Sunday, June 21, 2009

Tanabe Memorial/Girls in Masks


Not many shows this week. Friday night saw a special show in Osaka to pay tribute to local time referee/independent scene stalwart Ted Tanabe, who passed away a week ago after an Osaka Pro show. He's most known for working with Michinoku Pro and Osaka Pro, but I believe he got his start in the business working for the original JWP in the mid-to-late 1980s.

Ranmaru, an Osaka native, appeared. There was a joshi offer match, with GAMI (another Osaka local) and Toshie Uematsu against Command Bolshoi & Yuki Miyazaki. Gordi, a westerner living in Japan near Osaka and a big puro fan, posted a lot of photos of the tribute show on both the SSS and DVDVR boards.

WAVE had a couple of shows. Saturday saw the Catch the WAVE tournament continue. The scheduling is weird, because Cherry has now completed all 3 matches and Ryo Mizunami hasn't had her first tournament match yet. Weird. Too many time-limit draws for my taste. Kana knocked Misaki Ohata out with a high kick to take the lead in the UK block. Cherry leads the Comical Block with 3 points from 3 draws. I doubt that will hold up. KAORU leads the Visual Technical Block and Moeka Haruhi leads the Young Person's Block. Sunday saw a 3 match card at a Tokyo hotel with some big names (Aja, Manami, Ayako). I really think this is Ayako Hamada's last match before TEE! ENN! AAA! I saw photos of Ayako filling out U.S. government paperwork (visa).

The Fukumen Mania show had ~GURLZ IN MASKS~. A*YU*MI debutted with a draw against noki-A. This is Ayumi Kurihara and AKINO, of course. Ray, Ranmaru, and Io Shirai also appeared on the card. It was the first time under the mask for Ayumi & Io and several of the girls auctioned off the masks after the show. I guess that's less creepy that selling other match-worn garments...

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