Mayumi Ozaki vs. Bad Nurse Nakamura (free). Nurse was available low cost "talent," but she certainly wrestles like her name states, BAD. Her offense is awful, with a small set of moves that she she may even hit. Her setup and transitions are poor. Her selling sucks because she doesn't put anything into it, just takes the bump and that's it. To make things worse, Nurse was rusty because FMW was only using Shark Tsuchiya & Crusher Maedomari at this point.
"I still have a soft spot in my heart for Bad Nurse, so I feel I should point out the one good thing about her in this match. She was in probably the best shape I have ever seen her in, having lost a lot of weight since she was in FMW. If nothing else, this that shows she is still at least a little dedicated. Hopefully working in GAEA will improve her working as well," wrote Chris.
This was a brawl, of course. As always, the spots where someone swung an object lacked impact, but looked good if they were avoided. The spots where the gimmick was used as a stationary object were good.
Nurse tried to push Ozaki. Even though Ozaki went above and beyond the call of duty to put Nakamura's offense over, for instance her choke with the rod, no one was buying it. As great as Ozaki's selling is, it was overdone here simply because Nurse's spots were done so poorly. Ozaki's offense looked good, but the Nurse was hit with little impact or miss.
The highlight was Ozaki stopping Nurse's Irish whip and urakening her, which was much like what Kawada does with his spinning high kick. This looked like the finish, but Nurse kicked out at 2 3/4. The finish came about a minute later when Ozaki avoided Nurse's rod and urakened her. Ozaki then tequila sunrised Nurse for the win. They edited five minutes out of the match even though they had plenty of time to kill. Ozaki didn't have Megumi Kudo & Rieko Amano in this match to make up for the suckiness of the Nurse, so this wasn't a miracle like the 4/8/97 Dress Up Wild Fight Tag Match. Due to Ozaki, it was still very good for a Nurse match, whatever that is worth. 13:09 (7:55 aired). **
Sugar Sato vs. Dynamite Kansai (JWP). This was similar to the match Kansai had with Candy on 6/8/97. Candy had a good excuse for the match not being anything special because her back was in terrible shape, but I don't know what Sugar's problem was. She looked and wrestled like she was sick or something. This should have been very good, but Sugar was really off to the point that it was below average. Her execution was well below her normal standards, and many of her moves didn't have enough on them to be credible enough for Kansai to sell. Even Ozaki being in Sugar's corner and offering instructions couldn't help. This match didn't flow well because for whatever reason, maybe just that they aren't familiar with each other, they didn't work that well together. Kansai was good, and the match was good when she was on offense, but she too has had better days.
This followed a pretty predictable formula with Sugar jumping Kansai before the bell, but Kansai cutting her off and dominating her for a long stretch. Kansai's offense was good, as was Sugar's selling. Sugar finally made a comeback, but she looked terrible doing a series of bad running kicks until Kansai cut her off.
Later on, Kansai tried to kick Sugar in midair, but Sugar caught Kansai's leg and did her Dragon screw to hizajujigatame. This was an interesting idea, but unfortunately only looked decent in execution. Sugar refused to release her sleeper when Kansai got the rope, so Kansai escaped to the floor, but Sugar still held on. Sugar tried to turn it into a brawl, but she didn't have much success until Kansai kicked the post when Sugar ducked.
Back in the ring, Kansai stopped Sugar's Ligerbombs, so Sugar tried to attack the knee to set up another hizajujigatame. Her kneecap dropkicks were incredibly lame, but they were still better than the two urakens that followed. All of these partially blown spots set up Sugar finally Ligerbombing Kansai twice for near falls.
Kansai came back with a backdrop driver that Sugar sold well. However, Sugar turned Kansai's lariat in the corner into a somewhat blown schoolboy for a near fall. Sugar tried for her uraken, but Kansai avoided it twice and used her big moves, culminating with a splash mountain for the win. 13:48. *3/4
