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AWF Sekai Joshi Senshuken: The Bloody vs. Yuko Kosugi 11/1/99 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (1,180) From Battle Station Jd' 11/24/99 |
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Bloody did a really good job here. This had the same level of work as usual, actually it was slightly better, but mainly it was superior to their previous encounters because it was a smarter match. There was more build and more of a reason for things to be happening. The next step would be to connect the early portion to the later stages, but that's a problem almost everyone has these days. This match flowed really well because the spots and counters logically set up the next move. Bloody pretty much dominated the first 2/3 of the match with heel techniques. Kosugi would be resourceful enough to get a move in now and then, but that was about it. The requisite interference by Saya Endo and Fang Suzuki certainly didn't hurt Bloody's cause any, but this time Bloody was mainly winning on her own. Bloody did a good job of getting over her heel technique. She used a sharp object on Kosugi's head to bust her open a few minutes into the match then attacked Kosugi's head for several minutes. Kosugi finally came back when she knocked Bloody off the top rope to the floor then did her footstomp off the apron and a German suplex on the floor. Unfortunately for Kosugi, Saya interfered when Kosugi went for her diving footstomp, hitting Kosugi with a chair so Bloody could take control once again. Sumie Sakai did help Kosugi a little, but it was not enough considering Saya's propensity to interfere. "Bloody cutting up Kosugi's head and then going after the cut would have worked *much* better if Kosugi had bled more. By the time Bloody moved away from attacking the wound, the blood was virtually gone," wrote James. Kosugi came back with her bungee foot stick, but referee Tommy Ran refused to count a pinfall because Bloody happened to be on a pile of chairs. Of course, the pile of chairs were only there because Bloody had been using them to do added damage to Kosugi, and Ran had already unknowingly counted after Bloody did her diving senton with Kosugi on the chairs. Kosugi was so pissed that she hit Ran. Kosugi gave the sign for the lariat, but Fang tripped her up. "The heels did a pretty good job with this spot. Saya not only held down Tommy to stop her seeing the chairs being used as a prop for Bloody's senton, but also covered her ears so that she wouldn't hear the impact, enabling them to get away with the cheating," wrote James. Bloody was tossing Kosugi around with suplexes. It looked bad for Kosugi, so Sachie Abe came in and made the save. Bloody tried to up the ante with a Dragon suplex off the 2nd, but Kosugi fought it off, so Bloody had to settle for standing in the ring and German suplexing Kosugi off the 2nd rope onto the chairs. Bloody had the match won with her Dragon suplex hold, but Abe once again made the save. Saya & Fang came in to drape Kosugi across two folding chairs that they set up so you could sit in them then put two chairs on top of Kosugi. This was the setup for a killer new version of the diving footstomp. The footstomp was nasty because Kosugi was in the air across chairs, but the chairs on top of her took the brunt of the impact and it wasn't a believable move because your body doesn't lie straight when you are out and there is nothing under your back or butt. If you were really going to do this to someone to injure them they'd have to be face down instead of face up, but that would destroy their back, so obviously it's not something you'd do in a work. In this context, pretty much all that really mattered was that it was a cool looking gimmick spot. James wrote, "This move was incredibly stupid. If they had put a third chair in under her back it might have looked somewhat believable, but if they were going to do that, why not just put her through a table or something?" It would have been a lot nastier if the chair was under her instead of over her, but I guess we are still a year or two away from the precut chair...Anyway, Saya got rid of the plunder as Bloody did a new version of the Dragon suplex hold where she didn't clasp her hands for a full nelson, just had them under Kosugi's arms with her palms on Kosugi's shoulders for the win. Bloody carried this match and gave a more impressive performance than Kosugi. The biggest problem was that Bloody made herself too dominant, especially since she was going over in the end. The biggest problem overall is that no matter what happens between Bloody, Kosugi, Sakai, & Yabushita, none of them are seen as having a chance against Lioness, so there are no big matches in this league and like JWP, the four never will be seen as stars because they never beat anyone to warrant being on the top of the cards. "Heel dominance is usually the way main event Jd' matches are worked. Many of Lioness Asuka's matches are the same, her May 1998 match vs. Kyoko in particular was very one sided. In this case, I don't think it hurt Kosugi too much that she was dominated because a lot of the time when she was about to go on offense Saya or Fang would interfere and cut her off," wrote James. Heel dominance can work, but there's a big difference between a series of Lioness vs. Kyoko title matches where Kyoko wins as many matches as Lioness and Kosugi getting her ass kicked by all the "top heels," Shit & Bloody in particular, and then Yoshiko Tamura coming in and taking Bloody's title. Jd' is even worse than JWP in the sense that their four never beaten anyone other than each other since they became the "main eventers," and even though she's their biggest star and best worker, there hasn't been a point in having Lioness on the shows since Jaguar retired. They should have went from this match to a competitive Lioness vs. Bloody since Bloody separated herself from Kosugi and the others with a commanding victory. Of course, they absolutely needed to go to Lioness vs. Bloody right after Lioness abandoned all her understudies when Chigusa gave her the gig as the leader of the SSU at the end of 1998. "They finally got around to Lioness vs. Bloody over a year after Lioness turned against most of her understudies. Unfortunately, it was done all wrong because after the match 'CEO' Lioness reconciled with Bloody, and the two jumped into a car to go straight to the GAEA show and announce Bloody as Uematsu's tag partner for the Ariake show. Putting Bloody back with Lioness after a year on her own was incredibly stupid because it puts her back as a #2 after 12 months as a #1," wrote James. I agree it was incredibly stupid to put her back with Lioness, but the real problem was they never did anything to prove she was a #1. A slot is only worth what the promotion makes it worth, and a #1 that can't beat anyone that debuted before 1994 isn't worth much of anything when the only women who are seen as stars are the ones that were headlining during the 92-95 glory period. It's like they had no plan when they did the split up, so they just reset things after Bloody wasted 16 months of her career. The idea that the longer they wait, the more credible the younger wrestlers will be is hardly the case. It's more like the longer they wait the less reason there will ever be for doing it, and the better the chance that it will be too little too late. I can see why they wouldn't want to think about the present when they typically draw 200, but the reason they are in this position is that their old stars left without ever putting their new "stars" over. Instead of trying to do something for the future, Yoshiko Tamura came out after the match and challenged Bloody to a title match, which she went on to win. Now I like Tamura as much as the next guy, but I don't want anyone that's supposed to be a top wrestler in my league losing to her when Kyoko sees fit to constantly make her and anyone that was ever on Neo's roster not named Shimoda or Mita to look like a jobber, which is the main reason they went bankrupt and out of business. Not only did losing to Tamura make Bloody look like she was nothing special, but imagine what it did to Kosugi, who couldn't even give Bloody that competitive of a title match. The Tamura match was good, but the whole situation in Jd' is so annoying that it's tainted the fact that the matches between Bloody, Kosugi, Sakai, & Yabushita are always good, and this was actually the best they've had that didn't involve a veteran. "Although the deal with Tamura was stupid and unnecessary, they did have the right idea in Bloody dropping the title in front of 250 people and regaining it with 1650 people watching. Shame they chose to air the first match on TV so most of their fans saw it anyway. Jd' have the same problems that JWP have had over the last few years. They are trying to make their younger wrestlers into stars, but when it comes to interpromotional matches they always get booked down the toilet against women that debuted at around the same time or are of similar age, but aren't pushed nearly as much in their home leagues. The situation is worse for Sakai, who over the last year has been booked against the likes of Momoe Nakanishi and Chaparrita ASARI, and it's not as if she has been regularly beating these women. Bloody is now teaming with Toshie Uematsu, someone who has never meant anything in GAEA, hardly a step forward. This kind of booking does nothing to help Jd', and it would be far more beneficial if they kept Yabushita, Bloody, Kosugi and Sakai away from interpromotional deals against wrestlers with less of a push because it isn't helping them," wrote James. The problem is until they can compete with Lioness, there's no way Jd' can expect any of the other leagues to let them compete with their veterans. The Kyoko vs. Azumi and Kansai vs. Genki type of matches are worse than even the matches where they are trading wins with mediocrity because the veterans just make them look like jobbers. I'd say that they'd be better off not having any interpromotional matches at this point, but when you have one name, no depth, and can't draw anyone, it's hard to envision the league turning things around entirely on their own. However, if it was up to me, I'd just be concentrating on getting them credible against Lioness, which means Lioness is going to have to do some jobs for the good of the company. The thing is, unless Lioness is willing to try to make them stars, it's not going to happen, so it has to be done or they may as well either fold the league or part ways with Lioness even though in many ways she is the league. If Bloody won two of her next five matches with Lioness then at least when you were dealing with the other leagues you could say look, this is our top star and she's beating Lioness these days, so if we are going to work together then she's going to have to beat some of your stars. If they won't agree then just don't deal with them because nothing could be more pointless than having someone beat Lioness and then trade wins with an ASARI or Tamura. It's not like I expect LLPW to let Bloody beat Kandori just because she beat Lioness a couple times, but after a year and a half as Jd's "top heel," she should at least be beating the Rumi's, KAORU's, and Takako's of the world. Jason's review: This match was all about Bloody using her heel/brawling style to dominate and beat Kosugi. Kosugi is the top face, so she took all the punishment that Bloody dished out. This isn't a problem for Kosugi since Megumi Kudo is her idol. The match started out like a lot of matches do nowadays, fast paced work without establishing the focus of the match until Bloody got things going a few minutes in by hitting referee Tommy Ran with a chair then hitting Kosugi with the chair. Bloody used an object, a fork I think, to bust open Kosugi's forehead. Kosugi made a brief comeback using a STF, but Bloody regained her advantage with dropkicks then played the bitch role, rubbing her foot in Kosugi's face. Bloody's cohorts, Saya Endo and Fang Suzuki, interfered to damage Kosugi some more. Bloody did a back elbow from the turnbuckle to the floor and then threw Kosugi into the chairs. Back in the ring, Bloody placed Kosugi on a pile of chairs and hit her senton bomb for a two count. Kosugi came back with her bungee foot stomp into the pile of chairs, but Tommy Ran wouldn't count the fall. Bloody took control again with her rolling German suplexes then did Dragon suplex hold, but Abe broke it up. Bloody then threw Kosugi off the second turnbuckle into the pile of chairs with a German suplex and did another Dragon suplex hold for a near fall. Endo and Fang set up Kosugi between two chairs so that Bloody could hit her with a footstomp from the top rope, which looked pretty dangerous. Bloody then hit a new version of the Dragon suplex hold for the win. A dominant performance from Bloody that made her stand out as the top worker of the veteran-less Jd'. Without Lioness around as the top heel, Bloody can take that spot, but this doesn't matter if Bloody is not going to be respected as a top heel outside her own promotion. Bloody can a have great matches with the other Jd' girls, but when she is beaten by Tamura on 12/7/99, this didn't help her credibility as a heel because what wrestler of note has Tamura beaten? All of the young girls need to get a rub from the veterans if they are going to truly become top stars. Special thanks to: Jason Higgs & James Phillips- Japanese Women's Wrestling 18:29 (15:38 aired)
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