Cero Reviews TJPW Wrestle Princess

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Cero Reviews TJPW Wrestle Princess

Post by cero2k » Nov 9th, '20, 21:33

TJPW Wrestle Princess
November 7th, 2020
Tokyo Dome City Hall, Tokyo, Japan

Up Up Girls Performance - Ok, you can tell they're emotionally shaken for performing at such a big venue, Miu Watanabe's voice was totally breaking. They performed two songs and made some introductions.

Mei Suruga & Moka Miyamoto vs. Sena Shiori & Suzume - 6/10
I'm so incredibly happy for Mei to be on a card outside of ChocoPro right now, she hadn't been in one since March for Sendai Girls. This is her first ever TJPW booking and this promotion is 100% the best flavor for her, and while she is the newest TJPW wrestler, she is the most experienced of the 4. Nonetheless, the other three are huge promising rookies for TJPW.

The match saw Moka get cut off as babyface in peril, Mei had the hot tag, but at the end, when she tagged in Moka again, Moka lost. Good opener, Mei's energy alone brought the crowd up.

Haruna Neko & Marika Kobashi vs. Mahiro Kiryu & Pom Harajuku - 5.5/10
There wasn't much to this match, it's the usual opener or second match from TJPW. Lots of energy from everyone, it was a colorful mix of characters. Pom and Mahiro have been slowly growing as a team, and so this felt like a win for them in a big show to set them up as a more credible pair up that could likely challenge for the titles soon.

International Princess Title Tournament Video Package - Great! In about 3 minutes or less, I understood a little bit about the personalities of each of the surviving competitors.

International Princess Title Tournament Semi Final Match
Hikari Noa vs. Mirai Maiumi - 7/10
I really liked this match, especially Maiumi, who unfortunately lost. Maiumi is a bit of a powerhouse, which is not usual in TJPW. Hikari Noa I saw wrestle Maki Itoh on January, coming close to this very same title, so it wasn't all that surprising that she would win, as she's been chasing this title before. The match was mostly back and forward, Maiumi powerhouse moves really set up Noa to come into the finals as someone who had a rough path. Hikari won with a Blizzard Suplex, recently developed.

International Princess Title Tournament Semi Final Match
Shoko Nakajima vs. Yuki Kamifuku - 6.5/10
Nakajima is one of TJPW biggest stars, she's been the main champion before, she's been booked for AEW, she could become the first ever triple crown if she wins the title. Kamiyu, who is incredibly popular with the male fanbase, has been also rising in the ranks, so this was one that could had gone either way and made total sense.

They paired up nicely for this match since Shoko is quite short and Kamiyu's long legs gives her long reach and a vicious kicking arsenal. There was a great spot with Shoko locking in the ULTH for a submission tease. Kamiyu ended winning with a Fame Asser.

Yuna Manase vs. Raku - 6/10
Ok match. Manase used to be in TJPW, but left to do some indie stuff here and there, and now is back with Ganbare, that is also part of CyberFight, and so we have this match. Raku has some gimmick traits of falling asleep a lot, but it only really came by at the start of the match for the giggles, but once that was done, the match was all business.

Not much to this match, Manase looked like a veteran in the ring and Raku gave he a great match at that. Manase won with a lariat.

Wrestle Princess Switching Random Rules Match
Saki Akai vs. Hyper Misao - 8.5/10
I loved this, it was hilarious. I could say this was the most fun I had watching wrestling this packed weekend. The stipulation of the match is pretty much that, a switch that randomizes the rules of the match. The button can be pressed at any time assuming you have the opening to do so. Also, these rules had all be fan submitted via email per request of Misao herself.

First stipulation was that no kicks were allowed, and so Akai had some trouble since her arsenal is mostly kick based, at one point she even hit a big boot and argued that it was with the bottom of the foot and couldn't be considered a kick, and in that same vein, Misao tried pinning Akai with her feet on the ropes, arguing that it wasn't a kick, yet the ref reminded her that feet on the ropes are ALWAYS illegal.

Second rule was that each competitor had to do 5 turns in a dizzy bat before their pins could be legal, this led to a LOT of great drunken spots until they both agreed that they needed to change the rules.

Third rule was that each competitor had to finish a bag of chocolate cream puffs for their pins to be legal. Throwback to old school Misao feuds. Misao tried to trick Akai by putting all her puffs in Akai's bag, but once Akai noticed, she simply pressed the button.

Next rule was that each wrestler would get a secret wrestler as their backup. Akai's was her ERUPTION teammate Sakaguchi, while Misao's was the boss himself, Sanshiro Takagi. The spots ended up being Takagi and Sakaguchi taking out Misao and Akai respectively by accident, before taking each other out of the match before the next button press.

Final rule that got pressed was a Last Woman Standing match. At this point, after dizzy bats, eating puffs, taking shots from the dudes, Akai and Misao just started spamming big moves until Misao wasn't able to answer the count, giving Akai the win.

It was just so fun. These two have a huge history together, but with Akai's alter ego of Sakisama, and so they had great chemistry already.

Aja Kong & Miyu Yamashita vs. Maki Ito & Sareee - 7/10
This was the money maker match of the show, Maki Itoh is arguably one of the biggest joshi stars right now, Miyu Yamashita is THE Ace of TJPW, arguably the best wrestler in the promotion, Sareee is one of the most promising talents and favorite to any conoceour of joshi wrestling, one that we need to appreciate right now because she is bound to join the corporation and waste her talents, and finally, we have Aja Kong, who is surely past her prime, but is still Aja Fucking Kong.

There were three things that this match had to deliver on. Interaction between Itoh and Kong, Yamashita vs Sareee, and obviously address the feud between Itoh and Yamashita, and for that, the match did perfectly. It's hard to really judge the wrestling quality of this match that harsh because we can't expect that the stuff that Kong did would be at the level of the other 3, but she played her part well, and she still has a strong backfist and chop to add a little bit to the match.

At the end, it was all Miyu vs Itoh, with the former beating the latter with Crash Rabbit Heat.

Wrestle Princess II Announcement - They announced some dates for early 2021, ending with the announcement for Wrestle Princess II for October 9, 2021.

New Trainee Announcement - It was announced that Alice Endo and Nao Kakuta are joining TJPW.

International Princess Title Tournament Final Match (Vacant)
Yuki Kamifuku vs. Hikari Noa - 7/10
We had already seen them earlier in the day, I'd argue that Noa had a rougher path to the title match. There wasn't much to the match, they didn't really milk the previous matches to make this one more dramatic. While everything felt like the Cinderella culmination for Noa and the International Princess Title, it ended up becoming Kamiyu's path to stop being left behind. Kamifuku won with an Avalanche Fame Asser.

Princess Tag Team Title Match
Miu Watanabe & Rika Tatsumi (c) vs. BAKURETSU Sisters (Nodoka Tenma & Yuki Aino) - 9/10
BAKURESTU Sisters joined together a little over a year ago, they've seen ups and downs throughout, including a great tag title match against Watanabe and Tatsumi on Jan 4th, which I saw live and thought was the best match of that card. They've had a long road to finally find themselves in line for the tag titles again, but once again, they're facing the unbeatable team of Watanabe and Tatsumi, who have held the titles for 370 days at this point. BAKURETSU Sisters keep losing the big one.

Match planning was basic, Yuki Aino was cut away from her corner, with her leg being worked on, and lead to the hot tag and into the end. I'll be the first to admit that I sometimes get incredibly annoyed at how happy-go-lucky both these teams tend to be, especially when they come out, but once in the match started, it was all drama and you could see the pain in the faces of Aino for being hurt and dragging her partner, and in Tenma, who shared the pain of seeing her mate hurting. Aino ended up hitting UBV for the win to finally win the titles and fulfil the year long dream.

Great storytelling, great drama, and a lot of emotion leading to a happy ending.

Princess Of Princess Title Match
Yuka Sakazaki (c) vs. Mizuki - 9.75/10
This was beautiful. It was the clash of two best friends, wrestling for the major title of the promotion, putting their friendship on the line as well. They became the Magical Sugar Rabbits out of a random pairing in 2018, and they became best friends. This year, Mizuki won the Tokyo Princess Cup and earned a shot a Sakazaki's title, which she has taken seriously and knows that she needs to go all out on her friend, but in order to do so, she is willing herself into hating Sakazaki and thus she's been cold and distant in the last month.

The match was two women that knew the price of the match and went in full force. Mizuki went all in working on Sakazaki's upper body with foot stomps from every corner she could. Sakazaki worked over Mizuki's leg, trying to stop her from hitting the foot stomps. They hit bigger and bigger moves, Mizuki hit a footstomp from the top rope to the floor, at the expense of her ankle; Sakazaki went for the Magical Girl Splash, only to catch Mizuki's knees.

In a weekend with NJPW and AEW shows, this was the best match from November 7th.

Post-match - Mizuki and Sakazaki, all beaten down, kinda just dragged themselves and held hands. After a while, they managed to get up and invite the rest of the roster out to close the show. Half of the roster were crying out of the emotion exploded in the main event.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
Just an awesome show, after sleeping on it, I surely think this was better than Power Struggle and Full Gear, two shows that really overshadowed the notoriety that this show could have gotten otherwise. The storytelling and emotion that TJPW puts into their stories and characters is on another level, something that probably gets overlooked a lot for being DDT's sister promotion and for not having the type of wrestler that STARDOM has, and in this show, their biggest of the year, they went all out and delivered.
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