Big Bad Blog Video Theater-Hiroyo Matsumoto vs Meiko Satomura

Hiroyo Matsumoto at ZERO 1

This match video has Hiroyo Matsumoto getting the biggest win of her career over Meiko Satomura from the June 8 debut of FortuneDream. This company is owned by retired Japanese pro wrestling legend Kenta Kobashi. The win is a big deal for two reasons. Though Meiko has slowed down considerably due to chronic back problems, she is still a big deal in joshi puroresu and her name carries a lot of weight. Meiko deserves a lot of praise for her willingness to put over younger wrestlers. She's been doing that a lot lately and there are plenty of selfish older wrestlers who won't do that. The second thing is that it was Kenta Kobashi who inspired Hiroyo to become a pro wrestler. Kobashi wasn't going to have any women on the first FortuneDream show. But he changed his mind when Hiroyo told him her story. It's a great match that I am sure you will enjoy. In an interview with Battle News, Hiroyo says she really needs to win a major title. Coming up on July 10, she will challenge Io Shirai for the World of STARDOM Championship. She also hopes to win a title shot in Pro Wrestling WAVE's Catch the Wave league. Though I admire Hiroyo's ambition and I would love to see her win a title, the political nonsense that has been going on in the joshi business for the last decade makes that an uphill climb at best. I was talking about this when Tomoka Nakagawa announced her retirement a couple of weeks ago. Hiroyo works for the same company. S-Ovation owned Ibuki. When it closed, they continued to manage a couple of the wrestlers. Hiroyo is booked as a freelancer for several companies and none of them will want to put a belt on her because she doesn't work for any of them exclusively. Tomoka's retirement has given Hiroyo new urgency. She's 28 years old and has been a pro wrestler since 2006. She is good enough to deserve her own legacy but politics could get in the way. And because she is freelance, Hiroyo has to find her own training facilities. None of the joshi companies allow her to train at their dojos. So lately she has been training with the boys of ZERO 1. During her visit with Battle News, Hiroyo was sparring with veteran pro wrestler and MMA fighter Minoru Suzuki. He was the co-founder of PANCRASE. He enjoys training with her and she says he has helped her a lot. He sent her to PANCRASE for training from the Middleweight King Of PANCRASE Ryo Kawamura. Could Hiroyo Matsumoto turn to MMA? I suppose because there is a history of joshi wrestlers in MMA. But Hiroyo wrestles at 150lb and it would be difficult to find an opponent for her. So I don't see that but I sure would like to see Hiroyo Matsumoto get a major championship. Enjoy the video!