[2000-02-13-GAEA-Big Destruction] Lioness Asuka & Sonoko Kato vs Sugar Sato & Chikayo Nagashima

[soup23]

This is kind of the final straw for me and GAEA to a degree. Sato and Nagashima are presented as a top tag team so lets see if the bullshit can be cut out and we get a strong wrestling match. This does break down into a brawl five minutes in but at least it was established by the beginning sequences and it stays between the wrestlers involved in the actual match. Add to it some Korakuen dives and double stomps involving chairs and I was more forgiving than in the past. A huge German is given to Kato on the chair that the referee won’t count the pin on. A double stomp is then administered and that gets a close nearfall. Lioness comes in with a chair of her own but that gets swatted away. This finish stretch is full of violence, double team moves, break up of pin attempts, and bombs. I sometimes have trouble judging this things and it is more amplified in joshi. Some botches result including one that bumps Kato right on top of her head. Nagashima overall is the better member of the team today as she shows more spunk and aggression going after Kato and holding Asuka off. She gets some good cross armbreaker attempts off in the final moments to add drama to that. The Korakuen crowd is really into this. Kato misses a leg drop and Nagashima hits a fisherman buster for a 2.9 count that Asuka breaks up at the very last second. Sato accidently hits a missile on Nagashima which seems to spell doom but she overcomes it and hits another fisherman buster to gain the win. This was the perfect kind of wrestling chaos and told an easy to ready story. Even the botches added some danger ala the Hiromu Takahashi matches of current day. A great bounce back for Gaea. ****

[Loss]

This match was certifiable. It was 20 minutes and it was all finishing stretch. Seriously, they just went right into it and never stopped. I have never seen spots timed with quite this much rhythm, where you see one and the next happens in perfect harmony with the next, and with the next and so on. It's hard to describe, but it was also like music in how it kept its time. Pretty amazing. I'd call this match organized chaos. When Sugar Sato slipped off the ropes, it didn't phase me one bit because it made sense within the context of the match, they weren't phased and they quickly moved on. But when Sonoko Kato couldn't take the dynamic bomb bump because she fell backwards and landed on her head, that was a pretty scary moment. That was the only time the momentum really broke, and is honestly the only thing that kept this from reaching ***** for me. This was pretty aspirational stuff that I think would be a complete disaster if emulated, but as a one-of-a-kind match, it's a classic. ****1/2

[Laney]

This match is chaotic and ugly, but it works. There are several botches in this match, but they play no detriment to the match at all. Everyone keeps up the pace and quickly works the botched move into the match. This is fast paced brutal Joshi at it's best. There's a lot of stuff in this match, but they manage to stop from going over the top and making it feel like they are kicking out of too much. The finishing finisher buster is teased effectively throughout the match.

 

****1/4

[ohtani's jacket]

This was a decent work rate sprint. I saw Nagashima and Sato live once and was thoroughly entertained so I always imagine what these sort of matches would be like live. As a match snob I could have done without the garbage elements, but it's amazing how widespread the use of garbage has become in the year 2000. It's downright pervasive. Fun match but only really noteworthy in the running battle between AJW and GAEA for best Joshi promotion.

[Microstatistics]

I thought Lioness was the glue here. Added cool veteran touches when it came to offense and selling and held things together. Superb performance. Top notch action and strong storytelling. The botches didn't really disrupt the momentum for me. Great match. ****

[TravJ1979]

Really enjoyed this. Best Joshi match this year so far.

[Seabs]

Organised chaos is a really good way of describing this. Everyone will have a different breaking point for how much of this type of a match they can watch but I thought this was timed out almost perfectly in terms of not outstaying its welcome. Probably could have lost a minute or two and been even better but it was still great all the same. The botch off the powerbomb looked really nasty but at the same time looked like an awesome highspot if done a little more co-operatively. Great match.

[Grimmas]

So this felt like a really fun spot fest. Not exactly my cup of tea, but I'd highly recommend it to those who love Young Bucks or Kenny Omega. Something like *** 1/2 for me.

[tbrett]

I love a good spotfest and this was that. Good sprint and pace, but I agree with Grimmas it is nothing special.

 

***1/2