|
|
HYPER VISUAL FIGHTING TOURNAMENT
ZION '98 Ikkaisen Michiko Omukai (4-10-1) vs. Yumi Fukawa (5-13-1) |
|
|
These two were all banged up. Fukawa had a black eye, and a nasty bruise around her shoulder, while Omukai was all taped up again. Of course, they wouldn't let that stop them from having a quality match. The worst thing about these two becoming a tag team is that they had such a good little singles rivalry going. This was not as choice as their 4/11/98 match because it was shorter, but it was still very good match. "I agree here, although both women have come a long way since their superior 4/11/98 match. Omukai's kicks are now done with more confidence and she isn't missing as often. She lacks weight behind her kicks, but she has the range to make her kicks against a smaller opponent like Fukawa look pretty impressive. Their singles matches have been excellent, but it's like Benoit and Malenko teaming up in WCW; you know you're going to get better matches with them in singles against each other because they respect each other so highly. In Fukawa and Omukai's case, it's a similar situation and the ironic thing is that both are great friends," wrote Keith. I agree with your comparison to Benoit and Malenko, except Omukai & Fukawa are going to try hard one way or the other. It would probably take Benoit or Guerrero opposing Malenko in singles to get him to fire up. By the time Benoit & Malenko were in hot pursuit of the WCW tag titles, Malenko had totally given up. He just lifelessly walks through almost all his matches these days, and I'm sure WWF will permanently zombify him. "They had a really good match, but what do you expect? It was the first match of the night worked in the ARSION style, with a lot of mat wrestling and submissions. The work was very sharp. Fukawa is a little bomb with explosive transitions to her submission holds, and Omukai is such a good seller that the result is always great. Omukai also makes the submissions very dramatic," wrote Jerome. Omukai slapped Fukawa before the bell, so Fukawa, looking very intense and a little bitchy, slapped her back before they grudgingly shook hands. "Within the past year, Fukawa has developed a bit of an attitude that subtly emerges in ARSION. This was one instance of it and I can safely attribute 'Fukawa's coming out of her shell' to Jessie's influence," wrote Keith. This match was really strong technically, with both women focusing on their matwork. Omukai did the most incredible swandive missile kick, just blowing Fukawa's chin away. Fukawa did a sankakujime, but Omukai countered it with a jackknife hold for a near fall. "I thought this match was excellent technically, but aside from the one instance of Omukai's 'collapsing,' there wasn't much selling of the previous damage. Omukai had great expressions as usual, and Fukawa was intense in her explosive delivery of her submission style. To me the difference between this match and the previous match with Tamada in it is that both Fukawa and Omukai were going for openings in developing their submission work, so the selling didn't seem as necessary except at that one part of the match. On the other hand, Tamada working over the leg just seemed like pro-style body work, but still didn't come as nearly as good as say Kobashi assaulting Misawa's neck," wrote Keith. Omukai's strikes were much better in this match, as her execution was pretty much perfect. However, the highlight of them was Fukawa jumping up and catching Omukai's leg in midair to turn the rolling savate into a hiza jujigatame. This was just a great spot that I've never seen before. Fukawa damaged Omukai's leg to the point she "collapsed" when Fukawa whipped her into the ropes. However, when Fukawa ran off the ropes, Omukai got up and gave her two rolling savates for the win. The finish didn't really work because it came right after they pushed Omukai's knee injury the hardest. If Omukai would have used a different hold to win, I wouldn't have had a problem with the finish, but here she used the nearly useless leg to deliver the finishing blow. "I completely agree. The two rolling savates that ended the match seemed to come out of 'nowhere.' Even though Omukai's primary weapon is the rolling savate, the fact that she 'collapsed' from Fukawa's previous attack should logically mean that her leg wasn't strong enough to deliver the finish. I think the finish would have worked if they extended the match about 4-5 more minutes so Omukai could 'work off the damage.' They could have build toward Michiko injuring Fukawa enough that her 'previously injured' leg could execute the rolling savate kick," wrote Keith. The main problem is that doing one night tournaments just doesn't bode well for match quality, especially when we are talking about the tough styles you see in Japan. Every match is short because they don't want the wrestlers to run out of gas, but everyone is so concerned with making a good showing that they lose track of what makes for exceptional wrestling and start rolling spots out to impress the audience. I imagine that the finish would have been a lot better if this was the only match they had to work. It was like Omukai had too many things on her mind to realize whe she did at the end didn't make any sense. "I agree that the end was anti-climatic, because Omukai didn't look hurt after she collapsed a few minutes before, and she shoudn't have been able to hit her rolling savate. However, I must say that the final one really looked deadly," wrote Jerome. Special thanks to: Jerome Denis & Keith Watanabe - Manami Toyota Rules! 9:50
|
|
