soup23 Posted May 5, 2017 Report Share Posted May 5, 2017 I was really looking forward to this match. Yu Yu has been impressive so far and even Toyota herself has been on point and reigned in for her standards. This starts furiously with a handshake being turned into a Toyota onslaught. Tons of Germans and big bombs has Yu Yu reeling and her grappling skills that she does possess are going to be ancillary in this match. She shows some good resilience in firing back and regaining control. Yu Yu targets the midsection and I surmise this is a strong strategy to perhaps get Toyota winded as her stamina is certainly one of her strengths overall. Toyota is extra vicious in this match fish hooking Yu Yu when she has her in the camel clutch. She also grabs at the hair and counts along with the ref until she breaks at the last second. This is some Daniel Bryan ROH title run shit as she is stretching Yu Yu around with submissions. A big time staredown happens with both women realizing they are in a big time fight. Toyota offers a test of strength. Yu Yu brekas this with a cheapshot and gets her in ghte corner where she continues to go after the midsection of Toyota. Now she pulls at the hair of Toyota and slaps her forehead in an insulting manner. Toyota bites her leg to break that up. Toyota controls the next section and is a prick hitting missile dropkicks and doing her clap routine in a saracastic manner. A rolling cradle gets a nearfall too. It is weird in an AJW ring to be cheering for the outside in Yu Yu but she certainly is the sympathetic person of this match. Toyota gets greedy and misses a dropkick through the ropes and to the outside. Yu Yu seizes the opening throwing Toyota into chairs and the announce table. Toyota comes back and does the same. She also hits another German on the outside. In an unfortunate moment, Toyota trips up top and goes spilling to the outside in a scary scene. Yu Yu hits a few kicks but it appears Toyota is legit hurt with her arm. The match halts as they check in on her. The referee has to pop her shoulder back into place. Toyota continues and Yu Yu continues her attack. I don’t think that was planned but it is a rare instance where a botch helps the match as now we have another wrinkle of storyline and Yu Yu is not shying away from attacking the injured area. Crowd heat finally gets better here with Yu Yu running through a bunch of suplexes and throws to a nearfall. She goes for an armbar and Toyota frantically gets to the ropes. Toyota is finally able to gain a little distance and attacks in a hurried pace hitting a dive to the outside and even doing her jumping dive which is impressive on one arm. Missile dropkick from the top to the floor! Moonsault back on the inside gets a really close nearfall. Yu Yu has the look of someone that had the golden key in front of her and now sees that slipping away. She gives one more go at it with a kick to the midsection but then gets caught in a tiger suplex variation. Another dropkick from the middle rope and Yu Yu has to put her foot on the rope to break the pin. Toyota gets the Ocean Cyclone Suplex and wins the match becoming a hero again fighting through the shoulder. Awesome match. ****1/4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted September 17, 2017 Report Share Posted September 17, 2017 Ran Yu Yu gets a shot at the Big Red Belt. That's cool. She looks out of her depth to start with. Toyota had this habit as she got older of channeling the same bitch mode as Mima Shimoda and Takako Inoue. She treated Ran like a lower rung opponent and unfortunately Ran didn't have much of a reply to it. Then there was the botch. Now we've all seen Manami Toyota blow spots, but I can't recall anything that looked as painful as the botch here. It was hard to know how hurt she really was but it changed the complexion of the match completely. Suddenly, Ran was on the attack and the match was much more focused. Toyota favored her arm throughout the remainder of the bout, and if you know anything about Toyota you'll know she's not that good at sustaining her selling. Despite working with one arm, the injured stretch was by far the best part of the match. I can't imagine the finishing stretch being anything out of the ordinary if Toyota hadn't wrecked her shoulder, The one arm dives weren't exactly heroic but they were memorable. Ran ended up being overshadowed by the injury but she was too much of an unknown quantity to begin with. The match was more interesting than good but it picked up once Toyota got hurt. She wrestled again the following night so I guess she was all right. When I was a kid we used to call that "axing" yourself, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laney Posted September 20, 2017 Report Share Posted September 20, 2017 This was a decent enough match that really picked up when Toyota botched a dive and nailed her shoulder on the apron. They were both able to work very smartly and incorporate that spot into the match as this allowed Ran to really get onto the offensive. Toyota did a great job here of fighting through the pain to gain a heroic victory here. Overall I thought this was an above average match that slightly gets elevated from the uniqueness of the botched spot that was incorporated into the fabric of the story here. ***3/4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drew wardlaw Posted January 11, 2018 Report Share Posted January 11, 2018 One thing that really stood out here were the momentum shifts in the match, particularly the first one where Yu Yu finally gets an advantage and starts working over Toyotas midsection and the one after Toyotas dive. I really enjoyed this, and I liked how Toyota portrayed herself as the AJW stalwart against the outsider, even if Yu Yu was working more as a babyface. Very cool dynamic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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