It’s a double-thing this week, as I take a look at a 20+ minute match between dethroned champ Manami Toyota and JWP’s Hiromi Yagi from one of the earliest shows of 1997! And then it’s a re-watch of Manami vs. Kaoru Ito from March’s Wrestling Queendom 1997, and a recap of the rest of the show.
MANAMI TOYOTA (AJW) vs. HIROMI YAGI (JWP):
(JWP, Jan. 8th 1997)
* Okay, here’s an interesting one! Some guy is uploading stuff in a “Best of Manami Toyota” collection and I randomly found this one from Jan. 1997 against Hiromi Yagi. Yagi at this point is still in the undercard of JWP, but possibly a bit higher, and Toyota is now in her “Rookie-Destroyer” phase even as she is considering retirement. Yagi’s in black tights with a black top that has a weird purple collar on it, while Manami’s in the usual black.
Yagi attacks Manami before she even has her shit off, then whips her around into the barricades outside, which has Manami laughing in this “Bitch gonna DIE–” kinda way. And sure enough, Yagi goes into all four sides of the barricades and has to regroup in the ring. There’s an interesting bit where she’s trying to figure out how to grapple with her giant opponent- the judoka unwisely tries the test of strength and gets overpowered and JB Angels armdragged, then Manami just laughs off her grappling for a deathlock-bodylock and bow & arrow. Toyota won’t sell and fights dirty, then tosses Yagi about by the hair, then we get one of those great bits where the rookie does the same to HER, and Manami is suddenly aggrieved and offended by it. She responds contemptuously to Yagi’s restholds and just smashes the hell out of her with a dropkick, but Yagi catches her and tries sleepers again. Manami goes up for the judo flip like a ton of bricks and fights off the cross-armbreaker, then does a figure-four, talking smack all the while- Yagi escapes for her own leghold, but Manami just powers out and does more, then her Dropkick Spam and a Rolling Cradle for two. Yagi finally comes back by knocking Manami off the top and hitting a plancha, then a missile kick and reverses a German to an anklelock. Manami climbs up after her but gets taken down and leglocked, but reverses a flying cross-body and hits a Bridging German for two.
A Moonsault misses and Yagi gets a Fujiwara armbar, but Toyota just rolls back into the ropes- she then boots Yagi off the top and NOW we get her spots- the Running No-Hands Springboard Plancha and missile kick to the spine hit, but Yagi immediately bridges out and hits what’s supposed to be a dramatic cross-armbreaker, but A) accidentally rolls Manami right into the ropes and they have to pretend she can’t easily get a break, and B) Manami sells it like the usual “hey OW!” complainy thing instead of a big near-fall. Manami gets ANOTHER No-Hands springboard, then piefaces Yagi repeatedly off the top, but Yagi finally fights her into the Super Judo Flip- into the cross-armbreaker, but Manami uses her free hand to block it. Yagi works the arm, but takes the Mandatory German off the second rope for a near-fall the fans applaud. Moonsault gets two, and Manami casually attempts the Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex, but Yagi falls forward and rapidly Germans for two. Yagi tries another armlock and Manami straight up powers out like Godzilla, and there’s an awkward slugfest (are they doing improv?) until Manami does the “fake a whip into the Japanese Ocean Suplex” and that bridging double-hammerlock suplex scores the pin at (23:07). Yagi does the full “bawling and bowing” thing afterwards, while Toyota does her characteristic “no I actually really respect you” after the early heel behavior.
This was an interesting one psychology & character-wise, because you have “LOL I WON’T SELL FOR YOU!” dominant heel shitass Toyota, to the point where she’s taking the judo/submission wrestler’s stuff and just powering out of everything effortlessly for the first half- it’s this mocking contempt that works in terms of being a great heel… though it’s kind of dumping on Yagi’s wheelhouse, which was a submission specialist. And this creates a problem in the match where it’s half-Toyota, half-Yagi, but Toyota isn’t interested in selling overmuch for Yagi’s half, and Toyota’s half is so sparing and not given much effort. The match length (JWP cards typically draw out things way too long) and that it was in a small JWP gym-show wasn’t helping, I’d bet. In fact, this brings attention to one of the biggest holes in Toyota’s game- she doesn’t really ever do the “Dramatic Submission Sell” like where she acts like she just might tap- she’s great at selling restholds of all things (her shrieks of agony are among the best, and her flexibility makes them look BRUTAL), but when it’s time to treat submissions like real match-enders, I can’t remember it ever looking legit. And the fans here could tell- not reacting for any submissions.
Rating: **3/4 (some good stuff from both, but it’s too long and too undersold by Toyota)
So AJW’s Wrestling Queendom 1997 show ran on March 23rd, and featured some of the game-changing stuff AJW was doing. I reviewed it ages ago, but it was way before I learned of much of the historical significance of what was going on.
My old review: https://blogofdoom.com/index.php/2019/12/02/joshi-spotlight-ajw-wrestling-queendom-1997/
AJW JUNIOR TITLE- MOMOE NAKANISHI d. NANAE TAKAHASHI (4:35): Momoe, the best of her class, beats Nanae with the Bodyslam of Death. This was hilariously the first time I’d EVER seen that finish, and it blew my mind. Going back to watch earlier shows would reveal that this was a common rookie finish- to hold down a struggling opponent for the pin after a weak-ass move like that. DUD
EMI MOTOKAWA & YUKA SHIINA d. YOSHIKO TAMURA & TANNY MOUSE: The future Emi Sakura beats Tanny with La Majistral at (14:09) in a brutally long, boring match. Totally heatless. She was from IWA Japan here, and I guess was rewarded by beating a jobber. Highest-ranked Tamura is oddly on the jobbing side. *3/4.
JAPANESE TAG TEAM TITLES- CHIKAYO NAGASHIMA & SUGAR SATO (GAEA Japan) d. MISAE GENKI & SAYA ENDO (AJW) (10:49): GAEA’s champs handily beat the job squad AJW’s put against them with a figure-four from Sugar Sato to Genki. **1/4.
RIE TAMADA & YUMI FUKAWA d. CHIHIRO NAKANO & MAKIE NUMAO (GAEA Japan) (17:09): First-year GAEA wrestlers send out to job to TamaFuka, but they get an incredible amount of time and actually look pretty good in what’s cut down to 8 minutes. Rie gets an arm-capture suplex on Chihiro. **1/2.
LAS CACHORRAS ORIENTALES (Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda) go to a No Contest with TOSHIYO YAMADA & YUMIKO HOTTA (19:15): The ref calls it off when Shimoda blasts Hotta’s leg with a chair when she tries a flying roundhouse kick and won’t let go of a leghold.
KAORU ITO d. MANAMI TOYOTA (29:29): Manami, possibly considering leaving, starts to job out as she puts over KAORU ITO of all people in a shocker. She’d been the 3WA Champion only four months before! The bout was a weird one, as Manami got all the flash to start, but ate a ton of resthold crabs and then smashed her leg on a railing, letting Ito work her over. Ito repeats moves a billion times (including counter the Manami Roll to a powerbomb thrice) and that hurts things as bad as the restholds (or Manami still doing all her running stuff despite doing the “Savage Limp” with her bum leg)- I suggest the match was shooting for 5 stars and ended up only with 4 despite the effort because of various flaws like that.
I’ve wanted to re-watch this one and see if my opinions changed, and finally did so- the initial flourish is still pretty great (though Manami nearly misses her springboard tope con hilo on the table, then no-sells a flying stomp through a table by hitting a springboard cross-body right after). They sit in holds for like eight minutes (Ito ONLY knows the half-crab, which is dreadful), but then Manami takes a springboard badly and seems to bang her right ankle on the guardrail, but it’s actually her LEFT that hurts- and I’m re-assessing my thoughts on the match because of it because the injury could be legit. They stall for time after and then do more holds in the ring, Manami limping because her left is injured- it slows down her comeback but that part is actually kinda good, and then she hits the floor at a random time to have the ankle wrapped.
But there are points later where she runs like a motherf*cker into her Manami Roll and does repeated missile dropkicks so WHO KNOWS? There are a few good stretches here with some solid reversals (each gets the Mandatory German Off The Ropes spot), Manami eats the floor and Ito stomps her out there, etc. Manami deadlifts her into the Japanese Ocean Suplex but goes for three Moonsaults in a row and eats knees on the last. Ito hits the Flying Stomp but tries another and eats the Avalanche Code Red for the only big reaction all match so far. The finish is good, though- another Manami Roll is countered to a powerbomb and Ito hits a Super Fisherman’s Buster into a backdrop-to-powerbomb for the pin, teasing the fans with a Time Over- it was when I checked the time again that I realized the purpose of the match, and the “Manami stops to get her ankle wrapped” bits- this was a SET-UP and the fans were meant to be convinced it was going to 30:00, so when they ended it 31 seconds early it shocked them! All those other bits (endless restholds, long “injured on the floor” bits) were cliches of thirty-minute draws of old! Tricky, tricky!
I went 4 stars the first time around, but the endless crabs really hurt it and while it’s not an abysmal effort and was very good in parts, it’s not an upper-echelon match. ***1/2.
WWWA TAG TITLES:
BEST TWO OF THREE FALLS:
THE U*TOPS (Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa) d. TAKAKO INOUE & MARIKO YOSHIDA:
Kumiko d. Yoshida w/ the Ax Kick (4:57); Takako d. Kumiko w/ two Flying Knees (10:37); Tomoko d. Yoshida w/ Tiger Driver (26:07): A pretty interesting tag match, as they do nothing but spam finishers for the first two falls. The final fall settles down into a more standard match. ***3/4.
WWWA WORLD/ALL PACIFIC TITLE:
KYOKO INOUE d. AJA KONG (29:31): Kyoko wins a hard fought match with the Victoria Driver and two powerbombs after a long, slow burn while taking their times with moves- a good way to pad time. Though it suffers from the usual “Kyoko can’t be pinned by ANYTHING” and “move repetition” stuff in Kyoko matches, it’s the match of the night. ****1/4.