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

Newsletter: May 29, 2025

A lighter week in which I only have to cover two puroresu tournaments at once. Ah, such relief.

Match recommendations

DPW Spirit Rising Night 2 (4/25, DPW On Demand, Cagematch)

NJPW Best Of The Super Junior 32 Night 1 (5/10, NJPW World, Cagematch)

NJPW Best Of The Super Junior 32 Night 3 (5/14, NJPW World, Cagematch)

NJPW Best Of The Super Junior 32 Night 4 (5/15, NJPW World, Cagematch)

NJPW Best Of The Super Junior 32 Night 5 (5/17, NJPW World, Cagematch)

Stardom (5/24, FREE Youtube, Cagematch)

DDT King of DDT 2025 Final!! (5/25, Wrestle Universe, Cagematch)

NJPW: BOSJ thoughts & final

Theoretically, this newsletter is timed very well for me to recap BOSJ, as the block matches wrapped up last night and the final is this Sunday. In practice, I’ve caught, like, seven matches from this tournament, mostly across the first few nights, so there’s only so much I can really talk about with confidence.

The NJPW juniors division is, to me, a “special little guys” division: there’s a few guys I really like (Despy, Titan), a few guys I want to do well but probably won’t (Wato, YOH), guys I used to like a lot but no longer really get excited to see wrestle (Hiromu, Taguchi), guys other people like a lot more than me (KUSHIDA, Ishimori), and then everyone else is just sorta… there. There’s something about the division where, no matter how good the workrate is, I really struggle to get excited about it. The ongoing Desperado reign is the most excited I’ve been about the junior heavyweight title, but so much of my love for Despy is tied to his extracurricular activities in deathmatches and crossover appearances that it’s basically just me going “man I hope they don’t take the belt off this guy for any of these other chumps.”

The two matches that got the most buzz from this tournament were one that surrpised me and one that was exactly what I expected. The latter was El Desperado vs MAO from Night 5, where a ref bump lead to an extended Desperado vs MAO plunder segment and MAO pulling out the plastic crates everyone associates with DDT’s plunder. This was a delight - I went in a little cynical because I figured it wouldn’t be that fun to someone who’s watched a lot of those DDT plunder matches already, but MAO and Despy bring such an intense interpromotional fighting spirit heat to this that it’s absolutely worth a watch.

The must-see, though, is what people seem to be in agreement on as the best match of the tournament: Hiromu vs Akira Francesco from Night 4. Akira has had my attention since his shockingly great Desperado match a couple months ago, and I think this match proves that’s no carry job. Hiromu isn’t as washed as I thought he was - he also had a great match with Fujita on Night 3 - but he’s not at the level of Desperado right now, and Akira really felt like he was leading this match in a lot of ways.

The finals wound up being Fujita vs YOH. There was a lot of very close parity booking in this tournament with five wrestlers in A block winding up with 10 points and three in B block ending up with 12. Fujita had tie-breakers over Hiromu, Clark Connors, Wato, and Akira, while YOH had defeated both El Desperado and MAO. I plan on going back and watching some of those YOH matches before the final to see what he’s up to right now - as I said up top, he was once one of my special little guys but he’s just had so little going on since the RPG3K split years ago, and he’s now 36. If you had asked me what the most likely future for YOH is, I’d tell you like… a fresh debut for RATEL’S in NOAH or something, not BOSJ winner.

That said, with the tournament he’s had, I think he could win the finals, I really do. But: I don’t think he would beat El Desperado for the title. He’s currently one half of the junior tag champions with Wato, and it’d be weird for him to double up. I think getting the opportunity would be a big moment, but at 36, I’m not sure if big moments are that important compared to actual title reigns.

Fujita, on the other hand, is only 22, and I think could dethrone Despy if he wins. It does feel like he’s been on the cusp of a huge run for a while now. I’m really interested in this final, and will definitely make a point to watch it unspoiled.

DDT: King of DDT wraps up, new title matches set

King of DDT wrapped up with an excellent semifinals & finals night, with the semifinals being a lot better than I expected. KANON vs Okatani was a solid match that continued their heated rivalry, with KANON going on to the final (in spite of DAMNATION’s attempted interference). Higuchi vs Ueno was awesome, I actually rate it slightly higher than the finals though I seem to be in the minority on that take. It’s nice to be reminded why Ueno is their ace; I find his personality kind of bland but he is just such a good wrestler you can’t really deny him the position. He lost to Higuchi, though, with a lot of really well done counter sequences. Higuchi’s Brain Claw is a dumb finisher, but I hadn’t considered that in a high-workrate context, you can do really fun things with counters in it - big spot here was Higuchi kicking out of a nearfall and immediately grabbing Ueno with the Claw, makes him seem dangerous to get close to in the same way a guy with a brutal armbar is.

Higuchi vs KANON in the final was great, just an absolute slugfest of chopping and forearms. If you’re someone who doesn’t like “beef matches,” this isn’t for you, but the rest of us had a good time.

Higuchi won, which wasn’t too much of a surprise to me - he’s recently returned from injury and a great challenger for Chris Brookes. That match will happen on a 6/29 Korakuen show.

We do have the next big match for KANON, I guess: actor Haruto Sakuraba will be returning as part of DAMNATION for a match against KANON on 7/13. These idol/actor/celeb crossovers always seem to do well for DDT, hopefully the match is solid.

A couple other big matches: Minoru Suzuki and Dieno had a surprisingly good match in which Suzuki retained the DDT Universal Championship. Shinya Aoki challenged him, also set for that 7/13 Korakuen show. Aktio & Yuya Koroku won a 4-way match to determine the next team to challenge the Astronauts for the tag team titles, which will be on a 6/7 show.

AEW/ROH’s MxM Collection will appear on the 6/29 show. Seems like a good fit for DDT. I haven’t been a huge fan of their work but going to be cautiously optimistic here.

Other news

NOAH had a junior tag title match on a Yokohama Radiant Hall show; as you’d expect it wasn’t super high effort. The RATEL’S team of Kikuchi and HAYATA did nothing for me. Dragon Bane and Alpha Wolf do continue to be really entertaining, though. I kinda hope they hold the belts for at least a few months but who knows how long their tour is.

Stardom ran a couple shows over the weekend, with their Osaka show being free on Youtube, I guess to counterprogram that Marigold show. The semi-main and main are pretty great messy tag matches, definitely worth a watch for free. I continue to think the Mi Vida Loca unit is great.

Speaking of which, that Marigold show happened! I haven’t seen it yet! Maybe next week I’ll have some thoughts?

Other stuff I haven’t seen yet: NOAH’s Monday Magic show from this week. These shows kinda run in their own world leading up to a special PPV, I might wind up watching them all together later.

Yuki Kamifuku match’s match in MLW next month will be against Wakana Uehara. The press release for this is hilarious. I didn’t even know Wakana was in any idol groups! I thought she just had a Youtube where she ate stuff! I’m just glad that I get to see a TJPW vs TJPW match at that show instead of, like, Kamiyu vs Delmi Exo or whoever.

Osaka Pro’s two-night light heavyweight tournament actually made proper tape on Youtube! I’m super excited to watch this this weekend - the first night is here and the second night is here.

I finally watched the second night of DPW’s Japan double-shot, which had an awesome main event in LaBron Kozone vs Takuya Nomura. If you exist at the intersection of “interested in US indie wrestlers and also Japanese indie wrestlers,” you absolutely need to see this match. Sometimes matches like this just wind up kind of feeling like two guys from different worlds meeting up briefly and then you don’t think about it again (see: every WrestleMania weekend indie match ever), but this truly felt like a special moment with two of the absolute best having the best match they can for a hot crowd.

What to watch (5/29 - 6/5)

The biggest show of the weekend is AJPW in Sendai on Sunday 6/1 (2 PM JST / 1 AM ET). Champion Carnival winner Rei Saito will challenge his brother Jun for the Triple Crown Championship. Kento & Yuma Aoyagi will defend their tag belts against the odd team of Shotaro Ashino & Xyon, Seiki Yoshioka defends the junior heavyweight championship against Dan Tamura, and in the opener, Hideki Suzuki is gonna kill a rookie. Should be a fun show!

NJPW’s BOSJ finals are also on 6/1 at Ota City Gymnasium (6:30 PM JST / 5:30 AM ET). That’ll have the big Fujita vs YOH finals match, though the rest of the card has yet to be announced yet - that should eventually be posted here on NJPW’s site.

NOAH has a Korakuen show on Tuesday 6/3 (6:30 PM JST / 5:30 AM ET). The big match on this is OZAWA defending the GHC Heavyweight Championship against both former Team 2000X teammate Tetsuya Endo and Endo’s new friend Takashi Sugiura. YO-HEY defends the GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship against Junta Miyawaki, which I am pretty excited for - both these guys have impressed me in the past couple months. Not much else of note on this card other than a messed-up-looking 3v3v3 with Marufuji teaming with Dragon Bane and Alpha Wolf for some reason. NOAH also has another Monday Magic show on 6/2 (7 PM JST / 6 AM ET).

Dragon Gate has a double shot at Korakuen (Wednesday 6/4 and Thursday 6/5, both at 6:30 PM JST / 5:30 AM ET). 6/4 features YAMATO defending the Dream Gate championship against Mochizuki, Natural Vibes defending the Triangle Gate belts against Z-Brats, Jason Lee & Kota Minoura defending their Twin Gate belts against Naruki Doi & Dragon Kid, and U-T defending the Dream Gate belt against Mochizuki Jr. That’s a lot for one show, especially with a double header! With all the titles accounted for, 6/5 features some interesting crossovers: Luis Mante’s 20th Anniversary match will feature NOAH’s Dragon Bane & Alpha Wolf, while Shun Skywalker and ISHIN of Z-Brats will fight Dragon Kid and El Desperado, with Starlight Kid seconding them in their corner as well.

Various other shows abound; as always, check your local listings (Wrestle Universe and Puwota in particular). GLEAT has a Korakuen show, which I think will have the finals of a tournament on it? Also Dave the Clown will be there? Instead of that I’ll be on the lookout for Pro Wrestling Evolution’s show on 5/31, featuring Chi Chi’s return to wrestling.

I have no idea what next week’s issue is going to look like with so many companies running midweek shows - I suspect I’ll manage to have watched that NOAH show but not not the Dragon Gate stuff.

I think I might stick to Thursday as my planned publish date going forward. With the usual weekend focus of Japanese pro wrestling it winds up being the best date - I get a few days to catch up on stuff during the start of the week but still get the issue out in time for a preview of the upcoming weekend’s shows.