An absolutely ferocious Yoshida performance. If you're Akino, a whole six months into your career at this point, you almost need to wonder what you can even do. Go head first at Yoshida and she'll catch you and tie you in knots. Hang back and let her come to you then Yoshida WILL come to you and that might be even worse. Yoshida is just about the greatest swarm in wrestling history and she was all over Akino from the bell, twisting her every which way while Akino had to frantically scramble to keep her head above water. There was an absolutely spectacular exchange where Akino managed to finally buck Yoshida off and they went into kneeling switches for waist control, then when they got up to their feet I thought they were going to do a show of respect and instead Yoshida just kneed Akino in the face and monkey flipped her into a cross armbreaker. The greatness of Yoshida's grappling doesn't necessarily lie in how much cool and inventive shit she does as opposed to the intensity with which she does it all. That said she had at least three holds here that I can't remember ever seeing before and the reverse figure-four thing had my jaw on the floor. None of those holds looked contrived though; they all had logical setups and felt organic. You couldn't see the wheels turning, couldn't see her working through the components in her mind as she was doing them, no "this crosses over this and I do this to put this limb here" or whatever. She snapped into them as quickly as she'd snap into any basic hold and they actually felt like appropriate responses to what the situation gave her at the time. It wasn't a fancy armbar setup just to be fancy, she did it because Akino's proximity and body position made it the most feasible at the time. Just because 95% of wrestlers ever couldn't think of it doesn't mean it's not the smart thing to do. Most of Akino's offence came in bursts but she got to look spunky and explosive and that's about all you can ask for. She also got to look resourceful at points with how she'd attempt one thing and Yoshida would counter it, then if she went back to it a second time she'd switch it up and connect on it. The cool part was that if she went to it TOO often Yoshida would inevitably bring it back around and find yet another solution. That's what Yoshida does and I guess if you're Akino you live and learn. I thought for sure the kid was tapping on at least two choke attempts so she got to look tough as nails by hanging in there and eventually making the ropes. Yoshida was a monster in '99 and I'm looking forward to watching all of it, some for the first time and some for a second time. This was a great way to start off a banner year.
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