In peak dark ages just after the collapse Meiko and the few veterans left are holding shows together while they frantically train up any rookie walking into a dojo. It's Meiko everyone calls to keep the doors open by main eventing the only vet left or crowning the next generation.

Recent example. Meiko has one match in TJPW with Miyu Yamashita in 2017. From that moment Miyu & TJPW instantly transitioned from DDT side project to "real" company. This exact loop plays out with nearly every single company in some way for 2 decades.

She doesn't seem to be slowing down so I wasn't going to die on that hill. Meiko is so much more important compared to Io. Io was a great Ace of a promotion in hard times. Meiko is the one that built all of the Aces in every promotion for generations. Every company has a before & after Meiko moment.

I don't have a ballot but I argued for Hayabusa/Meiko/Io and later dropped Io for Mochizuki.

I think Io's WWE run has helped her a lot because she's (relatively) succeeded in two wildly different environments but I don't think either of them individually get her in.

If all that lines up I still think Tam is an edge case at best. Like I said she missed that peak window with a later career start, retiring while she had more to give just before a potential boom.

Tam is definitely one of the triggers for the current growth/rebuilding period but it's going to take some years if that was enough. Say Stardom does get a rumored dome show. Does she get credit for building that runway or does retiring in the process hurt her influence? I wish she had a few years.

Well you can poorly and that's why she's at 18%. It's the magical thing where the story of Japanese women's wrestling goes. I guess some teenage girls like this > AJW 1994 Tokyo Dome good now > DEATH > Stardom. Unless you're deep into the bubble so much of this got wallpapered over.

The drawing arguments completely fails here because yeah Bad Luck Fale has more Tokyo Dome appearances but that's blindly ignoring anything of substance. What Meiko did for decades in an impossible situation is bigger than many of the biggest draws. You can't tell the story of joshi with Meiko.

染髪 Senpatsu - To dye hair 😐

If your watching this for the first time lock in and watch without pausing because the flow is just awesome but I caught so many little things this second time around.

I think I'm going to bring back the recommendation list for 2026 because I wish I kept track this year.

Just got back home and I'm really tempted to get back in the car tomorrow and drive to the next (better) tour stop. I'm right in-between tour stops and I picked the slightly closer one. I've had good luck with checklist bands touring. Very few American.

Trying to get a shot of the pink puffball behind the drums. Fami is a ball of energy. Haruna never stops moving. Asami is giant on stage. I was on Miyako's side so I didn't get many shots of Midori.

Yeah I didn't discover modern joshi until early 2015. I can't complain too much though because I also got to Dragongate a few times. When I was just getting back into wrestling and discovering puro as a whole.

I wouldn't have known at the time but I lived near that area when they were bringing in people from WAVE. It kills me that I had the perfect chance to watch Misaki Ohata wrestle live but I didn't even know her name at the time.

I hope enough "official" accounts get hit with this so they at least mirror to other platforms. Only reason I maintain that account is my Japanese wrestling addiction.