Cero Reviews TJPW Positive Chain

[cero2k]

Cero Reviews TJPW Positive Chain
February 11, 2021
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan

Announcements - Go Girl is coming back on April 4th, it's a free admission show, for women only. It had been cancelled last year due to COVID.

Pom Harajuku & Karuna Neko vs Marika Kobashi & Moka Miyamoto - 3.5/10
Not good, Harajuku was just slow and it felt like she wasn't putting a lot of effort to many moves, they looked good, but they seemed like she was going through the motions. Neko, her tag partner, wasn't anything especial either, and so that's one side of the match. Miyamoto and Kobashi looked good with what they had to work, Kobashi was showcased well. Harajuku pinned Miyamoto with a leaping leg drop.

Hikari Noa, Mahiro Kiryu, & Sena Shiori vs Yuna Manase, Raku, & Nao Kakuta - 6/10
This match had some really good stuff, and some meh stuff. The meh parts mostly came from Raku doing her narcoleptic gimmick, but beyond that, it was a great little wrestling match. I liked the pair up of Kakuta vs Noa the most, just good action. Manase didn't do much, but what she did as the powerhouse looked good. At the end, it was Raku that pinned Shiori for the win.

Magical Sugar Rabbits vs Suzume & Arisu Endo - 8/10
Well, this is totally off balance, Sakazaki and Mizuki are main eventers, championship level wrestlers, and Suzume and Endo are two of the freshest wrestlers in the roster. The experience disparity did end up helping the match a lot, it made the selling of both Suzume and Endo feel extra painful, coming from experienced wrestlers; but in addition, it made everything they did in offense, feel like a big deal that they had managed to get this upper hand.

At the end, Yuka pinned Endo with the Magical Merry-Go-Round for the obvious result, but I have to give them all the praise for having such a good match against rookies.

Miyu Yamashita & Maki Itoh vs NEO Biishiki-gun (Sakisama & Mei Saint-Michel) - 8.5/10
This was awesome. These 4 are all so great and popular and so different from each other.

Match saw NBG cut off Itoh for quite a while, they really leaned in on Mei vs Itoh and kick vs kick with Yamashita and Sakisama. Itoh and Yamashita were able to turn things around and finally get rid of Sakisama so that Itoh could finish Mei with a Flying Big Head. The match saw Mei get tons of offense, she was fantastic, she is a fantastic wrestler and actor combo, she has learned well from dealing with Antonio Honda, her mannerisms based on her gimmick are top level, she does so many little things that make it up, and even if the camera is not focused on her, you see her in the back doing little things that play into the gimmick.

Itoh herself is showing a lot more control in the ring, her wrestling looked quite sharp in this match. Her and Yamashita's story about influencing each other is just great, we saw it a lot here with Itoh bringing out the crazy out of Yamashita, and later after the match, Itoh being a bit more well behaved and honorable.

This is gonna be such a GIFable match.

Post-match - Yamashita brings up that the tag team tournament is coming and asks Itoh if she wants to tag together, before she can finish the sentence, Itoh rips the mic off her hands and screams OF COURSE I DO! Unless they have a specific plan for NEO Biishiki-gun or the Magical Sugar Rabbits, I think we have our winners here and likely next tag champs.

International Princess Championship Match
Yuki Kamifuku (C) vs Mirai Maiumi - 7/10
Kamifuku has dropped Old McDonald as her entrance theme. It was bound to happen and this one fits her more. Tells me that she's past being the 'Old McDonald song girl'. Maiumi also changed her gear and hair, she looks completely different, a big improvement. These two ladies seem to be taking this singles match as a big chance to show off.

I wasn't expecting much of this match, but it ended up being quite good. Some of Kamiyu's execution wasn't super crisp, but the timing, the reversals, and for sure the drama was all there. We saw Mirai have the power advantage throughout the match, and so Kamiyu had to rely to a foreign weapon to cut her off early on. After the damage, Kamiyu kept on chipping away on Mirai, who came close and had a lot of explosive offense, but the slippery Kamiyu got her with a Fame-asser out of nowhere and one from the top rope for the win.

Princess Tag Team Championship Match
Bakuretsu Sisters (C) vs The Tokyo Joshingers (Hyper Misao & Shin Ultra Shoko) - 7.5/10
Shin Ultra Shoko is none other than Shoko Nakajima, renamed after losing the 'Loser must rename' match on Jan. 4th show. Misao's order was to become a superhero along with her, and when they did, they started to see success and challenged the Bakuretsu Sisters for the titles.

Match was good, a whole lot less shenanigans than the usual Misao match. It really just came down to Misao and Shoko using the Kyoraku Kyomei Mobile after the referee had been accidentally taken out, and even then, then attack didn't work out, because Aino and Tenma moved out of the way. As for the match itself, it was mostly back and forward, Shoko did get cut off at one point, but it wasn't long and I would say she was the babyface in peril either, it wasn't that type of cut-off. At the end, it all came down to Aino and Shoko, with the former hitting the Venus DDT and the UBV for the win.

Post-match - Backstage, Shoko said that her time as a superhero is over and must return to her planet, and so Shoko Nakajima must return. She entrusted the earth to Misao and the Sisters and agreed that Nakajima and Misao must enter the Max Hearts Tournament together.

Princess Of Princess Championship Match
Rika Tatsumi (C) vs Miu Watanabe - 8.5/10
Daydream collides! This is a big test for both Miu and Rika, for one, it's her first defense as the champion, her first championship main event, and for the other, it's straight up her first Korakuen Hall singles main event. They both gotta show that they can bring it like the Sakazakis and Yamashita's of the promotion. And they did.

This was a really good back and forward match with a lot of action. Rika worked over Miu's leg, while Miu went after Rika's back. Miu had the power advantage, so Rika decided to cripple her and start working towards the Figure 4, the move she used to defeat Sakazaki. Miu just brought all the heart in the world and worked through the pain, when her leg would buckle, she'd get up and try and again and succeed in whatever move she was going for, but at the end, Tatsumi woke up her 7th sense, elevated her cosmo, and started going Hip Attack crazy and hit them from all corners until she hit the Missile Hip and won.

Post-match - Tatsumi put Watanabe over and said that she liked that Miu had found a way to connect idols and wrestling, and Rika wanted to help TJPW grow, and so she wanted for the two of them to fulfill their dreams together, as Daydream. Tatsumi asked Miu to enter the tag team tournament as Daydream and win.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
This was a great show from TJPW, only the opener was bad, but the rest of the card had something either good or great. In addition, this show did a great job at building a tag tournament, even when a lot of tonight wasn't about tag teams.