The class of 2006 introduce themselves + very brief training footage.
Kyoko Inoue vs. Sachiko Kanari
Mariko Yoshida vs. Yurie Kaneko
Dynamite Kansai vs. Chisako Kanari
Mayumi Ozaki vs. Syuri Okuda 14:51
Meiko Satomura vs. Aja Kong 23:21
7/9/06
Kyoko Inoue vs. Sachiko Kanari
Mariko Yoshida vs. Yurie Kaneko
Dynamite Kansai vs. Chisako Kanari
Mayumi Ozaki vs. Syuri Okuda
Meiko Satomura vs. Aja Kong
11/11/06: Devil Masami vs. Syuri Okuda
7/22/07
Chisako Kanari vs. Ayane Mizumura
Senjo ~WAR~ Tournament Semifinal: Aja Kong vs. Ayako Hamada
Senjo ~WAR~ Tournament Semifinal: Meiko Satomura vs. Dynamite Kansai
Senjo ~WAR~ Tournament Final: Meiko Satomura vs. Ayako Hamada
10/5/07: Azumi Hyuga & Arisa Nakajima vs. Meiko Satomura & Tyrannosaurus Okuda
6/27/08
Jaja Uma Tournament Semifinal: Ryo Mizunami vs. Ayako Sato
Jaja Uma Tournament Semifinal: Hiroyo Matsumoto vs. Tyrannosaurus Okuda
Jaja Uma Tournament Final: Hiroyo Matsumoto vs. Ryo Mizunami
7/27/08
Mayumi Ozaki & KAORU vs. DASH Chisako & Sendai Sachiko
Chikayo Nagashima vs. Hiren
8/24/08: Chikayo Nagashima vs. Yukari Ishino
10/26/08
5 vs. 5 Survival Match: Ryo Mizunami & DASH Chisako & Sendai Sachiko & Hiren & Yukari Ishino vs. Minori Makiba & Misaki Ohata & Io Shirai & Mio Shirai & Mikado
Meiko Satomura Return: Aja Kong vs. Meiko Satomura
4/19/09 Jaja Uma Tournament Final: Sendai Sachiko vs. Ryo Mizunami
7/9/10 2nd Battle Field Tournament Final Match: Meiko Satomura vs. Yoshiko Tamura
1/22/11 JWP Junior & POP Next Challenger Tournament Final: Sakura Hirota vs. Ryo Mizunami
7/7/11
Ayumi Kurihara vs. Miyako Morino
DASH Chisako & Sendai Sachiko vs. Mayumi Ozaki & Hiren
JWP Junior & POP Title: Kagetsu vs. Sawako Shimono
Meiko Satomura & Ryo Mizunami vs. Aja Kong & Toshie Uematsu
Kyoko Inoue vs. Sachiko Kanari
Mariko Yoshida vs. Yurie Kaneko
Dynamite Kansai vs. Chisako Kanari
Mayumi Ozaki vs. Syuri Okuda 12:46 of 14:51. Great example of Ozaki's cocky heel routine masking the lack of anything coming from her debuting opponent. The problem is the skill level is thus fairly low even on her end, but the match is more than watchable against an opponent who offers little beyond fighting spirit at his point. Ozaki was so non threatened by Okuda that Amano gave her a water bottle to replentish while sitting in Okuda's bodyscissors rather than just escaping from it and proceeding to finish her off. Ozaki toyed with Okuda so long that Okuda did finally threaten with a series of Jumbo knees and a schoolboy before getting put in her place.
Meiko Satomura vs. Aja Kong 22:55 of 23:21. Satomura, who had wrestled only a handful of matches since defeating her mentor Chigusa Nagayo on the final GAEA show more than a year earlier, was really over here as one of the aces of her generation, and scored another important win over her biggest rival, the most dominant wrestler from the previous generation, to help put Senjo on the map after all her debuting trainees got suitably spanked by the veterans. Aja vs. Satomura is the legendary GAEA program not so much because their matches were that outstanding, but rather they actually went all out in such a lazy promtion that had a ton of talent but was built around big names veterans who, even if they weren't broken down, had no drive to continue to push themselves there. Don't get me wrong, 9/15/99 is a great match during a transitional period where joshi was no longer turning out MOTYC by the dozens, but at the same time none of their bouts should be in consideration for the top 25 Aja matches. Aja may not have a lot of new tricks, but has held up remarkably over the years and, at least on this night, was working at about the same level she had throughout their program. Meanwhile, Satomura was considerably better here at 26 than she was at 19 when they had their first notable match at Yokohama DOUBLE DESTINY because her execution was crisper and she cleaned up most of her goofy aspects, replacing the arm flapping with more legitimate MMA style offense. This had the potential to be their best match, but unfortunately, Satomura just isn't very creative, and this is a perfect example of a match that has diminishing returns even though both were motivated and wrestling at a really high level. Granted, the match was more Aja's than Satomura, but Aja has carried opponnets to a lot more interesting matches being the beatdown throughout the years when the opponent has more to offer than just exchanging blows and submissions without coming up with particularly interesting transitions or entries. Tonights contest was better than what we saw of their previous meeting 15 months earlier where Aja captured the AAAW title on the last night it was used, but neither had grown as performers since that point, and their striking exchanges and finisher spam just felt formulaic at this point. Though the crowd was into the match, the workers were never able to sell them on any of the submissions, and in a match that wanted to lean somewhat toward shoot style to have a little more story & credibility than in the past, having all the chokes and armbars viewed as rest holds greatly reduced the drama the workers were certainly envisioning, especially with the story of Meiko working the uraken arm. The fans not buying the submissions has been a common problem in puroresu since Misawa's facelock & Kawada's stretch plum were no longer deemed suitable to even finish the jobbers, but that's because they're not stupid. It's not like the roof wasn't coming off the building when Takada hit his armbar, it's not the move but rather that he actually finished matches with it to keep it strong. It felt like the workers themselves had no confidence in the submissions getting over since given who can recall when either actually won with one, so they went for a fast start with frog splashes & backdrops, and just never really commited to the theme and story. Aja started off dominating with her strikes, and it seemed like Satomura's plan was to be speedy & energetic, but she was portrayed as an equal here and quickly settling in to working the arm was something of the equalizer. The fans react to Satomura countering a suplex into a wakigatame, but once the hold was secured, just saw it as a rest hold in between the bombs they were throwing and didn't make any more noise until Satomura dropped a knee on the arm. There was a great spot where Satomura turned the diving reverse elbow in an armbar, but I'd like it a lot better if it didn't directly follow her getting brainbustered onto a trash can. The finish saw Satomura make faces at Aja after eating two urakens then, in the grand culmination of her efforts to punish Aja for using her finisher, answered urakens with an armbreaker & kick to the arm before taking her out with two scorpio rising. ***1/2
Kyoko Inoue vs. Sachiko Kanari
Mariko Yoshida vs. Yurie Kaneko
Dynamite Kansai vs. Chisako Kanari
Mayumi Ozaki vs. Syuri Okuda 14:51
Meiko Satomura vs. Aja Kong 23:21
~REAL DEPARTURES~ 9/29/06
Carlos Amano vs. Chisako Kanari
Mayumi Ozaki vs. Yurie Kaneko
Chikayo Nagashima vs. Syuri Okuda
Dynamite Kansai vs. Sachiko Kanari
Meiko Satomura vs. Mayumi Ozaki 7:06 of 13:21. The good Ozaki showed up & carried this match. There was no interference, but she controlled with weapons & submissions, setting up Satomura to try for the hail mary comeback with one of her big moves, but mostly thwarting her. There was some good striking back & forth, but for the most part Ozaki was a step or two ahead of Satomura, using her speed & athleticism to sneak out of moves Satomura should be trying when Ozaki was beaten down, and answering with some big osakicks for the finish. Not a major match, but a well built high quality one. *** range
~A CHALLENGE~ 11/11/06
Chikayo Nagashima vs. Chisako Kanari
Carlos Amano vs. Yurie Kaneko
Dynamite Kansai vs. Sachiko Kanari
Devil Masami vs. Syuri Okuda
Meiko Satomura vs. Mayumi Ozaki 16:08. A major match with Ozaki bringing her A game & flashing back to her pre GAEA glory, using the flashy, counter based high workrate style rather than relying on props. The match was totally different than the 9/29 match, with Satomura actually contributing rather than just being plugged into Ozaki's formula. That being said, while Meiko gave her big match performance as well, this was Ozaki staking her claim to still being the best woman in the world when she wanted to be. The match was very intense & urgent from start to finish, which is something Ozaki used to do really well but are aspect often lacking in even the big matches of both of these performers in the 21st century. Satomura actually changed things up quite a bit here, needing to surprise Ozaki after Ozaki had all the answers & so readily dismissed her in their previous bout. She did a lot more flying here, even missing an early plancha (but hitting the Death Valley bomb on the floor). Most of their flying didn't actually work, but this was a match where you felt like they were actually battling when Ozaki cut Meiko off on the top & tried to answer with a superplex rather than the usual doing as little as they could get away with to disguise the cooperation. There were some nice little touches from Ozaki, such as trying to stop the Death Valley bomb by scissoring her feet on the top rope, which, of course, didn't hold Satomura off for long but added to the drama & feeling of desperation. Ozaki's striking was really on point in these matches, which was crucial since even though Satomura is the one you'd think of as being a striker, Ozaki appeared to win most of these battles in the 1st match & a decent amount in this one. Ozaki's striking is often it's a bit sloppy & pulled, but you could believe Satomura told her not to hold back. It's not that there weren't a bunch of highlights, but it's more that the match was really consistent, both were firing on all cylinders & everything was forcing them to push harder & dig deeper to outmaneuver the opponent. The submissions were the weakest aspect, but they weren't the sort of throwaway stuff you'd see in a Toyota match by any means. Satomura, of course, got the win this time, with a red cobra suplex, which is like a German suplex but the opponents arms are trapped behind their back without actually being hooked like in a Tiger suplex. Another 5 or so minutes of this would have been nice, but based on what we see in Oz Academy, I wouldn't have though Ozaki could have reached this level for half a match, much less maintained it throughout a main event of reasonable length. The all out aggression is really what made this fantastic sprint, that sense that this was a fight, and that every action was designed solely to gain advantage that would result in their victory. ****1/2
Atsuko Emoto vs. Sachiko Kanari 7:22
Tojuki Leon vs. Yurie Kaneko 10:46
Hiroyo Matsumoto vs. Syuri Okuda 9:18
Mariko Yoshida vs. Chisako Kanari 12:06 of 12:26. DASH was already showing a lot of potential here, her wrestling ability was pretty good, but her mentality was already great. She was wrestling a legend in the legends style, and she just fearlessly took it to Yoshida. Yoshida, of course, schooled her, but Chisako kept coming back for more. Yoshida would kick her down, DASH would get up, flex her muscles, and scream in Yoshida's face begging for me. Yoshida decided to have an actual match, and did a great job of making Chisako competitive & a thorn in her side after dominating the early portion.
Meiko Satomura vs. Kyoko Kimura 18:45 of 19:04. Supposed to be something of a really loose version of the oldest school shoot style, but Kimura is too goofy (and robotic) to take any of it seriously.
Atsuko Emoto vs. Sachiko Kanari 7:22
Tojuki Leon vs. Yurie Kaneko 10:46
Hiroyo Matsumoto vs. Syuri Okuda 9:18
Mariko Yoshida vs. Chisako Kanari 12:26in her side after dominating the early portion.
Meiko Satomura vs. Kyoko Kimura 19:04