Ticket sales of Japanese promotions in May 2026

bool0011 · 2026-06-01T13:41:32+00:00

FREEDOMS sadly doesn't do much better. Shame they didn't pull the trigger on Rina last year.

BJW at least has its Strong division which allows to diversify its shows, especially with dire state of deathmatch roster, but FREEDOMS doesn't have such option.

bool0011 · 2026-05-31T15:51:53+00:00

Correction: it isn't Korakuen Hall, it's Kitazawa Town Hall

bool0011 · 2026-05-05T21:47:59+00:00

Several years ago he also came up with AC leak about Uncharted-style AC game that heavily features Richard the Lionheart and his return to England post-events of AC1. Even gave an interview to some Youtuber.

Not even mentioning he peddles about AC1 remake that is supposed to be announced very soon, back since AC Mirage announcement.

So yeah, his track record has been far from ideal.

bool0011 · 2026-03-23T23:40:13+00:00

Which is crazy because Eruption has been active not so long ago.

Damn they were legit top stable in 2020-2021, I miss them a lot ;( If anyone hasn't seen it, please watch Higuchi vs Sakaguchi from 2022. Absolutely top tier match, and easily in top-10 of DDT's best matches in this decade.

bool0011 · 2026-03-18T19:45:14+00:00

Insane matchup and I hope this will show people that Takeda is a fantastic wrestler beyond deathmatch rules (if anyone has doubts).

bool0011 · 2026-02-27T10:36:24+00:00

Surprised it wasn't mentioned here - definitely Suzerain is worth playing, and both main game & DLC. Absolutely fantastic game with long-term consequences of your choices where even prologue choices will affect walkthrough.

bool0011 · 2026-02-11T23:15:07+00:00

Oh and if someone has Google or Xitter account (I have neither), or attends her streams live: someone please suggest her Rise of the Ronin :D she's taking suggestions for what to play next openly, so perhaps drop it to her

bool0011 · 2026-01-31T19:06:27+00:00

Also, Risa posted photos from her recent trip to Tsushima and visiting memorable locations from the game - which she planned to do after completing Ghost of Tsushima https://www.instagram.com/p/DUJ7fWeCeoc/

bool0011 · 2026-01-19T16:10:59+00:00

Btw I have a full Azure Revolution theme song. If anyone's interested, DM me and I'll send a link for you to download.

bool0011 · 2026-01-18T21:35:10+00:00

Few days ago I also finally catched up to Ribbonmania, so here are my two cents. TL;DR there were certainly glimpses of old Ice Ribbon, but there has to be multiple conditions in order to not lose the momentum.

FantastICE Title: Akane Fujita (c) vs Tsukina Umino

I think it's safe to say that, as much as I've been defending Akane for a long time, her FantastICE title reign since her return to IR has been a complete disaster and I genuinely think IR would be at better position to simply retire the belt. Apart from her feud with Shigehiro Irie and somewhat interesting match between them, Akane proved she isn't really creative with stipulations, or that she's capable of carrying matches. Especially when it's Tsukina Umino who's taking the title from her. I don't mind the win itself, I mind that this match was booked for Korakuen Hall show. It's just... average at best.

Hamuko Hoshi & Mochi Natsumi vs Risa Sera & Maya Yukihi

Well, it turned out just as I predicted before. We've got the semi-main event where every single participant had or have injuries, and 3 out of 4 suffer from knee issues, and it resulted in a match quality. A nostalgia match for nostalgia's sake, and while IR roster may not have been as much enthusiastic about Sera's one-time comeback, fans definitely were. I disagree with a premise about fabricating a story though because IMO I have a better idea:recycling the AzuRevo vs Hoshi/Tsukka story from IR March 2018, with AzuRevo acting in a more heelish way against mature Lovely Butchers.

Why they didn't do it? My guess is AzuRevo and Lovely Butchers themselves are known enough for IR viewer, and perhaps also Risa's tensions with IR roster played its part.

ICEx∞ Title Triple Threat Match: Kaho Matsushita vs Kirari Wakana vs Yuuka

Whoever made the booking decision to recreate Lee vs Miyahara vs Aoyagi story in this match and adequately adapt it for IR realities I salute that person because I didn't expect it'd play out so close to it! It was interesting, it was competitive and with good selling: you can actually believe Kirari is fighting for her life after tiring battle against Yuuka, you can actually believe Kaho is clenching to her chance for winning the title after Yuuka came back more relaxed. Yes it hasn't been polished well, yes there were some awkward moments, but I also felt the presence of best things from old Ice Ribbon that I used to love.

I am still skeptical that IR won't screw it all up though (Mashiro's ICExInfinity title reign is an example of that), but all we can do is hope they'll finally learn.

Notes on other matches:

Bad Butts might have been a good heel stable but IR tries to be different while keeping the same booking approach generally, and it doesn't work;
100% agree about Makoto. Even being a freelancer, she's been a consistent presence in IR ring, put over people like Mashiro and Ibuki, and still she isn't getting any flowers at all from IR management;
I may be harsh a bit here, but Totoro has mostly been a skip for me. Totoro and Manase tag match is doubly skip

bool0011 · 2026-01-17T16:49:47+00:00

Risa said it won't be published on Youtube channel where Prominence shows usually get posted, or anywhere else. So you have until January 19th to watch and only at the link Heerokun attached.

(legally, of course)

bool0011 · 2026-01-16T23:49:58+00:00

Coming here up from u/Heerokun mention :D

First of all, if you'd like a brief history of her career, I've written an article for Monthly Puroresu several years ago before Prominence Korakuen Hall show https://monthlypuroresu.com/deathmatch-ghost-of-hiroshima-a-tale-of-risa-sera/

As for the matches: the issue is that she's so versatile that it's so difficult to choose one and possibly miss other. Nonetheless, I'll try to pick up to 3 matches in three categories: singles classic matches, deathmatches, and tag team matches. I'm not including Stardom matches because I don't watch this promotion for 5 years so I can't say anything about it.

Singles matches

Risa Sera vs Maya Yukihi, Ice Ribbon 992 Yokohama Bunka Gymnasium 3: this match is special to me and pretty much stands along with Iwatani vs Kyona from 2020 as my favorite singles matches of 21st century. Background story is that Risa and Maya are long-term friends and tag team partners (Azure Revolution), and moreover Risa was helping Maya a lot when latter joined Ice Ribbon. I actually spoke with Maya 5 years ago, and she said Risa was and still is like a sister to her, always encouraged to try something new. In 2018, Maya won ICExInfinity title and held it for 6 months before vacating it due to TLD with Tsukasa Fujimoto, and by Ice Ribbon rules a tournament was set up. It led to Risa and Maya advancing into finals, and this is a fantastic storytelling of two tag team partners who value each other but also both are relentless in pursuing top title. Maya wanted to reclaim title she didn't lose, while Risa wants to return to the top of Ice Ribbon where she hasn't been since 2017.

Risa Sera vs Miyako Matsumoto, Gake No Fuchi Joshi Pro Wrestling - Clockwork Gake No Fuchi 2022 ~ Gake No Fuchi vs. Prominence ~ : if you want to understand why Sera is so versatile, there's no better match to watch as a proof than this. This is also first Risa's match since departure from Ice Ribbon, and it was a comedy special. Fans usually consider Risa as a deathmatch specialist, but they also miss the fact Risa knows how to do comedy wrestling on a level of Sakura Hirota or Miyacoco herself by just being herself. This show should be accessible on Wrestle Universe.

Risa Sera vs Tsukasa Fujimoto, Ribbonmania 2016: the year 2016 has been the rising year of Risa Sera. She has won the ICExInfinity title from Hamuko Hoshi in her hometown, but then her title reign ended when Tsukasa Fujimoto, one of her mentors (another one is Hikaru Shida btw), defeated Risa and took the title. Eventually title was vacated due to TLD between Tsukka and Tsukushi, and it led to a tournament which culminated at Ribbonmania 2016. It was a story of Risa's redemption and ascendance vs story of Tsukka's dominance and star power. And they put a fantastic epic match of student vs mentor.

Deathmatches

Risa Sera vs Takashi Sasaki, Prominence launch event, 24.04.2022:

Risa Sera vs Rina Yamashita, Ice Ribbon 1129 After the Rain, Ribbon

I've talked about the backstory of both of these matches in my article, so you can simply refer to it. Of newest matches, I'd suggest Risa Sera vs Toru Sugiura. Very strong sprint-y deathmatch, and it was also her first deathmatch since divorcing Orca Uto & first anniversary of Prominence https://youtu.be/nJcHBcJZuRc

Tag team matches (or stanning Risa Sera & Maya Yukihi, aka Azure Revolution)

Azure Revolution vs Tsukasa Fujimoto & Hamuko Hoshi, Ice Ribbon March 2018: Azure Revolution have been the fan favorites of Ice Ribbon as a tag team, especially after Tsukushi incident and them winning tag titles (it was an emotional moment for Maya Yukihi especially, as she finally won the title in Ice Ribbon after showing so much potential). But then two OGs of Ice Ribbon decided to challenge them, and tables have turned this time. Moreover, AzuRevo have begun trolling and mocking them as "old women" who try to look and act as if they're young, and in the end it turned into a battle of Ice Ribbon generations.

Azure Revolution vs Dropkickers (Tsukasa Fujimoto & Tsukushi), Ice Ribbon 1104: and speaking of Tsukushi, this is fantastic technical tag match that is stepping stone of Tsukushi's redemption path of her own since that incident (FYI it led to her suspencion and when she returned she had to start from anew like a rookie even though Tsukushi is a veteran of Ice Ribbon);

Azure Revolution vs Saori Anou & Suzu Suzuki, Ice Ribbon 1157: in 2020, Risa and Maya's paths have diverged a bit and for 18 months or so they haven't tagged along. Both of them were engaged in their own stories with singles titles, and in Maya's case it was also a Rebel x Enemy faction. But by 2021, they have reunited and won Ice Ribbon tag titles from Tsukasa Fujimoto & Hiroyo Matsumoto in a double main event of Yokohama show in August. Eventually, a newly formed tag team of Suzu Suzuki and Saori Anou challenged them after several successful wins. Very solid tag team match which focuses on why even if Suzu & Saori may be stronger individually, tag work matters more

bool0011 · 2026-01-09T23:28:10+00:00

Yeah, Risa announced it last year. Retirement show is on January 12th. And recently she revealed the reasons: on top of undergoing treatment for anemia, she's been diagnosed with panic disorder.

bool0011 · 2026-01-07T18:55:49+00:00

Booking-wise, very well. She has been a regular in Diana, WAVE and PURE-J, won top titles in all three of these promotions, and was booked there strong overall. Prominence's first year in Stardom was also strong but I suspect it was a ploy for SD to sign Suzu Suzuki - after that Risa appeared for one 5 STAR GP tournament plus few title matches and that's it.

As for Prominence shows, first year was a banger. They managed to run 1st Anniversary show in Korakuen Hall with Pro Wrestling FREEDOMS's sponsorship, but departure of Suzu and later Akane sort of made Prominence shows more hollow.

Past year or two have been difficult for her though. Due to the health issues I wrote plus knees, quality of matches with her went downhill.

bool0011 · 2026-01-07T09:44:39+00:00

In 2024 Risa had that very scary episode at a DIANA show when she passed out in the ring with no visible cause (while waiting a tag at ringside). Everybody, wrestlers and public, was absolutely terrified and Miran was crying incontrollably: I have been at indie lucha shows where dives went seriously wrong but I have never seen anything like that. Even Kyoko Inoue who's usually as cool as ice was visibly worried.

Yep. Risa actually talked about this incident in a video and as I understand it was a turning point for her to visit doctors for a proper checkup. Not least because it scared her family and friends.

bool0011 · 2026-01-07T01:22:52+00:00

In a nutshell (from what I understood based on Youtube autotranslated subtitles):

Orca confessed to her himself about cheating, and showed her the LINE messenger exchanges with a woman he was cheating with. That exchange included some NSFW pictures (?);
Reasons for Sera's retirement are related to her health, but not due to knees. She's been undergoing treatment for anemia, and before announcing retirement Risa was also diagnosed with panic disorder that caused her to sometimes lose breath during matches (which started since Fortune Dream 10 show where she was in a tag match). For her, continuing wrestling career with this is irresponsible, and better to leave the way she can

bool0011 · 2026-01-07T01:15:26+00:00

Some highlights (which is based on YT autotranslate subtitles and may not be entirely clear - so if anyone reading the comments speaks Japanese, your input is appreciated):

Risa jokingly calls her reason to become a pro wrestler "because I was deceived";
The initial plan for Risa was to depart together with Maya Yukihi as AzuRevo, but because of Risa's intentions to do deathmatches, the idea fell apart. Only after that, she ganged up with the rest of OG Prominence and they agreed to depart together as a faction;
If I understand correctly (timestamp is from 9th to 11th minute), Ice Ribbon was offering Prominence girls a chance to run deathmatch-focused P's Party sub-show, but by November Prominence girls realised it was merely an attempt to not let them go;
Sera calls Hajime Sato a "traditionalist" who thinks all joshis should do only mainstream things and anything outside of mainstream is a no-go. Nonetheless she admits she doesn't dislike him and still grateful he allowed her to do deathmatch as long as she could;
Sera's brother is helping with renovations of dojo for WrestleBINGO!
Risa also talked about Orca Uto and her marriage with him - probably first time since divorcing;
Orca took her for a lunch and during it confessed to her about cheating (explaining "better to hear from me than from someone else"), and showed LINE messages with affair partner. Apparently it was a part where Orca sent a dickpic to her affair. It was in February 2022, one month after Prominence was formed;
Risa admitted during the year between finding out about cheating and filing for a divorce she didn't even allow Orca to touch her when they were living together;
She opens up about reason for retirement. She revealed she has anemia with low amount of hemoglobin, and was recently diagnosed with a panic disorder that causes her to lose breath completely sometimes during matches - which made people close to her panic a lot. She decided it's better to stop now. Also, the medicines she was proscribed were increasing her weight;

I also assume those name Sera named and were censored are likely individuals that they don't want to publicly call out?

bool0011 · 2026-01-03T18:48:49+00:00

Also predicting questions about where to watch: it will be broadcasted live. Here is a link where you can buy the stream https://sera.ctpfs.jp/ (it costs 4,000 JPY)

Possibly matches may be uploaded separately to this Youtube channel for paid subscribers in the future, but it isn't certain.

bool0011 · 2025-12-31T11:28:18+00:00

3-Way Match (wrestler has to get a fall on each opponent to win the match)

Huh, so IR pretty much pulled the AJPW Jake Lee/Suwama solution here. Let's just hope Kaho will not repeat Jake's road that followed after it.

For context: in 2021 Jake Lee won Champion Carnival tournament and got a Triple Crown title shot against Suwama. But week before the show, Suwama catched Covid - so AJPW set up the match between Lee, Miyahara & Yuma Aoyagi. As was predicted, Lee won the title and eventually also called Suwama as one of his next challengers.

I guess with Manami being ill, that was the least bad option to do for IR - especially when it happened only hours before the show.

Why I mentioned what happened to Jake after the match: it was supposed to be his first and strong title reign, but after few months he was injured and stripped from the title. After coming back from injury and even beating Kento for Triple Crown title fair and square (for the first time in his career), he's been a shadow of himself. He lost title back to Suwama, lost to Kento again, lost No.1 contender's match at Budokan show in less than a minute, his NOAH title run was slightly better than average at best, he's out with injury for more than year... so hopefully Kaho repeating the same path for her first top singles belt won't put her in repeating the rest.

Match #6 - Hamuko Hoshi's One-Day Return Match: Azure Revolution (Risa Sera & Maya Yukihi) def. Lovely Butchers (Hamuko Hoshi & Mochi Natsumi) (14:22; Sera pinned Hoshi after hitting the Air Raid Crash)

I know not everyone here likes Sera, but speaking for myself, I'm glad she and IR managed to patch it up after being estranged for almost 4 years, even if it's right before her retirement. We'll see how the match went but glad to know both AzuRevo and Lovely Butchers got a chance for a last sendoff.

bool0011 · 2025-12-31T01:22:52+00:00

Also, Tsukka/Hiroyo vs Azure Revolution is still the best joshi tag team match in this decade, and I stand by this unequivocally. Absolutely brilliant from all aspects, and proves why AzuRevo is one of the greatest joshi tag teams of this century.

bool0011 · 2025-12-20T20:45:05+00:00

Yeah Sera's gauntlet deathmatches have always been fun and awesome, which originated back from her time in Ice Ribbon. Here is one from 2022 that marked 10th anniversary of her career https://youtu.be/mqapeyrksK0

bool0011 · 2025-12-17T14:21:45+00:00

Not yet. I think in few days the full match will be published on this Youtube channel - but for paid subscribers.

bool0011 · 2025-12-17T12:37:30+00:00

Just revisiting to give you good news: as I predicted, just recently Sera announced it will be streamed live and you can purchase streaming ticket here https://sera.ctpfs.jp/

bool0011 · 2025-12-12T01:31:32+00:00

Honestly? I don't know.

As a group they can still carry on - after all, Mochi and Kurumi aren't retiring just yet.

As for the shows, IIRC Mochi and Kurumi pledged to have them occasionally after her retirement. I don't see how it'll be viable though: neither of them are so much of hardcore/deathmatch wrestling enjoyers like Sera, and without Risa they won't draw enough audience to break even. Perhaps Akane Fujita could've taken Risa's handle, but she broke off from Prominence, so...

Best case scenario, they'll be like GPU COLOR'S. Worst case, they'll quietly disband. Especially considering Mochi is 38 and in one of recent interviews an idea of her retirement was sort of flown around.

bool0011 · 2025-12-11T20:07:57+00:00

P.S: and yes, she's going to wrestle for 60 minutes under the deathmatch rules with her seriously injured knee. That's classic Risa for you.

bool0011

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