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

Newsletter: June 7, 2025 (bonus edition)

Here’s the promised bonus edition of the newsletter for a Saturday afternoon. We’ve got a spotlight on Dragon Gate in this one, plus some updates from NOAH, DDT, and TJPW.

Match Recommendations

NOAH Star Navigation 2025 (6/3, Wrestle Universe, Cagematch)

DG Rainbow Gate 2025 Night 2 (6/4, DG Network, Cagematch)

DG Rainbow Gate 2025 Night 3 (6/5, DG Network, Cagematch)

NOAH: Korakuen recap

The main event here - an elimination 3-way between OZAWA, Endo, and Sugiura - had a dumb angle as I expected. It was an elimination match built around OZAWA being pissed that Endo left Team 2000X to hang out with Sugiura. This, of course, lead to Sugiura joining Team 2000X in the middle of this match. This, of course, lead to Endo quickly pinning Sugiura and making his turn pretty pointless. That’s NOAH!

Of course, Sugiura did pull the ref out and join in a beat down of Endo on the outside. There were a few really good sequences in the back half of this match that continue to make me think the Team 2000X match ultimately works, even if it’s repetitive. Everyone beat up Endo and then Endo rolled back in the ring and hit a surprise Endo special on everyone standing outside; that’s a good bit of pro wrestling! This wasn’t a great match and I thought it wouldn’t make my recommendations at all until the last few minutes reminded me that Endo and OZAWA are both real good wrestlers at the end of the day.

The GHC Tag Team Championship match had a pretty shocking upset: Daiki Inaba scored a pin on Kenoh to win the belts for Jonetsu RATEL’S. I kinda think the point here is that they want to reunite the Kenoh/KENTA team rather than keep going with the Kenoh/Ulka Sasaki team as champions. It does make me think I need to figure out Daiki’s whole deal. He returned to NOAH only a few weeks ago after being out injured since July 2024 and mostly popped in weird comedy spots trying to get various wrestlers’ attention, I really did not think he’d score a pin over Kenoh at this point.

YO-HEY unsurprisingly retained over Junta in a pretty good match, but not one you need to make a point to see. Atushi Kotoge came out to challenge, which feels like kind of a filler match, though I don’t really know what they can do to make this YO-HEY reign more exciting. That match will be at NOAH’s Osaka show on 6/21, with Osaka being Kotoge’s hometown - he started his career in Osaka Pro there 20 years ago (as commemorated on this show with a match between Kotoge and Super Delfin).

Dragon Bane had a bad concussion on Dragon Gate’s 6/5 show and was taken out on a stretcher; he says he’ll be back in a few weeks. I skipped the match since I’m not big on watching injuries; Tokyo Sports makes it sound like he basically got spiked bad into the mat. I was actually surprised that the injury wasn’t a dive considering there were a number of sketchy dives to the outside I saw on both NOAH and DG’s Korakuen shows this week; I now understand why when Dragon Gate goes on tour at larger venues they push the front rows back like 20 feet from the ring (even if it looks very silly).

Alpha Wolf and Dragon Bane have had a story on Monday Magic where they’ve faced each other in a singles match and been on opposite sides of a tag team, plus Owadasan stole one of their masks in a DQ finish on this Korakuen show. I’m assuming they have some big matches lined up soon and hopefully this injury doesn’t derail them too much. As of now Dragon Bane is still listed for the 6/21 Osaka show, but that’s in a kinda-nothing 6-man tag so I hope he doesn’t rush back just for that.

NOAH’s next two big shows are the Wrestle Magic PPV on 6/30 and a two-night Korakuen stand on 7/19 and 7/20. Wrestle Magic isn’t quite noncanon, but definitely seems like it exists outside of the usual world of NOAH - notably, no one from Team 2000X has shown up on either Monday Magic so far.

I assume we’re getting Endo vs Sugiura on one of those shows, but OZAWA’s next challenger isn’t obvious from the house shows between now and then. Kenoh is now freed up and we still have not had a rematch from the no contest in January, but Korakuen feels like too small of a venue for that.

Couple other notes from looking at NOAH’s cards: they continue to find more weird British guys to bring over, this time Will Kroos. This guy at least has worked some PROGRESS shows (including making it to the quarter finals of this year’s PROGRESS SSS16 tournament) and has eight years of wrestling under his belt. He’ll be debuting against Daiki Odashima (which feels a little silly for a guy with eight years of experience, though I’m sure he’s gonna squash the hell out of poor Odashima) on the 6/21 Osaka show.

Another random guy in Japan tour I missed: indie luchador Calibus has had matches on both the 5/31 and 6/7 shows. He’s listed for the 6/8 show but not the Osaka show, so might just be a short tour for him.

Dragon Gate at Korakuen & Kobe World build

Dragon Gate ran a Korakuen double shot over Tuesday and Wednesday. I was surprised to see they stacked the Tuesday show with title matches for all four of DG’s championships, while Wednesday seemed to not have anything of note other than some fun appearances from El Desperado and Starlight Kid. That said, the Wednesday show slightly outdrew the Tuesday show; I’m either underestimating the popularity of Despy and SLK or overestimating the importance of Dragon Gate’s championships.

Regardless, I watched all four championship matches, and all of them are easy match recommendations. This felt like Dragon Gate at its best. Mochizuki Jr vs U-T was probably my match of the night, opening with a dive sprint before settling into a pretty vicious and submission-focused match. The Triangle Gate match was a good reminder of Dragon Gate’s ability to coax sheer drama out of a mtach better than everyone in wrestling, with a super hot finishing stretch that lead to the shock of super-rookie Homare pinning Strong Machine J. The tag championship, with veteran team Naruki Doi & Dragon Kid vs the young Z-Brats, was solid with another dramatic finishing stretch involving Dragon Kid desperately trying to put away Z-Brats but eventually losing the numbers game as Naruki Doi was out on the outside of the ring. I have at times tuned into Dragon Gate and thought “man, this isn’t really what I come to this company for,” and while none of these matches blew me away, these matches absolutely were what I want out of Dragon Gate and justify keeping tabs on the big shows.

The main event, YAMATO vs Mochizuki Jr, continued a theme of YAMATO’s reign: people who have been deep in the Dragon Gate world for years are absolutely in love with this reign and every defense, and drop-ins like me are like “that was neat!” but aren’t quite rushing to give it five-star raves. The story continues to be that YAMATO is on the run of his life and desperately trying to not give this championship up, and every match just pushes him a bit further. This did make the 55-year old Mochizuki Sr a bit of a funny opponent on paper - what, you’re really gonna be run ragged by a guy fifteen years older than you? shouldn’t it be the kids who are trying to take your championship away? - but it turns out that, uh, Mochi Sr might be the most spry 55-year old in wrestling. Like, he has the same problem running the ropes basically anyone who’s been wrestling for more than 30 years has, but other than that he looks great in the ring.

I only caught a few matches from the 6/5 show, but all three made my match recommendations. I did skip the match in which Dragon Bane got his concussion (as I talked about in the NOAH section), not a fan of seeing shoot stretcher jobs. The GOLD CLASS unit has a new name, LOVE & PEACE, which came out of an angle in their match that I won’t bother trying to explain because I barely understand it.

Looking ahead to Kobe World

Dragon Gate’s yearly show at Kobe World Hall is generally considered their biggest event, it’s coming up in only a month on 7/13. We’ve now got some matches set for that.

After YAMATO’s big defense, Shun Skywalker came out to challenge. This isn’t really a surprise: Shun’s obviously the hottest thing in Dragon Gate right now, and his non-title win over YAMATO on Dragon Gate’s special 1v1 show from January has been hanging over YAMATO’s championship reign all year.

There is a surprising quirk: Shun’s announced that, if he loses this match, he will leave Dragon Gate. Much like with Stardom’s Saya vs Tam feud, this feels like one of those stories that seems like it can only end one way - Shun defeating YAMATO - but the possibility of it going the other way adds to the drama. This is always a fine line to walk in wrestling - you never want a stip that makes the finish too obvious, like a special non-title match in a context where a championship would have made sense, or a 10 minute time limit on a card that otherwise has 15+ minute matches.

Certainly, I have seen a lot of discussion of could he lose? and where would he go if we left? which, if Shun isn’t leaving, is presumably what Dragon Gate wants - get the buzz going. If he is leaving, I do think DG would still give him this moment - it’s the biggest match they could run, and if Shun were to leave, you could crown a new top heel by just picking someone to finally defeat YAMATO and do what Shun couldn’t.

The other match announcement for Kobe World is a little less dramatic. Yuki Yoshioka’s return from injury hasn’t really gone well for him, getting his head shaved by Z-Brats in the cage at Dead or Alive and getting pinned again by Madoka Kikuta in the main event of the 6/5 show. Dragon Gate’s GM was so disappointed by this that he booked a special match to try to get Yoshioka’s groove back: Yuki Yoshioka & Dragon Dia vs Dragon Kid & X.

The most obvious X there would be, of course, El Desperado, who Dragon Kid teamed with on the semimain of this show, cornered by Starlight Kid. The three of them said they wanted to keep their team going, and with Desperado’s ability to make seemingly any team or match he wants right now, I reckon we’ll see them again.

Other News

A few more matches have been added to TJPW Summer Sun Princess: Moka Miyomoto will challenge for Suzume’s International Princess Championship, while Miu Watanabe & Rika Tatsumi will challenge Shoko Nakajima & Hyper Misao for the tag belts. I don’t think I have ever liked a Moka singles match and I’m curious if Suzume can drag a good match out of her. The tag match is fine even if I thought we were done with the Miu & Rika team after last year (their last team-ups were actually at the Philadelphia shows).

DDT signed Kaisei Takechi, the dancer/idol from THE RAMPAGE who has appeared on a few shows. He seems to be a solid draw, as his debut show at the 7/13 Korakuen immediately sold out. He’ll be teaming with Yuki Ueno & Shunma vs Damnation TA. This seems to be a genuinely big deal - the show will even air on Abema, in addition to Wrestle Universe. Dramatic DDT has more detail on this as well.

What to watch (6/7 - 6/12)

I’m a little late to this writeup, so TJPW’s and DDT’s Shinagawa shows have already aired. The TJPW show had the first Princess Cup qualifier match and Shoko vs Toribami for the MLW women’s championship, while the DDT show had the Astronauts defending the DDT tag team belts against Akito & Yuya Koroku.

Sendai Girls have a pair of shows going up on Wrestle Universe this Sunday: a VOD from Osaka and a live show from Shinjuku FACE. I’ll check on the Shinjuku FACE show for sure - these shows have Chi Chi’s first taped appearances since returning from injury, and the Shinjuku FACE has a has a tag team championship main event with Yurika Oka & Unagi Sayaka challenging Mika Iwata & Miyuki Takase.

Stardom has a Korakuen show on Sunday 6/8 (11:30am JST / 10:30am ET). This is a lower-key card without any championships on the line, but has an interesting Suzu Suzuki vs Lady C vs Azusa Inaba three-way match (that’s La Vida Loca vs God’s Eye vs HATE in faction terms) and a big Neo Genesis vs HATE main event that looks like it might bring us closer to the inevitable Starlight Kid vs Saya Kamitani match.

DDT and NJPW are teaming up for the special one-match PPV “DDT Pro-Wrestling × New Japan Pro-Wrestling  One-on-One Confrontation: Super Sasadango Machine vs Toru Yano” on Monday 6/9 (7pm JST / 6am ET). This is 2500 yen/$19 on either NJPW World or Wrestle Universe and you probably shouldn’t bother buying it unless you have a good enough working knowledge of the Japanese language that you, uh, don’t need this newsletter. There will be some funny stuff in this match but a lot of it will need a translation, and I don’t know if they’ll have Walker Stewart or DDT’s English commentary team on the job.

Next week I’ll be back at the usual midweek slot to cover upcoming shows, particularly NJPW Dominion on 6/15. I might also try splitting up these newsletters again in the future, it makes it much easier to just sit down and write one in an hour or so rather than keep a longer running one over the week and editing it as I watch stuff.