[1998-05-10-JWP Every Woman] Rieko Amano vs Tomoko Miyaguchi

[Ma Stump Puller]

A 30 minute draw that's NOT clipped to shit? Wow! Ran and Amano were two of the clear standout young talent at the time alongside the rest of the JWP Fab Four, so it makes sense that they'd be given the most room to stretch their legs and do work with the other. This was one of those matches where if you aren't a fan of grappling then this just isn't going to be up your alley because oh boy there's a ton of it here with so much time to burn through. Amano typically isn't very high on the pecking order but here she's supremely confident as her forte is all about mat-work and scrambling for submissions, something that is radically apparent here. She consistently forces Ran to grab for rope escapes and consistently is able to get her on the defensive; even when she's able to escape one hold she has another up her sleeve almost always to answer. They do the usual ways to make stuff like this more interesting with them slowly devolving into dirty shit to try to get the advantage (including a random stomach claw at one point? I dig it) and generally try to make things feel intense as the match goes forward and the two start to get tired of the other's antics. Around the 15 minute mark they start going into more expected work with signature spots and dives to the outside. It's not bad and the two certainly have good chemistry, but it does feel a bit sloppy in places despite the spirit going into this being a solid base, with a lot of it feeling just thrown out to pad out the time. I'd say after they tease the count-out is where the match starts to get tangibly better as they focus more on differing the two by Ran going for bombs and strikes while Amano hones in on the holds to try to eek out a win that way.

There's no long-term limb selling (which can bug some) other than that I really liked how this escalated from holds and counters to big huge moments before settling back into said holds. Amano is relentless with the cross armbreaker and finds a good few fun opportunities to incorporate some tricky transitions whenever possible to get it over as the big kill-move to watch out for. Ran defends it surprisingly competently and builds it up great early on by having her grip broken and the hold extended, leading to her doing this terrific sell-job with a huge screech before barely getting to the ropes before the arm broke. With that established (x move = bad for Ran) the rest of their exchanges mostly come down to if Ran can defend against the armbreaker or if this time it'll will catch her short: simple but pretty effective I'd say. They forgo that only near the end when the 30 minute mark is ticking down to go into a couple of near fall suplexes purely out of desperation. Ran gets a couple of decent kneebars locked in before the bell sounds for the draw. As this is a single-elimination tournament however they simply can't have a draw so they restart. I thought this quick rush at the end was pretty well done. They balanced out the fatigue-selling from the end of the match with more of a roughness to how they worked in moves, generally feeling more scrappy and unclean. Ran desperately tried to finish things quick with kneebars and bombs, but Amano rode out the storm and managed to get in a big final armbreaker that simply couldn't be escaped.

This is a drastic change from the usual kind of matches that JWP were throwing out at the time, and it really benefits from standing out like that; clearly intended to showcase these two future acts in a good light. I'd say this DOES achieve that goal, but the match itself does feel like a 30 minute match and definitely is not able to hide the more glaring limitations. The more scrappy parts feel a bit disjointed and there are a few too many armbreaker holds that are broken, really devaluing a move that's supposed to be hyped as being insta-death by this point and time (especially with MMA starting to get a foothold proper) The mat-work aside that is pretty sturdy despite Ran not being as complex/good on the mat as her opponent, though that's worked into the match itself bar near the end where she's able to wiggle out a few of her own. All in all still a quite fun outing, just a bit too constrained by the length. One of Amano's main strengths is her intensity and she simply can't carry that for something of this length despite her best attempts.