Ami Sato vs. Manami 5:02
Aiger vs. Sakura Hirota 6:56
Chihiro Hashimoto & Hikaru Shida & Hiroyo Matsumoto vs. Aja Kong & Cassandra Miyagi & Heidi Katrina 15:43
DASH Chisako & Hana Kimura vs. Alex Lee & Mika Shirahime 17:59
Sendai Girls World Title #1 Contendership Match: Ayako Hamada vs. Meiko Satomura 16:51. These two have been battling each other for the last 16 years, and it's always a quality match, but this encounter seemed a bit lacking in intensity & urgency despite a title shot being on the line. The early matwork was pretty uninspiring, and though the match improved as they shifted to striking, Ayako isn't exactly on Satomura's level as a kicker & just kept doing slow flashy head kicks without any setup. The match finally went from low gear straight into high 10 minutes in when they exchanged elbows on the apron, but Hamada finally blocked one & did a nasty DDT onto the ring apron. This was the highlight killer move of the match, but Satomura just came right back with her Death Valley bomb, and they began to dump their arsenal of favorite moves. I liked the spot where Satomura (sort of) kicked Hamada before she could do her moonsault & tried her overhead kick as Ayako was trapped in the tree of woe only to have Ayako essentially do a sit up to avoid. One of the problems with the match is because they saved everything for the end, they didn't actually build up to any of the moves or really get much out of them. I mean, they literally just started going back & forth between Satomura's Death Valley bomb & Hamada's AP cross, and to mix it up Hamada used the Death Valley bomb on Satomura so then Satomura used the AP cross on Hamada. Finally, Ayako hit 2 AP crosses in a row to earn the challenge against Hashimoto. What was absent here was Ayako's flying, which has always been what she's been known for, and one has to wonder how much the continued weight gain is attributing to that & making her rely more on the same power move? Overall, the match was entertaining enough, but was rather goofy & didn't really feel like the signpost match you'd expect it to be for the promotion. **3/4
Mio Momono vs. Manami 8:24
KAORU vs. Alex Lee 9:32
Heidi Katrina vs. Cassandra Miyagi 9:47
Chihiro Hashimoto & Hiroyo Matsumoto & Manami vs. Meiko Satomura & DASH Chisako & Ami Sato 24:12. Rookie Sato worked the 1st 8 minutes, getting battered & bloodied by Hashimoto & Matsumoto, with Satomura refusing to tag when Sato finally got an opening against 13-year-old rookie Manami. Luckily DASH showed no qualms about beating on the kid or typically stealing the show with her speed & badass nature. She's particularly great in these matches because she should be overwhelmed by the size & strength of Hashimoto & Matsumoto, but she's like Mayumi Ozaki in the JWP days when she cared, she just refuses to back down to anyone & keeps finding ways to instead take it to them. Satomura took it easy on Manami & mostly just stretched her out though. The rookies got too much time to not shine, but once they got them out of the way, a quality, energetic match between the four good workers ensued. Hashimoto has come a long way, and while she may not be the most graceful or athletic girl, she's figured out how to use her size well & grown confident in her abilities. Matsumoto is still ahead of her, just mauling the opposition with brute force, but Hashimoto is closing the gap & they're doing some good double team & stereo spots. I can't recommend this match all that highly because so much time was devoted to the rookies, which is good for the long term development of the company but not exciting for our main event entertainment. Also, although the second half was all good action, it never developed any drama & they eventually just called it a day with the predictable finish of rookie getting taken out when the veteran actually tried. That being said, DASH vs. Hashimoto & Matsumoto was quite good with Satomura chipping in sometimes as well, and this was a match that really made you want to see relevant matches between any combination of the four, so it was successful at a lot of things at the same time that because of its length, it did contain a good amount of quality action. ***
Aiger vs. Sakura Hirota 9:13
Aja Kong & Hikaru Shida & Mio Momono vs. Ami Sato & Manami & Meiko Satomura 17:00
Hana Kimura vs. Mika Iwata 20:00
Chihiro Hashimoto & Hiroyo Matsumoto vs. Alex Lee & Ayako Hamada 12:55
Sendai Girls Tag Team Title Match: DASH Chisako & KAORU vs. Cassandra Miyagi & Heidi Katrina 17:52
Aiger vs. Sakura Hirota 9:13
Aja Kong & Hikaru Shida & Mio Momono vs. Ami Sato & Manami & Meiko Satomura 17:00
Hana Kimura vs. Mika Iwata 20:00
Chihiro Hashimoto & Hiroyo Matsumoto vs. Alex Lee & Ayako Hamada 12:55
Sendai Girls Tag Team Title Match: DASH Chisako & KAORU vs. Cassandra Miyagi & Heidi Katrina 17:52
Ami Sato vs. Manami 7:43
Aiger & Sakura Hirota vs. KAORU & Solo Darling 10:52
Alex Lee & DASH Chisako & Hiroyo Matsumoto & Mio Momono vs. Aja Kong & Cassandra Miyagi & Heidi Katrina & Sammii Jayne 15:59
Mika Iwata vs. Hana Kimura 17:20
Io Shirai vs. Meiko Satomura 20:00. ***1/2
7/15/17 Niigata-shi Taiikukan Sendai Girls World Title Match: Hiroyo Matsumoto vs. Chihiro Hashimoto 19:29
Ami Sato vs. Manami 7:43
Aiger & Sakura Hirota vs. KAORU & Solo Darling 10:52
Alex Lee & DASH Chisako & Hiroyo Matsumoto & Mio Momono vs. Aja Kong & Cassandra Miyagi & Heidi Katrina & Sammii Jayne 15:59
Mika Iwata vs. Hana Kimura 17:20
Io Shirai vs. Meiko Satomura 20:00. The Shirai vs. Satomura matches have been arguably the most anticipated matches amongst joshi fans for the past four years (Mayu blew past Satomura & has had the better matches with Io but doesn't have the name value & has yet to garner the same respect), so it's odd that they would have one that wasn't even the main event of the show it was on. I understand Satomura wants her promotion's title to mean something & has been pushing Hashimoto through the roof since she first stepped foot in the ring, but this seemed awkward booking as it encouraged Shirai & Satomura not to go full force because Hashimoto & Hamada would never be able to follow that. The match just seemed destined to disappoint to begin with, and while it will still likely be one of the best joshi matches of the year, it didn't break any new ground and had more of a league match feel than the big interpromotional ace vs. ace feel of some of their past battles. They started out doing Satomura's technical match, but it was very slow as everything was built out of the lockup & they just leveraged counters & switches from there. As with some of their previous encounters, most notably 4/26/14, the idea was seemingly that Io had to figure out how to work her flying into the match, but that didn't really fly here, as there should be no reason for Io to be ever be willingly lock up with Satomura & involving herself in a slow grappling match. They randomly picked the match up 5 minutes in with Io countering Satomura by dropkicking her to the floor, and it never really slowed down from there, though this time Io wasn't able to hit a dive as Satomura jumped onto the apron & cut her tope off with an elbow, a spot that was much better on paper than in actuality because they didn't line it up right so Io really had to make sure her head found Satomura's forearm. Satomura was dominating the match early when she stuck to her bread & butter technical wrestling, but when she tried to get fancy, Io might make the risk backfire so she could do her thing. Once Io warmed up though, she pretty much just did everything she wanted & they exchanged big spots back & forth throughout the second half of the match. They'd counter the major spots such as the Death Valley bomb & moonsault, but they weren't really challenging themselves in the development of the sequences or the speed of the counters, just rolling out bombs back & forth. Both were individually very good, but they did more in their previous matches to be collectively impressive than they did here. After Satomura got her knees up for the moonsault they began doing double sell spots to start selling the draw. The intensity did nonetheless kick in with a furious strike exchange, & Satomura really laid into Io when she eventually followed her to the floor after Io escaped following two high kicks. Io's big comeback was countering Satomura throwing her back into the ring with a 619, but her knee got stuck on the apron so she literally had to restart the kick halfway through. Io hit her moonsault attack to the floor after that, and the match finally had a sense of urgency as they kicked it up three notches trying to squeeze a finish in before time expired. Io did a good job with her strikes here, landing some big uppers to set up her power or flying moves, but Satomura always had an answer to the moonsault press. Satomura finally hit her Death Valley bomb in the final 30 seconds, but Io kicked out & time expired right after Satomura's scorpio rising. Satomura's performance was miles better than anything she's done so far in 2018, but my general feeling was that the best thing about the match is it ensures a rematch that will hopefully be a lot more toward their usual leave it all in the ring contest. ***1/2
Sendai Girls World Title Match: Chihiro Hashimoto vs. Ayako Hamada 19:52. Hamada appears to have put on another 15 pounds of table weight since she beat Satomura on 1/6/18 to earn this title shot & is the noticably larger than Hashimoto, though the difference is a couple inches of height & 8 inches around the waist. As such, they fought the same big woman power wrestler plus a few athetic moves style & built the match around parity spots, really just going back & forth, which would be okay if the counters weren't slow & sometimes sloppy looking. The evenness of the fight was actually a lot more fitting than I expected, as with Hashimoto getting better & Hamada getting worse, there's not much between them at this point, though certainly the way things are trending, Hashimoto will probably be miles better in another year. Match was fine, but uninspiring. Hamada took the title with her AP cross, but vacated just before DASH made the 1st challenge (frustratingly DASH's only other challenge against Satomura seems to be the only title match that's not available) when she was busted for drugs. **1/2
Sammii Jayne vs. Solo Darling 12:21
Alex Lee & Mika Iwata vs. Cassandra Miyagi & Mio Momono 11:19
Manami & Meiko Satomura vs. Ami Sato & Chihiro Hashimoto 19:52
DASH Chisako & KAORU vs. Heidi Katrina & Yuu Yamagata 14:51
4/26/14: Meiko Satomura vs. Io Shirai 18:15. The first singles meeting between Satomura & Shirai took place on a small Senjo show that wasn't televised (later released on a compilation DVD) with Satomura winning to set up her much better known World of Stardom challenge against Shirai in STARDOM on 7/10/14. While this wasn't as spectacular as the joshi match of the year candidate rematch, this wasn't simply a dry run to familiarize themselves with one another either. They set up the basic tenet of their matches with Shirai trying to find a way to hit her flying moves without falling prey to Satomura's much safer & easier to execute shooter offense. That being said, it was a more solid & cohesive match than its predescessors, doing a more believable job of laying out how these two could work together a logical match together. This wasn't the typical Io match where she's flying all over the place, she takes what's available & thus spends a lot of time in Satomura's realm because it's easier for her to counter a strike with a strike or a submission with a submission. It's a really nice back & forth technical match that is a lot more Satomura's match than Io's, but Io definitely has her moments, not only as the match progresses & she hits her typical moonsaults, but really throughout as she shows her diversity matching Satomura hold for hold despite venturing far outside her box. The match was fantastic until Io finally hit her moonsault to the floor, which actually became possible because Satomura surprisingly decided to ascend to the top rope & got dropkicked to the floor for her trouble. The problem with this match is once it takes off here, they stop working the holds in & instead just do a 5+ minute all out dash to the finish. While that makes for great entertainment, this match was working amazingly because they set the spots up then it was good because it was fireworks between two of the best workers, but the two styles don't really function well back to back, and I just wish they did a longer match where they kept struggling to make the holds work instead of going into hyper stuff to do mode & compressing everything that wasn't viable early into the too brief finishing stretch. I don't want to make it sound like they lost the plot completely, there were a number of exceptional counters in the final minutes, but the focus definitely shifted from making the moves work to having a match of the year, & I think the modes should have been a lot less at odds than they wound up being. Literally, they could have added a couple minutes of setup down the stretch & had a much better match that satisfied what they were trying to do for the majority of the match, but still built to an exciting conclusion. As it was, what would have seemed like an obvious story point of Io losing because a high risk huracanrana failed was lost in the shuffle as was someone finally getting something of a run with Satomura hitting a Death Valley bomb, choke, then Death Valley bomb for the win. Nipicks aside, the work was fantastic & it's probably still the more successful of their 2014 matches. ****
Ami Sato vs. Manami 7:30
Reyna Isis & Rina Yamashita vs. Hiroyo Matsumoto & La Jarochita 16:11
DASH Chisako vs. Chihiro Hashimoto 10:14. This was supposed to be DASH's 2nd ever challenge for the Sendai Girls title, but Ayako Hamada vacated due to getting busted for drugs, so DASH fought the previous champion Hashimoto instead, though they decided to have an 8 woman title tournament rather than just make this for the belt. Hashimoto's title loss to Ayako was somewhat disappointing, as all of Ayako's big matches in 2018 have been, lacking urgency & intensity, but these two made the most of their short match, with DASH pushing the pace & taking it to Hashimoto from start to finish. DASH's pressure forced Hashimoto to be quicker & more reactive, and it's a good sign that Hashimoto can actually adjust to her opponent, which tends to be one of the biggest liabilities of power wrestlers, especially those who always win. The work here was really good, and it shows how much Hashimoto has improved in a year because she was really out of her element & outclassed in the similarly fast paced & athletic Stardom match where she teamed with Satomura against Io & Mayu on 3/9/17. Even if DASH was mostly countering her power moves, Hashimoto was working a much faster paced & doing good sequences where she also had answers to DASH's speed. The match was mostly good for DASH, as most DASH matches are, but Hashimoto really elevated her level to match her & this was the only Senjo match I've seen so far in '18 that was better than I expected when I just looked at the results. The downside is it's really short, but going full speed for 10 minutes is a lot more interesting than going half speed for 20. Everything in this match was really well done except DASH's harumaru finisher was almost in two parts as Hashimoto kind of got stuck on her back then had to elevate herself off the mat to end up in the crucifix. DASH's career has really been hurt by her sister Sachiko retiring to get married 2 1/2 years ago, as she was a tag specialist who was since hampered with two terrible partners in a row in slow old KAORU & Mrs. Miyagi, but now that she had a reign with the PURE-J Openweight title & has dropped the Sendai tag titles I'm hoping they'll finally give her more of a chance in singles. ***1/4
Aja Kong & Cassandra Miyagi & Heidi Katrina vs. Ami Sato & Alex Lee & Mika Iwata 12:47
Diana 2/4/18
Sareee vs. Mio Momono
Jaguar Yokota & Ayako Sato vs. Kyoko Inoue & Kaoru Ito
KAORU vs. Ami Sato 8:29
Alex Lee vs. Cassandra Miyagi 10:35
Mika Iwata vs. Heidi Katrina 7:29
Hikaru Shida & Mio Momono vs. Manami & Meiko Satomura 12:32
DASH Chisako & Nyla Rose vs. Chihiro Hashimoto & Hiroyo Matsumoto 18:10. DASH does her best to make it a match despite a new partner who also contributes nothing. DASH vs. Hashimoto is the most interesting thing going on in Senjo this year, and this pairing delivered. Matsumoto especially just saved her energy for when she's in with DASH & is actually being challenged & pushed to develop the match. Rose isn't inept, but she's not really working with anyone, just going through all the basic '80s big person moves such as the bodyslam & big splash, with Matsumoto seeming really bored & just going through the motions.
8/26/18
Ami Sato vs. Manami 7:05
Bolshoi Kid vs. Aiger 10:33
Aja Kong & Ami Sato & Chihiro Hashimoto & Hiroyo Matsumoto vs. DASH Chisako & Manami Katsu & Meiko Satomura & Sareee 20:00
Sendai Girls Tag Title Match: Cassandra Miyagi & Heidi Katrina vs. Alex Lee & Mika Iwata 18:03
KAORU vs. Ami Sato 8:29
Alex Lee vs. Cassandra Miyagi 10:35
Mika Iwata vs. Heidi Katrina 7:29
Hikaru Shida & Mio Momono vs. Manami & Meiko Satomura 12:32
DASH Chisako & Nyla Rose vs. Chihiro Hashimoto & Hiroyo Matsumoto 18:10. DASH does her best to make it a match despite a new partner who also contributes nothing. DASH vs. Hashimoto is the most interesting thing going on in Senjo this year, and this pairing delivered. Matsumoto especially just saved her energy for when she's in with DASH & is actually being challenged & pushed to develop the match. Rose isn't inept, but she's not really working with anyone, just going through all the basic '80s big person moves such as the bodyslam & big splash, with Matsumoto seeming really bored & just going through the motions.
Diana 1/13/18: Jaguar Yokota & Megumi Yabushita vs. Kyoko Inoue & Kaoru Ito 11:20
REINA 4/5/17: Mima Shimoda & Riho vs. Makoto & Yuina Onasaka 13:56
Mio Momono vs. Manami 8:11
KAORU vs. Mai Mizuochi 7:39
Aiger vs. Sakura Hirota 12:04
Aja Kong & Nyla Rose & Rydeen Hagane vs. Ami Sato & Hiroyo Matsumoto & Manami Katsu 15:20
Sendai Girls Tag Title Match: Cassandra Miyagi & Heidi Katrina vs. Alex Lee & Mika Iwata 22:01
Chihiro Hashimoto & Meiko Satomura vs. DASH Chisako & Io Shirai 18:16. For once you had a tag match with four really strong workers, and it was good from the first moment to the last, with no down time. Although a really good match that was the best Senjo has delivered thusfar in 2018, it had kind of an odd dynamic & didn't really know where it wanted to go, but its strength was its consistency, and that ultimately carried the day. The match was booked before Io gave her 2 weeks notice that she was leaving Stardom high & dry, and was likely made with the idea that it would be the bridge to the always anticipated rematch between Satomura & Io, who were last seen having a very good 20:00 draw on 4/19. Though causing nowhere near the disarray that Io bailing on Stardom did, Ayako Hamada's arrest & subsequent retirement has nonetheless left Senjo in an odd spot because Hashimoto dropped the title to her just before the incarceration, and thus the other big match they were presumably building to was Hashimoto getting another important win over a star from a previous generation, and regaining the title from in the process. They had to audible into Hashimoto vs. DASH for the now vacant title at Jinsei's 25th Anniversary show, which is a much more interesting match given DASH is 25 times the worker overweight Ayako is at this point, and also the opponent that brings out the most in Hashimoto. That being said, DASH doesn't have the name value of Ayako to improve Hashimoto's resume & is the lesser name between these four, so you'd figure she'd get the pin on Hashimoto again here as she did in their 5/13 singles match to boost her credibility & then job in the title match the next week, except she instead just lost to Hashimoto. Things are even more of a mess in joshiville than usual, but nonetheless we got a steady stream of high quality action here. What I like about the DASH vs. Hashimoto program is it's increasingly gotten Hashimoto away from being a slow power wrestler, with DASH instead challenging her to match her in a quick, more kinetic & active counter laden style. Hashimoto started out just being pushed because she had size & an amateur pedigree, but she's really become a far more well rounded wrestler who can hang in any style in the last year rather than someone who lets the opponent do a few things now & then before reverting back to tossing them around. The match started in an action oriented technical style, with more running sequences from DASH vs. Hashimoto & more holds from Satomura vs. Io, but was pretty much a mid paced match in the joshi running style. What hurt the match is while it started strong & didn't then settle into the usual time killing before picking up, it kind of just maintained a fairly even pace throughout & never found the extra gear to go from really good to excellent or hit anything that felt like a finishing sequence. Satomura vs. Io evolved more because early on they did Satomura's style, then Io got her flying going, but overall Io was more in the mode of exchanging strikes with Satomura & picking her spots to be explosive. She showed herself to be a superior athlete with everything she did, highlighted by a nice moonsault to the floor, but DASH vs. Hashimoto was definitely the featured portion, which had its good points in that they worked more toward their max level, but for all she's improved, Hashimoto is still a country mile from the level of any of the other 3. It wasn't so much a tag match as two singles matches that traded off, with DASH working a little more with Satomura than Io did with Hashimoto, but the mixing was merely a matter of how quickly one tagged out once the other tagged in. I really liked Io countering the German suplex with a cradle but releasing & popping right up into a double footstomp rather than going for the flash pin. I thought the double team spots worked really well in general, giving the match some boosts of urgency that it was otherwise kind of lacking. The best one was Io stopping Hashimoto's powerbomb with a swandive missile kick then DASH countering into a huracanrana. Hashimoto rolled through DASH's harumaru finisher though, and hit 2 suisha otoshis into her Albright (high angle German suplex adopted from Gary) for the win. I was surprised the match ended already, as it seemed a long way from reaching any kind of peak, and wound up being 4 minutes shorter than the tag title semifinal with a bunch of below average workers. DASH did make the mistake of exchanging blows with Hashimoto, which lead to her getting flattened & then taken out with the power, but it was still of the NJ someone hit a finisher so we can go home variety. ***1/2
Hikaru Shida vs. Manami 9:15
Alex Lee vs. Nyla Rose 15:00
Meiko Satomura vs. Ami Sato 9:09
Cassandra Miyagi & Heidi Katrina vs. Chihiro Hashimoto & Mika Iwata 16:19
Hiroyo Matsumoto & Mio Momono vs. DASH Chisako & KAORU 13:44
Ami Sato vs. Manami 7:45
Heidi Katrina vs. Aiger vs. Sakura Hirota 7:56
DASH Chisako & KAORU vs. Alex Lee & Mika Iwata 16:56
Hiroyo Matsumoto vs. Cassandra Miyagi 9:57
Chihiro Hashimoto & Meiko Satomura vs. Mio Momono & Nyla Rose 17:32
Ami Sato vs. Manami 6:32
Hikaru Shida vs. Aiger vs. Sakura Hirota 9:48
Cassandra Miyagi & Heidi Katrina vs. Mio Momono & Nyla Rose 15:34
Sareee vs. Mika Iwata 11:22
Alex Lee & Chihiro Hashimoto & Meiko Satomura vs. Hiroyo Matsumoto & DASH Chisako & KAORU 21:46
Manami vs. Mei Suruga 6:33
Ami Sato vs. Yuna Mizumori 10:00
Cassandra Miyagi & Heidi Katrina vs. Alex Lee & Nyla Rose 14:02
DASH Chisako & KAORU vs. Meiko Satomura & Rin Kadokura 16:39
Chihiro Hashimoto vs. Mika Iwata 6:31
Sendai Girls Junior Title Tournament First Round Match: Manami vs. Mikoto Shindo 7:34
Sendai Girls Junior Title Tournament First Round Match: Ayame Sasamura vs. Ami Sato 6:41
DASH Chisako & Hiroyo Matsumoto vs. Alex Lee & Mio Momono 11:59
Cassandra Miyagi & Hikaru Shida vs. Aiger & Sakura Hirota 16:23
Chihiro Hashimoto & Mika Iwata vs. KAORU & Meiko Satomura 17:47
Mikoto Shindo & Mio Momono vs. Ami Sato & Mei Suruga 13:50
Hikaru Shida & KAORU & Riho vs. Aiger & Alex Lee & Sakura Hirota 10:34
DASH Chisako & Hiroyo Matsumoto vs. Millie McKenzie & Rhia O'Reilly 13:13
Sendai Girls Junior Title Match: Ayame Sasamura vs. Manami 10:54
Aja Kong & Meiko Satomura vs. Hana Kimura & Mika Iwata 15:14
Sendai Girls World Title: Chihiro Hashimoto vs. Cassandra Miyagi 20:02
Manami & Meiko Satomura vs. KAORU & Mikoto Shindo 14:52
Aiger vs. Sakura Hirota 12:08
Chihiro Hashimoto & Mika Iwata vs. Alex Lee & Heidi Katrina 9:08
Hikaru Shida vs. Cassandra Miyagi 13:53
DASH Chisako & Hiroyo Matsumoto vs. Ayame Sasamura & Mio Momono 19:57
11/16/18
KAORU & Mio Momono vs. Chikayo Nagashima & Manami 11:28
Sendai Girls World Junior Championship: Ayame Sasamura vs. Mikoto Shindo 10:22
Chihiro Hashimoto & DASH Chisako vs. Hazuki & Kagetsu 27:51
11/17/18
Alex Lee & Heidi Katrina vs. Aiger & Sakura Hirota 8:20
DASH Chisako & Hiroyo Matsumoto vs. Ryo Mizunami & Hikaru Shida 20:00
Mika Iwata & Sareee vs. Aja Kong & Cassandra Miyagi 12:58
Sendai Girls World Title Match: Chihiro Hashimoto vs. Meiko Satomura 17:19
Manami vs. Mei Suruga 7:26
Cassandra Miyagi & KAORU vs. Alex Lee & Heidi Katrina 11:40
Beauty Bear Chihiro Hashimoto & Mika Iwata vs. Mikoto Shindo & Takumi Iroha 10:17
Meiko Satomura vs. Sakura Hirota 14:52
DASH Chisako & Hiroyo Matsumoto vs. Hikaru Shida & Miyako Morino 14:48