Carlos
Amano vs Dynamite Kansai, GAEA 2/29/2004
I’m a fan of these two, so a match between them could never disappoint me – even that said, I thought this was really great, pretty much the perfect underdog vs monster undercard match with both of them bringing their unique styles to the table. Opening grapple was effective as you immediately had Kansai going for more power-based holds with Amano trying to lock in a shoot submission. As soon as Kansai started throwing kicks she started to look like a cat playing with her food. I also loved her use of the iron claw slam as it establishes that she can always snatch an opponent. In addition to the violent kicks there were also some pretty hard feeling slams with Amano getting rag dolled. Amano was pretty freaking godly here trying to take down a monster as basically everything she did was nifty shootstyle submission counters and several really well timed, really violent shoot headbutts. Her running face first into a Kansai kick was also pretty awe inspiring. Great match, clocking in at just a bit over 10 minutes but every second was worthwhile.
Carlos Amano vs. Aja Kong, GAEA 4/4/2004
Hem, let’s see… it’s Carlos vs. Aja. In Korakuen Hall. No filler, any move could be a finish type work. Of course this is great. Aja is good as usual being an unfuckwithable brickwall and crushing Amano with her superior size and hard hitting, though Amano is pretty much the one who raises this from a somewhat rote (but good) Aja performance to the next level. She comes up with all kinds of cool ways to stop Aja, mostly by trying to crack her skull with her own hard head. Lot of fun to be had just from Amano having so many different ways to smash her head into Aja, even cracking Ajas hand when she goes for the Uraken because Carlos skull is so damn hard, and there are a bunch of great moments in which Aja smacks her down like a fly. I love Carlos fire here, nobody has been so confident and spunky just to get swatted down. I’m not sure which is better – this or vs Kansai – but both matches were pretty different considering they had a similar set up with Carlos taking on a bigger powerhouse – but both were pretty great.
Carlos Amano vs Ayako Hamada, GAEA 12/14
More cool GAEA sprint action. This one’s from a one night tournament and for that I think it does a really nice job bringing lots to the table while still leaving something for the later round matches. We get some cool grappling that kind of forces Ayako to go back to her ARSION roots in testing herself against a slick grappler that is trying to armbar her. Ayako quickly goes to her kick variations that look insanely sharp – boy do I miss wrestlers actually having devastating looking worked kicks and cool ways to hit their worked kicks – the match seems to go to an early finish but Carlos keeps finding ways to go for the ankle lock. It culminates in Amano catching another kick and headbutting away at Ayakos knee, a really nice little bit of a continuous story. I really wish we had a bigger match between these two at their peak, talk about missed potential because the taste we got here was pretty sweet.
Carlos Amano vs Chigusa Nagayo, GAEA 6/29/2003
Carlos throws the god damn kitchen sink at Chigusa. There’s a neat moment early where Amano goes for a suicide dive, Nagayo sidestepping, and Amano sort of catching herself halfway in the ropes and then eating a hard european uppercut from Chiggy. But Carlos is a ball of fiery energy that won’t be contained. She keeps barraging Chigusa with elbows and her signature headbutts. Just when she’s raining forearms on Chigusa and I’m thinking “She looks like she’s about to bite her damn face off” Amanos headbutts start drawing hardway blood and Carlos starts biting the cut. Awesome. That’s the kind of ruggedness GAEA has along with the slick wrestling that made it pretty great. And Chigusa does hit her with the hardest god damn kick you’ve ever seen to come back. I wasn’t quite in love with Chigusa just kind of beating Carlos. Carlos does get to no sell a powerbomb but one lariat later she’s toast. It felt like a typical Chigusa thing, always keen to squish someone like this, even knowing that Carlos would go 18 minutes against Lioness Asuka next. Carlos looked so fantastic up to that point that it made me sad she was jobbing like this.
Carlos Amano vs Devil Masami, GAEA 6/14/2003
Devil Masami was embracing the Undertaker-isms lots around this time, so there were creepy glares and superhuman displays of strength in this. The match had a lot of great ideas and devastating offense, but it was kind of marred by both of them constantly popping up and no-selling everything. Also thought Masami spent a bit too much time lying in Amanos submissions, though she looked good otherwise. After spending like half the match surviving Carlos’ fully cranked armbars Masami takes the win with a basic figure 4 necklock. Shit just doesn’t make sense sometimes.
Carlos Amano vs Mayumi Ozaki, GAEA 5/25/2003
Very 2003 Mayumi Ozaki style match, so that means KAORU and Police interfer a bunch, there’s blood, weapons, lots of odd complexity. If you can get past all the shenanigans there’s some really sweet wrestling here, Ozaki looks great smacking Amano and she has a fun ragdoll-ish way of hitting jumping kicks, while Amanos slick submission counters look great. At one point Amano was just this juggernaut cracking Ozaki with one headbutt after another, landing a sick Honda-ish deadlift german and then going to eat her forehead, it was awe inspiring. She knew she was in a chaotic brawl and she had to work this like Kintaro Oki or Bobo Brazil, downtune the fancies and instead go to crush skulls. I do wish the shenanigans had been tuned back here or there but for this kind of chaotic attitude era style match it’s really good.
Carlos Amano vs Chikayo Nagashima, GAEA 4/6/2003
Fuck did this rule. We’ve seen Amano against a gauntlet of old time veterans, playing underdog to monsters. Now she gets to face a peer that she can go toe to toe with, and they really use the chance to cook up something good. These two could easily just hit spots and please the crowds but they went far beyond that. This was a match that really felt like it was being crafted as it went. Lots of really cool wrestling and struggle early on, Nagashima hangs on to a headlock, Amano takes her over with a beautiful hip toss from there. Then Nagashima does this cool bit where she refuses to be moved, there’s also a bit with Nagashima working guard and doing crazy legs and hitting Amano with a nasty upkick, to which Amano responds by jumping on her and raining some angry strikes. Just really cool, creative wrestling. Later we get another moment where Nagashima goes for an upkick but Amano is wiser and they reset into a really intense lock up. There’s a great bit on the ramp that’s as well done as any ramp bit I can remember, really putting maximum struggle into a potential suplex on the ramp. Match had great grappling and some insanely nasty offense, Nagashimas double stomps and Amanos headbutts being hellish, Nagashima at one point just punching her straight in the face, but still keeping the nifty technical stuff important. Great shit, the kinda match that can not be replicated, they were both totally in their own world here and killed it.
