[2000-05-06-Oz Academy] Aja Kong vs Chikayo Nagashima

[soup23]

Aja has been fighting everywhere in 2000. ARSION, GAEA and now Oz Academy. Nice to see Chikayo in singles action as she has been a bit uneven in her tag work and tough to get a read on. Really simple but effective match with Aja showing great vulnerability with getting her arm and hand worked over again. I liked Chikaya ducking and moving in a desperate attempt to escape the spinning back fist. She is able to block one partially with her hands and another with the trash can. Aja is still a monster though and just lifts her up in a torture rack submission to win. Would have liked to have seen the back fist strategy pay off better but a really fun 12 minute match. ***1/4

[ohtani's jacket]

Wrestling Aja can seem like an exercise in futility at times, but she did try to show some vulnerability here. There was never any doubt over how the match would end, but Nagashima scrambled well and was able to damage Aja's arm. I thought they would give Nagashima a shot at submitting Aja and that Aja would fight through the pain to hit the back fist, but they went a different route. Even though Nagashima didn't get as far as Satomura or Hamada, she still came out of the bout with her credibility intact and that mattered to me since she was one of the top 5 young stars in Joshi and  it would have sucked if she'd be gobbled up in a bout she didn't need to be booked in.  So that was a relief.