As someone that stopped watching WWE years ago, never watched much AEW but saw this all happening online, the Cody Rhodes thing makes me feel like I woke up in a parallel universe one day. I’ve always liked the guy but never in my wildest dreams would’ve thought of him as a top tier babyface and someone that gets to beat Brock Lesnar clean. Especially neck tattoo Cody Rhodes, I honestly thought he was shooting himself in the foot with that move. Obviously not though.

I have to be annoying you a little bit now but I just have to report. It’s now day 3 and Maika’s theme song is still stuck in my head. Not sure how I’m going to rid myself of it.

Weird, I’ve definitely not watched that ROH PPV but I’ve definitely seen Maika somewhere before. But that actually goes for a few of these women, and I’m probably mixing things I’ve seen lurking on Reddit with things I’ve actually watched.

You’ll have to forgive me because I’ve now got decades of wrestling in the faulty hard drive in my brain and the filesystem is probably a little corrupted by now lol, so a lot of dates and metadata is missing.

Jumbo Princess

That sounds so familiar to me. I think she might have been at Historic X-over 1. I’ve watched so much of this in the last few days that I’m slipping here. There’s definitely a few that I’ve seen or at least heard of before though. But it would’ve been once offs and cameos in US promotions so I can’t really pinpoint when and where.

Maika

Just have to say, I’ve had her entrance music stuck in my head on a loop since I woke up yesterday morning. I’ve definitely seen her before, maybe even in TNA. And she’s a wrestler I’m for sure keeping an eye on right now.

I’ll break your heart off the bat, don’t expect Syuri/Sohrei lol

Ok this is embarrassing but I checked the promo I saw and I confused Ami Sohrei with someone else… To be fair to me though, not only was it a shocking scene but I tried to unsee it as soon as I saw it, in anticipation.

It was actually a wrestler called Himeka. And it was a press conference scene where at first Syuri and Himeka seemed really aggressive towards each other, only for Himeka to fucking kiss Syuri?! And it also sounded like she made a pun afterwards about Syuri sounding like yuri lmao. NOT what I was expecting to see in a Japanese promotion.

I feel pretty shitty now that I thought it was Ami Sohrei (and a little disappointed if I’m being honest). I’ve only seen her in multi women matches so far and I’m probably a bit overloaded with new wrestlers to keep track of right now. Plus I only watched the promo once and my eyes fell out of their sockets and I immediately started jumping to conclusions lol.

Tam Nakano

Honestly not all that surprised to hear that she’s a creative mastermind. I definitely got the impression right off the bat that interesting non-title match storylines are kinda her domain.

Tam was quite harsh on her

Tam Nakano is another one that has been intriguing me a lot, probably because she was the first one I saw that was involved in an obvious non-title storyline. The ‘kawaii’ thing really doesn’t do it for me but watching her go from the end of some sort of odd couple relationship with Aja Kong to picking up a stray Starlight Kid, she seems much more interesting than the ‘kawaii’ lets on. She also comes across to me like she may possibly be missing a marble or two lol. And while I’m at it, Natsupoi also comes across as much more of a wild child than first impressions would give. It’s actually hard to pin anything down to a subculture and have certain expectations as far as Japan goes lol. Because you’ll have someone in a white frilly outfit with a ‘kawaii’ gimmick coming out to symphonic metal entrance music and acting generally unhinged. One of my favourite Natsupoi moments so far was watching her have a good munch on someone’s arm at ringside, then looking at the camera with crazy eyes and wiping her mouth lol.

Saori Anou

Also one of my immediate favourites before I even knew much about her. Love her style, entrance music and general attitude. She gives me video game character vibes lol. Like she would fit well as a Tekken character.

I also just want to also mention, because where else am I going to get this all off my chest. But the potential feud that I saw and am now very much looking forward to involves Syuri & Ami Sohrei. Both also immediately caught me from the first show. Honestly if I could ever get to see Syuri vs Ami Sohrei vs Lady C vs HANAKO, I think I would be in heaven. But Syuri vs Ami Sohrei will be more than enough to sate me for now (please don’t say I’ve already missed this).

Honestly though, at this point there’s rarely a match where I’m not rooting for at least one person in each corner. Unless it’s Oedo Tai. I love them but they beat up (and often steamroll) all my favourites so I also hate them lol.

Chocopro

I have heard about this promotion before and from what I understand, it’s one of the more wild and wacky promotions as far as storylines go. Probably right up my alley and I definitely need to check it out too.

Ah so it’s definitely already happened from where I started. All Star Queendom was April 24 I think. Glad to know because a little bit of worry has been creeping in while I’m starting to figure out who my favourites are. Like, I would be devastated if I lost Yuna Mizumori now after just finding her. She gives the impression that she’s having the absolute time of her life every time she’s out there. Her and Jody Threat from TNA would be a bonkers tag team.

I definitely recognise a lot of those names, so they do seem like fairly high profile losses though. But I might catch them soon elsewhere. Not gonna do too much more exploring until I can name the Stardom wrestlers without jumping between web pages. But while Stardom and TJPW are the main two on this website, I have also spotted Sendai and Marigold floating around. So I’ll probably at least check it all out eventually.

I’ll get around to checking out official pages and stuff, for now though I’m just trying to avoid spoilers. I’ve already spoiled one future feud between members of the same faction (at least I hope it’s still in the future and not even further back because I am for damn sure looking forward to it now) while trying to look for translated promos on the Stardom YouTube page (and failing).

So for now, I’m still doing this mostly blind and probably reading into feuds and dynamics a little bit and making up my own head canon based on what I can piece together. But once I’ve caught up or am close to it, I do intend to do some more thorough research and bookmarking of good resources.

If you don’t mind me asking YET ANOTHER question. I think you mentioned that when management changed, 6 wrestlers walked. Am I past that point yet or is it still coming? And if it is still coming, do you mind telling me who it is that walks so that I don’t get too attached or anything?

Hope you don’t mind but I just want to come back to the commentary thing now that I’m done with the 7 Golden Week shows (I actually didn’t end up skipping through much at all, so it’s taken time). But I’m realising that as a noob, bad English commentary is actually better than no English commentary. At least when you’re first getting into it.

I’m thinking of how when I watched NJPW for a while a few years ago, by now I would’ve known everyone’s name by memory and probably also their motivations and shit. Those commentators were actually ok when they’re just being wrestling nerds with stat sheets and bullet points and not trying to do the Michael Cole big match voice and acting like they’ve been friends with these people backstage for decades.

But on the Stardom side of things, the majority of my viewing has now been without any commentary at all and without any match graphics or graphics of any kind (and if there are match graphics, it’s a 50/50 if you’re even going to see a wrestlers name in the Latin alphabet). So I’ve been switching to another web page throughout that has the match card written down but is pretty inconsistent in listing faction associations and champions.

So while there’s definitely wrestlers that I can name on sight, it’s taking me much longer to get to the point where I don’t need a quick reminder of someone’s exact name or the spelling while I’m watching. But I’m getting there.

Just wanted to say, I’ve sightly changed my mind regarding commentary since last time. I think these no commentary shows will be more enjoyable once I know everyone properly but as a noob, a bit of English is super helpful.

Based on what I’ve seen so far, Thekla would immediately add a strong language rating to the show lol. She could definitely work as the heel commentator that makes excuses or looks the other way when someone does something bad though.

I’d still love to actually learn Japanese though. I say that but my life is basically full of unfinished projects and plans with no action lol so, we’ll see if that ever actually happens. But one thing that I still feel like I’m missing out on that subtitles and commentary will probably never fully cover is all of the shit talking in the ring. Which there is a lot of. And a lot of these women seem fucking hilarious.

Which right now, makes Thekla’s chirps especially funny because it’s a rare time I can understand exactly what someone is saying. The latest one I just saw was her saying to the ref “why are you always on my ass, bro?” None of the audience reacted but I thought it was fucking funny.

Oh very cool. I’ve actually been considering giving the Google Translate app or something similar that can translate speech a try lol.

I would honestly prefer just subtitles to gaijin commentary. I went back and watched Historic X-over 1. Thought I might as well seeing as there’s only been two so far and watched the English commentary. And while it was nice getting an English break down of Mayu Iwatani and Kairi’s backstories for example, those commentators were such fucking dorks lol.

I think it has the same problem for me as English commentary for Mexican stuff has been in my experience so far. They don’t come across as part of the show but rather tourists or outsiders, or fans, which I guess they are. So I don’t believe them when they start putting on their ‘emotional’ big fight Michael Cole voices.

It’s better than nothing but if Stardom were to ever get English commentary or at least show hosts, I would way prefer if it was someone homegrown that can speak English, even if it’s not perfect English, over Americans or Brits that come across more like people who post in wrestling forums than a part of the show.

While I’m kinda between promotions and exploring my options, I might as well throw hearsay and assumptions out the window and give AEW and ROH a decent shot again. Probably gonna burn myself out in a few months time lol but it’s been a long time since I’ve made the effort to check out everything else and I’m enjoying it for now at least.

Nice, thanks. I never think about checking YouTube for wrestling. I think a few smaller / indie promotions use YouTube. And TNA of course.

I’ll get around to checking out AEW again. I’m going to be watching the crossovers while I’m catching up with Stardom here for a bit of variety, which gives me Forbidden Door 2024 to still get to.

And maybe I’ll check out EVE some time. UK wrestling in general seems to be rare to come across in the wild on the internet.

Yeah I was actually kinda thinking that while I was typing it. It’s probably going to be difficult finding a wrestling promotion where pieces of shit haven’t been involved in some way. It’s just that the TNA thing is fresh and blatant and the timing of them hiring Tessa Blanchard, right when a bunch of companies were bending over and removing diversity and fairness, was fucking awful.

But I agree, I have felt a bit like a hypocrite saying that I’m gonna drop TNA for NXT. I’m just not sure where else to go for good women’s wrestling from the USA. Maybe things have changed but I very much have the impression that it’s an afterthought in both AEW and ROH. And I’m not prepared to put up with people like the Young Bucks just for one women’s match in 3 hours lol.

But I’m hooked on Stardom right now anyway and haven’t even been in the mood for TNA or NXT. And I found a website that also has TJPW and a bunch of Japanese stuff. So it might be keeping me busy enough in the next few months to not even miss American pro wrestling.

Thanks! I might skip through some of it, or else I feel like I’m probably only going to catch up to 2025 by 2026 lol. But I see now it is worth checking out, even not just for title matches. Coming up to a tag match with SLK & Tam Nakano in a team, which I guess advances that story I saw start in Queendom. And honestly I think I’m kinda liking the no commentary.

I need to ask just one more question if you don’t mind lol. Just started watching ‘GoldenWeek’. I don’t think I saw this listed (amongst a couple of other things here) on that Wikipedia page. And on the steam I’m watching at least, there’s no commentary or match graphics / stats. And the sound quality is pretty weird, like the ring is loud and you can even hear the vinyl of their ring gear squeaking. At least in this first match I’m watching so far.

Are these kinds of shows basically just house shows that they’ve recorded? Or should I expect any story and rivalry developments here?

Nice, thanks for all the info. And I’ve actually just found another ‘watch-wrestling’ website (this one with a hyphen) that has Stardom and a lot more Japanese stuff on offer than the old watchwrestling website I’ve been using. And it seems to list everything here in a handy chronological list. So looks like I’m set.

Nice! I’m honestly itching to get to the rest of it now. Thought I’d start catching up with NXT but I’m just in the mood for more Stardom at this point.

If you don’t mind me asking a quick question. I’ve made myself a quick list of all the big events from where I am to current day based on this Wikipedia page, while ignoring any results as best I could. Looks like a good excuse to catch a NJPW show here and there and finally check out Rev Pro. Then apart from the big events, from what I’ve gathered their weekly show is ‘We Are Stardom!!’ and that runs on weekends? Am I correct with that and is this basically everything I need to know?

Just finished. A 5 hour runtime (minus two pre show matches) is actually pretty brutal, so I ended up taking multiple breaks. But I’m definitely in. It has everything from flippy rookies to hoss legends and in between.

Realised that Oedo Tai aren’t simply trouble causers and tweeners but full heels (although cool heels). So I’m probably going to be loving to hate them. Kinda pissed with them now after the way they turned on Starlight Kid lol.

I’ve got quite a few first impression favourites so far. Although I haven’t looked up translations or too much info yet, so I don’t really know them yet. I don’t want to spoil current storylines or champs before I get there, so I guess I’m just gonna go low information for now. But it’s enough to hook me. Now I just hope it’s not going to be too much trouble looking for shows between then and now.