[1999-09-15-GAEA] Aja Kong vs Meiko Satomura

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

This is probably the most famous and acclaimed post-peak rivalry in Joshi, and this is widely considered the best match they ever had against each other. Satomura is throwing everything she has at Aja early on and nothing seems to be working that well. Still, it never really deters her and she keeps going strong no matter what. While she doesn’t get a ton of offense, it’s obvious about halfway through this that Satomura’s persistence is tiring Aja out and making her prone to mistakes. While Aja is still pulling big moves out, she’s not doing it as often, and Satomura is finally getting some semblance of momentum. Keep in mind that’s twenty minutes into this, so they really worked hard to get over the idea that Kong was too strong to beat. The end result of doing that is that Satomura’s comebacks get over strong because Aja was so dominant for so long. That finishing sequence was off the charts. September has been unusually full of talking segments, so this was a breath of fresh air.

[Tim Evans]

Really good match that told a nice story. Aja as the pissed off vet that wasn't going to sell anything and Meiko as the fiery youngster that wasn't going to give up. Love the was she hits armbars and Aja just gets more angry as the match goes on. Finishing stretch is great like Loss said.

[Zenjo]

Probably the most well known match in GAEA history. Amongst the best as well. Aja took the advantage early on and dominated the build. She used her huge edge in size and experience to cut off Meiko at every turn. Satomura appeared too small to have the necessary firepower, but we know that wasn't the reality. She wouldn't stay down and eventually started finding openings. Though she didn't land a high volume of offence, most of what she did hit were high end moves. As well as looking flashy, the kicks and submissions damaged Aja's arm. There were a couple of lovely transitions into jujigatame's. Kong's selling was fantastic. She couldn't hold onto a sleeper so had to switch to using the other arm. An excellent closing stretch where they both unloaded everything. After a hard fought battle the veteran barely came through. Nothing I can really find fault with. Top 10 for the year.

[tim]

Great match though I don't really see it as a top-tier MOTYC. I like how they worked it with Satomura's hyper-active and scrappy offense vs. Aja more deliberate firepower that was a level above what Satomura was capable of. Aja is firmly in control for almost the whole match -- Satomura gets offense in sometimes, sometimes it even has an effect, but this is Aja's match almost all the way through though Satomura is always in the fight. When Satomura finally strings together a real attack further into the match it feels like a real big moment. Satomura attacking the arm was great -- I actually think I would have liked the match more if Aja had submitted when Satomura caught her in the armbar when he was coming off the top with an elbow because that ending after the match they had worked up to that point would have been really perfect. Aja not being able to lock in a choke after the arm work was really great. I feel like I've seen some Aja matches that came after this that I liked more but this was really good, it just never hit that next level for me to rank it among the very best of a surprisingly strong year.

[Clayton Jones]

I just sat down to this match for the second time and it floored me the first time I watched it and it did so again this time. A lot of great joshi is about the emotion more than the execution or even sometimes the internal logic, but this match strikes an impressive balance between all of those factors. Satomura feels more like a force of nature than a wrestler here. As others have said it's Aja's match, but even for the first half as she dominates you can tell that there's something about Meiko that is throwing her off her game. She does a fantastic job of subtlety showing frustration and especially that Satomura is doing more damage than she wants to let on when she does get her rare offense. That's a hard story to even articulate let alone convey through pro wrestling but Aja does it beautifully. Too often she tries to do things her way instead of taking Satomura out as efficiently as possible and as the match plays out it starts to backfire on her. At times it feels like her hubris is going to be her downfall. And to Meiko's credit the amount of fire and tenacity she shows is second to none and makes you believe she can actually pull this thing out. This match is fantastic, I wish it had been on the stage and spotlight that joshi had in its prime.

[Jetlag]

This was your fairly typical Aja rookie squash that ends up being really good due to Satomura being Satomura. Aja absolutely picks her apart for an eternity, while Satomura hangs on with all her willpower and keeps on chipping away at the veteran. There is so little heat in the early going that it feels like Meiko is getting the hell beaten out of her in a basement or some other remote place, and if this were IWA:MS I imagine the crowd would have begun chanting "It's not worth it" by the time Aja drilled her with the Package Piledriver. Meiko already had her awesome fire and determination to keep the match believable though, and while not all her comebacks were great, her focus on toppling Aja while having a limited moveset built around kicks, arm attacks, a big strike and a big bomb move at hand was fascinating. Aja gave her usual performance that I've seen in a dozen other matches but works everytime anyways and carried Satomura over the 25 minute length with ease.

 

Highly remarkable match that would be a slam dunk joshi MOTY if it weren't for ARSION that year. Still, outside of that this has to be the best womens match in half a decade.

[soup23]

An awesome, awesome match that is my #2 MOTY so far. Aja took it to Meiko but I think the combinations of Meiko's selling as well as being able to have violent exchanges is what raises this from a great match to an iconic one and what makes these two women's feud work so well overall. It was also a possibility that Meiko could win but make no mistake Aja was the favorite and the queen of the ring. Just brutal exchange after brutal exchange with believable transitions. One of the better joshi matches I have seen in history. ****3/4

[PeteF3]

I don't see voting this at #1 but it will make the MOTYC list. Satomura's win over Aja earlier in the year was the result of a plucky underdog wrestling over her head, but here she's presented as much more dangerous in her own right, having answers for most of Aja's offense and being able to stun her with those Pele Kicks. Very "past midnight" feel to the finishing stretch but it never felt bloated. It felt like two warriors fighting until the tank was empty and then fighting some more. Aja gets her win back but had to earn every bit of it.

[Kadaveri]

Of course I've seen this match before but never in 720p. Thanks GAEAISM YouTube Channel. Right at the start of the match Satomura manages to take Aja down with a low armdrag into an armbar kind of thing, it doesn't quite work but it looked technically impressive, and Aja was able to counter not with technique so much as brute power and then she just lies on Meiko using her larger weight to her advantage. Reminds me of how Brock Lesnar would generally fight in MMA, just pin guys to the ground with your bigger body weight and then smack them up where they can't get away. That little opening quickly establishes that Meiko is a skilled wrestler but the superior size of Aja is gonna be very difficult for her to overcome.

Almost the entire first half of the match is Aja just systemically demolishing Meiko, whose 'shine' sequence was basically one move. Aja is very compelling and entertaining working on top. Meiko does get little comeback sequences/hope spots, but in this period they just don't go anywhere. Aja either counters them or just brushes her aside in a demoralising 'been there, done that' fashion. I liked how Meiko does a kip up and immediately goes for a kick before Aja has time to protect herself, it shows the point of the kip up is to hit a flash attack, but just showing off.

One criticism I have of the match structure is after Meiko gets a slight comeback going but Aja smacks it down and throws Meiko out of the ring, Aja then does a tope. It's a very good tope, but it didn't fit the moment for me. I  feel like she should be pulling out a high risk rare move like that at the moment she's feeling genuinely threatened by Meiko, but at this point it felt a bit wasted. We're still at the point of the match where the crowd doesn't seem to buy that Meiko has even 1% chance of winning this match. They're really pretty quiet and don't really get behind her. The biggest reactions are for Aja's offense, she gets a lot of "woah!"s for her stuff. It feels like the crowd are going "wow, must suck to be fighting Aja" rather than properly supporting Meiko.

The first time Meiko gets a proper reaction is soon afterwards though where she avoids an uraken and hits her Pele kick and earns a KO count of 8 on Aja. Big cheer for Meiko. It took so long for her to really get any serious offense in but it feels like she's growing and upgrading herself just within the match itself. It's a great strength to this match how really gradual Meiko increasingly resembles a real threat, there's no abrupt momentum swing. The next development of this is Aja putting Meiko on the top rope, presumably to hit her waterwheel drop, but Meiko avoids it by jumping over her, turning round and hitting a big german suplex off the top rope. Now, I think this wasn't what was planned. It looked like Meiko was trying to counter with a sunset bomb, but messed it up, but she very quickly just turned around and did a german and Aja never sold a move that wasn't actually hit so it was fine. But even so, this might be one of those things where a screw-up actually improved the match, because that german did look pretty devastating and unexpected so you can buy Aja being seriously rocked by it. Especially as right afterwards Meiko hits a dazed Aja with another Pele kick and then a Death Valley Driver for a huge nearfall. The crowd was super loud for it, like they seriously thought Meiko had just pulled off a major upset! The masterclass in match structure has worked and now the crowd is treating the match as a 50/50 affair. Aja's selling is not just physical, but in her body language you feel her confidence has been rocked, and she's acting with increasing freneticism/desperation. In a neat juxtaposition to the match's opening, it ends up not being just Aja's superior size that bails her out, but rather a moment of great skill/quick reactions. But you know she had to come through in the clutch to make it out of this one with the win.

****1/2