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Submission Queen vs. Hard
Kick Queen: Plum Mariko vs. Yumiko Hotta (AJW) |
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This was a good idea on paper, but in actuality, this match didn't work on any level. On the TV show, they showed some great training footage of Plum working with JWP's hard kick queen Dynamite Kansai. Plum was practicing avoiding and countering kicks, as well as turning kicks into submissions. One problem with this match was that Hotta didn't give her opportunities to make the nice transitions from a kick to a submission. Instead, she mainly let Plum try to block her stiff kicks, which was kind of a losing battle when Hotta was only throwing kicks from the midsection up. Hotta's kicks in this match weren't good at all, rather they were wild and out of control. She missed way too many, knocked Plum senseless with one, and had no communication with Plum as to which kicks Plum would try to do something with. This made the transitions really weak for such a high profile women's match, and some of the kicks that were avoided were so deliberate with Hotta basically begging Plum to get out of the way. Plum wasn't good in this match at all, so I shouldn't make it sound like it was all Hotta's fault. Hotta didn't seem to have any patience with her though. It was like she came into this match grumpy, and was just waiting for Plum to do something she didn't like. Plum didn't get off to a bad start, and wasn't bad until Hotta practically knocked her senseless with a kick to the face where Plum was on all fours and Hotta was standing on the side of her. Now, Hotta had her foot arched right so Plum's cheek wasn't shattered, but there's a reason this technique is illegal in most shoot leagues. What bothered me more than the fact the kick was insanely hard was that Hotta didn't even check to make sure Plum was alright. Daichi Murayama was right in there because he realized this was well beyond the level of stiffness you'd see from even a Kansai vs. Hotta match, but Hotta never even looked at Plum. Instead, she dragged her up and whipped her into the corner. Plum tried to jump to the 2nd, but she was way to dazed and groggy. She couldn't get her footing on the rope, so Hotta hit her a few times then pushed her off the top rope. What the hell is that? You push someone half senseless over the top rope, forcing them to figure out how to take a bump on their neck and back on the ring apron so they don't break their neck crashing onto the arena floor? Why not pull her back into the ring and do some "safe" things while everyone figures out if she's alright. It's hard to believe a big star who had been wrestling since 1986 could be so oblivious to an injury she caused. I mean, is her boot so thick that she couldn't feel how hard she kicked Plum? Hotta rammed Plum into the security rail then left her alone. Plum sat on the floor holding what was left of her face, appearing to be on the verge of tears. Plum eventually continued, but she was a step or two slow and her offense was pathetic for most of the rest of the match, probably because she wasn't all there. Hotta had to no sell some of Plum's attack because her gimmick would be killed if she sold moves with so little impact. Even before Plum was screwing up, Hotta was grabbing the ropes before she could apply most of the submissions, so it was like Hotta was showing all her kicks, but Plum was failing in all her submissions. The only spot where it looked like Plum could win was when she turned Hotta's high kick into a hizajujigatame. Hotta did a great job of struggling for dear life for 30 seconds before making it from the center of the ring to the ropes. Hotta went on to win this disaster of a match with her pyramid driver. 14:17. *1/4 Chris: Hotta was a total bitch in this match. I liked her before, but I don't like her much now. I can't believe she would do something like that on purpose. Oh that was horrible what she did, punting Plum in the head legit then, when Plum was still too loopy from that to do the spot, pushing her off the turnbuckle to the outside. Plum was too out of it to grab the ropes, so she fell back head first. Luckily, she only hit the apron, not the floor. I can understand Hotta being pissed because Plum wasn't too good in the match, but there's no reason to do that kinda stuff. Sure you can punt them or something like that, but there's no reason to go to extremes. Michael: Excellent "big vs. small" girl match. Hotta was pretty rough on Mariko, but I think she had to be in order to make the match work right. She probably should've laid off the kicks to Plum's head since it was obvious that Plum didn't have all her faculties after the 5 or 6 minute mark, but obviously nobody knew what was going to happen four years later and Hotta wasn't trying to hurt her, though she was a little careless. Mariko should've gotten more offense in, but she did get two great near falls on Hotta (backslide and sunset flip) and a solid near submission with the leg grapevine that Hotta did an awesome job of selling. Wow, we absolutely totally disagree here. I don't see how this match worked on any level, especially after Hotta knocked Plum silly by just booting her in the face when she was down. Plum wasn't really given anything in this match, there was really no communication of when she was going to come back, so the openings just weren't there for her. Plus, on the few occassions she did get a little offense in, it either didn't look good or wasn't put over. Basically a total debacle that did nothing but hurt Plum in more ways than one. Michael: I had mentioned this somewhat, but I think Hotta (at least for her) did a halfway decent job of selling her leg. I thought the match allowed Plum to show resiliency since she took a beating but didn't give up. Maybe I overrated it some since the match was better then I had anticipated (this goes for the three times I watched it), but the way it was built probrably should've led to Plum getting a flash pin on Hotta for the win. The match would have worked alright if Plum finally caught Hotta in one of her submissions for the win instead of losing after getting destroyed the whole time. The idea going into the match was that they were fairly equal martial artists of conflicting disciplines, but coming out of the match it looked like they threw a chump like Takaku Fuke out there to give Bas a tuneup match. Jerome: This stunk. The performance of Hotta was somewhere between Shark and Taz. She didn't sell a damn thing. She didn't give Plum any chance to do something interesting. And she really stiffed poor Plum with really stupid kicks. Hotta didn't do anything else. The only highlight of the match is Plum countering an enzuigiri into a leglock. However, Hotta didn't put it over one second after the break. Just a painfull and dull match where Plum takes a beating for nothing. She deserved way better. 1/2* in my opinion. Special thanks to: Chris Martinez, Michael Smith, Jerome Denis &
Miko Kubota - Michiku Pro 14:17
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