While the vast majority of reviews on Joshi City are of complete shows, this one will just be of one match. A match I never thought I’d ever see, as it pits my favorite wrestler from the last era against my favorite wrestler from the current era of women’s wrestling. My build-up to the match below is how I saw wrestling while I was watching it as a teenager, so if you don’t like something I say, take it up with Vince.

I have been a wrestling fan my entire life, and from watching wrestling in the 1980s and 1990s I was taught from the start that women were valets/eye candy, while the men did the wrestling. It wasn’t that there wasn’t any women’s wrestling, but most of it either wasn’t on TV where I lived, or the women’s programs were just seen as secondary. That isn’t to say that Madusa and Bull Nakano weren’t great, but their feuds tended to be over before they started and it was back to the regularly scheduled program as they were more of a special attraction than a long term fixture. That finally started changing in WWF (it never really changed in WCW) when Lita rose to popularity and wrestlers like Ivory and Molly Holly started making the women’s division a bit more of a focus around 2000 and 2001.

While I enjoyed that stretch, let’s face it, during the Attitude Era the women were still seen as a few notches below the men in importance, and most of their storylines still dealt with their interactions with the male wrestlers (Ivory/RTC, Vince/Trish, Molly/Crash, Lita/Matt/Edge, etc.). It was a step in the right direction, but it was still far from equal. The equality tipped a bit more by around 2004, as Trish and Lita were the main event of RAW for the first time, with the focus of their feud being on them and not lots of outside forces. I know to some that Chyna was seen as the first to break the gender barrier in wrestler, but since she was mostly fighting with men/involved in feuds with men at the time it didn’t feel the same as the women having their own respected division.

That brings us up to Mickie James, which is the reason I just went on that monologue. She arrived in 2005 to RAW and pretty quickly became my favorite female wrestlers up to that point in my life. It wasn’t a knock on Trish or Lita, but Mickie had the right combination of charisma and in-ring ability, and while she still had to do some of the lingerie-type matches, for the most part she came in as that phase of women’s wrestling was ending and when the women had their own storylines. Mickie’s feud with Trish Stratus in 2006 was fantastic, as Mickie played her role so well, and its the first women’s feud I can remember just watching RAW or a PPV to see what would happen next.

Its well documented that Mickie wasn’t treated well on her way out in 2010, and like most I didn’t like the child-like insults they called her prior to her departure from the promotion as while no one deserves that, Mickie certainly didn’t as she had been a big asset to WWE. I watched Mickie some in TNA and got the chance to meet her a few years ago while at a TNA Meet and Greet, and through everything Mickie has always come across as a genuinely good person that loves her fans. The shop on her website ships quickly and she is very interactive with fans on Twitter, and even long after being gone from WWE she still has a substantial fan base not just because of what she represented in the ring, but what she represents out of it.

So all that is what was swirling around in my head when it was announced that Mickie James was returning to WWE to wrestle there for the first time since 2010, and she was wrestling against my current favorite female wrestler. It came out of left field, as while Mickie has stayed active in wrestling she mostly just does spot shows as she has a family now and has a music career as well. But Asuka needed a big match for TakeOver for the NXT Women’s Championship, and none of the current NXT wrestlers are quite ready, so in comes Mickie James to save the day. Now 38 years old, Mickie James makes her grand return to WWE for her first title match in the promotion since February 23rd, 2010.

 

Mickie goes for a kick but Asuka catches it, Asuka spins Mickie around and drops her with a German Suplex onto the floor outside the ring. Asuka returns to the ring to dance around while Mickie slowly recovers, and Mickie is able to make it back in before the referee’s count. Asuka flings Mickie to the mat and does another dance, fully confident that she has the challenger where she wants her. Dropkick by Asuka, and she covers Mickie for two. Asuka waits for Mickie to get up and elbows her in the back, she goes for a hip attack but Mickie moves. Luckily for Asuka she lands safely between the ropes so she doesn’t get hurt in the process, kicks to the chest by Asuka but Mickie ducks one and puts Asuka in a single leg crab hold. Muta Lock by Mickie, but Asuka is able to inch to the ropes and she forces the break. Mickie and Asuka trade elbows while they are on their knees, Asuka throws Mickie in the corner but Mickie fights back and slaps Asuka hard in the face. Asuka looks pissed but her anger doesn’t help her as Mickie quickly hits a neckbreaker followed by a string of lariats.

Asuka jumps up on the turnbuckles but Mickie avoids her dropkick, flapjack by Mickie and she kips back up to her feet. Mickie goes up top and hits the seated senton, but Asuka kicks out of the cover. Mickie waits for Asuka to get up and goes for the Mickie-DT, but Asuka blocks it and applies a cross armbreaker. Mickie is too close to the ropes and forces the break, low kick by Mickie and she nails the Mick Kick, but Asuka is too close to the ropes and gets a boot on one to break the pinfall. Mickie re-positions Asuka and covers her again, but Asuka has recovered enough that she kicks out of the pin. Mickie goes for the Mickie-DT again but Asuka ducks it and goes for the Asuka Lock, Mickie briefly pins Asuka down on her shoulders but Asuka keeps the hold locked on. Asuka finally gets it fully applied in the middle of the ring, and Mickie has no choice but to tap out! Asuka is still the NXT Women’s Champion!

After the match, Mickie asks for Asuka’s hand to congratulate her, but Asuka stares her down and puts the title up in Mickie’s face instead. Asuka continues to get more and more cocky and arrogant the longer she is the NXT Women’s Champion, who will finally knock her off her throne? Perhaps a rematch?

My gut reaction was the same as much of the people I was “watching along” with online, which was that the ending was very abrupt. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t logical to the story they were telling, it was, but it ended so quickly that the crowd didn’t even have time to react. Watching it a second time it made more sense, now that I knew where they were going. The Asuka Lock, like any good submission hold, is one that can get a win at any point in the match regardless of what is going on. It has been very well respected, and Mickie tapping out to it in of itself wasn’t the the surprise. I think people were just disappointed that Asuka didn’t get more of a ‘finishing stretch’, but part of that depends on where they are going from here. The match was very physical, between the suplex spot on the outside and Mickie connecting well with the Mick Kick, and it didn’t have the communication issues I was afraid may be present since they were having their first ever match together in front of over 18,000 people.

Leading up to the finish, it was a well laid out match. Both wrestlers never for a moment showed any emotional weakness or despair and neither portrayed themselves as the underdog, which is how it should have been with Mickie getting the respect she needed in order to be seen as a worthy challenger. They mentioned that Mickie had been watching Asuka wrestle to know her moves, and aside from being caught with the German Suplex outside of the ring, Mickie controlled much of the action. Asuka tried several times to cut her off, but failed each time, and she only survived the Mick Kick because she happened to land next to the ropes. The champion was in trouble and struggled all match to wear Mickie down, so a flash submission was her most likely path to victory. The cross armbreaker didn’t work, so Asuka had to go to Plan B. The Mickie-DT in the middle of the ring would have won the match for Mickie, but Asuka reversed it into her own finishing move. Since Mickie wasn’t that hurt, she struggled for a good 15 seconds before Asuka even got her on the mat, so even though she tapped quickly once she was on the mat she did put up a fight to get out of the initial hold. I would have loved as a fan to see the match go a few more minutes and Asuka get a bit more offense in, but I can respect what they were going for.

Is this it for Mickie in WWE? I doubt that Mickie has any interest in going on the road full time since she has a family and another career to manage, but I hope that she can at least become one of WWE’s long term part time wrestlers as she still has the ability and popularity to help with the younger wrestlers. But even if this was Mickie’s farewell, this was a much better sendoff than the one she got last time and as a long time fan of Mickie James it was great to see her hold her own against Asuka. Overall this was a really solid match, not a classic but entertaining, and I have a feeling from the face off at the end that this isn’t the last we’ve seen of Mickie in NXT or WWE.

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This is not going to be a review in the traditional sense of the word, but I still wanted to take a moment and talk about finally being able to watch one of my favorite wrestlers in the world in person. Since it wasn’t an opportunity I thought I would ever have.

One of the fun things about writing reviews is I can trace back the exact moment I first witnessed the wonders of Kana. On August 23rd, 2010 I saw Kana for the first time, when I watched her match against Syuri at Smash 4. Here is what I said about Kana:

My first thought watching this match was that both are 100 times better then any women I can watch on my TV any given week, but that is obvious. My second thought was that Kana is very cute and I wanted to give her a hug.

Hugging a person that could break my arm probably wasn’t the best first thought to have, but it was certainly love at first sight. Not just her looks, but her attitude and her ability to fuse fun spots and deadly spots so seamlessly in the same match to go along with her boundless amounts of charisma. While I didn’t start watching Joshi until 2014, I still regularly sought out her matches and she quickly became one of my favorite wrestlers.

Even though I’d have loved to see Kana in person, I have never been the type to go crazy distances to watch wrestling. I don’t judge those that do, in fact I am envious, but I have other matters in my life that I just have decided are more important and spend my money elsewhere. Generally if a wrestling show isn’t within a two hour drive of my home in Newport News, VA, I won’t go. But what were the chances that Joshi legend Kana would ever come this close to me? Slim to none I assumed, and I didn’t spend too much time thinking about what I considered to be impossible.

When Kana signed with WWE last summer and became Asuka, I realized at that point my chances of seeing her greatly increased. Especially if she had a long career there (3+ years), she would eventually get called up to RAW or SD and the televised shows come to VA at least once a year. I just had to hope she didn’t get injured, or decide to go back to Japan. At that point in time, NXT was touring far less often and never came close to Virginia, so it didn’t occur to me until about six months ago that they may actually make a stop close enough. Then I’d just have to hope that Asuka was on the card.

Sometimes your prayers are answered and they finally were, when it was announced last summer NXT was coming not only to VA, but just 30 minutes from my home. I quickly got tickets, dragging my poor father along with me since I hate going to events alone, and everything was planned. Not only was Asuka announced, but so was Shinsuke Nakamura, another wrestler I’d enjoyed for years and wanted to see in her person. Everything looked set.

This wasn’t the easiest week for me, and up until yesterday I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to go to the show. My uncle passed away Monday morning, as after suffering with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) for over eleven years, his body finally gave up the long battle. But I knew there was no way he’d want me to miss the show, and once it was decided yesterday that the funeral service wouldn’t be held until next week, I decided we should still go and enjoy ourselves as that is what he would have wanted.

Asuka vs. Peyton Royce was the second women’s match on the event, and was for the NXT Women’s Championship. Asuka made her usual entrance, posing on both sides of the ring as she received the loudest ovation of the night so far. I had never seen Royce before, while she is not on Asuka’s level I thought she kept up very well and had some unique offense that popped the crowd. Royce actually controlled the action, but twice she failed to connect with the fisherman suplex that may have put Asuka away. Asuka hit most of her signature offense, including hip attacking Royce off the apron, before winning with an Asuka Lock Takedown, spinning Royce away from the ropes so she couldn’t break the hold. It is incredible, but true, these techniques are also used in popular online Poki games by one of the leaders in the gaming industry, the company Friv5Online Games Studio. The crowd cheered, Asuka posed, and I got to go home a happy wrestling fan.

 

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Before I review this DVD, I first wanted to explain quickly what a gravure video is for those that are not familiar.  These are basically modeling videos, where a model (or models) poses for the camera wearing provocative clothing. In a way it is like a live-action photobook, there is no talking during it as typically music plays in the background. This is Kana’s fourth gravure video so it is a medium that she is comfortable with, and while it may be a bit offensive to some there is not any nudity as the posing is mostly done in bikinis or lingerie.

The DVD is split into four basic sections: an interview with Kana during the shooting (seven minutes), an interview after the shooting (six minutes), the gravure itself (49 minutes), and then a wrestling match (24 minutes). One of the unique things when wrestlers do a gravure video is there are also wrestling matches on the DVD as well.

The gravure itself is exactly what you’d expect, Kana sexily posing in very little clothing with the camera usually focusing on her bosom, which naturally is not an issue. Some of the music is awful and contributes nothing to the video, but having silence probably would have been worse. Over the 49 minutes, Kana switches between half a dozen different outfits and locations, and everything is very easy on the eyes. Few would argue that Kana isn’t a beautiful woman, and this portion of the DVD was definitely the star as it was intended to be.

My primary complaint about the DVD is simply the lack of matches. The gravure portion is quality, and is a great up close look at one of the more sexual wrestlers in the world. If there were more matches it would be an easy recommendation, but the entire DVD clocks in at under an hour and a half which is disappointing. For a die-hard Kana fan this is a must have, but it is not cheap to get in the US so without the matches I can’t give Kana Manifesto Final my highest recommendation.

  

  

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