Since this is my first review on the blog, there are some things I should establish::
Firstly, I am an emotional viewer of media. If something makes me feel an emotion, that means more than anything technical or "objective" quality could. I am neither blind nor stupid, and I notice quality, but making me feel something is worth more.
Second, I will give each match a score after I give my thoughts. If you are paying attention, you may notice a trend. If you do, good job. The point of that trend is that I want you to read the text of the review. Scores are meaningless; I just include them as a joke.
Thirdly, no GenAI has been used for tbis post or any other on this blog. I was an English major in school, and even if my writing skills have sunken considerably since those days I still would rather have my mistakes be my own rather than pass off something created from a prompt and something barely a step above procedural generation. If my blog sucks, at least it's authentically sucky!
Those three things established, let's dive in with an overview and the first three matches.
Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling '26
1/4/2026, Korakuen Hall
It's entirely possible the year started TOO strongly for Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling. Their first show of the year should set the tone, but in many ways it set the bar so high they may struggle to be this good again for the next 12 months. It isn't all perfect, and there are questions I still don't know the answers to, but I am looking forward to finding them out.
Chika Nanase and Uta Takami vs Ren Konatsu and Shion Kanzaki
The two finalists of 2025's NextGen tournament team up to welcome a new wrestler in Shion who has been teamed with last year's most promising debut in Ren. Shion is already very good for someone who had her first match in all the ways that matter. She has a great look, her selling and fighting spirit are right where they should be, and her future looks bright.
What struck me the most about this match, though, is just how special Ren Konatsu is. She showed up to her debut ready to take chances and try some high risk stuff right out of the gate, which is something Shion did not do in the match. I'm not saying anyone has to, and you definitely shouldn't risk injury before you're ready, but Ren being ready to try from day 1 is a big statement on where her ceiling is.
Uta won a pretty standard tag match by submitting Shion with the Koala Clutch. This was a very fun opener, and I'm looking forward to seeing where all four of these wrestlers are in a year. Welcome to TJPW, Shion Kanzaki!
Score: 8/10
HotShot is a team I like a whole lot. Yuna mentoring the young powerhouse in Toga and bringing out her more aggressive side is worth the investment, and her shouting encouragement from outside while Toga tries to get to the ropes is always very compelling wrestling. It's like a combination of a tag team and a take on a manager, which is a dying concept in wrestling that we could stand to bring back I feel.
HIMAWARI and Kira share a birthday (December 18th) and they both have a lot of potential as wrestlers that they seem to be working hard to unlock. They play off each other very well, I feel, and could possibly be a tag team if we weren't instead doing Bumping gRitters.
All of this is to say that this match was a lot of fun. The four wrestlers all worked well together, and Toga eventually won with her version of the Rock Bottom. I like everyone in the match, and it was a fun bit of action. Nothing to complain about here.
Score: 8/10
I wrote an entire post about how Mahiro has made the Ironman title feel more important than it actually is, so I won't repeat myself. What I did leave out was the role of Rika Tatsumi trading the belt back and forth with her and taking it just as seriously in terms of elevating the belt. With them both in the match this third-match-on-the-card had investment above its spot. Suffice to say that I was on the edge of my seat for this one.
Aja Kong, 40 years into her career, is trading on her name and status as a bona fide joshi legend to elevate TJPW just by being there, and she gets to have fun in the process. This match saw the other three team up to attack her then turn on each other over and over. Aja even took the time to do Mahiro's apology spot, so you knew she was here for a good time.
Aja pinned Shino off a backdrop driver to win the match, but then Rika pinned Aja by holding Mahiro down on top of her, which meant Mahiro got her belt back. Unbeknownst to us watching at the time, a singles title match between Mahiro and Aja was set up by backstage comments, so that should be a good test of the new and improved Mahiro if and when it takes place.
Score: 8/10
Next time on the blog, the middle three matches of the show. A real welcome to TJPW for Shion, a very fun odd-couple team, and the only match I thought was underwhelming.
