Thunder Rosa vs Miyu Yamashita

Miyu Yamashita got a nice pop from the AEW crowd in Worcester. Thunder Rosa, of course, got the “Thunder Rosa Pop”. Excalibur puts over how Yamashita started training in karate at just 8-years old.

Some chain wrestling to start things off. Both women begin going for pin attempts trying to one-up each other. Miyu stops Thunder Rosa’s hand from striking her in the Dustin Rhodes drop down punch spot.

The women would work their way onto the apron and would create a few moments where my heart was in my throat just because Yamashita’s feet kept seeming to slip off the apron like this was a smaller than normal apron or something. The fight would go to the floor where TR would offer some chops. Miyu would answer back with like a wall jump kick off the side of the ring. Really nice move as we got to PIP.

While in PIP, we’d get a weird moment where Thunder Rosa would be down, Yamashita looked like she was going to line Rosa up for a kick then kind of waved her hand like she was telling Thunder Rosa to move back or lay back down. That’s how I interpreted it anyway. Yamashita would hit a spinning kick on the seated TR. Excalibur put this across on commentary as Thunder Rosa daring Miyu to kick her as an act of defiance. Yimashita would perform a nice headlock hip toss and then a gut wrench rib breaker. Thunder Rosa returns with a Stunner.

We return from PIP as Thunder Rosa hits some running knees to Miyu in the corner and then drop kicks against the ropes followed by a Northern Lights Suplex for two. It’s at this point where I’m noticing that JR has not once even attempted to say “Miya Yamashita” but instead has opted for “the challenger” or “this young woman”, lol.

Rosa climbs to the top rope but Yamashita, impressively, kicks her in the head from the mat. They exchange standing strikes. Yamashita hits another high kick to the head, a running knee and then a German Suplex with pin for two.

Yamashita would jump off the middle turnbuckle to hit a kick on Rosa then as she was dazed, hits her finisher The Skull Kick. Thankfully for TR she was right by the ropes to break the pin at two. This would get followed up by a repeat spot of how the last match ended but both competitors would escape.

Each woman would exchange kicks with Thunder Rosa hitting a good roundhouse to daze Yamashita long enough to pull her in for the Thunder Driver for the win. After the match both women bow, shake hands and embrace.

I’ll be honest, while this was a good match I don’t think it met the hype it had garnered and if I was hearing a differing opinion from somewhere, I’d go back and give this match a 3rd look (I always watch the match once before watching it again on my review) but even those more familiar with Yamashita’s work in TJP seem to be expressing this sentiment.