A storm. A storm of fury crashing down, loud, unrelenting like lightning piercing the flesh of the earth. That is Aja Kong vs. Meiko Satomura at GAEA Yokohama Double Destiny. 

It’s a gorgeously intense, artfully violent clash of two joshi legends that begs to be rewatched.  

We are now 25 years removed from that September 1999 match for the AAAW Championship with many fans in reflection/appreciation mode for Satomura as her April 2025 retirement draws closer. This bout, like so many of her meetings with Kong, deserve to be revisited.  

The bruising Kong and the dogged Satomura made for such compelling rivals. Aja, who entered the Yokohama Bunko Gymnasium as AAAW champ on this night, is the ultimate predator, a beastly fighter who overpowers and intimidates. Opposite her here stood a young Satomura whose heart and fighting spirit are the ideal weapons for Kong’s strengths. 

A bully versus a bully killer.  

The match began with Kong delivering a stare from the ninth circle of Hell. She and Satomura shared an intense, heavy moment before the referee had to break things up. It’s a precursor to the tension that this showdown is built on. 

Once the bell rings, Kong’s power is in play right away. She puts her opponent against the ropes, weighs her down with a sleeper hold, and then just goes to town with strikes. She is the aggressor as usual.  

But Satomura is no prey. The challenger fights back with her trademark kicks. She’s fiery, feisty, fearless.  

And while she’s able to knock Kong off her feet, it only seems to make the monster angry. 

Aja’s response is to ramp up the brutality. She wrenches on Satomura’s arm, leaving her groaning in pain. Meiko turns into a howling animal, a fox caught in a bear’s grip, screaming, scratching. 

Satomura manages flurries in response, but every bit of offense hits a brick wall. In contrast, Kong’s assault floors her. With ease. Without mercy.  

Kong’s pace is slow. She grinds Meiko up. This is as much a dissection as it is an onslaught. 

This dynamic has been played out time and again with Kong in this role, but Satomura is especially compelling opposite her. She creates pathos as she suffers Kong’s wrath, as she continually finds more courage to keep fighting. 

So much of the story of this match is Satomura having a flash of hope only to have it flushed away in an instant. 

She leaps off the top rope and go on the attack but knees to her chest steals the air from her momentum. She kicks and scraps, but Kong dumps her out of the ring. She charges at the champion and Aja suplexes the shine from her soul.  

Kong is absolutely on her game throughout. 

She tosses in a suicide dive with her usual straight-ahead offense, becoming a tree trunk flying at the would-be lumberjack. She hits a lariat that feels kin to a car collision. There’s a memorable moment, too, after Meiko clocked her and the ref begins his 10-count that Kong stands up emphatically, a horror movie monster making it unmistakably clear that she is not yet dead.  

The match builds in dramatic power as it goes, tense and taut until it explodes with powerful moments in the final act. 

One of those is Kong leaping off the turnbuckle to deliver a diving elbow and instead getting caught in a Satomura armbar. For those few seconds that follow, the beast is vulnerable, the door is ajar. Can Meiko pull this off? 

Kong says “no” by way of a powerbomb that rocks her foe.  

Even after Satomura’s hopes are derailed like that so often during the action, the crowd is ensnared every time she lands something big. The upset is possible. The queen oh so close to falling from her throne.  

Kong, meanwhile, seems increasingly angry that Meiko has held out this long and that she has even brushed against the possibility of victory.  

The warriors trade bombs. Kong hits a nasty brainbuster. Meiko fires off a powerbomb from the top rope. The battle is draining for both wrestlers, but Satomura especially seems to be taxed physically and emotionally. She has to dig deep to lift herself up off the mat in this arduous struggle.  

Then comes one of the most lasting images of this championship fight: Meiko counters the spinning back fist with an armbar and suddenly Aja is a desperate, trapped animal. We see something unfamiliar in her face. Fear. Is that truly fear? Is this monster capable of fear? 

Once Kong escapes, she knows she must put this foe away now. She will require extra force and focus to finish off Satomura. And so, she pushes her foot on the medal and drives hard down that road. 

A running back fist scores her a three-count and a win that is far less definitive than she surely wanted. 

The AAAW Championship match stole the show despite the main event pitting The Crush Gals, Lioness Asuka and Chigusa Nagayo, against each other. Kong vs. Satomura is the more indelible piece of art. It is the collision that inspires even looking at it now a quarter of a century. 

Kong and Satomura had several singles encounters. 14 of them to be exact. The 1999 classic remains, in my mind at least, the greatest of their clashes. 

Watch this tour de force. Then watch Satomura vs. Kong from Sendai Girls Live Vol. 1 (July 9, 2006) and GAEA Deep Endless (December 15, 2001) and decide for yourself. You are sure to enjoy all that beautiful savagery these women inflict on each other along the way. 

Title quotes the poem About Suffering by Elisa Gabbert