Based Joshi!

Stardom 2015/6/14

World of Stardom Championship: Meiko Satomura vs. Kairi Hojo ©

Goddamn it, what a match! For some irrational reasons I cannot really explain, I was never really into Joshi, despite being super aware of their awesomeness and hard-boiled work ethics. I just never found enough free time to watch and cover them consistently, hence why they stayed under my viewing radar. This match got so much praise I simply had to watch it, plus Satomura is in there, and she kind of owns, so yeah, this was a must-watch by all accounts.

Phenomenal clash, it starts super intensely with Hojo throwing a super stiff backfist at Satomura during a regular “lock-up-leading-to-clean-break” sequence. It was a beautiful “making a statement” moment that set the tone for the rest of the fight. It was an immediate early wake up call for Satomura, because Hojo might look very feminine and semi-fragile, but she can also fuck you up truly hard, hence why we got Satomura simply boosting her level of stiffness a level or three every time Hojo tried something strike-heavy later in the match. Great storytelling. Sweet thing about this match is you wouldn’t expect it to go long based on the vivid opening minutes, but they just kept going and going, without the match losing its rhythm and organic nature, the overall pacing was mostly excellent.

Basically and TLDR, this was glorious, it had big drama, logical nearfalls, rough smacks thrown all over the place, wonderful selling and two babes scrapping and grappling really hard to call it a day. Amazing match, right up there with Becky/Sasha, like 1A and 1B, I just can’t decide yet which one deserves the A.

****3/4