donsem43

Hmm, I don't think it really played of the last match. The number one thing that I loved about the June match was that it was a struggle for almost the whole match. You had to earn what you got. Here it seem like the typical give and take of a match, with Satomura having the advantage simply because she was the stronger more experienced wrestler. That sort of negated the growth that Hojo made during the last match. I guess you could say that Hojo made a strategic error of thinking that she could go straight at Meiko and paid the price, but that didn't really come through with her character. They ended up having the match that you would have expected last month. Maybe I'm overreacting since I think that Hojo's title run has been great and I didn't want it to end this way cause she could potential end up being something special. I don't want her to end up being a flash in the pan like Momoe Nakanishi because she is a more complete worker and has a more genuine connection with the crowd, (that was a big crowd for a recent joshi show.)

'99 was her peak. The tag with her and Sugar Sato beating Aja/Ozaki is right up there Aja vs. Meiko for the best match in GAEA that year. She also had a pretty good singles match with Aja on a Oz Academy show too. The last few years she's been really good at shooting herself in the foot when it comes to her performances. She'll being going along and you start thinking to yourself "Wow, Nagashima looks why was I down on her?" Then she'll do something incredibly stupid like a finisher/pop up sequence then you remember why. Definitely someone who should have been better but wasn't because she couldn't kick her bad habits.

Well, that was... good. I dunno, I'll try and watch it again tomorrow cause I'm tired and I need the booking of it to sink in. I wasn't expecting such a decisive finish. Thought last months match was way better.

Just so there's no confusion, this is there 9/17/84 match not the one listed earlier. It's also off of TV, not Classics, so there's about a 1/4 of the match clipped. I actually like this one the most out of their matchups. A great mix of the typical fast paced joshi work and some crazy brawling. These two just really click together, I'd say that Galactica was Jaguar's best opponent.

He's been there for, what now, 17 years. You would think that being in wrestling for that long you would have to be passionate about it but has anyone ever got that feeling from Michael Cole. Maybe he looks at his got the same way that someone who works in a cubicle and stares at a computer screen for 8 hrs. All he really has to is just say whatever his boss tells to say through his headset. If you compare his job to others in sports broadcasting, Cole probably has better job security and it's less cutthroat on his end. Maybe that's the reason hung on for so long.

You could do a sequel were you try figure out which of Vince beliefs cost or prevented him from making the most money. Interpromotinal stuff alone, especially Flair in '91 and Goldberg, would be a full show.

I don't think Meiko ever had a great match that I'd call a carry job. Out of the matches listed in this thread, all of them had her opponent had her own in it. The dynamic in joshi is certainly different in the last 15 years. Satomura isn't going to recreated ThunderQueen going up against Ice Ribbon's tween roster with her own roster that isn't much older. The closest that I've seen her be in that type of atmosphere are the matches in Stardom with Takahashi and Hojo but the credit for that should go to those two for getting the crowd to rally behind the "home" promotion. Meiko has really good presence in the ring but isn't really able to use it to work the crowd. On Hojo, she's only been great for the last few months, after she won the Stardom title. Her first title defense against Mayu Iwatani in May was the first great singles match of her career. I pair her up with Sasha Banks because they both have similar development curve over the same time. Neither looked special in their early days, then became good through hard work (although Hojo had help teaming with Takahashi a lot,) then seemingly became great overnight.

I wonder what Aries would say if someone replied to him saying the headbutt was real but also sloppy and unprofessional.

Or Aja, or Kansai, or Kyoko, or Kandori....

Add: vs. Misae Genki (GAEA 3/21/04) vs. Ayako Hamada (SENDAI 7/22/07) vs. Azumi Hyuga (SENDAI 12/20/09) vs. Io Shirai (Stardom 7/10/14) w/ Ayako Hamada vs. Kana & Ayumi Kurihara (KanaAyu 6/15/13) vs. Kairi Hojo (Stardom 6/14/15) That match happen after Kimura hooked up with Mariko Yoshida and was trying to move away from her deathmatch career. She pretty much ditched that style when she formed her LCO-lite heel group and started working like a Mima Shimoda knockoff.

There's multiple layers of stupid here. There's Bryan coming back from an injury too soon, if he even should have come back at all. Then, instead of booking their feud as a rivalry between two top faces, (i.e. Hogan vs. Warrior) they book it as a feud between two unlikable jerks. Finally, the fact that they invested so much time in pushing Reigns only to bail on him right after what should have been performance that put him over the top.

Whenever anyone in the WWE does an interview backstage, the person being interviewed never looks at the camera? He/she either looks at the interviewer or off to the side.

Really good match. Much better than the one with Charlotte in NXT a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully a sign of what Sasha can get out of the women on the main roster.

Weren't they a huge mess financially.

Watched the Divas matches from this week's TV. The Bellas vs. B.A.D. tag from Smackdown was the first good match that they've had since the NXT women got called up. Sasha got to be Sasha while Naomi had a had some fun offense. I liked her bulldog into the corner and the modified codebreaker where she used her feet instead of her knees. Brie was a decent enough face in peril, and Nikki threw some really nice elbows after the hot tag. Only real bad spot was Alicia Fox showing that you shouldn't try to do a spear with heels on. On NXT, Bailey cut a promo saying she was going after the NXT women's title, and then challenged Charlotte. It will be interesting to see how they handle this, whether it will be similar to Balor/Owens or they do something different. Can't see them putting Bailey over both Charlotte and Sasha when they're already pushing them to the top of the main roster.

Give Brian Kendrick a Caitlyn Jenner gimmick. Meiko Satomura, Azumi Hyuga, Yoshiko Tamua, Kana. Actually, Kana would be exactly the person to bring in to work on strikes and matwork. Hell, Kairi Hojo has had 2 MOTYC in the last 2 months and would be the perfect face to work against Sasha.

The one thing I noticed from the segment on Monday was how each of the NXT women had a define unique character while the WWE women were pretty much the same, catty and short tempered. With Paige, her charisma and personality are her big strengths. In NXT, the announcers would always push how different she was than the other women, with the main roster they didn't even try anything like that with her. That's whats most important about this angle, more than giving them longer match, can they give the audience a reason to want to see the Divas go 10+ minutes rather than seeing if they can actually put on a good match.

What if they booked Rousey like Mike Tyson. Would Dana White go for that?

Just have them pound the crap out of each other and have Cesaro take Suplex City. It worked at Wrestlemania.

If Liger doesn't come out with his own selfie stick and a bunch of anime cosplay models, then this will just be a huge waste of time.

WWE has a much narrower view of women. If they signed someone like Goya Kong or Tsubasa Kuragaki and pushed them seriously that would be different. Have they ever signed anybody who had a tomboyish look? All of the bodybuilder types they sign always have strong feminine features.

Hikaru Shida was the supposedly the Japanese woman at the tryouts. She kinda fits the look, but I doubt that they sign her. She gave another woman a nasty concussion a couple of months ago, if the WWE see that then they'll lose interest. A lot of people say Kana, but she has more of natural look then what they go for. Kairi Hojo has been fantastic the last few months but she has more of a "girl next door" look to her. Although her vs Sasha might be the best potential babyface/heel matchup in wrestling. Mio Shirai is really charismatic and works a pretty simple style, but she retiring in the fall due to a bad neck. Yumi Ohka might be the best fit, her moveset is very WWE so she would just have to learn the "style". Her problem is that while she's attractive she doesn't really have a star quality about her. For Shimmer, they just signed Jessie McKay, who was probably the Diva looking woman that they used on a regular basis. I think Melissa would work, but if she hasn't signed by now I doubt she ever would. Athena might work if they're looking for a female Kevin Owens.

Kairi Hojo vs. Meiko Satomura (6/14/15) Stardom - World of Stardom title They work a 30 minute draw that never drags. While Satomura is terrific, it's Hojo's performance that really makes the match. Early on in the match, Hojo quickly establishes that she not afraid of going toe-to-toe with Meiko. She hits Satomura with a nasty backfist out of the opening collar & elbow, and breaks up a Boston Crab attempt with an even nastier slap. Of course, this doesn't always work out well for Hojo as she running into some nice submission counters and eating some really brutal looking shots. Around the halfway point though, you see Satomura start to get more aggressive. After Hojo rolls out of the ring, Meiko follows her out, drags her to the entrance, then lands a DVD with a sickening thud. She follows that up great looking backdrop suplex and the best looking sleeper you'll see. Hojo sells all of this beautifully but still manages to keep fighting back. She never just pops up and goes on offense, she seems to slip through a crack in Satomura's attack and get back in control through her own sheer will. Just an amazing must see match.

Josh Hamilton = Kerry Von Erich - I really hope Hamilton's life doesn't end like Kerry's did. Troy Tulowitzki = Daniel Bryan - Injuries + lack of opportunity to be successful at the big time. Alex Gordon = Rodrick Strong - Overrated guys who became underrated. Jeffrey Loria = Dixie Carter - Granted Loria has a WS ring but c'mon. Cubs prospects = NXT prospects - Lots of potential.

Kairi Hojo vs. Mayu Iwatani (5/17/15) Stardom - World of Stardom title Great showing for two women working their first main event singles match. I really like how both of them focus on a specific body part in an attempt to neutralize a major part of her opponent's offense. Iwatani goes after Hojo's arm to take away her elbow based offense. Hojo counters by going after Iwatani's abdomen to prevent her from hitting her dragon suplex, which legit KO her in a tag title match earlier in the month. With the way that both women work the selling into the match, it turns into a story of who is willing to work through the pain to hit her finisher first. Iwatani wins that battle but ends up landing too close to the ropes with Hojo rolling outside to recover. Hojo hits her top rope elbow drop but is too hurt to cover. They run through a bunch of desperation rollups but Hojo ended that with a couple of nasty back elbows to setup another top rope elbow for the win.