There may not be an Ace better to a promotion than Mei Suruga is to ChocoPro, and now seven years into her career it’s nearly impossible to picture one without the other.
The Apple Girl has become synonymous with the chocolate mat of Ichigaya and everything it represents; from the infectious sense of fun and vibrancy, the pure unbridled chaos and creativity, the earnest love of pro wrestling and perhaps more importantly – the genuine talent and skill that continues to develop from the house that Emi built.
Mei Suruga’s journey to wrestling was as quick as she is inside the ring. Straight after graduating high school, a teenage Mei moved from Kyoto to Tokyo, signed up to Emi’s Darejyo project, and then a month later was already competent enough to step inside the ring in front of an audience.
Knowing the speed that she went from her first day of training to her first day as a professional makes rewatching Mei’s progress over the rookie year all the more fascinating. The resume Suruga racked up over the first 12 months was like being thrown in the deep end and being told to swim. Mei was given a host of key singles matches against those circling the Gatoh Move orbit. In many ways it’s quite reminiscent to a rookie year we’d see years later from Mei’s first disciple: Miya Yotsuba.
What we see from rookie Mei is the raw, unripened apple that’s still growing on the tree. But it’s impressive just how quickly current Mei Suruga starts to take shape through 2018.
Mei Suruga vs. Emi Sakura
- May 27, 2018 (Debut Match), Kitazawa Town Hall
One month of training (and one pre-debut exhibition) and it’s astonishing just how comfortable Mei already looks inside the ring. This isn’t an overly complicated match by its nature, but that’s not a bad thing. It focuses on the important things, establishing who this brand new wrestler is and what to expect from her in the future.
In the first eight minutes of her pro career you already see moves that would become a staple of her repertoire even in 2025; the Cattle Mutilation, the springboard arm drag and the leg trap flash pin. There’s already flashes of her pesky personality coming when she gets the advantage early and controls Emi’s leg on the ground. This is the kind of thing that rookies normally take months to start getting down, and that’s also after months of training.
The other thing of note is just how smooth she already looks in the ring. There’s very little hesitation in her movements and she doesn’t seem to have to be thinking about the actions, instead focusing on the performance. Obviously having Emi as not only a trainer but as your opponent is about as ideal a situation as one could ask for, but this is the kind of performance that speaks to a high potential future.
Mei Suruga vs. Riho
- June 3, 2018 (3rd Match), Ichigaya Chocolate Square
The future Ace of the promotion in the third match of her career squaring off against the then Ace of the promotion Riho on the not quite chocolate mat of Ichigaya Square. Riho was one of the wrestlers Mei named as drawing her to Gatoh Move in the first place as she looked for wrestlers that were similarly as short as her and where they were thriving.
Learning to wrestle in Ichigaya presents certain challenges that not a lot of other places do. With the audience a foot or two away from the action at any one time there’s very little room to hide, especially for a rookie. You can see how good some of Mei’s early forearm strikes are as she forces Riho back into the watching crowd, and in such a cramped space she’s already being forced to adapt her agile style – something that would later become her forte.
There are moments where the Mei Suruga character starts to come out or she plays to the crowd, and it manages to get her cheered over the popular ace Riho. It’s still pretty segmented this early into her career (this is just one week after her debut mind you) but it serves a handy point of comparison to when she’s flicked the switch to a full character in just a few months time, and how much it adds to her matches.
Mei Suruga vs Aoi Kizuki
- June 10, 2018 (5th Match), HEAT UP Dojo, Kanazawa
Normally there wouldn’t be this much focus on the first two weeks of a wrestler’s career, but this match should carry some added interest for newer ChocoPro fans who will recognise Mei’s opponent as the current General Manager of the promotion. Before Aoi ran the madhouse she was one of the inmates. While their in-ring careers only overlapped by five months, the connection these two shared was enough for Aoi to bring Mei in for her retirement match, and it was from Aoi Kizuki where Mei adopted the wings she uses in her entrance to this day.
There’s a clear ramp up in complexity to this match compared to her debut match against Emi just a a couple of weeks prior. More is being asked of her as a performer, whether it is in the execution of spots, small implementation of comedy or just the general layout of the match. While her match with Emi felt like the best possible version of a debut showcase, this felt more like how a standard match would be laid out, and it was up to Mei to step up to the plate and carry her share of the load. Mei is more than up to it though.
It’s the little things like comparing the Apple Mutilation here to the Emi Sakura match. Even from a distance you could see it wasn’t applied very tight against Emi but the sheer gall to go for it on your debut made up for the execution. Contrast it to here against Aoi and it looks cleaner, and there’s the added psychology of going for a reset when she starts to lose her grip and positioning.
This is still the barest bones version of Mei Suruga, but these first matches show her in three different situations and that adaptability is already on display. It wouldn’t take long for her to really find her voice.
Mei Suruga vs. Emi Sakura
- October 7, 2018 (36th Match), Ichigaya Chocolate Square
What a difference a couple of months can make.
Mei’s debut match against Emi Sakura was a great first showing no doubt, but in the rematch a few months later we see a completely different side of her, one that will be far more familiar to fans of the Apple Girl. From the very start that bratty side of Mei is on full display, slapping away Emi’s offer of a handshake with the exuberant bravado that makes typically heelish actions hard to not cheer for.
This is a very personality driven performance from both wrestlers, using the full breadth of Ichigaya to their advantage. We see Mei springboarding off the wall into a crossbody – a move she’d make a hallmark as she continued to grow – but done out of a headlock and turning through very limited space. She kicks Emi out of the window and then proceeds to block her attempts to get back inside. Throughout the match her mentor is clearly growing annoyed by her protege’s antics.
It’s not just the charisma, though. We see Mei busting out the ‘Cute on Purpose’ pin, as well as Emi incorporating multiple counter attempts to it. There are more complicated sequences on display as well as technical counters. This isn’t just a Mei Suruga who has found her voice, it’s one who has grown in confidence as a wrestler as well. She’s more aggressive and moves with added purpose.
It’s matches like this that highlight the rapid growth of Mei Suruga, the chemistry she has with Emi, and the beauty of Ichigaya as a wrestling location.
Mei Suruga vs. Mizuki
- December 11, 2018 (59th Match), Shinkiba-1st Ring
Serving as arguably her most complete match yet, Mei Suruga combines the personality driven side of her October battle with Emi Sakura with a more traditional match layout against former Emi trainee and current TJPW star Mizuki.
We see another signature Mei flash pin for the first time in the series, adding to the list of 2025 staples she already had in her bag from the start. More importantly, however, this match is set to a higher pace than most of her previous encounters. The tempo picks up at regular intervals, tying in combination spots and back and forth struggles that are a hallmark of the high-speed style that Mei Suruga would soon prove herself an artist of.
Mizuki herself is a great foil for Mei: in many ways she feels like a more advanced and experienced version of her at this point in time. She’s small and agile who can escape out of predicaments with ease and can overwhelm opponents with her speed. There’s also the playfulness to her performance that rookie Mei bounces off of but is also kind of chasing in this match.
By this point, the core framework of the Mei Suruga character is already forming nicely just shy under seven months into her career. What would come next is more about continuing to develop and improve each area, but you could watch this match of hers and compare it to a 2025 Mei Suruga match and instantly recognise the wrestler based on their mannerisms and general performance.
Mei Suruga vs. Yoshiko
- March 22, 2019 (91st Match), Shin-kiba 1st Ring
A big part about being a rookie is learning on the job. For most of Mei’s first year, she didn’t really have to face too many hoss-type wrestlers who could dominate an opponent.
As she approached the end of her first year, Mei got that experience against Yoshiko in Shin-Kiba. Suruga tried her usual antics early, but Yoshiko wasn’t in the mood for games, which served as much of the story throughout the match. Mei would try to get inside the head of her opponent, all the while ducking and weaving, doing her best not to get caught.
Almost as you would expect, this was the best example of Mei’s selling. She was facing a power wrestler who was flooring her with single hits, and it was also important to get the crowd sympathetic to her cause. Despite her attempts early on to get the crowd (successfully) chanting ‘Yosh-i-ko’, there was a clear underdog story at play here, and they worked that angle better than any of her previous matches. For all of Mei’s antics, it’s easy to cheer her in this kind of match.
The heat-up spot and subsequent near-falls get the crowd on the edge of their seat, and that’s earned through Mei playing a great babyface in peril without sacrificing her character. This match is about taking what she had learned through the previous months and adapting it to a different scenario, something she does very well.
One Day Tournament: Mei Suruga vs. Emi Sakura & Mei Suruga vs.Yuna Mizumori
- May 6, 2019 (110th & 111th Matches), Ichigaya Chocolate Square
This is the culmination of a year’s work for the rookie Mei Suruga. While this wouldn’t be the one-year anniversary match (a celebration that would become a yearly tradition for Mei and ChocoPro) it effectively served as the first of two graduation marks. The winner of the one-day tournament would earn the right to challenge Riho for the Super Asia Championship; and to get there Mei would have to go through her mentor Emi Sakura as well as another young up and comer in Yuna Mizumori. Challenging the Ace in a title match was a huge opportunity fresh into Mei’s second year, but both of these matches in Ichigaya Square helped remind everyone just how far the young prodigy had come in such a short time.
The semi-final match with Emi Sakura already felt like two veterans at work as used their unparalleled chemistry to manipulate the enraptured crowd and the entirety of Ichigaya Square. This took all of the advancements of their October match and dialed everything up another level. Emi added the element of a ‘back injury’ which fed much of the matches story, but it didn’t slow down the action – if anything it sped things up. At one point they were performing Jackie Chan-esque prop comedy. Mei is keeping up with an industry legend and basically riffing with her to entertain the crowd, all the while showing off her smooth wrestling.
Awaiting her in the final was Yuna Mizumori, someone who had debuted just a few months earlier than her in February of 2018. In a rare turn of events, Mei was in control for most of the match against someone of a similar experience level, utilising everything she had picked up over the year to keep her peer on the back foot.
It was a testament to their training and early experience to see how they handled an unexpected accident. When Mei Suruga’s foot slid on the Gatoh Move sign on the wall going for her springboard crossbody there was no awkward pause or hesitation as they processed what to do next now the spot had been blown. Mei Suruga sold the fall and Yuna Mizumori quickly capitalised on her fallen foe before tearing the banner away and throwing it out the window. They took a bad moment and worked with it, handling it so well you’d be forgiven for thinking it was planned.
These two matches were the perfect showcase of Mei’s growth over her first year and perfectly set her up for a June 4 title match with Riho and a second year in pro wrestling. The reality is Mei was already more than just a rookie at this point, she was helping Emi train the next batch of graduates of the Dareyjo Project – bringing up the fourth generation that featured wrestlers who are still mainstays for the promotion to this day like Chie Koishikawa, Sayaka, and Tokiko Kirihara.
The idea a sophomore was already helping train the next batch of stars sounds crazy – but then again so was Mei’s debut after just a month. She was a special rookie, and seven years later she’s only continuing to prove that.
Also in the Year One series:
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