プロレス Primer
A weekly guide to Japanese pro wrestling.

Newsletter: February 25, 2025

Welcome to another edition of Puroresu Primer, your guide to the week behind and the week ahead in Japanese pro wrestling.

This issue covers events between 2/19 and 2/26. This was a surprisingly packed week with big news out of Stardom, big shows from AJPW, DDT, and Marigold, and… for some reason I also watched some GLEAT.

Match Recommendations

Pro Wrestling Evolution Vol. 31 (2/19, Evolution OFFICIAL SITE)

Marigold (2/20, Wrestle Universe)

GLEAT Ver. 16 (2/22, Youtube paywall)

DDT NEXT GENERATION 2025 (2/23, Wrestle Universe)

AJPW Excite Series Night 4 (2/24, AJPW TV)

Stardom Path of Thunder 2025 (2/24, PPV but soon on Stardom World)

DDT

2/23 Korakuen recap

I gotta stay out of the prediction game; I was wrong on three counts about DDT’s 2/23 Korakuen show. This show, as a reminder, had the D-Generations Cup finals in the main event, an anime collab with Bang Brave Bang Bravern in the semi-main, a Pheremones reunion further down the card, and not much else of note.

First, I was totally wrong in thinking that it would sell poorly: the combined might of anime, idols, and two very good young wrestlers in the main event lead to a near-sellout in Korakuen. It’s also possible the Pheremones helped boost sales, but I try not to think too hard about that. Either way, the crowd seemed truly here for Takeshi Masada and Yuya Koroku, screaming their names throughout the main event.

Second, I was, uh, wrong in thinking that Masada would win. He did not. He and Koroku had an absolute scorcher of a match, but Koroku won, and will be facing Chris Brookes at the 4/6 Korakuen. I think Koroku is a good wrestler, I think it absolutely makes sense for him to win this tournament if you ignore the prize being a title shot, but I still think he is the worse choice for a Chris Brookes opponent compared to Masada since this matchup just doesn’t have the same level of drama. But I can’t complain, in the moment it at least really shocked me that Koroku won and made him look like a million bucks.

Lastly, I was wrong in thinking that the undercard would be a whole lot of nothing. It is fair to say that there wasn’t a lot of memorable wrestling further down the card, but they did do a lot to set up the 3/20 Judgement show, which is also at Korakuen.

Chris Brookes’s KO-D Openweight challenger was revealed to be none other than his usual tag partner Masahiro Takanashi. Masa couldn’t be at the show due to a fever, leading to Baiyan Akki to fill in tagging with Brookes against Shinya Aoki & Keigo Nakamura. After the match, Chris called up Masa over the phone in a promo that… somehow actually worked just fine audio-wise? Chris was like cupping the mic against the phone speaker; I feel like they actually practiced this in advance to make sure it wouldn’t sound like garbage over the Korakuen PA. Well done here. This is a bit of an odd match - I’ve never rated Masahiro Takanashi as much more than a solid comedy wrestler who can have a more-serious tag when the moment arises - but I trust him and Chris to figure out a way to have a fun spectacle of a main event match.

Dieno now has a replacement opponent for Yuki IIno at Judgement: Super Sasadango Machine. The Pheremones reunion tag was exactly what you’d expect, and lead to SSM doing a quick PowerPoint after the match to pitch his own title challenge. Having Dieno vs SSM on the show is convenient to me, a guy who doesn’t want to watch most Dieno matches and who doesn’t know enough Japanese to actually understand an SSM match/PowerPoint in real time.

The big, big shocking angle, though: Hideki Okatani returned and joined Damnation TA by attacking KANON! I had completely forgotten Okatani had been out injured since getting surgery for an ACL tear in April of last year, and genuinely didn’t recognize him in black hair and a black shirt - the last time I saw him he was dyed “deathmatch blonde” for the Painful Jungle Deathmatch against Shunma, and before that I was used to the red hair he rocked in Eruption.

I’m curious to see how this plays out - I’m not big on Damnation, but I do like Okatani, so I want him to do well there. I am also generally glad to see KANON get out of there, I feel like he’s ready for something big. That dude is also huge now, in a way that isn’t obvious until you see him standing next to the guys in Sauna Club or the younger guys. I think could see him make it far in the King of DDT tournament in a couple months.

One funny note that I forgot about, and I think maybe DDT forgot about, is that Sasaki/KANON/MJ Paul were the trios champions. They’ve vacated the belts; I guess without Freebird rules they were sorta stuck after kicking KANON out. The KO-D 6-Man Tag Titles are not exactly prestigious but I have watched enough bad Damnation TA defenses of them that I’m kind of mad they didn’t get any comeuppance.

DDT ran down the full match card for Judgement at the end of this show, with a big addition: Daisuke Sasaki vs KANON was added, getting a massive gasp from the Korakuen crowd who had just seen KANON get taken out.

Other DDT news

DDT is bringing “The Fire” JJ Furno over from Australia to tour from Judgement to the next Korakuen (3/20 - 4/6). Furno wrestles in PCW, based just outside of Melbourne. My only real note on him is that his hair is ridiculous, but maybe that makes him a good fit for DDT. He’ll be debuting at Judgement in a match teaming with Tomomitsu Matsunaga vs MJ Paul & Ilusion; I think a little story leading to a JJ vs Ilusion match at the end of the tour would be fun.

Hirata’s 3/12 produce show now has him teaming with Hiromu Takahashi as part of a 6-man tag.

Daichi Sato is signing to DDT in April. He’s 16 and has been wrestling for three years, which is one of those puroresu things that always grosses me out, but on the other hand he is billed at 250 pounds, so I guess I can understand how he got started early. He’s been around DDT lately (beefy guy in the orange/black/white gear) and I definitely didn’t clock him as 16, due to him being massive, so an interesting contrast to the other DDT teens. We’re doing well with flippy guys between Yuni and Sumi, so I suppose getting a huge guy in the mix makes sense!

AJPW

The mini-arc of the Saito Brothers vs Aoyagi Brothers came to a close at the 2/24 show at Esforta Arena Hachioji. After the Aoyagis lost their attempt at the Saitos’ tag belts back at Korakuen on 2/9, they got a little bit of revenge in Hachioji with Atsuki Aoyagi defeating Rei Saito with a surprise rollup. Unfortunately, Yuma Aoyagi lost his challenge for Jun Saito’s Triple Crown Championship in the main event.

Neither match was particularly good, though I set my expectations pretty low going in so I wasn’t too disappointed. Rei vs Atsuki was rather dire. Rei is just not very compelling as a big guy tossing around a small guy, and Atsuki did not have even a glimpse of fun underdog offense to offer. He got a few barely-credible two-counts but otherwise got ragdolled until his big upset victory.

Yuma vs Jun faired much better by comparison, but failed to really grab the (sizable) crowd as I’d hoped. This was 15 minutes of Jun working over Yuma before a hot last 8 minutes where they traded offense. I really just don’t think this match structure works well for either Saito: they are not that fun to watch throw around smaller guys, and they’re not nearly heel enough to really get any heat doing so. The crowd didn’t seem particularly behind Yuma until he finally got a chance to do some offense in the later stages of the match. I didn’t hate this match by any means, it just felt plodding for a lot of its time - maybe that’s just what I should expect from Jun Saito singles matches.

Though I will say, my expectations are a bit higher from the man who came out to challenge Jun after - AJPW ace Kento Miyahara! They’re sort of running back the same angle they did with the Aoyagis, where the tag match came before the singles - Yuma Aoyagi and Kento will be challenging the Saitos for the tag belts on the 3/9 Korakuen, and Kento will challenge Jun for the Triple Crown on the 3/29 show. Last time, I thought there was a chance of an upset tag championship win by the Aoyagis to set up drama for the Triple Crown match. Here, I think that either Kento and Yuma win the tag belts or Kento wins the Triple Crown. But as I said in the DDT section, I probably shouldn’t be in the prediction game.

As an aside: Jun used a weird new finisher on Yuma that was like a brainbuster slam thing. Tokyo Sports via Google Translate shows it as the “Days Garn;” I would assume that’s “Days Gone” being translated oddly but who knows. It was one of those great finishers where the very first time I saw it I thought it was some other move being botched; maybe it’ll look better with practice like Yuma Anzai’s eventually did.

The Hachioji show seems to have drawn pretty well; the announced 1870 attendance is up a few hundred from AJPW’s 2023 and 2024 shows here. The other big match on the card was a great Astronauts vs Yuma Anzai & Rising HAYATO tag for Anzai and HAYATO’s All-Asia Tag Championships. I really had this going either way but the match was structured around HAYATO in peril in a way the crowd absolutely ate up, just great stuff. I think it leaves the door open to another match since it felt like there was some unexplored territory here - they could run it back with more of a focus on Yuma Anzai, for example.

After the match, Hideki Suzuki and Dan Tamura - who have continued a truly baffling angle where they keep slapping the hell out of each other whether they’re on the same team or on opposite sides of a tag - came out to challenge for the belts. This will be on a 3/15 show and would be the third time Suzuki and Tamura have held these championships if they succeed.

Stardom

Tam vs Kamitani

You know, I didn’t even plan to have a Stardom section this week. They had a big 2/24 show, but I am no Stardom expert, so I was just going to drop in some match recommendations and maybe write up a couple notes and move on. Which, by the way - go watch those matches I recommended above; I have nothing to add about them but they’re just great even with no context. The crowd is hot for Hanan and Rina as hometown heros; Rina and SLK do some utterly ludicrous moves for a match between an 18-year old and a 22-year old.

All that aside, right before intermission on that show, Stardom dropped what might be the most interesting story in puroresu since Goto won the IWGP Championship:

Tam Nakano has challenged current World of Stardom (red belt) Champion Saya Kamitani to a loser leaves Stardom match on March 3.

There is a long history between Tam and Saya that other people besides me are much more qualified to go into. The very short version: last year, Kamitani’s unit, Queen’s Quest, lost a losing-unit-must disband match to Odeo Tai, mainly due to Kamitani failing to step into the role of Queen’s Quest leader. Soon after, Kamitani turned heel and joined the new H.A.T.E. unit, which replaced Odeo Tai and became Stardom’s big heel faction. This worked out for her: she went on to defeat Tam Nakano for the Wonder of Stardom championship at Dream Queendom in December.

This feud seems to have made Tam kind of lose it. She won a tag match on the 2/24 against HATE, with the stipulation being that she could make any request of Kamitani she wanted: she won, and the request was this loser-leaves-town match.

This is so weird. This is a match made on a week’s notice for a relatively minor Korakuen show. I suppose it’s not the worst business, given that the 3/3 show sold out almost instantly the moment this was announced. This feels like the kind of match that only happens on short notice because either Something Came Up - a contract? an injury needing surgery? - or they’re going to use it as a short-term angle that doesn’t actually result in Tam leaving, and they don’t want to spend too much time building it with a false premise.

Saya Kamitani is, of course, the current World of Stardom champion, she isn’t going anywhere, especially given the belt is not on the line in this match. Tam is advertised for some shows after this, though I suppose the card is always subject to change. This also can’t be a time-limit draw - they’ve already announced it’ll have an unlimited time limit. Kamitani’s team being the evil heel unit they are, it’s always possible this ends in some sort of double count-out or other no contest mess.

There is some concern around Tam leaving. She is 36, which is, by Stardom roster standards, old (what a weird thing to say). She has “done everything” one can in Stardom - she’s main evented the biggest shows, and she’s held the red, white, tag, and trios belts at various times. She also had a knee injury at the end of 2023 that she claimed almost lead to her retiring. Marigold could certainly use some help to draw a bit better, but I don’t have nearly the insight into joshi promotion politics to know whether there is any meaningful chance of Tam going there. Tam also has claimed that she blames Utami Hayashishita leaving for Marigold last year for Kamitani’s evil turn, and that her goal in this challenge is to allow Kamitani to reunite with Utami and be saved. A very cute story, but one that I don’t think Tam would be selling if she was bound for Marigold.

Looking out from next week to where this story could potentially going: the Cinderella Tournament starts the week after, and grants the winner “one wish;” this could be used to bring back the loser of this match. Stardom also has a big show coming up at Yokohama Arena in April; this could be a place to run a Tam retirement match if she is leaving.

I think this whole thing is going to lead to some kind of No Contest next week, and I don’t really know if that will burn the fans. I think that it being on short notice on a cheap weeknight Korakuen might mean they’ll get a better reception to a non-finish than if this had been on a big show with a long hype campaign.

Alex Richards at VoW noted that the 2/24 tag match was built around the question of whether Sayaka Kuraka would betray Tam and join HATE, and also noted that Kuraka might be getting near the main event scene. Definitely another part of this story to watch.

Other Stardom notes

Saya Kamitani popped up on prime-time TV in Japan in a game show/reality TV special. She did an interview on why she participated and talked about her frustration in how little representation puroresu has in modern Japanese pop culture, and how the only wrestling stars who show up on TV are left over from the peak of wrestling’s popularity in the 90s. Something that probably resonates well with a lot of American fans. This apparently went viral - to her point, this had a much wider reach than any actual wrestling broadcast would have on TV in Japan in quite some time.

In “Stardom wrestlers working elsewhere” news: Kamitani will be defending the Pro Wrestling WAVE singles belt (the Regina Di WAVE) on WAVE’s 3/2 Korakuen show versus the veteran Yumi Ohka. Maika & Natsupoi will visit Sendai Girls for a 3/1 show in Sendai, facing Chihiro Hashimoto & Manami.

NJPW

Gabe Kidd showed up on AEW TV as part of his current North American tour. He got a nice little video package setting him up on Dynamite, then a fun match against The Butcher on Collision that was taped immediately after. He’ll be back in Japan on 3/6 for the NJPW Anniversary show so he’s not sticking around for the AEW Revolution PPV, but he could pop up on the 2/26 Dynamite or 3/1 Collision live shows - after all, he’s already been announced for the 3/2 Mystery Wrestling show in Quebec.

Clark Connors also got an AEW video package on Twitter, not sure when/where he’s appearing on TV yet. He’s not on the Anniversary show or in the New Japan Cup, so it is possible he’s hanging out in the US for a bit.

Zack Sabre Jr’s GCW 3/1 and 3/2 opponents will be Drew Parker and Mance Warner, respectively. I guess Drew is fine after his seemingly-shoot injury at the JCW Jersey J-Cup. Then again, if there’s anyone you could work a perfectly fine match with without having to take any neck or back bumps, it’s ZSJ. Zack also got announced for the Chicago 4/19 show.

Konosuke Takeshita is defending the NEVER Openweight Championship against Angel de Oro in the main event of CMLL’s 2/28 show. Luchablog noted that Angel de Oro is big amongst diehard fans even if he’s not a big name amongst more casual fans (such as myself). If this goes over well, I imagine Takeshita will be back in CMLL this year.

In FantasticaMania news, Tokyo Sports picked up on Mistico proposing his Korakuen Hall match vs Averno be made mask vs hair; but according to luchablog there is zero chance this happens.

NOAH

The Jr Tag League finals are set for 3/2: Mark Trew & Kieron Lacey vs AMAKUSA & Junta Miyawaki. Who would have guessed that neither RATEL’s team would make it? Certainly not me, a person who does not understand the NOAH juniors division beyond assuming that HAYATA is always going over.

RATEL’s will be busy, though, as the big OZAWA vs Soya title vs title match is now a lumberjack match. (This is the second lumberjack match in NOAH history, the last being a 2016 match in which Takashi Sugiura beat Go Shiozaki to win the GHC Heavyweight title. Maybe the return of the stip was inspired by EVIL’s four lumberjack matches in NJPW in the past couple years?) Plus, in an undercard match on the 3/2 show, all four members of RATEL’s will be facing off against a Team 2000X team of Owadasan, Tetsuya Endo, Jack Morris, and Daga. Morris and Daga will be returning from brief trips to Europe and Mexico respectively. Between these two matches I think the assumption is there will be a heel turn from someone in RATEL’s, though I dunno how much more room Team 2000X has.

I can’t say the rest of the Jr Tag League had the juice that the first block matches at Korakuen did, so no big match recommendations from me there. I’m kinda looking forward to the finals, though. Trew & Lacey haven’t looked super smooth on this tour but they’ve got a lot of heart and the crowd seems to enjoy them, and also Trew’s hat is a pretty good wrestling prop (cover the ref’s eyes, opponent steals it to taunt Trew, that sort of thing). I was glad to see Mark Trew finally got a Cagematch page a couple weeks ago, he’s earned it.

Still hoping for them to set up a serious challenger for KenKen as an angle on that show; this initial tag run hasn’t had much going for it other than the crowds being very excited to see Kenta.

Eita and Daiki Odashima are having a singles match on a 3/8 show at Shinkiba. Normally I would not pay much attention to a random rookie vs vet match but Odashima was pretty awesome on this Jr Tag League tour, I’m gonna make sure to check this out. Odashima also has a singles match against KENTA on a Kenoh-branded NOAH show at Korakuen on 4/15.

GLEAT (?!)

I watched GLEAT’s Korakuen show on 2/22. As I said last issue, you probably don’t need to give GLEAT money, but it was a decent show. I will give them credit for having one of the coolest lighting setups I’ve seen used at Korakuen, but they mostly used this to turn down the lights on the crowd so you couldn’t tell they drew like 600 people too easily.

The main thing I watched this for was the very goofy international fly-in match of El Lindaman vs Lio Rush for the G-RUSH Championship. I thought Lindaman held the belt, having won the inaugural G-RUSH tournament, but no - the belt was actually vacant going into this; this was to set the inaugural champion.

I went back and watched that G-RUSH tournament in prep for this - with its 7-minute 2-count rule, it only took like an hour to watch. One of those matches actually hit the time limit and then went to a sudden death 1-count period, which I figured they might do for this championship match as well - after all, why fly Lio Rush over to wrestle a 7 minute match? But, nope, Lindaman got it done in 6:48. And this match was not wrestled like that tournament. In the tournament, every single move resulted in a pin attempt (after all, it’s a 2-count, why not go for it?), everyone moved as quickly as they could, there was a real sense of urgency in every match. Here… they opened with 30 seconds of taunting and stalling, they did slow exchanges and trades as if this was a 15 minute match, there was a damn headlock spot. They didn’t even start trading nearfalls until the very end, like they were worried Lio was going to forget the stipulation or something and end the match early. It was not very good.

Anyways, I stuck around for the rest of the show and did get a pretty good main event in Kaito Ishida vs Takehiro Yamamura. Both these guys seem like credible top guys, and Yamamura has an interesting, if concerning, story - he was in Dragon Gate in 2017 when he had a cervical dislocation and had to sit on the shelf for a while. He came back to join Strong Hearts in a Wrestle-1 invasion angle in 2019 when he then got a second cervical dislocation, and ended up being GLEAT’s “DJ and ring announcer” for four years. He returned at the very end of 2023, so this match is, I guess, the culmination of that comeback. That’s a heck of a story, and I wish it wasn’t buried in GLEAT. I’m also not sure that a guy with two cervical dislocations should be, y’know, wrestling.

My one month of GLEAT subscription is up at the end of March, which is enough time for me to watch their next major show… a “LIDET UWF” show with a main event of Katsuhiko Nakajima vs Simon Gotch. I didn’t even know Simon Gotch was still wrestling. What a weird promotion.

Other News

The Pro Wrestling Evolution show from 2/19 is a highly recommended watch. Astronauts continue to get around, as they set up a Suwama & Shuji Ishikawa (VIOLENT GIANTS) vs Astronauts match for their next show.

TJPW’s Shinkansen match was a good time. I didn’t expect to like it as much as I did, but it’s pretty novel to see wrestlers attempting to have a good match when they’re forced to basically wrestle in one dimension down a train aisle, plus trying to avoid bumping on a hard floor as much as possible. Might want to keep the Dramatic DDT report at hand as you watch to help you with the language barrier on a couple of the bits.

Dramatic DDT also has a translation of the press conference for Grand Princess. Did you know Shoko Nakajima is a competitive Pokemon player? And one big match got added to Grand Princess: Meiko Satomura vs Yuki Arai! Big get for TJPW and for Yuki Arai.

Bozilla is the new #1 Contender to the Marigold World Championship after beating MIRAI at the 2/20 Korakuen show. This was a real solid match but I was very surprised by the result and a bit let down, as much as I love Bozilla - the crowd was extremely behind MIRAI, and Bozilla’s constant 2-count kickouts didn’t quite feel “earned” and mostly deflated the crowd. I think part of that was just Marigold booking Bozilla as a giant monster (as well they should) who can withstand a ton of punishment, but that’s tricky in a singles match where she spends a lot of time working from under like this. Bozilla will challenge Utami Hayashishita at the next Korakuen show on 3/30.

Other than that, the main story in Marigold is that we’re starting to see factions forming up. “Darkness Revolution,” featuring CHIAKI, Misa Matsui, Nagisa Nozaki, Megaton, and Bozilla seems like it will be the main heel unit. After Mai Sakurai and Chanyota’s match on this show, Mai said she’d form a team with Chanyota and teased recruiting more members. Marigold doesn’t have a ton of roster depth so it’ll be interesting to see if they go with only a couple units, or if they just start getting more freelancers into units.

What to watch this week (2/26 - 3/5)

The week starts with NJPW’s FantasticaMania shows from Korakuen Hall on 2/27 and 2/28, live on NJPW World. NJPW has good official previews for those shows (2/27, 2/28). The preview pages note there will be English commentary “to follow on demand” for these shows; I don’t really think you’ll need it though.

NOAH’s 3/2 Yokohama Budokan show has OZAWA vs Manabu Soya in a GHC Heavyweight/GHC National title vs title lumberjack match. I think this might suck, but in like, an entertaining way? It’ll also have Mark Trew & Kieron Lacey vs AMAKUSA & Junta Miyawaki in the finals of the Junior Tag League and not much else of note (full card). This is an ABEMA TV broadcast, so it will be streamed on Wrestle Universe exclusively with English commentary.

Dragon Gate has a pair of big shows on 3/1 and 3/2 in Osaka. The first will have Kzy challenging for YAMATO’s Open the Dream Gate championship, while the second will feature the start of the Rey de Parejas tag team tournament. It looks like these might be the only Dragon Gate shows streamed in March until the tournament final on 3/30, but Dragon Gate’s Jae Church was teasing on Twitter that he might soon have some good news for fans about the tour, so it’s possible we’ll see more streams or VODs get added to the schedule.

Stardom’s 3/3 show at Korakuen went from not being on my radar at all to suddenly seeming like the most important show of the week, with the big Tam Nanako vs Saya Kamitani loser-leaves-town match headlining. That isn’t a one-match show, either, with both a Neo Genesis vs God’s Eye Artist of Stardom trios championship match and, uh, Mei Seira defending the High Speed Championship from Fukigen Death. I don’t know if this will be a PPV or just part of the regular Stardom World subscription - Stardom is shockingly bad at announcing this stuff in advance, but apparently they’ve had discounted Korakuen PPVs in the past, and hopefully this is one of those if it’s a PPV (rather rude to have back to back $30 shows, after all).

Thanks for reading! I am still dialing in lots of things: how much attention I give each promotion, how much detail to go into for every company, how much to focus on results vs news vs previews. Feel free to send an email to puroresuprimer@fastmail.com with feedback or anything you think I missed.