Revisiting 90s Joshi #60

Akira Hokuto & Chigusa Nagayo v KAORU & Maiko Matsumoto (GAEA, 2/16/97)

Maybe my favourite dynamic of 90s GAEA is the rookies against the veterans. I guess it comes with the makeup of the roster, one that was relatively thin to begin with, where they clearly made a point of spotlighting their young stars in the hopes of moulding them into something special. It feels like on every show there's at least one match where you have some scrawny teenager getting the ever-loving shit kicked out of them by one of the biggest stars in joshi history. It's the ultimate trial by fire and there's no greater fire for Maiko Matsumoto - who I have never heard of in my life and couldn't tell you if I'd seen her wrestle a match - than Chiggy and Hokuto. All Maiko can really do is an atomic drop, and I guess now and then a janky legdrop. That doesn't stop her from running at the legends before the bell's even rung, probably knowing she's about to get demolished but ready to go out on her shield all the same. It takes about 10 seconds for her to get shut down and the first stretch of the match is basically her getting tormented while KAORU can only look on. Chigusa was GLEEFULLY beating on this poor schmuck, holding Maiko's hand out juuuust enough that KAORU would try and tag her only for the hand to be snatched back at the last second. Hokuto was the Dangerous Queen and everything that entailed, unfortunately for Maiko Matsumoto. Chigusa had her in a seated full nelson while slapping her repeatedly on the back and shoulder - the latter heavily taped - then Hokuto came in and they put her in a double cross armbreaker, which was frankly unnecessary. Hokuto never forgave Matsumoto for that early attack and even started biting her on the shoulder at one point. Eventually Hokuto gets fed up playing with her food and just chucks Maiko into her own corner so she can tag out. From there it looks like Maiko will only be of use as a distraction or getting in the way long enough for KAORU to do something, maybe holding someone in place so her partner can hit a springboard. But then Maiko strings off half a dozen atomic drops on Hokuto and for a second we believe in miracles. Hokuto shows us all why she's one of the best ever by selling these atomic drops like they're taking an actual toll, hobbling a little more after each, perhaps showing a little desperation for good measure. Of course she killed the kid dead in the end and there was never really any doubt about it, but still, Maiko will learn from it. She will learn and it is not the last I will see of her (she retired two years later. It's likely this is actually the last I will see of her). 

Revisiting 90s Joshi #59

Chigusa Nagayo & Dynamite Kansai v Mayumi Ozaki & Devil Masami (GAEA, 4/15/95)

This was the main event of the GAEA debut show and a big-name match up for the occasion. 90s and early-00s GAEA has sort of become one of my favourite promotions to watch over the last few years, and that along with ARSION are my two favourite joshi promotions ever. There's a real charm to the first few years of GAEA with all of the rookies and stylistically it didn't lean on excess quite the way AJW would. This wasn't really that GAEA as half of the match is two JPW mainstays, but it was scorching hot and gave the crowd a bit of everything. I've watched a handful of Mayumi Ozaki matches the last few days and at this point there may not be a wrestler I've ever done a bigger 180 on than her. 10 years ago you wouldn't have been able to pay me to watch five Ozaki matches in three days. But over the last few years I've come around on her big time (she's thrilled, I'm sure) and yeah, maybe she was awesome this whole time and it was just me. She was really great here, scrappy and TENACIOUS and now and then she'd just wrap a chain around her hand and punch someone in the face. She was also wearing street clothes so you knew she had it in mind to fly off the handle at some point. There may never have been anyone more willing to take an absurd beating off a specific opponent than Ozaki from Dynamite Kansai. Every time they match up throughout their careers there'll be at least a couple times an outing where Kansai unleashes some horrific kicks and Ozaki eats all of them like a total nutcase. Devil was in her Super Heel bag here, which I wasn't aware of coming in and I wish I was because then I'd have tempered expectations. She's fine enough working that sort of thing and I guess I appreciate great wrestlers experimenting, but regular Devil Masami is too good for me not to be disappointed when she decides to play a shambling zombie. There were a couple moments where her selling was amazing, though. She'd try to brick wall her way through some stuff because she's impervious to pain or whatever, but she'd stumble or show a subtle sign of the damn breaking and the audience would pick up on it. I guess if I'm going to sit and watch someone do an Undertaker ripoff it might as well be Devil. About midway through they took it to the floor and got to the crowd brawling, but this was some decent joshi crowd brawling and it looked like Devil was trying to murder Chigusa with those chair shots. There were also moments throughout where those two would stare at each other or hesitate a little just to remind you that there's some steep history there. Not my favourite GAEA, but an easy watch and the crowd being rabid the whole time didn't hurt. 

Revisiting 90s Joshi #58

Mayumi Ozaki v Dynamite Kansai (Street Fight) (JWP, 3/17/95)

10 years ago I'd have avoided this like the plague. Going through the old 90s yearbooks, just about anything with these two was fast forward material, and joshi street fights were probably my least favourite match type. I've mentioned this before and to be fair it's probably time I move past it, but the Ozaki/Takako Inoue street fight on the '96 yearbook was so bad it basically turned me off wrestling for weeks. I'm not in a hurry to watch that particular match again but this one was significantly better and I thought both women were really good in it. I come around on Ozaki a little more with every match of hers I watch, probably because she is a nutjob and when she wraps a chain around her fist and punches people in the neck I get the sense she would legitimately like to kill that person. The chain-wrapped punches here were brutal and every single one of them made me wince. Actually everything they did with the chain was nasty as fuck. It's hard for me not to judge most stuff in wrestling involving a chain on the Piper/Valentine curve, but this scored well and if you're going to drag someone around the arena by a chain around their neck then this is the way to do it. Kansai turned it into a leash and stepped on Ozaki's head, then pulled the free length of chain like she was trying to crush Ozaki's throat like an empty Sprite can. They fight their way down an escalator and brawl outside the building for a minute, which could've come across as some Road Dogg/Hardcore Holly type tomfoolery but managed not to. Things take a turn for the disgusting when Ozaki whomps Kansai with a chair and the latter taps a full Puerto Rico gusher. I typically think of Kansai as a strike machine, but her blood-loss selling was great here and there were points where it looked like she could barely stand up straight. Of course she could stand up straight enough to wrap that chain around her foot and kick Ozaki in the mouth. Your mileage may vary on the finish, especially with it coming straight after a crazy piledriver through one of those thick bastard tables, but it felt like a last ditch bit of desperation to me and if you're outgunned in a gunfight then your best weapon is an inside cradle. My great grandmother always did say so. 

Revisiting 90s Joshi #57

Kyoko Inoue v Takako Inoue (AJW, 1/24/93)

Since deciding to properly commit to the joshi revisit back in 2020, just about every wrestler I've watched has gone up in my estimations. Some I was already high on anyway, like Aja and Kandori and Yoshida, but there was a point where I could not have been less arsed about watching a Mayumi Ozaki or Dynamite Kansai or Manami Toyota match and to say my stance has since softened on all three would be an understatement. You can probably count Takako Inoue amongst that ESTEEMED number as well. Kyoko I still struggle with, though. Outside of the Kandori match from '93 there hasn't been a Kyoko Inoue match where I've come out of it thinking she's all that enjoyable (the Kandori match is terrific but it's mostly about Kandori). She's not particularly interesting on offence, kind of spotty when selling (even for joshi), doesn't have the sort of grappling that'll draw me in, and she isn't a shit-kicker like Hotta or even Yamada where every now and then they'll just volley someone in the lungs. But this was the one right here. I thought she was great and basically every aspect of her performance was as strong as I've ever seen it. Actually both of them were great and as a match it turned out to be awesome. The first half was mostly about working holds and this was easily as engaging as I've found Kyoko working the mat, maybe Takako as well. Even if they basically came through at the same time Kyoko is definitely a rung above Takako in the pecking order. She showed it by how she mostly dominated on the ground. Takako would have to fight and claw for everything, working overtime just to grab a headlock. Kyoko wasn't toying with her as such, but she was comfortable and took some time having fun with an Indian deathlock, rolling around the ring with Takako and stretching her out. This was a fun contest for Kyoko. It was not fun for Takako and she wasn't in the mood to be put in her place, which she demonstrated emphatically a bit later. Kyoko was firm in cutting her off, like when they both stood up and Takako threw a few rough shots, Kyoko responding by dropping her with the nastiest elbow I've seen her throw. Takako went after the leg for a bit and trapped Kyoko in a gorgeous mid-match kneebar that people seemed to buy as a finish. So Kyoko kicked things up a bit and hit her nice springboard offence, still in control and dictating the pace, the match largely in her hands. Then Takako caught her on one of those springboard attempts and threw her outside, followed up first with a tope, then secondly with a butterfly suplex. I was not expecting Takako to up it again by trying to kill Kyoko but she surely did by hitting a vile high-angle back suplex on the floor. Kyoko really came into her own after this, selling the suplex like death and really milking the countout tease. Her selling the whole rest of the way was excellent and honestly felt a little Misawa-ish in how she just tried to survive those next few minutes. Takako was trying to unload the clip to put her away and Kyoko's slow transition back to offence was great. She went for her airplane spin powerbomb but couldn't even hoist Takako up properly, had to take a beat to recover and put across the toll of that suplex on the floor. The next time she put Takako in her place it was with a brutal sort of forearm lariat thing, just a complete "enough of this now" shot. Her sit-out powerbomb was an ugly thing that landed Takako on her tailbone, but again it worked as Kyoko still not being able to properly execute those moves. Maybe she wanted to make an example of Takako because she interrupted her own pin to dish out some more punishment. To Kyoko it had been a wrestling contest while Takako saw it as a fight. Be careful what you wish for, I guess. I found myself rooting for Takako on her last comeback attempt, her scrappiness and determination winning me over, but you have to say Kyoko drilling her with one last KO shot was pretty great too. This was top.

Revisiting 90s Joshi #56

Aja Kong v Meiko Satomura (GAEA, 4/24/98)

This is one of my favourite feuds in all of joshi so I'm surprised I'd never seen this instalment of it before. It's their first singles match together and of course had some of the elements that made their match a year later a classic, but a year can be a lifetime and Meiko was nowhere near ready to scale this mountain yet. The hierarchy gap was much more pronounced here and Aja was far swifter with her murderousness. But the Bulls needed to run into that Pistons brick wall a few times, needed to taste failure and be force-fed half a dozen elbows before realising what it would take to reach the PINNACLE and such. Success is earned, not given, as my great granny would always tell me. And Aja never gave her much but Meiko earned at least a little something to build on here. I loved her scrappiness above all. I seem to always mention how crazy it is that Satomura got so good so early, but it's worth repeating and every time I watch her in those formative years her persistence is captivating. It's impossible to watch her and not get behind her, even if you know in the end it likely won't matter, especially against someone this much higher up the food chain. You want to see her score those small victories though; see her finally take Aja down and lock in the armbar. She was determined to hook that thing and it usually failed, but the one time she succeeded had Aja scrambling to the ropes and it felt like a significant moment in a broader sense, like it'll stand her in good stead going forward. Her dedication to making everything feel important makes those moments stand out. Obviously Aja being awesome and knowing when to give and when to destroy helps too. She barely registered any elbow or forearm thrown her way and her expression rarely changed, unperturbed as she was. At one point, amid a barrage of forearms, she went to look out to the crowd like "who the fuck is this kid?" before changing her mind and dropping Meiko on the spot. Meiko hitting the death valley driver was an awesome moment and then Aja came back and showed her what a real death valley driver could be. Then she stood her up, patted her on the cheek for her efforts and took her head off with the backfist. For Satomura, maybe next time would be her time, or the time after that, or even the time after that. But not this time. 

Revisiting 90s Joshi #55

Akira Hokuto v KAORU (GAEA, 4/12/97)

This was only around 15 minutes and never really felt like the Big Time Epic I was expecting. I don't mean that as a criticism either. Even if I was EXPECTING Big Time Epic it wasn't exactly what I was HOPING for. It was much more of a gritty affair, very scrappy with a nice amount of viciousness to tide us over. I also have to use my wrestling-watching time sparingly these days so 15 minutes gave me a little extra time to figure out how to do my taxes for the first time since moving to the US so that was a cool or at least useful thing. KAORU starting like you might've expected Hokuto to once upon a time was great, blitzing her with a springboard dropkick while Hokuto's back was turned. But it's not the first time someone's tried jumping Hokuto before she's even taken her coat off and her comeback was savage. That comeback was maybe a wee bit easily earned initially, but her selling as the match progressed was really good and by the end it felt like one arm and one leg were hanging off. To hell with that though, she was nasty as fuck and made KAORU pay for her early insolence. There was lots of mean shit, like the disgusting armbars, finger-biting and dropping KAORU on her neck several times. At one point KAORU tried to hit a back suplex off the top and Hokuto just grabbed her by the head and threw her out the ring, totally reckless, then followed up with a wild senton. She might not be THE Dangerous Queen anymore but you'd be a fool to think she isn't still dangerous. KAORU was pretty great here and she's become a favourite of mine the last couple years. She was willing to give as good as she got and hit a couple sick bombs of her own. I think my favourite thing she did was her low dropkick to Hokuto's notoriously dodgy knee. This thing was putrid and the desperation of it made it even better. The finish itself might've been the nastiest move of the lot, which I guess is a good way to cap a match. I don't know if these two have another singles match together but they face off in a couple tags that year so I should go back and watch those too probably. 

Revisiting 90s Joshi #54

KAORU v Yasha Kurenai (GAEA, 4/15/95)

Exhibit #242 as to why the inter-promotional wrestling rules. Kurenai doesn't have much of a rep, or at least not a good one, and that's a shame because at this point I'm convinced she kind of rules. KAORU seems to be fairly well regarded and I'm beginning to see that she also rules. The crowd is red hot and Kurenai slaps KAORU in the face straight off the bat, so KAORU sends her to the floor and topes head-first into a chair. This was one of those screwball Chris Benoit topes that maybe makes you wince just a bit. Kurenai then chokeslams KAORU on the chair outside, brings her back in the ring and sits her down on it before booting her head off. Kurenai was a seedy witch in this, stamping on KAORU's fingers, biting her wrist and spitting a chunk of it at the referee, whacking her with a stick, working over KAORU's throat. KAORU gets some payback by biting the wrist and stamping on the fingers, then drags Kurenai up the aisle and flings her into a wall before sitting in the chair in the middle of the ring waiting on her. I loved the visual of Kurenai from outside staring at KAORU with open contempt while the latter is entirely indifferent towards her. Kurenai's offence was mostly low level stuff, her biggest shots being springboard legdrops, but that makes her stand out in an era where joshi was going for bigger and bigger. She was fully about getting heat here and she wasn't about to turn anyone to her cause by doing something swank. KAORU on the other hand has the perfect moonsaults. I preferred the opening of this to the stretch run, but the final few minutes made for a really dramatic finish and the nearfalls had people biting big. All it missed was KAORU giving Kurenai a return smack with that stick of hers. 

Revisiting 90s Joshi #53

Aja Kong v Manami Toyota (AJW, 8/20/97)

Apparently this went to a 30-minute draw. It really says something about how good the AJW editors were because I could not have told you where they shaved 10 minutes from. Either way, as far as Aja Kong v Manami Toyota goes this had all of the good stuff you might associate with that match-up. It largely followed the same formula as their 11/94 match, with Aja trying to bend or break or sometimes bend AND break Toyota while Toyota refused to succumb to either. Toyota was actually even more belligerent in '97 than she was in '94 so now and then she'd just shout something that I couldn't understand and start hitting Aja in the face. At one point she broke out of a rear naked choke and literally double stomped Aja full in the mouth. I'm obviously picky about the Toyota that I watch, but I've been on a roll with her lately and I thought she was pretty excellent again here. You knew she'd burst into life at points and hit some suplexes or dives, and she did that and those suplexes looked nasty and the dives were every bit as reckless as they needed to be if they were going to topple Aja. Her missile dropkick to the floor is a fucking absurd thing and how she never crippled herself in all those years is beyond me. But the selling in between is really good as well, not just in how she's selling the submissions as she's in them or how she's bumping for Aja's offence; I mean the parts before she gets up and runs the ropes or jumps off of something. She'd take a little stagger, delay those bursts just a couple seconds longer than she would've years before, and something as simple as that really puts across the scope of what she's trying to overcome. Those delays set up some great cut-offs as well, like when she went for a big dive to the floor and wiped out one of the ring girls, which Aja followed up with a PLUMP tope that clattered Toyota and the same poor ring girl. I even liked the big table spot because it felt like Toyota needed to up the ante or she'd just get smooshed before long. Also it looked brutal so that helps. The finish is something I could've gone either way on, but in the end I think I liked it. Toyota was dead on her feet, but she'd keep kicking out until she was dead on her arse. Aja hit her with three hideous urakens and Toyota wouldn't stay down. It was a small thing, but I loved how one of Toyota's kick-outs was a bridge accompanied with no screaming. There was none of her usual defiance, it was pure instinct in that moment. Aja giving her a bare-handed fourth looked like it must've shattered Toyota's whole face, but by then Aja had literally punched herself into exhaustion and just as she makes the cover the bell rings. Even if Toyota never won, she at least survived and somehow that felt closer to a victory than defeat. This was good stuff. 

Revisiting 90s Joshi #52

Yumiko Hotta v Toshiyo Yamada (AJW, 6/3/94)

June 3rd, 1994. A relatively okay day for the pro wrestling in Japan. I had a SNEAKING suspicion that this might involve some kicking. It went all of exactly one second before my suspicions were confirmed as Hotta roundhouse kicked Yamada in the lungs. And well, this was really about the kicking. Very many brutal kicks. If that's something you like then there's plenty for you here, and I'll freely admit that people kicking the absolutely dogpiss out of each other is something I like and so there was plenty for me here. The striking was world class and both of them were leaning into everything like fucking maniacs. It kind of ground to a halt during the sections where they took it to the mat, though. It wasn't like they were grabbing an armbar or a leglock and sitting there for five minutes like Don Muraco, but it wasn't the most compelling all the same. On the other hand they'd often try and fight out of those holds by booting the other person in the face and that led to them standing back up and continuing to boot each other in the face. They were clearly willing to eat absolute hell on those kicks as well as the camera even catches Hotta, slumped against the ropes after being drilled with a high kick, nodding to Yamada like yes you can full force kick me in the face again I don't mind. And even if the grappling wasn't the best I thought they sold the damage of it pretty well. Late on Yamada applies an extended sleeper, and while there wasn't much actually happening in the moment, Hotta would stumble and need to take a beat to recover while making her comeback. The shift towards the high-impact bombs towards the end was maybe a little jarring, but it at least kept with the idea of them trying to murder each other. It was just a different sort of murder. 

Revisiting 90s Joshi #51

Meiko Satomura v Sonoko Kato (GAEA, 10/13/97)

Man, I know GAEA was a lot of fun in 1997 but where the fuck did this come from??? It's quite frankly stupid that Satomura is 17 years old here. She shouldn't already be this good at something some people need 10 whole years to get good at. Kato isn't much older (21) and this almost struck me as a joshi version of Tamura/Kakihara from the first UWFi show, where they just went out and tore it up like they were the future of the game. Everything they did here was super competitive and crazy intense, but they never really teetered into DOING STUFF~ territory. Even if it was back and forth for most of the 15 minutes they wrestled, I can't recall any transition feeling haphazard or like one of them just decided they wanted to go on offence again. There was always a struggle, sometimes in really unique ways, like when Kato was trying to pick Satomura up on her shoulders on the top rope and Satomura, after fighting it off for about 30 seconds, finally managed to hit a big knee to the side of the head. They also absolutely thumped the hell out of each other and put over the toll of it amazingly well. They'd delay their next move after a momentum shift just to sell any previous damage, really milk any strike exchanges, never letting the pace they worked at run high enough that they were having to blow stuff off. Satomura was doing all sorts of great counters and blocks to set up submissions, including one quick reversal of something (I don't even remember what it was now) into a sick armbar. Kato would reverse those submission attempts by kicking Satomura in the face and a couple of these were truly vile. Satomura even tagged her back with a high kick of her own from nowhere, just a total holy shit decapitation. The point where Kato turned around and cracked Satomura with a headbutt was insanity, then they traded those headbutts while on their knees, totally unprotected, borderline idiotic. There was just so much stuff here that I wasn't expecting but turned out awesome, and for something I watched completely on a whim it wound up being one of my favourite joshi matches of the year. And fucking hell was young Satomura a prodigy. Seventeen, fer cripes!

Revisiting 90s Joshi #50

Mayumi Ozaki & Carlos Amano v Megumi Kudo & RIE (Dress Up Wild Fight) (JWP, 4/8/97)

I always get a kick out of JWP calling a street fight a dress up wild fight. Like the WWF calling Slaughter v Patterson an alley fight. You just kinda come dressed in street clothes and hit someone until they start bleeding and you won't get disqualified for it. This is only the second dress up wild fight I've seen, as the first one, many years ago now, was an Ozaki v Takako Inoue match that I hated. I've since come around some on Ozaki and I always mostly liked Kudo anyway and this was pretty damn good! It probably didn't need to be nearly half an hour long, but they didn't run out of crazy shit to do and the crowd were with them right until the end. I was expecting a whole lot of brawling in amongst the crowd and women getting thrown into rows of chairs. They didn't really do much of that and when they did it was never the central focus. There was always something happening in the ring, whether it was two of them pairing off and trying to kill each other or one person being left in a heap somewhere while the opponents tried to kill her partner. Ozaki and Kudo are obviously the stars. Big Star and lower-ranked partner v Big Star and lower-ranked partner is a pretty hard dynamic to fuck up and both Big Stars were great here. Kudo was awesome as FMW invader coming in to destroy the young Amano, who for her part leaned all the way into being destroyed. I remember when I first tried venturing into joshi, this would've been about 2006, and going through old forum posts from various places Kudo was someone the hardcore weirdos would lust over and fantasise about her stabbing them in the head and whatnot. Well they'd have loved her in this because her whole demeanour was that of a woman who knew she was the business, and I don't know if she stabbed anyone in the head but she fairly walloped the shit out of them. Her demonic grin when she wrapped a chain around Ozaki's neck and started choking her was truly perfect. They did a lot of gnarly shit with that chain, including Ozaki's payback where she used it to tether Kudo to the ring post by the throat. A bit later Kudo wrapped it once more around Ozaki's neck and chucked her out the ring, leaving her to dangle there while her face turned purple. There was some baseball bat stuff that might've been kind of hokey in theory, but it actually worked on account of how hard they laid it in. Someone taping a ball bat to their forearm and throwing a lariat maybe sounds dumb when they could just, you know, wallop that person with the bat. Why would you go to the trouble of taping that bat around your shin just so you can kick someone in the back of the head when you could always just, like, swing the thing like a normal thug? But you know what? The lariat looked wild and the kick even more so and at a certain point you don't have any choice but to throw your hands up and ponder: "who are we to question the inner workings of the dress up wild fight?" Ozaki about took the jaw off RIE with a vile backfist and her shit-eating grin as Kudo could only arrive seconds too late was also quite perfect. 

Revisiting 90s Joshi #49

Shinobu Kandori v Rumi Kazama (LLPW, 8/29/92)

The main event of the LLPW debut show, and a very WAR-ish one at that. Obviously I thought it ruled. They start out by immediately belting each other in the face, then go into a sort of parity stand-off before Kazama drops to all fours and asks Kandori to wrestle. It was the perfect belligerent response to a stalemate, where Kazama was not only dissatisfied at not having won the previous exchange, but wanted to best Kandori in the next one, even giving her the initiative first. Kandori then waltzed up and punted her clean in the face and I fell out the bed. Not to be outdone Kazama threw about a dozen kicks to Kandori's head and face. A couple of these were putrid and before long the match turned into the perfect joshi approximation of Tenryu v Kitahara. Although I've never seen Tenryu transition from a cross-armbreaker into a cloverleaf with this much ridiculous grace and PROWESS. There were a few suplexes down the stretch that Kandori kicked out of RIGHT at the death and I and every person in the building that night thought Kazama had actually toppled her. In the end it wasn't quite enough, but you can't fault the effort. 

Revisiting 90s Joshi #48

Akira Hokuto v Manami Toyota (AJW, 8/21/93)

This was really good. It had some similarities to the '95 match, with Hokuto working super aggressive in the opening stretch while Toyota would often need to use bursts of offence whenever a ring rope was within touching distance. Early on Toyota gets hung up in the ropes with her leg caught and Hokuto just about bends her in half. She showed zero remorse then or at any point in the match and a couple times that manifested in her taking the mount position and slapping Toyota about the head. The real hook here was Toyota going after Hokuto's knee. Everyone knew Hokuto's knee was a bullseye anyway, but I like how there was an element of payback from Toyota after that spill into the ropes earlier. She even hung Hokuto up in the same tree of woe later and started punching at the kneecap. Some of Toyota's submissions weren't the least bit slick but they all looked mean, and once or twice it meant just grabbing Hokuto's leg and twisting it at ugly angles. I thought Hokuto's selling was great. You expect it to be when Toyota is actively working it over, but even after Toyota stopped properly targeting it Hokuto never let you forget she was pain (I mean, she almost certainly was for real). It wasn't in your face like Randy Savage hobbling around on one leg, it was much more understated, but she's exceptional at emoting and projecting and even a slight limp here and there was enough to do it. We can argue until we're blue in the face about which method is best, or if aiming for "realism" in pro wrestling is even the way to go or whatever, but I thought it was incredibly realistic and about as close to a real sport injury as you could get within the fake nonsense world that we choose to immerse ourselves in. On the flipside of that, Toyota getting stuffed on her head twice on the floor with sick piledrivers and brushing it off completely was a wee bit...questionable? Like I get that piledrivers in Japan are not piledrivers in America or Mexico, but this felt egregious even with that in mind. Still, it didn't kill the match for me or anything, maybe because this is about as high on Toyota as I've been in 15 years. Or ever, probably. I was into the finishing run and a couple of those nearfalls were molten. I can see why folk would go to bat for Hokuto being the best in the world that year. There are some people I prefer for stylistic reasons, but she really was exceptional.

Revisiting 90s Joshi #47

Jaguar Yokota v Lioness Asuka (Jd', 10/22/97)

And here I am once again, wondering if I shouldn't just drop everything else I'm doing to watch every Jaguar Yokota match committed to tape. This wasn't particularly difficult to follow and the roles were about as clearly defined as you could get. Asuka tells her cronies to back away before the first lock up, then when that lock up happens they immediately circle again like hyenas. I thought Jaguar's performance here was pretty great, but strangely subdued at the same time. I'm not a joshi historian by any stretch but if there's a through line from Jaguar to someone like Toyota then the similarities were limited to aesthetics here. Well, that and the willingness to get hammered up and down the place and throw oneself around with abandon. Asuka beat the brakes of her with some of the meanest shit imaginable, wild kicks, reckless throws into chairs, fully launching her from inside the ring to the floor, powerbombs on the floor and powerbombs through tables and powerbombs off of makeshift platforms. On the table spot Asuka piledrove Jaguar through it, took a piece of the broken wood and chucked the thing right at Jaguar's head. Then she picked it up and used the splintered end to stab her in the face. This looked especially crazy because she was almost doing a falling fist drop, only it was a jagged edge of table connecting with Jaguar rather than a fist. Jaguar's selling of it all was great and before long it looked like she was at death's door, crawling around bloodied, struggling to muster much of anything in response. A lot of what she did muster came from counters and nearly all of them were gorgeous, just some of the smoothest roll-ups you'll ever see. She was like prime Santo on that powerbomb sunset flip. I just wish she made a point of expressing herself a little more. I wouldn't say she was working in a vacuum, but there was no real EMOTING, none of the fire in her comebacks I remember from the early 80s stuff. If we're rolling with the Toyota comparison then Toyota would've been screaming like a mad woman, and even if I'm not the biggest Toyota fan I can at least appreciate the intensity. Jaguar was more world's best Dean Malenko here than world's best Tito Santana. Still she made Asuka pay when she managed to properly retaliate, first with the chain-wrapped foot that she fucking drilled Asuka right in the face with, then an amazing moonsault where her knees landed clean across Asuka's midriff. I thought Asuka was about to puke. Asuka having to take greater risks to try and put Jaguar away only for it to backfire, again with a spectacular counter, was a great finish. I should watch their '96 match next. 

Revisiting 90s Joshi #46

Mariko Yoshida v KAORU (AJW, 8/28/94)

This wasn't perfect. It was rough around the edges and at times they maybe struggled a wee bit to fill the half an hour, but at the very least they went out and worked something different to just about any AJW midcard match of the time (not that I've seen a ton of the 1994 AJW midcard, mind you). Yoshida is returning to action after nearly two years out with a broken neck and it turns into a minor story point throughout. If you'd only seen wrestling from America you'd be shocked that a broken neck isn't the main focus of the match, sort of like how Shawn Michaels came out of retirement after a slipped disc and everyone worked over his back for the next eight years. KAORU hits a couple piledrivers early and Yoshida's selling for the next little while was sublime, the way she'd snap KAORU into a leglock but immediately have to give it up, clutching her neck like the jolt from dropping to the mat had undone two years' worth of rehab. KAORU would go back to it sporadically throughout the match as well, sometimes just to give herself some distance by punching Yoshida in the neck. It worked every time so it would be hard to fault her. Yoshida never brought the same grappling that she would a few years later, it was very different here, much more scrappy and unrefined, but it was also really compelling. It was always gritty if nothing else. Sometimes she'd just grab KAORU's leg and twist it, whereas in ARSION she'd have turned it into something preposterous and beautiful and KAORU would've been scrambling for the ropes. I did love her putting KAORU in a half crab and tearing away her knee strapping, even biting her on the kneecap while the ref' wasn't looking, then she turned it into an STF where the leg was torqued at a putrid angle. Where the match mostly stood out from other AJW stuff was the pacing, which almost felt like a New Japan match at points. They'd go into stalemates and resets, regroup and come back at each other with different strategies. It meant we got a bit of everything, some matwork, some flying, some striking, a few bombs, but I never really thought they were just doing shit to be doing it. Some of the flying was great, especially KAORU's Asai moonsault, and one of Yoshida's topes where she landed all sideways. When it came to the striking they'd often shit-talk each other before throwing brutal slaps. And for the big high impact stuff, Yoshida practically hitting a Ganso Bomb was ludicrous. As the time limit approaches you kind of know what's coming, the bell ringing as Yoshida is pressing to secure a leglock. When they manage to get it restarted Yoshida comes out fast again, but then the neck comes back to haunt her as KAORU just spikes her with a tombstone. Very nifty. 

Revisiting 90s Joshi #45

Lioness Asuka, Eagle Sawai & Shark Tsuchiya v Yasha Kurenai, Mikiko Futagami & Carol Midori (LLPW, 8/15/97)

This was wild as hell. I'd never seen Carol Midori before but her first mistake was thinking she could go at Eagle Sawai head on. She made several more mistakes of that ilk throughout the match and we applaud her dedication to the PUGNACITY. They all pretty quickly found themselves in a pier-sixer around Korakuen Hall and as joshi crowd brawling goes this was pretty good. It was probably the weakest stretch of the match, but that was down to how good everything else was. If nothing else that brawling segment established the hierarchal gap and how little regard the Eagle/Shark/Asuka trio had for their opponents. Asuka must've chucked Midori head-first through twenty chairs, walked away to find someone else to beat on, then changed her mind and went back to inflict more misery on Midori. Yasha Kurenai was amazing here. The first time I ever saw her she was tagging with Kandori against a team from AJW and I thought she played a really fun Great Kabuki to Kandori's Tenryu. This was her in a different role, like the world's greatest Masao Orihara. The legends beat the unholy hell out of her and Kurenai's face in peril performance was legitimately exceptional. Shark carved her up with the sickle and this was some gruesome sickle work, but if you were worried it would be one of THOSE Shark Tsuchiya performances then you needn't have been as after that she focused more on stiffing Kurenai with elbows and lariats to the back of the head. Her and Asuka were amazing shit-talking bullies, the way they'd drag Kurenai's limp carcass over to her corner and hold her hand out, goading Futagami and Midori into reaching out for the tag, only to pull the hand back right at the last second and stomp her in the kidneys. There was one bit where Shark grabbed Kurenai by the hair and it looked like she was going to chuck her into the corner herself, tired of playing with Kurenai and looking for a new toy to chew. I was a wee bit disappointed because they were building serious heat and I wanted Kurenai to earn that comeback, to give us the satisfaction of seeing her retaliate and make the tag on her own terms. It would've meant more. Luckily Shark knew it too because it was all a fake-out and she immediately dragged Kurenai away again by the hair, Futagami and Midori cursing her to hell and back. Eventually she does earn the comeback and I loved how she made a return a few minutes later by whacking people with a stick. They played up the gulf in stature again by how the skinny girls would go for quick double- and triple-teams, really do everything with a sense of urgency, try to isolate one person while walking that tightrope of keeping her partners out the way at the same time. Asuka was almost dismissive of it at first and there was one part where Midori strung off a few moves, only for Asuka to shut her down and look at the crowd like "come on, really??" Eventually they manage to jump Sawai and Eagle was pretty great as a hefty bump machine. Every move they hit on her felt like a mountain climbed, then they tried a triple powerbomb off the turnbuckles only for one of Asuka's lackies to stop it with a kendo stick. It was such a deflating moment because you felt like they were THIS close, but then they come back to that later on and actually hit it for an awesome payoff. Speaking of deflating, Shark casually walking over and breaking up what looked like the winning pinfall with a stomp to the back was a perfect bitch move. You felt like that was it for the underdogs, they'd come close but just missed their chance, all because they took their eye off the ball and let this ghoul waltz over and ruin everything. That the match went another few minutes after that and they just kept adding layers onto the finishing stretch really speaks to how well everything came together. What a sensational bit of madness. 

Revisiting 90s Joshi #44

Megumi Kudo v Combat Toyoda (No Rope Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch) (FMW, 5/5/96)

I'm repeating what folk have been saying about this for years, repeating what I've said about it myself in the past, but this really is all about the way they build anticipation for the big barbed wire spots. I'm not shitting on your crazy deathmatches with gallons of blood and light tubes and psychotic barbed wire bumps or whatever. I don't think the great sport of professional wrestling is above such grody shenanigans and there have been plenty of those piss-and-guts deathmatches that I've gotten a kick out of. But this was less about the gratuitous violence and more about the THREAT of it; the obvious and inherent peril of wrestling a match surrounded by barbed wire, that threat always lurking in the background. The ambience from the start is quite remarkable, with the open air arena, Kudo's hair blowing in the wind like a slow-motion shot before a big battle scene, Toyoda just as menacing in the last match of her career as she was in her prime. They work this more like the Lawler/Mantel barbed wire match, or those early FMW matches with Onita and Goto against a pair of karatekas. Even being in proximity of the wire felt dangerous here, obviously because of how they sold it and brought that danger to life. Engaging in a collar-and-elbow tie-up close to the wire had the woman with her back to it wary. They made those tie-ups feel extra meaningful, gave jockeying for position a sense of GRAVITY and whatnot. I loved the way Kudo would immediately drop to the mat when Toyoda whipped her towards the wire. She was like a quarterback who's forced out the pocket having to slide before getting obliterated by a pass rusher, or in this case exploding barbed wire. They took hitting the ropes, something they'd do probably every day in training, something they'd do in every regular wrestling match, something almost second nature, and made of it a thing that had to be avoided at all costs. The way they sold the process of acclimatising to that was really cool, at one point with Kudo turning to gather momentum for a big strike only to realise she couldn't use the ropes to do it, the crowd responding with a gasp followed by a sense of relief. There were some other cool moments of hesitancy as well, like when Toyoda would drop Kudo with a slam or elbow but wouldn't really follow up because Kudo was so close to the ring edge, and by extension the barbed wire. To be honest a couple of those examples looked like they came from the wrestlers not being completely on the same page and it led to a brief pause, but intentional STORYTELLING~ or otherwise it worked. Then of course came the big exploding wire bumps themselves. The three individual bumps came off huge, even Kudo's second one despite the explosion not actually going off, the way she remained stuck to it for a few seconds longer, really letting the visual sink in. The shots of Onita in the crowd are all brilliant and then we get the double wire bump - which looked fucking insane - and Onita has his head in his hands completely beside himself. Even as they run through those final few powerbombs and suplexes they sell the toll of what the wire has done to them, and there's one close-up of Toyoda's arm with a nasty, nasty gash down her biceps. And then even after literal explosions, the craziest thing to happen is Kudo powerbombing Toyoda square on her head.

Revisiting 90s Joshi #43

Manami Toyota v Yumiko Hotta (AJW, 9/3/95)

I don't know if I preferred this to Toyota/Hokuto from the previous day, but they're right about the same level and if nothing else the Hokuto match accentuates Toyota's performance here. I thought she was pretty awesome in this. I don't even want to beat the dead horse that is Manami Toyota's in-ring stylistic preferences -- she is who she is and you know what you're getting. But there were very few of her hallmarks from an offensive standpoint present in this, largely because she spent the majority of the match selling. I guess the other dead horse is her refusal to bother with long-term selling and I won't be going near that either, but one thing I've always thought Toyota was good at is the selling of damage in the moment. She's mad as a brush and will take absurd amounts of punishment and she makes all of it look devastating as it's actually happening. She did all of that here and that was probably 90% of her performance. Her in-the-moment selling was basically one and the same as her long-term selling because Hotta just spent the whole match kicking the living shit out of her. She never had a chance to blow off any selling in favour of running around doing a dozen springboards. Toyota's offensive bursts were explosive as always, but they were few and far between and, regardless of whether it was a conscious decision on her part or not (I'd imagine it was), it felt like the war with Hokuto had taken a major toll. Obviously Hotta was a wrecking ball. In a role reversal from Toyota/Hokuto it was Hotta who jumped Toyota at the bell, blitzed her with kicks, and after about 30 seconds Toyota was crumpled in the corner. The match dynamic wasn't even all that different from the Hokuto match, at least not in the first 10 minutes. In a mirror from the previous night the first bit of Toyota offence was a missile dropkick to the floor, but Hotta looked the fresher - probably because she was coming off a 15-minute match with Reggie Bennett and not 25 minutes of hell with the Dangerous Queen - and she was back rifling kicks before long. Even if you knew Toyota could turn a simple Irish whip into a counter attack she never had the same opportunity to do it as she did against Hokuto, again because Hotta never really bothered throwing her into the ropes. I mean, why would she? She didn't need to when Toyota spent half the time on the mat ripe for the kicking. There was one point where Toyota stood up groggy and Hotta just thumped her in the kneecap with a wholly unnecessary roundhouse. When Toyota could muster something in return she got extra belligerent, even tying Hotta up in the ropes and kicking her repeatedly in the face. I can generally do without the table spots, but I did like how Hotta stuffed Toyota dead on the splash attempt. Hotta also didn't share Hokuto's compulsion to pay Toyota in kind and I like how she immediately rolled her back in the ring and went back to business. I thought the build to Toyota hitting the Ocean Cyclone was really good, first with Hotta escaping each attempt, then the first one not landing perfectly (whether it was intentional or not I don't know), before finally hitting the second one after a bit of quick thinking. Down the stretch you got the sense she absolutely needed to hit that or she was done, because as desperate as she was in going for covers after every move it didn't look like Hotta was for staying down. I guess there was some excess towards the end and Hotta feeding Toyota her arms on the final pin was goofy, but they're minor quibbles. This is probably one of the career matches for both women. 

Revisiting 90s Joshi #42

Manami Toyota v Akira Hokuto (AJW, 9/2/95)

The first 10 minutes of this are as good as anything I've seen in ages. Even the entrances are great, with Hokuto coming out in a black wedding dress and veil, while Toyota is kitted out in her white robe. Maybe a little on the nose, but it felt pretty obvious what they were going for. Initially I thought it was Hokuto who jumped Toyota before the bell, but upon closer inspection she never tried to start a thing. It was Toyota who flung off the robe, turned and ran over to blindside Hokuto with a dropkick. Hokuto moving and Toyota basically taking a Hamrick bump to the floor before eating a somersault senton, with Hokuto still in the black dress, was a great way to start. It pretty much set the table for the next 20+ minutes. Toyota is certifiable and her whole strategy was built around flinging herself at Hokuto with as much force as possible from as great a height as possible. Springboards, dropkicks, moonsaults, everything. Hokuto responding by stretching her to hell and basically savaging her was the perfect response. Toyota popping up from that first backdrop probably would've annoyed me ten years ago, but I think at this point I better understand Manami Toyota; the character, the person. Her style and approach will probably never be my favourite, but I can at least appreciate that her pain threshold is ridiculous. She landed flat on her back off that missile dropkick to the floor and got right back up, so if she's willing to put HERSELF through that sort of shit then I can buy an opponent having to go above and beyond against her. I thought the transitions during those first 10 minutes were basically all great, from Toyota hitting her first in-ring springboard and following up with one of the nastiest dropkicks ever, to Hokuto putting Toyota clean on her head with this ugly reverse powerslam thing. With Toyota you almost have to be wary of even whipping her into the ropes, such is her desire to propel herself off of them and back into your face. So Hokuto grounding her with a disgusting bow-and-arrow and Sharpshooter ruled. Everything had a real sense of enmity, even the way Toyota would twist a handful of Hokuto's hair - it was like an arm-wringer to the ponytail - before chucking her across the ring. They didn't exactly lose me around the midpoint but I thought the match took a bit of a dip when they went into trading finishers for a minute or two. Considering the transitions and build had been A+ up to that point it was a noticeable drop off. They moved past that quickly enough though, and the build to the actual finish from there was really good. The escalation worked for me and I was surprised to find that so did the stuff with the table. It felt like it happened fairly organically, at least in that, as we've established, Toyota is a fucking nutcase. If I buy anybody resorting to putting someone through an unbreakable table because nothing else works, I buy Toyota. Not a chance Hokuto was taking that and not dishing out a receipt so I had no issue with her retaliating. Plus the actual spots themselves looked brutal. I know some folk think this is a spotty match, or even an outright spotfest. I don't really see it that way, but the pro wrestling is a matter of perspective and I don't feel strongly enough to argue. What I absolutely disagree with is that there was no selling towards the end, or that Toyota in particular wasn't selling. I suppose you could question how she was the first one to hit any offence after the last table spot when she's the one who was actually on table, but Hokuto clearly sold it like the senton nearly crippled her as well. They both crawl in the ring and Toyota, in her physical prime with inhuman resilience, happened to get up half a second earlier than Hokuto. So she spikes her because that's about all she has left. I mean, the last couple minutes of the match were basically all selling with two moves. I have no real personal attachment to either of these women so I'm not going to bat for favourites or whatever. If anything I've seen enough Toyota where I wish she'd sell more that this didn't feel like it was even in the same ballpark. Either way this was pretty awesome. 

Revisiting 90s Joshi #41

Aja Kong & Kyoko Inoue v Eagle Sawai & Leo Kitamura (LLPW, 6/15/93)

The inter-promotional wrestling brings us the goods once again. This was mostly about the Aja/Eagle pairing for me. There was a wee bit of ill will there from the last tag they were on opposite sides of, so it meant we got plenty of meaty shots and parts where they'd just Vader-style run into each other. I couldn't tell you if I'd seen one Leo Kitamura match before this but she was a pretty great whipping girl on the night. She was kitted out like Kyoko with the face paint and tassels, and I'm not sure if she did that as a deliberate wind-up but she got her clock well cleaned for it. You could make a good case she was the star of this with her scrappiness and sympathy-garnering. Aja was thoroughly dismissive of her and at points it looked like she maybe even felt bad about walloping the poor girl. She'd take her down after Kitamura threw some feeble slaps, but then instead of pounding her head into the mat like she would against many others, she just tagged out and let Kyoko deal with it. Aja was also really fun taking whatever offence Kitamura could muster, the best being her quick springboard elbow out the corner where she went full bodyweight into Aja's chest, bounced off her like a crash test dummy, yet stunned her briefly enough so Kitamura could make the tag. An extended heat segment would've really pushed it over the top, but what we did get was the sort of thing you want and by the end Kitamura looked like she was struggling to even stay upright. I don't have much to say about Kyoko. I've largely avoided her going through this stuff unless she's opposite someone I really like and I came out of this thinking that if I was going to watch someone dressed in Kyoko Inoue garb I'd rather it was Leo Kitamura.