I enjoyed my little dive back into this stuff towards the end of last year; a decent bit more than I would've expected, if I'm honest. With the PWO GWE 2026 project now rolling I'll make an effort to jump into 80s joshi at some point down the line, but there's still more 90s stuff I want to hit before then.
I don't know if this was a great match, but it was an awesome curb-stomping from Nakano and Hokuto. Minami grabbed the mic pre-match to vent some obvious frustration about something, and while Hokuto looked mostly unperturbed by it a nerve was clearly touched. Straight from the bell Hokuto tried to take the jaw off her and Minami and Mita never really had a chance after that. It was a really fun underdog performance from the pair of them but they spent the majority of this getting battered. Hokuto was throwing some of the nastiest open hand slaps you'll ever see, Bull was trying to take their heads off with lariats, there were some straight punts to the stomach, a few brutal piledrivers, it was a real pummelling. Bull was in full wrecking ball mode and it was amusing seeing how these skinny girls would try to match up with her. It meant they'd sometimes fling themselves at her full force, but she'd just catch them and flatten them, or at one point chuck both of them into a row of spectators so Hokuto could crush them with a dive. Minami finally managing to use Bull's own momentum against her with a quick roll-up was a great spot, but when she couldn't hold her you knew she'd pay badly for it. Hokuto got to show a little more vulnerability than Bull and her bump off one Minami backbreaker was borderline nuts. I think over the last 6-7 months I've come around big time on Hokuto. Stylistically she'll probably never be a favourite - even within the context of joshi as one big broad style unto itself - but I get why her biggest fans see her as a GOAT candidate and she'll absolutely be on my top 100 by 2026. There's also a Hokuto/Minami singles match from earlier in the year that I've wanted to watch for a while, so if this is anything to go by I can't imagine it'll suck.
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