[1993-05-05-FMW-Origin] Shinobu Kandori vs Victoria Kazunina

Two highly skilled judokas work a Battlarts match and it rules. I’m not usually a fan of 90s joshi pacing, but a five minute sprint is much more digestible than a half an hour one, especially when it serves as a showcase of legit techniques and not missile dropkicks and half nelson chickenwing suplexes. Kazunina makes me a fan by doing a beautiful O-goshi five seconds into a match, and not that I wouldn’t have liked this if this were just a million hip throws-but they really do a fantastic job of structuring things in such a way that always keeps you guessing by also utilizing hand techniques, sacrifice throws, Kosen/BJJ-like sweeps, creating neat grappling sequences around fighting for chokes and armbars by using legit counters as well as fluently entering into them from standing. Kandori hitting a Seoi Nage could be “just a thing that happened”, but after teasing it and having her be the one thrown a bunch in such a short time the contrast makes it a gigantic, momentum shifting turning point, even if the actuality of the match being a five minute sprint worked in the vein it was forces them to be exchanging maneuvers and not truly be one sided for a longer period of time, that it cons you into feeling like that regardless is a testament to the power of pro wrestling. ****1/4