Meiko Satomura vs Lacey Lane
This was the match it needed to be. Lane is vastly
under-powered against Meiko, but is able to use her speed and obvious agility
to avoid some big shots early on. Unfortunately, she then refuses a handshake
and gets kicked to fuck for her disrespect. Lane misses a kick pretty badly,
looked like she was never going to hit Meiko with it, but she does look good
evading a flurry of offence and hitting a neat crossbody for two. Ultimately
though, Satomura is too good, she kicks the crap out of Lane and gets the pin.
Io Shirai vs Deonna Purrazzo
I thought this was fine, but there’s bits that also didn’t
work for me. Shirai lands on her feet from a flying headscissors, as per the
first round Brookside match, but it looked less impressive her as Purrazzo
barely grazed her with the move. Shirai is quick as can be though, and she
ploughs through Purrazzo with a suicide dive, and I loved her rolling through a
takedown right into a double stomp. Part of the problem with the match is with
the layout – twice Shirai gets locked in Purrazzo’s Fujiwara armbar, and twice
Shirai is able to reverse it to a crossface. Escaping Purrazzo’s signature move
once was fine, but twice seems a bit of overkill especially as Shirai has to
use the injured arm to hold onto the crossface. It doesn’t feel like a match
Purrazzo is going to win, and it comes to pass as Shirai hits another overshot
moonsault for the win. I really like both, but this was underwhelming.
Tegan Nox vs Rhea Ripley
If that was underwhelming, this was heart-wrenching. As
someone who has seen Nox live countless times, from playing T-Bone’s sister in
a long-forgotten angle in HOPE to having one of the best intergender matches I’ve
ever seen with Chris Brookes in Fight Club Pro last year, I was more invested
in her performance this year than anyone elses, especially with her injury
keeping her out last year. So for her tournament to end in this fashion was
horrible. Bless her for trying to continue after injuring her leg on the
suicide dive, and huge kudos to Ripley for maintaining character, not getting
lost and carrying on as everything they would have had planned changed. This
was a hard watch.
Toni Storm vs Mia Yim
I had high hopes for this, and it ended up being another
match that didn’t live up to my expectations. The opening stages just felt like
a bunch of strikes from both women, with nothing really linking it all
together. I do think Storm had a good performance as things went along though.
Kicking Yim in the injured hand looked neat, and she laid in a nasty headbutt.
The leg-trapped German suplex she hit looked choice, and I liked that she again
went to the bad hand in the finish, as it caused Yim enough pain that she could
slip behind and hit a German suplex, followed by a Tiger Driver for the
victory. These were all good moments, and the match itself wasn’t bad, it just
didn’t feel as important as I’d maybe expected.
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