NEO held a press conference Thursday to announce the main event for the Feb. 18 Kawasaki City Gym show. Yoshiko Tamura announced on the Jan. 6 show that she was unhappy with the draw against Azumi Hyuga on the Dec. 24 JWP show. She wanted to turn in the belts. NEO general manager Koda told her to take it easy and wait. And Kyoko Inoue said Sunday that they were still working on the Hyuga rematch. They tried to put pressure on JWP but it didn't work. It looks like JWP wants a Tamura/Hyuga rematch for their Apr. 15 Korakuen Hall show. But NEO has come up with a reasonable replacement. Yoshiko Tamura will defend the NEO Singles & NWA Pacific Titles against Ayako Hamada. I don't know if Ayako has ever worked for NEO or if she has ever wrestled Tamura but she is a worthy challenger.
NEO general manager Koda talked about the decision to sign Ayako for this match on the NEO blog. He did not want an older wrestler for this title match but he needed someone of main event calibre who could go 60 minutes. He felt the choices were Misae Genki, Azumi Hyuga, Nanae Takahashi, Meiko Satomura & Ayako Hamada. He's probably not going to be able to get Takahashi or Satomura so that leaves the other three. Genki works for NEO so they can do that anytime. He still wants to do a rematch with Hyuga and believes that will happen later. He went on to thank Ayako Hamada and Kaoru Ito for their cooperation in putting this match together. Ayako works as a trainer for Ito. It should be a very good match and Ayako could win those belts. That would really screw things up. And the match is four days after Ayako's 26th birthday. That would be an interesting birthday present.
And just to show that surprises do happen, here's Ayako Hamada's surprise win of the WWWA Singles Title over Momoe Nakanishi from the AJW 35th Anniversary show May 12, 2003. It's a great match
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