[2000-06-07-BattlARTS] Minoru Tanaka & Yumi Fukawa vs Mariko Yoshida & Alexander Otsuka

[soup23]

This starts with male vs male and female vs female pairings until Yoshida and Tanaka mix it up. Intergender can be a tough hill to overcome just based on the strength and stature issue but they did a good job in these quick exchanges keeping the believability as Yoshida is able to hang on the mat with quick exchanges. Fukawa and Yoshida have some really fun back and forth that harkens you back to early style ARSION from early 1999. Otsuka and Yumi mixing it up did less to convince me in the intergender department but Otsuka did kind of treat her as a nonchalant threat and then puts her in a quick giant swing. Otherwise, the action when it was at the same gender was very enjoyable and the climax with Yoshida locking on an armbar and Tanaka having to make the saves was well done. Yumi is able to regain the advantage and even squeak out the win which surprised me. Fun match. ***1/4

[superkix]

Yeah, the exchanges between Yoshida and Fukawa were more engaging and intense than anything the guys were doing. Minoru and Otsuka seemed to be going through the motions but Yoshida had a real fun interaction with Minoru, proving she could hold her own. The final stretch with the girls was pretty cool - I mean, Yoshida has such a cool look and presence about her...and throws a sweet Saito suplex. If anything, this match has me interested to see more from her.

[Calvin]

The ladies kill it while the men take a bit of a backseat here. Yoshida is always a treat to watch, but it's Yumi who steals the show for me. She's a terrific ragdoll that Yoshida can dominate on the mat or throw around, but also a convincing enough technician that tapping Yoshida out with an armbar did not feel like an unreasonable outcome. I didn't mind the levity from the Otsuka/Yumi exchanges, either. Otsuka's nonchalance even comes back to bite him in the end.

***