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

Newsletter: April 16, 2025

Quick note for email readers: apologies for the lack of emails over the last month! I had weird issues with my email provider preventing from sending last week’s issue, as well as the programming note from the week before. Should be smoother sailing at least for the next few weeks!

Somehow, taking yet another vacation didn’t help me get through more of my wrestling backlog. That said, my trip was to Chicago to see NJPW Windy City Riot, so at least I didn’t fall behind on New Japan! I also have managed to see the AJPW Champion Carnival and NOAH’s most recent show, and will have some bonus updates from around the puroresu world. And then a long, probably unnecessary rundown of all the Vegas shows this weekend that have at least some vague puroresu connection (which, not coincidentally, are also the ones I’m most interested in watching).

Match Recommendations

AJPW Champion Carnival Night 1 (4/9, AJPW TV, Cagematch)

NJPW Windy City Riot (4/11, NJPW World PPV, Cagematch)

AJPW Champion Carnival Night 2 (4/12, AJPW TV, Cagematch)

NOAH Star Navigation (4/14, Wrestle Universe, Cagematch)

NJPW

For a week where only one major show actually happened, there sure is a lot more to talk about with New Japan than I was expecting.

Windy City Riot recap

First off: I went to Chicago for Windy City Riot and had an absolute blast. Chicago is a great city to visit so I was set up to enjoy my trip even if the show had sucked (loved the Art Institute and the CAC architecture boat tour, liked deep dish and Au Cheval but my favorite meal was at Dove’s Lunchonette, I’ll stop there before this gets too much more self-indulgent but damn what a cool city to wander around). I met up with some friends and even accidentally crashed a New Japan fans meetup happening at a rooftop bar across from the venue, had a great time talking to some people there. I know a lot of wrestling nerds, but it’s not often that I get to spend time talking out loud face-to-face about, like, Team 2000X or whatever.

Thankfully, the show didn’t suck! It wasn’t great - it wasn’t, truly, like, a Destination Event or whatever, it was just a solid little touring show. A step up from the old ROH crossover shows, but still a show that only had a few meaningful matches.

Those matches did own: the Gabe vs Ishii Iron Man sold me the ticket, and delivered exactly what I wanted. Some people are down on this being a re-run, and I can see that if you’re watching from home. This is just one of those matches where the best experience is just screaming in a big building with 5,000 other people after you all hear the absolute grossest chop in the world, and then screaming louder when it’s followed up with an even grosser one. Ishii won in sudden death overtime, which was the right move - Ishii was hugely over as the face here (I was surprised how much heel heat Gabe got immediately out of the gate, especially given that Ishii doesn’t like… actually do anything at all to intentionally get a big face reaction).

And the main event of Tanahashi vs Takeshita was great. Takeshita just beat the absolute hell out of Tanahashi and won decisively - no big arm raise at the end, no passing of the torch, just a young guy killing an old man. It was brilliantly done to maximize Takeshita’s heat, while still giving Tana an (eventual) very emotional and long farewell promo and exit.

And I did say main event correctly there: the Goto title defense against Shota Umino was downgraded to the semi-main (or “Main Event 1” according to the preshow card run down, but, c’mon). And it should have been. I had hoped the crowd would boo Shota to set a nice face/heel setup here; instead the crowd was dead silent for Shota and only really picked up at all for Goto’s big moves. I felt really bad for Goto, but the crowd did cheer the hell out of Goto’s quick post-match promo, so he can still say he got a big American moment, even if the match itself was kind of a waste of time.

Also in there: AZM and Mina Shirakawa went to a double count-out, and will now be facing Mercedes in a 3-way at the show in California next month. I was a little miffed at this but they really executed the double count-out well and got more of a shock reaction than an angry one, so it worked out ok. The other big noteworthy undercard moment was Zack Sabre Jr getting a clean pin over David Finlay; at the time I thought this was just setting up a rubber match (Finlay beat ZSJ in the New Japan Cup earlier), but I did hear Rich from Voices of Wrestling connecting this to Finlay being rumored to be heading to WWE.

Jeff’s leaving

None of that is as newsworthy as the news that Jeff Cobb is, in fact, leaving New Japan, as he was rumored to a few months ago. You may recall that Jeff Cobb and Callum Newman won the tag team championships a couple weeks ago in a big shock at Sakura Genesis. This is, uh, an issue.

They’re vacating the belts (seems to be in this season: also see NOAH, DDT, MLW…), and Callum has… challenged Goto for night 2 of Wrestling Dontaku on 5/3? And Goto accepted?

The funny thing is, the heat from the fans here is on Callum more than it is on Jeff. Callum has not done much at all of note since his return from injury - a first-round loss to Naito in a bad match in the New Japan Cup, the tag title win, and now this. He’s done basically nothing to earn this title shot.

That said, I thought Joe Lanza on the Voices of Wrestling Flagship Plus podcast laid down a pretty good counterargument to annoyed fans. Notably, he confirmed that from multiple sources he’d heard that Cobb vs Goto was the original plan for Dontaku, with Cobb putting over Goto on the way out the door. This is why we wound up here: NJPW didn’t really have a deep roster of alternative challengers! They don’t want Goto to go over too many more young guys, but also don’t want him to lose yet. So we get Callum, who at least has some credibility as the one who got the pin (on Naito!) in the tag.

Cobb probably was on some handshake deal with NJPW to help put over Callum before he headed over to WWE, and then NJPW got fucked by WWE wanting him sooner. Maybe there’s a make-good here - maybe the make-good was The Rock posting an Instagram photo of him wearing a NJPW shirt, as he did the other day, but hopefully NJPW did a bit better negotiating than that - but it does make NJPW look stupid here, not Cobb. Cobb did make a snarky jab about “I thought I was leaving!” after the win, which, okay, now that seems dumb, but remembering the point was to build up to that Goto match, it makes a little more sense.

Cobb will get a farewell match versus Tanahashi on the 4/19 Korakuen show, so clearly there’s not much heat from NJPW - they probably feel pretty stupid right now, but it’s not like it’s Cobb’s fault.

Callum will also be teaming with United Empire stablemate Great-O-Khan against a reunited YOSHI-HASHI & Goto at the 4/26 show in Hiroshima for the vacant tag team belts. I assume Bishimon will lose here so that Callum seems like an even more credible threat against Goto.

Also, Naito’s leaving

Tetsuya Naito is leaving New Japan. He’ll still be on the Dontaku tour through 5/4, but they chose not to renew his contract.

This one is weird. Naito has been physically done for several years now. He’s 42, like Cobb, but doesn’t have any upside left like Jeff Cobb does. He could go work any number of Japanese promotions in big star spots in multi-man tags, but it’s hard to imagine him doing a serious workrate tour ever again, let alone being trusted with any big singles matches.

This news broke just as I’m going to send out this newsletter, so I’m going to not speculate too much here because it feels like something we might very quickly learn more on. That said, we won’t really know what’s next until a couple of weeks later when this tour wraps up.

If I’m making a quick guess: NJPW probably saw a guy with a broken-down body and wanted to move him to a non-wrestling role or at least force him to take a lot of time off, and Naito didn’t want that. That’s a rough situation for everyone. It could also have simply been a money thing - maybe Naito would have been willing to work fewer (or no) dates, but wanted to keep getting top-guy money, and NJPW doesn’t really have the kind of cash to keep paying washed stars top-guy money.

Personally? I’m not super sad to see Naito go; I would have loved him to stick around in some sort of non-wrestling capacity but I no longer want to see him work. It does leave NJPW with one less top star, but it didn’t seem like Naito was long for the upper card anyways. If there’s an upside here, it’s that NJPW is going to be even more willing to give lower-card and midcard guys new opportunities. I’m not sure all of those opportunities are going to play out - we’re still waiting to see Callum’s big IWGP challenge, after all - but at least some of them should.

Also, BUSHI’s leaving

I actually feel kind of worse about this one than Naito. BUSHI is apparently mid-contract but presumably decided to leave when Naito did. I always loved this guy - Los Ingobernables de Japon’s pin eater was always a little better than people gave him credit for, and he just seemed like a fun guy outside of the ring. I am guessing he’s retiring to focus on running his family’s fried chicken shop.

Other NJPW news

There’s cards out now for everything through Wrestling Dontaku. Other big matches: the 4/29 Wrestling Hizen no Kuni will feature both sets of junior belts being defended - El Desperado will defend the Jr Heavyweight Title against CMLL’s Templario, while Fujita & Robbie Eagles will defend the Jr Tag Titles against the rag-tag team of Master Wato and YOH. I think both of these matches will be great and I’m looking forward to them.

Wrestling Dontaku will be over two nights as usual. Night 1 will have the big War Dogs vs House of Torture cage match, Shota Umino vs Shingo Takagi, and ZSJ vs Tanahashi. Night 2 will have Goto vs Callum and Yota Tsuji defending the IWGP GLOBAL title against Yuya Uemera. Tsuji has been advocating for his match to main event, and he’s probably right!

Right as I went to finalize this newsletter, NJPW announced most of the card for the Resurgence show in California next month. Konosuke Takeshita will defend the NEVER Openweight belt against El Phantasmo, Ishii will defend the NJPW STRONG Openweight Championship against Drilla Maloney, and West Coast Wrecking Crew will defend the NJPW STRONG Openweight Tag Team Championships against Templario & TJP, plus the aforementioned Mercedes vs AZM vs Mina match.

There’s one other big match announcement, teased in a pretape at Windy City Riot: the Young Bucks will team up with “some OGs” (currently listed as X & X) against the War Dogs (Finlay, Gabe Kidd, Clark Connors, and Gedo). The OGs, are of course, Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson. I know, we’re all so thrilled. I think the only thing left to be announced for this show will be the IWGP Heavyweight Championship defense, which of course NJPW will wait until the last possible moment to announce, because Dontaku is happening not even a full week before this and they don’t want to spoil Goto’s inevitable win or even hint at the next challenger. On a totally unrelated note, this show is selling horrifically and I’m kinda worried about how bad the vibes are gonna be in a 15% full arena.

AJPW

The Champion Carnival is finally in full swing! We’re now through the first three nights. I don’t really know how best to report on a longer tournament like this - you don’t really need a match-by-match breakdown when you could just go look at the standings table - so I’ll just go through my impressions of the wrestlers in each block by way of the few first nights of matches and what stories seem to be shaping up.

Let’s start with Aigle Blanc, the masked flippy Frenchman. This is his return to AJPW after a quick tour in 2023 where he just poppeds up in some random tags, and he came out strong with some great matches with Mike D Vecchio (who we’ll get to in a moment) and Yuma Anzai. Blanc feels like the designated “flippy guy” for the Champion Carnival, and that’s a good role to have - he seems pretty over already.

Vecchio, surprisingly, seems to also be a relatively flippy guy by AJPW standards, even if he has like twice the beef of Blanc. Vecchio comes to us from Belgium, and is currently champion in a number of European promotions, most notably the second-tier champion in wXw. This is also his second tour of AJPW after last year’s Real World Tag League. He’s been a bit sloppy so far, but in a very entertaining way - I can forgive a guy his size for slowly lumbering up the ropes to get in position for a big-guy shooting star press or whatever. He had a very solid match versus Rei Saito on night 3 as well, just doing a great mix of flying moves and power spots; he really wants to get over here and I think he will.

Xyon has not looked great in his one singles match so far, nearly killing Kuma Arashi with a botched powerbomb that was turned into a piledriver. Kuma seems fine and worked a match the next day with Davey Boy Smith Jr, but a rough way to debut in AJPW, and really his first big-stage redebut since leaving NXT last year. He seems rough; he’s certainly a large guy (taller than, say, Vecchio) but he just seems to be working the same super-basic style a lot of ex-rugby/football guys seem to.

Kengo Mashimo seemed like a bit of an odd inclusion when first announced - he’s 46, a stalwart of Japanese indies (most notably 2AW), and I had only seen him on a couple of random undercard tags. He does have a long history with AJPW in the mid-2010s on various tours, and after seeing him in action, I now understand why he’s here - he’s got a good combo of brawler and submission wrestler, being a big lumbering dude with a disgusting-looking armbar. He had a pretty solid match with Kento in the main event of night 2 where Kento sold his absolute ass off for Kengo, so I imagine Kengo is going to wind up with a few ZSJ-style spoiler upsets in his block.

Dragon Gate’s Madoka Kikuta is also injecting a lot of intensity into this tournament like Blanc and Vecchio, though his style is much heavier than you would maybe expect from Dragon Gate. He had a night 2 match with Hokuto Omori that I actually really liked, though it has the caveat of being built around Omori countering Kikuta’s hip attack with uh… sticking his fingers out to “block” it. Your milage may vary on that one.

Finally, our last guest, Takashi Yoshida - the former Cyber Kong, and a last-minute substitute for the ill Cyrus (get well soon!) - hasn’t made much of an impression on me. He’s a large 40-something guy who, well, seems like he was picked to slot into Cyrus’s role, but doesn’t have nearly as much charisma. He’s only had one singles match so far, and it was unfortunately against Davey Boy Smith Jr, so will be a bit before I can properly judge him.

I’m finding myself, surprisingly, rooting for Hideki Suzuki in A Block, who is just doing some really entertaining and really nasty stuff in ring. In B Block, I’d be happy to see either Vecchio or Yuma Anzai in the final - and, of course, Anzai is far more likely. But I am terrible at doing predictions for round-robin tournaments, so I’ll avoid any actual predictions until at next week at a minimum.

NOAH

NOAH had a surprisingly good Star Navigation show at Korakuen Hall on 4/14, headlined with a No DQ match between KENTA & Kenoh vs OZAWA & Tetsuya Endo as a preview for the big KENTA vs OZAWA match coming up on the 5/3 Ryogoku show.

It ended up being a pretty solid plunder match: lots of brawling around Korakuen, some real stupid stuff with chairs, and one incredibly nasty bump off a way-too-high ladder by OZAWA into, uh, what was supposed to be two tables but wound up being more like one-and-a-quarter. That bump lead to KENTA picking up the win with a Go To Sleep on OZAWA. This whole match also was meant as KENTA sort of getting his revenge on the match format itself, having had some pretty horrific injuries from his last No DQ match, an ill-advised bout with Hiroshi Tanahashi a few years ago where KENTA was the one to take a disgusting ladder bump. Hopefully OZAWA didn’t sustain any such injuries from his bump (being 20 years younger than KENTA probably helps); I’m really looking forward to the title match.

The other two matches to watch are a surprisingly good YO-HEY vs Tadasuke singles match, with the two feuding after Tadasuke’s turn on RATEL’S a few weeks ago, and an excellent AMAKUSA & Junta Miyahara vs F-SWAG match. Who would have thought I’d be so into the NOAH juniors division in 2025?

The other very funny moment on this show: Kaito got pinned by random-guy Saxon Huxley in a 4v4 tag, the kind of nothing tag that you usually are supposed to have some undercard guy eat the pin in. Instead, theoretical NOAH ace Kaito got pinned by this guy from NXT UK who just came back after being away for a few months. This was so embarrassing that he just laid in the ring for a while until Naomichi Marufuji came out and said basically “dude, what the hell is wrong with you?” and challenged him to a match at Ryogoku. Either Kaito wins that match and begins his road back to the top, or he loses and hopefully makes the kind of big change that Shota Umino should have.

We now have the full card for the Ryogoku show, which is looking okay. OZAWA vs KENTA and Marufuji vs Kaito will be the main and semi-main; those should be great.

The rest of the card, ehhh. I guess now’s a good time as any to mention that Galeno defeated Tetsuya Endo to win the GHC National Championship on the 4/11 house show - which, honestly, I forgot about entirely until I looked at the 5/3 card and went “wait, Galeno is the GHC National Champion?” That match has good Cagematch ratings and I should probably check it out. What I am not excited to check out is Galeno defending the belt against Saxon Huxley at Ryogoku. If that match is somehow good, they should go ahead and build the company around Galeno going forward.

Kenoh and Ulka Sasaki will take on Jack Morris and Daga for the tag belts. Kenoh, Sasaki, and KENTA have formed a trio that I presume will last just long enough for KENTA and Kenoh to both challenge OZAWA and then disband once they don’t need Sasaki to take pins anymore. Still, Sasaki is a good enough worker I’m glad he has an excuse to hang out with some more interesting guys.

Eita vs YO-HEY will be the junior championship match (YO-HEY having won the right to challenge after defeating Tadasuke). RATEL’S’s (wow I hate typing that) HAYATA will face Tadasuke in a match refereed by… RATEL’S’s Manabu Soya. Seems a little unfair to me! There’s also a Jun Akiyama & Takashi Sugiura vs Tetsuya Endo & Owadasan match that kinda sticks out as the 7th of the 9 matches on the show - I don’t know if we’ll get a weird Team 2000X angle there or if it’s just an excuse for NOAH to have another upper-card match where old men get a victory.

The best match on the show might be the opener, with AMAKUSA & Junta Miyawaki defending the junior tag belts from the returning Dragon Bane & Alpha Wolf, who haven’t popped up in NOAH in a few months. I’m very high on AMAKUSA & Junta right now and I think putting them in a tag against a couple of luchadors going for broke to hype up the crowd in the opening match could lead to an incredibly fun match.

Other news

KANON and MAO’s new tag team in DDT is named “STRANGE LOVE CONNECTION” (or S.L.C.). I’m pretty sure this is a reference to the band Turnstile and the song/EP Turnstile Love Connection (T.L.C), just because MAO seems like a dude who would love Turnstile.

Also in DDT, Damnation T.A. have challenged current champions NwA Jr. (Shunma, Sumi, and Yuni) for the trios belts. You may remember Damnation T.A. vacated those belts after they kicked out KANON, who was one third of the champions at the time. That match is happening on a 4/26 show in Sapporo.

I continue to be behind on joshi wrestling, but will try to cover all the storylines going into Stardom’s big 4/27 show in the next issue. Do have a few notes on some folks leaving:

Bozilla had her farewell match in Marigold. I will certainly miss Bozilla as, honestly, the primary reason to watch Marigold. She debuts in the US at Joey Janela’s Spring Break on Friday; where she goes next is anyone’s guess.

Nanae Takahashi, who’s retiring next month, held a produce show in Marigold to have a few matches on her retirement road. She also called out Guila asking for one last match, which I kinda doubt she’s gonna get; WWE and Marigold may still have a relationship but I can’t imagine it being that tight.

Meiko Satomura is also on her own retirement road with her retirement show on 4/29, and before that will pop up on Stardom’s 4/27 show for a trios match. As far as I know Meiko’s final match is still not known (I don’t think any of the card is?). Hopefully this time next week we’ll know, but I suppose with a sold-out Korakuen she could always choose to go full PWG Mystery Vortex on us.

Vegas Mania weekend preview

I’m going to try to give a real quick rundown of what’s going on in Vegas this weekend that’s at least vaguely puroresu-related. I’ll stick to shows being put on by puro companies and matches with wrestlers primarily associated with puro (otherwise I’d be stuck here running down, like, fifteen Royce Isaacs matches).

If you want a full list of every single show going in Vegas, Voices of Wrestling has a massive list. Notably we only have streaming information for a handful of shows on this huge list. Triller TV also has a surprisingly useful Mania week page for what’s streaming on their service - notably, everything GCW is corunning (the shows at the Palms) are streamed on TrillerTV+, which is $8/mo.

I’m gonna also write this with the thought that you, the reader, will be watching comfortably from home, and not spending $600 on Ubers to ferry you between the sixteen different venues people are running in Vegas to attend a million shows this weekend. The Mania live experience is a very different thing from watching at home: in person, you are basically getting an incredible crop of house shows where there’s no stakes but you get to see all of your favorite stars in one place. On the other hand, watching at home, it’s like watching a bunch of house shows: you’re seeing a bunch of your favorite wrestlers wrestle with zero stakes and with worse production than usual. Now I still think there are a bunch of fun-sounding matches on this weekend, but I’m gonna probably sound a little cynical on some of these cards just because I don’t think you should get too excited about these streams.

That said, Wednesday night starts us off with DragonGate USA: The Rebirth 2025 at 8pm PT, and I’m actually really excited for it. You have Kzy, Ben-K, Hyo, Ultimo Dragon, and Ho Ho Lun in various tags against US indie talent (including some fun names like Willie Mack), then a big 6-man of YAMATO, Dragon Kid & Susumu Yokosuka vs. Shun Skywalker, Kota Minoura & ISHIN. Also, a STARDOM offer match of Starlight Kid & AZM vs. Natsuko Tora & Konami. I think this will be a hot show with a lively crowd that’s just flown in and a lot of fast-paced action.

DEFY Wrestling kicks off Thursday at 11am PT with Living Proof 2025. This somehow has EVIL’s only appearance of the weekend, facing Michael Oku. It also has HYO & Susumu Yokusuka teaming up in a three-way tag against Sinner & Saint and Lykos Gym, KENTA facing Mance Warner, and a main event featuring DEFY World Champion Clark Connors defending his title against El Phantasmo and Man Like DeReiss.

At 12pm we have Pandemonium Pro Wrestling running a show with a wild variety of talent, but relevant to this newsletter it has Maya World vs Miu Watanabe, Kzy vs Cappucino Jones, Masha Slamovich vs MAO, and Titan & Ben-K vs Barbaro Cavernario & YAMATO. This will stream free on Youtube; I’ll be split screening it with DEFY.

TMDK (ZSJ, Bad Dude Tito, & Shane Haste) vs West Coast Wrecking Crew & Thomas Billington is on another show on at noon, Kirk White’s Big Time Wrestling. I don’t think this has streaming, but the card doesn’t really impress me anyways, so no great loss.

Then we have the first of two Stardom shows on at noon. And oh boy, this will cause some discourse. Basically, both Stardom cards feature a real solid Stardom crew mixed up with a bunch of indie wrestlers no one has ever heard of, some of whom don’t even have bookings on other shows this weekend. And these were shows with $300 front row tickets. These cards will also be streaming on Triller, but as PPVs, $25 for a two-pack. Do not buy these shows. I genuinely don’t know why they’re airing them.

3pm PT has the WrestleCon Supershow airing on Highspots TV for $15 on their sub. This has Minoru Suzuki vs Butterbean, Mickie James vs Maki Itoh, everyone’s favorite Ninja Mack vs Mascara Dorada, TMDK (again ZSJ, Tito, & Haste) vs Hechicero, Michael Oku, & Flip Gordon, and a “mystery tag” 5v5. I actually think this will be pretty fun but maybe not $15 fun.

Also at 3pm PT is West Coast Pro Wrestling, also on Highspots TV, so I guess maybe you could kick Highspots $15 and split screen two shows and get your money’s worth. This will have Johnnie Robbie vs Marvelous’s Great Sakuya; MAO vs Jiah Jewell; and Kzy, YAMATO, & Dragon Kid vs Bendito, Toxin, & Latigo.

At 5pm PT we have Spark Joshi’s Lady Luck, a $20 PPV on Triller. If this was a TrillerTV+ show I’d be interested, but again, at $20, it’s maybe a pass. It does have a credible card of joshi wrestlers: Hazuki vs Lena Kross, Ram Kaichow vs VertVixen, SAKI vs Dani Mo, Starlight Kid & Dani Mo vs Syuri & Zoe Lucas, Aja Kong & Kyoko Inoue vs Maya World & Nightshade. Momo Watanabe and AZM are also announced to appear. This is actually a way stronger card than Stardom has on their shows, but I’m not sure how well it will do given the time slot and their venue being kinda far from the Palms & MEET Vegas venues that most of the big shows are at.

At 7pm PT Prestige Wrestling are running a show that airs free on Youtube, featuring Minoru Suzuki vs Adam Priest, Michael Oku vs El Phantasmo, and an absolutely sick-sounding trios match of Galeno, Hijo de Dr Wagner Jr, & Arez vs Z-Brats (Shun Skywalker, ISHIN, & Kota Minoura). This is a great-looking card all around (though your mileage may vary on the main event featuring the return of the former IIconics).

8pm has yet another edition of Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport, with Barnett vs Gabe Kidd, Shayna Baszler vs Konami, ZSJ vs Jonathan Gresham, Charlie Dempsey vs Shinya Aoki, Karmen Petrovic vs Maika, and Natalya vs Miyu Yamashita among others. Sort of novel for being one of the few places you can see WWE vs Stardom happen, but uh, I am kind of a Bloodsport hater so will probably be barely-watching this myself. I expect there to be some people raving about some matches I end up finding incredibly boring.

France’s Banger Zone Wrestling - where MAO & Yoshihiko are the current tag champions - are running a show at 10pm, but it doesn’t look like it’ll get aired live. That’ll feature MAO & Yoshihiko defending against Alec Price & Marcus Mathers; that match sounds bad to me but might show up on Wrestle Universe at some point anyways.

Marvelous has an 11pm show that’s also on Highspots TV (okay, that $15 is starting to sound better and better). The word count of this newsletter is high enough without me writing out the full card, but it’s in that link and features some really unique matchups. Not sure what the vibe of this one will be like; I suspect it’ll draw pretty poorly being so late at night but this is the only show for much of the Marvelous roster coming over so I think they’ll still give it their all.

Progress has a midnight show with Minoru Suzuki vs Cara Noir. No thank you! It’ll be 3am eastern by this point and I will simply go to sleep.

Friday has TJPW’s awesome-looking card at 11am. They really went all-out for booking this one compared to previous years’ “fun house show” vibes - this will honestly be TJPW’s biggest show for the next few months, since Summer Sun Princess isn’t until July. Masha Slamovich vs Miu Watanabe would get me in the door alone; all three belts being defended only sweetens the deal. Don’t miss this.

Do feel free to miss the other Stardom card at noon. It has a better lineup of talent but also has, uh, Hanan, Saya Iida & The DKC vs. Natsuko Tora, Thekla & Clark Connors.

Texas Wrestling Cartel are running a 1:30 show that isn’t streaming, but is notable for featuring KENTA & Chase Owens, the current tag champions, versus Hijo de Dr Wagner Jr & Galeno and two other teams in a four-way. Very funny Bullet Club reunion/send-off there. It’ll also have another tag with Z-Brats versus some guys.

At 3pm we have DDT’s weird, weird card, and I don’t mean that in the usual good way. We are kind of missing some main event power and instead have MiSu defending the Universal belt against Yoshihiko and 1 Called Manders defending the wXw Championship against Yukio Naya. Last year I was a little miffed to not get Yukio Naya in Philadelphia, coming off of that big D-Oh tournament run; this year I cannot believe they are putting him in a singles match on a touring show. The rest of the card is at least okay: Honda faces comedy wrestler Santana Jackson, Shinya Aoki faces Timothy Thatcher in a match that hopefully doesn’t go over ten minutes (but should otherwise be pretty good), Takeshita faces MAO which should absolutely steal the show, and Sumi, Shunma, & Nick Wayne face off against Marcus Mathers, Tyler Batement & Gringo Loco. Weird that DDT keeps running with face Nick Wayne. Also, Daisuke Sasaki, Ilusion, and Yuni are announced. I feel like this match is really missing a big fun gimmick, though I guess Honda vs Santana and Suzuki vs Yoshihiko might fulfill the comedy quota.

Canada’s WrestleCore are having a show at 3pm that’s not streaming, featuring Artemis Spencer vs ZSJ and El Phantasmo vs Maki Itoh. Sure!

Deadlock have a 4pm show that will probably go up on their on-demand service a week later. Not much puro representation other than Marvelous: Dani Luna faces Takumi Iroha, and Masha Slamovich & Queen Aminata face Magenta (Maria & Riko Kawahata).

At 7pm we have the big show, Joey Janela’s Spring Break. This features Mance Warner vs Gabe Kidd in a rematch from JCW in February, ZSJ vs 1 Called Manders, Matt Tremont vs Minoru Suzuki, Masha Slamovich vs Suzu Suzuki (hell yes); Wagner Jr, Hijo de Wagner Jr, & Galeno vs Gringo Loco, Jack Cartwheel, & Arez (hell yes!), and Megan Bayne vs Bozilla (HELL YES!!!). This show looks sick as hell; I have been down on the last few years of Spring Break but this is a really cool card.

PrideStyle also have a 7pm unaired show, featuring G-Sharpe vs MAO and Yoshihiko vs X. Best of luck to them.

DragonGate’s second show of the weekend is at 8pm and on Triller. This isn’t a bad card but not as good as Wednesday night. There’s once again some Stardom representation with Karisma & Hyan vs. Hanan & Saya Iida, and a real good-looking trios match with Shun Skywalker, Kota Minoura, & ISHIN vs. Ben-K, Kzy, & Hyo.

Local Vegas promotion GrapHouse are running a 10pm show featuring MAO vs Lazarus. Not airing, but I guess good for MAO for taking so many weird bookings?

Also at 10pm, Stardom’s HANAKO faces Kylie Rae for New Texas Pro Wrestling. I do hope that one makes tape.

Gabe Kidd faces Matt Riddle at Heels Have Eyes: Four The Culture at midnight. You might remember that For The Culture used to be a show of entirely black talent on Mania weekends, but now they’ve been brought into Westside Gunn’s Heels Have Eyes promotion, which I guess is just a “hip hop themed promotion” now. I guess Westside Gunn must have heard one of Gabe’s promos and thought “damn this dude stole all of this from UK rappers, we gotta get him.”

Finally on to Saturday (we’re almost done!) and we have Effy’s Big Gay Brunch at 11am, featuring ZSJ vs Kidd Bandit. Max the Impaler also pops up here; their only other booking besides TJPW.

2pm has TJPW vs DDT vs GCW. This is always a low-energy show but the card is very silly and you might as well put it on if you have nothing better to do. Come on, tell me you don’t want to see the team of Marcus Mathers, Shoko Nakajima, & Super Crazy.

Last but not least, at 11pm we have the JJSB Clusterfuck. Unagi Sayaki, of all people, will be in the titular Clusterfuck, while Mike D Vecchio will be in the Scramble Cage match on this show. That’s right: he’s flying to Vegas in the middle of the Champion Carnival for like three bookings, and one is a Scramble Cage match. God bless.

And that’s it! I’m kind of surprised by the lack of Sunday morning shows, but I guess everyone wants to fly home early.

Other shows to watch this week, if that somehow wasn’t enough for you

Not everyone’s going to Vegas! AJPW will be running two Champion Carnival shows on the 19th and 20th (without Mike D Vecchio, who, as noted above, is in Vegas). Those shows will be taped and uploaded later on the same day to AJPW TV. They’ll also have a live Champion Carnival show on Wednesday, 4/23 at Korakuen. I will say the match lineups on the weekend shows look rough, but 4/23 looks okay, with a returning Vecchio facing Yuma Aoyagi and Yuma Anzai facing Madoka Kikuta.

NJPW will be kicking off a Road to tour with shows on Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Only notable match here is Tanahashi vs Jeff Cobb on Saturday 4/19 for Cobb’s final New Japan match.

Only activity on Wrestle Universe this week are a few DDT and TJPW shows featuring people who didn’t make the Vegas trip, plus a delayed upload of Ganbare Pro’s Korakuen show from last week.

That’s all for me this week! After all the travel I’ve been doing lately, I look forward to spending this weekend lying in bed watching streams from Vegas and not moving for a while. I’m a little jealous of folks making the trip, but also happy to not have to figure out the logistics of seeing so many shows at so many venues.