[1992-04-29-AJW-New Generation] Takako Inoue vs Mariko Yoshida

[PeteF3]

Talk about it here.

 

 

[garretta]

I've heard that AJW's house style doesn't allow for prolonged selling; even if a body part has been all but crippled, the girls are still expected to forget that when it comes time for the nearfall exchange at the end.

 

Anyway, that doesn't take away from Inoue's first-rate work on Yoshida's knee; it's so bad at one point that even simple bumps cause Yoshida agony. In a nice twist, Inoue turns her own ankle on a dive to the outside, but Yoshida's in too much pain of her own to follow up. Despite what I said above, Yoshida manages to sell her knee enough during the finishing sequence that the audience is reminded that something's wrong with it, which is all you can expect. She manages to block out the pain enough to go up to the top and hit several moves, including the double underhook brainbuster that gets her the winning three-count and the title.

 

I'd never seen either worker before, but this performance is enough to make me want to see both of them again, either in a rematch or against others. Not quite a great match, but on the high end of very good.

[Zenjo]

One of those type of matches that made the promotion so enjoyable to follow in depth. It was fought with such heart and passion, with both girls giving their all. It was a well planned encounter revolving around body part work from both. Yoshida's knee was damaged. Her writhing around in pain during submissions was fantastic. Takako was briefly in trouble with an injured ankle but had it taped up. Exciting climax too with plenty of near falls and the result in the balance. Okay you could pick holes in some of the selling and execution, but that's small change compared to the joy Yoshida brought. And Takako always made everyone else look good.

 

Prolonged body part selling through to the end of the bout wasn't a high priority in AJW. Would it be worth trading off big moves and exciting near falls for more consistent selling in an instance like this? I'd argue that it would've resulted in a lesser bout overall by taking away from areas of strength.