Momoe Nakanishi vs. Kumiko Maekawa (AJW - 2/24/2002)

Here's something I never thought I would see: a 40 minute long joshi match that I didn't hate. Initially I thought this was the match that Phil infamously picked apart, but apparently that one went 60 minutes. They seemed to have found a decent middle ground here. There were some problems and you could've shaved off 20 minutes and came out with an amazing match, but this is good in its own right. I'd say this was easily better than the 40 minute long garbage NJPW has been pumping out for years, and pretty much any Toyota sprint. You had the psycho violence of Maekawa kicking Nakanishi around the ring, including a crane kick that left Nakanishi spitting blood for the rest of the match, but also a surprisingly great understanding of the mechanics. For example, Nakanishi was initially avoiding the inevitable Boston Crab, which made Maekawa eventually being able to lock it in feel rewarding. It's a small detail but such things help keeping lengthy matches interesting and it shows they gave a shit about more than just hitting their big spots. Nakanishis gradual comeback from getting her back worked over was great as she was initially struggling to hit her spots. Her dives were smart. Nakanishi also showed a surprising amount of violence, aggressively elbowing Maekawa in the back of the head for example and hitting some nasty dropkicks and headbutts. Maekawa, of course, had a brilliant array of brutal kicks. I also loved her breaking out the green mist. All the control segments were well executed and there were few quite great hope spots/cut offs. There were a lot of nearfalls, but due to Nakanishis offense mostly being rollups I thought it never came into stupid overkill territory. Also, the Momoe Latch is a great spot and Maekawa had a few neat ways to counter it. Leg work was obviously filler, but well executed and didn't go long.

This match fell outside my Top 10 for 2002, but I think folks who are more open to the style should consider it as it's basically the best "typically joshi" styled match I've seen.