Behind on the translations still, but I saw that shupro finally announced the プロレスグランプリ2024結果 results! So I wanted to talk a bit about that since I actually voted this year. Here are the results (in English) for reference.
(Oops, this post got kind of long)
①プロレスグランプリ
My ballot: クリス・ブルックス
1: Zack Sabre Jr. (NJPW) - 4983 votes
2: Tam Nakano (Stardom) - 1726 votes
3: Chris Brookes (DDT) - 1002 votes
This was actually the one I had the hardest time filling out because I struggled to think of a real MVP in the men’s wrestling scene in Japan in 2024. Well, it turns out Tam got second place, so you’re telling me I could’ve voted for a woman?? Good to know for next year, I suppose…
The reason I went with Chris Brookes was because a fan voting campaign for him was how I found out in the first place that my shupro mobile subscription granted me a ballot. People were using the #みんなのクリス hashtag to campaign for Chris, and I ended up just going along with it because I didn’t really have any better ideas, haha.
The results for this award were really surprising because Zack Sabre Jr. is (I believe?) the first ever non-Japanese person to win the Grand Prix, and then Chris got third place, too. And second place went to a woman! I feel pretty sure that this is the first time I have ever seen not a single Japanese male wrestler among the top three.
Of course, part of that was NJPW losing Okada to AEW, and Naito and Tanahashi no longer being able to work at the level they once could, which sort of forced NJPW’s hand and got them to go all in on Zack, and then that combined with Stardom’s popularity and the fan campaign for Chris, it was sort of the perfect storm of factors.
That said, if I’d known that I could have voted for a woman, I would have put Miu Watanabe down.
②ベストマッチ
My ballot: 山下実優vs渡辺未詩(東京女子プロレス3・31両国国技館)
1: Tam Nakano vs. Natsuko Tora (Stardom, 8/31 Chofu) - 635 votes
2: Yoshihiro Takayama vs. Minoru Suzuki (TAKAYAMANIA, 9/3 Korakuen Hall) - 584 votes
3: Yuki Ueno, Shunma Katsumata & Kaisei Takechi vs. Tetsuya Endo, Hideki Okatani & Masahiro Takanashi (DDT, 2/25 Korakuen Hall) - 566 votes
I had a tough time picking a match of the year, which isn’t really unusual, but 2024 was a particularly rough year in wrestling for me. Of course, there were plenty of great matches, and it was tough narrowing them down, but unlike 2023, I didn’t feel like I had experienced any like world-shakingly amazing matches that rearranged my molecules as a human being.
So I ended up going with the match I chose for my TJPW best bout of the year, which was Miu vs Miyu for the Princess of Princess belt at Grand Princess.
As far as I could see, the popular consensus in the TJPW fandom was that the best match was Shoko vs Miu on May 6 (it was the clear winner in their best bout poll), with most fans rating it a cut above Miu vs Miyu. As my friend Akira put it in their personal list of TJPW best bouts: “チャンピオンになった3.31のタイトルマッチも素晴らしいですが、僅差でこの防衛戦をナンバーワンに選びたいです.”
However, as good as that match was on a technical level, it didn’t resonate emotionally with me as much as Miu vs Miyu did (I like both Shoko and Miu, and I didn’t NEED one of them to win like I did with Miu vs Miyu). Whereas with Miyu vs Miu, it felt like so much was riding on that one match, almost the whole fate of the company, or at least the immediate future of it.
That one truly felt like the beginning of a new era of the company to me, and it was the fulfillment of a part of Miu’s story that had been a long time coming, with her sort of starting to take on the mantle of ace that I had seen hints of in her way back when I first started watching in 2019.
So that’s why that one was my number one.
With the rest of my TJPW best bouts, I tried to pick a diversity of matches that were doing different things than Miyu vs Miu. Here were my second and third place matches:
2位 3.31 両国国技館
坂崎ユカ & 瑞希 vs さくらえみ & クリス・ブルックス
3位 9.22 幕張メッセ
ラム会長 vs らく
I picked Yuka & Mizuki vs Emi Sakura & Chris Brookes because that match gave me my sadly now very infrequent Magical Sugar Rabbits fix, and it also had some extremely fantastic exchanges between all of the wrestlers, including an amazing Whirling Candy from Mizuki, and it really showed how intergender matches can really be something special if the company allows them to be.
I picked Ram Kaichow vs Raku because I thought it was really entertaining and clever with how it subverted pro wrestling tropes and expectations, and also it’s literally the gayest pro wrestling match I’ve ever seen, I think. Considering how Ram and Raku are treating it as essentially their wedding night…
Besides TJPW stuff, there were loads of other matches I watched that year and loved, but I didn’t take nearly as detailed notes on them in 2024 as I did in 2023, so I honestly couldn’t think of other match of the year candidates from other Japanese companies besides TJPW.
③女子プロレスグランプリ
My ballot: 渡辺未詩
1: Tam Nakano (Stardom) - 2276 votes
2: Sareee (Freelance) - 2223 votes
3: Mayu Iwatani (Stardom) - 1639 votes
…
9: Miu Watanabe (TJPW) - 424 votes
I thought Miu had an incredible 2024 and did an amazing job carrying TJPW through the year. Every one of her title matches was a banger, and she made all of them marquee events.
④ベストユニット
My ballot: でいじーもんきー(東京女子プロレス)
1: Cosmic Angels (Stardom) - 1482 votes
2: Saito Brothers (AJPW) - 898 votes
3: TMDK (NJPW) - 877 votes
As I was filling this one out, I had to take a moment to be sad that not a single one of my top favorite tag teams were still in commission in Japan in 2024…
None of my favorite factions were, either…
So my next goal was then “how could I use my vote to give TJPW the greatest chance of winning something?”, and I ended up going with Daisy Monkey because I thought maybe they had a small chance of doing decently (plus I thought they legitimately had a great 2024).
…And they did not crack the top 10, so I have no idea how many votes they got, but it apparently it was not very many. Ah well!
This is a tough category for TJPW, I think, because TJPW has a lot of great tag teams but isn’t really faction-based, so they don’t have factions with the same level of popularity as the groups that did well in this poll.
⑤最優秀外国人選手賞
My ballot: マックス・ジ・インペイラー
1: Zack Sabre Jr. (NJPW) - 2754 votes
2: Chris Brookes (DDT) - 1651 votes
3: Gabe Kidd (NJPW) - 1352 votes
…
10: Zara Zakher (TJPW) - 66 votes
I specifically did not vote for Chris for this one, because I don’t think it really makes sense to nominate a wrestler who lives and works full time in Japan (and has for several years now), and who can speak the language pretty fluently.
It’s kind of a complicated category (and having it at all is honestly a bit xenophobic), so I always have mixed feelings on it… I guess if you interpret it as being meant to honor a wrestler who visited Japan from outside the country and did great work while they were there, it’s not quite as bad, but I don’t like how it puts non-Japanese wrestlers basically forever in this box.
I think this is the first year that the Best Foreign Wrestler Award and the Grand Prix were won by the same person (Zack). Though, interestingly, it seems that a lot of people had similar thoughts to me and didn’t vote for him in both categories, because he got a lot fewer votes for this one than he did for the Grand Prix.
So yeah, for my choice, Max was the first wrestler that came to mind as always, so I put them down without thinking too hard about it, but I realized after I had already voted that I’d probably actually give my award to Zara Zakher this year (and she did actually make the top 10!).
⑥新人賞
My ballot: 武知海青
1: Kaisei Takechi (DDT) - 1377 votes
2: Ulka Sasaki (NOAH) - 1018 votes
3: Kouki Amarei (Marigold) - 774 votes
Could it even go to anyone else?
This was the only award that I seemed to agree with everyone else on. I’m sure some of the folks who voted were Kaisei fans who voted to support their fave, but I do think he genuinely deserves it. He had just about the best rookie debut I’ve ever seen, with a sold out Korakuen Hall main event match that somehow lived up to expectations and more. Then after that, his next few DDT matches showed that he had the ability to hang with them in terms of comedy, too.
I feel like I have a tendency to prioritize wrestlers being able to wrestle a diversity of styles more than other wrestling fans prioritize this. This is what puts Okada a cut below wrestlers like Kenny and Takeshita, in my estimation. Because Okada is very, very good at wrestling NJPW main event style matches, possibly the best in the world at that, but I wouldn’t call him among the best in the world at comedy wrestling (though I admire his recent attempts to lean more into comedy).
This is why Kenny Omega is the best wrestler in the world, in my opinion. Obviously his work connects with me on a personal level, which is what is most important, but he stands out from other wrestlers because he’s an incredible singles as well as tag wrestler, who can do an amazing NJPW main event style match as well as an amazing DDT comedy match, and he’s able to do great intergender matches, can hold his own in a deathmatch, can wrestle outdoors or wherever, and can adapt to basically whatever style his opponent wrestles, be it technical wrestling or lucha libre or American brawler or anything else.
I think that part of the reason for why he’s as well-rounded as he is is because of DDT. I think DDT’s system produces some of the best wrestlers in the world. There would be no Konosuke Takeshita without DDT, either, and no Kota Ibushi, no Tetsuya Endo. The current crop of DDT young guys, too, also stand out above their peers in other companies, in my opinion. Well, most companies have at least one top young guy, but DDT has a whole bounty of them.
Anyway, all of this is to say that I think Kaisei deserves this award because he really showed his incredible versatility as a performer. Pro wrestling takes athleticism, the ability to foster an emotional connection with the crowd, and good comedic timing, as well as the ability and willingness to make yourself vulnerable. He has managed to nail every element at every opportunity that has been given to him so far.
⑦好きなプロレスラー
My ballot:
瑞希
水波綾
クリス・ブルックス
1: Hiroshi Tanahashi (NJPW) - 2942 votes
2: Tam Nakano (Stardom) - 2159 votes
3: Chris Brookes (DDT) - 1503 votes
4: Kaisei Takechi (DDT) - 1486 votes
This one was also tough! I have so, so many favorite wrestlers.
I did put down Chris for this because I wanted to help him do well in the votes, haha. I do genuinely like him as a wrestler, but I’m not sure if I’d call him a top 3 favorite. But he can be a top 3 fave for the purposes of influencing shupro votes.
Mizuki was the easiest answer for me here. A lot of my top favorites either aren’t really active in Japan anymore, or they are active but haven’t been doing a whole lot that was really exciting to me, but Mizuki had a solid (albeit pretty understated) year, so I wanted to highlight her.
I struggled a lot trying to come up with an answer for my third choice. I ended up deciding to just go with Ryo Mizunami because I’ve been a fan ever since I first saw her wrestle at the very first wrestling show I ever watched in full (AEW Double or Nothing 2019), and my love for her has only grown over the years as I’ve seen her do more stuff in TJPW and in other companies, and I think in 2024 in particular, she really had a great body of work, so I was more than happy to highlight her here.
Also, I did laugh when I saw that Kaisei won fourth place in the favorites list despite having a single digit number of matches in his career thus far. It reminded me a whole lot of Yuki Arai’s first year as a wrestler, where she did similarly well and beat a whole bunch of ultra popular NJPW wrestlers because people just answered with their hearts and picked her for their favorite regardless of her level of wrestling experience or anything.
Come to think of it, Arai won the rookie award that year, too… Kaisei really is following in her footsteps, huh? I hope one of these days they get to tag at some point. My personal dark nefarious plan is to hope for Kaisei to make an appearance at a TJPW show someday so that he brings his huge female fanbase with him and gets a bunch of women into TJPW.
⑧好きなプロレス団体
My ballot: 東京女子プロレス
1: New Japan Pro Wrestling - 7962 votes
2: Stardom - 7294 votes
3: DDT Pro Wrestling - 4463 votes
4: All Japan Pro Wrestling - 2209 votes
5: Pro Wrestling NOAH - 2074 votes
6: Marigold - 1977 votes
7: Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling - 1283 votes
…
13: ChocoPro - 541 votes
14: BAKAGAIJIN - 466 votes
15: WWE - 354 votes
16: AEW - 347 votes
We actually could pick up to three promotions for this one, if I recall correctly, but I wanted to help TJPW do as well as possible, so I decided not to give anyone else my votes, haha. Plus, just about all other promotions had done at least something that had made me angry in 2024…
It’s extremely funny to me that Baka Gaijin did better than both WWE and AEW (then again, that might be because of Chris fans inflating the numbers a bit, haha). And ChocoPro beat both of the big American companies again, too.
I’m bitter about Marigold doing so well, though I suppose this is shupro, and the Marigold astroturfing in the magazine surely boosted their numbers. From what I’ve heard, they’ve been having trouble with attendance, so I was a bit surprised that they got so many votes since that doesn’t seem to reflect the actual reality. Well, I guess maybe that’s a lesson that all the results are kind of rigged, anyway.
I think that’s all I have to say on the awards this year.