|
|
ARSION Match: Ayako Hamada & Mika Akino vs. Aja Kong & Mariko Yoshida |
|
|
This match is a perfect example of why ARSION is my favorite league. On paper, it had every right to be as one sided as the Shark vs. Kosugi match, but pretty much all Aja did when she was in is sell for the rookies. Yoshida wasn't nearly as giving, but she let the rookies be even with her, which is more than enough for them given their combined experience is less than a year. The sad thing was that as far out of their way as they went to make it look like the rookies would win, not a creature in the arena was stirring, not even a Tanny Mouse. "This was one of the better matches on the card, but the audience was about as dead as when a ChinRock is applied for 8 minutes in a 'gruelling' 2/3 falls WWF match. The difference between an 8 minute ChinRock and what ARSION does is that there's actual movement in the holds," wrote Keith. The other difference is the WWF wrestlers need curtains because enough light shines through their "tightly clamped locks" to wake me up in the morning. "Seriously, considering that ARSION is one of the few leagues to really progress women's wrestling style in integrating the submission techniques, I thought it was sad that the audience didn't pop more for the difference in style that was displayed in this match compared with the other matches," wrote Keith. That is the most annoying thing. Fans that hop on the bandwagon are usually annoying, but the one time they are good is when a league is doing something "new and different." It has to be very discouraging to the wrestlers when they try to not do the same old thing every day for 10 years, but in turn, the fans react to it less than they would to the same tired old things. It's sad. I'll never understand why most people seem to want to shut their brain off when they are being entertained. Life should be more than one ritual after the other. "But going back the paper issue, I doubt anyone honestly gave Ayako and Akino a chance for that reason alone. So even if there was a bunch of near fall attempts or excellent points where say Yoshida would sell her arm for Akino's udehishigigyakujujigamate, the arena was heatless," wrote Keith The rookies were still rookies, so everything didn't look perfect. In particular, Ayako was only partially hitting some of her high spots. Akino looked sad once when she jumped before Yoshida was ready to do her (thankfully not Big Papa) pump handle suplex, so she then had to jump again a second later so Yoshida could do it this time. Akino generally looked really good though, particularly by working smooth mat sequences with Yoshida. To show you how far Aja went to put over Hamada, she even did a Lucha sequence with her. Aja actually looked good doing it to, especially the arm drag. The problem was that Aja looked pretty lame standing there while Ayako was doing her rope walk. Even though the flip that Hamada did out of it looked cool, it just didn't seem right for someone like Aja to wait around for her to get her balance on the top rope to do it. I liked it better when she was much nastier. The highlight of the match was Hamada doing a quebrada to both then Akino doing her no touch tope con hilo to both. "This was one of the best spots of the night, and the crowd actually woke up to give kudos to Hamada and Akino," wrote Keith. Yoshida really needs to get some advice from Phil LaFon (I'm sure he has plenty of free time these days) on how to do a finishing sequence because just about every one of her matches just ends. The finish of this match was even worse than usual though. In part, that was because the crowd was totally dead when she applied her henkei sleeper hold. I recognized it as her finisher, but nothing said to me, this is going to be it. "I agree about the finisher. It came out of nowhere, there wasn't much lead up to it. The heatless crowd certainly didn't help things though," wrote Keith. My interest in seeing the Yoshida vs. Akino title match peaked when they worked so well together during the match, but dipped when they did the obvious result, showing us that Akino can't even beat Yoshida in a tag match. Special thanks to: Keith Watanabe - Manami Toyota Rules!12:24 (6:53 shown)
|
|
