Up Up Girls Pro Wrestling Take on America

A report on Up Up Girls Pro Wres's match in Los Angeles during WWE weekend

I’m happy to welcome back guest writer Jack Wannan for a feature on Idol Watch! For this column, he reports on wrestling idols Up Up Girls Pro Wres’s match in Los Angeles last month. He writes and edit a few Substacks, Knockdown News for MMA and Time Limit for wrestling. He has previously reviewed chelmico’s Gokigen for This Side of Japan issue #54. You can return to the main feature here.

Up Up Girls Pro Wres stood in front of a packed house that erupted when they announced they would perform their song “Upper Kick,” but something was off. They weren’t inside Korakuen Hall, Shinjuku FACE, or any other venue that they are usually tied to with their promotion company Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling. They were actually thousands of miles away from Japan, inside the Globe Theatre in Los Angeles.

They still remained in their element. The excited crowd clapped along to the song, some even singing along to all of the lyrics, with some light sticks in the crowd as well. The large turnout in L.A. and the enthusiasm of those in attendance was proof that Up Up Girls Pro Wres found their spot in the pro-wrestling world amid Wrestlemania weekend, the entertainment form’s most busiest week of the year.

Top wrestling promotion WWE ascends on an American city for numerous high profile events during Wrestlemania weekend, with this year’s concluding on April 2. Wrestlemania, a two-night show hosted inside a football stadium, is the high point. But it’s the dozens of smaller shows inside arenas, community centers and theaters that define the weekend.

Up Up Girls Pro Wres participated in the busy festival of wrestling this year as a part of Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling’s first-ever U.S. event on Friday, March 31, the day before Wrestlemania kicked off. The show was a long time coming as the promotion’s initial U.S. debut was scheduled for 2020, but was delayed due to the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Wrestlemania weekend event was a massive accomplishment for TJPW. Founded just over a decade ago, the promotion is a small yet successful part of the Japanese wrestling scene. They are arguably the second most successful women’s promotion in the country behind Stardom, who’s backed by entertainment goliath Bushiroad and related to top Japanese promotion New Japan Pro Wrestling. Despite never touching down in the U.S., TJPW generated a small yet devoted overseas fanbase through some of its stars like Maki Itoh—a former LinQ idol who turned to wrestling full time in 2016—and the accessibility of its show broadcasts.

Up Up Girls Pro Wres debuted at TJPW Tokyo Joshi Pro ‘18, where the original members faced each other in a two-on-two tag team bout. The four current wrestlers in UUG Pro Wres—Miu Watanabe, Hikari Noa¹, Raku² and Shino Suzuki³—are not the top stars in the promotion. However, they are frequently booked on shows, appearing in many major rivalries over the past few years. Depending on the way you look at it, they are an idol group that wrestles or a group of wrestlers who are idols. Either way, they are undeniably a big part of TJPW events.

In L.A., UUG Pro Wres leader Miu Watanabe was matched with fellow critically acclaimed wrestler Shoko Nakajima for a tag-team match. At just 23 years old, Watanabe’s in-ring style as a physical and strong wrestler has turned heads. TJPW has shown trust in her, previously having her as a titleholder for their two lower-tier championships. The two took on Wasteland War Party, a pair of tall and menacing opponents who use their size to overwhelm most of the TJPW roster. The Party’s Heidi Howitzer and Max The Impaler, or “the Non-Binary Nightmare,” were appearing for the first time since losing their tag titles, so the already-scary duo were angry too.

Miu Watanabe facing Max the Impaler (Photo: DDT Official)

If you have read this far into the story, you probably don’t need to be told that wrestling is a scripted, choreographed form of entertainment instead of a sport—but sometimes, that’s what makes it great. Once you suspend disbelief to the show, it can amaze you. But it can be shocking even without suspension of disbelief.

Watanabe delivered on that type of a moment. At one point, she picked up Max and Howitzer, who roughly weigh a combined 370 pounds, and slammed them to the canvas. She then picked up Howizter once more, this time by her legs, and started to swing her around the ring in circles. This impressive swing move is known by most as a trademark of AEW talent Claudio Castignoli, but it’s also something that Watanabe does frequently. Less than 24 hours before this event, she also swung two wrestlers at the same time during a match.

Watanabe’s strength stole the show and wowed the crowd inside the Globe Theatre. And after teammate Nakajima did a senton through the ring ropes, the crowd started to chant “this is awesome,” a phrase that wrestling fans love to pull out whenever anything extraordinary happens.

The efforts of Watanabe and Nakajima unfortunately weren’t enough. The Wasteland War Party duo isolated Nakajima near the end to hit the Master Blaster, a move where Max launches Howizter off their shoulders, landing torso-first onto a grounded opponent. That put an end to the contest, one that was thoroughly entertaining to the live crowd.

Many people spend years honing their craft as a musical artist or as a professional wrestler. Somehow, things have worked out both ways for the Up Up Girls, and you could point to their time in Wrestlemania weekend as proof.

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1. Hikari Noa is similar to Watanabe but has an edge to her. With a more goth-inspired look, Noa is a fan of death-match wrestling: an in-ring style that emphasizes the use of weapons like light tubes, thumbtacks, barbed wire, and tables. She herself has competed in death matches and even has one coming up in early May against Sawyer Wreck.

2. Simply known as Raku, she has an interest for trains and sleeping. She leans into more of a comedy style of wrestling, including a move where she calms her opponent to the point of sleep then tries to win the match via pinfall — an interesting tactic that tends to not work.

3. Not much is known about Shino Suzuki as she just joined the group in early March. But if her few matches for TJPW have shown anything, it’s that she’s a quick learner in-ring and will likely fit in completely with the group soon. Suzuki notably didn’t make the trip to L. A., as did a few of the lower-priority members of the TJPW roster.