By Mark Worrall@hoohoowozza
So the Mae Young Classic gets a second season, and rightfully so, after last year’s effort, 2018 see’s some returns, some new girls, some high profile that will rock the competition, and some veterans. These are my thoughts.
TEGAN NOX defeats ZATARA
Michael Cole announced that Tegan was his personal favourite to win the Mae Young Classic this time around; whether this is a play to kayfabe the upcoming reoccurring injury to Nox I’m not sure. However, the Welsh girl with the Shiniest Wizard opened up this year’s competition after missing the inaugural tournament due to an ACL injury. Her opponent, Zatara, a veteran from Chile with a decade of experience in the ring soon took to working the right leg of Nox after initially looking rather nervous after Nox had controlled the earlier part of the match. The ACL injury that had plagued Nox throughout 2017 was well known to the rest of the roster and that became the focus of this opener as Zatara worked the troubled leg while the crowd favourite Nox sold tremendously. A missed spot however from the Chilean enabled Nox to nail her patterned Shining Wizard and progress to the next round in what was an easy enjoyable opener to watch.
RHEA RIPLEY defeats MJ JENKINS
Jenkins hails from Brooklyn and was trained by the Dudley Boys and this was my first viewing of her as she faced a much bigger and more domineering opponent in Ripley, who at 21 could be the youngest competitor in this year’s field. However, Ripley was hoping to redeem herself this year after falling at the second round twelve months earlier. Ripley refused to shake the hand of Jenkins who lead from the off with some nice arm drags until Ripley nailed a drop kick as Jenkins danced on the ropes sending her to the floor. The more physical Ripley, compared by some to Charlotte Flair (something that Ripley takes offence too) played with her opponent, being more physically domineering, becoming somewhat frustrated as the match progressed as she could not find an avenue to put the Brooklyn girl away, which enabled Jenkins to rally a small comeback although Ripley’s ‘Pump Handle Bomb’ soon put an end her hopes of progressing as the Australian advances.
LACEY LANE defeats VANESSA KRAVEN
Hometown girl Lane has just been signed to a NXT contract in this David & Goliath match up has her opponent, Montreal born Kraven towered over Lane who took to using her speed to avoid any offence (albeit a bit awkward) from her much bigger opponent. Lane used her feet as her offence to unstable Kraven as the Florida native danced around, even affording a small botch from a slip until she was caught ringside by the Canadian who used her strength to her advantage to put in some offence of her own. Lane’s quickness and flexibility was always going to see her advance as she planted her ‘Crucifix Bomb’ on Kraven, which really was well executed and saw her advance to the second round. Kraven looked a little awkward throughout, however she did make Lane look terrific which was to her credit and do not be surprised to see a good run from Lane.
MEIKO SATOMURA defeats KILLER KELLY
My excitement at seeing Mieko at this event really has given me the appetite to enjoy this year’s tournament. Meiko, who wrestled twenty-two years ago for WCW (yes, that WCW!) is the current DDT KO-D Openweight champion and also a former Fight Club Pro champion, two promotions usually dominated with male champions. The Japanese veteran, enjoying an outstanding 2018 faced an opponent in Killer Kelly, the first Portuguese wrestler to wrestle in the WWE. Meiko had the crowd eating out of her hand with a terrific performance as she dominated a fair portion of the match displaying continual offence that was simply exciting to watch as she would not allow Kelly to find any offence as she nailed move after move. To be fair, Kelly did find herself and gave a really good performance, even an attempted German from the top rope was thwarted by Satomura, so Kelly changed the offence going to a submission that finally gave her a break. Interestingly, Kelly hit Satomura with a pretty weak Fisherman’s suplex that saw a 2.99999… count that had the commentary screaming for a three count victory. That call changed the tide has Satomura planted a Death Valley Driver sending her through to the last sixteen.
The first week of a new show/tournament can sometimes set-up what is to come over the next so many weeks. WWE this year has decided to make this year’s tournament a weekly showing and not a mass streaming of shows as was the case last year. For me this is better, I now have a week to soak up episode one and look forward to the next. This was a good opening week, with not really any surprises, and the veteran Meiko Satomura really putting her stamp on this whole tournament with a wonderful showing. Here’s to episode two!
