[2016-10-16-Sendai Girls] Meiko Satomura vs Chihiro Hashimoto

[Jetlag]

I thought we had some joshi superfans on this board, how the hell does this not have a thread?

This was another fantastic contest in the series of Meiko vs. Game Opponents. Chihiro Hashimoto is this brawny amateur wrestler and works like Rick Steiner. They start of with great mat wrestling and Meiko does some awesome wristlock work, before the inevitable kicks in. I've said it before, but Meiko really has the sharpest offense in the world. She just kicked the snot out of Chihiro. Clearly Chihiro is her pet project, and while the young girl has some iffy moments, all her throws ruled and her german suplex was deadly. I also really liked how she rolled to the apron to evade her opponent. Because it's a Satomura match, everything was timed and built perfectly and felt like a fight. Really great match despite a few soft transitions, that the finish more than makes up for anyways.

[GOTNW]

I had planned to watch this for a while but seeing Jetlag put it as his MOTY pushed it over the top for me. And I have to say it really is that damn good. The matwork was absolutely wonderful, it had the grace and creativity of lucha mixed with the skill and intensity of shoot style matwork. The complete lack of pinfalls in the first two thirds of the match was such a nice change of pace, whenever you'd expect them to finally start doing pins and move on to "normal" wrestling you'd get stuff like Hashimoto turning her back to prevent being pinned or Satomura grabbing a surprise Headscissors after a Hashimoto flurry. Of course Satomura's kicks are a thing of beauty, she really knows how to control and pace a match and Hashimoto's lumpy offence ranges from good to excellent, she should probably drop the hip attacks but all of the sentons/splashes look nifty as does her spear. Her big throws worked perfectly as a means of comeback when Satomura would push her to the edge and I loved how Satomura tried one final ~fighting spirit~ comeback only to get cut off, that works way better as a pay off than three more no-selling sequences. The pop at the end was fascinating too, sometimes the simplest booking decisions provide the most reaction and that was definitely the case here. ****1/2