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DIR Return to: Sheriff Lonestar's PPV of the Week
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#Post#: 14504--------------------------------------------------
Sheriff Lonestar's PPV of the week; Best in the World Part 2
By: SheriffLonestar Date: July 13, 2013, 2:14 am
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My search continues and it brings me to an industrial town in
central Japan called Sendai. There lives and works a wrestler of
such talent that they rule the wrestling world in my opinion.
This person is at main event level in every promotion she works
in, not that they hog the limelight, they work opening matches
and tiny shows as well as the big stadium fillers. This person
is Meiko Satomura and is in my opinion the Best in the World.
Not the best female wrestler. Just simple better than everyone
else. Everything she does is perfect. The closest I can think of
in male context is Kenta Kobashi, big enough to wrestle the
larger ladies such as Aja Kong and make a convincing
performance, while small enough to keep up with the lightweight
flyers of Wonder Ring Stardom and Ice Ribbon. She is the
standard by which all Joshi is set right now and she should be
the standard by which all wrestling is set. She is simply that
good.
Her story starts in the opening days of the GAEA promotion.
Chigusa Nagayo's first and highly successful foray into booking
and shaping her wrestling image post All Japan Women. One of her
Young Girls was Meiko Satomura who turned into her star student.
She made her debut in 1995 at the age of 16 By the time she was
18 she was working for WCW in a talent exchange as part of their
short lived but interesting Women's Cruiserweight division. A
Monday night slot at 18? like I said she was and is that good.
In 1999 the BBC made a documentary about Joshi called GAEA
Girls, this followed Satomura as the head trainer of GAEA's Dojo
showing her workouts and her ring style as well as how she dealt
with students. Like all wrestling Dojo's in Japan it was hard
work, three quit while the film was being made. But lets look at
that a moment, 16 debut, 18 Monday night star, 20 head of the
second largest training school for female wrestlers in the
world. Her star did not fall.
She became a much loved main event talent for GAEA winning their
AAAW title twice before the company folded. She had the honour
of being Akira Hokuto's tag partner in her retirement match
receiving a slap to earn her warrior spirit from the
aforementioned Hokuto and boy has she lived up to that since.
With the folding of GAEA she worked as an independent for a few
years before forming her own company with for WWE/ECW/FMW/
Michinuko Pro stand out Jinsei Shinzaki in 2005. The principal
behind Sendai is simple, find a small amount of very good women
and train them to be the best. They are the home town team and
anyone who comes into their territory is the enemy. A
promotional idea not new in wrestling, Jerry Lawler was
effectively the home town team in Memphis for years, but the
principal of one group of wrestlers loyal to their home town and
their home promotion was a genius move that enabled the company
to grow without losing its routes. With Sendai being a small
company Satomura is open to wrestle for anyone else and she has.
She worked for Ice Ribbon in a long running feud with Emi
Sakura, as her team mates battled the rest of the roster. Her
work for Wonder Ring Stardom sees her as a roster enforcer.
Every young girl moving up the ladder to the World of Stardom
title has to go through Meiko first.
She is also an innovative booker coming up with the Flash
tournament concept. The first flash tournament held in Tokyo
featured 7 companies and a team of free lancers, 5 on 5 in the
first round, 3 on 3 in the second and tag teams in the final.
Thus allowing nearly everyone on each roster to compete and
ensuring a strong crowd for their first promotional foray into
Tokyo.
But what makes her truly great is her wrestling ability, timing
and poise. Everything is perfect, from her ring entrance to the
final bell. Her ring entrance matches her character, a noble
warrior. To the tune of Rock the Night Away she stalks the ring
eyes never leaving her opponent. Says a prayer sweeps off her
robe and sets to work. Stiff kicks and picture perfect suplexs
with lots of mat work, though she is not adverse to flying,
enhance her tough as nails persona. She also has an array of
finishers,if the cross armlock doesn't get you then the sleeper
will, if you survive that there is the Death Valley Bomb and if
needs must she can always finish you off with the Northern
Lights Bomb. Moves you will not see anywhere else, (though I
must admit I marked out when I saw Austin Aries pull out a Death
Valley Bomb on the apron versus Chris Sabin last week). The
reason whys is because they are very dangerous, but Satomura
delivers them inch perfectly every time so everyone is as safe
as houses.
Want another reason? She can read a crowd perfectly. in 2012
Meiko and the Sendai Sisters headed to Philadelphia for
Chikara's King of Trios tournament. They where over in three
matches. When they got to the ring for their semi final against
Mike Bennet and The Young Bucks (team ROH) a quiet chanted
started. By the time Gavin Loudspeaker had called out the names
the crowd sang out in one voice (except for the ROH douche bag
at the back) "SENDAI'S GONNA KILL YOU" a chant reserved for the
beloved and much missed Sara Del Ray. Del Ray, as much as I love
her, took years to garner that chant. The Sendai girls took
three matches in three days.
So here is my pick for the best in the world. Whats yours?
HTML http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5usgqDmYaOc
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