JD Star closes...sort of

JD Star held their final show called Jeanne D'Arc on July 16 at Shin-kiba 1st Ring. But to the surprise of absolutely no one, the management of JD Star announced the start of a new promotion based around their ace Fuuka. That's the pattern of the joshi business today. One zombie fed dies and two emerge to replace it. It's not a good thing. Through their 11 year history, JD has always been uneven at best but anyone who thought that the end of JD Star would signal the end of idol wrestlers is fooling themselves. I'm not surprised by any of this.

Many JD wrestlers from the past and present appeared at the show including Lioness Asuka & Jaguar Yokota. But the opening match marked the return to the ring of original Athtress Yumi Ohka since blowing her knee out almost two years ago. It was a five minute exhibition match against Misaki Ohata. Ohka says she will return to joshi full time the new company WAVE. The second match was supposed to be Ayumi Kurihara & Cherry vs Yuri Urai & Hiroyo Matsumoto. But Kurihara is out with a broken collarbone and was replaced by Kyoko Kimura. Kimura won the match with the Big Boots over Urai at 12:09. The next match was supposed to be the JD Regular Army vs the Super Terrors. But because all of the Super Terrors have retired, KAZUKI was left to face Sachie Abe, Haruka Matsuo, Hiroyo Muto & Obacchi Iizuka alone. Yuk yuk. Abe won the match with the Astro Scissors at 18:23.

Joshi puroresu living legend and original JD trainer Jaguar Yokota was up next teaming with Fuuka against Shuu Shibutani & Misaki Ohata. It was what you would expect and Jaguar won with a piledriver on Ohata at 13:09. The final match in JD Star was a Royal Rumble style battle royal called Beauty MIX Rumble. A wrestler would come in at 45 second intervals. It started with Cherry & Yumi Ohka. Here's the order of elimination: Obacchi Iizuka, Fake Echisera (Shibutani), Caribbean KIM, Emi Tomimatsu, Ranmaru, Hiroyo Matsumoto, Kyoko Kimura, GAMI, Yuki Miyazaki, Misaki Ohata, Yumi Ohka, Fuuka, Haruka Matsuo, Yuri Urai, Cherry, Kei Akiyama, KAZUKI, Hiroyo Muto, Sachie Abe, Aya Koyama, Bullfight Sora, Fake Keiko Saito (Shibutani). After this, Shibutani would return as herself. MARU and then Asami Kawasaki was eliminated. Then the final joke as Shibutani won over Megumi Yabushita with an inside cradle at 24:35. Oy!

They finished with a closing ceremony. Cooga & Bison Kimura were among those in attendance. A lot of tears as you would expect. For fans curious about Shibutani, she will freelance. But on July 17, Hiroshi Ogawa held a press conference to announce the debut of Fuukamats. The first show will be Sept. 30 at Shin-kiba 1st Ring and a second show was announced for Dec. 22. Guess who the ace is. She will also appear for other companies. She is scheduled to appear on the Aug. 4 Lady's Ring show, the Aug. 5 SUN show and the Sept. 6 Smackgirl show. Ogawa said something about wanting to expand Fuuka's fanbase and Fuuka wants to sing and dance. Doesn't she already do that in the ring? Just kidding. She also said she wants to wrestle Amazing Kong...if she comes back to Japan. Please, AK. Go back and squash her. Yeesh!