[2001-12-15-GAEA-Deep Endless] Aja Kong vs Meiko Satomura

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Graham Crackers]

The momentum of this one still swings back and forth a bit too often but there is too much awesomely brutal offense for me to not enjoy this. It builds upon the 2000 match and adds in some bigger spots and garbage brawling. I thought this was really fun.

[ohtani's jacket]

The GAEA channel has released a full length version of this from the hard cam. The TV version we had was cut in half.

The TV version I thought was a case of diminishing returns, and the first of their matches to not be in consideration for Joshi MOTY, but the hard cam version is much better. The parts that were cut mostly involve the submission work at the beginning. Joshi submission work can be pretty pointless, but this was an Aja control segment that added to the totality of the match. It gave you a greater sense of how grueling the match was and how fatigued they were at the end. Plus, I think I prefer the hard cam because it feels like you're in the crowd. There were a few parts I didn't like, such as the garbage brawling on the outside and Aja's  punch drunk selling at the end, but there were so many great touches to offset that. I really liked the takedowns and the strikes. Satomura overdid it a bit with her Death Valley Bomb, but that comes across much worse in the clipped version. I still think it's the least of their three matches (up to this point), and it's nowhere near as emotional as the Hokuto match despite being Satomura's big breakthrough, but it's probably a top 5 women's match for the year. The hard cam version also features a bit of the post match proceedings as well.