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Ribbon Mania: Looking Towards Ice Ribbon’s Future

1 year ago

Ribbon Mania: Looking Towards Ice Ribbon’s Future

By: James Carlin and Abid Chowdhury

Ribbon Mania is one of Ice Ribbon’s biggest shows of the year that has traditionally taken place annually on December 31st, and with that comes a lot of implications for the company’s future heading into the new year. As stories are ended and the present and future of the company is showcased. This year’s event features a retirement of a short-tenured but promising future star as well as two championships being defended.

Even in her final wrestling match, the incumbent Triangle Ribbon champion “Profound Mystery” Yuuki Mashiro wanted to go out with a bang and did so by selecting her final opponent to be none other than Suzu Suzuki. Mashiro, if she had decided to continue as a wrestler, would have certainly been a major name with Ice Ribbon in the next few years, but no “what if” questions can take away that she’s one of the four women to win Tokyo Sports’ Rookie of the Year, alongside Saki Akai, Chihiro Hashimoto and Utami Hayashishita.

Mashiro has held the Triangle Ribbon championship since capturing the title at Korakuen Hall back in January, defending it six times throughout the year with a 346 day reign. Whilst she didn’t originally plan on becoming a pro-wrestler, her dad’s encouragement to try it out for three years before pursuing her dream of becoming a nurse is what swayed her into the ranks of Ice Ribbon’s roster.

Suzu Suzuki herself has also made a big name of her own in the last year as part of the freelance group Prominence, having fantastic and fantastically violent matches throughout the calendar year including bouts with Stardom’s MIRAI, JTO’s Tomoka Inaba and AEW’s Hikaru Shida. This is her first match in Ice Ribbon in almost a year, a fairly sentimental one too due to Suzu being a mentor to Mashiro when the latter began her training with the company. Now that both women have been away from each other for so long, it’ll be interesting to see how far the two have progressed since their last meeting, which took place in June of 2021.

September saw the crowning of new International Ribbon Tag Team champions when Ice Ribbon’s prodigy Ibuki Hoshi and AEW’s Hikaru Shida won the titles at the company’s “Knights of Ribbon” show at Korakuen Hall. Shida herself is an Ice Ribbon original, debuting as a pro-wrestler as part of the Ice Ribbon roster alongside fellow Muscle Venus series star Tsukasa Fujimoto.

Originally, Shida had defeated Ibuki in a singles match at the July Korakuen show but the two then came together and challenged then champions Makato and Hamuko Hoshi (Ibuki’s mother). With Shida’s scheduling priorities being with AEW, this means that the team’s first defense is at Ribbon Mania.

By December 17th, the challengers to Ibuki and Shida’s tag team championships were finally decided when Big Dekai, Totoro Satsuki and Yuna Manase, defeated Maika Ozaki and Tae Honma to become #1 contenders.

In the lead-up to Ribbon Mania, Ibuki Hoshi was happy to speak about her relationship with Hikaru Shida, Ice Ribbon and more, with assistance from Yappy for translation.

Monthly Puroresu: You’ve known Hikaru Shida since you were a child, when your mother used to bring you to Ice Ribbon shows. What is it like teaming with someone that you’ve known since you were young?
志田光選手とは子供の頃からお母さんに連れられてアイスリボン大会出ていた頃からの知り合いですね。小さい頃から知っている人とタッグを組むのはどうですか？

Ibuki: 不思議な感じです。自分がデビューした頃にはもういなかったので同じリングにたつことも想像していなかったです。

It’s a strange feeling. When I debuted I didn’t imagine that we’d be standing in the same ring.

Monthly Puroresu: How has your relationship with Hikaru Shida changed since then, and how has that enabled you to be able to win the International Ribbon Tag Team championships together?

それ以来、志田光選手との関係はどのように変化し、どのようにしてインターナショナルリボンタッグベルトを獲得することができましたか?

Ibuki: 自分は志田光とはライバルだと思っています。志田光の近くにいればなにか弱点とか分かるかもって！ やっぱり「覚悟」が通じあって獲得できたと思います。

I see myself as a rival to Hikaru Shida. If I stay close to Hikaru Shida I might be able to find out her weaknesses! After all, [preparedness] seems to have been the key to my success.

Monthly Puroresu: How has joining Ice Ribbon affected your relationship with your mother, who used to bring you to these shows, and how has it evolved over time?

アイスリボンに参加したことで、いぶきさんを大会に連れて行ってくれたお母さんとの関係にどのような影響がありましたか?

Ibuki: 先輩後輩の関係になったと思います。だから家とかでもたまに敬語になっちゃいます！

I think our relationship has turned into a senpai-kohai (senior and junior) relationship. Because of that I end up using honorifics even when I speak to her at home!

Monthly Puroresu: Asahi challenges Saori Anou for the ICExINFINITY title and if successful will lead Ice Ribbon in 2023. What ambitions are taking you into the next year and what accomplishments are you looking to achieve?

朝陽選手は、ICEx∞ベルトを目指して安納サオリ選手に挑戦し、成功すれば 2023 年にアイス リボンを率いることになります。来年に向けてどのような野望を持っており、どのような成果を達成しようとしていますか?

Ibuki: 星いぶきの年にしてみせる！

2022年は星いぶきの年にすると言って出来なかったので来年こそはICEのベルトを取って星いぶきの年にする！

I want to make this the year of Ibuki Hoshi! I wasn’t able to make 2022 the year of Ibuki Hoshi, so next year I will take the ICE belt and do just that!

Monthly Puroresu: What are your hopes for the future of Ice Ribbon going forward?

今後のアイスリボンに期待することは？

Ibuki: 未来があること

アイスリボンには若い子達がいっぱいいます。

その子たちがアイスリボンを盛り上げてくれると思うので来年以降のアイスリボンも楽しみにしていてください！

There’s definitely a future ahead.

Ice Ribbon has a lot of young wrestlers.

I think they will liven up Ice Ribbon, so please look forward to us next year!

For the second half of the year, the Cross Infinity championship has been held by freelancer Saori Anou, who won the title in a tournament for the vacant championship following the retirement of Tsukushi. During her reign, Anou has accumulated title defenses against Nao Ishikawa, Maika Ozaki, CMLL’s Stephanie Vaquer, and most recently against the retiring Yuuki Mashiro – who she defeated in the tournament finals to win the championship to begin with. Following her defense against Mashiro, Asahi came into the ring and challenged Anou, which the champion accepted.

At Ribbon Mania, Anou will face-off against Asahi in a bid to secure her fifth defense of the belt. Asahi is young, only 20 years old, and she’s been wrestling for 5 years which gives her an advantage, because she’s not a rookie but a well-trained performer who has a good shot of dethroning the current champion and securing herself as a future and big player for Ice Ribbon going forward. On December 17th, Asahi told Anou that she wanted to become the ace of Ice Ribbon and to lead the company into the future as Cross Infinity champion.

This is the second time that Asahi has challenged for the Cross Infinity title – unsuccessfully challenging former ace Tsukushi Haruka at her retirement show at Yokohama Budakan back in May. With her rivals Kaho Matsushita, Nao Ishikawa and Ibuki Hoshi all busy with their own matches, Asahi has the perfect opportunity to strike and establish herself as the self-proclaimed ace but to do that, she must defeat Saori Anou.

Although Yuuki Mashiro is retiring at the end of the year, Ice Ribbon still has a promising amount of young talent that will lead the company going forward: Asahi, Ibuki Hoshi, Nao Ishikawa, Kaho Matsushita, Tsukina Umino, Saran, Arisa Shinose as well as future trainees that look to be making their debut in the next year.

There’s no lack of talent in Ice Ribbon – the rebrand of the logo and crowning of new champions midway through the year highlights that Ice Ribbon can adapt and will continue to be a mainstay of women’s pro-wrestling in Japan for years to come.

HOW TO STREAM AND WATCH ICE RIBBON

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Initially hired for social media management and Joshi coverage, I lead the coverage of joshi between May 2023 and March 2024, and worked behind the scenes in multiple roles since August 2022 that allowed Monthly Puroresu to smoothly operate.