Fabi did all the offense shown, pinning Mari with this really cool version of the nadare shiki no kaiten ebigatame. As is the case with many of the highlights on the Complete ARSION tapes, too little is shown to tell anything about the match

16:27 (0:45 shown)

THE SECOND STARDOM: Michiko Omukai (2-2) vs. Mikiko Futagami (3-1-1)

For some reason, they reset all the records at the start of the new year like it was a new baseball season. To me, it's not good to do things that erase the past. The good thing about resetting the records is a wrestler like Omukai, who got her first push this year, looked a lot more impressive without all those losses from 1998 next to her name. Unfortunately, by the time her record was looking impressive they were already giving up on trying to be different than the other women's promotions and the concept of providing records (adopted from shoot promotions) was scraped.

As far as the match goes, these two did a lot of stiff strikes, no-selling most. Omukai pushed Gami once again, but at this point she still couldn't get over the hump and beat her. For Omukai, it was neither a progression nor a regression.

10:11 (1:28 aired)

THE THIRD STARDOM: Yumi Fukawa (0-3) vs. Mariko Yoshida (2-0)

Fukawa was off to her typically rip-roaring start once again, coming into her biggest challenge of the new year without a single win. I did not expect her to beat Yoshida yet, but you have to feel sorry for her because no matter how good she got, and it eventually got to the point where she was the most entertaining wrestler in the promotion (although Yoshida is better, she hasn't done her new style since losing the QOA and is not nearly as interesting as a semi conformist) she still never got meaningful singles wins. Yoshida eventually put her over in late '99, but in typical ARSION fashion that propelled Fukawa to exactly nothing.

Yoshida had begun to loosen her style up by this point. This isn't a surprise given the opponent at this time period, but if they would have stuck with Yoshida's style, I don't think it would have been that long before Yoshida would not have needed to loosen her style. I realize that the rest of the league wasn't as driven to learn the style as Fukawa, but in a little more than a year after the inception of ARSION, Fukawa went from a rope escaper with no counters to someone that could nearly match Yoshida in her own style.

In the short run, Yoshida's alterations were definitely for the the better because the match was a little "more exciting" and had enough convention that even her worst opponents weren't totally out of their element. I wish they showed this whole match because what aired was excellent and their rematch at ARS '99, which was actually shown in its entirety, was one of the best women's matches of the year. Instead, we got a little more than two minutes of smooth, fast action before Yoshida put Yumi away with her air raid crash. The only thing that bothered me about this match was that Fukawa came close to getting a draw, which would be a big accomplishment for her, but they didn't play that up at all.

Keith: This Fukawa vs. Yoshida match looked pretty awesome! The highlight was Fukawa doing this crazy rope walk move that she inverts into a headscissors and flips Yoshida! She's gotten so good.

14:35 (2:11 shown)

THE FINAL STARDOM: Ayako Hamada & Mika Akino vs. Rie Tamada & Hiromi Yagi

It's hard to say if this match was any good because they only presented random highlights. My guess is that it wasn't. Akino should have pinned Tamada here since she had a shot at the QUEEN OF ARSION later in the night that she REALLY NEEDED credibility for. I mean, this is about the simplest booking point I can think of, especially considering the title match was in the same building, but it just goes right over their heads. If there was a reason Akino couldn't pin one of the tag champs to set up a shot at those belts, then they should have put her in with someone "meaningful" that she could pin. In any case, Tamada used her Dragon suplex hold to pin Ayako. The finish was important because it was near the beginning of the departure from the original ARSION style where they tried to erase their past and be successful at different things to the new ARSION style where, at best, they try to be a better version of the same style of women's wrestling we see in most of the other joshi leagues.

18:33 (2:36 shown)

Special thanks to: Keith Watanabe - Joshi Puroresu