[1993-11-18-JWP-Thunder Queen Battle] Akira Hokuto vs Mayumi Ozaki

[Kadaveri]

This is a great albeit strange match. I have no idea what the alignments of this match are meant to be, they both seem to acting cocky heelish to each other and both are getting cheers. It's ok though.

 

The match starts with Ozaki circling Hokuto who is just standing there hands of hips barely acknowledging her. Ozaki slaps her face a couple of times and shouts at her, Hokuto ignores her, gently pushes her face away, turns her back on her and walks off, only for Ozaki to grab her from behind for a German suplex. The charisma of both performers makes this really compelling to me even though I still don't know what's going on.

 

This isn't the usual joshi style of the time as the pace is a lot slower (not that there are fast bits in it). Ozaki gets Hokuto in some kind of knee bar and they spend the next two minutes having a great Flair Figure 4-style battle just slapping each other until Ozaki is forced to relinquish the hold as Hokuto wins the strike battle and switches to a headlock. The match feels like a battle of wills more than a contest of wrestling skill. Ozaki is resorting to biting now and gets Hokuto back in that knee bar, who gets to the ropes. Ozaki drags her away, stands on her foot and stomps her knee repeatedly with her other foot and puts her back in another knee-hold. I don't know what these submissions are called or if this is Ozaki just improvising like Zack Sabre Jr does. Every now and then she'll drag Hokuto up for a suplex (Hokuto is consistently selling that knee, not putting weight on it) and pin attempt before going right to it.

 

But everything changes now. Ozaki goes to the top rope for a splash or something but Hokuto dodges and makes Ozaki look kind of stupid just bouncing to the floor. I wish I understood what Hokuto then says to her as it gets a big reaction from the crowd before she starts her comeback. Hokuto gets cheered in her comeback, puts Ozaki in a Texas cloverleaf, and now the crowd is chanting for Ozaki. Make your minds up dammit. Hokuto bites Ozaki in revenge for the previous incident and gets a 4 count, again wish I understood what Ozaki shouts at her for doing that as it gets a crowd laugh.

 

The match really escalates at this point and they start dishing out some big moves, albeit Hokuto is mostly failing in her attempts. Ozaki does a fantastic somersault dive to the outside to take out Hokuto, runs straight back in the ring and does a series of squats to the crowd's amusement while Hokuto slowly gets back in the ring. Ozaki is on top for most of this segment hitting powerbombs and superplexes and Hokuto is barely surviving and still has that hurt knee. Hokuto gets in a comeback though, counters Ozaki and throws her out the ring and goes top for a somersault dive onto Ozaki on the outside. Hokuto then hobbles back into the ring, lays down and starts doing press ups. Crowd cheers and applauds. Ozaki is pretty pissed and comes back to attack that knee again. Being proper brutal about it now locking in a submission and the crowd is buying a submission finish here, but Hokuto gets to the ropes only for Ozaki to hoist her up and powerbomb her instead. 2 count.

 

Couldn't give a blow-by-blow account as this point as it turns into the super-fast Joshi pace all of a sudden with Hokuto getting the worst of it, but it's all well done and exciting. Ozaki goes for a top rope move to finish Hokuto off but get dodged and crashes to the mat (seriously Ozaki that's the 2nd Hokuto's made you look like a goof doing that). Hokuto goes straight at her with a slam and then hits the Dangerous Queen Bomb. 1 2 3.

Great match that did a good job of standing out stylistically. ****1/4

[club]

On 10/17/2017 at 8:08 AM, Kadaveri said:

But everything changes now. Ozaki goes to the top rope for a splash or something but Hokuto dodges and makes Ozaki look kind of stupid just bouncing to the floor. I wish I understood what Hokuto then says to her as it gets a big reaction from the crowd before she starts her comeback. Hokuto gets cheered in her comeback, puts Ozaki in a Texas cloverleaf, and now the crowd is chanting for Ozaki. Make your minds up dammit. Hokuto bites Ozaki in revenge for the previous incident and gets a 4 count, again wish I understood what Ozaki shouts at her for doing that as it gets a crowd laugh.

When Hokuto dodges Ozaki, she shouts something like “Time to stop messing about”.

It loses something in translation, but when she bites Ozaki, Ozaki is shouting that it hurts, Hokuto replies “I’m biting you even though your feet are dirty, you idiot”.

 

Great match here. The premise was interesting. It seemed to be that Hokuto was trying to psyche out Ozaki by no-selling her offence, blowing her off verbally and later with the squats. Ozaki is like, you want to play that game? Fine.

 

Post match was good. Hokuto can be really cutting in these promos. She tells the interviewer that Ozaki doesn’t have a pure heart and is more of a dangerous queen. She’s much better than Rumi Kazama. However she needs to improve her talking, and she’ll never get anywhere staying in a promotion like JWP.