It's Golden Week in Japan so there are plenty of shows and plenty of videos. Let's start with the Sasori retirement show Apr. 29 at Shinjuku FACE. Of course Sasori is AJW wrestler Miyuki Fujii. She wasn't getting anywhere in her wrestling career so she shaved her head, tattooed a scorpion on her head and changed her name to Sasori. She spent the rest of her career caddying for legendary heel Dump Matsumoto mostly running interference because Dump can't move anymore. She's decided to pack it in. The show begins with retired GAEA wrestler Sakura Hirota dressed up as Sasori complete with bald wig. Sasori is dressed like Miyuki Fujii and Sakura outfits her with a blonde wig. Comedy ensues. Sasori & Dump team for the final time and beat up on Toshie Uematsu & Cherry and then Dump beats up Sasori until Toshie & Cherry help her out. Sasori's retirement match is against Nanae Takahashi and includes guest appearances by Momoe Nakanishi, Mika Nishio, Mika Wakizawa and more. Takahashi wins with the Nanaracka and Sasori's retirement is complete.
The latest Fuuka Matsuri show was Apr. 29 at Shin-kiba 1st Ring. We get a brief look at the opening dance number. Fuuka told Sportsnavi that it wasn't very good. Remember the Caribbean heels from JD Star a couple of years ago? They decide to revive it for this show with Caribbean KIM & RUM mauling Hiroyo Matsumoto and especially Misaki Ohata. KIM wins with the Caribbean Impact on Ohata at 11:36. Fuuka faced Ayumi Kurihara in the main event. It looks like a pretty good match. Of course Fuuka wins with the F-Doll at 11:14. There was also singing but that's not shown in this clip.
The Revolution Amandora show was May 2 at Shin-kiba 1st Ring. I guess it's OK if you like this kind of hardcore stuff. It's not to my taste. A clip is shown of Tomoka Nakagawa's match with this guy GOEMON. He wins with the pedigree at 13:13. Atsuko Emoto is next with a series of three matches. She wins over Ayumi Kurihara with a brainbuster at 7:30. Then she has a ten minute draw with AKINO. The bell rang as AKINO applied an armbar submission. But then Emoto gets a hardcore schooling from Aja Kong. There's all kinds of stuff going on here but Aja wins with a brainbuster on a table at 18:00. I guess we know who's really hardcore. The main event was finally announced a couple of days before the show. And as we all suspected, it involved Big Japan guys. Kyoko Kimura is going to be in some sort of special Big Japan tournament in July. So in this Light Tube Death match, she is teaming with Yuko Miyamoto vs Takashi Sasaki & Mashashi Takeda. Some of this is very hard to watch as Kimura is a mess by the time she gets pinned at 20:05.
Pro Wrestling WAVE had the final of the TLW Tag Team Titles on their Apr. 29 Shin-kiba 1st Ring show. It was the Shirai Sisters against Moeka Haruhi & Tomoka Nakagawa. The sisters wisely concentrated on weak link Haruhi and and Mio's kick to the head got Io the pin at 18:10. I guess this is the first title for the Shirai Sisters. There's about 20 minutes of foolishness with the DDT Iron Man Heavy Metal Championship but that's not on this video. Instead they show the main event of Nanae Takahashi teaming with Yumi Ohka against Azumi Hyuga and Hanako Kobayashi. As you would expect, Ohka gets the win over Kobayashi with the Tiger Suplex at 18:52.
The Yes We Can tournament was presented by Carlos Amano, Chikayo Nagashima & Sonoko Kato Apr. 30 at Korakuen Hall. The tournament is for wrestlers who started out in the mid-90s and is based on the old High Spurt touraments they used to have in GAEA. Except for the semi finals and final, all matches have 10 minute time limits and both wrestlers are eliminated by a draw. Meiko Satomura was brought in and they show a clip of her win over Sonoko Kato. Kayoko Haruyama and Yoshiko Tamura draw and both are eliminated. That gave Satomura a bye to the final. Chikayo Nagashima and Carlos Amano need extra time and Nagashima gets the win with a diving foot stamp at 2:05 of extra time. And Satomura wins over Nagashima to win the tournamrnt with a Death Valley Bomb at 12:06. And if you're wondering about Satomura wearing a sombrero, apparently the win gets her a match in AAA in Mexico...when the swine flu blows over.
JWP's May 3 Itabashi Green Hall show was programmed by Kaori Yoneyama & Tojuki Leon. So you have to wonder why Yoneyama would book herself to job to someone like Yuu Yamagata. That's not a knock on Yamagata but she's not a JWP wrestler. And it's not like it was a 20 minute match. Yamagata won with the shubain at 9:27. Tojuki Leon faced Kyoko Kimura and was doing great until Atsuko Emoto nailed her with a chair. The match was rulled a no contest when Kimura pulled Leon's mask off. Yoneyama attacked Kimura and it turned into a six girl match with Emoto clobbering Pinkie Mayuca with the Bay Crash at 11:42. Yoneyama attacked Kimura again until JWP Singles Champ Kayoko Haruyama intervened and stared Kimura down. We know where this is headed.
Something very strange happened at the May 3 Passion Red show at Itabashi Green Hall. You may recall a couple of weeks ago that S-Arena aired a video of Nanae Takahashi pestering NEO President Tetsuya Koda wanting to defend the NEO Singles & NWA Pacific Titles against Sakura Emi on the Passion Red show. Koda was against it because it might affect Takahashi's title match against Yoshiko Tamura on the May 5 Korakuen Hall NEO show. If you recall the video, he agreed to it but then announced last week that if Emi won the titles, she would defend them against Tamura. So first S-Arena shows a clip from, a very spirited 15 minute draw between Kana & Ayumi Kurihara. Then Meiko Satomura, DASH Chisako & Sendai Sachiko win over Natsuki*Taiyo, Kana & Chihiro Oikawa when Satomura used a Death Valley Bom on Kana at 20:45. Now it's time for the title match. Based on the footage, there doesn't seem to be anything unusual about the match until Emi & Takahashi go to the top turnbuckle. Emi does a sunset flip from there and Takahashi isn't moving. The ref stops the match and then Koda comes to the ring and proceeds to award the titles to Sakura Emi. Wait a minute. Shouldn't this be a no contest due to injury? There's something fishy going on. Takahashi is carried out on a stretcher and Koda posted on the NEO blog that she suffered a concussion and the May 5 title match will be between Sakura Emi & Yoshiko Tamura. Yes, accidents do happen but the events leading to this match seem too coincidental for this to be real. But they sure made it look convincing. My guess is Koda wanted to get those belts off Takahashi very badly but she refused to job to either Emi or Tamura and this is his solution. So yeah, I think it's an angle.
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