We’re officially in joshi pro wrestling tournament season with July ending and August starting, and once again we’ve returned with an update to the fantasy league. I’m not for sure how many people regularly read these articles, but if you’re one of the ones who enjoys this content, I appreciate you giving it a shot.

July wasn’t as packed full of pro wrestling as some of the prior months with the total amount of points scored by the teams coming in at 1,416. That is the second lowest amount of points scored in total, only behind February which is obviously a shorter month in terms in days. Still though, there was a lot of great action that many of us got to witness, and with the tournament under way, there’s going to be a lot more where that came from as well.

This month was a bit of an interesting one because two of the top four point scoring wrestlers in the league are actually free agents, meaning that none of the teams captured any of those points. Some could see that as a fumble, especially with a team or two still having an inactive wrestler on their roster, but maybe they will learn their lesson and decide to pick up one of those two wrestlers going forward.

This was also the first month where the highest scoring wrestler scored less than 30 points. Who was the top you may ask? It was none other than Natsuko Tora who scored 27 points this month, a really good showing, no doubt helped by the recent Goddesses of Stardom title win. Coming in second was a wrestler who really hasn’t been mentioned thus far in these write ups, Ami Kanda who represents Hokuto Pro Wrestling based out of Hokkaido, Japan. Her 26 points was quite a surprise to see, and it came on the back of winning six singles matches, which was the most by far for the month. Tied for third at 25 points a piece was YUU and the new International Princess champion Moka Miyamoto.

For the second time this year, the top scoring team in the league was Dylan Murray’s “Mad Dog Military.” The team put on quite a performance, scoring 177 points, though surprisingly they didn’t have a wrestler who was at the top of the standings overall for the month with their top star only scoring 22 points. Coming in second place, team wise, was “Rebel X Run” who scored 171 points, continuing their hot streak over the past few months, which has allowed them to move up the standings a bit.

The team who found themselves on the wrong end of the spectrum was “Alex’s Warbitches” who were only able to obtain 118 points, which is not what Alex is looking for at this time of the year. It’s not too late to turn things around, but it might take a move or two to make that happen. The second worst team in terms of scoring was the team of “The Icon & Friends” who could only muster up 120 points. A lot of Scott’s roster involve talents from STARDOM and Marigold, so with the tournaments under way that should help a bit, but at the same time, when those two companies aren’t running as many shows, it can cause a bit of a lull points wise.

With all of that said, let’s take a look at the current overall team standings after the month of July…

TEAM STANDINGS

We’re up to three months in a row where second and third place switched positions as the “Mad Dog Military” had one hell of a month, and my team “Oedo Tai” had a decent month, but nothing all that special. It was also the first month in a while where second and third place were both able to gain some points on “Outlet Wolfpack” who has been in the lead since March of this year. Not only was there a bit of a movement at the top of the standings, but there was also movement between positions four through six with both “TCS 4 Life” and “Rebel X Run” jumping over the former fourth place team “The Icon & Friends.” As the months go on, things are getting even more close, which makes all of this a lot more exciting to watch.

Every month I not only tally the points, but also keep track of the amount of wins each wrestler gets in the various match types like “singles”, “multi-person”, and “tag team.” When it comes to singles matches this month, the leader with six was Ami Kanda, who seemingly came out of nowhere to have a hell of a month. The other nine from the top 10 I put together all tied with three singles match wins. Those wrestlers were: SAKI, Miyu Yamashita, ZONES, Saya Kamitani, Itsuki Aoki, Miu Watanabe, Marino Saihara, Mizuki, and Hina.

In terms of tag team wins, the leader of the pack was Nagisa Nozaki who won eight tag team matches in the month of July. Trailing her by one was none other than YUU who recently won the Sendai Girls tag team championship with her “Team 200kg” partner Chihiro Hashimoto. In third place was a tie at six between Kaori Yoneyama, Suzu Suzuki, Yuuki Mashiro, Natsu Sumire and Kaho Kobayashi.

There will be a lot of shows during the month of August, so I have a feeling that this next month could be a banner month for quite a few of the teams in the league. We may see higher scores than normal, so make sure to come back next month as well to see how it all played out. With all that said though, let’s take a look at each of the teams after the first seven months of the year.

POSITION: 1st | TOTAL POINTS: 1232 | JULY POINTS: 136

This month wasn’t as good as the prior months for Pedro’s team as his team finished sixth in monthly scoring, which is a far cry from the really strong months that his team has had before. Still though, he and his team find themselves at the top of the heap, though now only leading second place by 34 points, which means that second place is within striking distance if Pedro’s team trips up again.

The best wrestlers on the team in the month of July were Utami Hayashishita and Mizuki who both scored 18 points, which is pretty good, but nothing spectacular like months before. Coming in second place on the team was Takumi Iroha, scoring 16 points, and she was the only other wrestler on Pedro’s team who scored 15 or more points. It’s not the type of output that Pedro had gotten used to so far this year, but maybe this month was simply a bump in the road and not a pattern.

The unfortunate news is that every wrestler other than the three listed above scored ten or less points this month, which is a far cry from the usual when it comes to the “Outlet Wolfpack.” Normally the team has been praised for their very good balanced scoring, but this time that balance was on the wrong side of the proverbial tracks. The two wrestlers who scored the least amount of points on the team were Tomoka Inaba who scored three points, and Kirari Wakana who only scored two. Pedro will be looking for better in the month of August.

The wait is over for Pedro when it comes to not having a wrestler who had been able to cross the 100 point mark themselves, as he now has four wrestlers who has hit that milestone. With the top wrestler on the team now being Takumi Iroha at 106 points, and fourth place on the team being Mizuki at 100 points, it shows just how close the top of the roster is in terms of points. Hopefully the top four wrestlers on the team will all continue to grow together, though Suzume might not obtain too many points now that she’s lost her International Princess Championship to Moka Miyamoto.

CURRENT POINTS

POSITION: 2nd | TOTAL POINTS: 1198 | JULY POINTS: 177

After a bit of a down month in June, Dylan’s team was able to turn things around in a big way, leading the league in team points for the month of July with 177! Not only was it enough to push the team back into second place somewhat comfortably, but also it helped them gain quite a bit of ground on first place bringing the deficit to only 34 points going into month eight of the year.

As usual, the leader of the team in points for the month was none other than the “ageless wonder” Kaori Yoneyama who scored 22 points, which was good enough for seventh overall in the league. While Yoneyama was the only wrestler on the team to score 20 or more points, Dylan had five other wrestlers who scored 15 or more points which included: Starlight Kid (19), Ruaka (19), Mei Seira (18), Itsuki Aoki (17), and Kohaku (17). Dylan has to be quite happy with a performance like that from the top portion of his team.

Dylan had seven wrestlers, not counting injured reserve score ten or less points this month, which isn’t too bad when you compare it to a lot other teams. Sakura Hirota had a goose egg on the score board, which shouldn’t be too big of a surprise since she’s currently campaigning for local office, meaning that she hasn’t been working as many shows as before. He also didn’t get much out of Chikayo Nagashima or MIRAI this month as both scored five or less. MIRAI being down there is a bit of a surprise with her standing in Marigold, but with most of her matches being tag related, she probably wasn’t taking many pins.

Kaori Yoneyama is still putting on a show in the league by having the highest point total out of all of the wrestlers involved in the fantasy league with 183. A lot of the season, Dylan has had good performances from the wrestlers at the top of the squad, but also has had pretty poor performances from the wrestlers towards the bottom, so if he can get more depth scoring, I think he’ll have a real shot to catch first place within a month or two to really make things interesting.

CURRENT POINTS

POSITION: 3rd | TOTAL POINTS: 1168 | JULY POINTS: 146

Once again my team scored the fourth most points in the league for the month, but unfortunately it only allowed my team to gain some ground on first place, and not the newly second place “Mad Dog Military.” Still though, I can’t be too upset with the results, because up until this point, I don’t think my team has had a really bad month, we’ve always just been towards the top or the middle of the pack, which has allowed us to stay up where we are in the standings. I might need a really big month soon though to help gain some of that ground.

The star of the show for “Oedo Tai” this month was the current World of Stardom champion Saya Kamitani who scored 22 points, which is a pretty good showing, but nothing too spectacular. The fact that she was tied for seventh in the league shows just how low some of the scores were for the overall month. Coming in second place was Hyper Misao who was the only other wrestler on the team to score 15 or more points, which is something I want to improve on over the next month.

There was only eight wrestlers who scored 10 or less points this month which is a pretty good number overall, but getting only one point for a young talent like Nanami Hatano was not in my plans. I also only got two points from Ram Kaicho, which is a lot less than I’d expect from a wrestler like her. I’m also looking for more from Kiyoka Kotatsu and Shinno, though neither of them are on a lot of the shows for their respective companies, so I can’t expect too much.

So far, Saya Kamitani and Rina Yamashita have been kicking some major ass for my team in terms of points, and hopefully they will continue their dominance going forward, because I need a lot more points to catch up with the teams ahead. With Hazuki doing side quests instead of being in the 5 Star, it will be interesting to see her point output over the next month. Hopefully she’ll get quite a few bookings that she can win.

CURRENT POINTS

POSITION: 4th | TOTAL POINTS: 1100 | JULY POINTS: 158

After working hard for quite a few months, Dave’s team “TCS 4 Life” not only finally caught up to the fourth place team “The Icon & Friends”, but also passed them in the standings. It definitely helped that the team had the third best points total for the month, and the team make up of having quite a few freelancers on the roster which can enable them to pick up a lot of points when the big companies aren’t running as much.

In the month of July, the long time veteran Nagisa Nozaki was the one who led the way scoring 20 points, which is quite good for her considering that she’s only scored a total of 69 points this year. Coming in second was the young superstar Azusa Inaba who scored 18 points this month and leads the way for the team in overall points for the year with 129. Dave also got good performances from Marino Saihara and Yuuki Mashiro who both scored 15 or more points this month.

Dave had eight wrestlers score ten or less points this month, including his first round pick Giulia who was a victim of the WWE’s booking style since she didn’t really get booked enough to score any points at all. Still though, the fact that she holds a title in that company, means that you should get a defense out of her at least once every few months, which will generate some points. Dave also didn’t get a lot out of the likes of VENY, Rina, or Unagi Sayaka during the month of July, which is definitely not a normal thing so far this season.

Azusa Inaba has been the biggest bright spot for the team this year and that shows since she leads the pack in overall points for the year on “TCS 4 Life”. Trailing a good bit behind is the reliable freelancing veteran Kakeru Sekiguchi who has recently eclipsed the 100-point mark. It has helped that she’s won three titles this year, but unfortunately she hasn’t had a successful defense of any of them, so that’s quite a few missing points.

CURRENT POINTS

POSITION: 5th | TOTAL POINTS: 1092 | JULY POINTS: 171

Xavi’s team “Rebel X Run” had another stellar month in July, once again finishing in second place overall in terms of points scored for the month with 171. It took a while for Xavi’s team to wake up this year, but now they are on quite a hot streak, which allowed them to follow “TCS 4 Life” up the rankings, moving into fifth place past Scott Edwards’ team. If “Rebel X Run” has another great month in August, there’s a good chance they will be able to move into fourth place in the standings.

Once again, Makoto led the way for the team, this time scoring 21 points, which was still good enough to be 10th overall in the standings for the entire league. Xavi also had six other wrestlers who scored 15 or more points this month which included: Chihiro Hashimoto, Aya Sakura, Ayako Sato, SAKI, Misa Kagura and Mai Sakurai. Having that kind of balanced scoring attack would be the wish of any team in this league. If they can keep this up, there’s no telling how far they will be able to go.

Xavi only had seven wrestlers this month who scored 10 or less points, but one that still sticks out like a sore thumb is Hanako Nakamori who is still out injured, but would normally score quite a few points if she was active. If she comes back soon, that could give this team quite a boost. Mio Momono recently coming back will definitely help as well. You also have to hope for a little more from Chika Goto and AKARI as well, who were both down in that bottom group on the team for this month.

There is quite the difference between the top point scorer and the lowest with Makoto scoring 158 points this year leading the way and Riara bringing up the rear with 11 points. If Xavi could get more point scoring from the depth pieces of his roster, there’s no doubt that this team would be right up near the top of the standings. Instead, they’ve had to overcome some of the shortcomings as they make their play to make it up to the top. Misa Kagura sitting in fourth place on the team with 124 points would be the team leader in points on six of the other teams in the league, which is pretty crazy when you think about it.

CURRENT POINTS

POSITION: 6th | TOTAL POINTS: 1066 | JULY POINTS: 120

Unfortunately for Scott and his team, this month was not a good one, and it ended up costing him two spots in the team standings. The team make-up he has of having 11 wrestlers who are signed to STARDOM or Marigold has backfired a bit, because when those companies aren’t putting on as many matches, it means less chances for his team to gain points on wins. He had lucked out early on by having quite a few title holders among his team, but with that not helping carry him, it looks like he might need to make a change to stop the free fall down the rankings.

During the month of July, Scott’s “ace” Mayu Iwatani led the way in scoring, racking up 18 points, which is definitely solid, but a bit less than you’d probably want from the highest point scorer. Scott’s second best wrestler for the month was Suzu Suzuki who scored 15 points, which once again was pretty good, but not the type of output he’s looking for at this time of the year. Unfortunately, that’s pretty much the only bright spots that the team had this month.

On the flip side, Scott had 10 wrestlers score 10 or less points this month, though one of them is excused since Natsumi Showzuki is currently on the shelf injured. Two of his top four wrestlers this year were down in that group of 10, including Hanan and Victoria Yuzuki who both had a somewhat disappointing month, especially with Hanan losing her Goddesses of Stardom Tag Team Championship right at the end. Hopefully in August the team will be able to turn things around a bit.

Since joining Marigold, Mayu Iwatani has been on quite a hot streak when it comes to scoring points in the league, and I don’t see that halting anytime soon. Her multiple good months in a row has allowed her to take the top spot on the team from Miyu Amasaki who had a really strong start to the year, but has petered off as the year moved ahead. Scott’s team has a great young core with the likes of Hanan, Seri Yamaoka, Victoria Yuzuki, and Senka Akatsuki, but with wrestlers as young as them being some of the most important parts of your team, they can end up being a bit inconsistent when it comes to their booking.

CURRENT POINTS

POSITION: 7th | TOTAL POINTS: 995 | JUNE POINTS: 145

While the two teams that were right ahead of Ryan’s team “God’s Sigh” were able to move up the rankings past “The Icon & Friends”, this team wasn’t able to follow that train ahead, because they were already so far behind. That doesn’t mean that they can’t catch the teams in front of them, it just means that they will have to have a really good month to make up that ground. Still though, they did gain on the sixth place team by having a pretty good month, and with quite a few of the team’s original heavy hitters on the injured list, that’s honestly all you can ask for.

This month, Ryan’s team had the wrestler who scored the most points in the entire league with the leader of H.A.T.E. Natsuko Tora leading the way with 27 points. Obviously, that was helped by the Goddesses of Stardom Championship win, but also from overall strong booking as one of the top heels in STARDOM. Her booking in the 5STAR so far has also scored her quite a few points, but you’ll see more of that in August. Ryan had two other wrestlers who scored 15 or more points including Haruka Umesaki who scored 17 and Shoko Nakajima who scored 15. An overall solid output, but I’m sure Ryan would still want more if he could get it.

Ryan had 10 wrestlers who scored ten or less points in the month of July, which was helped by the fact that Maika has been out injured and Syuri only wrestled at the very beginning of the month, before going out injured herself. Still though, you know he’s looking for more from the likes of Ryo Mizunami and Chi Chi who both only scored seven points this month even though they are both supposed to be heavy hitters on this team. Sareee had a decent month, scoring 12 points, but if you’re the number one pick in the entire league, you have to expect more from her.

Ryan still only has one wrestling on his roster who has passed the 100 point milestone, which is definitely not enough, but he has few more wrestlers approaching it, who could pass it with a good month. Shoko Nakajima is leading the way for the team with 108 points, though one would think that if Maika hadn’t gotten injured, she’d probably be up around that spot as well. Syuri was making a good push towards the top as well, only to be derailed by injury, so let’s hope she’ll be back before we know it.

CURRENT POINTS

POSITION: 8th | TOTAL POINTS: 968 | JULY POINTS: 118

Alex’s team unfortunately was the worst of the bunch in the month of July as they only scored a meager 118 points. For a team that needed to have a couple of good months to work their way up the standings, this did the exact opposite. One of the good things though, is that they had two of the best point scorers in the league for the month, they just unfortunately didn’t get the type of depth scoring they needed to really make a jump upward.

This month, “Alex’s Warbitches” had two wrestlers tie for the lead in points on the team at 23, which was Hina and ZONES. The two may seem like unlikely “top” wrestlers on a team, but they had one hell of a month, and it shows with their point totals. They were unfortunately the only two wrestlers on the team who scored 15 or more points, which leaves a bit to be desired. Yuki Arai had a pretty decent month coming in third with 14 points however, which might mean that the former idol may be on the upswing when it comes to her wrestling career.

Alex had nine wrestlers score 10 points or less this month, including the former points leader on the team Manami Katsu who scored zero points. That definitely had to come as a bit of a shock considering how good she had been for the team thus far this year. Some of Alex’s other consistent point scorers over the past few month DASH Chisako, Leon, and YuuRI all had rough months.

While the points spread on the team is pretty balanced overall, the fact that they don’t have a wrestler who has eclipsed 100 points yet this year is definitely holding them back. Alex’s team make-up is interesting, but also makes things a bit difficult when it comes to gaining a lot of points because it lacks some of the heavy hitters you’d expect to see on a roster. Still though, if the team can get things going, there’s no telling how good of a month they can have.

CURRENT POINTS

POSITION: 9th | TOTAL POINTS: 965 | JUNE POINTS: 124

While it wasn’t a great month for “Casa Royale”, it also wasn’t as bad as it possibly could be. “Casa Royale” had the fourth worst scoring output for a team this month, but it was only six points better than the last place team, which really doesn’t gain them much ground on the teams who scored less. The team seems to be waiting on another wrestler or two to really take big steps forward to help push this team up the rankings, but for now they are just left to float towards the bottom of the heap.

The veteran freelancer who will be retiring soon Tae Honma was the leader in points for the team this month scoring 22, which is quite a good number for her. She’s been pretty steady throughout the year, picking up 82 points total up to this point, so seeing her have such a good month was nice to see. Behind her was Mei Suruga, the leader in points overall for the team, and the only other wrestler who was able to score more than 15 points this month.

There were 10 wrestlers in total who scored less than 10 points this month, which included two wrestlers scoring zero who you wouldn’t expect to see down there in Chie Koishikawa and Mika Iwata. Fernando also can’t be thrilled with the overall output of points for the year from someone like Ayano Irie who once again only scored three points this month, bringing her overall total to 29 for the year. With IYO SKY losing her WWE Women’s World Championship to Naomi, it’s hard telling how many points she’ll score going forward even though she’s one of the best wrestlers in the world. This month she scored seven points, but you have to want more out of her considering how much of the main women’s story has been around her in WWE recently.

The down year continues for this team, but it’s not too late to turn things around a bit. They aren’t too far behind eighth place, and if they have a really good month they could even catch seventh most likely. The issue is that a lot of their team happens to be midcarders in the promotions they work for, meaning that you never know how booking will go for them. Fernando needs the likes of Mei Suruga and Miyu Yamashita to do a lot of heavy lifting as the “ace” of their promotions. Mei Suruga is currently leading the way for the team in overall points, being the only wrestler who has scored more than 100 so far this year on the team. You can’t really be upset with her output, you just wish you could get more from the rest of the bunch.

CURRENT POINTS

POSITION: 10th | TOTAL POINTS: 895 | JUNE POINTS: 121

It has not been a good year for Hart’s team, however this month they weren’t the worst team. They still do need to build their team up quite a bit of they want to catch anyone in the standings since they are currently 70 points behind ninth place, but there’s no use in giving up. Unfortunately for the team after having two of it’s biggest stars and legends retire, there’s not a lot left over to rack up the points, and they haven’t really made any moves to rectify that.

Hart only had one wrestler score more than 15 points this month, but that one wrestler scored enough to be third place in the entire league. Who was this wrestler? It was none other than YUU! No, not you, but YUU. YUU racked up an impressive 25 points this month, helped by the fact that she picked up the Sendai Girls tag team titles with her tag team partner Chihiro Hashimoto. Obviously going forward, the team will need more than just her to have a good month, but this is at least a start.

There were a total of 11 wrestlers on the team who scored ten or less points which is not the outcome that Hart was looking for, especially with the tag team of Magenta, Riko Kawahata and Maria only scoring four points a piece. Also, even though Risa Sera scored 10 points which isn’t terrible, it’s a bit behind the pace she had been setting this year as she had been booked quite strong in many promotions as she gets closer to her retirement at the beginning of next year.

Risa Sera is still leading the pack, though YUU is approaching pretty quickly and may end up passing her with another good month like this past one. This is one of the few teams that has a top wrestler who is still under 100 points, but at least she’s close. If Hart can get more from his depth pieces, which happen to be mostly midcarders, then the team can make a jump, but if that doesn’t happen, they probably won’t be changing positions anytime soon.

CURRENT POINTS

FREE AGENTS

This was a banner month when it comes to the free agent board as I mentioned before, there were two out of the top four wrestlers overall who are still free agents to this day. Ami Kanda scored a whopping 26 points this month, good enough for second best in the league, and Moka Miyamoto scored 25 points which was tied for third place! A great effort from both free agents! Some other good performances came from Mizuki Kato from DIANA who scored 20 points this month, along with the veteran Moeka Haruhi from Ganbare Pro who scored 15 points. Now let’s take a look at the top five current free agents!

TOP 5 IN OVERALL POINTS (FREE AGENTS)

As you can see, there’s still some pretty great talents out on the free agents list, so it will be interesting to see if anyone picks up any of these girls going forward to try to give their team a bit of a boost in points. Sometimes even picking up one wrestler who can give you around 10 points a month can make a big difference to your overall point total.

As always, I’d like to thank you for giving this a read, and showing interest in my little projects. If you ever have questions or want to reach out, feel free to use my Twitter handle down below to get a hold of me. Also, make sure to check out the awesome content creators that are taking part in this fantasy league by using their Twitter link below and giving them a follow.