Assorted NEO

 

Hiromi Yagi & Carlos Amano vs. Yuka Shiina & Chaparita ASARI, NEO 5/4/2001

This is the kind of joshi I love and miss dearly. 4 crazy grapplers going all out busting out crazy armbars and legbars left and right and fighting fiercely. My girl Yagi totally stole the show having some great exchanges. I was also super impressed with Asari. She is someone I usually enjoy, but she totally adapted to the others style and busted out some super dope shit including her awesome swinging rana into an armbar. I‘ve never noticed Shiina much but she was hellbent on choking someone out. Amano was her usual self. The finish was great with Yagi pulling out an incredible counter. It was something Fujiwara would do if he was a 95 pound lithe athletic girl.

Hiromi Yagi & Yuka Shiina vs. Tanny Mouse & Yuki Miyazaki, NEO 5/3/2001

Not a match people would seek out on paper, but there were some good standing exchanges here. Miyazaki and Tanny where kind of a workrate team in NEO while still doing some comedy. Some moments felt comedic but not like contrived jokes. And the rest of this was quite good, mostly built around flash submissions and cool hard head spots from Tanny. Shiina was once again working like a submission artist and I think she's becoming one to watch. She's really putting the Sleeper Hold to use and that's something that will always get a wrestler on my good side. The ending was built around her trying to choke Tanny out, finding various ways to lock in sleepers and Tanny desperately avoiding them until Tanny caught her in a her weird Pallo Special to get the submission herself. Fun match and an example of sprinty joshi done right.

Yuka Shiina vs. Chaparita ASARI, NEO 12/7/2001

Awesome match! Pretty much Shiina countering Asaris flying into her grappling moves, and Asari countering with surprising grappling skill of her own. I love a match where wrestler not famous for grappling reveals themself to be good at grappling, and this was that. And they stuck to this simple story and it really worked in getting me into all their exchanges. Once again Shiina was hyper focussed on the sleeper. It build to a great ending with ASARI trying to knock her out with shotais and Shiina going for Sleepers from different angles. It's kind of mind blowing how simple great matches can be sometimes. Add a neat finish and you have one of the best joshi matches of the year.

NEO 9/16/2002

 

Kaori Yoneyama vs. Haruka Matsuo

Joshi undercard match which means it’s two workers doing some holds and trying to hit their spots. I’ve never seen or heard of Matsuo before. Her shit mostly looked weak. Yoneyama even at this stage is very good and she probably was one of the last really talented joshi workers to debut. She hits all of her dropkicks etc. with a real thud and never looks lost. That is enough for me not mind this kind of 8 minute match.

Yuka Nakamura & Tetsuya Koda vs. Yuka Shiina & Ayako Ishida

Weird 5 minute comedy match involving two non-wrestlers. Apparently Ishida is a ring announcer. Tetsuya Koda was some skinny guy who I’m assuming is a comedian or radio personality or something. Nakamura worked a few actual wrestling segments but this was basically a “let your buddy get in the ring for a laugh as he slips off the ropes and breaks his ankle” match. Ishida takes the win with the iron claw over Koda.

Captains Fall Match: Kyoko Inoue & Chaparita ASARI & Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda vs. Yoshiko Tamura & Misae Genki & Yuka Nakamura and Haruko Matsuo

Long match where I basically only liked the 3 minutes or so where Kyoko was in the ring. She quickly eliminated Nakamura and Matsuo early, which could’ve set up an interesting match, but then it just wasn’t. Tamura and Genki should’ve either ended up working in peril and making comebacks or destroying their opponents. Instead the match ended up being a mishmash of things that was neither here nor there. Also, Genki sucked. She’s a crowbar powerhouse so has the potential to be fun, but she kept blowing spots and no-selling. LCO did their thing, basically working on autopilot. I liked ASARIs ranas. The match built to this dramatic showdown of Genki facing 4 opponents and then eliminating 3 out of 4 in a really phony way before a stiff face off with Kyoko. Kyoko tagged out after her first segment and basically didn’t tag in for the next 15 minutes. She hits really great lariats which was enough for me to like that last segment. Still, you probably don't want this.

Tanny Mouse & Yuki Miyazaki vs. Ran Yu-Yu & Azumi Hyuga

Really fun main event that was way better than it looks on paper. Tanny Mouse has a reputation as a dreadful comedy worker, but she had her working boots on here. She came across as this tenacious grappler with a hard head, which is kind of my favourite Japanese wrestler gimmick. There were also multiple moments during the rest of the match where she looked very good, particularily during a segment where she tried kicking Hyugas head in. Tanny & Miyazaki are the NEO Machineguns and they are huge underdogs against the JWP ace team of Ran and Hyuga. The match was smartly laid out allowing them to take control using smart tactics and double teams. Lots of elaborate sequences that worked. When Yu-Yu and Hyuga got to comeback, they dished out some series punishment with their usual mix of suplexes and precise strikes. It built to a pretty hot run of nearfalls that actually felt earned, with the finish feeling like a fucking finish. Most importantly, the match was laid out in such a way that the selling weaknesses of Ran Yu-Yu and Azumi Hyuga were never exposed. I am not overly familiar with Yuki Miyazaki, but she looked solid, booting Hyuga in the face and taking some big bumps down the stretch.

 

Note: Main event added to 2002 MOTY project at #37