The Dynamite Kansai vs Meiko Satomura Match Series

 

Meiko Satomura vs Dynamite Kansai, GAEA 1/27/2001

Obviously the Satomura vs Aja feud is more legendary, but the matches between Kansai and Satomura are also really good. Case in point: this match. The dynamic is different from Meiko/Aja because Kansai doesn’t put on extended beatings on anyone, any kick or lariat from her can KO. This was pretty great as it was Satomura desperately chopping down Kansai and throwing the kitchen sink. After some nifty, unpredictable exchanges early on Meiko was able to catch Kansai with a surprise death valley bomb, which immediately amped up the intensity as now both of them were going for the kill. Meikos Pele Kicks were spectacular and Kansai, while over the hill is still cool as fuck in 2001. Dug all of Meikos arm attacks and Kansais kicks and bombs still look lethal. Great shit.

Meiko Satomura vs Dynamite Kansai, GAEA 9/2/2001

This is from one of those High Spurt tournaments so it’s a sprint with both of them going for the kill the whole time, desperately trying to avoid finisher and busting out more nifty counters in this. GAEA is weird, you’d have your chaotic messy main events, Sakura Hirota comedy matches and then some great straight forward hard hitting pro wrestling like this. Some great counters and nifty spots. Once again Meiko was trying to crush Kansais head with those pele kicks, they also do some things that reference their previous matches. Really good 6 minute sprint or so.

Meiko Satomura vs Dynamite Kansai, GAEA 4/22/2001

First couple minutes of this are fairly great in the same vein as the 2 matches above. Hard hitting, unpredictable, some neat moments. Satomura ends up barraging Kansai with DVBs and Pele Kicks for the win to prove that she’s the real deal now. Still pretty fun!

Pro Wrestling in 2025 Week 16

 
Rydeen Hagane vs Chie Ozora, Pure-J 4/5

Pretty fun, I continue to dig Rydeen Hagane big matches. And Chie Ozora turns into a really serious wrestler when in a big match. Good big vs little match here with Chie barraging Hagane with her offense, cool quick dropkicks and armbars. You really got the sense Ozora was giving everything she had and her wild eyed determination was fantastic. There's not really any other wrestler around that I know of doing the face painted monster thing and while Hagane is no Aja Kong, she is pretty good in her own right. The match had a few great moments i.e. Hagane powering out of the hanging armbar which was a great simple monster spot. I also liked that Hagane finished the match fairly quickly. Ozora gave her best shot but once she was caught Hagane made pretty quick work of her. It's a different vibe for a title match and I would like to it more often that a big match doesn't get all drawn out for no reason.

Shinya Aoki & Keigo Nakamura vs Minoru Suzuki & Akito, DDT 3/29

Aoki and Suzuki grappling was pretty fun. Can't imagine Suzuki looking much better in 2025 honestly. He still tries, god bless him, and Aoki does some freaky scarecrowd submissions and such. Aoki is obviously really fun to watch grappling and I am sad Mutoha ended before we got to see him have a match there, however unlikely that may have been. The rest of the match was alright, but pretty much a standard indy fare. Nakamura displays some cool athleticism, but in the case of things like his bridge roll over, it looks cool, but I am not sure it makes sense. That seems to be the theme of a lot of pro wrestling in 2025, doing things to show that you can do them, not because they make sense. Akitos thing is all about attacking someones legs, and he does have some cool leg attacks, but Nakamura spends pretty much 0 effort on selling it. I get that being a selling nazi is kind of pointless, but still, you don't have to rub it in my face that you are putting no thought into what you are doing. I know Akito had a ton of awesome looking grappleriffic matches with Yasushi Sato in the past which made me interested in watching him grapple with Shinya Aoki, but sadly that doesn't happen at all in this match.

CHANGO & Kengo Mashimo vs Shiori Asahi & Takuro Niki, 2AW 4/6

CHANGO vs Asahi is a pretty banging match up. I've always enjoyed Asahi, thought he had cool spots and above average fundamentals, but he might be on his way to becoming a godhead now. He's in a kung fu suit now and wrestling like he devoured Kenichiro Arais soul. Their matwork was great, lots of both guys slipping into armlocks in slick ways, Asahi even busted out his old banana split submission with CHANGO countering in cool fashion. CHANGO wrestles a lot like Tajiri, very slick with lots of unique spots, he's really fun to watch.They settle into Mashimo & CHANGO attacking Asahis arm, which lead to this cool armbreaker/sleeper hold battle, which is a basic spot but they really made it look amazing here. The finish settles for CHANGO vs Asahi again, with CHANGO having some awesome counters for Asahis signature sweep kicks that look great. Mashimo and Niki pretty much just do very generic indy wrestling here, its alright and doesn't take up a big part of the match, you could've pretty much edited their sections out and ended with a kickass CHANGO vs Shiori Asashi match, which really needs to happen on a Mutoha revival show or something.

 

2025 Wrestling Roundup

Takeshi Ono Documentation Project #24

 

Takeshi Ono vs Ikuto Hidaka, BattlARTS 7/21/1997 - FUN

Ono beats the living hell out of young Hidaka for 5 minutes. Ono was in kill mode here, basically constantly trying to KO Hidaka. Give young Hidaka lots of credit here, he was taking a bigger beating from Ono than nearly everyone else in 1997 and he came back swinging heard. There was an exchange in the corner that was impossible nasty. The finish is just Ono trying various ways to submit Hidaka with Hidaka desperately trying to survive until Ono has enough and kills him off with some vicious punches on the ground. Harrowing.

Takeshi Ono & Mamoru Okamoto vs Ikuto Hidaka & Alexander Otsuka, BattlARTS 7/21/1997 - GREAT

Yes, Ono and Hidaka faced off twice in the same day! And this match is totally wild. Hidaka and Okamoto beat the hell out of each other, then Ono beats the hell out of Hidaka again, and Okamoto wants to beat the hell out of Otsuka but ends up getting nearly mangled. BattlARTS at its finest. This took place at the Shonan Zoo with folks watching in the searing outdoor heat and seemingly having no idea what they are seeing because there is complete silence and so these 4 guys beat the heck out of each other in complete silence with nothing heard except some neighbourhood dog barking. Otsuka did slick submission work and it was fairly great too. Ono getting the hot tag and just dickishly stomping in peoples face was also great. The guy had one mode, just being a dick and he never stopped commiting to it. The finish is Ono vs Hidaka and it builds on their earlier match nicely with Hidaka narrowly surviving by evading a crazy knee strike from Ono. Top stuff, just really relentless and insane, BattlARTS was the best.

 

Takeshi Ono Documentation Project

2025 Pro Wrestling Week 15

 Takumi Iroha vs Sora Ayame, Marvelous 4/6/2025

Sora Ayame is the other rookie of Marvelous, having had her debut just in December last year. And well Iroha is obviously a monster so you can imagine how this goes. Ayame only has forearms and dropkicks, neither of which phase Iroha, and Iroha very much treats this like she is playfighting her baby sister until she decides to crank up the violence and beat the shit out of Ayames chest with really nasty kicks and chops. Ayame has no chance in hell but she just keeps plugging away. You know exactly how this guys but this match is executed extremely well with Ayame getting a few great hope spots. There is plenty of awesome struggle, with Ayame unable to even get in a body slam or the basic slam off the top rope on Iroha. At one point Ayame went for the Senka Akatsuki style shoot pin and it got an awesome reaction. Way better than you expect your typically rote rookie squash to be.

Leo Isaka vs KAMIKAZE, Marvelous 4/6/2025

I did not expect to see KAMIKAZE main eventing a joshi show in 2025. This man has been around forever, and he comes out looking to have the body shape of Giant Baba, and kind of moving like Giant Baba. The match is pretty fun. Clearly KAMIKAZE is limited at this point, but they make the most out of it. Much of this is built around Kamikaze busting out cool reversals into the abdominal stretch, and Isaka having a few different ways to get out of the abdominal stretch. Isaka can't get the bigger man off of his feet etc. Isaka really sold this as a challenging bout agaist a tough old coot and that's what makes this really fun. KAMIKAZE even busts out some gnarly Jumbo esque backdrops was great and when he goes to the top rope for his moonsault it elicits and appropriately shocked reaction from the audience, and when the hits that moonsault perfectly still it's just awesome. Really just a cool match built around a guy with obvious limitations but still figuring out how to make it entertaining for 15 minutes. Everything here felt like it mattered and the match had a clear purpose and build and for that it was better than other more athletic matches.

 Meiko Satomura vs Takumi Iroha, Marvelous 4/10

Solid, hard hitting pro wrestling that delivers exactly what you expect. Satomura still looks close to on top of her game, knowing exactly how to hit her spots in an unpredictable manner. Iroha is probably the one woman on earth who is most poised to become Satomuras successor. She has style, she has the cool kicks, she has Chigusas blessings. Clearly she has the firepower too to take chunks out of Satomura, and Satomura still has the vigor to smack her back down, and that makes for a really fun dynamic. I think I would like Iroha more if she stopped slapping her thighs so damn  much but she was really laying her kicks in here. There are some cool moments - Satomura doing a nice job working a headlock, checking a low kick from Iroha, throwing open handed strikes etc and builds really nicely from Iroha looking like a bullied child to Iroha finding her confidence and finally flipping the fuck out and punching Satomura in the face. Very good and another nice entry in Satomuras great final run.

CHANGO vs Leo Isaka, Marvelous 4/10

Yeah nevermind all that, here's CHANGO! Fun showcase match for all the slick stuff CHANGO can do and some amusing heel tactics. That weird bodyscissor over the ropes he does is so cool, and I also liked his slick dive set up and odd angle kick from the ropes, for an 'do cool stuff all the time' guy I like him a lot because he paces his stuff well and everything is with purpose. Isaka is a perfectly fine technico. He is a generic somewhat pretty junior with a bowlcut, so there's probably a ceiling to how much I can like him as opposed to the ruggedness of a genuine character like CHANGO, but he can also bust out some slick stuff. It helps that he's facing a murderers row of really interesting wrestlers recently.

2025 Wrestling Master List

LLPW Kageki Survival 9/25/1995

 Check it out

Jenn Yukari vs. Keiko Aono

Aono would become an interesting kickpadded worker later on, but she was just a generic rookie here. Yukari is generous giving Aono some credible offense where Aono is able to doge Yukaris attacks and get in some moves before Yukari goes back to squashing her. Though Yukari also almost kills Aono dropping her on her head with suplexes, and spin kicking her in the chin really hard. Apparently the whole thing lasted 11 minutes and Aono probably wished it had been shorter while we only get 4 minutes.

Michiko Omukai vs. Michiko Nagashima

LLPW baby. Insanely gritty and bloody match. Ohmukai, in her fancy dress, goes right after Nagashima banging on her with a chair and they take to the outside. The tide turns quickly though as soon Nagashima is bashing Omukais face. Nagashima spends like a good 5 minutes dropping Omukais face into chairs, banging on her face with what looks like a metal bolt, hitting her in the face with a chain etc. Omukai is soon bleeding like mad and spitting blood. They work the rest of the match like a lucha bloodbath with narrow turns of events, Omukai trying to slip behind Nagashima and catch a roll up, big epic missed diving moves etc. There’s also some high end joshi moves such as Omukais knees to the back of the head, the suplexes etc. Nagashima was really good when in control, never letting things get stale, kicking ass like a Villano, and I loved the psychotic decisiveness of the finish. This felt like the pro wrestling version of some violent teen drama, really had the vibe of a quiet grungy girl having enough and deciding to stab the prom queen.

Eagle Sawai & Rumi Kazama vs. Shinobu Kandori & Mizuki Endo

 

Short match but they gave their all to make it memorable. Kazama kicks Kandori in the face really hard right at the bell and from that point they are in survival mode. Sawai was like a freight train going after people here. Underdog Endo was great, she was bumping like crazy for Sawai who hits like a truck, and she might actually drop the fall quickly in a sprint like this so whenever she was eating moves it felt like they could actually be the finish. Kandori had her share of trademark badass Kandori moments. I liked Kazama kicking Kandori in the head before trying a flash pin. Finish was great. Really nice stuff.

Super Irregular Handicap Match: Mikiko Futagami vs. Noriyo Tateno & Harley Saito

Uhm… it’s Futagami in an unwinnable handicap match. Futagami got maybe 30 seconds of offense in total, though she actually makes the crowd believe towards the end that should could score a megaupset. Mostly they just kick GAMIs ass though. Tateno was unusually pissed off here, even hitting a nasty knee to the back of the head, she rarely showed that kind of intensity in bigger matches. They continue the beatdown post match laying an unusually violent beating on poor GAMI. More of a test of spirit than anything.

Kurenai Yasha vs. Carol Midori

I like Kurenai a lot and Carol has been fine but this wasn’t a match that holds up super well. It was mostly just your typical joshi stuff, one girl does some moves then the other does some, with a story or epic momentum shifts never really occurring. Yasha would do some moves and control a little and then Midori would come back usually with a single reversal and then do some moves of her own without much hardship. Midori had the more technical/high flying moves while Yasha was the more rough edged one though the match never became an all out brawl. It had some hints of chippiness here and there but nothing to push it to the next level. The finishing run was exciting with both of them busting out some bigger flashier moves though nothing that will blow you away if you are familiar with them both. I imagine this would’ve looked cool on a random 90s joshi comp if you’ve never seen them, but the Kurenai superfan in me wanted her to just bust Carol in the head with her staff.

The Library

2025 Wrestling Week 14

 Atsushi Onita, Raijin Yaguchi & The Shooter 2025 vs. Hayato Mashita, Hideki Sekine & Kazunari Murakami, SSPW 2025/3/13

Normally, I probably wouldn't watch a 2025 Onita match. But the thumbnail showed me that Murakami is also in this match, so I was intrigued. And well, this was a fun ghoulish spectacle. 2025 Onita looks and walks like he is held together by duct tape, but to hell with it, he is pro wrestling incarnate, and he still spits green mist, hits people with chairs, and bites, so he delivers. Getting bitten by 2025 Onita has to turn you into some kind of cryptid. Murakami is in his weird glittery suit and he still mugs and hits people recklessly like he's in his prime. I wish the camera had been on Murakami a little more, because he still showed plenty of energy when he was throwing chairs on someone. Hideki "Shrek" Sekine looks so grotesque like he's a One Piece character. And Mashita tried to get some fire out of his miserable existance. This is pretty fun, and it does have a moment where Onita and Murakami get in the ring at the same time and start circling each other giving menacing glares, so it delivers that money moment that you want too. A barbedwire board comes into play, and you won't believe who gets slammed into it. Also an abundance of green mist. You may want to watch this.

Senka Akatsuki & Takumi Iroha vs Seri Yamaoka & Nanae Takahashi, Marigold 3/30

Really cool match that showcases some of the top prospects in the world of womens wrestling now. Senka Akatsuki rules, literally all she has is a body slam and a shoot pin that she can beat even established wrestlers with, and it totally works, whenever she starts pinning people Korakuen Hall goes crazy because the match might now turn into a shoot. Seri Yamaoka is also well on her way to become the joshi version of Tamon Honda, with the cool unique mat transitions and amateur wrestling moves, so of course I'm really excited about her. Really liked the aggressive opening grappling, with Yamaoka trying to put the pin expert Akatsuki on her shoulders only for Akatsuki to force her to the ropes with a really tight armbar. Iroha is a bit of an odd case, by all means she has the potential to be the most badass woman on earth, and there are shades of that here, but she also likes lazy thigh slaps a lot. That said there were some awesome aggressive moments here where they stomped and slapped the shit out of each other and it was pretty great. You'd think 25 minutes would be a little long for a match with 2 rookies that have less than a year of experience combined, but I thought they did just fine thanks to the constant aggression and scrappiness throughout. You had the contrast of Iroha and Takahashi doing some more advanced stuff and then Akatsuki and Yamaoka coming in to get huge reactions with pin and suplex attempts. Really fun last couple minutes with a really good build to Yamaokas suplex and Akatsuki putting her in trouble with half nelsons. Takahashi seems over the hill but she still has her moments. Overall a really fun ride that makes me excited for the further deveopments of Seri Yamaoka and Senka Akatsuki.

Shinya Aoki vs Keigo Nakamura, DDT 2/14

Way too fun. Basically Nakamura can't do anything to Aoki, and Aoki just toys with him for a couple minutes showcasing how tight you can facelock and stretch someone without snapping them. Aoki has a bunch of cool ways to twist someone up on the mat, and watching him basically forcing a bunch of classic pro wrestling style pins in a shootstyle manner was really cool. The highlight was easily Aoki stepping on Nakamuras face. Nakamuras one hope spot is when he desperately latches onto Aokis leg but Aoki quickly thwarts that like its nothing. Pretty unique and fun to watch.

2025 Wrestling Roundup

GAEAISM continues

 

Dynamite Kansai & Toshiyo Yamada vs Mayumi Ozaki & KAORU, GAEA 8/17/2003

Another banger upload from GAEAISM, that channel is on a tear. This was just great as you had your high concept chaotic Ozaki brawl that stays in the ring + plenty of vicious kicks from the monster duo of Kansai & Yamada. Kansai especially was amazing here blasting people with brutal kicks and being a menace. Ozakis execution has worsend throughout the years, but she was pretty fun here with her backhands, cool jumping kicks and occasionally just hurling a chain at people. Police gets involved briefly but he gets his ass kicked pretty fast. And KAORU is as precise and on point as always. Badass finish and there were a number of unpredictable moments and everyone going for the kill from the start with nearly no downtime. I especially enjoyed all the work around Kansais splash mountain. 

Meiko Satomura & Chikayo Nagashima vs Carlos Amano & Ran Yu Yu, GAEA 8/17/2003

All-star match up that delivers. Just a blindingly great match with one awesome exchange after another and a lot of violent strikes, everyone here matches up insanely well. Just the first Satomura vs Ran YuYu is exchange is really intense as they start with a hard-fought lock up and then go into open handed kickboxing exchanges like a PANCRASE fight. I’m used to seeing later years Satomura sticking to her usual stuff, so the more unpredictable younger version is always a blast. Ran Yu Yu was awesome in this and may have been the best woman in the match. She was great with everyone and her elbow smash is one of the most awesome strikes ever. Amano was really coming into full bloom at this point too, really revelling in all her glory with the crazy headbutts and flash armbars and the occasionally cheeky eye rake. Nagashima doesn’t quite stand out as in-your-face spectacular as the other three, but she can go hard and she does have a few sick moments including her forward rolling double stomp that had to be the sickest move in the match. The finishing run is Nagsahima vs Amano and it’s really good nimble high end workrate stuff with relentless suplexes and submissions, some fantastic counters and Amanos reliable hard head. Breathless, exciting stuff, just what you hope for when you see 4 of the most talented wrestler in the world at the time in a match.

 

Chigusa Nagayo & Sakura Hirota vs Mayumi Ozaki & KAORU, GAEA 4/14/2002

Chigusa Nagayo & Sakura Hirota vs Mayumi Ozaki & KAORU, GAEA 6/2/2002

Early 2000s were an interesting time. Sakura Hirota had started to find her calling as a comedy wrestler, and in this case she had started teaming with Chigusa Nagayo as ECCENTRIC. I am not going to pretend I understand the gimmick fully, but from what I can tell Hirota got really obsessed with WWF Attitude Era catchphrases and this somehow also infected Chigusa and they both started dressing really early 2000s Nu Metal fashionable, hitting bronco busters on people and Nagayo covering for Hirotas oddball tactics and overall ambitiousness. The first match is probably the quintessence of this. Semi-serious match where Hirota is in her full glory, all oddball tactics and antics that sometimes hit and largely backfire. It works because everybody else is treating this as a serious wrestling match, with Ozaki & KAORU being as befuddled by Hirota as everyone else and then walking over to kick her in the face. There’s some quite good wrestling, and all the jokes are extremely well timed and hit. Great comedy match, and culminates in probably the greatest finish ever that left everyone astounded, must see stuff really. However, the 2^nd match might be even greater. Basically here OZ and KAORU make it clear they have no interest in being foils for Hirotas antics, and the match quickly turns from an asskicking into a blood drenched massacre. There’s something about the fact that Hirota is basically a feel good comedy character at this point that makes the sadistic bloody beatdown OZ and KAORU put on her that much more evil, and it really drives the intensity up to the maximum when a bloody Hirota gets fired up and starts kicking ass in return. Really the kind of stuff you can only get in pro wrestling. Nagayo also looked really great here working as the protective big sister stomping mudholes in Policemans ratty ass and launching people around with powerbombs. The moment where she started to shrug off the blows and give people the death stare for hurting Hirota has to be Top 10 in wrestling ever. Ozaki and KAORU are also quite impeccable here with their knack for both bloody beatdowns and nifty cutoffs and transition spots, the intricate finishing run in this match was among the best in this genre. Truely kino stuff, nothing quite like this thanks to the unique character of Sakura Hirota.

Dynamite Kansai vs Mayumi Ozaki, GAEA 8/30/2002

It’s too bad this is JIP, because the couple minutes we get are really badass. I’m always impressed with how Ozaki is able to put in a beating on a larger opponent, in this case both using the chain and hitting some badass palm strikes. Kansai was a monster as usual here, all face kicks and freakish Splash Mountain setups, the last one with the multiple backbreakers was some Brock Lesnar stuff. Also dug Ozakis odd twisty rollups.

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