The 2020 COVID Pandemic shut down must of the world, and it was especially hard for the wrestling world. A beautiful art such as professional wrestling deserves a passionate crowd to live and breathe the magic only this spectacle can generate.
Thanks to Japan’s excellent handling of the pandemic, people were able to attend wrestling shows as soon as June 2020, at least in some capacity. TJPW had several shows at their dojo between April and May and welcomed fans back with “Koko Ni Iruzee!” on June 13th. From then, the promotion presented various shows throughout the summer, including a Korakuen Hall outing in July and five nights of the Princess Cup in August, culminating with Mizuki winning the trophy for the second year in a row.
By this point, TJPW have already announced they were holding their biggest show yet: Wrestle Princess, scheduled to take place at the Tokyo Dome City Hall, on November 7. Destined to be a turning point for the promotion, the event marked the first step of a brand-new era.
Let’s take a moment to relive this historic event, seven years later.
The Up Up Girls and two big announcements
Normally, every TJPW event starts with an Up Up Girls performance, and that night was no exception as the trio of Raku, Miu Watanabe, and Hikari Noa pumped up the crowd like only they know how.
Also, two new additions to the roster were presented: Nao Kakuta, who previously worked for Actwres girl’Z would join TJPW, and Arisu Endo, a new trainee and former idol (of course) in a group produced by former Princess of Princess champion, and former idol herself, would have her debut match at Tokyo Joshi Pro’ 21.
Preliminary matches
To kick things off, the team of Sena Shiori and Suzume faced Moka Miyamoto and Mei Suruga, with the latter making her debut in the promotion. A fun little outing that had Sena and The Bee as the winners and serving its purpose: leave us wanting a Suzume-Mei Suruga singles match…desperately. Lucky for us, we were going to have our wish granted a few years later.
The second match saw Mahiro Kiryu and Pom Harajuku going upo aganinst Haruna Neko and the returning Marika Kobashi, wrestling full time for TJPW for the first time since May 2019. Unfortunately, Kobashi and Neko couldn’t get the job done and were defeated by Pom and Mahiro.
Midcard matches
The middle part of the card had Raku and Yuna Manase facing off in a singles match, and even thought Raku used all of her best moves and tactics (pretending to sleep in the middle of the match), it was Yuna who came on top in the end.
Next, we had a match with lots of history behind it. Saki Akai, made a guest appearance to face Hyper Misao, and as we all know, Akai’s close friend Sakisama once had the superheroine under her control and made her the despicable villain MISAO. Naturally, Hyper Misao would want to seek some kind of revenge the only way she could: with a Switching Ramdom Rules match. WE went from the trivial “No kicking” rule to the silly “You have to spin 10 times in order to pin your opponent” and “Falls Count Anywhere as long as you eat a bag of chocolate” (similar to Misao’s match against Jun Kasai). Then, we went to the real stuff when both women had a little help: Yukio Sekiguchi, Saki’s from Eruption, and Sanshiro Takagi, the president of DDT. Once the men fought each other out the stage, Saki and Misao had only one stipulation left: Last Woman Standing. In the end, Akai hit the superheroine with the Quetzalcoatl to put her way and win this chaotic match.
And speaking of matches that left us wanting more, Miyu Yamashita teamed up with TJPW’s semi-regular Aja Kong going up against Maki Itoh and none other than Sareee. It was well known the The Sun Goddess was under the WWE radar, but the pandemic put the brakes on that, so, in the meantime, she had her second match in the promotion. Aja and Maki had those fun interactions one expected from both of them, but the real deal was having Sareee and the Pink Striker in the same ring, exchanging kicks like their life depended on it. Yamashita and Kong got the victory in this one, but unfortunately, as of the time of this writing, we haven’t had that dream match between Sareee and Miyu Yamashita.
A new International Princess Champion to be crowned
In January 2020, Thunder Rosa defeated Maki Itoh to win the International Princess Championship. However, the travel restrictions prevented Rosa from going to Japan and defending the title. This went on for months until she was stripped from the belt and a tournament was announced to crown a new champion at Wrestle Princess. In October, Yuki Kamifuku, Shoko Nakajima, Mirai Maiumi, and Hikari Noa won a series of singles matches to advance to the semi-finals of the tournament, which took place during the big event. Kamiyu defeated the Big Kaiju and Hikari eliminated Mirai early in the night, so they faced each other in the finals, with The Casual Beauty winning in the finals and being crowned the new International Princess Champion.
BAKURETSU Sisters vs Daydream II
Real life sisters Nodoka Tenma and Yuki Aino had several failed attempts at the Princess Tag Team Championships, including a loss against Daydream at Tokyo Joshi Pro’ 20. That night, ten months after their first encounter, the sisters had the chance to redeem themselves. A few days removed from their one-year anniversary with the titles, Rika Tatsumi and Miu Watanabe looked stronger than ever, and so did their opponents, which led to a frenetic match that culminated with Yuki Aino hitting Miu with a big double underhook suplex to finally capture the title that eluded her and her sister for so long.
Both teams demonstrated they were made for each other in the ring, and they would have an even better match just a couple of years later.
Magical Sugar Rabbits Collide
This was it. The match that made this event possible. One of the most important matches in TJPW history, no exaggeration.
When Mizuki won the Princess Cup in 2019, she challenged Shoko Nakajima but failed to win the gold. One year later, she won the Cup once again, in a tournament that almost didn’t happen, and was determined to win the title at all costs. There was only one problem, the champion this time was her tag team partner and best friend, Yuka Sakazaki, who, at that point, had a one-year reign with the promotions top prize. MagiRabi imploded in an instant classic that lasted a whopping 25 minutes, with every second feeling special. From the dramatic wardrobe malfunction that Yuka suffered just minutes into the match to the debut of the Whirling Candy, that very same move that makes Mizuki go viral every time she hits it. Yuka had to do what she had to do and pull her biggest move, a 450° Splash, to pin her friend and retained her title. The two women knew they looked like a mess after the hard-hitting battle, but they also knew they delivered the match of their lives.
The closing image of the event was all the girls in the ring and thanking the fans in attendance and those watching on Wrestle Universe. We also are thankful and proud of those girls for giving us such a great event and growing so much before our eyes.
