Rena Takase vs. Yu Yamagata. Work was decent, but the offense was remedial. They went with the moves well, but the match had this contrived look as if they were working in step to the rhythm. Hilarious spot where Yamagata took too long to charge the corner so Takase's missile kick came up a few feet short, but Yamagata did this slide to "make it look like it hit her." *1/2
Tsubasa Kuragaki vs. Bionic J. J's interviews are still mega cheese, but in the ring she's doing a much better job of carrying the match (of course there's not too many wrestlers in ARSION that she'd actually carry). The problem with this match is, while J did fine setting up her own offense, she didn't do anything to give Tsubasa a chance to be impressive. Instead, J used her size advantage and offense she lifted from Bull to "justify" it being one-sided. *3/4
Lady Pentagon & PIKO & PIKA vs. Azumi Hyuga & Faby Apache & baby A. Clowns fought the serious lucha style they can do well. No one overly stood out, but everyone contributed. Cool spinning moves, especially by A. **3/4
Jiki Queen Chosensha Kettie Leaguesen: Rie Tamada vs. Mariko Yoshida. Yoshida did a very good job here, but unfortunately Tamada was a useless lump just lying on the mat while Yoshida did all the work. I don't think Yoshida should be faulted for not totally losing her style in favor of Tamada's, but that would have made for a better match simply because during these sections we could at least tell Tamada had a pulse. Tamada was fine here doing her usual good moves well and even a few different ones, but aside from spots she was worthless. Aside from Yoshida, what was good about this match is they started using finishers for very near falls before 10:00. You kept thinking this was it or it would take one more move, but it would keep going on. The thing is with a time limit so short they can't really get back into the body to do more damage after some finishers fail, so it just winds up being finishers until someone wins or it's a 15:00 draw. **
Jiki Queen Chosensha Kettie Leaguesen (Next Queen Challenger Decision League Match): Michiko Omukai vs. GAMI 13:11. Mat oriented match with bursts of highspot exchanges. It was like two matches in more ways than simply the transition from the ground to the highlights. The first saw Omukai working hard but looking unimpressive with weak strikes and lousy attitude offense she lifted from Takako, while GAMI was her lazy self. The second saw GAMI wake up and incorporate some nice counters to spice the match up and Omukai look impressive with her striking game. The match was good when GAMI carried it; it's too bad she'd usually rather loaf and clown around. Generally, there was a lot more good than bad, as the style harked back to ARSION’s technical roots even if Omukai did too much sitting in the submissions for my taste. They tried to make the match notable, though GAMI doing a stretcher job from the shining wizard was more than a bit much. **3/4
Ayako Hamada & Ai Fujita vs. Lioness Asuka & noki-A. Well worked match
with lots of nice spots. I liked the one where Lioness wouldn't go over for
Fujita's huracanrana, so with Lioness holding her vertically A dropkicked
Fujita in the face then Lioness did a version of the giant swing. Everyone
did some good things, the match was actually AJW length, and there were no
real problems. Ayako wasn't treated like a huge star, but Lioness wasn't
running over the opposition like she usually does, it was pretty even. If
anything was done against Ayako it was Fujita's offense getting put over
more rather than her being a clearly weak link or Lioness vs. Omukai being
set up after the match. ***1/4
Michael Smith: Overall this was a good match despite the first 10 minutes
being fairly uneventful. On paper I thought this match would be much better
than it turned out to be, but AKINO and Fujita were very impressive nonetheless.
I also thought Ayako looked pretty good the few times she got a chance to
do anything. It's a shame that Omukai & Asuka (basically) forced her
out of ARSION because had the point of this match been to build excitement
for rematches between these four then I'd have really been looking foward
to them. They did enough here to make you want to see them again as both
teams worked really well with themselves and each other; they just didn't
do that much during the opening minutes of the match. Instead "The Powers
That Be" in ARSION saw fit to try to bury Hamada and I give her a lot
of credit for not falling over Omukai and Lioness' ego trips. You can't really
fault Ayako or Yoshida for ARSION not drawing when they were pushed hard
because Aja still booked herself to be the dominant force in the company
and people just never took to the style ARSION employed in it's first year
and a half. Then they decided to try to be like everyone else and in the
process alienated much of their original fanbase, yet Yoshida and Hamada
seem to get blamed for this. Now instead of really looking foward to seeing
HamaJita develop as a team we get to see ARSION's version of sports entertainment.
As a side note, I always liked when Sakie Hasegawa donned the Blizzard Yuki
attire and when KAORU got Infernal, but AKINO becomming the daughter of the
Gobbleygooker just doesn't work and looks really stupid. **3/4
Rie Tamada vs. Yu Yamagata. Tamada fought her match. It was totally lopsided and not any good, although no real screw ups. 3:43 shown
Lady Pentagon & PIKA & Rena Takase vs. Chaparrita ASARI & Ai Fujita & baby A. Another strong lucha style match, fast paced and all action. A is good in this kind of match because she can do her few impressive moves, take a few bumps, and get out. Takase is not good in this kind of match because she has no viable offense and doesn't find a rhythm. Fujita was the star here, using the match to showcase the best flying in the league. Pentagon carried her team, but her effort is definitely better than her work. I wish ASARI showed a fraction of that effort. Pentagon was put over here, pinning ASARI then taking A out with her spinning tombstone. ***1/4
Rena Takase vs. noki-A. Takase was more impressive here because A was very unselfish and went out of her way to put her over. She's kind of like a better version of Miyuki Fujii, competent but so outclassed offensively that you can't take her too seriously. With A's help though, Takase, who was busting her ass, made about as good a showing as she's capable of. Takase looked rather weak when A would come close to beating her with non finishers, but at least Takase was resourceful and got some near falls of her own. More drama than it had the right to have. **1/2
Jiki Queen Chosensha Kettie Leaguesen: Mariko Yoshida vs. GAMI. GAMI was slow and lethargic, not showing much of anything here. Yoshida was very good, but her style requires activity from the opponent. The transitions and counters weren't there like in the old days, which isn't to say there wasn't any but that there were less and they tended to be more methodical. GAMI relied more on submissions, which were made by Yoshida's selling. That was one of the virtues of the match, increasing the number of great near finishes. There were still nice spots like Yoshida slipping out of the Kentucky bomb and going into a sleeper. Also, GAMI, who did a good job of keeping Yoshida from pinning her in the air raid crash, turning it into adios amiga. Later, when Yoshida finally caught her with it, GAMI actually got a headscissor submission before Yoshida could go for the pin. **1/2
Michiko Omukai Debut 10th Anniversary: Lioness Asuka vs. Michiko Omukai. Lioness
looked excellent doing several nice spots varying from a takedown into a
jujigatame to a foostomp off the balcony through a table. The problem with
her is she was that much more selfish than usual, but in this case she was
so much better than Omukai that it was almost justifiable. Omukai did a bunch
of kicks, but since Lioness kicks much better they didn't look very impressive.
She tried to do a shining wizard off a table on the middle rope, but it was
too high for her to jump onto well. While the match was a draw, it was one
that only looks good for Michiko on paper. Omukai didn't gain anything from
it both because she was totally dominated and she didn't look impressive
when she did have the opportunity to do something. **3/4
MS: This match was extremely disappointing. The work was good, but way too
dominated by Asuka. Considering it only went 15 minutes it would've been
nice had Omukai been on offense for more than 3 of them. Lioness did one
great spot though, a footstomp off a balcony level stairway that put Omukai
through a table, but the match seemed to end as quickly as it started. Omukai
was very sloppy here and I don't know if it was because she was sick but
she looked very frail and she should probrably add a few pounds to get in
better shape. The biggest problem though is that neither woman was even close
to winning when it ended, so I kinda felt ripped off by the fact that it
came off more like an altercation than an actual match. It made you want
to see them against each other again but more because you want to actually
see a match and not a sprint. **1/2
UWA Sekai Joshi Tag Title Match: Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita vs. Ayako Hamada
& Faby Apache. This match was bad even by LCO's "standards"
in GAEA, much less anywhere else. The pacing was odd and off. Hamada &
Faby were doing their lucha offense, but without the speed and rhythm. LCO
weren't doing their thing, but it's hard to say what exactly they were doing.
In any case, they never goit it together and the match was sloppy with Hamada's
timing being particularly off. *3/4
MS: Overall this was a pretty entertaining and well paced match. However,
both Fabi and Ayako were very sloppy, which wound up bringing down the quality.
The finish came out of nowhere, which took away from the match as well. Generally
speaking I don't have a problem with flash pins but when they are poorly
set-up (like in this match) and there is no build to them you come away from
a match feeling ripped off and I did here (which was the second time on this
show, the other being Omukai vs. Lioness). Shimoda just beat Ayako with a
Tiger suplex, a move that's won matches before but not a move that's considered
a strong or deadly finisher for her by any means. Being that the match was
even, with neither team really dominating, having Shimoda beat Ayako like
that was useless. At this point she shouldn't have to prove that she can
just hang with LCO and be happy for that, she already did that 2 years ago
with AKINO. Of course, she quit ARSION a few days later and stuff like this
made it obvious that they didn't want her around anyway except to be a glorified
jobber. ***
PIKA & Rena Takase vs. Yu Yamagata & baby A. All action. Takase is becoming a good worker. Her offense hasn't changed, but this match was all about sequences and counters and it was pretty slick. Yamagata looked better as well. Some sloppiness, mainly because they were going so fast they got out of control. **1/2
SKY HIGH OF ARSION Title Match: Faby Apache vs. Lady Pentagon. This was a little disappointing, but I guess I was assuming what Pentagon did in trios would translate into singles. Faby did several nice spots, but it didn't come together and the finish was pretty weak. Faby did a swet spinning arm whip then Pentagon thought she was going back to it, but Faby turned it into a DDT. **1/4
Jiki Queen Chosensha Kettie Leaguesen: Mariko Yoshida vs. Michiko Omukai 13:41. Fairly credible match with standup striking leading to takedowns and moves countered into submissions. It's the same
old story with Yoshida, she's so damn good at a style her opponents don't want to work that everyone winds up bringing her down. She made Omukai put forth a serious effort, but Omukai wasn't going to flashback to 1998
when she showed so much promise doing the more realistic style. Yoshida made
a lot of great moves on the mat, but Omukai was just along for the ride and
offensively was doing the same old Takako wannabe spots. In her defense,
Omukai's selling was very good and she was much more willing to go with and
put over Yoshida's stuff than the majority of ARSION wrestlers have been
of late. ***1/4
MS: Technically speaking, this was an excellent match. It was nice to see
ARSION (for at least one match) go back to what made them so great initially.
As usual, Yoshida ruled on the mat. Omukai did a great job of selling the
numerous submissions she found herself in. I felt Michiko's strikes looked
fairly weak as she looks pretty fragile in the ring these days. However,
she did a solid job stretching Mariko and I enjoyed finally seeing an ARSION
match from this year live up to expectations. The only drawback was that
it could've been a few minutes longer, but sometimes it's better to leave
people wanting more (as long as you don't leave them feeling robbed and they
didn't here). ***3/4
Boxing Tokubetsu Jiai: Ai Fujita vs. Uno Yamaki. Yoshiki Takahashi was in Fujita's corner. This was one of the weirdest boxing matches I've ever seen. Neither appeared to have any skill, technique, defense, or concept of distance, but they had impressive stamina. They just stood toe to toe for 5 rounds and threw as many punches as they could. It was almost like the idea was not to win, but to see who could fire more punches. I have no idea how they didn't punch themselves out. It seemed like Yamaki could actually take her time and land a decent punch if she wanted to, but she got sucked into Fujita's game and Fujita was the better conditioned of the two.
TWINSTAR OF ARSION Title Match: GAMI & Rie Tamada vs. Lioness Asuka & noki-A. This seemed to be Tamada's match, as hard as that is to fathom. Contrived, unstructured, directionless mess. They usually didn't bother to sell. After starting off wearing a noki-A mask, GAMI wasn't involved for about 10 minutes then came in doing eye gouges. A did some cool stuff when she was in, but for most of the match she was used as a change of pace, well that is if this match had a pace. The effect minimizing finish where noki-A did a nice schoolboy for GAMI's lariat, but GAMI turned it into la Gamistral at 1 for the win seemed to sum up the match. **
Rena Takase & Yu Yamagata vs. Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita. Solid match with good action. It should have been much worse than last months LCO vs. Ayako & Faby, but everyone was on the same page and working a suitable pace. The moves weren't as good, but it flowed together. Even though the opponents offense was similarly aerial oriented, the match was more the LCO formula. Takase & Yamagata showed improved offense here. Still nothing difficult, but using their athleticism for variation. They were more competitive than they had the right to be. **3/4
Azumi Hyuga vs. Bionic J. Azumi was working circles around J. J wasn't exactly known for her speed and reaction time to begin with, but was way too slow and deliberate for this opposition. The match didn't work because Azumi didn't adjust, instead opting to just leave J in the dust. 6:06 shown
P*MIX Special: PIKA & Lady Pentagon & PIKA The Great vs. Macho Pump & baby A & Tsubasa Kuragaki. Some good Lucha and flying sequences. Far below the usual ARSION Lucha level though because the men's stuff was so contrived and didn't help the match. The PIKA's did a giant swing spot where A was getting leapfrogged everytime around, almost like she was a jump rope. *3/4
SKY HIGH OF ARSION Title Match: Faby Apache vs. AKINO. Wild match. AKINO was trying all kinds of crazy impressive spots. Extremely fluid, smooth, and precise work. It was too short, especially since the title matches have a 30 minute time limit, but at least they wasted little time. The first half was kind of submission oriented. The 2nd half had many great spots, but AKINO kept going back to the dobitski udehishigigyakujujigatame. They did a good enough job toward the end that the near finishes were effective even though they'd follow up with some concoction like a swandive reverse tornado DDT. AKINO was great. ***3/4
TWINSTAR OF ARSION Title Match: GAMI & Rie Tamada vs. Michiko Omukai & Ai Fujita. Match was basically one doing their moves for a minute or two then letting the other have her chance. There was some back and forth when GAMI was in, but still they didn't develop anything beyond the basic level. The match was pretty much all action with GAMI being the only one that instilled any dynamics or drama. I don't want to make GAMI sound too good because she's a far cry from her old self. Fujita had by far the best offense to be certain, but that GAMI of just a few years ago would have made it look much more impressive. **
QUEEN OF ARSION Title Match: Lioness Asuka vs. Mariko Yoshida. This was a very good match, it just wasn't as good as their July match. The way they made their styles converge there made it seem like something different, but here their styles largely existed apart from one another. Basically they did Yoshida's matwork then Lioness's brawling then the big moves to try to win. Lioness did a little matwork, but mainly the counters and transitions were gone in favor of better selling by Lioness. Yoshida did a little brawling as part of her knee attack. They were working on a very high level with excellent execution, but to me the only improvements were it went longer because it was a title match and Murayama did a good job of putting over his unsuccessful attempt to keep Lioness from cheating. There was no feeling that Yoshida could win, although that's at least as much the fault of Lioness the booker. The draw wasn't the greatest ending, but I'll take it any day over this lousy Lioness vs. KAORU finish where both kicked out of a finisher at 1 then Lioness won with the next move. ***1/2
baby A & Tsubasa Kuragaki vs. Lady Pentagon & Bionic J. J was just out of place here. You had 3 women doing Lucha, while she did her power spots. I don't ask J to try to do Lucha because that's putting her in the position to fail, but Lucha is a style where everyone is doing it or no one is doing it. Kuragaki worked some good sequences here and did a quebrada, but they never found their rhythm. *3/4
Mariko Yoshida & Yu Yamagata vs. Mary Apache & Faby Apache. Yoshida had Yamagata do most of the work so she could learn. When Yamagata tried to tag after fairly relatively poorly for the 1st 4 minutes, Yoshida refused. The Apaches aren't much for submissions, but it was very good when Yoshida did Lucha with them. Faby was the best in the match since she was carrying her returning sister and Yamagata while Yoshida was taking a back seat. Yamagata showed some resiliance and feistiness, but she was just overmatches. **3/4
Michiko Omukai & Rie Tamada vs. Lioness Asuka & GAMI. These pairings didn't make much sense, but in any case Tamada wanted to fight her partner GAMI and wasn't friendly about it. GAMI was reluctant, which didn't make much sense because she was playing heel here due to teaming with Lioness. Tamada bled from the side of her face around the ear. Liness got a head injury, I think, from Tamada's low dropkick but seemed okay after a brief recovery period. The match was basically a bunch of spots with no selling or reason to care. No one was bad, but no one was that good either. Tamada did a swinging DDT onto the apron, but since the apron is so narrow she had to land on the floor and that resulted in the move having little impact because she released early. **
Rena Takase vs. Mika Nishio. Takase did everything here, but it wasn't close to enough. Nishio was lost on the mat, and caused the execution everywhere to leave something to be desired. I mean, she couldn't even do a sunset flip properly. *
noki-A vs. Miyuki Fujii. Again, the AJW wrestler took the ARSION wrestler down quite a bit. This was a technical match, but A dumbed it down a lot which did at least succeed in making Fujii adequate. It was more in Fujinami style than in the Yoshida style AKINO does the rest of the time she works technically. Suddenly they just went to the flying. **
Ai Fujita vs. Momoe Nakanishi. I wouldn't get on anyone that liked this match
a whole lot, but I wouldn't get on anyone that thought it was nothing special
either. Each did a moonsault to the floor in the first minute. I'm not sure
you can push credibility any more. I figured they were just going to run
with the flying, in which case I would pretty much throw the credibility
argument out the window, but then they went to the mat. I'm not saying they
would have gotten heat without this start, but even the staples of pretending
they were shooting on each other and refusing to rope break couldn't get
any reaction. Part of the problem was Fujita's mount punches were so embarrassing
- punching her own hand like The Huckster if she even hit that - that you
couldn't take it seriously even if you wanted to. So all of this was pretty
much a waste of time, but then they did 6 plus minutes that were most certainly
excellent. Unlike Kayo, Fujita can follow Momoe and doesn't take the match
down when she goes on offense. Actually, Fujita's flying is better than Momoe's,
but Momoe is better at everything else and quickly made you forget about
the inadequacy of the Nishio. What stood out here was that Momoe knows how
to get people into the more basic near falls, making basic pinning predicaments
credible finishers and Fujita pulling out something spectacular like the
450 splash have some real meaning. Very fast and impressive action that Momoe's
fans were reacting to. I thought Fujita's left hook was a great change of
pace to all this, though I would have done it as a 10 count spot rather than
yet another near fall. It's too bad they started with such a low percentage
dive when the opponent wasn't even phashed and then did stuff that wasn't
very good and had nothing to do with the beginning or the end rather than
just doing the whole match as a sprint. ***1/4
MS: This match ruled! It's pretty obvious at this point that Momoe could
be the Manami Toyota of this decade if her health allows her to. I'd really
like to see a rematch between her and Ai because 14 minutes was too short.
I think that if they worked together a few more times they'd easily have
several MOTY candidates. They did such a good job building this match because
even though Ai dominated most of it, and Momoe is above her level, I thought
they were going to a draw here. The rest of the women in ARSION should watch
this match to remind themselves of how to properly do a "flash pin"
finish. Instead of being another in a growing line of garbage finishes where
it just comes out of nowhere leaving you feeling ripped off, they went back
and forth for the last couple of minutes with great, very believable near
falls. Both women were excellent at keeping their shoulders down until 2-9/10,
which led to a few pins looking like the winning one. ****
baby A vs. Lady Pentagon
Rie Tamada vs. Bionic J
Rena Takase & Yu Yamagata vs. Mary Apache & Faby Apache
Mariko Yoshida vs. noki-A
Michiko Omukai & Ai Fujita vs. Lioness Asuka & GAMI
MS: Anyone who has read my contributions to Quebrada over the years can probrably
tell that I enjoy when comedy is properly integrated into matches (providing
it's not done on occasion and not regulary). However, when bad comedy infests
a match it's worse than watching blown spots, it's worse than watching two
scrubs stink up the joint, and it totally sucks when it's done by people
who don't need it in the first place. I don't know exactly what GAMI is trying
to be (maybe the "cowardly" Lex Luger from the first Vince Russo
era in WCW?), but it's really fucking stupid and an insult to an otherwise
very good worker. Not only does the gimmick suck but it's not even done consistently.
Early in this match she ran all over the arena to avoid facing Omukai in
the ring then a few minutes later she's no-selling Michiko's kicks left and
right. I realize that ARSION is on their WWE kick right now but do they really
think that having GAMI do the lamest spot in the history of wrestling, the
people's elbow, is going to put one more ass in the seat or actually garner
some heat for once? Because so far it hasn't. Don't get me wrong though,
I thought this was a good match when they actually worked, but the pathetic
attempts at comedy and yet another bullshit finish once again turned a great
match on paper into a disappointment. ***
baby A vs. noki-A
Mariko Yoshida vs. Bionic J
Yu Yamagata & Rena Takase vs. GAMI & Lady Pentagon
TWINSTAR OF ARSION Title Match: Michiko Omukai & Ai Fujita vs. Mary Apache
& Faby Apache
MS: Omukai actually decided to work here, so it was a very good match. Her
punches are still weak, but her kicks at least looked good (though Fabi no-sold
a couple of axe kicks to the head anyway). I would've liked to have seen
more offense from Ai because everything she did looked great. The Apaches
impressed me as well. They have become pretty good workers over the last
couple of years and are no longer just better versions of Esther Moreno.
No bullshit finish here, but is there a new law stating that every match
now has to include at least one shining wizard attempt? ***1/4
QUEEN OF ARSION Title Match: Lioness Asuka vs. Rie Tamada
Ai Fujita vs. Lady Pentagon
Mima Shimoda vs. Yu Yamagata
Etsuko Mita vs. Rena Takase
PIKO & GAMI & Bionic J vs. Azumi Hyuga & Ran YuYu & Tsubasa Kuragaki
Mariko Yoshida & Michiko Omukai & Rie Tamada & baby A vs. Lioness Asuka & noki-A & Mary Apache & Faby Apache
HYPER VISUAL FIGHTING TOURNAMENT ARS 2002 1st Round
Rie Tamada vs. Mary Apache
Ai Fujita vs. Rena Takase
noki-A vs. Mariko Yoshida.
MS: MS: Both were excellent as usual, but there was too much stretching for
my tastes. They certainly weren't trying to fool anyone with a worked-shoot,
but there was virtually nothing but submissions for the entire match. The
counters and selling were strong, but it was somewhat disppointing not to
see them branch out into other styles when both are so excellent at blending
genres. AKINO won the match with an excellent "flash pin," which
is a rarity in ARSION these days. She countered Mariko's attempt at an escape
from the jujigatame by pulling her legs over her head and was able to pin
her by doing that. ***3/4
Lioness Asuka vs. GAMI.
2nd Round
Rie Tamada vs. Ai Fujita
Lioness Asuka vs. noki-A
Tournament Final: Lioness Asuka vs. Rie Tamada
Note: first 6 matches are edited down to 3-4 minutes
Junior Future Battle ~4 Corner Elimination Match~: Rena Takase & Kaori Yoneyama vs. Mika Nishio & Saki Maemura vs. MARU & Chitose Yamamoto vs. Mari Kuwada & Mako Ogawa
Mascara Contra Mascara: Lady Pentagon vs. baby A
ARSION & JWP Relevos Increible: Mary Apache & Tsubasa Kuragaki vs. Azumi Hyuga & Faby Apache
ARSION & Zenjo Super Power War: Bionic J vs. Tomoko Watanabe
ARSION & Zenjo Premium Reunion: Rie Tamada vs. Kumiko Maekawa
5th WWWA Super Lightkyu Oza Ketteisen: Ai Fujita vs. Kayo Noumi
All Pacific Senshukenjiai: Momoe Nakanishi vs. AKINO
MS: This was an excellent match, but too long for two women who were not
familiar with each other. Early on they were pacing it to go long, but due
to AKINO's knee injury they weren't able to do enough over the last few minutes.
Up thru that point they worked very well together, but again they seemed
to be holding back a little to go down the homestretch and that plan got
derailed. The finish itself would've been very good had it not been botched
by referee Daichi Murayama. He clearly counted 3 on a hurancanrana rollup
by Momoe, but reversed that since the actual finish was supposed to come
15 seconds later on a Momo*latch. This killed the momentum they were able
to build up when AKINO was finally able to continue. Murayama has been one
of the best referees in joshi puroresu over the last 10 years and the head
ref in ARSION, but this isn't the first time he's ruined a finish by doing
this. The other one that immediately springs to mind is the 1/20/97 Triple
Unification Match between Kyoko and Takako Inoue where Kyoko had pinned Takako
on a Nigara Driver. It was disallowed though, so she did it again to get
the win. Like this match it was a WTF? kind of situation that left a bad
taste in your mouth. But that alone isn't enough to spoil the effort they
put out and this probrably will wind up in the top 5 joshi singles matches
from this year. ****
ARSION vs. Zenjo Premium Super Grudge: Rossy Ogawa & Mariko Yoshida & GAMI vs. Yumiko Hotta & Nanae Takahashi
QUEEN OF ARSION Title Match: Lioness Asuka vs. Michiko Omukai
baby A vs. Amapola
Triangle Battle: Mary Apache vs. Faby Apache vs. Bionic J
Young ARSION Single Challenge: Lioness Asuka vs. Rena Takase
QUEEN OF ARSION Next Challenger Decision Match: GAMI vs. noki-A
TWINSTAR OF ARSION Title Match: Michiko Omukai & Ai Fujita vs. Mariko Yoshida & Rie Tamada
Triangle Battle: Rie Tamada vs. baby A vs. Amapola
Faby Apache vs. Bionic J
Mariko Yoshida vs. Mary Apache
SKY HIGH OF ARSION Title Match: AKINO vs. Rena Takase
TWINSTAR OF ARSION Title Match: Michiko Omukai & Ai Fujita vs. Lioness Asuka & GAMI
Rena Takase vs. Saki Maemura
MS: Both women were pretty impressive here, and as a result this was a very
good "rookies" match. Takase's dropkicks looked great and she is
very agile as well. Maemura continues to improve and hopefully AJW won't
do anything that will force her to leave or quit the business as alot of
their rookies seem to have done over the last few years. They worked a very
quick pace, and being that they were only out there for a little over 6 minutes
they weren't exposed at all as neither made any mistakes.
Mary Apache vs. Faby Apache
MS: Very banal and lackluster match. Considering that they only went 8-1/2
minutes it would've been nice to see a faster pace to it. Instead it was
slow and not even as exciting as the opening match on the show. Neither woman
looked bad, but they didn't do anything worthwhile either. *3/4
Mariko Yoshida & Kaori Yoneyama & baby A vs. Bionic J & Taylor
Matheny & Cheerleader Melissa
MS: Well, at least the crowd was polite enough to applaud Melissa's useless
and weak mic work before the match. Like it'd hurt their gimmick if the announcer
introduced them? As for the match itself, not surprisingly, Yoshida completely
and totally outclassed everyone else involved. Jessie was her usual loudmouthed,
little talented self, but at least she took some good bumps and kept up with
Watabe's fast pace. I don't know how in-depth the training is on Tough Enough,
but Taylor looked like she didn't learn much of anything while she was there.
And while it's hard to gain a feel for someone based on one match it appears
that she will be Yoshida's toughest challenge yet in the dojo. Melissa is
alright for someone who looks like she learned how to wrestle by watching
Nitro and Raw over the last few years. I doubt the USA vs. Japan angle will
have strong legs to it, but she may have the best chance of the three to
mean something in ARSION. Because it was a pretty short match with everyone
being involved it wasn't bad for what it was, but hardly the way I'd want
my new heel group to debut. *1/2
Japan Grant Prix '02 Koshiki Leaguesen: Rie Tamada vs. Nanae Takahashi
MS: Despite the fact that Tamada is one of the main people involved in the
ARSION (heel) vs. AJW (face) fued, her and Nanae shook hands before the match.
And people say ARSION doesn't know what the hell they are doing...On the
plus side, both women looked about as good as they could considering that
neither is that good in the first place, so it was a decent match. The finish
was nice as well as Rie was actually able to chain together a couple of good
looking moves culminating with a Dragon suplex for the win. It even got a
pop as well, which was surprising (though the crowd was obviously more into
Nanae since she actually has a following). **
Michiko Omukai & AKINO vs. Lioness Asuka & GAMI
MS: ARSION is WAR in all its "glory". AKINO was the best of the
four, looking outstanding with the exception of a mishap in the corner where
she tried a running climb of the ropes. She slipped and slammed her head
against the turnbuckle pad, but didn't seem to be affected by it, doing a
great Dragonrana a few moments later. Up to this point the match as a whole
was pretty good, but then they decided to fuck it up by a seriously weak
turn by AKINO. Omukai mistakenly hit her 3 times (the last two being pathetically
obvious as they were setting them up), so she just bailed on the match. What
made this worse is that as she tagged out to Omukai (leading up to her leaving)
she half slapped/half pushed at Omukai to which Michiko responded by slapping
her in the face. Why it would surprise Chama that 20 seconds later this was
a handicap match is beyond anyone using logic. Things just got worse after
this as Omukai got pounded with a bunch of table shots and if the descending
into a squash match wasn't bad enough, the camera did a close up of the referee
(my pal Daichi Murayama) helping her blade. Lioness and GAMI didn't even
bother tagging out for 5 or 6 minutes and then after noki-A did a run-in
to make it 3 on 1, it inexplicably became an official handicap match as if
it makes sense for the top face in the company to be that stupid as to demand
it. Anyway, there was one cool near fall admist all this where Yoshida and
Tamada briefly interfered on Omukai's behalf (why it took them so long since
they were at ringside the entire time is another story) and Michiko did a
nice shining wizard on noki-A for a 2 count. Finally, a minute later, noki-A
pinned Omukai with a nice modified spin-wheel kick. Just an awful mess that
doesn't leave me optimistic about ARSION's future. *
Zen Nihon Junior Oza Kettei League Koshikisen: Rena Takase vs. Emi Tomimatsu.
MS: In a vignette before the match, Takase went into Omukai's room and paraded
around with the QUEEN OF ARSION title belt. On the prior Battle Station,
she snuck into Rossy's room and tried on the Tiger Dream outfit. As you can
imagine, this should do wonders for her career. The match itself was pretty
good for what it was, but Takase has the worst looking spear ever. Instead
of hitting her opponent dead on, she goes to their side barely catching them.
Anyway, she looked okay otherwise. Tomimatsu looked like a fairly green Kaoru
Ito, down to the outfit and running footstomps.
baby A vs. Taylor Matheny.
MS: Not as bad as I had expected because Watabe was able to keep a decent
pace. Taylor looked better than she did in her debut match on 6/23 (though
it would've been hard for her to look worse), but she is still molasses in
the ring. Her transitions are slow (and sloppy at times), and her selling
and demeanor are unintentionally hilarious. She she did show a shred of promise
here but, like Jessie, she needs to focus less on her mouth and more on her
work. *
Mary Apache & MARU vs. Bionic J & Melissa.
MS: This was actually an adequate match. No one was impressive or even above
average, but the pacing was good and they all tried to make the match as
good as possible. Basically this was a totally American style match even
including a spot where the ref stopped J from using a section of railing
as a weapon. What made this stand out was that they played ring-aroung-the-rosie
with it until the ref fell down with the railing on top of him. Mary was
the best of the 4, but Melissa again looked competent and J showed a lot
of fire (mostly aimed at one heckler though). *1/2
Mariko Yoshida & Rie Tamada vs. Lioness Asuka & GAMI
MS: For some reason J did a run-in about 2-1/2 minutes into the match to
distract the ref. Being that GAMI and Lioness didn't do anything "illegal"
during this time, it was useless and (like most other things in ARSION these
days) senseless. Speaking of making no sense, they decided to ruin
what was a high end decent match by having a ref bump 14 minutes in. Up to
this point the match focused on solid wrestling, and even GAMI worked here
instead of just prancing about. But after the ref bump it degenerated into
a discombobulated mess with J and Mari interfering on Asuka and GAMI's behalf.
When the ref finally recovered (actually he was fine the whole time as he
did a poor job of selling his "unconsciousness" on the floor),
GAMI kicked him in the head. He was kind enough to ignore that though and
count Lioness' pin on Tamada. This was followed by a lackluster effort on
Yoshida's part (though who could blame her at this point) to attack Rossy
(which he totally no-sold). And the hole ARSION's plummeting down just gets
deeper. **1/2
QUEEN OF ARSION Title Match ~Lumberjack Match~: Michiko Omukai vs. noki-A 22:24. Rossy overbooked this as a lumberjack match, but luckily the wrestlers themselves didn't care, with noki-A instead leading Chama through an old school technical match that literally had no reason to ever hit the floor. Lioness did do an uninspired lariat to Omukai & later GAMI just fanned noki-A with a towel after she escaped a triangle but attacked Omukai when she finally decided to do the lumberjacks job for them, which set up the big payoff for the lumberjacks where Lioness & GAMI tried to hold Omukai for noki-A's tope con giro, but got taken out when Omukai escaped their clutches in time & a brawl broke out on the outside. Aside from these 3 spots, the match was contested in the center of the ring except when Akino did her climb up reverse body attack or someone got a rope escape. Much of the technical wrestling was quite basic early on, especially given the level these two showed at the height of Yoshida's influence in the late '90's, but they built the match pretty well & did enough holds & appendage work that you believed the match could actually end with a submission. Noki-A did do some nice arm work to set up her cool flying armbars, while Omukai was working for her triangle. The match would have been much better at the 15 minute range with no lumberjacks as they had more than enough good material for that, but they were stretching things out early, which really accentuated the main problem, that the match lacked urgency & aura. Perhaps this is what the lumberjacks were actually supposed to be doing other than twidling their thumbs, but when you only have 10x the people in the crowd as you do wrestlers surrounding the ring, it's kind of tough to pull off an epic title match. noki-A was one of the best females around at this time, and though Omukai had slipped quite a bit from her '98 level when she was hungry & out to prove she was more than undercard fodder for the old girls club that has always been LLPW, she followed well enough & had her moments here even if she was a bit sloppy at times. The match got a lot better as it progressed, but they had a hard time getting across any feeling of desperation or that something was on the line. This was somewhat lessened when they did their big moves down the stretch, but battling tornado A's & shining wizards until Omukai won with the latter had little to do with the submission oriented match that came before it. Overall, this was good, but rather muddled. ***
MS: Despite how incredibly frustrating ARSION has become since riding the "sports entertainment" route, they still give you just enough to
keep coming back. And this match exemplified that because despite the interference
from Asuka & co. and the annoyances that incurs, this was still a very
good match. They actually wrestled here and it was damn good. AKINO dominated
most of the time, using a wide variety of matwork. They did a pretty good
job of building to the finish, which has been one of ARSION's bigger problems
this year. The match was also helped by the fact that Chama stayed away from
using strikes as her main offense. The one axe kick she used looking very
good, as did the two shining wizards she hit to win. Now if they'd only do
this more often. ***3/4
Zen Nihon Junior Oza Kettei League Koshikisen: Rena Takase vs. Emi Tojo
baby A vs. Command Bolshoi
Rie Tamada vs. Taylor Matheny
SKY HIGH OF ARSION Title Match: AKINO vs. Mary Apache
Mariko Yoshida vs. Takako Inoue
TWINSTAR OF ARSION Champion Decision 3 Corner Tag Battle: Bionic J & Melissa vs. Michiko Omukai & Ai Fujita vs. Lioness Asuka & GAMI
Rie Tamada vs. Rena Takase
baby A vs. noki-A
WWWA Sekai Super Lightkyu Title Match: Ai Fujita vs. Taylor Matheny
Mariko Yoshida vs. Melissa
Michiko Omukai & Emi Tojo & Mizuko Ishikawa vs. Lioness Asuka & GAMI & Bionic J. 26:29
noki-A vs. Taylor Matheny
Triangle Battle: Rie Tamada vs. Rena Takase vs. baby A
Bionic J vs. Melissa
Ai Fujita vs. Michiko Omukai
TWINSTAR OF ARSION Title Match: Lioness Asuka & GAMI vs. Mariko Yoshida & Takako Inoue
baby A vs. Ranmaru
Junior Sedai vs. Invasion 6 Woman Tag War: Rena Takase & Mika Nishio & MARU vs. Bionic J & Taylor Matheny & Melissa
Visual Fighting Battle: Ai Fujita vs. Mizuho Ishikawa
Mariko Yoshida vs. AKINO
Takako Inoue vs. Rie Tamada
TWINSTAR OF ARSION Title Match: Lioness Asuka & GAMI vs. Michiko Omukai & Emi Tojo
Rie Tamada vs. Maru
baby A vs. TSUNAMI
Azumi Hyuga vs. Rena Takase
SKY HIGH OF ARSION Title Match: AKINO vs. Ranmaru
Mariko Yoshida vs. Lioness Asuka
Michiko Omukai & Ai Fujita vs. GAMI & Bionic J
Tournament Ikkaisen
Bionic J vs. Rie Tamada. 4 min shown
GAMI vs. Shark Tsuchiya. 6 min shown
Emi Tojo vs. Michiko Omukai. 4 min shown
Non Tournament: baby A vs. Police Wo~men. 2 min shown
Tournament Nikaisen
noki-A vs. Rie Tamada. 5 min shown
Mariko Yoshida vs. Ai Fujita. 6 1/2 min shown
Tournament Junkessho
noki-A vs. Michiko Omukai. 5 min shown
Mariko Yoshida vs. GAMI. 9 min shown
Special Challenge Match: Lioness Asuka vs. Rena Takase. 2 min shown
Tournament Final: Mariko Yoshida vs. noki-A 20:18
Young ARSION Challenge: Megumi Yabushita vs. Reina Takase 7:41 of 9:29
La Malcriada vs. Baby*A 7:18 of 9:07
Lioness Asuka & Bionic J vs. Rie Tamada & Takako Inoue 7:19 of 9:27
GAMI vs. Carol Midori 15:00
Mariko Yoshida & AKINO vs. Michiko Omukai & Ai Fujita 25:49
Opening Battle Future: Blizzard Yuki II vs. Rena Takase
Masked Woman: PIKO & Policewo~men vs. Kyusei Ninja Ranmaru & baby*A
High Voltage Power Contest: Bionic J vs. Kayuko Haruyama
ARSION & Zenjo Super Collaboration: AKINO & Momoe Nakanishi vs. Ai Fujita & Kayo Noumi
TWINSTAR OF ARSION Tag Title Match: Lioness Asuka & GAMI vs. Takako Inoue & Rie Tamada
QUEEN OF ARSION Title Match: Michiko Omukai vs. Mariko Yoshida