And here I am once again, wondering if I shouldn't just drop everything else I'm doing to watch every Jaguar Yokota match committed to tape. This wasn't particularly difficult to follow and the roles were about as clearly defined as you could get. Asuka tells her cronies to back away before the first lock up, then when that lock up happens they immediately circle again like hyenas. I thought Jaguar's performance here was pretty great, but strangely subdued at the same time. I'm not a joshi historian by any stretch but if there's a through line from Jaguar to someone like Toyota then the similarities were limited to aesthetics here. Well, that and the willingness to get hammered up and down the place and throw oneself around with abandon. Asuka beat the brakes of her with some of the meanest shit imaginable, wild kicks, reckless throws into chairs, fully launching her from inside the ring to the floor, powerbombs on the floor and powerbombs through tables and powerbombs off of makeshift platforms. On the table spot Asuka piledrove Jaguar through it, took a piece of the broken wood and chucked the thing right at Jaguar's head. Then she picked it up and used the splintered end to stab her in the face. This looked especially crazy because she was almost doing a falling fist drop, only it was a jagged edge of table connecting with Jaguar rather than a fist. Jaguar's selling of it all was great and before long it looked like she was at death's door, crawling around bloodied, struggling to muster much of anything in response. A lot of what she did muster came from counters and nearly all of them were gorgeous, just some of the smoothest roll-ups you'll ever see. She was like prime Santo on that powerbomb sunset flip. I just wish she made a point of expressing herself a little more. I wouldn't say she was working in a vacuum, but there was no real EMOTING, none of the fire in her comebacks I remember from the early 80s stuff. If we're rolling with the Toyota comparison then Toyota would've been screaming like a mad woman, and even if I'm not the biggest Toyota fan I can at least appreciate the intensity. Jaguar was more world's best Dean Malenko here than world's best Tito Santana. Still she made Asuka pay when she managed to properly retaliate, first with the chain-wrapped foot that she fucking drilled Asuka right in the face with, then an amazing moonsault where her knees landed clean across Asuka's midriff. I thought Asuka was about to puke. Asuka having to take greater risks to try and put Jaguar away only for it to backfire, again with a spectacular counter, was a great finish. I should watch their '96 match next.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment