JTO GIRLS 2 on 2/18/20 Review

JTO GIRLS 2 Poster

Event: JUST TAP OUT GIRLS 2
Date: February 18th, 2020
Location: Ice Ribbon Dojo in Saitama, Japan
Announced Attendance: 104

While this is a very small show, I didn’t want to miss it for a few different reasons. First, I always enjoy seeing new wrestlers and I haven’t seen a lot of Tomoka Inaba or Maika yet since both are still in the first year of their careers. Second, I dunno who Black Changita is but I am intrigued. And finally, with Kagetsu retiring I want to see as many of her matches on her final tour to different promotions as I possibly can. Plus we have an Andras Miyagi appearance as well. Here is the full card:

As this aired on NicoPro, all matches will be shown in full. All the wrestlers on the show have profiles on Joshi City except for Black Changita, you can click on their name above to go straight to it.

Tomoka Inaba vs. Black Changita
Black Changita vs. Tomoka Inaba

We start the show with the mysterious Black Changita against the rookie Tomoko Inaba. Black Changita is part of a faction called Just Knock Out (jKo), which is group of five wrestlers invading JUST TAP OUT. They all wear masks and are mysterious, I haven’t had any luck figuring out if they are from a different promotion, new wrestlers, or what their story is. Black Changita is against Tomoka, who is 17 years old and debuted in July of 2019. She isn’t JTO’s top rookie, that prize goes to Maika, but if she can look good against Black Changita it will do a lot to improve her standing in the promotion.

Black Changita vs. Tomoka Inaba

Black Changita immediately catches Tomoka with a strike combination, punch to the gut by Black Changita and Tomoka crumbles to the mat. Black Changita picks up Tomoka and hits more punches, knees by Black Changita and she hits a running knee for a two count. Black Changita applies an armtrap crossface but Tomoka quickly gets to the ropes to force the break. Black Changita kicks Tomoka into the corner and stomps on her, she stands up Tomoka and kicks her some more. She charges at Tomoka but Tomoka moves and boots her in the face, leg kick by Black Changita and Black Changita bails out of the ring to re-group. She eventually returns but Tomoka knees her as she gets on the apron, Black Changita punches her in the midsection and connects with a series of kicks.

Head kick by Black Changita, she covers Tomoka but Tomoka barely kicks out. Black Changita applies the armtrap crossface again, but Tomoka gets a hand on the ropes. Black Changita waits for Tomoka to get up but Tomoka blocks her kick and hits a kick of her own, high kick by Tomoka and she kicks Black Changita in the back. She goes for a PK but Black Changita ducks it and applies a Cobra Twist. Tomoka gets to the ropes again, Black Changita picks her up but Tomoka delivers a quick head kick. Tomoka sits up Black Changita and hits a PK, cover by Tomoka but it gets a two count. Tomoka applies a knee lock but Black Changita muscles into better position and holds down Tomoka for the three count! Black Changita is the winner.

What an odd little match. For the bulk of it, Black Changita was attempting to assert her will with strikes, some looking good but most not so much. Then she wins with basically a submission cutback, which is fine in most cases but she went from dominating heel to winning almost by fluke in a span of five minutes. Tomoka looked ok I guess but she still has a lot of room for growth. Not a good match, or a particularly interesting one, would have preferred Black Changita just dominate Tomoka and pick up the win with a strike to make it a more memorable victory.

Aki Shizuku vs. Andras Miyagi
Aki Shizuku vs. Andras Miyagi

Next we have the battle of the Freelancers, as Aki Shizuku takes on Andras Miyagi. Andras has had a really weird past 12 months. She was one of the brighter young stars in Sendai Girls’, with multiple title reigns under her belt. She left and joined Stardom, and at first saw some success, but by the Fall she was an afterthought. After looking disengaged in Stardom to end 2019, she suddenly left the promotion and was removed from their roster page in 2020. Since then she has been appearing in JTO, still in a heel character as she blames Maika for her losing her spot as Giulia’s partner in her new Stardom faction. Whether this is all part of a bigger storyline or not isn’t known yet, but her career appears to have taken a turn for the worse. She is against Aki Shizuku, who has been a lower level Freelancer for most of her career and has spent the last couple in K-DOJO and then JTO. This should be an easy win for Andras, but will she care enough to actually make the match good?

Aki Shizuku vs. Andras MiyagiThey are slow to engage with Andras in particular being in no rush to get things started, so Aki attacks her from behind. Andras exits the ring and walks around the crowd, she eventually returns but Aki exits the ring as she does as they play mind games. Aki gets back in the ring but Andras exits it again. Aki finally gets tired of this and goes out to get Andras, she brings her back into the ring and clubs on her back. Aki goes for a shoulderblock but Andras stays up, Andras tries as well but has the same result. Finally Aki shoulderblocks Andras over, elbow drops by Aki and she puts Andras in a stretch hold. She lets go after a moment but Andras gets her to the mat and applies a modified armbar with a headscissors. She lets go and stomps on Aki, snapmare by Andras and she applies a headlock. She only lets go so she can complain to the referee, about what I am not sure, before going back to Aki and choking her with her boot. Aki tries to fight back but Andras clubs her and puts Aki in a chinlock. Andras kicks Aki in the back of the head and tries to throw her into the corner, Aki reverses it but Andras gets her from the back.

DDT by Andras and she kicks Aki out of the ring, she goes out after her and goes for the piledriver, but Aki blocks it. Andras charges Aki but Aki moves and hits the ring post by accident, lariat by Aki and she gets back into the ring. Andras slowly returns as well, lariat by Aki but Andras blocks the fisherman buster. Spear by Aki, she waits for Andras to get up and hits a lariat in the corner. Fisherman buster by Aki, and she covers Andras for two. Aki picks up Andras but Andras slides away, she uses the referee as a shield before dropping Aki with a tombstone piledriver. Cover by Andras, but the referee won’t count due to the Shield Incident. Andras gets a chair slid to her by Black Changita and hits the referee with it, she then hits Aki in the head with the chair before hitting a tombstone piledriver on it. The referee has seen enough after that, and DQs Andras. Your winner is Aki Shizuku!

Well that was a match. I know a popular heel shtick is to waste time, thus making the crowd hate you, but its 2020 and I am over that method of getting boos. I want to watch two people wrestle, not someone kill five minutes. And the payoff wasn’t really worth it anyway as they went straight into introductory trading of holds instead of anything interesting. Then they traded long submissions, all to get to the point which was Andras not caring about the rules and getting herself DQed. I have no issue with the ending, it puts over Andras as being a loose cannon, but the path to get there with the long submission holds and meandering action wasn’t worth it. Have her do that five minutes into the match, not after applying a two minute chinlock. Just a poorly structured match and I continue to be concerned about the immediate future of Andras Miyagi.

Kagetsu vs. Maika
Kagetsu vs. Maika

For the main event, Kagetsu has one of the last matches of her career against JTO rookie Maika. Kagetsu wrestling against Maika may seem random since they have no history at all, but Maika started wrestling in Stardom as well in January so its not totally out of left field. Maika debuted last Spring and even though she has only had about 20 matches, she has had some success as she is pushed as the top female wrestler in JUST TAP OUT. Still, she obviously has an uphill battle against Kagetsu as even though she is JTO’s Super Rookie, she still ranks well below the former Oedo Tai leader. Since this is the main event (of a small show), hopefully they do more than just have your typical veteran/rookie match, Kagetsu is generally pretty giving so ideally Maika will get a bit of a chance to shine here before losing.

They circle each other to start before locking up, armdrag by Maika and she applies a headlock. Kagetsu reverses it into a headscissors but Maika gets out of that and goes back to the headlock. Kagetsu reverses it but Maika gets into the ropes, forcing the break. Back up, kicks to the chest by Kagetsu and she snapmares Maika before applying a chinlock. She lets go and tosses Maika out of the ring, she takes Maika up into the crowd and throws her into a row of chairs. Kagetsu buries Maika under a bunch of chairs, giving no one a place to sit down, before taking Maika back to ringside and into the ring. Kagetsu gets on the apron and hits a swandive missile dropkick, she taunts Maika and throws her into the corner, hitting a jumping elbow. Running single leg kick by Kagetsu, she snapmares Maika and covers her for two. Kagetsu applies a submission hold but Maika gets into the ropes, Kagetsu gets a bottle of water and takes a drink before spitting some into Maika’s face. Kagetsu goes off the ropes but Maika catches her with a toss and applies a cross armbreaker. Kagetsu inches to the ropes and quickly makes it to get the break, Maika stomps on Kagetsu’s arm in the corner before delivering a running kick to it. Fujiwara Armbar by Maika which she switches to an armlock, but Kagetsu gets to the ropes again.

Kagetsu vs. MaikaBack up, strike combination by Kagetsu and she hits a vertical suplex, cover by Kagetsu but Maika kicks out. Kagetsu picks up Maika and hits a Samoan Drop, but that gets a two count as well. Kagetsu goes off the ropes and hits a running knee, cover by Kagetsu but Maika gets a shoulder up. Kagetsu picks up Maika but Maika slides away and goes back to the cross armbreaker. She reverts it to a Triangle Choke attempt and she gets it locked on, but Kagetsu manages to stand up and get out of the hold. Maika goes for the STO but Kagetsu blocks it, elbow by Kagetsu but Maika elbows her back and the two trade strikes. Maika pulls down Kagetsu by the hair and armdrags her around the ring, monkey flip by Maika and she hits the STO. Cover by Maika, but it gets a two count. Maika picks up Kagetsu but Kagetsu knees her in the midsection, Kagetsu charges Maika but Maika slams her to the mat. Kagetsu tosses Maika into the corner towards the referee but the referee moves to avoid the collision, Kagetsu tries again but this time hits the referee. He doesn’t go down though and is staring at Kagetsu when she spits red mist into Maika’s face (I guess he didn’t get the memo), Kagetsu slams Maika in front of the corner and nails the Oedo Coaster for the three count! Kagetsu is your winner!

Even though it may not have been a main-event quality match, this was still pretty solid. As I figured, Kagetsu gave the rookie quite a bit of offense and it was far from one-sided, with Maika having several opportunities to win and Kagetsu selling for her offense pretty hard. The match started slow, for a short-ish match I think the “outside the ring” brawling could have been reduced some, but once they got back into the ring it stayed pretty engaging the rest of the match. The funniest part was the referee either not knowing the spot or not knowing he was supposed to look away when Kagetsu did the mist as he was not only looking at her but reacted to it. Its a *wink wink* thing since obviously the referee will always see the mist everywhere afterwards, but in theory its an illegal move so they should be looking in a different direction when the move is done. Anyway, a little clunky at times but overall a fun match, Maika still has a ways to go but the foundation is there to be a great wrestler down the road.  Mildly Recommended

Final Thoughts:
0.5

 

This event wasn’t designed to be a great show, and on that they certainly delivered. With only three matches with rookies/young wrestlers, the most you can really hope for is just some fun matches but sadly that didn’t happen. The opener could have been structured in a way to put over the evil invader, but they opted not to do that. Andras Miyagi’s crazy “I don’t care if I win” methods could lead to a good match, but here they focused on stalling and long submissions. The main event was pretty good as Kagetsu tried hard to put over Maika, however while Maika mostly kept up with her it was still a bit disjointed at times and it could have used a few more minutes. Overall a pretty flat show, unless you really want to see one of Kagetsu’s last matches it is an event you can skip and not feel bad about it.