Misplaced Pages

#41958

111-419: The first ever Dual Shock Wave tournament was held in a single-elimination format between September 4 and October 30, 2011, and was used to determine the inaugural Wave Tag Team Champions . The pairings for each round were determined by a random draw. As the tournament featured an odd number of entrants, nine teams, one team earned a bye in the quarterfinals and one in the semifinals; these were also decided by

222-632: A 30-minute time limit draw in the main event. On November 23, Shirai and Kana defeated Ayako Hamada and Shuu Shibutani in the finals to win the Osaka Joshi Pro Wrestling Tag Team Tournament. In December 2011, Shirai made her American debut, when she took part in Chikara 's JoshiMania weekend. On December 2 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania , Shirai teamed with Mayumi Ozaki in a losing effort against

333-501: A Pro Wrestling Wave event, White Tails and Black Dahlia wrestled to a draw in a five-on-five gauntlet match , from which Shirai was eliminated after wrestling Black Dahlia leader Misaki Ohata to a ten-minute time limit draw. Afterwards, Shirai agreed to join Black Dahlia at the request of Ohata, who was trying to bring down the average age of her group, but also wanted to remain a member of White Tails. The two groups then agreed that

444-625: A Pro Wrestling Wave event, where they were defeated by Hikaru Shida and Yumi Ohka. Also in December, Shirai was in the running for Tokyo Sports ' Joshi Puroresu Grand Prize, awarded to the joshi wrestler of the year, but was ultimately defeated in the voting process by Yuzuki Aikawa . On December 31 at RibbonMania 2012 , Shirai lost the ICE×60 Championship to Maki Narumiya in her third defense, ending her reign at 99 days. On January 13, 2013, Shirai received her first shot at

555-627: A Union Pro event to unsuccessfully challenge Io and Nosawa Rongai for the Americas World Mixed Tag Team Championship. At a Pro Wrestling Wave event on February 1, Ayumi Kurihara, Mika Iida and Shuu Shibutani joined forces with Shirai and Kana, turning Triple Tails.S from a tag team once again into a stable. The following month, the stable was renamed White Tails, in reference to Wave's top villainous alliance, Black Dahlia. On February 11, Shirai began working regularly for Oz Academy, defeating Hiroyo Matsumoto ,

666-420: A draw may be settled in extra time and eventually by a penalty shootout or by replaying the fixture. Another perceived disadvantage is that most competitors are eliminated after relatively few games. Variations such as the double-elimination tournament allow competitors a single loss while remaining eligible for overall victory. However, losing one game requires the competitor to win more games in order to win

777-464: A freelancer until January 2014, when she signed a four-way contract with Ice Ribbon, Oz Academy , Pro Wrestling Wave and Union Pro Wrestling . She retired from professional wrestling due to neck injuries in September 2015 at the age of 27, after which she started working as a referee. Shirai made her professional wrestling debut on March 4, 2007, alongside her younger sister, with the two adopting

888-504: A label of Attackers . In September 2012, Shirai released a gravure DVD titled Iroha Kitsune / Murasaki Kaminari Mio ( いろは狐／紫雷美央 ) . On December 8, 2012, Shirai and Kana released another DVD with a similar theme, titled Sadistic Tails . In September 2015, Shirai announced she was getting married the following month. Shirai later revealed her fiancé as professional wrestler Tank Nagai . The wedding ceremony took place on October 16, 2015. On December 31, 2016, Shirai announced she

999-731: A match also contested for the ICE×∞ Championship. On August 9, as part of her road to retirement, Shirai was set to face male wrestler Minoru Suzuki at a Wave event. Before the start of the match, Suzuki announced he was putting his GHC Heavyweight Championship on the line in the match, before going on to defeat Shirai to retain the title. On August 17, Shirai and Tsukushi lost the International Ribbon Tag Team Championship to Nekoka Tag (Leon and Neko Nitta) in their third defense. Three days later, Kuros produced their final independent event, before

1110-456: A match between the losers of the semifinal matches called third place playoffs , the winner therein placing third and the loser fourth. Many Olympic single-elimination tournaments feature the bronze medal match if they do not award bronze medals to both losing semifinalists. The FIFA World Cup has long featured the third place match (since 1934 ), though the UEFA Euro has not held one since

1221-584: A match, where they defeated the team of Kyoko Kimura and Mikado. From January to March 2009, the Shirais also made several appearances for another large promotion not usually known for female wrestling, Pro Wrestling Zero1 . On April 29, the Shirai sisters won their first championship by defeating Moeka Haruhi and Tomoka Nakagawa in a tournament final to become the first TLW (Totally Lethal Wrestling) World Young Women's Tag Team Champions. Despite its name,

SECTION 10

#1732800858042

1332-577: A member of the villainous Seikigun, in her return match to the promotion. On February 26, Shirai was defeated by Seikigun leader Mayumi Ozaki in a tryout match and afterwards agreed to join her stable, noting that they "had a lot of things in common". Back in Smash, the hostilities between Shirai and Takuya Kito ended after Kito led a four-man team to a final victory over a team of IWA Japan wrestlers, which led to Shirai and Kito teaming together and defeating Aki Shizuku and Koji Doi on March 14 at Smash.Final ,

1443-763: A partnership with male wrestler Hayata , whom she would refer to as her "big brother". The two also went on to team together in Pro Wrestling Wave. On October 19, Shirai lost the SGP Global Junior Heavyweight Championship to Cherry. Initially, Shirai announced that she was leaving Union Pro following her loss, but eventually came back to form a partnership with Ken Ohka, who had now accepted his role as her inferior. Meanwhile, Shirai and Kana also continued to produce their own events; Triple Tails.S' first show took place on November 2 and saw Shirai wrestle Toshie Uematsu to

1554-500: A possible match-up with the top seed until one round later. MLS' format is identical, except that the conference quarterfinals is a best-of-three series. In some situations, a seeding restriction may be implemented; from 1975 until 1989 in the NFL , and from 1994 until 2011 in MLB there was a rule where at the conference or league semifinal, should the top seed and last seed (wild card) be from

1665-480: A press conference to announce that on September 11 she would be producing her own event at Shinjuku Face under the banner of "M.I.O" (Mission in Odate), which would feature her wrestling her first deathmatch . On August 31, Shirai defeated Ladybeard to become the new Union FTE World Champion. On September 11, Shirai wrestled twice during her first M.I.O event; first she defeated Misaki Ohata and Tsukasa Fujimoto in

1776-544: A press conference to announce that, following the group's third self-produced event on September 18, Io was leaving the stable in order to pursue a singles career. On August 21, Triple Tails made its debut for Oz Academy , defeating the trio of Ayumi Kurihara, Hiren and Yumi Ohka. On September 14, Triple Tails defeated Cherry, Moeka Haruhi and Shuu Shibutani in the group's final Pro Wrestling Wave appearance. Four days later, Triple Tails defeated Dash Chisako , Ryo Mizunami and Sendai Sachiko at their third self-produced event in

1887-499: A press conference with the heads of Ice Ribbon, Oz Academy, Pro Wrestling Wave and Union Pro to announce that she had signed an unprecedented four-way contract with the promotions and was now officially affiliated with all four of them. As a signing gift, Shirai was given the right to book Oz Academy's March 2 event. She punished Seikigun's rivals Chikayo Nagashima, Hikaru Shida, Kagetsu and Sonoko Kato by placing them in unfavorable matches, named stablemates Mayumi Ozaki and Yumi Ohka

1998-437: A quarter-final from the previous year . Sometimes the remaining competitors in a single-elimination tournament will be "re-seeded" so that the highest surviving seed is made to play the lowest surviving seed in the next round, the second-highest plays the second-lowest, etc. This may be done after each round, or only at selected intervals. In American team sports, for example, the NFL employs this tactic, but MLS , NHL and

2109-548: A random draw. The second Dual Shock Wave tournament was held between September 25 and November 16, 2012. The tournament was contested in a round-robin format with two blocks of four teams, where a win was worth two points, a draw one point and a loss zero points. As the reigning Wave Tag Team Champions , Gami and Tomoka Nakagawa earned an automatic spot in the tournament. As the reigning Dual Shock Wave winners, both Ayumi Kurihara , now teaming with Mika Iida, and Kana , now teaming with Ayako Hamada , also earned automatic spots in

2220-530: A random factor is always present in a real-world competition, this might easily cause accusations of unfairness. Variations of the single-elimination tournament include: Other common tournament types include: Mio Shirai Mio Shirai ( 紫雷 美央 , Shirai Mio , born February 14, 1988) is a Japanese former professional wrestler and current professional wrestling referee . She started her career in March 2007, working alongside her sister Io Shirai on

2331-628: A referee for the promotion, she would also take over the Puroresu Circle training duties. In August 2020, Shirai wrestled a few matches for Ice Ribbon filling in for Nao Ishikawa who had to have ovarian surgery and could not compete. In 2008, Shirai appeared with fellow wrestlers Kayo Noumi and Takako Inoue in The Brute Educational Institution ( 野獣学園 , Yajū Gakuen ) , a video with lesbian discipline and catfight themes, released by Attack Zone,

SECTION 20

#1732800858042

2442-468: A referee under the ring name Mio, written in Roman script and stylized in all capital letters. She made her debut in the role at Ice Ribbon's RibbonMania 2015 on December 31. In January 2016, Shirai began refereeing matches also for both Oz Academy and Pro Wrestling Wave. On August 16, it was announced that Shirai was officially joining Ice Ribbon's staff on September 1. In addition to continuing to work as

2553-469: A rivalry in Union Pro with Cherry, attempting to reveal her true age, a secret Cherry had managed to keep for her whole career. On March 18, Cherry defeated Shirai in a match, where she would have had to reveal her age, had she been defeated. A rematch, with an added stipulation that Shirai would have to remove all of her makeup if she lost, was scheduled for May 4, however, Shirai was forced to pull out of

2664-593: A series of five matches against Hikaru Shida, Ryo Mizunami, Yumi Ohka, Misaki Ohata and Asuka, drawing with Shida, defeating Asuka and losing the other three. On September 18, Shirai wrestled her final match for Oz Academy, where she was defeated by Mayumi Ozaki. Her final Ice Ribbon match took place the following day, when she wrestled a series of twelve one-minute matches against the entire roster. On September 20, Shirai produced her fifth M.I.O event in Korakuen Hall, which also served as her retirement event. During

2775-519: A shot Kurihara's and Tamura's NEO Tag Team Championship on July 4, but were defeated by the defending champions. Triple Tails returned to its winning ways on August 29, by defeating Asami Kawasaki , Hikaru Shida and Nagisa Nozaki in a six-woman tag team match. On October 18, 2010, Shirai, working under the ring name Kitzune Nanoko, made her debut for AAA in Puebla , Mexico , where she teamed with Alissa Flash to defeat Cynthia and Esther Moreno in

2886-554: A tag team match, where they defeated Kana and Syuri. In early July, Shirai and Kana took part in the 2012 Japan Expo in Paris , France . On July 30, Shirai regained the Ironman Heavymetalweight Championship by pinning Gorgeous Matsuno in a four-way tag team match. However, immediately afterwards Shirai was pinned for the title by the special guest referee of the match, Gentaro . On July 27 at

2997-585: A tag team match. In Mexico, both Shirais worked under cat-like masks they would only wear for their entrances in Japan. On October 31, Shirai was renamed Kaguya, while her debuting little sister was given the ring name Oyuki. In their first match under the new names, Kaguya and Oyuki teamed with Yuriko in a six-person tag team match, where they were defeated by Cynthia Moreno, Gato Eveready and Mari Apache . During their stay in AAA, Kaguya and Oyuki became associates of

3108-562: A three-way match between the Kuros members and then, in the main event, teamed with Isami Kodaka and Maki Narumiya in a six-person "Barbed Wire Board Deathmatch", where they were defeated by Mayumi Ozaki, Shuu Shibutani and Yuko Miyamoto . On September 15, Shirai and Misaki Ohata unsuccessfully challenged Sakuragohan (Mika Iida and Kyusei Sakura Hirota ) for the Wave Tag Team Championship, which also forced them to start

3219-436: A three-way match, which also included Tsukasa Fujimoto. On February 13, Shirai and Ken Ohka entered a storyline in Union Pro, where the two were forced out of the promotion, after Ohka was defeated by Keisuke Ishii in a " Loser Leaves Union match ". However, the two reappeared at the end of event, now working under balaclavas and the ring names "Nazo Fukumen A" and "Nazo Fukumen B" in order to be able to continue working for

3330-695: Is 1 v 8, 2 v 7, 3 v 6 and 4 v 5, for example this is used for 16 seeds in the World Snooker Championship and 32 seeds in the World Darts Championship . Some tournaments stray from this, for example it is not the procedure that is followed in most tennis tournaments, where the 1 and 2 seeds are placed in separate brackets, but then the 3 and 4 seeds are assigned to their brackets randomly, and so too are seeds 5 through 8, and so on. This may result in some brackets consisting of stronger players than other brackets, and since only

3441-533: Is first - for example, if sorting the numbers 1-4 ascending, if 4 and 3 meet in the first round, 3 and 1 will lose in the first round and 2 will lose in the second, selecting 4 as the largest number in the set, but insufficient comparisons have been performed to determine which is greater, 1 or 3. Despite this, the candidate that loses in the final round is commonly considered to have taken second place (in this case, 2). When matches are held to determine places or prizes lower than first and second, these typically include

Dual Shock Wave - Misplaced Pages Continue

3552-517: Is rare in English itself, with noticeable use in American debate tournaments. The round before the round of sixteen is sometimes called round of thirty-two in English. Terms for this in other languages generally translate as "sixteenth final". Earlier rounds are typically numbered counting forwards from the first round, or by the number of remaining competitors. If some competitors get a bye ,

3663-574: The La Legión Extranjera (Foreign Legion) stable. On November 7, Kaguya and Oyuki defeated Faby and Mari Apache in a tag team match and afterwards stole Faby's AAA World Mixed Tag Team Championship and Mari's AAA Reina de Reinas Championship belts. On November 15, the Apaches and Cynthia Moreno defeated Kaguya, Oyuki and Sexy Star in a six-woman tag team match. A week later, Kaguya, Oyuki and Jennifer Blake defeated Moreno and

3774-421: The 1980 edition . Sometimes, contests are also held among the losers of the quarterfinal matches to determine fifth to eighth places. In one scenario, two "consolation semifinal" matches may be conducted, with the winners of these then facing off to determine fifth and sixth places and the losers playing for seventh and eighth; those are used often in qualifying tournaments where only the top five teams advance to

3885-526: The 2010 Catch the Wave tournament. After two draws and two losses, Shirai finished last in her block and did not advance in the tournament. On June 19, 2010, the Shirai sisters formed the Triple Tails stable with fellow freelancer Kana, defeating Ayumi Kurihara, Hikaru Shida and Yoshiko Tamura in their first match together at a NEO Japan Ladies Pro Wrestling event. As a result, the Shirais received

3996-543: The 2012 Catch the Wave tournament. On June 8, in her second match in the tournament, Shirai defeated Ayumi Kurihara, and in doing so also won DDT Pro-Wrestling 's Ironman Heavymetalweight Championship . Two days later, Shirai lost the title to Hiroyo Matsumoto in the first round of a tournament to determine the number one contender to the Oz Academy Openweight Championship . On June 22, Shirai returned to WNC, when she teamed with Makoto in

4107-573: The NBA do not (and neither does the NCAA college basketball tournament ). Although MLB does have enough teams (12) in its playoff tournament where re-seeding would have made a large difference in the matchups; only the WNBA's at the minimum, which is at least four from each conference for a total of 8. The NBA's format calls for the winner of the first-round series between the first and eighth seeds (within each of

4218-463: The ring names Mio and Io Shirai , respectively ("Shirai" being Japanese for "Purple Thunder"). While both of the sisters initially kept much of their private lives, including their real names, a secret, Io's real name was released by Japanese authorities in May 2012 as Masami Odate ( 大館 昌美 , Ōdate Masami ) . Mio, on the other hand, has managed to keep her real name a secret. In their debut match,

4329-424: The Apaches in another six-woman tag team match. This would turn out to be Kaguya's and Oyuki's final AAA appearance, which resulted in the storyline with the Apaches being dropped without a conclusion. Upon the Shirais' return to Japan, Triple Tails made its debut as a unit for Pro Wrestling Wave on December 19, defeating Cherry, Gami and Tomoka Nakagawa in the six-woman tag team main event. On January 29, 2011,

4440-611: The International Ribbon Tag Team Championship against the Lovely Butchers ( Hamuko Hoshi and Mochi Miyagi) as part of Ice Ribbon's ninth anniversary week. On July 4, they made their second successful defense against Orange Happies (Aoi Kizuki and Kayoko Haruyama) with Shirai pinning ICE×∞ Champion Kizuki for the win, setting up a future double title match for both the ICE×∞ and Union FTE World Championship. On July 19, Shirai and Mayumi Ozaki defeated Kagetsu and Kaho Kobayashi to win

4551-509: The International Ribbon Tag Team Championship. Shirai and Ohata made their first successful title defense on April 19 against Kaho Kobayashi and Tsukasa Fujimoto. On May 9, the third M.I.O event featured Shirai retiring her Kaguya character, following a time-limit draw with Ayako Hamada. On June 7, Shirai defeated Akino with help from her Seikigun stablemates to win the Oz Academy Openweight Championship for

Dual Shock Wave - Misplaced Pages Continue

4662-477: The Japanese independent circuit for promotions such as Ice Ribbon , JWP Joshi Puroresu and Pro Wrestling Wave . In June 2010, the Shirais came together with fellow freelancer Kana to form the Triple Tails stable as part of which they began working most notably for Smash . After Io left the stable the following year, Mio and Kana continued working together as the tag team Triple Tails.S. Shirai remained

4773-509: The Nazo Fukumen storyline was concluded, when first Kaori Yoneyama unmasked Nazo Fukumen B as Shirai during a mixed tag team match and later in the main event, Nazo Fukumen K, KJ and P lost to Union Seikigun ( Isami Kodaka , Madoka and Seiya Morohashi) in a three-on-three hardcore elimination match. Post-match, the now unmasked Hiroshi Fukuda apologized for the stable's past actions and both he and Shirai were welcomed back to Union Pro by

4884-705: The Oz Academy Openweight Championship from Akino. Shirai also failed to win gold on two occasions in another one of her new home promotions, Ice Ribbon, unsuccessfully challenging Cherry for the Triangle Ribbon Championship on March 1 and Muscle Venus for the International Ribbon Tag Team Championship alongside Miyako Matsumoto on March 9. On March 23, Shirai also failed to win the Union FTE World Championship from Cherry. On May 15, Shirai and Kana produced Triple Tails.S' final independent event before officially dissolving

4995-413: The Oz Academy Openweight Championship in a match, where she was defeated by the defending champion, fellow Seikigun member Chikayo Nagashima . On January 30, Shirai entered a tournament contested for the vacant Triangle Ribbon Championship , defeating Aoi Kizuki and Hikaru Shida in her first round three-way match. On February 11, Shirai was defeated in the finals of the tournament by Miyako Matsumoto in

5106-493: The Oz Academy Tag Team Championship, meaning that Shirai now simultaneously held titles in all four promotions she was signed to. On July 26, Shirai returned to Stardom to wrestle what was billed as the Shirai sisters' final match together, where Mio and Io defeated Hiroyo Matsumoto and Mayu Iwatani . On July 29, Shirai lost the Union FTE World Championship to Aoi Kizuki in her first defense in

5217-600: The Shirai sisters teamed with Toshie Uematsu to face the trio of Erika Ura, Nozomi Takesako and Yuri Urai. Starting their careers as freelancers , the Shirai sisters represented Team Makehen, a stable made up of wrestlers trained by Tomohiko Hashimoto, in several independent promotions during their first year in the business, including Ibuki, Pro Wrestling Wave , JWP Joshi Puroresu , and Sendai Girls' Pro Wrestling . On October 19, 2008, Mio and Io made their debuts for one of Japan's largest professional wrestling promotions, All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW), wrestling in

5328-511: The Shirai sisters were defeated in a tag team match by Hikaru Shida and Syuri. Triple Tails' second event took place on May 8 and saw Mio, Io and Kana defeat Akino , Kagetsu and Syuri in a main event six-woman tag team match. In June, Mio began wrestling regularly for Union Pro Wrestling , starting a feud with male wrestler Ken Ohka. On July 10, Shirai defeated Ohka to win the SGP Global Junior Heavyweight Championship, afterwards declaring herself Ohka's master. On July 23, Triple Tails held

5439-550: The Shirais made their Smash in-ring debuts at Smash.14 , where they teamed with Kana to defeat Ken Ohka, Tajiri and Yoshiaki Yago in an intergender six-person tag team match. In March, Triple Tails took part in Osaka Pro Wrestling 's Spring Samba Series, going undefeated in six-person tag team matches for the duration of the tour. On April 30 at Smash.16 , Triple Tails was defeated in a six-woman tag team match by Makoto, Serena and Syuri . On May 3 at Smash.17 ,

5550-403: The Shirais made their debuts for Smash , when the Triple Tails stable attacked Yusuke Kodama and Makoto after their matches, with the trio being both times chased out of the ring by Tajiri . On February 13, Triple Tails produced its first own event, where the Shirai sisters wrestled male tag team Momo no Seishun Tag ( Atsushi Kotoge and Daisuke Harada ) in a losing effort. On February 25,

5661-544: The Union Fly to Everywhere (FTE) World Championship, despite outside interference from Nazo Fukumen A and Nazo Fukumen P. On April 21, Shirai and Kana defeated Misaki Ohata and Tsukasa Fujimoto to win the Wave Tag Team Championship , bringing Triple Tails.S its first title. On June 9, Shirai picked up a major win by pinning the reigning JWP Openweight Champion Arisa Nakajima during the 2013 Catch

SECTION 50

#1732800858042

5772-482: The Wave tournament. Despite the win, Shirai failed to advance from her round-robin block, finishing with a record of three wins and three losses. On July 7, Shirai and Kana made their first successful defense of the Wave Tag Team Championship against Kyusei Sakura Hirota and Tsukasa Fujimoto. On July 12, the White Tails stable produced their final event before the group's dissolution, during which Shirai defeated

5883-652: The Wave Single Championship and the Revolution Championship Wrestling (RCW) Women's Championship, but the match ended in a thirty-minute time limit draw, resulting in Shida retaining her titles. Two days later, Shirai made a surprise appearance for World Wonder Ring Stardom , confronting her sister Io and challenging her to a match at the second M.I.O event on February 14, 2015. On December 28 at Ice Ribbon's biggest event of

5994-546: The Wave Tag Team Championship, but were both times defeated by the defending champions, Las Aventureras (Ayako Hamada and Yuu Yamagata ). A third title match between the two teams took place on March 15 and saw Shirai and Ohata become the new champions. Immediately afterwards, Shirai announced she was cashing in her Zan1 shot at the Wave Single Championship, held by Hamada, but was defeated in that title match. Six days later, Shirai won another tag team title, when she and Tsukushi defeated .STAP (Maki Narumiya and Risa Sera ) to win

6105-484: The affection. On September 8 at Smash.21 , Shirai defeated Kito in a hardcore match . After the match, when Kito continued to profess his love for Shirai, he was attacked by IWA Japan wrestler Keizo Matsuda. During the following months, Shirai repeatedly cost Kito matches against Matsuda and his colleagues, but still could not get him to leave her alone. After the break up of Triple Tails, Shirai continued making semi-regular appearances for Osaka Pro Wrestling, forming

6216-460: The championship was owned and promoted by Pro Wrestling Wave. From July to November, the Shirais spent four months working for the Ice Ribbon promotion. On November 12, 2009, the Shirais entered Pro Wrestling Wave's Captain's Fall Six Person Tag Team Tournament, teaming with Gami, but the trio was defeated in their first round match by Ran Yu-Yu , Ryo Mizunami and Toshie Uematsu. However,

6327-453: The competition, seeding is often used to prevent this. Brackets are set up so that the top two seeds could not possibly meet until the final round (should both advance that far), none of the top four can meet prior to the semifinals, and so on. If no seeding is used, the tournament is called a random knockout tournament. Standard seeding pairs the highest and lowest, then second highest and second lowest and so on, for an 8 seed tournament this

6438-432: The entire month, scoring singles victories over Riho and Hamuko Hoshi and a tag team victory over Hikaru Shida, Shirai was named the number one contender to Shida's ICE×60 Championship , Ice Ribbon's top title. On September 23 at Ribbon no Kishitachi 2012 , Shirai defeated Shida to win the ICE×60 Championship, her first major joshi title. Following her win, Shirai turned down Miyako Matsumoto 's challenge for

6549-506: The event, Shirai wrestled three matches. First she teamed with Aoi Kizuki in a tag team match, where they defeated Mayumi Ozaki and Yumi Ohka with Shirai pinning Ozaki for the final win of her career. Then she wrestled the final singles match of her career, where she was defeated by Isami Kodaka. Finally, she wrestled in a six-woman tag team main event, where she, Misaki Ohata and Tsukasa Fujimoto were defeated by Hiroe Nagahama, Risa Sera and Tsukushi, who pinned her to end her career. Following

6660-492: The first three positions in the tournament with Ohata, the winner of the two previous Zan1s, coming in second and Fujimoto third. On January 24, 2015, Shirai made her second successful defense of the Union FTE World Championship against Aoi Ishibashi. On February 14, her 27th birthday, Shirai presented the second M.I.O event in Shinjuku Face, which saw her lose to her sister Io in a main event singles match. This marked

6771-459: The first time in three years that the two sisters had wrestled in the same match. Two days later, Shirai held a press conference, where she announced that she would be retiring from professional wrestling due to issues with her neck, wrestling her final match at the fifth M.I.O event on September 20. On March 1, Shirai lost the Union FTE World Championship to Cherry in her third defense. In early 2015, Shirai and Misaki Ohata received two shots at

SECTION 60

#1732800858042

6882-404: The first time. After the match, Shirai confronted Akino's MK4 stable and proclaimed that she would relinquish the title if she ever lost to any member of the stable. Later that same day, Shirai faced Oz Academy Tag Team Champion and MK4 member Kaho Kobayashi in a non-title match at an event co-produced by Oz Academy and Pro Wrestling Wave. Following outside interference from Tomoka Nakagawa, Shirai

6993-527: The group's final appearance together. After Io's departure from Triple Tails, Mio and Kana renamed the group Triple Tails.S and continued wrestling together as a tag team. However, in Smash, Mio and Kana were broken apart following Io's departure, with Kana being preoccupied with the Smash Diva Championship and Mio entering a storyline with Takuya Kito. The storyline involved Kito repeatedly professing his love for Mio, who refused to return

7104-622: The loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, whose winner becomes the tournament champion(s). Each match-up may be a single match or several, for example two-legged ties in European sports or best-of series in North American pro sports. Defeated competitors may play no further part after losing, or may participate in "consolation" or "classification" matches against other losers to determine

7215-443: The lower final rankings; for example, a third place playoff between losing semi-finalists. In a shootout poker tournament , there are more than two players competing at each table, and sometimes more than one progresses to the next round. Some competitions are held with a pure single-elimination tournament system. Others have many phases, with the last being a single-elimination final stage, often called playoffs . In English ,

7326-632: The masked Akino, in a tag team main event. Back in Ice Ribbon, Shirai formed a new partnership with rookie Rutsuko Yamaguchi. On August 25, Shirai and Yamaguchi defeated BBA38 (Cherry and Meari Naito) to become the number one contenders to the International Ribbon Tag Team Championship . They received their title shot on September 22, but were defeated by the defending champions, Muscle Venus (Hikaru Shida and Tsukasa Fujimoto). The following day in Union Pro,

7437-441: The match, Shirai and Ohata relinquished their Wave Tag Team Championship. On October 4, 2015, Shirai returned to Union Pro to take part in the promotion's final event before folding, accompanying Ken Ohka and Shinichiro Tominaga to a three-way tag team match, where they were defeated by Men's Teioh and Sagat and which also included Kengo Ohka and Madoka. On December 15, 2015, it was announced that Shirai would start working as

7548-414: The match, after suffering a nasal fracture at an Oz Academy event five days earlier. Shirai ended up managing her replacement, Emi Sakura , to a win, after interfering in the match; as a result, Cherry was forced to reveal that she was born May 14, 1974. Shirai, working with a nose protector, returned to the ring on May 29 at a Pro Wrestling Wave event, losing to Syuri in her first round-robin match in

7659-473: The match. The first team to pick up two consecutive pinfalls or submissions would be declared the winner. The 2014 Dual Shock Wave took place between September 23 and October 15. For the first time in three years, the tournament was contested in a single-elimination format with eleven participating teams. The first five teams taking part in the tournament were determined in advance, while Kaho Kobayashi, Sawako Shimono, Sumire Natsu and Yumi Ohka earned spots in

7770-602: The newest member of Makoto's Shiritsu Puroresu Gakuen ("Private Wrestling School") stable. Shirai, however, quickly established that she was not on the same page as Makoto, announcing that she was bringing Misaki Ohata with her to confront the "wimps" in charge of the school. Shirai's WNC return match took place on November 29, when she and Ohata defeated Makoto and Miyako Matsumoto in a tag team match. On December 27, Shirai and Kana announced they were disbanding Triple Tails.S, with their final self-produced independent event taking place in early 2014. On January 22, 2014, Shirai held

7881-399: The next round; or some method of ranking the four quarterfinal losers might be employed, in which case only one round of additional matches would be held among them, the two highest-ranked therein then playing for fifth and sixth places and the two lowest for seventh and eighth. The number of distinct ways of arranging a single-elimination tournament (as an abstract structure, prior to seeding

7992-489: The number one contenders to the Oz Academy Tag Team Championship and gave herself a shot at the Oz Academy Openweight Championship. Meanwhile, Shirai also earned another shot at the Union FTE World Championship, challenging Cherry after her first match under a Union Pro contract on February 11, where the two defeated Kaori Yoneyama and Sareee. On March 2, Shirai failed in her attempt to capture

8103-485: The number two seed with the winner advancing to face the number three seed and so on until all teams have wrestled at least once. Hiroe Nagahama and Kaho Kobayashi, the team seeded ninth, would defend the Wave Tag Team Championship in the final match of the tournament. Each match in the tournament would also feature special rules, determined by a random draw. The 2020 edition of the tournament took place between November 1 and November 21, 2020. The signature match gimmick of

8214-414: The opportunity to face every other player/team. Also, if the competitors' performance is variable, that is, it depends on a small, varying factor in addition to the actual strength of the competitors, then not only will it become less likely that the strongest competitor actually wins the tournament, in addition the seeding done by the tournament organizers will play a major part in deciding the winner. As

8325-604: The other. If a small number of teams play in a single elimination tournament, sometimes a consolation bracket is included to allow the eliminated teams to play more than once. This was the format of the Little League World Series until 1992. The format is less suited to games where draws are frequent. In chess , each fixture in a single-elimination tournament must be played over multiple matches, because draws are common , and because white has an advantage over black. In association football , games ending in

8436-435: The partnership, which featured a main event tag team match, where Shirai and Kayoko Haruyama were defeated by Kana and Arisa Nakajima. From May 5 to July 4, Shirai took part in the round-robin portion of the 2014 Catch the Wave tournament, finishing with a record of two wins, one draw and three losses, failing to advance from her block after losing to Misaki Ohata in their final round-robin match. On August 1, Shirai held

8547-587: The players into the tournament) is given by the Wedderburn–Etherington numbers . Thus, for instance, there are three different arrangements for five players: However, the number of arrangements grows quickly for larger numbers of players and not all of them are commonly used. Opponents may be allocated randomly (such as in the FA Cup); however, since the "luck of the draw" may result in the highest-rated competitors being scheduled to face each other early in

8658-532: The promotion held its first women's match in years, where she was defeated by Akino. Six days later, Shirai made her debut for the AJPW splinter promotion Wrestle-1 , defeating Bambi in a singles match. In late 2013, Shirai formed a new cross-promotional three-woman stable named Kuros with Misaki Ohata and Tsukasa Fujimoto. After not appearing for the promotion for thirteen months, it was announced on October 31 that Shirai would be returning to Wrestling New Classic as

8769-538: The promotion's final event before ceasing its operations. Afterwards, Shirai continued working for Smash's follow-up promotion, Wrestling New Classic , teaming with Kana to defeat Makoto and Syuri at the promotion's first event, Before the Dawn , on April 26. After the match, Shirai sided with Makoto and against Kana, when she was verbally assaulting her defeated opponent. Taking Makoto under her wing, Shirai began referring to her as her sister. In early 2012, Shirai started

8880-405: The promotion's official representative Naomi Susan. Shirai then entered a storyline built on the relationship between Union Pro and AV company IdeaPocket . Picking up wins over the likes of Hiroshi Fukuda, Masayuki Mitomi and Menso～re Oyaji , Shirai earned the right to collaborate with AV actresses such as Rika Seibi, Ryu Mizusaki and Tsubasa Amami. On October 20, Shirai returned to AJPW, when

8991-505: The promotion. Shirai and Ohka were later joined by several other Union Pro wrestlers under Nazo Fukumen masks, including Shota as Nazo Fukumen C, Gabai-Ji-chan as Nazo Fukumen G, Kengo Mashimo as Nazo Fukumen K, Seiya Morohashi as Nazo Fukumen M, and Hiroshi Fukuda as Nazo Fukumen P. On February 17, Shirai entered the Wave Single Championship tournament as a late replacement for an injured Ayumi Kurihara, but

9102-571: The regular season (or did not take place, in some cases). In international fencing competitions, it is common to have a group stage . Participants are divided in groups of 6–7 fencers who play a round-robin tournament, and a ranking is calculated from the consolidated group results. Single elimination is seeded from this ranking. The single-elimination format enables a relatively large number of competitors to participate. There are no "dead" matches (perhaps excluding "classification" matches), and no matches where one competitor has more to play for than

9213-530: The reserve team of Block B, where they would enter the tournament in case of an injury, inheriting the points of the eliminated team. The final two teams of Apple Miyuki and Kyusei Ninja Ranmaru, and Makoto and Moeka Haruhi were so-called "producer recommendation" picks made by Gami. The winners of the tournament, if not Gami and Tomoka Nakagawa, would earn a shot at the Wave Tag Team Championship on November 27 at Korakuen Hall . The 2013 Dual Shock Wave took place between September 1 and October 6. The winners of

9324-446: The round at which they enter may be named the first round , with the earlier matches called a preliminary round , qualifying round , opening round , or the play-in games . Examples of the diverse names given to concurrent rounds in various select disciplines: Notes: The knockout round of the 2002 FIFA World Cup tournament: Without any additional matches, the only position a single-elimination tournament can reliably determine

9435-520: The round in which only eight competitors remain is generally called (with or without hyphenation) the quarter-final round; this is followed by the semi-final round, in which only four are left, the two winners of which then meet in the final or championship round . The round before the quarterfinals has multiple designations. Often it is called the round of sixteen , last sixteen , or (in South Asia) pre-quarterfinals . In many other languages

9546-399: The same division, they cannot play each other; in that case, the top seed plays the worst division champion; the second-best division champion plays the wild card team. This is due to the scheduling employed for the regular season, in which a team faces any given divisional opponent more often than any given non-divisional opponent – the tournament favors match-ups that took place fewer times in

9657-446: The soon-to-retire Ayumi Kurihara in a singles match. Three days later, Shirai and Kana lost the Wave Tag Team Championship to Shidarezakura (Hikaru Shida and Yumi Ohka) in their second defense. On July 27, Shirai made another appearance as Kaguya for Pro Wrestling Wave, when she took part in a match, where Ayumi Kurihara retired her masked A☆YU☆MI persona. Replacing an injured Ray , she teamed with Leon to defeat A☆YU☆MI and noki-A,

9768-462: The stable which would manage to draw fewer people to their self-produced Wave event, which would take place August 7 and 8, would disband. Shirai performed on both the Black Dahlia and the White Tails event and afterwards remained with White Tails, which won the battle for attendance 201-191, forcing Black Dahlia to disband. Also in August, Shirai returned to Ice Ribbon. After remaining undefeated for

9879-477: The stable's dissolution, where Shirai, Fujimoto and Ohata defeated Chikayo Nagashima, Kayoko Haruyama and Meiko Satomura in a six-woman tag team main event. On August 23, Shirai lost another one of her tag team titles, when she and Mayumi Ozaki were defeated by Kagetsu and Kaho Kobayashi in a rematch for the Oz Academy Tag Team Championship. That same event, Shirai received a shot at the Oz Academy Openweight Championship, immediately after Sonoko Kato had won it, but

9990-544: The team of Ayako Hamada and Cherry. The following day in Everett, Massachusetts , Shirai was defeated by Ozaki in a singles match. On the third and final night of the tour in Manhattan, New York , Shirai, Aja Kong and Tsubasa Kuragaki defeated Hanako Nakamori, Manami Toyota and Sawako Shimono in a six-woman tag team match. On January 3, 2012, Shirai returned to the ring with her sister, when she teamed with Ken Ohka at

10101-1060: The term for these eight matches translates to eighth-final (e.g., in these European languages: "huitième de finale" in French , "achtste finale" in Dutch, octavos de final in Spanish , Achtelfinale in German , åttondelsfinal in Swedish , ottavi di finale in Italian , oitavos-de-final in Portuguese , optimi de finală in Romanian , osmifinále in Czech , osemfinále in Slovak , and osmina finala in Serbo-Croatian ), though this term

10212-574: The title and stated that she instead wanted to defend it against Tsukasa Fujimoto , whom she dubbed "the face of Ice Ribbon". On October 28 at 2012 Yokohama Ribbon III , Shirai defeated Fujimoto for her first successful defense of the ICE×60 Championship. On November 27, Shirai once again worked under her masked Kaguya persona, when she took part in the 2012 Reina de Reinas tournament, co-produced by Pro Wrestling Wave and AAA in Tokyo 's Korakuen Hall . After defeating Faby Apache in her opening match, Kaguya

10323-476: The top 32 players of 128 are seeded in Tennis Grand Slam tournaments, it can happen that the 33rd-best player in a 128-player field could end up playing the top seed in the first round. An example of this occurring was when World No. 33 Florian Mayer was drawn against, and defeated by, World No. 1 Novak Djokovic in the first round of the 2013 Wimbledon Championships , in what was also a rematch of

10434-403: The tournament a win was worth one point, while both a draw and a loss were worth zero points. If a team drew or lost three times, they were eliminated from the tournament. The final match was a three-way match contested under "Dog Fight" rules, where only two teams were in the ring at the same time and after a pinfall or submission the losing team would switch places with the team not taking part in

10545-572: The tournament and the right to pick their partners after picking up eliminations in an eight-way elimination match on September 7. Finally, two teams featuring outsiders were also added; one with Fairy Nipponbashi teaming with Oz Academy 's Dynamite Kansai and the other with Moeka Haruhi teaming with American freelancer Melanie Cruise . Prior to the start of the tournament, the reigning Wave Tag Team Champions Sakuragohan (Kyusei Sakura Hirota and Mika Iida) were booked to defend their title against Plus Minus 2014 ( Mio Shirai and Misaki Ohata ) with

10656-416: The tournament earned a shot at the Wave Tag Team Championship on October 30. Had the defending champions, Cherry and Shuu Shibutani , won the tournament, the title shot would have gone to the other finalist. The tournament was contested in a single round-robin block with eight participating teams. Hamuko Hoshi , Hikaru Shida and Tsukasa Fujimoto from Ice Ribbon entered the tournament as outsiders. In

10767-433: The tournament took place in a single-elimination format with seven participating teams. The winning team would also win the vacant Wave Tag Team Championship . JWP Joshi Puroresu representative Kayoko Haruyama and freelancer Tsubasa Kuragaki entered the tournament as outsiders, after gaining the "producer recommendation" spot made by Gami. The 2016 Dual Shock Wave took place between September 22 and October 10. In

10878-408: The tournament were the three-way tag team matches instead of the classic two-on-two tag team matches. The 2023 edition of the tournament took place between November 1 and December 1. The final match was also disputed for the Wave Tag Team Championship . Single-elimination tournament A single-elimination, knockout , or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where

10989-410: The tournament, each team was made up of a veteran and a younger wrestler. The matches all had a 20-minute time limit. In case of a draw, the younger wrestlers would face each other in a singles match to determine the winner. The 2017 Dual Shock Wave took place on September 17. The tournament featured nine teams, seeded from number one to nine. The tournament would start with the number one seed taking on

11100-470: The tournament. In a single-elimination tournament without any seeding, awarding the second place to the loser of the final is unjustified: any of the competitors knocked out before getting to play the losing finalist might have been stronger than the actual losing finalist. In general, it is only fair to use a single-elimination tournament to determine first place. To fairly determine lower places requires some form of round-robin in which each player/team gets

11211-438: The tournament. Three of the teams, Hikaru Shida and Yumi Ohka , Misaki Ohata and Tsukasa Fujimoto , and Shuu Shibutani and Syuri , earned spots in the tournament by scoring eliminations in a five tag team elimination match on September 3, 2012, which also included the teams of Aya Yuki and Sawako Shimono, and Maki Narumiya and Yuu Yamagata. Narumiya and Yamagata were named the reserve team of Block A and Yuki and Shimono

11322-571: The trio earned their way back into the tournament by defeating Misaki Ohata , Moeka Haruhi and Yumi Ohka in a consolation match later that same day. On November 25, the Shirais and Gami first defeated Bullfight Sora, Cherry and Kaoru in the semifinals and then Ayumi Kurihara , Kana and Shuu Shibutani in the finals to win the tournament. On December 23, the Shirais lost the TLW World Young Women's Tag Team Championship to Misaki Ohata and Moeka Haruhi. On June 9, 2010, Mio entered

11433-438: The two conferences the league has) to face the winner of the first-round series between the fourth and fifth seeds in the next round, even if one or more of the top three seeds had been upset in their first-round series; critics have claimed that this gives a team fighting for the fifth and sixth seeding positions near the end of the regular season an incentive to tank (deliberately lose) games, so as to finish sixth and thus avoid

11544-419: The upcoming 2014 Dual Shock Wave from the first round. On September 23, Shirai and Ohata defeated Tsukasa Fujimoto and Yumi Ohka in the first round of the tournament. On October 1, Shirai and Ohata defeated Dynamite Kansai and Fairy Nipponbashi to advance to the semifinals of the tournament, where, later that same event, they wrestled Kyoko Kimura and Tomoka Nakagawa to a fifteen-minute time limit draw. Ohata

11655-405: The winners advancing directly to the finals of the tournament, while the losers would start the tournament in the first round. On September 15, Sakuragohan successfully defended the title to advance to the finals of the tournament. The final match was also contested for the Wave Tag Team Championship. The 2015 Dual Shock Wave took place between October 2 and October 30. For the second year in a row,

11766-403: The year, Ribbon Mania 2014 , Shirai made her first successful defense of the Union FTE World Championship against Tsukushi . Later that same day, Shirai won the fan vote portion in the third annual Zan1 tournament, securing her overall win in the multi-stage tournament involving the entire Pro Wrestling Wave roster and earning her a rematch with Shida for the Wave Single Championship. Kuros took

11877-444: Was defeated by the new champion. On September 13, Shirai and Ohata made their second successful defense of the Wave Tag Team Championship against Hiroyo Matsumoto and Ryo Mizunami. As her retirement drew closer, Shirai wrestled her final match for Union Pro on September 15, where she and Ladybeard were defeated by Gentaro and Kyoko Kimura. The following day, Shirai worked her final Pro Wrestling Wave event, during which she wrestled

11988-433: Was defeated in the finals of the tournament by the reigning AAA Reina de Reinas Champion, Sexy Star. The following day, Shirai made her second successful defense of the ICE×60 Championship against Neko Nitta. After several months of inactivity, Shirai and Kana announced on December 5, a week following Kana's departure from WNC, that they were restarting Triple Tails.S. The team's return match took place on December 16 at

12099-462: Was eliminated in her semifinal match by Kana. On February 24, Triple Tails.S held its first self-produced event in nine months, which saw Shirai and Kana wrestle Arisa Nakajima and Ayako Hamada in a main event tag team match. On March 29, Shirai, along with Hiroshi Fukuda, was named the official commentator for Union Pro's internet broadcasts. On April 5, Shirai made her in-ring debut as Nazo Fukumen B, unsuccessfully challenging Kaori Yoneyama for

12210-446: Was pinned by Kobayashi and, as a result, relinquished the Oz Academy Openweight Championship, ending her reign at only four hours and two minutes. On June 17, Shirai won yet another title, when she defeated Hibiscus Mii to regain the Union FTE World Championship. The fourth M.I.O event took place on June 19 and saw Shirai lose to Arisa Nakajima in the main event. On June 24, Shirai and Tsukushi made their first successful defense of

12321-407: Was then defeated by Kimura in an overtime singles match and, as a result, both she and Shirai were eliminated from the tournament. On November 26, Kuros won Wave's second annual One Day 6-Person Tag Tournament, defeating Cherry, Meari Naito and Shuu Shibutani in the finals and, as a result, earned the right to produce the December 14 Wave event. On December 21, Shirai challenged Hikaru Shida for both

#41958