Joshi Spotlight: Why ARSION Didn’t Work (plus LCO vs. Hamada & AKINO!)

WHY ARSION DIDN’T WORK:
* So here’s a li’l thing I was thinking of doing that indicates in greater detail just WHY Hyper Visual Fighting ARSION didn’t work. It’s a bit funny to me, because as I’ve indicated before, I distinctly recall getting into Joshi circa 2002-2005 or so (I was in college so it was around then) and reading all sorts of stuff about ARSION and how cool it was, with Ayako Hamada talked about a bunch. I’ve been told it was probably a bunch of gooners who adored it because Hamada was purty, but I recall CherryBabes and such going on about the promotion, how unselfish Aja Kong was in putting people over instead of just brutally squashing people, etc. And Mike Lorefice on Quebrada was always adoring its in-ring stuff, too, so I know other contemporary sources were big fans. So I was a bit surprised and amused to find this weak-ass promotion struggling along doing crap business and never really getting over despite all the hype.

So “Hyper Visual Fighting ARSION” was formed in late 1997 by former All Japan Women’s Pro-Wrestling (aka AJW/”Zenjo”) office bitch Rossy Ogawa (future founder of Stardom & Marigold), alongside Aja Kong, who at that point had been dethroned as Zenjo’s top Champion a couple years before but was still a constant presence at the top of the card. Zenjo was losing its shirt and not paying wrestlers, and so Ogawa snuck in, found a backer or two, and a new promotion was formed using Zenjo’s wrestlers and a lot of other talent. Right away the promotion was a bit different in terms of identity, because it was decided to focus on grappling in a quasi shoot-style sort, focused around lots of mat-wrestling, holds and counter-holds, submissions, etc. In this, Mariko Yoshida, who’d been developing her style along those lines (along with a newer, muscular physique), would be very important, and she’d be pushed as their signature star right away. Various other wrestlers trained with men who had put a bit of focus on that style- according to stuff I’ve found, they attended Pancrase’s dojo as well as that of BattlArts, both doing a style I’ve seen jokingly called “Grapplefuckery”. Here, people would spend several minutes working moves on the mat, with submissions being taken seriously as potential match-enders and not just “random time-wasting”, weardown holds, or restholds like it usually was in Zenjo, JWP and other women’s companies.

The OTHER big “identity” or ARSION was Fanservice-based attractions for gooners, pervy uncles, and what-have-you. Focus was put on the prettiest wrestlers in the company, and attractive rookies would be put alongside them in bikini calendars, photoshoots, etc. In particular, new rookie Ayako Hamada was given a MONSTER push based off of this. Wrestlers were also selected from other companies based on their looks- Candy Okutsu, Michiko Omukai, etc.

THE ROSTER:
* The initial roster was, like most Joshi promotions at the time, made up of scraps- Zenjo had nearly died, leaving only a few wrestlers still there. Kyoko Inoue had split off with most of the rookies and LCO to form Neo Ladies, and ARSION got the rest. Ogawa also went sniffing around the other companies, recruiting JWP and LLPW wrestlers. Sort of; I’ve heard that Hikari Fukuoka was trying to quit JWP and go to ARSION (where her friend Candy Okutsu went), but wasn’t allowed and so retired from wrestling instead.

AJA KONG- Major wrestler from Zenjo who was still mostly in peak form and the best overall worker in the women’s side of things at this point, but her push had peaked in 1992-95 and was mostly done.
MARIKO YOSHIDA- A rising star in Zenjo after missing 1993-95 due to a neck injury, having fought up from being low-tier again and was slowly adopting a new style and a new look. Swapped out her high-flying style for a more muscular look and grappling over the past year, and becomes ARSION’s signature solo star right away.
CANDY OKUTSU- A JWP midcarder and high-flier who Rossy was apparently always a big fan of (ie. he liked her looks). She had retired less than a year before and suddenly popped up in ARSION as a signature wrestler.
REGGIE BENNETT- An American woman with a big, powerful figure and a powerhouse style. She had been in Zenjo for a few years and rose to the upper-midcard (in the “lose an 18-minute match to Yumiko Hotta” tier), but had quit being booked when financial troubles beset them. Was kind of an early “backbone” of ARSION as she was probably the third-ranked wrestler.
JESSIE BENNETT- Another American woman, billed as Reggie’s relative (she was not). Also a power-style wrestler but a very green rookie and not very good.
RIE TAMADA- An undersized Zenjo wrestler who had never received a push, and was merely “kind of okay”. Also there for her looks (I mean she was in all the bikini stuff).
YUMI FUKAWA- A super undersized Zenjo wrestler who tried hard and put a lot of focus on the new mat-wrestling style. Also there for her looks.
MICHIKO OMUKAI- A tall, skinny LLPW undercard wrestler who was suddenly given a big push with “lethal strikes” (hee). Also there for her looks.
MIKIKO FUTAGAMI- A shorter LLPW undercard wrestler turned into a “shooter” character, doing mat-wrestling and hitting hard.
AYAKO HAMADA- The daughter of Gran Hamada, she’s got a luchadore style and was pals with Aja. HEAVILY pushed because of her looks and was actually called the “Super Rookie” before she even debuted.
MIKA AKINO- The other big-named rookie, she had a more tomboy-ish look and was way more athletic than Hamada… but was naturally pushed less.
A BUNCH OF LUCHADORAS- I could list them all but it’s kinda pointless- none of them were ever contenders and they were mostly there to have undercard matches full of dives and flips, and occasionally wrestle a hotly-contested match against Hamada or someone and usually lose.

Notably, Aja is the booker of the promotion, but Rossy is the business guy and can like… tell her what to do and who to push.

So I actually really liked the first show- two ***3/4 matches and I liked the stylistic difference. As a new promotion it felt exciting and vital. But the problems are immediately apparent, as you have a top Zenjo wrestler whose time has come and gone, and two upper-midcarders, one of whom is unproven. The rest is just scrubs- people who were nowhere close to even the White Belt of Zenjo, much less stardom. Some were basically jobbers the fans were now expected to take seriously. In the very first ARSION shows, they even trotted out Aja to wrestle Omuka & Futagami in LONG, arduous matches in which she would “get caught”, be stunned by Omukai’s kicks, nearly tape out to Futagami’s submissions, etc., all in an obvious effort to go “SEE? SEE? They’re ELITE now! Accept them as big stars, plz!”. This is a questionable thing at the best of times, as fans have brains and can tell when you’re telling them that scrubs are top-tier wrestlers. Like, watching Aja Kong of all people sell the crawny Omukai’s limp-legged kicks as if they had stunned her and nearly led her to be knocked out was not at all convincing, no matter how good Aja was. These are things that need to be built up over MONTHS, if not years- simply pretending that “they trained off-planet for a while” or whatever isn’t gonna cut it. This also has the negative side-effect of making AJA look weaker (“lol she can’t even beat Omukai easily now?”), which is not at all what you should be doing with your most credible star.

Problems surfaced immediately: while BattlArts and Pancrase and whatever had fans who were way into stuff, simply swapping MMA-style stuff into pro wrestling is a tricky business, and expecting fans to accept a whole new style of wrestling overnight in a style that’d previously been known for its fast pace and wild moves was iffy. Fans noticeably were quiet during almost all the grappling portions- even though I and other fans found it pretty fascinating how suddenly mat-wrestling was super important and gave good ratings to a lot of the stuff, it very much struggled to find acceptance. There are several matches in the early going that are dead-silent during the grappling, and only earn responses once the wrestlers “rev up” and start doing the high-flying moves and big suplexes the fans had come to expect from women’s wrestling. Aja would try to use that style, but when she realized it wasn’t working would just switch to her old one. And the company had like 50% luchadoras, Ayako made no attempts at using that style, and the Bennetts mostly used American power-wrestling (though Reggie actually put real effort into submissions for half a year before giving up). So right from the beginning ARSION had an identity issue, and this continued right into 2000, as it never seemed to fully commit to any one style.

Another big issue was Ayako’s push- “Super Rookie” noticeably drew CRICKETS in her first match, as A) she didn’t know how to sell or build a match, so the bout was just a mess of MOVEZ and a handful of botches because rookies shouldn’t be trying so much; and B) fans are also not dumb enough to just mindlessly accept that a rookie is great, and will actually reject an obviously overpushed newbie who’s not ready.

ARSION’S FIRST YEAR:
* So early shows are fairly quiet, though Yoshida is kinda popular- the first show has a really good Candy/Yumi match that exemplifies the new style (mat-wrestling & high-flying). Aja typically doesn’t drop falls, but does a job to Reggie Bennett, who jobs to CANDY OKUTSU of all people in a flash-submission. Mat-wrestling is treated seriously enough that suddenly come from behind insta-tapouts are regularly possible, but the style isn’t really that over- fans aren’t quiet “trained” to pop for a sudden counter of an armbar into another armbar the way they are for countering accepted big bombs and flying finishers. We enter into some disastrous booking quickly with a regular Rossy Ogawa thing: FLUKEY TOURNAMENTS!! 2-3 times a year, ARSION will do entirely shows made up of one-night tournaments where almost all the wrestlers fight in quickie matches. This leads to a lot of fluke wins, as for some reason people are just extra-easy to defeat on these nights. And this, horrifyingly, is also how we’re shown “WHO IS GETTING PUSHED”, as suddenly the lower-ranked girls will kick three asses in one night and win the trophy and it’s like Candy or Omukai or someone.

These flukes have a really nasty effect, too- the person WINNING doesn’t get any credibility because these were obvious flukes (choking out Aja in 2 minutes or rolling up Yoshida in 5 is not a “this person is awesome” push, and in fact makes them look like losers for acting like it’s a huge win), and the person LOSING also suffers because they just went down in mere minutes to someone lower than them on the totem pole. So it’s a double-whammy of crap booking, hurting everyone.

But yeah- by the end of the year a lot of the effort seems to be driven out of people as they realize that fans didn’t come no matter how hard they worked, and so it’s a lot of **-ish matches with the occasional great one every few months. With attendance dwindling, so will effort (nobody wants to kill themselves to impress a small crowd unless they REALLY want to impress the booker). In my notes on 1999 in Joshi stuff, I say “hahahaha so yeah this company just fell the fuck apart and is super-depressing to watch now”. Yoshida was the inaugural Queen of ARSION, holding the belt and… doing the same thing Aja had done- look weak and vulnerable in matches against people below her station in a desperate attempt to make it look like these scrubs had a total chance to beat her. This led to some GREAT matches (Yoshida vs. Hiromi Yagi- an undersized judo-trained wrestler- was one of ARSION’s best-ever singles matches) but even those typically had fans sitting on their hands for most of it.

ARSION in 1999-2001:
* Yoshida, who I’ve heard called “ARSION True Heart” for being their signature worker, loses the belt to Aja in August and will never win it again. Fans are deliberately quiet for Ayako’s matches so much it almost feels like a protest. Candy’s early wins go nowhere (she loses to Yoshida in the decision match for the belt) and she flutters away, leading a stable of flying wrestlers called CAZAI (who are intended to be a “Joshi Wrestling Pop Group”-type of thing, but it fails miserably). Candy is briefly “Tiger Dream”, the FEMALE Tiger Mask, training with the original and stuff, but they give up on this so quickly I only see 2-3 appearances of it in all my watch-throughs. Rie Tamada continues to be the most “mid” wrestler ever. Futagami (aka GAMI) has a couple ****-ish matches but quickly gives up and becomes a goofy comedian leading a stable of clowns (literally).

Unfortunately, Ayako still can’t sell well. She does her comebacks like she’s trying to remember the moves. She sometimes knows to snarl and yell at her opponent but she never ONCE turns to the fans like “YEAH COME WATCH ME KICK THIS PERSON’S ASS!”. Never once is like “That hurt BUT I REFUSE TO BACK DOWN!” or whatever. No fire. No energy. Like, she wrestles entire matches as if she doesn’t care what the audience thinks, and because of that, THEY DON’T FEEL SHIT, and so even her increasing ability to actually hit her moves right isn’t paying off. “Connecting with the audience” is 100% the MOST important thing any wrestler needs to learn, to the point where some god-awful athletes have gotten incredibly over in the history of wrestling, and she hasn’t figured it out. The only contemporary stuff I’ve seen from this time period has a few fans (who are probably in wuv with her) defending her as “over” because the 95 people in attendance are cheering for her, while others point out that having only 95 people in attendance is proof you are NOT over. But wrestling fans have always been weird about defending the wrestlers they like.

And the OMUKAI megapush begins with a flukey tournament and only gets worse from there, as the company keeps telling us that she is the new big-time star of the future when she still barely knows how to get over at all. Like, they have retired Zenjo wrestler Sakie Hasegawa teaching her the Sobat spinkick and Uranage throw, have her no-selling people left and right, scoring big comebacks, etc., and she is REALLY not good at all. She has some moves, but is mostly clumsy, none of her stuff looks good, and she can’t sell well enough for a top wrestler- she sells in a perfunctory, “Ow” kind of way and then instantly pops up for miracle comebacks at random times. Her roaring comebacks and demands for fan acclaim always fall flat and she seems like the formative Stardom wrestler to me- all the Stardom stuff I see is similar-looking skinny, awkward girls in belly-shirts roaring to the fans at random like someone pounding the “taunt” button to build their SmackDown! meter in a video game. And she’s even WORSE than most of that, because she doesn’t even seem to understand that to do a big Superman comeback, you have to at least SELL THE STUFF IN THE FIRST PLACE to make that comeback compelling- even people who are accused of no-selling (Manami Toyota, for example) are at least good at the “OW!” part of selling. Omukai simply quietly lies back and takes moves, then pops up like nothing happened and hits all her moves the same as ever.

ARSION has a major tragedy very early in 1999, as less than a month after she debuts, young Emiko Kado takes a blow to the head in the ring and dies from her injury. This makes her the second major in-ring tragedy in only a few years in joshi puro (joining Plum Mariko). This incident isn’t very famous and didn’t get reported as much, but is a sad black mark on a new company. By the end of 1999 only two wrestlers are even bothering to do the “ARSION Style”- Yoshida and Yumi Fukawa (who is REALLY good and trying so damn hard but never gets a push because she’s so incredibly tiny… then she gets injured in 2000 and has to retire). Las Cachorras Orientales, pricey but amazing freelancers, come in and work their magic, putting over Ayako & Akino in a great match for the tag belts, which SHOULD get Ayako more over… but really doesn’t. Worse still, by the end of 2000, the unover, unproven Ayako is CHAMPION, as Aja Kong dominates an entire match with her, takes a fluke pin, then jobs out the belt.

A few commercial tapes end with the wrestlers themselves hosting stuff about how to buy ARSION merchandise… which is nearly all bikini pictures, “holding our boobs” shots, etc. New rookie Ryo Miyuki, one of the most incompetent wrestlers I’ve ever seen (given her trainers include Yoshida, that’s crazy), has a ton of botch-filled matches and can’t even be carried by top workers, and even SHE is getting treated like an amazing find, simply because she’s tall, good-looking, and good at sports (… volleyball). I mean, she can’t even WRESTLE yet and yet they were selling cards of her wearing bikinis and sexy outfits (… um, which I learned by accident!). Like the entire promotion seems just for coomers now.

It’s hilariously obvious to notice how bad ARSION’s business is, too- the initial excitement of the promotion is gone, and what are clearly half-full buildings are being blacked out by the lighting so the company can save face. The dwindling audience means fans are quiet, so the wrestlers don’t get over, and so many of them don’t work as hard (cuz no one’s there). Also fans are deliberately quiet almost as a form of protest (a Japanese cultural thing; they will not hijack shows like American fans will to reject stuff, but they will 100% be silent when they feel someone is being overpushed). Many shows look like total disasters. So you have a promotion that’s not drawing, has failing pushes at multiple levels of the card, and now has no identity, as its signature style is gone. So all of the promise of this promotion is now completely squandered.

THE 2001 DISASTER:
* So by this point, things behind the scenes had deteriorated. Aja Kong quitting over disagreements with Rossy. This is probably why she utterly dominated Ayako before suffering a fluke loss and just leaving. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand now we finally get to…

MICHIKO OMUKAI vs. RYO MIYUKI:
* So the backstory here is that Miyuki, an over-pushed shitty rookie, had been missing dates or something. Wrestlers were pissed and she was leaving the company. Per Mike Lorefice, “Rossy’s answer was to have her walk out from the crowd in street clothes, get squashed by Omukai and quit”. Omukai shows up in all leather and wielding a fake sword (bokken) looking all pissed, her jaw clenched in fury. They’re like “oh no one is here” but LOOK! THERE SHE IS! Miyuki comes out dramatically on the hard camera with a flannel shirt over her street clothes (including a blue Selena shirt). What’s “SHE’S SHOOTING!” in Japanese? Miyuki is totally breaking the script I bet! You can tell the fans are in awe by their utter silence and guys aimlessly fidgeting and looking at random shit. The dude rubbing his chin and looking down right next to Miyuki seems entranced by what’s going on. Omukai just points her bokken at Miyuki, who eventually walks right up to it after a two-minute pause (that mystifies the fans for about a minute, then a few dudes are heard randomly screaming something).

fans clearly just entranced by all of this. Especially the guy aimlessly scratching his chin while not paying attention to the wrestler five feet from him.

Miyuki finally yoinks the bokken and gets up in Omukai’s face, both pulling the other’s hair (a standard worked “post-match” spot). Omukai then “pulls” Miyuki into the ring and it’s amazingly obvious this isn’t a shoot at all (like Miyuki is CLEARLY stepping through the ropes and not being pulled in), and Miyuki falls on her ass before getting up and scoring an elbow. Another staredown results, and Miyuki goes for an Irish whip, just like you would in a shoot fight, and Omukai counters and whips her off the ropes, then ducks a big wheel kick. Omukai pulls her by the hair and scores some knees (THOSE look snug, though), then a slap, but Miyuki backdrops her out of her finisher attempt. Miyuki scores her wheel kick, but Omukai kicks out immediately. Miyuki tries a fireman’s carry, but Omukai pops out and Miyuki spins into some REALLY tight backfists (looking like shoot-forearms to the neck- a safer strike that can be snug without being dangerous). Omukai naturally doesn’t sell them at all, ducking a third and CRACKING her across the chest with her own backfist. Miyuki goes down and Omukai just kneels on her chest for the pin at (1:07).

Post-match, Omukai grabs the hair and the two say some things, Miyuki tapping the back of her head like a reassurance, then they get up. Omukai cuts a promo with Miyuki staring with a scrunched-up expression. So this was obviously booked like it was a shoot, but was not over with the fans, nobody reacted, and it just looked uncomfortable and weird. Miyuki is just buried on the way out. She then gets on the mic and apparently resigns, but says she isn’t quitting pro wrestling. We’ll see her in GAEA Japan before too long… and poor Chigusa, lol. Miyuki is told to “practice more” after one of the worst botches in wrestling history, and is out of any women’s promotion for good- she spends the rest of her career doing comedy stuff in DDT (yes, that one), retiring in 2003.

Rating: DUD (shockingly, this is by far Miyuki’s best performance in ARSION, and the one that exposes the business the least)

Evito-X (who posts here from time to time) notes “After a few matches (1 of which was a tag that ended up in edited form on TV), and some hype I think ARSION decided enough is enough and ended the experiment with a pretty decisive result to say the least. I guess we’ll never know how it got this far in the first place, let alone how she ended up in GAEA straight after, whether she had some celebrity status? or if everyone just lost their minds because she was so tall.” Another fan notes “I don’t remember all the details, but I think she was another example of a “rossy merch project” getting overpushed and pissing people off, particularly Aja who was supposed to be the booker but was having to mess up all her plans for Rossy to sell merch to the uncles with Hamada and Miyuki. Then they did all the worked shoot angles at this show, but both her and Aja really left and never came back lol”.

AND THEN ANOTHER ONE! I haven’t seen this one, but LCO are to defend the Twin Stars of ARSION Titles against former champions Aja Kong & Mariko Yoshida. This one has more information about it, since it came out in court. Aja had issues with Rossy and also resigned from ARSION. Rossy booked an angle where the wrestlers get on the mic and demand that Aja quit (after Aja completely wrecks LCO with ultra-stiff moves). Aja then declares that she is leaving the company and walking out on the match. This leads to Yoshida getting her ass kicked and jobbing in (6:59). Rossy then SUED AJA a couple years later- “Rossy tried to sue Aja for damages on grounds of default in 2003, which he had no grounds for after staging her exit. Aja countersued and the judge ordered Rossy to pay ¥6.7m (around $58,000 USD in 2003) to Aja for unpaid wages, and a further ¥500k (around $4,300 USD).”

Both angles were staged as if they were shoots, a la Vince Russo, but it made ARSION look even more clownshoes- ARSION always did pretty shitty business, but things got even worse after this (losing Aja, who had looked the strongest in 2000, probably doesn’t help).

So Hamada’s run as Queen of ARSION is also a box office disaster, and by the Summer, Ogawa makes the bold move of hiring Lioness Asuka to take over the booking end of the company. Which naturally starts to revolve around her. And by year’s end, AYAKO HAMADA also quits ARSION.

SO WHY DID ARSION FAIL?:
* Well, *gestures dramatically to all the above*

* They started off an entire promotion with the scraps of other companies, which is already tricky (there’s only one “legit” wrestler on the cards, two upper-mid people, and then scrubs). Instead of slowly building up various undercarders into midcarders or upper-mids into champions, they simply told the fans they were all at those positions already and expected them to buy it. This NEVER WORKS and they’d have been better served spending months slowly building up the wrestlers via “slow improvement” matches, not just having Omukai nearly KO Aja in her first match as a non-scrub and then doing fluke wins to “prove” she’s elevated. When GAEA Japan (who had similar issues with the starting roster- their second ranked wrestler was fuckin’ KAORU!) had to do this sort of thing, they brought in wrestlers from other companies to fill space on the cards and sloowwwwwwlllly built up the rookies until some were accepted.

* Having Aja & Yoshida work overtime to put over low-ranked LLPW and Zenjo wrestlers as if they had a chance of beating them doesn’t really put over the undercarders as much as it diminishes Aja & Yoshida, who are the stars you actually want the fans to take seriously.

* The attemtps at making “Grapplefuckery” the official style of the company are never accepted because the fans don’t appreciate that style and instead pop mostly for the “Joshi Classics” they’re used to, and this causes the company to give up on the style. Which would have been iffy anyways since half the company already wasn’t doing that style from the start (you can’t really do a Grapplefuckery/Lucha Lite/American Style company).

* Getting behind Omukai and Hamada because the coomers would like them was doomed to fail- this gives ARSION a niche audience and neither wrestler knew how to get over at that point at all- both are painfuly un-over compared to their position on the card and the obvious “THESE WRESTLERS R THE BEST!” from the bookers won’t make it happen- it’s just like when Bill Watts kept trying to find replacements for Junkyard Dog or Vince McMahon tried to cram any number of his “projects” down our throats over the years- the fans can see through it and if the wrestlers don’t know how to get over, then they won’t get over.

* Booking for Gooning neutralizes a lot of potential fan types in favor of pervy uncles, and that creates its own issues- they tend to enjoy wrestling more privately (IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN) and are less vocal in person, creating quieter audiences. It turns off other fans, and also has a weird effect with much of the company not matching that “type” (apologies to Bionic J fans) and many of the wrestlers

* Dwindling attendance kills the noise, which kills wrestler effort, which causes more dwindling attendance. This is an unconquerable enemy if you don’t hit a HUGE “Reset Button”.

So uhhhhhhhhhhh this is how you DON’T build a pro wrestling promotion! Most of the stuff that popped up after Zenjo’s 1997 troubles didn’t do well, but within a couple years both Zenjo & GAEA would be doing good business for years! Mabye they both coulda used the wrestlers who were squandered by ARSION’s incompetence. Who knows? But we’ll see what happens with Lioness Asuka running things, and whether or not Ayako actually learns to work later on. I KNOW I’ve seen people claim she’s some kinda super-worker, but I suspect it’s the same gooners who were defending her back in 2001 because she was pretty, but we’ll see!

ARSION BATTLE STATION:
(June 19th, 2001)
* It’s time for more ARSION! This one features a big match for the promotion as LCO defends the Twin Star Titles against the former champs, Ayako Hamada & AKINO. But, more importantly, this is the last ARSION show before Lioness Asuka is hired away from GAEA Japan/JD’ (she’s a freelancer but mostly works there) to become ARSION’s booker and biggest star. This will allow me to go into greater detail of why ARSION didn’t work and what’s led to this point. More importantly, I finally found that COMPLETE mess from February where one of their “hot new stars” comes out in her street clothes to do a “shoot fight” with Michiko Omukai and then publicly quit the promotion! I was huffy I missed that, so it’s great to find it!

This is a PUNY house show, however, as they look to kinda fill the place… but it’s a really small gym.

TWIN STARS OF ARSION TITLES:
LAS CACHORRAS ORIENTALES (Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda) vs. AYAKO HAMADA & AKINO:
* This is the main event, featuring LCO doing their usual schtick- dominating a tag scene and then fighting the top stars at the end. AKINO’s in neon yellow, Hamada’s in white & blue, Mita’s in yellow & Shimoda’s in pink.

AKINO shoves Hamada away so she can start, but gets bashed by a pink chair immediately, only to dropkick it right into Shimoda’s face after. Shimoda gets double-teamed but escapes and Hamada eats the Bitch Pose and a piledriver as LCO bully her. Ayako gets a nifty Lionsault counter and tags out, AKINO running around and facewashing LCO with boots. Mita repeatedly stymies her using speed, however, but Shimoda tosses in a chair and it gets missile kicked into Mita’s face! Shimoda gets beat up a while as Mita gets a gory bladejob going, AKINO hitting backdrops to both LCO. Hamada works the brain with a headbutt & DDT, but Shimoda chairs her out of a springboard attempt & Mita Blazing Chops… but AKINO runs interference so they have Mita cornered again. Ayako uses SHOTEIMANIA, nailing her partner in the process, and Mita gets her 3rd DVD attempt countered to an enzuigiri- an AKINO tope con hilo and Hamada Quebrada nail them and Shimoda topes right into a chair to the face as the kids are kicking their ASSES. Mita is dead-weight but Hamada nails a Ligerbomb and Mita SPRINGS out at 2, but is barely coherent and Shimoda starts leaving puddles of blood everywhere too. Mita avoids the springboard moonsault & elbows free to tag in a bloody Shimoda, who ALSO gets Ligerbombed. She & Hamada have an uncoordinated mess of a fight, Shimoda taking a couple DDTs, looking dead to the world. Mita chairs Hamada to try and stop it, but Shimoda still takes a shotei/Super Hama-Chan Cutter combo for two and has to save again.

Mita’s roaring comeback after whipping Hamada up to the upper balcony.

Hamada grabs the chair from Mita and throws some feather-light shots to LCO & Spinning Ligerbombs Shimoda for two, having exhausted her moveset so finally lets AKINO in, and she uses THE CLAW~~ of all things on Shimoda’s cut, then pops off a run-up crossbody & jujigatame, then they do the BItch Pose while tearing into that arm! Mita finally stops the murder and they pull the kids into the stands for a beating- Ayako eats a chairshot way up in a balcony so everyone can see, then hits the mother of all piledrivers through a table in a huge spot, roaring to the crowd in defiance! And now LCO go to an old standby I haven’t seen for a while, the chair-pile & Guardrail Drop on HamaKINO. A Doomsday chairshot ends with Mita’s electric chair droip to AKINO onto the chairs. The ref won’t count, so Shimoda hits her Somersault Ax Kick, getting two. The ref keeps pounding on a spot in the ring (a wood piece breaking and sticking up?) and LCO tries to finish, but the Death Lake Driver is countered- AKINO flies off onto feet, but counters an ax kick with a big powerbomb and it’s a double-down. Mita interferes with a chair, but blasts her partner and gets booted to the floor so AKINO hits a chairvault slam in the corner & backdrop for two. But AKINO charges into a powerbomb and LCO tries to finish with their DVD/Flying Ax Kick- she vaults out of the DVD, but Shimoda missile kicks her, and the DVD/Ax Kick… gets two! AKINO snaps off a rana as Hamada runs interference, but Mita blasts Ayako with a chair as Shimoda counters a whip to her Tiger Suplex… for three (22:16)! LCO pull one out!

Man, what an ASS-KICKING. I was expecting the typical “LCO dominates everything” Juniors/Veterans match, but instead they got the absolute shit beaten out of them for like 15 minutes until they finally turned it around with an arena brawl and some crowd-pleasing weapon spots. But they’re barely back in the ring before AKINO fires off a comeback. Shimoda’s bladejob was super gory and her selling was EXCELLENT, legitimately looking like she was going to pass out frequently, and this overall served to make the kidslook like world-beaters who could kick all the asses, with LCO barely squeaking out a win. I felt something was up when they took such a one-sided beating, but I swear I thought HamaKINO won since I saw them as champs on a later video, haha. I got worked! The small setting made it far quieter than it should have been, but it was a great come from behind victory with some good selling, albeit some awkwardness and “Hamada & AKINO don’t really know how to work whole matches so it’s just 50% Hamada then 50% AKINO in two different matches”.

Rating: ***1/2 (started slow and fairly weak, but once it became LCO getting destroyed it got very impressive)

JUNE 29th:

AKINO (ARSION) vs. AZUMI HYUGA (JWP): Hyuga’s run in ARSION isn’t finished, as she takes on AKINO, who hits a run-up cross-body & tope con hilo. But Hyuga hits a kick of fear, straightjacket german & Michinoku Driver for the pin at (1:13 of 14:30 shown), AKINO starting to “struggle” at 2 and kicking out at 3.1.