When the Marvelous 7th Anniversary arrived, there was an opportunity for history to be made. Following her match series, Mio Momono had a chance to challenge Chikayo Nagashima for the AAAW Championship in the main event and become a world champion for the first time in her seven-year career.
Momono has been around as long as Marvelous has, putting in the work to become one of the best in the world today. Injuries have stopped her from reaching the highest level on more than one occasion so when she returned from her back injury in 2022, there was hope that the injury woes would be in the past and she could rise to the AAAW Championship in the future.
In an interview with Mio last year ahead of her return, Momono said that the AAAW Championship would soon be hers. Nearly one year later, that dream she had became the truth.
When she made her entrance in the main event, you could see the determination of Momono. After wrestling against the likes of Chihiro Hashimoto, Arisa Nakajima, and ASUKA to get ready for the AAAW Championship match, she was more than ready for this chance.
Nagsashima had taken over as champion for Marvelous after Takumi Iroha got injured at the end of 2022 and had successfully defended the championship once against Tomoko Watanabe earlier this year. Nagashima had the advantage heading into this match seeing that she defeated Momomo in their last matchup but after everything Momono went through in the lead-up to this bout, she was unquestionably the underdog as the challenger. But when Momono is the underdog, she’s at her very best.
The match was hard-hitting, nonstop, and fitting of the Korakuen Hall main event. Momono and Nagashima seemingly traded strikes back and forth for the entire match, wrestling around Korakuen and back into the ring. Every single time Nagashima tried to get the upperhand on Momono, it was the fighting spirit that drove her to fight back. She always had an answer to the Nagashima offense and it’s what led her to close in on the win.
The final minutes of this match was as good as any match you’ll see this year as Momono came closer and closer to getting the win with some unbelievable near falls that had you thinking both competitors would walk out with the win.
Momono would finally catch Nagashima with a stunning German Suplex, bridging for the pin but Nagashima would manage to survive that as well. Both of them were exhausted, tired, and looking for answers but Momono had one more move she could hit. “The Heart of Marvelous” would hit the Sunset Powerbomb on Nagashima to earn the victory and become the AAAW Champion.
A historic win for many reasons as the win etched her name in history alongside the greats like Chigusa Nagayo, Aja Kong, Manami Toyota, and a handful of others. Winning the championship was the ultimate moment not only in Marvelous’ history but one of the biggest in Joshi in quite some time.
Considering all she’s been through after seven years in pro wrestling, seeing her bounce back from her injuries to not only become one of the best but win this championship was special. As someone who has rooted her on and recognized the year she had in 2021 as one of the very best I’ve ever seen, it excites me to see what she can do now that she has gold around her waist.
With Mio Momono leading the way for Marvelous, she has a chance to continue creating history and doing so in great matches. Takumi Iroha is waiting to get her championship back and that should be one of the biggest matches in Marvelous history when it arrives.
It’s a momentous time and Momono is more than ready for the challenge.
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