Sendai Girls had the first round of their Jaja Uma tournament Feb. 21 at the Sendai Harbour International Business Centre. Meiko Satomura wasn't on the show but she did announce a match with Aja Kong scheduled for an upcoming show. The five Sendai Girls are competing against visiting juniors. Hiroyo Matsumoto won last year's tournament but she's not really a junior anymore. Things went pretty much as I expected. I guess the big upset was that Hanako Kobayashi won over Hiren. I wasn't surprised by this as Satomura does have to make concessions so other feds will send their wrestlers. But it was a competitive match and Hiren almost won with her ankle lock. Maybe she has to find a new finisher. The opponent always gets to the ropes. The end came when Kobayashi hit a couple of backbreakers followed by a flying forearm. She won at 14:09 with a fisherman suplex. And Kobayashi was wearing a new outfit. None of the other tournament matches went longer than ten minutes. So the idea was for Hiren to be credible but still lose. Other tournament matches were Yoko Yamada over Yukari Ishino with a sleeper at 7:02. Esui won over Minori Makiba with three Mongolian chops, a giant swing and a chokeslam at at 8:48. Ryo Mizunami won over Raika when three guillotine legdrops got a two count and the Mizunami got a submission with an armlock at 9:23. DASH Chisako & Sendai Sachiko vs Misaki Ohata & Chiharo Oikawa went to a 15 minute draw. Sachiko hit a German suplex and a body ram on Oikawa and then Chisako hit a frog splash when time ran out. Round two matches will be DASH Chisako vs Esui, Ryo Mizunami vs Chiharo Oikawa, Sendai Sachiko vs Yoko Yamada and Hanako Kobayashi vs Misaki Ohata. I think Mizunami is still the favourite but Kobayashi could emerge as well.
I think the Hanako win, as you mentioned, is Satomura/Shinzaki giving her a win so that Kaoru Ito will keep sending her up for shows. Apparently Kobayashi, Misaki Ohata & Chihiro Oikawa all have family ties to the Sendai/Miyagi prefecture area and are thus somewhat desirable.
ReplyDeleteI think Ohata gets the win against Hanako (to make Yoshida happy, as I think they would have done Ohata-Hiren if Hanako was going to make the semis), and advances to the semifinals with Esui (will beat DASH in the big girl/little girl matchup), Miz, and Sachiko. I see a Miz-Ohata final with Miz winning (it's time for a homegirl to win one of their tournaments).
I don't know if Meiko's back is acting up again and she's saving herself for that homecoming show in Niigata (her hometown where the match with Aja will take place) or if they really think it's a good idea to only have the kids on the show, but the attendance is dipping and they need Satomura back on the card. She is the company ace, after all.
I don't buy the hometown stuff after the first round. We will find out if Satomura really believes in Mizunami. Winning this tournament will make her the ace of Sendai. Is Satomura willing to overlook Mizunami's obvious flaws? Her look and lack of personality don't exactly compare favourably to other juniors. Ohata is just a poor wrestler and I like Kobayashi's chances.
ReplyDeleteI just found out that Ito Dojo's next show is April 19th, the same afternoon as the Jaja Uma tournament finals. So that pretty much takes Hanako out of play unless she's actually going to miss the Ito Dojo show, which I doubt. The shows are only 2 hours apart, so it would be impossible to work both.
ReplyDeleteI think I like Ohata more and Hanako less than you. I agree that Miz's obvious flaws are her look & personality (only Kana seems to bring any out of her). I think Meiko/Jinsei had imagined her as sort of the secondary ace down the road (sort of like a Misae Genki or Tsubasa Kuragaki), but Okuda screwed that up by leaving Sendai. I still think Miz will win this tournament, as it seems whatever push Hiren will ever get (if any) will be in black lace in OZ and the sisters are more valuable as a tag team than as individual workers.
That's assuming that Ito doesn't recognize that Kobayashi winning this tournament would give her a big boost in the eyes of other feds. I wouldn't assume that. Look what it did for Matsumoto. That you're even talking about Ohata winning shows how weak the tournament is. She did improve when she first came to Ibuki but she seems to have leveled off and probably doesn't belong any higher than lower midcard. There are two problems with Ohata. She has very limited athletic ability and it's getting harder to hide her deficiancies. And it's been well publicized that she has to take medication for bouts of depression. That makes her a handful to deal with and if she was working for anyone other than Yoshida, she might have been out of the business by now. That problem and her limited talent make her more trouble than she's worth.
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