2024 MOTY: Miu v Shoko
2024 Superlatives, Part Three: The Machinery Laid Bare
miu © v shoko, yes! wonderland ‘24 5/6/24
some of you may know i make music under the name Job History. the focus of Job History is what it sounds like: labor; the circumstances, the vibe, the first-hand experience, the environment. the raw material of Job History is audio recorded secretly, while on the clock, in places i’ve worked over the last 18 years. i’ve been working actively with this concept for over a decade, self-released a few tapes along the way, but only started performing it live this year. all i wanted from the live sets was for someone to understand what they were hearing and why someone would be so preoccupied with the source material—namely, that there is a huge swath of life (working for a living) that almost all artists disregard; that even thinking about something else at work is theft, and theft is radical. finding a way to convey that idea repeatedly in live settings has been way more challenging than i’d expected. hey hello hi. im stupitd
for me, this match is about work. and i don’t mean “work rate” (though you could easily argue this is very much an old school work rate match). i mean the raw material that goes into a final product meant for public consumption; where the raw material, what happens back stage, has to be identifiable in the final product.
watching UWF for the first time in the early 00s (a friend got the akira maeda 10 vhs tape long box set, which sent me down a lifelong shoot style rabbit hole), it struck me that the first 1- to 2-thirds of each match was just the shit every wrestler does in the dojo every day: get on the mat and work until something happens. UWF gets credit for the wrong thing imho. they didn’t up-end the structure and narrative of pro-wrestling, or destroy the illusion. instead, they exposed the daily labor that goes into the construction of the pro-wrestling illusion and plugged it back into the final product in [ostensibly] raw form. that idea is so much richer than “exposing the business,” which to me is a value-neutral act (at best) to begin with. if you spend every day rolling around on a mat in the dojo and find that process compelling enough to keep showing up, maybe that’s compelling to an audience, too?
it required some respect (or indifference) for the audience, and obviously some didn’t get it or found it tiresome or boring but it was compelling enough to span a generation of shoot style companies, a further legacy of shoot style-aping wrestling (Arsion, Battlarts, which begat Zero-1 and, sadly, GLEAT) and also the whole conceit of MMA as a lucrative entertainment medium.
this match feels like plugging that idea into a regular pro-wrestling title shot narrative. they spend the first 8 minutes in holds. it takes ages to get to the first near fall. but, crucially, at every turn we’re reminded by comms that miu and shoko spend every day of their lives in the dojo. we’re just watching them punch the clock until it’s time to turn it into A Recognizable Wrestling Match, and then they do that bit really good on top of it.
there’s a moment in this match (two, actually; we’ll get to the other one later) that has made everyone i’ve made watch this go “ok ok ok. this is something special.” i’ve replayed it like 30 times. it’s so simple: there is a shift of weight. shoko forces miu down by making her roll her ankle and uses that leverage to set up the next hold. it’s some billy robinson shit. some johnny saint shit. here? in the idol wrestling company? the one we’re supposed to consider lesser bc ppl don’t get dropped on their neck at odd angles every 30 seconds?
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i can’t help but think, throughout this match, about labor. we’ve all had jobs where we’re told to keep the machinery, the sometimes literal sausage-making, away from the customer. they have to think this is all effortless; that the real sweat has to be wiped off the final presentation, otherwise they’ll be confronted with how this all actually works, which most management thinks is anathema to repeat business. we’re all facilitating a lie that the receiver knows is happening for their piece of mind. the meat comes in in a big, wet bag, gets cleaned of fat and connective tissue, set in a tray with an absorbent pads, wrapped and put out for sale. the smell, the fluids, the trim, the honing of skill, is hidden.
this match brings the backroom to the front.
and ofc the two wrestlers who spend the most time in the Teej dojo are gonna shred. ofc they’re gonna go so hard shoko’s contact lens is shot off of her eyeball and towards the comms area (it’s betw swing 7 and swing 8, btw; you can see it happen) making the finishing stretch even more impressive because she’s half-blind for it. ofc. OFC!
the genius of the whole opening mat segment is they both know (as do we all, i hope) this isn’t gonna end early, so they have to choose independently between setting their opponent up to be unable to get their finisher off OR make them especially vulnerable for their finish. that those choices (same target, different reasons) take more than half the match to coalesce makes their struggles all the more remarkable when they pay off. now it’s a race. shoko misses the senton on the apron, wrecking what’s left of her lower back, and setting miu up for the canadian backbreaker—provided she lands it. at every turn a new set of contingencies come up, forcing the audience to ask themselves the same question in a new way.
once we get into who manages to do what, we’re funneled into a regular wrestling match. it’s a fucking great one, too, if very normal storywise: someone’s gonna get the high ground and either hold it long enough to make it count or have it snatched away too early. we got the latter. shoko never gets off any of her finisher setups to completion. she gets cut off before the senton—which put miyu away, giving shoko her last title run and closed all her subsequent defenses—and then gets interrupted before the third northern lights in locomotion. the bret juice was on empty. she did almost sealed the deal several times with unmanned local train, a move she’s rarely (if ever?) done. this was the perfect setting to emphasize it in bc it was her last trump card: miu has her scouted except for This One Weird Trick. Teej thrives on that approach: you either grow or die.
the ending sequence in this match is so fluid but somehow still so gnarly. in lesser hands it would look weightless. when miu hit that twisting power slam, idgaf what anyone says: not one mf in the building was fully in their seat. they levitated. they lost a breath. it felt to me, as it has felt every time i’ve rewatched it, like one of the most elegant pieces of wrestling i’ve ever seen. the rotation is so quick, the setup so supernaturally timed. and then, wisely, they capitalized on the meme that is the laser beam and shot right into the most gorgeous teardrop miu has ever landed.
it all added up. it all felt earned. but the foundation was two ppl showing everyone that what they see betw bells comes from somewhere else. it comes from work—not just as real and powerful as what you’re being sold but arguably more real. so beyond being my favorite match of the year, this is has also been an ad. sorry i’m actually out of Job History tapes rn. i do have some DREAMSLUM tapes left. what’s DREAMLSUM? i’m so glad you asked—