1/15: Toshie Uematsu vs. Chigusa Nagayo 5:40. Work was quite good, but the match was nothing more than a very good Nitro match. Not long enough for Uematsu to really push. **1/2
1/19: Chikayo Nagashima vs. Chigusa Nagayo 5:00. Basically the same as the previous Uematsu match except Chikayo is a heel and a better worker. **3/4
1/15: Kurenai Yasha & Carol Midori (LLPW team) vs. KAORU & Toshiyo Yamada 16:04. Mediocre wrestling. Continued the dissention in the ranks of KAORU & Yamada storyline. Not bad, but nothing special. **
1/19: Devil Masami & Sakura Hirota vs. KAORU & Toshiyo Yamada 22:00. More problems between KAORU & Yamada. Devil doesn't bump like she used to, not that she was ever any great bump taker. Looked poor or possibly a little better, but only about 30% aired.
1/15: Las Cachorras Orientales (Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita) vs. Meiko Satomura & Sonoko Kato 20:59. Satomura & Kato both bled. Way too one-sided. Work was quite good and everyone knew their role. Shimoda & Mita did a good job of carrying this. Started to get great as Satomura & Kato had no quit in them. They were still coming at LCO after 15 minutes of getting destroyed. Very good match. One-sided, but the thinking was that Satomura & Kato could get over just by taking this kind of beating from LCO for so long. ***1/2
1/19: Mayumi Ozaki & Sugar Sato vs. Meiko Satomura & Sonoko Kato 20:37. More like what the previous match should have been like. Work wasn't quite as good, but the match was better overall because it was far more competitive. Kato bled again. Sato was good here. Ozaki didn't steal the show, but she was smart and her timing was excellent. Satomura & Kato were about equal. ***3/4
2/8/98 Tokyo Allen Hall: Sakura Hirota & Toshie Uematsu vs. Meiko Satomura & Sonoko Kato 18:26. Everyone worked hard. There wasn't much of a bridge to the spots, but it got quite good when they started doing them. Uematsu carried her team, which was definitely a good thing. Exciting match. Uematsu was making last second saves, but finally Satomura held her off and Kato Dragon suplexed Hirota for the win. ***
2/21/98 Saitama Honkawagoe Pepe Hall Atrium
Rina Ishii vs. Meiko Satomura 11:08. Satomura did an excellent job of carrying this match that must have exceeded everyone's expectations. A lot of solid matwork, with Ishii looking surprisingly technically sound. They always kept the pace doing athletic spots to bring it back to the mat. Nice counters back and forth. They worked at a rapid pace at times, but it still wasn't easy to get spots off. It was going to come down to who could properly execute a legit finisher first. Satomura did a lot of "crying" here when she couldn't finish Ishii off, which was kind of lame considering how low Ishii is on the totem pole. ***1/2
Sonoko Kato vs. Chigusa Nagayo 4:59. Typical Chigusa sprint. Exciting match, but it was way too short with Kato not pushing at all. Chigusa disciplined Kato after the match including hitting her several times. Satomura eventually tried to come to Kato's rescue, but she got the same treatment, including getting a bloody mouth. Both Satomura & Kato cried. Maybe if I could understand what Chigusa was saying this would have come off better, but it looked like a scene out of her dark Ring, Ring, Ring movie, which isn't a complement. **
2/22/98 Tokyo Korakuen Hall
Akira Hokuto & Chigusa Nagayo vs. Sonoko Kato & Meiko Satomura 10:13. Match was kind of helter skelter. A sprint with way too many spots rolled out. Satomura, and especially Kato, took it to Chigusa. **1/2
Makie Numao highlights
Makie Numao vs. Chigusa Nagayo 4:51. Decent match for what it was. Very short since it's Chigusa, and the opponent is a rookie, and overall nothing special. 3/4*
Sugar Sato & Chikayo Nagashima vs. KAORU & Toshiyo Yamada 16:03. Mainly spots after they got the heels over. Work and spots were quite good. Yamada bled. Oz was outside the ring and she got involved a few times. At one point she whispered something in Hokuto's ear, which led to Hokuto hitting KAORU with a chair when she tried a swandive move. Yamada got into it with Oz, so Hokuto attacked her. ***1/2
3/15 Club Citta Kawasaki day/night
Chikayo Nagashima vs. Sonoko Kato 13:16. Kato mainly used UWF offense, including injuring Chikayo's arms with an udehishigigyakujujigatame. Match was surprisingly sloppy, falling apart when Chikayo went on offense and uncharacteristically blew a few spots. Match just kind of ended. *3/4
Sugar Sato vs. Meiko Satomura 10:26. An experimental type match, that fell flat because it was too great a departure from what they do well. A lot of strikes back and forth. Satomura was the better of the two. **
Mayumi Ozaki & Chikayo Nagashima vs. Chigusa Nagayo & Makie Numao 6:15. Typical Chigusa sprint. A workrate match where everyone looked good, but Ozaki was still the best by a wide margin. Too short. ***1/4
Mayumi Ozaki & Sugar Sato vs. KAORU & Toshiyo Yamada 9:51. This continued the storyline of Yamada wanting to kick Ozaki's butt. However, this time KAORU & Yamada worked as a cohesive unit. Junior style match, although the spots weren't as glamorous. Work was as good as you'd expect, but, unfortunately, it was another sprint. The match was considerably better with Ozaki in. Yamada was fired up and KAORU is made for this type of match. ***1/2
Sakura Hirota vs. Meiko Satomura 7:46. Typical Hirota goofiness, although thankfully she kept it under 1000 hip attacks. The technique wasn't clean due to Hirota. *
3/29
Mayumi Ozaki vs. Sakura Hirota 13:08. Execution was fine, but the match wasn't interesting as there were too many rest hold submissions. Hirota was typically awful on offense, and ruined the match as always. *3/4
AAAW World Junior Tag Titles: Sonoko Kato & Meiko Satomura vs. Sugar Sato & Chikayo Nagashima 14:13. Mainly work oriented bout with no storyline whatsoever. Hot action in the last 4+ minutes really made the match. Chikayo was the standout. ***1/2
*GAEA's 3rd Anniversary Tour*
taped 4/14 Tokyo Korakuen Hall
Chikayo Nagashima vs. Meiko Satomura. This was more toward Satomura's style, submission oriented, although they went to their spots as the match progressed. Part of my problem with Satomura this year is, unlike Sato, Chikayo, & Kato, her mannerisms are still very childish. She also seems to have too much energy for her own good, as she gets too cute instead of just doing the spot. She seems to be under a lot of pressure, although much of it could be self imposed. Anyway, Chikayo did a good job here. The match had a lot of action, but it was sloppy in points, particularly the ones revolving around Satomura's Death Valley bomb finisher. ***
Toshie Uematsu vs. KAORU. A worked shoot under Pancrase type rules. The match had its moments, but it generally wasn't all that good. Uematsu was fiery and looked better than KAORU in this style. Matched was short and ended abruptly. Decent.
4/24 Osaka Furitsu Taiikukaikan 2: Toshie Uematsu vs. Manami Toyota (AJW). Toyota was the same as always against the younger wrestlers, smiling too much, not really taking them seriously, not putting them over enough, not making it look like they really had a chance of winning, but working on a high level so the match is good even if it doesn't serve it's purpose nearly as well as it could. Work was obviously good and the match was exciting even though the outcome wasn't in doubt. Uematsu looked good here, and even pulled out some nice counters for near falls. The heat was disappointing, and even though the crowd wasn't too big and most women's matches in 1998 have no heat, some of the blame for this has to be placed on Toyota. ***1/4
4/29 Kanagawa Kawasaki Shi Taiikukan
KAORU & Toshiyo Yamada vs. Eagle Sawai & Michiko Nagashima (G-MAX). A spot brawl. Yamada juiced heavily, as she was mainly destroyed by Nagashima. Nagashima needed to work stiffer, especially when she was hitting Yamada with the chain. Everything seemed to happen really fast, but it was more toward being chaotic than fast-paced. Selling should have been better. Eagle was, not surprisingly, the worst. **
Highlights of all the first round and semifinal matches in the High Spot 600 Tournament
High Spot 600 Tournament Final: Sugar Sato vs. Meiko Satomura. The winner of this match got a spot in the main event on Chigusa's team against the new team of Aja & Ozaki. This was like a Nitro rush job, as the match had no build and they pretty much just tried their big spots on each other. Satomura gets a rare pin over Sugar to take the tournament. *3/4
Aja Kong & Mayumi Ozaki vs. Chigusa Nagayo & Meiko Satomura. This was a real disappointment because it was just like all the other short Chigusa spotfests rather than being the special match it should have been. The work was good, but not even at the level you would expect as Chigusa wasn't particularly impressive. Satomura, working her 4th match of the night, still carried the load for her team. Satomura vs. Ozaki was the highlight. **1/2
5/18 Osaka Furitsu Taiikukaikan 2: KAORU & Toshiyo Yamada vs. Meiko Satomura & Sonoko Kato. Good work. Strong performance by Yamada. ***
5/31 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Aja Kong & Mayumi Ozaki vs. KAORU & Toshiyo Yamada. A work match, but the execution wasn't close to the expected level. Very disappointing. *3/4
6/13 Niigata AAAW Tag Title Tournament Round 1: KAORU & Yamada vs. Satomura & Sonoko Kato. Surprisingly, and as it turns out luckily, this was better than KAORU & Yamada's match with Aja & Ozaki. Match never kicked into high gear. Satomura turns KAORU's Excalibur into a huracanrana for the upset win. **3/4
5/31 Korakuen Hall: Mizuki Ishii vs. Chigusa. Ishii's debut. Chigusa stiffed her with kicks and quickly pinned her. Ishii didn't really get a chance to show anything. *
5/18 Osaka Furitsu Taiikukaikan 2: Toshie Uematsu vs. Ozaki. A brawl. They weren't always on the same page. Uematsu let Ozaki do too much at some points, but countered at the wrong time at other points. Ozaki wasn't in close to top form and Uematsu was pretty bad. **1/4
5/31 Korakuen Hall: Uematsu vs. Sugar Sato. A brawl. Sugar didn't look good, again. She was missing her spots. She looked good at the finish, but overall it was another disappointing performance by Sugar. *3/4
6/21 Club Citta Kawasaki: KAORU & Meiko Satomura vs. Toshiyo Yamada & Sonoko Kato 17:16. Slow start. These sprints are hurting because no one in GAEA has any bridge to their spots when they are working a longer match. Once they started doing their spots it turned into an excellent match. No real thought was put into the match and the selling was weak, but the work was excellent. Yamada looked sharp with Kawada-esque offense, and worked well with KAORU. ***3/4
6/27 Nagoya-shi Taiikukan: KAORU & Makie Numao vs. Meiko Satomura & Maiko Matsumoto 16:21. All hacked up in the editing room, but the main thing was heat between Satomura and KAORU.
6/28 Osaka IMP Hall: Chigusa Nagayo & Meiko Satomura vs. Mayumi Ozaki & Sugar Sato 8:43. Typical Chigusa sprint. Work and spots for 9 minutes. Ozaki made Chigusa look good, as always. Sugar was, unfortunately, the worst of the 4 again. Ozaki was, of course, the best. She wrestled smart given the circumstances, but there really needed to be more story here since it was Chigusa vs. Ozaki. Satomura vs. Sugar was a big step down from Ozaki vs. Chigusa. Everyone's execution was a little off. ***
6/27 Nagoya Shi Taiikukan AAAW Tag Title Tournament: Chigusa Nagayo & Sakura Hirota vs. Aja Kong & Mayumi Ozaki 7:09. Hirota was goofy as always. She kept wanting to use her lame uraken on Aja and Oz. Hirota took the match down a lot, as always. Aja having to sell Hirota's lame spots was hard to take. All the big spots, but it was a little sloppy. **1/2
6/14 Nagaoka-shi Kosei Kaikan: KAORU vs. Toshiyo Yamada 16:03. This wasn't a spotfest, so KAORU was lost early on. KAORU's execution was worse than normal. Match was devoid of build or psychology, and even the work was disappointing. **
Alpha Plus 7/19/98 Tokyo Korakuen Hall
Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita & Saya Endo vs. Mayumi Ozaki & Sugar Sato & Chikayo Nagashima. This was, unfortunately, joined in progress. The work was good, but no one fired up so it wasn't as good as it sounds on paper. Chikayo was featured and looked good, but Sugar once again didn't. Just about everything involving Sugar was slow and deliberate. Too much of her against Saya hurt the match, as did too little of Ozaki and Shimoda. **3/4
AAAW Singles Title Challenger Match: KAORU vs. Chigusa. The work was only decent. The flow, psychology, and build were poor. The selling was horrible, as they no sold left and right. Chigusa even popped right up after KAORU delivered her Excalibur finisher. Turd. *
AAAW Tag Title Challengers Tournament Semifinal: Meiko Satomura & Sonoko Kato vs. Toshie Uematsu & RIE. The main point of the match was dissention in the ranks of Satomura & Kato. They had all kinds of problems, including accidentally hitting each other and selfishness when it came to who would get the winning pin. Finish saw Satomura on the top rope, and Kato was going to whip RIE at her. However, Kato turned the Irish whip into a running three for the win. Satomura just stood on the top rope while Kato left the ring. *3/4
8/10/98 Osaka Furitsu Taiikukan 2
Chigusa & Uematsu vs. Sugar & Nagashima. Chikayo was the star worker. Chigusa did a really good job of directing traffic, and was easily the second best worker. Uematsu & Sato did a lot of weak looking spots. **
AAAW Tag Titles Challenger Tournament Final: Aja Kong & Ozaki vs. Satomura & Kato. These teams didn't work together nearly as well as you'd think. The match never really got hot. Actually, Aja dictated most of the time, and it was slow paced. Ozaki, seemed a bit banged up and barely worked. When she was in the focus should have been on an ankle "injury" Satomura gave her in the middle of the match, but Kato didn't pick up on it beyond doing one submission to it. Kato & Satomura once again couldn't get through the match without fighting, and it cost them as Satomura walked right into Aja's uraken for the loss after she got done stomping on Kato. Thus, Aja & Ozaki won a title shot on 8/23. Aja was solid and Kato was better than Satomura. Very disappointing. **1/2
Performance features on women's wrestling personalities, including bizarre comic performances, some kind of yelling contest, singing, etc.
8/23 Tokyo Korakuen Hall AAAW Tag Titles: Sugar Sato & Chikayo Nagashima vs. Aja Kong & Mayumi Ozaki. This was a very exciting match, but it was more notable for the fact that the crowd was actually really into this. The problem was this had more than its share of blown spots, mainly from Sugar. Chikayo got her feet stuck in the ropes on a tope, but had the two highlights of the match, German suplexing Aja and giving her a footstomp off the top to the floor. Ozaki was really good with the exception of blowing one powerbomb spot with Chikayo. Aja & Ozaki took the titles. ***1/4
8/23 Tokyo Korakuen Hall AAAW Singles Title: Chigusa Nagayo vs. Devil Masami. In the past, these two have had very good matches, but they are just too big and unathletic to have much of a match together at this point. This was a terrible match with no redeeming factors. It was slow-paced and very deliberate with a ton of no selling. Chigusa even no sold a nadare shiki no Northern Lights suplex. The comebacks sucked because they all seemed to be off no sell spots. Devil wrestled like Super Heel even though she wasn't billed as such. Easily the worst match these two have ever had together. 3/4*
8/23 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Meiko Satomura vs. Sonoko Kato. These two usually have very good matches, but this wasn't one of them. As feared, the result of all these short spotfests is that these two didn't have the stamina to go this long or the experience in putting over the toll of the match. This actually got off to a hot start and was a good match for the first 25 minutes, but they just hit the wall at that point. The last 5 minutes were very weak with sloppily executed or blown spots because they both blew up (some of this was acting, but I don't buy that close to all of it was). Satomura's acting needed to be better as she seemed to remember to have to remember to sell, which meant it wound up looking pretty fake due to a slightly delayed reaction. The purpose of this match was to show that they were even, and that was accomplished, but this wasn't exactly conjuring up memories of the draws Toyota & Yamada had in 1991-92. **1/4
9/5 Kawagoe Pepe Hall: Bad Nurse Nakamura vs. Meiko Satomura. Bad Nurse was similarly "Great" to Muta, which meant she was truly BAD. Nurse used a fork to bloody Satomura, and Ran had to literally rip it out of Nurse's mouth to get it away from her. Boring brawl. *1/2
9/23 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Manami Toyota (AJW) vs. Meiko Satomura. This was typical of Toyota against younger wrestlers. Her work was good and she did all her spots, so the match was entertaining, but it didn't serve any purpose at all. Toyota once again didn't respect her younger opponent, so she didn't really put Satomura over and the outcome was never in doubt. We saw some good moves, but who cares? The point was for Satomura to challenge, yet all this match showed was she wasn't even remotely close to Toyota's level. **3/4
10/3/98 Sapporo Teison Hall: Sonoko Kato vs. Chigusa Nagayo. *
10/4/98 Takaiwa Shi Seinen (youth)Taiiku Center: Sonoko Kato vs. Maiko Matsumoto. *1/4
10/10/98 Osaka IMP Hall: Chigusa Nagayo vs. Maiko Matsumoto. 3/4*
10/11/98 Kyoto KBS Hall Premium League Bout: Toshie Uematsu vs. Sonoko Kato. **
Note: All matches are league matches
10/10/98 Osaka IMP Hall
Meiko Satomura vs. Toshie Uematsu. Spot match. Work was good, and some of the near falls were credible. 4:14 shown
Sonoko Kato vs. Chikayo Nagashima. Nice sequences and counters here. The level of difficulty was fairly high, which led to some spots not being done as well as they could have. That said, everything flowed together really well and nothing was blown. 6:06 shown
10/11/98 Kyoto KBS Hall
Sonoko Kato vs. Toshie Uematsu. Match was decent, but the finish wasn't much. 6:18 shown
Meiko Satomura vs. Sugar Sato. This was supposed to be a technical match, which meant that Satomura had to do most of the work and really drag Sugar along. The match was dull, and it went 10 minutes too long. Sato worked the arm and the knee during this match, but had no focus in doing so. Actually, at one point Satomura was putting over her knee pretty heavily so Sato goes on offense and goes right after the arm. What's frustrating is this was clearly the worst match so far, so they decide to finally show the whole thing. *1/2
11/12/98 Osaka Furitsu Taiikukaikan 2
Sonoko Kato vs. Sugar Sato. Kato did a much better job with Sugar than Satomura did, mainly because she let Sugar do her usual style match and stay within the little she can do. I don't blame Satomura for having ambition, but sometimes you have to chose the right opponent to be ambitious with. Sato was kind of sloppy here, but otherwise it was good and the fans were into it. Kato's performance blew away Sugar's, so of course that meant that Sugar won the match. 8:12 shown
Chikayo Nagashima vs. Toshie Uematsu. Uematsu was able to hang with Chikayo work wise, so it was a good match with some nice sequences. Again, some of the moves needed to be performed better. 7:53 shown
12/11/98 Osaka Furitsu Taiikukaikan 2
Meiko Satomura vs. Sonoko Kato. These two always work well together, and this was no exception. Lots of counters here. Not many submissions, but the few they did were worked in well. 6:09 shown
Sugar Sato vs. Chikayo Nagashima. Chikayo looked really good in points, but the opposition was holding her back. Chikayo was trying to work sequences, but Sugar didn't take the time to figure out what to do or how to keep them going so most of them didn't go very far. Sato was pretty methodical here, and, as always, content to do the same couple of things over and over. She seemed to be hurt by Chikayo's diving footstomp, which I'm sure didn't help things any. Chikayo did some arm work to set up the finish, but Sato never really put it over, so it didn't have near the effect it should have. 8:51 shown. **
1/8/99 Osaka Furitsu Taiikukaikan 2
Toshie Uematsu vs. Sugar Sato. The match didn't flow that well. Sato did a bunch of weak urakens. Uematsu didn't get much offense in, but was able to "shock" Sugar with a small package for the flash pin. 7:53 shown. *1/2
Chikayo Nagashima vs. Meiko Satomura. This started off slow, but kept getting a little better. They did a nice job of building the match around Satomura's Death Valley bomb. At one point they tried a cool spot where Chikayo turned the Death Valley bomb into a DDT, but it wasn't done perfectly. ***1/4
2/3/99 Osaka Furitsu Taiikukan 2
Premium League Yushokettiesen: Meiko Satomura vs. Toshie Uematsu. Traditional style maatch based around submissions. They showed a lot of intensity and worked their holds well. There were some highspots, of course, but for the most part they were incorporated in a fairly believable manner. Satomura did a good job of putting over the toll of the match. Long, hard fought match that could have gone either way. A real final. ***1/2
11/12/98 Osaka Furitsu Taiikukan 2 Premium League Match: Sugar Sato vs. Sonoko Kato
11/12/98 Osaka Furitsu Taiikukan 2 Premium League Match: Chikayo Nagashima vs. Toshie Uematsu
11/23/98 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: KAORU & Rina Ishii vs. Meiko Satomura & Toshie Uematsu
10/29/98 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Toshiyo Yamada vs. Mayumi Ozaki. ***3/4
11/23/98 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Toshiyo Yamada vs. Aja Kong. ***1/2
12/11/98 Osaka Furitsu Taiikukan 2
Meiko Satomura vs. Sonoko Kato 13:16. ***1/4
Sugar Sato vs. Chikayo Nagashima 13:06. *1/2
12/12/98 Akutoshitei Hamamatsu
KAORU & Toshiyo Yamada vs. Sonoko Kato & Toshie Uematsu 18:03. **
Sonoko Kato & Chikayo Nagashima & Toshie Uematsu vs. Maiko Matsumoto & Rina Ishii & Sakura Hirota 15:14. *1/2
12/27/98 Tokyo Korakuen Hall
Chigusa Nagayo & Sakura Hirota vs. Sugar Sato & Chikayo Nagashima 11:22. *
KAORU vs. Toshie Uematsu 17:19. **
Aja Kong & Mayumi Ozaki vs. Toshiyo Yamada & Meiko Satomura 16:15. ***3/4