This is one of my favourite feuds in all of joshi so I'm surprised I'd never seen this instalment of it before. It's their first singles match together and of course had some of the elements that made their match a year later a classic, but a year can be a lifetime and Meiko was nowhere near ready to scale this mountain yet. The hierarchy gap was much more pronounced here and Aja was far swifter with her murderousness. But the Bulls needed to run into that Pistons brick wall a few times, needed to taste failure and be force-fed half a dozen elbows before realising what it would take to reach the PINNACLE and such. Success is earned, not given, as my great granny would always tell me. And Aja never gave her much but Meiko earned at least a little something to build on here. I loved her scrappiness above all. I seem to always mention how crazy it is that Satomura got so good so early, but it's worth repeating and every time I watch her in those formative years her persistence is captivating. It's impossible to watch her and not get behind her, even if you know in the end it likely won't matter, especially against someone this much higher up the food chain. You want to see her score those small victories though; see her finally take Aja down and lock in the armbar. She was determined to hook that thing and it usually failed, but the one time she succeeded had Aja scrambling to the ropes and it felt like a significant moment in a broader sense, like it'll stand her in good stead going forward. Her dedication to making everything feel important makes those moments stand out. Obviously Aja being awesome and knowing when to give and when to destroy helps too. She barely registered any elbow or forearm thrown her way and her expression rarely changed, unperturbed as she was. At one point, amid a barrage of forearms, she went to look out to the crowd like "who the fuck is this kid?" before changing her mind and dropping Meiko on the spot. Meiko hitting the death valley driver was an awesome moment and then Aja came back and showed her what a real death valley driver could be. Then she stood her up, patted her on the cheek for her efforts and took her head off with the backfist. For Satomura, maybe next time would be her time, or the time after that, or even the time after that. But not this time.
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