Passion Red debuts

Nanae Takahashi's Passion Red debuted on Jan. 11 in front of 230 fans at a sold out Itabashi Green Hall. That is a building NEO normally runs and despite other ties to NEO, this was a standalone show. It's only one show and it remains to be seen what kind of direction Passion Red will take. But I am not crazy about the prospect of yet another pointless joshi fed with no integration with current angles especially since Takahashi is the current NEO champ. The main event was a six girl tag team match between Passion Red and Sendai Girls. It was Nanae Takahashi, Natsuki*Taiyo & Kana vs Meiko Satomura, Ryo Mizunami & DASH Chisako. Of course the main attraction of the match was a rare appearance of Takahashi & Satomura in the same ring. They want to tease a rivalry. Who knows if anything will ever come of it? The two squared off a couple of times and was a stalemate as you might expect. Satomura tagged Chisako in and Takahashi threw her around before winning with the Nanaracka at 20:04. Of course we'd all like to see Takahashi vs Satomura but there sure is a lot of teasing without a payoff in the joshi business. Remember Satomura vs Yoshida? Oh yeah, they never did that.

Kana also led off the show with a match against Hiroyo Matsumoto. These two will work hard and have a spirited match. It's a little surprising to see a draw on any show these days but it makes a certain amount of sense as they're at a similar level and Kana could challenge for Matsumoto's JWP Junior Title. Matsuomto did have the edge at the end with the Argentinian backbreaker and dropping Kana on her knee. She hit a backdrop suplex when time ran out. Arisa Nakajima seemed to dominate her match with Sakura Emi but Emi won with the Majistral Cradle at 6:42. That seems a little odd. In what was mostly a comedy match, Yumiko Hotta & Natsuki*Taiyo defeated Toshie Uematsu & Io Shirai. Shirai nailed Natsuki with the 619 but Natsuki came back with her Natsuki Bomb at 11:44. There seemed to be a lot of conga dancing in this match. Takahashi jokingly said on her blog that Hotta is president of the Passion Red fan club. And Fuuka won over Ray with the F-Doll at 13:02. Fuuka's throwing a lot of kicks these days but Ray responded with a few of her own and also did some of her trademark flying stuff. But she wasn't going to win over Fuuka. So there wasn't anything special on this show except for the tease of Takahashi vs Satomura. I hope it's not just a tease.