Mae Young Classic 2018 Episode 5

Toni Storm vs. Hiroyo Matsumoto

ER: This one kept having me and then losing me. I liked the first half for the most part, and the stretch lost me. I thought the strike exchange was weak, the weird rope running weaker, and Storm's selling and facials the weakest. When Toni cut the cutesy crap she was better, and she certainly has no problem eating tough suplexes, that nasty kneedrop to the stomach, or hard lariats to the neck. I like how heavy Storm bumps; she doesn't look super athletic when she bumps, which works well as it makes suplexes look harder and makes lariats look like she's running into a low tree branch. The early parts with wristlocks and headscissor escapes were more interesting than bad learned behavior rope running, or Matsumoto clumsily taking forever to do a old  powerbomb turned into a Boston Crab. She held Storm's legs awkwardly for way too long, and Storm basically had to hold still until Matsumoto turned it into a nice single crab. I really didn't think this had any decent flow, despite some good moments (and that's been a running theme of this tourney so far).

Kacy Catanzaro vs. Rhea Ripley

ER: This was really fun. Ripley has great presence, and her size reads bigger than she actually is (and no it's not just because she's against a tiny human). Most of Catanzaro's offense doesn't look too plausible against someone like Ripley, but I really liked how Ripley made it look plausible. She didn't take light headscissors as if she was getting launched across the ring, more took them as if they were knocking her off balance. It's always annoying when much larger opponents bump the same for every opponent regardless of size, and Ripley doesn't act like any of these moves are devastating, but sells them appropriately. Kacy does important things really well, and her tight roll up was maybe my favorite spot in the match, fully grapevining Ripley's leg before they had even rolled fully over, clamping Ripley's legs shut. It actually looked like something that could have finished the match. Ripley's power offense to take over was really fun, nice cocky suplexes, show off dropkicks, a cool standing Cloverleaf variation, and that match finishing Riptide was about as gif-worthy as things get. Catanzaro was mostly good at the stick and move stuff, got hung up a bit on that Mascarita Sagrada spinning DDT, but Ripley spiked herself nicely and had some good comedic flailing after. This was a fun one, and I'm glad Ripley advanced.

Taynara Conti vs. Lacey Lane

ER: I wasn't sure what they were going to do with this one, both being still pretty new. They kept it to a tight 150 seconds. It was kind of clumsy but in a fun way, throwing awkward knees, getting tossed by hair, Lane tying up Conti in kind of weird ways. Conti has some cool judo throws and it's awesome that WWE in 2018 has two women working judoka gimmicks. Lane's crucifix was nice and snug, looked like a pinfall. This was probably the quickest match of the tournament, but it was fun and effective.

Meiko Satomura vs. Mercedes Martinez

PAS: An absolute classic, maybe the best WWE Women's match of all time. Satomura is incredible, in the early chain wrestling sections she looked like the best wrestler in the world. The way she transitioned from a collar and elbow lock up into an armbar was intricate and flawless, the hammerlock into an armdrag, into an armbar with a knee on the neck this was simple stuff done as well as it can be done. Martinez looked good in those sections as well, not as crisp as Meiko, but the bit of grime worked well with her character. After getting out wrestled early, Martinez tries to turn it into a fight, and lays in with huge thudding shots, Meiko worked a dozen Aja Kong matches so isn't afraid to escalate the violence and we get some of the stiffest wrestling ever in a WWE branded ring. Thudding forearms, punishing kicks and knees the kind of thing that leave deep bruises which last for weeks. Martinez used her size and power really well, I loved that choke bomb, tons of force and Meiko landed poorly. The entire section where Martinez was fighting out of the Fujiwara armbar was great too, I loved how all the counter attempts were counter countered, until she finally is able to get a foot on the ropes. The finish run was great, I loved all of Mercedes's selling at the end, the limp collapse from the axe kick put over both the violence of the move and the fatigue of the war they were in.

ER: Hot damn I thought I had pretty high expectations for this one, and this completely demolished my expectations. This is definitely the best women's match in WWE history, and we have had some WWE women's matches pretty high on our MOTY list the past couple years. This had a totally different pace and structure than most WWE matches, and from a kayfabe perspective it was exciting as neither woman felt out of the match, always felt like one could feasibly end it. I don't check ahead on results so honestly had no idea who would be advancing, so I was going nuts down the stretch. Rachel was positive Mercedes was advancing, I was positive Meiko would be...but was getting swayed by Rachel, and Mercedes' strong showing. All the early moments were tough, nice headlocks, headscissors, Satomura looking like she could maneuver to north/south and transition to any single one of Mercedes' limbs with her eyes closed. Things ramped up for me when Satomura fired off two quick kicks to the chest to drop Martinez, then drops a knee right into her neck. Meiko's knees are absolutely terrifying; I hate things touching my neck, the thought of wearing a turtleneck makes me anxious (luckily I...don't often think about wearing turtlenecks, so I'm pretty safe), and Meiko was making me watch this match while covering my throat with my hands. I loved Mercedes fighting back, working a guillotine, coming at Meiko with hard strikes and uppercuts and slams, and I like how each momentum shift almost seems like a surprise, not a preordained thing. Each of their transitions back to offense didn't necessarily have a smooth flow, which benefitted them, as every time one would fight back it felt just like that - fighting back, not wanting to give up ground. Meiko starts putting on a clinic, reversing a fisherman's buster into an armbar, and that armbar looked worthy of finishing a match. And obviously that's what made all of this so great, that so much of it looked worthy of finishing the match, without ever once feeling like they were burning through actual finishers. Mike Awesome/Masato Tanaka matches also had a few dozen things that looked like finishers, but it was just guys hitting big moves and then getting up and taking big moves, like you were demoing finishers while making a bitchin' CAW. Here their moves look very worthy, but it always seems plausible when both escape or kickout.

Meiko's arm bar was one of the nastiest I've seen, totally expected that to end, but Mercedes kept rolling while also getting her arm bent straight behind her, Meiko great at starting the armbar at 3 and cranking it up to 9 the longer it was on, allowing the spot to build and breathe and not look silly that Mercedes wasn't tapping immediately. Meiko hits a heavy frog splash, big knees, and an absolutely spine shortening DDT. I loved how Martinez took that DDT, loved her forward crumple, her defeated child's pose. I certainly wasn't expecting a kickout after Meiko's cartwheel knee aimed to behead Martinez, and Martinez looked to drill Meiko through the mat when she finally hit her fisherman's buster (on the third overall attempt). Meiko's slumped over sell on the mat after kicking out was an awesome visual. Fully agree that Mercedes' selling was impressive, loved her dropping to a knee from fatigue, allowing Meiko to hit a low spin kick. The sell reminded me of one of my favorite's from last year, in the Cain Justice/Cecil Scott match, when Cain hits Scott with a big shot and Scott lurches forward before falling, his will to fight being a second ahead of his pain. This was a stone classic, and Meiko can do no wrong. I have no clue what exactly she will get out of Lane in the next round, but I can tell you at this point I'm not looking forward to anything else in the tournament more than that.

ER: Well, good luck to the rest of the people in the Mae Young Classic, you got some mighty shoes to fill. Who can credibly beat Meiko at this point? As you may have expected, that is one very easy, very high add to our 2018 Ongoing MOTY List.

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Mae Young Classic 2018 Episode 4

Rachel Evers vs. Hiroyo Matsumoto

ER: I thought this was cool. It got a lot of time for a 1st round match and was worked differently than all the other matches we've seen so far. For a crowd who was completely in the bag for Kairi Sane last year, and were clearly well aware of who Meiko was this year, Matsumoto didn't really get much of a reaction in this one. Evers was over huge with the local crowd, and it just made them really silent for Matsumoto, which was really surprising. I thought both looked good, liked Evers with an early shot to the shins and a nice low dropkick to the face; Matsumoto was pretty mean, dropped double knees to the stomach, both threw some hard shots and I especially liked their standing flat footed lariats, and the fans stayed really into Evers. Evers hit a nice senton and a cool twisting legdrop off the ropes. I wasn't expecting Evers to get the loss, but Matsumoto really did launch her with some big throws, a nice German, big powerbomb, and a vicious Saito suplex. This was good, probably best non-Meiko match of the 1st round.

Jessie Elaban vs. Taynara Conti

ER: Oh jeez, this is the first I'm seeing of Jessie Elaban and after that promo package I am one gigantic NOPE on her. Nobody at all needs that "I'm SUCH a NERRRRD!" try hard nonsense. "I'm such a klutz and nerd, I have these comically large glasses that I wear and I've seen THREE Star Wars movies! I'm attainable, and sometimes I just lie on my tummy and kick my legs in the air as if I was on my bed talking on the phone about boys I like!" I want Conti to snap her in half. And NO just in case anybody is thinking it, I have not ever had my heart broken by someone who would ever be considered "adorkable". This girl just immediately rubbed me the wrong way, like when Chili's tried to hip up their "baby back ribs" song. This woman has all the charm of a Kars 4 Kids jingle. But I liked the match. Elaban predictably didn't work at all like she described, but she had a cool high kick and a nice senton. Conti was real vicious in this, going after the arm in a few cool ways, bending it over the ring ropes, bending Elaban's wrist at rough angles, and slicing Elaban's finger webbing (finger crotch?) over the ropes. The arm stuff didn't really go anywhere, and Elaban didn't really acknowledge it much, but I liked the journey. Conti was pretty new last year, and she's made some nice strides. Aside from the arm work she had a couple of great judo throws, and a cool moment where she sidestepped Elaban and kind of hotshotted her, looked cool.

Nicole Matthews vs. Isla Dawn

ER: This had some good moments, but was also fairly messy. Some of the messiness worked, some of it made things look like a mess. I like Matthews as a kind of lesser Tessa Blanchard bully, though there were moments where set-up was clunky. Possibly Dawn's fault, not sure. Matthews has personality though, beyond "I'm going to win this tournament!" and that's important. Kicking at Dawn's back while talking trash gives her a little something the others don't have. I liked Dawn kicking Matthews' arm in the ropes, her Saito suplex looked good, Angle slam looked sloppy but effective, but this thing was all sorts of disjointed. The match ending Lion Tamer by Matthews looked good, but again, several things here looked good. There just wasn't really any kind of flow.

Xia Brookside vs. Io Shirai

ER: How the heck did I not do the math on who Brookside's dad was when I saw her last name? And this is somehow the first time he's seen her wrestle? That's...weird. Did they really say that? That makes no sense. This was an Io showcase but Brookside got a lot: Her forearms to start looked good, rattling hard into Shirai's collarbones, her chinbreaker looked good, she had no problem leaning into Shirai's strikes. Shirai came off like a star, but really a lot of her offense here was made by Brookside having no problem getting kicked or taking knees to the face. Even Shirai's match finishing moonsault came up a bit short, meaning Brookside took knees right to the gut. Shirai is good, and has a good chance of delivering in subsequent rounds, but Brookside has a ton of potential going forward and will no doubt be in NXT any day now.

ER: Second round starts next week, and I'm optimistic it will deliver some quality. After the Meiko match, most of the rest of the first round saw some good individual performances without there being many actual good matches. Evers/Matsumoto was a bright 1st rounder from tonight, probably the best non-Meiko match so far.

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2014 Ongoing Match of Year List

14. Meiko Satomura v. Hiroyo Matsumoto Fortune Dream 6/8

PAS: Always happy to see Meiko show up and this was a great example of what she brings to a match. I hadn't seen Matsumoto before, but she was very fun too. Really violent match with Matsumoto focusing on Satomura's stomach landing viscous double knees to the gut like she was trying to give her an in-ring hysterectomy. Meiko fired back with some nasty elbows and her cool pele kick and cartwheel knee. Really sort of a star making performance from Matsumoto as she overcame the veteran with just big bomb after big bomb. Happy to find some Joshi I dig

ER: Really fun, easily digestible match. I follow joshi less than any other type of wrestling, so I couldn't tell you whether or not this was a big storyline where the younger Matsumoto overcame the veteran Satomura. I assume Matsumoto has been at this for awhile though as a) she looked really good, and b) at no point did we get any sort of veteran bullying that you see in joshi (and Japan in general). The whole match was real snug and had some of my favorite grappling of the year (which is impressive since this is the year of Gulak). The grappling in this was all based around standing exchanges which all looked real impressive and added neat new things. I think we all got so used to the mechanical and rehearsed Dean Malenko style standing exchanges that it's not always as apparent to our brains just how rehearsed and pointless all of that really was. Here it actually looked like two equals battling for an upper hand, not necessarily through strength but with cool go behinds and just bending each other into odd standing positions. All of that stuff was really great and kind of unexpected, to me at least. We still got all sorts of stuff you'd expect, like some great on point kicks from Meiko, and some uterus crushing knees from Matsumoto. Meiko still has little ways of surprising me, and my favorite little "some guy should steal that" moment here was when she did a leg sweep to Matsumoto's shin. I don't think I've seen that before. Normally you do a leg sweep to literally sweep the legs out from someone, but this was just a stiff sweep right to the shin, buckling Matsumoto. Great stuff here.


2014 MOTY MASTER LIST

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