Tag: TJPW

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Japan Wrestling

Retirement Reflections – Nao Kakuta & Tae Honma

A quick look back on some personal highlights of the careers of a couple of fun wrestlers who I’m interestingly mostly familiar with outside of their original promotion.

Nao Kakuta

In the type of amusing coincidence that’s becoming common for this blog, I had no idea I was featuring two wrestlers who double debuted against each other when I chose to spotlight them together for this post. Nao and Tae both debuted for Actwres girl’Z on 5/31/15 in a singles match against each other.

It was the better part of three years into her career when I saw Nao for the first time. It was one of only a handful of times I ever saw her wrestle live, and it remains a lasting an enjoyable memory to this day.

AWG’s Bloody Cat faced Fairy Nipponbashi on Wave’s Young OH! OH! 1/8/18 show. I adored Nao immediately, and to my delight she picked up the win when she had more than enough of Fairy’s magical nonsense and just whacked her over the head with her own wand then rolled her up for the 3 count.

My other rare opportunities to see Nao live ended up being a Kani King Produce show of all things as well as one single time in her home promotion at Actwres girl’Z 1/20/19 show.

Free Wi-Fi PSC by Miki Okazaki.

In late 2020 Nao left Actwres and went to Tokyo Joshi Pro, where she’d spend the rest of her career. She fit in well, and always seemed to be enjoying herself in her matches.

In mid 2022 she would start teaming with my then favorite wrestler in the promotion, Hikari Noa, to form the tag team Free Wi-Fi.

The two had wonderful chemistry as a team and were a blast to watch. They’d eventually win the Princess Tag Team titles in October, 2024. It was the only title of Nao’s career.

Right before TJPW’s big January 4th show that year Free Wi-Fi forfeited the tag titles with Hikari being absent for undisclosed reasons. She never returned to wrestling, and her retirement was made official in May.

Nao was winding down her career herself, and had a proper farewell including a special self produced show right before her retirement where she had a match with fellow AWG alumni she had started with in Saori Anou, Natsupoi, and Tae.

I’m long overdue with this tribute as Nao retired in July, 2024, but I still wanted to reminisce a bit. Nao still pops now and then, as I’ll mention again shortly. I hope all is going well for the former Rat Chaser.

Tae Honma

Ice Ribbon’s “Best Enemy”

I saw a lot of wrestling each time I visited Japan. My first trip was both incredible and overwhelming. I saw 17 shows from 8 different promotions featuring 144 wrestlers. Of course some of it blurred together …

In the middle of it I attended a Reina show pretty much solely to see Tsukasa Fujimoto’s title match. I had no familiarity with the promotion nor most of their roster or the guest wrestlers appearing from other promotions. While the rest of the show was good enough, to be perfectly honest I promptly didn’t remember anything outside of Tsukka vs Maki Narumiya.

As it turns out that show was actually the first time I had ever seen Tae Honma wrestle, a mere 7 months into her career. The match was her and Maki Natsumi (now Natsupoi) against Saori Anou and Yuna Manase. Totally fine tag team match, but it completely slipped my mind for a while.

I find this worth noting in hindsight mainly because two years later at Ribbonmania I was convinced I was getting my first look at Tae and remember being incredibly impressed.

Tae is charisma personified, with a smash mouth style built on top of strong technical skills. She was feuding with Kyuri at the time, which meant she was appearing at a lot of the Ice Ribbon shows I regularly attended. Their battles spilled over into other promotions as well, including the Wave Young OH! OH! show I mentioned with regards to Nao above.

Tae and Kyuri were both regular partners of Maika Ozaki (as SPiCEAP and Gekokujo respectively), and their issues would involve Maika as well as Saori Anou in various forms over time. The four had great chemistry and their matches in different combinations were always fantastic. I’m a huge fan of all four of them to this day.

Tae Honma & Maika Ozaki PSC by Veronica O’Connell

I’ve seen and attended several awesome matches of Tae’s over the years. But I’d be lying if I tried to deny that the first thing that pops to mind will forever be the infamous hot dog match from Frank Sisters Produce 1/5/18.

Tae and Maya Yukihi faced Tsukka and Hamuko Hoshi in one of the most unique matches I’ve ever seen. Music would randomly be played during the match, at which point wrestlers currently in ring could eat hot dogs supplied by their seconds.

Watching them stuff their faces with hot dogs then immediately go back to taking hard shots and stomach bumps was unsettling in the most weirdly compelling way. The action was great, with everyone giving 110% effort.

The reason this match will always spring to mind with regards to Tae for me is that she was an absolute monster and the mvp of the whole affair. She and Maya, and again mostly she, outate their opponents by 9 hotdogs. Post show I talked to Tae while getting some pictures signed and she expressed being very full and never wanting to eat hot dogs for at least a year.

Tae was officially part of the Actwres roster until they rebranded as a wrestling related theatrical company and several of their wrestlers went freelance. She had always worked heavily in other promotions even before that, and as mentioned I primarily knew her through those appearances.

I did get to attend one AWG show that featured Tae, again a show I mentioned above that had Nao on it as well. Tae had a really cool Gatoh Move crossover match that saw her team with Yuna Mizumori (now of Stardom) against Mii and Riho (now of AEW).

Tae’s had a great retirement road that let her cross paths with a number of old compatriots from her AWG days as well as making final appearances in numerous promotions she wrestled in over the years. Tae continued to team with Maika, and she will be retiring as half of Wave’s Tag Team Champions as SPiCEAP still holds those titles.

Nao Kakuta made a special appearance as part of Tae’s match against Saki from GPU COLORS yesterday.

Tae Honma’s retirement match will be today, 10/13/25 (local Japan time/date), in just a couple hours at Ranmaru Festa Vol. 43. The show can be purchased for live streaming (with a week archive) here.

Tae was always an absolute joy to watch. Wishing her all the best in life post wrestling.

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.

Categories
Japan Wrestling

Final Boss: Meiko Satomura’s Retirement

Recently we all said goodbye to who was in my opinion simply the best wrestler in the world.

Meiko Satomura debuted April 15, 1995, and was already a 20 year veteran when I was first fortunate enough to see her wrestle live at the end of 2015. I had of course heard of her, as she was already well on her way to being a legend, but I hadn’t seen her wrestle until then. I was in for a treat.

As it happens that show was one of the first shows I ever saw live in Japan at all, Stardom Year End Climax 2015. It was headlined by Meiko defending the Wonder of Stardom title as an outsider champion against company ace Io Shirai (now WWE’s Iyo Sky). It was a hell of an introduction to two truly incredible wrestlers.

Meiko wrestled Io 1-on-1 a total of five times (twice each before and after the above match). As luck would have I managed to attend another of their battles at Senjo’s April 2018 show. It was another excellent, engrossing encounter and it was fascinating to see how two already extremely accomplished wrestlers kept evolving in the couple years that had passed.

In retrospect it also ended up being their final singles encounter. Rather surprising given their overlap time in WWE, and the fact WWE never ran the match is insane.

Everything Meiko did in the ring had meaning, with great attention paid to the little details of her craft. So every match felt special, and battles against opponents with skill levels like Io’s were always jaw dropping.

Meiko’s intensity was always on full display. She dismantled her opponents with hard hits and unmatched mastery of wrestling fundamentals. She brought out the best in her everyone she fought and forced them to rise to her level. Japan’s “Final Boss” was the wrestler everyone wanted to test themselves against.

Some of my personal favorite matches of Meiko’s involved her facing up and coming stars. These were almost never about whether or not Meiko’s opponent could win. It was about the fight they put up.

Throughout my trips to Japan I saw a total of eight of Meiko’s matches. Her promotion, Sendai Girls (Senjo), had a schedule that didn’t always match up with when I was there. But I did see her four times in Senjo and as many in other promotions.

Five of those were singles matches, and in addition to the pair of Io matches I was lucky enough to have been at two matches of Meiko’s at TJPW (Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling) shows where a couple of that company’s top stars got to test their mettle against the legend.

The first was in August of 2017, against TJPW’s ace in waiting Miyu Yamashita. It was exactly the breakout performance I’d been waiting for from Miyu at that time, and it’s no surprise it came against someone the caliber of Satomura.

From my review of that show:
“Miyu wrestled like someone with something to prove from the very first second and really took it to Meiko, believably smothering the veteran at points with relentless offense, but just couldn’t put the larger, more experienced wrestler. Meiko of course is an artist in the ring and always a joy to watch.”

That same show was headlined by my two favorite TJPW roster members battling it out for the Princess of Princess Championship. A couple years later a personal dream match happened as the victor of that match, Reika Saiki, got her own one on one encounter with Meiko on TJPW’s 1/4/2019 show. As always with my highly anticipated matches of Meiko’s, it was exactly what I expected and hoped for.  

The fifth singles match of Meiko’s I saw live left to talk about was legend vs legend. On my first Senjo show she wrestled Ayako Hamada in a #1 contender ship match for the Sendai Girls World Title that was simply phenomenal. The two beat the hell out of each other and it was my top match of the entire trip.

Outside of the matches of hers I was lucky enough to see live, one particularly cool experience I had was the opportunity to attend was a Sendai Girls New Year’s Party fan event in early 2019. It was a fun chance to meet and hang out with Senjo wrestlers and other fans, and of course an honor to meet Satomura.

Meiko, DASH Chisako, and Millie McKenzie

Meiko could do it all, and never shied away from a fight. Moving on from stuff I personally saw live, I want to specifically point out her intergender matches. She waged war against a number of male opponents over the years, including wrestlers who would go on to appear for WWE or AEW and may be quite familiar to foreign fans such as Pete Dunne and Konosuke Takeshita. The entire feud she had alongside fellow Sendai Girls wrestlers Chihiro Hashimoto and DASH Chisako against DDT Pro’s faction All Out was wild and well worth seeking out.

Speaking of WWE, as I alluded to above Meiko regularly appeared for WWE for a while later in her career. She appeared in the Mae Young Classic 2018, making it to the semi finals with victories over Killer Kelly, Mercedes Martinez, and Lacey Lane before being eliminated by Toni Storm.

She returned in 2021 and made most of her appearances as part of the roster on NXT UK, and was NXT UK Women’s champion from 6/2021 to 9/2022.

She made a few NXT appearances early 2023 after NXT UK was wound down, and last appeared for WWE during their Japan tour in July 2024. While I lamented that WWE never ran an Iyo vs Meiko singles, they did cross paths in a WWE ring during this tour.

Meiko teamed with Bayley, Bianca Belair, and Jade Cargill to face Damage Control (Iyo, Asuka, Kairi Sane, and Dakota Kai) on two shows. On the final show of the tour Meiko challenged her previous teammate Bayley for the WWE’s Women’s Title.

Her April 2025 retirement had been announced right before that title match. Going into 2025 I wondered if one final appearance might happen at the Royal Rumble or possibly during Wrestlemania weekend (which was shortly before her final show). There were also rumors of her being in attendance of NXT Roadblock in NYC. But as it turns out the match against Bayley was her final WWE appearance in retrospect, and a championship match isn’t a bad bookend for her time there.

Meiko’s retirement tour was a gauntlet of tough opponents and challenging contests as she bid farewell to the ring. She faced DASH, Chihiro, Saori Anou, Minoru Suzuki, Yuki Arai, Nanae Takahashi, Takumi Iroha, Sareee, and a great number of other significant opponents in emotional matches. Sadly a challenge from Emi Sakura never materialized into a match, but otherwise it was a series of great farewell matches featuring near everyone fans could have hoped to see challenge the Final Boss one last time.

Meiko’s final show was on April 29, 2025 at Korakuen Hall. In the main event she teamed with Manami against Senjo ace Chihiro and another legend, Aja Kong.

Manami’s inclusion in this match was special and significant. Trained by Meiko and having debuted at the age of 13, she’s now 20 and a 7 year veteran charismatic rising star in Senjo. I saw her wrestle live early on in her career and her potential was immediately obvious.

I’d also seen her and Meiko team opposite Kong once before. On Senjo’s 1/6/2019 show The Senjo roster team of Meiko, Manami, Mika Iwata, & Cassandra Miyagi face Aja, Hiroyo Matsumoto, Alex Lee, & Mikoto Shindo. Manami was fed to the wolves, with Meiko at one point refusing a tag and demanding the relative rookie get back to the center of the ring and put up more of a fight against the monstrous Kong. She was pushed to her limits, rose to the occasion, and the audience went nuts when she eventually secured the victory for her team.

Meiko & Manami would prove successful one last time, winning Meiko’s retirement match when Meiko pinned Kong with Scorpion Rising.

But that wasn’t quite the end. Post match Aja wanted to fight alongside Meiko one last time and throws out a challenge. Five wrestlers argued about who was going to accept but the vets don’t care about the handicap. So Meiko Satomura’s true final match ended up being a five minute time limit draw in which she and Kong fended off Chihiro, Iwata, Iroha, YUNA & Senka Akatsuki (and Sakura Hirota doing Sakura Hirota things). All told Meiko’s final show was a fitting an appropriate goodbye.

Farewell Final Boss. Thanks for an incredible 30 years and best wishes in whatever comes after wrestling.

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.

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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 Wrestling

Listen to Namba: Sayuri Namba’s “Graduation” from TJPW

March 5, 2025

While the core attraction of any wrestling promotion is of course the wrestlers, there are a variety of other people involved in various necessary supporting and production roles. One of the most visible of these is the ring announcer, who introduces match participants, announces results and winners, and conveys other information as needed to the audience.

An enthusiastic, skilled announcer adds significantly to the experience of attending or watching a wrestling show, and one of the very best in recent memory is Tokyo Joshi Pro-Wrestling’s (TJPW’s) Sayuri Namba.

Sayuri Namba PSC by Miki Okazaki.

Since 2018 Namba’s been an integral part of TJPW’s presentation. Her pre-show instructions to the crowd is part of the ritual of attending and TJPW often starts their livestreams early so viewers get the whole experience. (For those who don’t know, pre-show instructions include information about post-show merchandise sales and meet and greets, as well as rules about permissible photography, behavior, etc.) She’s as much a part of the roster as the wrestlers, and participates in meet and greets and merchandise.

Namba is charisma personified, occasionally odd in endearing ways, and able to convey gravitas when the situation demands it. She’s always excited about the shows and portrays that excitement well, which makes it contagious and gets the audience excited too. Her presence makes already fun TJPW shows even more enjoyable.

This is where I’d normally talk about my first time seeing Namba at a live event, but I have no specific recollection because there’s no specific moment to recall. No debut match to point at in the way there would be with a wrestler. Namba is a perfect announcer in that regard. She knows how to engage and entertain the audience while remembering that her task is to shine a spotlight on the competitors. No one moment stands out or draws attention away from the matches, but she’s completely memorable overall because of the enthusiasm and uniqueness she brought to her duties.

She’s also become so integral that it feels like she’s always been a part of TJPW, even though I started watching a couple years before she joined.

Namba puts her all into everything she does. A particularly great example of this is the amount of effort she put into TJPW’s costume chekis (small polaroids), particularly the annual Halloween ones. She did multiple costumes each year and they were always fantastic.

Wonderful picture in which Namba decided to mimic the pose of a character on my t-shirt.

Namba is incredibly friendly and always excited to meet fans. I was fortunate enough to meet her several times during my pre-pandemic trips to Japan. She made serious effort to communicate with foreign fans and her English has gotten quite good.

On June 22 at TJPW’s Ryogoku KFC Hall show Namba will be “graduating” from TJPW (the term is used in Japan when someone leaves a company to move on, whether it’s for retirement or a case like this). There will be a special event entitled “Sayuri Namba’s Dream Come True Special” on June 14th. I hope everyone has a great time in the next few months giving Namba an enjoyable sendoff.

She’ll be moving to Vancouver, due to both it’s proximity to America and hearing good things about the area itself.

Namba will be missed in TJPW, but wishing her all the best abroad whether she continues with wrestling announcing or finds a new path.

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
Wrestling

AEW Match Review: Yuka Sakazaki vs Mercedes Moné

AEW Dynamite January 29, 2025

Yuka Sakazaki is a longtime favorite wrestler of mine, and since her departure from TJPW in December of 2023 to move to the US and be a full time member of the AEW roster I’ve been waiting for her to be spotlighted properly.

She was out with injury for a while in the middle of 2024, but came back last Fall in a short feud with AEW Women’s Champion Mariah May. Her absence on AEW programming since is odd as it’s not due to lack of availability, but regardless it’s nice to see her back and in a high profile match that might allow her to really remind the AEW audience what she’s capable of.

Mercedes Moné is of course the former Sasha Banks and has had a strangle hold on the TBS Championship since winning it last May.

Super excited for this matchup and glad it’s getting the main event slot it deserves. Going to try a live reaction, so away we go…

TBS Title Match: Mercedes Moné (c) vs Yuka Sakazaki

No one going into this has any illusions that Yuka can win here (although I think she should – a surprise shakeup on that level could create a lot of interest). So it’ll be interesting to see if they can get the audience into things enough to bite on near falls. They’re both certainly capable of it if this gets proper time.

Not looking good for that off the bat though as AEW plays a seemingly endless stream of recaps and promos before finally starting the main event at 10 minutes to the hour. Then they recap Yuka’s contendership match victory over her entrance, really diminishing her status as a challenger.

Counter wrestling to start, which is completely talked over by commentary to hype a Death Rider match on Collision.

Mercedes does her CEO dance taunt after a shoulder tackle, so Yuka returns the favor on both counts. Her mimicking the dance was amusing got a nice pop.

Announcers convey a 20 min time limit and say they’ll stay with it past the show end time if need be.

Yuka does a truncated rolling cradle for two after just a couple spins. Mercedes seemed a little off and didn’t roll with it quite right.

Mercedes NAILED Yuka with a Meteora on the floor after moving out of the way of an intended Yuka dive. Nice sequence showing the champ’s intelligence, but they really should have Yuka hit her big dive at some point.

We go to a commercial break 4 minutes in, that lasts as long as the match had been so far. Lousy way to let the main event build.

After a solid strike exchange Yuka counters a powerbomb into a hurricanrana.

A Meteora in the corner is dodged, and just as they’re starting to heat up momentum stalls as it takes Yuka two tries to do her springboard. Looks like the ropes might have been looser than she expected. Mercedes sold being dazed well and Yuka recovered quickly and hit a nice springboard on try two.

Yuka nails a brainbuster and her sliding elbow for 2.

The announcers try to sell possible ring rust for Mercedes as she “doesn’t have ring reps in” since she hasn’t wrestled since January 5th, but Yuka only had one match in that same timeframe so it doesn’t really track.

Moné hits the Three Amigos for 2. Then generates big time boos for walking back and forth across on Yuka. Yuka catches her on the turnbuckles with elbow strikes when she goes up though and hits a superplex for 2.

Magical Merry Go Round countered into a Moneymaker attempt, which is countered and Yuka level Moné with a kick. Magical Merry Go Round gets 2.

Mercedes comes right back with a backstabber into the Statement Maker, but Yuka survives by countering into a rollup for 2.

Big rolling elbow from Yuka dazes the champ. Shortly afterwards she catches Mercedes in the full body rollup that beat Deonna in the 4-way. Mercedes escapes at 2.

Mercedes gets tied up in the ropes and Yuka nails a SPIDER GERMAN to make the crowd start to come alive. Magical Girl Splash eats the knees however and the champ gets 2.

Powerbomb followed by the Money Maker retains for Moné.

Ends at 7 minutes past the hour (as per me watching on Max). Six minutes post commercials for about a 14 minute match total with 10 shown.

Solid if unremarkable match overall. Wasn’t bad and I was getting quite into it by the end, but it wasn’t what it could have and should have been. The highlights were fun and I always enjoy watching Yuka wrestle but it didn’t all quite feel properly connected. I’m harping on the time but a few more minutes to let things breath and allow for proper transitions between big moves would have made a huge difference. It ended up as glimmers of a great 20-25 minute outing shoved into 10 minutes of air time.

This was Yuka’s challenge to Mariah all over again where AEW didn’t do much to really get the crowd buying Yuka could win. And again a heel beat her squeaky clean. That said getting the main event spot at all does mean something. She did get a good reaction to her signature stuff too, so hopefully she earned a few more fans. I also hope AEW won’t forget she’s on the roster for four months again. Fingers crossed.

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.

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

Joy in Pro-Wrestling and Kaho Hiromi

Everyone has their own preferences and favorites when it comes to wrestling. Style, presentation, and other factors vary greatly among the large number of wrestling companies in the world and are all a matter of taste among fans.

While in general I tend towards a more athletic event, intensely competitive style of wrestling what I care about most is enjoying what I’m watching. May seem like an obvious statement, but worth explicitly mentioning as in my case it means a wide range of wrestling genres appeal to me. Both nail biting intensity and well done comedic moments can really draw me in to a match when done well.

As I often say in reference to an old favorite, TJPW’s August 26 2017 show: sometimes I want to see my two favorite wrestlers in a promotion tearing the house down for a title…

…and sometimes I want to see Maki Itoh chasing idol lumberjacks around the ring with a squeaky toy hammer.

When any promotion can give me both in the same show and have it feel natural and cohesive I’m as happy as can be.

For me wrestling is at its best when its a mix of light heartedness and intense competition. I want my humorous elements woven into the general framework of wrestlers competing and trying to win, but can go for pretty absurd match premises and gimmicks when internally consistent and done well.

Ice Ribbon and ChocoPro (formerly Gatoh Move) have been always great places for this combination, which is a large reason why they’re two of my absolute favorite promotions.

This year’s Ribbonmania from just a couple weeks ago was a great example of a well paced, thoroughly enjoyable top to bottom show with a variety of aspects to it. ChocoPro’s holiday shows were likewise a blast with a little bit of everything sprinkled throughout.

All of which brings me around to what prompted this particular deep dive into the happy aspects of wrestling: ChocoPro’s most recent roster addition Kaho Hiromi.

Emi Sakura is excellent at developing wrestlers within their own ways to really highlight what they can do while letting them be wholly unique. I’d argue no other environment or trainer could have given us Lulu Pencil, the wonderfully goofy ninja Sayuri, etc.

Over her near 30 year career Sakura has trained a large number of children, including AEW’s first ever Women’s Champion Riho who started at age 9 and is a 18 year veteran at age 27.

Sakura’s most recent wrestling prodigy, reigning Super Asia Champion Mei Suruga, is following in her mentor’s training footsteps as well with similarly excellent results. With Sakura living in the US as part of her participation in AEW, Mei has been the primary teacher for several of the recent roster additions.

Mei runs their casual training program DareJyo in Sakura’s absence, with Sakura being heavily involved as well whenever she’s back in Japan. DareJyo recently shared one of its showcase events on YouTube. It’s a great watch and provides insight on how ChocoPro approaches introducing people to the world of wrestling.

DareJyo is open to women and girls of all ages. Several DareJyo participants have continued on into full training and later officially debuted as professional wrestlers, including Mei herself as well as the energetic and cheerful grade schooler Kaho Hiromi.

Kaho debuted on August 31, 2024 against Ryo Mizunami at Gatoh Move’s return to Korakuen Hall.

The imposing multi-time champion 20 year veteran powerhouse was a mismatch for Kaho is just about every way imaginable. But that was the point. The match was about Kaho’s effort, perseverance, and attitude. She showed all in spades. Her charisma and determination shined and the crowd was behind her even against the super popular Mizunami. The outcome was never in doubt, but I was invested in Kaho’s efforts all the same. She eventually fell to Mizunami’s leg drop, but Ryo carried the little warrior to the back on her shoulders in a show of respect.

Her matches in the months since them have been likewise engaging, but it was specifically her matches around the holidays that brought all this to the forefront in my mind and made me want to write this post. This year was rough for me and I was stuck home alone for the holidays. Being able to watch and enjoy various wrestling shows from my favorite promotions halfway around the world helped my mood a lot. And it struck me how often watching little Kaho do her best with a smile on her face against opponents bigger, stronger, and older than herself was bringing a smile to mine.

ChocoPro’s approach with Kaho has been excellent. Again the company has a lot of experience over the years with wrestlers of vastly different ages, sizes, and experience levels and knows how to showcase people within their limitations as well as the proper tone to establish.

Kaho generally wrestles with veterans and/or her trainers in the matches. If you watch carefully you’ll notice she doesn’t take heavy strikes or generally anything high impact. But you have to watch carefully to notice, as her matches are just plain too much fun and enthralling to be thinking about stuff like that.

And that’s what matters. Sakura’s companies have always been built around the idea that wrestling should be fun for both the wrestlers and fans, and the fun Kaho has in her matches is both obvious and contagious. She’s a plucky underdog trying her best, and her matches are a lighthearted blast to watch. They’ve developed a moveset and strategy that suits her, such as crossing her arms in front of her and charging opponents as a strike instead of traditional chops that would have no impact at her size.

She’s doing great. She moves well, gets the crowd excited, and is naturally incredibly easy to get caught up cheering for. Emi Sakura is one of my top favorite wrestlers in the world, yet I still can’t help but to cheer against her as she smugly taunts Kaho.

While some people may instinctively recoil from the idea of a child in a wrestling match (and/or intergender wrestling, another cornerstone of ChocoPro), there are a lot of great in ring stories to be told involving an opponent completely out of the realm of what a veteran would normally expect. It doesn’t have to be everyone’s thing, there are plenty of other companies and styles to watch, but again it all speaks to me personally as a fan.

Kaho often confounds her opponents a bit with her quickness and size. She’ll counter holds by wrapping herself around their legs in ways others can’t. She can jump around, dodge, and generally frustrate them in ways only a kid can. Usually unfortunately she gets caught and someone like Sakura leverages Kaho’s own attempted holds to force a pin (the boos Sakura has gotten when she essentially sits on Kaho for a victory are huge).

Recent highlights include ChocoPro 314’s triple threat that saw her face Sakura & Sayaka and her participation in the Christmas show’s battle royal. The latter saw her first encounter with DDT’s Chris Brookes, which was a riot (and cemented Chris being evil). She’s also had several fun mixed tag matches recently giving people like Hagane Shinno a new challenge.

Kaho’s been a wonderful addition to the ChocPro roster, and I really just wanted to take the opportunity both to spotlight her and to reminder everyone how important it is just to straight up enjoy wrestling. Whether your thing is desperately wanting a heel vanquished, deathmatches, sports-like presentation, comedy, or like me a mix of several approaches find companies that do what you like well, and have fun experiencing them.

Some other great currently active young and/or rookie wrestlers to watch include, but aren’t limited to, Ice Ribbon’s Kirari Wakana, TJPW’s Uta Takami, SEAdLINNNG’s Miria Koga, and the recently freelance Saran. I hope to keep watching all of them and Kaho for however long wrestling continues to be viable and fun for them all.

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.

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 Wrestling

Imagined Reality: The Art of Veronica O’Connell

Psylocke sketch card by Veronica O’Connell

I’ve had a surprisingly difficult time finding the proper words to open this look at the work of a truly special artist. There’s something indescribable that jumps out of Veronica O’Connell’s art and demands attention. So I decided to let the stunning depiction of Psylocke above make the first impression.

Ghost Spider, Spider-Woman, & Silk AP by Veronica O’Connell

I honestly don’t recall when I first saw Veronica’s work, but I do remember being blown away with her versions of Marvel characters and immediately putting her art on my collection list.

There is an incredible balance of realism and the fantastic in her illustrations. Her takes on comic characters simultaneously look like they could step right off into the real world while still feeling appropriately larger than life.

The qualities that initially caught my eye are on full display in the above gorgeous Spider-Women triptych, which is mind boggling. All the art I’ll be showing in this blog is directly drawn on blank trading cards. So each of the three characters shown above (Spider-Gwen, Spider-Woman, and Silk) is drawn on a third of a 3.5″ x 2.5″ work area. The detail and impact she’s able to achieve under such conditions is phenomenal.

There is so much style infused into Veronica’s work. Her use of color and lighting is exquisite and a big part of what makes her art so eye catching. It also underlies her emphasis of mood and atmosphere, making the same subjects feel different in different pieces depending on what she’s chosen to convey while retaining their core essence.

I have multiple cards by her of some of my favorite comic heroines, including Psylocke, Emma Frost, and Spider-Gwen, and the contrast between equally captivating depictions of the same character is fascinating to see.

Spider-Gwen PSC by Veronica O’Connell

My discovery of Veronica’s art through her Marvel work eventually led to the great opportunity to get some Personal Sketch Cards (PSCs) done as part of another key subset of my card collection.

I have followed and enjoyed Japanese women’s professional wrestling (joshi wrestling) for over a decade and collect related art in a number of forms. Veronica is the third artist to create PSCs for this collection, along with Juri H. Chinchilla and  Miki Okazaki

Kairi Sane PSC by Veronica O’Connell

Veronica’s renditions of the wrestlers she’s drawn for me are absolutely stunning. She achieves an amazing level of detail, capturing the subtleties of her subjects expressions and doing an exceptional job representing their intricate wrestling gear.

Perhaps most impressive is her ability to create such incredible likenesses on such small workspaces. From a distance these precise works could be mistaken for photographs, while up close the aspects that make the depictions hyper realistic elevate them even further.

Over time I’ve gotten 24 wrestling PSCs from Veronica, featuring a total of 30 wrestlers. Only 8 of those wrestlers had been drawn for me before on PSCs by other artists, meaning 22 of the wrestlers she drew for me were first time subjects for my sketch card collection.

All of the repeats were drawn in different gear and/or with different partners than the other cards I have, and it was a treat to get Veronica’s take on recurring collection subjects like WWE’s Asuka, AEW’s Riho and Hikaru Shida, and Sendai Girl’s DASH Chisako. Likewise awesome was adding in wrestlers I’d been meaning to have drawn like Asuka’s tag partner Kairi Sane and Stardom’s Starlight Kid.

Juria Nagano PSC by Veronica O’Connell

The vast majority of the wrestlers I had drawn for the first time were a large number of roster members and regular guests from two of my favorite promotions.

From Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling (TJPW), Veronica did wonderful cards of now former roster members Juria Nagano and Sakisama (with Mei Saint-Michel), tag teams Miyu Yamashita & Maki Itoh (121000000) and Himawari & Wakana Uehara, long time roster members Mizuki and Yuki Kamifuku (Kamiyu), and the Up Up Girls Hikari Noa, Miu Watanabe, Raku, & Shino Suzuki.

Veronica’s encapsulation of that Up Up Girls lineup is a particularly nice memento for me given the recent departure of my favorite member, Hikari Noa, from both TJPW and the Up Up Girls.

The other big focus among the joshi wrestling cards Veronica’s done for me is a company called Ice Ribbon. One of my most watched promotions, it was a privilege to get Veronica to do related cards for me.

The core IR lineup I got includes brief former roster member Amu Yumesaki, and current roster members featuring second generation wrestler Ibuki Hoshi and impressive newer wrestlers like Tsukina Umino, Mifu Ashida, and Kaho Matsushita.

I was also happy to add former IR regular guests Ram Kaicho (from Triple Six), Saori Anou (now of Stardom), and Tae Honma & Maika Ozaki (SPiCEAP, both freelance), and reigning ICE Cross Infinity Champion YuuRI (from GanPro) to the collection.

As with the comic art, Veronica’s vivd colors, stunning lighting and shading, and delicate touches make all of her wrestler illustrations simply gorgeous. I could not be happier with how they all turned out.

Joshi PSC displays. Art by Veronica O’Connell, Juri Chinchilla, and Miki Okazaki.

I’m extremely thankful to Veronica for all the fantastic art she’s created for me. I hope to continue collecting more in the future.

Asahi PSC by Veronica O’Connell

To wrap up I’d like to talk about a particularly special card Veronica’s done for me, although there is unfortunately tragic news attached to it. Early this year Actwres girl’Z reported a 21 year old member of their roster named Asahi had unexpectedly passed away. Asahi started her career in Ice Ribbon and was a personal favorite of mine. Nicknamed the Sunrise of Hope, she was always a joy to watch and is greatly missed. Veronica’s remembrance piece of Asahi is absolutely breathtaking and a cherished keepsake.

Rest in Peace Asahi.

Categories
Cards Japan Wrestling

Collecting Spotlight: BBM Women’s Wrestling 2024 Card Set

BBM releases yearly card sets for a variety of sports, and for over a decade I have been collecting their joshi wrestling sets. Here we’ll take a look at the details and differences in their most recent offering.

Known as True Heart until 2020 and simply Women’s Wrestling since then, these yearly sets focus on women wrestlers all across Japan. Most joshi wrestling companies and freelancers participate. The main exception is World Wonder Ring Stardom, whose roster members do not appear in these sets (Stardom has done occasional card based products on their own in the past).

There are also rare special sets released in addition to the yearly sets, such as the recent 2023 Ambitious. As opposed to the general random nature of packs and boxes, Ambitious 2023 was a box only release. Each box contained a complete 47 card base set, one of nine possible acrylic standee cards, and a small number of random chase inserts and signature cards.

The standard packing numbers for the last several years of Women’s Wrestling releases have been 6 cards per pack, 20 packs per box. Each box had some chase cards in random packs, with the chase card replacing one of the base cards (so you’re always getting 6 cards in a pack).

This release dropped from 20 packs per box to 18, but increased the cards per pack to 7. The seventh card in each pack is a one of the 24 “Kira” chase cards, shiny cards which feature a facsimile auto of the depicted wrestler. It’s a solid move for BBM, as now each pack has something a little special in it.

The other chase subsets in the 2024 set are a 9 card foil subset, and 19 “secret” chase cards (18 base card secret variants plus a secret card for Nanashi (“no name”)). The base cards generally feature two images of the featured wrestler while the various inserts highlight a single pose, headshot, etc. There tends to be 3 foil and 3 secret cards per box.

An assortment of base cards from the 2024 set.

The yearly base set varies in size each year to reflect new wrestlers, retirements, occasional special cards for tag teams, and so on. There are a lot of joshi wrestlers active in Japan and these are not small sets. The 2024 base set consists of 156 cards, which is a little over a box and a half of base cards (if no duplicates were drawn).

One of the main draws of the sets are the special randomly included cards signed by the wrestlers. This year there are 3-4 sig cards per box.

Anecdotally, for several cases I’m aware of, there were exactly 3 boxes in the 12 box case that had 3 sig cards with the remainder having 4. So it seems like a pretty stable 75% of boxes have 4 sig cards and 25% have 3.

These autographed cards are numbered and there’s generally around 100 of each base version. The vast majority of the base sigs cards this year are on card signatures (with stickers only used for included wrestlers currently based overseas), which is great.

The base signature card design this year is very simple, but I personally like them a lot. The focus is firmly on the wrestler and their signature, and having a fair bit of white background on them makes the insert variants with fully colored backs contrast more.

The 2024 set has signed secret variant cards for the wrestlers who have secret base versions. These are limited/numbered to 90. The foil insert subset has associated signature cards numbered to 60 each.

There are also a small number of “super secret” signature cards. Aja Kong has one limited to 30 copies, while five other wrestlers have versions limited to 10.

Stickers were used for all of the insert autos, which isn’t ideal but is understandable as they’re going for a certain look with these and the stickers limit signatures to a confined area on the card. All of the various insert autos this year look stunning.

The last chase items to talk about 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), with a few wrestlers doing different outfits and having a total of 20 this year.

In past years chekis were generally extremely stable pull rate-wise at 3 per case (or 1 per 4 boxes). This year it has dropped to 2 per case (1 in 6 boxes). While they are among the most rare inserts to try to collect, they’re wonderfully unique and a focus of my personal collection.

So that’s it for my breakdown of this year’s BBM Women’s Wrestling release. I wish anyone who decides to collect some of this fun set good luck with their pulls and pickups.

Categories
Japan Wrestling

Deathmatch Daisuki: Hikari Noa’s “Graduation” from TJPW

By the beginning of 2018 I had been to Japan a number of times, and Tokyo Joshi Pro-Wrestling (TJPW) had morphed from a curiosity that wasn’t really aimed at me into one of my favorite promotions.

Their big January 4th show that year opened with the quadruple debut of a wrestling subset of the idol group Up Up Girls, and included someone who would go on to be one of my absolute favorites in the promotion.

The original Up Up Girls lineup, Miu, Hikari, Raku, and Hinano, wrestled in identical gear outside of their signature color versions. They made a solid impression in a basic but fun debut match that hinted at a lot of potential for the group.

A year later the group would transition to new, more individualized gear and tweak their names. This is when Hikari became Hikari Noa, touches of her goth aesthetic were introduced into her outfit, and her unique personality and infectious charisma really started to show.

From the boisterous powerhouse Miu Watanabe, to the sleepy train otaku Raku, to the deathmatch loving Hikari Noa the Up Up Girls became more and more beloved by fans as they let themselves shine. As Pipipipi Pinano (the former Hinano) retired in April 2019, the Up Up Girls would continue as this trio until Shino Suzuki’s debut in 2023.

For me Hikari in particular was a breath of fresh air in wrestling. She took to it well, and evolved quickly in her early career consistently improving and finding her own style within the ring. She was engaging to watch, easy to cheer for, and eventually became one of TJPW’s most popular roster members.

I thoroughly enjoyed her matches, relishing in the opportunities I had to see her compete live against some of TJPW’s top stars. She was the ultimate underdog babyface to me, and I enthusiastically followed along with her progress and celebrated every victory.

In 2021 Hikari became the first Up Up Girl to win singles gold, defeating Yuki “Kamiyu” Kamifuku for the International Princess Championship. She held it from May until January with four successful defenses before losing it to former champion Maki Itoh.

“Deathmatch Daisuki” (“I love deathmatches”) Hikari Noa was true to herself in her wrestling goals, making it well known she intended to someday participate in the type of deathmatches that captured her imagination and attracted her to wrestling in the first place.

She was at the forefront of TJPW beginning to stretch beyond their norms. Her first ever hardcore match main evented TJPW’s first Inspiration show, a spin off concept for unique matches outside of TJPW’s core model. She put up a valiant fight against hardcore veteran Rina Yamashita in a great showing.

Hikari would get her ultimate wish in August 2021, participating in an Electric Current Deathmatch as part of an eight-person inter gender tag contest on a DDT show also featuring TJPW’s Maki Itoh on the other team. In 2023 she’d have a singles Fluorescent Lighttubes Deathmatch against Sawyer Wreck to headline Inspiration #6.

Deathmatches generally aren’t my thing, but I was thrilled that Hikari kept pushing her personal dreams and got to realize the ambitions that brought her into wrestling in the first place.

In September 2023 Hikari and her partner Nao Kakuta, collectively known as Free Wi-Fi, won the Princess Tag Team Championships.

The reign was unusually significant for Hikari, who had three other regular partners (Pinano, Sena Shiori, and Natsumi Maki) who either retired or left TJPW before the team could achieve championship success. For Nao, it was her first championship ever (and only, as she’ll be retiring this July).

Free Wi-Fi was an incredibly fun, skilled team and I was overjoyed to see them ascend to the top of TJPW’s tag division.

Hikari Nao PSC by Juri H. Chinchilla.
Hikari Noa & Miu Watanabe PSC by Veronica O’Connell
Raku & Shino Suzuki PSC by Veronica O’Connell
Free Wi-Fi PSC by Miki Okazaki.

In late December 2023, shortly before Free Wi-Fi was set to defend the Princess Tag Team Championships at TJPW’s 1/4/2024 show, a press conference was held announcing they were vacating the titles.

Hikari was not at the press conference (her partner Nao Kakuta and TJPW founder Tetsuya Koda spoke). It was initially reported that she was out due to illness. In mid February TJPW and Up Up Girls management announced she was on indefinite hiatus “due to personal reasons.”

Finally in May it was announced that “after discussions with her about her future” Hikari had left TJPW and Up Up Girls (the general term Japanese companies use for someone leaving, whether retirement or otherwise, is “graduation”).

There would be no farewell appearance or show, and no social media statement from her. The company statement included a general apology from her about not being able to live up to waiting fans wishing for her to return. Hikari has not made any public appearances nor any social media posts since before the original press conference in December.

At this time no one is aware if she’ll ever return to wrestling or public life in general. I will not speculate nor discuss this beyond the above presentation of the public timeline, but of course it is a shame to see one of my favorite wrestlers ever leave the company under such abrupt, clouded circumstances. But whatever the case, I hope things are going well for her.

If this is the end of her wrestling career, it will have spanned over 350 matches across six years. While I’d love for her to return, I am deeply grateful for all the time and effort she spent entertaining fans regardless.

Hikari was always cheerful and appreciative when greeting fans, and I am blessed to have had to the opportunity to meet her a number of times. My thanks again for all the fun she added to wrestling.

I will miss her terribly, but more importantly whatever she does in the future I hope she’s happy and I wish her all the best.

Categories
Art Cards Comics Japan Wrestling

Monochrome Masterpieces: Collecting Printing Plates

Today I’d like to talk about one of the most unusual and unique trading card related collectibles: the printing plates used to generate the images on the cards.

Printing plates are thin metal sheets used in the printing process of the card they represent. Generally there are four plates for a card corresponding to four basic component colors: black, cyan, magenta and yellow. When distributed plates usually have a sticker affixed to the back with publisher, set, card, and copyright information.

Different colored variants of a card won’t have different plates (changing ink saturation levels produces these versions) but variants with different background patterns, text or logos, etc will. Whether these other versions, or any plates at all, are distributed depends on the manufacturer, set, and distribution method.

Printing plates are extremely unique as a collectible. While many of them are still in great shape, given their nature they are also often imperfect as they may contain smudges, printing lines, blurred images, scratches, or other after effects of the printing process. How much these imperfections affect someone’s desire to collect a particular plate generally depends on the extent and of course personal preferences.

Also certain ink colors may have been practically unused in creating an image and that corresponding plate could be largely blank or an otherwise incomplete image. While rare, this phenomenon is a risk and particularly pops up comic and other art based cards (as opposed to photo based cards, where underlying colors are generally present across the image).

In certain circumstances printing plates may also be distributed with autographs. Actors or athletes depicted, or creators or voice actors of shown characters, sometimes have their autographs on the front of the plates. Usually it’s done via affixing a signed sticker, but direct signatures aren’t unheard of. This is an added layer of collectability and reward for the person who draws the plate.

Peni Paker collection

In addition to printing plates being randomly inserted into packs of their card sets, they are also commonly used as special distribution prizes. Upper Deck often has certain plates set aside to be used as rewards for completing collection goals in their online buying and trading platform ePack.

Sometimes plates used for these purposes are grouped together as sets, occasionally even being collected in connecting booklets. This can be convenient for completionists, as trying to collect all four color plates for a particular card when the plates are separately randomly inserted is a daunting task.

Metal Universe X-men printing plate booklets in custom display cases by Hardball34.

My personal affinity for collecting plates evolved from getting several wonderful booklet collections from the Metal Universe X-men set, as well as drawing some for my favorite characters from Marvel Annual sets and my favorite wrestlers from WWE and AEW sets.

From there I started more proactively chasing/trading for/buying plates and they’ve become a cornerstone of my collections all around. I adore the way the underlying color images look, and there’s just something cool about having a piece of the process.

The lion’s share of my plates are Marvel related from Upper Deck (UD), featuring a dazzling array of comic book characters and MCU actors.

However I also heavily collect joshi wrestling cards, and plates of certain wrestlers from UD’s AEW sets as well as Topps WWE sets form an additional, smaller centerpiece of my collection.

AEW’s Riho, Hikaru Shia, Nyla Rose, and William Regal and WWE’s Asuka and Iyo Sky.
Riho plate displayed with AEW 1/1s in a custom frame by Dion Divens.

Chasing plate “rainbows” (a complete color collection of plates for a given card) is a case by case basis for me. For certain images, characters, and wrestlers I collect everything of theirs I can find. In other cases a particular color plate for a particular card jumps out at me and I’m happy just to have that.

Occasionally a plate I’d otherwise want to keep just doesn’t look great to me in that color and/or with its particular imperfections. And of course as with any card related collectible rarity, availability, popularity with other collectors, and luck all greatly influence what actually ends up in the collection.

These little pieces of metal have become some of my favorite collectibles. I love monochrome art in the first place, and the fact that these are essentially art and photos broken down into that format appeals to me greatly. I’m sure I’ll be expanding their numbers for a long time to come.

I hope everyone’s enjoyed the look at my collection of these unusual inserts. Best of luck with wherever your personal collecting tendencies take you.