[1998-08-31-ARSION] Mikiko Futagami vs Rie Tamada

[Jetlag]

Oh Mikiko Futagami, where you have been all my life? This was tremendous. Two workers who are always doing something nifty having a gritty match. Tamada worked over Futagami's leg for most of the bout, and Futagami came right back at her with all these neat/violent comebacks. Some of you selling purists might object to Futagami's selling here, but I thought it was just right. She was initially overwhelmed and would collapse after landing a single comeback move, then slowly work out the kinks, always hobble around and slapping at it as if to get it back working 100 %, and the leg seemed to come back and haunt her at the most uncomfortable times. Did I mention Futagami has this really great palm strike and nifty armbars and reckless desperation kicks and whatnot? Really dug how Tamada seemed to have Futagami's number throughout the match but went desperate near the end when Futagami kept catching her bad arm. Another damn good match where Tamada targets a limb, another damn good match where GAMI is GAMI.