Flupke's Month in Wrestling: November 2023
ActWres girl'Z - DDT - Sendai Girls
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.
ActWres girl’Z
Jadoshu (Allen, Kira An & Kyouka Iwai) vs. Rensan, Chika Goto & Asako Mia
Warabi Wrestle Butokan / 25.10
Stuart wrote in his monthly round-up for October that “AWG are on the path to creating a nonsense division that matches even TJPW’s, and it’s a joy to watch it come to life”. It’s worth sitting for a moment and reflecting on just what an enjoyable theme the development of that division has been in 2023. My first real inkling that something special was going on here was back in February with the Battle Royal that introduced Yufa to the world, and you could say that the Great Asako vs. Muscle CHIAKI match at the October Korakuen Hall show was the moment this strand of AWG’s programming reached maturity - that match was all gimmick and no foil, a marquee singles match between two ludicrous characters who for large portions of the match ‘appeared to be occupying different worlds.’
If that was the landmark match for this young roster, the one where the nonsense got pushed to a new stage of evolution, then this tag match at the Jadoshu Produce show ten days later felt like a joyous celebration of everything they’ve been cooking up so far. Everyone was asked to bring a weapon, and Asako brought a magic wand with which she blithely assumed she’d be able to charm the opposition (and for a few delirious seconds it looked as though it had worked). Rensan, back in her old gear, brought a pair of hand-fans which proved similarly ineffective. Chika Goto dressed in full Softball cosplay and whacked Allen in the back several times with her bat, then got stung by an old Oedo Tai elastic-tape-in-the-mouth spot that was intended for Kira An . This was twelve zippy minutes of raucous fun, with everyone, including the crowd, committing whole-heartedly to the bit. And they even found a way to end it on a resonant note, with a finishing stretch skirmish between Kyouka and Rensan that could work wonders for their cohesion as a team going forward. But mostly this was about atmosphere, the kind of atmosphere you get from a close-knit crew having well-choregraphed fun, which is precisely the sort of thing that’s kept me tuned in to ActWres girl’Z all year.
DDT
Eruption (Saki Akai, Yukio Sakaguchi & Hideki Okatani) vs. Naomichi Marufuji, Kazusada Higuchi & Miyu Yamashita
Ryogoku Kokugikan / 12.11
Big scary man Kazusada Higuchi lays Saki Akai out with a headbutt and clears the stage for Miyu Yamashita to apply the finishing touches, and sound out the final notes of Akai’s in-ring career. Yamashita hits an Attitude Adjustment and a Crash Rabbit Heat but Akai kicks out at 2; she isn’t ready to go just yet. The camera sweeps the ring as Akai lies in its centre and we see the cast of other characters in the match - peers, rivals, mentors - slowly realise what has to happen. Akai can’t let go as long as they’re present. They leave, and Yamashita does what needs to be done. The camera zooms in on each of the six wrestlers’ faces in turn as the realisation of what it means to lose Saki Akai begins to sink in.
In real life I hate goodbyes, to the point I try to avoid them as much as possible. But this was a goodbye done so poetically that I couldn’t help lingering on it, and finding it beautiful. You don’t get to bow it with a scene like this unless you’ve touched a lot of hearts during your time in the business. I can’t claim to have followed Akai’s career as closely as many of the people reading this will have done, but I found this a deeply thoughtful and moving retirement, and those final few in-ring flourishes played a major part in creating that kind of effect. Good luck to Saki in whatever comes next, and good luck to DDT in finding someone to fill her shoes.
Chris Brookes vs. Yuki Ueno
Ryogoku Kokugikan / 12.11
Others will have said more focused and insightful things about this match by the time you read this, so allow me to go off on a tangent about cricket why don’t you. Afghanistan were the revelations of the group stage at this year’s Cricket World Cup, and had multiple-time world champions Australia four wickets down with just 49 runs on the board when Glen Maxwell came in to bat in the eighth over, needing another 243 runs to win. Australia had just barely chipped away 40-odd runs from this deficit when they found themselves seven wickets down, and ESPN’s win predictor put Australia’s win probability at 0.2%. Then something genuinely extraordinary happened - Maxwell and captain Pat Cummins put on 200 runs for the eighth wicket, Cummins scoring 12 and Maxwell smashing the other 170. Maxwell couldn’t run and could barely stand by the end of his three-hour knock, and yet the talented Afghan bowling attack could do absolutely nothing to stop him. I watched the win predictor go from 0.2% Australia to 99.8% Australia in real time, and at the centre of it all was this other-worldly performance from an ailing but invulnerable would-be champion, a display of inevitability which didn’t feel crushing because it was all so unlikely right to the very end.
Anyway, wrestling. I don’t know the specific history between Brookes and Ueno that led to this challenge, but I do know that in watching this match live without much of the necessary context I felt a thrill that was somewhat similar to seeing Maxwell go about his historic innings. In general I’m not big on matches with extended stretches crammed with back-and-forth super-finishers, and as a rule I prefer subtletly and precision to excess, but excess can be a rare treat when it’s done right, and can even be subtle.
What made this work, at least for me, is that the whole rhythm of this stretch suggested a young challenger giving his all but eventually biting off more than he can chew and succumbing to the superior stamina and guile of the veteran. The little head-kiss that Brookes gave Ueno before one of those aformentioned super-finishers was more or less explicit in suggesting that this was precisely the kind of match we were seeing here - you’ve given an excellent account of yourself, young’un, the kiss said, but now it’s time to stay down and think of your long-term future. Maxwell looked right on the verge of retiring hurt on about three separate occasions during his innings, but he stayed the course and pulled off the seemingly impossible, chanelling some streak of invincibility not seen since Ben Stokes' legendary knock at Headingley in 2019. I found myself casting about on the night for similar examples from wrestling, and then this Ueno performance popped up and provided exactly the same kind of spectacle - the challenger endured more than you could possibly imagine any challenger enduring, even in this era of finishing stretch hyper-inflation, and pulled through for the win. It wasn’t the normal kind of extraordinary we see all the time, it was more than that, the kind that sticks in the mind.
Michelin Guide Star Rating: ☆
Sendai Girls
Sakura Hirota vs. Miyuki Takase
Korakuen Hall / 05.11
So much of comedy, and wrestling, and comedy wrestling, is about expectations and what you do with them. TJPW never do “shoot" headbutt spots, so the one match where they do whip that spot out is enough of an escalation to earn a place on my MOTY list. Asako Mia spends an entire match building up the impression that she’s paying homage to KAIRI then bursts that bubble by loudly claiming that she’s never heard of a wrestler called KAIRI. The opening minute of this match was an absolute masterclass of establishing and subverting expectations. Hirota gets a pin inside ten seconds, reversing a Jackhammer attempt into an inside cradle. Takase demands an instant rematch and Hirota agrees. They run through the exact same sequence, and Takase kicks out of the inside cradle this time, popping up to dropkick Hirota, before falling victim three seconds later to the Furafuradon.
Again, Takase demands a rematch, getting the crowd to help her persuade Hirota this time, and again Hirota obliges. The joke is so clear and so universal that the audience are hanging on the performers’ every move by this point. They run through the same sequence a third time, Takase dodges the Furafuradon, and the match begins in earnest. What happens next isn’t immaterial - there’s a hilarious variation on Hirota’s standard Old School spot, plus some expert Kancho selling from Takase - but more than anything I’m blown away by the simplicity and effectiveness of this opening.
I commented in my review of her match with Emi Sakura at DPW’s Japanese tour how adept Takase is at summoning and conducting crowd noise, and this is another stand-out example of her ability to hold the audience in the palm of her hand (ably assisted by Hirota of course, who’s always had a gift for this sort of thing). Pro wrestling is in a very uneconomical moment right now, and humour is as valid a tool as any other for getting a crowd to loudly, passionately care about the little things. That a large Korakuen Hall audience can be gripped by the same 10-second sequence performed three times in a row with minor variations should be a lesson for everyone.
Michelin Guide Star Rating: ☆