Flupke's Month in Wrestling: December 2022

ActWres girl'Z - Baka Gaijin & Friends - FIFA World Cup - ICC T20 World Cup - Just Tap Out - Marvelous - STARDOM - Tokyo Joshi Pro

Front Matter

Each image used in this newsletter is linked to the Twitter account responsible for it: simply click through to bring up the original post. If you are a photographer whose image I have used here, and you do not grant me permission to reproduce your work, please let me know (Twitter: @FlupkeDiFlupke) and I will remove it. Thanks!

写真家さん、ここにイメージが写すことが許可しなければ聞いて下さって私は大至急除きます (ツイターの @oystersearrings です)。ありがとうございます！

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ActWres girl’Z

Miku Aono vs. Natsumi Sumikawa

30.10 / Korakuen Hall

In August, I wrote about AWG’s first show of the new, Fuka-led era, and found a lot to like about the storytelling being built there - Aono is being presented as the new company Ace, but it’s not a title she’s able to claim without a fight, and her struggles to put away rising young star Kouki spoke both of Aono’s determination to succeed in this new role and of the talent pool that’s rapidly gaining on her as Fuka raises her latest army from the ground.

On this show, each of the six matches felt like a special showcase for at least one or two of the competitors (rookies Kanamic, Nagisa Shiotsuki, Haruka Ishikawa, Rensan and Marino Saihara immediately feel like winners), and the two singles matches (this one, plus an excellent glorified squash match between Misa Matsui and a rookie called Allen) both had a special kind of ruthlessness and meanness to them, all of which speaks to the fact that this is a promotion whose star is once again very much on the rise, with nobody’s positions to be taken for granted.

There was nothing all that exotic here, just a targeted aggression from both sides which made the outcome of the match feel urgent and important and made the fifteen minutes fly by. Aono needs wins like this to truly cement her as the top star in the promotion, and Sumikawa comes with a certain ready-made prestige owing to her claim to being one of Fuka’s OG STARDOM trainees, even if the first phase of her career wasn’t all that long or successful. This felt like a big match between two big dogs, a fitting main event for what was in its way one of the more ambitious joshi shows of 2022. Bring on the new year, I’m ready.

Baka Gaijin & Friends

MAO vs. Death Worm

13.12 / ARENA Shimokitazawa

I feel like history and circumstance robbed me of the right to see this match in the flesh back when Schadenfreude & Friends were running shows in Manchester. The atmosphere of this venue (which Brookes and Parker will once again be booking in February) felt like a pretty exact cross between the Frog & Bucket and Ichigaya Chocolate Square, but more restrictive than both: as demonstrated during the interval, the mat measured one Mei Suruga by one Chie Koishikawa. As such, MAO and Death Worm worked the bulk of this match either rooted to the spot or outside the venue, cue the amazing, mise-en-abyme-like spectacle of camerawoman-commentator Mei filming the Twitter Live feed, which was being filmed by a second camerawoman who’d followed the two performers out of the building, off an audience member's phone.

Aside from all the chaos and innovation and the nostalgia for Chris Brookes Produce shows gone by, what staggered here was just what a brilliant physical actor the individual in the Death Worm costume is. And what a brilliant costume it is, too - there was such clarity and snap to Death Worm's movements here, all of which were heightened because there was nowhere for him to go but a postage stamp-sized spot in the middle of the room (walk-and-brawl excepted). Earlier this year we had the drawn-out pathos of Death Worm and Kappa Kozo's match against CDK, but this was different, more like a mime show than anything else. Now I’m going to mime sucking you off with my poisonous gullet, now you’re going to mime hanging me from the ceiling with a necktie or splatting my head against the wall. All of it done with the precision of a Buster Keaton routine, not just by the guy playing Death Worm but by MAO as well, who is excellent at moving his body in weird but purposeful ways. This was only vaguely recognisable as pro wrestling, but there’s no other art form than wrestling that would let you do this and call it a Thing. God bless.

FIFA World Cup

Ghana vs. Uruguay

02.12 / Al Janoub Stadium

In injury time in extra time on the second of July, 2010, Luis Suarez handballs on the line to prevent a certain Ghana victory, and gets away with it. Asamoah Gyan misses the penalty, Uruguay win the subsequent shoot-out, and the continent of Africa is denied a first semi-finalist in its first World Cup. Twelve years and five months later, Uruguay and Ghana meet again. Suarez is still there, unrepentant. Ghana can progress to the round of 16 with a win, but they go 2-0 down inside the opening 35 minutes. All the talk before the match has been of revenge, but there isn’t an iota of justice in any of this. And then South Korea score late against Portugal, and Ghana manage not to concede a third despite the fact that Uruguay know that’s exactly what they need to do to go through, and Uruguay crash out, and Suarez is in tears.

A day or two earlier in the tournament, Tunisia got a historic win over their old colonial overlords France, in heart-breakingly flawed circumstances: in the other final group match, Australia managed to overturn Denmark, so Australia progressed instead. I question whether I’d want a win this significant in such close proximity to crushing disappointment, if I were Tunisian. But if I were Ghanaian, this defeat feels like the polar opposite. It’s a defeat that does just enough to drag Uruguay down to hell too. There’s nothing to celebrate, except the tears on the face of the old racist responsible for what was probably the single most emotionally-devastating moment of your entire football fandom. The set-up to this game felt like the most Pro Wrestling thing in this whole World Cup, but I challenge wrestling to come up with a way of delivering an ending like that.

ICC T20 World Cup

England vs. Pakistan

13.11 / Melbourne Cricket Ground

Officially, no sports fan likes to see injury befall any athlete, let alone one that can change a game like Pakistan fast bowler Shaheen Shah Afridi. Especially when the injury is later reported to be severe enough as to keep him out of two upcoming test series. But come on. A stunning bit of desperation fielding, a low, sliding catch running in from Long Off, to claim a big wicket for Pakistan at a moment when the momentum of the World Cup final was in the balance. In pushing himself to create this breakthrough, Afridi awkwardly tweaks his knee, and can’t get up to celebrate the catch with his team-mates.

He’s given everything to dismiss Harry Brook but he’s now unable to bowl his two remaining overs. The most dangerous weapon remaining in Pakistan’s arsenal is neutralised, their stop-gap replacement goes for thirteen runs off his five balls, and by the time Mohammed Wasim takes the next wicket it’s already too late, and England win with an over to spare. Afridi went high-risk high-reward, and instead of cashing in he paid the price. His commitment to victory becomes his fatal flaw. There’s a feeling of fate to it, but Pakistan fans are free to ponder what might have been if not for this one moment of misfortune. It’s the most pro-wrestling thing to happen in cricket since Jofra Archer bowled a 148 kph bouncer which hit Steve Smith in the helmet and forced him to retire hurt. All pretty remarkable in a year where England and Pakistan faced each other more times than 2010 Kofi Kingston and Dolph Ziggler.

Just Tap Out

Tomoka Inaba vs. Suzu Suzuki

19.12 / Yoyogi National Gymnasium

They set themselves quite the task here - Suzu merked Tomoka for a lot of this match, revelling in the big bully persona she’s developed over the course of this year, looking more like Nanae Takahashi than the girl that rode a bicycle into Korakuen Hall four Ribbonmanias ago. There was a moment after back-to-back German suplexes where she looked to have out-thought and out-manouevered the home favourite completely. She hit a Dolphin Buster and a Tequila Shot and that should have been that. To get to her win, Tomoka needed to pull off a string of offence that would not only convincingly get her out of this hole but also destroy an opponent with a very high pain tolerance, that had held the advantage over her more or less from the start. And she did it, with a few kicks that look like they’d have taken down a rhinoceros. This was proper levelling-up match for Tomoka, whose offence has always looked cool but which has never looked as powerful as it did here. And Suzu can rest content that she’s in demand as a grumpy old enhancement vet who just happens to be 20 years old.

Marvelous

Chigusa Nagayo & Riko Kawahata vs. Yumiko Hotta & Maria

04.12 / Korakuen Hall

A match which began with a pure display of prime-Marvelous era Chig - dancing alongside Riko Kawahata like the fun aunt at the wedding - ended with her summoning all the power embedded in her name to give Maria what is surely the most iconic win of her career. Tapping out a 58 year old Chigusa Nagayo might not add up to much in a literal sense, but this is pro wrestling, and there’s very few wrestlers working today that can claim this honour, let alone on the Marvelous roster. It's one of those moments that takes a few minutes to really sink in; in a lovely twist, the first person Maria celebrates with is Kawahata - her opponent on the day, but a partner and fellow-traveller the rest of the time. Nagayo clearly sees something in these two, and when Nagayo believes in you to this extent you often end up in the middle of some legendary in-ring stuff. The stakes for 2023 have very much been set.

Mio Momono vs. Ai Hozan

04.12 / Korakuen Hall

Utterly, utterly perfect. Mio comes into this AAAW title tournament first round match with equal reasons to believe in and doubt herself. She led Marvelous into GAEAISM in Iroha's absence last summer and nearly took home the honours, but fell short at the final hurdle. After bouncing back from injury yet again it both feels like destiny is on her side and a potentially crushing weight of expectation is on her shoulders. Ai has none of this pressure to deal with: her tactics are strsight out of Mio's playbook from the 2018 catch the WAVE tournament, where she was able to upset Hikaru Shida on the opening night. Ai has learned it all from Mio; Mio has moved on but arguably finds herself in a thornier place right now. Ai dropkicks Mio before she’s ready, forces her out of the ring and almost wins by countout. Mio survives and hits her Yoshi Tonic finisher the second Ai takes her eye off the ball. She needs to be ruthless, and she isn’t messing around and letting this avatar of her younger self get a sniff. She’s too worldly wise for that, even if that wisdom has a lot of pain mixed in with it. One minute forty-three of pure intergenerational tension and release, an the best sub-five minute match since Max the Impaler vs Pom Harajuku.

Mio Momono vs Chikayo Nagashima

04.12 / Korakuen Hall

In the end, destiny took Mio as far as the final, where she lost to experience, and an opponent who's bizarrely underrated despite being able to keep pace with the fiestiest young'uns at the age of 46. Marvelous has had a strange, fidgety year: for a brief moment in January and February when the colour-themed unit gimmick was clicking into gear it had the best vibes in all of joshi, but then that got abandoned, and Mio's return didn’t start with as big a bang as you might have expected (to be fair, this might have been an intentional booking decision; kudos if so). This, and Nagashima's semi-final tie against Rin Kadokura, were a reminder of what Marvelous can be when it lines all its pieces up in the right order. Some of the most talented and most committed wrestlers in the world fighting for a pride forged across generations. This was Mio's first shot at the AAAW title since the GAEAISM main event, and we got to see THAT Mio again here. There really is nothing else on earth like it.

STARDOM

STARS (Hazuki, Koguma & Mayu Iwatani) vs. Donna Del Mondo (Giulia, Mai Sakurai & Thekla)

18.11 / Osaka EDION Arena

Any lingering impressions I might have had about STARDOM being an overly-serious promotions for creeps and bores with no sense of humour were once and for all laid to rest the moment that Hazuki accidentally dislodged the “moneyball” from its rigging, showering the ring canvas with fake gold loot, drawing a massive round of applause from the crowd. Immediately we were somewhere in the province of Hyper Misao and Mizuki’s hardcore match at Wrestle Princess 3 - this was a series of genuinely gnarly spots drawn together in an unmistakable spirit of silliness. At one point Mai Sakurai got thrown into a characteristically sturdy Japanese table and Mayu and Koguma did silly mugging faces to help the moment sink in. This was also pretty much the perfect length for a gaga gimmick match - the spot that brought us to the finish was Koguma hitting a surprisingly massive flying crossbody from the ladder to the floor, and there’s really no need for anyone to try and top that in a match where the winner’s prize includes a bunch of plastic gold crowns.

Cosmic Angels (Tam Nakano, Natsupoi & Unagi Sayaka) vs. Prominence (Risa Sera, Suzu Suzuki & Hiragi Kurumi)

26.11 / Todoroki Arena

I’m not going to lie, it took me a good few minutes even after this match had started to remember that Tam Nakano first appeared in STARDOM as a wrestler known for her deathmatch leanings. Cosmic Angels came into this fight weilding mops and spray paint cans - eccentric accoutrements to arm yourselves with when facing a trio as committed to ultraviolence as this. It looked like being another silly match on an enjoyably silly show (following hot on the heels of that very silly main event in Osaka a week prior), but then suddenly Sera was smashing Tam’s head between a steel chair and a ladder, and doing horrible things with a kendo stick, and Tam was reciprocating with a Tiger Suplex onto a pile of plunder, and a 2017 dream match I’d completely forgotten about over the intervening five years had suddenly come to life.

Tokyo Joshi Pro

Mizuki vs. Arisu Endo

27.11 / Korakuen Hall

When I saw the Twitter hype for this match, knowing full well that it would be weeks before I’d have the time to properly sit down and absorb the show it came from, I thought I knew roughly what to expect: Endo would put in another valiant scrap from underneath, get in enough licks to remind everyone she’s not an afterthought, and leave with head held high. I was not expecting this: Endo's performance here wasn’t just respectable, it had all the hallmarks of a Princess of Princess title challenge, albeit against an opponent who’s still never held that title. It wasn’t shocking that Endo showed speed and intention and fighting spirit; what was shocking is that she was able to keep on top of Mizuki for sustained periods, only to come a-cropper against Mizuki's superior stamina when her creative well eventually ran dry. Some of the big offence here, like the Curb Stomp-style diving knee to the floor, felt like a distinct escalation on anything Endo's done before - but even moves we have seen before, like the Water Wheel Drop, felt like they were better and more smartly executed here than in any of her previous matches. The Princess Road is a long, slow pursuit, but Endo just advanced miles in a matter of minutes.