The Princess Cup Starts, New World Champion In Sendai Girls, ASUKA WIns The Catch The WAVE Tournament| Weekly Joshi Guide

TJPW

The 10th edition of the Tokyo Princess Cup started last weekend with the first round. The winner of the tournament will get a Princess Of Princess Championship match against the Champion Mizuki on the biggest Tokyo Joshi Pro Show of the year – Wrestle Princess IV. With that in mind, a tournament victory is a chance for a Wrestler to be elevated to the top of TJPW. Last year, Yuka Sakazaki was able to lift the trophy and then defeated Shoko Nakajima at Wrestle Princess to win the prestigious POP Championship. This year, Miyu Yamashita and Miu Watanabe are the favorites to win the tournament.

On the first night, Moka Miyamoto faced off with Hyper Misao. This was a fun start to this year’s Cup. Misao controlled the match from the beginning and cheated early on. Moka came back with great babyface fire and picked up the win. Every year there is a shocking upset and this year, Moka got it by getting the biggest win of her career and advancing to the second round. Moka likely has not many chances in the second round, but her getting a win here is a pleasant surprise.

In the Main Event of the first night, the Champion and two-time winner Mizuki wrestled against Miyu Yamashita. The Pink Striker has never won the TPC in her career, and her first obstacle is Mizuki, who defeated Yamashita countless times in the cup. This match was good with both Miyu and Mizuki wrestling really well and had a fantastic closing stretch in the end. Miyu hit the Skullkick and pinned Mizuki to advance to the final. The Ace of TJPW looked really dominant here and didn’t give Mizuki too much offense. The Popping Sugar Rabbit played her typical underdog role and had great comebacks. They clearly held back for a future Championship match that will happen during Mizuki’s Title run.

On the second day, Shoko Nakajima started her tournament against Suzume. The Big Kaiju is aiming for her second tournament win after 2015 while Suzume is trying to use this tournament as a catapult to the top of the card, but Shoko was just a level above her on this day.  Nakajima had to end her with the locomotion version of her Northern Lights Suplex, which she rarely uses, to put an end to the dreams of the Bee. Suzume was established as an important wrestler in TJPW over the last year and this was another valuable match that made her a bigger deal, but she just has not been given the wins yet to be elevated to the next level. Nakajima winning was the expected result here, and she moves on in the tournament.

In the Main Event, Rika Tatsumi faced Raku and this was the best singles match in the career of Raku who played the role of an underdog well here. Rika does a great job structuring and guiding matches and did it perfectly here. She and Raku build up a great dynamic, with some great near falls where the crowd thought Raku might pull off the upset here, but the veteran instinct of Rika was there, and she made Raku tap with the White Dragon Sleeper.
Nakajima and Rika Tatsumi will face off in the quarter-finals, which likely will Main Event of the show. Shoko potentially defeating Rika could lead to an International Princess Championship Match at Wrestle Princess.

On the third night, Yuki Kamifuku defeated Nao Kakuta in a solid match. Both went back and forth with solid wrestling and a good involvement of the crowd. Kamifuku was able to pick up the victory at the end to advance to the next round.
After losing to Nyla Rose, Miu Watanabe started off her TPC campaign against Yuki Aino, who fresh comes off a devastating loss against Rika Tatsumi at Summer Sun Princess. The two Powerhouse had a great hoss fight with good shoulder blocks and power moves. Miu was able to caught Aino off guard and hit the Teardrop to advance to the quarterfinals.

Results
Moka Miyamoto defeated Hyper Misao
Miyu Yamashita defeated Mizuki
Shoko Nakajima defeated Suzume
Rika Tatsumi defeated Raku
Yuki Kamifuku defeated Nao Kakuta
Miu Watanabe defeated Yuki Aino

Updated Bracket

Sendai Girls

Sendai Girls had an interesting year to say at least normally their shows were posted as VODs on YouTube fans were able to see and enjoy the amazing quality of content the promotion has, but there was no upload since the end of February, so it got quiet around the promotion. On Sunday, the promotion had a fantastic Korakuen Hall that featured four great matches and was streamed live.

Sareee made her return to Sendai Girls after three years, teaming together with Saori Anou against Mika Iwata and Miyuki Takase, who are called Red Energy. This was a great match with all four wrestlers just hitting each other with everything they have. The chemistry was off the chart and none of them held back at all. The match ended in a 15-minute time-limit draw, with neither team being able to score the win.

The Ace of Sendai Girls Chihiro Hashimoto faced STARDOM’s Natsupoi in a special singles match and this was fantastic. Poi played a great underdog in this match and bumped around for Big Hash during the whole match. This was violent and brutal, with Hashimoto being at the top of her game. She was dropping Natsupoi from the ring to the outside floor, throwing her around with Suplexes and more. Poi build up great hope spots that got the crowd on their feet and cheering for her. Hashimoto won the match with the Albright which is a high-angle German Suplex and defeated the High-Speed Fairy. This is a must-watch and one of the best matches on this entire weekend that was full of great matches.

In the semi-main event, DASH Chisako made her in-ring return after 7 months that she missed due to injury against her Reiwa Ultima Powers Tag Team Partner Hiroyo Matsumoto and this was great as well. DASH came back looking as good as always in the ring and had a wonderful performance. She did the usual DASH stuff even with the Splash from the Top of the Ladder through a Table and much more. The chemistry between the Tag Partners was undeniable and great. Hiroyo pinned Chisako in a great return match.

In the Main Event, ASUKA defended her Sendai Girls World Championship against the young Millie McKenzie. The match was good, but a bit too short to really get into the next gear. The Champion dominated the match with McKenzie fighting from underneath and getting herself back in the match a couple of times. In the end, Millie rolled ASUKA up for the surprising three count and the title win. This was shocking considering no one saw it coming and everyone thought Hashimoto just will get her Title back from ASUKA. Millie is now the youngest Sendai Girls World Champion at the age of 23. Her first challenger will be Mika Iwata, who has been aiming for being the Champ and the Ace of Sendai Girls for a while now. The Match likely will happen at the Sendai Sun Plaza show.

WAVE

The semis and finals of the annual Catch The WAVE Tournament from the WAVE Promotion happened, with the winner getting a title match against the former AEW Women’s Champion Hikaru Shida.

In the final, SAKI and ASUKA faced off, with the latter walking out as the winner. ASUKA debuted in WAVE and won her first piece of Gold there with her winning the Regina di WAVE Championship in 2018. She left the promotion at the end of the same year. ASUKA has become a regular again since October of last year and now has the chance to crown herself a two-time champion. Shida has been RdW Champion for over 337 days now and is slowly breaking every record, but ASUKA is her most difficult challenge yet. They know each other for well over 8 years with their first singles match being in 2015, but since then a lot has changed. ASUKA has become one of the best and most successful Joshi Wrestlers in the world by winning gold in WAVE, SEAdLINNNG, Diana, DDT, Sendai, and more. This is a must-watch for every Joshi fan and will go down as one of the best matches of the year.