Yuiga vs. The World: A Mini-Dive into Intergender Sleaze

[Ma Stump Puller]

Other Deep Dive stuff

Introduction

Ok so unless you are big big into small Japanese indies like 666 or NEO or whatever, chances are you haven't even heard of Yuiga: that's perfectly fine because her impact in any major indie is minimal, at best a undercard worker, at worst a random face in a rumble or big tag. Her more significant contributions come from her own promotion via Batos Cafe Entertainment, wherein she's basically done a crap-ton of main event matches there either being hardcore shtick or trying to work shoot-style against beefy heavyweights, with consistent matches throughout the year. These were lost footage until they started being released on a drip-feed via their YT account, which also includes some surprisingly good Minoru Tanaka shtick and other random showings that are probably decent enough to check out. As of now we have around about 13 Yuiga main events available, and I figured I'd go though them in the usual format because I wanted to document my curiosity and how that led to finding legitimately awesome matches from a no-budget indie, which you can follow along with at the same pace. 

 

W/ Drake Morimatsu vs. Shinigami & Tarzan Goto (????? Battle Sphere 30.10.2004)

Wasn't even known to have been a thing until this was uploaded out of the blue last year after Goto passed. This is probably the best Yuiga hardcore match out of the bunch, and that's mainly because of Tarzan Goto, obviously. He's semi-retired, pretty out of shape and not particularly agile, but he gives so much socks for Yuiga here, bumping hard for her judo throw for the burst of action in the starting stages before firmly taking control with weapons and the like. Yuiga is a trooper as well, with her spending most of the match selling and eating some nasty offence from both of the rival team but especially Tarzan who just throws her around, throws Southern-style punches to the face and vicious headbutts, laughing all the while about it. Morimatsu just plain isn't very good bar the hardcore shtick but she does her job fine as a scummy indie act who kicks people in the balls and hits hard. Shinigami is mostly here in small dozes as Goto's goon sidekick who usually is the one doing the most selling for the comebacks, nothing offensive but nothing memorable either. There's some rough stuff here including a Yuiga top rope judo throw that turns into a head slam right onto a table essentially and there's some timing issues for sure, but the Yuiga/Goto interactions are super enjoyable and hard-hitting as hell, ending quick after a lariat and powerbomb into a not-so fancy barbed wire table gets the pin on her. Definitely not for everyone but I thought this was a fairly strongly put together match by mostly the beefy ex-AJPW lad, who makes the shaky Yuiga look a lot better than she actually is despite some spirited attempts. Watch if you want more Goto action after his big 90's boom. 

 

Vs. Aki Shizuki (07.06.2014)

Ah yes, some for some IGF.....Indie Girls Fighting? I mean, I guess? This was alright. Yuiga's big passion bar the hardcore stuff was shoot-style, which she has pressed a couple of times like with this self-produced show. Shizuku is a Ishikawa trainee so she knows her way around the mat, but this for the most part was just a lot of "your turn/my turn" submission stuff that felt mostly like UWF cosplay, like I could just stick on a UWF 89' match and I'd probably get more depth and faster pace with those guys. Not to say it was bad given the two women clearly knew what they were doing, it just felt bit hollow. Then they go into generic forearm exchanges and Shizuku starts doing some shoddy day-1 wrestling school offence (elbow drop, corner lariat, scoop slam, chokeslam) and they lose me for a good while. Yuiga looks better with a mean Fisherman's Suplex into cross armbreaker using the arm Shizuku used to kick out, but she doesn't like.....defend the armbreaker at all, her defence is just sitting in the hold and crawling to the ropes slowly, which would've worked in the 80's but just looked weird here.

Back to forearms, they tease a apron suplex but it never comes. Shizuku has some nifty arm manipulation shtick as she goes into a Fujiwara armbar, then modifies into a cradle, then back to the armbar again when her opponent kicks out. The two pick up the pace a bit as Yuiga slaps on quick rolls for flash pin attempts alongside stiff roundhouse kicks to the head and even her signature spinning Fisherman's suplex for a near fall. Yuiga's work is fairly strong and she definitely carries the impactful part of this match: not to say the opponent is completely off, but a lot of their stuff by comparison just doesn't look particularly clean, bar her lariats which are pretty great and probably the only thing that looks like it could actually knock someone out.

The two spam submissions and some big bombs by Shizuku as she goes full Taue-mode with angry chokeslams and whatnot, nothing gets the job done. Bell rings before a proper pinfall can finish the job. This was fairly disjointed in places and not going to lie, it wasn't the cleanest by a mile. With that said I think Yuiga holds most of this together with her nifty mix of flips, submissions, and move-chaining to get the job done against the taller/more imposing opponent. Shizuku definitely wasn't the most seasoned as her offence flipped between looking solid or really shoddy: usually no real in-between. It's fine for a indie show of this.....calibre and definitely isn't bad, just a bit all over the place. I think they went a little bit too long as well as the two were really just repeating themselves by the 12 minute mark. The two have a better match next year in Marvelous so just watch that, I suppose.

 

W/ Shinjiro Otani vs. GENTARO & Takashi Sasaki (15.03.2015)

FREEDOMS vs the rag-tag Otani and co sounds like a good match for what it is. The starting sequences are fairly slow, especially with Otani in the ring as we mostly don't get any action. Sasaki tries getting cocky with Yuiga and ends up eating shit as he ends up getting hit with some nasty stiff kicks to the leg before he takes over with a eye rake and some outside brawling. This actually was kind of funny though as Yuiga kept hiding behind people in the crowd, so Sasaki had to chase them off or work some silly stuff to get around them in the first place. Sasaki tries throwing weak slaps at Yuiga and she just immediately has none of that light nonsense as she pulls out some angry slaps and even her signature gross shoot headbutt. A second one isn't so successful as Sasaki eats it and goes for a sudden spin kick to knock her down.

GENTARO has more headbutts but thankfully these are the safe, pro-style worked ones. He's also a huge shit as he takes Yuiga trying to throw forearms seriously enough to immediately start working the throat (!!!) namely with a dirty 80's style sneaky choke alongside chokeslam to boot, as well as outright slapping it; all of this rules, obviously. The middle half of this is mostly the two doing solid old-school heel stuff like pulling the hair and face, GENTARO shoving himself between Yuiga and the ropes to stop her getting rope breaks. It's basic shtick but it works given the quality of the two doing it. Otani comes in for the face washes and usual drab B-show spots but GENTARO awesomely counters one attempted wash into a fancy rolling Scorpion Death Lock, which Yuiga has to break up via kicking his shoulder to death. Sasaki has some fun enough stuff with a ton of cheesy leg-slap strikes and Otani gets in a slick flying kick to crawl for a hot tag.

Yuiga does her usual sequences, but then just slaps the shit out of Sasaki with a actual good backhand slap to the face alongside a roundhouse, slapping on her spinning Fisherman suplex for a near fall. We get a fairly generic burst of action for the finish as Otani tries to keep Yuiga out of trouble, eventually falls, and GENTARO grabs the win with a rough lariat and three big backdrops in succession. This was a enjoyable match for what it was; we get a fair chunk of just really simple, really effective ring-work. Otani is probably the least interesting as he's kinda settled into his usual tag shtick that you always see him doing for diminishing returns, just slower and not as impressive as prior years. Sasaki and co were real fun though, even with the abundance of crappy leg-slap stuff, being strong heels with mostly smooth stuff under the bag and alongside a very hard-hitting but competently solid Yuiga, this wasn't anything bad at all and definitely worth the watch if in the mood for some relatively harmless and at times impressive indie stuff.

 

Vs. Takashi Sasaki (09.12.2015)

Gross BJW-style deathmatch involving lots of tacks, but worked fairly minimalistic in comparison to that kind of style. They wrestle normally for about a minute before we get some outside brawling (can't see any of it in the venue itself so it's a waste of time for the viewer) and Sasaki bringing in chairs. We get some sloppy bits but also just some downright rough stuff as Sasaki slams Yuiga into chairs and she in turn gets to hit him in the head with one alongside her usual janky roundhouses. She pours the jacks over herself and Sasaki like a goof but ends up getting slammed into them herself as per tradition. The middle half is the usual Yuiga heat segment as Sasaki does some stuff with the tacks, namely sticking them into her head, a suplex, etc etc. They at least do well at building up Sasaki eventually having to bump himself as his opponent wears him down with forearms and the like. Eventually he falls to a really crisp judo throw and he then has to get cut up by said tacks.

The two exchange dumb headbutts before we get a superplex set-up exchange with the two trying to battle the other for the right to do said superplex. Sasaki wins out by sticking more tacks into Yuiga by just taking them off his body, gross stuff. She eventually comes back with forearms and more headbutts, but Sasaki quickly takes back control with a big backdrop. We get more headbutts into a Fisherman's suplex onto the tacks themselves for a near fall. Yuiga puts a chair and tacks on Sasaki before doing her usual weird-looking leg first splash for another one. We get the first overt botch of the match as Sasaki is supposed to roll away from Yuiga's second rope senton, but he does it way too slowly and Yuiga falls Jeff Hardy-style with the senton anyway, so it's all of her back with little give, ouch indeed.

I also think Yuiga fucked her foot on the splash because she hobbles from here on to the finish, but they manage to cope as Sasaki eats a nasty German suplex onto the end of a chair before he just takes over with bombs and some good-looking kicks. He lands the D-Geist to finally put this one to bed. This was very sloppy in places and while Sasaki generally is accepted as a great hardcore guy in some circles he didn't do a whole lot to convince me of it here: nearly everything was fairly basic for a hardcore match, just chairs and tacks for everything and even what was done was a bit tame by comparison to the "8075 Thumbtacks Death" stipulation. Yuiga was also noticeably not great here either; idk why but she gets a lot more sloppy when she's working these kind of matches. This had some mean stuff in it for sure, the match as a whole was unimpressive and lacked much of a edge. 

 

Vs. Shinobu (06.03.2016)

Shinobu is some lanky lad who looks not particularly threatening before he starts doing really nasty snappy chops and dropkicks to the head. He also slams his opponent on the bare ass floor outside with absolutely not a care in the world alongside a suplex for shits and giggles. It's definitely one of those E-tier indie main events where they just go for the rough stuff right away for the big pops. I will say Shinobu isn't completely all that as he does have a nifty Misawa-style twisting neckcrank, and he loves doing dropkicks to the head all the time here. He's super indie-tier for sure but charming enough for a Yuiga showcase, so she spends most if not all of the first half selling and bumping until she gets her signature shine with a judo throw and then a random Kendo Kashin rolling cross armbreaker for no reason. Usual Fisherman suplexes mixed in with surprisingly good submission chaining. Shinobu gets in his goofy stuff but it isn't too overwhelming.

Yuiga focuses in on the arm in the second half as her big break, so we get a lot of work based around it with not a lot of selling beyond said work, so while it looks good it doesn't really add to much. They build up the tension well with both wrestlers having to brave though some bombs before Yuiga throws stiff ass forearms and headbutts to get Shinobu shaken up enough for the spinning Fisherman's suplex and German suplex for separate near falls. Eventually Shinobu manages to run though Yuiga's tricks, landing two particularly mean lariats and a crisp Shooting Star Press for the victory. This is alright but not particularly great in any real way I can think of: while it builds logically, the match itself isn't particularly tension filled and Shinobu is a bit naff when it comes to actually bringing anything unique to the table here.

While he had nice moves and shit felt stiff, he didn't really sell or create any urgency to take the win against his opponent. Yuiga as per usual brings good selling alongside her chunky offence, but I would definitely say she felt more....focused, if that makes any sense? Like you can tell she was trying to win here as opposed to her opponent kinda just being around. Not bad, certainly lacking.

 

Vs. Kazuhiro Tamura (14.05.2016)

Tamura is a strange STYLE-E lad who loves shoot-style, so of course he gets the chance to grapple with Yuiga. They work some comedy into the early exchanges as Tamura keeps getting slapped randomly for his troubles. Tamura throws some weird leg-locks here, like a legit shoot Figure-Four and Inoki-style Indian Deathlock. Yuiga does a little bit of cheating with some hair-pulls and good old fashioned kicks to the back. She also does some Fujiwara-style trolling as she pokes the ref in the eye so that she can rub the forearm into Tamura's face during a neck crank alongside just randomly slapping his face; alongside the equally as good dropkick to the head she does afterwards this was some solid starting work. Tamura gets caught into a Figure-Four but eventually escapes, with Yuiga doing a follow-up by going for a gnarly high-angle reverse-Cloverleaf. 

Tamura manages to get her down via leverage before escaping for a super quick cross armbreaker that Yuiga is completely exposed by, forcing her to quickly reach for the ropes in grand panic-selling, which damages her arm in the process of doing so. Tamura stomps the shit out of said arm afterwards, marking this as the big weakness he'll be working on for his section. Tamura is beastly on the mat as well, converting a reversed Fujiwara armbar into a nasty double wrist lock and really twisting for max effect. His shotgun sounding kicks on top of everything else are wonderful, really puts everything all together. The fact it lasts as long as it does (which is a fair while) is definitely daring but it works, and Yuiga's selling garners easy sympathy as she tries to mount multiple comebacks only to be met with hard kicks. Her eventual Wilkins-ish comeback rocks as well, just going nuts with Northern Lights suplexes, roundhouses and judo throws, finishing off with a tight head/arm side mount choke for a close submission win.

Last few minutes are shaky in places but mostly kept strongly together as Yuiga throws everything she's got into beating her opponent with some risky dives and slaps but ultimately comes undone after Tamura weathers the storm and manages to get in a cross armbreaker: when Yuiga tries to arch out of it he adjusts for a seated Fujiwara armbar instead, forcing the tap-out. This was honestly pretty bloody great for a random 50-person indie show. It starts slow with some well-meaning comedy but really picks up steam after the Figure-Four spot as the two just bend and kick the crap out of the other. Super enjoyable Battlarts-style romp that never goes into overkill mode, with the pacing just long enough to appreciate what's on display here, clocking at about 17 minutes. Really great stuff, probably the match most worth watching out of this whole Mini-Dive. 

 

Vs. Tatsuhito Takaiwa (03.07.2016)

Not satisfied with deathmatches and scary shoot-style matches, Yuiga does further by going 1 on 1 with Takaiwa. She tries for some grappling and takedowns but Takaiwa quickly takes control as he counters a particular takedown attempt into a rough side headscissors and double wrist lock before she hits the ropes to escape. Mean vet Takaiwa rules so much more than his generic spot-spamming self, and you really get to see why by how vicious he is despite the minimalistic style he brings to the table here. He's all about just mangling on the mat or hitting mean strikes whenever possible with the energy of someone who just got out of bed like ten minutes ago, it's great. Yuiga has good selling and she works strongly from underneath with whatever she can muster but as you can imagine Takaiwa just blasts everything with more stiff shots and/or lariats when he meets resistance.

She's eventually able to get a suplex in after stomping on Takaiwa's feet to unsteady him in a goofy little bit as well as a Fisherman's Suplex. Top rope move is undone as Takaiwa headbutts her in the stomach to get in his signature superplex instead for a near fall. Takaiwa plays around a bit as he tries for some painful looking submissions, as well as a scoop slam on the concrete for no reason outside of just being a ass. He continues the beating with more lariats and a mean top rope elbow drop for a near fall. Yuiga is uber desperate and goes for a low blow and small package to try to get a flash pin before having to resort to her uber-dangerous gross stiff headbutts and a German suplex for a big near fall.

The two scrap but Takaiwa just goes full murder-mode with a Driller, a lariat, vicious powerbomb and a Death Valley for the pinfall. This could've been a regular Takaiwa squash and to be fair it mostly was, I have to admit though that the 100-something crowd absolutely get so invested into this, which is helped by Yuiga taking big bumps and selling strongly. It helps that Yuiga can actually hit pretty hard and looks good with her own shine spots, so this isn't just a gross one-sided beating that you feel weird watching after a few minutes. Takaiwa takes over most of this though, so it's mostly a vicious heel performance which I thought was enjoyable enough to bump this up a peg or two. Real good action here despite the simple dynamic. 

 

Vs. Daisuke (02.10.2016)

Daisuke was a GUTS vet who was decent for the time, sadly having to retire just as he was starting to get some exposure. He's not super great (in fact I'd say he's one of the weaker opponents here) but a reasonable worker for the Yuiga spotlight. They do some polite locking up before Yuiga just slaps the shit out of the guy, and from there we get a good little burst of violence as the two exchange strikes. They then go into some ho-hum mat-work that wasn't terrible: I did like the focus on foot-based submissions, and Daisuke has some goofy counters like trying to roll into a lucha-style cradle and whatnot. He also throws some really nasty forearms when Yuiga tries pushing her luck against the guy, and in response she goes for a low blow and her signature gross headbutt bit. We get some smart work as she focuses on Daisuke's arm to weaken his strikes, mainly with kicks and the usual shoot-style throws and submissions. Daisuke doesn't really sell any of this though as he just casually uses strikes anyway. I do like how him being cocky costs him the advantage though as he ends up eating way too much damage from eating forearms and other strikes, with the tide turning after a superplex.

Yuiga goes though her usual Fisherman suplex spam until Daisuke lands a neat Tenryu-style Enzuigiri and then a suplex variation of a Michinoku Driver for a near fall. He tries for a lame Sliding D but is dodged and gets met with a gross roundhouse to the head. They go back to the arm work as Yuiga just spams out more submissions and kicks, she gets dropped by a lariat with the other arm instead. I thought the finish tease with Yuiga countering the top rope frog splash into a triangle armbar was particularly strong, as was the continuality of Daisuke trying to power out of this one like the first time only to fail because of arm fatigue and almost losing altogether when he does so. The finish is a bit weak as Yuiga throws a great German suplex however Daisuke puts her down with a lariat, frog splash, and Sliding D for the pin.

This was decent enough for what it was, hampered by Daisuke's limitations and some sequences repeating themselves to pad this out slightly. Daisuke isn't bad or anything but he is a bit samey for a worker and he doesn't really add anything unique against Yuiga par generic stuff I've already seen better wrestlers do better than him. Yuiga was as solid as she usually is but this never quite got proper "good" if that makes any sense, never got to the next level.

 

Vs. Kintaro Kanemura (12.12.2016)

I came into this expecting to really hate it as I think Kanemura is at best a goofy guy who can do dumb bullshit hardcore fests competently, but he isn't a good wrestler whatsoever and he's a even worse person given his allegations. What I at least appreciate is that they cut the nonsense and went right into the hardcore sthick from the get-go, with Kanemura bringing out the barbed bat for a few shots and the usual raking spot. This was about 3 minutes of the match as Kanemura wandered around and occasionally did something. His stuff generally isn't great-looking and we get about a million barbed wire shots to the back on top of that to pad this out. Yuiga takes over with a low blow and sets up a table on the outside for a big top rope splash that admittedly she managed to pull off, in fact it looked better than almost all of her normal splashes lol.

Kanemura runs in with a table chunk after Yuiga sets up some chairs and they battle over the chunk before Kanemura ends up going though the set of chairs with a Fisherman's Suplex, cool spot. The second half of this is where things kinda just settle for being meh as the two hit chair shots, Yuiga does her Fisherman Suplex onto them before Kanemura barely gets up for a slam into a stack of the things. Yuiga tries for a splash but gets countered into a superplex onto them for a near fall. Finish is a wet fart as Kanemura just hits two chair shots afterwards for the win. This wasn't bad, certainly wasn't very much good either, Kanemura by this point was just done physically and he can't do anything bar chair shots and weak offence.

This is also if I recall his final on-screen match as this was his fourth last match altogether (although I'm not 100% sure about that) everything afterwards was on indies that weren't sold or filmed anywhere to my knowledge, so this is his final big appearance. There's SOME vintage value in that if you want to be optimistic but otherwise this is a really weak hardcore match that honestly didn't even feel that hardcore after the initial shock of the blood. Really meh and even Yuiga selling her ass off couldn't save this from dying a quick death. 

 

Vs. Masato Tanaka (06.12.2017)

This is a pretty enjoyable Tanaka paced match: it helps that the structure turns it into his usual bomb-fest in a logical manner as Tanaka initially tries to work over the head with some surprisingly robust and aggressive mat-work, namely with headlocks and a couple front-face locks. Yuiga ends up punching Tanaka in the face to escape his holds, and that's how he snaps and goes into his usual angry elbows and chops. There's a good theme here where Tanaka will really make Yuiga earn her big comeback spots, like she wiffs a school boy transition slightly and rather than going down for a bad-looking move, he instead just kneels and tries choking her out with his knee while she's still trying to do said hold.

There's a real feeling of uncooperation here and of Tanaka just really trying to wangle his stuff in as best as possible, especially with head work. His strikes are as always flush, and Yuiga in turn throws out some stiff judo throws and hard ass forearms in response in the right moments. Basically the entire match is just the two beating the crap out of the other in a big arms race to see who'll go down first, and I will say that kind of match tends to kick ass when Tanaka is involved so while it was samey, I can't really complain about it that much. Yuiga gets in some solid shoot-style submission attempts and as time goes on she gets more desperate, throwing out the last-ditch headbutts and then snapping for funky lucha roll-ups to try to clinch a win. The only real issue is that they botch the spinning Fisherman Suplex spot and have to reset, but other than that this was pretty smooth all things considered.

Tanaka lands all of his really rough offence including a horrific brainbuster for a near fall: ultimately winning out with a lariat, frog splash, and then a big Sliding D for the pin. As I stated this was a usual Tanaka-paced match, you don't really get much else different bar some logical pacing on top of everything else. Yuiga is definitely not the smoothest but her hybrid work is really interesting and she has a natural charm that allows her to get audiences pumped for her comebacks fairly easily. Good stuff for what it was.

 

W/ UTAMARO vs. Hideki Suzuki & MIKAMI (17.06.2018)

This was rough shit to watch, but in a good, low-budget indie kind of way. Suzuki's better matches come when he's just allowed to be a giant monster and not just a Billy Robertson clone, and that's exactly what we get here as his main feud of the match is Yuiga, who despite being a female Joshi gets ZERO leeway from Suzuki as per her other intergender showings. I do like how Suzuki approaches this dynamic though, he kinda lets her play around for a minute or so on the mat for some lackadaisical rolling around and defence before just snapping with a nasty head stomp. His lack of agency at the start and subsequent explosion of violence feels real mean for what it is. MIKAMI by comparison is noticeably far more gentle and forgettable as a result, he's competent though. Suzuki eats a lot from Yuiga to play up the huge gap between them: he's kinda like a cat playing with his food, he lets her just explode with forearms and slaps, get the crowd get their hopes up a bit before just trying to snap the arm, doing Tenryu punts to the head, all the real nasty stuff. He's so lackadaisical about it as well, like he'd just do petty things for the sake of it despite this being a no-stakes match just because he can. 

UTAMARO is a real generic Jr heavyweight, does fancy convoluted spots that look fake as anything, like a top rope cutter that they spend like 5 seconds standing around in position waiting for and then a overdramatic kneeling DDT that I swear I seen the Miz doing better than this guy. Not a insult to the guy, but.....still, you know? MIKAMI counters eventually into a really silly spinning Codebreaker before landing a better looking middle rope West Coast Pop to knock the guy down before landing a weird jumping knee. Thankfully the last few minutes are dedicated to Suzuki and Yuiga kicking seven shades of shit out of the other because this part of the match just kinda shits on their spot-fest. Yuiga really sells the few moments where she actually has the advantage by just going as hard as possible to try to drag out things to the point where she could possibly win. Suzuki is a great bully as he goes for a rough heel-hook before getting cocky by allowing Yuiga to land forearms, slaps, and even a shoot headbutt. This almost puts him in danger as Yuiga takes his back after dodging his own slap to try for her German suplex but it's all for nothing as he manages to snap on a sleeper long enough to get a pinfall out of it.

Very rough viewing at points with the Suzuki/Yuiga stuff but they at least work it well into the match as the critical theme: it's not just a cheap heat afterthought for shock value which I utterly detest in all forms, it's actually used as a driving force in the match and means something. Suzuki is great, Yuiga was also solid albeit a bit shaky in small places. The two Jr heavyweights were complete afterthoughts and didn't add anything apart from bad-looking indie flips. That said, they don't intrude on the main quality much and were competent in their role as filler.

 

Vs. Jun Kasai (10.12.2018)

Yuiga once again risks life and limb against Jun Kasai, of all people. The crowd for this are super into it by the get-go, even the locking up and generic exchanges get them going and yelling a good bit. Of course this is all about the light tube stuff, and they get to that quick after about 3 minutes or so of teasing it. Kasai plays the heel here, so he's doing lots of gross stuff to get the big heat. I will say that this isn't the most.....polished match, I know that's expected from something as crazy as this but there is a good bit of sloppiness here, mostly from Kasai as he'll just occasionally fluff a spot or miss something, like a goofy dropkick or missing the light tubes for a DDT, the latter happening a lot.

Yuiga's kicks are also a bit so-so in places, though that might just be the sound quality as a good majority of the strikes have zero noise to them. Yuiga takes a bit to warm up to the match but soon she's doing knees though the tubes or just outright headbutting her way though them to get to Kasai's flesh. It's a standard Kasai match in that regard as he eats sick stuff before going for shit like a tube powerbomb or a angry lariat. The big spot involving Kasai getting his diving headbutt interrupted took WAY too long however and just looked sloppy, though Yuiga throwing headbutts for a superplex looked decent enough. The bad-looking Fisherman's suplex wasn't though, Kasai went for the rotation way too soon and as a result it looked particularly bad. The big spot near the end where Kasai did his skewer trick and lariat into tubes was solid, as was Yuiga kicking out of the finish to a huge reaction. Kasai then takes the win with a diving headbutt with the signature goggles.

This was certainly a match with a ton of heat as shown very easily by the crowd reaction to everything, I felt it was lacking much beyond the usual Kasai formula: he's not a guy I'm particularly high on in the first place and he doesn't add a lot here beyond some token heel gestures, mostly just doing a generic performance outside of that. Yuiga has some solid fire and certainly adapted solid to the hardcore shtick, she didn't click particularly well with Kasai as they botched, missed timing or didn't pace well between spots; there's a expected level of sloppiness in hardcore stuff given the nature of such matches but this was way, way beyond the acceptable limit, something was definitely in the water there. With that said this was still a decent if a bit empty Kasai-B show performance with nothing much to stand it out. 

 

Vs. Akira Jo (16.06.2019)

Akira Jo is mostly known for his scummy indie career, but interestingly enough he's also a Billy Robertson trainee who mostly used his legit mat-skills to job in the IGF for a while. He looks like a generic low-card hardcore guy that you'd see wandering around in Voodoo Murders or something, but he definitely proved otherwise though as he pulls out some fun stuff in the opening exchanges, namely a random Bulldog choke and a nifty rolling arm-wrench in side mount. Yuiga has some strong arm work as well which she uses to snap on multiple submissions and transitions whenever necessary. Middle part is Akira's heat segment so we get some listless outside brawling paired with some better strike exchanges, even if he's not really the best at doing that kind of stuff outside of the usual generic heel shtick you've seen a thousand times. Yuiga has to try to keep up, eventually doing so with a mean stiff headbutt to balance things out alongside nasty ground and pound.

She also throws out the usual conventionally impressive range of judo throws and suplexes, including a great German suplex and whatnot. Eventually Akira manages to no sell one long enough to land a well-done leg slap knee to the head for a dub spot. The finishing stretch is simply really well put together as the two blast the other with stiff shots, Yuiga using her speed and endurance to get in some snappy roundhouse kicks and more suplexes to get the guy off-balance. Akira kicking her mid-roundhouse attempt to then do a horrific head-slap superkick to her afterwards cements his advantage, that and even a big brainbuster can't get the win as Yuiga refuses to go down and lands some stiff slaps to try to resist.

Akira goes for another knee shot, with the finish being a rough Fujita-lite punt kick for the KO victory as the ref calls things off finally. I thought this was pretty robust for what it was, even if the outside brawling and beginning sections are listless and don't do a whole lot for the match as a whole. These two going back and forth could easily be stuck on a endlessly boring "big epic" style 30+ minute match with extended headlocks and limb work that is then ignored but they instead condense it down to a sub 15 minute match that also kicks much more ass than something like that would. Good watch alongside the other Yuiga matches in the Batos series, one of the better showings.

 

Vs. Hanako Nakamori (15.12.2019)

This was for Yuiga's 19th anniversary as was the general show. She apparently picked Nakamori for their tendencies to use Fisherman-style suplexes? I guess that's something to relate with. This starts with Yuiga knocking her around and some shticky outside shit that I didn't care a whole lot about, just some nonsense with trainees from PURE-J. The middle half is mostly the two exchanging some hard kicks for minutes on end, which was entertaining for what it was. Nakamori ultimately wins out with a top rope dropkick, and she goes though the signature stuff until Yuiga takes over with a superkick and Fisherman's suplex for a near fall.

She also pulls off a decent second rope splash and a good spinning Fisherman's suplex for a near fall before snapping on this bizarre submission I've legit never seen ever pulled off: it's like a inverted kneeling Cattle Mutilation, and it rules, just I've ever actually seen someone use it before so it threw me off for a minute. When Nakamori tries to escape, Yuiga modifies it into a reverse shoulder crank instead while maintaining the arch from the prior submission in a awesome spot. There's some silly stuff with a bad Nakamori knee and a double KO roundhouse for a dub spot (legit every version of this looks bad, stop doing it) before they start spamming forearms and Yuiga starts banging out stiff shots to compensate for missing others. Nakamori sells bad for a headbutt but goes up perfectly for a German suplex near fall.

Despite Yuiga's signature endurance spots against another Fisherman's suplex and whatnot, she goes down for a sitting roundhouse kick. This was enjoyable and downright good in places, but it does suffer from some random shtick, wiffed strikes and Nakamori's selling being pretty iffy for what it was. The stiffness is there and this is definitely great when it comes to the hard-hitting as Yuiga matches always bring, but I would be lying if I said this felt coherent. 

 

Conclusion

It does kinda feel weird not talking exclusively about GWE wrestlers but I figured this helps for a change of pace, and does help shine a small light on a surprisingly gem-ridden promotion nobody has heard of lol. I definitely won't be putting Yuiga anywhere on a top 100 but she's also someone that has absolutely surprised me in how she's normally presented (random undercard fodder) and what she can actually do on the main stage, combining really clunky strikes with a great knowledge of submission wrestling. It does go to show just how it's important to go beyond your comfort zone of what you expect, and why that's so important sometimes.

 

 

 

 

 

[Jetlag]

Yuiga is cool, I think she was trained in the WYF dojo or another sleaze indy company which is why she mostly stays around those sort of companies, she also books some awesome matches like GENTARO vs. Yuki Ishikawa, nice to see her brought up.

This match against Hikaru Sato was pretty tough:

 

[Ma Stump Puller]

new yuiga 

W/ Shinigami vs Katsunori Yoshida & Garoga No. 3 (Pro Wrestling Night-Mare 09.11.2005)

This was classic bottom of the barrel trashy indie stuff. Garoga is named after a obscure 70's Godzilla-related show and is just a big tubby lad with camo shorts and a mask, probably Arashi working off his gambling debts. Katsunori Yoshida seemed like the only legit wrestler there despite zero info on him as he just does really cool spots all over the place, the usual antics for that time all things considered. Shinigami does do a really sick Iron Claw Uranage though so this is instantly ***** already. Yuiga....is not very good here lol. She's relatively green and her limited experience in the relatively shoddy NEO promotion meant she was mostly bumping and selling. Her minor moments of offence were a very shaky judo throw, running neckbreaker and cross armbreaker before going back to bumping more. Yoshida does more springboards before Shini goes though some tables set up in the corner.

Yuiga comes in to stiff the two with table chunks and we get a nice mini-plunder brawl as her and co bring out a garbage can (!!!) and do goofy spots with it. She also got the chance to do a relatively flush German and Fisherman suplex for a near fall. Eventually Shinigami jobs after Garoga hits him with a messy Snake Eyes and lariat to finish things up. Relatively middle of the road low budget indie work but I didn't think it was bad or anything, everyone got their role and despite some messy moments there really wasn't any major dull moments. Check this out if you have some time to burn and you want to see some entertaining stuff.

 

W/ Yasushi Sato vs Aki Shizuku & Taro Yamada (Mumeijuku/Mutoha Declaration 13.07.2014)

This was a cool 30 minute stretch of super strong action. Sato and Yamada start off with some solid grappling, with Sato throwing on some especially tricky near falls as he just bent his opponent in all kinds of different directions to try to wangle in a early pin. Taro would get out of these but then get too comfortable throwing on cool submissions, allowing him to get caught multiple times. Shizuku/Yuiga have already faced off against each other at least two times over so they were more than comfortable working more traditionally shoot-ish mat stuff, with Yuiga having to endure multiple slams and submissions from the taller opponent. Shizuku looked pretty solid even when wangling with Sato as she mostly was able to counter his stuff, including a absolutely epic bit where he snapped on a inverted toe-hold and she basically deadlifted him Albright-style off and into a Cobra Twist. Yuiga also got into a slugfest with Yamada that ended with her destroying his balls and stomping on his ass lol. This continued with her doing some trolling as Sato got involved and they heeled it up for the middle half with double team antics and hair pulling.

Sato got in a groovy rolling Rings of Saturn that I wished someone stole because it looked nasty as anything. As per Yuiga-match standards it all built up to Yamada landing a disgustingly stiff headbutt to her to finally get the tag out. Shizuku and co traded leg locks and Yuiga got the very rare slingshot spot that didn't end in her hitting someone else. Last five minutes were just crazy as we got even more stupid stiff headbutts, freaky slams for near falls, and Yamada sticking on some bizarre rolling reverse La Campana just for the fun of it. Some funny interference bits and the standard "Yuiga stiffs someone with head shots" as per usual. Finish has some good tension all about the build to the draw as they frantically go for some sort of move to finish things up, but of course it never works. If trashy violence and some funky grappling appeals to your tastes then this is definitely one to enjoy, another high quality Mutoha match! 

 

Vs Kunihiko Mitamega (Pro Wrestling Wallabee Show Down 14.09.2014)

This was expected goofiness from such a matchup. Mitamega's whole thing is that he's just a bootleg Onita and Yuiga really has no issue beating him up on the mat or just twisting the guy in submissions for days. Mita has the occasional interesting bit but man was this dry as anything, just mostly real slow, real basic mat-work except there's no real tension because Yuiga just trumps this guy by leagues and leagues. The finish is dull as Yuiga doesn't even get the win, she just wins via DQ as fake Onita sprays mist while stuck in a Triangle armbar. Post-match makes fun of Onita's long promos by having Mita be talking shit for about 5+ minutes. Outside of that, really just nothing worth watching here, which is a shame because Yuiga in Wallabee could be pretty good with the right dance partner.