Trapped in the Cagematch: Hello from the Underground

The sprouting of Best of 2026 So Far articles on pop culture-oriented Websites indicated that we have crossed the year’s midpoint. Since I have no immunity to reflexive reflection, I thought it would be a good time to pause and take stock of the state of wrestling for the year.

To take you, dearest gentle reader, behind the curtain slightly, I take a snapshot of Cagematch’s Matchguide on the first day of each month to sift for matches that kindle my interest. That meant that I had a spreadsheet of 731 matches that Cagematch’s Inmates rated at least an average of 7.00 each month from January to June for my dataset. (For comparison, Cagematch actually showed 971 matches as of this writing with a rating of 7.00 or more, which attested to a known flaw in my system. Cagematch match rankings are fluid, so matches’ scores move over time. That was why I opted for a snapshot at the beginning of each month rather than using live ratings.)

Of the 731 matches in my snapshots, the leaders in the clubhouse were:

One could draw direct connections between events in each company’s calendar to when they accumulated matches of great acclaim: for example, wXw had 13 matches rated 7.00 or higher in March when it held its 16 Carat Gold tournament, and AJPW had 10 matches in April when it had its Champion Carnival. New Japan spiked in May, when it held its annual Best of the Super Juniors tournament. AEW’s and Stardom’s consistency speak to their popularity and the quality of their output so far in 2026.

As a reminder, since I consider WWE to be sports entertainment and not wrestling, I exclude their matches from consideration. AAA is a subsidiary of WWE at this point, and TNA is affiliated with WWE, so they are also excluded. NJPW and AEW do not need another advocate for their product, so I generally exclude them from this column’s scope as well.

As a result, this column had primarily plumbed the much more interesting outliers. I’ve covered 100 matches from 2026 so far, and this column had veered into the margins more often than not:

And we will not stop! In fact, we’ve steered into the skid and dived even further among the underseen from the past six months.

In this edition, I covered:

• Mexa Boy’s (Noisy Boy & Spider Fly), Bandido & Zonik vs. Gringo Loco, Iron Kid, Turbo & Vengador (RIOT Lucha Libre, May 29, 2026)
• Hell Boy (c) vs. Jack Morris (IWRG, March 29, 2026)
• Pantera Jr. (c) vs. MUSASHI (Michinoku Pro, March 21, 2026)
• Masaaki Mochizuki (c) vs. Miyuki Watase (Ganbare, February 22, 2026)
• Rina Yamashita (c) vs. Miya Yotsuba (ChocoPro, March 23, 2026)
• Nagisa Shiotsuki (c) vs. Anri (AWG, April 18, 2026)

Mexa Boy’s (Noisy Boy & Spider Fly), Bandido & Zonik vs. Gringo Loco, Iron Kid, Turbo & Vengador
RIOT Lo Mismo Pero Sin Cambios
May 29, 2026
Cagematch ranking as of 6/12/26: 4
Cagematch rating as of 6/12/26: 9.21

That was quite a pile of pesos at these luchadors’ feet.

We’ve seen a few “party matches” this year (Arez, Toxin & Ricky Sosa vs. Spider Fly, Titus Alexander & Zoltan from 16 Carat Gold and so many trios matches at WrestleMania Week this year), but this 10-man match was the leader in the clubhouse. The atmosphere in the Foro Urbano in Monterrey was electric from the start, and the Mexa Boy’s and Vengador injected some hostility into the proceedings to keep the match serious even when the spectacular stuff started. Also, it was good to see that the Mexa Boy’s seemed much more settled here; it was disappointing how rattled they seemed in their match at the Mark Hitchcock Memorial Supershow.

This made me chuckle though. Whoops!

The crowd forgave it, and so did I because they could unleash a takedown like this.

Or this:

Back in 2006, after Do Fixer and Blood Generation had their legendary six-man tag team match at ROH Supercard of Honor, there was a strain of legitimate commentary about how that wasn’t even the best match that those two factions had that year. Similarly, I’m sure that these ten luchadors, in this specific combination or not, have probably had as impressive a match as this. Nonetheless, this was so striking because it was readily available and because it seemed to have appeared spontaneously from nowhere.

The Do Fixer vs. Blood Generation match was built on highlighting Dragon Kid. Here, the wrestlers worked hard to spotlight Zonik and Vengador and succeeded stunningly. The examples above were just an appetizer of what Zonik pulled off in that match. Gringo Loco and Vengador projected a sense of animosity to tie the match together, especially when the rudos pounded Zonik and when the tecnicos gave Vengador his just desserts. Bandido might have started as the most famous wrestler in the match, but Zonik and Vengador will probably be the most remembered.

Just like when Dave Prazak, Lenny Leonard, and Jimmy Bower opted to present Samoa Joe vs. Kenta Kobashi without commentary to let the match speak for itself, I have also opted to leave the rest of the match for you, dearest gentle reader, to discover. (It was certainly not because trying to summarize the match’s action would have been a fool’s errand and that attempting to capture the action in gifs would have rendered this column impossible to load.)

You can watch the match on YouTube. Go watch it.

Hell Boy (c) vs. Jack Morris
IWRG
March 29, 2026
Cagematch ranking as of 6/1/26: 284
Cagematch rating as of 6/1/26: 7.67

Jack Morris, yes, the Scotsman from Pro Wrestling NOAH, traveled the world in the first half of 2026. His last match in NOAH was at the end of January at a Monday Magic show. Since then, he wrestled in the German Wrestling Federation, WXM in India, PROGRESS in England, Relentless in Northern Ireland, Limitless in the United States, and various lower level lucha libre companies in Mexico, including IWRG and The Crash. If you were ever curious what a match between the Good Brothers and Morris and Galeno del Mal would look like, the Crash had you covered in March 2026. In IWRG, Morris had set his sights on beating Hell Boy for the IWRG Mexico title.

I had no familiarity with Hell Boy, and research on Cagematch, LuchaWiki, and The Cubs Fan’s Luchablog turned up very little. I could only unearth that Hell Boy kept his hair in five successful lucha de apuestas matches, that he was 29 years old, and that he held three titles in IWRG. From his entrance video, I could tell you that Hell Boy liked rocking out, wearing leather, standing near motorcycles while spontaneously combusting, and ignoring all danger that posed to the guy who was working on the motorcycle. (That made him a true rudo to me.) I could also tell you the attendance was Arena Naucalpan for this match was sparse, but the ladies screamed for Morris and the men chanted for Hell Boy.

They started at a fast pace, and Hell Boy took a moment to recompose himself because he was the rudo champion. Morris, the impatient tecnico, gave chase and brawled with Hell Boy around ringside, which really highlighted how sparse the attendance was this evening. The brawl made it to the ring apron, where Hell Boy dropped Morris with an Air Raid Crash. It was entirely possible that the referee was beefier than Hell Boy.

Inside the ring, Hell Boy bounced Morris around with some clotheslines and boots to the face. Hell Boy deserved credit for the petty violence of scraping the webbing between Morris’s fingers along the ring rope and yanking down Morris’s tights to show his gluteal fold and kicking Morris in the butt. Then, it was Morris’s turn to attack, and he knocked Hell Boy out of the ring with a clothesline. He chased Hell Boy outside with a tope suicida and inside with a missile dropkick, and all of it left me feeling detached.

After a Falcon Arrow, it was Hell Boy’s turn again. Then, it was Morris’s turn. Then, it was Hell Boy’s turn to win the match with a One Winged Angel.

Yeah.

Hell Boy showed some flashes of an interesting personality. This was not the worst match I’ve seen in the past 24 hours. (That honor went to Billie Starkz vs. Liiza Hall at PRODUCE Volume 1: The Octopus.)

You can watch the match and the show on IWRG’s YouTube page.

Pantera Jr. (c) vs. MUSASHI
Michinoku Pro 33rd Anniversary ~ Mutsu Shunto
March 21, 2026
Cagematch ranking as of 6/1/26: 431
Cagematch rating as of 6/1/26: 7.4

A study of Michinoku Pro’s Tohoku Junior Heavyweight Championship lineage would show a list of twenty-one wrestlers. Pantera Jr. entered this match with the 16th-longest reign in the title’s history at 245 days. MUSASHI had the 12th-longest reign between 2021 and 2022 at 349 days and the 15th-longest reign between 2019 and 2020 at 250 days. Needless to say, this was a battle of jam-up guys. And Pantera Jr. used M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” as his entrance theme as a little treat.

The standard grappling opening gave way to acrobatics fairly quickly, which was probably for the better. Pantera Jr. and MUSASHI struggled their way through a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker, and MUSASHI slipped outside to give both of them a chance to collect themselves. A moment later, they each teased dives to the outside before MUSASHI grounded Pantera Jr. In control, MUSASHI bodied him up and worked him into the corner. Like the male singer’s character in the Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me,” MUSASHI put Pantera Jr. up (onto the middle rope) and brought him back down (with a running dropkick).

The methodical pace made the case that MUSASHI was a serious threat to Pantera Jr.’s grip on the title and that Pantera Jr. was a credible champion. However, I’m not sure how much they needed to make that case to the crowd. After all, MUSASHI was a two-time former champion, and Pantera Jr. had beaten Yasutaka Oosera for the title and defended it against Sangre Azteca Jr. in this run. This wasn’t to say that the action seemed aimless, but it was a bit one-note like the bass line in the Who’s “Magic Bus.”

After soaking up MUSASHI’s first wave, Pantera Jr. dodged MUSASHI’s charge and flipped to offense with a Tiger Feint Kick on MUSASHI.

His offensive set was familiar but competently executed: a missile dropkick, a scoop slam, and a springboard moonsault. So was MUSASHI’s comeback of an atomic drop and a running dropkick. I was ready for some excitement, and Pantera Jr. timed his corkscrew plancha to the outside right when I felt my attention starting to drift.

The match went through a key change after the corkscrew plancha. Inside the ring, MUSASHI dared Pantera Jr. to hit him harder, and they went toe to toe with their blows. MUSASHI landed an Exploder Suplex, but Pantera responded with a spicy four-piece combo.

Where Pantera Jr. needed four hits, MUSASHI just needed one.

A super Exploder Suplex is a hell of an intensity accelerant, and the match, which had few nearfalls to this point, ascended to its climax. Both wrestlers went after the pinfall, and Pantera Jr. scored the first close kickout after his Pantera Special.

MUSASHI fought back with a cross-armed German Suplex and a thudding Frog Splash for a pair of nearfalls. Not long after, MUSASHI won the title with his Niten Ichiryu piledriver.

MUSASHI and Pantera Jr. felt a little dry; I couldn’t find a latch point in their wrestling personalities or their charisma. The match was a solid if unspectacular competitive bout, which would still put this match in the upper half of any wrestling that you could watch.

You can watch the match and the show on Wrestle Universe.

Masaaki Mochizuki (c) vs. Mizuki Watase
Ganbare Pro A Scanner Darkly 2026
February 22, 2026
Cagematch ranking as of 6/1/26: 389
Cagematch rating as of 6/1/26: 7.48

Since Masaaki Mochizuki’s unsuccessful attempt at winning the Open the Dream Gate Championship for the fourth time in June 2025, he floated around the undercard in Dragongate, popping up in July to try to win the GAORA TV title from Takashi and in August to try to win the Open the Brave Gate title from Ryoya Tanaka. Not finding much success in his own company, he ventured out to Ganbare Pro, where he won the Spirit of Ganbare World Openweight title from Yumehito Imanari at Mizuki Watase’s 10th anniversary celebration show in August. He racked up defenses against Shuichiro Katsumura, Yuna Manase (former member of AWG; see below), Ken Ohka, Keisuke Ishii, and Shinichiro Tominaga.

Trained by Yasu Urano, Watase was once the shiny new toy in DDT. By 2023, he had transferred to GanPro, and he stayed with the company when it split from CyberFight in 2024. He was as tied to GanPro as much as Ishii, Ohka, or Imanari, so it made sense that he would be Mochizuki’s last challenger for the Spirit of Ganbare title before 187 fans at the Takashimadaira Kumin Center.

Did Watase become a sad boi at some point in his career? Was he just praying for guidance against the veteran Mochizuki at the start of the match? Either way, he made Mochizuki wait like he was a cruiserweight, brother, even after Watase finally stood up because he refused to lock up. Was GanPro paying Watase by the hour, if at all?

Watase hit Mochizuki with a cheap shot out of a standing rope break, and he pursued Mochizuki out of the ring to brawl. Since everyone at the Takashimadaira Kumin Center stood up to follow this action, GanPro’s emplaced camera could not really show the action. In a valley of heads in the crowd, we saw that Mochizuki kicked the ring post instead of Watase’s head, and that gave Watase a target when they finally returned to the ring. However, Mochizuki was a tough bastard, and his high pain tolerance allowed him to still kick with the dinged up leg to great effect.

For good measure and to test his leg out, Mochizuki stomped on Watase’s shoulder once he got on his feet. So, each man had his objective: Mochizuki’s right leg and Watase’s left arm. For now, Mochizuki was on the attack, and Watase’s arm bore the brunt of it.

Watase outmaneuvered Mochizuki by wrapping the arm that Mochizuki attacked around Mochizuki’s throat for a sleeper hold. The match reset after Watase landed a dropkick, and Watase took control with a running forearm strike in the corner, a strange facebuster from the top turnbuckle, and a double stomp. Mochizuki tried to respond with some punches and kicks, but Watase just dropped him with a brainbuster. Luckily for Mochizuki, Watase just walked into another kick to the head while trying to pin Mochizuki.

Mochizuki continued to do what he does best, and what he did wasn’t very nice to Watase’s chest. He crumpled Watase with kicks to the chest, and to Watase’s credit he withstood the hits and tried to Watase up. It was admirable when Watase finally did Watase up to lay Mochizuki out with a spear and when he fired up again after Mochizuki’s Dragon Suplex. Equally admirable was the umbrage Mochizuki took at Watase’s Northern Lights Bomb and their decision to hit each other as hard as they could because they had no other thoughts or options. That choice worked out for Watase as Mochizuki succumbed to Watase’s elbow strike to the head.

Mochizuki brought a much-appreciated grittiness to the match, especially in the little details like the kicks to Watase’s head to keep him from covering him. Watase brought a manic determination to plow through the pain Mochizuki dished out so that he could land his knockout blow and claim the title for the second time. This was a hearty, beans-and-potatoes wrestling match.

You can watch the match and the show on Wrestle Universe.

Rina Yamashita (c) vs. Miya Yotsuba
ChocoPro #511 The Promised
March 23, 2026
Cagematch ranking as of 6/1/26: 75
Cagematch rating as of 6/1/26: 8.29

We just saw Miya Yotsuba in her match against Suzume, and now we’ve traveled back to March when she defeated Rina Yamashita for the Super Asia Championship. During her reign, Yamashita defended the title against Antonio Honda, Emi Sakura, Chon Shiryu, and Hiyori Yawata; the defense against Yawata took place three days before this match, which seemed a bit unfair to Yamashita.

As usual, Yamashita brought a much-needed aggressiveness to the match, though that worked against her when Yotsuba flipped her over her back onto the ring apron. Yotsuba brought her rage as she did in the match against Suzume and a quiet mean streak that matched against Yamashita’s attitude very well. We got a very quiet bit of resistance from Yotsuba on Yamashita’s usually violent headlock takedown attempt.

Yamashita and Yotsuba traded a Sharpshooter for a Texas Cloverleaf hold as Baliyan Akki got overheated on commentary. Then, they traded punches from the full mount, and Yamashita showed the gap between her striking and Yotsuba’s. Yotsuba was better on her feet, and her forearm strikes looked and sounded better. And their fight for positioning that ended with a Yamashita vertical suplex was actually quite well done.

Unfortunately, after seeing Yotsuba’s Miya Hammer in two matches, I just don’t think it worked well as Yotsuba’s key move. On the plus side side, Yotsuba was able to easily cue the audience to anticipate it and react to it. On the other hand, Yotsuba just didn’t swing her arm with enough force and violence to make it convincing. It looked too soft, and I did not believe that it stunned Yamashita, who had a reputation for being tough as tungsten, long enough for Yotsuba to capture the title.

In an ideal setting, Yotsuba can grow up in the next decade to be as crochety and imposing as Yamashita. I don’t think she would get that growth in ChocoPro, but the seeds to the gravitas that Yamashita carried are there in Yotsuba. Yamashita was solid as usual, and I would love to see Yamashita wrestle Takumi Iroha again some day. Their last match was in 2018, and they’ve both accumulated substance and character since then. It would be a battle of wills and sadistic glee. (Yamashita’s sole match with Sareee was in 2017, so that would also be a match I would ask of a benevolent, wish-granting genie.)

You can watch the match and the show on ChocoPro’s YouTube page.

Nagisa Shiotsuki (c) vs. Anri
AWG ACTwrestling
April 18, 2026
Cagematch ranking as of 6/1/26: 334
Cagematch rating as of 6/1/26: 7.57

Let’s play word association. In your mind palace, visualize opening an ancient scroll and reading the name “Actwres girl’Z.” What does that conjure in your mind? Is it an easy target for jokes about female wrestlers who run the ropes like deer fawns or giraffe calves? Do you see a vital part of the joshi talent pipeline that produced key members of the Stardom roster? Was it the worst part of AJPW shows in 2024? Or do you see it as Japanese female late-era Chikara or Lucha Underground, where the wrestling was secondary to storylines about alien abductions to cover talent exists and battles between good and evil?

Historically, Actwres girl’Z (AWG) was a key cog in the idol to wrestler pipeline that served Stardom extremely well over the years. For example, Stardom would not have had the story that propelled last year’s All Star Grand Queendom and its growth over the past few years without that pipeline. A quick browse of AWG’s alumni list produced wrestlers, such as Miyuki Takase and Saori Anou, whose work I’ve enjoyed and would not have guessed at first blush that they emerged from AWG given AWG’s reputation.

Initially, I had skipped over this match for AWG’s secondary championship, the King of Ring Entertainment Championship, because I had focused on preparing the 30 Under 30 Scouting Reports and navigating my  Streaming Path to Glory for WrestleMania Week. However, since we’re in the annual midpoint where we look back at the first half of the year, this was a good time to finally check out this acclaimed match from AWG.

Anri made her debut in 2024, and her entire career (barring two matches) had taken place in AWG. At the end of 2024, in the wake of its reorganization after a talent exodus, AWG held the Young Actwres Cup Tournament to make clear whom the company was prioritizing. Anri beat Nanami Togi (2 years’ experience as of today), Chii Aoba (3 years’), and Erisa Nagai (2 years’) to win the tournament, and she unsuccessfully challenged Natsuki for AWG’s top title in January 2025. Fourteen months later, Anri tried her hand at winning a singles title for the second time.

Nagisa Shiotsuki was one of those wrestlers who wrestled pre-show matches on AJPW shows in 2024 as a part of the AJPW and AWG partnership. Between May and October 2024, Shiotsuki wrestled in five tag team matches in AJPW, and she teamed with Natsuki, a former ballet dancer, for four of those matches. She beat the veteran MARU for the King of Ring Entertainment title in December 2025, and this was her third defense.

It would be fair to say that my expectations were tempered for this match, but I wanted to approach this with an open mind. Anri leaned on her kickboxer background early in the match and opened with kicks to the leg, but she had enough of Shiotsuki’s chops and switched targets to her arm. She was relentless in her focus on Shiotsuki’s arm, and Shiotsuki could only find relief from rope breaks.

Anri also deserved credit for hitting a facebuster in a unique way that also made the attack seem more forceful than usual (even if Shiotsuki braced for impact with her arms).

Shiotsuki got Anri to back off by attacking her legs with kicks and a Sharpshooter that was too loose at the bend and too stiff on the stand. They traded control (Anri with a diving seated senton into a pin, Shiotsuki with a chestbreaker) until Anri hit a pair of her arm-capture back suplexes for two nearfalls.

Frustrated by Shiotsuki’s determination, Anri resumed her attack on Shiotsuki’s arm. Tired of getting her arm kicked, Shiotsuki anticipated Anri’s kick and dropped her with a unique kneebreaker.

A double underhook suplex got Shiotsuki a nearfall too, but Anri stayed on the attack with an enzuigiri. Anri’s aggression cost her the match; she climbed to the top turnbuckle for an attack, but Shiotsuki stopped her pre-flight with some chops and brought her back to earth with a one-armed powerbomb. A couple more double underhook suplexes later, it was the end for Anri.

This was a very pleasant surprise, and it would easily have been in the top half of matches if it had been on, say, PRODUCE Volume 1: The Octopus. (For the record, my rankings would be: 1. Adam Priest & Tommy Billington vs. One Called Manders & Thomas Shire, 2. Charles Mason vs. Amazing Red, 3. Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Darian Bengston, 4. Jonathan Gresham vs. Fuminori Abe, 5. this match, 6. Man Like DeReiss vs. Rich Swann.) Shiotsuki and Anri were very good facial actors, and they portrayed their determination and pain in clear and human ways throughout the match. Given Shiotsuki’s age, I would be surprised if we ever saw her advance to Stardom, for instance, but Anri could develop into the next wrestler to move along the idol to joshi pipeline to a larger company.

You can watch the match and the show on ActwresGirlz’s streaming service.

Finally, here is the current draft of my favorite ten matches of 2026 so far that I’ve covered in the column.

1. Miu Watanabe vs. Suzume, TJPW, January 4, 2026
2. Chihiro Hashimoto vs. Senka Akatsuki, Sendai Girls, February 15, 2026
3. AMAKUSA vs. Daiki Odashima, NOAH, January 11, 2026
4. Sareee & Takumi Iroha vs. Chihiro Hashimoto & Syuri, Sareee-ISM, March 22, 2026
5. Yuma Anzai vs. Kento Miyahara, AJPW, April 19, 2026
6. Sareee vs. Saya Kamitani vs. Chihiro Hashimoto, Fortune Dream, April 16, 2026
7. Kaisei Takechi vs. Yuki Ueno, DDT, February 22, 2026
8. Jet Wei & Kodai Nozaki vs. Hitamaru Sasaki & Minoru Tanaka, Kyushu Pro, January 12, 2026
9. Miku Kanae & Rin vs. MIRAI & NORI, LLPW-X, January 7, 2026
10. Bandido, Noisy Boy, Spider Fly & Zonik vs. Gringo Loco, Iron Kid, Turbo & Vengador, RIOT, May 29, 2026

Next time: “Big shiny jet plane in the sky
Please drop us off as we fly by
We’re an American band
And everything is rockin’ out of control
When we hit Japan”
– The Presidents of the United States of America, “Japan”

It’s time for another road trip throughout Japan as we hit Shinjuku FACE, Korakuen Hall, and Yoyogi National Gymnasium #2 in Tokyo, Kose Sports Park Gymnasium Sub-Arena in Kofu, and the Sendai PIT in Miyagi from matches from Stardom, Sendai Girls, Marigold, and more.