[1996-04-07-JWP-Light Up Night] Bolshoi Kid vs Rieko Amano

[Ma Stump Puller]

This repeats some of the bits from their first match together but also recontextualizes them in cool ways, like Amano's hit and run antics from the last match getting swiftly shut down quickly while Bolshoi changes focus from the arm to instead the head for this outing, going for really mean-looking sleeper holds while wangling on the mat. Watching the first match to this, you can really see the tangible improvments from the two in terms of how they're stringing things together, even if there's still occasional sloppiness. Amano in turn decides "hey that's pretty cool" and decides to also spam them out herself via using Bolshoi's mask for leverage. They go from that to Bolshoi trying for her fancy springboard spots like crossbodies and whatnot; those are fairly solid even if Amano can't really match that with her own significantly limited offence. It's nice that they do build off the last match more by having Bolshoi try to catch Amano out with her Tiger Feint spot (which worked perfectly the first time) only for Amano to just run in mid-bit to shove her to the outside lol. I also loved how this went from generic rear-naked chokes/spots for the first few minutes before turning into Bolshoi pulling out a pipe and just swinging on Amano's head a bunch, which for obvious reasons was quite awesome. Bolshoi's uncharacteristically hardcore antics are all to rattle both her opponent and Ozaki in the audience, culminating in Amano getting slammed into a table multiple times right in front of her. The bladejob right after is surprisingly effective, as is Bolshoi mixing in the occasional working of the colour alongside stiff dropkicks to the face.

There is, admittedly, some jank in places. One instance that comes to mind has Amano going way over when catching Bolshoi off a crossbody to the point of almost DDT'ing herself on the canvas as a result due to the overextension. Thankfully this mostly comes through via small bits and pieces rather than potentially super dangerous bits like that. Amano does do a pretty sweet O'Connor Roll into a armbreaker that legitimately got me hype but of course the trappings of this being a established act/rookie match means she has to go back to random top rope stuff, shame. The last couple of minutes are probably the best work out of the two yet as they focus more on the drama of mat-work as the rookie Amano manages to get a couple of flash submissions, including one off a top rope Uranage that was especially nifty.

This translates well into the finish as we get some solid bombs leading up to Amano's goofy fighting spirit letting her shake off every one of them for submissions, forcing Bolshoi to go for a particularly impressive headscissors using the arm as a lever for more leverage, allowing for the submission victory. Better than the first match by a good mile and the two seemed to have a better idea of what they wanted to do. The no-selling is pretty bad in places (Like any spots off the top-rope that are shrugged off just never sits well with me given it kinda trivialises the risk/reward of typically going up there)  but it makes sense for the drama of Amano trying to push through enough to finally get a proper win to show she's not a lightweight. It's also fun seeing Bolshoi go for more of a rudo-brawler style, with her doing a good job at conducting the match with plenty of control spots while gracefully letting Amano throw her around when required. You'd never think someone as relatively small as her would tangibly work as a bully, yet she rolls with it with relative ease.