Middle Kingdom Wrestling
– MKW’s Belt and Road show set for May 11th in Nepal got even more international with the addition of Korean wrestler Shiho. Furthermore, as reported here, MKW are intending for this to be a growing partnership between the brands, as MKW talent have been sent to NRWA before this encounter to perform and help in training. Of particular noteworthiness is the fact that the venue attendance for the NRWA (Nepal Ring Wrestling Association) event shown is larger than I had anticipated, which speaks towards the art’s viability in the region.
Oriental Wrestling Entertainment
– #STRONGHEARTS member Takehiro Yamamura has, unfortunately, suffered another injury to his neck while working a Wrestle-1 show. He seems to not be in danger, but is unlikely to ever wrestle again after re-injuring his already damaged neck.
– #STRONGHEARTS member, and OWE head trainer, CIMA also injured himself working in Taiwan at the OWE vs. NTW show. Thankfully his injury was just a dislocated shoulder, and he seems to already be on his way back to 100%.
– While CIMA may have been slightly injured at the OWE vs. NTW show, the more exciting news to come out of the event is that CIMA, along with OWE original Fan Hewei, have captured NTW’s Tag team titles from A-YONG-GO and The Joker, making Fan Hewei the second member of OWE’s crop of young Chinese talent to hold gold in another territory. Also at the event there was a match between Hengha (Wulijimuren and Xiong Zhiyu) from OWE and the Taiwanese team of SKY and PORCO which featured strong comedy elements which translated clearly over video and required no verbal components to understand. The already strong presence of good comedy in Chinese wrestling is something that excites me.
– OWE ran one of their Shanghai Great World shows with some of their roster donning costumes, such as Ultraman and a Gorilla, to try and entice attendees of the venue to engage with the show. Matches were interspersed with other kinds of performances, such as acrobatics. A week later they held another show at Great World, and while both of these Great World shows in recent weeks look to have some excellent matches on their cards, including title matches, neither event has featured any of the Round Robin matches for the opportunity to be CIMA’s partners at AEW’s Double or Nothing. Six weeks remain, and only one of the twenty-three league matches in this tournament has taken place, ending in a draw.