Manami vs Mio Momono
This was a good opening match, Manami seems to be a rookie
based on her plain looking ring attire, but she looks really decent here. Liked
Momono’s early focus on the back, working a body scissors by using leverage to
cause more pain, hitting a nice kneedrop to the spine. Manami’s comeback may be
a little dropkick heavy, but her series of rollups and backslides are some
nicely effective nearfalls. Momono basically bends her in half with a Boston
crab, which looks great, and though Momono misses a top rope crossbody, she’s
still able to lock in a tight cradle for the win
Alex Lee vs KAORU
I’d seen some of Lee’s Stardom stuff, that I thought was pretty
good, but this was poor. It start’s ominously, with KAORU using some bad comedy
biting spots and getting one of her ringside attendees to work double team
spots with her in front of the ref. Lee makes comebacks with some flimsy
looking blows, though she does hit some nice kicks during the bout, only to eat
a big boot from KAORU. It’s really poor looking, as Lee basically stops and
leans her head into KAORU’s boot. KAORU hits some weapon shots in front of the
ref, but then mysteriously gets stopped when she goes to the top. This is
seemingly only so her attendee can pass her another weapon behind the ref’s
back in another poor comedy spot. A KAORU rana looks really bad. Even the end
is poor, as Lee hits a good spell of offence, with a nice top rope stomp and a
running knee, only to get rolled up straight away for the KAORU win.
Cassandra Miyagi vs Heidi Katrina
I’ve seen Katrina live a few times in 2016, and wasn’t
especially impressed, so I was interested to see if she’d improved. She seems
to have, but this still wasn’t a great bout. Miyagi has a goofy gimmick, seems
to involve her pulling funny faces and lurching about a lot. Sadly, she also
hits a few shitty dropkicks early on, which don’t do anything to endear her to
me. This starts slow, but improves a bit as they both start to show a bit more
fire. Miyagi wins me back around with some nice punches and a decent tope
suicida, whilst Katrina looks really impressive catching Miyagi in motion and
hoisting her into a slam. Katrina gets the win following a top rope legdrop.
Ami Sato, DASH Chisako & Meiko Satomura vs Chihiro
Hashimoto, Hiroyo Matsumoto & Manami
Sato and the returning Manami are the rookie members of
their teams, shown not only by their use in the match, but also in their
comparatively plain looking singlets. This was noticeably a level ahead of
everything else on the show, with the rookies nicely blended in with their more
experienced team mates. Sato works the opening, getting outwrestled on the mat
by Hashimoto and Matsumoto, before faring better with her fellow rookie,
blitzing Manami with slams and shoulderblocks. Loved Satomura deciding not to
hit Manami with a stiff penalty kick, instead belting her with a forearm in the
corner. The camera briefly loses the match, focusing on the dark outside for 30
seconds, and we return to a melee, with Chisako hitting a great top rope dive
to the floor. There’s some really fun sequences in the ring, loved Satomura
hitting a back suplex on Hashimoto, only for her to hold onto a headlock on
landing, working Satomura on the ground. Loved Matsumoto picking up Hashimoto
into a piggyback in order to hit a huge kneedrop on DASH. Sato gets tagged in,
but is barely able to move Matsumoto with a shoulderblock, but gets assistance
from Satomura to nail a double team version in a nice sign of the veteran
helping her rookie. DASH hits a top rope footstomp on Matsumoto, followed by a
Satomura frogsplash, and they leave her for Sato to pin, getting a two.
However, this leaves Sato isolated as Matsumoto’s partners recover, and though
Sato gets a great nearfall following Hashimoto accidentally hitting her partner
with a forearm, Matsumoto is able to hit a backdrop driver to pin Sato. Really
great stuff, nicely executed and I dug the storyline of the rookie Sato trying
to be elevated, only to fall at the last moment.
No comments:
Post a Comment