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

Newsletter: May 14, 2025

Lots of variety this week! The B Block of the Champion Carnival is decided, notes on Dragon Gate’s big Korakuen shows, and I’ve got a bunch of match recommendations from around the world of puroresu.

Match Recommendations

TJPW Golden Week Fan Appreciation Day [East] (aired 5/3, Wrestle Universe, Cagematch)

TJPW Golden Week Fan Appreciation Day [West] (aired 5/5, Wrestle Universe, Cagematch)

Dragon Gate Hopeful Gate 2025 - Night 1 (5/9, DG Network, Cagematch)

AJPW Champion Carnival Night 12 (5/10, AJPW TV, Cagematch)

AJPW Champion Carnival Night 13 (5/11, AJPW TV, Cagematch))

Stardom Nighter in Korakuen (5/11, Stardom World, Cagematch)

DPW Spirit Rising Night 1 (aired 5/10, DPW On Demand, Cagematch)

All Japan: Champion Carnival B Block wraps up, stacked (semi)finals show this weekend

B Block of the Champion Carnival wrapped up somewhat anticlimactically this week with a double shot in Sapporo. I like the idea of giving a smaller market some “big” shows with big stakes, but as Joe Lanza put it on a Voices of Wrestling podcast, this has been a tournament where the match quality matched the crowd size almost 1:1, and these were pretty small crowds. Nothing was a dud - not that many matches of this tournament have been, really - but the moments didn’t feel that big.

I did appreciate that they kept the math relatively simple: they had six people tied at 8 points going into the finals, so they had two of them lose on the undercard of the last show, and then the last two matches were the remaining four wrestlers with 8 points. Since the top two of each block advance, the stakes were simply “the winners of these last two matches win the block.”

Unfortunately, the first of those two matches was a letdown - Ryuki Honda vs Madoka Kikuta just went too long and didn’t have that many ideas, the crowd wasn’t that behind Honda as a face or Kikuta as a heel (maybe they haven’t been keeping up on their Dragon Gate stories), and the result, Honda winning, was really obvious given Kikuta’s outsider status and the huge wins Honda has wracked up in this tournament. Thankfully, the main, Rei Saito vs Yuma Anzai, delivered with one of Rei’s best matches in the tournament in a big win for him.

The semifinals are now set: Rei Saito will face Kento Miyahara, while Ryuki Honda faces Hideki Suzuki. Rei vs Kento sounds great, Honda vs Suzuki will entirely come down to “how hard does Suzuki want to work today?” I imagine we’re getting a Rei vs Honda finals and Rei will go through to challenge Jun Saito in a big brother vs brother match for the Triple Crown.

The semifinals+finals show at Ota City on 5/18 had some big matches added: Yuma Anzai & Rising HAYATO will defend the All Asia Tag Titles against Mike D Vecchio & Aigle Blanc, which sounds awesome. I kind of would have preferred that as, like, the main of a smaller show at Shinjuku FACE or something, but I’m guessing Mike & Aigle are heading back to Europe after this tour so now’s the only time to do it. The show also has MUSASHI defending the junior belt against Seiki Yoshioka, who hasn’t been around much lately (apparently he’s back from a couple GLEAT appearances and two RevPro shows in the UK?) and the trios belts on the line in what I assume is a comedy match, since that seems to be what those belts are for.

Dragon Gate: Big Korakuens

Back to back weeks of DG coverage, who would have thought it? This section is thanks to the novelty of Dragon Gate not only running a big Korakuen only a week after Dead or Alive, but also announcing a bunch of matches for an upcoming Korakuen double shot on 6/4 and 6/5. For once, it is actually easy to keep up with Dragon Gate’s biggest matches, since they’ve crammed them all into a few Korakuen shows (like every other smaller promotion does) rather than spread them out across a 20-night tour.

I watched about half the 5/9 Korakuen show and thought it was pretty tremendous; if I had more time I would have watched the whole thing. The highlight is another classic main event Dragon Gate multi-man - clear stories and rivalries, slow burn heat, and then five minutes of the wildest in-and-out tag action imaginable. In terms of DG tag main events, think I still lilked the main event from the February Korakuen slightly more, but both matches are awesome.

The stake on this match was pretty funny: everyone’s favorite suspenders-stripper Hyo was going to join the winning unit (the match was announced as Hyo contra Hyo, a delightful way of putting it). He had previously been in Big Hug with Luis Mante and Jacky Kamei, and had one last send-off tag with Mante on the undercard. Jacky of course wanted Hyo to join his new unit, Gold Class. Meanwhile, the Natural Vibes all did Hyo spots during the match to try to sell him on joining.

At the end of the match, Gold Class wound up winning with Mochizuki Jr pinning U-T, so Hyo is now a member of Gold Class (sealed with a kiss between Mochi Jr and Hyo, to the audible delight of the women in the Korakuen crowd).

Mochi Jr will be getting a Brave Gate title shot against U-T as a reward for his pin. That’ll happen on the 6/4 Korakuen, which also has a Dream Gate title match featuring Mochizuki senior - he’ll be facing YAMATO. Mochizuki vs Valetta, by the way, is something you should really watch if you have access to Dragon Gate; it’s a classic “underdog brawl elevated by surprise blood” match. Really did a lot to sell Valetta, a very goofy dude, as an actual threat.

Also announced for that show is a Twin Gate match with Dragon Kid & Naruki Doi challenging Z-Brats’ champions Jason Lee & Kota Minoura. This is actually Lee & Minoura’s first defense since way back in January. So that’s double title shots for the father and son Mochizuki and a big tag title match for 6/4.

6/5, meanwhile, only has one announcement, but it’s a big one: El Desperado will be teaming with Dragon Kid vs an unannounced team. That does make me think Dragon Kid’s chances of winning a tag belt on 6/4 are fairly low, but who knows.

NJPW: Dominion card more or less finalized, BOSJ starts up

I didn’t end up watching NJPW Resurgence; it sounds like that was the right move. I will say I’ve heard El Desperado vs Takeshita was good, the women’s three-way main event was good, and Goto vs ZSJ was good other than the awful finish that really killed an already pretty dead crowd. That match ended in a double pin with both wrestlers’ shoulders being down. It seemed like this was setting up a three-way with Goto, ZSJ, and Shingo - as Shingo had challenged Goto for Dominion - but nope, Dominion is still just Shingo vs Goto. Weird stuff.

The show was marred by NJPW’s traditional horrendous US video production; you really should not give them money for these PPVs. I heard the Chicago show was fine (having been there live, I don’t really know), but this one just had terrible sound mixing. Whatever A/V teams they’re using for these shows really don’t seem equipped for the job.

Anyways, the other big news on the show is AZM winning the NJPW Strong title by pinning Mina, an unsurprising result as soon as the three-way was announced after the Chicago show. I think AZM could have some good appearances in the US, but it really remains to be seen if she’ll connect with the crowd. For all the joking that has been done about Mina Shirakawa’s (ahem) Live Show Charisma, the real reason she’s over with the crowd is that she got injected into the story of a hot angle (literally and figuratively) and got treated as a big deal in that story. Without having a proper AEW TV angle, AZM won’t get there - and maybe that’s good if Stardom doesn’t want her going anywhere, but it’s also going to but a ceiling on AZM as any kind of meaningful draw if she’s just “a women’s champion who happens to be on the NJPW shows.”

With that said, she’s been booked for a 4-way match on AEW Dynamite tonight, facing Toni Storm, Skye Blue, and Mina in a “championship eliminator” (where if anyone but Toni wins, they earn a title shot). I could see this just setting up AZM vs Mina as a US TV angle, but could also see Skye Blue getting a story with AZM or something - this 4-way is Skye’s first match back from injury, and going into a feud with AZM (that Skye probably loses) might be a good start to a rebuild, plus get AZM over as a threat. I dunno; I watch AEW little enough that you should probably treat this as fantasy booking and not actual speculation.

The big matches are set for Dominion on 6/15: Goto vs Shingo, Taichi & Ishii challenging for the tag belts against Callum Newman & Great O-Khan, David Finlay and EVIL in a dog collar match, and Yota Tsuji defending the IWGP Global Heavyweight Championship against Gabe Kidd. Seems like a pretty good show!

That show will, honestly, probably be the next time I give NJPW a real check-in, because summer is starting and I’m getting out more and I unfortunately don’t have infinite time for wrestling. With that in mind, I’m fully bowing out of covering BOSJ. It’s 14 nights of wrestling in two weeks, and that is just too much to keep up with. I will try to watch some of it, but it’ll probably wait until closer to the finals, or I might just stick with the Korakuens or something.

Other news

Stardom still managed to have a nearly-sold-out Korakuen even with a much weaker card than the last one: the only major matches were really just Syuri vs Aya Sakura in a non-title match and Saya Kamitani defending the red belt against rookie Sayaka Kurara. It was still a good show to watch through in its entirety to get a sense of where some of the units are at after all of the departures.

There was one more shift on this show: Hazuki & Koguma, the tag team FWC, quit STARS without announcing a plan to join a new unit. Going off of Google Translate of Tokyo Sports (so always a bit of a gamble), it sort of sounds like they plan to have some sort of “excursion,” though it might just be they wind up having matches in a few other promotions or something.

I finally caught the TJPW 5/3 and 5/5 shows and they were pretty fun! They brought some international talent over who had a real fun 5/3 tag match and some interesting, if not great, title matches. Viva Van ended up winning the VPW Women’s Title from Yuki Kamifuku, while Raku managed to retain the SETUP Women’s Title against Nor Diana. These international belts and guests are an interesting bit of spice to make match results less predictable, which tends to be the problem with TJPW’s strictly hierarchical booking of singles matches. Meanwhile, the actual International Princess title was, unsurprisingly, successfully defended by Suzume against HIMAWARI, but the match was good even with the predictable ending.

In other TJPW news, Yuki Kamifuku is going to appear at MLW’s show in NYC on 6/26. I bought a ticket for this because I’m an idiot who doesn’t value my time. I don’t love some of my money going to Matt Riddle, but the last time I saw an MLW show it had Teddy Hart on it, so, unfortunately it really could be worse. Standing room was only $20 and the show also has Mistico, KUSHIDA, and KENTA on it, plus, uh, Baron Corbin, so, y’know, pretty stacked! I wish this got the full MLW lucha treatment like the Chicago shows get, but sounds like the last one of those was bad even with a bunch of CMLL guys to fill out the card. I will never understand how Court Bauer manages to sell out venues and get content deals while making bad wrestling that is even less than the sum of its parts.

No major updates on NOAH’s house shows this week, other than that Super Crazy is apparently in town, and has been added into a ridiculous four-way tag on this weekend’s show: Dragon Bane & Alpha Wolf vs AMAKUSA & Junta Miyawaki vs HAYATA & Yuto Kikuchi vs Eita & Super Crazy. Dragon Bane & Alpha Wolf’s junior tag titles aren’t on the line, but I’d wager one of the other three teams wins this and gets a title shot from it.

Going into that show, OZAWA challenged Kaito to leave NOAH if he loses their upcoming match, but it kind of reads like Kaito didn’t accept that challenge. The angle isn’t mentioned in NOAH’s card so I think this was just OZAWA being a jerk. It almost read like a parody of the Saya/Tam angle, but maybe that was reading too much into it. It did lead to some speculation of Kaito losing and going on excursion, which would be very funny, but if this really leads anywhere I would rather it be Kaito turning heel.

Pro Wrestling Evolution’s Chi Chi is returning from injury on their 6/1 show. Very excited for her to get back in the mix, I was really enjoying her matches.

Jun Kasai vs El Desperado is apparently happening in Korakuen on June 24. That said, I’m not sure what this show actually is - the Puwota calendar has NJPW with a Korakuen on June 23, but no one running Korakuen on the 24th, and I kinda wonder if Tokyo Sports just got the date wrong.

DPW uploaded their Japan shows from 4/24 and 4/25 on 5/10 and 5/11, and I had enough time to watch the first of those from Shinjuku FACE. It’s a fantastic show you should really check out - the production is a little scrappy (good cameras but no commentary and the ring mic is way, way too loud) and the building seems only about 1/3 sold but it still comes off as a really good show with everyone trying their hardest. Brookes & HARASHIMA vs Tankman & Kozone really surprised me; I’ve been a little down on Tankman lately but this match makes an excellent argument for him as a tag wrestler even if he doesn’t quite have the gas for being a big singles wrestler on top.

Also, one of like the six people visible on hard cam is Dan Ryckert, and I found this hilarious. I’m not usually someone who focuses on the crowd, but I think because I’ve spent so many years watching Dan on streams with his face in the corner reacting to things, I kept instinctively looking to him every time some big spot happened. Seems like he had a good time!

What to watch

Big shows

The biggest show of the weekend is the AJPW Champion Carnival Finals (Sun 5.18 4pm JST/3am ET, AJPW TV, full card), live from Ota City Gymnasium in Tokyo. This has the two semifinals and one finals match of the Champion Carnival, plus a big international tag with Yuma Anzai & Rising HAYATO defending the All Asia Tag Titles against Mike D Vecchio & Aigle Blanc. A Junior Heavyweight Championship match and a trios titles match round out the card, which I’m really looking forward to.

NOAH’s also got a big show on Sunday with NOAH Star Navigation (Sun 5.18 11:30am JST/Sat 5.17 10:30pm ET, Wrestle Universe, full card) from Korakuen. The big match here is OZAWA’s suddenly-announced GHC Heavyweight defense against the ever-embattled Kaito Kitomiya, but we’ve also got YO-HEY defending the junior title against his former friend Tadasuke and a goofy four-way junior tag match.

The NJPW Best of the Super Juniors rolls on, with a Korakuen double shot on 5/14 and 5/15 and shows on 5/17, 5/18, and 5/20. All the shows are listed on NJPW World’s schedule but some may be delayed uploads. I should probably try to catch at least a few matches from this?

DDT has a beer garden show and a D Generations show from Ueno Park, which will be uploaded as VODs to Wrestle Universe on 5/15 and 5/16. The beer garden show apparently prominently features a variety of wrestlers’ dogs (Dieno’s Haku, Shunma’s Ponta & Komachi, Yuki Kamifuku’s Zac, and Yoppy’s Qoo), so I’m going to at least tune in for whatever the hell that match is. The D Generations show features a variety of younger wrestlers and I’ll try to catch it just because it’s always fun seeing newer wrestlers get the spotlight.

DDT also has a really-weird looking Osaka show uploaded as a VOD on 5/20, which seems to have some local Osaka indie wrestlers on it. Annoyingly, Osaka Pro hasn’t uploaded a full show since their awesome tag tournament a couple months ago, so this might be the best opportunity to see some of these guys on tape for a bit. I spot Billy Ken Kid, Kushinbo Kamen, HUB, Tsubasa, and Shigihero Irie in various matches, plus Chris Brookes facing Kohei Kinoshita in a singles match. Also Shuji Ishikawa, Shuji Kondo, and Dick Togo will be in matches?? This might actually be a great show.

Also on Wrestle Universe are a couple smaller shows from TJPW, the first a VOD on 5/14 and the second live at 5/17 11:30am JST (5/16 10:30pm ET). 5/14 has an Aja Kong vs Mahiro Kiryu match on it for some reason? 5/17 has Yuki Aino vs Ivy Steele and Maki Itoh vs Uta Takami.

Marigold and Stardom also have some more VODs going up this week on WU and Stardom World respectively.

That’s all this week. Next week I’ll finally cover the King of DDT Tournament (just in time for the finals) and do a little Marigold catchup on the way to their big PPV. And man, I really hope Anzai & HAYATO vs Blanc & Vecchio is as good as I’m imagining it. And that OZAWA vs Kaito ends up being very, very funny, regardless of what happens in it.