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AKINO comes in confident, overlooking the challenger. She brutalizes Momono, wailing on her with kicks before taking things to the outside. AKINO kicks the post, which is a common spot these days, but I liked that they opted for something different by using it to set up Momono’s big dive. When Momono starts to put up more of a fight than she bargained for, AKINO gets desperate and goes after her arm. Momono’s selling as the underdog is excellent. She even kept her bad arm at bay while going for a pinfall. Momono’s brief fire-up after being nailed with a forearm feels so much more believable than when most wrestlers do it. It feels like she’s fighting for her life and feeding off the crowd’s energy. AKINO calls for the finish and almost gets caught with a European Clutch for her overzealousness. Eventually, Momono’s resolve wins out, as she counters a high kick and lands the JK Bomb to secure the title. I find Momono’s high-speed matches entertaining enough, but when she zeroes in on being a plucky underdog babyface, she’s at her best. AKINO was the perfect foil for the invading challenger. She was brutal, mean, and a worthy champion. But this was Momono’s night. The audience was evenly split at the beginning, but Momono won them over by the end. If they shaved a few minutes off the finishing sequence, I’d have no problem calling this great. As is, it’s one of the early highlights of 2024, where the valiant hero overcomes the odds. ***1/2

There was no way the Yoshida vs. Bolshoi matchup would live up to my expectations. I was a little underwhelmed by Yoshida here. She had some fun exchanges vs. tiny Bolshoi on the mat here and punched Yabushita in the face at one point, but that was about it. Also, here was an annoying clip in the middle of he match. The Yoshida team was carried by Akino, who looked pretty good. Yabushita is a judo girl with legit ability, so all her flying armbars and fighting on he ground looks really good, as she actually looks like she is constantly pulling her opponent into a submission to beat them, rather than doing a pretty spot. She looks more Brock Lesnar than Minoru Tanaka and if Ronda Rousey ever gets into wrestling I imagine this is how she would work ideally. Akino was good but I hated her no selling Bolshoi's top rope Uranage, altough I've learned to give these girls one stupid spot off. Same with Bolshoi's shitty 619. The fancy rollup and flying submissions all looked good, Bolshoi is crazy fast, like twice prime Misterio speed, there were a few moments where they countered eachothers counters, which gave the match a hard fought feeling. The Akino vs. Yabushita finish run was really good with Akino catching her in surprise Fujiwara armbars and Yabushita avoiding Akino's kicks and throws. Also, these girls like to go for the Liger running palm strike, but while the move connects and makes a sound, I think it doesn't look visually impressive because they are physically so tiny. Match ended when it should. Very fun bout.

The Big Stupid List of Great ARSION Matches 1998 Yumi Fukawa vs. Michiko Ohmukai (4/11) Mikiko Futagami vs. Rie Tamada (8/31) Mariko Yoshida vs. Rie Tamada (4/17) Rie Tamada/Hiromi Yagi vs. Tiger Dream/Ayako Hamada (Twinstar Tag Final, 12/7) Reggie Bennett vs. Mariko Yoshida (8/31) Mariko Yoshida vs. Ayako Hamada (8/31) Aja Kong vs. Mariko Yoshida (6/21) Aja Kong vs. Michiko Ohmukai (2/18) Mariko Yoshida vs. Candy Okutsu (Queen of ARSION Title, 12/18) Yumi Fukawa vs. Candy Okutsu (2/18) Reggie Bennett vs. Mariko Yoshida (5/5) Mariko Yoshida vs. Mikiko Futagami (5/5) Candy Okutsu vs. Mikiko Futagami (4/17) Michiko Ohmukai vs. Rie Tamada (8/9) Mariko Yoshida vs. Michiko Ohmukai (8/31) Mikiko Futagami vs. Michiko Ohmukai (7/21) Aja Kong vs. Ayako Hamada (12/18) Rie Tamada vs. Candy Okutsu (5/5) Yumi Fukawa vs. Rie Tamada (7/21) Best ARSION Matches of 1999 1. Mariko Yoshida vs. Hiromi Yagi (2/18) 2. Etsuko Mita/Mima Shimoda vs. Ayako Hamada/Mika Akino (12/11) 3. Mariko Yoshida vs. Mikiko Futagami (4/14) 4. Yumi Fukawa vs. Mariko Yoshida (9/26) 5. Mariko Yoshida vs. Hiromi Yagi (5/4) 6. Mariko Yoshida vs. Mika Akino (1/17) 7. Mariko Yoshida vs. Yumi Fukawa (5/4) 8. Mariko Yoshida vs. Aja Kong (8/6) 9. Mikiko Futagami vs. Michiko Ohmukai (5/4) 10. Ayako Hamada vs. Mari Apache (7/25) 11. Mari Apache vs. Chaparrita ASARI (7/25) 12. Mima Shimoda/Etsuko Mita vs. Yumi Fukawa/Rie Tamada (7/25) 13. Mika Akino vs. Chaparrita ASARI (7/25) Comprehensive list of the Best ARSION matches of 2000. The really good stuff is in bold. Aja Kong vs. Ayako Hamada (Queen of Arsion Title, 12/3/00 Tokyo) Chapparita Asari vs. Mika Akino (Sky High of Arsion Title, 12/3/00 Tokyo) Ayako Hamada vs. Mariko Yoshida (Arsion ZION Tournament Finals 10/17) Mariko Yoshida vs. Aja Kong (ZION Tournament '00 Semi-Finals, 10/17/00 Tokyo) Ayako Hamada vs. Mika Akino (SKY Tournament II Final, 7/16/00 Tokyo) Mika Akino vs. Mary Apache (SKY Tournament II Semi-Finals, 7/16/00 Tokyo) Aja Kong vs. Ayako Hamada (8/18/00 Tokyo) Ayako Hamada/Gran Hamada vs. Hiromi Yagi/Tiger Mask IV (P*MIX Grand Prix Semi-Finals, 6/29/00) Hiromi Yagi/Tiger Mask vs. Chapparita Asari/Great Sasuke (P*MIX Grand Prix Quarterfinals, 6/24/00) Yumi Fukawa/Minoru Tanaka vs. Mariko Yoshida/Alexander Otsuka (P*MIX Grand Prix Quarterfinals, 6/7/00) Aja Kong vs. Mariko Yoshida (ARS Tournament '00 Semi-Finals, 5/7 Tokyo) Michiko Omukai & Mima Shimoda vs Aja Kong & Mariko Yoshida (ARSION 04/07/00) Ayako Hamada/Gran Hamada vs. Faby Apache/Gran Apache (4/7) Ayako Hamada/Mika Akino vs. Aja Kong/Mariko Yoshida (2/18) ARSION is such an interesting fed. Pretty much the joshi equivalent of BattlARTS with it's crossover style and tiny roster that they had to use efficiently. With this fed you get the ace run of the mighy Mariko Yoshida, a period of the work or Aja Kong or Lioness Asuka that doesn't get talked about much, and a handful of unexplored workers like Futagami or Rie Tamada that deserve some recognition. For this project I will go through the Best Of Arsion comp that is floating around and post my Top Matches for each year after finishing. Yes I know that's cherrypicking but for now I want to get the essence of it (judge a style by the best matches it produced etc) and compare to high end BattlARTS/RINGS/UWFi etc. If you know any essential ARSION that's not on the comp feel free to drop a comment. Yumi Fukawa vs. Candy Okutsu (2/18) The first ARSION match. It is a very appropriate debut match. They mix the traditional joshi with lucharesu and tricked out submission work, and the whole thing has the flair of two overzealous young workers going all out to show the world especially with the bomb throwing at the end and Fukawa hitting those face-shattering moonsaults that nearly KO'd Candy. I give them a ton of credit because they really delivered a good match that sets the tone. They kept going back to the submissions and really had a hard fought battle to the very end that the crowd got into. Can't remember the last time I watched a „young workers showing the world“ match on this level. Side note, a Cagematch user mentioned that he went to a few ARSION shows and he felt that many guys there went for the pretty workers and the „product“ (apparently Arsion had lots of quality mags, posters etc. for sell) and not the wrestling, so Arsion matches had not as much heat as GAEA. It's not hard to see why especially with Okutsu wearing a ridiculous outfit that made her butt look gigantic but to their credit the wrestling was top notch and on the level of the presentation. Aja Kong vs. Michiko Ohmukai (2/18) Michiko Ohmukai was this skinny girl with supermodel looks who worked like Daisuke Ikeda. I have no idea why she's not famous. She threw all those reckless kicks and impressive suplexes and was like a magic ingredient for matches that made everything crazier. Here she slaps Aja right at the bell and Aja just smirks at her and then Ohmukai starts dropping her with those 50 yards football kicks. Hell of an opening for a match. They get into a slugfest like this fucking BattlARTS or WAR and I am in love with this. Then they settle down a little with Aja dominating on the mat through size and Ohmukai trying to topple her. I think Aja was kind of mailing it in in Arsion which is such a disappointment but this match hit all the right spots and was really good stuff like it always is when Aja has someone to work with who brings the fight to her. Aja Kong/Yumi Fukawa/Michiko Ohmukai vs. Candy Okutsu/Rie Tamada/Mikiko Futagami (2/18) They end the debut show with a chaotic fast tag team match where everyone runs in and hits their stuff. Kind of pointless main event as the previous matches had done a good enough job to establish everyone, but I guess they had to work around having such a tiny roster to work with. Everyone has had matches before that evening so the execution wasn't at 100% anymore. Fukawa almost fell on her head doing an asai moonsault and then hit another reckless one inside the ring like a lunatic. Aja had solid interactions with everyone and I always get a kick out of watching Futagami work, but this wasn't much. Mariko Yoshida vs. Rei Tamada (4/17) WOAH! Apparently this was the debut match of Mariko in ARSION. I was expecting something good, but this was far more than a formative bout. Rei Tamada, for a name that never gets dropped, looked damn impressive. The bout was built around establishing Yoshida's new, signature style, and her focus was to take it to the mat no matter what. Tamada was far more than a piece of luggage for Yoshida to chuck around, however. Tamada could roll on the mat and I really liked her determination to get the match into standing position. I want to emphasize the standing exchanges here were also really good. Tamada hit a mean elbow and tried her darndest to cut Yoshida of, who rolled one submission counter after another out of her sleeve. Even some of the fancier lightweight moves landed as if to shut a door. It created a kind of intensity that I really love in a wrestling match and this was just an absolutely fabulous contest. 3 real hits out of 4 so far. Pretty damn good start for the project. Stay tuned & maybe come out of the woodwork and comment if you are an old ARSION superfan.

I'm a bit unsure how to rate this as it's a strange stipulation and feels like two matches in one. 6 women start the match and it's elimination rules until we're down to 2, then it's a Texas Death Match where victory is by a pinfall and then your opponent being unable to get to their feet for a count of ten. The first 30 minutes is quite fun. We start with all 5 of her opponents all beating the hell out of Mayumi Ozaki as they know she's going to play some dirty tricks to win if they don't take her out quickly. Doesn't last though. Mayumi's stable constantly interfering gets annoying after a while and it's a relief when she's finally eliminated. But it's the final 20 minutes that are amazing. We're down to just Aja Kong and Kaho Kobayashi. I don't know much about Kaho but I'm going to seeking out more from her as from this performance she looks like one of the best sellers/bumpers in wrestling. Aja is so brutal with her, backdrop suplex after backdrop suplex with urakens, lariats and piledrivers that almost kill her, but Kaho just won't stay down for that 10 count so long as there's a bit of energy left in her. Both of them put in great performances here. This part of the match at least is certainly worth watching as a prelude to the great title match on the big 09/17/18 Oz Academy show. ****1/4

This was clipped but we get a good picture of it. I imagine this would have been really good if we had gotten the early build, because what was shown was really good. Asari is really sharp, and the contrast between her lucha headscissors and flash armbars and Akino's more basic style made for an entertaining match. They had great rhythm and Akino's arm selling was right on the money. The finish was really neat aswell. Even without the ARSION trademark gone these two are still a welcome antidote to the more overkill-y joshi workers.

Hiroyo Matsumoto's awesome 2017 run continues. This might be the most impressive performance from this year as she working a non-title match on an OZ Academy b-show against the always underachieving AKINO. Somehow, Hiroyo is able to awaken old Arsion era AKINO as she has the best performance that she's had in a long time. AKINO shows off the wonderful mix of highspots and matwork that made her a marvel to watch early on in her career. She even busts out a Spider Twist in a nice nod to the trainer of both women, Mariko Yoshida. Hiroyo is at her peak here with her mix of power, selling and charisma. Terrific match that shouldn't be skipped over. ****

Sekigun (Alex Lee, Mayumi Ozaki & Yumi Ohka) vs. MK4 (AKINO & Sonoko Kato) & Rina Yamashita This was highly enjoyable, and easily one of my favorite OZ matches of the year so far. It's Ozaki's homecoming in Saitama and the match had an energetic vibe. Yamashita was on fire; I dug her lariat exchange with POLICE. Ohka looked really great, knocking everyone down with her deadly boots. Everyone had their moment and delivered a great main event! ****

OZ Academy Tag Team Championship: Hikaru Shida & Syuri © vs. MK4 (AKINO & Kaho Kobayashi) I've been really enjoying AKINO's work lately, and I thought she was solid here; I dig her approach to these tag matches. Kaho is obviously the FIP, and she did a great job; Shida & Syuri's work over session was rough (in a good way). My favorite moment is when Shida chucks her shinai at AKINO. Great match. ***3/4

This was the first clipped up match that looked real good. There was a bit of selling and neat transitions going on elevating this above your standard move exhibition. Instead you had Akino being all spunky underdog, pulling off all kinds of wonky complicated spaceman headscissor type moves and turnbuckle climbing dives. And well, Apache when on offense is just blasting her opponent and they kept things interesting with nifty spots. The best move was Mary countering a weird Akino rollup in mid-air by stopping her, pulling her back up and just splatting her with a fat powerbomb. Akino's a tiny girl but still looked like a freakish spot.

D'aaawww look it's the little cubs fighting for their first big win! And this was actually really, really good! You could tell this was their „young workers trying their ideas for an epic“ match. Except... their ideas worked? This was closer to a lucharesu match than anything and it had to have been the best singles match in that style since... since... Sasuke/Tokyo from the previous year? Oh whatever. The matwork was real good, the lucharesu exchanges looked great and most importantly, fresh. Ayako had great instincts – just little things like doing a kneedrop while working for a submission add so much. They also played up the fact that Hamada was pretty dominant in the tournament while Akino had gone by using her flash rollups. Making Akino's intricate rollups and wonky twisted headscissors into great nearfalls. That's economic working baby! Awesome nearfalls for ROLLUPS!!! Rollups that actually add to a match! Man fuck why can't we get more wrestling like this and less headdrops and thigh slapping. Terrific little match.

OZ Academy Tag Team Championship: Hikaru Shida & Syuri © vs. MK4 (AKINO & Kaho Kobayashi) This was a very well-worked tag match, where the abundance of spots were chained together rather smoothly. Kaho makes the most out of those dramatic near-falls, and the kick-heavy segments between Syuri and AKINO were amazing. Another very entertaining match from Shida & Syuri. The Shiri does it again! ****

This match has a real all-star type feel to it with Io being Stardom champ, Hiroyo being OZ Academy champ, and Ohata being the top contender for the WAVE title. This is also the first time in quite awhile that Io and Ohata have worked together. The two of them start this match and you can tell that they are both pretty excited to be working together again. Hiroyo looked really good here to as it can be easy to forget how good she can be until you see her in situations like this. AKINO was good too, showing a lot of energy rather than one of her phoned in performances. A super fun match between four women who you usually don't see in the ring together. ***1/2

It was neat to see AKINO flashback to her Arsion roots here. Her matwork is still pretty good even though it isn't quite as crisp and quick as it use to be. Syuri looked pretty damn good here. Her strikes, matwork, and selling all looked terrific. I do wish they had kept up with the matwork throughout the match as towards the end it gets scaled down in favour of big moves. Still, this is a pretty good match and a nice change of pace for OZ Academy. ***1/2

This is a tag match were the woman that gets the winning fall becomes the number one contender to Sonoko Kato's OZ singles title. With that stipulation, one would assume that this match would probably turn into a messy but that doesn't happen here. Actually, all four women incorporate the stip into the story of the match. There are some of the typical 'feuding partners' moments, but they don't overwhelm the action. Everyone here turns in a really good performance allowing the match to be much better than expected. ***3/4

Fun match. These girls all have good offense while at the same time too broken down to do anything to workrate-y so there was no no-selling or annoying prideful screeching. I always pop for Kuragaki's Norton-ish power spots and her moonsault into outstretched legs looked savage. AKINO vs. Syuri section was pretty good and I like Akino's mix of kicks and cradles. Akino still can do some slick spots. Dug the bit where Kato and Akino took turns kicking Kuragaki in her face to cut the big woman down. Some sloppiness keeps it down.

Oh Carlos, I will never not watch your matches. And she faces off against AKINO who I know can go as she pretty much works like a gender switched Ikuto Hidaka/Katsumi Usuda type of lucharesu shooter so this is an automatic must watch anyways. And this was a damn good undercard match, let me tell you, despite the JIP and all. This starts out a little weird as both are full of disdain for eachother but also working kind of comedic, then move swiftly into slick technical sequences lifted straight from a Hidaka/Usuda matchup and finally end it with all the skull crushing headbutt and orbital bone breaking shootkick glory you can wish for. The selling is decent enough for all you joshiphobics to tolerate it and there are some transitions and counters that just make so much sense: AKINO countering a leaping headbutt by kicking Carlos in the teeth, Akino ending up outside the ring after a missed baseball slide dropkick to set up Amano's dive, etc. Damn tasty sandwhich of a match.