Toshie Uematsu vs. Yuka Shiina
A surprising amount of stiffness and intensity in this. The moves and sequences they did were basic, but heated. Uematsu is higher on the totem pole and Shiina never mounts much offense against her, but she does give Shiina some nice token nearfalls including a great one where Shiina caught her with a missile dropkick to the back of the head. Pleasantly surprising match.
Akira Hokuto & Maika Matsumoto vs. Chikayo Nagashima & Reiko Amano
Amano is wee rookie here, but she is spunky, oh so spunky. Nagashima just betrayed GAEA and joined Oz Academy. They both want a piece of Hokuto, who is so hilariously unphased. Matsumoto acts like a big shot, then gets her shit pushed in! Hokuto makes no secret about how she could end this in 20 seconds but still takes glee in torturing these rascals! Amano gets a kneebar on Hokuto in what feels like a great moment! Hokuto kills Nagashima to death in the finish! Matches like this will never win workrate awards, but it was a super fun little piece of character driven pro wrestling and adances the GAEA/Oz Academy storyy. Ozaki is at ringside, and doesn’t care at all about Hokuto abusing her underlings. Cold.
Meiko Satomura & Devil Masami vs. Chigusa Nagayo & Sonoko Kato
Another virtually perfectly laid out sprint. Numerous great spots here. It wasn’t the moves they did (although everyone whips out cool shit), but the moments of teamwork, assisting spots and surprising twists is what made this match. Masami was basically just a juggernaut here tagging in to drop bombs and kick people in the face. Chigusa vs. Meiko sections were just great. Chigusa can kill Meiko with just a few moves, so anytime she was mounting offense it felt like Meiko was desperate for survival. She also hit another Ikeda level punt to Masami. Kato sections weren’t as great, although her teamwork with Chigusa was stellar. The finish with Nagayo failing to drag Kato back to her corner before Masami just nuked the poor girl was also not only visually impressive but an effective payoff to the story. I think GAEA may have been the best promotion in the world doing these type of matches in 1997.
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