2025 Wrestling Matchguide Week 41

 Avisman vs Eragon, 10/4

Mask vs hair baby. They brought it here and that is a nice thing to see for two indy luchadores working in a dingy hall. Avisman has always been a really good worker and Eragon, for someone who I last heard about like 15 years ago working undercard matches in IWRG, looked good. Most notably this was an apuestas match that brought a lot to the table. I mean, I haven't watched too many of these matches lately, but a lot of what has plagued these matches from what I've seen in the 2010s-2020s is absent here. There are no throwaway falls, they made sure to create struggle and drama, and even did callbacks to tie everything. And on top of that you have all the mask ripping and gory sick blood and headbutts you want from your gritty indy apuestas match. Bit odd that they started with llave style mat wrestling and it was good work. Avisman increasing the pressure by hitting a dive and going to town on Eragon tearing him up and bloodying him was also good work. Hey, the dives in this actually feel important which is great and another aspect of classic lucha that is often missing from modern wrestling. Really a nice piece of wrestling all things considered.

Ali Najima & Masanori Watanabe vs Yoichi Shinmei & Yuta Oya, Sportiva 10/22

Sportiva continues to deliver. Shinmei is this guy who has been around a really long time, being the ace of JWA Tokai 20 years ago. At some point he vanished, and now he's back in Sportiva. He was this really athletic old guy who would hit cool stylized elbows. He had good chemistry with both Najima and Watanabe, never looking out of his depth. It was pretty cool to see such an obscure wrestler showing up and doing his thing, and I hope he becomes a regular appearance in Sportiva. We all know how good the other 3 have gotten and this was another night where Najima, Watanabe and Oya proved they might be the most talented trio of young wrestlers on earth right now. Just loads of good wrestling with the matchtime just flying by. Some great limbwork here, and the Watanabe/Oya finishing run is good stuff. After this I really want to see a singles match between Watanabe and Oya.

Daisuke Ikeda & Mohammed Yone & Naomichi Marufuji vs Shuji Ishikawa & Naomichi Marufuji & Atsushi Kotoge, NOAH 8/25/2025

I will be upfront here: the main reason you want to see this is the 2 minutes or so where Ikeda and Shuji Ishikawa try to headbutt each others brains to a molten pulp. That was some pretty good pro wrestling. Other than that, eh parts of this were fun and the crowd was hot. Yone looked good here, hitting people really hard and doing his signature glassy eyed selling which I always love. I could actually see myself enjoying him in a match against some better guys. I don't really care about the other guys here and there was lots of chopping and standing in front of each other... Marufuji was so comically bad and his superkicks were missing by a mile. His little segment with Shuji Ishikawa felt like old man comedy. Kotoge is pretty worthless with his constant thigh slapping and Shiozaki was probably the least impressive as always. Nevermind that, Ikeda hit someone with a really hard lariat too~!

Marino Saihara & Yukina Uehara vs Rico Fukunaga & Sakura Mizushima, AWG 10/19

Credible, stiff pro wrestling with a fast pace. Hard to believe but AWG is quietly putting out some really good stuff. Everyone here looked good, sticking to what they were good at. Thought this got really good when Fukunaga and Mizushima started damaging Ueharas legs. Uehara needs a bit of work as a wrestler, but her kicks are pretty fun. Fukunaga definitely knows what she's doing. Her working over Uehara with low kicks, and even goading her into falling for a dragonscrew was quality stuff. Match then went from very good to great with the Saihara vs Fukunaga finishing run. Lots of great exchanges and desperation, and the build to Saiharas German suplex was amazing. Saihara is the AWG champ, and Fukunaga and Mizushima do everything in their power to beat her. It was 100% classic Japanese wrestling stuff, lots of kicks, shootstyle submissions all building to a suplex. This ended up great, and Saihara and Fukunaga looked like two of the best wrestlers in the country.

2025 Matchguide