Flupke's Month in Wrestling: July 2023
ActWres girl'Z - Gatoh Move - STARDOM - Tokyo Joshi Pro - Tour de France
Front Matter
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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 @FlupkeDiFlupke です)。ありがとうございます！
The Michelin Guide Star System
One star - Very good
cookingpro wrestling in its category.Two stars - Excellent
cookingpro wrestling, worth a detour.Three stars - Exceptional
cuisinepro wrestling, worthy of a special journey.
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ActWres girl’Z
24.06 / Shinkiba 1st Ring
This felt like the longest ActWres girl’Z match since the reboot, even if it wasn’t, and I mean that (unusually) as a compliment.
Part of the joy with AWG, just as was the case with TJPW once upon a time, is that they’re not yet at a stage where you can take main events like this for granted. That this singles title match, the first between two OGs since the relaunch, had such a classic Ace vs Challenger feel to it wasn’t a given, since neither of these two OGs were established main eventers when the promotion first folded in late 2021. The fact it does hit those heights important for the career development of these two former mid-carders who stuck around to help AWG rebuild with no real guarantee that they’d end up as faces of the company.
Seeing Miku giving it the full Okada here and Misa still nearly get the better of her feels like potential being thrillingly realised before your eyes, the right decision being made and justifying itself as it does so. And the fact that this match has such a tried-and-tested dynamic to it isn’t a knock - some things just work. Miku has relatively simple means for keeping Misa down - power, technique, disgusting kicks to the ribs - and Misa has to work twice as hard and twice as smart to stay in the thing, which is exactly what she does, scoring some significant damage by forcing Miku to scrap on the outside and summoning the will to fight through the strikes and the suplexes as the match goes deep. At one point she has Miku totally trapped in a European Clutch, only for Miku’s strength to show through and bail her out, as strength often does. This is only the third AWG Singles Championship match since the reboot, and it’s already a significant advance (for obvious reasons) on Miku’s matches against CHIAKI and Kouki. If the TJPW analogy continues to hold, it probably won’t be long before this match gets surpassed, and then that one, and on and on.
Michelin Guide Star Rating: ☆
Teppen☆ (Asahi, Misa Matsui & Naho Yamada) vs. Asako Army (Miku Aono, Kira☆An & Asako Mia)
22.07 / Shinkiba 1st Ring
I was talking with a classical violinist recently who was confessing some of her frustrations with the idea that “anyone can make music”. Yes, she was saying, a DIY ethos can be a good thing when it comes to freeing up creative expression, but it’s also true that someone who’s dedicated years to playing an instrument and has reached the top of their calling might just have a greater expressive range than somebody pissing around on Ableton without any clear sense of what they’re doing or why (if you’re wondering who exactly I’m describing here, I’m describing myself). Those distinctions of skill deserve to be acknowledged, she argued, and not simply flattened under the weight of a philosophy of art-making where everyone is different and everyone is great.
It must be the same for wrestlers. It must have pissed off some of the wrestlers on the bill for EVE’s 2019 SHE-1 tournament that Lulu Pencil had bigger merch queues than them, despite the facts she wasn’t even booked for the first three shows. Although, in retrospect, Lulu might have only been pretending to be a Bad Wrestler, in common with many Bad Wrestlers who attain cult status. Think of all the squat drills and hard graft Sakura Hirota must have put in to become the clown she is today! Based on the very limited amount of ring time Asako Mia is given whenever she appears for ActWres girl’Z, I’m in two minds as to whether her Bad Wrestler act is an act at all (she has had one singles match, against Nagisa Shiotsuki in November, where she wristlocked and dropkicked and escaped a Sasorigatame, but nothing similar since). What I do know for sure is this: Asako Mia has a gift for pro wrestling that is almost entirely independent of her actual aptitude for the wrestling part of that equation. I imagine there are some performers on this roster that are pissed off about that, but it’s true.
Asako does actually end up doing some wrestling down the closing stretch of this match, losing her team the match in the process. It’s a strong story: Aono is enough of a phenom to nullify her team’s effective numerical disadvantage for large chunks of this match, but once Teppen☆ succeed in isolating Asako from her partners it’s a question of when, not if, her lack of experience will show. At least she goes down fighting, hitting a “top rope” crossbody that Asahi simply rolls through before getting the three count via basic lateral press.
But it’s not so much these brief snippets of in-ring action that capture the qualities that have made Asako one of the breakthrough stars of 2023 - it’s all the other stuff she does, the stuff that isn’t wrestling per se but which belongs here as part of this spectacle because it’s fun and funny and because she makes it work. It’s the entrance choreography, where Asako comes out sitting astride her partners’ shoulders, wearing a Mil Mascaras mask, and whips it off to reveal a second mask underneath. It’s the way she almost falls off the top rope while leaning into the ring to tag in. It’s all the times she bursts into the ring, poses, and then leaves again. It’s the impassioned, soul-baring promo she cuts while the victorious team quietly leave in the background. I don’t know whether or not Asako can really wrestle, but I do know that she’s a major driving force behind this match, and that this match is a really beautiful marriage of Asako’s antics with the kind of high-speed, high-impact wrestling you’d from Aono, Matsui and Asahi. There's a line that's often attributed to Andy Warhol, but which Google tells me was actually spoken by Marshall McLuhan. Art, it goes, is anything you can get away with.
Michelin Guide Star Rating: ☆
Beastz Rebellion (ACT, Ayano Irie & CHIAKI) vs. The Royal (Natsumi Sumikawa, Kouki & Natsuki)
22.07 / Shinkiba 1st Ring
The two core factions of the AWG 2.0 meet in the first round of the inaugural trios tournament, with team leaders Sumikawa and ACT facing off in a match with real stakes for the first time since their Rookie of STARDOM semi-final match in 2012. Everyone kills it, but none more so than Irie, who wrestles like a woman possessed in those early sections where she’s the focus. It’s not a complicated sell, but it is a very enjoyable watch.
Gatoh Move
Mei Suruga & Chie Koishikawa vs. Nonoka Seto & Miya Yotsuba
05.07 / Shinkiba 1st Ring
There’s a moment in this which feels like the Mei Suruga Extended Wrestling Universe acquiring three-dimensional existence before our eyes, namely the moment Mei’s two trainees gang up on her and repeatedly trample on her with an innovative Ice Train variation you can be pretty sure she came up with herself. But as I was always keen to point out during that period of six-to-eight months where Choco Pro was my favourite thing in the world, many of the novelties and eccentricities that Gatoh Move is known for are underpinned by a solid foundation of classical pro wrestling tropes.
This was a tag match which took all the orthodox ingredients - sympathy beatdowns, hot tags - and wove them together into an unusual pattern which spoke to Mei’s flair for the counter-intuitive. You’d think it would be Nonoka, the debuting rookie, that would be the one taking the beating from her seniors, with her more experienced sister bursting in at choice moments to make the save, but this match flipped that formula on its head, and it worked. Miya excelled here as the babyface-in-peril that just won’t stay down, and showed enough guts and skill to actually cause Mei a few problems the longer she stuck around. Nonoka, meanwhile, was a bolt of lightning, taking all the infectious, nothing-to-lose energy of a pre-debut Ichigaya exhibition match and translating it seamlessly to the new context of a pro wrestling ring.
For her part, Mei simply leaned into her real-life role as the trainer that prepared these two for that professional stage, allowing the straightforward emotional stakes of a trainer vs trainee battle to tell their own story. The moment where she holds Nonoka at length in a single leg Boston Crab doesn’t just feel like a reflection of the real road that these two had to walk to get here, but also provides an emotional hook where Nonoka gets to stand up to her trainer and tormentor and say no, that basic stuff won’t work against me, I’m already moving, progressing, coming for your spot. This could have been an exhibition in all but name, a charitable run-out for the new face where everyone goes home happy. Instead, everyone involved worked hard to produce a heated tag match that stands up on its own two feet. You all know I don’t need asking twice, but if this is what Surugaism looks like then sign me right up.
Michelin Guide Star Rating: ☆
STARDOM
Syuri vs. Suzu Suzuki
23.07 / Ota City General Gymnasium
I still don’t love that Suzu, who at 20 years old has effectively been the face of the two previous promotions she’s represented, has potentially become just another blue-chipper among the many, many blue-chippers in STARDOM’s ranks. But I do love is that she’s busy doing something about it. Suzu has had a gift for pulling fans into her matches from day dot, and she seems to have had no trouble working her usual magic on this bigger, potentially less-forgiving fanbase. The opening few seconds of this match are up there with her very best work - that knowing smile as she offers the handshake and then, sure enough, a sucker-punch Tequila Shot for an instant near-fall, the crowd immediately raucous and hooked.
The action barely settles before the finishing sequence picks up where that opening blast picked off, transcending the standard big match back-and-forth formulas mainly by being very, very fast. You’re left less with the sense of two super-athletes going through a choreographed sequence and more with the feeling of two dialled-in fighters charging into each other and figuring out what they’re going to do somewhere along the way; like AZM vs Mei last year, its all done with a pace and precision that’s properly bamboozling, and that leaves you with no time to be anything other than mightily impressed. Suzu is clearly revelling in taking the persona she honed in Ice Ribbon and Prominence and amping it up to eleven for the big stage. It's a persona that’s completely undeniable, as demonstrated here by the fact she took a crowd that were watching their seventh of ten consecutive singles matches and had them hanging, loudly, on her every move.
Michelin Guide Star Rating: ☆
Tokyo Joshi Pro
Kyoraku Kyomei (Hyper Misao & Shoko Nakajima) vs. Aja Kong & Raku vs. Max the Impaler & Pom Harajuku
08.07 / Ota City General Gymnasium
If last year’s Aja-Raku-Max-Pom clusterfuck at Tokyo Dome City Hall was a match several months in the making, then here was a follow-up which successfully built on all of that and then raised the stakes even higher by chucking in Kyoraku Kyomei, who have been sneakily plugging away as Tokyo Joshi’s most consistently watchable act of the year so far.
In a way, this was a kind of unofficial mini-tournament to crown the king of the odd couples, and it makes sense that the team whose chemistry and understanding carried them to the silver medal in this year’s Max Heart tag tournament won out over the latest sensation and the slow-and-steady fan favourite. Those implied stakes stopped this match from falling apart into a chaotic heap of kooky moments, but what moments they were! Moments that came out of nowhere (we shouldn’t be surprised when Misao pulls out the cold spray, and yet), Chekhov’s gun-style callbacks (we shouldn’t be surprised when Misao rides her bike into a crowd of bodies, and yet), and moments that were built to little-by-little (I don’t think anyone would have anticipated Raku braining Pom with Aja’s bin). As the match went on, and taking full advantage of Tornado Tag rules, these moments were woven together into a kind of fugue, so that stuff just kept happening, and you were left with very little sense of what might happen next. Another grand celebration of the TJPW mid-card, which in 2023 seems every bit as layered and lore-rich as the title scene.
Michelin Guide Star Rating: ☆
Miu Watanabe vs. Nyla Rose
08.07 / Ota City General Gymnasium
A match which felt like it had more to give, but which arguably told a better story for all that. Miu took the fight to Nyla, hitting power move after power move and sprinkling in some more athletic offence that felt tactically smart given the size of her opponent - that dropkick is a great addition to her arsenal. As usual, Miu had me sitting up in my seat and thinking oh my god, this girl is the future, this girl is the truth, and then she fell to a Powerbomb in a second over eight minutes.
It was an abrupt finish, but not an implausible one: that Powerbomb would have finished off a rhino, and didn’t require any lengthy set-up. And the psychology that justified it was there throughout the match: look closely at how Miu approaches the task in front of her and you see that while her game plan does entail a certain amount of methodical, focused chipping away, it also features a lot of pop-seeking, and spots that are flashy rather than lethal. Every time Miu pulls off one of these moves feels like A Moment, but also seems to result in her falling to her knees, dazed from the effort.
The Giant Swing to a real-life Giant is the promise this match was built on, so it’s absolutely the right thing for Miu to do outside of kayfabe, but inside of kayfabe this all adds up to an intimation that Miu isn’t quite there yet. Rika Tatsumi wouldn’t have approached this match this way. But Nyla is there to model for Miu the power-fighter she could become - it’s so easy to defeat even highly-skilled, highly-motivated opponents when you can simply lift them up and slam then down so hard that it forces all the soul out of their body. A crossroads match for Miu then, one that arguably asks her more questions than it answers; a defeat that prefigured her surprise exit at the quarter-final stage of this year’s Tokyo Princess Cup and one that shouldn’t be overlooked if she does end up winning the Princess of Princess title within the next twelve months.
Rika Tatsumi vs. Yuki Aino
08.07 / Ota City General Gymnasium
The first ten minutes of this felt like two fairly experienced wrestlers going through the motions, which needn’t necessarily be a bad thing. Both have been on this kind of stage before (Aino admittedly in a string of losing efforts), and they know how not to be shut out of a match early, how not to empty their tank too soon. If anything, it’s this lengthy feeling-out process that makes the last five minutes of this match so gripping, since we suddenly find ourselves in a situation where the little things really count.
Very little of this match before the stretch run feels particularly urgent or fresh, but then we find ourselves dropped into a situation where Rika has tried the Dragon Sleeper routine that won her the title at Grand Princess, and Aino has managed to get her foot on the ropes. How will the champion regroup? Rika first attempted the Dragon Sleeper in a flash of inspiration that caught Aino off guard, but does she have a Plan B? Will she overthink it, will the crown weigh too heavy on her head, will Aino’s greater hunger give her the edge? The answer is no, Rika remains one of the canniest fighters on the roster, but those final few minutes, where this match feels so alive with possibility, are up there in terms of excitement with anything these two have done all year. It isn’t all gold, but sometimes slow and steady wins the race.
Michelin Guide Star Rating: ☆
Mizuki vs. Maki Itoh
08.07 / Ota City General Gymnasium
If a certain theory is to believed, Mizuki’s partner effectively gifted her this belt, announced she was leaving the country, and then got injured. Coming into this main event, Mizuki is midway through this process of severance, holding up the company banner alone, and having to face down her international superstar ex-partner, who walks into this title challenge with the luxury of being able to take it or leave it, while the crowd chant her name. The Itoh Respect Army is so far in the rear view mirror now that this is really more of a match between Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and from the looks on Mizuki’s face as she stands across the ring from Itoh and surrenders her title belt to the referee, it looks like she’s having no fun at all.
I don’t have loads to say about the match itself. It was what you’d want and expect it to be, no more and no less. It kept you guessing, and there were a couple of really cool submission escape spots. But that moment before the bell had even rung, where we saw the weight of Mizuki’s current role written across the lines of her face, is one that should resonate throughout this reign and beyond. After four years of extracting every ounce of narrative value from the Three Pillars, Mizuki has earned the right to be the face of TJPW during a moment of massive transition. It might not be as fun as jetting back and forth between Tokyo and London or tagging with Nick Gage, but the champion is taking her new role with the seriousness it demands. Look at her heavy-hearted expression as she watches Itoh stumble to her feet for one last salvo before the Cuties Special that finishes her off. Do you really want this job? Because I don’t think you do, and it’s mine now.
Mizuki vs. Miyu Yamashita
15.07 / Ryogoku KFC Hall
Miyu in the Tokyo Princess Cup always raises the spectre of defeat, and she’s occasionally been undone in big matches by a sense of hesitation or even arrogance, failing to capitalise on the kinds of slim openings that a more desperate underdog would pounce on in a heartbeat. The fact that she wins this match by rolling Mizuki straight up following a Roundhouse Kick, in a direct echo of the technique Moka Miyamoto used to upset Hyper Misao earlier on the same show, is an indication of the unfamiliar place Miyu is in right now. We’re very, very far away from where we were when these two met for the title at Ittenyon 2022, and while Miyu’s value in general isn’t up for debate, her value to TJPW roster arguably is. If the Three Pillars era didn’t end when Yuka Sakazaki announced her graduation then we’re at the very least into its long tail, and the novelty of this match came from the feeling that Miyu, that perennial overdog, was forced to scrap.
Shoko Nakajima vs. Suzume
16.07 / Ryogoku KFC Hall
Has there ever been a bona-fide High Speed match in Tokyo Joshi before this one? The coming wave of new talent isn’t just important because it offers new faces at the top, but because it helps sharpen the skills of those who’ve already done their time there. Shoko threw herself into this match like she was delighted to have a dance partner on Suzume’s level, which is to say nothing of Suzume herself - she wasn’t only keeping up with Shoko here, she was pushing her to new heights. In a way, that’s an even grander statement than the scalps she picked up last year on the way to the semi-final, because raising the value of the promotion as a whole will always represent a more serious kind of achievement in TJPW than any individual success.
Michelin Guide Star Rating: ☆
Hikari Noa vs. Yuki Arai
22.07 / Ryogoku KFC Hall
My first thought on seeing the result of this match was to inwardly curse the cowardly TJPW booking committee for doing absolutely nothing with Hikari for a good eighteen months ago. Then I actually sat down and watched it, and my overriding feeling was that both competitors looked amazing, that it was a proper high-skill ding-dong battle, and that it acted as a fitting finale for a top-notch Princess Cup first round. A handy reminder that watching things first-hand always trumps reading about them on Cagematch.
Rika Tatsumi vs. Shoko Nakajima
29.07 / Korakuen Hall
I don’t have a ton to say about the Tokyo Princess Cup quarter-finals, which were this year presented on the big stage of Korakuen Hall for the first time. All four matches were reliably very good, with one or two twists and surprises, but the really revelatory stuff, the stuff that sets our course for the next year on the Princess Road, is still to come. But seeing Rika win convincingly here - not that this wasn’t a back-and-forth contest, but her confidence in the moments that mattered was impressive and assured - was striking for what it potentially sets up. Rika and Miyu have only met twice in singles competition since their title match in 2018, and both matches were stone-cold classics. A Rika this good against a Miyu this motivated, in the final of a tournament neither of them has won before? I need it.
Tour de France
UAE Team Emirates vs. Team Jumbo-Visma
15.07 / Annemasse - Morzine
There were so many moments in real sports in July that were pro wrestling. The Okada-Tanahashi 5 Star epic that was the Wimbledon Men’s Final. The MCC membership, fresh from being cast as the biggest villains in cricket, turning the Lord’s Long Room into the Dallas Sportatorium. But here’s one we shouldn’t overlook: loyal super-soldier Wout van Aert emptying the tank two thirds of the way through the stage as per usual, then coming back for one more impossible dig after UAE took charge of the front of the race, ruthlessly merking rival domestique Rafal Majka in the process. Tadej Pogačar’s vicious attack off the front, Jonas Vingegaard’s patient, unflustered efforts to reel him back in, the Anquetil/Poulidor-style shots of the two top contenders for the yellow jersey riding side-by-side up the Col de Joux Plane, Pogačar winding up another attack only to be unceremoniously blocked in by a rogue press motorbike. Vingegaard’s surprise dart at the line to take those all-important bonus points, which looked like the only way of separating places one and two in the General Classification going into the final week.
I want to watch a tag team match like this, where two rival Aces, one patient and understated, the other unorthodox and aggressive, are backed up by skilled, supportive partners, who know they’re destined to play second fiddle but who never for a second doubt the importance of the work they’re putting in. Something to keep in the back pocket for the upcoming Princess Tag decision match?