Joshi Spotlight: GAEA Japan (June 19th)

GAEA JAPAN (July 19th 1998):
* Here’s a GAEA show from July 19th, and it features a fairly unique match with Las Cachorras Orientales invading from Neo Ladies to take on Mayumi Ozaki and her OZ Academy trainees! Damn I’ve missed seeing LCO in my 1998 watch-through. It also features two matches in tournaments to determine the AAAW Title contenders- Chigusa Nagayo vs. KAORU (the two founders of GAEA) to challenge Devil Masami, and Meiko Satomura & Sonoko Kato vs. Toshie Uematsu & FMW’s RIE in a tourney to determine the tag challengers! And the latter has some very interesting inter-team rivalry going on. And holy god Chigusa/KAORU ends up a weird case of wrestling psychology.

AAAW TAG CHAMPIONSHIP CONTENDER TOURNAMENT:
SEMI-FINALS:
MEIKO SATOMURA & SONOKO KATO vs. TOSHIE UEMATSU & RIE:
* Okay, this is a weird one- the Super-First-Year Squadron of Meiko/Kato takes on classmate Toshie and… RIE? Who is actually Bad Nurse Nakamura from FMW. The GAEA girls are all in their more elaborate color-coded outfits (Meiko red, Kato blue, Toshie green), while RIE’s in a very plain two-piece with like… long shorts. I’ve never seen her un-gimmicked before, so this will be interesting.

Toshie/RIE jump Meiko before the bell and beat on her a while, Toshie ramping up heelishness by pummeling Meiko in RIE’s holds and standing on her hands. Interestingly, when Kato kicks Meiko by mistake, Meiko decks her back. Toshie hits a plancha to the floor, but Meiko trips her and Kato largely dominates Toshie, hitting her bulldog. Meiko works a headlock & STF, then RIE gets beaten up, but Toshie stops a Super Cross-Armbreaker attempt and RIE backdrops her onto her neck. Meiko clobbers Toshie with a corner forearm and Kato adds a missile kick that rolls her right into Meiko’s anklelock in a cool bit, and Kato adds a cannonball for two. Toshie fires back, and is able to complete a German when Meiko accidentally blasts Kato! RIE comes in and they suplex Meiko onto Kato as RIE is VERY clearly being led through a lot of stuff bit-by-bit. This causes ANOTHER fight between the pair as RIE looks on in amusement, but Kato Germans her and they hit the fireman’s slam/frog splash combo, only for Kato to whip Meiko off roughly to try a pin.

RIE/Toshie hit a doomsday device of sorts on Meiko but she threads it right into a cross-armbreaker, RIE having to break it up. Toshie gets a flying splash but takes the Death Valley Driver- RIE saves, then gets a release German on Meiko and a flying knee on Kato when she tags in. Kato eventually boots her on the top and hits her Super Rolling Fireman’s, but only gets two! RIE hits a rana for two, then a butterfly bomb for the same, then a really bad assisted version (RIE almost drops her and Toshie has to save it) does too as Meiko runs in. But Meiko & Kato double-kick RIE and a Dragon Suplex from Kato nearly pins her- Toshie saves and gets DVD’s by Meiko, leaving RIE alone. And the GAEA girls finish her… except when Meiko climbs for a double-team, Kato just points at her and hits a Running Razor’s Edge to RIE and dramatically pins her solo at (15:21), leaving Meiko hanging on the top rope in a humiliating display. It’s personal, now.

This was pretty disjointed and not very great. Meiko & Kato brawling with each other mid-match repeatedly was an interesting take, though, as they got flustered every time one so much as bumped into the other. RIE was very clearly being led through bits, as she gets some token offense at first and takes a short beating later, but it’s almost ENTIRELY Toshie vs. Meiko/Kato, with the two just doing quick transitions like “Meiko trips Toshie after getting thrown back into the ring” or “someone dodges a charge and hits their own strike”. RIE gets one final surge at the end, too, kicking out of Kato’s biggest move and getting some near-falls before being dusted off by consistent offense. But the sudden inability of Meiko/Kato to play along is a bigger story, and doesn’t bode well considered they’re facing two main eventers soon.

Rating: ** (just kind of “a match” with some interesting stuff but mostly disjointed attacks, no real flow, and RIE randomly tossed in there)

OZ ACADEMY (Mayumi Ozaki, Sugar Sato & Chikayo Nagashima) (GAEA) vs. LAS CACHORRAS ORIENTALES (Mima Shimoda, Etsuko Mita & Saya Endo) (Neo Ladies):
* !!!!!!!!!! Holy crap- it’s OZ vs. LCO! Given how Ozaki’s entire thing is being a giant shitass and constantly cheating and being awful and she’s taking on the supreme deities of that style of wrestling, this’ll be interesting. Mita’s in white/blue, Shimoda’s in white/pink, Endo’s in a weird green & white one-piece, Ozaki’s in red/black, Sugar’s in white & Chikayo’s in yellow.

We’re Joined In Progress with ten minutes elapsed with Mita first tossing Endo onto OZ Academy on the floor, then the proper assisted tope con hilo/dive combo into the crowd brawl & chair-tossing. Shimoda missile kicks Sugar for two and Mita adds a blue chair, but the pink one hits Shimoda, but Sugar throws machine-gun knees & a dragon screw and Oz adds a backfist. She misses a second and Shimoda gets a quick ax kick for two, but misses an awful moonsault and another backfist gets two. Powerbomb gets two, then Mita tries to use a Blazing Chop but Ozaki pulls Shimoda’s back up to take the move (though the timing made it look like Mita just hit her partner on purpose). Shimoda manages a tiger suplex for two anyways, but Oz rolls Mita up from a powerbomb attempt. But Mita swats her down with the Blazing Chop and gets the Avalanche Electric Chair Drop for two as LCO blocks OZ- Shimoda wins the day by soccer-punting the referee for not counting three. But Ozaki counters another powerbomb and stuns Mita with an axehandle before DDTing her and tagging to Chikayo, who misses a flying stomp and gets powerbombed for two, but avoids another avalanche drop and Germans Mita off the ropes and completes the stomp for two, absolutely PLANTING her ass into Mita’s ribs and presumably apologizing profusely during the two-count. Mita grimaces as she holds her ribs but Chops Chikayo down, only to get rolled up trying an assisted powerbomb with Shimoda, and Chikayo hits a Flying Rana for a close two!

Chikayo flies onto Mita and nearly gets DVD’d, Mita just tossing her for a Shimoda missile kick and hitting a big kneeling powerbomb for two- OZ shoves them over. Chikayo rolls up Endo but gets powerslammed for two, and they screw up some top rope thing and Chikayo splashes knees. Endo wins a German war but Chikayo NO-SELLS and hits her sunset flip for two, and Sugar gets a dragon screw & facecrusher both off the top for two-counts… as Mita pastes her ass with a blue chair. Sugar dodges twin chairshots and her partners grab the chairs and smoke LCO, then hit the world’s worst double-assisted powerbomb on Endo on both chairs- damn she didn’t get any height on her jump and Sugar couldn’t handle the load till the other two showed up. LCO invades to fend OZ off and Mita electric chairs Sugar onto the chairs and sets up Endo’s attack, but her guillotine legdrop misses. Sugar misses a backfist and Ozaki accidentally nails her while she’s fighting out from a full nelson, letting Endo Dragon Suplex her until the pileup knocks them over. LCO set up a DOUBLE super chokeslam but just kinda weakly toss Sugar off (Sugar kicks herself off using the post and they don’t jump off with her). Endo hits her guillotine legdrop as everyone else clears the ring, but gets two and stupidly runs into Ozaki, who distracts her so she gets pinballed by backfists and Sugar dusts her off with a kneeling powerbomb at (12:19 of 22:48 shown)- OZ Academy beats LCO! Sugar is elated at her victory, while Shimoda is just snarking at Ozaki and they have to be separated.

Well this was a bit of fun- not as all-out an effort as you might imagine given how it’s a bit of a Dream Match, but more a standard-issue, slowly wrestled tag with a LOT of prominent botches (like, how do you botch a DOUBLE assisted powerbomb? You had two people helping! But Endo’s jump was weak and Sugar couldn’t shoulder her entire lead-ass herself until the other two got there so they just kinda spun and dropped her). Mita led the majority, doing stuff with both Ozaki and Chikayo, acting as a “base” for both. Then it came time for Sugar/Endo and MAN Endo was a load as botches started coming and most of her offense is weak. Speaking of weak, most of the moves here seemed half-speed and not that impactful, like everyone was either hurt or had other stuff going on around this so didn’t wanna work too hard. Check the weakest double-super-chokeslam ever (as Sugar handles the entire bump herself). The slow speed is more easily explained once I saw the final match-time- when you have to wrestle for *23 minutes* in the middle of the card you generally gotta slow it down- don’t show up the main eventers or exhaust yourself.

Rating: **1/2 (pretty solid but bad when Endo was in and VERY slow-paced and simply-wrestled for what I was hoping we’d get)

AAAW WORLD TITLE CONTENDER TOURNAMENT:
CHIGUSA NAGAYO vs. KAORU:
* It’s the two founders & trainers of GAEA Japan in the tourney to determine who faces Devil for the AAAW Title! KAORU’s in purple and Chigusa’s in light blue (!), white, yellow & black.

They trade kicks before the bell to start, KAORU reversing a bunch on Chigusa and hitting her Michinoku Driver on the FLOOR. KAORU locks on a sleeper in the ring but isn’t one of the two people who can get TKOs with that, and Chigusa catches her with a Samoan drop out of her high Thesz press, only for KAORU to turn the bump into a Rings of Saturn from the mat. KAORU hits some backdrop suplexes, but a moonsault hits feet and they tangle up on the mat repeatedly. Chigusa boots her off the top and sleepers her for another minute, then hits the Outback Jack boomerang clothesline for two. KAORU ultimately dropkicks her to the floor and follows with a moonsault off the second rope, then another, then hits a springboard plancha over the railing as she’s bringing the MOVEZ tonight. Michinoku Driver & Springboard Moonsault get two in the ring as obviously KAORU is dominating cuz she’s gonna lose. She puts Chigusa up for a Super Rana, but then takes a terrifying VERTICAL bump onto her neck and shoulders from a superbomb reversal!

KAORU demonstrates the safest way to take a bump backwards off the top rope.

Somehow that does NOT get two, and not only that but Chigusa’s Running Ligerbomb is NO-SOLD as KAORU springs to life for her Brainbuster, only for Chigusa to now be the one popping up and lariats her to the apron. KAORU misses a moonsault into the ring and takes a Razor’s Edge, only to pop up and Michinoku Driver Chigusa, who also no-sells and is dazed while KAORU looks heartbroken… but manages to pop off a rana for a super-close call that actually draws SHRIEKS from the audience as they’re actually marking out for all the no-selling. oh, that’s a bad precedent to set. The crowd starts chanting “KAO-RU!” repeatedly as she looks heartbroken again over the nearfall, and tries another Michinoku Driver, only to get fought up (in very ugly fashion) by Chigusa into a Death Valley Driver at (10:41). KAORU bawls at the loss, looking desperate and shocked, while Chigusa just has this blank “hey… sorry” face before raising her arms in victory.

Oh my god this was HORRENDOUS. This was like a parody of all the no-selling MOVEZfests you see today, almost like they were being cheeky in a “See how moves are meaningless if you don’t bother to sell any of them?” sort of way, except they’re NOT, as this is actually much worse than today’s “2.9 Wrestling” trend and just involves people ignoring moves as if they never happened. Something that could be done with the controversial “Delayed All Japan Sell” but here lacks even the “delayed” part- both wrestlers just hit the mat in a big bump and then pop up and hit their own finisher. Worse still, they were having some basic, kinda bad match with no real flow because it looked like they were just wasting time until they could hit that part of the match. I feel like they were in some kind of experimental “try something new” phase and wanted to shake things up and see what worked, but this really doesn’t. But I’m afraid the big crowd reaction they got may lead to more of it, because wrestlers are kinda like that.

Rating: * (had an ugly start that could have gone better as it was mostly tangles and restholds, then got AWFUL as they just ignored move after move to try and kill all their finishers until one last set of them got close-calls and worked)

So, uh, YEAH- not the most exciting bunch of wrestling I’ve seen- LCO vs. OZ in a potential Dream Match that was instead kinda half-assed because it was earlier in the card and went way long, a weak tag match, and then a weak Chigusa/KAORU match with some really bad precedent set with finisher no-selling.