Flupke's Matches of the Year: 10-6
Chikayo Nagashima Produce - Ice Ribbon - Tokyo Joshi Pro
10. Suzu Suzuki vs. Masashi Takeda
24.04 / Ice Ribbon New Ice Ribbon #1112 ~Spring is Short, Fight Girl~ / Korakuen Hall
When Suzu lost the belt in February and immediately threw herself into a seven-part trial series against some of the most revered hardcore wrestlers in Japan, an inevitable experimental feeling-out process got underway, both for Suzu and for Ice Ribbon as a whole, but also for Ice Ribbon’s audience. There was a stark difference between watching Suzu in this context and watching her in the context she’d just moved away from; where she’d looked completely at home carrying the top title in the company through the final third of 2020, she now suddenly felt like a rookie again, a fledgling, just finding her way, learning how to have entertaining matches, destined to lose but still proving herself by just hanging in there for extended periods, and clearly benefitting from the generous guidance of these men who got her into wrestling in the first place.
As time went on, and she moved from the early matches against Yuko Miyamoto and Takashi Sasaki to the later ones against Jun Kasai, Isami Kodaka and Abdullah Kobayashi, I remarked a few times that she was beginning to look like she’d figured it all out. The Kasai match in particular felt like the work of someone no longer cosplaying as a deathmatch wrestler - by this point, Suzu had clearly started to internalise the pacing and escalation you need to employ to create a fast, fluid and exciting plunder match. Looking back on this match from the first half of the series, though, I’m wondering if it was partly my own squeamishness about the speed with which Suzu moved from title matches to hardcore brawls that was responsible for my early ambivalence. That it was me that wasn’t quite ready for this new version of Suzu, because on the evidence of this encounter, Suzu was born ready.
This was the first match where Suzu really got to play around with deathmatch elements, and bleed her own blood, and it’s an absolute trip, showcasing every bit of the charisma and fighting spirit that made Suzu my favourite rookie of 2019 and my favourite wrestler of 2020 full stop. Although she understandably spends most of the match working deep from underneath, she makes every single little thing she does count, whether it’s a bleary-eyed kickout or a full-blooded punt to the balls. We get a particularly good example of that running gag here, as Suzu’s first low blow attempt is blocked by a staple gun tucked into Takeda’s pants, and when her second attempt lands with full force it inflicts enough damage for Suzu to be able to seize the weapon and use it on its owner, in time-honoured fashion.
Right up until the point where I rewatched this match, I was questioning whether its inclusion on my shortlist was really, truly justified, or whether it just spoke to a need to have Suzu represented somewhere, for something, after the annus mirabilis that was her 2020. After diving in again, what stands out is how naturally Suzu took to this extremely demanding genre of wrestling even at this early stage, which in many ways represents just as big an achievement as her ascent to the throne last year. But beyond individual plaudits, this is also just a really, really wicked match, with a frenetic pace and a hefty helping of emotional depth, full of well-worked weapon spots and gripping shifts in momentum. It’s a match which, on paper at least, seems to push at the outer boundaries of what ought to work in a wrestling ring, and then just works.
9. Maki Itoh vs. Mizuki
14.08 / TJPW 8th Princess Cup Day 6 / Korakuen Hall
This year’s Princess Cup was a masterpiece from start to finish, and the semi-finals were the best part of the whole thing, and when I was compiling this list it proved almost impossible to pick between this match and the clash between Miu Watanabe and Shoko Nakajima which happened on the same show. This was the show where I experienced a sudden, blinging clarity of insight that Miu was right on the cusp of becoming a massive star, and her narrow losing effort to the 2015 tournament winner was her first of what would go on to become a pair of pretty-much-perfect Korakuen semi-main events in the second half of the year. In the end, I discounted Miu and Shoko’s match because it felt too similar to another match from tomorrow’s final rundown post - a secret prize for anyone who can guess which!
That’s not the only reason for favouring the other semi-final tie though; there needs to be something on this list which represents the kind of year that Maki Itoh had, where she seemed for all the world like she was about to become the main character of Tokyo Joshi Pro, only for the Wrestle Princess 2 main event to reaffirm Miyu Yamashita’s role as the central focus of the promotion, at least for the remainder of 2021. In that match, Maki, who is undoubtedly in an elite band when it comes to joshi wrestlers with international followings, proved her worth to the Tokyo Joshi storytelling machine by losing to the Megachamp, further cementing Yamashita as a white whale who raises the stakes of competition in the promotion every time she defends the belt. Itoh lost, despite coming into the match with all the momentum in the world, and as a result the Princess of Princess title means even more than it did before.
This victory over Mizuki was the match where Itoh gained the momentum that (arguably) took her to Ota City General Gymnasium as slight favourite. It’s a watershed moment in Itoh’s fascinating career, the match where she was finally able to harness all that emotional energy and use it to accomplish a feat which would have previously appeared impossible - defeating the woman who effectively taught her how to be a pro wrestler. On rewatch, the sequence that strikes me the most is the one where both are on their knees, and Maki starts wailing, making that pitiful howling noise that you associate with her early character, the character that made everyone fall in love with her in the first place, and you sense that the sound comes from the same part of her soul that got bared all too often during those first couple of years. But then she pushes through, both figuratively and literally - she doesn’t turn Mizuki over into an Itoh Special to win the match, she pushes through, using her knee to bend her opponent backwards - and actually overcomes that plaintive, uncontrollable, self-sabotaging part of her psyche.
For once, the febrile mental state she works herself up into in the heat of battle turns out to be one she can master. She wouldn’t have the Tokyo Princess Cup sewn up until a day later, and the biggest prize of all would elude her in October, but after several false dawns (the title match with Rika Tatsumi, where she could have won the title but got snagged on her own sense of professional envy, was maybe the most dramatic of these), this smart, assured victory over an opponent who symbolises Itoh’s professional development more than most felt like a hugely emotionally-resonant moment, for a wrestler who is now pretty unmistakably one of the world’s best at tugging on fans’ heartstrings.
8. Tsukasa Fujimoto vs. Tsukushi Haruka
13.11 / Ice Ribbon New Ice Ribbon #1157 / Ota City General Gymnasium
On first viewing, this match felt like the Tsukushi Show, and with good reason: this victory represented the pay-off to roughly four years of painstaking work to regain the position that she’d been vying for prior to her sudden fall from grace and subsequent rehabilitation. It was a match which tied up all of the great stuff she’s done in and out of the ring since her return in December 2017 (in a singles match against Tsukka, lest we forget) - the tag title reign as one half of Dropkickers, the presidency of P’s Party following Tequila Saya’s departure, the great, unsuccessful challenges against Yukihi and Suzu - and put a big glitzy pink bow on top. It was also a match in which Tsukushi unlocked a gear she’s clearly been saving for a venue with the grandeur and history of Ota City General Gymnasium, where she kicked out of one Manami Toyota finisher and won with another. Not that you feel anyone has been doubting her for at least a couple of years, but all involved could hardly have played a better hand here in anointing Tsukushi as the Ace, and the flag-bearer for a promotion that will need her guiding hand as it steers into an uncertain 2022.
On rewatch, though, I’m struck by the extent to which the atmosphere and escalation of this match is a story being told as much by Fujimoto as it is by her challenger. There’s a level of contempt to Tsukka’s work here, beginning around the time Tsukushi clonks her in the head with a chair off a failed Tope Suicida attempt, which places it in a pretty rare echelon of the veteran’s work, alongside such other career highlights as that Buntai tag match from 2016 where Best Friends faced Nanae Takahashi and a returning Emi Sakura. There’s a nastiness here that belies the obvious delight Tsukka takes in being Tsukushi’s opponent for this landmark passing-of-the-torch match (you can see it in her smile when she enters the ring, I’m convinced of this). Ice Ribbon is constitutionally bound to end every show on a happy note, and the fact that these two are so inseparable (they’d travelled to Mexico together shortly before this show; they’re both Manami Toyota’s chosen girls; throughout 2021 they’ve been fiercely guarding the Ice Ribbon main event scene and its emerging roster respectively) is part of what made this whole thing resonate so strongly, but over the course of 25 minutes they managed to tap into a kind of ferocious mutual hatred worthy of this arena.
Whether this red mist came naturally or took a little effort, it’s clear that for Tsukka the spell is broken when she hits Tsukushi with the Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex and Tsukushi kicks out; no opponent Tsukka has hit with that move since she inherited it from Toyota has ever been able to fight out of it, until now, and Tsukushi’s resistance here forces Tsukka to reckon with the idea that for once this year it might just not be her day. Meanwhile, the desire to right the wrongs of the past keeps Tsukushi focused on the task at hand, and the way she chooses to end the match - three stolen Tsukka finishers in a row plus a different Toyota signature move (the slightly lesser-spotted Japanese Ocean Suplex) - feels like just about the most spiteful way you can put away someone you’ve shared your entire career with. The end result is joy and hope, but it’s something altogether meaner that gets Tsukushi over the line. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
7. Mei Hoshizuki vs Mio Momono vs Mei Suruga vs Miyuki Takase
26.03 / Chikayo Nagashima Debut 25th Anniversary Show / Shinjuku FACE
There’s different visions out there of what wrestling is, what it ought to look like and what it does look like. This much should be obvious to any fan of niche indie puro who’s ever had a conversation with someone for whom the word “wrestling” summons up Big Daddy and Hulk Hogan. Most of the matches in this top 10 list present “wrestling” as an art of technical mastery and narrative payoff, of emotional hooks being sharpened in the weeks and months leading up to the contest and then carried through the match itself in the form of finely-honed physical gestures.
Occasionally, though, you encounter a match that’s realised under a different guiding vision of what pro wrestling can and should be, and it’s just so brilliantly realised, so thoroughly accomplished at doing exactly what it sets out to do, that it deserves to push through into whatever constitutes your own personal mainstream. This four-way contest from a relatively low-key wrestler-produced show has no long-term storyline leading up to it and possesses no real stakes, but it’s one of the giddiest, most physically ambitious and precise realisations of the High Speed style I’ve ever seen, with almost too many wonderful details to unpack, even here. It’s not just that the action is intricate and realised at a break-kneck speed, it’s also that there’s a consistent thread running through the whole thing. Look at the way they repeat the MeiMei drop-down leapfrog spot, first with Mio and then with Takase, Mio almost speeding through the trap, Takase saying “fuck it” and just stomping on the two goblins’ backs.
Every sequence here feels like a sentence with punctuation at the end. There’ll be bodies flying round the ring in some scarecely-believable fashion, before Takase nails a big chop or lariat to bring it all to a halt. Mio and Hoshizuki trade roll-ups for a dizzying length of time before Mio eventually cinches it in deep and wins the match. It's all quite breezy and unserious, but make no mistake, this is visionary pro wrestling, grabbing hold of a style which probably traces back to Mexico and which has been worked on over the years by Dynamite Kid and Manami Toyota and Momoe Nakanishi, and taking it to a place which feels distinct from the contributions made by any of those three, and by dozens of others. It’s not the pinnacle, but there’s definitely a summit being ascended here; you wouldn’t want all wrestling to look like this, but I can’t imagine a day that goes by that wouldn’t be made brighter by watching these four do their thing.
6. Yuka Sakazaki vs. Rika Tatsumi
04.01 / TJPW Tokyo Joshi Pro ‘21 / Korakuen Hall
On the evening I set about breaking ground on this project I was listening to the Durutti Column’s Domo Arigato, a live album recorded in Tokyo for Factory Records in 1985. I’ve had this CD on frequent rotation since I stumbled across it in Kingbee Records last month, and it never seems to get old, despite being a thing of such simple elements, or more likely because it’s a thing of such simple elements - the music leaves space for the mind to roam around in, so that every listen feels like a subtly new experience. It felt like an apropos thing to be listening to on the night I started compiling notes for this review, because this very simple match, which took place on the fourth day of this year, has been on my mind ever since, even more than the match between Maki Itoh and Miyu Yamashita which happened on the same card, and which could be a very rightful shout for out-and-out match of the year, if you wanted to go that way. TJPW has had a calendar year stuffed with great matches, more than at any point in its history, but none have stuck their claws into my imagination quite like this one did.
The in-ring storytelling is as minimal as the colour scheme of Rika’s gear. Early on, Rika turns momentum in her favour with a series of concentrated attacks to the champion’s legs, and then goes about spamming A) hip attacks, to stun and create separation, and B) Dragon Screws, Figure Fours, elbows to the knee joints - anything she can do to wrench and torque Yuka’s lefs to the point they no longer function. And she succeeds - in the end, Yuka is inches from the ropes, but completely engulfed by pain, and referee Kiso has no choice but to award the decision to Rika. There’s flair to Yuka’s offence - the Three Amigos into a Vertical Brainbuster is probably the best high spot in the match - but this flair always feels like a reflection of the defending champion’s need to find radical solutions to pressing problems. And it’s her flair that costs Yuka in the end, as she lands awkwardly off a 450 Splash attempt and jolts her knee one final, fatal time.
It’s incredibly pure and effective storytelling, a kind of storytelling which really lets the moments of high drama speak for themselves. The image of Yuka, trapped in Rika’s high-angle Figure Four, shaking her head in one last act of defiance before ruefully, tearfully recognising the impossibility of her situation, and the impossibility of carrying on as flag bearer of the promotion, is as loaded and as easily emotionally-initellegible a moment as anything I’ve seen in a wrestling ring this year. As the rest of 2021 made abundantly clear, and as I’ve already touched on with regards to Maki Itoh’s faltering quest for gold, TJPW are not just about letting anyone into the Princess of Princess Championship pantheon. This was one match among many this year that made that belt feel like a prize which is being fought over by top wrestlers, with incredible technique and conditioning and, most of all, strategy and intelligence, and it set the company up perfectly for the year that was to come. Maybe that’s why this match occupies such a privileged place in my memory - it felt like a real statement of intent, from a company that was about to make good on their promise.
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