Joshi Spotlight: GAEA Japan in June 2000

Just your everyday turning a younger wrestler into a sandwich board.

GAEA JAPAN IN JUNE 2000:
* It’s time for more GAEA Japan! I nearly did more ARSION but it’s been too long since I grabbed this one. GAEA recently had their Fifth Anniversary Show- their biggest show in history, with Chigusa & Lioness reforming the CRUSH GALS and defeating the heel stable in the main event. As a result, they formed the GAEA Third Generation Army underneath them, even convincing Chikayo Nagashima & Sugar Sato to leave Mayumi Ozaki and rejoin their original mentor! However, this action incensed many of GAEA’s veteran wrestlers, who now formed a super-stable under Ozaki and her crew. This set of matches features some pretty big stuff, as we get Sakura Hirota doing Swan Lake, DYNAMITE KANSAI joining GAEA Japan, and some pretty dramatic Rising Stars vs. Veterans performances as Sugar & Chikayo take on their ex-mentor in tag matches.

JUNE 11th:

HAND MADE TITLE:
SAKURA HIROTA vs. SAIKA TAKEUCHI:
* Hirota cuts a promo like The Rock, complete with “palm to the face to silence them” mannerisms. But now she’s against an opponent SHE CAN ACTUALLY BEAT. Hirota, dressed like an old lady’s curtains, does Triple H’s dramatic water spit before the match, but apologizes and helps clean up the mess after.

Saika refuses the pre-match handshake and gets swatted for it, responding by kicking Hirota’s ass for a while, then following her along the ropes in a comedy spot. Hirota manages a 2nd-rope falling headbutt (doing a “faint” drop) and a silly rolling sunset flip for two, then punches her in the butthole to make her “cry”, so Saika dumps her and rolls her in the floor mats so she & Toshie Uematsu can start doing stomps off the apron. Sakura manages her double-arm submission, but then Takeuchi manages one herself! Sakura missile kicks her in the back for two, nearly gets rolled up trying an uraken, but then Takeuchi nails the ref by accident, preventing Sakura pinning her off an uraken that finally hits. Takeuchi nearly pins her another couple times (once off a weird move where she kicks her mid-roll and leans on her), and Sakura gets a desperation uraken for the pin… except Takeuchi’s on her FRONT, Kamala-style, so Time Expires at (9:00 shown). Sakura refuses to award the rookie her fake belt, despite the shaming of the fans, so Takeuchi just rips off two pieces and runs away.

Rating: *1/2 (the Sakura matches are at least increasingly amusing, with a LOT of unique, funny spots even with rookies involved- never seen someone wrapped up in the mats and stomped off the apron before)

THIRD GENERATION ARMY (Chigusa Nagayo, Meiko Nakamura & Chikayo Nagashima) vs. SECOND GENERATION ARMY (Mayumi Ozaki, Akira Hokuto & KAORU):
* So yup- GAEA now has every veteran but the CRUSH 2000s in the heel stable- KAORU has finally turned properly heel. Ozaki batters her former student Chikayo pre-match and we’re off!

KAORU immediately hits a Michinoku Driver on Chigusa, into the Tequila Sunrise & Stranglehold Gamma- they then target her arm with weapons. Chigusa gets her ass absolutely BEAT, eating triple-teams while they do Tag Formula with her students on the apron all “aw, we can’t help”. Multiple three-way stretchings keep on her arms, biting is occuring, etc. After like five minutes of beatings, Chigusa FINALLY lands a wheel kick and in comes Meiko, who gets into a slapfight with Hokuto until she just rears back and DECKS her to a great pop. Akira’s bewildered stun-sell is great, but Meiko’s flurry eventually ends and they just force a tag to Chigusa… who double-clotheslines the heels and her team hits triple submissions! Chikayo, babyface for the first time in 4 years, flings around KAORU, but soon gets powerebombed by Ozaki. Chiakyo rolls right into another, but Manami Rolls out for two and everyone runs in for beats and a flying stomp gets two. Chigusa gets a backdrop driver from an uraken attempt but Oz grabs a weapon and two Urakens get two.

A beatdown on the floor goes the heels’ way (a fan gleefully hands Ozaki her umbrella for the attack), and the heels do an LCO pose (called as such by the commentary) until the kids save! Meiko & Chikayo bring in weapons and lay waste to the heels (with a ton of shots that miss by MILES but are at least done quickly). KAORU gets her butt kicked a bit but gets her board and whacks Meiko with it repeatedly, and the Board Moonsault & Brainbuster earn the “Fuck YOU!” bridge. Meiko lands the Pele kick in a melee, Hokuto swings a stick around, and KAORU gets a shitty counter of the DVD (commentary is confused and theorizes a swinging inverted DDT). Hokuto lands a piledriver but Chikayo snags her up top for an upside-down arm-tearing hold to set up Meiko’s Super Jujigatame! Akira barely makes hte ropes, and the good guys pulversize the arm until the DVD leads to a heel pileup on the pin. A fresh Chikayo hits an Arm Trap German for two and the heels have to save Hokuto over and over again. Oz’s uraken gets Hoktuo two, and she gets a Backdrop Driver into Stranglehold Gamma, but Chigusa (with Oz hanging onto her arm) stops it… but the heels finally hold the babyfaces down so Akira can hit the Northern Lights Bomb, and there’s no kicking out of THAT- Chikayo’s done at (20:39). Akira holding Chigusa’s face while she pinned her student was a nice touch. Oz taunts a beaten Chikayo and gives her a dismissive peck before theyre out.

Well this was sprinty! Also a long battle as they seemed to want to showcase the new stable feud. An odd match structure, as they run “Western Hot Tag Formula” to START the match, Chigusa gets a hot tag with 15 minutes to go, then the heels eat babyface comeback spots for minutes at a time until they use weapons again, and arena brawl leads to more on Chigusa, but then it’s MORE babyface comebacks until we lead to a clear Meiko/Hokuto story arc. I would have imagined Oz/Chikayo would be the angle but nope- Meiko has a new veteran target. Chikayo looked great in her final flurry, but Hokuto just had too much for her (but still needed her friends to help). Lots of good comeback spots and pin-breaks (Chigusa literally carrying Ozaki over and swatting Hoktuo off a pin was great).

Rating: ***1/4 (a typically good “Wild GAEA Brawl” taking lot sof time and having good flurries, if an odd match structure)

THIRD GENERATION ARMY (Lioness Asuka & Sugar Sato) vs. SECOND GENERATION ARMY (Mayumi Ozaki & Dyanmite Kansai):
* Oh yeah- DYNAMITE KANSAI! Unfortunately it’s “mostly hurt all the time because of her collagen disease” Kansai but still. This also reunites her JWP squad with Ozaki, as the two veterans go up against Asuka & Ozaki’s former trainee. Kansai is in bright yellow and has green hair this time. Oz is in red/black, Sugar silver/black and Lioness all black.

This time, the trainee thing plays a big part immediately as Sato plows into Ozaki and whups her ass after a chokeslam! However, instead of selling, Oz just stares her down and Kansai sneaks a shot in from behind. Ozaki hammers away with her red bokken, but gets powerbombed out of the corner, popping up to do her own. Lioness finally helps from the apron a bit, but Sugar still gets clobbered- the big Kansai/Asuka struggle is played dramatically with measured kicks and a LONG lockup spot- they trade slaps against the ropes, then bounce off each other from a double-lariat. A kick & lariat are barely sold, and Sugar gets whupped when she runs in and Kansai keeps putting on THE CLAW~~ and they hit each other with backdrop suplexes- the one-upsmanship is real. Asuka gets superplexed, but kicks Ozaki coming off the top- Oz cracks her with an uraken but misses the bokken and Sugar whips a table into her with great timing, and Asuka crushes her with a flying stomp onto the table! She gets Sugar to do the same and a Blue Thunder Bomb gets two. Wheel kick, suplex, lariat & giant swing contineue the assault and Sugar gets her Ligerbomb for two. Both Oz & Sugar eat interfering lariats, and Oz turns a powerbomb into an armbar until Sugar hauls her up one-armed (!) into another for two. Spinning Ligerbomb- Kansai saves!

Oz finally crawls away after at last countering something, and now Sugar’s toast because Kansai’s fresh and not nearly as easy to throw around. But she still manages her dragon screw off the second rope! But some cheating ends her run and Kansai hits a flying stomp- for the “Fuck YOU!” bridge! Lioness busts Kansai one, setting up a powerbomb attempt (!), but Oz interferes… but Sugar puts KANSAI in the way of her uraken and hits her flying back elbow, Asuka powerbombing Oz onto Kansai- two! Sugar again fails the powerbomb and gets Backdrop Drivered for two! Great reaction for that kickout! Kansai repeatedly goes for Splash Mountain and can’t get it, but sets up SUPER Splash Mountain (“Die Hard”) until Asuka makes the save with an Iconoclasm! But Sugar misses another back elbow and Kansai at last pounces- Splash Mountain! But Asuka saves! Oz finally latches onto her and there’s no help this time- Kansai sets up DIE HARD and HOLY JESUS CHRIST Sugar lands high on her shoulders! Folded her like a fucking table. There’s no coming back from that (15:49). Kansai sticks around in a very “I have to make sure she’s not dead” kinda way as everyone attends to Sugar’s remains, but she does the “nod of

This was fun! GAEA can be very iffy at times but both these tag matches had a lot of effort put into them, and a lot of “big spots” and “the kid kicks out dramatically” in important moments that come off as great but not killing a finisher (Kansai’s flying stomp is BRUTAL but is not a regular spot). Sugar actually did a big chunk of the match for her team and looked great once again, as she can throw around Ozaki (who was at least bothering to sell after a point) and was getting soem good timing on comebacks.

Rating: ***1/2 (a tremendous “pulling out all the stops” GAEA match with Sugar doing everything it took to try and win, Asuka helping all the way, and the veterans doing a great job “raising her up”)

After the match, Kansai cuts a promo, and the crowd pops when she says she’s quitting JWP and now joins GAEA Japan! Chigusa is stunned and the Crush Gals do nWo hand signals with her to indicate comraderie.

JUNE 15th:

CHIGUSA NAGAYO vs. SAIKA TAKEUCHI:
* Chigusa takes on her youngest rookie.

Saika gets the traditional pre-match sneaky German, but Chigusa absorbs ages of Jobber-Fu and superplexes her. Takeuchi is pulled up at “1” and beaten up a bit, managing to avoid a wheel kick, but can only manage a double-arm hold repeatedly for offense and gets her head knocked off by a proper wheel kick, Chigusa taunting her for a full minute until she gets up and is snap-suplexed. More methodical beatings set up a lot of defiant rookie bridge-outs, and Chigusa delights when the rookie gets out after a BRUTAL powerbomb. Same reaction from a big piledriver, and the Running Razor’s Edge pins her at (5:14). A much more precise “Veteran vs. Rookie” match, indistinguishable from horrible child abuse like the best examples of the genre are. Chigusa being like “Oh GOOD!” every time the kid kicked out was great, like she was authentically impressed and touched that Saika wasn’t dead.

Rating: *1/2 (fine example of its genre, if an entirely one-sided beatdown)

JAPAN.

HAND MADE TITLE:
SAKURA HIROTA vs. KAORU:
(June 25th)
* Sakura gets another defense of her belt on June 25th, this time dressed as Police (who has only recently debuted) and fighting KAORU. We’re JIP to KAORU beating on her, then Sakura climbs a ladder, but gets shoved off and pinned (about 0:20 shown). A promo in the back afterwards sees a bucket dropped from a ladder, knocking Sakura out.

SAKURA HIROTA vs. THE BLOODY:
(July 16th)
* Another try days later sees Sakura now dressed as a swan (with a swan head sticking out, like Bjork’s infamous dress), straight up using the theme from “Swan Lake” (which is BITCHING, mind you). The bird’s head sticking out at crotch-level is an unfortunate choice. The Bloody appears as amused by this as anyone, and the ref of course checks the swanphallus for weapons, causing Sakura to appear nervous and protective of it.

Sakura quickly whacks away at Bloody with her swan-head, then gets the rolling sunset flip for two, then plays the “Knife Game” with her hand (actually jabbing her a couple times), then Bloody turns it around with the ref’s help and instead just starts poking her with the thing (which looks like a big blunt spike). Sakura eats a flying stomp to the swan, and her own “swan dive” splash is countered with Bloody’s feet. Bloody gets a German for two, Sakura goes low with a Flair kick, and Bloody grabs the swan, then locks her in a painful-looking straightjacket choke for the win (4:30 shown of ??).

Rating: *1/2 (more entertaining than it had any right to be, with plenty of “psychology” based around grabbing the swan as a means to move Sakura around)

JULY 15th:

THIRD GENERATION ARMY (Lioness Asuka & Chikayo Nagashima) vs. SECOND GENERATION ARMY (Mayumi Ozaki & Akira Hokuto):
* Another smaller show sees the top 2nd Generation wrestlers fighting Asuka & Chikayo.

Chikayo eats a beating as we’re JIP, and MAN this has “slow house show effort” written all over it. Three minutes in, Chikayo gets a bitchin’ move by headscissoring Hokuto and bending backwards over the top rope to choke her. Oz uses her stick and Hokuto her bokken (been a while since I seen that), and Asuka gets double-teamed until she hits an iconoclasm into Chikayo’s flying stomp. Asuka gets the Blue Thunder Bomb but Hokuto escapes the Towerhacker Bomb. Chikayo runs in but gets buckle bombed, but gets a German and her Fisherman’s Buster for two. Asuka tosses Chikayo into a Super Rana in a cool spot- Hokuto saves. Asuka accidentally lariats her partner and Oz rips off the F-Buster to be a shit. Chikayo defiantly gets her own again and then there’s a DRAMATIC struggle when Oz keeps throwing backfists at her but Chikayo catches one and gets a full extention jujigatame- Hokuto finally breaks it up. Chikayo hits another F-Buster but Ozaki shoves off at one and immediately urakens her and holds her down struggling for the pin at (9:13 shown), really selling it as a sudden last-ditch bit of desperation. Man, this was SLACK, haha- about 2-3 minutes of real effort and the rest was just fucking around. Nice overall story, though- Chikayo pressing Ozaki again and again and even absorbing the once-mighty uraken until one just happens to hold her down. Though it’s funny seeing someone sit around in a full-extension juji (which everyone knows is an insta-win) for half a minute.

Rating: ** (like 7 minutes of fucking around and 2 minutes of real effort and storytelling)

THIRD GENERATION ARMY (Chikayo Nagashima & Toshie Uematsu) vs. SECOND GENERATION ARMY (Dynamite Kansai & KAORU):
* Uematsu has new gear! She’s dropped the Princess Anna Frozen skirt for a black leather & mint-green frill look. KAORU’s in black pants & a belly-shirt and Kansai’s in neon green & black.

The kids quickly double-team KAORU and Toshie hits a HUGE flying splash for two. Kansai powers Chikayo around but gets double-teamed as well but a double-lariat puts them down. Backdrop Driver & KAORU’s Boardsault to Chikayo leads to the Brainbuster. Chikayo takes a methodical beating, but avoids a Splash Mountain/flying board combo so Kansai gets beaned, and a German gets two. Toshie runs in with some stuff, firing off repeated double-wrist armsaults, but Kansai sets up a bridging T-Bone suplex for two. Toshie gets a fisherman’s version of her suplex, but charges into a Michinoku Driver for two. Kansai with a backdrop & lariat for two, and needs KAORU’s help to do Splash Mountain for three (8:27). Another house show match, but mostly throwing finisher bombs the whole way through. Uematsu needing to spam the same move over and over again is showing a lack of depth in her toolkit, and KAORU using her board-assisted moonsault early is a bad example of KAORU-ing her matches.

Rating: ** (no great depth to it but stuffed with MOVEZ)

THIRD GENERATION ARMY (Lioness Asuka & Meiko Satomura) vs. SECOND GENERATION ARMY (Devil Masami & Toshiyo Yamada):
* Our main event sees Yamada, now dressed like the Foot Clan’s hideout in the first Ninja Turtles movie, teaming with washed-up Devil Masami against Asuka & Meiko.

Yamada wins a kick war with Meiko, and everyone trades off until Yamada hits the flying spinkick on Asuka, who gets a flying clothesline on Devil. Devil grabs a bokken to come back, then do stereo lariats twice over to Meiko & Asuka as the pace is again SLACK. Transitions are as simple as “block, then do your own move” as Asuka TKOs Devil for two, but eats a completely awful powerbomb (Devil has NO lift anymore and is just flipping her over). Asuka gets the Iconoclasm on Yamada & Meiko’s flying stomp to a table sets up a powerbomb for two- Devil chairshots her. Meiko runs in but immediately eats the spinkick counter, so Asuka sends Yamada clunkily flying down into her jujigatame. A DVD into a juji wears down Yamada, and Meiko keeps pulling her into arm stuff. Yamada tries her finisher 900 times but keeps failing and gets Pele Kicked, and Meiko hits three straight Death Valley Drivers… for the three (9:34)! I was expecting Devil to break it up! Where WAS she? She just saunters in amused while Meiko is like “yay!” and Yamada’s left in that T-pose of death for a minute or so. Did they just go home early? This feels so contrary to the cadence I’m used to with GAEA, having to deal with two people to get a finish. As it stands, the match was boring and pretty clumsy- Yamada & Devil are falling apart in 2000. Yamada seems to wrestle only sporadically for the rest of the year.

Rating: *1/2 (slow, clumsy and BORING- even Meiko couldn’t be bothered to light up and Asuka just did a handful of stuff)

So that was a funny batch of shows- GAEA has a tendency to fall into a pattern of “hot start to a stable-feud, then get increasingly boring in clusterfuck matches”, and you see the beginning here with two HOT matches over *** apiece. I won’t count the house show against them, since those are supposed to be wrestled at a lighter pace, but HOLY SHIT I wish their YouTube channel would skip these, lol. Nothing quite like seeing good wrestlers wrestle at 2/10 effort for 90% of a match, because God help you when the injured veterans do the same.