up just being another name doing 2.99999 fests soon. But this was a fun debut at the very least.

Utami Hayashishita vs Sareee, Marigold 1/3/2025

This was one of those matches that exemplify my struggle with modern wrestling. There was a lot to like here, but also a lot of bloat and stuff that I thought the match didn't really need. They start out with some brief basic exchanges before doing some mundane back and forth strikes on the floor. Things pick up when Hayashishita misses a dropkick to the floor for a pretty nasty bump with Sareee following up right with a hard double stomp. Sareee then targetted the back/mid section to slow Utami down, with Utami making a solid back and actually selling that her weak back was slowing her down. Utami has really good vicious stomps for a moment. This feels like a struggle, comebacks are being made, both look really solid when hitting offense. Sareee in particular has some great brutal double stomps and face shattering dropkicks. I start mentally tuning out when they start no selling a bunch of German suplexes, then tune back in when Utami hits a cool sideslam for a nearfall. Ultimately they just start doing way too much with what feels like 10,000 nearfalls. Something that annoys me is that they only start going for their finish towards the end of the match. It makes sense to try and wear an opponent down but still too much of this felt like they were just running through their shit. Still they kept doing stuff that pulled me back into the match, such as Utamis awesome sleeper hold or Sareees high end uranages. When the referee made the 3 count I was kind of glad it was over which is not really a good sign despite both of them showing lots of talent. Honestly I think at around 15 minutes with the bloat shaved off this would've been really cracking. At 23 minutes it was a good albeit flawed Japanese big match.

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