Much better than the Satomura title match with KLR. Stiff veteran vs. up and comer match. At this point I'm convinced anyone can have a quality match with Meiko as long as they are willing to let her call the match and are willing to let her lay in her brutal offense while also being willing to dish it back out. Meiko's early flash armdrags are a thing of beauty as they are rapid and impactful. Her strikes of course are stiff and connect as you can hear the thud of them landing on Aoife. That head kick was particularly quite nasty. Aoife's selling and facial aren't anything to write home about, but she was willing to let Meiko lay them in on her and her overhead kick maybe one of the most stiffest overhead kicks I've ever seen anyone land. Loved her getting overconfident on offense and committing the rookie mistake of going to well one too many times and it eventually backfiring on her. The finish with Meiko hitting the one big axe kick and ending it was a perfect way to call it. Meiko joins Gulak in being the workhorses on WWE TV shows barely anyone watches, but who still manage to put on under the radar quality matches with diverse opponents. I highly doubt either one gets lengthy main roster runs, but I wouldn't mind seeing either of them getting them and seeing them paired up with some of the bigger names there.

20 years to the day since her classic with Akira Hokuto and Meiko's delivers another banger. This was so well worked for a zero-stakes TV match with no real context, snug limbwork and hard strikes that you can hear connect and really helps overcome the lack of crowd noise.  ****