Jetlag
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More tournaments Ai Fujita vs. Linda Starr (SKY Tournament II Prelim Round, 7/16/00 Tokyo) Mary Apache vs. Chapparita Asari (SKY Tournament II Round 1, 7/16/00 Tokyo) Mika Akino vs. Fabi Apache (SKY Tournament II Round 1, 7/16/00 Tokyo) Kamen Tenshin Rosetta vs. Ai Fujita (SKY Tournament II Round 1, 7/16/00 Tokyo) Ayako Hamada vs. Sumie Sakai (SKY Tournament II Round 1, 7/16/00 Tokyo) 5 matches that weren't that long to begin with get clipped down to about 21 minutes length. Featuring: Swanky rollups! Huracanranas from unusual positions! Twisting flying moves! Mari looking pretty boss again! DIVES!!! Lots and lots of dives. The one complete match we got was Hamada/Sakai at 8 minutes length. There were actual exchanges there so it was an actual match and not just a move exhibition. I wish Sakai had shown up in Arsion 2 years earlier. There was even some cool matwork to boot. Still not a ton of selling there, but it was nice to see a fresh matchup. Mika Akino vs. Mary Apache (SKY Tournament II Semi-Finals, 7/16/00 Tokyo) 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. Ayako Hamada vs. Kamen Tenshin Rosetta (SKY Tournament II Semi-Finals, 7/16/00 Tokyo) Ayako squashes the hell out of the masked superheroine. I liked this as it had an actual dynamic: Ayako has the superior striking and submission ability (ignoring the fact that Rosetta is Hiromi Yagi) and is equal in agility. So Rosetta gets a few short, tricky comebacks in but ultimately can't hang. Would've been nice to get a competitive match but this was still better than just a bunch of clips. Impressive how Ayako is acting all big boss now when her debut was 2 years before this.
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Tanaka's a guy whose stuff looks good, but he's just deathly dull and spotty. Nowhere close to his wife as far as matwork ability goes. She did the flash armbar shit better too. I always thought AKINO looked like a gender switched Ikuto Hidaka. She did the same "lucharesu moves into shoot submissions" moveset too. They had to have trained together in the BattlARTS dojo or something. Anyways, more from the P*MIX tournament. Also, Ayako getting mauled by Aja. Ayako Hamada/Gran Hamada vs. Hiromi Yagi/Tiger Mask IV (P*MIX Grand Prix Semi-Finals, 6/29/00) WOW!!! Okay let me discuss this match. I was surprised by how much substance this had. I mean, they could've easily had another of these lucharesu-ish quick matches and it would have been fine, but this was different. We get a STORY~ with the Hamadas having to work together to combat the younger, more vicious TMIV and tricked out veteran Yagi. There are a few moments where Ayako has to save her Papa and others where Papa is like, „Okay, I'll let my DAUGHTER handle this!“ and awww that's just adorable. But the wrestling was up to par too! There's a really good Hamada/Yagi mat sequence, Yagi busts out one of the swankiest mat moves I've seen in a while and generally reminds me in this match how damn cool she is acting like a tricky veteran grappler. TMIV and Gran Hamada decide to work all stiff and intense and the old man gets kicked in the face a bunch. Could've gone 10 minutes longer but I was surprised by how much they achieved here. Also: Ayako busts out a badass new Ayakita Special! Ayako Hamada/Gran Hamada vs. Yumi Fukawa/Minoru Tanaka (P*MIX Grand Prix Finals, 6/29/00) This was pretty underwhelming. Which is weird because all the previous matches in this tournament where a ton of fun. Fukawa and Tanaka added almost nothing to this match. Tanaka just ran through his stuff. Did I ever mention I hate that guy? There was one cool moment when Hamada decides to get all lucha on the mat with Fukawa and Fukawa is like „fine“ and they go all IWRG. Sadly that only lasted about 30 seconds. There were also a few blown spots. Fukawa tries countering the Hama-chan cutter and both she and Ayako end up falling on their heads. Eventually Tanaka remembered he's a BattlARTS guy and lands some nasty spinkicks on the older Hamada, and the finish was a feel good moment but the rest of this was just not good. Aja Kong vs. Ayako Hamada (8/18/00 Tokyo) Aw lil puppy Ayako tries to get on Aja's grill. No Aja don't do that she's just a kid! Structurally this was barely different from their 1998 match as it's Ayako going at Aja and Aja just CRUSHING her. Seriously Aja puts a deeply brutal beating on Ayako here even for her standards, just bruising her with kicks and slaps and just impaling her when she tried a moonsault. However, NOW Hamada was little more well-rounded offensively, and more importantly she had all the fire in the world to keep her going. Hamada tried her darndest, even taking the fight to the mat in some neat moments, and most importantly really, really laying it into Aja, throwing hands and kicks that were almost reckless. Seriously, I don't recall many „flyer vs. Powerhouse“ matches where the „flyer“ throws flurries as savage as this. Still not quite there, but she was getting there! This was compact, highly violent, and pretty great.
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The opening of this was fun like a 1992 WCW tag. Axel Dieter Jr. has found his calling as a technical posturing heel with hitler youth haircut. His technical stuff is still a little too light for my taste but he knows what he's doing. His diving uppercuts are crap, though. I mean... diving uppercut... that move just makes no sense,and he barely connects them. However, I hated the second half of the match as there was fuck all selling or structure and just guys going in and out of the ring to hit their stuff. The british guys tried to act like heels but were very eager to engage in cute workrate stuff. That is really my least favourite kind of tag match. Plus, most of the offense was really dweeby, thigh slapping indy shit that I can't take seriously. My favourite moments of the match where all the bits where WALTER would waffle the tiny dudes. Still, I couldn't really get into this and I thought the finish was fucking stupid considering all the big spots that came before. -
I liked this a lot, felt like a showcase match between two tough NOAH undercarders except these two are way more nimble on their feet. Plenty stiff and generally fresh due to them sticking to what works for them. Ran Yu Yu has good knee based offense and really vicious elbows, Amano has some nasty short kicks. Some damn impressive sequences and moves here: Yu Yu's wheelbarrow lift into spinning argentine backbreaker felt like a move Cesaro should steal.I also really like Amano's flying armbars and they worked some neat counters around them. This didn't have the kind of sustained selling or story that makes me think I'm watching something epic, but they kept bringing the quality and never did anything stupid.
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The ring here is terribly squeaky. It appears to be in a TV studio in front of a psychedelic background. It's Post-Modernist Shootstyle Wrestling Daddy!!! You may want to watch this for gorgeous Otsuka suplexes. A little uneventful undercard match otherwise. The BattlARTS matwork was pretty rough in 1996, and they didn't quite succeed here in making it compelling. I do appreciate the the uncooperativeness, though. Usuda looked legit as hell.
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I enjoyed this a lot. They really put a lot of compelling stuff into a slow, mat-based encounter. Funaki could really, really go on the mat, and the pudgy little technician vs. dirty heel mauler was a good story for the match. Ikeda was super gritty here. His legbar was such a Johnny Valentine move. Great finish. Check it out if you're a fan of this stuff.
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This match was like a joshi version of Atlantis/Blue Panther. Just what the hell was going on with these two girls? I'll just assume that this is how Jaguar Yokota taught them wrestling is supposed to be like. Just a straight up grappling match with a ton of legit ability in both workers and a strange lucha influence to keep it sweet and graceful. I swear to good some of the sequences here wouldn't look out of place in a 1991 CMLL title match. At one point, Sakai floated into a flying headscissor, which turned into a standing choke, that Yabushita then countered into an ankle pick. Really unlike anything I've seen in a wrestling match before. Same for Sakai's strange huracanrana where she slipped underneath almost as if pulling guard and then gracefully rolled into a pin. That kind of stuff could look cute and contrived, but they had their timing down pat and the rhythm was just right, moving from matwork, to sparringly used rope usage, to hellish suplex moves. Yabushita again went for the arm like a bat out of judo hell, and the selling was top, adding just the right kind of fatigue and desperatin. Some of Yabushita's armlocks were straight out of Negro Navarro's book. Really I've no idea what was going on with these two to have a match like this in a dying promotion. I guess it's just a thing between two workers who trained together and just did they kind of bout they enjoyed.
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It's just people generally not paying attention to european wrestling until recently. I remember he impressed a few people in his US match against Eddie Kingston which was more than half a decade ago. I think Walter isn't often in a position where he looks really good. Which is fucking weird considering he's the most talented, legit looking young guy around in the area. He is at his best when's just a beast mauling people like an indy Vader. But he bumps and stooges too much and basically wrestles like a more intelligent Sekimoto with more thigh slapping. Walter outweights Riddle by a 100 lbs. here but that size difference is barely played up at all. I liked Walter in this match but Riddle is getting so annoying, with his popping up, no-selling and shitty missed strikes. I'm starting to think he's just a glorified Kurt Angle. I liked this when Walter was laying a beating on Riddle. His legwork looked real good, his chops and stomps were great. Liked Riddle's nasty barefoot kicks but other than that this was kind of lacking substance and felt like your typical indy bomb throwing match.
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Yumi Fukawa/Minoru Tanaka vs. Mariko Yoshida/Alexander Otsuka (P*MIX Grand Prix Quarterfinals, 6/7/00) AW YES!!! ARSION TEAMING UP WITH BATTLARTS!!! Gee those cheeky BattlARTS guys really love to show up in intergender matches. This was a ton of fun and a throwback to the early Arsion style, so we get MATWORK. GOOD MATWORK. The male vs. Female sections didn't take up huge portions of the match. Tanaka was a total gent allowing Yoshida to have a friendly mat scramble, which was... not very realistic but I don't expect intelligent work from Minoru Tanaka at this point. The guys weren't exactly breaking a sweat here, but even a half-decent effort from these dudes is pretty good and the Fukawa/Yoshida exchanges were class. Ayako Hamada/Gran Hamada vs. Mika Akino/Ikuto Hidaka (P*MIX Grand Prix Quarterfinals, 6/7/00) This was fast paced lucharesu fun where they all mesh really well. Gran Hamada still looks so, so good. His mat section with Hidaka really could have gone 2 or 30 minutes longer. Not much to say about thisother than that it was fast paced, smooth and enjoyable. Hiromi Yagi/Tiger Mask vs. Chapparita Asari/Great Sasuke (P*MIX Grand Prix Quarterfinals, 6/24/00) This got 20 MINUTES and was worked like a big match. It seems to be from an M-Pro show, but I'll let it count as best of ARSION. The early guy vs. Guy sections were pretty filler and resthold-y. The girl vs. Girl sections were good as in „two wrestlers who have fought eachother a bunch doing their stuff“. For some reason, the guys gave the girls a ton of offense and stooging a bunch. Maybe they were trying to be gentlemen. Yagi did a mix of spaced out lucha armdrags, judo throws and armbars which was cool. Asari did her usual athletic stuff and looked quite good. The finishing stretch was built around guy vs. Girl and then girl vs. Girl sections and pretty fun. This took a bit to get going but for this type of lucharesu action I'd say it got going good.
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Liked this a lot, mostly for Shibata putting an intensily violent beating on Okada. Shibata is a weird wrestler who looks like the heir to the Tenryu/Kawada type japanese wrestlers and then decides to work like a US indy trained monkey, but he got that stuff out of the way early and concentrated on stomping Okada to a pulp. This had the usual NJPW diseases, so you had the somewhat choreographed opening, loooong middle portion with the stupid elbow exchanges, sometimes random transitions and "hit a move, then wander around" Dragon Gate shit, but Shibata's general disdain was entertaining enough and the brutal ending moments were some real japanese wrestling. Shibata had all these cool moments here he unleashes his fury and basically tries to make a man out of Okada. I also like how he worked the overly long submission nearfalls. I didn't really like how Okada just absorbed everything Shibata had, but atleast he had the decency not to get overly cute with his comebacks. I agree about all the rainmaker spots being great, as it really seemed Okada was so beaten up he had no hitting power. I also loved the spot where Shibata teases the "finisher steal" and just slaps Okada like a bitch. I guess for such a long match this was indeed great.
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Conclusion of their series of awesome 70s junior title matches. There is some animosity at this point – Go doesn't want to shake Fujinami's hand. The ref makes him do it, but Fujinami slaps him in the face! The body of the match is fantastic as they go back and forth between tight matwork with nifty throws and takedowns and escalating into knocking the crap out eachother. Go slaps Fujinami back, and Fujinam shows he can go there, even kicking Go in the eye! Fujinami really is quite the skillful prick here. Go goes into a greco roman knuckle lock only to headbutt Fujinami in the eye, so Tatsumi does this smooth takedown, into a front headlock... they end up in the ropes, clean break right? Nope because Fujinami headbutts him right back. Fujinami really looks like a worldbeater here, even bridging up from a modified armbar, which was a damn impressive athletic mat spot. They tease the big throws and work a great finishing run where they wipe eachother out with awesome 70s dives and do hanging by a thread-nearfalls. Great little match, and Ryuma Go looked like the best wrestler ever to have fought space aliens.
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[1996-10-30-BattlARTS] TAKA Michinoku vs Minoru Tanaka
Jetlag replied to PeteF3's topic in October 1996
Long junior match! I dunno, this kind of 90s junior epic isn't my favourite match type, but this was very solid. The matwork wasn't anything brilliant, but they kept it interesting enough and Tanaka managed to not embarass himself. Tanaka stuck to shooty offense while Michinoku integrated some pro style into the BattlARTS formula, but never got too cute with it. Tanaka really isn't the most interesting wrestler, but he could throw palm strikes and kicks and lock in a few submissions like you want from a BattlARTS boy trying to take a title off of an outsider. TAKA absolutely sold like a champ and I loved his big punch to show Tanaka who he is. Get rugged, pretty boy!! They may have overstayed their welcome with the giant, grand finishing stretch, but a junior match that has toe holds and missile dropkicks as big nearfalls works better than one that has avalanche brainbusters. I could see some folks being really into this if you like junior wrestling that isn't all spot fu. -
Yumi Fukawa vs. Rie Tamada (ARS Tournament '00 Prelim Round, 5/7 Tokyo) Another tourament! Tamada has grown wild old locks and acts all devilish now! MORE CLIPPED WRESTLING! Fukawa armbars in a flash! Tamada armbars her back and for a bit you remember what made ARSION work so well in the first place. I noticed Tamada's sleeves have an Anaconda pattern, but instead of crushing submissions she's all rolling elbows and tornado DDTs. This was okay – all 4 minutes of it. Mikiko Futagami vs. Bionic J (ARS Tournament '00 Prelim Round, 5/7 Tokyo) Bionic J is the kayfabe sister of Reggie Bennett. Having the initials „BJ“ as a female wrestler seems like a bad idea. This match does not bring the cool matwork, sadly, like past Reggie Bennett matches have. J has some fun power moves. Futagami has dropped her badass shootstyle almost completely and just smacks J around a bunch. This match went 4 minutes so we get to see it aaalmost in full. Bionic J points to her head to show how self-satisfied she is with her cleverness while Futagami climbs to the top rope to add some character. Bionic J deserved better than this. Etsuko Mita vs. Xochitl Hamada (ARS Tournament '00 Round 1, 5/7 Tokyo) Xochitl „The Least“ Hamada is the next foreign style woman to get smacked around. This was pretty uneventful and lousy and really a nothing squash. Mariko Yoshida vs. Mima Shimoda (ARS Tournament '00 Round 1, 5/7 Tokyo) The first somewhat worthwhile match. Yoshida was Yoshida and showed Shimoda what she thought of her bullshit. I imagine this would have been good if we had gotten the early build, but the action was still solid. Michiko Ohmukai vs. Yumi Fukawa (ARS Tournament '00 Round 1, 5/7 Tokyo) These two had a damn good match in 1998. But by 2000 they both seem to have surpassed their creative peak. Execution wise this was good stuff, but as far as structure goes this was pretty much a highlight reel of their stuff which really isn't a type of match I like much. Yes, a nice submission here, a stiff kick there, but the whole picture didn't just quite come together. Aja Kong vs. Mikiko Futagami (ARS Tournament '00 Round 1, 5/7 Tokyo) A 3 minute sprint!! It was actually a fun sprint, because these two knew how to put a few exclamation points into it. Both women like to get surely and they smack each other good here. Fun for what it is and this is actually the first match I'm not sour about being short. Michiko Ohmukai vs. Etsuko Mita (ARS Tournament '00 Semi-Finals, 5/7 Tokyo) LCO Newly teamed up beauty queen duo explodes!! Ohmukai just nails Mita with kicks and punches. Mita fires back some but Ohmukai easily gets this one in her pocket. Aja Kong vs. Mariko Yoshida (ARS Tournament '00 Semi-Finals, 5/7 Tokyo) This was good. Good matwork, well executed power vs. Skill story, good match. Perhaps a little drawn out in the finish, but ended before it got excessive. Seems that Yoshida isn't the dominant force anymore that she was in 1998 and 1999, which is a little sad, but she was facing Aja here after all. Aja Kong vs. Michiko Ohmukai (ARS Tournament '00 Finals, 5/7 Tokyo) Thankfully, they clipped all the previous matches, so we get the final in full! All 6 minutes of it!! These two had a really good match at the debut show, but this wasn't that. They just threw bombs with no real build to make you appreciate what was going on. The energy was very lacking. Atleast the match was plenty stiff as you'd expect from them. Okay, that tournament very short and very disappointing. But: Up next is an INTERGENDER TOURNAMENT! Featuring: Alexander Otsuka! Papa Hamada! And others! Stay tuned~
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Hey, now here's a match that slipped under the radars! Have YOU seen this match? Go boast to your hipster friends about it. One can't help but wonder how this match up will go down. Hashimoto is the heavyweight mega star. Sano is a junior and at best not even the 3rd highest ranked guy in UWFi. Also, Hashimoto represents NJPW... at a UWFi vs. WAR show? Let me say that this match is very slow, and 100% true to their characters and hierarchy. Hashimoto can beat Sano in 30 seconds, and the finish drives this home. But Sano is skillful and hard to kill. This is like an NJPW match dressed as UWFi match, with grappling and hard fighting over the throws. I'm a fan of Hashimoto grappling. Everything he does feels like a big deal, and he is such a bulldozer even when he's not striking. His takedowns and throws just flatten Sano. At one point he randomly bends Sano's arm all awkwardly and it's awesome. They really work the skill vs. size AND skill narrative effectively; Hash is a behemoth, but he can't do what he wants to Sano, and Sano can barely move him. There's a really cool bit where Hashimoto tries to stomp on Sano's leg, but Sano blocks him and tries a leg trip, but can't achieve it either because Hash is Hash. Another where Sano gets past Hashimoto's guard and tries a suplex, but Hashimoto just lands on top of him, crushing his chest. It all builds very well, leading to both guys throwing HUGE suplexes, Sano getting chopped in the neck and kicked in the face really really hard and Hashimoto getting spin kicked in the throat REALLY hard. Even the somewhat un-shootlike armbar nearfalls kind of make sense as it seems that Hashimoto's arm wasn't in quite the correct position while Sano was only a short movement away from getting it properly, getting the crowd worked up good. I also dug the finish. I could unterstand if some people found that a disappointing ending, but I felt it was really the only logical outcome considering the gap in ranking between the two and I loved that it was basically Sano getting all cocksure and Hashi ending him right there. Really loved this match for what it was and thought it was another testament to Hashimoto's greatness considering this could've easily been a throwaway nothing squash and instead we got total Hashimoto styled fascinating match with so much rad stuff. Oh and to reiterate: Sano's solebutt is still the most awful thing possible.
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Hey, I'm also a 1993er! And I think GOTNW is even younger. The future belongs to us! And now I've been reminded that I need to watch Thatcher/Graves. Thanks!
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YUJI YASURAOKA OF THE DAY #2 This was a clipped match which is annoying as the stuff that is shown looks really good. Tons of brutally stiff blows. The match was centered around the Kitahara/Mochizuki interactions. Mochizuki is Kitahara's boy, which means Kitahara is legally obliged to murder him, which the crowd also senses. Yasuraoka mostly gets kicked in the face, but busts out his really spectacular dive in an awesome moment right after Mochizuki blows his fancy springboard attack and gets mauled by Kitahara for it. Even Arashi busts out a reckless spinkick in this! WAR was a magical place.
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JD STAR KILL EM ALL!!!! I had stupidly high expectations because it's BIG MATCH HIROMI YAGI!!!! and naturally as such this was underwhelming. I'll put the blame on Sakai as she seemed to be kind of going through the motions. There were still a few cool little moments mostly thanks to Yagi who had developed a cool veteran aura. Some nice matwork, neat armbar work, getting a cheap takedown from the ropes etc. Sakai, on the other hand, looked kind of poor. I guess she just didn't feel like it that night, because, you know she had very good matches with Yabushita, a judo girl with an armbar-centric moveset, what's stopping her from matching up well with Yagi? But it just didn't happen. Then just as it seemed that the match got going it ended. The finishing move itself also felt like a total burial of Yagi. Hiromi Yagi, you deserved better.
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YUJI YASURAOKA OF THE DAY #1 This was a really fun junior's tag as you had guys flying around recklessly plus all the awkward painful violence that WAR entails. Problem with the match was obviously Lance Storm who is such a terrible wrestler. Half his stuff looked really out of place soft and he didn't have a clue about how to sell, or really add any substance to what he was doing beyond just executing one move after another. However, I'd say Sayama carried him okay with his shoot techniques (boy you are in trouble when Sayama has to carry things). Tiger Mask I is fat here and like Mil Mascaras meaning he is on offense whenever he is in, and really recklessly kicks the little dudes. No wonder Storm is such a pussy about working stiff, he probably still wakes up at night dreaming of fat Tiger Mask awkwardly spin kicking him in the liver. Mochizuki and Yasuraoka are really the best guys in the match as Mochizuki really really REALLY brings the nasty shots from all angles and positions including axe kicking Yuji in the face and Yasuraoka is maybe the only guy in the match who actually sells properly between the moves making everything a lot more meaningful when he is in there. Really dug his desperation lariat after almost crumbling and super fast double jumping dives. Also because this isn't Dragon Gate these guys aren't super polished so sometimes you get junior moves like a moonsault turned into a nasty backflip kneedrop. Super enjoyable match.
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The two most relentless strikers BattlARTS had in 1996 face in a big deciding match, so this was a quality match up. There was some shootstyle matwork but this was mostly brutally violent standup, Usuda may have out-Ikeda'd Ikeda here. Ikeda's selling was absolutely fantastic. He got in some good shots, but Usuda was just relentless sending Ikeda into desperation mode and you got the sense the match was a hair away from being done. This was a brutal and great sub-10 minute war.
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Katsumi Usuda was rampaging through BattlARTS in 1996. He lays an absolutely murderous beating on Ishikawa. Ishikawa comes back with his excellent grappling technique and throws, but Usuda just crushes him with kicks to the face and blows on the ground. Short clip but both guys looked awesome.
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JIP to the juicy part. They trade some big damn beatings like this is BattlARTs or something. Ono didn't have the elaborate punch technique he developed later, but made up for it with sheer force kicks to the face. Ono actually gets the advantage over his bigger opponent but falls to Ikeda's power advantage. Fun clip.
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This exceeded my (low) expectations. Mostly because the amount of Shimoda/Omukai was limited, while the champs were in attack mode throughout. Which meant, big ol' bombs from Aja and twisty submission work from Yoshida. I thought Nu-LCO (Omukai had graduated to „Cachorra“ status at this point, right?) getting control was well done and things were difficult enough for them from that point onwards to keep the match interesting. Omukai landing her big crucifix bomb on Aja was a pretty impressive spot for a skinny girl. They timed their stuff fine, and while the action here wasn't anything new I thought it came together very well. Shimoda kind of redeems herself with her performance her by going at it with the submission queen.
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[2000-04-07-ARSION] Gran Hamada & Ayako Hamada vs Gran Apache & Mary Apache
Jetlag replied to soup23's topic in April 2000
I am stupidly excited about this match! And this was really, really fun. Mostly because, it was, I dunno, 4 insanely sharp wrestlers matching up very well? Everything they did looked great, awesome dives, unpredictable exchanges and great stumpy legged athleticism. The match went 8 minutes, so there was a ceiling to how good it could be, but as far as crowd pleasers/popcorn matches go this was very good. The intergender stuff worked because both Papa Apache and Papa Hamada are barely taller than their daughters (in fact, Gran Hamada seems shorter than Faby and Ayako... you know you are short when your daughter has to get her height from your mexican wife) and added some character to the bout. Fun fun lucharesu action. -
[2000-03-15-ARSION] Aja Kong & Mariko Yoshida vs Rie Tamada & Hiromi Yagi
Jetlag replied to soup23's topic in March 2000
For a match with Yoshida and Yagi on opposing sides, this was pretty disappointing. Part of that was the clipping, as the opening of the match was completely chopped up. Second, this was built around Tamada and Yagi as heels, with their second GAMI interfering very liberally, including hitting fucking double stomps and top rope frankensteiners right in front of the referee. Yagi didn't match up very well with Aja either. I guess story wise this was interesting because Kong and Yoshida had previously gone against Hamada and AKINO in a high end wrestling contest and now faced a bunch of cheating witches, but in execution this did very little for me. -
Aja Kong/Mariko Yoshida vs. Rie Tamada/Hiromi Yagi (3/15) For a match with Yoshida and Yagi on opposing sides, this was pretty disappointing. Part of that was the clipping, as the opening of the match was completely chopped up. Second, this was built around Tamada and Yagi as heels, with their second GAMI interfering very liberally, including hitting fucking double stomps and top rope frankensteiners right in front of the referee. Yagi didn't match up very well with Aja either. I guess story wise this was interesting because Kong and Yoshida had previously gone against Hamada and AKINO in a high end wrestling contest and now faced a bunch of cheating witches, but in execution this did very little for me. Ayako Hamada/Gran Hamada vs. Faby Apache/Gran Apache (4/7) I am stupidly excited about this match! And this was really, really fun. Mostly because, it was, I dunno, 4 insanely sharp wrestlers matching up very well? Everything they did looked great, awesome dives, unpredictable exchanges and great stumpy legged athleticism. The match went 8 minutes, so there was a ceiling to how good it could be, but as far as crowd pleasers/popcorn matches go this was very good. The intergender stuff worked because both Papa Apache and Papa Hamada are barely taller than their daughters (in fact, Gran Hamada seems shorter than Faby and Ayako... you know you are short when your daughter has to get her height from your mexican wife) and added some character to the bout. Fun fun lucharesu action. Michiko Omukai & Mima Shimoda vs Aja Kong & Mariko Yoshida (ARSION 04/07/00) This exceeded my expectations. Mostly because the amount of Shimoda/Omukai was limited, while the champs were in attack mode throughout. Which meant, big ol' bombs from Aja and twisty submission work from Yoshida. I thought Nu-LCO (Omukai had graduated to „Cachorra“ status at this point, right?) getting control was well done and things were difficult enough for them from that point onwards to keep the match interesting. Omukai landing her big crucifix bomb on Aja was a pretty impressive spot for a skinny girl. They timed their stuff fine, and while the action here wasn't anything new I thought it came together very well. Shimoda kind of redeems herself with her performance her by going at it with the submission queen. Aja Kong vs. Etsuko Mita (Queen of Arsion Title, 4/20/00, Tokyo) Big title match that is clipped beyond recognition! Awww man. Aja makes jokes about Gran Apache before the match. Clip to Mita's heel minions pushing Aja into the ring. Clip to Mita working chokes on Aja. Clip to Aja being rolled into the ring again. Yada yada... Aja throws a damn stiff backfist. The finishing stretch is slow but seems dramatic. Can't tell anything about this match really.