TJPW: and what makes it special
In this piece I take a look at the distinct qualities of TJPW. Let's go!
First Experience:
TJPW is a Tokyo based professional wrestling promotion, that is focused on women’s wrestling, or since its a japanese promotion; Joshi wrestling, and I am sure that the majority of the TJPW fans do remember their first contact with TJPW, and that’s because TJPW stands out from the start, the first thing that you always see on the show is ring announcer and actress Sayuri Namba, running through the rules and card, followed by idol group turned professional wrestlers; the Up Up Girls, that always perform a live gig to start off the show. And as if that wasn’t enough, then you can see the most passionate group of professional wrestlers in the world, no matter their position on the promotion’s power curve.
I do remember my first experience, it was the pictured match, I was scrolling through twitter one day and then I saw Miyu Yamashita with an attempted decapitation towards Hikari Noa, using her lethal last strike the Skull Kick, and that gif alone made me fall in love with Miyu’s ring work, which lead me to check out the entire show. This is proof that gifs ARE benefitial to your product and to help reach new viewers, not looking at anybody in particular right now. And then I saw the craziest set of characters with the likes of Hyper Misao, Haruna Neko, Pom Harajuku and the Bakuretsu sisters among others, which leads me to:
The roster:
Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling does have one of the most complete rosters in the world, going from fun talent like the superhero Hyper Misao, that will bend the rules to her advantage to protect peace and love, to the wildlife like Haruna Neko, Kaya Toribami, Suzume and Arisu Endo, a deathmatch lover like Hikari Noa, and the top of the card with standout performers like Miyu Yamashita, Maki Itoh, Yuka Sakazaki, Rika Tatsumi or Shoko Nakajima, just to name a few. And they have such a strong roster despite losing many talent over the years, that search their own way into superstardom status, but they compensate the departures by creating some of the most exciting rookies in the whole world.
In their nearly decade long history, they’ve created wrestlers that have come from other entertainment businesses like Yuki Arai, the UUG, and Maki Itoh, while also bulding up athletes from other disciplines like Miyu Yamashita, Zyuria Nagano who’s set to debut in march and Moka Miyamoto. TJPW may lose wrestlers, but they bring up new superstars from up their sleeve, and this creates an infinite loop of talented people, that TJPW can translate into professional wrestling.
Variety:
The thing with this company is that you can’t say it’s just comedy wrestling, nor serious wrestling, neither outlandish matches or anything like that, there is no way to put TJPW in a box and say that it is 100% something, because on one match you can have Shoko Nakajima fighting Hyper Misao in a red and white rope rename in the capsule match, where the loser had to rename themselves for a temporary time, other day you can have Hikari Noa having a hardcore match against deathmatch icon Rina Yamashita, you can also have the French originated faction Neo Bishiki-Gun being the best tag team of the division while also carrying the elegance and grace that models walking Milan’s fashion gangways could only dream about having and other day you can have Mizuki and Yuka Sakazaki, having an emotional bout that was match of the year worthy.
Yes TJPW does comedy, yes TJPW is outlandish and yes, TJPW isn’t like your regular wrestling promotion… and what about it? It’d be so boring if every promotion did the same thing, variety is key, and TJPW is remarkable at it. You never know what’s gonna happen next on TJPW, and that is a huge strong point for them. But as I said, it’s not only comedy, there’s also wrestlers that carry nothing but wrestling prowess in their matches, special mention to:
Miyu Yamashita:
With every poker shuffle, there comes an ace, and Miyu Yamashita is the ace of TJPW. Being an original from the promotion in 2013, Miyu herself has had quite the journey, she didn’t want to pursue wrestling at first, she wanted to be an idol which is clear by looking at her early work for the company. But TJPW needed someone to bring them to new heights, Yamashita caught the opportunity and ran all the way with it, first ever wrestler to win the Princess of Princess championship 3 times, being currently in her third run with it, having captured the title from Rika Tatsumi back in May 2021, she has defended successfully against Yuka Sakazaki in the first ever Cyberfight Festival, then Sakisama, Maki Itoh and Mizuki, having stellar performance after stellar performance.
Miyu Yamashita has held the title for nearly half of its existence and a third of her entire career, surpassing 1000 days being the top of the iceberg, breaking record after record, the Momoiro striker is the flagship of TJPW’s excellence, if you want to make it big in the promotion, you have to go through her.
(Shout out twitter users @Nambasanreacts and @KairiFanPW for pointing out these incredible statistics about Miyu in their accounts)
Heartbreak:
There is something that I’ve made emphasis on throughout this entire article, and it’s that TJPW is not your average promotion, nor form of entertainment nor even piece of media. Many entertainment artpieces fall into the cliche of creating a happy ending just to send the consumers happy and wanting to come back for more, and yet again, this company does not fall into that. Not everything is sunshine and rainbows, sometimes everything goes wrong no matter how hard you work, or try, or badly want something, if it has to go south, it will. Mizuki vs Yuka Sakazaki on the first Wrestle Princess is living memory of that, Mizuki had previously won the Princess Cup, which gives the right to challenge for the Princess of Princess championship, which at the time was held by her best friend and tag team partner, Yuka Sakazaki. This was finally the moment for Mizuki, she’d been working so hard for so long to finally be at the top, she had the chance on the biggest show with the biggest stakes on the line… and she failed.
History would repeat itself one year after, with another fan favorite going at it, someone in the exact same position that Mizuki was, had the chance to rewrite history for herself, finally beating also their best friend, after having won the Princess Cup as well, that also gave her the right to go to WP to challenge for the POP title, that woman is Maki Itoh. The perennial underdog had the chance to overthrow the reign of the ace Miyu Yamashita, after a remarkable Princess cup run, defeating Mizuki in the process, the new era charisma had never defeated Yamashita on a 1v1 bout… and she didn’t either this time. At the end the rich become richer, the poor become more broke and TJPW isn’t shy of breaking hearts, and that is exactly what makes TJPW special.
Thank you for reading <3