Masahiro Kubota | Monthly Puroresu LLC | Sareee-ISM Chapter 1
By: James Carlin
Sareee-ISM Chapter 3, taking place on January 16th, is the third produce show run by Sareee, and the first in 2024. Just like the last two chapters, the show will be taking place at Shinjuku FACE.
The show can be purchased and watched live through the official website, sareeelive.com, which also has VOD capabilities to be able to watch the event after its initial airing.
02:00 Pacific Standard Time (PST)
04:00 Central Standard Time (CST)
05:00 Eastern Standard Time (EST)
10:00 British Summer Time (BST)
11:00 Central European Time (CET)
19:00 Japan Standard Time (JST)
This is the Sun Goddess’ second attempt at defeating Hashimoto, having come up short in the main event of the first Sareee-ISM show. Like the match’s subtitle suggests, she’s looking to start her year off strong by evening the score to 1-1 at her produce shows.
Their first encounter at Sareee-ISM highlighted that the Sun Goddess is still as good as ever, despite her short her time in WWE’s developmental brand NXT looking to soften her style; she wasted no time proving that her unique hard-hitting style was yet to disppear, going full-throttle against Hashimoto after her TKO from Syuri in STARDOM the month prior.
Now with a year of action back in Japan under her belt in multiple different organizations alongside being the reigning Beyond The Sea champion, she’ll be sure to hit even harder than last time and defeat Chihiro Hashimoto for just the second time in her career, having done so once before with both their Sendai Girls and World Woman Pro-Wrestling Diana World Titles on the line.
While the Inaba Sisters are almost certainly on a collision course for Tomoka’s newly won (and third) Queen of JTO championship, they first have to team up against Marvelous representatives Riko Kawahata and Mio Momono. The duo haven’t had the best of luck recently, with their last tag-team win coming against Yoshiko Hasegawa and Miyuki Takase in Ganbare Joshi back in September, and unsuccessfully challenging for the International Ribbon belts, but Chapter 3 gives them a chance to correct the record and start the year off right with a big win against two of Marvelous’ standout performers.
Momono very recently became the Oz Academy Openweight champion by defeating AKINO, and the champion looks to ride this wave of high momentum as she enters the ring at Sareee-ISM Chapter 3 – she defeated Miyuki Takase last year at Sareee-ISM Chapter 2.
Although Riko Kawahata won’t be teaming with her Magenta partner Maria, she and Mio have only teamed twice together and both were tag team wins meaning that their opponents are facing a so-far undefeated tag team combination.
Due to Arisa Nakajima mild cervical cord injury at SEAdLINNNG just a few days ago, she has been replaced by Nanae Takahashi in this match.
That would have been good news for Unagi, but Takahashi is just as dangerous as Nakajima is, and the Kabukimono knows that having faced her in ZERO1 last year. Luckily for Unagi, she’s teaming with Prominence’s Kurumi Hiiragi, giving the two a hardcore edge against two joshi legends.
The current Kitsune World Champion had initially kept pestering Sareee over and over again after their tag team match ended in defeat at AJPW, trying to push the Sun Goddess into fighting her and even offering to wrestle twice on this card, but she wouldn’t budge and Unagi is wrestling just once on this card and against Takahashi and Ito.
Ito and Takahashi won’t be going easy on Hiiragi and Sayaka, so the two will have to inject their own passion if they wish to defeat their legendary opponents.
The Phoenix of Osaka returns to Sareee-ISM and once again faces off against a Marvelous alumni. Although she was unsuccessful against Mio Momono last year, she gets an opportunity at redemption when she faces Takumi Iroha for only the second time on January 16th.
Iroha’s last match at Sareee-ISM was a losing effort with Arisa Nakajima in tag team action against the super-team of KAIRI and Sareee, but just like Takase she’s looking to rectify her loss at the last show by defeating her opponent in singles action. Iroha walks into this match favorably, having won the only encounter between her opponent back in 2019.
Both women are double champions, with Takase holding the DEADLOCK Pro World’s Womens Championship and Osaka Style Wrestling’s Fukumen Championship, and Iroha holding the West Coast Pro Women’s Championship and RCW Women’s Championships; so neither want to lose their pride that’s on the line as they represent their respective companies heading into this contest of two fantastic performers.
At Sareee-ISM Chapter 2, Kizuna Tanaka and Jaguar Yokota were on the same team. This time, however, Kizuna is fighting against her tag team partner with Evolution Girls’ Chi Chi. Chi Chi herself was wrestling at Chapter 2, but lost against Ibuki Hoshi, who currently reigns as ICExInfinity Champion.
Chi Chi and Tanaka have teamed twice before, but lost both matches. They’ve been in matches together five times and although they’re both relatively new on the scene, the two have been improving in-ring at a rapid rate, with Tanaka winning tag team gold with Honoka in Pro-Wrestling WAVE.
On the other side of the ring is yet another legendary tag team combination. Aja Kong is happy to work with all the rookies and new talent, having done so many a time in many a place, but she won’t go easy on any rookie and will channel her 1990’s self to unleash the fighting spirit in her opponents.
If Tanaka and Chi Chi can overcome the power of Yokota and Kong, it will certainly be a big statement made early on as their careers are only just getting started.
All photos by Masahiro Kubota. Copyright Monthly Puroresu LLC.
Date:
January 13, 2024
Category:
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