Sorry, Chuck Taylor. The chant belongs to Sareee now.
Last time, we dug into the Internet’s collective memories of Declaration of Independents, a dirt sheet Website from the early 2000s. I recently listened to the final episode of Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men, and I thought about various podcasts that I subscribed to and have ended: Revolutions, Everything Evolves, Waypoint Radio, Be Good and Rewatch It, Six Trophies, ALL CAPS, Sync Ratios, Test Pattern: A Horror Movie Podcast, the Giant Beastcast, All Systems Goku, Twin Peaks Rewatch, Important If True, Idle Thumbs, GFW Radio, 1Up Yours, Reply All, The Dr. Keith Show, the RabbleCast, and Sunday Night Submission on Sportstalk Cleveland.
Some finished on their own terms. Others shut down with little notice. Either way, nothing gold can stay. Even if some of the hosts moved on to other ventures, I missed each and every one of these shows and wished that I had shared my appreciation with the hosts when the shows were still active.
That quaff of nostalgia also led me to think about how I could chart my wrestling fandom by whom I had set as my favorite wrestler. Bret Hart, Diamond Dallas Page, He Who Ran For Those Yards But Shall Not Be Named, Bryan Danielson, El Generico, Zack Sabre Jr., Darby Allin, and Will Ospreay have all held the title. Since her return to Japan, Sareee held the title, and she remained my favorite this year despite a lower-profile 2026 compared to her 2025 and 2024. Sareee’s run in 2024 was a major reason I started writing again, and Sareee’s 2025 was my portal to exploring the rest of the wrestling world last year. Thus, in recognition of Sareee’s importance to my interest in professional wrestling, let’s spend this column on some of Sareee’s recent highlights.
In this edition, I covered:
- Natsupoi vs. Sareee (Stardom, December 29, 2025)
- Johnnie Robbie & Mio Momono vs. Spark Rush (Sareee & Takumi Iroha) (Marvelous, April 16, 2026)
- Spark Rush (Takumi Iroha & Sareee) vs. Spike Nishimura & Senka Akatsuki (Tenryu Project, May 9, 2026)
- Mio Momono vs. Sareee (Marvelous, August 8, 2026)
- Victoria Yuzuki & Mayu Iwatani vs. Spark Rush (Takumi Iroha & Sareee) (Marigold, August 9, 2026)
- Spark Rush (Takumi Iroha & Sareee) vs. Natsupoi & Saori Anou vs. (Sareee-ISM, August 24, 2026)
Natsupoi vs. Sareee
Stardom Dream Queendom 2025
December 29, 2025
2025 Cagematch ranking as of 9/1/26: 71
Cagematch rating as of 9/1/26: 8.75
I intentionally broke the column’s structure to include this highly regarded match from 2025 (#194 in this site’s 2025 match of the year results) because I didn’t get a chance to watch and write about it last year. With Natsupoi heading off to retirement in 2027, it felt like a good time to reach back into the past for this to start our six-course Sareee experience.
I warmed up to Natsupoi after she made a poor first impression on me, and I enjoyed her performance in her match against Syuri. Sareee, who was a witness at Shingo Takagi and Natsupoi’s wedding, called Natsupoi “her best friend.” We’ve seen elsewhere that Sareee had no concerns about fighting her partners and friends, and we know that Sareee would have wanted Mobb Deep’s “Survival of the Fittest” to be her theme song if she had known that it existed. I’m not saying that Sareee would have sided with Apocalypse, but I’m thinking that she would have understood his deal.
Since the match was from 2025, we were treated to Sareee’s superior entrance theme, Hitomi Shimatani’s “Tayoushin.” As the pre-match video laid out, Natsupoi had suffered some high profile losses in 2025. She and Saori Anou failed to beat Hanan and Saya Iida for the Goddesses of Stardom title in June. (Hopefully, Hanan remembered in that match that standing where her tag team partner could reach her was a key component to success. She hasn’t always remember this.) Saya Kamitani swatted her challenge for the World of Stardom title aside in July. Rina eliminated her from the 2025 5STAR Grand Prix in the Red block semi-finals. Sareee beat her twice in tag team matches, first with Suzu Suzuki at Sareee-ISM Chapter IX and then with Miku Kanae in the Goddesses of Stardom Tag League. She and Anou even lost their match at their own self-produced show to Team 200kg.
In other words, she would have needed to beat Sareee to end her year on a high note. Since Sareee was in the middle of a grueling stretch, Natsupoi might have had a chance going into the match. This match was Sareee’s third match in three consecutive days and eighth within a fortnight, a wild stretch for even Sareee:
- December 21: Sareee vs. RIKO and Sareee, Chihiro Hashimoto & Takumi Iroha vs. Mio Momono, Rin & Yuu (Marvelous)
- December 24: Sareee, Chi Chi & Miku Kanae vs. Ema Mashima, Natsupoi & Rian (Stardom Year-End X’Mas Night 2025)
- December 27: Sareee vs. YuuRI (Ganbare Pro Before Sunrise 2025)
- December 28: Sareee & Takumi Iroha (c) vs. Magenta (Maria & RIKO) (Marvelous)
- December 29: Sareee vs. Natsupoi (this match)
- December 30: Sareee vs. Kakeru (OZ Academy Glorious Sanctuary)
- January 1: Sareee vs. MIRAI (Tochi Pro Happy New Year & Shinjiro Otani Aid ~ Stand Up Again and Again 2026)
- January 3: Sareee & Miku Kanae vs. AZM & Miyu Amasaki vs. Hazuki & Koguma
The only saving grace for Sareee’s body was that all of these matches took place in Tokyo, so she didn’t need to compound her pain with travel. (Don’t worry. She’ll manage to do that in 2026, which we’ll get to shortly.)
While this was their third ever singles match, they skipped the probing straight to the violence. (In their first two matches in Actwres girl’Z and Tokyo Joshi Pro, Natsupoi was still known as Natsumi Maki.) Step aside, Dan Maff, Low Ki, Homicide, and Steve Corino. Sit down, Kevin Steen and El Generico. Natsupoi and Sareee have arrived to claim the “Bitter Friends, Stiffer Enemies” throne.
The image of Sareee standing on the top rope pointing at Natsupoi reminded me, of all things, of John Zandig brandishing a chair and posing in the distance above Tomoaki Honma, who was waiting pensively in the ring. Since Sareee’s fundamental philosophy was that conflict built resilience and revealed your true inner strength, the match was the story of one-upsmanship. Starting with a collar-and-elbow lock-up, Sareee and Natsupoi acted like palette swaps. Sareee threw Natsupoi by her hair, so Natsupoi returned the favor. Natsupoi rolled Sareee up and stomped her chest, so Sareee did the same to Natsupoi.
To tell the story that this match was the crucible that would refine Natsupoi into a version of herself who could become the World of Stardom Champion, Sareee had to lay a beatdown on Natsupoi. Thus, even when Natsupoi reached the ropes to break Sareee’s grip on her ankle, Sareee let go just to reapply the hold as quickly as she could. The ropes could provide Natsupoi a reprieve, but they wouldn’t save her. When Sareee, gigantic bruise on her left arm and all, locked Natsupoi in a Mutoh Lock modified to also restrain Natsupoi’s arms, it was a dare to Natsupoi to give up. So, it was annoying that the referee saved Natsupoi because the hold strayed too close to being an illegal chokehold.
Gifted a little breathing room, Natsupoi cartwheeled out of Sareee’s suplex attempt and cartwheeled into an armdrag and a dropkick. The inexorable Sareee cut Natsupoi off before she could much more damage and suplexed her back into place as the underdog. After Sareee knocked Natsupoi back to the mat, Natsupoi toppled Sareee with a dropkick. Rather than even trying a pin, Natsupoi mounted Sareee and rained blows on to Sareee’s chest. A headbutt gave Natsupoi enough time to climb to the top rope, but it didn’t give her time enough to finish the job because Sareee intercepted Natsupoi and threw her back to the mat with a super suplex.
Since the match’s protagonist was Natsupoi, the crowd was vocal when she was on offense. The crowd cheered when Natsupoi returned Sareee’s forearm strikes with her own, and they were quiet when Sareee battered Natsupoi’s chest. I thought the thuds from their forearm strikes sounded painful, but the dull sounds of palms striking cheeks were much worse. Natsupoi’s flurry of slaps forced Sareee to retreat, but it didn’t stop Sareee from chasing Natsupoi down with a dropkick to the chest and a dropkick to the face.
Natsupoi got her next opening when Sareee reached for the uranage to put Natsupoi away. A superkick, a German Suplex, and a dropkick to a seated Sareee’s face sent Sareee out of the ring for the first time, and Natsupoi gave chase with a crossbody splash from the trop rope that had the aerodynamic profile of a brick. Back inside the ring, Natsupoi collided with Sareee with another crossbody splash, and she took control of Sareee’s arm when she used it to kick out of Natsupoi’s pin. After a suitably long struggle, Natsupoi extended Sareee’s arm, which forced Sareee to reach for the ropes with her feet.
Just when it felt like Natsupoi had seized the momentum, Sareee blocked Natsupoi’s Fairial Gift splash and drilled Natsupoi’s head into the match with a German Suplex. More pain for Natsupoi followed: forearm strikes that dropped Natsupoi first to her knees, then to her stomach, a double stomp from the middle rope, and finally a double stomp from the top rope. Upon Natsupoi’s kickout at two, Sareee did not looked shocked like Pikachu and did not argue with the referee. She just resumed her beatdown. That’s one of the reasons I rank Sareee so highly.
Natsupoi got another opening by slipping out of Sareee’s uranage again, but that laid the groundwork for Natsupoi’s inevitable doom when Sareee finally dropped Natsupoi with the move. With this opening, Natsupoi landed a reverse kick to Sareee’s stomach, a spinning kick to Sareee’s head, and the Fairial Gift splash. Frustrated by her own inability to finish Sareee, Natsupoi pulled out of trying to pin Sareee after landing the Fairy-ing Ring and instead added the Fairystrain, a straitjacket German Suplex.
Unfortunately for Natsupoi, Sareee survived all of that. Natsupoi crashed and burned from the top rope, and Sareee tried to help by stomping Natsupoi into the mat, but Natsupoi resisted Sareee’s pin. Sareee tried to help some more by picking her off the mat for a back suplex pinning hold, and Natsupoi was so charged up by these gestures of friendship that she kicked out at one. Then, Sareee picked her up in the dreaded uranage, but Natsupoi survived it too. Finally, Sareee tried to nail the coffin closed with three more uranges, but Natsupoi persisted despite everything.
That left Sareee with no choice but to use the wrist-clutch uranage. Natsupoi wiggled out of that and wrangled Sareee into a rolling pin, but it was unsuccessful. She ran off to build momentum for the Fairy Blink, but Sareee caught her and planted her with the wrist-clutch uranage to finish the fight.
Did Natsupoi make the case for her own resilience? She took Sareee’s best shots, and she came close to beating her best friend, the joshi standard bearer for toughness and grit. Would I have believed Walker Stewart’s contention on commentary that Natsupoi was closer to unseating Saya Kamitani, the World of Stardom Champion at the time, after Sareee dismantled her? Based on this match and the aftermath, Stardom certainly didn’t act that way. Natsupoi lost to Rian in the second round of the 2026 Cinderella Tournament in February, and she didn’t participate in the 2026 5STAR Grand Prix. Syuri fended off Natsupoi’s challenge for the IWGP Women’s title, and the Triangle of Madness fended off Cosmic Angels’ try for the Artist of Stardom title. Overall, building a wrestler’s hard even from a win, much less a loss as decisive as this was.
Sareee made a great foil, the unstoppable force that Natsupoi tried her best to resist. There were some awkward moments on pins, particularly one where it seemed like Sareee and the referee were out of sync for when Sareee would kick out. Sareee used her finely honed war crate effectively, and she didn’t try anything new because the focus was on Natsupoi’s struggle. I’m glad that I finally got around to this jewel in Sareee’s 2025, where she managed to score eight matches in the top 200 in Voices of Wrestling’s Match of the Year poll.
You can watch the match and the show on Stardom World. For an alternate perspective on the match and the show, check out Alex Richards’s review.
Johnnie Robbie & Mio Momono vs. Spark Rush (Sareee & Takumi Iroha)
Marvelous
April 16, 2026
Cagematch ranking as of 9/1/26: 452
Cagematch rating as of 9/1/26: 7.73
After Chihiro Hashimoto, Saya Kamitani, and Sareee knocked each other around to honor Kenta Kobashi and Meiko Satomura, Sareee and Takumi Iroha hopped on a plane from Japan to Las Vegas to make the town against Mio Momono and Johnnie Robbie. Earlier that day, Momono had beaten Robbie for the West Coast Pro Women’s title, which introduced another wrinkle to the interpersonal dynamics in the match.
Bizarre Bar’s speakers were no match for Spark Rush’s entrance theme; I’ve heard clearer bass from the trunks of cars passing through my neighborhood on a summer Saturday night. Also, given how the sound of bodies hitting wooden planks in the ring completely overwhelmed the commentary team’s audio, I wonder if we would have been off if the commentators just made the move to say nothing and watch along with us.
No one would have blamed Sareee for taking it easy in this match. Based on the crowd’s reaction, just seeing her would have been enough. It probably would have been me for me. After all, this match prompted me to consider making an unplanned trip to Las Vegas before a cold reality shower woke me up.
Still, Momono and Iroha started with some fun exchanges that emphasized Iroha’s size and power advantage over Momono. Iroha was able to resist Momono’s full push with just one hand, and they had a fun reversal sequence that showed off Momono’s agility and speed.
Iroha and Momono shoved each other toward their respective corners to let Robbie and Sareee enter the match. The room exploded when Sareee tagged in, and she gave the adoring crowd her greatest hits: tossing Robbie by her hair, stomping on Robbie in the corner, and taking Robbie’s best shot before returning fire. I’m sure the microphones did their best to capture the sound of Sareee’s forearm colliding with Robbie’s chest, but I would have loved to have heard it in person because it was scrumptious and sickening on video.
Robbie and Sareee didn’t get much time together, which was too bad since it was the combination that intrigued me the most. Momono tagged back in and quickly knocked Sareee over with dropkicks. Then, she angered Sareee and got her full attention by faking her out and swiping her foot at Sareee’s head. That fired Sareee up, and the two exchanged some eye-watering forearm strikes. As Momono ran the ropes, Iroha ambushed Momono with a knee strike, which set Sareee up to land with double stomps at various elevations on Momono.
Iroha, the freshest person in the match, tagged in and tagged Momono up with a flurry of kicks. As always, Iroha looked so pleased with the pain that she inflicted on her opponent.
Given that the match started after 1:00 am Pacific Time, everyone had to keep the pace brisk. So, Momono and Iroha could not milk Iroha’s Sharpshooter for all of its dramatic potential, and Momono and Iroha could not give Iroha’s failed Swanton Bomb too much oxygen. Similarly, Sareee had to break up Momono’s Figure Four Leglock on Iroha in a way she normally wouldn’t, and Robbie and Momono couldn’t spend too much time feeling grumpy at each other over their earlier match. It had to stick to action to keep the crowd’s (and maybe even the wrestlers’) energy up.
We finally got the match’s last combination when Robbie tagged in to throw Iroha around with some Fisherman Suplexes. Sareee’s uncharacteristic intervention saved Iroha again, and Spark Rush then ran roughshod over Robbie and Momono with double dropkicks. Robbie popped up from Iroha’s German Suplex in an unnecessary activation of fighting spirit since it didn’t seem to get much notice from the crowd. Spark Rush’s powerbomb and double stomp combo almost won the match if not for Momono’s save.
Robbie got her own moment of glory after she slipped out of Iroha’s Running Three attempt and hit her Buzzbomb lariat. Sareee again saved the match for her team after Robbie’s Kamigoye, but Iroha got the glory by pinning Robbie while holding Momono in a German Suplex.
They structured the match to give the crowd exactly what they wanted to see: Sareee pounding the ever-loving hell out of Sareee and Robbie. It also laid the groundwork for Sareee and Momono to have a singles match later and for Iroha to impress a new audience. If this had been broadcast during WrestleMania Week, it would have been my favorite match in the Streaming Path to Glory. West Coast Pro and Marvelous uploaded the video months after the show took place, but it was still enjoyable. The match kept a fast pace for its eleven minutes long runtime, and I can think of no reason not to watch it.
This site’s panel of voters ranked it the 10th best match of this year’s WrestleMania week. After the match, Sareee even managed to win $6,347 from a slot machine at Harry Reid International Airport, so even Lady Luck rewarded Sareee for going hard in the paint.
You can watch the match and the show on West Coast Pro’s YouTube page.
Spark Rush (Takumi Iroha & Sareee) vs. Spike Nishimura & Senka Akatsuki
Tenryu Project Bridge of Dreams 2026
May 9, 2026
Cagematch ranking as of 9/1/26: 1360
Cagematch rating as of 9/1/26: 7.0
The idea of putting an unstoppable engine of violence like Sareee against Senka Akatsuki, joshi’s striver, the Guts of Sendai Girls greatly intrigued me, and while that might not have been enough to entice me to sign up for Tenryu Project’s newsletter, it inspired me to track down this match. Here, Spark Rush faced a pair of relative newcomers, Marvelous’s Akatsuki, who made her debut in 2024, and Sendai Girls’s Spike Nishimura, who made her debut in 2023.
Tenryu Project had set up an entrance ramp at Shinjuku FACE, and I was fascinated by how Iroha and Sareee would navigate it. Would they march down it single-file? If so, who would go first? Instead, because they were a team of equals (even though Iroha won their last singles match), they walked the ramp side-by-side despite the width of Sareee’s robe. Even they conceded to reality by the end; Sareee was a half-step behind Iroha by the time they reached the middle of the path.
So far, Iroha and Sareee had dominated Akatsuki in their encounters, but Nishimura actually had a tag team win over Iroha. As unlikely as a Nishimura and Akatsuki victory would have been, the possibility laid in the variable that Nishimura brought to the equation.
To no one’s surprise, Akatsuki charged right at Iroha to start the match. Akatsuki’s advantage was short-lived; Iroha knocked her over with a shoulder charge mere seconds later. I could tell you more about how Akatsuki defended herself against Iroha’s running kick and knocked Iroha over herself, but my memories of what happened were obliterated by a voice on commentary that sounded like the speaker gargled with gravel.
After Iroha kicked out of Akatsuki’s pin attempt, there was an awkward moment where Akatsuki had to stop her charge at Iroha short. When she did, Iroha grabbed Akatsuki in a headlock and tagged out to Sareee, which brought the most intriguing pairing into the match. We didn’t get much of the Akatsuki and Sareee combination though. Spark Rush’s double dropkicks wiped Akatsuki and Nishimura out, and Akatsuki tagged out to Nishimura surprisingly quickly.
Luckily for us, Nishimura brought a brashness and dynamism to the match. Not so luckily for us, it looked like Nishimura clipped Sareee with a kick that required the referee to step in and check on her. Sareee took a lot of hits from Nishimura, from the long chain of lariats in the corner to the springboard dropkick. She also looked like she was in pain after Nishimura’s pin attempt, and she was slow to her feet after Akatsuki bowled her over with a should charge. Since Akatsuki looked surprised that she couldn’t do the next thing in her sequence, Sareee’s agony looked legitimate. It’s no wonder that she only wrestled one more trios match three days later before taking a break for about a month to recuperate.
Ever the striver, Akatsuki had a fun chain of Irish Whip reversals with Sareee that ended with Akatsuki’s lariat in the corner.
We only got one forearm smash from Sareee to Akatsuki here, but it was a good one.
Iroha made up for the lack of a pummeling exchange between Sareee and Akatsuki with her merciless kicks.
Look at how Akatsuki sold her pain. It was almost enough to make you think it was real.
With Akatsuki in danger of a double team double stomp from Spark Rush, Nishimura jumped in to throw Sareee off of the top rope while Akatsuki threw Iroha. Unlike in the tag match against Robbie and Momono, Sareee did not interfere further and let Iroha rescue herself. She slid in, however, to trip Akatsuki so Iroha could kick her down to position Akatsuki for a bunny-hop double stomp. Nishimura then tried to save Akatsuki, but Iroha stopped her with a kick to the arm. Sareee and Iroha tried to set up Akatsuki and Nishimura for a double stomp and Swanton Bomb combo, but Nishimura rolled out of position after Sareee stomped her chest.
Due to that miscue, the camera zoomed in on Iroha and Akatsuki, who were still set up for Iroha’s Swanton Bomb, which scored a nearfall. Akatsuki flipped Iroha over when she tried a Running Three and blasted her with a lariat. Sareee saved her teammate from Akatsuki’s pin attempt, so Akatsuki turned her attention to Sareee while Nishimura landed Iroha with a Michinoku Driver. Unfortunately for Akatsuki, she crashed directly into the mat on her top rope splash, and Iroha tucked her in and launched Nishimura with a German Suplex so Spark Rush could pin both opponents simultaneously to score another win.
The match was too short for it to ascend beyond “fine,” and both Sareee and Nishimura struggled throughout the match to get into position. As a result, the match’s flow was choppier than you’d expect from this group. We didn’t get enough interaction between Akatsuki and Sareee, and Nishimura felt like an afterthought in the match. Spark Rush’s match against Momono and Robbie was a better sprint.
The show was available on Zaiko.io.
Mio Momono vs. Sareee
Marvelous
August 8, 2026
Cagematch ranking as of 9/1/26: 6
Cagematch rating as of 9/1/26: 9.38
Speaking of Spark Rush vs. Robbie and Momono, Momono’s little moment of disrespect in Las Vegas surely set the groundwork for this slugfest. Between that encounter and this singles match, Sareee and Momono only crossed paths once: at the July Marvelous show when Spark Rush defeated Ai Houzan and Momono. (Whatever happened to Ai Houzan after Momono tried to beat some conviction into her? Oh, Sareee beat her in less than nine minutes at Mio Momono’s 10th anniversary show) Momono had never beaten Sareee in a singles match; the closest she came was a time limit draw in ZERO1 in 2024. Even in multi-person matches, the Momono’s only victory (that I could find) came in 2020, when BOSS to Mammy (Momono and Yumi Ohka) defeated Sareee and Hibiki to retain the WAVE Tag Team titles. So, similar to Natsupoi, Mio Momono yearned to beat Sareee for her own pride.
I guess we’ve collectively agreed to not comment that Sareee’s new music…was a downgrade. Did the phrase, “Boy, I haven’t heard a downgrade in theme music this bad since Kazuchika Okada switched from ‘Rain Maker‘ to the abomination that he’s used in AEW” pass through my brain? You bet your ass. Did I regret typing it out just now? I didn’t.
Also, I guess we’ve collectively agreed not to ask why Momono had off-brand Powerpuff Girls and a Chucky-fied picture of herself in her entrance video.
Nonetheless, Momono deserved credit for carrying the West Coast Pro Women’s Championship proudly to this match. You earned it by beating Johnnie Robbie, and you defended it against Jessy Jackson and Robbie.
The match was in Momono’s home company, and she carried Marvelous’s flag to the ring, so the crowd started firmly on Momono’s side despite the stray contrarian voices who supported Sareee. Momono and Sareee hadn’t reached “Shoot on Sight” levels of animosity, so it wouldn’t have made sense to start with a cliched tribute to Don Frye and Yoshihiro Takayama. How, then, could Momono and Sareee convey the depth of passion that they have about beating the other? Well, how about one of the most intense lock-ups that I’ve ever seen?
At the very least, Buddy Garrity would be checking on Sareee’s eligibility to play for the East Dillon Lions from that demonstration of her push and drive. Now that’s Brisk, baby.
And just to show Momono that she wasn’t playing around, Sareee smashed the hell out of Momono’s chest after a clean break.
From there, Momono had to show the crowd something so they wouldn’t lose faith in her ability to beat Sareee. So, she outmaneuvered Sareee’s attempt to pick her up with a backbreaker, and she proved that she could bridge out of a pin just as well as Sareee could.
Still, Sareee beat on Momono like Momono badmouthed Hitomi Shimatani’s “Sun God Prism,” throwing her by her hair, stomping on her chest, and dropkicking her in the face. I greatly appreciated how dirty Sareee’s headlock takeover on Momono was. Normally, it’s a smooth motion that hinted at the cooperation the person in the headlock had to give to make the move work. Here, Sareee threw Momono down by the hair, grabbed Momono’s head, and violently threw Momono’s legs off when Momono tried for a headscissors to break the hold. Sareee’s and Momono’s intensity and focus were remarkable, down to the detail where Momono punched at Sareee’s neck for not releasing her headlock fast enough after Momono reached the bottom rope. Or, later, how Sareee crouched like a wounded animal against the bottom rope in position for Momono’s running dropkick.
Outside the ring, Sareee and Momono continued to show how badly they yearned for violence. Momono chased Sareee to the outside with a dropkick from the apron, and she hit four more dropkicks on the floor at a retreating Sareee. Then, she threw a chair at Sareee before the rest of the Marvelous roster had fully cleared that section of Korakuen Hall. Momono’s two missile dropkicks back inside the ring almost felt like a letdown because they seemed so normal in the context of everything else they had done.
Thankfully, Momono and Sareee quickly took us back to the mud pit when Momono caught Sareee’s arm on a pin kickout and grinded and stretched to secure Sareee in a crossface. It wasn’t the cleanest execution of a submission hold, but it definitely passed the verisimilitude test.
And for all that, Sareee responded, “Sucks to your verisimilitude. I’ma gonna just kick you right in the face.”
Furthermore, Sareee clearly believed in asymmetrical retaliation or took Sean Connery’s “The Chicago Way” monologue to heart because for the one chair that Momono threw at her, Sareee whipped four back. Damn.
In other matches, I’ve found the brawling around Korakuen Hall to seem perfunctory, a box that needed to be checked off in a match. Sometimes, the wrestlers will use the side door to send someone to the shadow realm. Even the leap over the stairwell might seem ordinary and common. So, when Momono threw Sareee through the side door and then jumped over the stairwell to land on Sareee and a mass of other Marvelous wrestlers, it all seemed familiar.
However, we were treated to a couple of variations to the formula. First, Takumi Iroha, Sareee’s partner in Spark Rush and sometime rival, was right there to check on Sareee at the door, which meant that Iroha’s loyalty had to be divided between her partner and her company. Second, Sareee sidestepped Momono’s leap over the stairwell, and she just stomped Momono on the floor and threw her down some nearby stairs.
For all of that abuse (and more, since Sareee also threw her headfirst into the ring post), Momono pulled Sareee down while she tried to climb back into the ring, which led to a loud clonk when Sareee’s head and hands collided with the ring apron. Momono bashed Sareee’s head into the apron, so Sareee bashed Momono’s head into it too. Sareee slapped Momono in the face, so Momono slapped her back. Momono realized that the tit for tat plan hadn’t really worked out for her, so she turned back to her high speed ways to catch Sareee on the top turnbuckle and bring her down with an armdrag. For good measure, she used the space to land a Busaiku Knee on Sareee.
Momono knew that Sareee was outrageously tough, and she knew her only chance at victory was in stun locking Sareee. She absorbed one of Sareee’s roll-up double stomps so she could roll Sareee up, and then she spammed four double stomps and pin attempts to try to confuse Sareee. When even that wasn’t enough, Momono was forced to take a risk from the top rope. Her splash found nothing but air, and that opened an opportunity for Sareee to crush Momono with a running stomp and a top rope double stomp.
Sensing that Momono was about done after she burned meter on a suplex hold, Sareee cracked Momono once across the chest and challenged her to get back up. Momono answered with a slap and a fusillade of headbutts and dared Sareee to rise. Sareee landed one of the best jumping reverse kicks I’ve ever seen her throw and grounded and pounded Momono with forearms to the face. Sareee tried to turn up the pace and launched Momono at the ropes so she would bounce back into Sareee’s German Suplex, but Momono landed on her feet on the suplex. Instead, Momono hoisted Sareee for four German Suplexes. Then, she tried a Code Red. None of it worked, and Momono was at the end of her wits. She could only hope that Sareee was at the end of her rope.
Nope. Momono survived a uranage, and she got a close nearfall with a Huracanrana. However, she couldn’t survive another uranage and the wrist-clutch uranage even though the referee gave Momono the benefit of the pause between the second and third counts. So, with the crowd screaming in horror, Sareee finally, mercifully defeated Momono.
Whew. So long, Saya Kamitani vs. Chihiro Hashimoto vs. Sareee from Fortune Dream. Welcome to my running draft of my top ten matches of the year, Mio Momono vs. Sareee.
One could reasonably lay complaints about how the match fell into Sareee’s formula, how Sareee and Mio Momono didn’t sell, how they turned up the wrestling melodrama too much by having each wrestler survive multiple high impact moves like double stomps, German Suplexes, and uranages. And I would pay heed to those complaints if Sareee and Momono hadn’t established that this was a heightened atmosphere where Sareee was the Goliath that Momono tried to slay. In that context, Sareee had to survive the salvos that Momono threw at her and that Momono had to show that she was just as resilient as Sareee.
Neither wrestler focused on any body part except the head, the neck, and the chest, so they could channel their physical exhaustion into their selling. Throughout the match, I believed that they had actual animosity and that they wanted to destroy each other. By the end, I believed that they were completely spent. They presented a vision of violence that was only possible in elite execution of professional wrestling. I knew that this was something incredible when I kept marking places in the match that I wanted to show my partner, my neighbor, my friends who like professional wrestling, and the even the ones who don’t. Oh, and by the way, Momono and Sareee managed all of this in less than 20 minutes.
After the match, Magenta interrupted Sareee’s closing speech, so we can guess who is next on the list to get a whooping from Sareee. Knowing Sareee, it’ll be even odds whether Momono will be by her side.
The show was available on Zaiko.io. Since the last Marvelous show as of this writing on Wrestle Universe was from July 2, it’s unclear whether Marvelous and CyberFight’s business relationship had ended, which would explain why Marvelous now relied on Zaiko for livestreaming and limited time VOD viewing.
So, you’ll have to be adventurous to find this match on the Internet.
And you should.
Victoria Yuzuki & Mayu Iwatani vs. Spark Rush (Takumi Iroha & Sareee)
Marigold Summer Destiny
August 9, 2026
Cagematch ranking as of 9/1/26: 11
Cagematch rating as of 9/1/26: 9.14
Your eyes did not deceive you. Less than 24 hours after Mio Momono and Sareee’s slugfest, Sareee was right back at it with her Spark Rush partner (and occasional opponent), Takumi Iroha, to face Mayu Iwatani and Victoria Yuzuki. Given her other displays of endurance (like wrestling eight matches in fourteen days or flying overnight after her match against Chihiro Hashimoto and Saya Kamitani at Fortune Dream 11 to face Robbie and Momono), one could reasonably say that it’s time to transfer the nickname “Old Ironsides” from the USS Constitution to Sareee as the American Century of Humiliation continues.
Still, the kinesiology tape that festooned Sareee’s neck and shoulder told the tale of her struggle with Momono the night before. As a result, the main question was how Sareee would have to adjust her style and/or pace (if at all) for this match. Iroha herself had a taxing match against Senka Akatsuki the day before as well. This was Iwatani’s return match from a broken toe; in her last match, she teamed with Rin for Rin’s retirement match against…Mio Momono and Itsuki Aoki. Also, this was Victoria Yuzuki’s return match from an ACL injury. Thus, it was fair to say that no one was quite at peak condition for this match.
Of course, neither Sareee nor Takumi Iroha was a stranger to Mayu Iwatani. Iwatani and Sareee fought over the IWGP Women’s title and then teamed to face VENY and Chihiro Hashimoto in 2024. Iroha and Iwatani fought over the GHC Women’s title earlier this year, and both women stood up for their respective home companies in the Marvelous vs. Marigold feud last year. Because it’s a small world after all, Iwatani and Iroha teamed against Sareee and Syuri in 2020 for Sareee’s produce show.
Just as we seemed to have collectively agreed to not talk about how Sareee’s new theme was a downgrade from her old one, we seemed to have also agreed to not discuss how adorkable Spark Rush’s theme was. Starting with spelling out “Spark” to the way the electric guitarist tried to meld the strains of “Pomp and Circumstance” with “Taiyoushin” to the bridge on the electric keyboard, it all seemed a little too jaunty and cute for Spark Rush. I’m not saying they need to come out to Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” or Van Halen’s “Runnin’ with the Devil,” but I wish their music felt a little heavier.
With all of the injuries that plagued Marigold this year, it wasn’t too surprising that the company opted not to strip Iwatani of the Superfly title. (NOAH did vacate the GHC Women’s title, however.) Similarly, Marigold allowed Yuzuki to retain United National Championship reign through her recovery. So, both women had their title belts and their tiger masks with them in their separate entrances.
Though Yuzuki had called Sareee out after Sareee and Chi Chi defeated Komomo Minami and Miku Aono, Sareee had no interest in dealing with the 21-years-old Yuzuki. She wanted Iwatani, who was mostly amused by all this.
This wasn’t the first time Sareee had dismissed the younger wrestler in an opposing team. We saw a similar dynamic in Spark Rush’s match against Miyu Yamashita and Arisu Endo where Sareee focused on addressing her grievances with Yamashita before Endo got Sareee’s attention through violence. One must wonder how Iroha felt about her partner lighting fires everywhere they go. Given the glee with which Iroha herself showed when she was about to kick someone as hard as she could, she probably didn’t mind.
Just like Endo, Yuzuki would not stand for Sareee’s disrespect, and she took the fight to Sareee with a running dropkick before the opening bell. With all of this animosity already in the air, Yuzuki and Sareee started fast and hard with Yuzuki’s judo throw an effective early weapon against Sareee. Sareee had her trusty forearm smash though, and she threw Yuzuki back into her team’s corner to dare her to come back out again. Yuzuki wisely took the moment to collect herself, so Sareee tagged Iroha into the match.
In response, Iwatani entered the match, and the two played some cat-and-mouse striker vs. grappler games before ending in a double high head kick standoff. With Iwatani in the ring, Sareee tagged back in and welcomed Iwatani back to conflict play competition with (you guessed it) a heavy forearm smash. Iwatani and Sareee gifted each other some shots until Yuzuki jumped in to reroute and trip Sareee for Iwatani’s splash.
With Sareee down, the crowd chanted for Yuzuki’s return to the match, and Yuzuki took full advantage of Sareee’s temporary vulnerability. (If it were a video game, Paul “Triple H” Levesque would not have allowed games press to depict him in such a state of disadvantage.) Iroha kicked Yuzuki’s back while she ran the ropes and Sareee knocked Iwatani off the apron so Spark Rush could punch and dropkick Yuzuki. Now in control, Iroha tagged in to pepper Yuzuki with kicks while Sareee contributed some spiteful kicks of her own.
Iroha and Sareee targeted Yuzuki’s recently injured leg with kicks and submission cranks, and Iwatani tried to save her partner by throwing Sareee off of Yuzuki and kicking her in the back. All that earned Iwatani was a kick to her own back. So, Yuzuki had to save herself with a loose headscissors and a dropkick. Iwatani posed such a threat that Sareee jumped in to try to double team her, but Iwatani, Marigold’s brightest hope, fended off both Sareee and Iroha.
It was a great show of body control, but even John Cena thought it was a bit much.
Still, Iroha won a kick battle and locked Iwatani in a Sharpshooter until Iwatani crawled to the bottom rope in Spark Rush’s corner. Sareee returned to the match with one of the most solid missile dropkick I’ve seen amongst her matches covered in this column.
Iwatani ate two running dropkicks and returned the pleasure with a German Suplex, a thrust kick to Sareee’s head, and a running dropkick to a seated Sareee’s chest. Yuzuki tagged herself in and whiffed on a running dropkick to Sareee, but we’ll collectively have to pretend that the attack connected. Yuzuki and Iwatani double-teamed Iroha, but Iroha isolated Iwatani and whipped her away. Iwatani used that momentum for her tope suicida that Marigold’s camera operators completely missed because the photographers were in the way of the shot. Yuzuki capped off the high-flying with a crossbody press from the top rope to the collection of bodies on the floor.
Given Sareee’s slights and the fact that she was still the legal wrestler, Yuzuki rolled Sareee back inside the ring and tried to heap some more pain on her. This would almost prove to be her undoing. Her blinders prevented her from seeing Iroha’s kick, and though Iwatani could armdrag both Sareee and Iroha, Spark Rush almost won with their double team jackknife pin on Yuzuki. It would have been an abrupt ending, but since Spark Rush had won a few matches with that move, I thought that the match could have ended there.
While Iroha kept Iwatani away, Sareee dared Yuzuki to test her might. You’ve never seen anyone so happy to take and deliver a hit as Sareee was here. The referee annoyed me with how often he was using the delayed third count trope throughout this section as he gave Yuzuki an extra half second on all of Sareee’s pins. Yuzuki survived Sareee’s back suplex, Iroha’s Swanton Bomb, Sareee’s double stomp, and Sareee’s uranage (with Iwatani’s assistance), so Spark Rush tried to cancel Iwatani out of the equation. After Sareee threw Iwatani down with an elevated German Suplex, Iroha drilled her with a powerbomb from the middle rope.
That left Yuzuki as her team’s last hope in the match. She gave Sareee her best shot with a rolling pin and a superkick, but Spark Rush still had a one-person advantage after taking Iwatani out. Iroha saved Sareee on the pin after the superkick, and with Yuzuki exhausted, she succumbed to Sareee’s uranage.
I preferred Spark Rush’s match against Yamashita and Endo, but this was a good showcase for Yuzuki and her beef with Sareee. Say what you will about Sareee’s technical execution, but she consistently created intense environments where her opponents, particularly the young ones, seem to turn it up a notch to try to prove themselves against her. With Arisu Endo, Komomo Minami, Mio Momono, and Victoria Yuzuki, we have multiple wrestlers younger than Sareee who had beef with her and would love a chance to take her down a peg or three(e). Beyond delivering violent, engaging matches, that was Sareee’s greatest gift: to motivate her opponents. And she did not dial herself back for this match despite her grueling match the night before.
You can watch the match and the show on Wrestle Universe. For an alternate perspective on the match and the show, check out Alex Richards’s review.
Spark Rush (Takumi Iroha & Sareee) vs. Natsupoi & Saori Anou
Sareee-ISM Chapter XI
August 24, 2026
Cagematch ranking as of 9/1/26: 116
Cagematch rating as of 9/1/26: 8.41
We started this column with a match between Sareee and Natsupoi; we close it with a tag team match between Spark Rush and Natsupoi and Saori Anou, longtime partners who were former Goddesses of Stardom Champions in 2023. Not so long ago, Natsupoi was both Sareee’s partner and Sareee’s opponent in tag team matches, and I expect to see both teams to show their coordination and communication.
This time, Saori Anou, the former Actwres girl’Z veteran and current victim of Mastermind’s domination on behalf of the Hellfire Club, came into the match with beef with both Sareee and Iroha. Since we saw Natsupoi and Sareee fight at the end of 2025, the combinations of Anou with Sareee and Iroha were the rarer treats promised by the match. (For the record, Anou hadn’t beaten Iroha since 2020 and Sareee since 2023. Both wins were in tag matches.) So, Natsupoi and Sareee started the match. Not surprisingly, Natsupoi and Sareee repeated a lot of what they did in their match from December 2025: Natsupoi cartwheeling around Sareee, Sareee hitting her best friend as hard as she could, and both women bridging out of each other’s pin attempts.
Iroha and Anou then tested each other’s strength before Sareee butted in with a kick to Anou’s back. I guess Anou should have given Sareee a solid handshake before the match. As payback, Anou and Natsupoi double-teamed Iroha with double dropkicks before Anou withdrew to give us the third combination in the match, Natsupoi and Iroha. I chuckled when the 4’11″/150 cm tall and 103 pounds/47 kg large Natsupoi failed to throw the 5’7″/170 cm and 158 pounds/72 kg Iroha by her hair and was punished by Iroha’s kicks for her insolence. Still, it was rude of Iroha to pull out Natsupoi’s hair.
The 5’2″/158 kg and 132 pounds/60 kg Sareee had more success throwing Natsupoi by her hair. As Sareee taunted Anou while stepping on Natsupoi’s throat, it became clear that Natsupoi and Anou had no shot at winning this match. This was the main event of a Sareee-ISM show, and Natsupoi was retiring in January 2027. Iroha and Sareee ran roughshod over Natsupoi and Anou without much resistance, and even if their early dominance was meant to lead to a moment where it would seem like Natsupoi and Anou would have a shot at victory, it felt hollow. The veil of verisimilitude is very fragile, and for once, Sareee punched it too hard with her forearm and tore through it.
Right on cue, Natsupoi fought off Sareee to tag Anou in, and Anou tried to make the case for her team on her own.
Everyone then cleared the stage for Anou and Iroha to just kick the living saints out of each other. Not much of note happened, and Anou exited the match with a Fisherman’s Suplex on Iroha. Natsupoi attacked Iroha’s right arm, but that didn’t stop Iroha from flinging her with a German Suplex or flying through her with a spinning heel kick. That brought Sareee back into the match, and she and Natsupoi picked up where they left off with heavy forearm blows and powerful dropkicks. Anou stopped Sareee’s double stomp, and Natsupoi kicked out of Spark Rush’s jackknife double pin. So, we’ve established that the pin could work on younger wrestlers like Spike Nishimura and Senka Akatsuki, but it would not work on more experienced wrestlers like Iwatani, Yuzuki, Natsupoi, and Anou.
Natsupoi and Anou endured Iroha and Sareee’s simultaneous Swanton Bomb and double stomp, and the match refocused on Natsupoi and Sareee. Natsupoi unleashed a flurry of slaps, a superkick, and a German Suplex, but Sareee blocked the Fairial Gift with her knees and crushed her with a running stomp. The camera operator then decided to rotate the camera ninety degrees for some reason.
It felt like the camera operators had been struggling all match to keep up with the action, but this was truly astounding.
The rest of the match focused on Natsupoi and Sareee. Whenever Sareee would come close to finishing Natsupoi off, Anou would save her. Similarly, Iroha would save Sareee after Natsupoi landed a burst of her offense. The pace felt choppy as a result, and the match ended when Iroha and Sareee had better timing on their double team, which allowed Sareee to follow Iroha’s Dominator with a uranage on Natsupoi.
Once the veil was pierced, the artifice of the match shone through and blinded me from appreciating the rest of the match. We didn’t get enough interactions between Sareee and Anou or even Iroha and Anou, but it was a decent rerun of Sareee and Natsupoi’s match from December.
In conclusion, we can see Sareee’s greatest strength laid in raising her matches’ intensity levels. Since her return to Japan, she expressed that she was not impressed by the competition in various promotions, which created an easy narrative hook for her matches. Perhaps a young star like Victoria Yuzuki would take exception to Sareee’s comments. Or, perhaps an established presence in the company like Mio Momono would try to prove herself against the industry standard and to defend her company. Archetypes like face and heel or favorite and villain didn’t matter; Sareee will be Sareee no matter where she went, and she would still demand the audience’s attention (if not cheers) before she kicked her opponent’s face in with a running dropkick.
That consistency of character reminded me of Bryan Danielson, who was a prick whether he was cheered or not during his legendary Ring of Honor Championship run. And just like Danielson, Sareee had a solid claim on being the best in the world.
While there doesn’t seem to be an official way to watch this match and show, I’m sure that the industrious viewer could find a way. It’s even possible that Sareee will upload this match to her YouTube channel at some point.
If I had to rank all of Sareee’s matches that I’ve covered so far this year, it would read:
1. Mio Momono vs. Sareee, Marvelous, August 8, 2026
2. Arisu Endo & Miyu Yamashita vs. Sareee & Takumi Iroha, TJPW, March 29, 2026
3. Sareee vs. Takumi Iroha, Marvelous, May 5, 2026
4. Saya Kamitani vs. Sareee vs. Chihiro Hashimoto, Fortune Dream, April 16, 2026
5. Sareee & Takumi Iroha vs. Chihiro Hashimoto & Syuri, Sareee-ISM, January 3, 2026
6. MIRAI vs. Sareee, Tochigi Pro, January 1, 2026
7. Chi Chi & Sareee vs. Komomo Minami & Miku Aono, Marigold, July 30, 2026
8. Victoria Yuzuki & Mayu Iwatani vs. Sareee & Takumi Iroha, Marigold, August 9, 2026
9. Johnnie Robbie & Mio Momono vs. Sareee & Takumi Iroha, Marvelous, April 16, 2026
10. Natsupoi & Saori Anou vs. Sareee & Takumi Iroha, Sareee-ISM, August 24, 2026
Finally, here is the current draft of my favorite ten matches of 2026 so far that I’ve covered in the column.
1. Mio Momono vs. Sareee, Marvelous, August 8, 2026
2. Miu Watanabe vs. Suzume, TJPW, January 4, 2026
3. Chihiro Hashimoto vs. Senka Akatsuki, Sendai Girls, February 15, 2026
4. AMAKUSA vs. Daiki Odashima, NOAH, January 11, 2026
5. Sareee & Takumi Iroha vs. Chihiro Hashimoto & Syuri, Sareee-ISM, March 22, 2026
6. Yuma Anzai vs. Kento Miyahara, AJPW, April 19, 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. Ali Najima & Hinata Kasai vs. Kosuke Sato & Ryuma Sekimo, Fuminori Abe & Takuya Nomura Produce, July 1, 2026
Honorable mentions:
– Bandido, Noisy Boy, Spider Fly & Zonik vs. Gringo Loco, Iron Kid, Turbo & Vengador, RIOT, May 29, 2026
– Randy Chambers vs. Dan Archer, SLAM!, April 16, 2026
– Saya Kamitani vs. Chihiro Hashimoto vs. Sareee, Fortune Dream, April 16, 2026
- Next time: My eye on the American indies usually falls on certain companies, which means that some reside in my blind spot. So, let’s dig one level deeper and turn our focus to companies like WrestleARTS, Underground Wrestling Alliance, and others to see if we can uncover what could be the best-kept secrets in the American indies.
