How I Met Your Puroresu is a series dedicated to providing background information on matches in hopes of broadening horizons. These matches will be no longer than that of a sitcom as to not overwhelm a first time viewer.
Company: Pro Wrestling FREEDOMS
Show Title: Tokyo Death Match Carnival 2021 Vol. 1
Match: Masashi Takeda vs Rina Yamashita
Match Type: Crazy Drunker Sting Death Match
Length: 11 Minutes
Production Date: July 5, 2021
Air Date: July 13, 2021
Watching women compete in a subcategory of wrestling largely dominated by men can come off as radical but Rina Yamashita is here to normalize the idea that women have a place in the death match world. In her first two appearances in Pro Wrestling FREEDOMS she was featured in standard style matches up against other women from Pro Wrestling Wave. Near the end of her tenure with Wave, Yamashita began experimenting with the hardcore style and on one occasion, wrestled alongside men.
She continued to dabble in the style that following year in 2019 but now in the Ice Ribbon promotion. A hardcore match later that year against Gunso in Dove Pro led Yamashita to her first FREEDOMS hardcore match. Gunso and Yamashita, among others, matched up against a team led by none other than Jun Kasai and Masashi Takeda. This encounter would result in a hardcore singles match between Kasai and Yamashita before she’d end the year in a tag match at Kasai’s Blood X-Mas standing opposite Takeda.
2020 was the year she was indoctrinated into the death match scene, but not in FREEDOMS. Instead, she competed with Risa Sera in a show stealing performance at Ice Ribbon’s farewell event to the Yokohama Bunka Gymnasium. They fought over who would become the inaugural FantastICE Champion, a title dedicated to extreme rules. The most memorable moment coming in the form of Yamashita chasing Sera down on a motorcycle. Although she lost, Yamashita had fully embraced the style.
Later that same month, Yamashita received another opportunity to claim a title as she teamed up with Minoru Fujita to challenge for the King of FREEDOM Tag Team Championship. It’d result in another loss but taking a step up from hardcore, she ended her year in FREEDOMS by competing in singles death matches against the aforementioned Fujita and Toshiyuki Sakuda. Early on in 2021, along with Fujita, Yamashita would capture the tag titles, claiming her first championship in the genre.
Now seen as a representative of the hardcore style, Tokyo Joshi Pro called Yamashita in to compete against Hikari Noa, someone inspired by this recent boom of women wrestling extreme matches. Continuing her success as a tag team wrestler, Yamashita found herself not just alongside Jun Kasai, but winning the Ice Ribbon Mixed Tag Team Hardcore Tournament. Weeks later she’d claim the FantastICE Championship off Risa Sera, ending her 322-day reign in a light tube death match.
Everything leads to this moment. Now sitting as both an accomplished hardcore and death match fighter, Rina Yamashita faces down her biggest opponent to date, Masashi Takeda. A two time King of FREEDOM Champion, a 449 day reign as BJW Death Match Heavyweight Champion and a man who’s no stranger to competing with women. He recently took on another one of Ice Ribbon’s up-and-coming hardcore fighters in Suzu Suzuki as part of her Hardcore Determination Series. But this isn’t hardcore, this is death match, and Yamashita finds herself against the face of the style.
Rina Yamashita serves as an inspiration to women that even in the male-dominated world of death match, it’s possible to leave your mark. Like anyone else who’s accomplishments anything in life, you just have to be brave enough to take that step.
