Joshi Spotlight: GAEA Japan in April 2000

GAEA JAPAN IN APRIL 2000:
(April 8th 2000)
* So having finally caught up to the other joshi promotions in 2000, it’s time to head back to GAEA Japan! Which still has three stables vying for control in wacky matches. This week is like… okay there’s ONE really good match! Four KAORU matches as she gets a new toy (hoo boy, watch for that table piece she’s got) and a new move and wants EVERYONE to see it.

GAEA Roster: Chigusa Nagayo, Mayumi Ozaki, Akira Hokuto, Toshiyo Yamada, KAORU, (First Class) Meiko Satomura, Toshie Uematsu, (Second Class) Sakura Hirota
Himiko Roster: Mayumi Ozaki, Akira Hokuto, Devil Masami, Sugar Sato, Chikayo Nagashima, RIE, Kaori Nakayama
DorA Roster: Aja Kong, Lioness Asuka, KAORU, Sonoko Kato

D OR A (Lioness Asuka & Sonoko Kato) vs. MEIKO SATOMURA & SAKURA HIROTA:
(April 8th)
* Kato & Satomura have an ongoing issue thanks to being ex-partners.

Meiko & Kato trade kicks before Meiko gets a vicious hiptoss counter, and Sakura’s in and WANTS ASUKA. Asuka is caught laughing a bit out of character at this, and Sakura puts on some knuckle-wraps and throws on a mouthguard- Asuka easily fends her off and Sakura shouts “JACKIE CHAN!” and starts making goofy Bruce Lee noises, her elite new martial arts skillz also failing. She tricks Lioness into checking an injury and eyepokes her, but stalls and gets wiped out. She grabs Asuka’s table to avoid taking bumps on it, but runs it at her and gets kicked down. They punch each other in the crotches (it’s not very effective…) and Asuka gets the Giant Swing, and is so dizzy she tags out to Kato. She finally clobbers Asuka and hits her double-arm submission, then gets the boomerang uraken and Meiko runs wild. Lioness & Meiko trade shots until Asuka gets a release Blue Thunder Bomb. Kato & Meiko start throwing bombs at each other, Kato gets a German & enzuigiri, Meiko reverses Kowloon’s Gate but eats a rolling kick, and they counter each other a while until Kato catches a Meiko kick and tries an anklelock, only to be countered into an armbar and tapping at (10:26). Somewhat unexpected! One of those weird “50% comedy, 50% actual match” things where Sakura’s doing goofy spots and amusing the crowd while the others are working at half-speed to play up a rivalry and the Sakura stuff is honestly getting louder responses, haha. The Meiko/Kato stuff felt like the “meat” of the match and was largely fine but scrappy and not all that interesting, with a finish kinda out of nowhere.

Rating: ** (a very basic-ass match- mostly comedy followed by the “real” stuff, which was more house-showy and outta nowhere)

HARDCORE MATCH:
KAORU vs. SUGAR SATO:
(OZ Academy, April 16th)
* It’s DorA vs. Himiko, both women in black and with weapons at the ready.

Sato whips out a bit oil drum and smashes KAORU into it, then stands it up and overthrow powerbombs KAORU face-first onto it- unique bit. KAORU bleeds and Sugar bites away at her. And now it’s time for the LEISURELY BRAWL~~! Sugar uses a chair, shows the fans the blood and more, then puts the barrel over KAORU’s whole body and uses a ridiculous giant cartoon hammer to hit it a few times. Missile dropkick to the barrel gets two, but KAORU ranas out of a powerbomb and bashes Sugar all over her body with a plank of wood. She tries a MOONSAULT with it, bashes Sugar again after missing, and finally hits it for two. She grinds the table edge into Sugar’s forehead as a submission spot, then does a frickin’ senton off a 6-foot ladder to the floor THROUGH A TABLE, essentially smashing her ass onto the floor on the landing. Ouch. She pops up and cheers herself on, then builds a chair mountain mid-ring to try a moonsault off the ladder, largely missing. Sugar, bleeding from the table thing, drops her on the barrel and ligerbombs her for two. She climbs the ladder but gets German’d off & Michinoku Drivered for two. Each grabs a weapon (table piece vs. hammer!) and smashes them out of each other’s hands, then fling chairs until Sugar wraps one around KAORU’s head but eats a huge right hand for two- good spot! Sugar blocks a second, then puts a chair in front of a third, then powerbombs her on chair mountain for two! They fight on the ladder, KAORU misses a stomp off it, eats a barrel toss, then Sugar hits a powerbomb, pulls her up and Ligerbombs her on the chair mountain… for three (10:19 of 15:36)! Okay wow, I was not expecting a Sugar win there.

Well, it had a good handful of fun spots! Largely a “Walk & Stomp” for much of it, but they had some spots they wanted to do and did them, and they were pretty unique- ya don’t see a lot of ladder-sentons through tables. Then they just kept up trying all sorts of things, had a good bit with that punch series, then Sugar just kept putting more and more weapons in the way and actually pinned KAORU clean with no interference.

Rating: **3/4 (Actually pretty good as these things go- largely JUST the spots but they looked cool and were unique)

APRIL 23rd:
* All the rest but the last match here are from the same April 23rd show.

SAIKA TAKEUCHI vs. RIE:
* The try-hard rookien in lime green takes on RIE! Saika charges the ring and immediately hits a running dropkick and we’re off. We’re clipped right to RIE pulling her around via a chain, but she disarms RIE of her barbed-wire stick and clubs her with it, but RIE grabs a chain mid-run and clubs her with it, hitting a flying knee… for a “Fuck YOU!” bridge from Saika! Powerbomb with a one-foot pin gets the same result, and they brawl it out and try flash-pins until RIE finally hits a tiger driver for the three at (2:26 of 5:49 shown). Usual rookie stuff from Saika- very sloppy but that kind of fits a rookie.

Rating: 1/2* (I mean it’s still half the match but very little happened and it was mostly RIE hitting casual stuff until dusting her off)

HIMIKO (Akira Hokuto & Sugar Sato) vs. D OR A (Lioness Asuka & KAORU):
* A pretty big mish-mash of talent here, as only Sugar isn’t a veteran who debuted in the ’80s.

KAORU roars out of the gate with her trusty piece of wood, but she gets double-teamed until firing back and hitting a brainbuster on it. Asuka/Hokuto have a chair/shinai fight until Lioness dares her to FIGHT FAIR… and it works! They do some VERY hesitant lockups and they tactically reposition… until Sugar just hits from behind, but KAORU’s wise to it and clobbers Hokuto down with the plank! Big ovation for her tricking Hokuto with that. Hokuto dodges a wild swing but charges into Asuka’s backdrop, and Asuka boots her own table back into Sugar’s face as they are TRYING tonight. Flying stomp to the table onto both women! Blue Thunder Bomb to Hokuto gets two. Sugar stops another, but a powerbomb hits & KAORU brainbusters her as Hokuto appears legit fucked up by something as she’s been limping after 4 back bumps in a row and is collapsed onto her side holding her hip in agony. Everyone wrestles around her for a bit and they pretend to have her bite someone to make a tag, and Sugar runs off with one while Mayumi Ozaki runs out to fight the other and kill time for Akira. KAORU counters some Sugar powerbombs back in the ring but clobbers Asuka with the wood and a sickly limping Hokuto comes in for an assisted powerbomb, only for KAORU to use the wood and Michinoku Driver her for two. RIE draws max heat for breaking up that pin and Sugar powerbombs KAORU- Lioness saves. Lioness lariats everyone down and piles onto three women so KAORU can fire off a big right hand to pin Sugar at (8:42) for a big reaction. The crowd LOVES that and appears to either not know or not care that Hokuto is donezo.

A pretty impressive showing considering Hokuto fucked up her hip good and hard early on and they had to probably improvise the rest of the match. Thankfully joshi puro allows for tons of cheating so Ozaki & RIE could fill in for Hokuto and lead to a ton of dramatic kickouts. Still not a good match, but an interesting showcase in emergency prep.

Rating: ** (pretty impressive considering what was working against it)

CHIGUSA NAGAYO & TOSHIE UEMATSU vs. HIMIKO (Devil Masami & Chikayo Nagashima):
* So a while back, Devil Masami- 80s legend- returned to GAEA and joined the Himiko stable. Now the ex-champ takes a Class of ’95 girl against GAEA’s founder and her own Class of ’95 girl- interesting to see Uematsu threaded in as the “GAEA Loyalist” while Meiko is busy mixing it up in other ways.

Everyone brawls right away, a chair getting involved repeatedly as Chigusa batters Devil down, fights off every Himiko member at once (hey, Hokuto can stand again!) and bloodies Devil with a chain. DVD gets two and a half-dozen women stop the count. Chikayo accidentally clobbers Devil with the chair as well, but this causes her to hulk up and give it right back to Chigusa. Devil headbutts Toshie down and waffles Chigusa off the apron and takes a walk while it’s just a clusterfuck of people- a triple powerbomb (Hokuto rolls in and helps then collapses) hits and ASUKA flies in to stop the count. She rallies Chigusa, who nails Devil and powerbombs Chikayo onto her for two. Chikayo hits a missile kick to Chigusa, but Toshie flies in with one right to her mouth and hits her Double-Wrist Suplex for two. Toshie loads up the GOO PUNCH, and another suplex gets two- Devil saving. Toshie impresses by flipping out of the Fisherman’s Buster and debuts (to my knowledge) a capture-style Powerslam for the three at (6:16), sending the fans into a frenzy. Chigusa gratefully hugs her loyal trainee and Toshie starts pummeling a downed Chikayo out of sheer hatred

Okay this was complete ass to me, but total mania from the fans, who were biting on all these clusterfucky brawling stuff, which is probably why GAEA is apparently just a hell of this kind of stuff, haha. Stop enjoying wrestling wrong, people! At least it all seems to lead to putting over Toshie, who has always been the “Odd Woman Out” in the promotion- Meiko & Sonoko were the loyalists and got the biggest pushes, Chikayo & Sugar got the tag run and Uematsu… was flippy but got hurt and was now just A Wrestler. So giving her a new move to get a big win is a good move.

Rating: * (just a bunch of punching and chairshots in a total mess)

MAYUMI OZAKI vs. SAKURA HIROTA:
* Sakura cuts a comedy promo before the match, wearing a “You Are Not Eye” brand on her shirt and saying “Before the Breakfast!” as words scroll on the bottom of the screen like during a Japanese morning TV show. “Same red baby!” indeed. Tonight’s cosplay… AJA KONG! Sakura has a blonde afro, facepaint and some oil cans. She even has a phony AAAW World Title made up! Ozaki is now wearing a frilly blue outfit, which is way different from her usual stuff and is a throwback to JWP stylistically.

Sakura immediately has the Kong mannerisms down, mimicking her “run in place” stomps and Vader Attack, but she bounces off Ozaki and flat-backs. She’s caught up top and hit with her own cans, then beats her up at ringside, but Sakura busts out an “uraken” that just amuses Ozaki and takes off one of the Korakuen gates like Aja would… but is too weak to carry it so she drops it. Ozaki misses her cannonball back in the ring so Sakura hits her double-arm submission, only for the stuffing to fall out of her fatsuit, necessitating the referee helping her get re-stuffed. Oz cruelly un-stuffs her and pays for it by getting whipped off the top and hit with a flying oil can attack, but is totally laughing as she sells. Some falling headbutts look like Sakura’s LITERALLY falling, and she mimics both Aja’s jumping elbowdrop and her angry “THREEEEEEEEEEEE!” scream to the ref. She manages more offense, but misses the “slap them in the face” Uraken and gets powerbombed for a near-fall, then copies Ozaki’s Tequila Sunrise, finally uraken-ing her to hit it! Oz kicks out at one and quickly stuffs her- a big punch, blocking uraken, and a Fisherman’s Buster finish at (7:46). hahaha the best part is Ozaki’s angry reaction to “winning the belt”, getting the huge novelty belt wrapped around her despite her protests.

Ozaki’s face, lol.

Rating: ** (The Flair/Steamboat of Sakura matches, as she actually does funny stuff, acts like a character and has a theme to everything, not just “what’s funny to a 2000 Japanese TV audience” stuff. Cosplay Hirota is indeed better than the usual version)

TOSHIYO YAMADA & MEIKO SATOMURA vs. D OR A (Aja Kong & KAORU):
* Wait, why is KAORU in another one? She’s now teaming up with fellow GAEA loyalist Meiko against Meiko’s big “dragon”, Aja Kong.

We’re JIP with everyone scrapping and KAORU using her table piece again, but Meiko kicks it away and Yamada hits some backdrops and the enzuigiri for twos. Meiko gets clobbered by the veterans, but after Aja no-sells some forearms Meiko goes up with one and THAT gets sold- Aja’s the best for stuff like that. Meiko starts doing increasingly well, like faking her Pele kick and instead taking out Aja’s knee, but she keeps getting lariated. Aja counters a DVD but THIS time it’s a real Pele kick, but again she stuffs the DVD and out comes the oil can. Yamada comes in and kicks the can away and hits a flying spinkick for two, then kicks the table piece right into KAORU’s face, and when Aja whips her off the ropes, she hits a regular spinkick (if you watch, you can see Aja actually jolt her head two feet to the left RIGHT before impact to ensure it actually hits her- that is AMAZING reflexes). Aja counters The Finisher That Never Hits for a piledriver (KAORU slides the wood underneath them) and KAORU moonsaults the wood onto Yamada- the ref refuses to count all this.

KAORU slugs Yamada down and Aja powerbombs Meiko onto her, but Yamada counters two Urakens with strikes of her own, Aja selling big-time. Aja’s dazed and Meiko is finally, at last, able to hit the Death Valley Driver! KAORU saves, and Meiko has to block the Uraken (the force still sends her over)- KAORU holds her but eats the Uraken herself, and Meiko hits another DVD… for two! Suuuuper close count and people freaked for it. Meiko has to pull Aja up… but eats the Uraken! But Aja sells it perfectly, being too stunned and out of it to capitalize, having to finally roar herself to life. She demands Meiko get up, and rubber-legged, Meiko struggles to her feet… and gets spun onto her face by a second Uraken. But now Aja has a point to make! She stomps her feet and demands Meiko fight up a second time, then Aja does it AGAIN because the kid only has the energy to stand and nothing more. Even KAORU is like “For christ’s sake Aja, just pin her!” and storms off, Yamada just sitting there looking down, and finally after 2-3 more of these Meiko is fully out cold, and Aja pins her in front of a disgusted crowd at (11:35 of 12:56 shown).

haha, that damn Aja. AGAIN she pulls out all the stops and puts people over like crazy. Witness her no-selling Meiko, something that would send 2000-era reviewers into a “she’s selfish!” tizzy at the time if anyone else had done it, but it’s paid off when Meiko simply “upgrades” the offense with a flying elbow instead, or psyches out Aja with a faked Pele Kick and takes out her leg instead. Then Aja is sure to get wiped out by every Yamada strike, making Yamada look AMAZING even though she’s been in increasingly-awful matches for years now. And then the end of the match has Aja get pressed again and again, barely kickout out of Meiko’s final stretch moves (the DVD going from “spam repeatedly to barely win” to a legit move now)… but in a show of force that disgusts the crowd and her own partner, Aja decides to “prove” how great she is and how much lesser Meiko is by refusing to pin her and insist the kid fight up repeatedly to eat more. Which puts over Meiko’s perseverence and spirit because she has no choice but to do this, even though her body’s too beaten to actually fight back or defend herself. Which just makes Aja look ungracious and cruel, thus extending this feud into even more personal territory. Aja’s reaction at the end is almost like a “Fucking JEEEEZUS I can’t believe this stupid kid pressed me so hard!”, like the beating was a furious reaction to that, like she was doing it for herself, and to punish Meiko for “embarrassing” her. The flat, wide-eyed/nonplussed stares of the crowd really add to this, as instead of booing they’re just… grossed out by how awful that was and don’t know what to do.

Rating: ***3/4 (started out as the usual GAEA clusterfuck, but once they just got KAORU out of there and let Aja work her magic, she put over both opponents and told a brilliant little story with Meiko)

D OR A (Aja Kong, Lioness Asuka & KAORU) vs. HIMIKO (Mayumi Ozaki, Devil Masami & Akira Hokuto):
(April 26th)
* A staggering number of all-time legends and great workers… almost all way past their prime, darn it. This is from a house show.

We start with Ozaki & Devil teeing off on Asuka, then Devil gets KAORU to accidentally missile kick her partner and overthrow bombs her onto Asuka as well. But they come back on Devil and KAORU gets her table piece & Asuka hits her table stomp- Devil counters the Towerhacker Bomb, but KAORU ranas out of her powerbomb. Devil comes back with an ax kick & Ligerbomb, then everyone scraps again and a Devil lariat gets two. KAORU gets another rana a but an assisted powerbomb gets two. At least Hokuto is moving around fine now. Akira eats a Lioness high kick and Aja’s Uraken, then KAORU’s table moonsault (of course the piece entirely misses)- Oz breaks it up with her stick. Everyone clears the ring and Devil & Hokuto double-team KAORU with a double Northern Lights/Brainbuster-esque move at (6:25 of 9:52 shown).

Rating: ** (Fun but like… an exhibition of nothing but spots. Total house show material. TBF, it is a house show)

Another wild bunch of GAEA stuff, with a random incredible match AGAIN paying off weeks of “meh” activities and filler matches. Tons of “GAEA Clusterfuck” matches going on, but Toshie gets a renewed push, Meiko/Aja is a thing again, and more. Also there’s KAORU having discovered a shiny new toy (using a half a table as as a weapon) and will be running it into the ground and beamspamming out all her new moves.