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[1998-01-15-GAEA] Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda vs Meiko Satomura & Sonoko Kato


Loss

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  • 1 month later...

LCO get ambushed at the start which is a change of pace. They come back quickly and start brawling throughout Korakuen. Highlights include a piledriver through the table to Kato. kato takes a brutal beating and is bleeding badly. Meiko gets the tag in and is going crazy but she is quickly beat down and bloody too. The plucky upstarts try to fight fire with fire vs. LCO but they get shut down at every corner. LCO is even picking them up on counts to inflict more punishment. A double stomp from LCO with a chair makes the ref refuse to count. LCO responds by beating the shit out of her. After watching my 1997 footage, I was waiting for LCO to interject the guardrail into the match and here it comes. Meiko was really good in this match I think and doing little bursts of hope. It happens in sucession with her armbar from the top rope and then her DVD that MIta has to make the save on. LCO starts taking this match more serious and realizes they are now in a legit fight. The final 5-6 minutes feature a lot of nearfalls and good combination moves. LCO is finally able to put the upstarts away with a moonsault from Shimoda. This match had a few lulls but I love pluckly upstarts and vicious heel tag teams so overall, the match worked for me on a lot of levels. (***3/4)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, this was a war with great selling and action and lots of blood. I really like Satomura and Kato as a tag team and thought they did a great job getting over the stakes of this. I wish the LCO hadn't pulled in the weapons because the match was going swimmingly just focused on the wrestling and I thought they cheapened it a little. I liked the story of the LCO being overconfident and doing nonchalant covers, only to realize as the match went on that they needed to take it more seriously.

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  • 2 weeks later...

You had a strong heel vs face dynamic. The Gaea girls were smaller, less experienced, lower ranked and bleeding. The heels were hell raising outsiders who cheated a lot. That ticks plenty of boxes.

 

Plenty of fun moments from my favourite tag team. They had the majority of the offence yet it wasn't too one sided. The youngsters showed strong spirit on their comebacks, and provided a sterner test than LCO were anticipating. The upset didn't feel inconceivable. Not at the level of the top Orientales matches from the era, but one of their highlights in GAEA.

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  • 1 year later...

I thought this was really a MOTYC level match. Both teams played their roles really well with their style of work and selling. Kato and Satomura were especially great really in everything they did here, their runs of offense really had a great feel of an underdog implausibly stringing together some big hits against a higher ranked opponent. I liked the inclusion of some weapons and crowd brawling, added some intensity to what was already an intensely worked match. LCO both hitting the faces with big dives that took them both out was a great spot. A big run of believable nearfalls toward the end, each swing of momentum I bought as the finish.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Pretty good match--I was sort of going to dismiss the drama because I didn't really feel like there was a chance LCO could lose, but they managed to pull me in down the stretch anyway with a few isolated but well-timed hope spots by the GAEA team. I agree the weapons are a little overdone but LCO are just such gigantic cunts in this from the opening bell that it doesn't exactly kill the match either. Satomura is still probably my favorite of the GAEA-bred girls and I hope there's more of her in '98 and '99--her desperate, fired-up comeback attempts remain awesome and she throws about 500 forearm smashes that are just as awesome and satisfying as any Flair chop or Lawler punch. And her managing to drop Mita with her own Death Valley Bomb and Shimoda having to take out the ref to prevent a pin was the best highspot of the match and the moment where this turned for me. There's some sloppiness down the stretch and some lulls in the middle that keep this from being a high-end match of the year but this was about as enjoyable as any AJW match from 1997.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 year later...

I've seen way too many LCO brawls, but this was a good one. Satomura & Kato get bloodied and knee'd in the face a bunch which is far better than the usual hair pulling shit. Satomura's fire just dwarved Kato. On the other hand I thought the match was way too long and they shoed in too much back and forth stuff. Also, the way the Mini Chigusas got in position for the LCO dives was cringeworthy. Cool match.


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  • GSR changed the title to [1998-01-15-GAEA] Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda vs Meiko Satomura & Sonoko Kato

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