[2014-02-25-Kana Pro] Ryuji Ito & Ayako Hamada vs Jun Kasai & Arisa Nakajima

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http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2hvfv1

 

Arisa Nakajima is my new favorite female wrestler after watching this.

 

This is a match I can point to that backs up what I've said before that making intergender matches a lot more common is the best way for women to gain respect in wrestling as this is a match that works primarily for how it toys around with common perceptions of the boundaries set on women in wrestling. Nakajima comes out looking and acting like an idol before a dance performance, but, after the obligatory brawling at the beginning, things really get going when she's in the ring alone with Hamada. They exchange some rough looking strikes, but there's still a feeling that those barbed wire boards are there for the men to use and not these women. They do some teases and it lasts just long enough that I really started to think there's no way they'd do it, except then Nakajima ran into the barbed wire.

 

That's the turning point of the match. Following that, she takes a ridiculous beating from Ito and Hamada that includes multiple other bare back bumps into the barbed wire, a bump on a bent chair, and a suplex onto a ladder later in the match. It's an amazing spectacle not just to see the punishment she's willing to take and the visible effects of it on her body but the way her facial expressions change from the happiness at the start of the match to this shell shocked thousand yard stare. I also dug her late match comeback as she survived so much up to that point I had no problem with her working an even strike exchange with a much bigger man in Ito, though instead of settling for just that she had to pull out a nasty headbutt. The only flaw I can point out in the match, but one which I assume to have been a deliberate decision by the workers to highlight Nakajima, is that Kasai is involved so rarely that it feels like a handicap match at points. It was a bit jarring how he only seemed to be there to break up pin attempts so things didn't get too unbelievable For what they were going for, this was great. ****