Some Tournament ARSION

Ayako Hamada v Mary Apache (ARSION, 8/31/98)

This was pretty neat. I thought Apache was a lot of fun with her quick armdrags and swanky matwork, including a really tight armbar-anaconda vice hybrid thing. Hamada is 17 here and that's sort of bonkers. How many matches could she have had by this point, considering she only made her debut a couple weeks prior? Three? Two? She was rough around the edges because of course she would be, but I liked how her scrappiness made up for it. There's an exuberance that's quite infectious and overall this worked as a pairing. 

 

Mikiko Futagami v Rie Tamada (ARSION, 8/31/98)

Really good stuff. Tamada zeroes in on Futagami's leg early and pretty much stays focused on it all the way through. Ten years ago I'd have wanted Futagami to sell it BIGGER, but at this point I'm fine with how she drew attention to it. It was more understated yet she'd hobble and show signs of discomfort. She also tried to palm thrust Tamada's front teeth through her brain and that was more important than anything else. Tamada has a bandaged up shoulder and by the end Futagami is trying to pull it apart, and as always with ARSION they're awesome at milking those escapes and rope breaks for all they're worth. 

 

Michiko Ohmukai v Yumi Fukawa (ARSION, 8/31/98)

Not a patch on the April match, but still decent. Ohmukai's strikes - particularly her kicks - are a bit of an enigma as some will look atrocious and others will look fucking devastating and she had a few of both in this match. Which is usually the case, as I'm sure I've written several times over the years. In fairness to Fukawa she turned one of the former into an amazing spot by grabbing it out the air and locking in a sick kneebar, and then at the end we got an example of the latter when Ohmukai about took Fukawa's head off. I like how ARSION sell the gravity of these tournaments as the wrestlers will come in with something bandaged up from a previous round and inevitably those injuries will come into play. Ohmukai's shoulder is taped and if you want to convince me she worked the early parts with as much urgency as she did because she wanted to keep Fukawa from targeting that shoulder...well I'd probably listen. When Fukawa does get a chance to go after it I was absolutely buying Ohmukai tapping out. ARSION do near-submissions better than basically any non-shoot style promotion ever, FWIW. There were also parts of this where they stopped what they were doing and slapped each other really hard across the face. That even made a couple of the no-selling bits palatable. If you're going to no-sell something at least make it look like BELLIGERENCE has made you impervious to pain for a wee second there. 

Mariko Yoshida v Reggie Bennett (ARSION, 8/31/98)

This is a great match up and of course this was badass. I like just about all of the wrestlers on the ARSION roster from this period for one reason or another, so this shouldn't be read as a knock on them, but Yoshida is different gravy and looks flat out amazing nearly every time she shows up. The early matwork here was fantastic and nobody else really does it quite at that level. The struggle, the way it looks uncooperative but slick, it's really great. She was crawling all over Reggie trying to work around the size disadvantage, trying to hook a limb in a way that wouldn't allow Reggie to literally just fall on top of her and smother her. Reggie is a blast and more than holds her own on the mat. Where did she actually go after ARSION? She'd have been a great Serena Deeb opponent in the year 2022. Yoshida was for giving nothing easy and Reggie had to fight for every throw just as much as Yoshida had to fight for every armbar or ankle lock. Yoshida cracking the code with the slickest armbar you've seen is a pretty awesome finish as well. It wasn't like she focused on a specific limb through the match, she was just grabbing whatever was there, used one hold then would transition to another when it presented itself, just constantly recalibrating as necessary. One of the best to ever do it.