Even With Hair on the Line, Tam Nakano vs. Giulia Ain't For Me

This match sucks, y’all.

There is, I suspect, a history between these two that enriches the story that plays out here, but I am going to be blunt with you: I do not care, that shit does not matter to me. For all of my bluster about the grand narrative sweep of the great sport of professional wrestling, I find myself increasingly lacking the patience or grace for the This Is Cinema school of modern professional wrestling, where close attention to months (sometimes years!) of storytelling shade a match just so. It’s one thing when it’s a wrestler learning, over time, how to finally defeat a rival they’d spent years chasing, it’s another thing entirely when two wrestlers make their way into a grudge match, an apuesta STARDOM has the balls to compare to Chigusa Nagayo and Dump Matsumoto’s legendary hair vs. hair match, and kick things off by looking at each other as if they’re dissociating in the cereal aisle.