After the Princess of Princess Championship match ended, Rika Tatsumi leaned against the corner in tears, looking up crestfallen as the arena lights flashed and Mizuki’s bubbly entrance theme played on. Defeat weighed on her in the shadow of celebration.
Tatsumi had lost another big title match, even after punishing Mizuki for so much of it, after being so dominant and determined on the Tokyo Joshi Pro-Wrestling Grand Princess stage.
The emotion of that image speaks to the stirring power of the bout they had. It was a Princess of Princess Championship contest fueled by pain and pathos, one that may well be only a single chapter in a longer, emotive drama.
Leading into this showdown at Ota City Gymnasium, Mizuki had yet to defend the title she’d won from Miu Watanabe in January. Her second reign as POP champ was still young and untested.
And while the first time around as TJPW’s top titleholder she started off with lower-level challengers (no offense, Sawyer Wreck and Nao Kakuta), Mizuki would get no such luxury this go-round. The White Dragon, Rika Tatsumi, a former Princess of Princess champion herself, was gunning for the gold right away.
It was harder to sell Kakuta or Wreck as actual threats to Mizuki’s crown. Tatsumi, meanwhile, is easy to imagine winning it all again.
The early action only furthered the audience’s faith in Rika. She grappled her way to control of the match, leaning heavily on the headlock. If this remained a technical wrestling match, Tatsumi would win no question. She’s arguably the best mat wrestler the company has on its roster.
Mizuki was able to use her speed to counter Tatsumi’s grappling, at least for a short stretch, but a devastating move soon changed the entire narrative of the title tilt.
With the champion caught up in the corner, Tatsumi hit a dragon screw that rammed Mizuki’s legs into the ring post. A figure-four leglock in the steel part of the ropes followed. Then a relentless, vicious attack on The Popping Sugar Rabbit’s leg.
This focused onslaught left Mizuki dangling on the ropes, in danger, one-legged.
Suddenly, we had a clear favorite in the fight. Mizuki was going to have to battle like hell to make it out of here still champ.
She executed much of her normal offense but through great pain. Each kick or stomp she doled out left her wincing.
When the match slid to the outside of the ring, Mizuki attacked Tatsumi with a diving foot stomp to the floor but immediately after impact had to grab her leg and howl in pain. This was going to be a reality for her until the final ball. Every assault she dealt was just as much a punishment to herself like when a knife slips past the handle and cuts the attacker’s hand.
This is where Mizuki and Tatsumi created the majority of their drama. Tatsumi played the opportunistic and crafty challenger forcing Mizuki to tap into every drop of guts she had.
The classic limb-focused offense worked beautifully here. For one, this is Tatsumi’s normal M.O. and she thrives as the zeroed-in attacker. Secondly, Mizuki limped, grimaced, and suffered to great dramatic effect. This dynamic drew me in and did not let go.
Despite all the anguish she suffered, Mizuki never kept churning along. She struggled to get to the top rope but still climbed on. She got her knee wrecked on the floor and simply looked for a way to repay Tatsumi.
In the later stages of the match, the action morphed into a slugfest with the champion and challenger slapping each other hard, ramming their elbows into their opponent’s chest, neither woman letting go of the other’s wrist.
“Fuck!” Yuki Kamifuku shouted aptly on commentary at one point during the exchange.
The battle of two worn-down warriors slowed after this point, and if you were to decide against the full five stars when rating it, this short lull might be why. Momentum stalled ever briefly.
But then came some of the slickest, most exciting moments of the match.
Mizuki stretched out her boot to graze the bottom rope and escape a dragon sleeper. She fired off a diving foot stomp to Tatsumi’s clavicle. Soon, the wrestlers slipped from move to move, countering expertly: a Cutie Special getting turned into a dragon sleeper, Tatsumi’s signature submission getting morphed into a crossface.
Mizuki remained fearless; Tatsumi was ever ruthless. In the end, however, it was the scrambling, gutsy champion who emerged with the win.
She wrenched a crossface deeper and deeper until Rika had no choice but to accept her defeat.
And what a gutting one it was. She had Mizuki in trouble throughout. She all but had her fingertips on the Princess of Princess title again.
Instead, she continued a run of failed title matches. Tatsumi lost to Miu Watanabe last July, to Shoko Nakajima in 2022 at Summer Sun Princess, to Miyu Yamashita to drop the title in May of 2021. Rika’s POP reign feels distant now, a faded image that she badly wants to bring back to the forefront.
So one can understand the severity of her emotions after the bell, how she wept after the reality of this latest loss hit her.
Mizuki had to fight on through physical pain that made it hard to even stand. She showed off her massive heart in embracing that suffering and soldiering on through it. For Rika, it is internal pain that she will have to endure to achieve her dreams.
The sting of disappointment. The crumbling of confidence. The gut-punch of failure.
This story is poised to play on and we may well see Tatsumi crowned once more, to witness The White Dragon redeem her own shortcomings and conquer the champion, be it Mizuki or someone else.
RESURA 