Ajw ppv (2/24/02)

[Guest wolverine]

From a work standpoint, this is the best show of the year.  It only had six matches, but I thought three of them were **** or better, with only one bad match (the rookies match).

 

The Watanabe/Takahashi/Noumi vs. Black Joker (Takako Inoue/Kazama/Sawai) was a really fun, fast paced match.  Lots of great near falls, with the story that if Watanabe lost, she'd have to join Black Joker.

 

The Momoe-Maekawa would have been better if it was shorter as Maekawa isn't good enough to go 42 minutes, but Momoe makes up for it and it was an excellent match, maybe ****1/4.  Momoe is just so fiery and explosive, it's a blast to watch.  She's the best worker I've seen in a *long* time.

 

Manami Toyota vs. Kaoru Ito was another excellent match, better than the Momoe match.  Toyota just gets better with age, which is the opposite of just about every great wrestler in history.

 

Entertaining show....

[Guest wolverine]

I'm shocked.

 

Mike Lorefice actually rated the Momoe-Maekawa match higher than I did.  For those who know his match ratings, it's said that he tends to underrate recent Joshi pretty strongly (Chris could elaborate on this).  Anyway, here's his review from http://www.quebrada.net

 

All Pacific Senshuken Oza Ketteisen:

Kumiko Maekawa vs. Momoe Nakanishi

 

The fourth match in this program, previously consisting of a good 30:00 draw, an excellent although seemingly out of place in the "progression" of the series 13 minute JGP win for Momoe, and a good 60:00 draw where Maekawa vacated the All Pacific title. The series is somewhat reminiscent of the great Manami Toyota vs. Toshiyo Yamada one from 10 years earlier. The big difference is, bizarre as it may sound now, Toyota & Yamada proved they could be great at working long matches. If you look at their 1/4/92 match that went over 40 minutes, you'll see a technical match that was about patience and build. Only in the 6/21/92 30:00 draw did they use all their killer moves, but while that was the best match of the series, the other matches weren't exactly negatively effected by being more steeped in psychology and build. Those two could work smart and sell fairly well, they just usually preferred the more glamorous style like almost all the other women of the time. Momoe & Maekawa have yet to show me than can do anything of the sort and that the extra time they've been given is anything but a negative. They don't have the move set of their predecessors and Maekawa doesn't have near the stamina.

 

As usual, it was a great match when they worked fast. Like the 60:00 draw they did a great full speed opening sequence highlighted by Nakanishi's Momo*latch and moonsault to the floor, but quickly slowed down because they had all this time to fill. Maekawa took control working over Momoe's knee, but the great knee spot belonged to Momoe. Maekawa had her upright in the corner and was choking her with her boot, but Momoe scooted up to the middle rope for leverage and applied a hizajujigatame that led to both going over the top to the apron. In the end, the move didn't really work, but it was a clever new spot that nonetheless seemed to set off Momoe's comeback. Momoe soon had Maekawa laying on a table, but before she could chair her Maekawa hooked a hizajujigatame. I liked that the match was starting off looking so unstructured, yet actually many of the spots were focusing on the knee or back.

 

They soon settled into a traditional match, but not with their usual lack of direction and focus. After a long back attack by Maekawa, Momoe tried to come back with a missile kick. However, Maekawa avoided resulting in Momoe doing further damage to her back. Maekawa kept at it, disregarding that Momoe was in the ropes and repeatedly punting her in the back.

 

I liked how Momoe stood up for herself when Maekawa tried to turn it into something of a brawl. Maekawa was throwing her into the guard rail on each side of the ring until Momoe jumped onto the guard rail and came off with a reverse elbow. Momoe started firing back with elbows and gave Maekawa a German suplex on the floor. Although ultimately she lost the sequence, she once again showed that despite her diminutive size she wouldn't let anyone push her around.

 

I don't know what came over these two, but Momoe kept selling her back and Maekawa kept going back to it. Another great counter saw Maekawa push Momoe over the top to stop her Momoe*latch, again resulting in a crash landing on the back. Maekawa wasn't lagging either; her kicks still had the same zip on them. She busted Momoe mouth up with one just before the 22-minute-mark.

 

This was like watching two different wrestlers. Momoe kept going back to the knee, while Maekawa kept going back to the back. They sold and had stamina and focus. I have no idea where it came from, but I came into this match expecting to point out the same old flaws and none of them were present. Momoe still did all her great spots like the backflip out of the corner into the German suplex hold, but they came at opportune times. It wasn't about waiting for these spots, it was about pulling them off as a way to get back to the actual focus of the match. They cared about the weardown and submission this time, you could see it in the intense and often energized way they were doing it. They obviously didn't become great sellers overnight, but you could tell it was on their mind that they should be selling.

 

The obvious problem with this match is Momoe doesn't have a knee submission and Maekawa doesn't have a back submission. The result is, for the most part, they had to just leave this for the last 15 minutes and focus on their regular high spots and ways of winning. There was a segment with four hizajujigatames, but the fans didn't take them all that seriously because they've never seen either wrestler win with this move.

 

I love how Momoe uses her quickness and athleticism to avoid moves. Momoe learned from the first time Maekawa countered her Momo*latch, so this time she was able to land on her feet. Maekawa tried to immediately take her out with the Hashimoto spinning leg sweep, but Momoe simply jumped over it and dropkicked Maekawa in the face before she could get back up.

 

As in any good series, a key theme of the later matches is that they've learned what their opponent is going to do. This match had tons of counters. While most were simple but effective, Momoe is so fast that many of them look spectacular anyway. One of the more impressive spots saw Momoe try to counter a whip into the corner with a climb-up reverse body attack. Maekawa ducked, but Momoe switched into a sunset flip in midair for the first completely legitimate near fall of the match. I'm sure Momoe knew she was going to do the sunset flip all along, but the illusion was legitimate.

 

The biggest problem with the match is that it was so obvious that it was going long. Not that you'd expect a 15:00 match after they'd just had a 60:00 match, but they didn't use their short JGP match to their advantage. That match proved that any length was possible for them, but this match wasn't as dramatic as it should have been because 30 minutes went by before they started teasing the finish. Once they went to the near falls it was like everything had to result in a near finish. This was obviously the most exciting portion of the match, fantastic work, but for the most part it existed separate from the rest. It was almost like at the 27-minute-mark they decided to tack their 8/17/01 match on as the end of today's match.

 

Overall it was a gigantic step up for both wrestlers. They showed they could work a smart focused long match. While the entire match could have been connected better, this was the best you could ask for on this given day. Hell, it was the best match of both of their careers and better than any women's match we saw last year. To really put it all together they will have to get a submission move over so people will take an attack to that body part seriously. Figuring this is the blow-off to the series, the one thing that surprises me is with Momoe capturing the All Pacific title by pinning Maekawa in her Momo*latch, Maekawa is left 0 for the series.

 

42:34

 

****1/2

[Guest Jubuki]

it's said that he tends to underrate recent Joshi pretty strongly (Chris could elaborate on this).

 

Ask and ye shall receive!

 

Hell, I don't pay too much attention to him, unless I want some good laughs.  It isn't that he underrates stuff...it's just that he doesn't know a solid match from a flawed one when his favorites are on the line.  Nothing new - true about a lot of "well-known" reviewers.  Marks for crowd heat, marks for stiffness, marks for go-nowhere matwork -- takes all kinds.

 

an excellent although seemingly out of place in the "progression" of the series 13 minute JGP win for Momoe

 

This wasn't excellent...it was decent, fun.  That's about it.  They both still do things that detract from the match rather than add to it, so unless you're choosing to be lenient and put "****" as your standard for still letting them do stupid things, it wasn't excellent.

 

and a good 60:00 draw where Maekawa vacated the All Pacific title.

 

This wasn't good...except for Momoe's selling.  The heat sucked out of the match after 40 minutes, when they peaked it with the dragon superplex tease and then did nothing afterwards that A) built upon that big moment or B) was anything they hadn't already done for the previous 2/3s of the match.  Went a long way to show how limited both are.

 

The series is somewhat reminiscent of the great Manami Toyota vs. Toshiyo Yamada one from 10 years earlier.

 

Uh...I guess if they have three matches in the course of a year in AJW, it warrants comparisons?  Not in my book...

 

If you look at their 1/4/92 match that went over 40 minutes, you'll see a technical match that was about patience and build.

 

Yep, sure is - every time they go overboard with going back and forth, I lose my patience, and every screwed-up spot shoots down the build.  This is a comical match where everything went wrong for them.  You couldn't even call this "good" unless you're daffy, and only the most biased towards those two would call it great.  I wrote a thesis about this particular cringe-inducer about 5 months ago.

 

Only in the 6/21/92 30:00 draw did they use all their killer moves, but while that was the best match of the series, the other matches weren't exactly negatively effected by being more steeped in psychology and build.

 

A few things here.  First off, if this is his favorite match of the series, why can't he be bothered to remember that Yamada *won* the match?  It's not a 30-min. draw and couldn't be because *they took away the time limit after how the 1/4 match turned out*.  I'd say that's kind of an important detail, something that certainly mattered in the August match.  Second, busting out "all your killer moves" isn't always a good idea.  In the 1/4 & 6/21 matches, Yamada does the Reverse Gory Special submission as well as teasing/hitting her finisher.  Now, you tell me - if she can hoist Toyota up in the same position as her finisher in the first 5 minutes of the match, then why isn't she going for her finisher?  If you can imagine Toyota having an arm hold of some kind in the JOCS position, it might be easier to see how absurd that spot is in both of those matches.  On top of that, they have just as many uncomfortable spots in this as they do in August, except they don't know how to cover for them as well and they still tip their hat to transition spots at times (which is about as big a no-no as there is).

 

I don't really know when I'll get to see the Momo/Maekawa match (probably late next month, the way my tape ring goes), but I am interested in seeing if they can do more with a long match.  Just not because Lorefice says so.

[Guest TopSecretMan]

Just one quick comment...

 

Chris said:

 

"Now, you tell me - if she can hoist Toyota up in the same position as her finisher in the first 5 minutes of the match, then why isn't she going for her finisher? "

 

 You know my feelings on the matches in question, so this isn't really defending their work...that being said, I can perfectly see the logic in doing a submission in the early going, as opposed to a pinning move like the RGSB, and the submission would (theoretically) wear down the person, while a pin attempt on an opponent who's still fresh probably wouldn't amount to much, favorite hold or no.

 

Just an observation

[Guest Jubuki]

Toyota hadn't exactly shown she could kick out of the RGSB, had she?  

 

No.

 

Not to mention that there are, what, several THOUSAND other wear-down holds out there to use?  And it wasn't as though they were doing a great job of wearing her down anyway, as those holds end up mostly filler (my biggest problem with the match) once they kick it into high gear.  A not-that-great decision made even less attractive by doing something too familiar.

[Guest TopSecretMan]

Toyota hadn't exactly shown she could kick out of the RGSB, had she?  

 

No.

 

Not to mention that there are, what, several THOUSAND other wear-down holds out there to use?  And it wasn't as though they were doing a great job of wearing her down anyway, as those holds end up mostly filler (my biggest problem with the match) once they kick it into high gear.  A not-that-great decision made even less attractive by doing something too familiar.

Well, coming from that angle, I agree with you that she should have used something else as a wear-down, and that the selling of holds was nonexistant anyway.

 

Still, I don't think doing the RGSB wouldn't have made anymore sense than doing the submission.

[Guest Jubuki]

It seemed to me that she does the submission and not the pin because "it's not time for the pin yet" rather than "this will help ensure Toyota stays down later on."  Had there been some sort of struggle involved, like Toyota thought it might be the RGSB and wanted to steer clear, I'd probably have an entirely different opinion about the spot.