Pro Wrestling 2025 Week 21

 
Nanae Takahashi vs Seri Yamaoka, Marigold 5/17

Nanae Takahashi is the next joshi veteran on her way out. At least just like with Meiko, this little retirement tour is giving her some interesting opponents and motivation to show she still has something in the tank. I thought Yamaoka would be a bit of a super rookie, but this is mostly Takahashi giving her a hiding. Yamaokas grappling-tinged approach rules and if she continues she is poised to become something of a female Tamon Honda, which would probably make her my default #1 wrestler in the world. She is already halfway there, just needs to work on her stuff a little, but the ingredients are present, and she's really cool to watch when she gets going and starts busting out the amateur moves. Takahashi is still effective beating her down and the grappling stuff made the match cool. Yamaoka looked a bit like a scared puppy when she was taking a beating, her killer instinct needs to come out a little more. Still a pretty cool match and really fun to watch.

Ali Najima vs Ryutaro Ono, Sportiva 5/21

Najimas debut wasn't long ago, but now he's in the position to put a beatdown on a longer ranked rookie. This was quite the fight. Very much the standard rookie match but their intensity and passion was great. Onos kicks are slightly clunky but that's part of the charm. Najima keeps it basic but he really puts energy even into standard stuff, he really beat the heck out of Onos shoulder here. Onos weird axe kick to the back of Najimas head was really cool. Like I said, not much in terms of moves but head and shoulders above a lot of other wrestling these days when it comes to intensity, which is how it should be.

Sho Mizuno vs Yu Shimizu, Kobe Meriken 4/18

Do NOT sleep on this match. Mizuno is a Seichi Ikemoto trainee, so he's another indy shooter, and he makes the early goings of this match wonderfully uncooperative, and it devolves into a really good, scrappy, hate filled little match. Shimizu is the Scum Bastard and while he's not much of a shoot grappler he proves his worth here by trying to scramble Mizunos brains with his trademark elbows. Mizuno is game to throw down and both guys beat the shit out of each other. Really dug the moments where one guy would have a submission on and would just aggressively hack away at the opponents head with scrappy elbows. The hard hitting here felt genuinely violent - a rare thing in modern wrestling where it often feels like its turning into a lovetap exhibition. They also made me give a shit about the sleeper hold. The one downgrade is that they briefly ventured outside and the stationary camera didn't catch anything. After this Mizuno will definitely be on my watchlist.

Sui Cup Kenchiro vs Great Mara, CWP 6/1

Come On Wrestling Party, baby. An 'ama-pro' wrestling match has no business being better than the matches from Japans major leagues, but here we are. Really raw pro wrestling that felt real as fuck. I've enjoyed the bits of Kenchiro I've seen, and he is clearly a king in this little scene. Mara I haven't seen before, he looks dorky even by the standards of semi professional wrestling and this match definitely had the vibe of him being way outmatched and trying to gut it out. Kenchiro puts a major ass kicking on Mara, kicks to the face, hard chops, king-sized backdrop suplexes, Sui Cap Kenchiro has really internalized the philosophy of doing just a handful of things really well. Mara is mostly getting his ass kicked but occasionally he is able to reach deep and crack Kenchiro with some gnarly shots of his own. There were some crazy headbutts, knee drops and face punches. Him desperately avoiding Kenchiros suplexes was also quite entertaining. Also gotta hand it to Kenchiro as he knew exactly how to bump for Mara and his last backdrop was criminal and awesome. How the fuck is this stuff closer to Hashimoto/Tenryu than whatever the major leagues are putting out I have no idea, but I really enjoyed watching.

2025 Pro Wrestling Roundup