TJPW Grand Princess '23: A Marshmallow Bomb Preview
The Biggest Show In TJPW History
Here’s the thing. Every match at Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling’s first supercard at Ariake Coliseum could be a main event in its own right. That’s not to say I think this will become an exhausting slog of forced epics: the braintrust at TJPW have more sense than to book a show like that. It’s more that every match on this show could be a main event for somebody out there.
A peek behind the curtain: when I put out the call on Twitter on Friday night, hoping to source willing volunteers to contribute to this preview, I received a dozen responses almost right away. I asked each of them to rank the matches that most piqued their interest in order, from one to ten. Not a single one of these respondents put the Princess of Princess Championship match between Mizuki and Yuka Sakazaki at number one on their list. This is a match that’s at least three years in the making, arguably six, and it’s likely to leave as lasting an impression as any joshi main event this year. But such is the wealth of interest elsewhere on the card that I had to actively seek someone out to preview this match (and, since I’m the boss, I was able to select one of my favourite voices on joshi wrestling for the task).
The main event has history, so much history, but really there isn’t a match here that isn’t a culmination or climax of something. The main event is an emotional clash between tag partners-turned-rivals, but so is the opener, and so is the match for the mid-card singles title. Yuki Arai and Moka Miyamoto will test their growing reputations against two well-established giants, and Shoko Nakajima and Hyper Misao will be let loose to sculpt their particular brand of nonsense on a scale unlike anything that’s come before. Maki Itoh got Miyu Yamashita to win a tournament, finally, and now, after all those previous failed attempts, #121000000 have the task of reclaiming the Princess tag belts from a pair of monstrous outsiders. The return of NEO Bi-ishiki gun is always Event Television, and could take the prize for most GIFfable moment if last year’s Grand Princess entrance was anything to go by. The Raku match sees the return of Raku’s husband Ram Kaicho, on the opposite side this time. This is huge news for at least several of us. And if you’re a fan of rookies then the eight-woman tag could very well be your marquee match, because it’s got six of ‘em, and marks a monumental beginning for TJPW’s class of 2023.
It’s a very, very tasty card in other words, more densely layered and evenly-seasoned than anything they’ve put out in the past. So much so that it would have felt remiss not to put together a little something to whet the appetite ahead of the opening bell on Saturday. And so without further ado, let me hand you over to our team, to talk you through the menu (is this metaphor still working? It doesn’t 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 @FlupkeDiFlupke です)。ありがとうございます！
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Suzume Vs Arisu Endo
At the top of the Grand Princess II card sits Yuka Sakazaki vs. Muzuki, a match of tag team partners that reflects the rich 10-year history of Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling. Further down the card sits Suzume vs. Arisu Endo, a match of tag team partners that reflects not the past, but the future of the company. No wrestler has better exemplified the changing face of TJPW’s in-ring style than Suzume. As a young rookie, she seemed destined for the undercard, a cute gimmick mixed in amongst the likes of Haruna Neko, Raku, Yuki Aino and others. However, in the past few years, Suzume has turned into one of the promotions fastest growing and exciting young talents, making her way up the card despite her small stature (even for Tokyo Joshi, not known as the land of giants) and a tag team partner who suddenly disappeared for elsewhere.
On the other side stands Arisu Endo. While she hasn’t gotten the hype of her young peers like Yuki Arai and Juria Nagano, Endo has shown great in-ring potential, seemingly adding interesting wrinkles to her arsenal every time she steps in the ring. She has been tested early and often, and passed every test with flying colors. It will be fascinating to see what Endo pulls out on the biggest stage both she and the company have ever been on.
Although Yuka and Mizuki top the card for Grand Princess, it wouldn’t surprise me to see Suzume and Endo take their place in a few years time. This match may take on added significance if it turns out to be the first of many between two company stalwarts or even top stars, as I think both may turn out to be. This very well could be the match that fans return to when both have hit it big, looking for hints and ideas of what their next match may bring.
- Taylor (@tamaimbo)
Haru Kazeshiro & Runa Okubo debut match: Mahiro Kiryu, Wakana Uehara, HIMAWARI & Shino Suzuki Vs Kaya Toribami, Toga, Haru Kazeshiro & Runa Okubo
This one might be a little rough around the edges. All but two of the women involved have fewer than twenty matches under their belts, and with the greatest of love and respect to mahjong otaku and Schalke 04 superfan Mahiro Kiryu, it’s not often she finds herself as the designated ring general. But the fun of these matches is in finding out what these tyros are capable of, and already the newcomers have shown glimpses of their potential. On Team Kiryu, Wakana Uehara has shown solid basics and palpable charisma, HIMAWARI’s comedy chops and creative use of her insanely long braid have made her an instant favourite of this blog’s editor-in-chief, while Shino Suzuki is already streets ahead of where her fellow Up Up Girls were at the same stage of their careers in both workrate and character (how can you not love a wrestling tour guide?)
Where Kaya Toribami’s squad are concerned, Toga’s debut match, which saw her obliterated by Miyu Yamashita, had fans on Twitter making (perhaps *slightly* premature) comparisons with Mitsuharu Misawa on account of a mighty forearm delivered to the Pink Striker’s chest. Haru Kazeshiro and Runa Okubo haven’t even debuted yet, but they were both born in 2008 so I’m expecting they’ll turn out to be super workers, because the universe likes to remind me I’m getting older. Despite all this, chances are it’ll be messy. But that might not be a bad thing. The increased quality of TJPW undercards in recent years has made many of us forget that matches like this used to be de rigeur before the Princess Road hit its stride. We could do with remembering what it’s like to pan for gold in a river of silt.
- George (@puropodcast)
Hikari Noa, Nao Kakuta & Ram Kaichow Vs Yuki Aino, Raku & Pom Harajuku
It is no secret to anyone who knows me that I have lost my love for wrestling. A mixture of COVID, Speaking Out and garbage booking completely checked me out from the Sport of Kings. But the fire still burns inside, and every so often a match comes along that gets the glint in my eye shining, be it a grimy Lucha brawl or some mid-card grapplefest on ITV4, surfing the channels after a night at the pub.
When Flupke asked me to preview this match, he described it as “the big Ram Kaichow Vs Raku match at Grand Princess.” After spending several minutes examining the card, it turns out to be a six-man featuring Nao Kakuta and Hikari Noa on Team Ram and Raku being backed up by her usual hawners (Pom Harajuku and Yuki Aino) but really there’s only two names on the marquee here.
At last year’s Grand Princess, Ram and Raku made their entrance as a married couple, a highly emotional, groundbreaking moment which fellow MB comrade George Statto wrote about for the 2022 MOTY list. Now, a day shy of a year later, they square off against each other, their nuptials a now-distant memory. It is ironic that this would be the match to rekindle my love for wrestling and make me watch a Puro show again.
In many ways, this match represents a battle of two forces in my life. Sometimes I want to be Ram Kaichow, hanging about dressed like a Latin American general in corpse paint, sipping Ice Blasts at the cinema as I watch the new Evangelion reboot. Some days, I want to be Raku, visiting Breich station, the sixth-least-used station in the UK until 2018-19 when the line was electrified. This could be the match of the card. This could be the match of the year. This could be the match of my life.
- David (@VillanoXIV)
Ryo Mizunami Vs Moka Miyamoto
With the way that Ryo Mizunami has taken to the Tokyo Joshi style, it’s a shock that she is a relative newcomer to the promotion. She stands in TJPW as a sort of gatekeeper, the last test for the fast rising stars of the company’s mid and lower card. Even in defeat, Miu Watanabe proved herself worthy and now enters Grand Princess as champion, with Ryo’s other previous combatant, Suzume, not far behind.
Which makes the choice of her next opponent quite interesting. Moka Miyamoto has gotten more chances to shine in 2023, but even with those opportunities, she still seems slotted in behind a number of other wrestlers that seem set to take the next step in their journey. Even in her frequent tags with fellow karate practitioner Juria Nagano she often seems to be the 1B to the Juria’s 1A. We’ll never know if this spot against Ryo was originally destined for her partner, as Juria is out with an injury, but either way, Moka now finds herself with the best opportunity of her career to show the fans of Tokyo Joshi exactly why she belongs in the conversation with her more heralded compatriots.
Mizunami will bring Moka to deep water, but it is often when our backs are against the wall that we can truly shine. For these matches with Mizunami, it isn’t about who wins or loses, but the heart that is shown fighting against one of the toughest competitors Tokyo Joshi has ever employed. If Moka truly shows her heart and determination, this could end up being a career defining match for her, proving to the world exactly why she is someone to look out for.
- Taylor (@tamaimbo)
Shoko Nakajima & Hyper Misao Vs Andreza Giant Panda & Haruna Neko
TJPW has never been a promotion to hide its lineage. As the women’s branch of DDT, it carries on the tradition of having a mix of all types of matches, from highly physical “workrate” matches to surrealist comedy ones. And it is the latter of those two that may steal the show at their biggest event ever.
On the one side of this match, you have Shoko Nakajima, multi-time Princess of Princess Champion. Billed as the 147cm Big Kaiju, she has had some of the promotion's best matches and some of its most ludicrous, oftentimes against her tag partner here, Hyper Misao. Misao is a self-proclaimed superhero with delusions of grandeur that make Elon Musk look sane and rational, and her ability to cheat her opponents is only outstripped by her ability to screw herself over with unnecessarily complicated schemes. Together they have produced matches that included crashed bicycles, falls onto piles of kaiju figures and lumberjacks with totally ineffective - but still somewhat intimidating - toy mallets. All these tricks and more will be needed if they want to succeed against their opponents.
Because on the other side of the ring will be a Catgirl and Giant Panda. Yes. Despite being a feline, Haruna Neko has spent the last 4 years as an active member of TJPW, slowly honing her razor sharp craft. In cat years, she has spent almost a third of her life doing this, so for her the time to shine is now! Her partner will be Andreza Giant Panda, a freelance giant panda wrestler who has terrorized the prowrestling scene since his first appearance for New Nemuro Pro Wrestling in 2017. At over 2 meters tall, he has defeated such titans as Big Man Vader and Alien Dog. Between Neko’s speed and craftyness and Andreza’s raw power, they may be undefeatable.
With a GIF’able energy that will test social media sites upload limits and the sanity of star rating lovers everywhere, the collision of Kaiju, Hero, Cat and Panda may live on as the defining match of GP23.
- Chris (@Chris2KLee)
Sakisama & Mei Saint-Michel Vs Yuki Kamifuku & Billie Starkz
The return of NEO Biishki-Gun! Almost a year to the day from their last match at last year’s Grand Princess show, the French aristocrat and her dutiful maid have returned to TJPW. Sakisama boasts one of the best win-loss records in TJPW and this match will almost certainly be a showcase for her return to try and dominate the tag division. Their opponents are a first-time team of Yuki and Billie. This will be Billie’s second tour in Japan and her first match in TJPW since her standout match against Yuka Sakazaki last November. Yuki has floated around the tag division for the last year with various partners, but has not faced Sakisama since 2019. She has grown considerably in that time and so it will be interesting to see the two face off.
The ultimate intangible in this match however is Mei Saint-Michel. Our tray-wielding goblin returns to the ring and I for one cannot wait to see if she has developed any new tricks over the past year away from the company. Mei’s tray-related offence has been a constant highlight of her time in TJPW, and hopefully she continues to be an innovator of techniques that bewilder the rest of the roster.
This will hopefully be a dark horse tag match that sets the stage for whatever machinations Sakisama has planned for her return to the promotion, but I expect both Yuki and Billie to at least try and leave a mark on the aristocratic duo.
- Adam (@gastankadam)
Aja Kong Vs Yuki Arai
Those of us familiar with Aja Kong’s appearances in TJPW know the score by now. She’ll team up with the likes of Raku and Pom Harajuku, get sucked into their goofiness, do a few moves, and have a grand old time: as will we. But those of us who remember the long-lost past of 2019, before the pandemic and the cost of living crisis and the unending void of daily bleakness, will recall her sole one-on-one match in the company to date; a brutal ten-minute demolition job of Maki Itoh at Korakuen Hall. The career of SKE48’s Yuki Arai has mirrored Itoh’s in many ways, and now the Cutest in the World’s fellow idol wrestler must go through the same ordeal.
To be clear, there is a less than 0% chance of Arai winning this. But even to be in this position is a huge deal; Aja doesn’t hand out singles matches like confetti at this late stage in her career. Moreover, even her wackier appearances in TJPW have shown that she is the master of putting up-and-comers over without doing the job for them (witness her encounter with Mirai Maiumi in 2021, which had fans pegging the young hoss as a future star based solely on the fact she was able to knock Aja off her feet with a lariat). Arai’s going to get some hope spots in and a couple of near falls, she’ll get pinned 1-2-3, and in years to come we’ll look back on this match as a milestone in her seemingly inexorable rise.
- George (@puropodcast)
International Princess Championship: Miu Watanabe (c) Vs Rika Tatsumi
“2022 was Miu Watanabe’s year!”, I shouted from the rooftops for the best part of the last twelve months. In a year where TJPW was defined by a generational struggle, Miu was the tip of the spear for the promotion’s juniors, scoring pinfall victories against both then-PoP champion Shoko Nakajima and the Ace herself, Miyu Yamashita, in a summer for the ages. It was a summer capped off in perfect style by Miu’s first singles title win, capturing the International Princess Championship from outsider Alex Windsor at Wrestle Princess III. Miu’s title run since then has been, in her own words, all about new experiences. Her first defense, against Moka Miyamoto, evoked a Yamashita title defense, while her next two were against foreign wrestlers, Trish Adora and Janai Kai, both departures from the TJPW house style. It has felt as if this reign is Miu’s training arc of sorts, as she learns to work with outsiders, how to work like a champion, how to work like a potential future Ace. But at Grand Princess, she will face her greatest test yet: her tag team partner, senpai and mentor, Rika Tatsumi.
In Rika’s mind, the International Princess belt represents not just the opportunity to travel further afield and represent TJPW to the world, but an opportunity to capture the Grand Slam, and become the first wrestler to have held every belt in TJPW, a fitting accolade for one of the promotions’ most consistently great performers. The last time these two faced each other was two years ago, when Miu challenged for Rika’s PoP belt, but despite their history, Rika may just the greatest unknown Miu has faced yet. An unpredictable and at-times-brutal competitor, Rika’s title bouts can feel more like wars than wrestling matches, and her statement that she has nothing to lose in challenging for this title feels like a sign that she’s ready to take Miu to the deep, dark places she reached against the other ‘pillars’ in her run to last year’s Princess Cup final. But, while that tournament was all about the younger generation challenging the old, the time the generational struggle is reversed: now it’s a senior that’s challenging a junior for her accolades. For Rika, this will be the opportunity to firmly assert herself as deserving of the acclaim she’s lacked in comparison to her contemporaries. For Miu, this match will be the measuring stick to find out how far she has grown, and how far she still has to go to stand alongside her mentor on TJPW’s mountain top.
- Sam (@nambasanreacts)
Princess Tag Championship: Wasteland War Party (Max The Impaler & Heidi Howitzer) (c) Vs #121000000 (Miyu Yamashita & Maki Itoh)
On February 11th Miyu Yamashita won her first tournament in TJPW with her business partner Maki Itoh. That tournament was the “Futari wa Princess” Max Heart Tag Team Tournament. By winning that, both are getting a chance to wrestle for the TJPW Tag Championship against Wasteland War Party.
Wasteland War Party are a powerful team and intimidating from a physical/mental perspective too. Pom Harajuku can vouch to that. They’re promoting themselves as Joshi hunters.
Something that I think is especially interesting about this match specifically is that their tag team dynamics/friendship dynamics kind of mirror each other in some ways. This match has two pairs of friends, each one a powerful/near undefeatable fighter backed up by a charismatic hype person. Max The Impaler and Miyu Yamashita are both extremely tough to beat bosses. Yamashita has basically been the final boss of TJPW since the promotion’s inception. Max has been a really tough wrestler to beat too, winning most of their matches since their debut and remaining undefeated in a lot of the promotions they have wrestled for. Heidi Howizer and Maki Itoh are outspoken agents of charisma and chaos. Howizer is prone to talk a lot during her matches to her tag partner/s and opponents. Itoh is really really emotional and vocal too.
Not sure what expect here though too. None of these wrestlers have interacted with each other before now, but whatever happens I am sure it will be a really good time to watch and very exciting.
- Henry (@Blu_ReyMysterio)
Princess of Princess Championship: Yuka Sakazaki (c) Vs Mizuki
TJPW’s Big Three could easily have been a Big Four. Aside from Rika Tatsumi’s four-month-long run in 2021 – which came as a surprise to many – the Princess of Princess Championship has been held by one of Yuka Sakazaki, Shoko Nakajima or Miyu Yamashita for the past five years. And for virtually all of that time, beneath the thunderous noise of a roster stampeding down the Princess Road, you might have heard a whisper.
“Mizuki’s got to win it eventually, right?”
It’s been said among TJPW fans for years that Mizuki could have been a champion sooner were it not for her status as a freelancer. By the time she signed with the promotion in November 2020, TJPW was deep into what we now recognise as a years-long story establishing the three top names and an entire company of talent striving to surpass them. A King’s Road, if you will.
Mizuki has always looked like she belonged with the Big Three, but there has never been room for her among them. However many Princess Cups she’s won or title shots she has earned, her only titles in TJPW have come in partnership with Yuka – holding tag belts that Yuka has also won with Shoko.
You wouldn’t always know it from their matches, but there’s a subtle power dynamic at play between MagiRabbi. Their relationship is built on two things: a deep emotional bond, shown when they sob on each other after every contest, and the acceptance, however unspoken, that Yuka wins.
Except, maybe now. Maybe the next phase of the Princess Road begins when a woman who has kept up with its evolution as much as anyone – have you seen the Whirling Candy? – finally overtakes her tag partner. Maybe the Big Three have to reckon with the perennial Nearly Woman who caught up to them and step up to try to prove they still run the show. Maybe, just maybe, Mizuki proves what Rika couldn’t: that the world does not just belong to Shoko, Miyu and Yuka.
If not now, then when?
- Sarah (@SarahParkin1)