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JWP Nintei Musabetsukyu Senshuken
Jiai: Hikari Fukuoka vs. Kurenai Yasha (LLPW) |
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As expected, neither woman could carry the match. Unfortunately, that meant this was another of those "wonderful" Hikari matches that degenerated into "you do your spots and I'll do mine." Hikari's work was great, but nothing else about this match was close to that level. This didn't even have any heat, which is downright pathetic considering it was an interpromotional title match on a major show. "Because this match was a rare interpromotional match, it should have been made more special. Having the top star challenge a star from a different promotion should mean more and garner some heat. Unfortunately, Hikari is not a person that can do heat segments. She lacks the attitude it took for a Hokuto, Kong, Chigusa, Ozaki, or Bull to generate heat in the interpromotional matches between '93-'94. Rather than slap Yasha, who plays a cult heel character (her fans do these rodent-like chants of "Kurenai Yasha!"), Hikari shook Yasha's hand, even cried in one of their previous matches. That match, which was on LLPW's territory, had some fans actually jeering Hikari, which brought up a rare middle finger to them. But the direction was wrong. She respected Yasha because Yasha was part of her wrestling class, and that lowered the potential heat for the match," wrote Keith. The beginning was weak. They tried to do some different things, but it was just falling flat for various reasons. One reason was that these spots often looked unconvincing. One such spot was Hikari lightly tombstoning Yasha on the floor. Yasha's head barely even touched the chair it was supposed to be hitting. It's not a good sign when a spot reminds me of Mark Calloway. I suppose I shouldn't cut on such a "legend" when his retarded, logic defying Undertaker gimmick alone will probably be enough to wrongly make him a Hall of Famer even though the man himself isn't even worthy of inclusion on the ballot. Anyway, another unconvincing spot was Yasha giving Hikari a really lame shot to the knee with the kendo stick only to go right into her Yasha lock. If the Yasha lock had anything to do with the knee, these at least would have flowed together. The main reason this match fell flat was that neither of these two are smart wrestlers. One dumb spot was Yasha accidentally taking the ref out with her kendo stick about 6 minutes into a match that everyone knew would be long. Anyway, this set up Hikari sticking her head through the ropes and seeing that the ref is down outside the ring. Knowing this, she moonsaulted Yasha and laid there holding Yasha's leg waiting for a ref she knew was down and out to start counting. "The ref bump was beyond dumb for a number of reasons. It was too obvious because Hikari really telegraphed it, hiding behind and sticking to the ref until Yasha was ready to hit her. It played no part in the outcome of the match like it did in Kudo vs. Aja from 12/6/93, so what was the point? Third, it was dumb because the ref got hit in the stomach, which is the best place to get hit. Even if you are skinny, you're more equipped to absorb the hit there. Had the ref been caned in the head, I could see her being out for several minutes, but they did nothing while she was out that they couldn't have done in front of her so the whole sequence made no sense at all," wrote Michael. At points they tried hard to sell, but their selling wasn't good so it was boring and hurt the pacing of the match. At points the pace of the match was too fast. This hurt the comebacks, which were too quick, and the carry over selling, which was largely non-existent. After not putting over the toll of the match, suddenly they both acted dead for the finish, which saw Hikari hit her moonsault footstomp to retain the title. The match was illogical on so many levels. It was mainly spot wrestling, so a lot of people will think it's very good, especially since they did some unpredictable things. Yasha, as usual, was mediocre at best. She really reduced this one, although Hikari is such an excellent worker that if she could carry a match this could have been very good in spite of Yasha. 19:36. Jason: The spots did take the match down because they didn't have any logic behind them. The lack of crowd heat didn't help either. I think the blame has to go to both of them. Hikari is the better worker, but Yasha could have stepped up a bit more since the match was supposed to be a pretty big deal. Keith: One problem with this match is that Yasha is a stiff. She didn't really bump, instead having Hikari take some chair shots after hitting nasty moves like her apron tope con hilo. What's the point of Hikari taking bumps like that if Yasha isn't going to get heat from them? Instead, the only person smiling was probably Rumi Kazama for getting Yasha an undeserved higher status. It demeaned Hikari's title reign since she only could challenge an LLPW "star" that was from her class level, but not above. I think they would have had Hikari vs. one or both of the higher ranked LLPW wrestlers (Kandori and Eagle) if Kazama wasn't impossible to do business with. I'm sure JWP was willing to allow Kandori to beat Hikari 2-3 times, LLPW might have given Hikari one win over Kandori. That's just one of the many reasons they aren't worth dealing with. Special Thanks to: Michael Smith, Jason Higgs & Keith Watanabe - Manami Toyota Rules!
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