Meiko Satomura vs. Lacey Lane A Lesson In Brief, But Touching Story-Telling

In the second round of the WWE Mae Young Classic 2, Lacey Lane did her best to keep her “Cinderella Story” alive against the legendary Meiko Satomura, whose strikes and experience ultimately proved to be too much for Lane to overcome.

The WWE Mae Young Classic 2 tournament has given fans some of the best wrestling of 2018, as our Wednesday nights are packed with one hour of the purest form of enjoyment on this planet. Watching the best women’s wrestlers in the world battle it out on this grand stage has been an absolute blast, and two of the tournament’s standouts clashed in the quarterfinals when Lacey Lane and Meiko Satomura shared the ring.

Satomura and Lane couldn’t come from more different backgrounds as far as wrestling is concerned. Lane has only been wrestling for about two years, whereas Satomura is arguably the most revered active wrestler on the planet today. Satomura began wrestling in 1995, so she has over two decades of experience.

That experience proved to be a difference-maker against Lane, who was previously on an absolute roll to start the tournament. Lane defeated Vanessa Kraven and Taynara Conti in first and second-round upsets, firmly establishing herself as the breakout star of the tournament. Kraven’s strength and Conti’s striking seemingly gave them advantages over the up-and-comer, but Lane’s grit and savvy allowed her to snag two impressive victories.

Against Satomura, Lane wasn’t about to back down from the toughest challenge of her wrestling career. Previously, Satomura put on an absolute clinic against Mercedes Martinez, which will go down as one of the best matches of the year in WWE. While Satomura vs. Lane wasn’t quite on that level, it was an exhibition in how to tell a compelling story in a limited amount of time.

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Even before the match started, Renee Young, Beth Phoenix, and Michael Cole did a fabulous job of setting up the story. They played up how Satomura, as a legend of this business, has everything to lose if she is upset by Lane. It would be humiliating from her perspective, because she’d be defeated by someone who is essentially a rookie. But while Lane didn’t have the pressure of expectations weighing on her, she did have the pressure of going up against someone as intimidating as Satomura.

Lane, as we’ve come to learn from the way she carries herself, wasn’t intimidated by the founder of Sendai Girls’ Pro Wrestling. She wanted to match Satomura move-for-move and blow-for-blow. The former Division II college basketball player replicated Satomura’s cartwheel before trying to get into a battle of strikes with the legend.

Satomura was so impressed by Lane’s fighting spirit that she offered Lane a handshake. But Lane wasn’t about to indulge in any niceties during a stiff, high-stakes battle with a living legend. Instead of letting her guard down or tacitly admitting that she wants to be validated by Satomura, Lane shook off the handshake.

While this angered Satomura at the time, it made the post-match hug between them even more meaningful. In her first round match, Satomura helped put over Killer Kelly, who is one of wrestling’s most underrated talents, as a future star. That hug helped do the same for Lane, who had already built up plenty of momentum with her wins over Kraven and Conti.

Throughout the match, Lane’s biggest advantages were her speed and element of surprise. The problem is that Satomura not only knows how to counter elite quickness, but she’s also got plenty of speed despite being nearly 40. The end result was that Lane no longer had the skills that got her past her first two matchups, and Satomura was able to expose Lane’s limitations as a less experienced and less well-rounded competitor.

That said, Lane did show wisdom beyond her years when fighting through a dangerous submission from Satomura, who placed Lane in an armbar with her usual gracefulness. Lane tried multiple ways to fight out of it, but Satomura blocked her attempts to crawl or counter the submission into a pinfall. Lane eventually had to turn herself around and fight to place her legs on the bottom ropes. Satomura’s grip is unforgiving, but Lane found a way to squirm free of the excruciating submission. She showed good awareness and determination while in that submission, and that was a nice wrinkle to this match.

Satomura won relatively quickly, but in that short period of time, Lane didn’t look out of place. There was little chance of Satomura, one of the most decorated pro wrestlers in history, losing to a young gun like Lane, but Lane did have a legitimate shot at pulling the upset at one point in the match. All it took, though, was one DVD for a patient, calculating, wise, and ruthless Satomura to put the nail in the coffin of Lane’s upset bid.

It will be exciting to see how Lane’s wrestling career progress after the Mae Young Classic tournament, because this has been a real launching pad for her career. The NXT Superstar was showcased heavily by WWE in this tournament, and WWE did a great job of interviewing fans to a rising star.