Joshi Spotlight: ARSION- Starlet

Mikiko Futagami in the main event! And… it’s awesome?!? Read on!

https://archive.org/details/arsion-04-17-1998-starlet-98-487517522-456239306

Someone on Reddit gave me a link to the show! It’s free and I think not illegal! Hooray!

HYPER VISUAL FIGHTING ARSION- STARLET:
(March 17th 1998)
* Hooray! More ARSION! Someone on Reddit was good enough to send me a link to Archive.org’s copy of ARSION: Starlet. Of course now it’s out of order with the last show I did- I haven’t been this embarrassed since I learned the sit-out powerbomb and Ligerbomb were different moves. But ARSION doesn’t have any real continuity yet, so it doesn’t matter! This show goes from “meh” to FANTASTIC, as the main event is one of the best joshi matches of the year, and a true eye-opening performance by both wrestlers! Also come see just how hard they’re pushing Michiko Omukai!

The English-speaking voiceover says “Welcome to Hyper Visual Fighting ARSION- exciting, BEAUTIFUL, excellent lady fighters! Fighters for the new millennium- are you ready?!”. Everyone runs out in their street clothes which, because it’s 1998, looks like a scene from MTV’s Daria. Like, check Yoshida’s neon green belly-shirt with SUSPENDERS and baggy white pants.

Music is overplayed throughout, all of which is adorably “1998” as well, sounding like the songs from the Spice Girls that DIDN’T get singles or music videos. Or like the J-Pop mix-tape my host family made for me this year.

REGGIE & JESSIE BENNETT vs. MICHIKO OMUKAI & YUMI FUKAWA:
* And immediately we finally get the Bennett “family” (they are not related) together, and the powerhouses are taking on the youngest Japanese women in the company in Omukai & Fukawa, both semi-experienced types who were near the bottom of the card and joined ARSION in hopes of a push. The Bennetts are in their black bodysuits, Fukawa’s in blue & Omukai’s in red & white.

The kids try to double-team Reggie to start, but Jessie runs in and clotheslines them down in a heap (running INTO Reggie in the process). Reggie ignores Omukai’s strikes and just stuffs her, then Jessie gets her leg worked by the faster wrestlers. Fukawa keeps on her, using superior technique, and they trade some slaps until Fukawa dominates her enough to just toss her to the corner for a tag. Reggie just suckers Fukawa with a kick and hits an Argentine backbreaker into a nasty drop, then totally flattens her in the corner. Reggie throws a side slam but the next is countered and Omukai lights her up with kicks until Reggie just beasts her again with grapples. Omukai actually gets a pop for getting out of Reggie’s triangle choke attempt, but a Samoan drop/splash gets… a “fuck YOU!” bridge! Second rope splash- same result! Reggie’s running outta gas and flustered, and Omukai catches her with a trio of backdrops (low-angle but still) and Fukawa comes in with a FLYING RANA of all things, and a missile kick/flying splash combo hits and Fukawa immediately tries a keylock out of it. Reggie runs through a double-clothesline and they seem to be losing the plot a bit, hesitating before any moves- Omukai stops a Reggie Rack before it starts (Reggie can’t get the full grip- humorously I think it’s because Fukawa’s so smol).

Tilt-a-whirl slam gets two and in comes Jessie for a sit-out spinebuster for two after a LONG stint of just Reggie in there. Jessie gets an INVERTED one, but a Powerbomb is countered to a rana (Jessie has to save the spot after not getting a full rotation going first) for a sloppy two. The girls hit DDTs into Fukawa’s Lionsault (haha, so she CAN hit it! Once.) for two, then a Buff Blockbuster for the same. Fukawa gets a cross-armbreaker with Omukai’s help and Reggie has to save- Jessie manages a heel kick and escapes, and Reggie no-sells Yumi’s weak clotheslines… until the third one brings her down. haha- some Aja lessons are rubbing off on her. Reggie & Omukai lose the plot kinda quickly (Reggie just puts her down from a powerbomb and lets herself get armlocked), silencing the crowd, and the Springboard Heel Kick gets two for Omukai, bringing them back a tad. Assisted German gets two, but Reggie gets as clothesline into the Sit-Out Powerbomb- Fukawa saves. Jessie climbs (WAY early- what was she supposed to be doing?) and Reggie sets up her Guillotine Legdrop- two! Jessie goes for another but misses, Omukai misses her Flying Knee, but Jessie goes for a powerbomb and again just drops Omukai for no reason, where she ends up in her Rings of Saturn-style move, and Reggie just sits there watching until suddenly trying to stop it (Fukawa grabs her leg) and that’s the tap-out at (19:50)- Fukawa & Omukai win! Omukai sells her arm (“injured” by the Samoan drop, but it’s not focused on) as she leaves, which comes into play later.

Actually a very interesting match, if way too long- Reggie and Jessie are “just okay” at the grappling stuff but they set it up so their raw power and size advantage is the best counter to two tiny girls trying to wrap them up, and that actually works for the story. And Reggie can in the end just power through something or splat one of them any time she’s in trouble. Jessie is interesting because she’s not good, but has some physical credibility and a handful of decent moves, so Fukawa is able to thread stuff AROUND her and get a good bit going so Reggie can get a rest. Reggie manages to no-sell just enough to establish monster status without burying the kids, too. Reggie & Fukawa were in most of the thing, clearly saving Omukai on the end run. Honestly if it ends earlier it’s heading to ***1/2 territory (but I’m a sucker for Big/Little stuff and some of the moves were kick-ass), but by the end it seems like they lost the plot or weren’t sure how to get to where they wanted to be, and were getting super-sloppy- two “drop them out of a powerbomb and feed them an arm” spots, people having trouble getting in position, etc. Inexperience, cardio and bad planning showing through. I feel bad for poor Yumi, who put in 75% of the work in for her team at least and was by FAR the better of the two, but Omukai gets all the glory of the big tap-out.

Rating: **3/4 (still pretty great considering Omukai & Jessie are limited and they had to go twenty, but held back by the ending 5 minutes)

AJA KONG & LADY METAL vs. MICHIKO OMUKAI & FABI APACHE:
* Yes, “Operation: Get Omukai Over At All Costs” continues, as Omukai is immediately brought out there for a SECOND tag match, this one against Aja Kong, whom she took to an actual competitive match at ARSION’s first show. Omukai is now selling the shoulder big-time to stack the deck even more. Their partners are ARSION’s two Luchadoras- they would have a SPECTACULARLY bad match a couple weeks later, but we’ll see where they’re at here. Aja’s in blue/black, Lady Metal’s dressed like Wolverine, Omukai’s in red/black & Fabi’s dressed like the White Tiger Ranger.

Metal/Fabi do some lucha to start, except Fabi sucks, selling too early for a chop and dropping Metal flat instead of backbreakering her. She does manage the “grab arm; run up ropes” armdrag, but slips off Aja on a headscissors attempt. Omukai comes in and they trade kicks, then Aja quickly targets the injured shoulder, snapping it over the ropes, kicking it, surfboarding Omukai, and more. Omukai’s doing a solid job selling it, folding her arm against her body to hide it and doing the “silent scream” when selling it, then moaning in agony on the floor when she rolls out. Aja just stares her down with amusement until Michiko comes up with this teary-eyed, hateful look and starts swiping at her with the good arm, Aja weathering it and bowling her over to terrorize the limb further.

Aja tosses Omukai to the stands for a beating out there and waits her out again, then hits a piledriver for two. She sits on Omukai’s sunset flip, but gets hit with a slingshot move, only to fire off her “cross-body both people” move (of course Fabi runs in early and wrecks the spot, haha). Omukai manages a high kick but misses her Springboard as Aja Samoa Joes away and a backdrop gets two. A rocket launcher misses and now the luchadoras are back in doing their sequences, Fabi cannonballing Metal off the apron. Fabi keeps doing her “Hey! Clap for me!” thing and I dare say it’s starting to work because she’s spamming it relentlessly- Aja accidentally nails Metal and Fabi hits a missile kick & super armdrag. Aja splashes Metal by mistake trying to break it up and Omukai knocks her to the floor with a springboard dropkick, and Fabi finishes Metal with a standing figure-four arm-thingie at (11:25)- Fabi & Omukai win!

Okay, this is one of those weird matches where it’s two separate singles matches stapled together. It’s no mistake that ONLY the two Japanese and ONLY the two Mexicans were in there together for 99% of it, but it comes off kinda disjointed when they do it that way. The lucha bits were terrible as Fabi can’t do ANYTHING properly and is often too early or too loose and stuff gets missed. Aja/Omukai worked, though it was mostly just a long heat sequence on Omukai and didn’t factor into the finish except for Omukai fending Aja off at last to set up the submission on her partner. Like Aja didn’t even get a major submission or a near-fall on Omukai out of that- it was just to punish her!

Rating: **1/4 (some good stuff, some awful stuff- hard to rate overall)

And look! SAKIE HASEGAWA shows up! We haven’t seen her since she retired! She just looks at Omukai with a somewhat serious look on her face, almost considering something, then comes out and shakes her hand. Sakie ended up working for ARSION for some time in a business capacity- she never does return to the ring.

Mariko Yoshida’s “Spider Woman” gear: easily among the best wrestling gear of all.

MARIKO YOSHIDA vs. RIE TAMADA:
* Mariko’s finally back! Out injured during the summer dissolution of AJW, she was hired onto ARSION and expected to be their Ace eventually, but for now she is an “AJW Almost Upper-Midcarder” who debuts an AMAZING look- a Spider-Woman-esque uniform added to with big fitness girl muscles! And her “Grapplefuckery” style has now evolved to a new level. And her opponent is of course Rie Tamda, AJW Midcarder supreme who is always used to heat people up. Rie’s in army gear again.

They grapple to start, Yoshida getting a good reaction for turning a test of strength into a cross-armbreaker seamlessly. Rie’s doing pretty well, but Yoshida keeps catching her in stuff no matter WHAT she does- she’ll grab a hold and Yoshida will tie up whichever limb is left open. Yoshida with a big gutbuster but Rie fires off elbows and has to be taken down, Yoshida repeatedly tying her up but not getting anything concrete. Rie with a DDT & whirling crossbody, then DDTs out of a Fujiwara attempt, Yoshida selling more frustration than pain. She walks into a Tornado DDT and Rie starts working the knee- Yoshida actually dodges a second dropkick in a nice bit of “this looks real” but gets tied up on the mat, and Rie backdrop suplexes her for two.

Nice bit as Rie goes for her Dragon Suplex, settles for a sleeper, Yoshida counters to a crossface chickenwing, but Rie counters to bridge the Dragon for two. Missile kick to the back & DDT keep up the punishment, but Yoshida catches her off the top by grabbing the arm, putting Rie on the defensive and Yoshida gets noticeably frustrated with kicks in the corner. But she’s too aggressive- a dragon screw catches her! Rie keeps throwing on legholds as Yoshida’s defending again. She gets a weak gutwrench powerbomb and has Rie desperately squealing in an anklelock, but Rie avoids a sleeper and smashes her down with a rolling elbow and Yoshida has to make the ropes! A hurricanrana also gets two, but Yoshida kicks out and uses the momentum to try to choke Rie out, fails, then tries again, locking on her Modified Sleeper (the choke against her bent leg) for the immediate submission at (12:29)- Yoshida wins!

I really dug this one, “midcard match” as it was- it was just fought so tactically, like both people treated it like it was a real fight with real tactics versus more “pro wrestling” things- stuff like Yoshida dodging a second dropkick to the knee by hopping out of the way and killing Rie’s momentum, Yoshida finding every possible way to twist holds around on Rie, and Rie finding practical ways to mess up Yoshida’s superior grappling, snapping on DDTs whenever she could. Yoshida even does “frustration” well, getting angry over Rie fighting so hard and throwing all those kicks and stomps while she’s down, but Rie taking advantage of that aggression by catching her with the dragon screw, paying off the leg stuff from before! The funny thing is they’re doing this big debut for Yoshida but she ends up fighting underneath against a Zenjo midcarder, but you gotta put over your company’s backbone I guess. This also puts over the danger of Yoshida- she can get her ass completely kicked for ten minutes but all she needs is that one opening and you’re done for. Though the Modified Sleeper (“Henkei” means modified- the commentators use that term, and Cagematch lists Henkei Sleeper as her move) seemed to be misapplied at first, and she had to start over from the same position.

Rating: ***1/4 (very good little tactical match-up, Rie holding her own through clever counters, leg work, and taking advantage of Yoshida’s own errors… but Yoshida just had too much strength and skill in her)

KICKBOXING MATCH:
AYA MITSUI vs. KAORI:
* Oh son of a biscuit- we’ve got SHOOT FIGHTS again! That explains why I didn’t recognize either of the girls doing weigh-ins or being coached, haha. KAORI’s in black normal workout clothes, while Aya’s in purple & orange Muay Thai gear, complete with the headband. Mitsui doesn’t have much of a record online, but apparently she beat Kumiko Maekawa when AJW was still doing these.

You know the drill- lots of punchity and kickety. KAORI takes a couple wild swings that were probably not intended to hit but keep her at a distance. Aya throws a combination or two while KAORI tries clinches. OH MY GOD I JUST SCROLLED AHEAD TO SEE HOW LONG THIS GOES. Okay so Aya will throw the occasional good shot but not dive in, and usually gets stuffed by KAORI again. It threatens to get exciting against the ropes at one point but nope- more clinching. Aya slips at one point and I guess you can’t follow up if that happens. Aya’s corner shouts “YAYY!” with the exact same cadence every time she scores a kick. Someone plays music by accident at one point. Aya will occasionally score some punches but is usually doing kicks to the body while KAORI attempts to keep her away. She scores a few clinch-punches, though. We finally hit the end of Round Five at Aya wins by decision. Well no kidding- she was the only one being aggressive and scoring anything!

MIKIKO FUTAGAMI vs. CANDY OKUTSU:
* Yes, THIS was the main event- an LLPW scrub versus a JWP midcarder. I dunno with this place sometimes, man… That said, Gami is showing a lot and is given a push as the Shoot-Style worker, and Candy can pull it out sometimes. They show a clip from a Feb. 28th show where Gami taps out Candy to a nasty arm twist while her head’s trapped by Gami’s legs. Gami’s in orange and Candy’s in the gold with white undies worn over top.

Candy, with something to prove, immediately pounces, then does a tiger feint and twists around on the top to score a cross-body, but Gami rolls through and goes for the arm. Candy scores a lariat but stops a charge when she realizes Gami is ready for her- smart girl. Candy manages a cool submission out of a lockup (a hammerlock with the head & arm trapped by her legs), then they reverse each other’s sleepers and Gami catches her in a standing double-arm, cranking on it before having to release. Candy gets fighty so Gami just paintbrushes her with a palm strike, but Candy gets a lariat and two of those forehead-aimed missile kicks for two, then scores a run-up moonsault (Gami leaning forward so it doesn’t entirely miss). They each fight for legholds, then Candy charges in so Gami walks through her with a lariat for two. She goes up (… for what?) and of course gets knocked off with a run-up dropkick, and then a run-up plancha… gets CAUGHT, so Gami tears the shit out of her arm with a cross-armbreaker on the floor! The ref has to pry Gami’s hands off her while Candy wails in agony. Back in, Gami gets a Northern Lights suplex for two and Candy gets swatted down after trying a lariat with her good arm, but Candy manages a Run-Up Northern Lights Superplex, only to miss a flying splash.

Gami tries to finish with a huge lariat, but gets caught in Rolling Germans, but on the kickout… keylocks her! oooh, nice. Candy sells it well, but more like a “gotta fight to the ropes” thing than the arm-break it is in real life. Gami launches her with a pumphandle overhead toss, and a pumphandle powerbomb gets two- I’m liking even her power moves hurting the arm. Gami scores a rolling cross-armbreaker off the top, Candy scrambling for the ropes. Candy manages to counter a whip with a powerbomb & moonsault for two, then just charges in and clocks Gami with an elbow, but tries again and BLAMMO! Shotei palm thrust! Haha, that was great! Candy just starfishes out in mid-air and barely kicks out. Gami is getting tired, and has to build up to a shotei, hitting only the turnbuckle and Candy hits more Rolling Germans… but rolls OVER her on them and ends the fifth with a Straightjacket German- two! That’s a double-down, and Candy has to set Gami up top, but runs up and gets hit with ANOTHER shotei, crashing and burning off the top in a huge bump. Gami follows with a flying headbutt to the lower back, but Candy manages a weak kickout! Gami actually hits Stranglehold Gamma a couple of times and works that, then a victory roll/stump puller and is like “What’s it TAKE, huh?” when Candy keeps getting the ropes- frustrated, she tries a dragon- broken- then a german- WHEELBARROW German-ing her, but Candy lands on her feet by surprise and BAM- the KICK OF FEAR finishes a stunned, struggling Gami at (13:12)- Come from behind win by Candy!!

Holy shit, this was GREAT! Gami has a better match with Candy than she did with AJA. This had all the markings of two people with something to prove being put in a main slot and being like “oh, okay- you want us to prove ourselves? We’ll PROVE OURSELVES” and just going all-out with everything they had. No move was wasted, all the stuff was built, and more. Gami was better at submissions and kept tearing at the arm, starting with that great lethal cross-armbreaker on the floor (where the ref had to literally pry her off Candy). Then Gami starts building up the shotei- slowly doing them in the early going, then BLASTING Candy with one when she charges in one too many times, then countering one of Candy’s multitude of run-up moves with another one. And check CANDY! Just flinging herself all over the place and doing MASSIVE sells off of everything- the “flying starfish” when Gami palms her on the charge was tremendous (the hand actually missed but Candy wouldn’t have you know it), and her bump when she got caught with one on the top was HUGE. And they told this excellent story of Futagami being her superior physically, catching her with all sorts of stuff, but Candy just having too much “go” to be put away by anything, Gami getting frustrated, and Candy capitalizing on a loosened grip and careless release to nail her.

Rating: ****1/4 (a great little story and a fantastic effort by both- the best I’ve seen from either wrestler)

… Candy Okutsu’s been in two of the best singles matches of 1998. Guys, I’m scared. But really, she was terrific! Gami has come outta nowhere as an LLPW scrub and proven she can hang, too! I’m dreading the inevitable “so we didn’t make tons of money right away so we got discouraged and stopped trying as hard” slide, lol. Because as of right now, everyone is ARSION is fighting as hard as they can to have good matches and impress people, and that’s kind of the most exciting thing to watch in wrestling, even if a lot of the talent isn’t there yet.