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

Newsletter: April 9, 2025

I’m back, after two wonderful weeks of vacation in England. Unfortunately, said vacation involved watching zero wrestling, and I am still working my way through a backlog.

This issue has coverage of NJPW, NOAH, and DDT, as well as a few other shows, but I did not have time to watch everything I’ve missed, not by a long shot. I’ll be saving TJPW, Stardom, and AJPW coverage until next week. That doesn’t mean this is a short issue, not by a long shot!

Match Recommendations

NJPW New Japan Cup Night 6 (3/15, NJPW World, Cagematch)

NJPW New Japan Cup Night 7 (3/16, NJPW World, Cagematch)

Sendai Girls The Top Of Joshi Wrestling (3/19, Wrestle Universe, Cagematch)

NJPW New Japan Cup Night 9 (3/20, NJPW World, Cagematch)

DDT Judgement (3/20, Wrestle Universe, Cagematch)

NOAH Star Navigation Premium (3/22, Wrestle Universe, Cagematch)

NJPW Road To Sakura Genesis 2025 - ~ Jr. Genesis ~ (4/4, NJPW World, Cagematch)

NJPW Sakura Genesis 2025 (4/5, NJPW World, Cagematch)

NOAH Sunny Voyage (4/6, Wrestle Universe, Cagematch)

DDT CHANGE AGE 2025 (4/6, Wrestle Universe, Cagematch)

New Japan: NJ Cup & Sakura Genesis

Goto, Finlay, & Umino

David Finlay wound up winning the New Japan Cup, defeating Shota Umino in the finals. This was more or less expected as a makeup win for Finlay’s last Cup, which he seemed set to win until getting injured, which wound up setting the stage for Goto’s big 2024. So not only did he finally get his win, he also got to challenge Goto at Sakura Genesis.

Goto retained in a solid match, if one that was maybe a step down from the semifinal and finals matches of the Cup that Finlay had. The English commentary did their best to try to put over Finlay as one of the most “aggressive” and “powerful” wrestlers in the company, and I just don’t quite see it. I think the idea is to separate him from past foreigner Bullet Club leaders, who were, well, dweebs - Prince Devitt, AJ Styles, Kenny Omega, Jay White - and instead position him as a much more confident powerhouse. I think it’s working pretty well for him, but it’s hard for me to not think of him as, well, another silly Bullet Club guy. I did think the finishing sequence of this, with Goto just murdering the hell out of Finlay with finisher spam, was awesome - I think it’s a fun twist on Goto eating so many pins in the past; sure he might need to hit you with six finishers to actually keep you down but they will look disgusting and you will be dead after.

After the victory, Goto called out Umino, which immediately got a small chorus of boos before Umino had even come out. That was a bit of a surprise to me - Umino got roundly cheered in his good match with Tanahashi earlier in the night. It almost feels like we’re now at this weird point where the fans are fine with Umino, they just don’t want to see him back in the main event scene anytime soon. Unfortunately for them, Goto will defend the title against Umino in Chicago on 4/11.

Everyone involved is acknowledging the boos, to be clear; this is not a late-2010s Roman Reigns situation. That said, they seem hesitant to work the boos into the story - Goto talked about how Umino should just ignore the boos; he’s clearly uncomfortable with using them to babyface himself more.

Goto did a press conference where he said he was excited to have an all-Japanese IWGP World Heavyweight main event on a US show. The last time that happened was Tanahashi vs Okada at Battle in the Valley 2023, and the last time that happened before that was… well, never, at least from a quick Cagematch search (and yes, I am counting the IWGP World Heavyweight and IWGP Heavyweight titles as the same here).

I think the US crowd will be respectful of this match, but I do think they also will absolutely boo the hell out of any Umino hope spots. I don’t actually think the average US fan has any particular hatred of Umino beyond maybe having seen his mediocre matches at Wrestle Kingdom/Dynasty, but they do know that people boo Umino, and they will want to boo Umino as well. I really hope Goto and Umino know this going in and play off it well. I was hoping we would get heel Shota Umino as part of this haircut run, and if there’s any time for that it’s here.

In the New Japan Cup, Finlay had an excellent match with ZSJ that will get run back in Chicago on 4/11. They awkwardly announced this match before Finlay’s Goto match, which lead to the disclaimer of “if Finlay is champion, this will be a championship match.” I thought this was a bit of a spoiler for the result, just since the booking didn’t make much sense for Zack to get a championship opportunity here - after all, he lost to Finlay during the tournament; he didn’t exactly earn a match with higher stakes. Anyways, timing weirdness aside, I’m very excited to see them run that back.

And one last note for Finlay: in the post-show press conference, he asked for a War Dogs vs House of Torture cage match. The last time they did this it was absolutely brutal - hell, Alex Coughlin retired after it - and I hope they maybe tone it down a notch here, just because it seems like between that and the infamous KENTA vs Tanahashi ladder match, NJPW really need to chill a bit on their big-stage plunder matches. I’m not usually a safety police guy, but, y’know, let’s try to have fewer long-term injuries out of this one.

Jr Genesis & BOSJ

Before Sakura Genesis, NJPW held a “Road to” show named “Jr. Genesis,” featuring the Junior Heavyweight Tag Championships and Junior Heavyweight Championship being defended. Kosei Fujita & Robbie Eagles had an excellent defense of their tag titles against Robbie X & Taiji Ishimori, followed by a challenge by the rag-tag team of Master Wato and YOH.

Clark Connors challenged El Desperado for the Jr Heavyweight title in a hardcore match, full of chairs and trash cans and such. This was long and had tons of brawling in the stands, go into it knowing it’s very self-indulgent and you’ll have a good time. It has a few killer spots while still not being quite as maximalist as a proper El Desperado deathmatch.

Templario challenged El Desperado afterwards with a video screen promo. No date for that yet, but looking forward to it wherever it happens (maybe the California show in May?).

New Japan announced the lineup for Best of the Super Juniors. Notable here are Kevin Knight, who is now also signed to AEW; Ninja Mack making his second BOSJ apperance; Dragon Dia, who is returning after a last-minute substitution appearance for Taguchi at last year’s BOSJ (and one where he went 1-8, presumably making up for Taguchi’s many planned losses - maybe this year they’ll actually book him to win); and BOSJ debuts from MAO and Nick Wayne. CMLL also have an unannounced entrant they’ll be sending over as well. I have been down on BOSJ the last few years for a variety of reasons, but I’m going to make a real effort to watch this one. I’d love to see MAO get some big wins here that justify him making some more crossover appearances - he does not strike me as a guy who particularly needs protective booking, and he could happily take some Ls in New Japan and get more over in the process. I’m also curious what Nick Wayne looks like in NJPW - he seems to not do the full AEW heel shtick as much outside of AEW, and I wonder if he’ll heel it up here or not.

Other NJPW updates

Jeff Cobb and Callum Newman won the tag titles from Naito & Hiromu in a pretty shocking upset. The Naito & Hiromu team seemed like it wouldn’t have a long shelf llife, but I didn’t see them dropping to the guy who was rumored to have foot out the door, and the 22-year old who’s only had a couple wins to date.

NJPW clearly seems to have big plans for Callum for reasons I find mystifying - they made a big show of having him win a qualifying tournament to get in the G1 last year, with wins over KENTA and YOSHI-HASHI (and tournament wins over Umino and Shingo Takagi). But the Callum & Cobb team didn’t seem like they were headed towards a victory in last year’s World Tag League before Callum’s injury ended their run early; it’s hard to imagine this was a makeup moment for that. Very, very weird move.

In less surprising news, SANADA finally got around to turning on the War Dogs. After losing a rematch against Yuya Uemura in the opening match of Sakura Genesis, he ran in on a War Dogs vs House of Torture match and turned on the War Dogs with a guitar shot to Drilla Maloney, joining up with HoT. I don’t like SANADA, so it’s convenient for me personally that they put him in the stable with all the other guys I don’t like.

Yota Tsuji defended the Global title successfully against EVIL and will have a match against Yuya Uemura next. Guessing that will be at Dontaku, though the “Global” title could have an appropriate defense at the May US show in California as well.

Great O Khan beat El Phantasmo for the TV title. This wasn’t a very good match, but like all TV title matches it is free on Youtube, so there’s at least that. It ended on a count-out, so I suspect they’ll run it back.

The G1 Climax schedule is out. They’ll be running the semifinals & finals at the Ariake Arena, a new-ish venue in Tokyo that hasn’t gotten a lot of wrestling - just two shows in 2022 and one in 2024. This will be NJPW’s second time there, the last time being the Stardom crossover show in 2022. That show had the wrestling attendance record at around 7,000; with a listed capacity of 15,000 it will be interesting to see how they end up selling for these two shows.

NJPW, and me, are going to Chicago

I’m going to be at Windy City Riot on Friday. I’m pretty excited for this show, which is previewed in full here.

The show opens with a trainee match and a dreadful matchup of TJP vs Tom Lawlor, a real “we didn’t feel like flying more people to Chicago” match if I’ve ever seen one. I would take literally any other NJPW match over this. Give me a terrible EVIL singles match or something. This should be happening in MLW, not on a big NJPW show.

Thankfully, it picks up with AZM vs Mina Shirakawa in a contendership match for the NJPW Strong Women’s Championship, with the winner facing Mercedes Mone at the show in California next month. I assume AZM wins here, given she has not yet had a singles match with Mercedes and was one of the first people Mercedes called out in her New Japan debut. Plus, Mina just lost to Mercedes in the Tokyo Dome. This should be a solid match either way.

We’ve got a fun filler match of KUSHIDA & Kevin Knight vs Strong Tag Champions Jorel Nelson & Royce Isaacs. This might get a little extra heat from Knight’s recent AEW appearances and signing, though I don’t think the World Class Wrecking Crew are going to step up to the level of opponent that, uh, Will Ospreay was for Kevin. Then a rematch of Ishii vs Gabe Kidd from the last US show, which is the match that sold me a ticket for this before the rest of the show was even announced. We also have a tag match of Naito & Titan vs Rocky Romero & El Phantasmo, which could actually be a great match as long as Naito doesn’t spend too much time as the legal man.

The biggest match on the show, though, might be the semi-main: Tanahashi’s final US match, with Konosuke Takeshita as his opponent. Some might say this will be a 3* match; I will be here arguing next week that the amount of tears being shed in the building justify it being 4* or higher, regardless of the workrate.

Notably absent: Boltin Oleg and Jeff Cobb were both announced for this show originally but had their announcements deleted from Instagram. I suspect Oleg maybe had a visa issue given, well, the state of America right now, but I’m kinda surprised Cobb isn’t there.

NOAH: new champions & next for OZAWA

Lots of championship updates in NOAH across a Korakuen and a few smaller shows:

Eita defended the GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship against both Alejandro and Kai Fujimura in back to back weeks. A rough showing for the ALL REBELLION members. Team 2000X’s Tadasuke tried to challenge him after but was run off by his former RATEL’S teammate YO-HEY; they’ll have a #1 contendership match on the 4/14 Korakuen.

The GHC National Championship Tournament (for the belt OZAWA vacated) had Tetsuya Endo defeat Takashi Sugiura with various nut-shot combos and Galeno defeat Manabu Soya in a decent-enough match. The finals of this will be on the 4/11 Niigata show.

AMAKUSA & Junta Miyawaki defeated RATEL’s (HAYTA and YO-HEY) to claim the GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championships. This included some pretty awesome AMAKUSA dives and is worth a watch even if you’re a NOAH juniors hater (like I often am). They’ll have their first defense against Gaia Hox & Jun Masaoka on the 4/14 show.

Galeno & Kaito vs Daga & Jack Morris was a great match for the vacant Tag Team Championship, with the goofiest result possible. After Daga & Morris paraded around with the belts for a couple months, refusing to relinquish them after Morris & Omos vacated back in January, they then… won the belts. Not clean, of course, Yoshitatsu interfered along with the rest of Team 2000X, but at the end of the day Kaito ate a pin (have to keep Galeno strong going into the Endo vs Galeno match, after all) and Daga & Morris are champions. Kenoh & Ulka Sasaki will challenge for the titles - the build to that was an angle I don’t feel like recapping but basically Sasaki is now friends with KENTA and Kenoh, and presumably this match will be happening on the 5/3 show while KENTA is busy with OZAWA (and presumably Sasaki will eat the pin there and we’ll eventually get Kenoh/KENTA vs Daga/Morris).

Finally, of course, OZAWA defended the Heavyweight title against Masa Kitamiya. I think Kitamiya is a pretty boring wrestler but I did enjoy watching this match far more than OZAWA vs Soya just because of the lack of any dumb stipulation. The inevitable Team 2000X intervention was pretty small in scope, too.

KENTA came out to challenge OZAWA for the belt next, which definitely feels like the biggest singles angles NOAH could have right now. This is a big enough match, in fact, that it willl main event NOAH’s Ryogoku show on 5/3. Before that, however, will be a big No DQ Tag Match between KENTA & Kenoh and OZAWA & Endo on the 4/14 Korakuen. The build to this has, unsurprisingly, had OZAWA taunt KENTA for his most recent No DQ match - his infamous Tokyo Dome match with Tanahashi that left KENTA on the shelf for months and with some permanent scars.

Bryce Hansen and Knull will wrap up their NOAH tour with quick appearances on the 4/11 show. Can’t say either left a huge impression but what I saw was solid enough, hope they had a fun excursion and learned a lot. The crowd certainly enjoyed their presence.

DDT: Judgement, Masahiro injury, Vegas card

DDT managed to cram two Korakuens into the time that I was on vacation, so lots to cover here.

The biggest story: my heart is broken for Masahiro Takanashi, who suffered a spinal injury in his main event championship match with Chris Brookes at DDT Judgement on 3/20. I didn’t watch the match, but from my understanding the injury was on what looked like a routine bump and likely the planned finish of the match. Masa was unable to move after the bump, though he was conscious and able to speak (Chris even held the mic to his mouth so he could thank the fans). He was then stretchered out; the last update was that he had had a successful surgery on the affected vertebrae.

Chris was in the unenviable position of doing the post-match show-end promo after his friend suffered a serious injury. A later show had a spot where he hesitated to do the move that had hurt Masa, before being encouraged by his opponent, HARASHIMA. A nice tribute spot, as much for Brookes as it was for Masahiro.

Chris did have a solid defense against D Generations Cup winner Yuya Koroku. The two-month gap between Yuya’s win and this match didn’t keep the crowd from being pretty excited for Yuya, though maybe not quite as excited as they were for the D Generations Cup final. I suppose there wasn’t as much drama here.

Next we’ve got a few big title changes. The big shocker is that Minoru Suzuki defeated Yuki Ueno for the DDT Universal Championship. This was a great match, one of the best late-era Suzuki matches and a gutsy performance by Ueno (by which I mean he got the absolute shit beat out of him). Suzuki’s next defense is against Yoshihiko in Vegas - maybe one of the biggest matches DDT could run for a western crowd looking for a combination of star power and comedy.

We also had the vacated trios championship claimed by NwA Jr, the subunit of 37Kamiina including Shunma, Sumi, and Yuni. They beat the returning Higuchi and his friends in Harimao in a very fun opener. They worked heel in the 4/6 show and I kinda hope they keep doing that; it makes the act a little less grating than it would be otherwise.

The Astronauts had a very good victory over the tag champions of MAO and To-y, and immediately set up their next defense versus Shinya Aoki & Keigo Nakamura, which happened on the 4/6 show. After losing the title, MAO announced backstage that he was leaving the 37Kamiina, with his last match on a 3/29 show.

KANON lost in unsurprising fashion to Daisuke Sasaki on the 3/20 show after the entirety of DAMNATION TA beat him up. Sasaki & Hideki Okatani then immediately challenged KANON to a handicap match on the 4/6 show. I, personally, would not accept that match! At least make a friend or two first to even the odds!

Well, KANON lost that second match in just about the same fashion. After the match, DAMNATION continued to beat him up until a mystery man came out to make the save, revealed to be… MAO! He’ll be teaming with KANON against Sasaki & MJ Paul at a show on 4/12. Finally, the odds are somewhat even; I hope that ends up being a long-term tag team just because MAO could use something fresh after leaving 37Kamiina.

Meanwhile, Astronauts defeated Aoki & Nakamura. At a subsequent show, Nakamura announced he is going on overseas excursion, with his last show in Japan on 4/23, saying that he felt like he’d let DDT down in his last few big appearances, and needed to go elsewhere to learn more. Zero idea where he would be going, honestly, but very curious.

DDT announced that Wrestle Peter Pan this year will take place over two nights (8/30 and 8/31) at two venues in Tokyo - Higashin Arena and Korakuen Hall. That’s a bit of a downgrade in capacity from the last two years at Ryogoku. Capacity for Higashin Arena looks to be around 2000. DDT’s show there last year didn’t have a full lighting rig but otherwise looked okay - it should look pretty good with a Peter Pan-level production setup.

There’s some additional matches on the Vegas show announced, with the big one being Konosuke Takeshita vs MAO. A nice bit of extra star power for that show.

The King of DDT bracket is out for the three shows in May. First round looks pretty fun!

Sendai Girls: The Top of Joshi Wrestling, Meiko vs MiSu

I was not quite as impressed with The Top of Joshi Wrestling as I’d hoped to be. It was an impressive production that drew a huge crowd to Yoyogi National Gymnasium, but the three big matches leading up to the main event were a bit of a letdown. DASH Chisako vs Risa Sera in a hardcore match was, unfortunately, the bad kind of TLC match: some cute spots but very little connective tissue or build between them. The crowd didn’t really get behind either wrestler and mostly just aah’d at the big spots. This suffered a lot in comparison to Suzu Suzuki & Rina Yamashita’s great TLC match on the Barb Sasaki show a couple weeks ago.

Chi Chi lost the Sendai Girls Junior Championship to Stardom’s Aya Sakura. I was sad to see Chi Chi lose the title after a pretty strong run with it, but hoping Sakura has some interesting matches with it so that I can start thinking of her as something more than “the rookie I keep forgetting is in Cosmic Angels.” This is Sakura’s first title after two years in Stardom, and I wonder if we’ll see her defend it on the Stardom New Blood shows that feature rookies - that seems like a perfect venue for a rookie title.

Maika & HANAKO vs Red Energy (Mika Iwata & Miyuki Takase) was good, but maybe less than the sum of its parts - what I really want to see now is a Miyuki Takase vs Maika match, as they had far more chemistry than HANAKO & Iwata.

All that said, the main event of Meiko Satomura vs Chihiro Hashimoto delivered on the promise of big women doing big moves. No complaints there. Hashimoto beat Meiko for the Sendai Girls World Title, her sixth reign with it. I’m a little surprised Meiko didn’t just hold the belt until (presumably) losing her retirement match at the end of this month, but maybe that match will be a tag or something.

I haven’t had a chance to watch the 4/3 show yet; I’ve heard the Meiko vs Minoru Suzuki match was solid.

One sad note: Chi Chi is out injured for at least a few months. Between her and Mio it’s been a bad couple of months for the aces of indie joshi wrestling.

Other News

As I said, Stardom, TJPW, AJPW, and more will get more attention next week. I do want to highlight a few big things to be aware of:

What to watch this week (4/09 - 4/16)

The All Japan Champion Carnival kicks off with three shows this week on 4/9, 4/12, and 4/13. The 4/13 isn’t listed as “live” on ajpw.tv, so I assume it will be uploaded later in the week. The first night at Korakuen will have a great atmosphere and be a big debut/return night for several of the wrestlers in the Carnival, so you should definitely give it a watch if you’re interested in this tournament at all. The other two shows will be lower-key affairs, though 4/12 has a big tournament match in Aigle Blanc vs Yuma Anzai.

NOAH has a surprisingly busy week with the GHC National Championship Tournament finals hidden on a house show - Endo vs Galeno for the vacant belt will be on 4/11 on an otherwise-unremarkable card. Then NOAH has a 4/14 show at Korakuen, which is listed as “Star Navigation” instead of the “Star Navigation Premium” brand they used for the last couple Korakuens, which I suppose matches the somewhat lower-tier card. This will have a big No DQ tag match between OZAWA & Endo and KENTA & Kenoh as a preview for the KENTA vs OZAWA championship match happening in May, plus AMAKUSA & Junta Miyawaki’s first defense of the GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team titles. The 4/15 show is a Kenoh produce show celebrating the anniversary of his Youtube channel - the only match I could find for this is a Kenoh vs Meiko Satomura exhibition match as part of Meiko’s retirement tour.

DDT, TJPW, Dragon Gate, Marigold, Stardom, and more all have various smaller shows. Sanshiro Takagi is running a very silly produce show on 4/9, the only match there that seems remotely interesting is Jun Kasai vs Maki Itoh, though I imagine we’ll just get a full comedy Kasai and Itoh maybe taking, like, one light tube spot or something.

Finally, New Japan are running their Chicago show on Friday 4/11. That’ll be a $20 PPV on NJPW World. I’m a little disappointed to see them go back to the US show PPV model after having the last few just be on the regular subscription, but I’ll be there live so I guess it doesn’t matter too much to me.

That’s all from me this week! This was a lot to catch up on and I still have a ways to go - I’m gonna finally watch Grand Princess on my flight to Chicago, at the very least. I feel like I have a little breathing room for the rest of the month, with only the Champion Carnival and the big Stardom show to keep up with. Oh, and watching whatever ends up streaming out of Vegas - I’ll try to have some notes on that next week.