Joshi Spotlight: Maiko Matsumoto

When you always post Joshi Spotlights on Mondays but it’s Christmas Day, so you don’t wanna waste a BIG column.

JOSHI SPOTLIGHT- MAIKO MATSUMOTO:
Billed Height & Weight: 5’5″ 154 lbs.
Career Length: 1996-1999

-Yes, it’s time for my favorite thing- padding out a week of Joshi Spotlights (it was gonna be one after a shorter show, but I realized a Spotlight was gonna fall on Christmas) with a bio of a short-lived non-star: Maiko Matsumoto gets a bio! aka “The Brown Swimsuit One”.

Okay, so Maiko is barely in any of GAEA Japan‘s YouTube uploads- they tend to spam out Meiko Satomura & Sonoko Kato matches as those ended up the biggest stars in the long run (put down that knife, Sakura Hirota fans!), and the “middle years” of GAEA were particularly… iffy, when it came to great talent “gets”. The first GAEA class (from 1995) is of miraculous scope, with Meiko, Kato, Chikayo Nagashima, Sugar Sato & Toshie Uematsu all turning into good workers within a couple years- some were having ***+ matches against each other by 1996, and the booking had set them up early on as the backbone of the entire promotion, and they wrestled like it.

Maiko is part of that SECOND class- the Class of 1996 that saw her, Makie Numao, Rina Ishii, Chihiro Nakano and Sakura Hirota debut. And they weren’t as good. They didn’t have the hustle, nor the moveset development, nor the technique to really move forward. And I’ve heard that part of it was the prior expectations not falling on them- instead of forming GAEA’s backbone and filling out the roster and getting lots of focus, they were just endlessly getting their asses kicked with 10+ senpais above them. GAEA’s First Class was getting drilled by Chigusa Nagayo (their trainer & boss), KAORU and like… Bomber Hikari until she quit. The Second and Third Classes had to get their asses kicked by them AND a whole squad of senpais who’d all turned out to be legitimately incredible finds. So imagine Japan’s rigid training structure and the “senpai/kouhai” relationship where you have to be deferential and dutiful to your seniors and there’s not that light at the end of the tunnel where you’re gonna get pushed ahead of them and score some definitive wins.

ANYWAYS, Maiko Matsumoto was a perfectly ordinary, generic worker- she was good-sized and could reliably hit some basic power stuff, but never developed beyond the “Opening Match Jobber” level. Being so much bigger than Meiko (who is TINY) and the others should have been a bit of a boost, but it just wasn’t because there wasn’t time. Her sole “developing moveset” stuff (GAEA was big on the rookies picking up distinctive offense good and early) was the atomic drop of all things. She’d even pick people up and hit it repeatedly. Though I’ve seen matches where she hits the Saito suplex, a complicated variation of a gutwrench suplex with a bit more spin on it (though I’ve seen a ton of variations called “Saito suplex” without seeing much consistency), doing pretty well hefting people up and spinning in mid-hold to drop them.

Her only really good match is a tag match with Akira Hokuto as her partner against Mayumi Ozaki & Chikayo Nagashima- Maiko plays the “Unfortunate Rookie”, getting murdered by the cruel heels, but gets some fun spots like responding to Ozaki’s bullying with a punch to the face (like “No bitch- I will NOT be pushed around!”). Maiko actually impressed me in that match, doing Hoss Spots against her much smaller opponents. I feel if she’d developed along those levels, she might have been okay.

CAREER TRAJECTORY:
-A good-sized kid, the 5’5″ powerhouse Maiko Matsumoto debuted in April 1996 for GAEA Japan, starting off their Class of 1996 with a win over Rina Ishii. As the GAEA kids all got distinctive colored “swimsuit” gear in their debuts to make them stand out, and there weren’t many colors left, Maiko was stuck with a chocolate brown suit for a while. She and Rina are given a drubbing by Meiko Satomura in a handicap match a few months later, but she’s seen in a tag tournament teaming with Toshie Uematsu- they beat a KAORU/Ishii team but lose to Chikayo & Sugar in the semi-finals on the same day. She beats classmate Makie Numao, jobs to Bomber Hikari, then a bunch more elders for the most part. In a “Winner to WCW Tournament”, she loses in the first round to Chihiro Nakano. Come 1997, she’d get a different outfit- a yellow/brown one, giving way to yellow/black later.

Maiko gets a shocker win over Bomber in Jan. 1997 (after Bomber beat Ishii on the same show), but then still mostly does jobs. She’s out in the WCW Women’s Cruiserweight Title Tournament, losing to Chikayo, loses a bunch of tag matches, and more. She can beat the Class of 1997 (Hiromi Kato, for example), but she can’t even get help from Akira Hokuto as her partner- she’s singled out by Mayumi Ozaki & Chikayo in a tag match and pinned. She & Hiromi form a losing duo on some shows, she picks up more wins over Hiromi, and even one over Ishii again, but loses to Ishii & Numao later.

Her 1998 isn’t much better- she jobs to Ishii, then Uematsu beats her & Hiromi in a handicap match (losing those in your SECOND year has to suck). A bunch of cards seem to open with her beating Hiromi, and then RIE & Uematsu beat her & Numao in the opening round of the AAAW Tag Team Title Contender Tournament in the summer. Chikayo beats her, then Sakura Hirota does as she starts getting showcased on the cards more and more, and finally she jobs in some tag bouts, then to Ozaki, then ends her career in Dec. 1998 with a win over Rina Ishii.

Why’d she quit? No idea, but the fact that she was still doing opening match jobs when at that point Sonoko & Meiko were getting main event slots in tag matches and big bouts against each other has to mean something. She obviously hadn’t developed very far. It’s likely she just saw no point in struggling as the #12 person in a 15-person promotion. GAEA started losing their training classes after the first one pretty quickly, from what I can see. Training is tough, people get hurt a lot while wrestling, the training school was apparently in the middle of nowhere, etc.

MOVESET:
Atomic Drop, Atomic Drop Spam, Atomic Drop (but landing them on the mat instead of her knee), Waterwheel Drop/Mountain Bomb (falling backdrop ending up on top of the opponent), Saito Suplex (gutwrench twisting suplex- finisher)

MATCHES:

GAEA NEO SOUL BATTLE NEW FACES:
RINA ISHII vs. MAIKO MATSUMOTO:
* Holy shit, NEW wrestlers! This is the first I’ve seen of either one, and is Rina’s debut. She lasts two years and Maiko three, so they’re not GREAT successes but at least stuck around a bit. They have to pick unique colors, as enough of the early crew are still around in their Arena swimsuits- Maiko’s in an ugly brown one, and Rina’s in a light… puce? Salmon? Google says that’s “coral”, I guess. It’s pink, I dunno. Rina is TINY and super-thin, probably around 5 feet tall, and Maiko is comparatively bigger and thicker.

Maiko dropkicks Rina face-first into the corner before the bell, but Rina forward-flips away and does dropkicks of her own. The fans applaud a simple sequence where one resists a body slam and the other a leg roll clutch, then Maiko just tosses Rina around a bunch. Rina comes back with Thesz Presses, but gets launched up out of one, but reverses a whip into a cartwheel handspring ass slam (Maiko came too far out of the corner). They scrap a bunch more, fighting for pins- Rina actually does the Jaguar Yokota bridge-out of a pin, but Maiko hits a back elbow, kicks her out of a charge, and hits a Saito Suplex for the pin (4:10 of 11:29 shown). Not as good as the first class of rookies was in their debut- there was a lot of uncoordinated charging around and bumping into each other out there. Neither seemed to develop any “unique offense” yet, but they’re still new.

Rating: DUD (more or less two people learning to work in front of an audience- the crowd was appreciative of some stuff but it was clipped AND pretty clumsy)

AKIRA HOKUTO & MAIKO MATSUMOTO vs. OZ ACADEMY (Chikayo Nagashima & Reiko Amano):
* A strange match pitting Akira and who I guess is a second year (I almost never see Maiko, but she’s now been elevated to different colors- a yellow & black detailed bodysuit), against two OZ goons. Amano still looks like a baby in a white & blue jobber swimsuit, while Chikayo’s in yellow & blue with tassels. This is clipped.

Borderline comedy starts us off, as Hokuto (who is shown slapping the OZ kids and arguing with Mayumi Ozaki before this match) just leaves Maiko to fight them on her own, but she does okay. They divebomb Hokuto, who refuses to even budge or react to their beating. Maiko scores repeated atomic drops like it’s a hold in Street Fighter II, getting two on Chikayo. Clipped to Amano knocking over Hokuto with a flying clothesline, but she just Samoa Joes out of another move, only to get locked in a flash submission, actually selling it as upsetting. Both partners interfere, but Amano refuses to break and the ref has to unhook them. Bridging suplex gets two, but Chikayo does a flying stomp and Hokuto just gets up like nothing happened and decks her with a slap, shaking off the pain in her leg and ribs a sec, then cutting a promo over her unconscious body to an amused Ozaki on the floor. Then spikes her with the VICIOUS Inverted Brainbuster (4:10 of 9:58 shown), looking straight at Oz.

One of those fun “The veteran sells NOTHING” matches, as Akira just laughs off the juniors (which… is iffy, given how Chikayo is actually getting kind of a push) and won’t give them the dignity of selling… though there’s funny bits where she shakes off the pain or reacts with real agony- she just doesn’t want to let them SEE it.

Rating: *1/4 (about as fun as casual destruction was gonna be)

AKIRA HOKUTO & MAIKO MATSUMOTO vs. OZ ACADEMY (Mayumi Ozaki & Chikayo Nagashima):
* A payoff to Akira’s talking smack last show, Akira faces the leader of OZ Academy in a tag match! Ozaki’s in the most “pro wrestling” looking gear I’ve seen her in for a while, with long swooping red bits. Chikayo’s in yellow & blue, Hokuto’s in silver and Maiko’s in yellow/brown.

This actually starts with comedy, with Akira shaming Ozaki’s height, so Chikayo comes in to give her boss a boost- Maiko gets a slap for trying the same with Hokuto. Man ’90s tape traders would have lost it at that spot, lol. the vets no-sell each other and just walk away- the kids do their bit, Maiko getting a good reaction for her power- catching Chikayo- then responding to Ozaki’s hair-pulling by doing the same, then just FLOORS her with a punch! Yeah- you show that bitch you won’t be pushed around, kid! Akira works Chikayo over, then Maiko comes in for that Beverly Brothers leapfrog move, but in the corner and to the face (like… a leapfrog teabag?). Akira strangles Oz to get out of a pin, then does a chokeslam lift & hangman’s choke, but gets caught with a clothesline & cannonball for two. Double-submission from OZ, but Akira hits her sick inverted brainbuster when Oz snaps the arm over her shoulder- yikes, now THAT’s a counter.

The kids waste time and Oz flies in, but Maiko reverses Chikayo’s second monkey flip by tossing her up and flipping her around for an atomic drop in a great bit, but Oz just flies into her. Chikayo ranas her and then catches Akira with a super monkey flip thanks to Oz holding her, but she tries a regular one and gets powerbombed. Oz interferes and pulls hair- Maiko gets drilled trying to help and Akira’s German’d, but Chikayo missile kicks Oz when Akira moves. Oz is caught in a kick-to-the-gut Fisherman’s Buster for two. Maiko saves Akira from the Tequila Sunrise and a Dangerous Queen Bomb gets two. Oz is in trouble but her dumb backfist knocks Akira into the corner- Maiko gets a mountain bomb but eats a Rocket Launcher for two- then stereo flying stomps from OZ gets two! Double Flying Stomp! But Maiko ducks under them and Akira flies in with a missile kick, then planchas Chikayo… leaving Ozaki to take advantage with a backfist & kneeling powerbomb for two- Akira has to charge in to save. But Ozaki dumps her and cannonballs her on the floor, then four OZ goons drag Akira away so Oz can easily dust off Maiko with the Tequila Sunrise (tiger/dragon suplex) at (14:14).

A fun little match in parts, with what I imagined was gonna be a nasty feud instead just being Oz & Akira being shitty to each other and talking smack, but MAIKO is the one who impressed me. Basically a 2nd-year now, she’s already doing power spots and I adore that she’s a rookie who won’t let a veteran disrespect her. She’s not GREAT at all just yet (some of her lifts and grabs are awkward), but her being a power wrestler fills a roll GAEA needed. The crowd was way into her spots for the most basic things (I loved that atomic drop reversal- very slick). As a match there was a bunch of “the rookies just run around each other” bits and time-wasting until the final surge, which was pretty good- Akira nearly finishes Ozaki but gets tagged, then Maiko gets double-teamed to death and Akira has to save her repeatedly.

Rating: ***1/2 (was looking below ***, but they had a good run of false finishes in the end, and there was great team psychology with Maiko being in over her head save for some hope spots, and the numbers game screwing Akira’s team)

GAEA vs. HEISEI GUREN-TAI HARDCORE SURVIVAL:
MAKIE NUMAO & MAIKO MATSUMOTO (GAEA Japan) vs. THE BLOODY (JD’) & SAYORI OKINO (LLPW):
* A weird mixed match as JD’ & LLPW team up against GAEA’s secondary rookies from the 2nd generation. I’ve not seen Okino before, I think. She’s in pink & black, while The Bloody’s in blue & black, making them look kinda like a tag team. Maiko’s in yellow/brown & Numao’s in black & red triangles with kickpads. Been a while since I’ve seen hern but she’s the kicky one.

The invaders attack with chains to start, but Numao saves Maiko from strangulation. Bloody just chokes away at Maiko as these kids are doing a serviceable proto-LCO act double-teaming her. She finally escapes and Numao gets a good reaction for her kicks, but she too is gang-beat. She wins a brawl outside and gets a “NU-MA-O!” chant for it, but soon the heels work them over again and the match’s length works against it as they’re just trading stuff and run out of things to do. Like 7 minutes in they’re still doing hair-slams and the “grab & toss” stuff. Bloody gets a bad rolling cradle on Maiko then rolls through Numao’s flying cross-body, but eats a bad slingshot gut-kick. Numao goes a-kickin’ and does a bad inverted DDT (what IS that?) but gets chain-choked again, but Bloody chairs Okino coming off the top by mistake.

Okino takes atomic drops for two, but they chain Numao again, clotheslining her with it, but Okino again takes her partner’s weapon shot- she still manages a super armdrag for two. Maiko cheats to help Numao get an anklelock- Bloody saves. Maiko works the leg but Bloody Germans her for two, only to Vader Bomb herself into a chair face-first. Maiko/Bloody trade pins and Bloody hits Rolling Germans for two. Numao nails Okino out of a top-rope move and they do weak double-teams for two-counts- Maiko’s Gutwrench Suplex gets two when Bloody saves. Bloody hammers everyone with chairs… but a Double Superplex gets two on Maiko! Perfect Plex on the chair- no ref cuz of JD’ cheating oddly enough. But a German into a Turning Splash gets two for Okino at (15:47). Man, Numao was really easy to hold off for the past couple minutes.

A potentially fun “Nasty Invading Heels vs. Natives” match that quickly goes bad because nobody has the offense to go for 17 minutes like this, so everyone runs outta cool stuff and is still doing hair-slams and choking later on, and Okino’s still doing armdrags until the end. Numao was the most over and credible and her kicks are okay, but she’s the baby version of the “Shootstyle” Kansai/Hotta offense and is small. Bloody & Okino did some heel stuff but are too new and don’t have “it” yet so their mannerisms are usually not there at all- Bloody hits her partner with a chair and seems to just stand there in confusion rather than doing the “Oh crap, NO!” reaction, not even holding her head or anything. So it’s just fairly emotionless heeling and a match that’s a ways too long

Rating: *1/2 (just way too long for their age and experience level- their offense isn’t crisp enough nor varied enough, and the character work isn’t there yet)

About 4 minutes in.

MIHO WATABE (LLPW) vs. MAIKO MATSUMOTO (GAEA Japan):
* It’s Rookie Mayhem! Maiko is still pretty new and is developing some power-themed offense (so I hope you like atomic drops). I don’t know squat about Miho. She’s… jesus christ, she’s *4’9*!!?! She actually has a decently long career (1996-2005) and is of similar experience to Maiko. Maiko’s in yellow & brown, and Watabe’s in frilly orange.

We start fast, with Watabe bouncing off trying running attacks and Maiko powering her down. Watabe tries to counter a cross-armbreaker attempt with a combination of realistic-looking leverage and wild baby-scratching, which is pretty funny. Watabe FINALLY rolls out of it and throws some weak shots trying to keep Maiko on the defensive and trying a keylock, then a fun bit as she cartwheel dodges past Maiko’s wild double-chop and does some goofy Popeye Punches and then charges right into the chop, getting too ahead of herself. She manages a step-up victory roll for two, but tries it again and gets electric chair’d down. Maiko throws legdrops to the belly, but misses a running one and Watabe hits two missile kicks for two, unable to hold her down. She flies off the top, but ends up on Maiko’s shoulders- a mountain bomb crushes her for two. She lands on her feet from a gutwrench suplex attempt and scores a flash-pin for two, tries again and nearly gets killed, but manages to whirl into a rana for two (Maiko did a good job saving what could have been a disaster, basing herself for it). At a loss, Watabe charges in, getting dropped on her ass for two, then two atomic drops get two (!! FINISHER-KILLING!! They been watching too much AEW!). Maiko is running outta shit, and puts Watabe up top, getting caught in a sunset flip, but they each reverse pin attempts until Watabe charges in again like a dumbass and gets killed- a big Backbreaker to Saito Suplex crush her at (6:06), Maiko winning a pretty dramatic contest.

Shockingly good for what it was- two comparative rookies doing simple stuff. It had smart psychology, with Maiko being super big and tossing the tiny girl around, but Miho using her speed and height to her advantage by dodging and sticking & moving, until she got ahead of herself and accidentally charges right into Maiko’s frontal arc. Watabe is quite good for her size, able to wrestle like a tiny person adequately, though her pins are TERRIBLE- she often “flops” beside her opponent and scores a weak cover even if she was full-sized (which she ain’t). And Watabe has all this plug and flash-pin goodness but can’t hold the bigger girl down, so keeps getting careless and just charging in when she shouldn’t, which keeps catching her- good finish with all these flash-pins being believable (it’s not like Maiko is unpinnable at this point) and Maiko luckily getting out and finally being able to drill the fight out of the tiny opponent.

Rating: **1/4 (shockingly good for their experience level)