It’s another one-match Joshi Spotlight! The only thing I could find from Aug. 22nd 1997 was this bout between four of AJW’s top stars, only two days after Kyoko lost the WWWA Title to Yumiko Hotta. Come see LCO churn out ANOTHER insane banger of a match!
LAS CACHORRAS ORIENTALES (Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda, w/ Saya Endo) vs. MANAMI TOYOTA & KYOKO INOUE:
* It’s another clash of “LCO vs. The People Who Hate Them”, this time with the entire list narrowed down from “everyone” to “Manami & Kyoko”. Kyoko & Aja just beat LCO earlier in the month, and this is another non-title match. LCO are in the usual purple & white gear, Kyoko’s in rainbow gear & Manami’s in black & gold. Manami vs. Shimoda matches tend to be an extra level of psychotic, since for some reason Manami only accesses the “tear their hair off” aspect of her personality when her ex-partner’s in the ring.
Mita with the Greco-Roman chairshot to begin, and Shimoda saves her from Kyoko’s receipt so we gotta wait for that, so everyone takes a wander around the arena. Back in, Kyoko gets hit by ANOTHER chair and Mita fights her into a piledriver and happily strangles her with the most delighted smile on her face. Shimoda adds some more gleeful choking but gets nailed and scoots away- she & Manami taunt each other, but Manami hits the JB Angels armdrag, stands on her chest while cheering, and then dropkicks her ex-partner in the spine! Shimoda goes into the guardrails and is whipped across the ring by her hair (see what I mean about Manami hating Shimoda more than anyone in the universe?), then Kyoko double-clotheslines LCO down. Dancing Deathlock to Mita, who literally shrieks in pain, and the corner DDT gets two. I gotta say, the kickouts have been hella-lazy- just “rolling over” instead of the full-body thing. It’s giving the match a real “House Show” vibe because of the lack of effort despite the solid work.
Mita soon counters Manami and in comes Shimoda for some hairpulling glory, adding in choking, face-clawing and even biting the back of her head in a double-chickenwing! Then Saya Endo (LCO’s goon) runs in for a triple-beatdown, but Manami hits the Running No-Hands Springboard Cross-Body and Dropkick Spam for two on Mita! Kyoko immediately bashes Mita against the ropes and kicks Endo’s ass to applause, but tries the surfboard and Shimoda throws a pastel blue chair into her head. *sniff* I love good, old-fashioned technical counters. Shimoda’s in with her falling clotheslines, but Kyoko soon powers out on her and Manami runs in and Kyoko eggs her on to mimic her dance before hitting the Muta Lock! But Shimoda cross-bodies her and Mita hits Blazing Chops for two, then hits a rare full Boston crab for a while. Manami’s draped between Mita & Endo and Shimoda flies off with the blue chair to her ribs!
Manami counters another falling clothesline to the Rolling Cradle for two- a moonsault misses, Kyoko halts the Tiger Suplex with a kick to the ass, and Shimoda hits a falling clothesline to both of them and hits a missile kick for two. Manami rolls out of Mita’s powerbomb for two, then Kyoko lariats Mita and… gets chaired. She tries the slingshot backsplash but her & Toyota are dumped and eat the Assisted Tope Con Hilo/Dive combo and electric chair drop… but Kyoko gets her feet up on the flying splash! Manami missile kicks Mita and Kyoko hits the run-up flying back elbow for two- Manami’s suplex is stuffed and Shimoda slips Mita the pink chair so Manami charges straight into it, but she reverses the DVD to a Bridging German for two. Manami climbs but takes the Super Electric Chair Drop for two- Shimoda aims for the Tiger Suplex but Kyoko lariats her head off- Manami climbs again but Mita’s chairshot helps Shimoda get a butterfly superplex for two. Manami avoids the Tiger AGAIN, but walks it to the ropes and eats a blue chair, allowing Shimoda to FINALLY get it, for two.
Manami stops a flying chairshot and Kyoko holds LCO for a Running No-Hands Springboard Plancha, but they bail and she eats it instead. Mita does a funny walk with Manami where she pulls her halfway to the back and throws her into a single chair, then brings her all the way back for a post-shot, then chairs her while Shimoda is seen launching a whole-ass table at Kyoko out by the doors. Back in, Toyota’s powerbombed, chaired, and it’s the guardrail-drop onto her (she could not have possibly been more clearly holding the chair in front of her). They actually land a second guardrail-drop and then Shimoda hits the Death Lake Driver (tiger superplex)- Kyoko shoves her off before “3” to finally stop the crowd’s “random yelling” phase and actually pop them. Kyoko hits a monster run-up Super Belly-To-Belly on Shimoda, but she avoids the Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex- Manami tries a German but gets chaired by Mita, but Shimoda gets plastered by the next shot and a Straightjacket German gets two! They’re gunning for it now! So Kyoko dumps Mita and they actually hit a Doomsday Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex/Run-Up Flying Back Elbow… but Mita saves again! Manami does a “fuck you!” to the fans for cheering for the kickout and finishes Shimoda with the Pumphandle/Straightjacket Bridging German she’s been developing lately at (22:34)- LCO loses again!
This was a pretty typical “LCO Shitheel” bout for the first 18 or so minutes, which is almost too bad as these four can easily make magic with each other, and have had ****+ matches with different partners for much of 1997. But after a wild bunch of shows (not to mention a big show literally two days before this at the Budokan), they probably just weren’t feeling it and did the more “typical” LCO Template. You know it’s lower effort when there’s a crowd-brawl in the LAST minutes of the match and nobody hits any finishers for 20 minutes. One unusual thing was that the kickouts in this match were hella-weak. Like every time someone was down for two, the other person would just slide off before “3” as if there was a phantom kickout. Shimoda often did this kind of thing in her matches (it’s a recurring drawback with her), but EVERYONE was doing it in this one.
HOWEVER, they largely pull it out in the end, as I was repeatedly expecting something to end it- Shimoda hits her finisher, then Kyoko & Manami jolt together their finishers for a DOOMSDAY DEVICE variant that should absolutely end it but just doesn’t, and so they do the “Super MDK Fails but the Next Move Gets It” ending when Manami pulls out another weirdo finisher as she tries to add another move to her set (she beat Ito with it at the JGP earlier). I don’t think that one stuck around either.
Rating: ***3/4 (start slow and kind of became a “probably ***1/2” match for almost the entire way until they really started gunning for cool moves to end it)
The Other Matches We Miss:
TANNY MOUSE d. MIYUKI FUJII (8:32): The 2nd-last tier defeats the last tier.
MIHO WAKIZAWA d. NANAE TAKAHASHI (6:21): Basic rookie stuff.
WCW WOMEN’S CRUISERWEIGHT TITLE: YOSHIKO TAMURA d. SAYA ENDO (18:38): Tamura defends her belt in a LONG one. Mike Lorefice says it’s “pretty good”, and a good step forward for both.
CHAPARRITA ASARI & YUKA SHIINA d> MISAE GENKI & MOMOE NAKANISHI (11:17): ASARI is pretty freshly returned from a broken hip, so these shorter matches against lesser wrestlers are good re-training.
ALL PACIFIC TITLE: TOMOKO WATANABE d. KAORU ITO (17:23): Tomoko wins the vacant All-Pacific Title! A shocker, since Ito has been winning huge matches all year and even DREW THE CHAMPION in a (60:00) broadway months before! But Tomoko is more “set” for the White Belt than Ito is, as it almost seems like Ito has surpassed that level already in a weird way. Takako Inoue, freshly champion again, got hurt and had to relinquish the belt- she refuses to give Tomoko the belt here, probably setting up something.
YUMIKO HOTTA & KUMIKO MAEKAWA (AJW) d. SHINOBU KANDORI & MIZUKI ENDO (LLPW) (17:06): The big main event sees the two “Super-Shooters” from AJW & LLPW fight each other again, but this time Hotta, now WWWA Champion, suceeds. Said to be “uneventful” by Lorefice.