Yoshida v Futagami; Ohmukai v Tamada (ARSION)

Michiko Ohmukai v Rie Tamada (ARSION, 5/5/98)

This had a few cool moments, a few weird moments, a few rubbish moments. It wasn't the best. Ohmukai starting out by using a handshake to yank Tamada into a tiger suplex was great, but then they went and did a bunch of suplex-trading and no-selling and nobody has time for that shit. Ohmukai has some killer strikes but hardly any of them looked good here. Her kicks were all over the place, the ones that connected often looking light, the ones that missed looking like that was always the plan anyway. She did throw one punch to the jaw that kind of ruled, though. Tamada was just as sloppy and some of the miscues between them were glaring, resulting in awkward fumbling with neither seeming to know who was supposed to be hitting a move and who was supposed to be taking it or moving out the way or what. When she's on her game Ohmukai can be a pretty great Battlartsy shitkicker, but this was not that. I don't know what this was.


Mariko Yoshida v Mikiko Futagami (ARSION, 5/5/98)

What a cracking little bout. Where the last match started with a minute of ropey fighting spirit guff, this started with a minute of sprawling and scrambling for limbs that ended in a stalemate. Yoshida was an absolute marvel in this. She mostly works dominant and it's because she's such a dynamo on the mat. Futagami is the more accomplished striker, but most of her big hits land almost surprisingly. She has to get tricky with them because Yoshida seems to have them largely scouted, and once or twice, probably out of frustration, she throws a couple that could be considered cheapshots. Early on they engaged in a knuckle lock and Futagami started throwing kicks, thinking she'd keep hold of Yoshida's hands so she wouldn't be able to block. Except Yoshida used her arm and managed to corral a body kick anyway, which she then turned into a rolling kneebar. On the couple rare occasions it looks like Futagami might have Yoshida in a dangerous spot, Yoshida will spring a counter and apply an ankle lock with her own feet or a kimura to escape a choke (and I love that she coughed and spluttered a bit afterwards to sell it). I'm not sure what prompted it specifically, but at some point Yoshida started selling her taped up wrist and it gave Futagami something to target in times of need. Some of her hits started landing a little more flush as well and they had me convinced she was winning after the brutal koppo kick. But really, Yoshida did about five things on the mat that I don't think I've seen before. There was one point where Futagami tried to pull some Manami Toyota neck bridging out of a pin shenanigans so Yoshida grabbed a choke with her legs. A couple beats later Yohida hit a folding powerbomb, and as Futagami kicked out Yoshida instantly transitioned into an ankle lock. The way she wound up with a gogoplata out of a gutbuster at the end was absurd. ARSION had such a cool house style and this was a superb ten minutes of it.