Bonus Content - 48 Hours in Las Vegas: A Wrestling Road Diary
Chris Whitehead takes us along with him on a whistle stop tour of the independent and global promotions who made Las Vegas their home during Wrestlemania week.
Welcome to another edition of Negative Progression, truly a name that is coming back around to the relevance it had when I dreamed it up in the depths of 2020. But I digress!
Today’s post is one that I am equating to a bonus feature from a DVD boxset (remember those?), as it is a reprint of something that originally ran in another outlet. The below piece originally appeared in Issue 3 of the Social Suplex Newsletter, a new digital wrestling magazine that my friends Trish and Tim are working on, and which combines news and match results with feature writing. It’s a pretty classic idea, and one which is sorely missing from the ‘wrestling media’ landscape. I really hope it takes off.
I was delighted to be asked to contribute a piece, and happy to do so; both to support my friends and because I could attempt to do something I’ve long wanted to try: the “road diary” style article, a style of writing which I have always enjoyed reading.
Once upon a time, when a thriving media ecosystem existed, I always thought it must be super cool to be an editor-at-large for a lifestyle magazine and just fuck around in cool places and write about it. Kind of a perfect gig, huh? So thats the context to view this through.
Why did I go to Las Vegas for 48 hours to watch wrestling with strangers? Because, as we say in the wrestling nerd world, I am “a sicko”. Every year, WWE (who we hate around these parts) brings its biggest show of the year - Wrestlemania - to a football stadium somewhere in the US and tens of thousands of fans travel from all over the globe to attend. Since around 2015 or so it’s become kind of a festival, as most of the rest of the wrestling world - from micro companies based in the host city, to the biggest companies in Japan - come to town to run smaller shows in smaller rooms. It’s kind of a jamboree of global wrestling fans. It allows people to sample the many regional styles and flavors of wrestling.
At one point, it used to be Friday to Sunday but over time has become more like Tuesday to Sunday. The ‘sicko’ move is to get in for the good/cool/hipster stuff and get out without seeing a minute of the WWE content. Sounds counter-intuitive, I know. This was my third time tackling Wrestlemania Week(end) and attemping to navigate the mythical “Path of Glory” - in which you hit all the best shows to be at any time. Which is harder than you might think, when two or three shows are happening at the same time, for three or four days. After successful mission in NYC in 2019 and an easy schedule right here in Los Angeles in 2023, the pressure was on: could I keep the streak alive?
For the many of you who dont follow wrestling, the hook here is “will Chris defeat his grumpiness and have a good time” so maybe you’ll find something to enjoy here too. Or not. Either way, let me know…as this is quite the depature from the usual programming around here.
This version has been lightly re-edited from the original version to clean up typo’s I found, and edited/footnoted to add context and clarity for a non-wrestling audience and slightly reformatted.
Also this is pretty long, so consider reading in the app or on the web so your email doesn’t cut it off early.
Enjoy!
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48 Hours in Las Vegas: A Wrestlemania Week Road Diary
Chris Whitehead takes us along with him on a whistle stop tour of the independent and global promotions who made Las Vegas their home during Wrestlemania week.
Aja Kong stands victorious over ‘super rookie’ Senka Akatsuki at the Marvelous show
Wednesday, April 16th 2025
8am, Los Angeles: I decided to do this Wrestlemania Week trip (no longer just a weekend) in the depths of my sadness-hangover from the twin combination of getting home from my Japan trip in January and then the city being on fire two days later. It seemed like a way to have something to look forward to.
Here, today, on the cusp of the trip, I am coming off a late night of tabletop role playing (in this case, investigating the Cthulhu Mythos in 1920s Massachusetts) and I am already tired and behind the eight ball on sleep. I am not feeling excited about this trip and am asking myself the question – why am I going?
There is also the prevailing narrative that insists that the non-WWE aspects of Mania Week is either dead or dying and/or that the US Indie scene is dead or dying. WWE is doing their best to flood the week with their own events and are also trying to co-opt the indie and overseas shows as well, either through acquistions or ‘partnerships’. AEW - their closest domestic rival - have retreated from the week and pulled their contracted wrestlers from most of their bookings.
These are not the halcyon days of 2016-2019. At this point, the draw for me is primarily down to the Japanese companies, who mostly only come this one time each year, and for any lucha matches. In summation: I am starting out not hyped and tired, the bloom may be off the rose and I am travelling solo, and live wrestling is best enjoyed in company. Well, it’s too late to back out now.
Clap? Get into it?
3pm, Burbank Airport: The Hollywood Burbank Airport (real ones still call it Bob Hope Airport) is less of an airport and more of a greyhound bus station with planes. It’s glorious in its simplicity and beloved by anyone that lives nearby. You can show up minutes before boarding starts and easily make your flight. You board the plane by walking out of the building, onto the tarmac and walking up a ramp or stairs to the front and back of the plane. It’s so great. They are, of course, ruining this and currently building a new terminal with jet bridges.
Burbank Airport, before they ruin it.
My flight was 45 minutes of the bumpiest ride you can imagine, just constant pockets of air and wind, so much so that the seatbelt light was kept on the whole time. It’s like a rollercoaster ride but for 45 mins. Have I mentioned I don’t like roller coasters? Why am I doing this trip, exactly?
I soothe my nerves with one of the best unknown classic records of all time, The Dentists 1985 debut album Some People Are on the Pitch They Think It’s All Over It Is Now, a hallmark of the 1980s Medway Scene from Kent, England. If you like jangly guitar pop, this is an all-timer, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
5.30pm, Las Vegas, NV: I arrive at my hotel and throw AEW’s Wednesday Night Dynamite onto the TV and am rewarded with two fantastic matches to warm me up for the evening.
The Four Queens Hotel and Casino is neither as sketchy as I worried about nor as nice as I hoped. It is clean, which is all I can ask for. Most importantly, it is cheap, which is what matters the most, because my ethos for this trip is, in the iconic words of The Minutemen, to “Jam Econo.” Which means I need to find someone that is going to The Palms for the show tonight to save on the cab fare. I hit up some people on discord, knowing that lots of people are in town, and ultimately land in the company of extremely nice man (and longtime Texas wrestling promoter) Justin Bissonnette (aka Biss) who, along with his friend Paul, are headed to the same show as me and are delightful company.
Show 1: Dragon Gate USA: The Rebirth – 9pm at The Pearl Theatre at the Palms This was an extremely fun and good show and an excellent way to kick off my run of shows. Between the good company, including meeting many other online friends and acquaintances before the show, combined with the fun, easy to watch matches, I am starting to believe coming wasn’t a horrible idea after all.
I rarely watch any Dragongate, so getting to see some of their most hyped wrestlers is a treat, most of all Shun Skywalker, who makes a constant and low groaning noise throughout his matches, like a one-man white noise machine. I love it. There was a guy in our section who was supremely mad about it and it was glorious to see him get more and more mad. My hat is off to Shun.
Shun Skywalker - imagine a low groaning noise for full effect
This show did have kind of a weird crowd, no real surprise given the GCW1 connection. I mentioned this weird crowd in a group text and my friend Andrew deadpanned “isn’t that all wrestling shows?” and while he isn’t wrong, this show also had a guy in a Joey Ryan “King of Dongstyle” shirt in 20252 and a crowd that knew more about the bad GCW wrestlers than the good Dragongate wrestlers. Case in point: the second most popular person on this show, after Ultimo Dragon, was possibly the worst wrestler I saw all week, GCW mainstay Jimmy Lloyd.
Show Rating: B
Best Match: Paradox vs Z-Brats, six man tag
Merch Report: The Dragongate guys had shirts and 8x10s, plus photo ops (yes, Shun was groaning during the photos). Joe Drombowski, who did commentary, had an emporium of bootleg DVDs and vintage magazines that was the most interesting merch stand I saw on my trip.
Vibes Report: A successful start. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea. Dragongate is absolutely a promotion I need to spend more time with, if only for more Shun.
Ultimo Dragon greets the crowd at the Dragongate USA show
Thursday, April 17th, 2025
7am, Four Queens: I awake somewhat unsure how I even got to sleep, as it turns out Freemont Street is basically an all-night outdoor nightclub. I didn’t get to sleep until after 3am. This is also when I realized I didn’t leave any time in today’s schedule for lunch. I walk around the block to the AmeriBrunch Café and load up on way too much breakfast food, in the hope it keeps me going until dinner time. Sadly, I am unable to find anyone to split a ride with me to my first show, so I make the long (30min) ride alone, which is fine as tiredness is slapping me in the face as the very nice Uber driver fortunately doesn’t force small talk on me.
Show 2: Stardom American Dream 2025 in Sin City – 12pm, the Veil Pavilion at the Silverton Casino Lodge The Silverton is waaaaay off strip - hence that 30 min drive - and is neighbored by a massive Bass Pro store and a Cracker Barrel restaurant, so we are in the Deep South of the Strip, both geographically and spiritually. It seems like a nice enough place. This is the first of two Stardom shows this weekend and is being promoted by US micro indie Spark Joshi who are running their own show later in the day from the same venue.
As someone who considers World Wonder Ring Stardom their “home promotion” this crowd is theoretically my people and turns out to also be my people in reality, as I run into some folks I met in Tokyo at the Stardom Show in Sumo Hall on 12/29/24, two of whom were sat next to me and who travelled to both Tokyo and Vegas from Germany. The world of wrestling is global, but also a small world. It’s nice to see the familiar faces.
The show itself is very much a Stardom “house show”3, which is no insult but also not the highest compliment. You come for the vibes and to catch whoever they are willing or able to bring with them from Japan. Eight days after this show, they are running their biggest show ever, so the goal of these shows is to have fun and make sure no one gets hurt. It was a fun, if uneventful show headlined by a reasonably good main event between Maika and Thekla.
If I had my time over, I would probably have gone to the Pandemonium Pro show that was running at the same time, but I have no regrets from coming here. Any day that you get to see AZM4 wrestle is a good day.
Show Rating: C+
Best Match: Maika vs Thekla
Merch Report: If you like expensive merchandise, this was the show for you: a $200 tracksuit, a $150 Velour jacket plus standard fare like T-shirts, a hat, photos, etc. Unagi Sayaka also had her own merch, including a $70 baseball cap. Overall, this was the most professional looking and most well shopped merch store I saw all weekend. I bought a Stardom baseball hat for $40.
Vibes Report: A show for the hardcore Stardom faithful, but a fun time. Just a shame it was so far away from everything else but kudos to the venue for the most comfortable seats of the weekend and free water, a true Las Vegas rarity.
Stardom’s show at the Silverton Casino Lodge
After the show, I used my loudest voice to ask “is anyone going to the Palms” in the rideshare area and found a willing ride in Chris from Cumbria (shout out to Northern England, the best part of that damp and rainy island) who was a very nice fella and with whom I endured the non-stop anxiety chatter of our Uber driver on the 20 min ride to the Palms.
Show 3: The WrestleCon Mark Hitchcock Memorial Supershow 2025 – 3pm at The Pearl Theatre at the Palms If ever there were a lesson in “don’t buy a ticket until the card is released” it was the 2025 Mark Hitchcock Memorial Show (MHMS), the card for which was deeply underwhelming. I made an early committment to my ticket – a no-card-needed confidence buy based on my historical love of this show, having attended live in 2019 and 2023.
To me, the MHMS has long been the beating heart of The Wrestlemania Weekend Experience: the central square through which all journeys along the “path of glory” should pass. As other people have said, the MHMS is a vibe check on the state of the indie wrestling industry every year.
Here’s the problem: that beating heart appears to have developed heart disease because this show was, outside of the two lucha matches that opened the show, a train wreck combined with a car crash. It was a fucking disaster.
Much like heart disease, it was also largely preventable. Whoever booked the non-lucha parts of this show might want to reflect on their choices. Yes, this is indie wrestling in 2025, which as noted earlier is beset on all sides by major league companies and I’m sure this is not an easy show to book as a result, especially with the high expectations the history of this show creates. The degree of difficulty is certainly higher than it was in the past, and I have some sympathy as a result, but my word this show left a bad taste in my mouth. Anyone could have told you the Butterbean/Minoru Suzuki match was not going to go well5.
The ten-man lucha tag and the Ninja Mack/Mascara Dorada matches made the price of my ticket worthwhile. By the time you read this, everything that ever needs to be said about Mickie James v Maki Itoh and Butterbean vMinoru Suzuki has already been said, but sitting through those historically bad matches back-to-back sure did set me back to “why am I doing this trip?” again.
This was also the point at which I realized that in 2025, I am on an all-time run of witnessing bad matches, having been in the room for Shota Umino and Zack Sabre at the Tokyo Dome, for Mox and Cope at AEW Revolution in Los Angeles and now for two matches people have said are in contention for the worst matches ever. Not just this year! Ever!!
By the time the year is out, I may end up having been in attendance for the top half of the Worst Match of The Year list. My apologies in advance if you see me at a show for the rest of the year because it probably means we are going to get a real bad match.
Show Rating: D+ (An A for the lucha matches and an F for the rest)
Best Match: Team Mala Fama vs Team Gravity, ten man lucha tag.
Merch Report: I forgot to check the merch because I was annoyed and hungry after the show. I’m going to assume it sucked.
Vibes Report: Super Weak. I was glad I wasn’t heading back to the Palms for any more shows after this one. Three shows in, with three to go, one has been bad, one has been ok and one has been pretty good. I need more than that for this trip to not be a bust.
6.30pm: An intermission at the Glitter Gulch Tiki Bar Once again finding my way into a shared Uber as I head back to the Fremont area. This time, I found not just a fan but also a podcaster, on his way to one of the many smaller shows at The Nerd bar. We had a therapeutic chat about the insanity of the Butterbean/Suzuki train wreck while our Uber driver lamented that due to the high ticket prices he was unable to take his son to Wrestlemania.
I head to the Glitter Gulch for a literal and figurative palate cleanser and to check off a box on a non-wrestling hobby, as I further my belief that happiness is a tiki drink and a friendly bartender. I now only have one Tiki Bar left in Vegas that I’ve never been to.
Two cocktails and one spam fried rice later, my palate is cleansed and my mood restored. I am, however, still very tired. I head back to the hotel and try but fail to get any sleep and engage in what can only be described as a ‘sleepless nap’ for an hour or so (eyes closed, body still, brain very much awake) before giving up and attempting to wake up by taking a shower and heading out on a hunt for coffee.
Spam Fried Rice, from the Glitter Gulch Tiki Bar. It was worth a solid 2d6 HP recovery
After obtaining coffee and heading toward the venue, I ran into Biss and Paul in the street and their company immediately gave me the energy boost I needed. We hung out in the line, chatting to each other and some more friends about our days and the shows we saw while we waited for the doors to open.
Show 4: Marvelous Women’s Pro Wrestling – 11pm at Meet Las Vegas Part of the joy of Mania Week is taking the time to see something new. I had never watched a Marvelous show from top to bottom before and had little in the way of expectations.
After a preshow match that over-delivered featuring local wrestlers who I assume attended their try out the day before the show, they did the traditional Japanese style presentation of bringing out all the wrestlers on the show to the ring to line up and wave and then the legendary CHIGUSA NAGAYO6 herself came out to greet us and kick the show off. Right then I knew that this show was probably going to rule. As Biss said later, this was the “effort show” of the week, as it was two hours of the hard hitting and intensity you would expect on a joshi show (and yes, even the men’s match delivered.)
The main event saw some of the highest intensity action of any show I went to, as Syuri and Takumi Iroha engaged in some intense grappling and striking. The aura of Syuri is unbelievable when witnessed in person and having been denied that chance at Sumo Hall for more than a minute due a freak injury, it was nice to make up for that here.
The real highlight of this show, and what will probably be my enduring memory of this whole trip, was an Aja Kong “notebook match7” in 2025.
Every second of the 5 minutes and 5 seconds of the rookie showcase /ritual murder of Senka Akatsuki was great and the climactic moment of Senka refusing to be covered by Aja even for a one-count pin made the crowd go as wild as any moment I saw all week. Sometimes its the simplest things but done perfectly, that move you. It made me jump out of my chair, pogo and vibrate with joy in a way I didn’t even realize until I saw myself in the background while watching a clip of the match the next day. It made the crowd erupt screaming Senka, Senka, Senka for someone they likely never saw before that day, and who is six months into her career. It was a perfect moment in pro wrestling.
Show Rating: B+
Best Match: Aja Kong vs Senka Akatsuki
Merch Report: No merch at this show, a real shame because I would love a Marvelous track jacket.
Vibes Report: Immaculate. A small show like this with a crew that came from Japan is why “the sickos” come to Mania Week. The Fighting Spirit of a rookie barely six months into her career taking on an all-time legend of the sport blew the roof off the place. This, my friends, is why we love pro wrestling. Clap! Get into it!
Friday, Aril 19th, 2025
6.45am: Once again, I am short of sleep. I am now very tired, but the thrill of Aja and Senka is alive in my veins. I will try to do what Senka showed me and keep fighting against my fatigue. I return to the AmeriBrunch cafe, and the same handsome man serves me for the second day in a row and wants the low down on yesterday’s wrestling shows, having remembered this is why I was in town.
Everyone I spoke to who was working in Vegas was at least somewhat intrigued by the influx of wrestling fans and interested to hear about the week’s events, especially when I relayed the idea of coming to town just to hit up the smaller shows and leaving before Wrestlemania. The bartender at Glitter Gulch the night before even told me that he loves when wrestling fans come to the bar because they don’t cause trouble and always tip well. Post breakfast, I lay low at the hotel for a while, pack my bag and get ready for my final lap around the Mania Week pool. I am tired but I am hyped. My concern that this trip wasn’t worth it has pretty much been allayed after the Marvelous show.
Show 5: Stardom American Dream 2025 in The Neon City – 12pm at Meet Las Vegas I hook up with Biss again and we marvel at the length of the line for this show. Stardom has a real following for these US shows and I see many familiar faces from the day before. Overall, this was a better show than the Thursday show and it was wrapped up in a tight 1h45m, which we need to normalize for more wrestling shows.
This show saw the return to Stardom of Megan Bayne who was last seen in the promotion on their show at the previous year’s Mania Week and who has since become a featured act on US TV with AEW. It is immediately clear that she looks like a real-deal, big-time American TV wrestler. The highlight of this show may have been the smile on Maika’s face during the ring announcements for the main event. Maika has a long tradition of tagging with tall women: for many years with Himeka prior to Himeka’s retirement in 2023, then winning the Stardom Tag League in 2023 with Bayne, and then another run to the finals of the 2024 Tag League with Hanako. To see her beaming here, while standing between Megan and Hanako, was a delight. Find something to love in life as much as Maika loves tall women.
Show Rating: B-
Best Match: AZM & Johnnie Robbie vs Maya World & Starlight Kid
Merch Report: No merch at this show.
Vibes Report: Perhaps a less traditional Stardom show than Thursday given the presence of the two men on this card and the only singles match being Syuri and a local wrestler but it was still an easy and fun watch. Maya World and Johnnie Robbie were the best local wrestlers on the two Stardom shows and were able to hold their own in their match. Johnnie is probably ready for a tour in Japan, honestly. No one can earnestly tell you these shows were Stardom putting their best food forward but given the circumstances (visas, huge show a week later, etc.) I was satisfied with my experiences. Like I said, any day you get to see AZM wrestle is a good day, and I saw her wrestle every day on this trip.
2pm: An Intermission at the Las Vegas Brewing Company With downtime from 1.45-4pm I need a peaceful spot, some food and a beer, so I take a longer than expected walk on a hotter than expected day to LVBC but am rewarded with cold beers and a good burger. I chat with famous wrestling podcaster Rich Kraetsch from Voices of Wrestling over a beer and we exchanged stories of shows we attended before heading to the company booked by some other famous wrestling podcasters: Deadlock Pro Wrestling. Funnily enough, Deadlock was a show I bought tickets to based on Rich’s boosting of their shows over the last year or so. Can Deadlock end my Mania Week speedrun on a high note?
Show 6: Deadlock Pro Wrestling – 4pm at Meet Las Vegas Deadlock has a lot of buzz as perhaps the premiere indie wrestling company in the US right now. I had never seen a single second of any of their shows, but again, that’s what Mania Week is for. Their hype was well earned, as this was the show with the most overall consistently high-quality top to bottom series of matches that I saw, and outside of the Stardom shows it was also the most professional looking show that I attended.
It also had the biggest crowd of all the shows at MeetLV. It was a crowd made up of many dedicated followers of DPW as people were locked into the stories and the bookers/podcasters that run DPW had a long line of people asking for pictures during the intermission. Deadlock, along with their promotional partners West Coast Pro and Prestige, appear to be doing all they can to resurrect the pre-COVID US indie scene; by identifying good, under-utlilized wrestlers and featuring them, combined with judicial use of talent signed to AEW or England’s RevPro.
The twin highlights of this show were LaBron Kozone and Leon Slater, who told a great story while making both guys look great and the Tag Title Match between two teams I was actually not all that excited to see: Violence Is Forever and Grizzled Young Veterans. Those team proceeded to engage in a wild, intense and bloody street fight that seemed to fit both teams more than a standard match would have. It allowed ViF to be tremendous underdogs unwilling to go down no matter what was thrown at them. Kevin Ku was bleeding a LOT. It also helped that this was the only bloody brawl I saw all week. Deadlock did, indeed, end my trip on a very high note.
Show Rating: A
Best Match: Violence is Forever vs Grizzled Young Veterans
Merch Report: No merch at this show but no shortage of their merch in the crowd so I assume they have a good webstore?
Vibes Report: This was a great way to end my week. I look forward to seeing more of their shows in the future. The “New Collective” of Prestige, West Coast Pro and Deadlock ran two days’ worth of shows at MeetLV and it was a real shot in the arm for Mania Week. I truly hope they get together and do it again. Maybe, just maybe, we can move the center of gravity away from GCW and their Collective which grows less and less interesting with each passing year.
9pm, Harry Reid International Airport: My shared ride to the airport gave me one final chance to chat with a random wrestling fan, David from Colorado who was having a great week and is perhaps the rarest of Americans: an American born rugby player. I hope he had fun at Joey Janela’s Spring Break, a show I heard mixed reviews for.
As I sit on the airplane, waiting to taxi and depart, I am truly and deeply, really fucking tired. I speedran Mania Week with 6 shows across 48 hours, with only 8 total hours of sleep. I didn’t even mention that I was in Las Vegas two weeks earlier for four days, to see some great friends get married. That’s too much Vegas in too short a time for anyone. As tired as I am, I was still sad to miss the show being run by my new friend Biss’s at the Swan Dive (New Texas Pro Wrestling featuring Bryan Keith vs Leon Slater, get into it) but at the same time a man has to sleep eventually.
As we take to the skies, I crank up the volume on my music app and throw on Heavy Times – covered here in the past! – and am reminded that there’s really nothing like flying in to or out of Vegas at night. This city of neon and excess in the middle of the desert just shouldn’t exist and somehow it does, shining brightly in the night. Much like pro wrestling, it’s a glorious mess.
Saturday, April 20th, 2025
8am, Los Angeles: A little after waking up I am reminded of a line from Choked Up, one of the Heavy Times songs I listened to on the flight home: “Stayed up too late / Woke up dehydrated and afraid of life”
I certainly did stay up too late all week. I may be dehydrated. But I am not afraid of life. Quite the opposite, my reserves of joy were refilled, and I couldn’t be happier I made the trip. My thanks to everyone that hung out, said hi, split a ride, lost their minds for the good (Senka!), were agog at the bizarre (Butterbean!) and generally made every show I went to memorable.
There’s nothing in this world quite like pro wrestling, and the people it introduces you to along the way. Wrestlemania Week is alive and well, you just have to find the right people, at the right show, at the right time.
GCW - Game Changer Wrestling - is one of the more popular minor league (aka indie) companies in the US and is famous for its surpremely dedicated fanbase ,who love the company, and that the rest of the US wrestling fanbase that is either indifferent or opposed to them. Their fans are generally kind of a pain in the neck to be around.
Joey Ryan is an extremely cancelled wrestler, accused of multiple instances of sexual harrassmant and worse, and whose wrestling schtick revolved around his penis, hence “dong style”. Wearing this shirt in 2025 is loosely akin to wearing a Louis CK shirt.
A house show is a small event, usually in a non-major town, in which the point of the show is for the people in ‘the house’ and not those watching online. Which is to say, nothing consequential will happen and the wrestlers may take it easier than a big show but it should be fun and easy to watch
Despite being only 23 years old AZM (pronounced a-zoo-me) is a 12 year veteran, and I think the second most tenured wrestler in Stardom. She is one of the most exciting wrestlers of any age or gender in the world and easily in my top 5 favorite active wrestlers.
A ‘match’ between two men in their fifties or sixties, one of whom was a boxer not a wrestler with convulted rules, no winner and a bemused crowd. A match which while it was happening was immeditaly being discussed as the worst match of all time. Following a match that was also being discussed in the same way. A real shit show.
Chigusa Nagayo is the owner and promoter of Marvelous Pro Wrestling. She is also an all time legend of womens wresling. Like top 3-5 to ever do it. A fucking LEGEND OF THE GAME.
A notebook match is a match that is so good, you write it down in your notebook so you can remember it. Notebook matches featuring Aja Kong are rare in 2025. Aja is another legend of the game who while limited by her age and mobility, still has the same aura of a killer that she always had. She has beaten, bloodied and broken the spirit of many a wrestler in her time. A rookie match against her is the ultimate rite of passage. You will lose, but will you hit a single move on her? Will you take her off her feet? Will you earn a shred of her respect? Senka did all of those things. A five minute match almost never rises to the ‘notebook’ level, but this match was perfect. Almost a month later, people are still buzzing about it and Senka broke through to a new level of awareness in the eyes of fans across the world. By losing, on a show with a couple hundred people in the room that took place after midnight pacific time, thousands of miles from her home. This can only happen during wrestlemania week.
