Megumi Kudo vs Aja Kong (AJW - 12/6/1993)

Classic match. This is a great “Joshi for people who aren’t into Joshi” match. It is paced like a classic world title match starting slow and building to a big crescendo. Pretty simple story, Kudo tries to control Aja by working over her arm and Aja has to fight back with just one arm. And Kudo learns even a one-armed Aja is a beast to overcome. Honestly, I loved how this was worked. Aja is a great bumper for a larger wrestler with a monster gimmick, but sometimes she can be too willing a bumper for my tastes. Often times you can blame her opponent just as much and the overall Joshi style. This match doesn’t have that problem. Kudo hits one German suplex, but most of her huge offensive bombs are things like a tope (looked great & Aja took a hell of a bump catching her), a spinning DDT, a tope rope hurricanrana, and a sunset flip powerbomb on a reversal of an attempted Aja’s top rope slam. She never did land the Kudo driver. In other words, pretty much all of Kudo’s huge offensive moves were things where she wasn’t having to lift Aja up like Toyota forcing her to take her clutching german suplexes and powerbombs and stuff like that. Kudo’s offense was either arm work/submissions or using her size/speed advantage and/or Aja’s size/momentum against her. These seem like simple ideas, and they are. But you rarely see them play out so well so I think it is well worth noting and praising. Aja is finally AJA by this point and she’s awesome in this match. Her offense looks great, she’s a terrific bumper, her arm selling is outstanding. Pretty much exactly what you want from your Ace in a big match against one of the other biggest stars in Joshi. But I can’t help but come away from this thinking it was Kudo’s more classic approach to this is what really makes this match standout. Great match.