SWalker's Weekly 5 - RIP Osamu Nishimura, GWF Celebrity Wrestling, Osaka Tag Festival, Big Bear Produce, HEAT UP, FOTR! (03/03-03/09)
After a really busy last week without time & internet connection (both related to moving to a new flat) we are back strong this week! With new internet connection, a whole week of vacation & a big backlog of wrestling! So let's get started!
For anyone interested, these are the shows I watched only from Monday to Wednesday:
- 1 GWF
- 2 Sportiva
- 3 Meriken
- 2 Osaka Pro Tag Festival shows
- 1 Shi-En
- 1 Burst
- 1 Pro Wrestling Evolution
- 1 Big Bear Produce
- 3 wXw 16 Carat Gold shows
A little bit crazy, right?! So here are my highlights of the week!
GWF - Rene Caselly vs. Metehan
Let's start with a match, that I have in fact not watched this week but on last Sunday. The German Wrestling Federation (GWF) is a promotion from Berlin, Germany and they hold monthly events on the first weekend of the month. This makes for a regular & very fun Sunday evening watch! I've been to both of the RevPro collab shows last year and had a really great time there. This year started strong with the Tihanyi/Ali title match in February. Sadly Tihanyi is injured now & had to vacate both of the big main titles in Germany. Very unfortunate for all parties involved!
Cut to the big event in March - Chaos City & the match of Rene Caselly vs. Metehan. Metehan, formerly Teoman in WWE / NXT UK, is a well decorated wrestler in the German scene, holding the GWF World title 2023 & winning wXw 16 Carat Gold in 2019. His opponent is Rene Caselly, German celebrity, who is mainly known for winning and achiving total victory in Ninja Warrior Germany season 8, winning it again in 2024. He also took part and and won Let's Dance and... TV Total - Promi Wrestling from January this year! There lies the history of this match, The Promi Wrestlin event in January was very fun - celebrities and wrestlers form a tag team and a tag tournament took place, where Caselly & his partner Peter Tihanyi won! On rozte to the win, they also beat Metehan & Fabian Hambüchen (2016 Olympic Gold Medalist). A small social media scuffle later and we got this match. Pretty crazym right?!
Long story short, this was basically Casellys third match in history. In his regular life he is a circus artist so he all the athletic skills to shine in this wrestling environment. This and Metehan as seasoned veteran of the squared circle make this match really good, Some more matches for Caselly & you would not think, that he has fewer matches than I have fingers on one hand. Great presence from Caselly and I look forward to future matches, if he ever decides to return to the ring!
Big Bear Produces - Gajo vs. Tababa
I want to cite @secretwrestlin1's description of this match: "Awesome brutal massacre, just two big monsters charging foreward and trying to tear each other apart." This was really intense, they basically tried to kill each other! So if you have about 10 minutes to spare, can find this match & like two big dudes hitting each other as hard as they can, then watch this!
Osaka Pro Tag Festival 2025 - Huge Recommendation
Osaka Pro released their Tag Festival shows last week. So this week, I've finally had time to watch it. Both shows were absolutely spectacular. I've wrote on Bluesky, that show 2 from the 24th February was top to bottom my favorite show this year so far. Great crowd, great atmosphere, top notch wrestling. It wouldn't be fair to single out a singular match from both of these shows, so I basically recommend: watch them all! Even the 6-man tag from day 2 as well as both the comedy mathes make for a great watch. Both youtube shows clock in at about a combined 3 hours, so almost shorter than your average New Japan show. So give this a watch, if you want something really enjoyable!
HEAT UP! - Amigo Suzuki vs. CHANGO Ladder match
I've also not watched this match this week, but because there wasn't a post last week I decided to take it into this weeks matches, because it really stood out! Really fun Ladder match with some cool spots. This is from the 3rd Anniversary HEAT UP show. So if you have time, I really recommend watching it as well as the main event between TAMURA & Kenichiro Arai! But this Ladder match takes the cake as my favorite match of this show.
Fight of the Ring - Kancho Nagase vs. The Wolf vs. Cedar TAKUYA vs. Eitaro Okuda vs. MIKAMI
Referee Suzuki, the legend who straps a GoPro to his hat and gives us a unique way to enjoy the matches he refs, uploaded another one to his YouTube channel! This 5-way is not the most innovative or special match, but is probably one of the most sleeziest matches you can watch, if you don't live in Japan and go to these shows constantly. It takes place in front of about 20 people, in a small gym on a tiny ring mat. In the background, there is probably some table tennis training going on by the school that owns the gym. It is sub-10 minutes and MIKAMI wins by a Moonsault of a chair. Nothing special, but the visual is freakin' great! So it lands on this list here! :D
wXw 16 Carat Gold 2025
I do not want to go into much detail about this, as I maybe want to do a separat review about 16 Carat Gold and this post probably goes out before the final show of the weekend is concluded. I've writing this, as show 2 is still going on. But till now, this is probably one of the best 16 Carat Gold tournament in the last few years in terms of In-Ring work. So maybe there will be a review in the coming weeks if I have the time!
RIP Osamu Nishimura
On the morning of the 27th I've read, that Osamu Nishimura has lost his fight to cancer and sadly died. This left a huge mark on me for a few days, as he was one of my favorite wrestlers. Just recently, I've watched some of his matches again, as I had a NJPW World subscription after Wrestle Kingdom. I liked him so much, I've made him a long-time World Champion in my TEW safe. Watch his matches if you have time!
He will be deeply missed! Rest in Peace! Heaven knows!
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