(Almost) 5-Star Match Reviews: Manami Toyota vs. Yumiko Hotta – AJW Grand Prix 1995

Many people consider 1990s joshi wrestling the peak of the art form. It was a genre-defining era when the women of AJW (and later other smaller, satellite promotion) were pushing the envelope and reimagining what it meant to be a women’s wrestler. And central to this era – at least from a North American understanding – was a woman named Manami Toyota.

For decades it was Toyota who served as the bridge between AJW and the wider global wrestling fandom. More often than not she was the one who ended up in the first YouTube wrestling move compilation videos, had her signature moves included in the early wrestling video games, and had all the interest from any fans interested enough to seek her out. At one point the Wrestling Observer’s readership voted her the single-greatest women’s wrestler of all time.

But was she really as great as so many people have said? Or was her greatness the result of a willingness to stand out from the crowd, for better or for worse? Read on to find out.

Previously I was writing for a site called TJR Wrestling and now this series is coming to Blog of Doom. For now you can check out the series in its entirety here.

The story

This was a G1-style tournament with Toyota and Hotta in opposite blocks. Once both of them made it to the finals, it was anyone’s guess as to who’d win. While Toyota was considered the favorite and was one of AJW’s top stars, she had a mixed record in one-on-one matches with Hotta.

This was their fifth-ever singles match together, with the score tied at two wins each. Toyota also had the recency advantage since she won their last singles match during the prior year’s Grand Prix. Knowing that, and given the incredible year Toyota had as the Will Ospreay of AJW, would she be able to win the tournament for the first time since 1990?

The match

This match originally took place on September 3, 1995.

The women shake hands but Hotta rushes Toyota as the bell rings. Hotta kicks Toyota’s face in a corner until Toyota dumps her to the floor and hits a diving shotgun dropkick from the top rope. Then Toyota wraps Hotta up in the ropes and karate kicks her in revenge, only for Hotta to kick back much harder. After a short break, Hotta kicks and slaps Toyota as hard as she can. On their next lock-up Toyota boots Hotta with what looks like genuine malice, only for Hotta to hits back with a stiff forearm. Hotta lands a back suplex and sends Toyota into the ropes but Toyota springboards with a crossbody. Toyota follows with two diving dropkicks but only gets a two-count.

After a struggle Hotta powers out of a butterfly suplex, lands a piledriver, and locks in a Boston crab. Toyota gets a ropebreak so Hotta kicks her in the face and locks in a half crab. This goes on for a while until Hotta ties Toyota in the tree of woe and lands even more kicks to her chest. Then Hotta spikes Toyota with the nastiest powerbomb I’ve ever seen. Good God, it looks more like a piledriver than a powerbomb as Toyota gets dropped right on the top of her head. One, two, Toyota kicks out.

Hotta locks in a camel clutch and then arches backwards to amplify the pressure but Toyota fights on. Toyota counters an Irish whip with a shotgun dropkick and then tries fighting back with strikes but Hotta no-sells them and hits back even harder. Hotta traps Toyota on the ropes and then dumps her to the floor.

Toyota gets back into the ring and quickly gets overpowered during a test of strength. Hotta sends her into the ropes but Toyota counters with a rolling cradle for a two-count. Toyota slams Hotta but misses a diving moonsault. Hotta hits a corner wheel kick but missed another one. Toyota blocks a superplex and lands another diving dropkick, this one to the back of Hotta’s head, for another two-count. Another struggle ensues and Toyota tries her Manami roll but Hotta counters with a one-shoulder powerbomb. Hotta teases a Tiger Driver but Toyota counters into a backlside for another two-count. Toyota dives off the top rope but flies into a high kick followed by a successful Tiger Driver. One, two, Toyota kicks out again. Hotta follows with a second, higher-angle Tiger Driver but Toyota kicks out again. Hotta tries an avalanche back suplex but Toyota counters into a midair press for yet another two-count. Hotta kicks out of a Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex (JOCS) attempt so Toyota boots her to the floor. Toyota fires up, gets a running start, jumps onto the top rope, and hits a suicide senton to the floor.

Toyota sets up a table and goes to dive from the top rope but Hotta boots her in midair again. Hotta follows with a straightjacket German suplex from the top rope but only gets a two-count. She follows with another flurry of kicks but Toyota doesn’t just kick out; she bridges out. Then Hotta hits another top-rope German suplex…only for Toyota to survive again. At this point the crowd starts turning against Toyota as they chant Hotta’s name.

Both women trade big move attempts until Toyota counters a powerbomb with a successful Manami Roll for a two-count. Hotta sends Toyota into the ropes but Toyota counters with a jumping springboard sunset flip after balancing herself on the top rope. One, two, Hotta kicks out. Hotta blocks another JOCS so Toyota hits a “normal” bridging German for a two-count. Toyota bounces off the ropes again but Hotta gets her in position for a crucifix powerbomb. Toyota escapes and lands her JOCS super-finisher. One, two, and – Hotta kicks out. The crowd sounds like they’re cheering for both women equally now. Hotta follows with a Pyramid Driver/Armtrap powerbomb. One, two, Toyota kicks out once more. Hotta tries another move from the top rope. Toyota backflips out to escape and lands another JOCS. One, two, and three! Toyota beats Hotta to win the tournament.

Winner of the 1995 AJW Grand Prix after 23:39: Manami Toyota

Review

This was your typical 1990s joshi wrestling match: frenetic, wild, high-impact, impossible to predict, and somewhat nonsensical. There was little in the way of structure with both women just wailing on each other and throwing whatever they could in the moment. In many ways it was similar to modern AEW matches in that it was more about the spectacle and the glitz than the story or substance beneath the action. That’s not inherently a bad thing since the action here kept fans guessing as to what would happen next. But just having cool, jaw-dropping action by itself doesn’t make a match great; a top-level match has to have consequences and a sense of direction. And unfortunately, this match had precious little of either thanks to a lack of selling from both women involved here.

Maybe that’s to be expected given the style, but it doesn’t make sense to create a rollercoaster of a match with multiple high peaks set at random intervals. In many ways this match peaked in terms of risk and danger with Hotta’s ludicrous spike powerbomb but that was only ten minutes in. It got a huge reaction and it should’ve been the finish. Instead, the action continued for another fifteen minutes or so and it wasn’t long before Toyota was back on her feet running across the ring and springboarding off the ropes. If that move had so little impact on the match and didn’t lead to any real heat or change in direction since Hotta was already in control, what, then, was the point of doing it?

Aside from that moment, there wasn’t much of a unique story here beyond Toyota taking a protracted beating only to fire back stronger than ever. She, like other top promotional babyfaces, went through the same sort of by-the-numbers sequence: take everything the heel/support wrestler throws at them, make a heroic comeback, kick out of multiple finishers, and then win at the end. It’s the same base formula used by wrestlers like Hogan, John Cena, Tanahashi, and many others; Toyota just happened to add her own spin on it with a few more artificial twists and turns to try and make it a bit more chaotic of a contest.

That formula was successful, but it also translated into an underwhelming match. because Toyota sold so little – including long submission holds targeting her legs, several big bombs and suplexes that saw her dropped at an incredibly high angle, and countless martial arts kicks to the head and face – and kept getting back up without looking worse for wear, she made Hotta’s big moves all look weak. She sold her exhaustion but not the impact of what her opponent did. So once the match was over, the focus was more on what Toyota did to herself and to her opponent while Hotta ended up being something of a non-factor despite dominating well over half the match.

Final Rating: ****

If you like seeing women push themselves in terms of cool moves, high-risk, and higher impact, then you’ll find something to enjoy here. It wasn’t the most exciting or novel of 1990s women’s wrestling matches but it still had some interesting moments. The most notable are the crazy bumps that both women – but mostly Toyota – took throughout the match that made both of them look like they had more guts than sense. There are many fans that simply enjoy watching today’s wrestling matches hoping to see human car crashes, and this match was like an older version of that same style of performance.

But don’t go into this expecting a fully coherent story or a sense of flow from one moment to the next. Instead, treat this as the wild ride that has more style than substance, like the wrestling equivalent of eye candy versus eye protein. It’s a match that has a few GIF or compilation-worthy moments, but those moments are counterbalanced by lots of nonsense and inconsequential action that makes one wonder why it went as long as it did.

So for all the innovative offense it showed, this was a far cry from the peak-level quality wrestling AJW’s wrestlers showcased around the same time.

Thanks for reading. You can email me with any questions or comments, and be sure to check out my 5-Star and Almost 5-Star Match Reviews series here.