Hikaru Shida vs Aja Kong
We already know the result here. The question is when and how?
Ray and Leon vs A*Y*U*M*I and Noki-A
Noki-A is just AKINO and her parner is Ayumi Kurihara. Not that it wasn't obvious.
Noki-A got the pin on Ray here. She was sitting on Ray's chest, Ray's partner went to dropkick Noki and Noki pulled Ray up to get hit instead. This was decent but it was 11:09 and we only got about 6 minutes of it. It wasn't bad, but it was all flying and nothing really to it besides that. I still think Ray is hurt, but I don't really have any proof on it. At worst, this was something different.
Sareee and Nao Komatsu vs Manami Toyota and Meiko Satomura
Yeah, some young girls are going to be paying some dues here.
Manami Toyota is rocking the AKB48 hairstyle! |
Poor Nao Komatsu gets injured after a Toyota tope on her. Hope she will be okay. |
Elimination Match -Chikayo Nagashima, Carlos Amano, Sonoko Kato and Tsubasa Kuragaki vs Mio Shirai, Hiroyo Matsumoto, Tomoka Nakagawa and Yumi Ohka
Chikayo took out Ohka seconds in with a hurricanrana.
Carlos gets eliminated |
Nakagawa got Tsubasa with a pin soon after.
Sonoko eliminated Nakagawa with the Crown Gate.
Hiroyo got the win for her team at 20:34 after Sonoko couldn't make the count. It was a good match, especially for Oz Academy, with lots of action and moves, little goofy stuff and some drama. Very good effort by everyone but I wish they would have spaced the eliminations out a little more. Still good though and I think some people will really get into this and probably enjoy it more than me. I still enjoyed it though, don't get me wrong. Rating:***1/4
Ran Yu-Yu Retirement: Ran Yu-Yu vs Mayumi Ozaki
Well, this is it for Ran Yu-Yu. She's had around a 15 year career and she's been pretty good for most of it. She's usually a decent to good worker and she's been a midcard staple for the last few years. Other than that, I don't have a lot more to say. I think a lot of people liked her more than I did, but they probably saw more of her high end stuff, which I didn't. She's moving onto greater things I suppose and I'm surprised to see her retire since she only works a few times a month, but clearly her best days are behind her. I'm probably going to remember her for the odd designs she would braid into her hair and her team with Toshie Uematsu. I always find joshi retirements a little sad because it reminds you of how great joshi was at one point and how rocky of a future joshi has.
Sigh |
Toshie Uematsu did a run in |
Kaoru returned |
Dynamite Kansai/Miss A returned as well |
Ran Yu-Yu and Carlos Amano vs Dynamite Kansai and Mayumi Ozaki
Kansai suplexes her own partner |
They then did a retirement ceremony for Ran.
Lioness Asuka made an appearance for it:
Police slapped Ran with flowers |
Ran's mom and dad stopped by |
They showed a pic of Ran as a baby from 1975. |
Ran's first match |
JWP's old Big Four of Ran Yu-Yu, Azumi Hyuga, Kana Misaki and Carlos Amano |
Ran in Jungle Jack 21 |
Ran's retirement party with Ozaki in a kimono! |
Overall thoughts: Not a bad show by Oz Academy. The main was still the usual Oz junk but the retirement was nice and everything else was fine.
I haven't watched the whole show yet, but they gave Ran a pretty nice send-off. Too bad Toshie's was in WAVE and didn't make TV. Ran's dad seems like the stereotypical stiff-as-a-board repressed salaryman. Ozaki looks like such a middle-aged housewife with her no-nonsense hairdo and kimono.
ReplyDeleteToyota probably should stop doing planchas on 100-pound girls.
I know you and I have bashed OZ booking, but I actually liked Hikaru Shida showing up and using her weapon against Aja--it's not like using weapons gets you DQd in OZ and you need something against Aja.
Ran definitely did get a nice sendoff. You are totally right on Oz. She really didn't age well unfortunately. Too much smoking.
DeleteYeah, when you look at it on paper, Toyota's plancha was definitely not a good idea.
I figured Shida using a weapon still doesn't make her even close to equal to Aja lol I'd still take Aja over half the IR roster in a match.