the house of torture under EVIL had a weird sense of comedy and whimsy to it- a bizarre clown car parody of wrestling heels that was just so ridiculous it made you smile in spite of yourself
the house under ren narita has none of it. it’s humorless. it’s boring. it’s NOTHING
going back to these ren narita new japan cup matches after watching incredible STARDOM & DDT stuff for the last two days is like going from enjoying the world’s finest cuisine to dining on raw sewage
the KO-D 6-man title main from yesterday’s DDT FACE show was fucking incredible (i’d go ****1/2). hope we get a masada vs takechi singles match out of it at some point now
feel like mid-march-ish is a good time to check in with a new edition of "John Ranks All The Wrestling Promotions They Watch", by the very scientific score of "how into them am i right now/10". considering i now watch *11* of them regularly this will take a bit, so strap in
i've never really checked them out, heard good things. i'm just....already watching 12 wrestling promotions haha
also feels like a good time to give a cheap plug: if you're interested in learning more about any of these promotions, i cover basically all of them (except i guess JTO?) weekly in audio form, yes even ice ribbon & GLEAT, on my absurdly long podcast: redcircle.com/shows/wrestl...
i think you have to know what you're getting into if that makes any sense? they're VERY tiny
i'm done now btw lol. but yeah, so far 2026 is basically just continuing all the themes of 2025 for me, which is to say that joshi (and also DDT, who probably not coincidentally is maybe the most joshi-like of all the men's promotions lol) is really carrying the whole scene
12. AJPW (1/10)
idk what to say here really, they just suck. i think i would have long stopped watching them if i didn't feel obligated to cover them for my dopey podcast. the CC lineup made me wanna puke the first time i saw it. hokuto omori deserves better!!!
category with DG for me these days. i thought they had turned a corner with their excellent ryogoku show last fall, and ever since it's been months of absolute nothing. they're just squandering the talent they have over there like crazy
11. marigold (2.5/10)
again, not a rating i'm happy about writing here, because i like *a lot* of their roster (i love mai sakurai, victoria is one of the best young wrestlers in the world, misa matsui is criminally underrated etc. etc.) but they're firmly in "what are you even doing anymore"-
(also your streaming service costs like a bazillion dollars compared to all the other standalone promotion ones, and your audio/video quality is sometimes close to as bad as JTO. which at least is on a free youtube channel!)
10. dragongate (3/10)
what the fuck are you guys even doing. why did you have yoshioka lose to kikuta when kikuta is possibly the worst dream gate champion of the modern era. why did shun skywalker get turned on and then just weirdly not actually turn face or really change at all
9. JTO (3.5/10)
i want to rank them higher, but like, TAKA, can you please find a way to shoot your shows that doesn't look like you dipped your camera in vasoline?? the last korakuen especially was straight up unwatchable. which sucks because i love the inaba sisters & aoi a lot!
-for me otherwise. it doesn't feel like they get nearly enough out of their roster, and i'm never excited to watch their shows. but on the other hand, they don't constantly annoy me like the promotions i have ranked below them do either
8. GLEAT (4/10)
i'm gonna make someone sad with this ranking, but yeah idk, i really liked the GLEAT show i went to in japan last december but their shows i've watched since i got back haven't done much for me. i like the UWF stuff more than a lot of people i think, but they just kinda are there-
-goddamn annoying. it's cool that they finally have an actual whole rookie class again finally, though, and watching those guys develop seems like it will be a lot of fun
7. NOAH (5/10)
kinda the inverse of NJPW in that i think their junior division is really good but their heavyweight stuff, especially the hvwt tags, frequently leaves me wanting. inamura is a good champion in ring but i hate his whole goofy persona. T2KX started cool but quickly became pretty-
-amazing matches that i can't imagine having them any lower, and tsuji is an awesome champion which is carrying them a lot for me (along with some amazing heavyweight tag stuff). but please fix this junior division guys!
6. NJPW (5/10)
so now we're into the promotions who have some major flaws. NJPW started the year well, but the house stuff without EVIL is such a fucking drag and a bummer. the NJC has been kinda bad so far, and the junior division is meh. they still have so many talented wrestlers who put on some-
5. sendai girls (7/10)
senjo is good, they just have a tiny roster and their booking is very "chihiro must win everything at all times", which i get but also really bums me out sometimes as a mika iwata oshi. but they're important to the scene and still put out good stuff
of course they don't have the roster depth of the bigger companies and it's on a much lower level and all that, but ice ribbon rules. the only ICE i personally respect. be happy with pro wrestling!
-even knows about: yuuka is maybe the hardest hitting wrestler in all of joshi (which is REALLY saying something), moe hiiro is one of these teenage wrestlers who could be one of the best in the world by the time she actually becomes an adult if she decides to stick with it, etc. etc.
4. ice ribbon (7/10)
the big surprise for me! i think it kinda sucks that all people want to talk about with them is how they don't draw now, because when i started actually watching their shows after going to ribbonmania last december they've been so good?? they have so many demons that nobody-
3. TJPW (8/10)
they've made huge strides since last summer- booking has been better, and their own young roster looks more well rounded (mifu ashida was such a quietly great addition). miu is the best ace in the world. if i wasn't so down on their tag champs they'd be even higher
2. DDT (9.5/10)
easily the best men's promotion and i don't even really think it's close either. similar to STARDOM, they have a super stacked roster of young talent (just not quite AS stacked), and i think i actually like their booking a tad better
1. STARDOM (10/10)
there was never gonna be another number 1. the roster is incredible right now, just stacked with amazing talent up and down the card. there's, like, two pushed wrestlers i don't absolutely love. taro's booking is kinda slow, but this roster is just too good for it to be a problem
feel like mid-march-ish is a good time to check in with a new edition of "John Ranks All The Wrestling Promotions They Watch", by the very scientific score of "how into them am i right now/10". considering i now watch *11* of them regularly this will take a bit, so strap in
wednesdays are now super special to me because they mean one week closer to escaping america again 🙏
going back to japan 13 weeks from today btw
