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.

Exploring PURE-J

 

Leon vs Yuu, Pure-J 5/4/2022

Great title match. The more I watch Leon the more I realize she’s one of the most skilled wrestlers around. Yuu is a pretty simplistic straight forward wrestler, all splashes, sentons and thundering chops, and it’s really fun to watch Leon work a big match around that. Basically the story here is that Yuu is a brick wall and Leon would have to barrage her to break her down. Really enjoyed the submission work here. There wasn’t any limbwork or something like that, it was very in the moment with Leon going for a rolling kimura at one point and Yuu just grabbing the sleeper when she could. Love Leons spears and her making sure to target Yuus mid section some more when she hit her big splash. I admit Yuu isn’t super interesting and could’ve done a better job with her selling here or there but other than that this a really good match, really puts the PURE in PURE-J as they stayed in the ring the whole time and did a straight forward match with no bullshit, something that wouldn’t hurt to see in other joshi organizations.

Blanca Maho vs Momo Tani, Pure-J 10/14/2024

Blanca Maho is this ex-kickboxer who throws lots of awesome kicks, so it’s really nice to see her in a lengthy singles match for a title. I am not familiar with Momo Tani, she is one of those frail looking wrestlers with a very pretty outfit, so I wasn’t sure how good she would be, but it turns out she’s a competent wrestlers too with lots of cool knee strikes, and she looked good when she was on top controlling the match with holds. She also had some cool suplexes and a slick transition where she moved herself to the ring apron. Just her foreram smashes need some work. Mahos kicks were awesome, her chest kicks were really popping Momo, and she has a bunch of different variations, and this match has a really good pace without becoming too much. Really fun to check this out, Blanca Maho looks to be a star in the making.

Chie Ozora vs Risa Sera, 9/15/2024

This is a really good match, mainly because of Chie Ozora. Ozora is this really non-threatening wrestler, she’s short, wears a hoodie in the ring, and doesn’t exactly have a dangerous build, but oh my god she does give her opponent hell here. Really really good fired up underdog performance from her. I loved her viciously going for the arm, and she just kept coming. Sera won’t blow your mind, but she does a good job keeping Ozora down with nasty knee drops and her arm selling was solid. Some great spots and nearfalls here especially Ozoras roll ups. Great underdog vs champion match.

Megumi Yabushita vs KAZUKI, Pure-J 5/3/2022

It’s too bad Megumi Yabushita doesn’t make tape often, because even at 50 years old she looked cool as fuck here. She had all these awesome slick legbar reversals and a judo throw that spiked her opponent. KAZUKI kind of sucked here, but sometimes you just want to enjoy a cool one woman show. The finish is a flying armbar. I’ve probably seen a thousand flying armbars and this one may have been the most spectacular I’ve seen ever.

JWP Burning Summer 7/27/2008

Arisa Nakajima vs Pinky Mayuka

Short-ish opening match that had lots of dropkicks and some stretch holds. Shocking, I know! Pinky Mayuka is greenish and doesn’t throw very impressive dropkicks. Not a big surprise she quickly vanished out of the wrestling landscape. Nakajima is vicious and finishes her pretty fast. This very much a match to see and forget quickly.

KAZUKI vs. Hiroyo Muto

Joshi is always associated with super athletic car crash prints, but then you get two stocky workers like this. Muto wasn’t doing comedy at this point and instead worked more like a big bruiser with big chops and KAZUKI was trying to outmaneuver her. There are some fun odd spots, such as a moment where they both kept reversing Russian Leg Sweep attempts. Muto hit a really big cracking shoot headbutt at one point and KAZUKIS rolling takeover into a cool submission for the finish was pretty nice. That’s more than enough to get a match on my good side even though mostly everything else they did wasn’t much to write home about.

Toshie Uematsu vs. Tojuki Leon

This was more like what you associate with joshi. Car crash style match with a ton of no selling and blown spots. Disappointing since both these two are capable of having great matches with neat moments. There were some neat moments but overall the match never really got anything going due to the constant no selling and sloppy execution halting things. I‘ll admit the recovery of Leons blown dive attempt was remarkable and there were 2-3 nifty moments, especially Uematsus pin attempts and a cool reversal into a back stretch from Leon. But overall this was a mess.

Kaori Yoneyama vs. Command Bolshoi

This was kind of Bolshoi tour de force doing her thing with the cool submissions and neat 619 variations and hard shotais. Yoneyama is someone who can be quite great but also annoying, she was still finding herself at this point and kind of sloppy at times, I was also annoyed by her blatantly no-selling a dropkick to the face. This was solid but felt like it went longer than it needed to.

Ran Yu Yu vs. Tsubasa Kuragaki

Ran Yu Yu no longer had her super high end offense at this point, but damn she was still good. Her timing was still great, and she knew how to make something as basic as an elbow smash look killer. This was just a super cool veteran match up – they took things nice and slow which was a breath of fresh air after the hectic Bolshoi/Yoneyama match. Rans hit all these cool stiff kicks and knee drops to Kuragakis mid section. Kuragakis style mix of power and flying offense is cool as always, and it builds to a really neat end run full of cool lariats, elbows and neat counters from Yu Yu. The timing on everything was incredible. Really really cool stuff, both these two have good enough offense that they could just take turns hitting all their moves and it would be fine but they went out of their way to deliver a more thoughtful match.

Keito vs. Kayoko Haruyama

KEITO is one of those hidden badass wrestlers. Kickpadded and butch as hell, she’s a great 21^st century Toshiyo Yamada. This was quite the badass little war, just two tanks punting the hell out of each other. Keito was demolishing Haruyama with her kicks who fired back with awesome stiff lariats and cool spin kicks of her own. Match was pretty smart outside of the hard hitting too, I liked how Keito sold that she was loopy by a random sleeper attempt from Haruyama, so the followup Dragon Sleeper felt more intense. Keito is lower on the totem pole so early on Haruyama was outgunning her, before Keito was able to kick her in the face and then she just started trying to kick her head off. I also loved her crazy submission hold. Really fun intense stuff that doesn’t go long.

 

The Library

Command Bolshoi Treasure Trove #4

 Command Bolshoi & Megumi Yabushita vs. KAZUKI & Sachie Abe, JWP 1/11/2009

Pretty much a monster showing from Bolshoi and Yabushita, who spent pretty much the whole match armbaring their opponents left and right. Abe and Kazuki couldn‘t get in any offense unless they used double teams. That dynamic made this match really entertaining. I always love Yabushita as her „throw and armbar“ style pretty much sends opponents into survival mode right from the start. Bolshoi was just ridiculous here. Abe looked like a decent worker doing Jaguar Yokota moves. KAZUKI was a bit indyriffic here or there, but I liked how she tried to counter Yabushita with judo moves of her own and I loved her tomoe nage into a pin. Really good little match due to how they worked the dynamic.

Command Bolshoi vs. Konami, Pure-J 8/11/2017

Really cool Velocity shootstyle match which should have been on my radar in 2017. Konami is one of the few promising modern day joshi workers. The wrestling in this was like a cross between BattlARTS and ARSION. All slick legbars and the occasional high kick from Konami. It‘s probably no coincidence Konami has one of her best showings I‘ve seen against Bolshoi. The calf slicer sequence in this was incredible. It was just a 7 minute match, but backed with cool matwork and peppered with a few great sequences. Reminded me of those 7 minute Ishikawa/Otsuka matches which is high high praise.

Command Bolshoi vs. KAZUKI, JWP 10/13/2013

Another really good match. I wasn‘t sure about KAZUKI before, but she was convincing here. This was almost all on the mat and just a duel of arm- and leglocks. KAZUKI busted out another cool tomoe nage into an armbar, and her selling after she got caught in Bolshois leg stretches was great. Basically Bolshoi doing a Virus style mat contest, and it was cool as hell.

Command Bolshoi vs. Hanako Nakamori, PURE-J 1/14/2018

Another excellent match, which felt like one of the best joshi matches in years. I haven‘t seen Nakamori before, but she was this big lady who liked to throw stiff kicks, and she was pretty good. As usual with Bolshoi matches there was some great, tricked out matwork, with Nakamori also bringing stuff to the table such as locking in a cool Takogatame. There was an absolutely sick Volk Han-like sleeper from Bolshoi that left Nakamoris face turning blue. The later goings of the match were exciting with Nakamori landing some FUTEN level kicks in Bolshois face, and Bolshoi firing back with her trademark shotais. The most impressive thing was how well the match flowed, there were sections were one of them was focussing on attacking an arm or a leg but it never went long and never felt like filler, and all the transitions fell into place naturally. Just a tremendous pace for a 20 minute match without feeling go-go.