A lot of joshi fans were hopeful that with Meiko Satomura training rookies, Sendai Girls could turn out to be a rebirth of joshi puroresu. But as good as Satomura is at training youngsters, she seems to be lacking common sense as a booker. Part of the problem is all she knows is GAEA and her mentor Chigusa Nagayo. So obviously the Sendai Girls booking is very similar to 1994 GAEA. But it isn't 1994 anymore and things need to be done differently. She might get away with it for a while in Sendai but with the Dec. 3 Sendai Girls Zepp Sendai show, the shows have been very similar in tone and that's going to get old very soon. This time Satomura brought Mariko Yoshida and Ibuki to Sendai.
One problem was the matches were not announced until the day of the show. Many of us assumed that the main event would be a first time meeting between Meiko Satomura & Mariko Yoshida. That's an exciting match. Instead Satomura wrestled Kyoko Kimura in the main event and Yoshida wrestled one of the rookies. Though technically not a bait and switch, it's not a good strategy for Satomura to leave herself open to those kind of accusations. Fan expectations are important and that particular expectation should have been addressed before the show. It's a new promotion and they can't afford mistakes like that.
Of course Ibuki vs Sendai is bound to be more interesting than previous Sendai Girls shows featuring OZ Academy simply because the Ibuki wrestlers aren't as old or experienced. Yoshida even brought impressive rookie Hiroyo Matsumoto along. The opener was Atsuko Emoto vs Sachiko Kanari. Sachiko attacks Emoto from behind before the bell. She hits her with several drop kicks. Emoto gets control and hits a brainbuster, 2 DDTs and another brainbuster fro the win at 7:22. Then Leon beat Kaneko Yurie with the Mad Splash at 10:46.
Next was Ibuki rookie Hiroyo Matsumoto vs Akari Okuda. If there was any match where the Sendai rookies had a chance to win, it would be this one. It didn't happen. Matsumoto won with an Argentinian backbreaker into a stomach buster to win at 9:18. Satomura was clearly upset at ringside and set things up for her plans after the show. Even fans at ringside expected Kyoko Kimura to wrestle Chisako Kanari and were surprised when Mariko Yoshida came out. Yoshida almost put Chisako to sleep with a submission hold but she reached the ropes. Yoshida locked it in again and it was over at 12:26.
The main event between Meiko Satomura & Kyoko Kimura was somewhat anticlimactic because that's not what fans really wanted to see. Kimura worked hard but Satomura worked on her arm and won with the Scorpio Rising at 19:04. It's funny how fans perceive Kimura as a younster. She's two years older than Satomura. Afterwards, Satomura set up the Jan. 10 Zepp Sendai show. She thanked Yoshida for bringing the Ibuki girls to Sendai and congratulated them on their victories. Then she brought the four rookies into the ring and gave them a major dressing down. She was very upset that none of them have won a match to date. She told them that on the Jan. 10 show all four would wrestle Satomura in singles matches and if they don't perform to expectations, they will lose their professional status and become amateurs. I don't know what the consequences will be but Meiko Satomura is sure going to be busy that day.
"Then she brought the four rookies into the ring and gave them a major dressing down. She was very upset that none of them have won a match to date. She told them that on the Jan. 10 show all four would wrestle Satomura in singles matches and if they don't perform to expectations, they will lose their professional status and become amateurs. I don't know what the consequences will be but Meiko Satomura is sure going to be busy that day."
ReplyDeleteGood God, I hope she doesn't squash all four of them,...but this is more than likley what is going to happen. Satomura is such a good worker and they are all rookies and ones she has berated for being shitty, so with this in mind & the fact that Chigusa was her mentor, is there really ANY chance of anything else happening?
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