Michiko Ohmukai vs. Leo Kitamura
Hey look, it‘s Michiko Ohmukai. Kitamura has been around a while, but Ohmukai squashes her completely smacking and stretching her and connecting some nasty knees to the back of her head.
Jenn Yukari vs. Michiko Nagashima
Pretty bad match. There were some attempts at armork and some violent kicks, but the whole thing as pretty sloppy and directionless. Blew the finish, too.
Carol Midori & Mizuki Endo vs. Miki Handa & Yasha Kurenai
Bigger and better match than you expect from midcard joshi. This was quite scrappy and all 4 beat the hell out of each other. I‘m used to kickpadded girls bringing the stiffness in joshi, so this kind of WCWSN style snug ork was a nice surprise. Some big forearms, back elbows and hip drops. Kurenai and Handa mostly kicked ass, with Midori and Endo fighting back valiantly. Midori had some fun athletic moves and Kurenai looked really good. Girl who wrestles like a pissed off, staff wielding Akira Taue adds some nice grounding to a joshi match. Add in some cool 90s nearfalls (people flipping out for a Vader Bomb or running powerslam) and you have yourself a fun little discovery.
Harley Saito & Eagle Sawai vs. Noriyo Tateno & Rumi Kazama
This started out very good. It was pretty much a total slobberknocker from the Saito & Sawai tandem. Sawai was just running over people with body checks and lariats, and Saito was killing it throwing stiff kicks and slipping into shoot submissions. They ended up picking Kazama leg apart in Anderson bros fashion. Tatenos hot tag was kinda lame – she just hit two moves, then tried a surfboard hold on Kazama, failed and then tagged out. I was fine with Kazamas selling initially, she stumbled around, hit some cool one legged kicks to Sawais face – but then her leg was never brought up again. Kazama and Tateno dominated way too much of the ending section. There was a badass moment where Sawai stormed into the ring and went Steve Austin on everyone with the chair, but I wanted Saito and Sawai to be put over more as the dangerous unit they had been through the first half of the match. Instead Kazama and Tateno did some lame outside brawling. The finish was a nasty move, but the match ended in kinda weird fashion. Eh, I grew new respect for Sawai from this.
Shinobu Kandori & Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Ishinriki & Utako Hozumi
Hozumi is Ishinrikis bride, so that makes for a fun dynamic. This was a light hearted match that was worked competitively and never exposed the business. Fujiwara sells pretty much how you expect for Hozumi. The Fujiwara/Ishinriki sections were fun, with some cool wrestling and a surprising amount of stiffness. There was one moment where Ishinriki palmed Fujiwara pretty hard on the ground, and then stomped on his head. Another singles match between the two would‘ve been amazing. Hozumi was sloppy here and there but the finish was between her and Kandori and really cool. This was kinda more like a 2nd match on the card comedy tag than a main event but I had fun.
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