Santana vs Aria Blake
Santana Garrett puts her honed wrestling skills to the test against a rookie to UWW, Aria Blake in “Best In The World?’. The world renowned wrestler doesn’t see much in Aria, not even wanting to wrestle someone of her experience level initially in fact, but she gets a rather rude awakening when she realizes she is tougher than she thought she was! Can Santana recover from the shock of this, or will her cockiness bite her in the ass?
In the early stages of the match, Santana’s thoughts about Aria seem pretty accurate, as following an exchange of wristlocks and go behinds, she is able to assume control of things with a full nelson/bodyscissor combo that soon becomes a straight bodyscissor outright. That control still doesn’t come easy however, as in a sign of things to come, Santana has to fight off a bridge pin attempt while holding Aria in the full nelson. Aria hasn’t shown her full ability to her much more experienced opponent yet, but the surprise move is evidence she clearly has plenty to offer!
Rakes and knees to the back are delivered after this sequence by Santana, followed by two headbutts, with the first one sending Aria crashing to the mat. It’s after the second one though, that Aria really shows Santana how tough she can be! She stuns the still very cocky woman with a kick to the midsection, snapmares her to the canvas where she puts her own full nelson/bodyscissor combination hold on as revenge for Santana’s on her, and when she’s done there, she gets her into the corner where she stomps away at her and then chokes her with her boot. Santana can no longer overlook Aria now! It has been made unequivocally clear she is in for the fight of her life!
Despite the shock, Santana tries to keep her composure as the match continues, but after finding herself in another full nelson from Aria, this one of the scissoring form, she is forced to roll out of the ring to take a breather and try and give herself a “pep talk”! When she eventually returns to her now bemused foe, it appears the break has settled her issues as she comes back much more aggressive than she had been up to that point, but is she still a little overly confident for own good? Can Aria actually pull an upset here?
Entertaining bout featuring the very old school story of the cocky veteran wrestler looking past the young up and comer, only to find that was a mistake and then having to really fight for what they thought was a sure thing. Fans who appreciate storytelling like that should really like this match, and will especially like how Santana sells what is going on throughout, particularly when she goes outside the ring. It’s classic wrestling psychology, among some of the best we have shot. If you have a fondness for the type of wrestling that really isn’t seen as much today in the mainstream at least, you’ll want to go out of your way to get this match. It’s one that should bring back memories of what wrestling used to be.