Month: April 2019

Disclosure: The author of this book is a friend of mine and introduced me to Ice Ribbon years ago. This has had no influence on the opinions in this review, although obviously my status as a fan of the promotion does affect my appreciation of the subject matter.

Ice Ribbon is a women’s professional wrestling company based in Tokyo, Japan, infused with the philosophy of founder Emi Sakura that professional wrestling should be fun, both for the audience and performers.

In May of 2016 the company celebrated their ten year anniversary. The majority of Be Happy is an amazingly detailed, meticulously researched compilation of shows and matches with attendance figures, participants, match time, and results for the ENTIRE period from the company’s beginning through said 10th anniversary. And not only Ice Ribbon’s shows (which are of course covered in full), but also every match any Ice Ribbon talent at any given time participated in including for other companies. As someone familiar with data collection and maintenance, I know the effort, careful bookkeeping, and time required to compile data of such volume and accuracy. Amassing the detail contained here is enormous undertaking and impressive accomplishment.

Of course as a book presentation and accessibility is just as vital as the quality of the underlying information. It can be easy to overlook the importance of headers, proper bolding, etc, but it’s absolutely imperative in a project like this to make the enormous amount of information accessible. Short clearly kept this in mind, and the format of Be Happy is excellent and makes his chronicle accessible and enjoyable.

A short introduction provides historical perspective and a strong framework, as well as a list of all official members of Ice Ribbon and years they worked for company for easier perusing for fans of particular wrestlers.

The results are organized by year with a descriptive title for each and an easy to digest and browse format containing shaded headers for dates, boxed show names, then normal text results. Perhaps most importantly, there interesting tidbits (context about the wrestlers and what was going on in the promotion), supporting information (match stipulations, debuts, injuries, etc), and pictures in each part included that keep it from becoming a dry recitation and make Be Happy a throughly engaging tome to get absorbed in.

The pictures are wonderful, including things like ticket stubs and event posters in addition to the numerous wonderful pictures of the wrestlers themselves. Following the chronicle that makes up the majority of the book, there are dedicated sections of pictures featuring a sample of the incredible costumes and gear made by BACCHANALES TOKYO and the impressive fan-made banners that are hung in the venues during events as a sign of support and respect for the wrestlers. While Short himself apologizes in the book that the black and white pictures don’t do proper justice to the creations, all included pictures are still fantastic and a real treat to have included. The other post chronicle sections contain complete title histories (including all defenses) for the time period covered and top event attendance figures respectively.

In the introduction Short self-describes his book as a love letter to the company, and it couldn’t be more of a fitting description. This is a dense, laser focused examination of a fairly niche product, which is of course a treasure trove to huge fans of Ice Ribbon such as myself, but also made wonderfully accessible to those with any level of interest by way of the dedication, careful presentation choices, and above all else the love the author has for the subject matter.

Be Happy is an absolute gem, and I’m beyond thrilled to see my friend’s vision for this book come together in such spectacular fashion.

January 19, 2019 in Tokyo, Japan

This show was a “January Birthdays Produce,” with Tequila Saya, Maya Yukihi, and Uno Matsuya in charge of the festivities and another special Shutter Ribbon event allowing pictures during the show..

We started right in with a theme match, as “Saya” (Hamuko Hoshi) faced “Maya” (Uno Matsuya) to open. This wasn’t like most other costume matches I’ve seen in Ice Ribbon, as there was no requirement to to try wrestle like person you’re dressed as. Still highly amusing, and well worked with a couple of believable near falls for Uno before Hammy put her away.

Maya Yukihi vs Miyako Matsumoto was perhaps even more ridiculous to be expected from these two, as poor referee and reigning Triangle Ribbon Champion Banny Oikawa was frequently draw into the action (as was happening in many matches around this time). More story than matches, although Maya did provide some good action to anchor things and this was fine for what it was.

Giulia & Suzu Suzuki vs Asahi & Tsukasa Fujimoto was one of IR’s weird and wonderful stipulation matches. Each team was assigned 3 moves from the repertoire of Saya or Uno respectively, who amusingly demonstrated their moves on each other before the match. In addition to the normal ways to win a match, victory could be achieved by successfully executing all 3 moves on your opponents.

Giulia & Suzu had the “Tokuho” (Saya’s corner splash), “Submarine” (her reverse pedigree), and “Grand Maestro de Tequila” (her sideways rollup). Asahi & Tsukka needed to complete Uno’s schoolboy rollup, “Saber Chop,” and “Katsudon” (over the shoulder into a faceplant).

As an additional treat, Maya refereed this.

This was great, with fighting over the checklist moves providing an additional layer of storytelling and fun to the match. The thread of Asahi being desperate for victory and to prove herself continued, and she executed both the schoolboy and Katsudon to get her team within one move of winning after being behind as her opponents managed the Tokuho and Submarine early.

In a clever sequence once again bringing Asahi oh so close to victory without quite getting there, she hit everyone in the match with the top rope chop except who she needed to (her legal opponent at the time, Giulia, who kept dodging or pulling others in the way).

Really nice touch on the finish in which Maya seemed to wave off the checklist victory for Giulia because she didn’t quite get Saya’s finisher right (the Grand Maestro de Tequila is hard to execute) and counted the pin instead (producing the same outcome in an internally consistent way). This was so much fun.

The main event of  Maika Ozaki & Mochi Miyagi vs Tequila Saya & Tsukushi started off with a three way stare off in beginning, as neither impending challenger for Maika’s tag championship Saya nor one of the wrestlers who would soon be facing Maika in a triple threat #1 contender’s match for Maya’s Ice Cross Infinity title Tsukushi wanted to play nice. Mochi was caught in the middle and just kind of got fed up trying to cheerfully offer an opening handshake and left the three others to their brooding.

Solid match, with a lot of the highlights once again revolving around Maika’s incredible power. Her double torture rack in particular never fails to impress.

Saya pinned Maika with the Grand Maestro, meaning along with the 6-woman tag on 1/5/19 she had pinned both of the reigning tag champions with it going into Burning Raw (her & Giulia)’s tag title shot. Nice booking.

Emotional roundtable, with everyone (well, Saya, Tsukushi, and Giulia…) seeming to lay into Maika about everything from Kyuri being absent from this show to criticizing Maika for trying to be a double champ, etc. Then Asahi was crying in frustration during her turn to speak.

Things lightened a bit to end with birthday cake coming out for the producers of the night.

Also, Tsukka was honored with Tokyo Sports Women’s Wrestler of the Year Award for 2018 and had her well deserved trophy with her after this show.

This was a great little dojo show to end my Ice Ribbon run for this trip, with nicely building stories and enjoyable matches throughout.

January 16, 2019 in Tokyo, Japan

Last Spring Ice Ribbon’s Tequila Saya started producing a series of biweekly shows called P’s Party (“short” for Peace Party… somehow…) initially focusing on talent with less than three years experience (although as time passes some of their core roster re obviously passing that particular hallmark), with some vets mixed in for them to work with. The concept is fantastic and I really enjoyed the show I got to see in Spring as well as Misaki Ohata’s last show with them in December.

This show started with a really fun tag match of Asahi & Tsukushi vs Tequila Saya & Totoro Satsuki. All four were spot on and a lot of the exchanges were creative and exciting. The way Saya’s been evolving and chaining a lot of her signature moves is really awesome. Although I do kind of wish her devastating looking “Submarine” (reverse-pedigree) was used as a finisher instead of a transition into a submission (no matter how cool that transition / submission move is). Despite being partnered with the rookie-who-isn’t, Asahi can’t quite stand up to her opponents’ assault long term and is eventually pinned to give Saya & Totoro the win.

Ice Ribbon’s newest rookie Suzu Suzuki took on veteran and renown comedy wrestler Sakura Hirota in the P’s Party debuts for both. This was kind of two matches spot wielded together, as Hirota broke out her underrated technical skills in a strong display of match wrestling between the two for the first half of the match then transitioned to her standard comedy structure in the latter half.

Her humor works a lot of the time, and I understand cultural differences in comedy that affect my perception of things and that Hirota’s “finger strike to the butt attack” is a standard part of her matches. But honestly I don’t ever need to see a teenager frightenedly running around the ring covering her backside in a panic again. Saya selflessly coming into the ring to “save” Suzu by offering herself up to take the move instead begs all kind of questions about what the point was and why exactly Hirota couldn’t have just continued to attack Suzu afterwards. Sorry to bring logic to a Hirota match, but the way this was done was both uncomfortable and nonsensical (even within Sakura’s usual framework). First half of the match was great, second was … not. Hirota won with her “fluke collapse on opponent for the pin” spot.

In the main event Maika Ozaki & Matsuya Uno faced Giulia & Rina Shingaki. Interestingly the team of Giulia & Rina were also the “randomly chosen” opponents opening the previous P’s Party event. Enjoyable main event that was largely a spotlight for half of the then reigning International Ribbon Tag Team Champions. Maika’s power was on full display and she picked up a rather emphatic win for her team down the stretch.

I continue to adore what Saya’s been doing with P’s Party overall and I hope this cool little sister/developmental promotion to Ice Ribbon becomes more accessible to a wider audience at some point. Outside of my personal view on part of the middle match this was another strong outing for them.

P’s Party will have their first larger show as part of the Yokohama Wrestling Festival during Golden Week this year on 5/2. Excited to see what Saya and her roster does with the bigger spotlight.

January 5, 2019 in Tokyo, Japan

Earlier the same day Ice Ribbon had  strong show at Yokohama Radiant Hall. This was a few hours later, and was not a “normal” Ice Ribbon event. Entitled “I Like Frank More Than Three Bowls of Rice,” this was produced by the “Frank Sisters” of Akane Fujita, Kurumi Hiirgi, & Mochi Miyagi and had a decidedly different feel.

1) Hiroyo Matsumoto vs Ibuki Hoshi

Ibuki’s a fantastic, natural fiery underdog (and in a different way than say Asahi is) and really shines in matchups like these. She had a nice showing of resilience against the force of nature that is the Lady Destroyer before Hiroyo put her away for good.

2) Mochi Miyagi & Papillon Akemi vs Makoto & Moeka Haruhi

I’ve only ever seen Akemi before as Emi Sakura W in Gatoh Move, but the gimmick’s very similar here. This was weird, but reasonably fun. Makoto & Moeka might have been the defacto heels, but I found their aggression and games of one-upmanship towards Akemi somewhat amusing and was pleased when they pulled out the win.

3) Hot Dog Eating Contest Match: Tsukasa Fujimoto & Hamuko Hoshi vs Maya Yukihi & Tae Honma 

Tsukka certainly did not look happy coming out for this. After losing her title and participating in a jump rope match within days prior to this, it was a rough week for her.

Music would randomly be played during this tag match, at which point any wrestler currently in the ring could eat hot dogs (brought in by the respective teams’ seconds). The team that ate the most hot dogs eaten at the end of the match won (winning the fall to trigger the end of the match by pin or submission was worth five “virtual hot dogs” in the final count).

This was absurd in all the best ways. It was viscerally hard to watch them stuff their faces and then bump on their stomachs seconds later, and as usual with Ice Ribbon everyone was fully invested in making even the most ridiculous of situations wonderfully compelling. This was given proper time to emphasize the gimmick, with the match going almost twenty minutes, and the wrestling in between the eating was top notch.

Tsukka won the fall with the stranglehold while Tae was still chomping on THREE hot dogs at once. However, with a count of 22-18, Tae & Maya still won. Subtracting the 5 virtual hot dogs, Maya & (mostly) Tae outate Tsukka & Hammy by 9 hot dogs.  TAE IS A MONSTER. Fantastic in ways I can’t properly describe.

4) Hardcore Tag: Risa Sera & Yuko Miyamoto vs Akane Fujita & Minoru Fujita 

No surprise seeing Risa and Akane break out the hardcore stipulation for their mixed tag. There was a lot of silliness in this that required a go-with-the-flow kind of attitude when watching, but was highly enjoyable on those terms. They played baseball with rubber duckies, duplexed each other on Legos, and so on.

When things got more “serious” Risa’s tendencies to go a little overboard took me out of the match a bit. There’s a line between compelling violence used to tell a story and unnecessary, cringeworthy spots that look like they hurt the person performing them more than the one receiving it anyway. This was a fun for what it was brawl otherwise though, with Risa & Yuko picking up the win.

Main Event) Kurumi Hiiragi vs Kengo Mashimo

In the past several of the intergender matches I’ve seen from Ice Ribbon have been solely about how much damage the woman can take before losing. This had a more fully realized story/layout with Kurumi actually aggressively fighting back and giving a dismissive Kengo a bit of comeuppance before losing.  Kurumi worked really well against her larger opponent and this was a strong way to end the show. Kengo messed with her more after the match, to LOUD boos.

Talked to Tae after the show, during which she related how full she was and expressed a desire to not eat any more hot dogs for a year.  She also cheerfully displayed her “Best Enemy” award from the earlier show.

“I Like Frank More Than Three Bowls of Rice” was something different in wonderful ways, and just a blast overall to be at.