donsem43
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[2017-08-20-Oz Academy] Hiroyo Matsumoto vs Hikaru Shida
donsem43 replied to aguakun's topic in August 2017
In a year that has had a chock full of great Hiroyo performances, this is the best one. Everything about her here was fantastic, great selling, smart transitions, and impressive power moves. Shida does a nice job mixing in her speed to keep Hiroyo off balance with her own surprising power and the odd cheap shot with her kendo stick. The finish was a battle of wills Hiroyo surviving Shida big moves before luring Shida into her own finishers. ****1/4 -
I really liked the SWA title match that these two had earlier this year so I was looking forward to this one. While being shorter than that match, this one is almost as good. They just cut straight to the heavy hitting and keep it up the whole way till Toni wins it with a nasty piledriver. I hope these two work together more in the future cause they have surprisingly good chemistry together. ***3/4
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It's amazing that for a twenty year old wrestler with just over a year of experience that Hana Kimura knows how to use her ring presence so well. She only does a few moves regularly (big boot, dropkick, and a standard vertical suplex) yet her matches rarely feel overly basic and bland. You would expect a broken down twenty year veteran to work like this not someone so young. Just a surprisingly very good match here. ***3/4
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I liked this a fair bit. The opening had the typical 'High Speed' style that you would expect from these two. The brawling leading up to the stairwell spot was actually half decent. Oedo Tai interference wasn't as goofy as it usually is. The finish ended up being a nice slugfest. A very good main event to one of the better top to bottom Stardom shows in a while. ***3/4
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This is an opening round match for SEAdLINNNG's Ultra U-7 tournament which mainly featured younger wrestlers. This was the best performance from Iroha since her World of Stardom title match versus Kairi Hojo a couple of years ago as she hits a lot of nasty looking, high impact offense. Kyuri has potential but usually has some rough patches in her matches. This might be the best performance of her career though as she survives Iroha's nasty shots and is able to chip away at her with some leg work. Pretty damn good ten minute match. ***3/4
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This is an historic match because it's the first main event of a major joshi show to feature a transgender wrestler. The match itself was better than I expected it to be. Ohka has looked really good in tags this year but usually comes off as bland in singles matches. Here she looked good. Her offense is pretty basic but she used it effectively and hit some nasty shots. ASUKA looked good as well, even hitting some great, Manami Toyota level spots as highlights. They do go a bit long as the match loses some steam towards the finish. Given the historical context of the match they both give a quality performance. ***1/2
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I didn't really care for their match in SEAdLINNNG earlier this and they didn't get off to a great start here. Yamashita spends the opening of the match trying to do Yoshiko's spot on her. Then they do a bunch of goofy stuff on the floor. Things pick up after that as the match becomes what you would hope that a match between these two would become. Just great physical back forth leading to some well built near-falls at the finish. ***1/2
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This is the first of a three match series that these two teams are having during this month. Twelve and a half minutes wouldn't be enough time for a lot of wrestlers to have a fleshed out, action packed match but it's more than enough time for these four. They start rolling right away and since they are both experienced, talented teams they are able to pull off really slick stuff even at a quick constant pace. The only real negative here is that they rely use missed/countered double teams as transitions a bit too much that as the match goes on you start to expect double teams to miss rather than hit. A hell of a way to kick off this series though. ****
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I had high expectations for this match after watching the generations trios on the last big Sendai Girls show and on paper this had a more talented lineup. This match doesn't make it to the level that the other match did, mostly due to Totoro (who must have been a sub for Tsukushi.) She only made her debut in March and she sticks out like a sore thumb here, working most of the opening of the match getting knocked around. Things really pickup once Iroha and Chihiro get involved with the nasty interactions of Iroha and Meiko being a highlight of the match. After watching this, I really want to she singles matches between Nanae/Chihiro and Meiko/Iroha. Pretty good stuff. ***1/2
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This is a really fun trios match. A lot of that is because both Avid Rival (Mizunami & Ohata) and Over Sun (Ohka & Miyazaki) are really good, established teams so that allows both Yamashita and ASUKA to be bit players. They do spend a share of the match building up the Ohka/ASUKA match for the upcoming anniversary show. ASUKA, the first transgender wrestler to be part of a joshi group, looks good if a bit of a generic joshi high-flyer. Good showcase for WAVE's talent. ***3/4
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This is quite the showcase for AZM and Tora. Both come through in a match that requires them to be a lot more than be bit players. AZM was just nasty in the early going and breaks out some nice spots throughout the match. Tora does some really nice selling and manages to get her own shots in later on. The abrupt finish does knock it down a bit but it still has very good performances from everyone involved. ***3/4
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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. ****
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I'm sure the main reason they haven't used it before is they would lose high-priced ringside seats. Plus some of those remaining seats would have an obstructed view for some of the matches. If they hated the idea then they wouldn't have created knock-offs like Hell in the Cell and Elimination Chamber.
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Shayna Baszler is officially the first woman to be signed after being in the MYC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYS_caffEp0
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I had low expectations for this match since I thought their match in April was terrible due to a bad performance from the Butchers. Here, things were the exact opposite as the Butchers had the best performance that I've ever seen them have and this turned out to be the most surprisingly great joshi match of the year. The Butchers still do their comedy spots in the early going but after that they are able to keep up with Best Friends the rest of the way. Best Friends are on top of their game as well which takes this match to another level. Certainly a match that you don't want to skip over. ****1/4
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This felt like your standard BJW Strong title match. There were quite a few impressive power spots and both of them showed a lot of emotion. Hiroyo's selling was terrific but the match did lack an interesting storyline to add some drama to what was going on. While the match was really good, it doesn't make enough of an impact to make it memorable. ***3/4
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This is a rematch from a show that happened in early May. This gets off to a hot start and keeps the action going through most of the match. There are some iffy moments as they go a little too fast in a sequence or get a bit too ambitious with a move. Sareee is a standout here as she comes off strong against both members of Best Friends. The Nanae/Tsukka sequences looked strong too as they keep building up their personal feud. The match does lose momentum toward the finish as they go a little too long. Still, this is yet another quality match from the best joshi group out there right now. ***3/4
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This is quite the match as everyone on the rookie team puts on a hell of a performance. Kadokura struggles a bit on offense but ends up taking the brunt of the beating from the vets and does a wonderful job selling it. Momono does a waterbug act going all over the place in an effort not to get crushed. Meanwhile, Shirahime looks like a superstar, leading the charge for her team and actually holding her own at times. The vets manage to give just enough to get the crowd behind the rookies with the result being one of the most enjoyable joshi matches this year. ****
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October is typically Stardom's slowest month in terms of the number of shows they run. They will also have their tag league going in the fall so that will probably fill up the schedule for a bit. The big Korakuen Hall shows lineups will be interesting, since the worst drawing ones usually have only a couple of title matches. In positive news, Chihiro Hashimoto actually retained the Sendai Girls title beating Meiko Satomura. They also drew over two thousand for the show, which has been a nice run of drawing good crowds to their big shows the past few years.
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I was impressed at how these two managed to take a crowd that seemed curious at the start and got them really invested in what they were seeing. This was Baszler's best performance of the tournament and right up there of with work she did with Io Shirai in Stardom earlier this year. The little catch wrestling stuff she did was fun but her selling was top tier. Even during the finishing run Baszler deciding to cover up her head instead of her hurt ribs was a nice nod to her still having a MMA mindset in a wrestling match. While Sane was very good here I would have liked to see her sell her arm a bit more. I don't think she need to act like she had a dead arm, she should have at least sold a little bit of pain while she used it on offense but that was the only negative thing about this match. Hopefully we get a rematch between these two on a NXT Takeover in the near future. ***3/4
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I liked the work in this match. While it did lack a big narrative hook, they did a very nice job of progressively building up the offense in the match as they went along. There was a couple of nasty spots where Sane was off but they covered up for it in a way that didn't cause the match to lose momentum. Really entertaining even if it was a bit run of the mill for these two. ***1/2
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So Iwatani will be out at least three weeks with a dislocation. Looks like she will just do rehab then be reevaluated after that. I imagine Toni Storm's current run will be up by then so I wouldn't expect a rematch till probably December at the earliest.
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According to Stardom's twitter, Mayu Iwatani suffered an arm injury (Google translate had dislocation) just two minutes into her World of Stardom title match with Toni Storm. Storm was awarded the title but said that she wanted a rematch with Iwatani. Mayu lost the Wonder of Stardom title the day before to Yoko Bito.
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I really like how the prematch promo built up the respect that these two had for each other, then they played off of that in the early parts of the match. Baszler being tentative in the early going and Mercedes taking full advantage of that. Even when Baszler tries to get over aggressive Martinez takes full advantage of that too. When Shayna does get the right level of focus though she makes the most of it, blocking Martinez's finisher and countering with her own at the end. A very well put together match. ***3/4