This was also butchered because they cut the first six minutes out, but
it appeared to be one of their best together. After seeing the whole version
on The History of Mayumi Ozaki DVD, there's no doubt in my mind that it
was. You could pretty much tell this was at least an excellent match from
what they showed, and you could tell a few important things:
1) Ozaki gave an awesome all around performance
2) Ozaki's acting is so good, and she has such an incredible tolerance
of pain, that she came off as being tougher than Kansai
3) The selling was excellent
4) The ordering of the spots and the flow of the match was outstanding
5) These two just kicked each other's asses until someone won
6) In spite of all this, the match had no heat
From the unedited version, the main thing that stood out was this was
pretty close to as perfect a match as these two could have. I was seriously
impressed with the believability. Of course, it wasn't believable in
the Tamura is in the mood to work a match that has few enough holes
that many people can be fooled. It was more toward Stan Hansen style
believability. The match was a brawl, but it didn't have any garbage
aspects and always came back to wrestling. The psychology, selling,
comebacks, and transitions were usually exceptional. The timing of the
spots was perfect, but more importantly they were pretty much right
on when it came to timing when to do things and when not to.
The match got off to a fast start with Kansai jumping Ozaki with a big
forearm before the bell. She threw Oz out of the ring and punted her
in between using the guard rail to her advantage. Oz fired back with
forearms, and hurt Kansai's back by whipping her into the guard rail.
Kansai wasn't softened up enough from that one move that Oz could pull
her around by the hair though, so Kansai backdropped her on the floor.
What I liked about Kansai's comeback was it set the tone that it wouldn't
necessarily take a killer spot to hurt these two, but while they might
be slowed or injured by anything, these two were going to fight through
the pain until their body gave out on them.
The first minute plus wouldn't have been appropriate in any match. It
was logical here because, aside from when they sided with each other
against AJW, these two have been rivals for 6 years. Kansai knows better
than to care about the rules when she's wrestling Ozaki, Ozaki certainly
won't abide by them. She also knows that this will be a very difficult
match to win, so she needs every advantage she can get.
Kansai was slow to go back on the offensive after the backdrop because
her back was hurting, but she dominated the action in the ring for the
next few minutes with her hard hitting backdrops, lariats and kicks.
Ozaki knew what was coming, but she couldn't quite avoid it and comeback
because Kansai had taken so much less. When they were outside the ring
the second time, she made a brief comeback after catching one of Kansai's
kicks. However, Kansai reversed her whip into the guard rail and did
a Cactus Jack looking lariat where both went over the guard rail.
Ozaki's first real offensive came when she instinctively countered a
backdrop then caught Kansai's kick and did a Dragon screw into a hizajujigatame.
Kansai made it to the ropes, but Ozaki kept attacking the knee to set
up a fantastic transition where Ozaki went right into the hizajujigatame
after Kansai kicked out of a 2 kaiten ebigatame. Ozaki never wins by
submission, but her submissions are so believable looking because her
facials not only show that she's putting everything into them, but also
that she wouldn't be above putting you out for a long time if you are
dumb enough not to tap. One thing interesting about the hizajujigatames
was that Kansai would try to sit up, I'm assuming to hit Ozaki so she'd
break the hold (I know, I know she needs to spin out to alleviate the
pressure then counter), but Ozaki would push her back with her foot.
Then Ozaki would give Kansai these little boots to the face to annoy
her.
Kansai not only did an excellent job of putting her knee when Ozaki
was attacking it, but also after sticking it to Oz by coming back with
Oz's own running neckbreaker drop after Oz had just missed the said
move. Unfortunately, her carry over selling eroded from there.
Ozaki tried her tope con hilo (?) in the ring, but Kansai kicked her
in the bad knee then booted Oz every time she tried to get up. Ozaki
took a king sized beating, getting punted all around the ring. Finally,
she ducked a kick and caught Kansai in tequila sunrise position. However,
Kansai powered out, so Ozaki urakened her then tequila sunrised her
for a near fall. Ozaki got cocky, she would taunt Kansai between urakens,
but she became somewhat frustrated when Kansai just kicked out of her
Liger bomb. I was happy though because Kansai stayed down without really
moving until Ozaki finally dragged her up. Unfortunately, I had a problem
with the next spot. I thought it was goofy that Kansai turned Ozaki's
lariat into a splash mountain. It was just an unnecessary quick comeback.
At least Kansai looked kind of out of it when she staggered up, grabbing
the top rope to help get her balance. Ozaki slowly recovered, only to
have Kansai nearly kick her into unconsciousness twice in a row. They
gave Ozaki a 10 count after the second one because she wasn't moving
at all. She was so wobbly that if she wasn't a member of (recently transformed
to Puerto Rican patriot) Don King's stable, a boxing ref probably wouldn't
have let her continue. Kansai immediately laid her out with a lariat
and set up Die Hard Kansai (splash mountain off the 2nd), but Ozaki
fought her off and came back with a crappy punch off the top. At this
point Ozaki seemed to be fairly okay, which was among the weakest points
of the match since she was just about dead a second ago. At least Kansai
quickly cut a tequila sunrise attempt with Ozaki's own uraken. Kansai
was now the cocky one. She was so sure she was going to end it right
here with her splash mountain that she wasted too much time posing for
pictures and Ozaki turned it into a schoolboy for a near fall.
Both women were the worse for wear, although Kansai was clearly in the
better shape of the two. Ozaki had eaten enough kicks for one day though,
so when Kansai tried yet another kick, she swept her knee. This was
a great counter that was a long time coming, but what made the time
Ozaki had spent earlier working on Kansai's knee seem worthwhile. When
Kansai got up, she tried another kick, but Oz caught her leg and held
it while she went crazy with the urakens. Ozaki then tequila sunrised
Kansai for the win. Both women were "unconscious" for a little
while after the match.
Kicks had been such a key to this match that I liked the fact that they
led to the demise of one of the wrestlers. The problem with the finish
is that while it reads well, for all the killer Aja style urakens Ozaki
had delivered earlier, these four short ones she did while holding Kansai
didn't have much on them. Unless you spin, they never really do. Due
to the lack of stiffness on the final set of urakens, the finish didn't
seem convincing enough given who was involved and all that had been
done in this match. That said, I don't necessarily think Kansai should
have kicked out because the bar can only be raised so much. I mean,
if 4 urakens and a tequila sunrise aren't enough, what could Ozaki do
that would be?
Jason: A great match because both wrestlers had to wear their opponent
down before they could do the big moves. They used their most effective
strikes after trying to use power moves early that were easily countered.
Kansai used her kicks and Ozaki used her uraken. One great near fall
was when Ozaki countered Kansai's Splash Mountain into a rollup early
in the match. In the end, Ozaki proved that Kansai didn't wear her down
enough by anticipating Kansai's next kick and finishing her off with
urakens and a tequila sunrise. I liked this match because it wasn't
wrestlers trying to beat an opponent with a seemingly endless series
of moves that really didn't mean anything, but opponents who used a
series of moves that lead to a logical finish.
Special Thanks to: Jason Higgs
15:54 (the fools cut this down to 8:36 for TV so they
could waste time showing some JWP vs. Neo mediocrity)
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