Joshi Spotlight: GAEA Japan Ring on the Beat (Morning Show)

GAEA JAPAN- RING ON THE BEAT (Morning Show):
(June 2nd 2002)
* It’s time for more GAEA Japan, now that I’m done the AJW Japan Grand Prix! And OH MY GOD it’s a positively gigantic show with fourteen damn YouTube videos making up the whole thing! If I’d have seen that I’d have probably tried to recap some of it before two days before my typical Joshi Spotlight posting on Monday, lol. ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh wait it’s split up into an Afternoon Show and an EVENING show! I can split this up guilt-free!

But this is indeed a VERY big show, with two separate one-night tournaments to determine the AAAW Title contender and AAAW Tag Title contenders for the evening show! So it’s Las Cachorras Orientales, Eccentric, Power Head & Devil/Toshie in the tag one, then Ayako Hamada, Carlos Amano, Chikayo Nagashima & Sugar Sato in the singles one. This means that everyone here will be fighting an IMMENSE number of times in a single day, which is always iffy.

We start off with the hype video for the Tag Tournament, with a bunch of people doing promos. LCO, having beaten D-FIX in the Moneyball Ladder Match at the end of 2001, talk shit and say they want to beat them for the belts, but Mayumi Ozaki states she wants them to bring the money they won from that match “Unless they drank it all up”. Eccentric cuts a goofy promo (with Sakura as the scolding boss and Chigusa as her dumb subordinate), boasting about how they beat Power Head (a fluke win where Sakura got a blind tag and did her leg-roll clutch on Kansai out of a pin).

TAG TOURNAMENT CONTESTANTS:
ECCENTRIC (Chigusa Nagayo & Sakura Hirota): Chigusa, main star of GAEA and the booker & such, deliberately playing the confused subordinate of delusional comedy wrestler Hirota, as they come out to Too Cool’s theme and do assorted WWE dances and motions, like the DX crotch-chop and Booker T’s Spinaroonie.
POWER HEAD (Dynamite Kansai & Toshiyo Yamada): PIN EATERS! uh I mean respected Kick Demons. Though Yamada’s been on the job squad for a while now.
LAS CACHORRAS ORIENTALES (Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda): One-time top heels on the scene, as of 2001 they’ve suddenly started paying for four years of utter dominance (typically running roughshod over entire companies and then doing one final job to put over a team) with jobs… which has magically coincided with their motivation and general match quality suffering.
DEVIL MASAMI & TOSHIE UEMATSU: The odd girl out of GAEA’s Class of 1995 never quite got a push, but now she’s got a new heel persona with spiky hair, and is hanging out with Devil Masami, a 1980s legend and slowed, injury-prone veteran who has to rely more and more on her charisma.

Now the hype video for the singles tournament.

LAS CACHORRAS ORIENTALES (Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda) vs. ECCENTRIC (Chigusa Nagayo & Sakura Hirota):

Sakura makes Chigusa get on all fours so she can stand on her and go eye-to-eye with Mita, but Shimoda climbs aboard too, and when MITA tries it, Chigusa collapses and everyone takes bumps. Sakura wimps out of the Blazing Chop, so Mita just swats her back with it and Chigusa comes in, her & Sakura doing double-submissions to humiliate LCO. Chigusa slingshots Sakura onto them but both get their knees up, but Sakura whips Chigusa into Shimoda to stop an avalanche double-team. Chigusa gets worked over, but responds to a Blazing Chop with a huge one to Mita’s chest, but gets a chair thrown at her when Sakura’s run-in fails. Sakura escapes a powerbomb but gets chaired in the head crawling under Mita- she blocks a chair with a bucket but one whacks her on the ass, but when Mita tries an Electric Chair Drop, Chigusa tosses her the bucket and she uses it to cover Mita’s head and batters it. Shimoda chairs everyone and they try the Guardrail Dro, but Chigusa stops them and when it falls, Sakura stands up and goes THROUGH the bars of the railing, so hits an uraken to Shimoda and does the world’s ugliest rollup to Mita for two. Chigusa comes in but takes a chair/stunner combo, Sakura accidentally throwing a chair on her when Shimoda moves. They tease a nearfall when Sakura blind-tags Chigusa during another electric chair (the obvious stalling telegraphs the spot), but Mita kicks out of her jackknife pin. Sakura stuns LCO by blowing ROSE PETALS at them instead of mist, but gets Chopped by Mita and Shimoda ax kicks her… for ONE, as Sakura bolts up, then sucks the red mist capsule out of Shimoda’s mouth and blows mist at Mita, then urakens & sunset flips Shimoda, Chigusa clotheslining her down to help, Mita rolling them back, but Chigusa “tripping” Mita, who flings herself into the pin to coutner and Sakura’s on top for the upset win at (6:32 of 7:42 shown).

A very… typcial “Eccentric” match, with some amusing comedy bits but mostly it looked REALLY fake, with them either having to telegraph stuff (Mita holding Chigusa in the electric chair drop for ages so Sakura would get into position, then drop Chigusa SUPER-short so the blind-tag could happen; Mita getting her leg dropkicked and for some reason LAUNCHING herself forwards so she would “accidentally” roll Sakura on top of the pin).

Rating: ** (mostly kinda messy and quasi-amusing)

POWER HEAD (Dynamite Kansai & Toshiyo Yamada) vs. DEVIL MASAMI & TOSHIE UEMATSU:

We’re JIP with Kansai catching Toshie with The Claw into a big slam, then another two when that gets a good reaction, but Devil “hits” Kansai with a stick to the ankle. Some floor brawling goes Power Head’s way, but Toshie athletically avoids their double-team and Devil bowls them over and Toshie throws a missile kick. The match is pretty awkward, reducing the fans to “occasional person hollering”, but Yamada fires off kicks to Toshie, then intercepts her Goo Punch with a kick and sweeps her head off with a roundhouse than impresses some. Toshie finally uses evasion to come back and fires off some running bootscrapes in the corner. Yamada gets her face clawed at but some ugly stuff sees Kansai hit a flying stomp to Devil. They take forever to set up a bit where Yamada backrolls off of Kansai to hit a “kick” to Devil, but Devil hits a superduperplex on Kansai in one of their usual spots, getting two. Speaking of, they run into each other with lariats! Devil keeps going for sleepers but takes the Diving Brain Kick from Yamada, and Kansai hits Splash Mountain (sit-out razor’s edge)- Toshie saves! Yamada scores a cheap kick and Devil bridges out, so Toshie rushes in with a Goo Punch (possibly with a weapon) and that stuns Kansai enough for Devil to hit an inside cradle for the pin (8:52 of 9:44 shown). It’s a pullapart after the bell, as Kansai recovers immediately and is furious.

This was REALLY bad and awkward for almost all of it, only really coming alive in the last 1-2 minutes, then they pull off a kind of “fluke” win to give Devil’s team the win. Seems like they saved Toshie from having to do almost anything. Makes me think the next match will feature her a LOT, since uhhhhhh clumsy, staggering broken-down Devil is maybe not the best plan for matches going forward.

Rating: *1/2 (really poor work that wasn’t over for the most part- decent ending bit)

SINGLES TOURNAMENT CONTESTANTS:
CHIKAYO NAGASHIMA: Basically it’s gonna be her or Ayako. She lost to Meiko recently, but wants to try again.
AYAKO HAMADA: Big freelance “get” from ARSION- they can pretend she’s a big deal as a “former champion” since probably/possibly not enough people cared about ARSION to see her as a bombing champion.
CARLOS AMANO: PIN-EATER!! She’s been losing up and down GAEA’s cards for ages. A JWP wrestler, she’s actually fantastic and does a lot of things great, but has no “backer” and doesn’t seem to have the political power to pick up any wins at all.
SUGAR SATO: Chikayo’s tag partner, recently returned and is getting a mini-push, beating Etsuko Mita. Despite being only a bit overweight they’re basically acting like she’s Vader, hammering people with her sheer body mass.

CHIKAYO NAGASHIMA vs. SUGAR SATO:

They circle each other for nearly a minute to set up the team rivalry, then Sugar belly-bashes Chikayo out of a lockup. The crowd is impressed when Sugar snatches her out of her sunset flip with a double-choke and launches her, but Chikayo suckers her into rushing into the ropes and hits her upside-down armlock over them, but Sugar just drills her away with knees and belly-bashes her off the APRON and into the guardrail! This turns into a fight in the stands and a chair-duel, and Sugar threatens a LIGERBOMB out there, Chikayo flailing and thankfully stopping her, shoving her off the ledge then hitting a stomp off of it. Back in the ring, Sugar threatens a buckle bomb but Chikayo pulls her over the ropes for a necklock. Chikayo hits a missile kick but can’t get a German due to Sugar’s “vast size”, and Sugar lands her dragon screw and works the knee. Sugar hits a kneecrusher and hangs onto the foot for a belly-bash, but misses her flying back elbow. Chikayo recovers and hits a bunch of ranas to dizzy Sugar for two, Sugar resists the Fisherman’s Buster but takes a German. She catches Chikayo up top and tries a running one-armed powerbomb but gets hauled into Chikayo’s jujigatame, but powers up with a big powerbomb, then has to buckle bomb Chikayo into letting go. Sugar pulls out a double-spin neckbreaker for two. Sugar overpowers Chikayo in a knucklelock, but Chikayo rolls her up out of the belly-bash for a close two, then slaps away and tries a Buster, failing and eating a big release powerbomb. Chikayo can’t get ANY of her moves and takes a big chokeslam for two, counters the Running Ligerbomb to a rana for two, but gets belly-bashed for two, Sugar hits another for the same, then runs REALLY far to get another but Chikayo ducks her and leverages her for the pin at (10:34).

A hard-fought little match! They worked hard and it got solidly over, even though it wasn’t outstanding. It was interesting how Chikayo couldn’t get ANY of her best moves here, Sugar countering every time. They’re really playing up Sugar as a powerhouse- it’s still having some difficulty working but since she’s the biggest of the Class of 1995 it works against her contemporaries (I never realized she was noticeably taller than Chikayo until now, but I guess they typically don’t wrestle).

Rating: **3/4 (good, hard-fought match)

AYAKO HAMADA vs. CARLOS AMANO:

Ayako gets a headlock, but Carlos rolls out and the fans seem overly impressed by what’s basically one counter, haha. Carlos psyches her out by dropkicking her out of a leapfrog- Ayako misses a springboard moonsault but catches Carlos shooting in via a DDT, but a sliding dropkicks is countered to an anklelock and foot-biting. A half-crab is countered with a head-kick (GOOD thigh-slap by Ayako, there! the noise got a reaction), and Ayako dodges a lariat with a superkick & backdrop suplexes her, but moonsaults into feet and Carlos grinds away with slow & steady work. They try to out-touch each other with shots but Ayako ducks her and hits a powerbomb into a Springboard Moonsault for two. Carlos avoids a Spinning Ligerbomb and sits out on a fisherman’s buster but keeps getting drilled, yet manages to run up and dropkick Carlos off the top rope. Carlos pulls her out of a quebrada and hits a tope suicida & German in the ring, but Ayako avoids her spinning jujigatame and hits her lucha abdominal stretch submission. But in a REALLY neat bit, Carlos chops at Ayako’s hips to break one grip, then leverages her into a slam to fully counter, then picks the ankle and starts working it over. Ayako tries to no-sell a big German but just runs into another, and an impressive Deadlift German gets two. Carlos declares IT’S OVER, and way overshoots her Rolling Elbow but easily cross-blocks a spinkick and smokes Ayako in the head and hits a BIG Tiger Suplex, but Ayako KICKS OUT AT ONE and… runs right into a Rolling Elbow, barely kicking out. Carlos again tries to finish with her Jujigatame but Ayako slips out, misses a spinkick, but learns from it and FAKES one, letting her hit it from the other side when Carlos overcorrects, then scrambles into an ugly Fisherman’s Falcon Arrow for three at (10:02). She was probably hoping to do that in one motion, not drop her and have to try again, haha.

The secret to having a good Ayako Hamada match: pitting her against a good worker who can thread all her shit together. The counter-based stuff here was great, both showing ways to reverse something the other was doing and nail them, especially Carlos. Ayako has little character but good-looking offense, so a smart worker can reliably pull her into a good match utilizing all that. I liked Carlos having an answer for everything, even easily stopping Ayako’s no-selling by taking advantage of her carelessness, but Ayako “learns from it” and counters CARLOS to pick up the win. Nice, simple stuff. Again it’s too bad Carlos can never WIN MATCHES, but a sign of her skill is that all these foregone conclusions are still getting over. She’s a real talent.

Rating: *** (probably better than anything Ayako did with Michiko Omukai or anyone short of Mika Akino)

D-FIX (Mayumi Ozaki & KAORU, w/ Police) vs. AJA KONG & MEIKO SATOMURA:
* The middle match sees a bit of “fairness” in the festivities, as the Tag Champs & World Champ have to fight each other so they won’t be fresh as daisies going against wrestlers who’ve already worked twice.

Meiko immediately gets beaten down by all 3 D-FIX people, but Police immediately gets smashed to the fans’ delight and they all flee. Aja chases them again and they just shove Police in to each some punishment, but he shoves Meiko into KAORU’s water-spew and Ozaki nearly pins her. Meiko shoves Police into her but yells at the ref and gets smoked by KAORU’s board, then Police runs in AGAIN with a lariat and they hit a double-gutbuster to Meiko. Meiko gets pushed to her own corner so Aja just totally mauls Police, but D-FIX comes in with weapon shots, but Aja bowls them over when they try their double-avalanche move. Police takes more abuse but Meiko promptly gets powerbomb/neckbreakered for two. Meiko averts a Brainbuster on the board and Germans KAORU on it, but boots it into Ozaki’s hands (she wisely sells that as painful rather than make it look like the botch it kinda was). Meiko hits an ax kick to KAORU but chases her and Oz pounces with the board, but she lands a DVD on KAORU anyways- the ref is pulled away. KAORU counters another with an invented DDT & Ozaki Ligerbombs Meiko for two and comes in with a chain-wrapped fist for a ton of strikes, but misses a big one and gets Pele Kicked. She recovers quickly and D-FIX strangles Meiko between them. Police is able to abuse her repeatedly while she’s trapped there, but Aja heroically pulls D-FIX off the corners and Police does some cartoon selling off of the oil can to the forehead. That’s maybe the most exaggerated selling I’ve ever seen in Japan. Aja finally chases D-FIX up the stands and smashes them around up there, chasing KAORU for the “Korakuen aisle run” spot, smashing her into the wall and attempting murder on the balcony while Meiko deals with Ozaki, hitting an F5 (!) in the ring. But Meiko hits a missile kick/running DVD and Aja’s ass-beating gets so excessive that the announcer warns her off and Aja GOES FOR THE FIRE EXTINGUISHER, immediately leading to a Disqualification (11:22 of 12:07 shown), probably inspired by her infamous spraying of Korakuen against LCO in 1997.

All that into basically a non-finish. Typical D-FIX garbage brawl with no flow or tags, but at least we saw Police get abused a bunch. A lot of the usual D-FIX spots (the chain-choking and chain-punches) but less of the no-selling Ozaki tended to do. Aja was barely in the ring at all and Meiko mostly had to sell for them.

Rating: *1/2 (every D-FIX match is basically the same)

TAG TOURNAMENT FINALS:
DEVIL MASAMI & TOSHIE UEMATSU vs. ECCENTRIC (Chigusa Nagayo & Sakura Hirota):

This actually pits the old rivals (Devil & Chigusa traded the AAAW Belt a lot, plus have history from the ’80s) and 1995 classmates against each other. Naturally this starts with TONS of stalling, Sakura cowering away from Devil, then theatrically taunting her and ending up in an overthrow powerbomb and a torturous hold even after Chigusa helps. Sakura dodges a fake sword repeatedly, but the resulting shots are so soft she sells them too late- Sakura kicks out after a big powerbomb. A Powerbomb/Flying Splash leaves Sakura vulnerable to a double-team legdrop (a cool move where Devil atomic drops Toshie into a legdrop while sitting out and doing one herself)- Chigusa saves. Chigusa tries on her own (shoving Sakura to the floor- possibly to cover real injury), but gets repeatedly double-teamed- Toshie hammers away but runs into a wicked wheel kick and a big backdrop/backbreaker gets two- Devil saves. Chigusa beats on them both but a Running Ligerbomb sees Devil whack her with the sword and sets up Toshie’s Dragon Suplex for two, then their double-legdrop sees Toshie ass-slam Chigusa on the head (ow). Devil headbutts away but takes a stunner, Chigusa hits the Running Three (running razor’s edge) to Toshie, then three charging attacks that nearly pins Devil. Devil resists a suplex and hits a folding powerbomb for two, then a fight up top sees Devil miss her flying cannonball. Chigusa drills her with a knee and hits a TKO (fireman’s carry into a cutter) for the pin at (8:29), effectively beating BOTH opponents! I’m guessing Sakura was legitimately hurt, but even the comments are confused about what happened and she was selling normally until they dumped her, so maybe it was the whole gimmick.

A typical “dumb Sakura Comedy Match” (as opposed to the Cosplay ones, which are great), which turns into a legitimate Chigusa vs. Devil/Toshie match, which is kinda funny as Chigusa wins it against two opponents, which makes the Devil team look weak. Like, hitting a big finisher to crush Toshie then just plastering Devil with another move taken from the West (DDP & Marc Mero were doing the TKO). Much of it was pretty hard-hitting, at least.

Rating: **1/4 (bad at first, then gets hard-hitting and pretty decent)

SINGLES FINALS:
CHIKAYO NAGASHIMA vs. AYAKO HAMADA:

Hamada tries to win with two spinkicks right away, but takes a release German & sunset flip, then does three flash-pins in a row, shoteis Chikayo over the top, and hits a big quebrada. A missile kick and release powerbomb keep up the pressure as Hamada’s in power-mode tonight, but Chikayo immediately leverages her after a Spinning Ligerbomb, getting two. A good series of counters (Hamada doing a wheelbarrow to stop a victory roll but Chikayo flipping out) sees Chikayo get an STF. Hamada struggles in that, but gets a snap DDT into her sliding dropkick, but Chikayo lands on her feet from a superplex and stands in the middle of the top rope to hit a rana, and a regular one gets two. Each tries abdominal stretches but Hamada switches to power again with lariats for two, then says it’s OVER and counters Chikayo’s counter of a powerbomb with an enzuigiri, Ligerbombing her for two. Chikayo blocks the spinkick but gets shotei’d to the mat, but Hamada’s Fisherman’s Falcon Arrow is stopped with a mid-air Rings of Saturn and she runs into Chikayo’s upside-down hold. Chikayo Germans her on the floor and hits a flying stomp out there, then a regular one for two. Fisherman’s Buster hits! but naturally only for two, since it’s an established “has to hit 5 times” move. But Hamada counters the next and hits her own, but gets thrown off the top and has to dodge Chikayo’s somersault ass slam, but gets Bustered again, popping up only to hit another. But Ayako hits a spinkick and finally lands the Fisherman’s Arrow! Both are out, but Ayako’s up first and Spinkicks #2, 3 & 4 leave Chikayo flat, and the Fisherman’s Arrow… is countered to a back roll with a leverage pin at (10:26)- Chikayo’s going to challenge for the belt!

I liked it! Hamada’s showing more energy and drive since leaving ARSION, and now has this more arrogant “It’s OVER!” persona as she drills her opponents with lots of power stuff and acts a bit cocky about it, which is way better than her old “I’m trying to remember the order of moves” self. Always remember the real match is against the customer! Of course she keeps doing the “no-sell then immediately take another move” thing, which gets more obvious when she does it in multiple matches in a day. But it’s better than most of her ARSION stuff! It’s almost like she’s facing better competition than Omukai and Rie Tamada! So the whole story was Ayako drilling Chikayo again and again and nearly always having her number, building to the suddenly victory at the end. That it’s a flash-pin counter makes it look like enough of a fluke that there’s heat on it and it doesn’t bury Hamada, either, nor make Chikayo look unworthy.

Rating: *** (another hard-fought, decent match, with Chikayo weathering a huge storm and making a surprise comeback)

Next Up: The tournament winners get their title shots! And I try to find Meiko vs. Chikayo for the belt from a couple months earlier because that’s not on the GAEA channel for some reason.