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Japan Reviews Wrestling

ChocoPro 486 Halloween Special Thoughts

November 1, 2025 in Tokyo, Japan

ChocoPro 486

Nothing was announced ahead of time, but the Halloween show lineup is pretty standard at this point: an opening match followed by the main event Halloween Rumble with plenty of costumes and shenanigans all around.

Akki came out in a Goku costume to introduce the show. He amusingly talked about how they have upgraded their effort over the years for special shows and shows off all the decorations. “We prepare now.”

1) Sakura Emi vs Erii Kanae

Emi, in her normal gear, had largely lost her voice so pre-match she tried to teach the audience how to do her sing-a-longs on cue. It didn’t go great, but I’m sure they’ll manage.

Erii came out as the wicked witch and belted out a scales song. Her voice is incredible.

ChocoPro GM and retired wrestler Aoi Kizuki is our referee.

Sakura was antagonizing Erii right from the get go, from slapping away the opening handshake offer to throwing Erii into the fans to biting her way out of holds. Erii often countered Sakura’s nonsense by singing into her ear or with her heavy hitting tackles and strikes. Erii looked really clever at several points in this in how she handled Sakura, with the veteran often needing to take shortcuts to retake the advantage.

There’s always an interesting additional level of uncertainty in Sakura’s matches against rookies, as while no one expects she has any chance of losing her back issues are so well known and established that anytime someone gets her in a hold that targets it there’s a sudden sense that just maybe a miraculous upset is in the works.

But not this time. Sakura outlasted Erii, eventually getting her We Will Rock you crossbody against the wall followed by a splash from the window for the win.

This was a textbook blending of wrestling action and the lighter entertainment aspects, with the dueling singing being the central theme, leading to a really good veteran vs rookie match. Despite spending 8 months of her year and a half career so far out with injury, Erii’s looking great.

Sakura made up with Erii afterwards and they hugged.

The effervescent GM/ref Aoi did the sponsor shoutouts, then it was on to the main event.

2) Halloween Battle Royal

ChocoPro battle royals and related match types are pretty straightforward. Eliminations can happen by pinfall or being tossed out of the window. Yep, really. Last person left wins. This is staggered entry at largely random intervals, and since it’s Halloween everyone will be in costume.

Chie Koishikawa in a giant crab costume and a cackling pirate Mei Suruga wielding an umbrella and with “KILL” written on her cheek start. I feel like Mei uses her costumes each year as an excuse to up her already impressive levels of evil.

Koishi-kani and Captain Mei had a suitably absurd and wonderfully amusing fight, with Chie giving Mei trouble with her claws and Mei doing Mei things like grabbing the crab costume’s eyes and lots of biting. Crowd was way behind Chie with big kani (“crab”) chants.

Eventually Mei “breaks” one of Chie’s claws then bites the exposed arm then an angelic Sayaka comes out to try to talk Mei out of eating Chie. When that doesn’t work the angel starts beating everyone up. Fair enough.

The chaos escalated as our pirate wrapped the angel up in duct tape, then did the same to the terrified crab’s claws. With the two out of action, Captain Mei turns her attention to … trying to destroy the Halloween balloons. Evil Apple is evil.

Entrants get more frequent as Sailor Moon Otoki (Tokiko Kirihara) hits the pirate over the head with her wand then tries to free the captives but gets interrupted by a Miya Yostuba the shark.

Miya shark slaps people around but the angel gets free and levels her. Sayaka and Miya have had issues over Miya and her tag partner Soy wanting Sayaka & Makoto’s tag titles.

Temporary Boston crab by Sayaka on Miya, then Sayaka takes off a wing and beats on Miya with it. Miya’s limited in how much her costume restricts her movement, so she takes it off and destroys Sayaka for a while. Wanted to highlight this section as it was a nice bit of feud relevant action worked in to all the craziness of this kind of holiday match.

The craziness resumed when Miya locked in her Cloverleaf but bratty pirate strikes again and chokes Miya with her own shark costume.

Later with Mei unwisely up in the window Miya hammer nearly eliminates the pirate, but Mei hung on. Sayaka rolled up Miya for 2, but as they traded blows Miya got a jackknife cradle for 3 to eliminate Sayaka and pin one half the reigning tag champs.

Bumble Bee Obihiro Sayaka is next and levels several people then joins forces with her crabified Popcorn Carnival teammate to do their baseball shot double team on Otoki and Mei. But crabs and bees can only coexist so long and they turn on each other. Later Chie gets kicked out of the window to the outside by Obi and is eliminated.

Hiyori Yawata enters in full Team Hiyori mode as a soccer player who passes out a few jerseys to fans then scores a soccer goal on Obi. Yes really and I’m not trying to explain further. Some absurdity just has to be experienced.

Later pirate Mei is up to mischief again choking out Hiyori with her own jersey and Baliyan Akki (still dressed as Goku) comes out from behind the camera to smack her upside the head.

Sayaka takes over camera and commentary for the remainder of the match.

Obi gets eliminated when Akki catches her mid air and sends her out the window.

The final entrants are our opening match participants, as Erii comes out to sing the story of explorer Sakura. They sing small world and everyone linsk hands. This won’t end well. Akki jumps Sakura before she can turn on them and in the background Mei, Miya, and Hiyori roll up Erii for 3.

Sakura waves her walking sticks around conducting We Will Rock You and keeps adding people to the pile. The sticks are kind of flailing uncontrollably at points and she caught Akki in the face at one point. Sayaka keeps taking about how dangerous it is.

Sakura forces Hiyori to help her splash everyone then throws Hiyori’s soccer ball at Aoi. The ref has been catching a lot of strays recently.

Sakura forms a staircase out of everyone and climbs to the window. That was dumb. Sure enough Akki gets up there without a staircase and knocks Sakura out for the elimination.

Chaos picks up again and Hiyori ends up being targeted by everyone else. Sweet Best Bros assisted moonsault by Otoki and Hiyori’s out. Shirt lived alliance though as BBB (double arm trap rollup) on Otoki gets 3 and she’s gone too.

Best Bros and Miya (who has put her shark costume back on at some point) are the final three participants.

Akki charges a Dragon Ball attack. Mei shoves Miya into it, but then runs into a tilt a whirl backbreaker by Akki. Best Bros fight each other for a bit leading to Mei being stranded in the window trying to fight Akki off with her trusty roll of duct tape. Akki simply knocks her out instead … and gets immediately tossed from behind by Miya! SHARK WINS.

The traditional janken tourney ends up with 3 years of experience vs 30 years of experience in the final. With Miya vs Sakura. Sakura tries to get a 30 years chant going and everyone chants Miya instead. Perfect.

Miya wins the chocolate to top off a pretty awesome show for her. During the post show she gets in Sayaka’s face and requests a tag title shot after pinning her. Sayaka begrudgingly accepts. It’s always amusing when Smiling Violence gets grumpy. It’s official for the next ring show: MiyaSoy vs Bell Flowers for the Asia Dream Championships.

Killer Queens (Emi & Mei) vs Himiko and Haruka Umesaki is announced for next show. Mei goes from scary pirate to happily waving at the camera in excitement as soon as Haruka’s name is announced. Really cool matchup of DareJyo trainers vs former DareJyo participants who went to a different company (Diana) when they debuted.

Halloween shows always rock. Highly recommended.

Visit ChocoPro’s YouTube channel to check out all of ChocoPro’s content, including the replay of this show. Everything they are doing goes up for free under Sakura’s “No Pay Wall” initiative, so if you do enjoy and are able / would like to support please see their link tree for information and support options.

Thanks to everyone who’s given this a read. Derailments of Thought currently updates sporadically as I am able.

If you enjoy the blog any support is appreciated, including shares on social media and simply continuing to read. If you happened to be inclined and able to help out monetarily please see my  Ko-fi page. Every little bit helps.

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Japan Reviews Wrestling

Match Spotlight: Hina, Sakura, & Mizumori vs Ram, Riho, & Rina

Starlight Kid 10th Anniversary Show – October 20, 2025

Emi Sakura is approaching her 30th Anniversary show and has a number of anticipated matches across several companies in the couple weeks before it.

This trios match on Starlight Kid’s 10th Anniversary show is a cool mix of generations and has Sakura crossing paths with a couple extremely familiar faces.

Yuna Mizumori (Yunamon) was trained by Sakura, and has extensive history both feuding and teaming with her former mentor. Yunamon left Gatoh Move ( now ChocoPro ) for Stardom in 2022. She defeated Sakura in her second to last Gatoh match, her only ever singles win against her trainer. They have not crossed paths in any capacity since until this match.

Riho is the former ace of Gatoh Move. She left in 2019, and appeared in Stardom regularly until the end of 2020 including a High Speed Championship run. She and Sakura both work for AEW now, and they faced off last month in a tag match.

Ram Kaicho wrestled for a few years as a child, including several appearances in Emi Sakura’s promotion at the time Ice Ribbon, then essentially retired for a decade before returning in 2019. She’s been regularly wrestling since.

I’m not as familiar with Rina and Hina, Stardom’s actual twins, as the rest here. And they don’t have the history with Sakura the others do. But from what little I know about them they should fit in just fine.

Due to outage problems with the intended PPV service this show aired for free and is still currently available on Stardom’s YouTube channel.

Hina, Emi Sakura, & Yuna Mizumori vs Ram Kaicho, Riho & Rina

Four of the six wrestlers in this match debuted at age 11 or younger. The least experienced wrestler here has been wrestling for 7 years. Insane amount of talent in this one.

Riho being on Ram’s team makes sense, as does Sakura and her Beauty As Is teammate Yunamon reuniting, but even so alignment-wise Riho and Sakura look like they swapped places. Sakura even came out to her full heel AEW music. Riho’s probably going to have a much easier time going with the flow of her heel teammates than Sakura will have trying to play nice. Evil Riho rocks. 

Riho’s leather jacket with sheer sleeves over her poofy entrance gown is fantastic.

Pre match Sakura slaps away Riho’s handshake offer. She’s already in full Her Highness mode and the match hasn’t started. This is going to be a blast.

Ram and Hina start. Collar and elbow tie-up leads to a Ram overhand wristlock. Hina counters into her own, which Ram rolls through and goes into a hammerlock. Headlock counter into a takedown by Hina is countered into a headscissors by Ram. Hina kips out, and it’s a stalemate. Nice bit of chain wrestling to get things going.

Hina with a kick to the midsection as Ram comes in for another lockup. Whip into the corner, but Ram counters Hina’s charge by … rapidly firing off imaginary shuriken. They’re devastating and Hina recoils back from the imaginary impacts to her stomach. Yunamon comes in and also falls victim to more shuriken. Still more get Sakura. And the ref must have looked at Ram funny so he gets some too. Ram’s carrying an awful lot of those on her.

Ram gloats to the crowd and all three of her opponents jump her from behind for her audacity. Riho and Rina come in to even the odds and throw Sakura and Yunamon out of the ring. Hina gets tied up and Ram, Rina, and Riho pose on the ropes while tormenting her. Riho’s kinda actually being the most disrespectful with her knee firmly planted in Hina’s face. The trio congratulate SLK then break the pose.

Back down to just Ram and Hina, Hina reverses a whip and scoops up Ram off the ropes for a big body slam. Tag to Sakura. She brings in Yunamon with a call of “hisashiburi” (“long time no see”) and gestures for a hug. But of course it’s Sakura so when Yunamon gets close Sakura boots her in the midsection, then hits the ropes and jumps on the stunned Yunamon’s back to force a splash onto Ram.

Sakura sets up and completes the Ay Oh sing along surfboard. With the awesome hard forced dismount after a few moments too. Ram gets up and screams a bit in defiance, then gets in Sakura’s face. The latter laughs, so Ram switches her taunts to Sakura’s real name. That gets Ram casually and deservedly slapped in the face.

Sakura hits the ropes but Ram’s completely collapsed from the slap and a confused Sakura pauses for a second. Then she approaches and Ram small packages her for 2. Facecrusher stuns Sakura and Ram tags out to Rina.

Rina goes up top for a shotgun missile dropkick. Big boot to Sakura draped across middle rope follows for 2. Sakura’s up quick though and a HARD chop sends Rina reeling to the ropes, portraying the pain across her face like she just ate a lemon.

Forearm from Rina. Sakura absolutely levels her with another chop in response. Crowd’s now firmly behind Rina. She fires up and lays in several forearms (although an odd camera angle choice leaves the viewers looking at Sakura’s back instead of the impact). Sakura rakes Rina’s eyes to stop her, but her follow up strike is blocked and Rina puts Her Highness down with a nice STO. Scoop slam attempt is countered by Sakura with a back rake then she goes right into Smash Mouth.

STOMP STOMP CLAP and the We Will Rock You singalong means it’s time for Sakura’s sweet corner crossbody. She then calls Hina over and they happily proclaim it’s tea time. Hina puts out a bent knee and Sakura butterfly busters Rina over it. Then Sakura and Hina enjoy their pantomime tea. Sakura definitely has a favored partner in this.Tag to Yunamon.

Shotgun dropkick sends Rina into her own corner and Riho tags in for an old school Gatoh Move showdown. Yunamon dodges a dropkick but gets arm dragged when she tries to pull Riho up. Riho dodges a charge but gets arm dragged herself by Yunamon as the latter rebounds. Shotgun dropkick by Yunamon. Riho bridges out of the cover at 1. They haven’t lost the slightest bit of chemistry.

Of the ropes Riho does a wheelbarrow rollup into the double stomp. She goes up to the top turnbuckle, but Sakura and Hina intercept. Yunamon comes over and the three march carry Riho out to the center of the ring, but Riho’s teammates save her and break up whatever triple team slam was intended.

The two teams line up for a simultaneous brawl. Well kind of, as Sakura and Ram are reversed and in the wrong lines. This leads to shots all around as people realize they’re next to opponents, which leads to Sakura nailing Yunamon with repeated forearms in the corner because Sakura is Sakura.

The respective teams clear out and Yunamon staggers to the center to the ring after taking the abuse from her own teammate where Riho lays in her own forearms. Yunamon eventually blocks one though and spins Riho around before landing a hard chop. Riho falls back up against the ropes and Yunamon charges in with a lariat. And another after getting momentum from hitting the opposite ropes. Tropical Yahho leg drop gets 2.

Yunamon hits the ropes again but Rina jumps her and Ram follows with a codebreaker. Ram then positions Yunamon for a top rope crossbody from Riho. Hina saves at 2.

Yunamon fights off a dragon suplex attempt then charges Riho. But Riho low bridges the ropes and Yuna goes over, yet holds on to the top rope and is hanging outside. Riho hits the far ropes presumably for a dropkick but runs right into a sweet judo throw from Hina.

Yunamon skins the cat back into the ring and she and Sakura sandwich lariat Riho. Yunamon hits the ropes and nails a gorgeous Supergirl pin attempt. Riho just barely rolls her shoulder up at 2.99.

Yunamon hits some shots on the prone Riho, then picks her up in a fireman’s carry. Riho counters a slam attempt from that position into a victory roll style pin for 2. Yunamon LEVELS Riho with a lariat and folds her in half on the pin to get another crazy close 2.

Apparently that was too close for Ram, who comes in to throw powder into Yunamon’s eyes. Rina’s H.A.T.E. stablemates have the ref distracted in the corner. Rina herself follows that up with a shot from her whip to Yunamon. Poor Yunamon’s laid out on the ropes and Ram hits the 619. Finally Riho’s crucifix spinning rollup gets 3.

Post match Riho assures the ref she has no idea what that powder all over the ring is and shows him her clean hands. I knew she’d fit right in with the heels eventually.

As the three celebrate, in the other corner Sakura of course takes exception to Yunamon losing and starts stomping away at her. Hina separates them but Sakura hits her too as they head to the back. Sakura heads off on her own while Hina and Yunamon bow to the crowd together.

This was a lot of fun. The antics were largely amusing and generally expected given the mix of wrestlers involved, and when the action picked up it was great. The Yunamon and Riho stuff down the stretch was awesome, and I’d love to see a singles match from them again someday given how much Yunamon has evolved since they last met. Rina and Hina were quite good. Would definitely like to see more from both.

Again the whole show is available on Stardom’s YouTube and well worth a watch.

Thanks to everyone who’s given this a read. Derailments of Thought currently updates sporadically as I am able.

If you enjoy the blog any support is appreciated, including shares on social media and simply continuing to read. If you happened to be inclined and able to help out monetarily please see my  Ko-fi page. Every little bit helps.

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Japan Reviews Wrestling

ChocoPro x Mystery Wrestling

October 4, 2025

Evil Uno’s Mystery Wrestling is a fun concept where the wrestlers and matches aren’t revealed before the show. Recently Uno’s fellow AEW superstar Emi Sakura appeared on one of his shows. A couple weeks later and Uno’s in Japan with a special crossover with Sakura’s own company ChocoPro (although Sakura herself is in the US and thus isn’t appearing this time).

As ChocoPro has a set core roster some of the participants where obvious/shared beforehand, but the matchups were kept secret, even in the few hours between the taping and the show’s airing.

Going into the show Mei Suruga, Baliyan Akki, Chie Koishikawa, Miya Yotsuba, Hiyori Yawata, Chris Brookes, and of course Evil Uno had been announced.

Akki and Evil Uno opened up the show, with Uno explaining it’s his first trip to Japan. Akki taught Uno the ins and outs of ChocoPro’s home turf rules in an amusing bit.

For new viewers: Ichigaya Chocolate Square is a unique venue with no ring. The audience surrounding the mat and the one wall the mat is up against are the “rope break” boundaries for submissions only. Pinfalls count as long as the wrestler’s shoulders are on the mat, and there are no rope breaks for pinfalls.

That’s the gist of what Akki explained. In addition, double teams/double pins are legal in tag team matches, there are no count outs, and referees are extremely lenient as far as DQs go (as is normal for Japanese wrestling). For more details see this quick reference I wrote a few years ago.

Uno revealed he does commentary himself for Mystery Wrestling and stepped into the camera/commentary role for match 1.

1- Hiyori Yawata & Chris Brookes vs Egg Tart (Chie Koishikawa & Hagane Shinno)

Hiyori was out first and introduced the newest member of Team Hiyori, CHRIS BROOKES! Ever the good sport Chris came out in a Hiyori hat. I love this team already.

Their opponents are Egg Tart. This is a really cool choice for the opening match.

Referee is ChocoPro GM Aoi Kizuki.

Chris heckled Chie during her intro. Then he threw her flower on the ground and was just being a general gremlin to her. Man I hate to see ChieDK bicker.

Amusing start saw Chris take one hard leg kick from Hagane and tag out. Hiyori then tried to avenge her partner and gave Hagane several … rather ineffective kicks. Hanage leveled her with a single kick of his own in response and she rolled to the corner to tag out. No one wants to mess with Hagane.

After tags on both sides Chris touched the ceiling to taunt Chie, so Chie got on Hagane’s shoulders to do the same. Chris put Hiyori on his shoulders and the audience already knew what was coming. Sure enough Chris put her head through the ceiling as soon as he stood up. Shades of Rin Rin. Chris apologized to Sakura through the camera.

Chris continued being a menace all match doing things like hitting his opponents (and poor ref Aoi) with his big rubber band thing as well as rubbing the broken ceiling tile into Chie’s forehead.

Good action all around, with the strike exchanges between the men being particularly heavy hitting and impressive. Egg Tart applied a sick looking double stretch muffler on Hiyori at one point. Probably would have been it but Chris went nuts with his elastic again and broke it up.

Eventually Chie caught Hiyori with a sweet arm trap rollup for the win.

This was a really high energy ten minute match and a fantastic example of how to work in a bit of absurdity and shenanigans into a hard hitting contest.

Post match Chris went to put the Hiyori hat back on but Hiyori complained about the ceiling thing, so her threw it at her instead.

2- ???

Uno tries to bail and hand the camera off to someone saying it’s very hard to do two things at once, Mei comes out and pushes him back behind the camera. She cuts a promo at Uno, which means towards the camera. Nicely done.

Mei makes the next match 1 count rules in honor of Uno. And then totally unnecessarily but hilariously demonstrates what a 1 count is and how to kick out before 1. I adore this. Once she’s done talking she ejects him, starting a “you get out” chant, and takes over behind the camera herself.

2- Mei’s Special Uno Count Match

And our participants are… Choun Shiryu and Trans Am Hiroshi. This’ll be something.

Choun can work any style and Hiroshi is at home in atypical matches so they worked this stipulation to the fullest.

Choun nearly stole the win early during a reversal sequence but Hiroshi kicked out before 1. Right off the bat they established that the unusual rule was going to have a big impact on their strategy.

Hiroshi did his usual meditation stuff, where he’s able to shrug off strikes and roll back into crosslegged sitting position through the power of inner peace. It worked for a bit, but then nearly backfired spectacularly when Choun went for a pin instead and Hiroshi had to frantically kickout before 1.

Ref Aoi did a phenomenal job on all the close 1 counts throughout the match, including a great series of rapid fire covers by Choun where Hiroshi had to kick out super fast several times in a row.

Late in the match Trans Am Hiroshi stopped for a song break. Choun joined in, and Hiroshi’s sneak attack after they finished singing nearly got the win with a small package. They kept fighting until Choun got caught in a sweet judo throw off of the windowsill for 1 and the win for Trans Am Hiroshi.

This was two extremely talented veterans in an entertaining outing and again a good mix of ridiculousness and solid wrestling.

Right before the main event is where the support shoutouts happen. I’d like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that Masahiro Takanashi, an incredible wrestler and a big part of ChocoPro, is currently out recovering from a serious neck injury and ChocoPro has set up a variety of ways to help if anyone is able.

3- Miya Yotsuba & Evil Uno vs Best Bros (Mei Suruga & Baliyan Akki)

Brooks is on commentary for the main event. Best Bros give him grief about the hole in the ceiling, and like the stand up guy he is he blames Hiyori.

Uno & Miya are going to be a fun team.

Mei and Uno to start. As usual Mei thinks she’s 10 feet tall and showed no fear against her much larger opponent. She then proceeded to knock herself over trying to tackle Uno. Magnificent.

Mei was more evil than Evil Uno all match, including taking a Miya towel away from a fan at one point to choke Miya with. That’s just not right. Akki fully leaned into the boos too and did a “Bros Hammer” to embarrass Miya by stealing her signature Miya Hammer and then mocked the fans’ negative reaction.

Miya & Uno later got in on the shenanigans too though, when Miya had fans link hands to make a chain all around Ichigaya for extra leverage for Uno’s abdominal stretch on Akki.

Like the opener, this was another fast paced high octane example of great tag team wrestling.

Eventually the teamwork of the well established, former tag team champion Best Bros proved too much to overcome and their trademark Dolphin Press (wheelbarrow assisted shooting star press) on Miya picked up the 3 count.

That was SO. MUCH. FUN. Uno fit right in and this was a blast.

Two of AEW’s Japanese announcers were in attendance and were invited into the post show janken (rock-paper-scissors) tourney.

This happened the day before Choco’s next ring show, New Dawn, which like all of ChocoPro’s show will eventually be available to watch for free on their YouTube channel.

This was a breeze and a joy to watch. The ChocoPro roster are masters at making the most of the environment in their unique home base, and this show is an excellent encapsulation of the kind of wrestling they do. I highly recommend it in general and particularly to anyone who is even remotely interested in checking out the company. This show is officially available to watch at any time for free.

“Thank you for … showing me that wrestling can happen anywhere, it does not need ropes, it only needs the spirit of pro wrestling.” Uno gets it. Really hope he comes back someday.

Thanks to everyone who’s given this a read. Derailments of Thought currently updates sporadically as I am able.

If you enjoy the blog any support is appreciated, including shares on social media and simply continuing to read. If you happened to be inclined and able to help out monetarily please see my Ko-fi page. Every little bit helps.

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Cards Japan Wrestling

Collecting Spotlight: BBM Women’s Wrestling 2025 Card Set

BBM releases yearly card sets for a variety of sports, and for a great many years I’ve been collecting their joshi wrestling sets. Here we’ll take a look at the details and differences in their 2025 set.

Known as True Heart until 2020 and simply Women’s Wrestling since then, these yearly sets focus on women wrestlers from all across Japan.

Historically most joshi wrestling companies and freelancers participated, with the main exception being World Wonder Ring Stardom. Stardom roster members have not appeared in these sets for over a decade (Stardom has done occasional card based products on their own in the past). Actwres girl’Z also stopped participating a few years back with their classification switch from a wrestling company to an entertainment company.

This year however there seems to be quite a few more wrestlers absent. The T-Hearts roster as well as some notable freelancers are missing from the set. Also Dream Star Fighting Marigold, the new company run by the founder and former owner of Stardom, isn’t included.

BBM did put out a statement talking about production constraints, and that this year scheduling issues led to some regional wrestlers not making it into the set.

However the base set still features 154 wrestlers with an additional 2 tag team and 3 announcer cards. It’s wild that the set is still pretty massive even with the absences, and while having some favorites missing is less than ideal there being around 200 active women’s wrestlers in Japan and the depth it brings to wrestling is a good problem to have.

Assortment of Kira insert cards.

Keeping with the packing distribution changes made last year, there are 7 cards per pack and 18 packs per box. One of the cards in each pack is one of the 24 “Kira” chase cards, shiny cards which feature a gold facsimile auto of the depicted wrestler.

When there are chase cards in a pack other than the Kira cards, they replace one of the base cards that would otherwise be in the pack. So there are still 7 cards per pack total.

Assortment of SP insert cards.
Assortment of “secret” cards.

The other chase subsets in the 2025 set are a 9 card foil subset (SP1-SP9), and 13 “secret” chase cards. Secret versions have the same numbering as the base card of whoever is depicted. So for example TJPW’s Mifu Ashida (formerly of Ice Ribbon) is card number 008 in the base set. So her secret card is also numbered 008. Only 13 wrestlers have secret variants so the numbering on them jumps around.

The secret subset this year features “plain clothes” photos of certain wrestlers in everyday attire. The base cards and other subsets of course feature them wearing their wrestling gear.

I’m happy to see the return of the plain clothes cards. The last several years of secret inserts have mostly been alternate poses/backgrounds of the wrestlers in their gear. Those cards are nice themselves, but this subset stands out more and seems more fitting for the alternate/secret subset theme. The selection of wrestlers was a nice mix and they got to show off their personal style and personalities.

In my anecdotal experience this year there tends to be 3 SP foil and 2-3 secret cards per box.

Yuki Arai base cards.

There also is a special, unusual “secret base card” variant showcasing a second set of Yuki Arai’s gear. Her signature cards (more on those to come) are split between the two outfits. She’s the only person with a variant base card. This is an attempt to do something a little different/special within the set, and if it’s well received it may be done in future sets as well.

I’m a little mixed on it personally. I don’t mind having a second card for her, and can get behind the idea of having a couple special base cards that aren’t rare chase cards. That said I’d lose the secret numbering for it. Having them both be card 012 is unnecessary complicated for sorting and collecting (the plain clothes cards are a different matter in how distinct they are). Label them 12A and 12B at least if not just giving them separate number in the set. All that said about a minor technical point, both her base cards look cool. Giving them two different background colors to stand out was a nice touch.

The yearly base set varies in size each year to reflect new wrestlers, retirements, cards for tag teams, and so on. As mentioned are a lot of joshi wrestlers active in Japan and these are not small sets. The 2025 base set consists of 159 cards (plus the Arai variant), which is about a box and a half of base cards (if no duplicates are drawn).

Sayuri Namba and Shino Suzuki

One of the most sought after aspects of these sets are the randomly inserted signature cards autographed by the wrestlers. The last couple years these cards have been designed with colored borders down the sides on an otherwise white background likely to draw attention to the wrestlers and the signatures (and to make them distinct from insert autos). Personally I like the simplicity and the look of them, but some collectors prefer the colorful backgrounds of past sets.

The odds seem to be just a touch lower than last year (last year was itself a bit down from previous years). I’ve generally seen 3 autographs per box, with the secret sig cards I drew being a 4th auto in the box. The boxes I’ve seen with a cheki only had 2 base sig cards with it.

Tsukka and Yappy
Kyuri and Kirari Wakana
Totoro Satsuki and Manami Katsu

The signature cards are numbered and there are usually 100 each corresponding to the base set for the wrestlers who did autographs. A majority of the wrestlers in the set do signature cards, but not everyone.

Like last year nearly all of the base signature cards this year are on card autographs. The only stickers I’ve noticed so far were for Hikaru Shida, who is based on the US, and on the Magenta tag team dual auto card where proper spacing is paramount. As usual the insert autos use stickers, presumably for design reasons. The stickers are transparent and barely noticeable, even if you know to look for them.

Wakana Uehara secret version signature card.

As implied above both the secret and SP foil subsets have associated signature cards. Unlike past years, the foil autos are not short printed compared with the base autos.

Base, secret, and foil autos are all generally /100 now. A couple wrestlers have slightly lower base autos numbers, and Yuki Arai and Haruka Umesaki’s foil autos are a bit lower at /85 and /74 respectively.

The insert autos have fully colored backgrounds, which nicely sets them apart from the white backed secret insert subset those correspond to as well as the white with colored borders designs on the base autos.

There are also a few super rare /5 signature cards featuring Suzume, Mizuki, Yuki Arai, Sareee, and Ram Kaicho.

One of my absolute favorite signature cards ever is in this set. Maika Ozaki is a powerhouse and has a cool tag team entrance pose she does where she lifts her partner (and sometimes partners plural) up onto her shoulder. She’s done it most often with her Gekokujo partner Kyuri and her SPiCEAP partner Tae Honma.

This year SPiCEAP got a dual auto signature card, and BBM oriented it vertically and designed it almost as if it was two stacked up horizontal sig cards so that their pose could be featured. It’s stunning and easily one of the coolest cards they’ve done.

Kirari Wakana

Some of the most distinctive chase items in these sets are chekis: mini polaroids of the wrestlers signed and sometimes decorated by them. There are generally 10 for each wrestler who does them (not everyone in the base set does). A few wrestlers are featured in different outfits and have two distinct /10 versions this year.

These are unique collectibles, and some of the harder hits to pull at roughly 2 per case (1 in 6 boxes). They’re a fun additional and some of the centerpieces of my personal collection.

Emi Sakura and Kaho Hiromi

So that’s it for this year’s BBM Women’s Wrestling release. I wish everyone good luck with their pulls and pickups.

Sayaka

Thanks to everyone who’s given this a read. Derailments of Thought currently updates sporadically, but more regular posts should be on the way soon.

If you enjoy the blog any support is appreciated, including shares on social media and simply continuing to read. If you happened to be inclined and able to help out monetarily please see my  Ko-fi page. Every little bit helps.

Categories
Japan Reviews Video Games Wrestling

ChocoPro Happy Festival Video Game Review

ChocoPro, formerly Gatoh Move, is a Japanese pro-wrestling company based in Ichigaya Japan. Founded by near 30 year wrestling veteran Emi Sakura, ChocoPro embraces and embodies Sakura’s core belief that wrestling should be fun for both the audience and the wrestlers.

For the last couple of years a ChocoPro themed mobile game has been in development, and today the anticipation came to an end with its release.

Having evolved from a joshi (women’s) wrestling company ChocoPro’s core roster is primarily women, but they are a fully intergender company featuring a number of both men and women wrestlers on every show. As such the ChocoPro wrestlers in this game include both women and men.

ChocoPro Happy Festival is a collection of 9 mini-games each featuring one of ChocoPro’s wrestlers. Wrestlers featured include reigning Super Asia Champion Mei Suruga, Sayaka, Chie Koishikawa, Tokiko Kirihara (Otoki), Sayaka Obihiro (Obi), Emi Sakura, Miya Yotsuba, Baliyan Akki, and DDT Pro’s Masahiro Takahashi (Masa)*. There might also be a special guest appearance lurking about.

Adorable chibi versions of the wrestlers are used on the games. The visuals are gorgeous. The chibis capture the essence of the wrestlers, the backgrounds and details are great, and everything is colorful and vibrant.

The games are straight forward, as expected and appropriate for mini-games, but still amusing and addictive. There’s a nice variety of game types included. Three are side scrollers, two are stop the gauge games, one’s a matching game, two are reaction games, and the last a speed puzzle.

Thematically they’re fantastic. From Mei running along jumping around collecting apples to Sayaka elbowing dummies out of the ring for distance to feeding Her Highness cake and so on each game was clearly carefully designed with great knowledge and respect for the subjects.

Instrumental versions of familiar songs from Gatoh Move and ChocoPro through the years have been adapted to be used for the various menu screens, and each wrestler’s stage features their entrance music. Music is so closely intertwined with a wrestler/promotion’s presentation that it’s inclusion in something like this feels necessary, and was done excellently.

There’s effort and care visible in every aspect of the game. Wonderful little details, like glasses piling up around Masa as you serve him more and more beer during his game or the various levels of happiness or disappointment the wrestler has after the game depending on how you did are great touches. The loading screens during installation are cool profiles of the included wrestlers (which I wish there was a way to view on demand – there’s thankfully no loading screens needed during play after the game’s installed).

Speaking of Masa’s game, it’s likely the reason for the 17+ years old rating this has in the Apple App Store. There’s really nothing else in here beside the alcohol inclusion that would push this above an all ages rating.

The other half of the package here is the rewards system. Choco Points earned in the mini-games can be redeemed for icons and photo tickets. Photo tickets will randomly unlock one of 300 photos. Unlocked photos can be viewed in the photo album, as well as chosen to be featured on home screen. Photos include action and posed shots of ChocoPro wrestlers.

To be honest I’m mostly a console gamer and don’t play/buy mobile games often. So I don’t have much frame of reference on the $12 price point for a mini-game collection of this type. I will say that this is well made and is a wonderful pickup for fans of the company, and for me was definitely worth getting.

It’s really cool to see this game go from concept to fully released, and it turned out great. ChocoPro Happy Festival is a love letter to the company, and an easy recommendation.

——-

*It would feel like an omission to talk about Masa in this post without mentioning that he is currently out with a major neck injury. He recently was released from ICU and is starting rehabilitation. Wishing him a speedy and complete recovery.

Thanks to everyone who’s given this a read. 2024 was a sporadic return for this blog and I hope to sustain more regular updates going forward in 2025. Derailments of Thought currently updates once to twice a week.

If you enjoy the blog any support is appreciated, including shares on social media and simply continuing to read. If you happened to be inclined and able to help out monetarily please see my  Ko-fi page. Every little bit helps.

Categories
Art Cards Comics Japan TV Wrestling

Collecting Spotlight: Metal Trading Cards

Cabinet of Curiosities Treasure metal variant by Yuriko Shirou.

When thinking of trading cards, small collectible pieces of cardboard/card stock immediately spring to mind. But in modern collecting there are a variety of cards that break the mold a bit and are made from other materials.

Let’s take a look at the interesting case of trading cards made from metal.

Last month I wrote about printing plates, thin metal relics from the card creation process turned into collectables. In contrast here I’m highlighting actual cards made for various sets that are themselves made of metal.

One other side note before delving too deep: there are card sets and subsets that use “metal” as a descriptor, such as the Skybox Metal Universe series. It’s a theming/branding thing and the vast majority of cards in those sets are still card stock. Those are different from what I’m featuring here, which again are cards made of metal.

Morrigan metal AP from Classic Mythology III by Juri H. Chinchilla.

There are two main types of metal cards I’d like to showcase, with some subcategories. Then at the end of this post I’ll share a few tangentially related cards.

First up are the straightforward case of printed metal cards. These are exactly what one would think of as trading cards, simply printed on metal instead of card stock. They are at a minimum a bit thicker than both standard cards and the thin metal printing plates previously referenced.

While metal cards are inherently more sturdy than standard cardboard cards, proper storage and protection can have some additional things to be wary of. For example stacking regular cards is usually fine for temporary sorting, etc. But metal cards can easily scratch each other if care isn’t taken and as such while it may seem counter intuitive it’s even more important to get them immediately sleeved and protected than normal.

Like other special inserts metal cards can be variants of base cards or their own unique subsets, and vary greatly in terms of rarity and design.

A great example of straight up base set variants are the metal cards featured in Iconic Creations’ sets. These cards are identical to their base set counterparts outside of the material they’re printed on. There’s more gloss to the finish on these than Iconic Creations’ base cards, and the hues end up a touch more subdued.

Perna Studios also does some great metal chase subset versions of their base, chase, and promo cards.

By Juri H. Chinchilla.

While some metal cards have both the front and back printed like their cardboard counterparts, like those done by Perna Studios, Iconic Creations and some other publishers use stickers for the backs on metal cards.

The metallurgy subsets from Marvel Masterpieces are fantastic versions of the base cards from the same sets. The designs on these vary slightly from the base, as the border is more filled in on these and as such the images are slightly cropped compared to the base and other variants.

Planet Metal subsets from the previously mentioned SkyBox Metal Universe series (made nowadays by Upper Deck) are an unusual case. In some sets, such as the pictured cards above from Spider-Man Metal and X-Men Metal, they are a metal card chase subset. In others, such as AEW Metal, they are die cut cardboard.

There have been metal AEW cards from Upper Deck in other sets, such as the Full Gear and Chair Shots subsets from AEW Spectrum.

Metal cards can themselves have variants within a set. For example the die cut oval shaped metal cards from Upper Deck’s Shang-Chi set had rarer gold versions, and their logo shaped die cut metal cards had rarer blue variants.

Like “regular” trading cards, special subsets of metal cards are elevated with autographs. Cards may be signed by the athletes or actors featured, by the artist for art based cards, or creators related to the characters or stories referenced for comic related cards.

Often signed metal cards are specific, unique subsets. Although they can also be direct variations on non-autographed metal cards within the same set.

Pictured below is a Black Metal Logo Die Cut card from Upper Deck’s Shang-Chi set featuring Meng’er Zhang as Xialing next to the autographed version featuring the same design and image. Both were available exclusively as achievements via Upper Deck online purchasing and trading platform e-Pack.

Given the nature of the material metal card autos generally feature autographs affixed via sticker. But occasionally there can be direct autographs if done carefully with the right type of markers. The Stainless Stars subsets from Panini’s WWE Impeccable sets are great examples of autos done directly on metal cards.

Meiko Satomura and Io Shirai (now Iyo Sky) blue Stainless Stars cards.

The other major type of metal cards I’d like to spotlight is metal sketch cards.

Metal APs from Perna Studios’ Elementals and Hallowe’en Witchcraft sets by Stacey Kardash.
Metal sketch cards/APs by Achilleas Kokkinakis from Classic Mythology III.

Like sketch cards done on card stock these are individualized pieces of art created on the cards. One side of the metal card is prepared with a surface meant for drawing directly on it.

Metal AP from Hallowe’en Witchcraft by Tony Perna.

In past sets Perna Studios had a small number of these metal sketch cards inserted in packs. For those sets artists often had a metal AP (Artist Proof) or two (in addition to their card stock ones) that they could accept commissions for within the content guidelines of the set.

Metal sketch cards/APs by Alexis Sarah Hill and Craig Yeung.

The combination of unique creations on unusual card material made these truly stunning pieces of art.

To wrap up here are a few metal related cards that aren’t exactly either of the types highlighted above, but do involve metal, are all pretty awesome, and are worth a look.

One subset that’s both cool and kind of hilarious is the silver bar cards from Panini Impeccable. There’s just straight up a 1 troy ounce mini silver bar in the card. The card itself is card stock surrounding the bar, but this definitely fits in this feature on metal use in trading cards.

All of the cards in this section are thicker than what most people think of for trading cards. In this case considerably so, as these monsters are 3/8 inch thick.

A really nice looking way to incorporate metal are framed cards. The card itself is still card stock, but it’s encased in a metal border (almost always gold colored in the versions I’ve seen).

Finally here’s an example of a metal card where an image is cast on it rather than printed. The below bronze Psylocke card is a tribute to Joe Jusko’s work on Marvel Masterpieces ’92 and was a reward as part of a Kickstarter for an art book featuring Joe’s images from that set.

That does it for this spotlight on a small sample of the interesting ways metal is used in trading cards. Best of luck with wherever your personal collecting tendencies take you.

Thanks to everyone who’s given this a read. 2024 was a sporadic return for this blog and I hope to sustain more regular updates going forward in 2025. Derailments of Thought currently updates once to twice a week.

If you enjoy the blog any support is appreciated, including shares on social media and simply continuing to read. If you happened to be inclined and able to help out monetarily please see my  Ko-fi page. Every little bit helps.

Categories
Japan Wrestling

Gatoh Move Match Review: Mei Suruga vs Yoshiko

Gatoh Move: The Last Heisei Shin-Kiba Gatoh
March 22, 2019

An interesting match recently popped up in my YouTube recommendations that I forgot existed and was somehow completely unaware it was ever aired.

In 2019, current reigning Super Asia Champion Mei Suruga was a rookie with under a year in wrestling. She was a prodigy who only trained a few months before debuting in Gatoh Move (now ChocoPro), and was already showing skills far beyond her limited experience.

Fair or not, Yoshiko will always be best known for the incident with Act Yasukawa. But a lot has changed in a decade. Act has publicly forgiven Yoshiko and has amazingly returned to wrestling related activities. By 2019 Yoshiko was fully back in wrestling and had been working with a number of companies who all trusted her enough to often be wrestling their rookies and up and coming stars. See this post from a couple years back for a look at my personal thoughts on the more recent state of things and how my opinion on Yoshiko changed over time.

I’d seen excellent matches of hers in the couple years before this match against the likes of Mio Momono and the dearly missed Asahi. She was the perfect imposing monster to test one’s mettle against. Yoshiko is currently on hiatus and hasn’t wrestled in a couple years, but to my knowledge still intends to return someday.

So with the stage set for Gatoh’s super rookie against SEAdLINNNG’s gatekeeper, away we go.

Mei Suruga vs Yoshiko

First (and thus far only) singles contest between these two.

This is early in Gatoh Move’s YouTube offerings, featuring commentary by Pumi Boonytud.

Mei was trained by Emi Sakura and a protege of Aoi Kizuki. Mei’s 20 here but as usual looks younger.

Yoshiko is one of the pillars of SEAdLINNNG, and was in-between tag title reigns and a year and change away from her Beyond the Sea championship reign.

Single camera angle for this video, as it’s all hard cam footage.

Yoshiko doesn’t come out of the corner for Mei’s handshake offer. Mei responds by getting the fans to cheer for Yoshiko. The stoic one is unamused.

Lockup to start. Yoshiko easily overpowers Mei into the ropes, but the Apple Girl switches positions and lays in forearms. Yoshiko ends that in short order by grabbing Mei’s hair and pulling her out to the center of the ring.

The pace quickens as Mei ducks a lariat but then has her dropkick dodged. Mei locks hands with Yoshiko and goes for her rope jump assisted arm drag, but Yoshiko’s too solid and doesn’t budge. She pulls Mei up and just tosses her away.

A Mei Irish whip attempt does nothing, and is reversed. Mei tries a running crossbody off the ropes, but is caught and dropped into a hard back breaker.

With Mei face down near the ropes, Yoshiko simply stands on her. Yoshiko’s considerable size advantage is making quite a difference so far. Jumping double knees to Mei’s back. More standing on Mei then another knee drop leads to a 2 count.

Mei’s unceremoniously thrown into the corner, then hair tossed out. Prone in the opposite corner she’s on the receiving end of numerous face wash kicks. Yoshiko sprints to the opposite ropes and hits a hard running version.

Yoshiko hairmares Mei into the center, then lands a huge kick to Mei’s back followed by one to front for a 2 count. I winced at these.

Yoshiko controls with a hold pulling back on Mei’s arms with her feet planted in Mei’s back. She shifts into body scissors, which gives Mei an opening to do an awesome counter roll backward over Yoshiko into her own body scissors.

Mei tries her signature rolling pinning combination, but Yoshiko spreads her legs to remain stable. So the clever Apple starts a Yoshiko chant again and forces Yoshiko to move her arms in time with the audience chanting her name. The distraction causes just enough of a lapse on Yoshiko’s part for Mei to get her roll for 2. But Mei pays for it when Yoshiko lands an Earthquake splash to Mei’s back. A brief Camel Clutch is abandoned after Yoshiko pulls on Mei’s face, then Yoshiko adds some dismissive kicks for insult to injury.

With both back up Mei tries to start a strike exchange but Yoshiko counters with an overwhelming flurry instead and sweeps Mei back down. Mei gets her arms up to block a running kick but Yoshiko just kicks right through the block. This is a masterful matchup of technique and speed against size and raw power.

Mei dodges the senton, then hits a flurry of five dropkicks. She grabs Yoshiko’s head and calls for her Totsugeki (battering ram), but is shrugged off and sent towards the corner. Undeterred Mei kicks off the middle turnbuckle for momentum into a dropkick.

With Yoshiko down Mei turns her over and goes for a bow and arrow. It doesn’t work too well on her larger opponent so she switches sides. Still no go. Mei stomps on Yoshiko’s back, then hits ropes and rolls… into her “cute on purpose” taunt right in front of Yoshiko’s face. That’s a bold move.

Yoshiko is predictably annoyed, and takes a shot at Mei but the latter is too quick and avoids the wild swing. Both up to their feet and Mei baits her into a charge then ducks into a drop toehold. With Yoshiko down and stunned Mei is now able to complete the bow and arrow.

Mei releases after a few seconds though, shaking her legs out from the strain on her knees from supporting a much larger opponent. Totsugeki to the turnbuckle connects this time.

Perhaps a tad too confident after some sustained offense Mei attempts to slam Yoshiko. Yeah not so much. Yoshiko counters into a slam attempt of her own, but Mei pushes off while in the air and lands on feet. Mei hits the ropes but runs right into a beautiful tilt a whirl backbreaker by Yoshiko.

Boston crab by Yoshiko is quickly transitioned into a deep half crab. Yoshiko holds on to it for a while as Mei tries to fight to the ropes. When she gets close Yoshiko tries to stop her by twisting Mei around and grabbing her arm, but Mei makes it with other arm. Mei fought for every inch there.

Yoshiko hits a hard lariat against the ropes on Mei, followed by a senton for 2.

Apparent choke bomb is countered into a slick forward cradle for 2. Scissor rollup gets another 2. Mei’s hanging in there and forcing some close kickouts.

Off the ropes Mei gets caught in samoan drop position, but fights down to try a schoolboy. Yoshiko tries to counter with another Earthquake splash, but Mei scurries out of the way. A dropkick leads to the propellor clutch for 2.

Mei hits ropes, and ducks a lariat, but is DESTROYED by a second attempt coming back the other way. And just like that it’s over. Yoshiko pins Mei for the victory.

Excellent match that was more competitive than I might have expected if I wasn’t previously familiar with both super rookie Mei and how good Yoshiko is in this role against smaller underdogs. This match was exactly what I expected, and I mean that as a huge compliment.

Watching older Mei matches is a reminder of how quickly and intuitively she got pro-wrestling. She looked fantastic here for under a year experience. Yoshiko makes great imposing opponent and their competitive chemistry was unreal. Great stuff.

This match is available to watch for free on ChocoPro’s YouTube Channel.

Thanks to everyone who’s given this a read. 2024 was a sporadic return for this blog and I hope to have more regular updates going forward in 2025. Derailments of Thought currently updates on Wednesday and Saturday.

If you enjoy the blog any support is appreciated, including shares on social media and simply continuing to read. If you happened to be inclined and able to help out monetarily please see my  Ko-fi page. Every little bit helps.

Categories
Japan Reviews Wrestling

Tokyo Game Show AEW Matches 9/18/22

September 18, 2022 in Tokyo, Japan

One more batch of AEW Fight Forever sponsored promotional wrestling matches from Tokyo Game Show 2022 to take a look at. I previously wrote about day one and day two.

This was the last day of the trade fair, so only two matches on tap this time.

Yuka Sakazaki vs Hikari Noa

Hikari’s the only wrestler to appear on all three days. Again it’s a nice treat to have these matches resurface in lieu of her departure from wrestling last year.

Both participants here were TJPW roster, so while Hikari’s other two matches were first time encounters she’s very familiar with today’s opponent. They had faced previously in a handful of singles matches and numerous tag matches.

Yuka was a couple weeks away from her third Princess of Princess Championship reign.

Hikari’s a previous International Princess Champion, which she lost in early 2022. It ended up being the only singles title of her career.

Nice counter wrestling to start. Yuka ends up with the edge but Hikari wipes her out with a dropkick as she celebrates.

Yuka bails to the outside, quickly followed by Hikari. Yuka lands some strikes then takes Hikari sightseeing. Yuka finds some space in front of an exhibit and slams Hikari on floor. She then does some posing in front of a SpongeBob display before throwing Hikari into it.

She drags Hikari through the crowd some more and tries to hide behind a costumed mascot. Hikari hits her with a superkick around the alien anyway.

Yuka negotiates a pause and has the alien shake Hikari’s hand, but whacks the distracted Hikari with his gun. At least she didn’t shoot her I suppose.

After returning the deadly weapon to its owner she takes Hikari back to ringside. They exchange strikes, then Yuka rams Hikari into a ring post. Back in the ring Yuka covers for 2. I adore it when wrestlers go for a pin immediately after a big impact outside. They’re trying to win.

Yuka kicks Hikari in the corner then climbs up to apply a head scissors and leans back outside the ropes. Classic Yuka. Referee counts it and she breaks on 4. She goes up top and does her cartwheel dodge to the apron when Hikari charges. Well, kind of cartwheel dodge. When she does it to the apron it’s sometimes more of a roll with her hands planted on the ropes. Springboard dropkick back into the ring gets 2.

Yuka controls with rolling suplexes, but Hikari floats out of the third. A jumping lariat and her dropkick barrage solidifies her advantage, and a snap mare into a dropkick to back gets 2.

Cobra twist from Hikari. Yuka tries to power to the ropes, so Hikari drops it into a cover for 2. She holds on after the kickout and goes into her rolling cradle for 2.

Staying in position she applies a seated version of the cobra twist. Yuka’s had enough though, stands up despite Hikari’s efforts, and tosses Hikari off. As usual Yuka’s strength is unreal.

Hikari ducks a clothesline and rolls Yuka up with bridge (Japanese leg roll clutch variation) for 2. Her super kick is caught though, and Yuka spins her right into a suplex.

Yuka goes up top in the corner, and has to kick Hikari’s charges away twice. Hikari catches the kick on her third charge though, and brings Yuka down with a super exploder for 2.

The exhausted combatants have an elbow/forearm exchange on their knees. It continues as they rise to their feet, until Yuka eventually wipes Hikari out with one.

Magical Merry Go Round (hammerlock airplane spin into a face buster) attempt is escaped and Hikari hits an exploder, but Yuka responds with Tea Time (scoop suplex).

Now in firm control, Yuka completes the second try at Magical Merry Go Round for the win.

Respect shown by Yuka afterwards, and both speak in the post match interview (for all previous matches it was the winner only cutting a promo).

This was the longest match of the weekend at 12 minutes, which makes sense as it was the only match to do an extended outside the ring portion (there were a couple dives and one announce table DDT on previous days). So yet another aspect of wrestling was shown off here. Fun stuff, and the in ring portions were great. Really cool match overall.

Hikari lost all three of her matches, but given her vastly more experienced opponents that wasn’t unexpected. It was all about the fight she put up, and she did great.

Hagane Shinno vs Michael Nakazawa

I’m quite familiar with Hagane via his matches in Gatoh Move/ChocoPro. Big fan of his, but after my introduction to Nakazawa in the previous batch of these matches I’m not particularly psyched for this.

Hagane had not appeared for AEW prior to this, but would work several matches for Dark a couple months later including a lauded singles against Kenny Omega.

Nakazawa comes out to join the announce desk, seemingly only so his opponent is forced to call him into the ring from there.

Once things get started Nakazawa asks for Hagane’s help putting on a kneepad, then hits him with the microphone when he obliges.

Hagane gets crotched on the ropes, then dragged along them as Nakazawa did to Ueno the previous day. This is apparently called the Hentai Slide. I have no words.

Hagane takes over with a dropkick. Nakazawa bails outside then dodges a slingshot dive attempt. Hagane however adjusts and lands on the apron. He climbs the outside turnbuckles and nails a moonsualt to the floor.

Nakazawa crawls to the stage, but Hagane catches up and suplexes him.

While Hagane is distracted by the ref trying to get them back in the ring Nakazawa uses the entrance tunnels to get behind Hagane for an ambush. He hits hiragana with … a life sized Nakazawa promotional standee. Use whatever’s on hand I guess.

Nakazawa brings the standee into the ring and charges Hagane with it, but Hagane rolls under it and dropkicks it into Nakazawa’s face.

Hagane’s crazy stiff kicks follow, then he goes up top to hit a missile dropkick for 2. A slam on Nakazawa sets up the moonsault, but Nakazawa rolls away Hagane hits canvas.

During a strike exchange Nakazawa takes off his t-shirt. If he does the underwear garbage again I’m out. Yeah his trunks are around his knees again. Pulls them back up and there he goes taking off the under trunks to put on his hand and I’m done. Not interested in watching this stuff again. Once was much more than enough.

Was fine until I gave up at around 6 out of 8 minutes. Nothing like advertising a video game with matches centered around trying to shove used underwear in people’s faces. I wouldn’t have chosen this to end the weekend.

Skipping ahead to the finish Hagane wins with a hanging corner double stomp followed by Rahei (somersault STO rollup). Hagane’s great. Nakazawa’s skills are serviceable but his gimmick sucks.

It was smart to include some comedy in the exhibition matches, but found the choice of it poor. Crowd seemed fine for it though, so mileage will vary.

Over the course of the whole weekend these matches were a great way to promote the game. The participants, styles, etc were all carefully chosen and well presented to be accessible to both prior fans and attendees who might be seeing wrestling for the first time. Everyone worked hard and with the exception of the one aspect I’ve made clear wasn’t to my tastes all three days are easy recommendations.

This event and other shows from numerous promotions (including TJPW, DDT, Sendai Girls, Marigold, and so on) can be viewed with a Wrestle Universe subscription.

Thanks to everyone who’s given this a read. 2024 was a sporadic return for this blog and I hope to have more regular updates going forward in 2025. Derailments of Thought currently updates on Wednesday and Saturday.

If you enjoy the blog any support is appreciated, including shares on social media and simply continuing to read. If you happened to be inclined and able to help out monetarily please see my  Ko-fi page. Every little bit helps.

Categories
Japan Reviews Wrestling

Tokyo Game Show AEW Matches 9/17/22

September 17, 2022 in Tokyo, Japan

Back in 2022 Tokyo Game Show, an annual video game trade fair, featured several AEW sponsored wrestling matches to promote the release of AEW Fight Forever. I previously took a look at day one, and now it’s on to day two.

Konosuke Takeshita vs Chris Brookes

Cool matchup of two of DDT’s cornerstones. Brookes had numerous title reigns at this point but hadn’t ever won the big KO-D Openweight Championship yet. Takeshita had held it a number of times, and had just recently lost it a month prior.

Both these wrestlers faced Christopher Daniels (in separate singles matches) on day one.

The match starts with extended technical grappling including a cool counter where Takeshita powers Chris up while in an armlock to counter, but the latter releases his legs and stands up to prevent any sort of slam. They trade holds until Chris lands a chop and challenges Takeshita to respond in kind. A hard elbow levels Chris and that might not have been the wisest challenge to make.

An awesome moment sees Chris tease an inside out suplex from the apron, then hit a flying cutter into the ring after Takeshita fights out.

Chris works a deathlock for a bit while in control. Takeshita fights to the ropes for a break.

Later with Takeshita back on offense highlights include a wicked slingshot plancha, and a Blue Thunder Powerbomb for 2.

Takeshita goes up top. He’s intercepted by Chris but counters the latter’s superplex attempt and pushes Chris down. Chris pops right back up and hits a butterfly superplex.

Chris’ Praying Mantis Bomb (sitout butterfly piledriver) is escaped with a crazy counter seeing Ueno land on his feet when Chris sits out. A knee strike wipes Chris out.

They link left hands and forearm the hell out of each other with their rights. Takeshita eventually ducks one of Chris’ strikes and grabs a waist lock for a German suplex attempt. Chris counters into a rolling cradle but Takeshita rolls through it for 2.

A fast paced exchange of strikes ends with a big lariat by Takeshita, but the pin is countered into a tight crucifix by Chris for 2.

They go back and forth some more then Chris ducks another lariat, but after rebounding off the ropes he’s nailed with Takeshita’s kneestrike. The 3 is academic.

Handshake afterwards, then Takeshita gives the quick winner promo that’s been standard throughout the weekend.

Chris lost both his matches but looked great and Takeshita felt like a monster beating him clean here. Takeshita will wrestle again in the last match of the day.

A hard fought, exciting match. Again the presentation, participants, and matches have been spot on all around for an event like this.

Riho vs Hikari Noa

My most anticipated match of the whole weekend. Riho was AEW’s first ever Women’s Champion, and was a 16 year vet at age of 25 when this trade fair happened. This was her only match of the event.

Hikari is the only wrestler that had matches on all three days. As I said regarding day one seeing these previously unreleased matches of hers is a treat for me as I’m a huge fan and she has since left wrestling.

On a random note the smoke on the entrances is heavy today, completely blocking the side cam view of some of the wrestlers. It’s just a couple seconds of footage so no big deal, but it’s still a bit weird to see them walk through such a dense cloud.

Squaring up right away, they fight over wrist lock then go right into the standard quick paced counter exchange. Longtime wrestling fans know this when they see it, with rope running, leg sweeps, quick rolling out of covers, and so on. Always a good way to show athleticism though and a crowd pleaser. Can’t think of a better time to use it either, as there’s likely to be a bunch of first time watchers in the audience.

Hikari tries to get an edge of her much more experienced opponent with a number of hair tosses, but Riho counters the third with a cartwheel. A subsequent Riho crossbody is countered at one into a pin, which Riho quickly bridges out of.

Riho ties Hikari in the ropes, then climbs them herself and poses and waves to the audience with her foot in Hikari’s face. She breaks at 3. Riho then settles in for a bit with a deep single leg crab. Hikari struggles hard to claw her way to the ropes for a break.

Creating a bit of space, Hikari deploys her dropkick barrage. For those who haven’t seen this: she throws a number of dropkicks (or super kicks) in as quick succession as possible, sacrificing power for speed. They’re less impactful than carefully measured ones and are sometimes glancing blows, but the point is to overwhelm and wear down her opponent a bit.

Now in control, Hikari goes into her seated rolling cradle for 2.

Hikari rushes a downed Riho in the ropes, and hits a knee to the back. She does it again and gets legswept into Tiger Feint Kick (619) position. The knee was a touch awkward. Looked like Hikari expected Riho to be closer to the ropes (or maybe expected the sweep on the first run). But she adjusted well and it was a really minor thing.

Commentary went with the 619 name, so I guess I’m switching over. Riho nails it, then goes up top. Crossbody gets 2. Riho calls for the end, and her Northern Lights Suplex gets another close 2.

She goes up to the top turnbuckle again, but Hikari dodges the diving double stomp. Hikari’s charge is countered with a schoolboy rollup, and a resulting series of counter rollups for 2 ends with deep cover rollup by Hikari for an even closer 2. Great sequence.

Riho follows Hikari into ropes for a clothesline. Hikari returns the favor with hard dropkick, then follows up with a diving lariat for 2

Hikari’s Blizzard Suplex is fought out of, but she lands super kicks to Riho’s knee then head to keep control. Hikari goes up, but is slow due to exhaustion/damage. Riho meets her on the turnbuckles and after a forearm exchange superplexes Hikari back into the ring.

Riho’s diving double stomp from the top … gets 2.999999. Great shocked face from Riho at her opponent’s resilience. It’s Hikari’s last act of defiance though. Riho nails the Somato (running double kneestrike) and Hikari’s done.

Face paced and fun. In concept this was extremely similar to Hikari’s day one match against Mizunami. She was outmatched and fighting with all she had until she couldn’t anymore. But Riho’s a very different type of skilled vet than the physically imposing powerhouse Mizunami, so it was a quite different encounter.

This was essentially a dream match for me and I’m thrilled that it happened and that I could finally watch it. Shame it was one of the shortest matches of the weekend (I would’ve loved another 5 minutes), but 8 minutes is still solid and what we got was great.

Yuki Ueno vs Michael Nakazawa

Ueno was DDT’s Universal Champion at the time and came out with the belt. Outside of this, his only appearance for AEW was 7 months later on Dark.

Haven’t seen much of him, but he’s one of DDT’s top stars and was a great choice to have make an appearance.

After Ueno’s entrance different music hits, and at the announce table Nakazawa acts surprised. Didn’t catch the banter as I don’t speak much Japanese, but after a bit the crowd encourages him to get in to face Ueno.

He has the ref check him while still holding the mic and chatting. Bell rings with him still commentating as he circles Ueno. He calls for a lockup. Ueno forces him to the ropes and gives a mostly clean break. Nakazawa reverses the second lockup in the ropes and tries a cheap shot, but begs off when it doesn’t work.

Nakazawa calls for a handshake then tries a cheap shot with the mic while calling Ueno a baka (fool), but it’s blocked and he’s wiped out.

He tosses Ueno the mic and hits a super kick with the distraction. He’s now in full heel mode and the mic stuff is done. He works over Ueno in the corner for a bit.

Nakazawa pulls off his polo to reveal a Michael Nakazawa tank top.Then takes off his pants to reveal his trunks. If only he had stopped there. He whips then chokes Ueno with his pants. Once that’s done he elevates Ueno to crotch him on the ropes then slides him along them.

Nakazawa runs to ropes, but holds on to them to foil a Ueno dropkick counter. Eats the next dropkick though. Ueno repeatedly wipes him out with running forearms, then goes on an extended offensive flurry including a flying seated splash in corner, a beautiful overhead German, a plancha to the outside, and a DDT on the announce table.

Back inside, Nakazawa gets his knees up to counter Ueno’s top rope frog splash.

During a forearm exchange Nakazawa takes off his tank top to fire himself up. He eats another shot, lowers his kneepad, eats another shot, then lowers his trucks (he’s wearing another, slimmer pair underneath). The ref stops him from disrobing halfway, leading to another another shot from Ueno and Nakazawa’s now wrestling with his original trucks around his knees. I can’t believe I’m recapping this.

A teardrop suplex puts Ueno down and Nakazawa pulls his trunks up. He then takes off the underneath pair (a leg at a time) and puts them on his hands, then they struggle over whose face what’s essentially worn underwear is going to be shoved into. Of course it’s the ref that takes it as a collateral shot. This is now everything I hate about lowbrow humor in wrestling.

Nakazawa gets a rollup but there’s no ref as he’s still suffering from the underwear to the face. Suplex by Ueno, but he springboards into the trunks to the face. Cover with the trunks still over his face gets 2.

Nakazawa puts the deadly trunks on his knee, but whatever he had planned is countered with a dropkick. Half nelson suplex gets 3 for Ueno.

Objectively the crowd was into this and showing a different style of wrestling was smart. And DDT is known for its mix of comedy and action. Personally though I thought this was a waste of Ueno, showed only a fraction of what he’s capable of, and at 10+ minutes it was a lot of wasted time that could have been given to other matches. Fine for what it was, but what it was is so not for me.

Christopher Daniels & Ryo Mizunami vs Yuka Sakazaki & Konosuke Takeshita

Man if we could get AEW to regularly book Yuka and get over their aversion to intergender matches this dream team could be tearing things up every week. While Yuka was in TJPW at this time and a part time AEW guest, she’s now living in the US and a full time member of the AEW roster.

The wrestling experience in this match is insane. The least experienced participant is Yuka, who was a nine year veteran at the time. The rest range from 10 to 30 years in the business. Four masters of the craft.

The men start. Some fun counter wrestling early, leading to a Daniels cheap shot for a momentary advantage. But when things settle Takeshita hits a backdrop then a leg lariat to take over. Daniels bails to the corner to be comforted by Ryo. Tag to the women.

A counter wrestling exchange is dominated by the powerhouse, with some particularly vicious use of a headlock, but Yuka’s deceptively powerful and it won’t last long until she gives it back.

Fun sequence follows of Mizunami shrugging off Yuka’s shoulder blocks, then wiping out the smaller competitor with her own. Yuka sends Mizunami to her corner though and tags Takeshita. And thank goodness while they’re calling this a “mixed tag” we have proper intergender rules and not the silly meaning mixed tag has in the states (where tagging your partner forces a switch on the other side so men only face men and women only face women).

Takeshita elbows Mizunami in the corner. Yuka comes in for a double suplex, but she’s so much shorter than Takeshita she isn’t really needed and nonchalantly walks out while Takeshita has Ryo up. Then Yuka lands an enzugiri on Mizunami’s head as Takeshita brings her down. Great, creative double team.

Daniels comes in to get plastered with a double rolling elbow. Yuka goes out but gets tagged right back in. Looks like they’ll be minimizing the sections of men versus women, but at least it’s not being overly artificially done. Double axhandle from the top to Miznumai’s arm as Takeshita holds it.

Yuka’s trademark forward snapmare roll into a kick sets up the sliding lariat for 2. She goes up top, but from the apron Daniels grabs her leg to delay and Mizanumi slams her off the top. Mizunami works Yuka over with stomps and strikes. A chin lock into the Camel Clutch keeps Yuka grounded. Great heelish touch as Daniels tries to push the bottom rope out of Yuka’s reach as she goes for a rope break, but she eventually makes it anyway.

Yuka floats out of a bodyslam attempt, but Daniels trips her as she hits the ropes then gets into it with the announcers. Nakazawa on commentary makes a horribly sexist comment of “what’d you do man? I mean she’s just a girl man,” to Daniels. She is, in fact, a multi-time singles and tag champion who has competed numerous times against men during her career and was an equal competitor in this contest (and was 30 years old at the time). The heel move was the illegal person tripping her and had nothing to do with Daniels being a man and Yuka being a woman. Clearly trying to get more heat on Daniels, but that infantilizing bullshit is counter productive.

Mizunami lays in machine gun chops in the corner, but the showy one to end the series is ducked. Yuka fights back but is rocked by more strikes. Mizunami hits ropes and runs into TEA TIME (scoop suplex). Yuka’s crazy strong and that was so smooth despite the size difference.

Both down. Mizunami manages the tag to Daniels before Yuka can get to her own corner. He cuts her off and sends her to a neutral corner. Stopping to taunt Takeshita, he runs into Yuka’s boot when he resumes his charge. Yuka takes him down with a hurricanrana, then ducks a clothesline and rolls into the tag to bring in Takeshita.

Takeshita runs over Daniels numerous times, then nails the Blue Thunder Powerbomb. It gets 2 as Mizunami saves. Daniels uses her as a distraction for a cheap shot on Takeshita, but Yuka comes in with a missile dropkick on Daniels.

Hard Yuka elbows rock Mizunami, but a lariat turns the tide and then Mizunami levels her with a spear. Mizunami goes up top but Yuka meets her there with forearm shots. Superplex attempt is thwarted by Daniels pulling Yuka down. She fights off him off though and stuns him with an enzugiri, then Takeshita launches Miznuami off the turnbuckles at Daniels for an unwilling crossbody.

With Mizunami out on the mat, Yuka goes up for the Magical Magical Girl Splash (that’s not a typo, the double “Magical” indicates this is the version where she does a spinning splash (Twisted Bliss) from the middle of the top rope). Takeshita hits the running knee strike to Daniels a second later and a double pin gets the win (Takeshita and Daniels were still legal so that was theoretically the pin that mattered, but the ref counted both).

Fantastic match. Best of the weekend against solid competition.

Takeshita thanks his opponents for the match and the four shake hands.

Another strong batch of promotional matches, with everything not involving Nakazawa being great. And admittedly even the match I couldn’t stand served a purpose.

This event and other shows from numerous promotions including TJPW, DDT, Sendai Girls, Marigold, and so on can be viewed with a Wrestle Universe subscription.

Thanks to everyone who’s given this a read. 2024 was a sporadic return for this blog and I hope to have more regular updates going forward in 2025. Derailments of Thought currently updates on Wednesday and Saturday.

If you enjoy the blog any support is appreciated, including shares on social media and simply continuing to read. If you happened to be inclined and able to help out monetarily please see my  Ko-fi page. Every little bit helps.

Categories
Japan Reviews Video Games Wrestling

Tokyo Game Show AEW Matches 9/16/22

September 16, 2022 in Tokyo, Japan

Back in 2022 Tokyo Game Show, an annual video game trade fair, featured several AEW sponsored wrestling matches to promote the release of AEW Fight Forever. The eventual game itself was less than warmly received, but the unique matches had quite a bit of buzz around them from those lucky enough to catch them.

The lineup contained a mix of a few select AEW roster, some Japanese wrestlers who had appeared for AEW, a couple of DDT’s stars and one of TJPW’s top rising stars (at the time). Most of them worked two or more matches through the weekend. There were a total of 9 matches over the three days involving 10 different wrestlers.

These matches were recently put up for streaming on the Wrestle Universe platform (subscription required). They involved a lot of my favorites wrestlers of all time on both the women and men’s sides so I’m thrilled to see them finally shared.

Christopher Daniels vs Chris Brookes

Winner faces Takeshita later in the last match of the day. First of many dream matches in this lineup for me. Been watching Daniels wrestle for well over a decade starting back in ROH, and I’m extremely familiar with Chris via ChocoPro.

Daniels has worked Japan a lot in the past and is part of AEW talent relations, so was a natural choice to be involved in this. Brookes has been DDT roster for years, making this an interesting matchup of two foreigners well established in Japan. All of the other competitors in these matches are Japanese.

Daniels was getting close to 30 years in at the time of these matches. He retired from in-ring competition earlier this year.

On a completely random note, Chris has incredibly awesome entrance music.

Brookes’ size advantage vs Daniels’ experience edge anchored this match. It was all about Daniels picking Chris apart and Chris fighting back with holds and high impact strikes and moves. Solid, straightforward stuff that was exactly what it needed to be as the initial offering to a potentially largely unfamiliar audience.

Ending saw Daniels hide behind the ref when Chris up top and kick ropes to cause an unfortunate landing for Brookes. With Chris crumpled on the mat the Best Moonsault Ever (BME, a triple jump up the corner turnbuckles into a moonsault) was academic for the for win.

By the numbers finish in the best way possible that gave Chris an out and let Daniels proceed to Takeshita.

Daniels teased heel tendencies during the match and went full bore during the post match interview by attacking his translator (Michael Nakazawa) to send a message to Takeshita. Takeshita came out and Daniels bailed, saying they’ll face when he says so. Super efficient way to set up a story for their impending match.

Ryo Mizunami vs Hikari Noa

Such a treat to see these lost Hikari matches. She was a personal favorite who left wrestling last year. The three women’s singles matches across this event are basically her running a gauntlet of several of my other favorites. A rising star in TJPW at the time, these were her first and only AEW affiliated matches. The other women participants had all appeared for AEW before. She starts with the charismatic powerhouse Mizunami.

Mizunami easily overpowered Hikari in the opening lockup, absorbed Hikari’s dropkicks like they were nothing, and wiped her out with several shoulder tackles.

It was made crystal clear that Hikari was fighting an uphill battle here, and her tenaciousness was the story. She fought tooth and nail to even get a hair toss, which took several attempts and stomps to Ryo’s feet to be able to move the much larger competitor.

Mizunami easily reversed a scoop slam, and later when Hikari floated out of another slam attempt by Mizunami the latter simply leveled Hikari with a chop. A Camel Clutch tortured Hikari until she could make the ropes, she took machine gun chops in corner, and so on. At one point was nailed with and STO and Mizunami’s big leg drop for a super close 2.

But Hikari was the best kind of persistent underdog and fought back whenever she got an opening. At one point she countered a corner rush with a dropkick, ducked a Mizunami lariat then hit a flying clothesline, then threw her dropkick barrage at the powerhouse. Later a great rolling cradle got 2. Other close calls for Mizunami came from a sliding rollup with a bridge and a superkick barrage.

Late match Mizunami took a superkick but then fought off a Blizzard Suplex setup and nailed Hikari with a lariat followed by a spear. Hot Limit (Cradle Shock variant) ended it.

Energetic encounter with the outmatched Hikari throwing all she could at Mizunami until she had nothing left. Perfect match for the participants. Fun stuff.

Christopher Daniels vs Konosuke Takeshita

Daniels slaps away handshake offer to remind everyone he went full heel earlier in the day. This is about 6 months before Takeshita’s big heel turn in AEW, and he was 100% pure babyface in this time period. Takeshita started in DDT but now primarily wrestles in AEW, being official roster for both companies (and recently NJPW as well).

Daniels pulled Takeshita’s hair then gloated about taking him down. In turn Takeshita LEVELED Daniels with a slap. Ten seconds in and the battle lines are drawn, the characters clear, and the crowd engaged.

Takeshita got a huge reaction for landing some big shots on Daniels early. He teased an inside out suplex from the apron, but Daniels went to the eyes and proceeded to control for a while. Highlights included a sweet Saito suplex, and mounted punches to *back* of Takeshita’s head in the corner in an unusual and brutal looking spot.

Later a back elbow and a lariat gave Takeshita some daylight, and the pace picked up. Takeshita hit a gorgeous plancha then back in a Blue Thunder Powerbomb got 2.

Daniels dodged Takeshita’s jumping and hit Angel’s Wings… FOR ONE?! Great use of the quick kickout there.

Takeshita fought back with a rolling elbow, but his charge in the corner eats boot. BME gets 2. Having Takehista tough things out and survive the move that put Brookes away earlier is particularly nice layered storytelling for anyone who attended both matches.

A palm strike with Takeshita up top set up a FrankenSteiner attempt by Daniels. But he was pushed off and ate canvas. A jumping knee from the turnbuckles followed, then Takeshita hit another for good measure to get 3.

Formulas are formulas for a reason. Great little feel good, well worked face over heel match. Hottest match of the day.

All three of these matches were a blast and exactly what they should have been for the event. Really impressed with how it was all handled and presented, and at a solid 9-10 minutes of action apiece these were a great way to promote the game and potentially introduce new fans to AEW and wrestling in general. Looking forward to watching the rest.

Thanks to everyone who’s given this a read. 2024 was a sporadic return for this blog and I hope to have more regular updates going forward in 2025. Derailments of Thought currently updates on Wednesday and Saturday.

If you enjoy the blog any support is appreciated, including shares on social media and simply continuing to read. If you happened to be inclined and able to help out monetarily please see my  Ko-fi page. Every little bit helps.