[1999-02-03-GAEA-Premium League Finals] Meiko Satomura vs Toshie Uematsu

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Leave it to Toshie Uematsu to keep showing up in an annual, out of nowhere great match. This is the third year in a row that has happened. This is an awesome match with lots of tremendous matwork and aggression, and a really nice demonstration of what Satomura was all about. But I don't want to give Satomura all the credit, as Toshie has shown her versatility in these three matches, all of which have been worked pretty differently. Here, she goes hold for hold with Satomura and does a great job keeping up with her while also selling the knee attack really well.

[tim]

A lot of really cool spots in this match. I liked the viciousness of the very beginning. I feel like it could've ended a couple minutes earlier and there were some kind of head scratching moments but it's worth it for the best stuff in this match. Not really any kind of MOTYC for me but a really fun watch.

[Tim Evans]

Yeah this went about 5 minutes too long but was still good. Toshie sure is spunky wrestler. I liked how she just kneed Satomura in the face.

[soup23]

Toshie is really someone that has came out of nowhere before I started watching this footage and now I want to seek out all of her high-end stuff. Here I thought this mixed some great mat work with some brutal strikes that didn't overstay its welcome. Satomura looks to be becoming one of the big names in joshi and Toshie was right there with her. ****

[Zenjo]

There isn't much Joshi included on the late 90's Yearbooks, but what's shown has certainly been beneficial to Toshie Uematsu. I guess that perceptions of the GAEA trueborns back in the day would be: 1) Satomura 2) Nagashima 3) Kato 4) Satoh 5) Uematsu 6) Hirota. Nobody else could stick it out through the Chigusa hazing. I'd have to switch Sucre and Toshie if ranking them now.

 

This bout was surprisingly grounded in the early going. They went on to display a wide variety of skills. Aerial moves, strikes, submissions and high impact manoeuvers. Competitive throughout, yet Meiko had a slight edge and always looked the likely victor. Some of the sequences were overchoreographed and it didn't all click together. Good stuff tho.

[PeteF3]

This is worked almost like a young-lions' match for the first chunk--all very basic, but at least they lay everything in. This turns into something inoffensive to something really special, as they craft a pretty compelling match based mostly around rather simple counters and holds. "Playing within themselves," as the cliche goes. And refreshingly not too overindulgent for joshi. This stands up against most of the best '96 GAEA for sure, from the two apparent standout workers from the promotion.