NJPW STRONG Women’s Title: Mercedes Mone (c) vs. Hazuki, 12/15/24
I’ll start off by saying this is better than anything Mercedes has done in AEW to this point. Hazuki was good here, but because they had to pause in between every exchange so Mercedes could play to the crowd or put her character over, they never really were able to string together any sort of cohesion aside from a couple of short back and forth exchanges.There were some cool moments here – and that’s mainly what the match felt like – a collection of stuff to pop the crowd that went on way too long for what it was. The cherry on top was Mercedes hitting a standing powerbomb and going for the cover but pulling Hazuki up only to botch the Monemaker which she does about 99% of the time. It’s a shame because for a lot of the match Mercedes looked somewhat competent but the chemistry just wasn’t there for me for a good amount of the match. There were several occasions where they would have to pause or hesitate while waiting for the opponent to get in position for a spot and that happened nearly every time they tried to do more than one or two things in a sequence. Hazuki’s performance is largely what got the crowd invested in the match as it was entirely believable that she could win and a lot of the near falls were really good. Mercedes did vary her offense but I just think this could have been made better by chopping off about 10 minutes. I’ll also say that I always appreciate the elbow strike exchanges when they aren’t just standing there waiting to get hit. Not nearly the MOTYC that people are hyping it to be. An enjoyable watch, but going in the “Almost good” category for me. **3/4
