A press conference was held in Tokyo to announce the complete lineup for the 4th Junior All Star War on New Year's Eve afternoon at Korakuen Hall. The idea is that with the Indy Summit happening later on in the day, some of the joshi promoters think that joshi deserves the spotlight too. The problem is that New Year's Eve is traditionally a very busy day in pro wrestling & MMA in Japan. And joshi is at the bottom of the food chain. But that's why they're doing this with juniors. Rookies work cheap. The show will also feature a POP Title defense and NEO veteran Yuka Shiina's retirement match.
For some reason, they're just doing a series of matches instead of doing a tournament. So we're getting a lot of rookie style matches and that's not usually a good thing. The show will open with Yuka Shiina's retirement match against an opponent TBA followed by her retirement ceremony. To her credit, Shiina wants the spotlight on the youngsters. This will be followed by Atsuko Emoto vs Hiroyo Matsumoto. Is Emoto a junior? Then a couple of rookies from Kaoru Ito's dojo; Hanako Kobayashi vs Oicco Taguchi. Then JD Star's new Athtress Bisa Ohata will face JWP's Kaori Oki. She will debut on Dec. 24. Makoto from Ice Ribbon will appear next with one of the other Ice Ribbon wrestlers. Next is Bambi from K-Dojo vs Kizahana from Gktn followed by Lily Urai from Gutsworld vs NEO rookie Nagisa Nozaki. Then JD Star's Shuu Shibutani vs Ayumi Kurihara, Yasusato Nakajima vs Miki Ishii from Gktn and Rei vs Cherry.
The big announcement is that Fuuka will defend her POP Title against Pro Wrestling SUN's Natsuki*Taiyo (pictured). I expect Fuuka to retain the title. JD Star is really trying to elevate her but in the past Fuuka has not done well under pressure. This is a higher profile show than the usual JD Star show against a high quality young wrestler. I don't know what JD Star will do if Fuuka doesn't step up. The Athtress concept doesn't encourage her to do that. The main event will have Kyoko Kimura teaming with Sakura Emi against Mai Ichii & Ayako Sato. Sato is a Kaoru Ito trainee and Ichii is a Gktn trainee now working for Kaoru Ito. So that's the show. I don't know if it's on TV in Japan.
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