Mae Young Classic 2018 thread

[NintendoLogic]

Is that Funaki as Meiko's interpreter?

[Jimmy Redman]

Sure is.

[rovert]

11 hours ago, Stiva said:

I'll echo what others have said in thinking that this was a fun first installment and man, I'm so happy that Meiko was in the first episode. I really hope that this leads to a run on the main roster because Lynch/Satomura is something that needs to get 15 minutes somewhere down the line

During MYC week WWE staff considered the idea of signing Meiko just for the veteran presence, almost in a Hero role to help mentor in the ring.

Personally, I don't think it will happen as Sendai Girls is her baby and all that stuff.

[donsem43]

According to an interview she did with Yahoo Japan, she exchanged e-mails with WWE back in 2011 after the earthquake about coming in. She also said she would be interested in working with WWE more in the future, specifically stating a desire to work with Rhonda. I wouldn't be surprised if they try to bring her in for Evolution but Sendai Girls usually run a couple of big shows around that time of the year.

[Herodes]

i watched this and I’ve never seen any of the women before apart from Meiko and she stood out so far and above all the others it was pretty embarrassing. Tegan Nox was pretty awful, Kraven was awkward for a “monster” and he others were just there

[Jmare007]

Meiko should have a KO-D Title defense at Evolution

[Badlittlekitten]

23 hours ago, Robert S said:

Really? I thought she looked green and sloppy, the worst wrestler of the whole night. On the other hand I thought here opponent looked pretty good.

I should have qualified that by saying she was a stand out in terms of what the WWE are looking for. (I've since seen her and Ripley are signed). I didn't see much wrong in her match from what I remember to be honest. 

And yes Meiko is on a completely different level to everyone else. Let's be frank though, women's wrestling has been taken seriously for a very short time in the U.S.  It's fascinating to think of how the scene will look in ten years. 

[donsem43]

Kacy Catanzaro vs. Reina Gonzalez was a super fun match. It's impressive just how smooth Kacy is for a flyer with such little experience, while Reina played a solid big with a nice power offense. Mercedes Martinez vs. Ashley Rayne was fine. It was a bit jarring to see them work even when Martinez had much nastier looking offense and even sold Rayne's lesser looking offense better. Deonna Purrazzo vs. Priscilla Kelly felt like the obligatory women's match on a super indie show. Deonna looked fine but Kelly didn't get to show off any of her character work, although a lot of her shtick might be a bit much for a WWE show. Zeuxis vs. Aerial Monroe was just ugly as they weren't on the same page at all. Easily the worst match of the tournament so far.

[KawadaSmile]

Match #5 - Deonna Purrazzo vs Priscilla Kelly: It did one of two things right, which was to showcase a bit of Deonna's mat-based skills, but Priscilly was such a non-factor in this that this could be just a demonstration.

Match #6 - Zeuxis vs Aerial Monroe: Ugly, ugly start. Just a disjointed mess through most of it, but there are shining moments in this where you can deduce that this was a particuarly off night for both of them. As much as a Spanish Fly being an actual finish is nice, Zeuxis winning was 100% the wrong decision.

Match #7 - Kacy Catanzaro vs Reina Gonzales: First off: yay 2/3 of the Riot Squad! Liv is great. Anyways, Kacy might be a prodigy at this considering she's got not even 1 year of experience, and this match was really, really dope. Both need polishing, but Reina with her size advantage and nice offense, as well as Kacy's naturally underdog physique and absurd spots made for an incredible David vs Goliath. Good stuff.

Match #8 - Ashley Rayne vs Mercedes Martinez: Look at the Unidsputed Era, what a bunch of proud boys-looking motherfuckers. Hate them (but good wrestlers, tho). Mercedes had some great offense, nearly murdering Ashley early on. Nice comeback spots by Ashley, and that flash pin attempt late in the match was a nice moment. Still nothing really  incredible.

 

Overall, worse episode than last week's but still had some nice moments.

[Tenese Sarwieh]

3 hours ago, KawadaSmile said:

Match #6 - Zeuxis vs Aerial Monroe: Ugly, ugly start. Just a disjointed mess through most of it, but there are shining moments in this where you can deduce that this was a particuarly off night for both of them. As much as a Spanish Fly being an actual finish is nice, Zeuxis winning was 100% the wrong decision.

Especially when you show her husband who is your cruiserweight champion with their daughter in the front row.

[Badlittlekitten]

Kacy Catanzaro was the clear standout of a disapointing second show. She seems like she’ll be an interesting talent to say the least. 

Zeuxis vs Monroe was terrible which is a shame because Monroe   Is charismatic as fuck.  

Don’t know how Martinez is juggling two jobs when she should be on TV or a least NXT in a Chris Hero type role. 

Were any angles shot on last years show? This could do with something to spice it up a bit.

[Robert S]

I thought the opener was worse than the second match. The second match at least was fine at the end while the opener had some awful looking stuff like Kelly's rope running (which looked like first day of wrestling school bad), her double jump for the hip toss and Purazzo forgetting to hook the leg for the Russian leg sweep.

[donsem43]

Xia Li/Karen Q was really fun. I enjoyed how they mixed in the martial arts stuff. Kaitlyn/Kavita Devi was okay. Kaitlyn had some solid if unspectacular power offense. Devi didn't look nearly as good as she did last year as she didn't have someone who could pinball for her offense and her selling looked goofy too. Toni Storm/Jinny was good for a match that was built to showcase Jinny. She looked good here especially here strikes. Mia Yim/Allysin Kay was a mixed bag. While the match had some nice moments, as a whole it came off as a jumbled mess.

[KawadaSmile]

Nothing stood out in this episode like Kelly/Satomura, but nothing was bad, either. Comfortably good for 1st round matches, which is nice.

Match #9 - Kaityln vs Kavita Devi: I love Kaitlyn. She was having some actually pretty good matches in NXT back in 2013 against AJ, so it is curious to see that she's still doing well against green opponents. She would rock against many people currently in the roster, and it's a shame she won't be around. Still, a good little match, which I guess one could categorize as a hoss battle. 

Match #10 - Toni Storm vs Jinny: While Toni was over from the get go - and she is amazingly charismatic, with tons of late 90s Jericho mannerisms - Jinny was the star in this and she managed to captivate the crowd by the end of the match. Commentary was also pretty good in this, going in detail about Jinny's gimmick and how it would translate to the ring. Different stuff, I liked it.

Match #11 - Karen Q vs Xia Li: Badass stuff. As someone who did kung fu for almost a decade, the opening moments of the match was something I'll hold dearly in my heart. They should do more stuff like that, and both looked incredible. Love Xia's finisher, too.

Match #12 - Mia Yim vs Allysin Kay: Heated match through and through. Quite slow at times, but they did manage to get the story and themselves over. 

[Mad Dog]

I thought the second episode was brutally bad. I liked the first and third episodes quite a bit. 

I know they have to introduce people but I really hate having 3 minutes of video packages for a match that goes 4 minutes.

[Edwin]

Mia Yim.

[KawadaSmile]

Last day of Round 1! Let's see how it goes:

Match #13 - Rachael Evers vs Hiroyo Matsumoto: This was actually really good! Felt really different from pretty much all the previous matches, with all those tests of strenght, strike exchanges, and even some """fighting spirit""" spots. Hiroyo is great, and it is a shame that the crowd was so much into Rachael that she didn't get much love. 

Match #14 - Taynara Conti vs Jessie Elaban: Dana Brooke! Yay! Jessie's gimmick could actually get her a long life in WWE. Comedy wrestling is great. Taynara is leagues above the other Brazilian guys in NXT it's not even funny, just the way she works the arm/hand with malice and can play the bully role despite being short is something that indicates she can grow to be great. Sadly short, but it was a good 1st impression I got from Jessie. 

Match #15 - Nicole Matthews vs Isla Dawn: Nice entrance by Isla, felt Brood-esque. The match itself is nothing really impressive, as it is basically a squash, with Matthews beating Isla like no tomorrow. Great Liontamer, tho.

Match #16 - Io Shirai vs Xia Brookside: Io Shirai brutalizes a teenager with a sincere smile on her face. Fucking grotesque moonsault, my goodness.

[Downend2005]

I though Io vs Xia was the best match of the episode by far. Io was presented as the best in the world, the one to beat, and Xia was booked as the clear underdog. Loved her interaction with Robbie Brookside during her entrance too. Xia being hopelessly overmatched but going down swinging was such a simple story and it played out exactly as it should have done. Io’s theme was catchy too!

I also came away reasonably impressed with Taynara Conti, even if her presentation was a little bit messy. She worked the match as a vicious heel, then after winning breaks down in tears and becomes endearing. It was a little confused. 

As for Jessie Elaban, I don’t think she came across well at all. Her pre match vignette described everything that she wasn’t, instead calling herself ‘glumsy’ (goofy and clumsy). I don’t think she particularly showcased her gimmick and I don’t think she would translate to tv well. 

Round 1 was decent overall, three stand out matches (Io vs Xia, Toni vs Jinny and Meiko vs Killer Kelly), Rhea Ripley and Kacy Catanzaro looking like future stars, and nobody being awful outside of Zeuxis and Kavita Devi, but now I’m looking forward to the tournament picking up some steam going into round 2.

 

[NintendoLogic]

When did Conti turn into a total killer? Her judo takedowns and limb work looked absolutely vicious, and her facial expressions reminded me of Devil Masami. She showed glimpses of it in her qualifying match against Vanessa Borne, but this was a completely different level. As for Elaban, I think she would need an image overhaul to do anything of note in WWE. The "loves to have fun" gimmick is the kiss of death on the main roster.

[KawadaSmile]

14 hours ago, Downend2005 said:

I also came away reasonably impressed with Taynara Conti, even if her presentation was a little bit messy. She worked the match as a vicious heel, then after winning breaks down in tears and becomes endearing. It was a little confused. 

As she explained on her twitter, she's a Gemini, so due to her zodiac sign she has constant mood swings which would explain her going from vicious to crybaby like that.

 

[donsem43]

Hiroyo/Rachael took awhile to get going with the finishing run being pretty good. At least Hiroyo had the wherewithal to realize that the crowd didn't know her so she went out of her way to get over with the crowd. Conti/Elaban was better than I thought it was going to be. To be honest, I thought Elaban was going to be bad but I came away impressed. Her offense looked good and she did a nice job selling the work on her hand from Conti. Conti had some great looking throws and has some good crazy/kooky shtick too. Matthews/Dawn was okay but it was funny seeing Dawn trying to do all of these elaborate strikes while Matthews would just go straight ahead and drill her. Io/Xia was squash with Io just basically running through her stuff. The match would have been interesting if they would have mixed in some flash rollups for Xia.

[TonyPulis'Cap]

While clearly still very raw, I thought Conti showed more than enough to suggest she could be a real star. She has an aura about her, and if she continues to develop has a ton of potential. I loved how vicious she was with the arm work and LOVED the abuse she was giving to Elaban's fingers on the rope. Right from her entrance onward and throughout the match she gave off this great vibe of knowing she was better than her opponent and was toying with her. In a tournament you don't need all the first round matches being 50:50 affairs, so it was good to see a presentation where one girl knew she was better than the other and was enjoying proving that.  

[TonyPulis'Cap]

Now, we've finished the first round, I'd say overall the tournament gets a thumbs up so far. I don't think we've had too many 'stand out' matches, but thought that  Satomura vs Killer Kelly, Yim vs Kay and Evers vs Matsumoto were all very good. Compared to last year, I think that MYC I had some higher peaks in the first round but that MYC II has had better consistency. I also think they have set up the key players well and built some really great looking matches for the 2nd round, which is what you want. You don't want the tournament to peak at the beginning, so happy to have the better matches as you get into things.

In terms of presentation, I like the variety in the tournament in terms of different looks, backgrounds and in ring styles, although a mild criticism would be a few too many 'happy to be there' vibes from the personality profiles, although I think that's a general issue I have with WWE presentation of these things - you don't feel people are allowed to come across too much as horrible people. Last year, Baszler really stood out as she showed real attitude rather than "I'm going to give 100% and this is such an honour to be here". As I say though, I put that on WWE rather than the wrestlers, as I imagine that's the vibe they want them to give off.

Commentary has been solid. It's not a hot take to say that Cole, away from the over produced setting of the main roster is very good, and he really seems in to being there. I like Renee a lot, and feel that she brings a human vibe to things, even if you aren't going to get much analysis. I like Beth as well and think she'll get better as the tournament goes on, but at times she does sound like she's reading directly from the WWE corporate speak manual, but again that's something that I'm sure is mandated down. I did enjoy her giving a shout out to Gail Kim and Ashley Rayne's husband 'Josh' over in Impact land though.   

[Downend2005]

7 hours ago, KawadaSmile said:

As she explained on her twitter, she's a Gemini, so due to her zodiac sign she has constant mood swings which would explain her going from vicious to crybaby like that.

 

I’m not a Twitter user, but I did take a look at her twitter profile. Unless I’m missing something obvious, I didn’t see where she has explained that. I’m obviously happy to be corrected though.

And in any case, if it’s such an integral part of her presentation, why didn’t her intro video and/or the commentary reference it at all? I even rewatched the match to see if I missed anything. When WWE are so keen on pushing hashtags, soundbites and buzzwords, surely it could and should have been made more explicit if it was part of her act. After all, they made reference to her Black Belt and Judo credentials at every opportunity.

 

[Al]

3 hours ago, TonyPulis'Cap said:

In terms of presentation, I like the variety in the tournament in terms of different looks, backgrounds and in ring styles, although a mild criticism would be a few too many 'happy to be there' vibes from the personality profiles, although I think that's a general issue I have with WWE presentation of these things - you don't feel people are allowed to come across too much as horrible people. Last year, Baszler really stood out as she showed real attitude rather than "I'm going to give 100% and this is such an honour to be here". As I say though, I put that on WWE rather than the wrestlers, as I imagine that's the vibe they want them to give off.

Oddly I got tired of the multiple "last year I was just happy to be here..." promos.