Candy Okutsu & Michiko Ohmukai v Rie Tamada & Yumi Fukawa (ARSION, 6/21/98)
The first ten things Ohmukai did in this: one - sidestep a dropkick; literally the other nine - kick someone dead in the face. I wasn't huge on this as it was less ARSION and more garden variety midcard sprint you could find on most joshi cards. They were fairly liberal with the transitions and momentum shifts and never bothered too much with the selling, though at this point I suppose I can handle a 12-minute joshi sprint for what it is. Ohmukai booting people in the mouth was by far the highlight, but she's one of those women where the pendulum will swing from being pretty awesome to pretty bad on a match to match basis, or sometimes even within a match. Throwing dangerous spin kicks under the chin? That'll work. Trying all sorts of contrived sequences where she struggles with the setups? I'd rather not. We got both Ohmukais in this and unfortunately it was more of the latter.
Michiko Ohmukai v Mikiko Futagami (ARSION, 7/21/98)
The pendulum swings back! Ohmukai working as Battlarts crowbar is very much the best Ohmukai and this was badass as fuck. Just a gritty, nasty little scrap. Straight at the bell Ohmukai slaps away a handshake and everything they did from then on out had some malice behind it. Initially it was more tetchy, where you knew they WANTED to throttle each other but tried to keep a lid on it, but by the midpoint the lid had blown and potatoes were flying everywhere. Derisory little slaps to the head morphed into full on palm strikes under the nose. Ohmukai refused to break clean out the corner and threw about a dozen knees, so the first chance Futagami had to retaliate she Wanderlei punted her in the cheekbone. The matwork kept pace with the strikes and got progressively meaner the longer it went. During some of the chokes it looked like the recipient's tongue was turning purple and Futagami's chicken-wing was absolutely brutal. They end up on the top turnbuckle together, Ohmukai looking like she's on her last legs, and Futagami's "this one's for you, motherfucker" to a rabid middle-aged male Ohmukai fan was sensational (I imagine Ohmukai had a goodly number of those fans. You won't need more than one guess as to why). Loved the finish as well, with things getting really desperate as the 15 minute time limit approaches. Ohmukai throws a straight right to the jaw (amazing spot) and goes for the kill, but Futagami slaps her silly and grabs a choke in the middle of the ring. Either our crazy Ohmukai fan and his one-man percussion section can lend her enough strength to see out the time limit or Futagami can lock it in deep enough before the bell goes. They really worked the hell out of that time limit drama and other than a couple ropey fighting spiritish moments this was fantastic.
Rie Tamada v Yumi Fukawa (ARSION, 7/21/98)
This was a little hectic at times and they probably overreached a bit, but on the whole I thought they managed to tell a fairly coherent story with well-established roles. They also fit it into around twelve minutes to keep it digestible. After teaming together on the last show I guess this was Fukawa's coming of age tale against a slightly more established opponent. Tamada is more strikes and bombs while Fukawa is more sudden submissions and counters from everywhere. The dynamic worked pretty nicely. The best examples were Tamada hitting a couple brutal missile dropkicks - one to the face followed by one to the back of the head - and Fukawa using the swanky rolling cross-armbreaker at the end, just when it looked like Tamada was going to finish her off. I'm looking forward to watching Fukawa's matches with Yoshida from the following year again and it's cool tracking her progress over the course of 1998. She's maybe the most fun blend of lucha and your Toryumon style junior heavyweight in the company at this point in time.
Michiko Ohmukai v Rie Tamada (ARSION, 8/9/98)
Well this had some good Ohmukai and some not so good Ohmuaki. To begin with it was not so good as they did an extended parity stand-off bit and Ohmukai will always struggle with those because she can't really do them in a way that doesn't look obviously choreographed. And parity stand-off sequences usually suck anyway so she's chasing fool's gold even trying it. Thankfully we got way more good Ohmukai than not so good and almost immediately after the stand-off she went about punting Rie in the liver. She threw very many nasty kicks from very many angles. Just volleyed Tamada in the face at one point. They do a sort of duelling arm work match that maybe worked more in theory than in practice, but the back half got pretty damn good. The duelling part falls by the wayside a bit and Tamada's arm mostly gets forgotten about, but everything around Ohmukai's was good. I liked as well how Tamada went after it briefly in the first half without making it a major focus, almost as a bit of FORESHADOWING that we all love in the pro wrestling storytelling. Transitions and selling were kinda wonky at the end but ARSION continues to make great use of that 15 minute time limit. This was a hunner times better than their match from earlier in the year.
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