KAORU & Matsumoto vs. Nagayo & Hokuto (GAEA 2/16/1997)

KAORU & Maiko Matsumoto vs. Chigusa Nagayo & Akira Hokuto

Damn great match. I‘m a fan of all 4 of these wrestlers, and I STILL didn‘t expect this to be so great. Virtually flawlessly worked underdog story match. Matsumoto has a knife in this gunfight of a match, and KAORU basically spends the first 5 minutes of the match saving Matsumoto from getting killed. Hokuto and Nagayo are pretty great launching an Anderson brothers like assault on Matsumoto here, cutting off the ring and acting all high and mighty. It‘s weird how joshi has this reputation for this go-go style with random moves and transitions happening by the minute and then you get hit with these ladies doing an expert job cutting off the ring and building to a momentum shift. Nagayo is established that she can end a match with any hold, so her putting all these shoot holds on Matsumoto garnered tremendous heat. Nagayo and Hokuto were treating KAORU like shit too initially, Matsumoto doesn‘t even get a hot tag, Hokuto just throws her to the corner and signals KAORU to come in, like she‘s tired of KAORU coming in to save Maiko, so she wants her to come in and kick her ass. Matsumoto helping out KAORU in turn was really great. I was also really impressed by Hokuto and Nagayo knowing exactly how much offense to give to their opponent. It can come across as dull when in Japanese wrestling a higher ranked wrestler no sells all of his opponents stuff, but in this case, when they acted unphased by Matsumoto it felt earned, and when Matsumoto was able to crack them it felt earned and accordingly great. Those Atomic Drops were great. Should also say KAORU looked great as an athletic, precise main player and had some great exchanges with Hokuto. It transitions to a finishing run where suddenly KAORU is getting destroyed and Matsumoto has to save her before the inevitable happens. Tremendous match that executed its story perfectly while delivering plenty of violence and heat.