Trapped in the Cagematch: Approved by Buck Owens

When Ted Turner died earlier this year, my first thought did not turn to WCW, Jane Fonda, CNN and the corrosive effect that the 24-hour news cycle has had on civil society, the fact that CNN had a video ready to go for the end of the world, the despised Atlanta Braves (I spit in John Rocker’s general direction), or the cinematic preservation work that he did through Turner Classic Movies and the Cartoon Network.

Instead, my first thought was how The Critic skewered him with Duke Phillips. Naturally, that led to a memory of Hee Haw: The Next Generation on The Critic, and it made wonder what the writers were mocking with that gag. That led me to Hee Haw, the American country music variety show from 1969 to 1993, which inspired the surprisingly enjoyable musical Shucked. (Alex Newell’s solo, “Independently Owned,” was a showstopper, award-winning performance in Shucked‘s Broadway run in 2022.)

Hee Haw was hosted by country musicians Buck Owens and Roy Clark. Before hosting Hee Haw, Owens and his band, the Buckaroos, had multiple hits on both country and pop charts in the early 1960s. In 1967, Owens and the Buckaroos toured Japan, which was rare then and often forgotten today when we discuss the history of intersections between Western pop music and Japanese culture. Owens and the Buckaroos recorded a live album on this tour, Buck Owens and His Buckaroos in Japan.

However, by 1969, Owens and the Buckaroos had fallen out of favor and could no longer reach the top spot on the charts. Owens took inspiration from the 1967 trip for his 1972 single, “Made in Japan,” and that song was his last number one hit. (Let’s put aside the Orientalism at the heart of the song.)

In the spirit of Owens, the character in the song leaving his heart in Japan, let’s turn our focus to some of the most intriguing matches from Japan in June.

In this edition, I covered:

• Suzu Suzuki (c) vs. Utami Hayashishita (Stardom, June 30, 2026)
• Syuri (c) vs. Rina Yamashita (Stardom, June 20, 2026)
• Chihiro Hashimoto & MIRAI vs. Miku Kanae & Rina (T-HEARTS, June 5, 2026)
• Senka Akatsuki (c) vs. Miku Kanae (Sendai Girls, June 13, 2026)
• Chi Chi vs. Komomo Minami (Marigold, June 21, 2026)

Suzu Suzuki (c) vs. Utami Hayashishita
Stardom Nighter in Korakuen
June 30, 2026
Cagematch ranking as of 7/1/26: 42
Cagematch rating as of 7/1/26: 8.66

We last saw Suzu Suzuki in her bloody fight with her former teammate, Mei Seira. In the aftermath of her brawl with Seira, Suzuki brought Rina Yamashita, (the) Bozilla, Akira Kurogane, and Itsuki Aoki together in Stardom to form her own faction, Mi Vida Loca. On just the visual level, My Vida Loca felt distinct from God’s Eye, STARS, Empress Nexus Venus, H.A.T.E., and Neo Genesis. Its membership backed up this impression of uniqueness; only Natsuko Tora could claim to look like Yamashita or Suzuki, and no other faction could claim to have a Bozilla.

Emboldened, Suzuki reached the semi finals of the Blue Stars block in the 2025 5STARS Grand Prix. During that tournament, she and Sareee wrestled to a time limit draw, and Sareee granted Suzuki a shot at the IWGP Women’s title a month later. (As Sareee would, she defeated Suzuki in the title match and then recruited her to team against Chihiro Hashimoto & Natsupoi two months later at Sareee-ISM Chapter IX.)

This year, Suzuki escorted Risa Sera to her retirement and scored an unexpected victory over Sayaka Kurara to win the World of Stardom Championship. Suzuki then challenged the newly returned Utami Hayashishita to be her first defense. If Hayashishita won, she would have been a two-time World of Stardom Champion along with Tam Nakano, Mayu Iwatani, and Io (not “Lo“) Shirai.

On the flip side, we last saw Hayashishita when she beat Sareee for the Marigold World Championship in January 2025. At the time, I dinged Hayashishita for some mistimed reactions and what I perceived to be a lackadaisical approach to the match. After that win, Hayashishita did her best to be Marigold’s standard-bearer. Over the course of her 296 days-long reign, she defended the title against Tank (the Dutch female wrestler, not the American deathmatch veteran who also went by Poondawg), Bozilla, MIRAI, and Takumi Iroha before losing it to Miku Aono. The matches were generally well-received, but none of them really penetrated the discourse. Only Hayashishita’s matches against Sareee (#217) and Iroha (#175) appeared in the Voices of Wrestling Match of the Year list.

After toiling in Marigold from 2024 to 2026, Hayashishita announced on April 25, 2026 that she was leaving Marigold. She had her last match there on May 23, 2026 in a strange trios match (Mai Sakura, Aono & MIRAI vs. Hayashishita, Iroha & Maddy Morgan) at Shine Forever 2026. Three days later, she returned to Stardom at their show at Korakuen Hall, and she wrestled her first match in Stardom since 2024 against Akira Kurogane on May 30. On June 22, Stardom president Tara Okada presented Hayashishita as a formal member of the roster, which triggered Suzuki’s challenge to Hayashishita. In laying out the challenge, Suzuki implored Hayashishita to show the fierce, ambitious version of herself rather than a relaxed, complacent side. It’s too bad Hayashishita didn’t respond by making a gun shooting gesture with her hands. (No, Ja Morant, this ain’t about you.)

Shout out to the ultimate Hayashishita fan with the four autographed pictures of Hayashishita.

For her part, Hayashishita didn’t seem fazed that there were more than double the number of attendees here (1,487) than there were at her last show at Korakuen Hall in Marigold (615). (She also wrestled in a trios match on June 14 with Stardom, and that had an attendance of (1,494). However, Koji Igarashi called to let Hayashishita know that they need her to return the Alucard costume by the end of the day or she’ll incur a penalty.

Tuxedo Mask also reported that he’s gearing for a gimmick infringement lawsuit against Hayashishita.

Hayashishita brandished a red rose in her entrance, but Suzuki had the more impressive red object: the World of Stardom belt.

It was also astounding to consider that Hayashishita, at 27 years old, could be considered Old Busted next to Suzu Suzuki’s New Hotness. I understood why there was excitement about Hayashishita’s return; Golden State Warriors fans didn’t balk at adding Kevin Durant in 2016 even though the team had Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Andre Iguodala, and Draymond “I hate groins like I’m Shinsuke Nakamura” Green. Still, Hayashishita’s return felt like Durant pushing his way out of the Phoenix Suns to join the Houston Rockets. It made sense for both sides of the transaction, but the vibes felt slightly off. (We just need a revelation that Hayashishita trash talked the rest of the Stardom roster under the cloak of anonymity to bring this to a full circle.)

The exodus of talent in 2024 from Stardom to form Marigold was a line of demarcation, and Hayashishita, as one of the defectors, felt like she belonged on one side of the line. Suzuki, who ascended in part thanks to the vacuum that the defections created, was on the other.

Hayashishita seemed more focused here than when I last saw her; at the very least, she didn’t spend quite as much time showing off her tongue piercing to every video camera deployed for the match. Instead, she gave us a little bit of nastiness, like sitting on Suzuki after she reached the ropes to break Hayashishita’s camel clutch. Unhumbled, Suzuki had to punch Hayashishita in the gut to dislodge her.

Suzuki reintroduced Hayashishita to what ringside brawling in a full Korakuen Hall felt like and took control of the match. Back inside the ring, control slipped through Suzuki’s fingers, and the two women brawled to claim it in a fun and fast exchange. Hayashishita slowed it down with a sleeper hold, but she didn’t slow it way down. Instead, she threw Suzuki overhead with a sleeper suplex and followed it with an Air Raid Crash.

True to both Suzuki’s and Hayashishita’s characters, there wasn’t a ton of subtlety to the match. They hit each other as hard as they could with elbows and lariats; in that way, it felt like the Stardom version of Daisuke Sekimoto vs. Jeff Cobb. We even got Suzuki and Hayashishita dipping into the bag of tropes of German Suplexes charging each other up instead of wearing each other down. Yet, who could argue with such a nice-looking German Suplex?

In the closing moments, Suzuki and Hayashishita met each other with lariats and dipped deeper into their bags: a Torture Rack Bomb and a lawn dart throw into the corner pads from Hayashishita, a poisoned hurricanrana from Suzuki, and a Tequila Shot that looked like it had won the match for Suzuki. Surprisingly, Suzuki pinned Hayashishita after three German Suplexes, which felt anticlimactic since we saw them absorb each other’s German Suplexes with not much trouble just a little earlier. The conclusion certainly implied that they could have a more traditionally scaled and paced main event encounter in them.

As Hayashishita’s first major singles match back in Stardom and as Suzuki’s first defense of her World of Stardom Championship reign, this was a success. It was a strong showing for both, though it didn’t shift into turbo to become a great match. Of course, Stardom’s 5STAR Grand Prix was right around the corner from this match, so Hayashishita and Suzuki had plenty of opportunities to show up and show out soon.

You can watch the match and the show on Stardom World.

Syuri (c) vs. Rina Yamashita
Stardom The Conversion 2026
June 20, 2026
Cagematch ranking as of 7/1/26: 57
Cagematch rating as of 7/1/26: 8.54

We last saw Rina Yamashita, Suzu Suzuki’s teammate in Mi Vida Loca, in her match against Miya Yotsuba, which will hopefully be seen one day as a passing of the torch between the tough Yamashita and Yotsuba, who has the seed of being just as rugged. We also saw in Yamashita’s match against Mei Suruga that she was capable of high end wrestling too and that her skills should not be discounted because she was an occasional deathmatch wrestler.

Their last singles match was a time limit draw in 2017 in SEAdLINNNG, and it would be fair to say that neither Yamashita nor Syuri in 2026 was the woman they were in 2017. Here, they they started by rolling on the mat to establish that Syuri held the edge there, though Yamashita kept up fairly well. Yamashita compensated well for her inability to lift Syuri to powerbomb her way out of a triangle armbar by pinning Syuri instead, which forced Syuri to release the hold.

Because she couldn’t establish an undeniable advantage on the mat, Syuri turned to acrobatics to gain an early edge on Yamashita. A tilt-a-whirl headscissors and a Cazadora and Bulldog gave Syuri a nearfall, but Yamashita leaned on her lariat to turn the tables on Syuri. For good measure, Yamashita even gave the crowd the universal belt gesture. However, that didn’t stop Syuri from bouncing Yamashita off of the ringpost with a running dropkick on the apron. That brought the match to the floor, where Yamashita and Syuri traded a powerbomb to the mat and a flapjack to the apron reset the match again.

This top turnbuckle legdrop seemed like a new development for Syuri, and it was especially peculiar because one doesn’t normally see wrestlers add dives from the top turnbuckle as they age.

Unfortunately for me, it was around here where it felt apparent that Yamashita had no chance to win this match and all tension from the match evaporated. Yamashita stopped Syuri in her tracks with a superplex and climbed to another corner for something. Off-camera, Syuri recovered, brought Yamashita down with a superplex of her own, and immediately locked her into a leglock. I thought that the point might have been to make Syuri seem like a mountain that Yamashita had to conquer and that Syuri had an answer for anything Yamashita could try, but the timing broke ability to suspend my disbelief. If Syuri had even taken a moment to convey the hurt that Yamashita had laid on her, it would have preserved my ability to believe.

After surviving another leglock, Yamashita, seeming none the worse for wear, powerlifted Syuri up in the arm-capture back suplex that we saw in Yamashita’s match against Miya Yotsuba. That kicked off a quick chain of a Codebreaker from Syuri, German Suplexes from both women, Yamashita’s boot to the face, and Syuri’s jumping knee strike to bring the match to a break. They came back from the break to slug it out on their knees, and they tried their hardest in this section to convey the idea that Yamashita and Syuri were evenly matched. I just didn’t buy what they were selling.

Yamashita turned the tide by throwing some lariats and blocking Syuri’s head kick and knee strike to flip her over with a vertical suplex. Just when it seemed like I was wrong to write off Yamashita’s chances and give the match another chance, Syuri popped up again and bowled Yamashita over with a running knee strike. Yamashita got her last, best burst of offense with an elevated facebuster from an Electric Chair, a running lariat after failing to throw Syuri with a Splash Mountain powerbomb and blocking Syuri’s kicks, and her B Driver.

After all of that, Syuri easily picked Yamashita up for an Emerald Flowsion. Despite the damage from Yamashita’s desperate headbutt, Syuri finished her off with some kicks to the still defiant Yamashita’s face, a headbutt of her own, and a slow application of her White Tiger submission hold, a variant of the Stretch Muffler.

I respect that Syuri and Yamashita tried to tell a story about how Syuri was just a level above Yamashita and that Yamashita, as tough as she was, just couldn’t stop Syuri. I also just couldn’t feel invested in Yamashita here because the speed with which Syuri would recover from Yamashita’s attacks and how Syuri strolled as though nothing Yamashita did could even slow her down made it clear that Yamashita had no chance. They wrestled a clean, technically competent, and emotionally empty match, and the closest parallel I could think of was Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor.

You can watch the match and the show on Stardom World.

MIRAI & Chihiro Hashimoto vs. Rina & Miku Kanae
T-HEARTS Runaway Queen Yumiko Hotta 41st Anniversary
June 5, 2026
Cagematch ranking as of 7/1/26: 32
Cagematch rating as of 7/1/26: 8.77

No, it’s not the Rina from Stardom, and it’s not even Rin, who retired not too long ago. It’s the other Rina, aka NORI, from LLPW-X. Who could have foreseen that we would have a rerun of Asuka vs. ASUKA because Rina no longer wanted to go by NORI?

Teaming two powerhouses like MIRAI and Chihiro Hashimoto against Rina, an ex-MMA fighter, and a fiery babyface like Miku Kanae promised that Hashimoto and MIRAI would whoop Kanae from pillar to post and drive Kanae to desperately seek the hot tag from Rina.

MIRAI and Hashimoto got separate entrances, while Kanae and Rina got a combined entrance, which really stamped the differences in where they were in the joshi ecosystem. It’s summer, and we know it’s summer because Hashimoto was in the cooling poncho and not the over-sized furred coat. MIRAI also tried to recreate this meme and big-time Rina into a handshake, and Kanae was clearly offended since she insisted to Rina that she would start the match despite MIRAI’s exhortations to Rina. Now annoyed because MIRAI was overlooking her (literally, since MIRAI was taller by five inches), Kanae kicked things off with a standing dropkick. Add a tally to why Kanae was such an appealing babyface wrestler.

MIRAI indeed did whoop Kanae for a bit and challenged Rina to enter the match while Hashimoto stood in the corner, all potential for good violence. The key to good grapplefuck was found in the effort that the wrestlers could show in their probing and defending, and MIRAI and Rina gave an energetic effort for their grapplefuck section. Behold how MIRAI scrambled to find the angle to catch Rina’s arm in a hold as they played into Rina’s MMA background.

Jiah Jewell and Seabass Finn, please take note of MIRAI’s roll into a headlock here. Now that’s podracing gator rollin’.

Contrary to my initial expectations, Kanae and Rina double-teamed MIRAI and put her in the barrel. As we saw in MIRAI’s earlier performances this year, MIRAI demonstrated creativity in stock situations. Dodging a charger opponent in the corner was a pretty rote sequence, but MIRAI changed it up with an uppercut kick.

On the other hand, Hashimoto was more interested in playing the hits, first with a flipping senton to a downed Kanae, then taking Kanae’s best shots before laying her out with one of her own. Here, the match did conform to the expected shape as Hashimoto and MIRAI wailed on Kanae to keep her on the mat. In particular, MIRAI and Kanae squeezed every drop of drama from MIRAI’s hold on Kanae and Kanae’s attempt to reach the ropes.

Kanae’s crossbody block allowed Rina (I actually wrote “NORI” here at first) to tag in, and MIRAI got the standing fight that she had wanted at the start. Rina had knocked Hashimoto off of the apron with a dropkick when she tagged in, so she was missing from her corner for a while. (Therefore, Hashimoto wasn’t pulling a Hanan.) Rina’s high head kick and MIRAI’s lariat reset the match for their respective tags to Kanae and Hashimoto, but Hashimoto kept Rina from tagging out. Unable to enter the match, Kanae instead helped her teammate by stopping Hashimoto’s Frog Splash, which allowed Rina to toss Hashimoto from the top rope. Hashimoto landed awkwardly on her hip and knee instead of her back.

Hashimoto’s neck and arm strength prevented Rina from breaking Hashimoto’s S-grip and extending the armbar, and her overall power kept Rina from picking her up for a back suplex. A spinning back kick brought Hashimoto down to Kanae’s level, and Kanae kept the pressure on with dropkicks. Kanae and Hashimoto had a very energetic David and Goliath battle as Kanae nabbed Hashimoto’s arm for an armbar. Hashimoto picked Kanae up for presumably a one-armed powerbomb into the corner, but she overstepped and sent Kanae over the top rope, which allowed Kanae to fully extend Hashimoto’s arm in the armbar.

Kanae had a fire in her eyes that was hard to fake in her standing brawl with Hashimoto. Dwarfed in stature, Kanae nonetheless tried to chop Hashimoto down with forearm strikes to her collarbone. We’ve seen other, bigger, and stronger wrestlers try this same tactic unsuccessfully; even Sareee, for all her bullheadedness, would be leveled by one of Hashimoto’s blows for the four to six that she would be able to land.

Rina earned a beating from Hashimoto and MIRAI when she tried to intervene on their pounding on Kanae. A dropkick sent Hashimoto and MIRAI out of the ring in separate directions, which was a testament to the powerful warping effects that wrestling has on Newtonian physics. (Start by considering how wrestlers bounce off of chains wrapped in rubber hose or ropes wrapped in tape.) Unfortunately for us, the director focused on Kanae’s crossbody dive on to Hashimoto and completely missed Rina’s dive on MIRAI.

Hashimoto and Kanae were still the legal wresters in the match, and the two teams liberally double-teamed each other with combos by this point. Kanae spiked Hashimoto on her head with an outsized German Suplex, but Hashimoto’s hash was not scrambled. Instead, Hashimoto blasted Kanae with a lariat and a powerbomb to end this match and continue her streak of great matches in 2026.

Kanae and Rina were passionate and exciting challengers to the all-star tag team of Hashimoto and MIRAI, and each woman played her role in the match well. Kanae was the heat magnet, the figure of sympathy for Hashimoto and MIRAI to target with their powerful attacks. Rina was the hard striker for the hot tag that never came; she interfered to try to save her partner, and the fact that she couldn’t tag in at the end would create the room for a rematch. MIRAI held the match together in the beginning with her challenge to Rina, in the middle with her battle with Kanae, and at the end to take Rina out so the focus could be on Hashimoto and Kanae. Lastly, Hashimoto felt like the boss of the match because she and Kanae had the greatest physical disparity, and she delivered unequivocal final blows to Kanae.

To paraphrase President Obama, “Let me be clear. This match was rad.”

The show might become available on DVD someday from Yumiko Hotta’s store. For another perspective on the match, check out Syed Farzam Kirmani’s review of the show.

Senka Akatsuki (c) vs. Miku Kanae
Sendai Girls SENJO 20th Anniversary in Sendai PIT ~ The Sky Is The Limit
June 13, 2026
Cagematch ranking as of 7/1/26: 671
Cagematch rating as of 7/1/26: 7.25

Huh. Last time, Sendai Girls spelled Senka Akatsuki’s name incorrectly in English on its advertisement for Akatsuki’s match against Chihiro Hashimoto. This time, they just called her by a completely incorrect name. Most impressive, Sendai Girls marketing team.

Former Actwres girl’Z member Miku Kanae had quite a stretch between June 13 and June 14. On June 13, she challenged Akatsuki for the Sendai Girls Junior title. On June 14, she challenged Ranna Yagami for the Future of Stardom title. In general, since her impressive performance with Rin against MIRAI and Nori, Kanae traveled up and down Japan as a freelancer, primarily balancing appearances at Sendai Girls and Ice Ribbon while racking up wins in Pro Wrestling WAVE’s Catch the Wave 2026 Young Block and helping Pro Wrestling ZERO1’s joshi spinoff, Rose Girls Pro-Wrestling, get off the ground. She even tried her hand at becoming the inaugural Rose World Champion in their battle royale in May.

Akatsuki and Kanae charged at each other at the bell, which worked out better for the larger Akatsuki. Both wrestlers wrestled with offense in mind and pounded each other into the mat from the full mount. Despite being the more experienced wrestler, Kanae (and the one fan chanting for Kanae) had to hope that she would survive Akatsuki’s opening burst.

Akatsuki, as usual, kept it simple with scoop slams, splashes in the corner, and multiple heavy pins to make Kanae expend her energy to kick out. Kanae kept it simple too with an octopus hold, a missile dropkick, a shoulder-yanking arm submission, and a crossbody splash. That also leaned into Akatsuki’s strong suit in striving and struggling. Kanae’s attack window quickly gave way back to Akatsuki, who trapped Kanae in the Boston Crab served two ways, the single-leg and the double-leg versions.

Akatsuki won a long battle over a vertical suplex, but Kanae won a skirmish to pitch Akatsuki with a German Suplex. Kanae’s overenthusiasm cost her the match. She missed a slow Swanton Bomb, so Akatsuki wore her out with pinfalls again. Now desperate, Kanae tried to end the match with some surprise pins, but Akatsuki was bigger and stronger than Kanae could wrangle. Akatsuki’s lariat and a back suplex ended Kanae’s hopes to win the Sendai Girls Junior title.

Akatsuki and Kanae kept the match simple and short. If it weren’t Akatsuki’s indomitable spirit and Kanae’s fiery babyface appeal, this match would have been too simple to be engaging. Instead, Akatsuki and Kanae raised the match from drudgery to entertainment, a testament to their talents and why Akatsuki was the 11th ranked wrestler in this year’s 30 Under 30. (Kanae was an honorable mention.)

You can watch the match and the show on Wrestle Universe. For another perspective on the show, check out Syed Farzam Kirmani’s review of the show.

Komomo Minami vs. Chi Chi
Marigold Shining Attack: Day 15
June 21, 2026
Cagematch ranking as of 7/1/26: 296
Cagematch rating as of 7/1/26: 7.75

Speaking of the 30 Under 30 list, we had a battle between honorable mention Chi Chi (who naturally used Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” as her entrance theme) and Komomo Minami, another of Marigold’s under-25 wrestlers who have had to accelerate their timelines in light of injuries to Mayu Iwatani and Seri Yamaoka and the departure of Utami Hayashishita. Thus far in her career, Minami pretty consistently wrestled in the lower half of the card, usually the first or second match, and this was notably her only singles match that was scheduled for the semi-main event. (Minami was in the main event at Spring Victory Series 2026 – Day 12 against Miku Aono and at New Years Golden Garden 2026 – Day 5 in a Superfly title match against Iwatani.)

Good lord, Marigold’s white canvas reflected so much light to their hard camera that is was blinding. The goggles, they did nothing!

Minami must have misheard the lyrics to Barbie Girl because she grabbed Chi Chi’s hair right at the start of the match. Singer Lene Nystrøm invited you to brush her hair, not grab it like you’re trying to pry the last babka from an old lady’s grip at Oneg Heimishe Bakery on Good Friday. I’m also pretty sure that Nystrøm did not mean that Minami should pound at Chi Chi’s chest with forearm strikes when she sang, “You can touch, you can play.” If this is how Minami treated a former tag team partner (Minami and Chi Chi defeated Yamaoka and Yuuka “Naniwa Mad Dog” Yamazaki at Shining Attack – Day 7), then what would she do to her enemies?

Chi Chi rolled outside to regroup after suffering two of Minami’s dropkicks, and she only suffered more pain and indignity. Even after dodging Minami’s dive from from the top turnbuckle, Chi Chi wound up in Minami’s grasp and on the thin mat covering the Kose Sports Park Gymnasium Sub-Arena’s wooden floor after two of Minami’s scoop slams and Minami’s successful crossbody splash.

I saw a shade of VENY in Chi Chi in this match, which I greatly appreciated. I don’t think that it was just from a facile comparison of VENY’s kicks to Chi Chi’s use of a running boot in the corner or the straight kick to Minami’s chest. Chi Chi demonstrated an attitude that wasn’t evident in her tag team match with Chihiro Hashimoto against Hiroyo Matsumoto and ZONES that was reminiscent of VENY’s nastiness. Little things like this kick to Minami’s butt had that patented petty bitchiness that VENY embodied so well.

Then again, it was hard to imagine VENY doing this:

Unfortunately, all split-legged legdrops will remind me of this. Fortunately for Chi Chi, Minami was positioned correctly for a pin. And kudos to Chi Chi for trying to pin Minami multiple times in a row after her tribute to Cameron the former Funkadactyl.

After a protracted struggle to reach the ropes to break Chi Chi’s Single Leg Crab, Minami countered with a dropkick, which felt like the wrong attack out of the hold.

Since Marigold employed no handheld cameras for this show, we were left to use our imaginations and context clues to determine if some attacks looked good or not. For example, watch the reaction from the lady in blue to Chi Chi’s running boot. I would assume that the attack looked impactful or that it was still real to her, damn it. (Imagine if she were the smarkiest smark to every smark though!)

Chi Chi came across really well when she walked Minami to the ropes even as Minami was throwing forearm strikes as hard and as fast as she could. Was she also the Juggernaut?

So, it was a good sign that Minami didn’t just take Chi Chi’s guff and struck back with a kick to the gut and dropkick to the face. She refused to let the referee separate them when she was stomping Chi Chi in the ropes and shoved him aside. Watch the reaction of the wrestler in Minami’s corner.

I’ve seen Minami compared to Iwatani, and some flashes came to mind despite my skepticism about comparing a wrestler in their second year to one of the greatest wrestlers in her generation. It wasn’t just the movements, like the spinning back kick or the dropkick, that reminded me of Iwatani. It was the nastiness, the mean streak that lay underneath Iwatani’s unassuming size and demeanor. Minami probably won’t have the grade one athleticism that Iwatani had, but the key grittiness might be.

Chi Chi picked up the win after a couple of Exploder Suplexes and a reverse roundhouse to the head, but the outcome wasn’t as important as what Chi Chi and Minami showed during the match. VENY and Iwatani have yet to have a singles match (their only interaction was the tag match from Sareee-ISM Chapter V), and it would be a shame if they never faced each other. However, maybe the path to get there might be to pair freelancers like VENY and Chi Chi against Iwatani and Minami. It would be an exaggeration to say that this was a hidden gem, but it was a good time in a random Marigold show that could be easily overlooked.

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

Next time: Recently, the secretly sassy captain Rich Kraetsch explored how WWE’s championships are held hostage by the senior circuit while the potential next generation withers on the vine until it’s “their turn.” Jesse Collings even wondered if they might be the New Kliq. Let’s examine the modern title histories of championships (or the equivalents thereof) from companies large and small around the world and then check out the payoffs to some tournaments that took place this year.