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

Newsletter: June 30, 2025 (bonus edition)

Usually, I don’t get around to these until midweek since it takes a while to catch up on stuff that aired over the weekend. For once, my life is easier: the biggest show of the weekend was literally not aired outside of Japan, so there’s nothing there for me to catch up on, and the other big show I want to talk about was a Sunday matinee in Japan which meant I could catch it live on Saturday.

Also I am going to talk about MLW at the end of this. You’re not obliged to read that.

I’ll be back later this week with the usual show previews and some more match recommendations (I’m looking forward to Wrestle Magic, I think? NOSAWA booking will seem clear and logical compared to what I’m about to talk about with NJPW here).

Match Recommendations

NJPW Death Pain Invitational (6/24, NJPW World PPV, Cagematch)

DDT King Of Kings 2025 ~ Arashi’s June Showdown ~ (6/29, Wrestle Universe, Cagematch)

MLW Summer Of The Beasts 2025 (6/26, Cagematch)

El Desperado: gets his own section this week

That’s right. Everyone’s favorite masked Japanese wrestler (sorry Shun) has a lot going on.

The most obvious thing to talk about, of course, was his incredible match with Jun Kasai at Death Pain Invitational. This was billed as their last ever singles match, following up their awesome triple threat deathmatch with Masahi Takeda on the Barb Sasaki produce show from March. This didn’t quite hit those heights for me - mainly because the pacing on the triple threat was incredible, in a way that you can kind of only get from a well-paced triple threat; here these guys needed some time to recover from the insane things the ywere doing - but is easily a top 10 MOTY for me right now. This was incredibly emotional on every level, from the match’s English-language subtitle of I’m so glad I met you, to the midmatch kiss, to both wrestlers choking back tears in their postmatch promos.

And, you know, it was horrendously violent, with everyone being covered in glass and blood. It really had it all.

Despy won with a lot of finisher spam. If I have any complaint here it’s that putting the IWGP Junior title on the line with Fujita waiting for his match made the finish far too obvious. But a deathmatch is one of the match types least hurt by an obvious outcome - after all, the drama comes from what these guys are putting themselves and each other through more than the anticipation of the finish.

After the match Kasai invited Despy to a rematch in 2035, and Despy talked about how important it was to get Jun Kasai’s name down in the history of the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title (and in New Japan in general). I thought that was very sweet. Also sweet was Tanahashi being there to watch the match and giving Despy a hug after the match, walking away with his white dress shirt covered in Despy’s blood. Usually I eye-roll a bit at promotions and wrestlers trying to give each other “validation,” but here, it’s the fucking ace of New Japan, and having him present for this big deathmatch really made it feel like a true IWGP Junior Heavyweight title match and not just Despy going off booking his own thing.

I threw some undercard matches from that show into my recs because I think they’re pretty interesting, and certainly worth a view if you end up buying the VOD. This was basically a FREEDOMS show being broadcast on New Japan World, and the crowd was surprisingly hot for the undercard. Masaoka vs Fujita was a solid junior exhibition with the finish leaving the door open for a rematch. I think this was my first ime seeing Masaoka wrestle a singles match - previously I’ve just seen him in F-SWAG with Gaia Hox in NOAH - and I was pretty impressed. The hardcore match was a delight, as you’d expect from Rina & Suzu versus two veterans. And the semi-main tag was surprisingly fun - even Toru Yano felt like he showed up to work.

In the wake of this match, Desperado has been announced for two big matches. First off, the fun surprise: we have Desperado teaming with Maki Itoh against Chris Brookes & Emi Sakura at TJPW Summer Sun Princess on 7/21. I do think it would be extremely funny if someone bled in this match, and between Despy, Chris, and Itoh, it does seem weirdly possible.

Second, of course, we have Desperado’s match against Fujita finally being announced. As expected, it’s on the 7/6 Korakuen show that’s the last card before the G1 starts up. That show will also have Tanahashi vs Tiger Mask and SHO & DOUKI defending the junior tag titles against YOH & Wato in a Dominion rematch.

What a year El Desperado is having. I do think it is time for him to drop to Fujita, especially given DOUKI is off doing whatever the fuck he’s doing in House of Torture instead of just getting a rematch like everyone expected. Fujita feels like the biggest potential domestic star NJPW has right now (well, after Aaron Wolf, I guess); belting him up now that Desperado has accomplished everything obvious for him to do is a no-brainer. But I hope Despy is able to keep making big appearances all year. He’s a junior but he’s big enough to fight anyone; just let him fight every champion and ace he wants to at Korakuen. Just imagine how hard El Desperado vs OZAWA would go.

NJPW: strange choices intensify at Tanahashi Jam

Okay, with the positive NJPW news out of the way, it’s time to get to the weird stuff.

Tanahashi Jam was, on paper, supposed to just be a filler house show, albeit one with a big crowd. The main event was Tana & Marufuji vs Kaito & Ryohei Oiwa; the opener on the undercard was a second Tana match where he teamed with Taguchi & Umino vs a 71-year old Tatsumi Fujinami, Fujinami’s son LEONA, and Hiromu Takahashi.

There were three title matches on the show, but none seemed exciting at a glance. As expected, Oleg Boltin successfully defended the NEVER belt against Yuji Nagata, and El Phantasmo retained the TV title against Taiji Ishimori.

Then, two weird things happened. One is that the United Empire vs Shingo, Yota Tsuji, & X match’s guest start wound up being Dragon Gate’s Shun Skywalker. Shun has a big main event title match in Dragon Gate next month where if he loses, he leaves the company. That makes showing up in another company and pinning one of their rookies (Jakob Austin Young) a pretty interesting moment.

Now, notably, Tanahashi is showing up on Dragon Gate’s Kobe World next month, so this could be a make-good thing. Maybe DG just wanted some extra drama to that stipulation, and figured Shun popping up would be both good advertising plus help put the result of that match in question. I think everyone still assumes Shun is going to beat YAMATO for the Dream Gate in that match, but it would definitely be possible for Shun to leave.

And then, there was the semi-main. Not the main. The semi-main. Where the IWGP Heavyweight Championship was defended. With Goto having a rematch against Zack, theoretically due to the double-pin on NJPW Resurgence a month ago (which was also a semi-main). And uh… Zack won.

So here’s the other thing with this show: it’s not on NJPW World. I mentioned this last week as a bit of an afterthought: it had a special deal to air on TV Asahi’s satellite network (not the free TV Asahi that Wrestle Kingdom 20 is going to air on). The show was subsidized by TV Asahi and also was meant to be a special moment as the last NJPW show from the Nagoya Dolphins arena, which is being demolished. Again: house show vibes.

And the IWGP title changed hands.

So there’s like three things to talk about here: what does it mean that the belt changed hands on a weird TV special, what does it mean that it changed hands in a semi-main, and what does it mean that Goto dropped to Zack?

The first two we can address kind of quickly. The TV special: bad for international audiences, but NJPW doesn’t really seem to worry too much about that audience right now. There’s reports there aren’t going to be any New Japan Strong shows for the rest of the year. Forbidden Door is coming up, but I don’t think we’ll necessarily see another New Japan/RevPro show this year - maybe RevPro will bring some wrestlers over, but not a proper co-promotion. Domestic audiences I honestly can’t speak to. I can say personally if I were, say, subscribing to HBO Max to watch AEW, and then AEW had Moxley lose the title not on a PPV or on Max but on, like, a special only aired on cable TV, I’d be pretty annoyed.

The more annoying thing is NJPW not having any announced plan for airing this match or show. I think the expectation is that it will be on NJPW World sometime between now and the G1, but who knows? It’s just another sloppy-shop moment for New Japan.

The semi-main: oof. Goto’s American defenses against Umino and Zack were also semi-mains, but that was an acknowledgement that he wasn’t as over in the US (and one of those matches had an opponent who wasn’t over, and one had a planned bad finish). I don’t see how you justify this loss in the semi-main. Sure, Tanahashi is the most over guy here, but if your champion and the guy your champion is losing to are less over than the guy who’s retiring next year, you might be in trouble.

And then, uh, Zack. Okay.

I love Zack. He has always been one of my favorite wrestlers. I have been out on New Japan over the last few years, so I hadn’t really seen him much lately, and seeing his match versus Goto in February reminded me why I love him so much. He’s one of the only reasons I’m considering watching the G1 - I think he’s an incredible wrestler in tournament settings, when every match has stakes on the line and could end at any moment. I think he’s been such a good fit for New Japan in every way as a wrestler, and I want to see him continue his career there indefinitely.

He also doesn’t seem to be very over. They took the belt off him in February for a reason: they needed a feel-good moment with the crowd rallying behind Goto, and ZSJ had severely cooled off following his debacle of a Dome match with Shota Umino. It’s not his fault the match was bad, it’s not his fault the booking has been questionable, but there’s no world in which he feels like a company ace right now.

They’re going into Forbidden Door in London in August, and you could argue it’s nice to have belts on Zack and Gabe going into that. I don’t think it will move any tickets. I don’t think Tony Khan particularly cares about having belts on the Brits going into it. I think those guys could have big AEW title challenges (or even special singles matches) on that show, rather than championship defenses, and it would all work out just fine.

I don’t think Zack dropping at the Dome builds anyone. I think Goto dropping at the Dome also might not do that much, but you could also have had him lose after the G1 to… well, I’m trying to think of a non-EVIL heel who could do that and I’m coming up short. Maybe that’s the problem.

I think the one good option they have is to have Zack go on an absolute monstrous dickhead run for the next six months (which I don’t love with House of Torture being on top, but at least it’s a different kind of heeling) to revitalize him as the heel he’s been in the past - hell, maybe we can break up TMDK in the process, that’d be nice - so that if Tsuji or Newman or Uemura or Gabe or Takeshita face him there, he feels like a big threat.

The other option that I mostly hate would just be to do ZSJ vs Tana at the Dome, but like, you want Tana’s retirement to be a feel-good moment, not losing to Zack for like the sixth time.

It’s weird. I don’t like any of the options they have. I don’t trust Gedo’s vision at all now, and while I am sure there is a vision, if it’s a good one it’s certainly not an obvious one from analyzing the G1 field.

Anyways, let’s talk about some good booking instead.

DDT: big moments at Korakuen Hall

Higuchi beat Chris Brookes, and Yukio Naya & Yuki Iino beat the Astronauts, and I’m not sure I’ve ever been so happy for three of my favorite wrestlers to lose their belts.

Higuchi getting the KO-D belt felt pretty obvious, but I was surprised they did it here instead of waiting for Peter Pan. Also a surprise is that we’re getting Higuchi vs HARASHIMA at the 7/13 Korakuen coming up, rather than that being saved for Peter Pan. It was also a bit of a shock given that it feels like DDT had been starting to build towards a Chris Brookes vs HARASHIMA match. That could still happen non-title - or I guess they could hot-shot the belt to HARASHIMA - but I suspect maybe they’ll cool that off for a little bit.

The match was awesome, though a slight step down from Higuchi vs Ueno. It was a slugfest, and if you’ve only seen wacky Chris Brookes matches I highly encourage you to check this out to see his serious side. Higuchi praised Chris after the match and celebrated by shotgunning a beer, that’s my champion.

Yukio Naya is also my champion, and I think that’s neat. Yukio is my favorite 6/10 wrestler on the planet: he’s not great, he’s a often kind of a charisma vacuum, and yet sometimes he just randomly turns it on in big moments and I get reminded why I like him so much. I enjoyed the hell out of this match and it was easily the best Yukio Naya performance since winning the D-Oh a couple years ago - other than maybe the great Naya/Microman vs Maki Itoh/Manders match from WrestleMania weekend. I would love for them to run this match back, but the Astronauts pretty quickly bolted out of the ring to make way for Jun Akiyama and his 16-year old protege Daichi Sato to challenge for the titles, which will be on a 7/27 show.

Other stuff on this show: Mansoor & Mason Madden debuted in a pretty rough match against Dieno & Hirata that had, well, a lot of weird butt stuff and also Dieno’s dog was there for a bit. They were over, at least.

The midcard had some super fun tags I recommend checking out. Masked dancer Kumadori returned for only his third match and looked awesome. I assume that his athletic abilities plus having four months between matches to rehearse spots are part of why this worked so well, but Takagi’s weird strategy of booking random entertainers as wrestlers seems to be paying off. They teased a Kumadori vs Ilusion match, though nothing was announced yet.

ZSJ was announced for day one of Wrestle Peter Pan on 8/30. This announcement had me go to sleep convinced there was zero chance ZSJ would win at Tanahashi Jam. Now I’m even more confused. I’m not even sure Takagi knew ZSJ would be attending this show as IWGP Champion. I was pretty sure we’d just be getting Brookes vs ZSJ as a special singles match with no titles; now I’m not sure if we get Zack defending the belt (and winning) or a non-title match (where Zack still wins because lol the NJPW/DDT relationship).

One last fantasy booking thought: Zack could lose the belt at Forbidden Door before Peter Pan. Maybe that’s something to think about for a bit.

Other news

Syuri is taking some time off from Stardom due to injuries. Not super shocking given her hard wrestling style and MMA history, but does leave yet another Stardom faction with an absentee leader.

Okay, so let’s talk about MLW

NYC doesn’t have a lot of options for indie pro wrestling. We’ve got House of Glory, who seem competent, but they’re out on the edge of Jamaica, Queens (like an 80 minute train ride for me, and I live in Queens!), and they book a lot of main events with goofy DQ and no contest finishes so they can book big talent. There’s a few other promotions who have come and gone, but none seem to stick around (RIP Catalyst Wrestling and your shows at an outdoor bar with a taco truck). It’s hard as hell to get a venue, the NY State Athletic Commission is notoriously strict, it’s just hard to make work.

MLW comes through a couple times a year and runs a venue that is walking distance from my apartment, and this time, I decided to go. The way MLW works these days is that they no longer have actual TV tapings. Instead, they just run a “premium live event” (re: Youtube stream), and then tape another show before that, which gets aired as a Youtube stream a month or two later.

So for a $20 standing room ticket I got four hours of wrestling. That sounded like a good deal. It was not.

This was the most I’ve ever felt my time was disrespected at a wrestling show. And I’ve been to lucha shows with unannounced 90 minute intermissions and Smackdown tapings that had more minutes of advertising than wrestling. This show absolutely stunk.

The biggest problem is the format: it turns out that Court Bauer is not a master of nonlinear storytelling. He is perfectly happy to, on the taped portion of the show, spoil the results of the later live portion. The main event was Matt Riddle defending the heavyweight title against KENTA and the taping featured two guys arguing about who would be next to face Riddle, including one of them bringing out a beat-up Riddle.

I try not to wax too poetic about pro wrestling. It’s a very silly form of entertainment. But I do think it’s art, in the same way that lots of silly forms of entertainment are art. And I think when something is art, I kind of want the artist to at least pretend to give a shit about what they’re putting in front of me, the viewer of the art. I don’t want them to go “lmao none of this shit matters I guess here’s some stuff because you paid for it.” And when you spoil the main event of your show two hours before it happens, all that indicates to me is a complete lack of respect for both your promotion, your wrestlers, your matches, and the audience.

There’s other stuff that isn’t a big deal. Shotzi and Ava Everett had an okay match on the taping, and then a segment on the live portion where they set up that match - that’s fine. I mean, good on the crowd for not just chanting “YOU LOST” at Ava; they might have been some of the worst smarks I’ve ever had the displeasure of standing near but at least they weren’t that rude.

But there’s other stuff that is very much a problem. Dijak and Bishop Dyer (the former Baron Corbin) both had matches/segments on the taping, then appeared together as the SURPRISE TAG TEAM who defeated CMLL’s Magnus and Rugido for the tag belts. When your surprise tag team gets less crowd reaction than Gallows and Anderson would have, it’s not good! They were both announced for the show anyways so I don’t know if not having been on the taping would have helped that much, but talk about a negative pop.

Speaking of the CMLL guys: Neon vs Paul London was the worst lightning match I’ve ever seen. I longed for the days of Master Wato’s bad CMLL run. Paul London can’t go at all and they had 3 minutes of ideas for a 7 minute match. Ultimo Guerrero’s match against Alex Hammerstone turned into a surprise three-way with Matt Justice which somehow still ended with UG retaining, which I was at least glad to see. Hammerstone cut an embarrassing worked-shoot promo about how mad he was that MLW let him leave the company (before he came back because no one wanted to sign him).

Mistico fared well in his match against Ikuro Kwon, one of the better matches of the night, and of course had his big segment with MJF that you’ve probably seen. I’m not really an MJF guy. I guess it was neat that MJF actually got booed here; I normally think it’s incredibly stupid to have a heel be a big shocking surprise at a show since they’re going to get face heat.

The one very good match I want to call out: Diego Hill vs KUSHIDA rocked and, yes, I put it up there in the recommendations (with a timestamp so that you don’t accidentally watch any other stuff on that show). This was by far the most over match of the night thanks to the power of actually good pro wrestling. Diego got “signed” to a big pop afterward, which I’m fine with since the MLW taping commitment is like one show every two months and we know Court Bauer is happy to release someone from their contract in exchange for like $20.

TJPW’s Wakana vs Yuki Kamifuku was a pretty good grappling match and had a surprisingly respectful crowd for a fairly mid-energy matchup between two silly characters. I enjoyed it well enough. Shotzi cut a promo suggesting she wanted a match with Yuki, I guess that’d be okay. She talked about the “MLW women’s division” which, for the record, is currently: Shoko Nakajima, Shotzi, end of list? They cut Janai Kai and Delmi Exo and I don’t know if Ava is going to be back, let alone Kamiyu.

Finally the main was a fucking disaster. I hate Riddle but at least I was assuming he could still wrestle, considering MLW put the belt on him. American KENTA puts in zero effort, but I enjoyed him well enough against Gringo Loco last year at DEFY’s Mania weekend show that I thought I’d be able to get some enjoyment out of this match.

Instead we had: the most obnoxious crowd moments of the night, trying to too-sweet KENTA (who came out in a NOAH shirt, lest you missed the message) in between doing too-sweet-whoop-whoop chants, sang Randy Orton’s song causing Riddle to stall the match to hit the Orton pose, and then one guy did some of the most egregious screaming at a wrestler I’ve ever seen to the point KENTA had to start working it because it was too awkward to not ignore and the crowd eventually had to muster a shut-the-fuck-up chant. It takes a lot to make me long for late-stage EVOLVE, but I remember seeing wrestling in NYC where a fan got thrown out for heckling Ethan Page way too hard. Gabe Sapolsky ran a far better shop than Court, honestly.

This show stunk. I can’t say I had a lot of fun seeing TJPW wrestlers, or Satoshi Kojima, or Mistico, or KENTA, in an environment this awful. Don’t go see MLW, even if they’re the only company in town. It’s just not worth it.

Watching CMLL’s Friday show the next night, I found myself imagining the plane ride back to Mexico City that Mistico, Neon, UG, Magnus, and Rugido all shared. They must have all been saying “wow, that show was bad, huh? At least that guy keeps paying us for some reason.” I’m glad they all get paid, I guess.