[1990-05-25-JWP] Itsuki Yamazaki vs Plum Mariko

Itsuki Yamazaki awesome match train continues. Much like the Kansai match this was an extremely effective singles match crafted around the personality of her opponent. Plum is of course completely different from Kansai. I dug the opening of this match a lot, as Plum immediately dumps Yamazaki with a huge german suplex. Yamazaki makes a brief skillful comeback, but immediately rolls outside to sell her neck. Next thing that happens is Plum working over that neck with elbow. The match was full of cool little touches like that to add purpose to even basic moves: Yamazaki controls with some sleeper holds early on, Plum complaining about being choked, so when Plum makes her comeback she almost puts away Yamazaki with a sleeper of her own. When Plum was catching Yamazaki with her rolling legbars, the first thing Yamazaki does after she regains control is drop Plum with a big kneebreaker before stumbling across the ring selling her own leg. I thought the story of the young girl pushing the superstar to the edge of defeat was done in really compelling fashion and Yamazaki's fast moving spots were cool. Also, this was a rare match where the spot where a wrestler gets pushed off the tope rope while the other is trying for a flying move actually ended up being of importance. Really well worked high end joshi match for 1990, Yamazaki is 2-0 so far.