Mae Young Classic 2018 thread

[TonyPulis'Cap]

12 minutes ago, Al said:

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

Haha, actually you're right now you've pointed it out, the common theme in pretty much every interview was "last year I was happy to be here, now there's going to be no more being nice this time"!

[KawadaSmile]

1 hour ago, Downend2005 said:

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.

 

Fair enough, it was in one of her replies AND she answered in portuguese.

It would translate to something like :

"Firstly: I'm a Gemini, which means I'm bipolar. At one moment I love you and in the very next second I'll hate you...

Secondly: I don't feel like answering you anymore"

The user above her was addressing this humor dissonance between what she shows when she's wrestling and when she's giving promos.

 

But you criticism is valid. While I don't think it is wrong for heels to cry, be passionate about winning, it can be a nice touch to explain those sudden behavior changes.

[NintendoLogic]

I liked Rhea Ripley's explanation for her change of attitude. She said that the shame of losing to a Kiwi in last year's tournament made her a different person.

[Downend2005]

Really enjoyed the latest episode with three good to great matches out of four, can’t argue with that. 

Toni vs Hiroyo was really good stuff. I think Toni would get over huge in NXT proper rather than being on the UK brand.

I really liked Kacy Catanzaro vs Rhea Ripley. What surprised me though was WWE not editing out Kacys first flub on her springboard dropkick. Other than that, I thought she looked great. The DDT and Ripleys sell of it was mental. And Rhea was good in her bully role. She definitely projects bigger and takes her time between moves on offense and it makes her stand out. This was really fun.

Lacey Lane vs Taynara Conti was mercifully brief. Lacey’s entrance, look and style is basically her cosplaying as Ember Moon’s little sister. She really isn’t that good either. It’s a shame she gets a match with Meiko, when others would have made for more interesting opponents.

Meiko vs Mercedes was excellent. The post match embrace felt genuine and made for a nice moment, I’m glad that made it to tv. Mercedes should absolutely be on WWEs radar as a trainer at the PC.

[donsem43]

This was the best episode so far, which wasn't surprising considering that it had the best two on paper match-ups of the entire tournament. Hiroyo/Toni took awhile to get going, just like Hiroyo's first match with Evers/Ellering, but was really good once it did. The finish did come out of nowhere giving the match a much flatter finish than it needed. Kacy/Ripley was a mixed bag. Kacy was very hit and miss here missing a few spots in the match although they did a surprisingly good job covering when this blown spots happened. Ripley put in another strong performance although she could use a better finisher. I like Conti in her match with Lacy Lane. She busted out a bunch of nasty judo throws but I thought her best highlight was the kicks to Lane's hands when she was trying to pull her out of the corner. Meiko/Mercedes was awesome. It might just be one of the stiffest worked matches in WWE history, right up there with Garvin/Valentine and Benoit/Regal. 

There are certain matches that will be watched in 20 years and the people who know, understand and study the detailed art form that pure competitor Pro Wrestling can achieve will look back on and recommend to study. This match was one of them. Brilliant. https://t.co/RtvxwKdj4t

— William Regal (@RealKingRegal) October 4, 2018

[NintendoLogic]

I liked Meiko/Mercedes, but I thought it was ridiculous how the announcers were putting it over as an instant all-time classic like it was Flair/Steamboat or HBK/Undertaker. Then again, maybe I was salty after my girl Conti got robbed. She belonged in the final 8.

[El-P]

8 minutes ago, NintendoLogic said:

I liked Meiko/Mercedes, but I thought it was ridiculous how the announcers were putting it over as an instant all-time classic like it was Flair/Steamboat or HBK/Undertaker.

Because the entire history of joshi puroresu doesn't exist in the WWE Universe, so there you go. By the same respect, how odd is it that each year some japanese girls shows up and, well, shows up every other worker. Wonder why... hum... Coincidence maybe ?

[jushin muta liger]

2 hours ago, El-P said:

Because the entire history of joshi puroresu doesn't exist in the WWE Universe, so there you go. By the same respect, how odd is it that each year some japanese girls shows up and, well, shows up every other worker. Wonder why... hum... Coincidence maybe ?

I didn't want to even hint to this on Twitter because it would start WWIII on Wrestling Twitter but it's true. Every Japanese woman wrestler that WWE has employed (even we can even date back to the 80s with the JBAs) has been head and shoulders above the rest of the women in ring. I heard Jeff Hawkins joke on STR that they should make the women in the PC sign waivers and go to another dojo where Meiko, Io and Kairi can train them in any way to get them to be badasses in ring.

I know women's wrestling in North America hasn't had the space like Japan has in terms of the abundance of women's wrestling in that country and I know that SDR and Sarah Stock are helping them change that but there's a common thread in what people are praising who are watching the tournament. 

[Tenese Sarwieh]

Now we're getting to the good stuff. I'm all in on Kacy Catanzaro and it's shame she's already at the PC. She could do great things going over to Stardom, Sendai, or all over the world then coming back to learn the WWE style. Martinez/Satomura was fantastic, intense and stiff at it's finest. And no it's not a coincidence about the skill level of performers coming out of Japan. They just focus on the wrestling and you find your character stuff on excursion. 

[donsem43]

The problem with that viewpoint is that it wouldn't be hard to replace every overrated/mediocre/bad woman from U.S./Europe in this tournament and replace them with a overrated/mediocre/bad joshi wrestler. The WWE has just been lucky enough to bring in the women that they have. There's also a lot of obviously inherent problems with NXT that is hurting the development of not just women, but quite a few men as well. Highly doubt if you shipped all of the women from the Performance Center off to various dojos in Japan that everyone of them would come back as some sort of super-worker. Alex Lee and Heidi Katrina have both trained with Satomura for awhile and both have improved but neither of them are people I would go out of my way to watch. 

 

[jushin muta liger]

23 hours ago, donsem43 said:

The problem with that viewpoint is that it wouldn't be hard to replace every overrated/mediocre/bad woman from U.S./Europe in this tournament and replace them with a overrated/mediocre/bad joshi wrestler. The WWE has just been lucky enough to bring in the women that they have. There's also a lot of obviously inherent problems with NXT that is hurting the development of not just women, but quite a few men as well. Highly doubt if you shipped all of the women from the Performance Center off to various dojos in Japan that everyone of them would come back as some sort of super-worker. Alex Lee and Heidi Katrina have both trained with Satomura for awhile and both have improved but neither of them are people I would go out of my way to watch. 

 

Alex and Heidi aren't super workers by any means but they're better than some of these women in the tournament for sure. Heidi is still learning but Alex Lee got brought back to for this MYC, people would be praising her right now. Same with Kris Wolf if they brought her in. 

Just look at last year with Viper as I saw a lot of joshi fans would crap on her years before but when the rest of the wrestling fan audience saw her in the MYC, she got a heap of praise. 

Tessa Blanchard is another example as she improved a lot after she did a tour with Stardom as she worked a typical WWE style before. 

You're right that most of the mediocre women won't become super workers with Japanese training (i.e. Chelsea Green and Xia Brookside) but it seems to help.  

[Ricky Jackson]

First ep of the second round kicked ass, one of my favorite wrestling shows of the year. Satomura winning made me pop like a kid again. Kacy had a star making performance. Some really good talent on display here 

[NintendoLogic]

Pretty much everybody was much higher on the Meiko match than I was on first viewing, so I decided to revisit it. I'm still not feeling it, at least not as much as some others. The opening chain wrestling felt pretty aimless, like they were going from one hold to another just to keep things moving rather than capitalizing on openings. Things picked up after Mercedes slapped Meiko in the ear, and it turned into quite the slugfest. I wasn't really feeling Mercedes following up the fisherman buster kickout with a surfboard since I don't think anyone bought that as a potential match-ender, but everything else was on point. Still, it felt more like a high-end Nitro match than an all-time classic. I did really like Mercedes deadweighting herself after the Scorpion Rising so Meiko had to struggle to roll her over to get the pin.

[El-P]

37 minutes ago, NintendoLogic said:

Still, it felt more like a high-end Nitro match than an all-time classic.

Of course it is. Mercedes didn't impress me that much last year either. I did check out this match because of the hype, and yeah, what you said. But since it happened in the WWE, it's pimped like it was some kind of great match (whereas I'm sure Meiko had about a few hundred matches as good as this one in the last 20 years, and I was never a huge Meiko fan back in the days of joshi craze either, so it's not me assuming things about an old favourite).

[Tenese Sarwieh]

Limb work heavy on this week episode which I'm all down for. Io could've sold a bit more with the shoulder. Love the finish to Li/Purrazzo with Purrazzo using a variation of the rings of saturn. Good stuff all around.

[NintendoLogic]

I'm kind of surprised Io hasn't hit the moonsault cleanly in either of her matches so far. I hope it's just nerves.

[Robert S]

Nicole Matthews' battle with her top was too funny. She had to adjust it after every move to ensure her boobs not popping out.

[rovert]

2 hours ago, Robert S said:

Nicole Matthews' battle with her top was too funny. She had to adjust it after every move to ensure her boobs not popping out.

Not if you like her or think a lot of her talent. She's a SHIMMER Champion and continuously repped by Bayley and Becky Lynch for a reason.

I dunno if was a subconscious self-sabotage thing but in general, MYC was FAR from her best work by some margin even ignoring the issues with her gear.

Mia Yim had similar issues round 1/night 1 but had the benefit of living in Orlando and having her seamstress on location.

[sek69]

Well it wouldn't matter if Matthews had a good showing or not since she's apparently banned from the US for five years for visa reasons.

[rovert]

13 minutes ago, sek69 said:

Well it wouldn't matter if Matthews had a good showing or not since she's apparently banned from the US for five years for visa reasons.

Her not directly commenting about that situation publicly should tell you something about her intent to appeal that.

[NotJayTabb]

Not suggesting it's likely, but if she did have a good showing, they could still use her in NXT UK

[TonyPulis'Cap]

Having now finished watching the 2nd round matches, I think the tournament is ticking along nicely and feels like it's building to match up's you really want to see. Looking at the final 8, it's hard to argue with any of them, outside of Lacey Lane who feels out of her depth. I think a far more compelling story would've been Conti dispatching and bullying around two inexperienced girls only to get her comeuppance when she tries that with Meiko. Alas, not to be. 

While episode 5 had the two best matches in Meiko vs Martinez, and Storm vs Matsumoto, I thought episode 6 was really consistent, and I enjoyed all the matches outside of the Lane/Conti match for the reasons I've already outlined. Xia Li showed a ton of potential in her match with Deonna, and you feel that if she keeps developing she could definitely be someone that could make an impact.

Kaitlyn vs Mia Yim felt like two words colliding in a way; one who was making her way on the main roster during the end of the 'Divas' era while the other had worked all over the Indie scene, but it combined for a really good match. I loved the limb work they were both going for and the carry over storyline of Yim's injured hand. Loved Kaitlyn going after the wrist in nasty fashion, while there was some great selling when she collapsed going for a suplex because of the work on her leg (which nicely also played into the finish). There was also a great nearfall on the spear as well. I'm happy Yim went through, as I'm a big fan, but Kaitlyn did more than enough here to show that she could make an impression in wrestling again if that's what she wants to do. I'll be intrigued to see where she chooses to take things over the next year.     

[Downend2005]

Just watching the quarter finals...

Meiko vs Lacey Lane was Lacey’s best match yet, although that almost goes without saying. Meiko threw some awesome kicks throughout the match. The finish coming out of nowhere did hurt it a little bit.

Io vs Deonna was good, but nobody in that crowd thought Deonna had any realistic chance of winning. Io whiffed on the moonsault for the third match running too, which kind of undermines her ‘genius of the sky’ nickname. This one was so noticeable that even the commentary made reference to it.

Tegan vs Rhea was absolutely heartbreaking to watch. I’ve never seen a crowd go so silent instantly. The YouTube video of her apologising to Triple H for getting injured was so sad to watch as well. Props to Rhea for holding it together in difficult circumstances. Im getting a huge Pete Dunne vibe from her in terms of her character work.

I want to like Toni Storm, but I do find her a little bit hammy at times. Toni vs Mia Yim was fine, and I really like that Mia’s hand injury from the first round ultimately proved to be her undoing, but I actually think both women had better matches in the second round.

[Al]

Now that Tegan has revealed the extent of the injury, how in the hell did she get up and stumble around on that?!

[Downend2005]

41 minutes ago, Al said:

Now that Tegan has revealed the extent of the injury, how in the hell did she get up and stumble around on that?!

She was clearly seriously hurt on the initial dive, but my best guess is that her running the ropes and putting weight on an already injured leg afterwards compounded the injuries further. She instantly signals to the referee to stop the match after taking the dropkick.