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

A brief Yosuke Takii career overview

 

Yosuke Takii vs. Yusaku Obata, ?? 9/26/2010

As far as indy matches between two chiselled boy band looking pretty boys go, this was about as good as you can ask for. Non-stop action, with both guys trying to take chunks out of each other with some really stiff hits and hitting bonkers dives. Obata is pretty underrated and it‘s a bit sad his career just fizzled away, the guy could really bring the heat. He looked great tearing up Takiis leg, and really clocking him in the face with his jumping kicks. Takii was basically a more jacked version of Ibushi, he had no problem hitting some crazy highspots and trying to kick Obatas skull in. They don‘t overdo the highspots, they keep laying into each other hard and it‘s just a really good match.

Yosuke Takii vs. El Samurai, ?? 5/5/2010

Really cool late career Samurai performance. Word on Samurai is that he barely had good matches in the 2000s, but this was a nice journeyman brawling performance. He beat the heck out of Takii with some great looking punches, dumping chairs on him and just generally kicking his ass. He knew to keep things moving too and Takii kept coming back, so it wasn‘t a dry one sided beat down, either. Takii was kicking him really hard, too and even stole Samurais Fire Powerbomb as a neat fuck you. Some bigger bombs and a way bigger finish than you expect from a rookie/veteran match. Dig it!

Yosuke Takii vs. Hiroaki Taniguchi, Pro Wrestling Shi-En 8/22/2021

 This is 2021, so there‘s no crowd heat, and the match is a bit slower paced. That said this was really solid and Taniguchi was pretty good here too. Takii still has a bowlcut and mullet which is I guess the pro wrestling equivalent to a boyband haircut. Takii may be even more jacked than in 2010, I‘m surprised no bigger indy promotion has picked him up, but Japanese wrestling is weird like that. Takii still lays really hard kicks into Taniguchi and tore up his shoulder briefly before we got Taniguchi destroying him. Taniguchi is a really solid power guy and I liked how he seemingly didn‘t care to work a body part, initially he attacked Takiis legs to get the upper hand but then he just kept dropping and crushing him. Takii has some neat offense and can take a big beating. The big powerslam actually ending the match was a nice surprise. Cool stuff that would rock a Velocity episode.