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| 10/7/98 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (1,250) | |
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Mari Apache & Fabi Apache vs. Gami Metal & Lady Metal. This match seemed like it was decent, although it probably was less than ** in unedited form. With the editing, there weren't any blown spots by the Mexicans, and Metal didn't ruin the match. The Apaches finally seemed to have improved. Mari pinned Metal after a super powerbomb (stuff powerbomb off the 2nd). 12:44 (3:11 shown). Rie Tamada & Hiromi Yagi vs. Mariko Yoshida & Mika Akino. This was the first match where Yoshida didn't do so much matwork. This would become a trend throughout the tournament though, one that I didn't find to be a good one. This was the point where ARSION started to go away from what made them different and fell into the same rut as the other women's leagues, the mindless work and spots as the be all and end all of the matches. In this match, I think Tamada was the main reason Yoshida didn't do much on the mat, as she just isn't very comfortable there. Tamada never looks very natural, but she actually had one of her better days in ARSION here. She did several nice dropkicks here, but her double missile kick with Yagi didn't hit perfectly. The double missile kick, when done from different corners, is probably the single hardest double team move to perfectly execute though, so that is excusable. I often wonder why wrestlers ever try to do it, but they got it right a few times in this tournament, and it did look incredible. Yagi & Yoshida were really strong technically, particularly when working together. Akino scored the big upset here, pinning Tamada with a small package out of nowhere. 17:35 (7:35 shown). *** Tiger Dream (Candy Okutsu) & Ayako Hamada vs. Michiko Omukai & Yumi Fukawa. This seemed to be a good match, but didn't seem to be as good as I had hoped. It was exciting with a lot of cool spots and flying, but they didn't seem to work as well together as I thought they would. Candy is still having trouble with her Tiger Mask spots. Her kicks looked bad in comparison to Omukai's, and Omukai still isn't the world's greatest kicker. Omukai was probably the best wrestler in this match though because Candy was hurt by doing the Tiger Dream gimmick. The highlight was Fukawa doing a great springboard corbata. Tiger Dream made Omukai submit to a chickenwing facelock. 14:55 (3:52 shown). |
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