I didn't love this overall. Something I'd call a really good match with some pretty fantastic parts, but not one that came together as a whole and blew me away. My socks were not knocked off, if you will. But man how fucking good was Devil Masami? The pacing of this was quite a bit different from a lot of the AJW I've watched recently, especially the stuff from the 80s. One of Devil's biggest strengths anyway is her ability to work at that typical joshi speed while still making transitions and momentum shifts feel earned and meaningful. Sometimes she'll do that simply by slowing things down a little and this was worked at half speed even compared to that, but it means all of those transitions and momentum shifts here feel crucial. Control didn't really bounce back and forth very often either - there was really only a handful of times where it happened and each one came harder earned than the previous. Whenever someone LOST control you felt it would be tremendously difficult for them to get it back again. And while Omori was really good in conveying that struggle and the stakes of it all, Devil was exceptional. Her selling, her facial expressions, her body language, her aggression working from above, her grit and determination working from below, basically everything. It feels a little double-standardsy of me to have a go at Omori strikes when they're clearly treated and bought as being credible, especially when I'll have no issue with Giant Baba's chops or Tenryu's enziguris or even 2008 Shawn Michaels throwing chops, but the palm thrust things do not do a whole lot for me. I'll tell you what though, if you wanted to convince me these things were lethal then Devil Masami pretty well accomplished it. Early on you could tell they were something to be avoided and it made sense Devil would try and take that weapon out of play. When Omori misses a big overhand swing Devil zeroes in on working the arm, and even though that segment doesn't last for too long initially it does pay off later with a super dramatic closing stretch. The stuff that came before the arm work was kind of stop-start, but I did actually like the way they both traded a few big bombs out the gate before resetting. The reset being accompanied by a staredown where Devil looked disgusted and infuriated in equal measure was pretty cool too. There's an annoying bit of clipping in the first third that leaves us missing a transition, because at a certain point Devil is selling the hell out of her back and I wish we got to see how they built to that. Obviously Devil selling the hell out of her back is amazing. And then the match goes on and with every minute that passes, the weight upon Devil's shoulders grows heavier. She's desperate enough to swing a chair and maybe I'll take back what I said about Omori's palm strikes because her punching through a fucking folding chair was extremely cool. The last few minutes are pretty much Omori, bleeding from the arm but refusing to deviate, throwing her palm into Devil's face every time the latter runs into her. Devil will not stay down and the close-up shots of her deranged facial expressions as she gets up again and again are phenomenal. Even the way she tried to bridge out of that last pin was epic. A performance for the ages.
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