A Sakura Hirota Match

 

Mio Momono vs Miyuki Takase vs Sakura Hirota (WAVE 6/29/2021)

The ruleset for this match was really cool. Basically it’s like a gauntlet match where you just try to survive both opponents. It starts as a 1 vs 1 match, the loser goes out, the winner stays in and fights the next person, and the first to get two straight wins is the winner. I don’t really like 3 ways so just doing them as a series of singles matches with an overarching story is a win for me.

The first match up is Momono vs. Takase. I haven’t seen Takase before but she was a pleasant surprise. She doesn’t do any flimsy offense, she focuses on the more solid stuff like snug clotheslines and she has a really great leg drop. Momono is one of those really fast moving modern day workers with endless cardio who can go really hard. Thankfully she doesn’t do anything stupid either. The opening goings are very fast moving without being too much. Joshi often has the problem that they throw everything out right from the get go, that wasn’t the case her as they start dodging moves, battling over moves, eventually being able to take advantage and zone in on weak spots. That also avoided another typical problem in joshi – random offense. Very targetted offense by both of them. Even basic fairly basic stuff like a backbreaker or dropkick to the gut felt important because it was followed up. It made everything important especially in the context that this was going to be a long match and both of them would probably have to go again after the fall. Nothing mind blowing but it was a good warmup for what was to come.

However the main selling point of the match is the performance of Hirota. Sakura Hirota is 42 years old and she has been largely doing comedy for the past 20 years. However, in this tournament she got humiliated by rookie and that caused her to transform into a serious wrestler and kick ass. No imitation jokes from her at all in this, and man judging by her performance here you wish she’d wrestle like this more often. After some going here and there she basically challenged her opponent to a straight wrestling match and they grappled it out. It was compelling because while Hirota was game and motivated, she was still facing a much younger, faster and more athletic opponent. As a result Hirota had to give it her all and that she did. She busted out all these awesome suplexes, submissions and counters and had one awesome exchange after another. What I love about this match format is that everything can truly be a finish. The roll up stuff was really freaking good and really helped by the fact that you by a roll up as a finish in this context. Not that any finish done here was cheap, everything was extremely hard fought. Honestly some of the best exchanges I’ve ever seen, they were that fucking great.

So Hirota was absolutely amazing. She was the star of the match, no doubt, but the other two were fantastic also. I was amazed they went such a long time without going into overly dramatic overkill or dangerous spots. The match didn’t even have a dive and they kept pretty much the whole 40 minutes or so in the ring. I loved the constant focus on the roll ups and pin attempts. Momonos out of nowhere dropkicks ruled and Takases power based offense was crushing. Often in Japanese big matches you have a bunch of nothing for the first 20 minutes before the last 10 minutes turn into a dancy reversal fest. Here the opposite was the case as they started busting out the fire works pretty early, but kept them going in a believable way by focussing on slick pin attempts and submissions, before settling into an amazing 50/50 finish with both the last surviving participiants busting out some epic counters and battling for control while selling this like a battle on the last few hundred yards of a marathon.

So, there you have it. You basically had several awesome singles matches sandwhiched into one coherent narrative over a 40 minute stretch that never got boring and provided plenty of highly intricate wrestling, plus the amazing story of Sakura Hirota being the biggest wily veteran underdog badass you’ve ever seen. Execution was good, action was tight, no silly antics aside from one very well timed joke that only lasted 3 seconds and served the narrative. Best modern joshi match I’ve seen by a mile. Hell it’s one of the best matches in any era. This was absolutely fucking mental.

2021 MOTYCs

Misaki Ohata Matches

 Misaki Ohata vs. Mio Momono, WAVE 3/18/2018

This match reminded me of late 90s GAEA, which is very high praise if you know me. Really good little scrap. Momono is an underdog who tries to go for flash pins and annoying Ohata. She also has some great arm attack stuff. The match had some really snug strikes, boots to the face, Ohata throws these great looking double handed blows to the face… some really nice inventive spots in this and the underdog story with Momono trying to topple Ohata while surviving some nasty submissions and suplexes makes this compelling. Selling wasn’t very deep and I was a bit iffy at Ohata hitting three curb stomps in a row but joshi is like that sometimes. At 11 minutes they hit just the sweet spot. Super enjoyable stuff.

Misaki Ohata vs. Hiroe Nagahama, WAVE 3/11/2018

This was more good stuff from Ohata. No doubt if more than a handful of people paid attention she would be regarded as one of the better workers of the later 2010s. Here stuff was just vicious, trying to break her opponent in half with Fuchi-ish submissions and bending her spine against the ropes in nasty ways. Her boots, stomps etc. are all really good looking. Nagahama is just solid but this was a great showcase from Ohata. Nagahama does get it together hitting some slick flash pins and the build to the finish is really good.

Misaki Ohata vs. Ayako Hamada, WAVE 4/21/2018

I was thinking Ohata keeps facing these underdogs who can only win by rollup, so here is Ohata against an offensive monster in Ayako Hamada. This honestly ruled really hard. They basically go all out dropping bombs and doing all these awesome standing exchanges and counter work. They do a nice job tricking you into thinking that it could end in the first 5 minutes and then they go the rest of the match in style without just hitting move after move. Hamada rules, her offense is so sharp and she has no problem doing the slick stuff. Really liked how Ohata would time her stiff strikes. Best sprint of 2018?

Misaki Ohata vs. Ryo Mizunami, WAVE 2/11/2017

A really good slow building big match. Opening matwork was nice to see knowing that Ohata is a Mariko Yoshida trainee so she can really slip into leg and arm popping submissions nicely. After that, they just had a really good hard hitting contest with some excellent transitions and a general hard fought feeling. This was one of the better Mizunami performances I’ve seen, she was putting it all together here whipping Ohata with hard clotheslines and doing cool power moves. She also does the Olympic Hell which is always cool. Ohata was really good once again, less off a domineering stretching machine and more trying to survive Mizunami and try to take out her out by landing quick blows. The build to Mizunamis crazy finisher was impeccable. Strong recommendation if you like the Japanese big match formula. These matches made me want to check out what Ohata has been up to lately and… oh, she retired in 2018. Oh well, I guess I’ll watch some more of her matches on the WAVE Netwo- that’s dead too. Oh, okay I guess.