Yoshida is my favourite women's wrestler ever and ARSION is my favourite style of joshi. ARSION was something unique and Yoshida was the very best at doing what made it so fun. This wasn't that Yoshida and it sure as shit wasn't ARSION. This wasn't Yoshida with the awesome spider-suit and the grappling; it was young plucky flier Yoshida with about four years' experience as a wrestler. And it wasn't amazing or anything, but it was a neat look at one of the coolest wrestlers ever in her more formative years, like Springsteen throwing out word salads on 'Blinded by the Light' before settling into his true calling of telling us about Wendy and the highways jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive. She worked most of this from below with Kyoko controlling, often through half and full crabs. It wasn't always the most compelling honestly, but it was interesting how much more established Kyoko felt here than Yoshida despite them both debuting in 1988. Felt like Kyoko had her own style fleshed out a bit more while Yoshida worked almost as if she was a skinny rookie at times. I can't say I have much knowledge of early Yoshida overall though, so maybe she worked as the underdog often (and she was certainly good at it so I suppose that would make sense). It's not until she reels off a few big dives that Yoshida gains some even footing and that segues nicely into the short finishing stretch. It was a really good few minutes with a nice sense of drama. I never knew the result either so naturally I was pulling for Yoshida, and even if the finish wasn't TOTALLY perfect I liked the idea behind it a lot. It felt like a very Yoshida thing to do, just with a dive off the top rather than a Fujiwara armbar.
No comments:
Post a Comment