The first 10 minutes of this are as good as anything I've seen in ages. Even the entrances are great, with Hokuto coming out in a black wedding dress and veil, while Toyota is kitted out in her white robe. Maybe a little on the nose, but it felt pretty obvious what they were going for. Initially I thought it was Hokuto who jumped Toyota before the bell, but upon closer inspection she never tried to start a thing. It was Toyota who flung off the robe, turned and ran over to blindside Hokuto with a dropkick. Hokuto moving and Toyota basically taking a Hamrick bump to the floor before eating a somersault senton, with Hokuto still in the black dress, was a great way to start. It pretty much set the table for the next 20+ minutes. Toyota is certifiable and her whole strategy was built around flinging herself at Hokuto with as much force as possible from as great a height as possible. Springboards, dropkicks, moonsaults, everything. Hokuto responding by stretching her to hell and basically savaging her was the perfect response. Toyota popping up from that first backdrop probably would've annoyed me ten years ago, but I think at this point I better understand Manami Toyota; the character, the person. Her style and approach will probably never be my favourite, but I can at least appreciate that her pain threshold is ridiculous. She landed flat on her back off that missile dropkick to the floor and got right back up, so if she's willing to put HERSELF through that sort of shit then I can buy an opponent having to go above and beyond against her. I thought the transitions during those first 10 minutes were basically all great, from Toyota hitting her first in-ring springboard and following up with one of the nastiest dropkicks ever, to Hokuto putting Toyota clean on her head with this ugly reverse powerslam thing. With Toyota you almost have to be wary of even whipping her into the ropes, such is her desire to propel herself off of them and back into your face. So Hokuto grounding her with a disgusting bow-and-arrow and Sharpshooter ruled. Everything had a real sense of enmity, even the way Toyota would twist a handful of Hokuto's hair - it was like an arm-wringer to the ponytail - before chucking her across the ring. They didn't exactly lose me around the midpoint but I thought the match took a bit of a dip when they went into trading finishers for a minute or two. Considering the transitions and build had been A+ up to that point it was a noticeable drop off. They moved past that quickly enough though, and the build to the actual finish from there was really good. The escalation worked for me and I was surprised to find that so did the stuff with the table. It felt like it happened fairly organically, at least in that, as we've established, Toyota is a fucking nutcase. If I buy anybody resorting to putting someone through an unbreakable table because nothing else works, I buy Toyota. Not a chance Hokuto was taking that and not dishing out a receipt so I had no issue with her retaliating. Plus the actual spots themselves looked brutal. I know some folk think this is a spotty match, or even an outright spotfest. I don't really see it that way, but the pro wrestling is a matter of perspective and I don't feel strongly enough to argue. What I absolutely disagree with is that there was no selling towards the end, or that Toyota in particular wasn't selling. I suppose you could question how she was the first one to hit any offence after the last table spot when she's the one who was actually on table, but Hokuto clearly sold it like the senton nearly crippled her as well. They both crawl in the ring and Toyota, in her physical prime with inhuman resilience, happened to get up half a second earlier than Hokuto. So she spikes her because that's about all she has left. I mean, the last couple minutes of the match were basically all selling with two moves. I have no real personal attachment to either of these women so I'm not going to bat for favourites or whatever. If anything I've seen enough Toyota where I wish she'd sell more that this didn't feel like it was even in the same ballpark. Either way this was pretty awesome.
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