Man to hell with everything else, Kandori v Hotta is the true #1 joshi feud of the 90s. This was a few years before the '97/'98 murderfests but they were clearly at each other's throat already. During the intros Kandori grabs the title belts from the ref and chucks them away, ready to be done with the preamble and start with the scrapping, so it ends in a pull-apart and a short brawl into the crowd. Joshi crowd brawling generally sucks but this at least led to Takako getting cut open, which in turn led to Kandori and Miki brutalising her. Kandori is such an awesome shit-talker. I remember watching the Dreamslam match with Kandori when I was first dipping into joshi - as I'd imagine lots of folk did - and thinking Kandori was pretty stoic. Maybe not bland exactly but not someone with a ton of personality either. It wasn't until the last few years that I reevaluated her and clearly my early impression was nonsense, because she has a ton of charisma and she's pretty much always a hoot. She was having a blast mauling Takako here and every exchange with Hotta was what you'd expect. They don't always looked crisp, some of them were downright ugly, but you never forget that these two women will throttle one another given the chance. In tag matches like this you need the understudies to bring the heat and Takako and Miki fairly brought the heat. Some of Inoue's flying knees looked brutal, especially the ones where she'd come roaring into camera shot and clatter someone in the neck or ear. She and Hotta get their revenge on Miki by opening her up and Hotta of course boots her in the forehead several times like a maniac. Add a nasty finish to cap things off and this was another badass entry into the Kandori/Hotta highlight reel.
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