JWA Tokai Origins of Pro Wrestling 4/20/2025

 Shigeru Takagi vs Yuki Toyoura

This show was described as 'pro wrestling without show elements' and 'going back to the origins of pro wrestling'. And also, all matches were held under greco roman rules. Yeah, so only grappling, and no grappling below the belt! There are still submissions, and there are no rounds and seemingly no points or passivity warnings. Now this is an interesting set up. And this was - well, it was very much greco roman wrestling. Takagi is bald with no eyebrows, in a singlet, and barrel chested. Toyoura I've seen before and he also looks quite strong. This was two powerful men trying to hook an arm or neck and mostly averting and kind of attempts at offense through sheer struggle. There were no moves, no big throws, no fancy holds. Toyoura tries to go for a reverse gutwrench lift but doesn't make it despite struggling his hardest. After around 8 minutes Takagi is able to grab a side headlock - the first 'move' of the match  and turns Toyoura on his back, but instead of pinning him he cranks way back forcing the tap out. Quite antithetical to the pro wrestling landscape in 2025 but I enjoyed the sheer struggle these two displayed.

Yuina vs Mana Yokoi

Yuina is something of a veteran of the Nagoya scene, while Yokoi had only made her debut in 2025. That is almost more information than I can write about this match, as it's mostly Yokoi being in turtle position and Yuina unable to do much of anything. Yokoi reverses out of the position once, but the second time she tries it Yuina reverses her and pins her for the 3. Talk about hammering the point home.

Yasushi Sato vs Super Taira

The two previous matches were more like a set up for this main match. This was amazing to watch. Mind you, it was 15 minutes of greco roman pro wrestling, so it's a very aquired taste, but I thought for that they went above and beyond. Both guys here displayed an intricate knowledge of greco roman techniques, but also great struggle, anticipation and timing. Yasushi Sato just keeps cementing himself as a grappling master in my eyes and Taira is a great match for him. The pin attempts they did here were amazing, but so were the escapes from the pin attempts. Also, since they previous two matches established that a match can end with any move, there was a great deal of tension, end even something like a side headlock could spell the end. Loved the struggle over the attempted suplexes as well as Sato wheezing when Taira went for the sleeper. Finish was amazing not just because the actual move that ended it was great (it was a great move) but because of the struggle and build that had preceded it. A super unique piece of pro wrestling that most wrestlers could not even attempt yet these two pretty much nailed it when they stepped on that mat. I definitely do not regret checking it out, one of my favourite bouts of the year.

 

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2025 Matchguide 

2025 Wrestling Roundup Week 37

 
Grand Passion Mask #4 vs Super Taira, Sportiva 8/27

Grand Passion Mask #4 has been one of those acts that has been kind of lost on me. But this was a pretty good match! No surprise since it has Super Taira in it. The most straight wrestling I've seen GP4 do, he brought a lot of cool holds to the table, and Taira is really cool to watch as always. This had a lot of quasi-lucha style work. Cool moment where GP turned a mishappen roll up attempt by Taira into a cool Full Nelsion hold, and then a facebuster to gain control. GP proceeded to work over Taira with cool lucha holds. The second half was cool mostly because Taira is established that he can win the match whenever he ties his opponent up, either with a llave or a pin combo. GP Mask even did an Hijo del Santo style tope into a camel clutch with Taira fighting out of the camel clutch. I think fighting out of submissions is cool. This was a fun creative 10 minute undercard match that felt competitive, which is just what I need, feels like a breath of fresh air.

Ali Najima & Super Taira vs Yuta Oya & Ryutaro Ohno, Sportiva 9/17/2025

Whenever I watch a Sportiva main event, its almost guaranteed to be one of the best matches of the match. That is remarkable, and it has probably made Sportiva my favourite promotion to watch this year just because of their incredible consistency and charming recurring cast of wrestlers. This had a dream team in Najima and Taira, the continuation of the rivalry between Oya and Najima, and greenhorn Ohno showing up in a main event tag. It was good as you expect. I wish the first Taira vs Oya exchange had gone longer as these two are always fascinating against each other. Ohno is as solid in the old businessman rookie role as you need him to be. He still has to fight to hit even a bodyslam on Najima, and that makes him compelling. He also adds some cool flavour with his kicks and his chunkiness. The real story of the match is Yuta Oya being the underdog teamed with the rookie against two higher ranked wrestlers. He takes an Anderson Bros-like beating from them. There was a great moment where Najima was hitting all kinds of nasty kicks to Oya, and Taira was also bending his leg pretty hard. Tairas 'dangerous lucha maestro who uses submissions and pins like a shooter' act is really cool. There are some quality exchanges between Ohno and Taira which is really fun to see because Taira is such a unique wrestler, and then we get Oya vs Najima. Both these guys were hitting really hard and doing good stuff. The saves were also really dramatic. There are so many modern tags where it feels like there's endless saves by the partner and it starts to feel meaningless. Here there were 2 or 3 crucial saves and they were really dramatic and important. And then you have the aspect of all these guys constantly adding new stuff to their skillset. Very good match, another good chapter in the Sportsbar Kings Road.

Ali Najima & Ryutaro Ono vs Yu Shimizu & Masanori Watanabe, Sportiva 9/3

Onos return match after a 2 month absence, glad he's back. This was a short match but really hard hitting and with some nifty wrestling. Watanabe was just destroying Onos leg here with nasty low kicks. Ono is in the role that he's mostly taking a beating but he can fire back with big crowbar elbows and the occasional hard kick of his own, he's a fun chubby hard hitter. Shimizu vs Najima sprint section was really good. Najima is still building up to things like a body slam or suplex and he's always compelling, and Shimizu continues to be reliable with his simple style of hard elbows and sleepers. At one point, Najima punched him square in the face. The finish had Watanabe just obliterating Ono with a brutal headkick. Watanabe is quickly becoming a guy who's must watch in my book, and everyone else here is realiably good even in a small dose.

Yusaku Ito & Michio Kageyama vs Shinya Ishida & Konaka, Sportiva 9/3

Yusaku Ito baby. With his gritty headbutts and general scumminess always make him a highlight when he shows up. The parts where he and Ishida were beating on each other were easily the selling point of the match. Not that anything else was bad here, but the match got a bit more heated when they faced off. First with Ito starting to bitchslap Ishida and then pulling him over and raining punches on him. Later they had another gritty exchange wailing on each other in the corner. Ishida is not afraid to hit back and stomp the shit out of a guy. Aside from that refreshing scrappiness there was also some fun methodical Konaka work. Kageyama is solid but won't set your world on fire here. He's not much in the match anyways. Ito on the other hand was working his ass off having some great exchanges with Konaka and Ishida. I love that the sleeper is always a plot point in Sportiva. Quality match with an interesting layout.

Ali Najima vs Konaka, Sportiva 9/24

When I saw this would be happening I thought it would be the main event. It was the opening match, I thought it could be an amazing main event but as an opening match it was still really good. It was a classic match that was nearly all grappling with Najima attacking Konakas arm and Konaka in turn going for his leg. Lots of nifty cerebral wrestling moments and it felt like every moment counted, which made it so good. Konaka is pretty much always doing something neat, and Najima is getting really good at making simple holds interesting. I loved his nasty hammerlock takedown, so simple but cool. Konakas counters were amazing. I love the hard hitting Ali Najima but it's cool to seem him do well in this kind of chess style mat wrestling match.

Yasu Kubota vs Yu Shimizu, Sportiva 9/10

The Scum Bastard challenges for the title! Yasu Kubota is a type of wrestler that is easily underrated. What he does is very simple, straight forward, basic - but he has a knack for mixing in a few cool touches that make him stand out. And most importantly, everything matters. He's also a 51 year old geezer, so he has to be smart about what he does. Shimizu is quite unrelenting with his hard elbows and sleepers. The result is a simple, but very enjoyable and compelling match that is built around Shimizu elbowing the champion really hard, and Kubota hitting back hard slowing him down by taking out his legs and locking in a few cool holds. Shimizus elbows and sleepers are awesome and there is some gritty leg selling. It's a very old school type match with the high spots being something like a reverse DDT or lariat. I could see some people finding this boring but I really enjoyed it and I was rooting hard for Shimizu to take the title. His chokes made me jump out of my seat and a match that can make me super excited about a chokehold in 2025 has to be a really well crafted piece of wrestling. 

2025 Wrestling Matchguide 

2025 Wrestling Week 35

 
Shinya Aoki vs Suwama, Evolution 7/5

First 6 minutes of this were very good as it was basically Aoki taking the much bigger Suwama apart on the mat. Aoki pretty much dominated him almost completely, with Suwama seemingly only leaning on his size advantage, almost baffingly so when you remember Suwama actually has a strong background in amateur wrestling. There were a few cool moments especially the weird pin Aoki did. Aoki gets cocky and Suwamas response is to chuck him outside and go for chairs. A good idea in theory, but the crowd brawling was kind of ass in practise and took too long. The match actually gets good again when they get back in the ring. Suwama looked like an angry bear trying to maul Aokis skinny ass. Loved Aokis ultra tight full nelson hold that nearly seemed to crank Suwamas thick neck. Good stuff, edit out the wandering around in the crowd  and you'd have something leaning into greatness.

Yuta Oya vs Super Taira, Sportiva 9/3

This was so good. Both these guys are great grapplers and really interesting wrestlers in general, but there's also the power vs skill aspect. Oya can really wrestle, and it's fascinating to watch him find his way around the mat and lock in complex submissions, but he also has the power to slam you really hard. There was a sense that Taira was really trying to avoid Oyas power and it felt when Oya got him even in a basic side headlock, Taira was in trouble. There was this bit where they both stubbornly struggled over ground octopus hold variations and it was a glorious bit of pro wrestling. Taira continues to be one of the more interesting wrestlers around with his blend of shootstyle and lucha grappling and his hard kicks and penchant for a sneaky flash submission or pin. And then you have Oyas killer judo throw. This was a great match up and they delivered a great 10 minute undercard match which is a wonderful thing in itself.

Hideaki Sumi vs Tatsunori Oya, Kobe Meriken 8/29

Kobe Meriken finally fixed the audio/video delay on their camera, so now you get to watch the glorious violence of Hideaki Sumi in more accuracy. Seriously wicked performance by Sumi here who looked like an all time great karate asskicker. He was beating the absolute shit out of Oya with sick kicks, punches and headbutts. It would've made Daisuke Ikeda worship. That half handspring enzuigiri Sumi does that landed right in Oyas face is a thing of absurd violent beauty. Insane Sumi performance when you consider he's 56, he looked like an asskicker on the level of any asskicker in wrestling here. He also displayed some cool submission skill which I always appreciate in a striker. Oya was also pretty good here. He tried to shoot grapple with the karateka and he had a cool judo throw and generally looked a lot better than in his last appearance than I saw. And he absolutely got his ass kicked here, making this one hell of a 7 minute sportsbar BattlARTS match. I need to watch like a 100 more Sumi matches after this.

Sareee & Takumi Iroha vs Natsuki Tora & Saya Kamitani, SAREEE-ism 7/14

Fast pace, some chaos and brawling, a clear face heel dynamic leading to real heat... this is a fun classic look for joshi in 2025! The fact this is not a typical workratefest made me give a shit and all these 4 do an excellent job keeping this formula interesting. Tora and Kamitani are hardly Gokuaku Domei, but they do a good job here. Kamitani was not afraid to get into sicko headbutting wars with Sareee and Tora is a really fun tubby girl wrestler who blows mist and squishes people with brutal sentons (I looked up Natsuki Tora and apparently joshi fans hate her. Well, that figures.) Iroha is great here as Chigusas heir kicking the shit out of bad people and looking like a badass. Sareee is also a lot of fun doing her thing in this environment - watching her suplex the bigger Tora around was pretty crazy. There is some interference which is done in a non-match derailing way and there was a crazy shot with a baseball bat. Not a ton of selling but that's not a huge detriment in this kind of match I think. Sareee actually looked damaged after eating a nasty Death Valley Bomb and it actually looked dramatic. Enough fun twists and turns to keep you entertained, and of course they all nuke each other with some big time bombs without going too overboard. I really really liked this a lot.

2025 Matchguide 

Sportiva Wednesday Curry Pro Wrestling 8/13/2025

 Watch

 Mikiya Sasaki vs Yacchae Seven, Sportiva 8/13

 A fun opening match between two fun wrestlers. It had some jokes, but enough serious wrestling for me to like it, and it made for a pretty entertaining mix. Yacchae Seven is this energetic masked wrestler, his springboard flip senton was pretty impressive, but a lot of this was him leaping into Sasakis atomic drops and getting rolled up in comical ways. Mikiya Sasaki is another guy who worships the Funk brothers. He won't make you forget Crusher Takahashi, but he is pretty solid at what he does, and he brings some fun character touches like how he loves the old school suplex over the ropes. His dropkick to the face was genuinely impressive and this was probably the most solid I've seen him look so far. At 7 minutes they move through it pretty fast. An enjoyable match that is worth a look if you want to have some fun.
 
 Super Taira & Yasu Kubota vs Masanori Kanu Watanabe & Yu Shimizu, Sportiva 8/13
 
 Pretty much 4 cool wrestlers having a cool match. I always look forward to seeing Super Taira, and he once again proved himself to be one of the best technicians around when he grappled with Shimizu. It wasn't showing off, it was Taira being pesky and dominating his opponent, and it was cool to watch. Kubota in the past has looked a little lazy but he was surprisingly on point, despite looking gray like your uncle. He was hitting really hard elbows, and while what he did was simple it never felt like there was a wasted moment when he was in the ring. Everyone who reads my blog should know by now that I really like Watanabe and Shimizu. Shimizu once again proved his salt hitting some of the hardest elbows and having a great exchange with Kubota. Watanabe continues to get better, he blasted Taira with some devastating knees and I really liked that russian legsweep into a heel hook thing he did. Pretty much a match where everyone looked good and was doing something interesting all the time, that didn't go to long but will probably surprise you with how hard they fought. I would look forward to seeing singles matches between any of them coming out of this.
 
Konaka vs Chon Shiryu, Sportiva 8/13
 
Two gods of the indy scene meeting in a match... and an SRS rules match no less! SRS means they have to fight on the wooden floor of the bar and entering the ring leads to a countout. Oh, and you can touch an audience member for a rope break. These are two all timers when it comes to fun creative wrestling, and the wrestling on the floor adds a nice dose of insanity. We get the usual cool kung fu kicks and flying around from Shiryu, and the high pitched yelling chops from Konaka, and then they start climbing on the ceiling and using the barstools and doing some crazy flying to the floor... apparently this was a rematch from 11 years prior. I had no idea how they got the idea to deliver this rematch now but it was a spectacle and really delivers everthing you wish. Painful bumps, both guys hanging upside down from the ceiling, Shiryu hitting a kung fu flying kick over a bar stool... I think these two even in a regular match against each other would be dynamite, but this was crazy and fun in the best way.
 
Ali Najima & Yuta Oya vs Michio Kageyama & Shinya Ishida, Sportiva 8/13

Ali Najima and Yuta Oya continue to be the best story on the Japanese scene this year. This was an incredibly compelling match, with Najima and Oya throwing everything they have trying to beat their more established opponents. After an explosive beginning the veterans were able to slow the pace down, only for things to get heated again when Najima and Oya got the upper hand again. Both Najima and Oya were great here as always. Najima looked like a killer when he was circling around Kageyama kicking him in his bad arm like a shark in the water smelling blood, and he did great job showing the pain in his leg after Kageyama caught him. Oya is such a unique wrestler, he is a powerhouse but also vulnerable, it feels extra mean when he gets blasted with a kick to the face or walks into a sneaky rollup. This was a really ambitious match with multiple layers, but they all stuck to what they do well. And Oya and Najima are making things like a firemans carry or hip throw look cool. I also liked Ishida a lot here, he got blitzed early on but after getting himself together he got pretty evil stomping the hell out of people and even mocking Najimas limp. The week to week progression of the rookies is so satisfying to watch as they keep adding new touches to their game, and the willingness of Najima and Oya to win this match was palpable like in a classic match from the 90s. It really felt like getting a pin on Ishida or Kageyama meant the world to them. It absolutely feels like the best thing going right now and they are just about a year into their career, if they keep progressing like this the next 1-2 years will be insane.

The Library

2025 Matchguide 

Cosmo Soldiers YouTube Channel Pt. 2

 

Cosmo Soldier & Hakaru vs Oga Nozaki & Hiroshi Toyoda, KAGEKI 7/20/2014

Cosmo Soldiers continues to deliver the gems on his YouTube channel. In this match we get a look at Oga Nozaki and Hiroshi Toyoda! For those who don’t know, they were the #1 and #2 guy of JWA Tokai in the 2010s so it’s awesome to get a look at them. Oh and Hakaru is there too! And wow this is a really good match. Really scrappy with everybody hitting each other insanely hard with open hand strikes and elbows, and breaking into elbows and dropkicks even from basic movements. A number of unpredictable moments here, which made this feel a bit like a WAR tag. Toyoda was this energetic guy with jeans shorts, he mostly stuck to basic elbows and lariats and exploders and he looked good. Nozaki, the JWA Tokai ace for over a decade, had a bit of a mysterious aura with his bowl cut and dark pants. He liked to throw really hard kicks and go for submissions on the ground but also had some explosive agility. His jumping enzuigiri was awesome, and I liked his flair for the handspring elbow. The handspring elbow is a kind of goofy move but he made it cool in this match by hitting it pretty fast without much addo. He had no problem going toe to toe in violent exchanges and at point he almost shattered Cosmos face with a jumping savate kick that was Daisuke Ikeda levels of sick. So yeah I liked Oga Nozaki a lot on this. Cosmo was also in the match a lot and as always he is always balancing between genius and chaos. He does slip up here and there and there were moments where I couldn’t tell if what he was going for came out as intended, but I think it actually added to the match in some ways. And he also had lots of moments of good wrestling. His dives were amazing, and he brought some evil violence to the match with his double stomps, aggressively slapping guys around and his sickening headbutt to Toyoda. Hakaru was the guy I would’ve liked to see more, he was actually a lot of fun immediately trying to snap an arm. He looked scrappy in a cool way. The match is elimination rules so we get an unpredictable finish, and a cool ending run between 2 guys that was really really good. This was a cool look at some really obscure guys and it really delivered a lot to enjoy.

Cosmo Soldier vs El Samurai, KAGEKI 2010/8/1

Wow, El Samurai! A really fun match where the main appeal is to see Soldier throwing everything he’s got at Samurai. Seriously, Samurai gets a lot of bombs dropped on him in this. There is some cool scrappy matwork and then Soldier comes dropkicking Samurai hard in the ribs from odd angles. Samurai punches Soldier in the face because he’s the man and there are some really stiff exchanges with both guys really clapping each other with open hand strikes. And then you have Soldier hitting this NJPW legend with double foot stomps and suplexing him and just coming up with all kinds of things, in his own somewhat clumsy ways. It’s unusual to see. Samurai has never been a guy who hits a ton of offense, and the few things he does he picks pretty well here. It actually builds to a quite big ending where you really wonder if the indy sensation could put the old legend away.

Cosmo Soldier & Super Taira vs Koji Niizumi & Kitai Kubo, KAGEKI 2011/2/27

 

Awesome battle, the kind that will erase all negative memories from your head and make you remember why you love wrestling again. Niizumi and Kubo are two really obscure wrestlers. From what I can tell they have been KAGEKI mainstays so it’s really hard to find any video of them if you don’t live in Japan. Judging from this match they are an absolute monster team. Niizumi is just a beast, he wrestles like a WAR guy from the 90s who will hit psychotically hard with his elbows and kicks. His jumping knees look like they could kill a person, and I also really liked his one jumping kick. This also takes place in a boxing ring so you know when something like a german suplex or northern lights bomb is hit it’s even harder than in a regular wrestling ring. Everybody was hitting insanely hard in this, with the masked guys coming flying with dropkicks to the face. Taira is also great here, he doesn’t look like the type but he can really dish out and take some crazy strikes, including those awesome jumping kicks. I am mostly used to seeing Taira as grappler but he looked like a total asskicker going toe to toe against someone like Niizumi. Cosmo also brought the violence and a few unique and violent spots, he was pretty straightforward here. Kubo wasn’t tagged in as much as Niizumi but he also looked really fun, he seemed a bit like a sleazy Hiro Saito type with his mullet and pants, he did one hell of a job helping out his buddy though and coming at people with rastand brutal lariats. This match is just a blast, just 4 really cool wrestlers going hard and raining hell on each other for 20 minutes, and awesome to check out, made me want to see more of Kubo and Niizumi because they were killers here. So Cosmo if you are reading this, thank you so much, it’s amazing to see this stuff even 14 years later.

Pro Wrestling in 2025 Week 24

 Super Taira & Ali Najima vs Ishikiri & Grand Passion Mask #4, Sportiva 6/18

Fun match with again the only problem being that it was short. I mean this went like 7 minutes or so. It's a cool look at a Velocity style short tag though. Grand Passion Mask from what I've seen mostly does comedy style wrestling but he worked some serious lucha exchanges with Taira here that were fun. Ishikiri is a thickly built dude with some cool moves squishing opponents under his size, and Najima is always reliable with his kicks. I like that little sliding firemans carry thing he added to his arsenal recently. Still, to short for a match with someone as talented as  Super Taira in it.

Robert Martyr vs Shoji Ohno vs Kohei Sato, Marvelous 6/10

Shoji Ohno is a must-watch guy for me, and this Robert Martyr kid seems really talented. Unfortunately this just had to be a 3 way match for some reason, and a 3 way that went only about 6 minutes to boot. I bet literally any of these guys in a singles match against each other would be really good. In this constellation we got some fun Ohno palm rushes and Martyr hitting a nasty powerbomb but not much more. Sato can still hit a hard kick and mean knee lift so maybe even he would've been better in a singles match. Whoever is booking Marvelous, please give us Robert Martyr vs Shoji Ohno at some point.

Nanae Takahashi vs Mayu Iwatani (Marigold 5/4)

Big Matches Nanaes run continued. I'm not familiar with Iwatani. She is certainly skinny, and not really a very impressive wrestler. But the crowd is super into her, so even a basic test of strength had heat. Nanae largely carries this in the first half dominating on the mat and with some hard punting kicks. Mayu struggles to hit even a bodyslam on Nanae which is compelling. Nanae ends up cracking Mayu with a chair which was really unexpected, and even tossing her down a flight of stairs then dragging her to the ring by her hair. It settles a bit into a more generic finishing run with Iwatanis crucifix driver looking blown and her seemingly hitting Nanaes face with a moonsault. Nanaes Tenryuisms were really fun and there was a pretty hard headbutt at some point, so it's a wortwhile match just went a hair too long at 25 minutes length.

Toshiyuki Sakuda vs Keito Murota, DIE 2/23

I decided to check out some DIE, because they are nice enough to upload some stuff on YouTube. And what do ya know, I really really liked this! I've been burnt out because of deathmatch wrestling thanks to BJW. What set this apart from your typical BJW deathmatch is the SELLING. In BJW, for years I've seen guys deliberately running into the lighttubes, cutting themselves, jumping into broken glass and not selling it, just completely burying the danger and pain of the lighttubes. Here, these guys were making it excrutiatingly clear they were rolling around in broken glass and how much of a fucking nightmare that is. This match had maybe 20 lighttubes compared to the 100-200 of other deathmatches but felt way grittier. Sakuda actually works a two on one on Murota, trying to force the hand into the broken glass, with Murota selling that he really doesn't even want his hand in the glass, and then Sakuda goes for a far side cradle that just looks torturous. Moreover, when Murota grabs something sharp, Sakuda grabs a chair to defend himself. Murota also goes to grab a chair, but Sakuda rushes over to clock him with his chair before he can actually use it, instead of waiting for the stereotypical chain duel spot. Smart! Murotas selling is great as he is wheezing and whimpering like he wants to die just from getting slammed into a chair. When he starts to hit Russian Leg Sweeps, it really looks like he is crazy enough to destroy himself just to beat his opponent. He also hits some really sick headbutts. There is the mouth skewering again, which still freaks me out, and taking a stiff headbutt with a skewer stuck in your face is pretty insane. The pulling the skewer out of the mouth is also one hell of a strap drop. Also the sound mixing for this is really great, we get a ringside camera and really get to enjoy all the nightmarish crushing of the glass and clonking of chairs. Little bit long and slightly slow, but the grittiness of it all kept me enthralled and they end it with a suitably insane big spot. Deathmatch wrestling still has something in it in 2025.

 

2025 Roundup 

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

2024 MOTYC List Update #3

 

Chon Shiryu vs Keisuke Ishii, Ganbare Pro 7/15/2024

Chon Shiryu big match!! I love Chon Shiryu, and this was a nice chance to see him do his thing. He is still really fast and slick, and his kung fu technique really add a lot to the Japanese big match formula. Initially Keisuke Ishii did not impress me, but he redeemed himself when he started destroying Shiryus mid section with violent looking knees. Ishii dropping Shiryus throat across the rope with a nasty move and then going for a piledriver on the apron made things quite intense. Shiryu pulls off some great transitions as usual that are a level above what you usually see in these matches, and his signature odd angle 619s and diving kicks still rule. Last couple minutes were buil around Shiryu taking crazy bumps, trying to crush Ishiis throat with his flying stomps, and delivering some really great glassy eyed selling as he kept dying and ressurrecting over and over. Could have done with a few nearfalls less, but what the hell, you don’t get to see Shiryu doing matches like this often! I also like that they made a spinning wheel kick into a finisher in 2024.

 

Super Taira vs Kenta Kosugi, Sportiva 10/30/2024

Really good match that told a great story, was interesting all the way through and had some great wrestling. I really like Super Taira, who has such a diverse skillset. In this case he was facing Kosugi who is like twice his size, so he couldn't do much lucha libre or llaves, so Tairas answer was to just try and rush him with leg kicks. Taira kicking at Kosugi and trying to hurt his legs was simple but really good. Anytime Kosugi fired back, he looked like an absolute bear. I cannot emphasize enough that every single moment in this match mattered and added to the story. I loved the way Kosugi would slap his knees to try as if to try and get some feeling back into it after taking damage. Taira using his agility in interesting ways and trying to grab submissions was really good. There were some really choice counters without being too cute. By the end Kosugi was basically an angry bear mauling Taira with Taira trying to hit a desperation move and get a flash pin or submission. I really like a simplistic wrestling match that ads some interesting touches, and this one really hits thats spot.

Demus vs. Lunatik Xtreme, Zona 23 1/21

I am not super interested in deathmatches at this point, there are only so many idiotic bumps one can see before it gets old, and  I have little interest in seeing guys stand around and rubbing light tubes in each others face. That said the psychotic violence here was really fun with the apocalyptic junkyard bumps. Early brawling could have been better, aside from Demus great elbows there was still a bit much of idle walking around and an exhibitiony feeling to me. Match took a steep upturn when Xtreme started hitting those wild stomps. After some fun comeuppance we get Demus throwing what is pretty much the greatest punch combo I've ever seen in a match and some savage headbutt exchanges which were easily the highlight. I honestly expected the match to go longer so the finish was an amusing surprise. I didn't like it as much as I liked Black Terry vs Wotan or Ricky Marvin from memory, but it was a fun slice of psycho violence.

2024 MOTYC List

JWA Tokai 6/18/2017

 Naoto Akita vs The Scary Mummy Man

Akita is the super rookie of Tokai Pro Wrestling, I think. The Scary Mummy Man is.. well.. a mummy. There was some undead comedy here, but it still felt like a competitive match, so it was kind of enjoyable. The Mummy reminded me a bit of Shinigami and Akita did a lot of judo based moves, which was kind of cool, tho it was still far from a serious match. I kind of enjoyed it and it was over quickly.

Black Nyantaro vs Hakaru

What I’ve seen from Hakaru before has been good, as he seems like a wrestler with good ground game. Unfortunately there wasn’t any of that here, it was Hakaru doing dirty tactics and brawling, trying to unmask his opponent. Hakarus headlock punches looked very good, aside from that it was kind of boring. I’ve never seen Nyantaro before, and he just did some back scratches early on, which did not make me very interested in him. In the last 3rd both guys came alive and became more energetic. Nyantaro had some cool lucha libre holds and moves, just that made me think a more ground-based match would have been better. Well, not every match can be like that, and this night Hakaru choose to be a straight villain and unmask his opponent.

Yasushi Sato vs Super Taira

A promising match up on paper, that turned out to be an excellent match. Super Taira is a really interesting wrestler – he does some lucha libre, he is skillful on the mat, but he can also hit hard kicks and flying armbars like a shooter. The groundwork here was great, with Taira using his lucha libre llaves to tie up Sato. Sato looked outmatched by his opponents crazy holds, though I loved the one weird submission he busted out to in turn Taira in a knot. Eventually Taira would start to attack Satos arm and shoulder with some vicious kicks, with Sato really being in pain. Sato would lock in a boston crab, but he had to release to hold because his arm was too damaged in a pretty cool bit. The second half was full of great counters and submissions, with Taira having numerous awesome counters to Satos Russian Leg Sweep. The pin combos, Russian Leg Sweep teases and narrow 2 counts were fantastic. Sato busted out a lot of great stuff too, he hit a fantastic out of nowhere belly to belly suplex that hit Taira hard, a Terry Funk punch combo and even flying off the top rope. I love Yasushi Sato as the master of mat wrestling that he is in Mutoha, but the man has an amazingly diverse skillset. He was outwrestled by Taira here and so his one game changer was the Russian Leg Sweep. I also loved Super Tairas cross armhold submission. Great stuff, with both guys looking like great wrestlers.

Koichi Wakikaido & The Ninja & Ultraman Robin vs Shadow #1, #2 & #3

This is my first look at the seemingly never ending match series between Wakikaido, his hero friends and the Shadows. If you look at JWA Tokai results these teams must have faced each other a hundred times. Right away this becomes a surreal trip as they take pro wrestling logic to the absurd. Because wrestlers can’t fight back when being moved around, the Shadows put everyone in a headlock and then just walk around the arena. Wakikaido wrestles slower than Giant Baba, but he still has impeccable timing. Ultraman hits a really nice spinning headscissor somehow. The Ninja is dressed like an imitator of the Great Sasuke and he’s actually really energetic and even hits an Asai Moonsault. Baffling and fascinating stuff.

Cosmo Soldier & Chojin Yusha G-Valion vs Hiroshi Toyoda & Yuki Toyoura

It’s my first time seeing JWA Tokai originals, Hiroshi Toyoda and Yuki Toyoura. Of course, we all know Cosmo Soldier is a legend, and G-Valion is always cool to see. The early goings of this match were basic, but executed with some struggle that made it interesting. Of course Soldier is one of the all-time most interesting wrestlers, you never know what he is going to do next, he is like a force of chaos. In this case things got interesting when Cosmo hit Toyodas leg with something that was between a springboard leg drop and a low dropkick. Immediately Toyoda fired back with a low dropkick that hit Soldiers leg hard. After that, the match turned a lot more aggressive. I really liked the team of Toyoda and Toyoura here. Toyoda seemed like a really cool wrestler, he was this short guy with very explosive powerful moves and a really hard elbow smash. Toyoura was the tallest guy in the match, and while felt a bit awkward (he was only wrestling about 2 years at this point) he also had lots of devastating power offense, and he swung his arms and body with force into his opponent. The fun of watching a bunch of wrestlers you know nothing about is seeing what they can do and not knowing what comes next, and this ended up being an exciting ride for that reason. 

 

To top it off Valion and Soldier also worked hard busting out cool stuff, and the highlight was easily the brutal open hands Soldier started throwing at Toyoura. Long quality main event, which absolutely makes me want to see more of the world of JWA Tokai.

 

The Library