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

Newsletter: June 26, 2025

Haven’t had the chance to watch quite as much wrestling as I would have liked so far this week, but wanted to get this one out the door before I go to MLW tonight. Since, obviously, I will have so much to write up from that show. Definitely not going to be a single sentence like “well, there are worse shows I’ve spent $20 to attend.” Anyways!

Match Recommendations

Stardom The Conversion 2025 (6/21, was PPV but wait for Stardom World, Cagematch)

NJPW New Japan Soul Night 5 (6/23, NJPW World, Cagematch)

Stardom: The Conversion recap, Osaka updates

Stardom’s The Conversion PPV sold out Yoyogi National Stadium #2 (so just over 2,500 seats) without having either the red belt or white belt on the line, a pretty impressive feat. For context: The Conversion last year at this venue, featuring both of those belts on the line and a huge “losing unit must split” match between Odeo Tai & Queen’s Quest, drew only 1650. Marigold did draw around the same 2500 number at their show here a couple weeks ago, featuring the big Nanae Takahashi retirement main event and World and Superfly title matches.

This show, I think, answers the question of how much of Stardom’s current success is purely due to Saya Kamitani’s success. That’s been a worry with Stardom, as it has been with OZAWA’s run in NOAH and its business success: is this sustainable if we’re pinning everything on one heel ace? Saya was just in a midcard tag here with the angle just being that HATE were going to clown on a returning God’s Eye wrestler, as much as her ambient presence might sell tickets, it’s clear that Stardom’s increase in ticket sales goes beyond just her main events.

You know who is a proven draw? Sareee, who main evented this show challening Syuri for the IWGP Women’s Championship. Her shows have sold out Shinjuku FACE regularly, which doesn’t really sound that impressive on paper until you look at the cards and consider the shows that Marvelous, Sendai Girls, and other joshi promotions put in Shinjuku FACE that don’t sell out. Yes, Sareee books very good shows, but other than her own presence these really aren’t “supercards” or anything, just very solid indie joshi shows. It’s clear that Sareee herself is a big component for those shows.

So, it makes sense for her to win the title as she did here. The rumor - which can almost be proven by just reading translations of the backstage promos from Syuri - was that Mayu Iwatani did not want to drop the belt to Sareee on the way out, so Syrui was just a transitional champion. If so, with the two matches she had winning and losing the belt, she might be one of the best transitional champions of all time: both matches were excellent, and Syuri comes out no worse for wear. Even without gold, she continues to be a credible leader of her vaguely grappling-focused unit, God’s Eye.

You should watch this when it hits Stardom World (don’t buy the PPV archive; by the time you read this it might not even be available to watch anymore). It’ll be in the MOTY discussions. I think that it should be up in a couple weeks; they’re kind of cagey about when/if the PPV archives go up (I’m really annoyed that it appears they won’t be uploading the Saori/Natsupoi show from a few weeks ago, which is now available exclusively through piracy, great job everyone).

Bozilla debuts and joins La Vida Loca

I don’t feel like my tastes are that idiosyncratic when it comes to wrestling, but I’m still always surprised when an angle feels like it’s booked for me and specifically only me. This is one of those times.

The No DQ 4v4 match in the semi-main of this show, between Neo Genesis and Suzu Suzuki’s new unit Mi Vida Loca, turned out to be No DQ for one specific reason: Bozilla came to the ring and destroyed Neo Genesis. I was so happy when I saw this. I loved Bozilla, green as she was (and, honestly, still is), in Marigold, and would always make a point to watch her matches when I saw her in one of the show graphics on Wrestle Universe. I love Mi Vida Loca already, as I’m a huge Suzu Suzuki and Rina Yamashita mark. This is a pairing made for me.

That said: this is also the second big Marigold to Stardom defection, the first being Sareee. It is interesting that Bozilla chose not to continue being a dominant heel in Marigold. It’s possible she saw how the heel faction forming up in Marigold (Darkness Revolution) kind of, uh, sucked, and decided to bail. She also could have had an intent of working US indies or getting WWE/AEW interest, but found either the interest wasn’t there or problems getting a visa sponsored. She was able to work the great match against Megan Bayne at Joey Janela’s Spring Break this year, which at the time I assumed would be her big “indies, I am available!” spot, but maybe given the state of American indie wrestling there were fewer responses than she hoped. Suzu Suzuki’s story is that she saw Bozilla wrestle at Spring Break and decided she wanted her in Stardom, which maybe seems like a cover story for talks they had while Bozilla was technically under a Marigold contract.

Bozilla announced her intention to challenge for AZM’s NJPW Strong Championship, which solves the mystery of why they bothered to get that belt off Mercedes Mone in the middle of Mercedes’s belt-collector run. I really hope Bozilla just wins to immediately make her, here - AZM won’t be hurt by it, and maybe it could lead to a Bozilla title defense on AEW Forbidden Door in a couple months.

The other story I should note here is that SLK and Suzu Suzuki are building to a match - Suzuki was SLK’s friend and a founding member of Neo Genesis before defecting. I’m not sure if this will happen before or after SLK vs Saya Kamitani. It’s nice that they have two big matches to simultaneously build, either way. SLK also noted Stardom getting Marigold talent as “orangeification”, which is very funny, and called out Sareee as well as Bozilla.

Other matches & notes

There was a great tag match with Saya Iida & Hanan defending the tag titles against Saori Anou & Natsupoi. No real notes on that, just a great match that’s worth a watch.

Ami Souri returned from injury in a match rejoining God’s Eye and got sprayed with mist by HATE, which seems like it will lead to a longer feud. Not sure if that’s gonna be a broader HATE vs God’s Eye thing (they already face off all the time) or something specifically focused on Ami.

The Osaka show following The Conversion had a bunch of developments: a Neo Genesis vs HATE match was set for the trios belts at the 7/6 Korakuen. That’ll be SLK, AZM, & Miyu Amasaki of Neo Genesis defending against Konami, Rina, & Fukigen Death. Meanwhile, Natsupoi challenged Saya for the white belt, while SLK indicated she wanted a fight with Saori. A lot going on there, but no dates set for either of those.

Oh, and Saya Iida & Hanan defeated SAKI & Yuna Mizumori, only to be challenged by Natsuko Tora & Ruaka of HATE. Defending these belts seems exhausting.

Dates were announced for the 5 Star GP (July through August). Will have some more notes on that as the tournament comes up, though I don’t think I will have time to watch it. Kind of weird that Bushiroad runs both of their big wrestling tournaments at the same time?

NJPW: first G1 play-ins done, big signing, Tanahashi Jam

The fair criticism of the two play-in matches for the G1 this week were that they were no-win situations for fans. Most NJPW fans wanted to see all four of the competitors in these matches in the G1, not just two of them.

That said, I think NJPW made the right move: the two younger competitors, Drilla Moloney and Callum Newman, advanced over their respective opponents Tomohiro Ishii and Taichi.

I love Ishii, but I am at a point with him where I don’t need to see him in a big setting unless he’s going to, like, actually win something. I am less enamored with Taichi, but have a similar feeilng. These are guys I’ve seen in G1s past and no longer need to see in this tournament, where they’re not going to win and probably not get any meaningful storylines. They both hold tag gold, Ishii also holds the NJPW Strong belt; they’re not buried by not being in this.

Here’s the other upshot: both of these play-in matches were great! You could make the argument the first match was Ishii’s best match this year so far (especially if you’re part of that rare group of wrestling fans who like Ishii but hated the Gabe Kidd matches for some reason). This was hot as hell, the crowd really wanted both guys to advance somehow, and they popped for every nearfall and escape in the finishing stretch.

Taichi vs Callum Newman didn’t hit the same heights, but was still really good. I think I am bought in on Callum Newman as a serious singles competitor. He could use a new look - United Empire green looks flattering on no one - and maybe get shaken up into a new stable where he can show a little more personality (not House of Torture). But he has some great moves, and one of the nice things about a guy who’s based so much of his work off Will Ospreay is that he’s inherited Ospreay’s willingness to eat absolute shit getting countered on a big move, which is a great quality in a plucky young face.

Speaking of play-in matches, Don Fale is out of his due to a death in the family. Satoshi Kojima will be replacing him and face Ryohei Oiwa for a G1 spot on 7/4.

Aaron Wolf signs to NJPW

Japanese Olympic gold medalist judoka Aaron Wolf signed to NJPW. This was announced in a Monday press conference that was set on short notice and for some reason a bunch of people assumed it was going to be about something bad. The vibes out there are, of course, bad, I get it.

The news was good, though. Wolf is a celebrity in Japan and had already been announced to be appearing with New Japan in some capacity, but he is now set to train as a pro wrestler, with his debut at Wrestle Kingdom 20. At the same time, it was announced that TV Asahi will air WK20 in some capacity. I’ve seen this reported as the first time the NJPW Dome show will have been aired on mainstream Japanese TV in 22 years, but I’m not sure if that’s 100% accurate - I think maybe that was talking about a live broadcast, and I don’t think it’s been announced that this will be aired live yet. Certainly, Wrestle Kingdom matches have aired on syndicated shows in the past.

Regardless, this is a big deal. It’s a rare bit of encouraging business news for NJPW right now. Hopefully they don’t fuck it up and have him join House of Torture.

Tanahashi Jam this weekend

So the big Tanahashi Jam show this weekend, is, weirdly, a TV Asahi special that won’t be on NJPW World. Because that’s what NJPW needed right now, more bullshit on their streaming platform that makes following the promotion even more annoying.

There’s not much being missed here. Boltin Oleg defends the NEVER belt against Yuji Nagata, El Phantasmo defends the TV title against a mystery opponent, and Goto defends the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship against ZSJ in a match that will hopefully better than the one in the US. The main looks like it will be NOAH’s Naomichi Marufuji teaming with Tana against Ryohei Oiwa and NOAH’s Kaito Kitomiya - I would like to see that, I guess. I am sure it will be possible to find this online, just annoying that it will require an extra hoop to jump through.

There’s also two House of Torture tags on this card. You’d think Tana would have done more to keep those jerks off his produce show.

NOAH: Wrestle Magic this weekend, OZAWA vs Kenoh set

I haven’t had the chance to actually watch the NOAH Osaka 6/21 show or Wrestle Magic episode 4 on 6/23, but I just wanted to quickly hit the highlights.

The biggest NOAH news is not Monday Magic related: OZAWA vs Kenoh is set for the 7/19 Korakuen, New Departure Day 1. That’s a two-night Korakuen stand with the second night apparently being a mystery card that will be booked based on the results of the first night. Does imply there could be some big shakeups there, but I can’t imagine OZAWA losing already.

An interesting wrinkle: NOAH has zero big venues lined up between now and their usual New Year Budokan show. If the belt does change hands between now and then, it probably would be at a Korakuen. Still, I think it makes way more sense to have the N-1 Victory tournament coming up to be about who’s going to get the next big shot at OZAWA than a freshly-crowned Kenoh.

YO-HEY unsurprisingly retained the GHC Junior Heavyweight championship against Atsushi Kotoge in Osaka and lost the non-title singles match he had against OZAWA on the show the next day.

Galeno made his return to NOAH on Monday Magic episode 4, retaining the GHC National Title over Alpha Wolf in a match that I bet kicked ass.

Wrestle Magic won’t feature Mayu Iwatani vs Iroha after all: it will instead feature Iroha defending the GHC Women’s Championship against Victoria Yuzuki. That could be good, and it probably makes sense to save Iroha vs Iwatani for a big Marigold show. The only other match set for this show is Shuji Ishikawa defending the GHC Hardcore Championship against HAYATA.

Other News

Going to open with a couple of huge bummers here that I’ve been putting off writing up:

AJPW’s young rookie Taishin Nagao was apparently hit by a bus and has been in the ICU for several weeks. He’d been announced as being off shows several weeks ago but the injury’s severity was only just revealed. No further details on this have been reported yet. Hoping he pulls through and can at least live a normal life, and maybe return to wrestling.

A thankfully less severe, but still heartbreaking, injury: Puroresu Primer favorite and Osaka Pro indie wrestler SUZAKU was injured in a match and will be out for 6 months. SUZAKU’s long had a reputation for injuries which caused him to wash out of Dragon Gate, and I was really hoping he would be past them. I don’t really know the details of the injury other than that the match was stopped to attend to it.

And while I’m writing up injuries: Shun Skywalker may have a knee injury that could prevent him from being on the big Kobe World show next month. He stopped working mid-match due to concerns and was pulled from a later show’s card. Hopefully this is just them being cautious and he’ll be able to work Kobe World - he’s set for a big main event challenging YAMATO for the Dream Gate championship, which had the extra stipulation of Shun leaving Dragon Gate if he loses. The show is decently stacked without that match and they have a few people floating around they could slot into a Dream Gate challenge (notably Madoka Kikuta, who is currently set for a No DQ match versus Strong Machine J on the undercard).

On the brighter side, some wrestlers returning from injury:

Kota Ibushi returned to AEW on Saturday, joining Mark Briscoe and Kenny Omega to even the odds against the Don Callis Family, which now includes one Kazuchika Okada. Ibushi wrestled sporadically in 2024 after an injury in 2023, including an infamous main event with Marufuji in NOAH in January 2024 that he attempted to work on one leg. Since then, he’s popped up only in a quick time limit draw exhibition with Daisuke Sekimoto and a few goofy-looking tags and comedy matches. Can’t say I expect much from Ibushi’s next AEW run - he’s 42 and he’s at Naito levels of falling apart - but I’m still glad to see him back. He looked okay in his match versus Trent Baretta on Dynamite, and will be facing Okada next week on Dynamite’s 300th episode.

Mio Monomo will return to Marvelous on 7/13, for her first match since injury in February.

Finally, Daisuke Sekimoto will be returning from his injury in August, and has announced he’ll be returning as a freelancer. After 25 years of working for Big Japan Wrestilng, it seems he wants to wrap up his career with a little more flexibility, and I can’t blame him.

Three matches have been added to TJPW Summer Sun Princess: Emi Sakura & Chris Brookes will team up against two unknown opponents in a tag, Miyu Yamashita will have a special singles match against Billie Starkz, and Raku & Andresza Giant Panda will face Max the Impaler & Pom Harajuku.

While we’re talking TJPW, they’ve been running their Tokyo Princess Cup Preliminary League. Most of the advancements have been unsurprising, but one big surprise was Ivy Steele going over Toga - this got a big gasp from the crowd. Steele has only been in TJPW for around six months, to Toga’s two years, but Steele also had quite a bit of wrestling experience before coming to Japan.

TJPW also announced that their Houston and Dallas shows in a couple weeks will be streamed on Wrestle Universe (described as a “test of live streaming from overseas,” so it might be a little rough). Nice to just have a company run their overseas shows on their own platform for once. Also announced for that: Sayuri Namba, who will be making a surprise return as a ring announcer after wrapping up in Japan this week.

Tetsuya Naito and BUSHI have been announced to appear for RevPro’s Summer Sizzler show on July 25. I honestly assumed Naito would just be a meet & greet when I first heard this, but he is announced to be wrestling, apparently. I’m uh… surprised and somewhat concerned to hear this. I thought he was getting a bunch of surgeries done and stuff, but maybe he’s decided he can work some easy matches?

Fightful have a lengthy interview with Chi Chi, noted Puroresu Primer favorite. Spoilers for the Pro Wrestling Evolution joshi tournament in there - that’s also on my to-watch list.

What to watch (6/25 - 7/2)

This is a big weekend for Wrestle Universe, and not so much for everyone else:

Hyper Misao’s Hype!3 is on Friday 6/27 (6:30pm JST / 5:30am ET). No card for this, the last two were extremely weird comedy shows built around, like, time travel? Very theatrical. I’ll probably watch this with Dramatic DDT’s recap as my guide.

Speaking of weird TJPW shows, TJPW Inspiration is on Saturday 6/28 (12pm JST / 11pm Friday ET, full card). These are like weird mini-shows that I think are fan club exclusive or something (this one is happening at the very tiny TOKYOSQUARE in Itabashi venue).

Sunday 6/29 we have DDT King of Kings (11:10am JST / 10:10pm Saturday ET, full card), featuring Kazusada Higuchi challenging Chris Brookes for the KO-D Openweight Championship, the Astronauts defending the tag belts against Yuki Iino & Yukio Naya, and MxM Collection (Mansoor & Mason Madden) facing Danshoku Dieno & Kazuki HIrata. This is the first of DDT’s two Korakuens on the way to Wrestle Peter Pan, the next one being on 7/13. Feels like a good pair of shows to watch if you have any interest in the company.

And lastly for Wrestle Universe, we have NOAH Wrestle Magic 2025 on Monday 6/30 (6:30pm JST / 5:30 am ET, full card). As noted, this has the GHC Women’s Championship and GHC Hardcore Championship. It also has a main event that will feature mystery wrestlers from Dragon Gate, DDT, New Japan, NOAH, and maybe a 5th unrevealed promotion (the graphic teasing this kind of implies it).

As mentioned, NJPW will be running Tanahashi Jam on Sunday 6/29, but that won’t be on NJPW World since it’s a TV Asahi special. You’ll need to track that down as a bootleg, unless something changes and they figure out how to broadcast it internationally or something.

Stardom are running some shows across 6/27, 6/28, and 6/29 that will all be on Stardom World.

And that’s kinda it for the big shows. Pretty chill weekend for once. Hopefully I’ll be able to crank through some stuff I want to catch up on.

Also: I’m going to MLW Summer of the Beasts tonight. This will be free on Youtube but you probably shouldn’t watch it. The puro connections: KENTA vs Matt Riddle (ugh), KUSHIDA vs Diego Hill (neat), Wakana vs Yuki Kamifuku (hell yeah). Also some lucha connections with Neon, Mistico, Ultimo Guerrero making appearances, almost certainly in bad matches. Also Shotzi and the former Baron Corbin. It’s not a great lineup, but it is $20 and a 30 minute walk from my apartment, and decent live wrestling is hard to come by in NYC these days.

That’s all this week. Hopefully by this time next week I’ll have had time to at minimum watch the Jun Kasai vs El Desperado match, that got rave reviews. Annoyingly that did turn out to be on a PPV, but apparently the Suzu Suzuki/Rina Yamashita tag on it was also good so it might justify the price just with those two matches.