|
My take on this whole thing is that if I could trust New Japan to book women properly and give them somewhat equal treatment then I wouldn't object but I don't so I wouldn't want them to do it. I'd worry that either it'd end up like Women of Honor or CMLL's women's division and just be a total afterthought that no one cared about or go about it the wrong way - its not New Japan but TV Asahi had a Joshi special a few years ago that was very idol driven and while I don't object to an element of that (that's basically the whole shtick of Maki Ito and I rate her very highly; not the best in ring but really good at everything else) I think that the people who argue for a New Japan women's division thinking that it'd be like their Heavyweight mens division would be disappointed with what they ended up with. Its the old thing of being against tokenism since Tokenistic efforts are going to be very poo poo 99% of the time. Joshi would not be helped by New Japan raiding the scene to put on heatless six-women tags on occasional big cards... DDT is really the model of how to do it I think - have a satellite Joshi promotion and then incorporate the people there onto your main cards. Gives you the best of both worlds as a fan and also for them: you have women's only shows (well mainly women only; TJP does have some men on their cards every so often but honestly so does Stardom: Minoru Suzuki and KAI were on a show this time last year) giving talent a chance in front of crowds in a lot more prominent positions than they would likely get on mixed cards and then take most likely the top of those cards and feature them on your cards. DDT aren't perfect or anything but I think that they are the closest to the best route that New Japan would take to get a quality Women's division.
|
#
¿
Jan 12, 2019 19:40
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 21, 2024 19:27 |
|
|
2018 Rookie of the Year by far in all of wrestling. Sure they’ve protected her a little (but isn’t that the job of a wrestling company?) but I struggle to think of many people who’re as good as she is now six months into it. I mean the titles in question don’t really mean much other than the Tag Titles - the Future of Stardom Title is meant to be for the kids or rookies so it makes sense that she’d win that one (plus they’re setting up Starlight Kid for a push of her own); the SWA Title hasn’t really been relevant since the whole global alliance thing died and Viper hadn’t defended it for over six months and the EVE International Title is EVEs secondary belt, only created in October and this was the first defence of it. Giving them all to Utami makes her look like a big deal and I don’t think that it hurts the company at all. Indeed who has really lost out from this push? Starlight Kid is probably getting elevated from the Future of Stardom division so long term I think that she benefits from this, Viper is on the way out and so should lose to people and it’s not like she’s won one of the top two singles belts. The people who’ve perhaps lost out are those who might compete for the Future of Stardom title but who aren’t going to be beating Utami but what I think happens there is that she holds it until whenever she’s not eligible for it anymore (October?) and they do a tournament. Besides, would AZM or whoever really benefit from being the Champion - she’d still be the QQ pin eater much like today, just that she’d be a champion of a rather thin division.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 14, 2019 14:26
|
|
|
That's one that I might have to travel for if I can save up the cash to do so... In other UK Joshi news; EVE are hinting that Act Yasukawa could be making an appearance there - I assume for the Kris Wolf Retirement show. Certain that there's no chance of anything other than an appearance but even then that's something that should feel very special to me and a few other people.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 16, 2019 11:22
|
|
|
coconono posted:Aja's pretty limited. Last few matches I've seen of her, its mostly plunder and brawling. That said, its Aja loving Kong so you let her do whatever the gently caress she wants. That’s all she needs to do: it’s Aja Kong, she looks mean and beats people up, what more do you need?
|
|
#
¿
Mar 19, 2019 10:22
|
|
|
Stardom actually announced their New York crowd and its... actually pretty good Wonder of Stardom Championship: Momo Watanabe (c) vs Utami Hayashishita Elimination Tag Match: Oedo Tai (Kagetsu, Andras Miyagi, Jamie Hayter, Martina) vs STARS (Mayu Iwatani, Saki Kashima, Tam Nakano, Arisa Hoshiki) High Speed Championship: Hazuki (c) vs Dust Brittany Blake & Britt Baker vs Queens Quest (Bea Priestley & Konami) vs International Army (Hana Kimura & Bobby Tyler) JAN (Jungle Kyona & Natsuko Tora) vs Sonya Strong & Violette Only five matches which is on the short side although its not abnormal for a Stardom show to only be five or six matches. What I was thinking is that they might have wanted to ensure that they had time to sell merch at the end before people had to rush over to NXT Takeover - I could be wrong here though. Its a bit of a one match show but what a match it is: this instantly is the thing that I'm most looking forward to this Mania weekend. You have the real 2019 Rookie of the Year in Utami against Momo Watanabe who's been on fire I think in terms of big title matches recently. Utami is still on the green side and you can tell in the matches that she has with similarly less experienced people (not that its bad; its something that will improve with time) but when she's been against top level people before - even in like her first match against Jungle Kyona - she can have some very good matches. No real story in this other than Momo just saying "I want to face Utami next" after defending his title at Korakuen. Everything else is the sort of stuff that you might get in a mid-level Stardom show in Japan - so its not a card full of big top matches but alternatively they've clearly tried to put on something authentic (I was a little worried that a lot of the top level matches would be non-Stardom regular foreigners but hey they've not done that). Those Elimination Tag main events they do are usually fun and I can imagine that the semi-main will be the same; they might set something up for the World Title here but I don't know whether they'd rather wait until they were back in Japan to set up title challenges that'd take place in Japan. You also have that Arisa/Tam feud thing which I'm sure will blow up at some point since they are clearly building to SOMETHING if they have rivalries within factions. The High Speed Title match should be fun - what I've seen of Dust has been good and Hazuki is very talented. And everything else is an undercard tag to get people on the tour including the annoying three-way match that Stardom always do. I imagine that the Stardom wrestlers will probably be working fairly hard in these so they won't be bad but I don't think that they'll be classics either. Opening match might be them having a look at that HOG team for possible future people to bring in for tours as well I imagine. All in bar that main event its honestly probably not going to be a groundbreaking show but that main event is probably worth spending the tenner it costs to watch it!
|
|
#
¿
Apr 3, 2019 23:57
|
|
|
Hopefully next time Stardom do this they work with actually competent people who manage to actually present the very good show that Stardom put out in the way that it deserves to be: and not in a broken ring with the big singles title match being ruined by the stream breaking. Could be WWN, Wrestlecon or whoever I don't care; someone ACTUALLY good please! That match was legit probably the most anticipated match that I had full stop - not just this weekend - and to have it basically ruined like that is incredibly annoying. That probably sounds over the top and whatever but its entirely unacceptable for a live stream that I've paid for to entirely miss the ending of the most important match on the card (and also the Oedo Tai dance which is almost important for a Stardom show but like claiming a refund for that by itself would be silly). Its not Stardoms fault and I'm sure that they are well aware of that but that doesn't matter: if I spend money on a show I expect to get the full show and while I might tolerate a prelim match being messed up like that not what is effectively the main event of the show! They offered me ten fite credits and to keep the replay (which has the gap in it so its not even like that helps) and I accepted since I'll probably use those in the future. I imagine that if you pushed for a cash refund you might just get one.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 6, 2019 00:14
|
|
|
Dunno if this will embed properly because I'm terrible at figuring stuff like that out: https://twitter.com/JoshLBarnett/status/1120566766554447873?s=19 Looks like Josh Barnett is looking at doing a Bloodsport-type thing with women involved - at least; he's looking for women wrestlers with a shooter background. This is something that I entirely approve of and I can think of a fair few Japanese women who'd suit it perfectly (you've got Syuri Kondo who is admittedly with the UFC so might not be available but she is doing some OZ Academy stuff I'm sure I've seen somewhere; Miyu Yamashita trained in MMA stuff before transitioning into pro wrestling, plus you've got a lot of women who at least trained in some form of martial art to some level before transitioning to wrestling like all of the Judo people that Stardom have), and I imagine that those with more knowledge of American women's wrestling can probably think of a few as well. I'm hopeful that this is an all-women thing or at least a "lets do a gender balanced card" and not just seeking out people for one women's match; but we'll see.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 23, 2019 18:43
|
|
|
From the Korakuen Hall Show, Sareee vs Meiko Satomura is entirely worth going out of your way to watch. A vicious war that’s very fun.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 28, 2019 21:16
|
|
|
Gatoh Move now has English commentary, apparently. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63SKHOakhOk This seems incredibly weird but Emi does work the UK a fair amount (basically monthly in Eve the first bit of the year although less after June apparently) and I imagine this might be a case of her trying to see if this gets any attention. In typical Gatoh Move fashion its three very random matches (this one is from their Command Bolshoi tribute show which was only a few weeks ago: the other two are like from last December and last August) rather than whole shows or anything but like at least they put some stuff in a place where we can see them! The commentary itself is pretty good when you consider that its being done by a very small Japanese company on I imagine absolutely no budget at all - its actually better than a lot of US indie stuff in my eyes because its not annoying. And like if Gatoh Move can do announcing and YMZ can do English subtitles; some of the bigger companies (not really talking Joshi here but Japanese wrestling generally, especially ones that have more resources) have absolutely no excuse to at least do English subtitles for promos which helps significantly - and I'd argue actually pays off in the long term since that's a massive part on why Stardom got so much western popularity.
|
|
#
¿
May 1, 2019 20:27
|
|
|
To be fair the old song was designed for the dance which they aren’t doing anymore so changing it up makes total sense. Don’t think this counts as a spoiler: apparently on the opener on the Oedo Tai produce show Mayu and Natsu just started doing commentary on the house mic which sounds like the best thing.
|
|
#
¿
May 5, 2019 09:57
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/xyonmckell/status/1125316308143411200?s=19 This is incredibly exciting news for me since I now live in London and go to Eve shows regularly. For those who don't know; Mei Suruga (I think its that way round: Gatoh Move's youtube says Suruga Mei though so everyone else I've seen could be wrong) is a Gatoh Move wrestler who debuted last May and is one of what seems like a million very good Joshi rookies. Probably best known for Gatoh Move but she's wrestled in a load of the smaller Joshi companies as is common: recently for Sendai Girls and SEAdLINNNG. The main thing that gets me for her is that she's very creative in spots and you see her do things that others wouldn't do and a lot of that is because she's wrestling for a company that doesn't usually use a ring so she's having to adapt - and I think that's something that is only going to benefit her I think.
|
|
#
¿
May 6, 2019 18:07
|
|
|
GEORGE W BUSHI posted:Mei is her given name, Suruga is her family name. So Mei Suruga if you're speaking English and Suruga Mei if you're speaking Japanese. I thought that it was; but the Gatoh Move youtube uploads confused me since they have it as the Japanese way round even though its in English. Always good to double check these things!
|
|
#
¿
May 6, 2019 23:00
|
|
|
At last night’s EVE show they announced Jamie Hayter/Utami Hayashishita for Wrestle Queendom at York Hall... only to do a match that lead to them adding Nina Samuels to the match which makes it a worse match in my eyes. Perhaps this is them wanting to protect whoever doesn’t win the title by adding Nina to eat the pin but who really knows. Main event is still Viper/KLR but both are done as of them so either they’re vacating the title or they’re doing some other gimmick to add someone to that match.
|
|
#
¿
May 12, 2019 13:27
|
|
|
I’m on team Up Up Girls (Pro Wrestling) Hikari Noa will win
|
|
#
¿
May 18, 2019 00:23
|
|
|
best part of two years ago; believe that's the 2017 5 Star roster.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 1, 2019 20:47
|
|
|
At this point there are some New Japan shows that are majority female fans I'm sure - the Korakuen Hall shows on this tour were certainly as close to 50/50 as I've ever seen a wrestling show. Stardom are a skeevy company that market themselves in some very dodgy ways: I don't think that's a secret. In Japan they focus their marketing towards a certain group of people and that's what I think this documentary seems to have picked up on. If Ogawa is as purely numbers focused as his doc allegedly made him look (not seen it: from what I could gather it made him look like someone who only cared about the business end and not the wrestling side) then that is only likely to change if it makes them money to and I honestly don't see that happening - as much as I want it to. And the good thing is that there are other companies that don't do the skeevy poo poo (at least at anything like the same level) and coincidentally those are the companies that attract a female fanbase because if you market yourself towards the male gaze then its hardly surprising that you don't get many female fans.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 2, 2019 14:38
|
|
|
I'm not an expert on this so others might be able to give a more precise answer: my understanding is that up until around 1990 it was very much a women thing (most notably teenage girls) and if you watch a Crush Gals match you can tell that this is the case: the crowd sounds very different to most wrestling crowds. A lot of those people fell off when the Crush Gals retired and business struggled until they started working with a men's promotion (I'd like to say Universal Lucha Libre which was the first promotion to do the Lucharesu thing which began a tradition that sorts of leads to Dragon Gate) which got them exposure in front of male fans who then realised that actually this stuff is very very good. I'm not entirely sure when they started marketing towards creepy people: it was certainly a thing for a long time now and I imagine its to do with the traditional promotions starting to struggle.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 2, 2019 16:42
|
|
|
At the big Sendai Girls show today, Sareee defeated Chihiro Hashimoto to win the World Title. On a possibly related note there's been talk from a fair few people that own Joshi promotions that they want to run a big supershow at some point next year and they've all coincidentally started working very closely with each other. Perhaps nothing: maybe something to keep an eye out for. Also Mikoto Shindo won the Junior Title which is great since she's like already a very good wrestler despite only debuting last August - its impressive to me that Chigusa Nagayo can just find these rookies that become very good very quickly despite not really having a lot of resources and I think it shows how good she and the team she's built up are. Since I'm biased I'm hoping that both her and Sareee come to Manchester for the UK Sendai Girls show that I'm going to but I think that even one of them coming would be very unlikely, and the two is basically impossible.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 8, 2019 12:57
|
|
|
So EVE announced not only the fourth person that they're getting from Stardom for their Wrestle Queendom show two weeks on Saturday but also a big Stardom vs Stardom match and well https://twitter.com/ProWrestlingEVE/status/1139272571596279814 Needless to say this is like incredibly good: Mayu and Kagetsu have great matches against each other and to be there LIVE for one is like, well, loving incredible. It makes a show that's looking pretty drat good already even better. Card as announced at the moment: Pro Wrestling EVE Championship: Kay Lee Ray (c) vs Viper Pro Wrestling EVE International Championship: Utami Hayashishita (c) vs Jamie Hayter vs Nina Samuels Kagetsu vs Mayu Iwatani Pro Wrestling EVE Tag Team Championships (???): Medusa Complex (Charli Evans and Millie McKenzie) vs x (this could technically be a Sendai Girls World Tag Title defence I guess) Arisa Hoshiki vs Roxxy (possibly Wonder of Stardom Title if Arisa retains - although its clear who's winning anyway) DEATH MATCH: Session Moth Martina vs Su Yung Laura Di Matteo vs Jordynne Grace Not got the random War Games match or a clusterfuck ladder match like last year and I expect some stuff to be added but as a card this is already very fun. Utami is my favourite wrestler so seeing her live at least twice (we'll see about the Saturday ResGal show) will be very very good; not to mention the Kagetsu/Mayu match and the main event which is always a fun match and the last time that both will wrestle on the indies so I imagine that they'll go all out on it. Heck of a show to be there live for and I'm incredibly excited.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 13, 2019 22:56
|
|
|
The Eve resgal shows feel like they’ve cooled off in recent months but that’s a bunch more than anything - they still sold out with nothing announced bar appearances of Emi Sakura and I think Jamie Hayter. Queendom should get a boost with the Stardom announcements and they’ve probably got the biggest match possible to pick up more casual people. The issue long-term is that NXT U.K. people are going and that means that as of the end of the month they are definitely losing Viper and Kay Lee Ray and possibly Nina Samuels and Jinny (although she’s in a tag team now which suggests to me that they’ve got more dates on her past then) and if WWE sign up more people then that makes them more reliant on imports to support a less experienced roster. Martina would be a major loss as would Jamie Hayter and both were at WWE tryouts last week.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 15, 2019 18:40
|
|
|
Kasey Owens is a Northern Irish wrestler; comes from the group that work Eve regularly and actually wrestled Jamie Hayter at their last show: did some NXT UK jobs at their last few tapings and also works a fair but for ICW as well as other random British indies. She's one of those wrestlers that honestly I can't remember a lot about despite seeing her wrestle a few times which probably means that either she always goes on at the end of the shows so I'm drunk already, or that she's not terrible but also not exactly fantastic. I do remember that match with Hayter was pretty good though. Its basically them going back to the place where they seem to have picked up a tonne of their recent British foreigners. Avary is Australian. Can't say that I've ever seen her so that's all I can really say! Notable that not only is there no ROH talent but there are no Americans full stop in the thing. Perhaps that says something about the quality of unsigned American talent, or Stardom's ability to find them compared to British wrestlers, or perhaps even the relationship they have with the prominent unsigned Americans or a mixture of these. There are only three unsigned foreigners in the tournament though (not counting Bea since she's full time Stardom apparently) which I think is the least they've had for a while and perhaps shows that they're at the point where they don't really need foreign talent to fill these things out quite as much?
|
|
#
¿
Jun 16, 2019 10:01
|
|
|
It’s also something that’s relatively new: it’s not long ago that while they had a great top end of their card it was as thin as anything and you had undercards that weren’t any good and they were an injury away from a disaster. Consider late 2017 if Io didn’t come back: Mayu got hurt and without being able to go back to Io temporarily (to both cover for Mayu and also to build up Momo) they were, to be frank, a bit hosed. Now while they are still reliant on their top people they have cover in case someone gets hurt which is a luxury that not many companies outside of New Japan really have.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 16, 2019 13:17
|
|
|
Not surprised if that is the case - not been a sign in anyone in Japan going over there (only people leaving to the States are Hikaru Shida and Riho; both to AEW) and especially now with the emptying of the US and increasingly U.K. scenes that’s where you’d go for talent.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 18, 2019 21:35
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/prowrestlingeve/status/1141091942840897536?s=21 This is a main event that I think most people figured we’d get for this show and it’s very very good.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 18, 2019 22:26
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/prowrestlingeve/status/1142196674535796737?s=21 Im accidentally going to the best match of 2019 and it’s NEXT WEEK MY GOD
|
|
#
¿
Jun 22, 2019 01:53
|
|
|
Few more things announced: including this very strange WWE vs Impact vs Stardom vs Sendai Girls (or FCP depending on how you look at it) four way https://twitter.com/ProWrestlingEVE/status/1143406968545128448 Stardom also announced a couple of things on their Japanese twitter: Arisa Hoshiki vs Laura Di Matteo (non-title) on the Saturday ResGal show and making the Sunday match against Roxxy a Wonder of Stardom title defence.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 25, 2019 08:28
|
|
|
I always come from a position where if there isn’t a formal announcement it isn’t happening so I’m sceptical about the idea of TAKA working with Stardom - although if it happens it’d be pretty loving cool!
|
|
#
¿
Jul 6, 2019 22:10
|
|
|
...that put a mental image in my head I’m never going to forget and I shall never forgive you
|
|
#
¿
Jul 6, 2019 22:13
|
|
|
GEORGE W BUSHI posted:Sendai Girls announced their talent for the UK show during intermission today. If you were hoping for a lot of Japanese talent outside the core roster then I'm sorry to disappoint you because they're only bringing Aiger outside the main four. the stuff I've seen doesn't mention Aiger but names a few of the local people on the card and its sort of who you'd expect: Keller Kelly who did that brief tour in Japan last year but is officially WWE; but also Valkyrie (Irish wrestler who's done wXw and a bunch of OTT), Kay Lee Ray and Martina who pops up literally everywhere. So basically its sort of what I expected: a British women's show with the Sendai talent on top - assuming that they don't add anyone else which, well, if they were going to they'd have announced it I guess.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 7, 2019 23:44
|
|
|
Looking forward to that - always great when Stardom people get to work in other places and it’s kind of appropriate that Utami’s first Japanese match outside Stardom should be against a seemingly very talented rookie in like her third match. If they keep putting women in prominent positions then I’ll be a big fan of them: at least they are doing it properly.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 8, 2019 19:22
|
|
|
I mean that’s the match I’d book with the talent they’re bringing in and the stip I’d have as well: they both had a good match at Eve last year and they seem to have good chemistry plus, like, you can’t book that match and not have it be No DQ if it’s a one time only deal.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 13, 2019 00:00
|
|
|
Marvelous are doing another set of pro tests at their show on 22nd July. For those who don't know what the pro test entails: it depends on the company but generally it works as a final exam to determine whether someone is ready to debut as a pro wrestler. Most companies do these behind closed doors and their generally secretive so we only hear if someone passes and not about failures: Stardom put Utami's on Stardom World before they switched the site and lost their old archive and it was an interesting watch. Marvelous, however, do theirs at the start of some of their shows as basically a pre-show bonus. Based on the last ones to air (they have one on YouTube which was from June last year; was the third and final try for Mikoto Shindo and Mei Hoshizuki who both passed, plus the first try from their other rookie Maria who struggles significantly through the whole thing and failed; only to pass second time) its pretty drat gruelling: starting with a million squats (didn't count the exact number but they're going for seven minutes straight at like one every second or two so you can probably work it out), then various other exercises, then a series of rolls, cartwheels, flips and basic gynmastics type stuff that you use a lot in wrestling; then a series of taking bumps, doing dropkicks to no one and running the ropes and after all of that rather exhausting stuff... a series of shoot grappling/wrestling exhibitions against senior members of the roster. These are total shoots: people do fail them; but it just works out to be a clever way of getting their rookies a little over before they debut. Plus considering the quality of their rookies since they started the process clearly works!
|
|
#
¿
Jul 16, 2019 18:24
|
|
|
They haven’t lost it: it just isn’t on the new site. Could have worded that a little better!
|
|
#
¿
Jul 16, 2019 20:16
|
|
|
All of the Japanese talent coming to the U.K. have matches for next week now: they announced Aiger vs Martina which is... an appropriate match; can’t think of what else I’d want with the other UK talent
|
|
#
¿
Jul 17, 2019 19:59
|
|
|
Main event of the next Marvelous show is their three trainees (Mikoto Shindo, Mei Hoshizuki and Maria) vs the All Star team of Takumi Iroha, Nanae Takahashi and Sareee. This should be an incredibly good match - the three Marvelous trainees are fantastic wrestlers already despite very much being rookies and working a Joshi rookie moveset, and you have the aces of three major Joshi companies as their opposition. Notable in that Sareee and Nanae are teaming: I don’t believe they’ve interacted since Sareee had some sort of falling out with SEAdLINNNG and went back to Diana. It’s another demonstration of the confidence that they have in their rookies: not many companies put them in at all featured positions: never mind main events and in one case having a rookie match (Mikoto vs Mei) going 20 minutes in Mikotos 20th match and Meis 7th in the main event above all of their experienced talent. It’s entirely deserved: the three individually are better than a significant amount of wrestlers who’ve been around for decades despite wrestling for less than a year.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 19, 2019 20:17
|
|
|
One... slightly odd thing from the Sendai Girls website about their UK show: they've got Manami listed alongside the three already announced Sendai wrestlers as "participating" on the show. What makes this strange isn't just that she's a trainee and they don't tend to get to go on these sort of things but also that she's only 14. While the obvious barrier that'd normally block that from happening isn't there since apparently the school summer holidays have started in Japan its still a little odd and I'm sort of sceptical that its going to happen between visa difficulties (although getting a Visa to wrestle in the UK seems relatively easy especially compared to America I assume that its more difficult when you're talking about a 14 year old although not impossible since it'd be the same category as performing artists) and the possible difficulty of getting permission from parents and all sorts of people to fly their kid halfway across the world to wrestle its just surprising. Would normally have it as a website glitch but they've removed Mika from the site and kept her so they've clearly seen that she's listed. Wouldn't be unheard of for someone of that age to wrestle in the UK (pretty sure that's around the age that Toni Storm moved to the UK for example; there are young wrestlers who're 15 and have a little experience) but I think that it'd be a first for a foreign wrestler of that age to come in. One possibility is that she's coming not to wrestle but to corner the matches and watch as a learning exercise type deal with a free holiday to Wolverhampton (lovely!) thrown in as well. I wouldn't object if she was wrestling like: I don't think its like any other sport or entertainment type thing: I think that she's a talented rookie who has fun matches and I'd be very interested in how she'd do in the UK. Just don't think that its really possible.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 21, 2019 00:41
|
|
|
A little torn on the Riho news. On one hand its not healthy for one company to sign every free agent around - although Stardom aren't quite at that point yet its close - and if we assume that this is a Natsu-type situation where she's technically freelance but primarily working Stardom not leaving many indie dates open its a big loss to other places. However from a selfish perspective it opens up a lot of possible matches that we'd never get unless Riho went to Stardom and that's very cool. The big thing is that jumps of this sort are cool provided you have people going the other way as well since they help keep everyone fresh and open up all sorts of new matches that are exciting. Especially when it comes to Riho who had really done everything she could in Gatoh Move and really only stayed there as long as she did out of loyalty to Emi Sakura (and honestly considering the amicable split it wouldn't surprise me if it was a thing where they collectively agreed that) moving to a new place is probably exciting for her. Says something about the ROH/Stardom relationship though since two wrestlers associated with Stardom (Riho and World of Stardom Champion Bea Priestley) are associated with AEW in some way (both have some type of contract; the details aren't clear only that both appear to be non-exclusive even post-October) and based on AEW acknowledging Stardom and from memory putting over Bea being World Champion and the significance of her teaming with Shoko Nakajima there they seem to not be hostile even if there's no formal relationship: while Stardom hasn't done anything with ROH since the MSG show. If I was Stardom I'd also not see the ROH relationship as being overly significant and its interesting to see where this all goes.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 24, 2019 22:01
|
|
|
This could be a prior commitment type deal; it wouldn’t shock me if Riho works a few random shows that she might have committed to prior to going to Stardom. Who knows though! The Sendai Girls U.K. show was a great experience live: I dunno if it will hold up as well on tape. The Aiger-Martina match was exactly what it needed to be and was great and will probably be the match that I remember long term (if they do this again if they could put Hirota-Martina together I’d really enjoy that); everything else was very fun if not top level stuff. Also spent far too much money
|
|
#
¿
Jul 28, 2019 10:23
|
|
|
Trying to work out whether Yuka or Sareee would be worse in WWE Oh by the way if anyone wants to ask Nyla Rose questions about wrestling in Japan apparently I’ve accidentally gotten her to do a Japan Q&A if we get enough questions?
|
|
#
¿
Aug 5, 2019 23:20
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 21, 2024 19:27 |
|
|
It was a twitter thing; so you can ask her yourself!
|
|
#
¿
Aug 6, 2019 00:19
|
|