Afraid...In Love
I was doing research for a future element of this site in which I learned a little bit more about pro wrestling, in specific Japanese women's pro wrestling. Joshi, if I'm using that correctly. Truthfully, I always had a vague interest in it because of one cute joshi that someone I once knew had a bit of an obsession with. She was like a meek girl who had a sort of dynamic with a caveman-esque violence addicted woman, if I remember her character.(?) Well, that and Suda51 of course. It felt like crossing a line though to get into pro wrestling and learn more about it just because of my obsession with some Japanese guy (who I shook hands with twice) and my sister in particular knows of Suda and his love of wrestling so I feared that if I suddenly fell in love with the sport that I'd have to deal with the shame of everyone assuming I was into it due to my sorta kinda crush on the guy (who I shook hands with TWICE!). Even truthfully-er, I've always been vaguely curious of it but I can't keep up with sports and frankly the crowd I associated with it was a bit daunting for something I largely viewed as a social sport (as in the value of the sport itself is near-equal to discussing it).
Despite all of this, I saw it, I saw a clip which inspired me to watch the whole match. Akira Hokuto, the pinnacle of human violence. Akira Hokuto VS. Shinobu Kandori. What violence, I cringed, I winced, I damn-near cheered. No matter how much my body wanted to pull away, I couldn't take my eyes off of her. What a beast of a woman. I won't forget her visage drowned in blood. It made me feel like a repressed christian girl in the 50s seeing Elvis gyrate, I damn near called my friends while twiddling the phone cord around my index finger just to tell them about this heartthrob.
So I spent an unfortunate amount of time watching her matches and reading about her...I don't really know how to articulate it but I just want to express a general "what the fuck" at her holding her head in place after receiving a Tombstone Piledriver that broke her neck. Well, I read that before I watched the match and assumed it was exageration but...No...She continues to kick ass with a broken neck, I watched her stomp a downed woman with her head sorta just wiggling with each stomp. I feel a genuine desire to write about all of it in real prose instead of stream of consciousness diary entries but, man, the reactions of the crowd, the way Ogura and Nagahori have a real somber sidebar, everyone rushing to her aid, then Hotta coming in with some of the most vicious kicks that (if I saw what I saw correctly) knocked a couple of Ogura's teeth out.
To be clear, a lot of the reason I avoided wrestling prior (in addition to my previous 50 reasons) was due to my sensitivies and the fact I really don't want to watch people essentially play fight so hard that they're hurting eachother like a real fight. Man, she just has such a magnetic aura though, I can't not watch her kick some ass. Also, am I falling for the most famously fake trick ever or are these women very seriously beating eachother. I could count on one hand the amount of hits that looked like they were just for show. I mean, a woman broke her neck and the other lost some teeth. The purpose of a machine is what it does, right? Admittedly, things seemed to get about ten notches real-er after Hokuto's accident- it seemed to me that they were both pretty pissed. I'd be hesitant to place any sort of meaningful blame on the opposing duo here but, yeah, fair enough.