December 21, 201014 yr Author comment_5460811 Hasegawa is more of a mat wrestler than most of her contemporaries, which is a nice change of pace. Nice slow build to all the false finishes toward the end, and more focus on selling than usual. I like Hasegawa a lot, because she wrestles the Joshi style very well, but also seems like a more complete wrestler than almost anyone else from her era. Lots of struggle for the big moves, and they sell the big moves enough to give them time to get over. Toyota's insistence on doing moonsaults that never get even a slight pop is puzzling though.
January 10, 201114 yr comment_5461794 I loved this match so much! Hasegawa is one of those Joshi performers that I really haven't paid much attention to in matches. Not that she is bad by any means, she was always just there for me. But I became such a major Hasegawa supporter during this match. The slow build, the fired up Hasegawa visuals, the incredible near falls, by the end of it I was longing for Hasegawa to get the win. Tremendous match that did something few matches these days do-it got me involved!
February 4, 201114 yr comment_5463944 So I'm guessing this was Hasegawa's retirement match or something? They made it seem like it. Pretty good match that was different from the spotfest joshi matches earlier on the set. I still like Toyota.
February 4, 201114 yr comment_5463964 Close, her retirement match was a couple weeks later on the 31st, Hasegawa & Ito vs Watanabe & Michiko Nagashima. Shame too as they'd been building her up to be the next big main event star but she injured her back before they were able to pull the trigger on it.
August 24, 201114 yr comment_5480624 The more matches I watch, the less I love Manami - she's always in such a hurry, unless you have an opponent who slows her down. And god damn it, Woman, shut up! Hasegawa would have fit so well into ARSION. She has that serious-athlete look about her, and her constant submissions feel like Yoshida. There's a great sequence where she's going for an armbar but can't get the tap. So she stands up, drops an elbow, and goes back into the armbar. It's very smooth.
August 24, 201114 yr comment_5480631 Hasegawa would have fit so well into ARSION. She has that serious-athlete look about her, and her constant submissions feel like Yoshida. If you haven't seen it track down some late 91/92 AJW shows Long stretch of Sakie, Yoshida, Takako & Debbie Malenko ripping things up in various combinations against each other in the mid card.
August 24, 201114 yr comment_5480632 Hasegawa would have fit so well into ARSION. She has that serious-athlete look about her, and her constant submissions feel like Yoshida. If you haven't seen it track down some late 91/92 AJW shows Long stretch of Sakie, Yoshida, Takako & Debbie Malenko ripping things up in various combinations against each other in the mid card. I think I may have seen some of the Debbie matches, but it's been awhile. I like grumpy badass Takako and Mariko from the early 00's, myself. I will go fishing at Doublemiz for those 91/92 matches.
January 14, 201510 yr comment_5649342 31:33, which was just way too long. Hasegawa is great at tying Manami into knots with holds (and Manami is great at getting tied up...oh man, that's not meant to be as perverted as it sounds). And there were some really great cut-offs and near-falls here, particularly Hasegawa leveling Manami with a big thrust kick off the ropes, right in the damn face. But some of Manami's worst tendencies came out here, like that admittedly cool-looking but very silly moment where she does her rolling cradle out on the arena floor. Really 2.9-ish closing stretch that dragged when it should have been building to a big climax, and on top of that Manami blows ANOTHER spot that's supposed to be the finish. I like Sakie for all the reasons Loss states but this was disappointing and a prime example of Bad Manami.
February 20, 201510 yr comment_5655113 Agree with PeteF here. This was well on its way to being great with the opening mat work but the final 10-12 minutes took me completely out of the match. Shame Hasegawa is gone as she was a welcome addition to my screen whenever she appeared and helped give the joshi cards depth during the glory days. ***1/4
October 15, 20177 yr comment_5816745 Okay, I loved that they went out into the crowd to do a ROLLING CRADLE spot. Other than that, this match had some good stuff in it, but was too long and never really came together as a whole for me.
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