This was a very interesting match that went so fast that twenty minutes seemed like five. It was entirely contested in the new style that Yoshida has developed. Normally, that would be a great thing. However, in this one instance I was disappointed by that because the match could have been great if went one of two ways. Instead, it went in neither direction, so it wasn't.

The vast majority of this match showed how some forms of pro wrestling have really evolved when it comes to believability. The movement and positioning can only be described as top notch. The spots that wouldn't work in real life were generally set up and performed in a manner that made them believable. For instance, Yoshida was standing behind Yagi choking her out, so all Yagi had to do for a Stone Cold stunner type of move was quickly grab Yoshida's hair and drop down. We didn't see much of that kind of thing though, and it was a good thing. When you are this good, there can really be a beauty in not trying to be flashy because then the subtlety can come to the forefront instead of being overshadowed by the glitz. The glitz can become too much of a crutch too, and even if you don't agree, you can't argue that the wrestlers have to work harder to get respect if they aren't either being flashy or shoved down your throat because those two things have become such a big part of getting noticed. Kiyoshi Tamura has had better and more believable worked shoots, but aside from him you won't find a better combination than what this had the potential to be anywhere else.

The problem was they kept getting up for very brief intervals where they would go away from the shoot aspect for little to no gain. Of course, I did not expect this to be a worked shoot. However, if what you are doing is so good that it's that close to passing for one (in some ways more what used to pass for a shoot since they did moves like ½ crab and German suplex that we saw in UWF & UWF-I but would not see on a 2/99 RINGS show) then there better be good reason for exposing the work. This is where Jerome and I disagree. Jerome feels that Yoshida's style is bastardized if you remove the highspots, but I feel that, more often than not, the highspots bastardize the style. The matwork is riveting and different than anything else we see in women's wrestling, while the few highspots are ones you see everywhere, so the spots aren't likely to make it more exciting. Spots can help if they are all really well incorporated, for instance in Liger & Kanemoto's matches against UWF-I, but those matches aren't in the same ballpark as this technically, which is a main reason why their matwork is not riveting and the highspots are a nice change that reminds us of who they "really are." Although some of these highspots were really well incorporated, the thing that made this so exceptional was that the bulk of the match was a chain of brilliant holds and counter holds. Thus, going from a submission to a top rope move and back to a submission was an unnecessary and abrupt break in the chain. If they were going to do a whole bunch of high spots, then it might have been worth it, but they just got up and threw in a couple every now and then. Sometimes, even though it looked too choreographed, getting up made sense because they would try to do a throw or takedown into a submission. Other times, the spots had nothing to do with anything else in the match, so the only thing they accomplished was to prove the match was fake.

Sticking to the chain topic, I really didn't like the selling in this match. It was very good selling by pro style standards, but it was breaking the chain and showing that it was a work. This brings up a key point about Yoshida's matches, which is that it's hard to know what standards to grade her on. Her style is a mix of pro style and shoot style, so "the rules" of one are often conflicting with "the rules" of the other. Unfortunately, this style did not catch on and Yoshida probably hasn't even had any matches in it in since 9/99, so there's not a large enough sample to grade elements based on "Yoshida style."

If they weren't going to totally steep in realism then it could have been a great match if Yoshida let Yagi supply the excitement. Yoshida is the best technical wrestler of all the women, but when it comes to incorporating credible moves in an exciting manner, Yagi is The Woman. Yoshida did not let Yagi do her thing though. Instead, they were equals when it came to reacting to each other's moves, but almost all the situations were dictated by Yoshida. This just placed too many limits on Yagi to the point that it unquestionably hurt the match, and kept this from reaching its potential. Since Yagi is the outsider and the lower rated wrestler, she has less clout and it's not surprising that she wound up totally doing Yoshida's match. It's not that I think she was opposed to that, but if they would have incorporated more of Yagi's throws and rolls into submissions into the match, it would have been a lot more exciting. Considering the main knock on Yoshida's matches is that they are "boring," more interesting ways to get to the submissions would have been a plus as long as credibility wasn't going to be a discriminating factor. Sometimes when you have two wrestlers that normally carry matches, it doesn't come off as well as you'd think. As good as this was, this was basically a case here.

Even though it didn't go in either of the directions I had hoped, there were some things I really liked about the match in comparison to typical Yoshida. The psychology was up, the matwork was set up better, the movement was superb, the counters came so natural, and the match was more believable. Even though Yoshida didn't try to use Yagi's diversity, she did push Yagi to the limit on the mat because she could without having to worry about doing anything extra so it could be pulled off. This was definitely a match where they were not only working for the holds in the worked sense.

Pretty much the first move of the match was Yoshida's air raid crash finisher. This was ironic because it came after a long feeling out period where they were both looking for an opening to shoot in. I thought it was interesting that Yoshida showed she was "able to" do her move right out of a simple headlock. When it came to working it into the match this early, it could not have been done better. However, it was a failure because seemingly not one person in the entire building popped for the near fall. Granted this was not a match where they were looking for big pops, but that spot that early could only have been designed to give the audience a rush. As a whole, since it was worked more like a shoot, the audience was "supposed to" observe intently, waiting for something major to happen. Unfortunately, when someone got close to locking in a submission the fans, for the most part, didn't pop like they were supposed to.

One thing I really liked about this match was that since any move could potentially end the match, the success rate of the moves sucked. This was a good thing because they always had an immediate counter for their opponents move. The type of failure makes all the difference in the world though. They didn't get into any of that low skill stuff like you move out of the way when I jump at you and then give me a lariat when I get up. Virtually all the failures came when one wrestler turned the other wrestlers hold into a move of their own, and these sequences would just go on because they never let go of each other. Sure, there were a lot of blocks, but that just forced action because they had to find a way to get to another position.

The main storyline was Yagi injuring Yoshida's arm with an udehishigigyakujujigatame then going back to that hold as often as she possibly could. Of course, she failed to get the submission, but this strategy made a lot more sense than the typical I'll do a submission that hurts the back, then one that hurts the leg, then some kind of a choke, etc. that we see all too often. It's one thing if it's real because any one of the submissions could get you the win, but when people can stay in them for more than a minute without doing anything to relieve the pressure, it just comes off as a bunch of holds being rolled out that are less exciting than high spots.

When the high spots are incorporated in a believable manner, they continue the flow of the match and don't distract from what the match "really is." The problem is when they are just inserting highspots that really have nothing to do with what's going on in the match because these are just a rhythm breaking distractions. Spots like Yagi doing a plancha when Yoshida escaped to the floor served no purpose. The reason is that Yoshida was taking a breather was Yagi had just injured her arm by catching her in an udehishigigyakujujigatame. A lesser wrestler would have lost the match there, yet for some reason Yagi was in no hurry to do anything to capitalize on the Queen's injury or at least break up her "time out." Sure, Yagi did jump on Yoshida, but then she got back into the ring and waited for Yoshida to return. If the plancha was just to get at Yoshida so she could drag her back in the ring and attack the arm, it would not have hurt the match even though it's a fake move. In that situation, jumping on Yoshida would have essentially been a quicker and more exciting way of getting at her so she could continue to focus on the arm. Thus, the loss of realism would have been balanced off by the coolness of the highspot. The flow wouldn't have been killed by Yoshida hanging out on the floor because Yagi would have done her best to capitalize on Yoshida's injury, which was really an evening factor in a close match that Yagi had been losing. Instead, while Yagi did go after the arm, more than a minute and a half passed from the time Yoshida got the rope escape to the time when Yagi grabbed Yoshida on the apron and gave her an armbreaker. The dead time in this match was a definite detractor.

I was disappointed that Yagi didn't incorporate the couple of purely pro style moves she did better. She did a missile kick and a diving footstomp during the long section where she was attacking Yoshida's arm. It would have been so easy for her to do both moves to the arm, but instead she broke up the section for nothing.

Yoshida made her comeback, tossing Yagi around a little then trying her air raid crush, but Yagi turned it into a sunset flip for a near fall. Yoshida went to the finish from the hope spot again, which I didn't like. Yoshida basically held Yagi in the center and changed angles on her choke hold until Yagi gave up.

Yagi is a great opponent for Yoshida because she can be as technical, but I know they can do better. There was more focus shown in the matwork and better transitions than in the previous Yoshida matches. If they are going to keep going to their feet though, we should not be only be seeing the level of sequences and counters they are capable of there, but seeing it in the ways they've shown and are capable of showing where it doesn't present such a sharp contrast to the rest of the things they've been doing. That these two can excel in a number of styles is one of the main reasons they are two of the best, but the key is to either do a theme match where they stick to one style or be able to switch without it seeming like something from another match.

Jerome's review: The second technical masterpiece, and the first to enter the realm of greatness. To work her style without compromising, Mariko Yoshida needs an opponent with at least a very good technical level, otherwise she's too hard to follow. For maybe the first time in her career, Hiromi Yagi was not the best pure technician in her match, but she was a perfect partner for Yoshida and totally understood the logic of her style. With such a high level of opposition, the QUEEN OF ARSION didn't have to bother carrying the mat sections like she would with inferior workers. Instead, she was able to push Yagi to the bounds of her ability.

An enumeration of every hold, counter-hold and tease would be toilsome and boring since they exchanged an incredible number of them. What I feel is important is to try to explain the logic of the match since it seemingly went over the majority of people's heads due to the match not following a traditional structuring. The major misconception is that the transitions between the mat portions and the stand-up are non-existent. On the contrary, their apparent lack of subtlety or flow is inherent to the match's logic. Just like Yoshida's repertoire is split between the submission technique (smooth, fluid, aesthetic) and the highspots (brutal, abrupt), her style is based on the opposition between long, sliding mat sequences and short, high impact highspot sequences. The matwork is measured on a time scale; that's why it's the majority of the match if you only look at the clock. The spots are measured on the effectivenes scale; their number is not important, their impact is what matters.

Unlike the Akino match, where Yoshida had to find ways for a wrestler with 6 months experience to gain the advantage, the transitions were extremely well thought out and natural here. After multiple mat sequences where Yagi failed to really hook a submission hold on Yoshida, she was the one who decided to get up and throw her opponent into the ropes. This was done to break the flow of Yoshida's mat game. The only reason why she gets Yoshida up is to get her down to the mat once again, she's trying to create the opening for a finisher from a standing position instead of from a ground position. It's still part of the mat section paradoxally, that's why it's so beautiful. From there, two developments are possible. Either Yagi succeeds, like when she applied her jujigatame from her ipponzeoi or Yoshida reacts and counters. In that case, Yoshida herself has two possibilities, depending on the situation and her opponent: go back to the mat immediately or use spots to try to KO Yagi. Given highspots are 1/2 of Yoshida's game on the effectiveness scale, it's totally logical for her to stay on her feet and continue the standing sequence. Since she's a technical wonder, she can go back to the mat at any moment because she's more than capable of hooking a submission hold from nowhere to finish the match.

People see a brutal break in the flow of the match and take it as a bad transition because they are set on one traditional match structuring and fail to think beyond it. The 5 Yoshida Masterpieces (Akino, Yagi, Gami, Fukawa, Aja) are totally apart from even the rest of Yoshida's matches. Yoshida reinvented joshi puroresu at that time, and that's what really matters. Her style is unique, but everything is coherent if you can avoid looking at it from the traditional mindset. Here, Yagi had to break the flow of the match, but it was not a given that she would succeed. If she failed and Yoshida continued the match on her two feet, then what should be considered as the real transition is not Yagi's initial breaking of the flow, but Yoshida's reaction to Yagi. Like I said before, the spots are a big part of Yoshida's game, not because she executes a lot of them, but because they are brutally executed and are aimed at KO'ing her opponents. Isn't it revealing that the match began with an air raid crash instead of a mat sequence, establishing right off the bat the coherence of the following 20 minutes?

Overall, Yoshida delivered an awesome performance, her body language being as amazing as it could be in every circumstance. Yagi deserves a lot of credit for being able to follow the master herself in this unique style, and proving if that was even necessary that she's currently one of the greatest joshi wrestlers in the world. Great, great match.

20:36

Rating:

Special thanks to: Jerome Denis