I figured this would be a lot more hokey than it was. Actually it wasn't really hokey at all! I'd never seen any of the Devil Masami super heel stuff before and to be honest the concept sounded kind of stupid, but I guess if anybody can pull off some method actor Undertaker nonsense then it's Devil Masami. Her offence was more methodical than usual and she really took her time inflicting some misery on Ozaki, who is just the right sort of fucking psychopath to eat all of it and bump around wildly. Devil was kitted out in all black, her hair long and covering her face a bit like yer girl from The Ring, and all of the stone-faced expressions just worked for me. She would do the sit-up spot but as time went on it looked like each one was a little harder earned, her IMPERVIOUSNESS being chipped away at. She'd even do the standing choke spot where she picks Ozaki up by the throat and walks around with her, which she topped with her gorilla press spot where Ozaki looked like she weighed less than a straw dummy. For her part, I thought Ozaki was really great here and this wouldn't have worked nearly as well without her performance being what it was. When she tried to fight back early she resorted to outright biting Devil in the face and then tried to chew her toes off. Everything felt desperate, like you'd expect from someone trying to fight an unkillable monster. After Devil practically powerbombed her out the ring Ozaki smashed a chair over her head and tried to choke her over the barricade using the broken chair frame as a collar. Then there were points where she knew the best course of action was to simply run away. If Devil had been watching the Undertaker and decided she wanted to try her hand at being a zombie herself then who's to say Ozaki never studied the works of Damien Demento or the Repo Man? If Kamala was terrified of being put in a casket then Ozaki was every bit as determined not to be walloped by Devil's big stick, so she just bolted into the bleachers while Devil stalked her down swinging at nothing, even cracking the referee in the shin when she wandered too close. As soon as Devil got fed up and threw the stick away you'd have bet the house on Ozaki trying to jump her, and when she did you'd have gone and bet the car on Devil throwing Ozaki into the bleachers. Devil's selling of vulnerability in the back half was really cool and Ozaki trying to tear her arm off makes as much sense as anything else would in the situation she found herself in. You wondered if she might even have a chance when Devil expressed some actual pain, her face half covered with paint and scraggly hair as it was. Devil ripping Ozaki into three powerbombs was feral stuff and the ending with her trying to basically choker her to death was brutal. Ozaki's lifeless selling was sort of harrowing; maybe the most impressive thing about a generally very impressive performance. Maybe after all these years I'm a Mayumi Ozaki fan.
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