Konaka in the Sportiva Arena

 

Konaka vs. Sae, Sportiva 5/11/2022

Super good Konaka carryjob. Sae is kind of not very good, only having some bland offense and almost breaking her own neck when going for a Kamikaze roll, but Konaka pulls her through this 18 minute match just fine. Opening work is pretty solid with Konaka making things like taking a basic bump for a shoulder tackle satisfying by having it set up with a rope move. Soon we move on to the best part of the match, Konaka working a side headlock of Destroyer-esque greatness. Usually with side headlock segments it’s the guy stuck in the headlock making it interesting by trying different escapes, but in this case Konaka is the guy keeping things interesting by having a bunch of different ways to pull Sae back into the headlock. Later he keeps going for headlock crossfaces and neck attacks, at one point he was cranking a facelock like crazy and digging his fist into Saes face in brutal fashion, it was like something fucked up Ole Anderson or Tully Blanchard would do to a jobber in a 80s TV studio squash. Finishing stretch was really good with a bunch of cool moments centered around Sae going for a dragon sleeper of all things, a superplex bump that felt epic, Konaka missing a big attack off the top and a completely awesome finish. Real master performance from Konaka getting the most out of a limited opponent.

Konaka vs Shinya Ishida, 3/17/2021

For a white meat highflying babyface, I am pretty okay with Shinya Ishida. He has good offense, and he is capable of adding neat touches like connecting with a surprisingly punishing kick between moves, or doing some stubborn matwork. Most importantly is good enough to let Konaka do his thing and not interfere. This was a result very good. They start with some neat fast sequences before Konaka cuts off Ishida in a cool way and does some work on the arm. Ishida makes a solid comeback and then acknowledges said armwork by giving it back to Konaka in kind. Ishidas brutal stomp to Konakas ankle was probably the highlight, it looked just sick. The second half had a bunch more good stuff and neat moments that Konaka has a knack for, I also really liked the well worked chokehold segment they did, it shows Ishida is more capable than your usual spotty indy guy. Very decent stuff and anytime Konaka gets to stretch out and do his thing is a gem.

Konaka vs Kazuhiro Tamura, Sportiva 3/16/2022

I love Konaka and I know Tamura can be pretty great when he tries. Still, this slightly exceeded my expectations. Delivers exactly the kind of cool, unique matwork you hope for from the match up, and it delivers that in spades. What I love about Konaka is that because of his mysterious act, he is believable doing just about anything. I buy his weird reverse spinning toehold just as much as buy him locking in an achilles hold or rolling calf slicer. So him grappling with U-File guy Tamura is really cool. They settle for a work the arm vs work the leg story and they both have a bunch of really cool ways to attack a limb. Tamuras selling of the legwork wasn’t the greatest but our guy Konaka was stellar as always.

Pro Wrestling 2025 Week 20

 Shinya Aoki vs Kazusada Higuchi, DDT 5/6/2025

A power vs technique match up that actually feels very close to a classic puro match! I am not entirely convinced that Shinya Aoki is as good as the likes of GENTARO or Yasushi Sato yet, but he sure is scratching on their throne. This had a bunch of really fun ultra-tight, high resistance grappling. I wanted Higuchi to be a bit of a bigger badass - I mean, he does look like a cool motherfucker being a tall ex sumo with slicked back hair, and he does hit pretty hard, but I wanted him to go ham and tear up Aokis spindly body a slightly bit more. I guess not everyone can be Tenryu, but I sense there is potential in him and I should probably watch him more. The ringside brawling was slightly weak but seeing legendary grappler Aoki get bowled into chairs and retaliating by smashing someones luggage into Higuchis head was a sight. I also love how unhinged Aoki feels when he starts flying around. I hope he won't go down the Minoru Suzuki route with the crazy faces but I thought for this match it was appropriate. Great, off the wall finish. They made a brain claw a deadly hold in 2025 and you have to love that. Really really fun, Aokis little reign is such a reset for a Japanese mainstream promotion and I hope they continue further on that route.

Keita Yano vs Tsuyoshi Okada, Dove Pro 2/9 - FUN

Oh Keita. This is a rounds match with Okada having MMA gloves and they're blaring some trance electronic music throughout, ZST style. With stuff like this it's starting to feel like Yano is slowly returning to form. It's a bit slow to get going as they go for really uncooperative shootstyle ala KINGDOM, but Yano does some fun grappling. 2nd round is a lot better with Okada really knocking the hell out of Keita. Not as epic as it would've been in like 2013 when Keitas psychosis was in full bloom, but a fun little occurance and I wanna see more of gloves Okada for sure after that.

Keita Yano vs Ayumu Honda, Tenryu Project 4/25 - FUN

Usual good Keita performance working circles around a guy with graceful WoS style matwork. At first I thought this Honda guy would be along for the right, but he actually brought a little something as the match proceeded by attacking Keitas arm in a few different ways. Keitas selling was pretty good for a short match and there is a nifty finish. Nothing grand in in the scheme of Keita Yano matches but it's good that he is still doing his thing even though the camera at Tenryu Project shows seems to get further and further away from the ring.

Shiori Asahi & Makoto Oishi vs CHANGO & Ayumu Honda, 2AW 4/27

CHANGOs grip on the Japanese indy scene with scumbag technical matches continues, and he's now infecting everyone around him. After Asahi, Oishi is the next guy to just say fuck it and wrestle in a grease monkey suit. These two used to be a team of sensationally spotty and smooth juniors and to see them say fuck it and be sleazy and hit fist drops and kung fu eye pokes is low key awesome. They didn't go full Mutoha here, but this is very much a refreshingly outside the norm match. Lots of WORKING as in making small, miniscule things a focal point, such as the build to the basic 'guy hits a diving elbow to opponents arm that is held in place by tag team partner' spot. Asahis and Oishis assault on people with rapidly hit knee drops and fist drops was reminiscent of a surreal version of the Yamaha Bros, and CHANGO is CHANGO. Honda is the weakest guy in the match and doesn't stand out much early, but he does come into his own when its to work an arm, and him trying to steal the win with plain straight armbars was pretty fun. Finishing run had a lot of the super tricked out slick spots that CHANGO, Asahi and Oishi have a knack for. Lots of roll ups within rollups if you catch my drift. It's a bit of an aquired taste but if you are reading this blog I can definitely imagine you getting into this, it's worthy continuation from the Asahi/CHANGO tag from earlier in the month.

Meiko Satomura & Sareee vs Chihiro Hashimoto & Yuu, Fortune Dream 4/16

Stiff, fast paced, crisp, serious pro wrestling. Maybe one of the best of the year from the women in fact when it comes to action from start to finish, and definitely worth checking out even if you've been watching all the Satomura matches. Satomura vs Hashimoto is known quality, and Sareee makes a really fun addition. Her matches earlier in the year were spotty, but I thought she was really effective here just coming and trying to crack peoples faces with vicious dropkicks. It helps that Hashimoto ate the fuck out of those dropkicks. Yuu also looked like an impressive monster. The one thing I didn't like was her weird rolling move. That felt too comical for this kind of affair. Thought the sick Sareee/Hashimoto was the highlight, until Meiko came in and she and Chihiro wailed on each other some more. Awesome. Thought the match needed a bit more Meiko vs. Chihiro duelling instead of having Chihiro and Yuu just go to hit their double teams but I guess that was the point. Also, selling wasn't super important here, but that's joshi for you sometimes. I'm gonna miss Meiko.

 

2025 Wrestling Roundup 

Keita Yano Documentation

Kakuto Tanteidan 4/8/2025

 Satsuki Nagao vs Shuji Ishikawa

It’s nice to see Ishikawa return to his Fu-Ten roots of just potatoeing the fuck out of people in quasi-shootstyle matches. This didn’t feel quite like a BattlARTS or Fu-Ten match, it had bit much of those back and forth elbow exchanges, but once in a while they would try to nuke each others brains with a sick headbott or knee and it was a spectacle. I’ve never seen or heard of Nagao, looking him up on Cagematch tells me he might be… sorta… a big deal on the small scales of Japanese indies? He’s with Tochigi Pro, challenged Akitoshi Saito for a title in NOAH last year, what ever that means nowadays. Having my first look at him in this match I thought he was a black trunks rookie, there to get mauled by the bigger Ishikawa, and it does feel a bit like that with Nagao eating a big beating and unable to get Ishikawa off his feet etc, but Nagao ends up surviving much longer than expected and getting bigger and bigger hits in on Ishikawa including just straight headbutting him in the face, maybe even to the point where I thought it was a little too much as he survived a sick dragon suplex and then the actual finish looked a little weak. Anyways I am nitpicking this match too much, they potatoed the fuck out of each other and it was a really fun opening match, end of story.

Masashi Takeda vs Kosuke Sato

Hey its Kosuke Sato. I enjoyed him when he was in CAPTURE for a hot minute. And look Takeda gets to do shootstyle! This starts with Takeda bullying Sato because Takeda iis a Tamura trainee even 12 years after Style-E so clearly the superior shooter. Sato comes back biting Takedas wrist because despite his chiselled body and boyish looks, he is a filthy BJW boy after all. Takeda ends up bleeding from his ear after grappling. I imagine sudden bleeding has to be a big problem for death match wrestlers in their daily lives. In this case it’s not even just a little smear of blood, its a full on gushing wound that keeps spilling blood. Sato manages to get some comebacks and when he does he hits these cool big leaping dropkicks where he makes sure to kick Takeda right in the head. He hits a lovable messily executed shootstyle bodyslam that is full of struggle and goes to choke Takeda out, with Takedas blood all over his body and even getting in his mouth. Sometimes you just gotta watch some filthy blood drenched gruesome pro wrestling like this. Started out just solid like a BJW or DDT undercard match with shoostyle elements but once they got to the bleeding and gritty fighting it got really great. Takeda is perfectly good as a shooter with cool submissions and sick suplexes, its a pity he gets to do this kind of match only once in a while.

Yuki Ishikawa & Tyson Maeguchi vs Super Tiger II & Tanomusaku Toba - FUN

A fun BattlARTS style midcard tag with some kickboxing mixed in. Ishikawa can still roll out and have cool exchanges with STII just like he did in from 2008-2011 all the time. I thought it was just gonna be a friendly grappling exchange with Ishikawa schooling his opponent and pulling out cool reversals, but then STII dropped a fucking Killer Kowalski level knee on Ishikawas face, making things more intense. Maeguchi basically was all kickboxing, and he does throw some fun combos, him sparring a little with the Tiger was fun, and Toba did his “I am too old for this shit but I can still dodge you and punch you in the face at any time” thing which entertains. The real money match up here is Ishikawa vs Toba which is a real sleazeball shootstyle dream match, unfortunately their exchange lasted only about 30 seconds but it was still nice we got to see that.

Brother Yasshi vs Dan Tamura

First few minutes had some very good amateur-style matwork with Yasshi once again busting out a cool Honda-ish arm takedown and Tamura throwing his opponent around, including hitting a pretty nutso German suplex. Unfortunately the match kind of turned into a mediocre indy match which looks really awkward on a show like this.

Fuminori Abe & Takuya Nomura vs Manabu Hara & Hikaru Sato

I’ll be honest, I thought this was hurt by being overly long, some goofy ropework and I dislike how Abe seems to turn everything into a joke. But fuck that, they decided to beat the fuck out of each other from the get go and the spirit was absolutely there. Lots of fun chaos and hard hitting. Sato coming in and looking like a badass was surprising and great. Hara also always looks great when it’s time kick ass. We get lots of fun chaos and plenty of violent exchanges with some great extended segments towards the end only slightly marred by the weird decision to include some rope running. Sato may have been the best guy in the match, he really comes into his own in this style, really feels like a late blooming for him. Thought the match needed a bit more Nomura and less Abe, Nomuras out of nowhere grittiness is great. This match was a blast, not mindblowingly great, but definitely a blast.

The Library

Pro Wrestling 2025 Week 19

 Super Taira vs Ryutaro Ono, Sportiva 5/14

Ono is another Sportiva rookie who just made his debut. Given how Sportiva rookies are usually good, them having 4 of those rookies now plus a couple more workers that I really like (Taira, Ishida, Konaka..) it begs the question if Sportiva actually has the greatest roster in the world now because that is sure more interesting wrestlers than most other companies have right now. This Ono guy is chunky and old, like a middle aged businessman who decided to get in the ring, he has kickpads too but he seems like he will be a bit more of a raw fighter. But well this match isn't much about Ono, this is about my man Taira stretching and beating him around the ring. This is my first time seeing Taira in a while and he still looks like one of the best wrestlers on earth. Lots of cool groundwork of him controlling the bigger guy and there are bits of fun aggression and violence. Really hope Super Taira becomes a Sportiva mainstay again because he's clearly still on top of his game.

Masanori Watanabe vs Kengo Takai, Sportiva 5/14

Boy Takai looks over the hill. Really really over the hill, but he can still put the boots to a rookie, and that makes this pretty fun. Watanabe hits some fun, painful looking kicks to Takais arm and shoulder and does some cool arm attacks, so he continues to look promising, although at this point he still mostly gets squashed. But that's the fun in watching these Sportiva rookies develop, it's a week-to-week progress. And Takai can totally still hit a nasty lariat.

Charlie Dempsey vs Shinya Aoki, Bloodsport 4/17

Cool we got to see these two grapple it out. Standards for grappling-matches are actually kinda high in 2025 I think, so the first couple minutes were just alright, the highlight being Dempsey putting himself in the figure 4 to stretch Aokis ankle, but the last couple minutes were pretty great. Loved the intense struggle over the reverse gutwrench suplex, Aoki going for the abdominal stretch etc. Bit of a size mismatch but it was a really good match all around.

Meiko Satomura & Manami vs Chihiro Hashimoto & Aja Kong, 4/29

Obviously a really important match. Hashimoto looked like she was about to cry during the opening exchanges. Setting aside the emotional context, there was a lot of good wrestling to enjoy here. For Meiko, it's very much just her doing her thing for the last time, until about the last 3rd of the match where it kicks into high gear. The other participiants are pretty fun, though. Aja is still really compelling, kicking ass and knowing exactly when to do what, despite being really over the hill physically. Manami is fun for the most part and Chihiro is just a big old juggernaut who's really fun to watch charging into people with body checks and tossing them around. It's good wrestling until Meiko starts throwing open hands at Chihiro and Chihiro responds with Vader Hammers in kind. Meiko and Aja doing their old trademark exchanges was awesome considering how over the hill Aja looks and I loved that they put actual emotional stake into whether Satomura could beat her old nemesis finally. Very good match even setting aside the context, doesn't quite top the Mentai Kid match for me when it comes to high end retirement matches this year but it's absolutely worth watching, and what kind of person would you be if you didn't!

2025 Wrestling Roundup

Assorted Mutoha

 As always, buy them on X or thebase!

Unicorn Rules: Yasushi Sato & Konaka & G Valion vs. Hiroshi Watanabe & Masamune & Super Crafter U, Mutoha 7/22/2021

35 minutes of sweet wrestling, like you expect from this killer lineup. This was Unicorn Road rules which means the 1^st fall was a singles between Konaka and Crafter, 2^nd a tag between Sato/Valion and Watanabe/Masamune and the 3^rd a 6 man between all participiants. Konaka/Crafter was really good, the shootstyle submissions of Crafter mesh very well with Konakas more esoteric pro style approach and it was awesome to watch Konaka figure his way out of Crafters shoot leglocks, really good little technical match and Crafter blasting his opponent with brutal looking kicks was awesome as always. 2^nd fall had some awesome grappling from Masamune and sweet exchanges between him and Yasushi Sato. Masamune is really good when he’s just grappling and not doing Kurt Angle shit, he had some amazing counters, honestly he may have been the best guy in the match, he looked like a grappling machine. I would’ve liked to see a bit more of Sato vs Masamune because these two just trying to put the other guys shoulders down for the 3 is always awesome to watch, but then again I always want to watch more Yasushi Sato. Valion is the weakest guy in the match, I was interested in what he would bring to the table but in this murderers row of fantastic grapplers he doesn’t stand out a ton but he was alright and I liked his series of quick DDTs and odd submission. 3^rd fall didn’t have as much grappling and some slightly odd moments such as a random ref bump that had no effect on the match, however both teams looked like they were trying to finish the match and Yasushi Sato held the ending run together with his cool submissions, russian leg sweeps and neat touches. This was kind of like a pro wrestling mixtape with 6 really unique wrestlers bringing a ton to the table, just really cool to watch.

Kenichiro Arai vs. Masamune, 3/19/2022

30 minutes of mostly matwork. Strictly for the technical wrestling freaks but if you can’t get into something like that, what the hell are you doing reading this? They started out basic but put some amazing details into their otherwise basic holds and transitions, and continued in that fashion throughout the match putting some gritty struggle into hings. Masamune is always game to just grapple it out and it was really cool watching him trying to put Arais shoulders down for the 3 with his more amateur style flourishes while Arai is just the king of grabbing a basic hold and cranking it to the maximum. Arai paying tribute to Giant Baba with an ultra tight full nelson into the leg nelson was a really nice moment. I really liked how Arai sold vulnerability by selling his leg after missing a knee drop and seemed to be close to self destruction when he went for a couple flying axe handles. I am a bit tired of ankle locks at this point but Masamune chess match approach to the hold worked for me. They meandered a bit on occasion but overall this was very good and fascinating to watch if you were a fan of GENTARO/Arai already this should definitely go on your watch list too.

 

Kenji Takeshima vs. Hikaru Sato Mutoha 11/14/2015

Pretty badass no-ring shootstyle match that exceeded expectations. This match is compelling because of their difference in ranking and because of how competitive they make it feel. They really put over the fact that Satos kicks are bombs, Takeshima was Fujiwaralike in catching them early on and taking Sato down, however as soon as Sato started landing the kicks Takeshima was getting destroyed. Takeshima comes back hitting a desperation headbutt and they go into this Lawler/Mantell style headbutt exchange while selling the accumulating brain trauma. Eventually they start shit talking each others promotions (causing the 20 people in attendance to start a “BattlARTS” chant). They move back into a straight shootstyle finish. I love how Takeshima laid on that Achilles Hold, he really looked like he wanted to force the tap more than anything else in his life. Good, really competitive feeling stuff, pretty unexpected from a match with no ring in front of 20 people.

PSYCHO vs Koju Takeda, Mutoha 1/14/2018

Bit of a different favour for Mutoha with this match. No extended technical wrestling section this is just PSYCHO putting a scumbag rudo beating on Takeda. A lot of really cool stuff from PSYCHO in this, trying to screw Takedas neck with some nasty moves, knees to the face, hard elbows, and his cool cross armbar variations. Takeda is a 666 guy who is ridiculously good looking, in terms of wrestling he does just basic stuff but all well executed and I guess that’s just fine, he is a good foil for scummy PSYCHO. Really fun match that serves as an excellent showcase for all the cool stuff PSYCHO can do.

 

Pro Wrestling 2025 Week 18

 
Ali Najima vs Kanu(?) Watanabe, Sportiva 5/7

I think this is Watanabes second match ever, and it is a pretty impressively fun second match ever that makes me want to check out his actual debut match against Hikaru Sato. Watanabe doesn't have the generic rookie moveset, he's a shooter with kickpads, and immediately he proves himself worthy by doing some really fun shootstyle grappling with Najima. The match is really simplistic, with Najima going for leglocks and Watanabe going for a kimura. Najima does this kind of shootstyle tinged indy match really well, this may be my favourite performance I've seen from him so far as he had a bunch of really sweet counters into the leglocks that were defintely rewind worthy. If both guys continue on this path they could be really good in no time.

Munetatsu Nakamura vs Hagane Shinnou, Choco Pro 5/5

Genuinely really fun, straight forward attempt at a technical match between two silky smooth guys. It's fascinating to me that Hagane is MADOKA, who many people thought was really cool 17 years ago, and now he's kind of drifting along working for Emi Sakura and other odd indy midcard gigs. This Nakamura kid is really impressive. Lots of cool amateur moves from him, like a cool leg lace and a really cool quarter nelson that they put some nice struggle into. They made sure to make everything feel meaningful, including moves as basic as a side headlock or a short arm scissor, and it builds nicely so that a cool escape from Nakamura actually ends up looking cool. A lot of these technical-MUGA-worship matches can feel derivative, wasn't the case here, I never felt like I was an exhibition of cool spots and submissions. Another pretty cool instance in this recent ressurgence of technical indy matches.

Mentai Kid vs GENKAI, Kyushu Pro 5/11 (Mentai Kids Retirement Match)

Incredibly emotional, high stakes, pretty much perfectly worked big match to cap off the really cool career of Mentai Kid. I've always had a soft spot for Kyushu Pro because it was one of the few companies in recent years that struck me as really passionate and fresh, and Mentai Kid had been a big part of it with his dedication to play the beloved local flying babyface to a T. Retirement matches can sometimes be a greatest hits parade, "look at him do his spots one last time", that was not the case here, this was hard fought from the get go as they put some nice struggle even into the basic hold exchanges. This just kept building and building, and they both went all out both with passionate selling and dishing out some crazy bumps and spots. All the transitions felt meaningful, and I loved how they put a lot of emphasis on small things such as GENKAI selling his legs after pulling his knees up on a splash etc. My god did GENKAI look like the penultimate badass stoic warrior here, I thought recently he was getting a little lazy with his WWE-isms but he was 100% commited to putting his old rival out to pasture here. I loved his stoic demeanor, nasty headbutts, punches that looked like punches, and trying to crank Mentais neck with sick bombs. Mentai was as slick as ever and he really gave his everything, talk about going out on the top of your game. Loved the build to the diving moves towards the end, the crazy spot that broke the ringside camera etc. Really a pretty incredible big match that was enaging throughout it's length. Also loved Mentais 20 minute entrance and the post match with Liger talking on the mic in full costume with an old man voice, Ultimo in a sleazy flannel suit etc. Great stuff, the magic of pro wrestling is still alive.

 

2025 Wrestling Roundup

Exploring Pure-J Pt. II

 Leon & AKARI vs Rydeen Hagane & KAZUKI, Pure-J 7/4/2021

It’s a bit of a shame that this Pure-J stuff is so under the radar. Sure, it’s behind a paywall on their YouTube channel, but matches like this are well worth a couple dollars. For a dojo show tag match this was pretty great. Awesome hard hitting exchanges between Leon and Rydeen, and Kazuki and AKARI more than hold up. Rydeen is a really fun powerhouse, and the more I watch Leon the more I think she’s one of the best wrestlers around. Leon is just so incredibly sharp, and her ability to build bigger moments is what makes her stand out. Just the way she will set up her signatures to hit them in more exciting ways make her stand out. AKARI is really cool here, lots of slick leglock takeovers from her, and KAZUKI also brought some fun stuff to the table mostly focussing on attacking peoples mid section here. Some great cut off and double team spots as well.

Leon vs Rydeen Hagane, Pure-J 7/22/2021

Badass match between two great wrestlers. I don’t know why you don’t hear more praise for Rydeen Hagane, she brings a lot of cool shit to the table. Just the way she would slam Leon down with a cool judo throw really sets her apart from other heavyweight monster types. This was a really good long form title match with an unpredictable layout. Obviously Leon is a huge show with all the cool stuff she can do, but I thought Hagane also held up, and it turned into a hard fought match. Big vs little psychology was in place and it provided lots of neat moments, Leon putting on scarecrow submissions, Rydeen powering out of Leons offense in cool ways, Leon finding nifty ways to slow down Rydeen etc. Rydeen has a few impressive reversals of Leons stuff, picking her up for hard slams and big throws occasionally. I also loved Leon increasing the grittiness of the match, headbutting Rydeen in the back of the head to set up a suplex, her spin kicks hitting like a truck, double stomping Rydeen for good measure etc. Leon just comes across as such a force in this, cool submissions, hard hitting, slick movements, and Hagane was an impressive tough wall trying to swat her down. Great stuff that should be on peoples radars when it comes to 2020s joshi.

KAZUKI vs Rydeen Hagane, Pure-J 4/10/2022

KAZUKI is hit and miss, but she was hitting it here. Basically Rydeen Hagane starts dropping bombs immediately on Kazuki, swatting her with some hard hitting lariats. It looks like KAZUKI is done in, but she is able to knee Hagane in the head and go for the arm. KAZUKI then does an impressive job stopping the monster by going for the arm relentlessly and hitting cool knee attacks, I love any wrestler who makes something like a kitchen sink look special. KAZUKI had some really cool arm attacks such as a nifty monkey flip into an armbar. I continue to enjoy Hagane as she continues to add touches that make her matches more interesting than the usual heavyweight affair, in this case trying to strangle KAZUKI with a nasty sleeper when she went for a too predictable arm attack. Cool stuff and the finish with the weird armlock was badass.

Hanako Nakamori vs Leon, Pure-J 7/18/2022

Some really good fast paced hard hitting pro wrestling here. Obviously these two have offense for days, but the way they move between everything is outstanding. Pretty much no let down in this at all, and they pull off some really slick stuff. Really like their dynamic with Nakamori having her vicious kicks and Leon focussing on her spear variations. There was some leg work which Nakamori didn’t really sell, which is too bad because Leon did a nice job taking her leg out locking in some cool leglocks and hitting a nifty spear to the leg, Leon is just the queen of the spear if you ask me. Finishing run had some evil moments such as a few vicious headbutts, Leon throwing a straight punch at one point and Nakamori kicking her in the face. Not as good as their matches earlier in the decade, Nakamoris kick were looking a little weak here and there and there were some things that felt a little cliché like the double KO spots, that said this was still well worth watching.

Pro Wrestling in 2025 Week 17

 Meiko Satomura & Sonoko Kato vs Mayumi Ozaki & Chikayo Nagashima, Oz Academy 4/13

A tag on the coattails of Satomuras retirement run, but Kato vs Nagashima was probably the standout match up here. Don't get me wrong, Satomura is solid as always, but seeing these two revive their old rivalry and kicking ass was quite refreshing. I also enjoyed Ozaki here, she's 56 now and I imagine she can't do much. Some of her brawling with the chain felt a bit like a nostalgia act than actually viciously going after an opponent, but she looked still quite effective when she was beating on Katos hand with metal objects and backfisting Satomura in the face. Kato still has a badass vibe and Nagashima moves amazingly well still. Nice to see a match like this that's just fun all around without much nonsense, this resurrgence of old joshi stars is providing quite a bit of entertainment.

Bomber Okuno & Yosuke Takii vs Hiroaki Taniguchi & Tetsuya Goto, Pro Wrestling Shi-En 4/20


Really fun, effective indy tag. Takii is an old favourite of mine and he still looks really sharp here, his little matwork section with Tetsuya Goto is pretty slick. Tetsuya Goto is another guy whose name I keep seeing but I think I never really watched, checking him out here he's actually pretty good, and not afraid to rock bold colour combinations. Okuno and Taniguchi are two powerhouse guys which means lots of shoulder blocks and the usual, they aren't terribly interesting early on but Taniguchi at least puts really impressive oomph into all his stuff, even a basic body slam or shoulder block so he's fun to watch. The ending run for this turns into smashmouth wrestling though with Goto busting out some impressive babyface spots and everyone else turning it up a notch and doing the most awesome stuff they could think of. At first I thought Okuno sucked since he's a pathetic unimpressive looking chubby loser, but he's actually kinda gold in the last couple minutes feeding into Gotos stuff and setting his own power moves up in fun ways, he also does the coconut crush that is endearing. I would've liked to see Takii also getting to do a bit more but sometimes short and sweet is better. Most importantly, there was no thigh slapping or other stupid shit. This kind of indy formula tag is really easy but nowadays almost nobody seems to do it well anymore, so it's really nice to see one that hits, a solid basic build topped off with lots of sweet stuff towards the end. I should probably check out more of Shi-En.

Yuta Oya vs Yasuhiro Higuchi, Sportiva 4/9

It's been too long since we got to see my man Yuta Oya in a singles match. This Yasuhiro Higuchi guy looks insanely old,  like old enough to be my grandpa. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but he's kinda not very good. but he does try, and Oya is really fun here working over his back and judo tossing him which looks painful because Higuchi is such a brittle old man. Pretty fun to watch considering Higuchi looked like he's in wrestling for a participation trophy, Oya is really impressive with what he can do, even against a limited opponent.

 2025 Pro Wrestling Roundup