Haruka Matsuo announces retirement

Haruka Matsuo announced at today's NEO Korakuen Hall show that she plans to retire on May 5 at age 27. The announcement was a big shock to fans in attendance but she posted her reasons for retiring on the NEO blog and it's clear that she thought she was getting nowhere in her wrestling career. She's a pretty girl and a decent but inconsistent performer. She can rise to the occasion but doesn't always do that. She's another example of a wrestler who was in main events by default because a lot of today's wrestlers are worse than her. But if you put her in the 90s heyday of joshi, she never would have got past midcard. So she seems better because of the poor state of today's joshi business. Matsuo's primary reason for retiring appears to be a direct result of her poor run with the NEO Singles Title. She says on the NEO blog that she decided to retire after she lost the belt to Kyoko Inoue last year but when Misae Genki announced her retirement, she decided to delay retirement. Matsuo gave it one last shot for the NEO belt against Nanae Takahashi on Dec. 31. But the loss confirmed her decision to retire. The main problem with her title run was she was booked very poorly as a weak champ. Many fans told NEO President Koda that Matsuo wasn't championship material. He defended the decision on the blog and proceeded to book Matsuo as poorly I've seen any champ booked. So if you like Matsuo and you want to blame someone, he's the guy. Matsuo said that when she started in joshi, she planned to retire at age 25 but decided to delay that until 30. So I guess it's time to get out while she's still healthy. It hurts NEO because though Matsuo was doing jobs, those jobs were in the upper midcard. I suppose they're hoping that Passion Red will fill that gap but it means that NEO is depending a lot on freelancers.