Joshi Spotlight: Joshi in 1999

JOSHI IN 1999:
* It’s time for the yearly summation! And thankfully, 1999 isn’t QUITE as bad for the “doom & gloom” as 1998 was! In that most of the promotions are dying on the vine, but All Japan Women’s Pro-Wrestling (Zenjo) is getting slightly more popular again! GAEA is also doing pretty well! And so aging, increasingly-injured veterans will always have a place to work for the next 5-10 years!

uhhhhh there’s still an ass-ton of promotions, though. All of which are far diminished from the 1980s or 1990s peak periods, with some being borderline “micro-promotions”. Things are so bad that nearly every wrestler works for every promotion to fill cards with “Interpromotional Matches” because otherwise you can’t fill all the cards! We’ve also entered “The Era of the Freelancer” as a couple of people made big money as free agents working for whomever would pay them (Lioness Asuka, Las Cachorras Orientales) and so a lot of people followed them to do their own stuff. Many people who typically work in only one spot are also technically “Freelance” but it’s hard to keep track of (Mayumi Ozaki, for example, worked in GAEA Japan almost exclusively but was “Freelance” the whole time). So you get a lot of things like belt-holders being Free, Aja Kong of ARSION being both the ARSION and GAEA Singles Champions, etc. Never mind LCO going on a legendary tear through every promotion they could, making good money as they terrorized their way up the card until becoming the top tag team in GAEA, ARSION, Zenjo, etc., then doing a prominent job to put some other team over.

The General Stories:
* Freelancers running amok, as many people see $$$ in going solo and being their own boss, wrestling for whomever will shell out the money for them. And when it’s not Freelancers, it’s people doing stuff for multiple promotions (most notably Aja Kong, who becomes double-champion of ARSION & GAEA). Aja, Lioness Asuka, LCO, ASARI and more are technically “freelancers”, but most focus in one promotion or so.

* SHOTEIMANIA runs wild, as wrestlers discover that the “Shotei” (a palm thrust to the jaw area) is an over finisher, and so you see it spammed out all over the place. Multiple big matches end with sudden SHOTEIS, the other person selling them huge. Its omnipresence at points is annoying. This affected men’s wrestling, too (Jushin Liger controversially used it a lot). As sometimes it just looks like a piefacing, it can be pretty weak to my eyes.

* Business is improving! For uhhhhh Zenjo, but not most of the others. AJW & GAEA are kinda neck & neck by business standards, both doing the occasional big, well-attended show. So things aren’t nearly as depressing as the dead-zone of 1998.

LAS CACHORRAS ORIENTALES- THE FREELANCER QUEENS:
-So a weird thing develops in 1999- LCO (Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda), who had left AJW to join Kyoko Inoue’s Neo Ladies, quit the floundering promotion and go Freelance. And it’s the way to BIG money- they apparently did very, very well for themselves at this point, as it turns out “Heel Shit-Disturbers Who Harass Everyone and Challenge the Top Wrestlers” works in every single promotion in the country I guess. So the exact same angle seems to happen in every one of them- LCO enters, raises hell, scores a bunch of wins, and then does one big job and messes around until they leave the promotion. And they do all this shit SIMULTANEOUSLY, just about!

First off they storm GAEA Japan in early 1999, quickly joining the heel supergroup “Super Star Unit”. They wreck a bunch of people in this format, but do a job to a GAEA loyalist team of KAORU & Toshiyo Yamada in a big (way too long) match. They split off with Lioness Asuka when the rest of the group forms “Nostradamus”, however, but stick around for more minor matches. Even during this span, Mita does a job in seconds to a renewed Chigusa Nagayo. Eventually, they abandon Asuka during a match, leaving her frustrated and alone, and end their run in the promotion jobbing out to former mentor Akira Hokuto & Mayumi Ozaki in a very weak, poorly-wrestled match. Their run here is actually quite disappointing and weak, but don’t worry! There’s more!

Simultaneously, in ARSION, LCO arrive and start wrecking teams, like their old bullying victims Rie Tamada & Yumi Fukawa. But this leads to a huge match with the rising rookies Ayako Hamada & Mika Akino, doing a prominent job to them in a major classic. I rate the match ****1/2 and it’s considered one of the best ARSION matches ever, and it works wonders for the rookie duo… for a temporary boost, I guess.

Simultaneously in AJW, LCO return to their old haunt, talk a bunch of shit, then beat the ZAPs for the WWWA Tag Titles over the summer. This leads to them crushing rising rookies Momoe Nakanishi & Nanae Takahashi in a great ***3/4 match, then doing a big job to their old rivals, Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa in December during a big arena show. This of course just keeps a feud going and it gets bigger in the next year, I guess. But yes, THREE TIMES they run the exact same angle in three different promotions, doing so simultaneously (the big jobs in AJW & ARSION happen mere days apart).

The funny thing is they more or less already did this in 1993 in JWP, having entered the promotion, beat a top team for the JWP Belts, then beat a succession of challengers until Hikari Fukuoka finally managed to pick a good partner and defeat them. So they’re doing essentially the same angle but on repeat. And now they’ve just done it in ARSION AND Zenjo! It can’t really be overstated how helpful they are to the scene right now- getting to come in and wreck house builds credibility, then they leverage that credibility for a big blowoff that puts other wrestlers over, and then they just repeat it simultaneously in multiple promotions. Apparently this let them command BIG prices on the scene (I’ve heard reports they were strolling in wearing designer clothes and stuff, probably drawing lots of heat from the ) and probably earned a bit of jealousy, but seems to be working with no signs of slowing down. We’ll see if their endless “jobbing in the final match” starts to hurt them, a la Mick Foley.

OTHERS:

* Chaparrita ASARI is another freelancer, having left Neo’s active roster. However, she was injured for a LONG time but returns… and is actually pretty good again! She was stale and tired for a really long time, so it’s good to see her put some effort in again. More spring in her step and all that. They run an angle where she returns to Zenjo and reactivates her WWWA Super Lightweight Title, mostly to due a trade with Zenjo’s hot up & comer Momoe Nakanishi. Momoe gets a shocker win in July at a Zenjo show, and the rematch is in October, where ASARI gets her win back with a Michinoku Driver. Losing to a kid like that isn’t the BEST push for ASARI, but it gets her booked and it results in her best matches in a while. She also wins the inaugural Sky High of ARSION belt in September, and is spending most of her time in that promotion by the end of the year.

* This is apparently the “Era of the Freelancers”, as LCO split off to run things as their own bosses, and it had a lot of others doing the same thing. This wasn’t a brand-new idea (Lioness Asuka has been a Freelancer this whole time) but really revved up, here. It’s an interesting quandary- Freelancers get to pick and choose where they work, and get the full cut of their merchandise sales at shows (a BIG part of the paycheck). They also get to pick and choose when they job where a salaried wrestler or someone who works for a promotion wouldn’t be able to… but they have to be careful of this because nobody wants to hire someone who is Roddy Piper-ing themselves. A freelancer would probably be expected to get a bigger paycheck for a prominent job, which is why they don’t happen as often. This is probably why LCO gets to run roughshod over every promotion for months and then ends things with a prominent job or two.

* There are others freelancing, too (apparently Chikako Shiratori envisioned big bucks and tried it out, according to Mike Lorefice of Quebrada when I asked him about it) but most do most of their work for certain promotions, so I’ll feature them there.

GAEA JAPAN:
GAEA Roster: Chigusa Nagayo, Mayumi Ozaki (freelance), Akira Hokuto, Toshiyo Yamada, KAORU, (First Class) Meiko Satomura, Sonoko Kato, Sugar Sato, Chikayo Nagashima, Toshie Uematsu, (Second Class) Sakura Hirota, (Brand New) Saika Takeuchi

-GAEA Japan has an interesting year, as they hit a peak of sorts with their booking, pushing the Class of 1995 is finally starting to pay off, and then things kind of turn into a mess by year’s end and you’d swear Vince Russo is booking at points. It… really interested me early on, paid off with a fun “Crush Girls EXPLODE!” feud, but then it became more and more obvious that each new booking “event” in GAEA was really just a way to reshuffle the deck of their tiny roster, allowing a new batch of people to mix and match against each other on their constant shows in multiwoman matches. GAEA is easily the promotion most well-represented on YouTube (they have their own channel) and it rapidly goes from interesting to ass, because the effort level drops and every show becomes very same-y “random tag matches” that are increasingly short and low on effort.

SUPER STAR UNIT & NOSTRADAMUS- Gaea is Just About Stables Now:
* GAEA’s biggest story is of course the formation of a mega-stable of talent with main eventers Lioness Asuka (sorta of JD’), Mayumi Ozaki (free of JWP), Aja Kong (ARSION), their minions Chikayo Nagashima & Sugar Sato, plus Kaori Nakayama (formerly FMW), plus the former top team of AJW, Las Cachorras Orientales: Super Star Unit! The look of sheer betrayal on Chigusa’s face as her former best friend and tag partner Asuka walks past her to join a stable of heel invaders who seem to hate everyone GAEA stands for is just incredible, and she lashes out in a huge pullapart brawl at the end of 1998! But SSU (sometimes written as “Super Star’s Unit”) is super-dominant, especially at first. All Chigusa has is KAORU & Toshiyo Yamada as loyalists, plus her students, most of whom are way below SSU’s top wrestlers.

Chigusa quickly loses the AAAW World Title to Aja Kong, who would go on to hold it for more than 600 days. There’s a big show where GAEA wins every single match… except the important one, which is an Attitude Era-style weapons-based brawl that sees LIONESS ASUKA become owner and booker of GAEA Japan! A heartbroken Chigusa is made to wrestle as a jobber rookie with no entrance on the next show, which is all SSU booking GAEA loyalists in unfair, hard matches that sees SSU victorious in every single one.

July sees the first big change in the feud, as Ozaki & Aja lose the Tag Titles to their own subordinates (Chikayo/Sugar) and abruptly quit SSU for reasons, forming their own faction with the victors… and bringing out AKIRA HOKUTO back from injury! This creates a three-way feud between SSU, GAEA and this new stable, dubbed “Nostradamus”. This feud… is desperately boring, unfortunately! Seriously, there’s really nothing to separate Nostradamus from SSU except it’s slightly jobberier since it drops LCO & Asuka for Hokuto, who is only making short appearances and doing signature spots. RIE joins the stable too, making no difference aside from adding another ** worker to eat some pins. And every single GAEA card is just “Loyalists vs. Nostradamus” in different combinations, almost every match of which is fought at like 1/3 intensity because of injuries/exhaustion/house shows/etc. There’s still the occasional excellent GAEA match (the best singles match of the year is one), but for the most part it’s just card after card of the same old stuff. Once-interesting workers like Chikayo Nagashima kind of disappear into the mix and have nothing much going on.

However, there is the rumblings of something big on the horizon- after a prominent job, a despondent Chigusa hangs her head… and it’s LIONESS ASUKA that tells her to buck up! And on the December 27th show, a mass beatdown from Nostradamus against Asuka’s team and Chigusa’s sees the former Crush Gals whip someone off the ropes and… do a signature Crush spot! The crowd completely loses it at these scene and instantly realizes what’s going on, and the former Gals shake hands in the ring and team up against their hated opponents! This leads to Crush 2000 in the following year, drawing a LOT of attention to GAEA, particularly from old-school fans. The ultimate moneymaking duo of Joshi Puro is back!

-Interestingly, one of the big “GAEA Problems” of 1998 kind of disappears. The “GAEA No-Sell” was a particularly virulent in 1998, with wrestlers earning pops for eating a finisher and then just popping up defiantly as if nothing had happened. This kind of thing tends to blow the fans’ minds… which makes reaction-greedy wrestlers do it repeatedly for more of the same, and this causes issues as there were several matches that featured EVERY finisher no-sold until arbitrarily one worked. It really made a lot of finishers look bad and in particular looked awful in a Chigusa/KAORU match. It seems to be mostly out of everyone’s systems now, only popping up once in a while (where it’s a lot more meaningful). And they even subverted it, too- Chigusa herself makes a sport of doing the “GAEA No-Sell” pop up… only to stumble and lurch forward, dead on her feet as her spirit holds her up but her legs wobble and she ends up even more vulnerable to the opponent as she’s up and floppy, easily-struck again.

-The “GAEA Sprint” is still kinda there and won’t go away, but hasn’t been as prominent in what I’ve seen. In fact, I’ve seen more often the “Sprinting Start, then spend 8-10 minutes gathering cardio, then doing a hot finish” which leaves some matches feeling quite disjointed (the blowoff to Chigusa/Asuka in particular), where Chigusa gets her revenge.

GAEA’s Wrestlers:

* Chigusa Nagayo has an interesting run, as she starts the year as the AAAW World Champion, but suffers loss after loss as Lioness defeats her in a “Winner Controls GAEA” match, then she loses the belt to Aja Kong. This is treated as a huge loss, with Chigusa looking crushed, but she disappears to America for a bit and comes back skinny, in shape, and with a new look (a leather-ish outfit), squashing Etsuko Mita in less than a minute to reforge herself into a big badass ready for revenge. Which… only kinda/sorta happens. She defeats Asuka in a rematch, also using fire to halt her, and that issue is done. But she doesn’t get the belt back, and in most other matches she’s back to “sells a lot; picks up last-minute wins”. Or is just part of a losing effort. However, her suddenly allying with Lioness Asuka at year’s end gives us a whole new angle to look at.

* Meiko Satomura is by this point easily the #1 “Class of 1995” GAEA kid, and their biggest trainee. Her 1998 was iffy- full of hammy performances and spamming out her moves (to the point where she was hurting all of their credibility), but 1999 sees her up her game, and a fantastic match against Aja Kong in the summer is the best singles match in joshi wrestling all year. She’s slowed down her finisher spamming, and has developed a Pele Kick as a big reversal- backflip-kicking someone in the head to mount her comeback.

* Sonoko Kato finally gets a big push of her very own, as Lioness Asuka takes a shine to her in a couple matches, beats her emphatically in one… then accepts her as a protege! This is seen as a big betrayal by Kato’s usual partner Meiko, but gives her a push emphasizing her in a variety of tag matches with Lioness as the senior partner. She also adops Kowloon’s Gate (the old “Bull’s Poseidon” drop-down onto the ass while holding an opponent head-down behind her) as an upgraded finisher, aiding her game. She actually has the coolest-looking moveset in the company by quite a ways (guillotine legdrops, a flying fireman’s carry roll, etc.), but has yet to really combine it all into a ***3/4+ match just yet. Injuries are likely a part of this- her lower body is often wrapped up like a mummy. And it’s clear that “Meiko is the one getting pushed” to anyone with a pair of eyes, which might negate her crowd reactions.

* Toshie Uematsu has kept on trucking, now using a “Goo Punch” as a signature strike- just walloping people in the jaw. She has been injured and has lost a ton of mobility, so is trying to work smarter. She used to rely a lot on her flips and acrobatics, and is struggling with the difference (it’s not helped that she’s easily the lowest of the Class of 1995 on the card).

* Toshiyo Yamada, moved from Zenjo to GAEA, was a “filler” wrestler for much of the year, putting on few great performances. She & KAORU beat LCO in the early part of the year, at least, but otherwise aren’t doing much. After taking a few losses at year’s end, she suddenly gets a brand-new look- the iconic “Mad Max” Yamada look where she wears a two-piece get-up of torn grey military-fatigues, bleach-blonde hair, black facepaint under one eye, and more… but retains the same offense, including her awful, increasingly-sloppy Reverse Gory Bomb finisher. This era of Yamada is not particularly well-thought-of, to say the least, but she’s injured and is fighting off irrelevance.

* Speaking of, here’s KAORU! A veteran who founded GAEA, she has nonetheless stopped trying as hard in matches, and has given up on doing anything but her spots. This was kinda always an issue with her, but now she’s gotten particularly bad at expressing no emotion in matches and just hitting some stuff with a blank expression and then just tagging out.

* Rounding things out we get Sakura Hirota, who is getting emphasized a TON in GAEA’s YouTube channel… much to my chagrin, as it’s all matches full of nothing but comedy. Which is fine, but not for the full 7-9 minutes her matches tend to be, which are wrestled as comedy for 4, serious for 1, go back to comedy, then end serious. It has a ceiling of like *1/2 and it’s dreadful to watch sometimes, though certain costumes are a bit clever. “Cosplay Hirota” is apparently the most well-liked incarnation of her. She’s still not very credible (even Kaori Nakayama beats her in one match), but is rising.

* GAEA has mostly lost their other rookies from before and after Sakura. Maiko Matsumoto, Makie Numao, Rina Ishii, and others are all gone with no word on the YouTube channel (did they even have retirement matches?). Saika Takeuchi, from the infamous documentary GAEA Girls, is brand-new, and has already been used in a couple angles- she is bloodied by Nostradamus in an especially cruel moment, leaving her loudly bawling in the ring, and in a trios match the veterans use her as a missile to pin the lowest-end heel.

Super Star Unit/Nostradamus Wrestlers:

* Mayumi Ozaki is a Freelancer but mostly wrestles either her spot shows “Oz Academy” or wrestlers for GAEA. However, someone who was once one of the best women’s wrestlers in the world from 1992-96 has pretty much reduced herself entirely to brawls and multiman matches, putting on subpar efforts with sloppy wrestling- in particular, she copied Aja Kong’s “Uraken” backfist, but she’s so small and skinny, and her movement with it so loose and floppy, they lack all credibility but are treated as big moves. So you get a lot of loose, sloppy backfists and people are expected to bump around for them.

* Chikayo Nagashima & Sugar Sato impress by actually winning the AAAW Tag Titles from the senior team of Aja & Ozaki! This is a HUGE win for the kids, and gives them a big boost, but they rarely defend the belts and are still minor subordinates in Nostradamus matches, often eating pins. Chikayo, once maybe the best of the Class of 1995, has kind of disappeared into the mix with nothing going on and no stand-out performances, while Sugar, arguably the least physically-gifted of the class, is putting on very good performances with a borderline “Communal Joshi Offense” style with a very solid set of decent-looking moves (a run-up back elbow, Ligerbomb and even a RUNNING Ligerbomb), as well as copying Ozaki’s backfist spamming. Sugar has had to rely on just psychology and timing more than her more gifted classmates, and it’s honestly turned her into one of the better workers. But her moves are still pretty good-looking- just very solid, crunchy, basic deliverly like something out of a video game. Both stay with Ozaki from SSU to Nostradamus, and are often split up in trios or tag stuff as pin-eaters.

* Akira Hokuto returns from injury to join Nostradamus, typically wearing dark sunglasses and smirking in the background, but her work has fallen off a cliff- of the top wrestlers of the ’90s, she is easily the most disappointing one in matches, being hidden in multimans and doing bare-minimum effort (though still doing her crazy tope con hilo off the top to the floor).

* Kaori Nakayama… exists. She came from FMW, and is largely used as the jobber for Nostradamus, wearing her funny genie pants and some skimpy tops. Very poor performances and usually gets a decent move or two.

* RIE (formerly Bad Nurse Nakamura) goes from FMW to GAEA Japan for the most part, and also joins Nostradamus. She’s also pretty weaksauce- a RIE singles or tag match is like a guaranteed ** affair.

* Lioness Asuka, a Freelancer, is the top agent of SSU at first, defeating Chigusa and becoming GAEA’s “Booker”, but eventually loses it back. Along the way, she loses her stable, as the other members of SSU abandon her and LCO, forming Nostradamus, and then LCO soon abandons Asuka during another match. However, she pairs up with Sonoko Kato and starts teaching her stuff, and is about to form Crush 2000 in the new year. Asuka is presently still one of the best wrestlers on the scene, pulling out great-looking moves and leveraging credibility, timing and aura into good performances. She’s also acting Champion of JD’ during this span but Cagematch is iffy on any of their stuff.

More on Aja Kong in ARSION’s section!

ALL JAPAN WOMEN’S PRO WRESTLING (Zenjo):
AJW Roster: Yumiko Hotta, Manami Toyota, Kaoru Ito, Takako Inoue (goes freelance at some point but is usually here), Tomoko Watanabe, Kumiko Maekawa, Momoe Nakanishi, Nanae Takahashi, Kayo Noumi, Miho Wakizawa Rookies: Miyuki Fujii

-Zenjo was badly gutted in mid-1997, struggled hard through 1998, featuring an extremely long Shinobu Kandori reign for the Red Belt (the WWWA Title being won by an invading LLPW wrestler), ending with a disastrous Anniversary Show at the end of the year, featuring weak, over-long matches, a clumsy Chigusa/Manami “Dream Match”, and more- a real embarrassment. So imagine my surprise to see them rise from the ashes in 1999! Turns out that while Hotta & Toyota were weak on top, turning the company to focus instead of Kaoru Ito, Tomoko Watanabe, Kumiko Maekawa and the younger generation started bringing back fans! The original core fanbase of teenage girls apparently started coming back in some numbers. This can be seen in the VERY good crowd drawn for a December show at Yoyogi Gymnasium- something like 5,000 people showed up! A far cry from the tiny crowds and blackened gyms everyone but GAEA is drawing.

We’ve entered what is called the “Athena TV Era” as a series of shows take place on the Fuji TV building on Odaiba Island. It creates an amazing visual spectacle despite the tiny crowd. Wrestlers being wrestlers, they of course decide to climb the lighting rig right next to ringside on every single show, turning what should be an amazing spot into a routine one. But it’s a great visual! One of wrestling’s best “Home Court” set-ups, with a reasonably hot crowd (ie. the fans are starting to care again).

* Yumiko Hotta is technically the top star of the year. However, she’s had poor luck in most top matches- she defeats Shinobu Kandori in a… pretty solid match, albeit with a weak finish, to FINALLY pay off their feud and the “LLPW wrestler becomes the top champion of Zenjo” angle once and for all- she wins when Kandori is unable to roll into the ring before “10”, selling a KO. She only holds the belt until summer, as ANOTHER invader, Neo’s Kyoko Inoue, wins back the Red Belt in a horrendous match that’s too rained out to be any good (the ring mat is unwrestleable), Kyoko winning when Takako Inoue runs in with her stun-gun, botching the finish by missing Hotta, who sells it anyways. Hotta wins back the Red Belt on a Neo show that’s barely attended, and neither wrestlers puts in much effort for the dying promotion. A dreadful *1/2 match sees Hotta win with a shotei (see what I mean about shoteis?).

* Manami Toyota is an interesting one, as she was spending most of 1998 being shitty to rookies in matches, caring about only her spots, and no-selling people before crushing them like bugs… but is suddenly putting more effort into the new era. This is allegedly because she saw the rookies actually rising up to her level, and if she didn’t light a fire under her ass she’d be outstripped by Momoe and others, lol. Competition breeds excellence!

* Kumiko Maekawa lost her All Pacific Title to LLPW’s Yasha Kurenai at Zenjo’s Anniversary Show in late 1998, but quickly wins it back after only a couple of months and goes on a 350-day reign, lasting into the year 2000. More prominently, she and Tomoko Watanabe team up and smash LCO for the WWWA Tag Titles at year’s end, becoming champions once more! This ends Tomoko’s “ZAP” team with Kaoru Ito for the time being.

* Momoe Nakanishi is the official “one to watch”. 19 years old, tiny, but spirited, she is putting out more effort than any other wrestler right now, and is blitzing everyone with great bumping, great feeding for others’ spots, and tons of athleticism. Crowds respond to the effort, and she’s beginning to get the push to showcase herself. She briefly wins the 3WA Super Lightweight Title, and challenges LCO when they invade, putting on a spirited performance.

* Nanae Takahashi is the next big rising star, though is still well into her “gets her ass kicked” phase, dropping quickly against veterans. She’s big, but still somewhat clumsy, still working out what kind of wrestler she wants to be (Kyoko Inoue Clone? Powerhouse?). Her tag matches with Momoe as a partner are usually her best, but she’s clearly the “Jannetty” of that squad.

* Kayou Noumi & Miho Wakizawa are an interesting sub-story to the year. They were green rookies in 1997-ish when AJW nearly went bankrupt and lost almost everyone. Sticking it out, they managed to carve out a niche as a minor-league tag team. Both skinny and in matching frilly outfits of different colors, they looked more like hapless rookies but seem to be doing pretty well- Wacky actually looks tall and athletic and moves fairly well, but isn’t any good yet. But I find myself kind of a fan in that “Alex THE PUG Porteau” kind of way at quasi-athletic jobbery types, so I think she will become an inexplicable favorite. They had the Japanese Tag Titles from November ’98 until July ’99, losing to an invading JWP squad.

* Rookie Ayako Seki comes in and looks great just squashing Fujii, as she’s this giant, heavyset girl doing belly-bashes and flying splashes… but this is her only televised match ever, as she has one more match and then disappears from wrestling. Apparently her parents came and took her home? Darn!

* Miyuki Fujii struggles as the new “bottom-tier rookie”- she’s awkward, ungaingly, and unimpressive-looking. Most wrestlers just eat her alive.

ARSION:
ARSION Roster: Aja Kong, Mariko Yoshida, Rie Tamada, Yumi Fukawa, Michiko Omukai, Jessie Bennett, Hiromi Yagi, Mikiko Futagami, Candy Okutsu, Esther Moreno, Mari Apache, Youngsters: Fabi Apache, Mika Akino, Ayako Hamada, Ai Fujita, Emiko Kado (briefly)

-hahahaha so yeah this company just fell the fuck apart and is super-depressing to watch now.

Like, it STARTED kinda fun. Everyone was working out a new style, and the “little bit of wrestlers from everywhere” nature of it made it kind of up in the air where everyone was going to end up, making it look interesting. Like you had LLPW, JWP, AJW & rookie wrestlers all mixing in so you didn’t quite know who was midcarder, who was a jobber, etc., in addition to Mariko Yoshida, a Zenjo midcarder, being made the Ace and developing a new style in women’s wrestling. Some athletic rookies were joining up (Mika Akino was a real prodigy; Ayako Hamada LOOKED great and was acrobatic but just sucked), Yumi Fukawa of all people lit a fire under her ass and started working her best stuff, etc.

But the company didn’t draw. The “Grapplefuckery” style quickly proved to be a box-office failure, and fans were usually quiet for it, popping only for the traditional joshi spots (ie. high-flying or impact moves) that they had been trained to pop for. The style wasn’t QUITE “Worked Shoot” like RINGS or whatever, and struggled to get over. By 1999 almost everyone had given up on it. Worse still, super-pushing Ayako Hamada had failed big-time- fans were almost deliberately quiet for “Super Rookie” for reasons I’ll get into. And then the Michiko Omukai megapush begins, as a clumsy, gangly wrestler is suddenly rocketed up the card and getting to bring main eventers to the brink. Again, same result.

Then you get all the TOURNAMENTS. This is “Rossy Ogawa Booking 101”- Just Have A Tournament (like Tony Khan, another mark who made himself booker, he defaults to this). Except Rossy also loves booking flukes, and so match after match ends with a banana peel finish or someone doing a rollup and just happening to pin a supposed top star. This both hurts the top star for jobbing (AJA KONG jobs out this way), and fails to really put over the person who won, because it was clearly a fluke. So tournament wins by Candy Okutsu in 1998 and Michiko Omukai in 1999 turn out like this, and the people are sorta half-pushed before reaching whatever their peak was.

* Mariko Yoshida is the dominant wrestler of the “ARSION House Style” and eventually becomes Queen of ARSION (ie. their main champion). But her mission now is mostly “make everyone look good in title matches” as the tiny size of ARSION and lack of invading people from other promotions means she’s stuck wrestling the scrubs of her company and having to act like they all have a shot, no matter how low-level they are. Yoshida is GOOD, mind you… but it’s a rough job. Like putting over Michiko Omukai isn’t easy, nor is dealing with a charisma-vacuum like Futagami. Her match with Hiromi Yagi is one of ARSION’s best, though- she sells her ass off for Yagi’s elite judo skills, acting like her technical skill is impossible to overcome, and does the best of that “House Style”, only suceeding in the end because she’s bigger and more durable, and can power Yagi around into some openings and finally beats her. It’s a legit ****1/4 match and against a tag wrestler with little prior credibility. She even has a **** match with Yumi Fukawa that REALLY utilizes the best aspects of the Grapplefuckery style, losing to put her over!

UNFORTUNATELY, Aja Kong unseats her in August and Mariko just never really matters again. “ARSION True Heart” ends up jobbing to Aja again in December, and what’s worse- both of those matches are among Yoshida’s worst solo bouts for the year, being pretty dreary Aja-led encounters where Aja barely bothers to put over Yoshida’s stuff as tremendous, and has nothing to do with the grapple-fu style Yoshida was utilizing. So Yoshida working her ass off to put over scrubs and lower-level wrestlers alike went nowhere.

* The dreaded MICHIKO OMUKAI MEGAPUSH begins, and apparently never stops. See, Omukai is scrub-adjacent, having some okay moves but mostly being ungainly and not very credible as a threat. But she’s tall and pretty, and so Rossy thinks she should be a big star. So there’s a lot of unconvincing “Aja sells a lot for Omukai” and “Yoshida struggles to beat Omukai” matches where the point is to make her look good in defeat… but now it’s time for her to WIN STUFF. And so in May she wins the ARS ’99 Tournament, won the previous year by Candy Okutsu (another Rossy project), she’s received training in TV spots by Sakie Hasegawa (who teachers Omukai her “solebutt” spinkick and her overhead Uranage), and now she’s big-time. Except the crowd still isn’t very excited for her. Issues abound: her stuff is too clumsy to look good or be credible (the uranage Sakie did was awesome, but she was a beast of an athlete while Omukai’s comes at the hands of a beanpole), she doesn’t sell well at all (her big thing is to make a comeback and then just stand their and smirk or smile, which negates all the previous work her opponent did and kills the heat for her comebacks), and the fans never really respond to anything she does. She uses a big Sit-Out Razor’s Edge as a finisher and looks like she’s DESPERATELY trying not to drop people every time. It’s like… get ready for a lot of **-**1/2 matches whenever she’s around.

* ARSION has a major tragedy very early in the year, as less than a month after she debuts, young Emiko Kado takes a blow to the head in the ring and dies from her injury. This makes her the second major in-ring tragedy in only a few years in joshi puro (joining Plum Mariko). This incident isn’t very famous and didn’t get reported as much, but is a sad black mark on a new company.

* Yumi Fukawa‘s “tryhard” thing continues! Except they’re so not pushing her at this point- while Omukai succeeds and succeeds, Fukawa gets killed in almost every match. It makes her a suitable “underdog” but her in-ring skills are so good I feel like longer, competitive matches would be a better deal, especially as she’s at least as good-looking as Omukai is, which is what Rossy values in the first place. I mean don’t tell me she’s less credible just cuz she’s short! By the very end of the year she manages to get a flash-pin on Candy Okutsu, though. And most impressively, beats Yoshida in the aforementioned **** match. It was truly excellent and makes perfect use of the “ARSION Style” that everyone else gave up on.

* Speaking of “Girls Getting Huge Pushes Cuz They’re Pretty”, here’s Ayako Hamada & Ai Fujita in Candy Okutsu’s CAZAI stable! Fujita is the new “Super Rookie”, and much like Ayako is given a push way above her station, featuring lots of her flippy moves and flashy lucha things. And it goes about as well- she can’t sell so she’s not very over, and she’s not experienced enough to do all the flashy stuff right so it’s timed in bad parts of the match and often botches. Mika Akino (now just called AKINO) is also a member of the stable and is far superior on all fronts and more over… but isn’t as focused on, cuz looks. But her & Hamada are the big “rookie” tag team of the promotion, so at least she’s still getting some push- in June, they win the Twin Stars of ARSION belts from Hiromi Yagi/Rie Tamada. They finally manage to get a big crowd reaction when Las Cachorras Orientales tears its way through the ARSION card (including humiliating and terrorizing a Fukawa/Tamada re-teaming), but challenges for the Tag Titles and actually fail, jobbing to Hamada/AKINO in a 27-minute Match of the Year Contender (****1/2).

This should ideally start the kids off on a new, strong foot for the new year, but alas, “the match got over and they got a good reaction” apparently does not get sustained.

* Candy Okutsu is still around, dressing like Diesel of all people, and still doing matches full of run-up moves. She’s slowed down a tad, and the big push she was getting seems to have kinda fizzled out, but she’s leading a stable called CAZAI.

* Aja Kong is still one of the biggest stars on the scene, and actually gets a RENEWED, invigorated push at this point, as she wins not only the Queen of ARSION belt but the GAEA AAAW World Title, becoming a dominant dual champion. AND she has the year’s best singles match- a legendary ****1/2 classic against Meiko Satomura that REALLY proves the kid is the real deal and a future star. This new push turns Aja into a great monster heel again, and she thankfully stops ending up in the “go 8 minutes with the German kid and show people what he can do” zone.

* Reggie & Jessie Bennett shored up a lot of ARSION stuff, Reggie working overtime to put others like Candy over, but suddenly both were gone and take LONG breaks at this point. ARSION might have been running out of money or whatever.

* Mikiko Futagami is still kicking around, but her sort of push has mostly ended and she’s settled into a midcard role. She took Yoshida to the limit in a title match earlier in the year in one of Gami’s better bouts, but otherwise is not really getting elevated. Her lack of facial expressions is hurting a lot of her performances, and negating the strength of her “striking & submissions” attempts.

* Rie Tamada… still here! Still mid! Her tag team with Hiromi Yagi were the tag champs for a while before putting over the CAZAI team. She & Fukawa brought back their old duo to job to LCO in a pretty good match, too, but I feel she’s also permanently in the midcard.

* Hiromi Yagi is a freelancer who spends most of her time in ARSION, first as a tag champ, and also having one of ARSION’s best ever matches with Yoshida. However, their rematch later in the year sees Yagi pretty handily beaten, and she also does the job to ASARI, so she’s obviously a midcarder.

* Because Rossy, there’s a bunch of luchadoras kicking around, usually getting a very clipped match full of spots on many tapes. Some of them are HORRENDOUS, though- botchy and bad. Mari Apache is good, but Fabi Apache is awful. Old Zenjo star Esther Moreno shows up sometimes, and someone named Linda Starr does as well. Except these matches to be clipped to just the MOVEZ.

Why Hamada & Omukai Won’t Get Over:
-So this is a continuing ARSION problem, and it’s obvious why it’s not working. Both women are very similar- they look good in swimsuits and Rossy wants to push them, selling calendars and photobooks and whatever, and both receive pushes way above their talent level at around the same time- Omukai goes from “tryhard undercarder” (she came from LLPW, where she was low-level and not being pushed) to an upper-midcarder. Hamada starts off as “Super Rookie” and they’re just gonna push her until it works. And why doesn’t it? Well, I’ve noticed that Japanese crowds don’t quit revolt the way American ones do when someone is obviously being shoved down their throats- instead, they just kinda… sit quietly. The “Jericho in Japan” reaction. They’re too polite to disrupt shows by booing tryhard upstart babyfaces, really, but you can’t BUY respect out of them.

So these pushes aren’t working because clearly they’re not good enough for them. They haven’t earned these wins they’re picking up, nor the “credibility” of like… KOing people with Omukai’s gangly-ass spinkicks. Mika Akino is clearly better than either, but obviously isn’t getting the push, for obvious reasons (she’s chesty but not like… a calendar model). Japanese crowds are kinda like any other- if you let them see the strings, they sometimes refuse to appreciate the puppetry, y’know?

JWP IN 1999:
JWP Roster: Hikari Fukuoka (Ace), Azumi Hyuga (New Ace), Dynamite Kansai (injured vet), Devil Masami (aging vet), Cutie Suzuki, Command Bolshoi, Ran YuYu, Carlos Amano, Kana Mizaki, Acute Sae, Erika Watanabe, Tsubasa Kurakagi, Kayoko Haruyama.

* So in 1998, JWP lost their TV, lost Mayumi Ozaki, and never matters ever again, to put it bluntly. Their Ace, semi-successful Hikari Fukuoka, also retires in March, a month after dropping the JWP Openweight Title to the New Hotness, Tomoko Kuzumi, who changes her name to Azumi Hyuga. Hyuga becomes the new Queen of JWP, holding the belt for most of the year before the other Tomoko, Miyaguchi (now “Ran YuYu” or “Yu-Yu” or whatever), defeats her. Essentially, the torch is completely passed- four years after their debut, the Class of 1995 are now the company’s Main Eventers. Azumi is considered one of the great “Lost Workers” of joshi, as she was the top star of a company that rapidly shut down and reopened as a much smaller promotion with no TV time, even as it kicked around longer than some of its biggest rivals from this time period (Zenjo, GAEA). After both promotions shut down, Azumi was still kicking at a high level!

* Ran YuYu was pretty good even in the 1996-97 stuff I’ve seen (her match with Hyuga, her classmate, was around **** in my opinion) and is elevated here, though I’ve scarcely seen anything. She ends the year as JWP Champion.

* An aging, broken down Devil Masami is still around, but has had her last great match. As someone put it, “Jaguar Yokota retired in the late 2010s in better shape than Devil was in 1998”. She still has big-name charisma and timing but MAN. She actually wrestles a lot in 1999 from what I can see, and even does a job to Hyuga in a #1 Contender tournament (that saw Hyuga win the belt) in February. The only match I managed to review was a GAEA one where she takes on Sakura Hirota, cosplaying as Devil’s “Super Heel” Undertaker knock-off persona in a comedy match.

* Dynamite Kansai, unfortunately, had seen better days- a “collagen disorder” (collagen vascular disease, most likely- involving the joints) left her in agony a lot of the time, and this would quickly ruin her match quality. She’d have to do shorter matches from here on out. Just checking, it looks like she does almost exclusively tag matches all year long, beating Kana Mizaki in a couple singles. She will enter 2000 in her last year as a JWP wrestler, switching to GAEA.

* Cutie Suzuki retires in 1999 after having given her last fuck at least two years prior. Her heart wasn’t in it and she went from one of the best hammy sellers in joshi to a total nobody. Though I was a bit critical of her stuff (“the worst wrestler in some of the best matches”), she’s one I’ll miss.

* Carlos Amano has improved a lot at grappling and submissions, and wins the Tag Titles in 1999 alongside Bolshoi. She didn’t join her OZ Academy teammates in GAEA to the new stables, threading back into JWP mostly exclusively, doing random shows here and there for other companies (trading wins with the “Saya Endo/Yoshiko Tamura” tier of Neo). She fights Hyuga for the JWP Title, coming up short in a 19-minute match.

* JWP’s other wrestlers are: Command Bolshoi, a tiny girl who should be having better matches than she has been by this point in her career- I’ve heard she gets better later but she’s lucky to crack *** at this point. Kanoko Motoya (soon Kana Mizaki) seems pretty decent but is an interchangeable midcarder at this point. Someone named “Acute Sae” is showing up on match listings too, but I’ve never seen her. She retires in 2002 so probably never made it. There’s also an Erika Watanabe, Kayoko Haruyama (who wins the Junior Title), and Tsubasa Kurakagi, who debuts in 1995 but misses a year or so then returns… and my god, she’s STILL WRESTLING, doing 40+ matches per year! She beat someone named “Soy” two months ago! She ends the year as co-AJW Tag Champion alongside Mizaki.

LLPW IN 1999:
LLPW Roster: Shinobu Kandori, Eagle Sawai, Harley Saito, Rumi Kazama, Noriyo Tateno, Sayori Okino, Keiko Aono, Miho Watabe, Junko Yagi (there’s probably more I forget)

-LLPW has pretty well become a non-entity on the scene, especially with Zenjo’s improving business meaning they can drop having to hand their big belts over to LLPW stars to carry Interpromotional feuds and do business. A tricky thing here is that they don’t have TV and Cagematch has almost nothing from them, WrestlingData only slightly more. I was all “they only held eight shows all year long!” but remembered that CM is very light on joshi pro information, meaning I could easily be missing tons of stuff (WD again shows very little extra). As it stands I can’t really assess anyone in this company but count belts.

* Shinobu Kandori started the year as both WWWA & LLPW Champion, holding the first until March, when Yumiko Hotta defeated her in a shenanigans-adjacent ending, beating her by “knockout” because Kandori was on the floor and couldn’t make it to the ring in time. POLITICS, yo. She was LLPW Champ until August, when Harley Saito defeated her.

* Harley Saito celebrates her second one-year reign as LLPW Champion with a win over Kandori, also defeating Crusher Maedomari of FMW.

* This year we say goodbye to Yasha Kurenai, actually! She has two matches on CM, then a gap until 2002, then 7 and 4-year long ones, then nothing (ie. retirement but for random shows). Well… that sucks. I always dug her angry little scrapper shitheel act. But yeah, she retires at this point, leaving LLPW without an upper-midcarder.

* Rumi Kazama is still hanging with the main eventers but isn’t actually winning belts (despite being the President & owner). LLPW lost Michiko Nagashima to retirement in 1998, so doesn’t have a lot left in their midcard/undercard. Sayori Okino is still kicking around, as is Carol Midori. Keiko Aono seems to have left for the year, or is hurt, wrestling for other companies. She returns in 2000, though. JB Angels star Noriyo Tateno is still kicking, too. Someone named Junko Yagi works a couple years here then ends up in NEO next year.

NEO LADIES:
Neo Ladies Roster: Kyoko Inoue, Misae Genki, Yoshiko Tamura, Tanny Mouse, Yuka Shiina, Saya Endo

-Welcome to the most depressing company on the list. So Neo Ladies is formed by Kyoko Inoue, who personally took a stake in a new promotion to take up some of the rookies a bankrupt Zenjo could no longer afford. Aaaaaaaaaaaand it failed. Badly. Initially founded with her as the big star, Las Cachorras Orientales as tag wrestlers, and Chaparrita ASARI as an up & comer, all three of the latter have quit to go freelance, with Kyoko losing money big-time. The promotion is at death’s door, with a wildly depressing show in the latter quarter of the year. It has a sparcely-attended, super-depressing gym show with a dead crowd, Kyoko & Yumiko Hotta wrestling a boring, dreary, sub-** match over the Red Belt to truly cap things off.

Neo Ladies indeed closes up shop, but relaunches as NEO the next year. And… also isn’t that big a deal, but lasts a considerably longer time, and (spoiler alert) outlasts not only GAEA Japan, but AJW itself! So uhhhhhh maybe she gets the last laugh, alongside all that crushing debt!

* Yoshiko Tamura is slowly being built up, but is still jobbing to anyone who’s even somewhat of a “name”. Honestly her momentum feels like it’s stalled out considering she was “very good for a rookie” even 2 years before this.

* Misae Genki is getting a push as a “Sub-Kyoko” giant powerhouse, now using big dramatic chops as a weapon and other power stuff, but has a similar credibility issue as Tamura- Neo was forced to build these girls up from their “rising rookie” stages and they’re still not credible yet.

* Tanny Mouse has somewhat dropped the “Comedy Wrestler” stuff and mostly just does a couple signature goofy spots, and is more of a “Generic ** worker” from what I’ve seen.

* The others I’ve seen very little of. Saya Endo stalled out badly, and her run as LCO’s goon didn’t help her at all- her bad selling wrecked the “LCO Template” in 6-woman tags and she was orphaned when they quit Neo. Yuka Shiina is one of those “oh yeah- she exists” people to me.

FMW’s WOMEN’S DIVISION IN 1996:
-… no idea! I think they dropped all their belts by this point. I don’t see any FMW matches for Shark Tsuchiya or the others, nor do they show up elsewhere, and I think RIE & Nakayama show up in GAEA because FMW just stopped running women’s wrestling entirely. That division mostly lived and died on Megumi Kudo’s back, anyways.

JD’:
-haha okay so I didn’t look at this one even once. They have almost zero YouTube presence and their stuff is harder to find, and looking up stuff on Archive.org is a pain in the ass. So whatever they have going on, I didn’t see and if you find some, I will come up with some sort of super-believable reason why I just can’t backtrack. I don’t even know if their top belt got defended- Cagematch says Lioness Asuka had it, but there are no defenses listed and she’s champ straight until 2003 before relinquishing it? I have no idea. They appear to have their own rising stars- Megumi Yabushita & Sumie Sakai show up in their title lineage at this point. So good for JD’! CM has them not in JD’ for a couple years but that might just be bad info. Apparently Lioness did a lot of the booking and wrestling as the main, griefing the lesser wrestlers.

Best Matches:
(kinda/sorta in the order of how I liked them… the ***** matches are anyone’s ballgame, though)

****1/2:
Aja Kong vs. Meiko Satomura (GAEA Yokohama Double Destiny)
Lioness Asuka & Las Cachorras Orientales vs. Manami Toyota, Kaoru Ito & Nanae Takahashi (July- Match in the Rain)
Las Cachorras Orientales vs. Ayako Hamada & AKINO (ARSION- Dec.)

****1/4:
Mariko Yoshida vs. Hiromi Yagi (Queen of ARSION Title- Feb.)
Mariko Yoshida vs. Yumi Fukawa (Sept. 29th)
Aja Kong & Mayumi Ozaki vs. Meiko Satomura & Sonoko Kato (GAEA’s 4th Anniversary)

****:
Manami Toyota, Takako Inoue, Kumiko Maekawa & Momoe Nakanishi vs. Harley Saito, Yasha Kurenai, Rumi Kazama & Noriyo Tateno (AJW/LLPW Show- Feb.)
Las Cachorras Orientales vs. Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa (AJW- Dec.)

***3/4:
Las Cachorras Orientales vs. Momoe Nakanishi & Nanae Takahashi (3WA Tag Titles- Sept.)
Chigusa Nagayo vs. Lioness Asuka (Winner Rules GAEA Japan)
Hikari Fukuoka vs. Azumi Hyuga (JWP Title- Feb.)

-… oh my god that’s some depressing shit looking at it like that, haha. ELEVEN MATCHES above ***1/2 all year long? Far cry from the amazing matches of 1993-95. That’s kind of part of why Joshi fell apart in the late 1990s- all the great talent was aging, getting injured, and spread out all over the place in smaller and smaller shows, and so you had way fewer great matches. That plus the ebb & flow common to all promotions hitting them HARD once all the “Dream Matches” had mostly run out and booking was falling apart across the board and the economy was failing. And note that I’m the only person who likes Hikari/Azumi- everyone else who saw it considers it a crap match below 2 stars and I’m the only one at 3.75, lol. I dunno how to explain that one- I watched it twice and thought it was good both times. Just one of those things! The Chigusa/Lioness match to rule GAEA Japan is a gloriously over-booked Attitude Era cheat-fest and is fun for that, but an acquired taste as well.

I do find it interesting how dreary the early part of the year was, and then suddenly the good matches rev up later on, starting with the summer. Mariko Yoshida is Singles MVP, ahving two phenomenal matches with very different opponents- midcard judoka Hiromi Yagi early in the year and then rising upstart Yumi Fukawa in September- these are notably BOTH women’s best singles matches ever, and both work perfectly with the Grapplefuckery style Yoshida was using. Sadly her matches with Aja Kong were ass by comparison. Aja/Meiko is the best singles match of the year, and she has a great tag match in the spring, too.

But uhhhhhhhhhh the real MVPs here are LCO, once again. Two ****1/2 matches, one **** match and one ***3/4 match. Like, 1/3 of the matches of the year are LCO bouts, and that’s no coincidence. They have the best “Big Match Energy” of anyone on the scene at the moment.

GAEA JAPAN’S TITLES:
AAAW WORLD TITLE: Chigusa Nagayo (Aug. ’98), Aja Kong (May ’99)
AAAW WORLD TAG TITLES: Aja Kong & Mayumi Ozaki (Aug. ’98), Chikayo Nagashima & Sugar Sato (July ’99)

AJW’S TITLES:
WWWA WORLD TITLE: Shinobu Kandori (March ’98), Yumiko Hotta (March ’99), Kyoko Inoue (July), Yumiko Hotta (Oct.)
ALL PACIFIC TITLE: Yasha Kurenai (Nov. ’98), Kumiko Maekawa (Feb. ’99)
AJW TITLE: Momoe Nakanishi (April ’98), VACANT (??- some time in 1999)
WWWA SUPER LIGHTWEIGHT TITLE: VACANT (July ’97- ASARI leaves Zenjo), Chaparrita ASARI (May ’99), Momoe Nakanishi (July), Chaparrita ASARI (Oct.)
WWWA WORLD TAG TEAM TITLES: The ZAPs (April ’98), Las Cachorras Orientales (July ’99), Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa (Dec.)
JAPANESE TAG TEAM TITLES: Kayou Noumi & Miho Wakizawa (Nov. ’98), Kana Mizaki & Tsubasa Kuragaki (July ’99)

JWP’S TITLES:
JWP OPENWEIGHT TITLE: Hikari Fukuoka (April ’97), Azumi Hyuga (Feb. ’99), Ran YuYu (Dec.)
JWP JUNIOR TITLE: VACANT (March ’98), Kayoko Haruyama (May ’99)
JWP TAG TEAM TITLES: VACANT (Dec. ’98), Command Bolshoi & Riek Amano (Jan. ’99)

LLPW’S TITLES:
LLPW TITLE: Shinobu Kandori (Oct. ’97), Harley Saito (Aug. ’99)
SIX-WOMAN TITLES: Eagle Sawai, Lioness Asuka & Shark Tsuchiya (Sept. ’98), Harley Saito, Keiko Aono & Noriyo Tateno (April ’99)

JD’S TITLES:
TWF TITLE: Kyoko Inoue (Aug. ’98), Lioness Asuka (Jan. ’99)
TWF TAG TITLES: Cooga & Sumie Sakai (Oct. ’98), Fang Suzuki & The Bloody (June ’99), Megumi Yabushita & Sumie Sakai (Oct.)
JD’ JUNIOR TITLE: Sumie Sakai (Aug. ’98), Megumi Yabushita (Jan. ’99), VACANT (June)

ARSION’S TITLES:
QUEEN OF ARSION TITLE: Mariko Yoshida (Dec. ’98), Aja Kong (Aug. ’99)
TWIN STARS OF ARSOIN TITLES: Hiromi Yagi & Rie Tamada (Dec. ’98), Ayako Hamada & Mika Akino (June ’99)
SKY HIGH OF ARSION TITLE: Chaparrita ASARI (Sept. ’99- First Champion)

IWA JAPAN’S TITLES:
AWF WORLD WOMEN’S TITLE: Emi Motokawa (Aug. ’97), Yuko Kosugi (March ’99), Megumi Yabushita (Aug.), The Bloody (Oct.), Yoshiko Tamura (Dec.)

And that’s it for Joshi in 1999! On to the year 2000! Crush 2000 forms in GAEA Japan! Various wrestlers jump to other companies! Gone is Neo, replaced by… NEO. Will LCO’s rampage continue to be as big a moneymaker? Will Ayako Hamada finally get over? Will GAEA stop reshuffling the deck with relaunched heel stables? I can’t wait and see!

Joshi Spotlight Master List