Sakie Hasegawa & Chaparrita ASARI vs. Leo Kitamura & Michiko Nagashima 5:19 of 9:28. Fast paced match. They tried, but it wasn’t any good. Sakie was the only one who had any idea what she was doing. The others were hopeless. ASARI did her hot moves, but looked green. Nagashima and Leo were rough. Leo missed the finish where she was supposed to cut off Sakie, so Sakie just stood like an idiot watching Nagashima finish off ASARI. *1/2

Manami Toyota vs. Carol Midori 2:50. Zenjo boycotted the opening ceremony and then buried the LLPW lower midcard in a bunch of egregious squash matches. I suppose this was passed off as turning the group heel for the big matches, but it was really just Zenjo sticking it to Rumi for being difficult to work with. It was more entertaining than the boring matches from 9/29. If we’re grading on the scale of obnoxiousness and humiliation, Toyota’s match won. She did her dumbest move, the stupid rolling cradle until she got tired, which took about 90 seconds, and won with it.

Kyoko Inoue vs. Mikiko Futagami 4:01. Futagami decided she was going to have a ‘real’ match with Kyoko, and tried to get her shit in, but no, that wasn’t happening. Kyoko put her right back in her place, stiffing her when she got the chance and embarrassing her, then beating her with an ordinary lariat and an arrogant cover to go with it. Carol didn’t deserve her embarrassment, but Futagami did.

Toshiyo Yamada vs. Yukari Osawa 1:41. This was the best of the squashes, despite Osawa being the worst worker, because Yamada actually worked with her. She took what Osawa had, and then beat her quickly.

Aja Kong vs. Miki Handa 4:16 of 6:38. Handa was the next lamb led to the slaughter. I’m not sure this was actually part of the burial procession, but it was another squash match all the same. Handa didn’t get much, but Aja gave her a nice little comeback towards the end. They probably would have been better off feeding Mizuki Endo to Aja and let Handa be involved in a real match.

~Elimination Battle Field~: Yumiko Hotta, Suzuka Minami, Etsuko Mita, Mima Shimoda & Numacchi vs. Eagle Sawai, Harley Saito, Noriyo Tateno, Yasha Kurenai & Mizuki Endo 17:39 of 26:39. The first of three ‘real’ matches on the show, and it was worth the wait. Really good fast-paced match that was laid out well, though it did go a little over the top with the booking. There were enough people in the match that the weaker wrestlers involved couldn’t drag it down. The majority of the 8 minutes clipped were before the first elimination (which came at 5:11, but the actual time was 11:27). Yasha and Endo were the first ones out, and Minami and Tateno were out soon after. That left it being Harley & Eagle vs. the entire Zenjo team minus Minami. They went for a few minutes, and Eagle eliminated the last four inside of a minute, which started with Numacchi nailing Hotta with a shovel of all things. It must have been a rib to have Numacchi be the final elimination. ***1/2

Bull Nakano & Takako Inoue vs. Shinobu Kandori & Utako Hozumi 14:38. Really heated an intense bout designed to build up Bull vs. Kandori, which it did a great job of. They barely interacted, but when they did, it was it was meaningful and memorable. In between it was mainly Takako vs. Hozumi, who had a good match themselves, no one cared much about it, but they weren’t really supposed to, and they did a good job in their holding role. The rest of the time, they just served as fodder for Bull and Kandori. The match probably doesn’t sound interesting, but it was due to the heat, intensity and the quality of everyones performances. They worked in a nice finish with Kandori repeatedly attempting to submit Takako and being saved by Bull. Bull broke up one attempt by dropping the leg on Kandori’s arm, which got Takako a nice near fall with Hozumi breaking up the pin, but she eventually got caught in a wakigatame and submitted before Bull could get over to break it up. ****

Hair vs. Hair Death Match: Akira Hokuto vs. Rumi Kazama 13:47. Hokuto’s first and only match in LLPW, and it took a hair match to get her in there. I believe the hair stipulation was originally being saved for the Hokuto vs. Kandori rematch, but when Hokuto decided to retire if she lost, they didn’t need it to sell tickets anymore, and there wasn’t much else that could have made Hokuto vs. Kazama II particularly interesting. Within one move you knew where we were going. Hokuto did a backbreaker on her bad knee, so Rumi sold her back huge and Hokuto sold her knee like she blew it out again. Comparing to their first match, that one had more action, but this was better in the sense that it was a bit more dramatic, and had Hokuto stepping more into the heel role (although half the fans were Zenjo fans anyway, so she didn’t get any heat for it), showing more disdain and arrogance than we’d seen from her in her recent matches. Her arrogance cost her, and Kazama came back attacking the bad leg. Hokuto’s selling was so good, and Kazama was good enough in her role that they actually made her credible by the end of the match, and perhaps even more than that until a missing diving senton put a stop to her run. It was mainly one way traffic from there, with Hokuto eventually ending it with a sleeper. The haircut angle wasn’t much. Hokuto didn’t even care enough to cut any of Kazama’s hair, or even stick around for the haircut itself. ***1/4

Best Joshi Puroresu Matches YouTube Playlist