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| 11/21/98 Kanagawa Odawara Shi Sento Town Center (2,650) | |
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Tamada & Yagi vs. Mari & Fabi Apache. Mainly the double team spots were shown. Yagi made Fabi submit to a reverse achilles tendon hold. This win put Tamada & Yagi in second place with 7 points. The Apaches, who got off to the hot start, lost all their matches in the second half of the tournament, winding up with 6 points. 14:46 (1:23) |
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| 11/27/98 Chiba Koen Taiikukan (1,050) | |
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Omukai & Fukawa vs. Reggie & Jessie Bennett. Omukai & Fukawa came into the match with 6 points. All they needed was a draw with the Bennetts, who they had beaten in the past, to make it to the finals. Rie Tamada sat at ringside with a worried look on her face, as she knew there was a good chance that her team would fall just short of the finals. The great thing about ARSION is a girl Yumi's size can credibly challenge a girl Reggie's size. Not that it matters booking wise, but it should be mentioned that Reggie weighed a lot less here because she was training really hard for her shoot match against Elina. Anyway, whenever they have tried to do this in America, it's always incredibly predictable when the little guy will get the big upset win, and the star always makes the result come off as a farce. The reason it doesn't work here is that the whole match accentuates the size difference. That simply can't work because the whole point of the match is to show the size difference isn't an issue. The trick is for the smaller wrestler to just go in there with confidence and even cockiness, like Ozaki does, and kick some ass. If they believe they would beat the larger wrestler and they can act decently, they can make you believe it too. Even though she was as thin as she's been since LPWA, it still amazes me that Reggie could take Yumi's ultra huracanrana. In a way, this move actually looks better when it's done to Reggie because she's such a large and strong base. The smaller Yumi didn't come out on top here, as the ref stopped the match when Reggie KO'd her with a shoda. This was not a legit KO because the way Fukawa went down was the way you'd fall when you were looking to put over the move big. Also, Reggie doesn't do her shodas properly, so they are more like slaps than true palm strikes, which mean they aren't nearly as deadly as they should be. Still, they made this look like an accident, with referee Daichi Murayama doing a particularly good job of handling this situation. Perhaps they did the finish in this manner to save face for Omukai & Yumi or to show that Reggie doesn't know her own strength? In any case, it was a little too convenient that Reggie would legitimately win in this manner this close to her shoot match, but that does show that the booking was actually leading somewhere. Omukai & Fukawa were once again left behind in favor of Hamada, which is a trend that no one should have been happy with. Fukawa did look like she was capable of winning though, so while I don't think it was the right move for her to do the job, at least it wasn't done in a manner that made her look like Incapable Mini. 13:39 (1:46 shown) |
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| 12/3/98 Niigata Phase (450) | |
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Reggie & Jessie Bennett vs. Gami & Lady Metal. Both of these teams were battling for last instead of first. This wasn't much of a way to finish the league portion, but it may have been done to fool the smarts into thinking one or both of these teams would still be in contention. The purpose of this match was to get Reggie over more as a shooter. Reggie pretty much handled Gami in the shoot sequences, including putting Gami down with a series of shodas. This looked interesting, but they didn't really show any of Jessie & Lady, which would obviously have taken the match down a lot. Gami pinned designated job girl Jessie with a small package. This meant Jessie got neither win for her team, but did all four jobs. 16:19 (0:40). |
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