Miki Handa vs. Mima Shimoda
Hey look, it‘s an interpromotional match! These matches are always super heated and everyone works urgent, so this ended up being fun. Both blocked each others basic moves to begin and that‘s totally enough to get me into a match. Shimoda looked good directing the action, and even Miki Handa can bring the heat given the circumstances. It was pretty clipped, but I think we got a good idea of the match.
Noriyo Tateno & Kurenai Yasha vs. Shinobu Kandori & Mizuki Endo
Really great opening minute here as Tateno suicide dives into nothing. Kandori gets on the mic to shit talk her but Kurenai elbows her in the back of the head! Yasha follows up by trying to take Kandoris eye out, to which Kandori responds by getting up and punching Yasha in the face. Awesome stuff. Yasha was pretty great here in general, booting people in the face and really knowing how to be a pest at the right time. Kandoris shoot submissions were great and sent people into a frenzy to get to the ropes. The action was much more basic when Endo was in, although Tateno and Kurenai knew to put the heat on her. I‘ve been shitting on Tateno a lot but she was good here just flying into people with knees. It was a 14 minute match clipped in half and I really would‘ve liked to see the whole thing because what we saw was great.
Suzuka Minami & Bat Yoshinaga vs. Rumi Kazama & Yukari Osawa
HOLY SHIT!! I LOVE PRO WRESTLING!!! This was absolutely awesome. Why nobody ever talks about how LLPW was the promotion that ran all these crazy heated, stiff main event brawls? This was the joshi equivalent to something like WAR vs. New Japan, really violent crazy match with a relentless pace where nobody holds back. Bat Yoshinaga is this scuzzy AJW undercarder with a karate gimmick and she has the night of her life here, holy lord she was awesome squaring off with the LLPW wrestlers and throwing kicks. She was getting massive face heat too so everyone in that arena that night knew she was awesome! 3 out of the 4 workers here throw kicks and they were all landing, there are a number of really violent saves where someone was going for a pin or submission and then got blindsided with a kick to the back of the head. Minami is the one worker who doesn‘t have much strike based offense but she does a good job tightening her stuff up and there are a few moments where she also kicked the shit out of her opponent. Kazama likes to play shooter so Minami frantically kicking her way out of her leglock was really cool. Most of the match was violent, scrappy standup interspersed with Minami and Kazama doing some cool wrestling and awesome Bat Yoshinaga character moments. There was one moment where Yukari tried breaking up one of Yoshinagas holds with kicks and Yoshinaga just give her this amazing disdainful look, totally not giving a damn about how hard Osawa was kicking her in the head. Later in the match it‘s Osawa who‘s putting a half crab on someone and the camera does a really nice job catching her glare over at Yoshinaga, who struts into the ring and pops Osawa with a single blow. That moment may have made the whole match, but I will also give credit to Yoshinaga putting on the single greatest iron claw in history on Kazama. The match builds to a flurry of big moves as many joshi matches do but they retain the aura of a crazy fight. I really liked how Minami and Yoshinaga initially dominated, but the match slowly began to slip away from their control. Kazama and Osawa seemed to have it in the bag until Yoshinaga made an awesome rally spin kicking everyone in the face. Everyone here fought hard but it was Yoshinagas night, and the ending really underlines that nicely. What a gem of a match.
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