TJPW Yes! Wonderland '23 (6/5/23) Review
Mizuki Faces A Giant Challenge
Front Matter
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TJPW returned to Korakuen with a card that might sneakily go down as one of the strongest of the year. We have the fascinating main event of Mizuki battling the giant Sawyer Wreck, Suzume challenging Rika Tatsumi for the International Title and an undercard packed with gems like Arisu Endo vs Miu Watanabe. That sounds like a lovely day out!
There were some announcements before the show, most of which focused on TJPW hitting the road later in the year, but also included the card for Hype, Misao’s produce show. That won’t only include the auditions for ‘Hyper Misao The Second’ but also has Shoko Nakajima vs Yoshihiko, which sounds like a hell of a time. Then, during the Up Up Girls’ performance, Raku dropped Thomas the Tank Engine as her train of the day. Finally, Miu threw Shino under the bus by asking for some travel tips for Golden Week before following up by telling the fans she’d memorised all their faces, so they better be coming to the Up Up Girl’s show at Shinjuku Face. That’s not at all intimidating.
HIMAWARI defeated Shino Suzuki
We kicked things off with a battle of TJPW’s most endearing rookies. Having picked up her first singles victory over Toga earlier in the week, HIMAWARI came into this one looking confident, enjoying a rare opportunity in her young career to control a match. She’s developing some impressive power moves, spinning Shino around before launching her into position for various attacks.
Suzuki, meanwhile, is already an adept underdog, balancing nicely between likeability and vulnerability. She was fighting an uphill battle here, never quite able to overcome the Powerful Cheeky Chap, but hitting a nice dropkick into the corner and selling her beating well. Not that I think she had to do much to sell the slam that set up the finish, as HIMAWARI dumped her on the back of her head.
And we’re establishing a hierarchy among the TJPW rookies, with HIMAWARI settling somewhere near the top (second perhaps only to Wakana), which feels right. On the other hand, Shino will have to wait for that first singles win, but she’s continuing to deliver some quietly impressive performances and looked decent as part of this fun wee match.
Verdict: A Fun Opener
Hyper Misao, Hyper Runa & Hyper Haru defeated Raku, Pom Harajuku & Haruna Neko
Misao was tasked with looking after the kids on Children’s Day, and she promptly dressed them up as Hyper Runa and Hyper Haru. It also became clear that she’d passed down some of the ways of the hero as they cheap-shotted their opponents and choked Pom with her cape. PaMi must have figured she’d nailed this childcare malarky, but she hadn’t accounted for Pom getting jealous, claiming that, as a three-year-old, she should be the one getting special treats. Whenever you think you’ve got it figured out, the kids throw another curveball into proceedings.
Unfortunately, this all got a bit messy, but it wasn’t necessarily anyone’s fault. It looked like Neko tweaked her knee while in the ring with the kids, and a combination of her struggling to move around and Haru and Runa not being entirely sure how to deal with it caused things to fall apart. Thankfully, she managed to return later in the match, so fingers crossed it wasn’t anything serious, but she seemed to be having a rough afternoon.
Still, with all the nonsense going on and Pom and Raku tagging in to cover for Neko, there was stuff to enjoy here. It’s also one of those things that just happen, people get injured, and I guess, if you’re trying to put a positive on it, it was a learning experience for the wee ones. They’re still figuring things out, and with them also wearing masks and strangling someone for the first time, they were ticking off all sorts of experiences in this one.
Verdict: Derailed By A Potential Injury, But There Was Some Fun To Be Had
Yuki Kamifuku & Wakana Uehara defeated Mahiro Kiryu & Toga
Kamyu has always brought the best out of Mahiro as a partner, but it’s becoming clear that she might be an even better opponent for TJPW’s most apologetic wrestler. They have always had a bit of a mean girl and her nerdy best friend vibe, and that relationship very easily shifts into antagonism. Watching Mahiro stand up to Kamiyu, getting angry at her for interrupting her apology before refusing to be poked in the eyes, was a blast and continued her quietly strong year.
We also go a touch of salty veteran Kamiyu, as she had to deal with Toga not quite managing to get into position for the Fameasser. It took them three attempts to get it right, but Yuki dealt with it well, stopping to hold Toga up and deliver a firm forearm before finally connecting. Even then, it looked like Toga didn’t exactly help, standing up fairly straight and forcing Kamiyu to get some real height on the move. I often think the real mark of a good wrestler is how they react to things going wrong, and it’s a sign of how far Kamiyu’s come that she looked annoyed rather than flustered at things going wrong.
Throw in the remarkably reliable Wakana, who already feels like someone you can trust, and this was a decent wee match. Kamiyu and Kiryu’s interactions were the highlights, but with Wakana’s increasingly flashy offence and Toga’s big elbows to back them up, there was enough to get your teeth into.
Verdict: Mahiro Is Shining
Ryo Mizunami, Moka Miyamoto & Kaya Toribami defeated Free WiFi (Hikari Noa & Nao Kakuta) & Yuki Aino
Yuki Aino might be one of TJPW’s resident hosses, but Aniki is a league above, and this was a chance to see how she stacked up. It was a fight that she would lose, but Aniki drew some fire out of her before we got there, the two of them hammering into each other in the final act. If they have plans to bring Mizunami back for another big show, Aino has just laid down a claim to be her opponent because they could tear the house down.
Elsewhere, Hikari’s back was looking somewhat tender after her deathmatch earlier in the week, but I love watching her and Nao team up. As they tried to swarm Aniki, I realised they have a lot in common with Magenta, which has planted the idea of a match we will probably never see. Nao also looked good in there with Moka, her hard-booting style meshing nicely with Miyamoto and bringing the best out of both of them.
That all made for the best match of the show so far, with Aniki and Aino shining particularly brightly. It also planted the seeds for a couple of singles matches I would like to see sooner rather than later, which is all you can ask for from a slightly thrown-together midcard tag. Good stuff all-round!
Verdict: Aniki vs Aino, Please
Miu Watanabe defeated Arisu Endo
Arisu Endo is turning into something a bit special, folks. There was a moment early in this match where Miu powered out of a submission, but Endo was having none of that, stomping on her a couple of times before locking it straight back on. It was hardly the flashiest moment in a match where she leapt up to dropkick Miu from the turnbuckle to the floor and came mighty close to winning, but it spoke to what makes her so good. Most people would have moved on to the next thing, but Endo knows when to stick with it, forcing a move through to the conclusion and wringing every moment from it.
And it quickly became apparent that these two are natural opponents, Arisu’s scrappy nature meshing perfectly with Miu’s incredible power. Towards the end, Endo seemingly refused to accept that she was in trouble, escaping from the Teardrop to hit a Waterwheel Drop and setting up a final few minutes where I was sure she had it. To return to the theme of simple submissions, the Camel Clutch is something we see in a million matches, but when Endo was wrenching back on Miu, forcing her to crawl to the ropes, it looked so deadly I was shocked Watanabe survived.
It all meant the tag match didn’t stay the best thing on this show for long, as this fucking ruled. We all know Miu is brilliant, but Endo is having an outstanding year, not only stepping up to every challenge but overdelivering. It’s easy to get carried with these things, but with her Daisy Monkey partner challenging for the International Title on this show, she’s got to be close behind, and judging by this, that match could be incredible.
Verdict: Great Stuff
Miraclians (Yuka Sakazaki & Shoko Nakajima) defeated Maki Itoh & Yuki Arai
It took me a bit to get into this match, as the excitement of Miu vs Arisu was still wearing off even as Itoh blessed Arai by letting her take part in the cutest punches (she was the cutest in the idol world). However, as it went on, they slowly drew me in, largely because of the performance of one Yuki Arai. There was a moment here where I assumed it was ending. Yuka had gone cold behind the eyes and was dishing out a beating, setting up to put Arai away, but the idol kept fighting. In fact, she came roaring back, Sakazaki initially treating her attempts with derision before eventually being forced to get serious and slug it out.
And when you consider the other talent involved, it being Arai who captured my attention says a lot about how far she’s come over the last two years. I don’t think she’s a perfect wrestler, and there are cracks in her game, but she gets the emotion. You only need to go back to her match with Aja Kong to see that, and it was present again here, as she threw herself at an impossible mountain and dared to try to make it possible. She failed, Yuka is a monster, but she came close enough to make you think that one-day Arai may slay the beast.
Elsewhere, Miraclians showed a bit of ring rust, a few of their sequences looking a step or two off the pace, but it’s Shoko and Yuka, so they’re still great even when things aren’t going perfectly. Itoh, meanwhile, feels like she’s spinning her wheels, doing a decent job of filling a spot in matches like this one but never managing to take centre stage. I think a big part of it is that she’s spending so much time abroad that she doesn’t have an opportunity to get her teeth into anything in Japan, so it’s been a while since she did anything that excited me. This time, the thrills were provided by her fellow idol, who did a good enough job to carry the load for the two of them.
Verdict: Arai Looked Fantastic
Rika Tatsumi defeated Suzume to retain the International Princess Title
When Suzume beat Rika in the Princess Cup, she did it by playing on the counter, biding her time and using her speed to sneak away with a huge upset. This time around, she tried to catch Rika off guard, flying out of the gates and going for the win as quickly as possible. Unfortunately for her, it didn’t work, and when Tatsumi escaped her flurry of offence, she was ready to get violent. Having previously taken Suzume too lightly, the champ figured that the best way to stop the bee from buzzing around was to break her leg (after throttling her a bit), and she got to work ripping it apart.
And yet, even as Suzume struggled with her leg, having it crumble beneath her on more than one occasion, she never felt like she was out of this match. She is one of life’s natural babyfaces, and as long as she could wriggle away and burst into an attack, you always believed she had an opportunity to win. Rika was relentless, but Suzume kept finding those little openings, keeping her dreams alive as she leapt from the second rope with a Ring-A-Bell.
Sadly for The Bee, it wasn’t enough, as that Tatsumi onslaught of violence eventually proved too much. However, Suzume joined her partner in putting on a hell of a showing in defeat. She might not have been able to pull out another upset, but she pushed Rika, forcing her to get violent even by her standards and doing a fantastic job of selling the beating she took as she did so. The current crop of TJPW champions is a special group, but with the likes of Suzume, Miu and Endo in the wings, waiting to take over, the future is looking hella bright.
Verdict: Suzume’s Day Will Come
Mizuki defeated Sawyer Wreck to retain the Princess of Princess Title
You don’t get much more wrestling 101 than pairing your beloved babyface with a giant and challenging them to overcome. This was classic spectacle-based main-event wrestling, and on a show that already had the more ‘work-rate’ style matches of Endo vs Miu and Rika vs Suzume, it was a fantastic choice to close things out. You knew exactly how it would go down, but watching Mizuki figure it out was still a hell of a lot of fun.
It also has to be said that Sawyer Wreck was perfectly cast and more than held her own. She towers over Mizuki, looking like a create-a-wrestler where someone has flung all the height sizers to the right, and used that added power to her advantage, launching the champ across the ring. Sadly for Mizyupon, it also meant she spent her second Korakuen main event in a row being thrown through several rows of chairs, which can’t be fun. Still, they were a perfect combination of thrower and throwee, Mizuki flailing around as Wreck overpowered her at every turn.
And it all made that payoff incredibly satisfying as Mizuki found a way to turn the tide, helped in part by the chairs Wreck introduced to the ring when Kiso took a bump. That wasn’t the impressive part, though, as she somehow managed to get Wreck over for a Cutie Special, a moment that felt like it should have ended horribly for someone but was executed to perfection. It was a stunning finish to an incredibly entertaining main event, and if TJPW wants to continue to use Sawyer Wreck in this role going forward, I would have zero problems with that.
Verdict: Classic Wrestling
What was I saying about Itoh not having much to do? She stormed out in the aftermath to challenge her former Itoh Respect Army partner to a match at Summer Sun Princess. With the deep history between them, that promises to give me everything I was complaining Itoh hasn’t had recently (I promise I wrote this chronologically and didn’t do that on purpose), and I hope they get the time to build it up properly over the next couple of months.
Overall Show
TJPW don’t miss in Korakuen Hall. The early matches on this show were fairly standard, but when Aniki and Aino faced off, it flared to life. It was packed with varied and exciting performances, giving us a taste of everything TJPW does before setting up a huge title match for the future. That’s how you put on a good show.
Watch Tokyo Joshi Pro: https://www.wrestle-universe.com/en/videos?labels=-tjpw.