Cero Reviews TJPW Stand Proud 2021

[cero2k]

TJPW Stand Proud 2021
June 26, 2021
KFC Hall, Tokyo, Japan

Maki Ito & Nodoka Tenma vs. Kaya Toribami & Mirai Maiumi - 6/10
This was a fun opener, I was originally curious about this Itoh and Tenma team up, but while they weren't all about chemistry or anything like that, they worked well together, mostly because they just focused on their opponents. Toribami impressed me more, I like the look and I like what I'm seeing in her work, with some seasoning, she can really develop as a luchador type of wrestler. Itoh submitted Toribami with a Boston Crab for the win.

Rika Tatsumi vs. Yuki Kamifuku vs. Arisu Endo - 6/10
Another fun match, and this one I liked because it worked to showcase each women while not keeping them on the screen all the time, allowing them to hide some of their deficiencies, especially in the case of Kamiyu. Tatsumi is a well established main eventer and Endo, as green as she is, she's close to being a bit of a prodigy, but Kamiyu has always had that issue of doing a full singles match and exposing some of her weaknesses, but under tag matches, or in this case a 3-way, she looked better than usual coming in and out for attacks.

I don't think this was building to anything, but I wouldn't mind seeing a singles program with Tatsumi and Kamifuku, see if the White Dragon can carry Kamiyu to a good match, which should be great experience for her to work with better people.

Miu Watanabe & Yuki Arai vs. Moka Miyamoto & Shoko Nakajima - 6.5/10
Good match, completely here to get more experience and eyes on Yuki Arai, completely carried by Nakajima and Watanabe, and at the end, allow Miyamoto, who is higher in the totem pole, to get a win over Arai. Miyamoto's wins you can still count with one hand, even if you're missing a finger. Moka got the win with the Rashomon.

As for Arai, she definitely showed more in this match, with the whole idea being that on her debut, she relied so much more on Watanabe, and in this match, she was more of her own. She even had a pretty decent mat wrestling sequence in the beginning. Happy to see her improve.

Haruna Neko, Hikari Noa & Suzume vs. Pom Harajuku, Raku & Yuki Aino - 4.5/10
In paper, this looked like the worst match that you could give me, the only two that I particularly like are Noa and Suzume, and they're on the same team, but once realizing that this was just a means to an end, that end being setting up Raku as a challenger to Noa, it all made sense.

The match itself was nothing special, there wasn't a single pair up that I cared for. Raku got the win with a Hurricane Turn.

Hyper Misao, Mahiro Kiryu & Nao Kakuta vs. Magical Sugar Rabbits (Mizuki & Yuka Sakazaki) & Marika Kobashi - 7/10
This was great, just tons of great wrestling from all involved. Similar to some of the matches tonight, this seemed set up to showcase Marika a lot, she had new gear, working completely babyface, and pairing up with the Sugar Rabbits of all people.

Princess Of Princess Championship Match
Miyu Yamashita (c) vs. Sakisama (w/Mei Saint-Michel) - 7.5/10
The story coming in was that Yamashita never had a singles win over Sakisama, who had always been some kind of final boss in TJPW and a lot of people don't have wins over her like that. So the thought was whether Yamashita could finally get her win with the title on the line, or would Sakisama would finally win the PoP Championship, which she has never won.

I really don't know if the match could had been better than this, Sakisama is not exactly a top notch worker and a lot of her offense looks awkward at times because of her height, and this match suffered from that, a lot of her stuff looked ok, but some looked weak, it really was until she started doing PKs or slaps that they looked the best. The one good thing about this pair up is that it pushes Yamashita to get her kicks higher and more impressive, so a lot of Yamashita's stuff did looked cool. Yamashita won at the end with Crash Rabbit Heat.

Post-match - Yamashita cut her winner's promo, talking about finally defeating Sakisama.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
Ok show from TJPW, not the best, but they got all their points across. I thought the card order was weird and maybe that made it so that the hype didn't escalate to the main event. This surely wasn't that big of a deal of a show, and it did made me wonder why have Yamashita's first win over Sakisama here, when they could had build it to a bigger thing, but I also understand that Sakisama is not gonna give you a 5 star match either, and maybe this was as much as they could have sold with it.