So it's been over a year since Michinoku Pro's Jinsei Shinzaki announced that he was starting a new joshi puroresu company. The company is called Sendai Girls because it is based in the city of Sendai. This in itself is unusual because of course most companies are in Tokyo and Sendai isn't across the street. Shinzaki hired former GAEA star and head trainer Meiko Satomura to run the company. I don't know if they can revive the joshi business but having Satomura training young girls is a good start. After delaying the debut once, Sendai Girls finally debuted on July 9 at Sendai SunPlaza. The attendance was estimated at 2498. Meiko Satomura vs Aja Kong was the main event.
Other than the main event, Satomura chose to debut all of her trainees against veterans. It's supposed to be Sendai vs The City or something. It doesn't seem like the smartest booking strategy but it may pay off down the road. I can understand her wanting to establish her rookies but I don't believe this is the way to do it in one fell swoop. But with Satomura training them, the rookies are likely to turn out well. 16 year old Sachiko Kanari was the first to debut against Kyoko Inoue. It appears the match consisted of Kanari throwing elbows and drop kicks and Kyoko no selling all her offense. Kyoko's ankle is still bothering her so she isn't moving very well. Kanari did attempt a DDT but Kyoko finished her off with a lariat in 5:56.
Next to debut was 20 year old Kaneko Yurie against Mariko Yoshida. Yurie had trained with Kaoru Ito for a while but moved to Sendai last winter. Yoshida gave the rookie a wrestling lesson and after 6:09 of ground & pound, Yoshida finished her with a reverse figure four. 17 year old Chisako Shinari is Sachiko's older sister. She's the smallest of the four rookies and her opponent was Dynamite Kansai. Uh oh. Chisako demonstrates a lot of energy and even knocks Kansai out of the ring with a tackle. But Kansai zonks her on the top of her head with a high kick and knocks her out at 4:49. Chisako is unable to comment.
Next to debut is Akari Okuda against Mayumi Ozaki. Some fans note that Okuda resembles GAEA comedy queen Sakura Hirota. Thankfully, Ozaki didn't bring her usual hardware and Okuda got in more offense and more time than the others. Ozaki won with a spinning back fist in 14:51. Meiko Satomura & Aja Kong had some classic matches in GAEA so fans were looking forward to the main event. The whole point of this match was for Aja to pass the torch to Meiko and that's what she did. Satomura won with the Scorpio Rising in 23:21. Reports indicate that Satomura hurt her right knee during the match.
Among those in attendance were Meiko Satomura's mentor Chigusa Nagayo, Manami Toyota, AKINO and several others. Aja Kong said afterwards that it took so long for Sendai Girls to get to this point and now that this show is done, Satomura can really start to build the company. The next Sendai Girls show will be Sept. 29 at Zepp Sendai. It looks like the Sendai vs The City theme will continue and Satomura plans to debut more trainees on this show. And all the Sendai wrestlers wore red. So Satomura is obviously going for a thematic approach. One of the problems with using the rookies is three of the five matches were shorter than ten minutes. That's somewhat unbalanced and Satomura will need to find a solution for that problem. She's also going to have to develop distinct personalities for these girls. They can't all be younger versions of Meiko Satomura. Here's the results of the show.
SENDAI GIRLS - 7/9/06 - Sendai SunPlaza
Kyoko Inoue def. Sachiko Kanari in 5:56
Mariko Yoshida def. Kaneko Yurie in 6:09
Dynamite Kansai def. Chisako Kanari in 6:09
Mayumi Ozaki def. Akari Okuda in 14:51
Meiko Satomura def. Aja Kong in 23:21
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