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Wesna Busic wins double titles on Dream Catchers show
The final Dream Catchers show was Sept. 3 at Shin-kiba 1st Ring. The big news coming out of this is that The Croatian Panther Wesna Busic defeated Hikaru in 19:25 and is now the EWA Wonens Champ and NSG Champ. She will defend both titles against Ayako Hamada on the debut of Pro Wrestling SUN Oct. 1 at Korakuen Hall. More on that show in a minute. Wesna said afterwards that Hikaru is strong but she is stronger and she has proven that the German is stronger than the Japanese and she has two belts to prove it. She is looking forward to defending the titles against an impertinent Mexican.
Not surprisingly, Dadae Takahashi vs Amazing Kong ended in a double countout at 7:49 and in the main event, Nanae Takahashi & Ayako Hamada defeated Hikaru & Saki Maemura in 33:19. After the show, ZERO-ONE MAX president Nakamura admitted on their blog that he needs to learn more about joshi puroresu as he's having trouble getting a handle on what fans want to see. As you'll soon see, ain't that the truth.
Four titles up for grabs on Pro Wrestling SUN debut
First On Stage held a press conference on Wednesday to announce the main matches for the Pro Wrestling SUN debut Oct. 1 at Korakuen Hall. The main thing is there will be a total of four belts up for grabs. Fans complaining about this should keep in mind that this company is being run by the same guys who run ZERO-ONE MAX and they are notorious for having way too many title belts. So it's not surprising that they would take the same approach with SUN. It's obviously overkill. So let's get to what they're going to do.
As was already announced at the Dream Catchers show, The Croatian Panther Wesna Busic will defend the EWA Womens Title and her newly acquired NSG Title against Ayako Hamada. Wesna is doing her cocky heel act and Ayako is basically saying she'll see Wesna on Oct. 1 and we'll see who's the best. As she has done at all of these press conferences lately, Amazing Kong interrupted the proceedings to cause trouble. They're even calling her Weekly Kong as kind of a goof on Weekly Gong magazine. On this occasion, she had a scuffle with Hikaru. As a result, Amazing Kong will defend her World 1 Wrestling Womens Title against Hikaru. Kong won that belt in Michigan in May.
So when First On Stage first announced that they were getting into the joshi business, I suggested that they might revive the AWA World Women's Championsip because they have a working relationship for what passes today for the AWA and they've already revived the AWA World Championship in ZERO-ONE MAX. Some of you scoffed. Guess what folks? That's exactly what they're doing. So for the AWA World Womens Championship, it will be Nanae Takahashi against Afrika 55. Who? Good question and of course I have the answer.
She goes by the name Afrika. Supposedly her record is 200-0 and she has sent 55 opponents to the hospital. I'm not kidding. That's what it says on the SUN website. Afrika is from Los Angeles and is 5'8" 175lbs. She's a bodybuilder type. The SUN website says she started in the underground fighting scene in LA, wrestles mostly men and most of her matches last two minutes. They are saying that Nanae Takahashi is in big trouble with this monstrous black woman. See? I told you those guys were looking for a Shaniqua type. The Japanese crack me up. The only thing I can say about Afrika is she's in great shape. She calls herself the Nubian Warrior Princess. The best thing to do is check out her website at http://www.afrikanadventure.com/ She says she's been wrestling for 12 years but there's no indication on her site that she's ever wrestled in public. She says she wrestles Olympic style submission wrestling. Maybe you'd like a match with her for $300. I can't make up stuff this funny. It was also announced that Saki Maemura, Natsuki*Head & Ayumi Kurihara will be on the show and Panther Crow will return. Sic Afrika 55 on her.
First On Stage announces formation of ZERO*SUN NEXUS
First On Stage announced at a press conference the start of a new promotion called ZERO*SUN NEXUS. Of course First On Stage also owns ZERO-ONE MAX and the joshi promotion Pro Wrestling SUN. According to the announcement, the purpose of ZERO*SUN NEXUS is to combine those two promotions, sort of. ZERO-ONE MAX youngsters Ryouji Sai, Yoshito Sasaki & Kohei Sato along with Pro Wrestling SUN's Nanae Takahashi, Hikaru & Saki Maemura were in attendance. It also appears that they intend to run this promotion outside of Tokyo.
The tradition in Japan has been to have men and women wrestlers on seperate shows. I understand that First On Stage wants to change that but I'm not sure why they need three companies to do that unless ZERO*SUN NEXUS is intended to be an out of town promotion. That makes a little more sense. I guess "the more the merrier" is the way the wrestling business works these days...unless the new promotion fails.
The first ZERO*SUN NEXUS show will be Oct. 8 at the Nagoya Sports Center. Steve Corino, Amazing Kong, Lengerie Muto & SHIGERU are scheduled to appear. Then they'll run a show Oct. 15 at Niigata Phase with Mariko Yoshida, Ayumi Kurihara, Kazushi Miyamoto, Taichi Ishikari, Tomoaki Honma, Tomohiko Hashimoto & Kota Iifushi on that one. It appears that the younger ZERO-ONE MAX guys and the Pro Wrestling SUN girls will be on all the NEXUS shows. They're saying that if the NEXUS shows are successful they will run in Tokyo but they may just be saying that for the media's benefit and may plan to keep it as an out of town promotion. The wrestling business is pretty crowded in Tokyo.
Memorial show for Mirai
GAMI has announced that there will be a memorial show for Chiemi Kitagami, known professionally as Mirai, on the first anniversary of her death. The show will be Sept. 12 at Shin-kiba 1st Ring. Mirai died at the age of 22 on Sept. 14, 2005 as the result of a bathtub accident. It doesn't really say on her blog but it looks like GAMI is producing the show with M's Style. She will also co-produce a show with M's Style on Sept. 29. Mirai's parents will be there and all her friends will pay tribute to her. And Mika Nishio has said she will be there too.
Health issues for Ohmukai?
The day after Michiko Ohmukai announced the closing of M's Style, she posted on her blog that she went to Criego for manual therapeutics. It seems there's a therapist there who is an expert on hernias and treats them. Apparently Ohmukai has been having a lot of pain in her waist, back and neck. Chances are pretty good that she will have to have surgery for the hernia and she's doing this to delay the surgery until after M's Style closes. Maybe she should have an MRI to see what's wrong with her neck. This could explain her decision to close M's Style.
Smackgirl adds two matches to Sept. 15 show
Smackgirl has added two more matches to their Sept. 15 Korakuen Hall show. Smackgirl veteran Tama Chan will face Natsuko Kamei and G-Shooto Strawweight tournament winner Masako Yoshida will face Eri Kanetari. All matches are scheduled for two five minute rounds. Here's the show so far.
SMACKGIRL - 9/15/06 - Korakuen Hall
52KG BOUT-Fuuka vs Mai
48KG BOUT-Ayumi "Edge" Saito vs Ikuko Tamada
53KG BOUT-Akiko Naito vs Kyoko Takabayashi
54KG BOUT-WINDY Tomomi vs Seri
48KG BOUT-Masako Yoshida vs Eri Kanetari
OPEN WEIGHT BOUT-Tama Chan vs Natsuko Kamei
NEXT CINDERELLA TOURNAMENT MIDDLEWEIGHT FINAL-Sakura Nakamura vs Kaneko Takeshita
NEXT CINDERELLA TOURNAMENT FLYWEIGHT SEMI FINAL-KM-MAKI vs Fukuko Hamada
I am at frankp316@rogers.com or you can check out my Big Bad Blog at http://frankp316.blogspot.com/ It's got an all new layout and colors and I hope you like it. I also wanted to mention that Sept. 7 is the first anniversary of moving into my apartment after recovering from spinal fusion surgery. Things are going pretty well and I'm still rolling around in my power chair. I want to thank Mike and the guys at PWInsider for their support.
