|
|
JWP Nintei Musabetsukyu Senshuken
Jiai Hikari Fukuoka vs. Azumi Hyuga From Battle Station JWP 3/10/99 Taped 2/28 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (1,500) |
|
|
This is a hard match to know what to think of. The purpose of the match was for Hikari to turn the league over to Azumi, but Hikari wasn't really accepted as a champion and Azumi was a long way behind Hikari when it came to credibility. "This match did nothing to help Azumi's credibility at all. Everyone knew that Hikari was going to lose, so why did it take 6 or 7 Michinoku driver II's to pin her? It was nice to let her go out strong (not that this was her last match), but not at the expense of killing your new champion's finisher in the process. A couple of early kick-outs were good because Azumi was still strong selling the footstomp but it got ridiculous by the end," wrote Michael. I think that one of the problems is Azumi lacks innovation. There are hundreds of ways to aggravate a neck injury, but all Azumi could think of was the same one over and over. She should have watched Misawa vs. Akiyama 1/26/98 and lifted some of Jun's neck attack. That said, it shouldn't take rolling out a series of new moves like Akiyama did, age old moves that have been devalued would have worked just fine as long as they did damage to the weakened area. It was obvious that Hikari had to lose here, but that just left you with the feeling that Azumi lucked into the title. This match really added to that feeling because Azumi is fragile and she was hurt less than halfway through. The match basically fell apart from there when it came to making it look like Azumi deserved the title. "I agree somewhat with this. I think Azumi did a great job of selling the aforementioned footstomp, but Hikari getting that many breaks had you just wanting the match to end already, and made Tomoko look like shit," wrote Michael. I agree about wishing the match would end, but I felt that Azumi's credibility was already so far out the window that Hikari may as well have won the match. There just came a point before the Michinoku driver madness where Azumi winning the match couldn't really be acceptable, so it was like they may as well have cut their losses and tried again next month. I know that doesn't make any sense in the grand scheme of things because there really was no next month, but that shows just how far this match went awry before Azumi made her unbelievable (in a bad sense because it was ridiculous) comeback and Hikari killed whatever credibility Azumi had left by kicking out left and right. "Agreed, but then we're assuming that she actually had any credibility going in. In any case, all this match did was kill Azumi dead when it should've established her as the company's top star," wrote Michael. As is always the case with these two, nothing worthwhile happened during the first few minutes. Suddenly, Hikari started doing flying moves like a moonsault attack, but Azumi stopped her huracanrana with a powerbomb. They did some good teases of their big moves and were stiffer than normal. Azumi hitting her nadare shiki no doublearm suplex before 6:00 seemed out of place, but these two were never known for their smarts. Azumi did follow it up by trying to beat Hikari with a locomotion German suplex. This led to Azumi trying to kill Hikari's neck with a spider German suplex (German suplex off the top where the person doing the move hooks their legs in the ropes so instead of taking a bump into the ring, they can do a sit-up and then jump off the top rope at their opponent), and then trying her victory star drop finisher when that wouldn't work. "The bump Hikari took on the spider German was pretty sick. Even Konnan didn't dump Juvi that bad when he used the same move at Uncensored '97" wrote Michael. "All of the spots up to this point where really well executed and great to look at, but like you said they didn't really mean anything, and that drives me nuts," wrote Jason. Hikari & Azumi don't have enough charisma to get by on work alone, but for some reason no one in JWP ever figured that out. Instead, they built the whole promotion around trying to get by on work alone. Hikari wound up knocking Azumi off the top and then delivered the moonsault footstomp that injured Azumi. We all know the moonsault footstomp is a nasty finisher, but it didn't seem any nastier than usual. In any case, this knocked all the wind out of Azumi. "It looked like she may not have protected herself right, but the effect it had on her was one of the few believable things about this match," wrote Michael. The problem is Hikari had done the move a zillion times before and no one was ever hurt nearly as much, so Azumi just seemed like a chump. "Azumi getting hurt during the match where she was winning the belt really hurt the credibility of the title because once she got hurt it was clear that Hikari 'could have won' anytime she wanted. Hikari stalled so much that the issue of Azumi winning looked forced to the point that it really destroyed the match," wrote Jason. She rolled to the floor and kneeled there curled up in a ball holding her stomach while the seconds and Masatoshi Yamamoto huddled around her to make sure she could continue. Azumi was out there forever. She finally beat the 20 count at 16 even though she had been out of the ring for 1:50. The important thing was that she was able to continue, but she still wasn't recovered enough to really do anything. Hikari had to beat on her without pinning her for several minutes while Azumi tried to recover. This pretty much killed Hikari's credibility, not that it mattered much at this point. "You are right about Fukuoka's credibility not mattering much at this point, but the whole sequence also killed the title's credibility, and that is far more important than Fukuoka's," wrote Jason. "The match would have been much more effective had Azumi been able to damage Hikari like this and then pinned her a couple of minutes later. Instead of stretching it to 19 minutes, the match would have been better if it went around 15," wrote Michael. Hikari was pretty vicious in attacking Azumi's stomach, except she would wait for Azumi to start to get up before she did another move. This was good improv for the psychology of the match, but Azumi was really hurting and this wasn't helping her recover. Hikari got several near falls with Azumi kicking out at 2 1/2 then really slowly trying to get back to her feet until Hikari laid in another shot to the gut. "It's weird that Hikari would suddenly figure out that she needed to use some psychology in her match," wrote Jason. I don't think she had any choice because you can't really do the typical jumping around when your opponent is barely moving. Hikari did another moonsault footstomp at 12:30 that should have ended the match, except Hikari had to lose. There wasn't that much she could do at this point because she was going to kill off her offense if she kept doing moonsaults and the like since Azumi would have to keep kicking out. Hikari wound up kind of waiting around for Azumi to counter, although she was trying not to make it too obvious. "I don't think Hikari *had* to lose here. She could easily have retired as champion or dropped the belt in another defense. Most people were *expecting* her to job the title to Azumi," wrote James. Hikari couldn't have retired as champion because they didn't have anyone that was over or credibility to replace her. If they were going to have Hikari retire as champion, they may as well have just folded the promotion since they would be left with two old wrestlers and a bunch of women that couldn't beat Cuty and Hikari. I don't think they could have held the title change off any longer because they only had a few shows in March. The only notable one was the Hikari retirement where they had already announced Hiichans vs. Bolshoi & Amano & Azumi. They needed as many people as possible to see Azumi beat Hikari, so it would not have made sense to have the title change in a dark match at Tokyo JWP Hall. "I can't see any point in letting Hikari retire with the title. If you were worried about people knowing ahead of time that she was losing to Azumi then you either book the match in a way to trick them or you book a title match (before this match took place but not actually before this match) between Hikari and Kansai for March, making most people believe Kansai was getting the belt back. What you don't do is let Hikari and Azumi go out there and kill each other's credibility because neither can carry a match," wrote Michael. If they were worried about protecting Hikari, they could have booked a gauntlet so it would have been really difficult for her to retire as champion. In this manner, she'd have to defend the title against the top 4-5 women in the promotion (probably excluding Devil since she doesn't seem to count anymore when it comes to singles title matches) in order to retire as champion. This would make her successor less obvious and it would make Hikari a sympathetic figure because they were being so tough on her. I wouldn't have her run through all my wrestlers though. I'd just have her beat Kana since she is so far away from having any real credibility that one more loss wouldn't be any big deal. You could have Kansai as the last challenger so she'd be in the stopper role, but Azumi would beat Hikari well before it came to that, setting up Azumi vs. Kansai in a title match with Azumi going over so she'd actually have a chance to be the promotions top star. I like my scenario, but I think yours would work better because it might lead to people thinking that anyone in the gauntlet (aside from Kana if she was the first opponent) could win the belt," wrote Michael. Azumi finally came back with one of her pathetic Michinoku driver II's, but still didn't have it in her to go on offense. Azumi pretty much did nothing but Michinoku driver II's for the rest of the match, which was really not a good thing because she can barely lift a wrestler as "big" as Hikari and she didn't drop Hikari on her head or neck because she was afraid that would hurt her. "I think part of the problem was that Azumi was really hurt from the moonsault footstomp (like when she stayed outside for 2 minutes), but as the match went on it looked more like she was overselling her stomach than that she was really hurt. Unless she broke a rib, all Hikari's stomp would have done is knock the wind out of her, so her still being barely able to move 5 or 6 minutes after she got back in the ring wasn't as believable. Maybe she didn't just scoop Hikari up and plant her because she was still partially selling the injury? At least you can make a half-assed excuse here that, since Azumi was hurt, it lessened the effective of her Michinoku driver II, resulting in Hikari being able to kick out of it 70 or 80 times in a row," wrote Michael. They did do a great job of putting over the moves, but that was because they weren't selling for the most part, as Hikari seemed legitimately injured after landing on her neck taking Azumi's spider German suplex. Azumi then basically missed with a destiny hammer and did another one that I guess hit before Hikari ducked the third and got a near fall turning a Michinoku driver II into a small package. Azumi stayed in control though and got a near fall with a Michinoku driver II then did another one for the win. Hikari failed in her 7th title defense, so Azumi became the 5th champion. Hikari did a good job of working the stomach injury into the match, but the match broke down when Azumi had to go on offense because she was too hurt to do much of anything. Furthermore, the one move she did over and over never looked smooth or convincing, so the later part of the match just didn't work. Hikari wasn't a good champion from any standpoint, but Azumi wasn't booked in a manner where she could come close to reaching Hikari's level, and this match was so debacled that it looked like she should be bowing to Hikari with the "I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy" instead of taking her title. "God almighty did that movie suck ass, but you're correct in saying that this match killed Azumi's reign before it even started (not that the Yamamoto's did much but further bury it once she actually had the belt)," wrote Michael. The worthless prattle Mike Myers went on to make, So I Married An Axe Murderer, Wayne's World 2 (not unredeemable bad, but exceptionally goofy), 54, and the two Austin Powers, Wayne's World seems like an all-time classic. The post match seemed to be about loss rather than about moving forward. Hikari, Azumi, Yu-Yu, Amano, and Kana were all crying, but not in joy for Azumi, in sadness over Hikari's impending retirement. "Kana's looked forced and her pissed off facial proved that, I think. Maybe it's just that she almost always looks pouty, but she didn't seem as overwrought with emotion as everyone else. Of course, that's part of what made her my favorite JWP worker... Maybe the emotion was pity for Azumi because I can't see how you could be happy for her winning the title in this manner," wrote Michael. The match brought closure to Hikari's reign, but didn't spark any interest in the promotion starting anew. I thought it would be a triumphant moment when Tomoko Kuzumi finally won the title, but it was just too obvious that she wasn't ready to carry the promotion. "JWP wasn't expecting Azumi to carry the promotion. Back in 1997, I don't think they were really expecting Hikari to either. Since JWP opened in 1992, the stars of the show have always been Devil, Kansai and possibly Ozaki and Cuty to a lesser extent. With interpromotional matches this year, it was always Kansai that was protected and not Azumi. The fact that JWP let Kyoko squash Azumi like a jobber at the end of the tag match on June 26,1999 pretty much shows that they have no faith in her as champion," wrote James. I totally disagree that they weren't expecting Hikari to carry the promotion back in 1997. The were the #2 women's promotion in the world at this point, and they passed over Ozaki who had recently defeated Chigusa to devote the entire promotion to Hikari for two years. She simply couldn't get over as a top star, and their inability to get her any meaningful wins outside of a split with Kyoko was part of that. In regards to Devil, for years they've protected her rather than pushed her. The few notable interpromotional matches that she's had in the 90's against her 80's rivals and were held outside of JWP. I don't think JWP has wanted to push Kansai for the past few years, but she's the only wrestler they have that anyone else has interest in having a "big" match with. The series with Neo seemed like two promotions very desperate to try to make money, but JWP came off as the more desperate of the two because Azumi means a lot more to them than Genki means to Neo. "If the token win Azumi had over Kansai had been more decisive and in a title defense, Azumi would surely have been elevated by it. I guess the reason Azumi didn't get a clean as a sheet win over Kansai was because they didn't want it to seem like Azumi had surpassed Kansai for whatever reason. This brings back the point that if they have no faith in her as the top star, she shouldn't be champion. Azumi doing a job to Command Bolshoi on November 14 was something else I saw little point in, especially as it didn't lead to Bolshoi getting a title shot or anything like that," wrote James. It lead to Bolshoi being in the #1 contenders match against Yu-Yu that headlined their 11/29 Tokyo Korakuen Hall show. It didn't lead to Bolshoi getting a title shot because she was defeated by Yu-Yu, who went on to defeat Azumi. "I think it's mostly just that the Yamamoto's book as bad as the Matsunaga's and Jd'. As for her and Kansai, I think they try to keep Kansai as strong as possible since she's the only one who means anything to the other promotions, but you have to worry about your own group first and Azumi not getting booked properly killed her chances of meaning anything as a drawing card dead before she was even given a chance," wrote Michael. Having a champion that hasn't beat the top star can work. For instance, Kobashi getting the title from Taue even though he'd never beaten Misawa or Kawada wasn't a terrible move. Had Kobashi pinned one of those two in a title defense, he would have achieved more than one accomplishment against these guys at once, and this would have been a waste unless the idea was to try to elevate Kobashi over one or both of those two, which at that point would have been a mistake. However, All Japan still had a great deal of popularity at this point, and they were still able to sellout Budokan with Kobashi on top (but the January match where Kobashi lost the title to Misawa was pretty much a flop at the box office even though it turned out to be a match of the decade candidate), so it helped Kobashi without doing any harm to the wrestlers above him or the promotion. I think part of the problem with JWP booking is they still subscribe to the large wrestler can't lose decisively hogwash. That is okay when the smaller wrestlers have credibility and are really over, like when the Crush Gals would get flukish wins of Dump with a schoolboy or the like. It isn't okay when the smaller wrestlers don't have credibility and aren't really over, which is JWP's situation. I agree that this win didn't do nearly as much for Azumi as it should have because it came off like she just got lucky. "I agree with your big vs. small theory, but when your promotion is full of small girls and your two big girls are far beyond driven past their prime then it's time to try a new idea. JWP not changing with the times led them to where they are now," wrote Michael. Yeah, if they hadn't lost all their talent and didn't forget how to book, they might have ascended to the top when AJW fell apart instead of slowly descending to the bottom and winding up needing to be saved by the promotion that almost went out of business three years earlier because they were so badly in debt. "You know how much I love these two, but your **1/4 is a generous rating. Knowing what we do and how we feel about the match, *1/2 seems like a fairer rating to me," wrote Michael. I think from a non-worked standpoint, the injury made the match really good until it got stupid that Hikari couldn't pin Azumi even though Azumi was so far gone. Azumi having to come back and win, and the whole abuse of the Michinoku driver II is what killed the match and made it a total failure. Up until Azumi's comeback, the moves were all well done and the selling was excellent because it was mainly legit. Under different circumstances, if the match would have ended at the 10 minute mark with Hikari going over we might have raved about what this match did for Hikari's finisher. The last few minutes were really inept though, with Azumi rising from the dead and poorly executing Michinoku driver II after Michinoku driver II with all the annoying kickouts that failed to create any semblance of drama. On a scale of 1-10, this match was a 1 as far as what it did to move the promotion forward, but aside from that it was fairly entertaining. Special thanks to: Michael Smith, Jason Higgs, & James Phillips- Japanese Women's Wrestling 19:16
|
|
