2014 Ongoing Match of the Year List

Kana v. Meiko Satomura Kana Produce 2/25

PAS: Super weird setup where the entire match was under a blue light and accompanied by guy performing on a Kokyu (a traditional Japanese string instrument), with Kana in weird face paint.  It had the feel of the kind of thing an Asian art museum would put on. I have a friend who works at Freer Sackler, I should pitch it to her as a traveling exhibit. Match itself was the quality we expect from this matchup. I love Kana as the Mickey Knuckles to Yuki Ishikawa's Ian Rotten, and this was the best BattlArtsy match of the year by far. I loved the nastiness of all the kicks and forearms, and the really cool jujitsu chokes that both girls worked into. The oddness of the presentation added to the feel of it, although it felt more like a cool novelty than an elite match. Still a total blast, and something I am going to really remember fondly at the end of the year.

ER: This was weird in a good, good way. I am a big Ali Farka Toure fan and the Kokyu style of play does not seem too dissimilar to his old African fingerpicking style. But this also wasn't TOO weird for me as sometimes I just don't care about commentary and will put on music as I watch wrestling on mute.   If you already listen to Tinariwen while watching wrestling then listening to a man play a Kokyu while watching wrestling won't seem too out of this world. This also feels like an appropriate match for Phil and I to review as we saw The Mountain Goats do a live score of a silent era Swedish film, we both dug the weird Jeff Jarrett/Dutch Mantel PBS orchestra match from the Memphis set, so watching two assbeaters get the live score treatment seems within our wheelhouse. And I think this totally works as both awesome match, and as weird performance art. As the action heated up as the match wore on, the Kokyu started playing faster and faster, and as I watched I noticed myself actually buying into the tension more because of it, getting more and more into each submission attempt. I wouldn't have even guessed I would actually be affected by a live score, yet there I was, totally buying into it. The match was as good as you would expect given these two, and I really loved Kana here. She had some badass reversals, like catching a Pele kick while falling back into a grapevined ankle lock, and even more killer catching a Meiko kick behind her back, and then ducking under it while still holding it to transition into a German. It looked like the first time you saw World of Sport and were captivated by their foreign movements. They wrench in all their nasty chokes and I loved the struggle for the finishing triangle. I would have dug this whole thing without the Kokyu, but I genuinely got more into it because of that. This was the coolest list fusion of art with asskickery.


2014 MOTY MASTER LIST