Joshi Spotlight: Joshi in 2000

JOSHI IN 2000:
* It’s 2000 and hey! Things are pretty good! I mean… I didn’t expect that!

So like, in 1997 or so Dave Meltzer completely stops reporting on the joshi scene and so online discourse about it drops off significantly. Almost nobody I’ve seen talks much about that era and it’s often assumed as some kind of “dark period” that lasts all the way until 2005, when both GAEA & AJW go under and things get EVEN WORSE. But then you watch 1999 & 2000 shows and… they’re packed! Fans are into it! KAORU ITO is drawing bigger, better reactions than Manami Toyota, Meltzer’s favorite! WTF is that?

So it turns out that the scene is going actually pretty good all the way through 2000, at least for the big two companies (GAEA, AJW/Zenjo). This is mostly due to the strength of their core angles and building fanbases or bringing back old ones. GAEA rides high off of REFORMING THE CRUSH GALS of all things, forming CRUSH 2000 and rebranding the company around them and their GAEA trainees (from 1995 on), up against the established veterans of the middle years (all the veterans who are making their way to the “Joshi Retirement Home” as freelancers). Zenjo hits a pretty big thing with a combination- the slow build of Kaoru Ito as the Ace and the rise of the generation of kids the new young fans “grew up with” as “our girls”, defending against the evils of puro like LCO! You can see big shows full of fans throughout the year!

And yet… some dark clouds on the horizon! GAEA still can barely keep rookies and is thus top-heavy! Freelancers who trained between 1986-1994 are the rule and clog up nearly every promotion, usually getting paid more if they lose so promoters often want to keep them happy and let them win! Zenjo still has a depleted roster! And there are some REAL dregs in the non-top promotions, as JWP dies for a second, LLPW is a non-entity, and poor ARSION keeps chugging along into disaster.

GAEA JAPAN:
-GAEA Japan is neck and neck with Zenjo as the top promotion, and rides a bit high on the reunification of the Crush Gals! Gone is the long Chigusa/Asuka blood-feud, as the two start uniting in the face of the dastardly heels, and ultimately they reform one of the biggest puro moneymaking acts ever, drawing mainstream attention in Japan and main eventing shows. This sets up a new core angle of the promotion- Chigusa & Lioness lead “The Third Generation Army” of all the GAEA originals up against the “Second Generation Army”- embittered veterans and freelancers who feel abandoned or uptight about the elevated position of the Gals.

Mid-year, GAEA runs one of their biggest shows. In the huge main event, Chigusa and Asuka decide to reform the CRUSH GALS, the biggest joshi team of all time, as “CRUSH 2000” gets major press in Japan. They decide to pull all the juniors in GAEA under their umbrella, an act that causes even Chikayo & Sugar- heels since late 1995- to abandon Mayumi Ozaki and join up! However, this act incenses not only Ozaki, but the other veterans, who feel burned and entitled. And so the heels drop whatever dumb stable they had before and are now the Second Generation Army, turning into a murderer’s row of once and former stars: Ozaki, Yamada, Devil Masami, Aja Kong, KAORU, Akira Hokuto, and then goddamn DYNAMITE KANSAI jumps from JWP to GAEA to turn it into an even bigger super-stable. So as good as CRUSH 2000 is, they’re in real trouble when super-veteran squads come gunning for them.

So this leads to GAEA’s only ever angle- “Stables Reshuffle” and so a new mish-mash of talent happens, reshuffling the deck so it’s often “Veteran + Trainee” vs. “Two Veterans” in varying combinations up and down the card.

The deck now is such:
Third Generation Army: Chigusa Nagayo, Lioness Asuka, Meiko Satomura, Sonoko Kato, Sugar Sato, Chikayo Nagashima, Toshie Uemtasu, Sakura Hirota, Saika Takeuchi
Second Generation Army: Aja Kong, Mayumi Ozaki, Devil Masami, Akira Hokuto, Dynamite Kansai, KAORU, Toshiyo Yamada

Of these, Aja & Ozaki are freelancers, though Aja is the AAAW World Champion (GAEA’s top belt-holder). Kansai jumps from JWP mid-year as a new challenger. Satomura, Kato, Sato, Nagashima & Uemtasu are GAEA’s Class of 1995. Hirota debuted the year later. Takeuchi is brand-new. The promotion’s style has slowed considerably, though- the Class of ’95 are JUST ready to move up and challenge the veterans… except all but two are beset by TONS of injuries, and the veterans themselves have so much wear and tear that nearly everyone is a shadow of their former self. Yamada is simply TERRIBLE, KAORU’s become even more brainless (though has one of her best matches ever- go fig), Devil’s a wreck, Kansai is often totally debilitated due to illness, Hokuto can barely move, and Ozaki’s turned into pigslop in the ring.

At least they kind of got rid of some of their bad habits. Not as many “Long for the sake of long” matches, and the “GAEA Sprint” has mostly gone. Even the “GAEA No-Sell” stops, as now wrestlers will try it, geting the requisite pop… but then kinda stumbling and often being beaten right away, as if that move still took just too much out of them.

GAEA Double Destiny is one of their biggest shows- this September show sees the ENTIRE trainee squad under Chigusa & Asuka feat the veterans! Sakura beats Police in a comedy brawl, Toshie persistently wears down Yamada until she gets a submission with her new straightjacket hold, Kato scores a total fluke over Hokuto, Sugar gets a 100% legit pin over KAORU in a shitty weapons match, Meiko hammers Devil with enough DVDs to finally bring her down for a lucky shot, and Chikayo defeats Ozaki with her own Tequila Sunrise hold in a finisher-spam one! Then Chigusa & Lioness defeat Aja Kong & Kansai in a FANTASTIC tag match to end the show!

UNFORTUNATELY, GAEA somewhat undoes this in the immediately next show, as a series of “Revenge Matches” see many heels get their wins back, albeit in deliberately-short matches (10-minute time limits make everyone “finisher spam” as a FEATURE, not a bug). Not all of them, but some- Yamada wins in seconds via strikes, and Devil pins Meiko, but only by fluke. Ozaki however, pummels Chikayo and beats her, and Hokuto completely squashes Kato just like her famous Yasha Kurenai squash from 1993. Chigusa narrowly beats Kansai and Sugar beats KAORU again. So GAEA’s girls got a TON of big wins all across one show, but gave some of them back, resulting in only some looking good- Sugar got legit wins, but Kato just ate a squash and looks worse. Meiko looks good pinning Devil and only gets rolled up for a “caught” finish.

This all puts GAEA in an odd position- it has all these young stars who seem kinda ready… but also all these veterans and freelancers who they can’t just JOB OUT. I mean they COULD, but then some of the freelancers will refuse or charge too much, because losing costs them value. And GAEA still needs them to juice houses, as their own girls are sorta over, but not OVER over and not draws yet.

Here’s where a lack of successful rookies really hurts them. Sakura Hirota & Saika Takeuchi are the ONLY ROOKIES from the post-1995 generation who have stuck around- everyone else is gone. This means there’s nobody to do jobs to the Class of 1995 to cement them as “legit”, so instead they have to go at-best, even-stevens with the veterans. And you can only get so over trading wins with Yamada.

Another real problem is the lack of great matches. There are SOME, and many of the kids are still imroving. BUT… you only get the occasional **** match and those are FAR apart now. Aging and injuries are real issues, and remain unbeaten in wrestling for a reason- everyone is slowing down, and it’s causing match ratings to plummet. Ozaki’s been awful for ages, but Devil Masami, once one of the best, is a shadow of her former self, Kansai has slowed a lot by injuries, and more. And this means that potentially-huge “Torch Passing” matches, like Ozaki vs. Chikayo… end up being barely ***. Sloppy-shop matches, missed moves, heels too exhausted to sell or bump properly, etc. The match averages are barely **-**1/2 all year long, and that dampens a lot of excitement. That the Class of 1995 can barely get over that hump either is NOT a good thing.

GAEA’s Wrestlers:
* Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka team up and separate to lead trainees through matches for much of the year, having little in the way of great bouts. Double Destiny is probably their best one, as CRUSH 2000 teams up to defeat Aja Kong & Dynamite Kansai’s monster squad in a fantastic ****1/2 match. But a huge beatdown later in the year sees Chigusa bring back her heelish “Zero” persona, bringing Asuka with her as their SPOOKY FACEPAINT puts them over as major threats to the 2nd Gen.

* Meiko Satomura is more and more clearly the “chosen one” by this point, but failed to replicate her success with Aja Kong and isn’t quite a top contender just yet. She fights Aja to a great match mid-year, hitting **** in my estimation- a big difference between this and last year’s match was that in that one, Meiko ate 12 minutes of offense before scoring a miracle kick that had Aja struggling in the back-half, as if she’d been “caught” and this fluke allowed Meiko to nearly beat her. In the rematch, it’s now fought as a totally-even match- less good than the first due to a lack of desperation, but a subtle way to establish that Meiko was no so good that Aja had to fight her normally. Meiko’s big win over Devil Masami was another big sign of her push, though it was even then treated as if she just sorta “caught” Devil through sheer persistence and wasn’t ACTUALLY better. Devil popped up and hit her with a Steiner Screwdriver of all things anyways. Meiko has plugged up some of the holes in her game, though- she isn’t as hammy as before, and doesn’t spam all her finishers, meaning they draw more of a reaction.

* Sonoko Kato is a sad one- in 1995-97, she was arguably better than Meiko and maybe the best student, and in 1999 she got a big push by turning on Meiko to join Lioness Asuka as a two-woman stable with a new teacher… but by 2000 is just an injury-ridden shell. Actively de-pushed (witness her scoring a fluke pin over Hokuto in the “all GAEA wins” show, then getting immediately curbstomped in the rematch and pinned clean with Hokuto’s finisher, reflecting the old match with Yasha Kurenai from 1993). Even looking at the YouTube comments, people are like “Kato is always hurt”. She’s lost SO much momentum, and even adding big finishers (Kowloon’s Gate is a vicious move which is basically Hangman Page’s Deadeye but dropped to the ass so it’s ACTUALLY a head bump). Last year’s stuff had me singing her praises for having the best moveset in the company, but now it’s hardly being used. And the company has recognized her injury-prone nature and de-emphasized her (she was once Asuka’s chosen partner in ’99) as well. And the fans REALLY pick up on stuff like that- it’s unstated but it’s usually immediately apparent to even the starry-eyed fans.

* Chikayo Nagashima is the big, BIG highlight. Often kind of quiet and paired up with Sugar in tag teams, now she’s this elite flipper and counter-artist, adding a move where she grabs something of an opponent’s and leans all the way over the top rope till her head touches the apron, ripping that limb/neck off. Her counters are AMAZING and she has the best execution in the entire company right now. And the bookers seem to have noticed- Chikayo is as clear and obvious as “the next star” as you’re gonna get, pushed right behind Meiko and given tons of opportunities to show off. She often scores the deciding fall in tag matches, and was given the big win over Mayumi Ozaki, then barely lost in a Finisher Spam quick time-limit match. She is LEGIT and building her moveset.

* Sugar Sato, once one of my favorites, is iffy. She’s gained a lot of weight and it’s altered her technique (once one of her best attributes), and she’s unable so far to counter that. She once hit a lot of great Ligerbombs in matches, and now she’s obviously being carried by people. Things get even worse by December as she’s put on like 20 more pounds and is sweaty and struggling. By the end of the year, she & Nagashima finally drop the AAAW World Tag Titles after a year and a half.

* Toshie Uematsu continues to struggle with aimlessness. Nearly everyone else from the Class of 1995-96 has an identity: Toshie’s just THERE. There’s a small feud with Sugar Sato over punching each other, carrying through every match they have, but that’s about it. Her finishers are WEAK- once the ultimate flippy GAEA wrestler, she got injured and can’t do that, and replaced it with NOTHING, doing a “Double-Wrist Armsault” (a northern lights suplex with the wrists grabbed) and still rarely getting pins. Like… do a 450 or a flying knee or SOMETHING. Like with Kato, the fans pick up very quickly when someone is “not the one being pushed” and she’ll never get outta that.

* Sakura Hirota of all people has become another highlight, though! “Cosplay Sakura”, where she defends her ridiculous Hand-Made Title (a giant scratch-built phony belt) in cosplay of baseball players, babies, her opponent, or other wrestlers- they’re all good. She’s a comedy wrestler who IS ACTUALLY FUNNY, has matches where the humor translates to a Western audience (always iffy) and cracks up even her opponents. More impressively, it’s different gags every single time! Sooooooooo many comedians do variations of their act, and 99% of comedy wrestlers just do the same thing with the same jokes every time, but Sakura is constantly coming up with new bits, doing things like “escaping into the upper decks and dropping things on opponents”, escaping in unique ways, trying to copy her opponent’s moves but buggering them up in humiliating fashion. Nearly every Sakura match is funny, but in a totally different way.

* Saika Takeuchi also exists, now in the “bottom-tier rookie” zone after having been at it for a year. She won’t last much longer (her only real legacy in the business is GAEA Girls). She’s upgraded to Indie Kickpads and is now doing some submissions and knee-strikes, and building signature offense (like odd sideways kicks).

* KAORU has found a new toy! Using half a board as a weapon, she spams shots with it, and added a “Boardsault” holding it in front of her for a moonsault. But her matches have degenerated yet again- instead of flavorless “doing spots then tagging out” she’s now spamming out HARDCORE spots, doing a cheap copy of WWF’s own cheap copy of the “hardcore” style, adding pointless stunts and then popping up to do other stuff. Some of her matches are among the worst bouts in all of joshi puro at this point, being totally brainless “hit a move, then walk somewhere else to hit another move” things. Interestingly, she jobs straight to Sugar Sato twice in a row, seemingly a death-knell… but in December beats CHIGUSA cleanly.

* Akira Hokuto is a physical wreck but still has some good attitude. They seem to be renovating her slightly, as while she still takes up a lot of space in tag matches, she & Devil were the first big opponents of CRUSH 2000 in their reunion, and at year’s end, defeat Sato & Nagashima for the AAAW World Tag Titles. The Northern Lights Bomb has also returned and is treated like a major killer once more.

* Mayumi Ozaki is still kicking, and thankfully her “Ozaki almost never loses” thing and monstro-push is over and she’s just “one of the heels” now (haha I wrote that and then looked at what her 2001 looks like… yeesh). Her sloppiness has gotten worse and worse, but they’ve also stopped treating her god-awful urakens like they’re a real finisher, so she’s just sorta whiffing 75% of them and they’re not even treated like match-enders.

* DYNAMITE KANSAI turns heads by joining GAEA Japan. She’s a shell of her former self and they don’t even bother to make her a title contender, though, jobbing to Chigusa fairly early on, but her & Aja Kong make a big “Monster” tag team and she joins the Second Generation Army in brutalizing GAEA’s wrestlers. Very injured and with a disorder that affects her joints, she has to rely a lot of her aura and timing, both of which are pretty good.

* Devil Masami also rejoins GAEA, and is very iffy. She acts like a “freaky killer” at points, biting people and drawing blood, but then she’ll randomly do goofy house show spots or try to laugh along with the crowd. She & Hokuto lose against CRUSH 2000 once, and she jobs clean to Meiko at Double Destiny. She’s now broken down so badly she can largely ONLY use her charisma and timing as benefits, but can be okay in tags.

* Toshiyo Yamada, hired away from Zenjo years prior, now dresses like a punk-rock Flintstones character and has faltered badly. She was REALLY GOOD in the early ’90s but by this point is slowed and loses much of her technique. And she’s obviously the lowest-ranked 2nd Gen heel, too.

* So mid-year, RIE, the former Bad Nurse Nakamura, who was one of the Nostradamus jobbers and had finally been reduced to “the first person to job to rookie Saika Takeuchi”, leaves wrestling, retiring in an FMW-style show. Probably good for her to not be a GAEA scrub for eternity, and we’re certainly not missing out on any matches above ** with her gone, BUT losing even jobbers is not great when your roster is so small. Kaori Nakayama also disappears. Possibly hurt because she’s not around much and shows up in every company next year. Both of these would have been great people to drop falls to GAEA’s Class of ’95, but nope.

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, Miyuki Fujii, Rookies: Miki Nishio

-2000 is the first “Fully Good Year” for Zenjo in a very, very long time. All the work in slowly putting over the new generation is paying off, as Kaoru Ito, who’d picked up wins against Manami Toyota in years prior, is now established as a main eventer. Toyota wins the Red Belt over Yumiko Hotta early in the year to set up Ito’s first big win, and she becomes the company’s Ace as a result. This will presumably set up Hotta/Ito, the REAL establishing feud thereafter. And in one of the best matches of the year, it’s Kaoru Ito backing up NanaMomo the tag champs against a heel squadron of Las Cachorras Orientales (LCO) and Kumiko Maekawa, with the babyfaces triple-juicing and taking a horrible beating, then Ito taking a glorious stand for several minutes against 2-3 wrestlers at a time- a big heroic moment. With TWO flying stomps from the top of the cage, plus other top-cage stuff (like Ito eating Mita’s electric chair drop with her feet on the top rope)- it’s a real showcase of bumps and insanity. Ultimatley she’s about to lose, but Kumiko’s former partner Watanabe comes out and stops her to allow the babyfaces to win. Top-tier ****1/2 match.

* Yumiko Hotta started the year as the WWWA Champion, just having won it back from Kyoko Inoue in a horrible rematch on a Neo Ladies show. Her title run is so bad that Mike Lorefice called it “the worst red belt run since the ’70s”, a damning indictment. To be fair to Hotta, it was a transitional reign, meant to transfer it to Manami, who would then do the job to Ito (which meant Ito didn’t have to beat Hotta for it, so they could run a Hotta/Ito feud, which would do better business than Ito/Toyota). And it wasn’t that long, either. But jobbing to Manami the way she did looked pretty bad- Toyota dominates the entire match, and by the end Hotta gets blown up and can’t even mount a comeback, so it looks like two exhausted women going 20 minutes in a one-sided bout where only one tried. Hotta either had “Jobbing Face” or was legit out of sorts.

* Manami Toyota puts in more work than Hotta this year, finding new ways to draw those beloved crowd-pops (which seems to be her entire wrestling style, now). Not as athletic as she used to be, she now relies on crazier dives, now doing insane things like climbing the lighting rig on every big show, diving off the ATHENA TV stage, and trying to kill herself by leaping off the BALCONY whenever she finds one! It’s pure insanity, but those moves still excite the fans, to her delight.

* Kaoru Ito becomes the new Ace, and damn she has improved. I found her very, very repetitive from 1992-99, as she over-relies on the Flying Stomps and I kinda hate repetitive wrestlers, but she’s mastered “top babyface selling” in a way that Toyota never did, doing great “I’m stumbling and nearly beaten, but you haven’t killed me yet!” slumps and stuff like that. She defeats Etsuko Mita in a **** match to build herself up for the Red Belt, then beats Toyota in a ****1/4 to win it. That and the Cage Match cements her as one of the best “big match” performers in the company.

* Another of the year’s big angles sees NanaMomo- the team of Momoe Nakanishi the spitfire and Nanae Takahashi the half-decent powerhouse, finally unseat LCO in a dramatic **** tag match for the WWWA Tag Team Titles! This leads to the fans, who’d “grown up” with these two rising through the ranks, joyous as they shout “Get Lost!” to the dastardly, aggrieved heels. NanaMomo had been built up for the past two years, largely against the freelancer LCO team, and this was a brilliant payoff to let the fans know that their faith in the duo and fandom would not go unrewarded. This was a win for “Our Girls” and it showed.

* A big angle in the year sees the former reliable Tag Champions, Kumiko Maekawa & Tomoko Watanabe, split in a weird match that sees Kumiko openly attack Nabe at various points before just bailing on her, leaving her bawling in the ring. This turns into an ugly blood feud right when Tomoko wins the All Pacific Title from invading Azumi Hyuga- a belt she’d hold for an eternity. A smug heel Kumiko is her next big push- already a White Belt holder for ages before this, she did kinda need something new to do.

* Kayou Noumi & Miho Wakizawa are an interesting sub-story to the year- they’re very, VERY clearly being set up as the “Next NanaMomo” (they were all in a pop group together- it actually charted in Japan, too!). Wakizawa gets her first big push with an AJW Title win in September- very clearly a “this person will be one to watch”. Noumi has developed a fantastic “broken doll” selling style, hitting the mat in a pile of limbs every time. It’s great shit, especially as the “face in peril” in tag matches. The duo also wins back their Japanese Tag Titles from the invading JWP squad that beat them last year. I feel like the intention here was to copy in every way the NanaMomo thing, slowly building them up and rewarding their fans over time.

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

Hyper Visual Fighting ARSION IN 2000:
ARSION Roster: Aja Kong, Mariko Yoshida, Rie Tamada, Yumi Fukawa, Michiko Omukai, Bionic J (Jessie Bennett), Hiromi Yagi, Mikiko Futagami, Candy Okutsu, Esther Moreno, Mari Apache, Youngsters: Fabi Apache, Mika Akino, Ayako Hamada, Ai Fujita, Yuu Yamagato

-DREADFUL, haha. ARSION had started with some potential, with wrestlers working hard to get over a new style and new wrestlers… but every single bit of it failed, no matter how hard President Rossy Ogawa tried.

See, the Grapplefuckery style that was given such ejaculatory responses by reviewers in the early 2000s? The fans never took to it. They sat on their hands and waited for the cool movez they expected to see. So Mariko Yoshida, “ARSION True Heart”, never got as over as she was supposed to have, and everyone but her & Yumi Fukawa dropped the grappling style. Then Fukawa retired! Oh and Michiko Omukai was supposed to get a big push, and is now climbing up the ranks after a lot of fluke wins, working with Sakie Hasegawa and being treated as unstoppable… but isn’t getting over. Ayako Hamada, who was hyped A LOT when I first got into joshi in the early 2000s (I’m not sure but I’m pretty sure now that it was mostly coomers who liked how she looked), is also a giant failure on top and she ENDS THE YEAR AS CHAMPION. So all of the promise of this promotion is now completely squandered.

LET’S SEE HOW!

* Aja Kong, the sole star of Zenjo’s early ’90s big runs, starts out the year as Champion, while ALSO being the AAAW Champion of GAEA Japan. She spent much of 1997 & 1998 working as hard as she could to put over the “new generation”, including pretending that LLPW scrubs Futagami & Omukai were huge threats that just might beat her, then jobbing to Reggie Bennett in ’98 and doing all sorts of stuff… and is now booked as the “unstoppable monster” again. Matches now fall right back into the Zenjo Template of “Aja shrugs off offense for 70% of the match and crushes the opponent with stiffness, then gives them increasingly more”, except she’s more dominant than ever, as multiple companies seem to realize that having her be dominant is the best use of her, not softening her and making her look weak.

Also importantly, Aja is the head booker of the promotion, but not the person with the money (ie. she’s not IN CHARGE in charge), so the behind-the-scenes is increasingly a mess because…

* Ayako Hamada has now suddenly been given the “Jesus Push”. Despite not being over. Or good. See, she was billed as “Super Rookie” in 1998 despite being extremely shitty and just blankly going through all her moves, finally stopped being a botch machine in 1998, but has been getting pushed non-stop between 1998 and now, despite never maintaining a connection with the audience. She LOOKS GOOD, but Rossy thought that was enough and was pushing her non-stop since she debuted, including ripping off a Zenjo idea and turning four girls into an “Idol Group”, except CAZAI failed to take off. So Ayako’s big push has been scoring worse and worse dividends, even though she & AKINO were turned into the Tag Team Champions, but now was the time to shit or get off the pot with her big push.

Unfortunately, Ayako still can’t sell well. She does her comebacks like she’s trying to remember the moves. She sometimes knows to snarl and yell at her opponent but she never ONCE turns to the fans like “YEAH COME WATCH ME KICK THIS PERSON’S ASS!”. Never once is like “That hurt BUT I REFUSE TO BACK DOWN, YOU FUCKING SLAG!” or whatever. No fire. No energy. Like, she wrestles entire matches as if she doesn’t care what the audience thinks, and because of that, THEY DON’T FEEL SHIT, and so even her increasing ability to actually hit her moves right isn’t paying off. “Connecting with the audience” is 100% the MOST important thing any wrestler needs to learn, to the point where some god-awful athletes have gotten incredibly over in the history of wrestling, and she hasn’t figured it out.

I swear I’ve read people be like “Ayako was once the best woman’s wrestler in the world” and I’ve had people tell me she gets better a couple years in, but WOOF. Just an awful choice for the promotion’s top star. And Aja Kong knows it, TOO, because while she was given no choice but to do the J.O.B. to Hamada, she did it in the worst fashion possible (essentially gobbling up 95% of the match’s offense and losing only by fluke, thus maintaining her credibility against a champion she probably knew was going to fail). And in February of 2001, Aja quits ARSION and eventually sues Rossy for advertising her on shows she won’t be appearing on, and WINS.

* The Michiko Omukai Superpush is still kinda going, and I know she’s the big challenger next year. Her big “beats EVERYONE” tournament wins have stopped and she’s settled into an upper-mid role. Her most prominent push is as a member of VIP, where weirdly she teams with Mima Shimoda (normally a tag wrestler in LCO) to win the Twin Star Titles, holding them for a few months before jobbing. She is basically Hamada 2.0 in every way- an overly-pushed scrub who looks good (ie. is pretty… she is not physically credible, however, being an unathletic beanpole with awkward movements) but isn’t actually very good. Like Hamada, she can’t sell nor connect with the audience. She’ll bump and act like moves are hurting, but only gives a perfunctory “AH!” and then just lies there until it’s her turn to do shit, at which point she springs to life and starts hitting moves like nothing was ever done to her. It’s wild because I’ve heard this criticism leveled at Manami Toyota, sometimes fittingly (especially in her more selfish moods), but HOLY SHIT she at least understands the “Scream in agony” part, the “Defiance” part, and the “hit your comebacks like you want the other person dead” part. Not Omukai taking Sakie Hasegawa’s old moves (the spinkick “sobat” and the uranage overhead throw) and sloppily throwing them out while sleepwalking through the “not my turn to do shit” parts of her matches.

* GAMI forms a heel stable and quickly just sorta hangs around the midcard- her style has gotten bizarre, where someone who was once pushed as the “Yumiko Hotta” shooter of the company is now a lazy comedy wrestler, doing awkward bits where she does excessive rope-running to set up weak moves and lots of eye-pokes. Yet she leads a heel stable, but it’s just career midcarder Rie Tamada & JWP midcarder Command Bolshoi, now “PIKO” a red clown. Weirder still, GAMI & Rie get to be the Twin Star Champions, beating Omukai & Shimoda, holding the belt a few months before jobbing to LCO.

* Mariko Yoshida is now fully depushed as this midcarder. She & Aja were the Twin Stars of ARSION from February to April but that’s it. A very uninteresting run and nobody else is wrestling her style.

* Yumi Fukawa, excellent grappler and a fun wrestler to watch, never gets that big push (she beat YOSHIDA in 1999, in an excellent match to boot!), and sadly, her career ends when after a match in June she visits a doctor who diagnoses her with an acute subdural hematoma and subarachnoid hemorrhage- brain bleeding, more or less. She promtply retires, officially having her last match in March 2001 with Yoshida. She since found work as an actress and singer, appearing on TV and commercials “to this day” according to Wikipedia, and she married Minoru Tanaka in 2002- their daughter Kizuna Tanaka has debuted for Pro Wrestling WAVE in March 2023. She also mentored Mika Iida (debuted in 2013) and taught fitness in an MMA gym. This robs ARSION of someone who was… well, probably going to peak as “Sky High” Champ because she was TINY (as in, lacked any physical credibilty against anyone over 150 lbs.), but it was something! And losing a good worker was something ARSION did NOT need.

* Ai Fujita would arguably have been built up as the “Next Hamada/Omukai” except even that hasn’t happened yet. She’s usually just paired off with the luchadoras in flippy matches. By the end of the year, Candy Okutsu comes back after injury or whatever and they form a duo (both were in CAZAI together).

* Bionic J, formerly Jessie Bennett (probably to act as a phony relative to Reggie, who leaves ARSION after their first year), is kicking around as the “gaijin jobber”. They don’t even pretend with her anymore, barely giving her power moves and editing out most of her stuff on the tapes. One day she might break **! Just you wait!

* AKINO (Mika Akino) is legit, at least. She’s insanely acrobatic, tries harder than anyone else, actually acts like the crowd is there and should be interacted with, and more. They reward her with… the Sky High Belt at the end of the year. Well it’s SOMETHING. Really, she was so good so quickly she should have gotten the pushes Hamada & Omukai got, but she wasn’t as pretty and Ogawa would rather have bikini calendars than money, so eh?

* Chaparrita ASARI is a Freelancer, but spends most of her time in ARSION as she can reliably have well-wrestled flippy matches with the undersized wrestlers that make up ARSION’s roster. She holds the Sky High belt until March, then puts over AKINO for the vacant belt (ie. they paid a freelancer enough money to get her to agree to put over a younger star).

* Because Rossy, there’s still a bunch of luchadoras kicking around, usually getting a very clipped match full of spots on many tapes, as usual. Mari Apache was pretty good, and Fabi Apache has improved a lot (she used to be a total botch-machine, but now sometimes I can’t tell which Apache is which on these VHS transfers because one isn’t fucking up 90% of her moves). Linda Starr, a pint-sized blonde, is one of the more impressive flippers but isn’t getting over and they don’t really bother to push her- just feature her a lot.

JWP IN 2000:
JWP Roster: Azumi Hyuga, Command Bolshoi, Ran YuYu, Carlos Amano, Kana Mizaki, Acute Sae, Erika Watanabe, Tsubasa Kurakagi, Kayoko Haruyama.

-JWP barely exists for most of 2000, and enters Zenjo to do a weak “Interpromotional Feud”. This ends up being a clear indicator of just how bad things are, as in 1992-94, JWP called a ton of the shots, got to win Zenjo’s Tag AND World belts, and got to go even-stevens in booking up and down the cards despite Zenjo being by far the bigger company… and now they’re mostly jobbers. Manami Toyota defends the Red Belt against former JWP Champ Ran YuYu and takes 75/25 of the match and never makes it look like Ran challenges her. When Azumi gets a belt, it’s beating Kumiko for the All Pacific (#2) belt, then trades it back months later. Both seem okay, but were treated as midcarders by the Zenjo talent (and for good reason), so I saw nowhere near their best. Every Azumi match seems “that was okay”- **1/2 or so.

JWP actually DIES at one point in 2000, being reborn a month or so later. Command Bolshoi ends up being the primary owner now (as you can see by the clown who never got over being CHAMPION), and becomes the head of JWP as a dilapidated indie for the rest of time (it’s STILL AROUND, now as Pure-J). JWP doesn’t have TV and barely exists at all from 2000 for quite a while (though apparently goes through a bit of a boost in 2008-14).

LLPW IN 2000:
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 much TV and Cagematch has almost nothing from them, WrestlingData only slightly more. They run 2 shows a month or so.

* The biggest deal is that Eagle Sawai and Rumi Kazama have formed a heel stable with freelancer Takako Inoue to become “Black Joker”. This group actually gets enough of a push that Eagle is one of Manami Toyota’s Red Belt challengers during the summer, and Eagle wins the LLPW Title in August. The group seems to be at it for AGES, and they’re not quite as cheating-heavy as a lot of heel stables, while still being highly dishonest.

* Shinobu Kandori is basically not a part of the scene’s narrative at all for whatever reason. Not much on CM. Harley Saito, either, and she was the Champ for the first half of the year!

* Sayori Okino is still kicking around, as is Carol Midori. Keiko Aono too. JB Angels star Noriyo Tateno is still kicking, too. Someone named Junko Yagi works a couple years here then ends up in NEO this year.

NEO IN 2000:
Neo Ladies Roster: Kyoko Inoue, Misae Genki, Yoshiko Tamura, Tanny Mouse, Yuka Shiina, Saya Endo

-Neo Ladies dies at some point in 2000, leaving Kyoko in a lot of debt, and relaunches as NEO with the same talent. I dunno if it ever made much money, but it outlasts both GAEA and Zenjo in the long run, ending up the last and biggest of the “old guard”. There is mostly nothing available for them in 2000, not that I searched much harder than “NEO Wrestling 2000” on YouTube or whatever.

JD’:
-A few new-ish faces turn up here that I haven’t otherwise heard of. Drake Morimatsu joins Crusher Maedomari as a new heel in a similar “big facepainted brawler” vein, and Fang Suzuki is more of the same. Yuko Kosugi, Megumi Yabushita and a few other are kicking around as well. Lioness Asuka remains Champion all year long.

Best Matches:
(kinda/sorta in the order of how I liked them)

****1/2:
The Crush Gals vs. Aja Kong & Dynamite Kansai (GAEA Double Destiny)
Kaoru Ito & NanaMomo vs. Kumiko Maekawa & Las Cachorras Orientales (Steel Cage Deathmatch)

****1/4:
Manami Toyota vs. Kaoru Ito (AJW Stroke ’00- WWWA Title)

****:
Aja Kong vs. Meiko Satomura (AAAW Title, May 5th)
Aja Kong vs. KAORU (AAAW Title, Feb. 13th)
Las Cachorras Orientales vs. NanaMomo (Odaiba W Explosion- July 16th)
Kaoru Ito vs. Etsuko Mita (JGP Finals)

***3/4:
Las Cachorras Orientales vs. Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa (Steel Cage Deathmatch, March 4th)
Chikayo Nagashima & Sugar Sato vs. Lioness Asuka & Sonoko Kato (AAAW Tag Titles, Feb. 13th)
Toshiyo Yamada & Meiko Satomura vs. Aja Kong & KAORU (GAEA, April 23rd)

-The peak era of workrate is over- the workers are older, more broken down, and for a lot of reasons the next generations haven’t been able to “step up”. Wrestling wasn’t enticing enough for the super-athletic, big girls out there, so all the rookies are smaller and less athletic than in the past. BUT there was still some good stuff! Kaoru Ito has stepped up and appears three times! LCO are STILL among the more reliable “good match” wrestlers, also appearing twice while ALSO hugely putting over the new big stars (Mita even helps Ito out). Aja has two **** matches, reining in KAORU’s tendencies at the beginning of the year, then having another great one with Meiko. Fittingly her best matches don’t at all happen in the promotion she’s booking.

GAEA JAPAN’S TITLES:
AAAW WORLD TITLE: Aja Kong (May ’99)
AAAW WORLD TAG TITLES: Chikayo Nagashima & Sugar Sato (July ’99), Akira Hokuto & Mayumi Ozaki (Dec. 2000)

AJW’S TITLES:
WWWA WORLD TITLE: Yumiko Hotta (Oct. ’99), Manami Toyota (Jan. 2000), Kaoru Ito (Sept.)
ALL PACIFIC TITLE: Kumiko Maekawa (Feb. ’99), Azumi Hyuga (Feb. 2000), Tomoko Watanabe (July)
AJW TITLE: VACANT (??- some time in 1999), Nanae Takahashi (Jan. 2000), Miho Wakizawa (Sept.)
WWWA SUPER LIGHTWEIGHT TITLE: Chaparrita ASARI (Oct. ’99)
WWWA WORLD TAG TEAM TITLES: Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa (Dec. ’99), VACANT (May 2000), Momoe Nakanishi & Nanae Takahashi (July)
JAPANESE TAG TEAM TITLES: Kana Mizaki & Tsubasa Kuragaki (July ’99), Kayo Noumi & Miho Wakizawa (May 2000)

JWP’S TITLES:
JWP OPENWEIGHT TITLE: Ran YuYu (Dec. ’99), Command Bolshoi (Aug. 2000)
JWP JUNIOR TITLE: VACANT (March ’98), Kayoko Haruyama (May ’99), Tsubasa Kuragaki (Sept. 2000)
JWP TAG TEAM TITLES: VACANT (Dec. ’98), Command Bolshoi & Riek Amano (Jan. ’99), Zap I & Zap T (Feb. 2000), VACANT (June)

LLPW’S TITLES:
LLPW TITLE:Harley Saito (Aug. ’99), Eagle Sawai (Aug. 2000)
SIX-WOMAN TITLES: Harley Saito, Keiko Aono & Noriyo Tateno (April ’99), Carol Midori, Eagle Sawai & Rumi Kazama (Jan. 2000), VACANT (April), Black Joker (Sept.)

JD’S TITLES:
TWF TITLE: Lioness Asuka (Jan. ’99)
TWF TAG TITLES: Megumi Yabushita & Sumie Sakai (Oct. ’99), Lioness Asuka (March 2000), Crusher Maedomari & Drake Morimatsu (March), Hiroyo Muto & Yuko Kosugi (April), VACANT (April), Drake Morimatsu & Fang Suzuki (Oct.)
JD’ JUNIOR TITLE: VACANT (June ’99), Hiroyo Muto (Jan. 2000)
AWF TITLE: Yoshiko Tamura (Dec. ’99), The Bloody (Jan. 2000), VACANT (May), Yuko Kosugi (May), VACANT (Aug.), Drake Morimatsu (Nov.), Megumi Yabushita (Nov.)
QUEEN OF THE RING TITLE: The Bloody (Nov. 2000- First Champion), Megumi Yabushita (Dec.)

ARSION’S TITLES:
QUEEN OF ARSION TITLE: Aja Kong (Aug. ’99), Ayako Hamada (Dec. 2000)
TWIN STARS OF ARSION TITLES: Ayako Hamada & Mika Akino (June ’99), Aja Kong & Mariko Yoshida (Feb. 2000), Mima Shimoda & Michiko Omukai (April), GAMI & Rie Tamada (Aug.), Las Cachorras Orientales (Dec.)
SKY HIGH OF ARSION TITLE: Chaparrita ASARI (Sept. ’99- First Champion), Mari Apache (March 2000), Ayako Hamada (Aug.), VACANT (Nov.), AKINO (Dec.)

IWA JAPAN’S TITLES:
AWF WORLD WOMEN’S TITLE: Yoshiko Tamura (Dec. ’99), The Bloody (Jan. 2000), VACANT (May), Yuko Kosugi (May), VACANT (Aug.), Drake Morimatsu (Nov.), Megumi Yabushita (Nov.)