[2002-08-25-ARSION] Mariko Yoshida vs Melissa

[Ma Stump Puller]

Yeah this was a stinky one folks. "Melissa" is far better known as Cheerleader Melissa and will go on to be one of the real pioneers of women's wrestling in the 2000s and beyond but however she just wasn't ready here to have anything substantial with 1 year working at this point. She'd been given a mini-push by beating a bunch of lower-card acts so she was at least formidable in terms of her rep and we get a couple of spots here where Yoshida is trying her damn well best to give her the room to work, so that's something at least. Melissa has early control with a bunch of week 1 wrestling offence (arm drag, headlock, scoop slam) however quickly concedes it as soon as Yoshida gets on the ground and is allowed to work in her holds to equalise the situation; we get a couple of fun moments where she's just bullying the shit out of her opponent with hair pulling and nasty catch-focused face and arm cranks, the typical Yoshida brilliance as you'd expect out of her even at this point. Melissa has like one hold (front guillotine) and makes sure to spam it when necessary alongside the occasional messy counter. I think the main problem in this was that Melissa just didn't have any convincingly solid offence. Everything felt green or wimpy in regards to it actually looking substantial here from the unimpactful forearms to the weird running front elbow to the face, never here did I buy that she was actually doing any sort of damage. Everything just looked like a sloppy transition.

The mat work is probably worse because Melissa can't really do anything in that front so just ends up having to slowly scurry to the ropes most of the time instead of any real interaction between the pair. At the VERY least she pulls out a Lotus Lock into a crucifix pinning position which was the only actually cool spot she did the whole match, but it was like after a vast majority of nothing so this didn't hit nearly as well as it should have done. Melissa gets a couple of obligatory near falls by doing pretty nothing moves until Yoshida punches her in the head a couple of times and throws a big boot/Air Raid combo for a very close near fall of her own. Finish they just went right into by having Melissa answer with a chokeslam that gets no sold and then Yoshida spams submissions for what seems like forever until a deep Spider Twist forces the tap.

This just felt really janky, no real chemistry between the two and a lack of experience on one side meant that this always had an annoying stop/start pace to it that never really let up. Yoshida is giving it socks for a fairly nothing undercard and has to be commended for accommodating for her opponent in mind by them pacing a lot of this around her taking big bumps for a rookie and having more focus on slow grindy heat spots to get that aspect over with the crowd. That said.....still isn't good in the end, alas. Should've had this a couple years later.