Assorted JWP

 

Kaori Yoneyama vs. Masa Takanashi, JWP/Yoneyama Produce 12/13/2011

This was excellent, basically a 30 minute epic that had everything and told a great story. The match works because the size difference between Takanashi and Yoneyama isn’t huge, and Yoneyama can be really vicious. They start with 10 minutes of opening grappling before they morph into a story about Yoneyama having to work hard to overcome Takanashi. Takanashi is a really good grappler and they go through some nice smooth armrolls and fast switches. At one point Yoneyama had enough and started raining some really vicious looking ground and pound, but Takanashi took her down again with a crafty drop toe hold. Takanashi starts gaining control and working the arm with Yoneyama making some really great comebacks. It was awesome to see Takanashi going along with Yoneyamas high speed athletic joshi stuff, and Yoneyama in turn having no problem meshing with Takanashis tricky technical style. Lots of cool pin attempts, and eventually Yoneyama deals some damage to Takanashis arm to even things out. The arm work doesn’t take center stage but whenver they go back to it it’s really good and it makes sense because it sets up Takanashis Yoshi-Tonic finisher. The big strike exchange with Takanashi connecting a sick headbutt before Yoneyama hit some brutal knees to his head was by far the highlight of the match. Yoneyama trying to catch up to Takanashi was really fascinating as they spent the second half to Yoneyama finally getting that big pinfall. Really tremendous match, it had the kind of relentless pace and big moves you expect from a big match but with an engrossing story cool technical stuff and some brutal strikes. One of the best matches of the year, maybe even of the decade.

Leon vs. Hanako Nakamori, JWP 6/12/2011

This was also really excellent and kind of felt like a major hidden gem. I mean joshi was flying off the cliff at this point, and this match was not just good for that period, you could have had this take place in the 90s and it would be a top match, I mean these two easily run circles around something like Otani vs. Ultimo. Just a really good longform juniors match. For a 2010s match the action was refreshingly no frills, from the opening groundwork which was smooth and tight, to the choice of offense that both had. Nakamori was really good here as the aggressive younger wrestler trying to push her more experienced opponent, her offense was mostly basic dropkicks and such but she would really amp up the aggression at key points, really waffling her opponent with nasty palms face stomps and scrapes. Leon is a pretty cool wrestler, who does some flying but mostly hits cool slams and makes really good use of the spear, and fires back against Nakamoris aggression nicely. There is some backwork which is integrated into the match in really organic ways and Nakamori sold the fuck out of it, which sets her above your typical Manami Toyota/Azumi Hyuga types. Match had great pace and ebb and flow to it, a few neat spot and felt like an intense struggle as they kept increasing the viciousness throwing harder and harder kicks and elbows. Dug all the build to Leons big spots and the way Nakamori kept surviving and countering her, especially the reversals of the spear. I had no real opinion of either of these two workers going into this but they just had an amazing match.

Kana vs. Hanako Nakamori, JWP 10/14/2013


It's clown shootstyle, baby. Nakamori has kickpads here and she's basically all kicks. Opening exchange felt like one of those Kansai/Yamada exchanges from the golden age, both them just absolutey whiping each other out and trying to kick heads off. There is a somewhat lackluster crowd brawling section somewhat upgraded by the general high level of violence in their kicks and stomp, before we move the match back on track with Kana doing a fun performance being the superior grappler and constantly reversin Nakamori in slick ways. Last couple minutes were excellent and reminescent of Futen - I didn't get the sense Nakamori was a generic kicker here, she had some greatly timed and accentuated moments such as clocking Kana with a hard open hand, clocking here with a nasty back headbutt or breaking out a huge Destiny Hammer. Kana is really good doing these quasi-BattlARTS matches, it's too bad she ended up retiring to WWE. Really good stiff match that should have been on my radar in 2013.