Revisiting 90s Joshi #22

Aja Kong & Bison Kimura v Manami Toyota & Esther Moreno (AJW, 4/29/91)

Esther Moreno, motherfucker! I've seen a bit of her sisters going through early 90s CMLL, but I think this is my first look at Esther and that diminutive little woman is all sorts of awesome. Apparently her and Toyota were basically thrown together as a makeshift team to challenge Jungle Jack for the belts. You couldn't tell it from how they gelled though, and Esther seemed to bring out the best in Toyota as well. This was very much along the lines of Jungle Jack smash while Esther and Toyota need to be quicker than a hiccup. If Aja and Bison could isolate one of them they were fucked, but if Esther and Toyota could swarm either Aja or Bison then they maybe had a chance. That was basically how the first fall went, with the skinny girls doing everything rapid and stringing together double teams, flying around and avoiding being caught by one of the bruisers. You know what you're getting with Toyota already. She's a known commodity for most of us with even a passing interest in this era of joshi. There was a short spell where Aja and Bison worked over her hand that was pretty great, and from an offensive standpoint her missile dropkicks looked fine, but Esther hitting gorgeous armdrags and flipping out of stuff to avoid being splattered was mega cool. Their stereo dives ruled as well, one in particular where Toyota went low with a crossbody off the top while Esther went high, almost like a wild top rope Total Elimination. Then in the second fall Jungle Jack finally grab hold of Esther long enough to bludgeon her. Clearly Esther comes from a background in the beautiful art of lucha libre because she bleeds like an apuestas match is afoot and a barber dressed fully in white is about to be covered in blood. She's wearing the crimson mask in short order like Muta in his red face paint, and while I'd have liked the heat segment on her to go a bit longer she continued to sell great the rest of the way. It's not like Aja and Bison never got to beat on someone anyhow -- they got to beat on two someones and they did it like they meant it. The dive train in the third fall had a couple corkers, with Esther hitting an Asai Moonsault before Ultimo Dragon made it cool, and Aja wiping out everyone in a six mile radius with a plancha was amazing. This was a real blast.