Michiko Nagashima vs Yamashita
Yamashita is, I am guessing, another rookie from the 90s joshi scene who didn’t have much of a career. So you can guess how this goes: Yamashita hits some dropkicks, but can’t really do anything that phases Nagashima, and Nagashima gives her a minor beating before vanquishing her quickly. Nagashima is pretty nice to Yamashita here, not doing anything psychotic and letting her get in some roll ups and such.
First Round: Harley Saito vs Mizuki Endo
We only get about 3 minutes out of 5 here, but you still want to watch this for Saito kicking Endo in the face. Basically Endo tries to be annoying, and Saito would have none of it, leading to all these amusing moments where a pouncing Endo would get blasted. I really enjoy watching Saito smack and kick the shit out of someone, and Endo has fun energy. I really would’ve liked to see another 150 seconds of this.
First Round: Noriyo Tateno vs Eagle Sawai
They clipped the first two matches, so we could get more of this! If you know my general opinion of the LLPW roster, you will know that I don’t like Noriyo Tateno much because she is horribly dull and never gives much beyond just hitting her moves. This match was no exception. In theory, Sawai at least provides a challenge, but not much interesting comes out of it. To make it perfect, at some point Kurenai and Nagashima do a run in on Sawai but Tateno takes them out with a suicide dive. That was about the only real highlight in this one.
Mikiko Futagami & Jenn Yukari vs Michiko Ohmukai & Carol Midori
Typical joshi tag 101. Fast moves, resthold, wrestlers tag out whenever they are thrown near their own corner. Ohmukai & Midori controlled most of the action here and they aren’t all that great, unless you really like front dropkicks. Futagami shows some cool touches once in a while – she has a particularily great thrust kick, and her pump handle release throw was amusingly reckless. Yukari got to do almost nothing. Everyone here doesn’t have much of a moveset yet, so they kept repeating moves. This was clipped, and should have been clipped more.
Semi-Finals: Harley Saito vs Miki Handa
Kinda cool little match. Saito is higher on the totem pole and she has the dangerous kicks and submissions to give her the edge. Handa tries rushing her, which backfires and Saito wrenches a tight kimura. When Saito goes for the arm again, Handa is able to scramble out and lock in a surprise armbar of her own, and then using that to capitalize and get in a nice run. I really liked how they used a simple armlock like that to give Handa an edge. Handa also has great suplexes and the flash finish ruled. Pretty good stuff.
Semi-Finals: Noriyo Tateno vs Yasha Kurenai
Kurenai waffles Tateno with chairs and those wooden sword things some to make this entertaining. Tateno throwing someone into chairs and getting whacked is marginally more interesting than the usual Tateno match. Not that she does much selling or anything. Tateno steals the win with a flash pin at 5 minutes so at least this was short.
Shinobu Kandori vs Rumi Kazama
Pretty fucking epic match. As straight forward as Hashimoto vs Fujiwara. Kazamas kicks were vicious and Kandori at this point is a charismatic dynamo. Kandori gets so much out of so little, down to her facial expression, every single submission she gets locked in, she was also awesome escalating the violence punching Kazama in the face and throwing the referee around. I would have liked Kazama to throw more kicks in the second half of the match since her opening onslaught was so awesome. Still, it builds to quite the epic ending with Kandori levelling Kazama and Kazama having a handful of great hope spots. Few wrestlers do the ‘biggest badass on act’ as good as Kandori.
Finals: Harley Saito vs Noriyo Tateno
Harley Saito is one of the great 90s unheralded 90s workers and I’m always happy to see her in a big match, even if it’s against Tateno. The opening minutes of this were pretty cool as Tateno grounded Saito and attacked the legs. Tateno is hit and miss but she actually had a nifty rolling legbar, and a really cool leg trap and arm stretch. Saito is one of the workers around who will actually sell the leg and for a couple moments it was really good pro wrestling. You never really get Harley throwing the kitchen sink at Tateno but she does kick her in the face once. Of course, selling goes out the window in the second half of the match and it’s 2.9999 city. For that kind of match it was pretty well done although Tatenos checked-out-ness is jarring. She will hit her moves but really expresses very little with her body language, even after barely kicking out of a move she just walks over, hits a weak kick and then a powerbomb, it’s like she’s physically there but not mentally. There were some cool transitions but also some questionable ones. Still, I love me a Harley Saito match and this was pretty fun for what it was.
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