Joshi Spotlight: Command Bolshoi

JOSHI SPOTLIGHT- COMMAND BOLSHOI:
Stats:
Real Name: Unknown (masked wrestlers’ names are often not publicly disclosed)
Billed Height & Weight: 4’10” 99 lbs.
Career Length: 1991-2019 (28 years)
Other Names: Bolshoi Kid, PIKO, Bolshoi 666
Trained By: JWP

Yes, it’s finally time for the clown.

The reason I never got to her until now, when I’d gone through every notable wrestler in AJW, JWP & LLPW of the 1990s? Well, I felt I’d missed her “best stuff” since she peaked in push later on. She was head booker of JWP in the 2000s and OF COURSE gave herself some nice, juicy title reigns, and I’d heard she got better as a worker later. Checking stuff out from that time period, it looks more like she just got pushed more and so her stuff was sold more, and she hadn’t actually gotten super good or anything. I mean she did a goddamn Rock Bottom off the top rope in every match but she wasn’t cresting *** on the regular or anything. And overall, her career looks kinda like the “low-level employee who reaches a high spot more through waiting out everyone else than through being particularly excellent”.

So on a lot of cards of the early ’90s, you see a lot of Interpromotional Matches, as AJW (Zenjo), JWP and other promotions started mixing up their joshi cards and doing “Dream Matches” all over the place. This led to one of the greatest influxes of terrific matches the business has ever seen… but also led to a lot of “Token Bolshoi Matches”, as this undersized rookie was thrown out there in a clown costume to do comedy-adjacent matches. And LONG ones, too- JWP had a lot of time to fill on its cards, what with a gutted roster and all, and so a “17-minute Bolshoi match” was a terrifying inevitability a lot of the time.

The Bolshoi Kid form.

This was also a time when comedy matches were the bane of tape traders. “Bolshoi ruins things with her COMEDY CRAP” was a thing I’ve definitely read in the past, and it was just a 1-2 minute segment in a 20-minute match that was otherwise excellent! When I talked about this in the past, poster “That Guy There” said “I think a lot of the issue was reviews in English in that time come from hardcores who tended to see wrestling as serious business because it was hard to get a hold of it in the US. I only got to watch it because I had one of those as a college roommate he also disliked comedy in wrestling and could never understand why i liked the comedy that I did.” There’s probably something to that- also, tape-traders tended to be mega hardcores and workrate smarks so it stands to reason anyone grinding the match to a halt so they can do pantomime bits to make Japanese crowds laugh is a hard sell- comedy rarely translates well into different cultures and these guys wanted to see some MOVEZ. But it’s not just me who noticed this!

Some of this is gathered from Japanese Wikipedia (regular Wikipedia is actually a REALLY bad source for joshi puro info- one page indicated that Shinobu Kandori/Jackie Sato was a shoot only by Kandori, when the ACTUAL source it’s quoting indeed has Kandori claim it was an agreed shoot-fight). Bolshoi has revealed that she grew up in an orphanage in Osaka.

But yeah, Bolshoi debuted as the clown “Bolshoi Kid” in 1991 and quickly became a comedy wrestler, usually doing goofy spots in the first part of the match and then “getting more serious” later, which was the style at the time. Spots I remember include her & Kyoko Inoue mimicking the Hogan “listen to the crowd” thing to each other and Bolshoi faking crying and earning Kyoko admonishments, Kyoko having to soothe her after swatting her on the head, someone tying her jester’s cap to the top rope- stuff like that. A couple years in, she started going by “Command Bolshoi”, who was more of a “Luchadora with a clown nose” than someone covered in clown makeup. She still did comedy spots but dressed more normally instead of “giant colorful pants and a jester’s cap”.

Part of why she was a comedy wrestler might be because she was so ridiculously undersized. Even JWP was a promotion with some pretty big women in it- Devil Masami, Dynamite Kansai, etc. Meanwhile, Bolshoi was under five feet tall! And as such, she didn’t have much credibilty and being a goof-off was probably a way to make up for that by creating some “fun” on the card and amuse the fans.

Most Bolshoi matches, however, peaked at “okay”, though a few were very solid and even good. She was too puny to have much cred, but because of her size the matches could be FAST. She shouldn’t flip and move like Rey Mysterio Jr., though, and the fact that JWP had to pad out cards with long matches meant she was stuck in the same “tons of restholds” style as everyone else, trying to make 20 minutes go by. She could still do quick rollups and hurricanranas, though. And some of her moveset is outstanding- an AVALANCHE Rock Bottom? SERIOUSLY? But overally she’s not quite as quick as you might imagine- Chaparrita ASARI is legendarily fast with some high-speed flips, but Bolshoi was never a spotfest worker, nor a gifted high-flier despite her size, nor a giant bumper… which is kind of the POINT of having tiny wrestlers so she’s often a bit of a disappointment. Like a great thing about undersized workers is they can make the others look much more powerful, like giant bullies, or fly around and impress the fans, and Bolshoi wasn’t doing much of that. She was just… a fairly quick comedy jobber.

The more serious, muscular Command Bolshoi.

However, when you got “Serious Wrestler Bolshoi”… hoo boy. There are some pretty mid-tier matches out there that were probably expected to draw way better reactions than they got, like her JWP Title match against Hikari Fukuoka. One of those sad situations where you can see someone trying their damndest but the match is just sooooo mediocre and dies in front of the live crowd. But her execution is typically pretty good (though once Rey Mysterio starts using the 619 she grabs it and does a much clumsier, slower version, lacking the upper body strength to get the “spin” on it so it’s rather clunky). But like I said, JWP was often left stretching out matches to fill an entire card, and at one point I observed that Bolshoi “felt like a *** worker who has to have ** matches because of JWP’s match construction”.

CAREER TRAJECTORY:

Typical Bolshoi Kid appearance bright colors (the most often green, like at the top), a total clown outfit, facepaint, a pom-pom, etc.

-A presumably very young “Bolshoi Kid” made her debut as a masked wrestler in late 1991 in Japan Woman’s Pro-Wrestling, the original JWP- her age is not disclosed, same as her name, and never has been. “Bolshoi” is of course best known as the name of the Russian ballet, but there’s also a Bolshoi Circus, where she takes her name from. So she’s a clown, with some facepaint as well as a mask and a jester’s cap attached, often with several liliripes, which is a name I totally just didn’t have to Google. Sometimes it just had a single liliripe with a pompom at the end. At about 4’10” and around 100 lbs., she was drastically undersized, even compared to people you don’t think of as big, like Plum Mariko or Hikari Fukuoka. She naturally did a bunch of jobs at first, and then JWP exploded in mid-1992. Bolshoi Kid joined up with the loyalists, as Rumi Kazama and her supporters left to form Ladies Legend Pro Wrestling. In a company with only nine active wrestlers, the new JWP needed all the help it could get, and on their signature debut show, she got a long match with Plum Mariko.

JP Wikipedia lists June 29th 1992 as the debut of “Command Bolshoi” as a gimmick, which is good because JWP matches are notoriously un-heralded on Cagematch. Command Bolshoi still does comedy, but is a more “serious” wrestler, mostly wearing normal tights and a lucha-style mask, but with a clown nose at the end of it. “Bolshoi Kid” is more an actual clown with baggy pants, facepaint, and TONS of comedy. As Command Bolshoi, she & Cutie Suzuki beat Mitsue Kobayashi and Mika Kuwabara. She spends most of 1992 looking at the lights, but by 1993 some things shift around. She gets to join the Interpromotional Matches of the ’90s, often getting a singles match here and there- notably at the legendary AJW Dream Slam 2 card, she teams with Mayumi Ozaki & Cutie Suzuki to take on Double Inoue & Yumiko Hotta in a phenomenal ****1/2-ish match (as the worst worker IN it but she was there! Doing comedy spots I still remember!).

The more dramatic, colorful Command Bolshoi, which has different looks all the time, in every color scheme imaginable.

Eventually she’s always just “Command Bolshoi”, indicating this is when she gets a bit more serious. At JWP Thunder Queen Battle, Bolshoi gets a big win in a 13-minute match against Infernal KAORU (a Zenjo-trained wrestler then acting as a masked one for EMLL). She’s in the same role for 1994, but there’s a funny one as she gets a 28-second match where she PINS CHIGUSA NAGAYO- this is treated as a comedic event and Chigusa just laughs it off as it’s so obviously “lol WTF the clown WON?”, but it’s something. When JWP’s Tag Titles were in the hands of the nefarious Las Cachorras Orientales, Bolshoi was one of the JWP loyalists recruited by Hikari Fukuoka to win them back, but they were unsuccessful. LCO easily pummelled the miniature clown. Bolshoi was a mega-jobber, losing even in tag matches most of the time- she could only beat low-end jobbers like rookie Fusayo Nochi.

In 1996, she lost a “Dress Up Wild Fight” (a hardcore match where participants typically wear street clothes) against Mayumi Ozaki, having her mask ripped off by the evil villain. JWP did not have much forward progression for poor Bolshoi- by 1997 she’s only winning matches on the regular because they hired so many rookies in 1995, so she’s still able to beat Kanako Motoya & Tomoko Kuzumi and stuff. And this just goes ON- several straight years of “beats only the rookies and maybe Candy Okutsu once” and she’s still struggling. By 1996 or so she’s more or less Command Bolshoi all the time, never going back to Bolshoi Kid or being a true clown. There’s also a depressing 1997 title match against Hikari Fukuoka- this is a big showcase for Bolshoi and her biggest chance to be a “serious” wrestler, and they even do a bit in the match where she dramatically reveals her face in what’s supposed to be this big deal… and nobody reacts. It’s one of those cringey “oh god” moments that makes me actually feel bad for the people involved, lol. But I mean, it’s BOLSHOI making a big show out of revealing her face. Not exactly a Kishin Liger situation, ya know?

Fellow poster Evito-X notes his theory for the unmasking- “Only the story of the match. It’s Bolshois big chance at the title, and Hikari had just kicked out of her best moves, all she had left was to unmask to shock and freeze her. Probably did not get the reaction the hoped for, I don’t remember her ever unmasking again.”

Everyone Leaves JWP; Bolshoi Finally Gets Pushed:
-HOWEVER, things start looking up in 1999-2001, as JWP starts to splinter- top stars Devil Masami & Dynamite Kansai quit and mostly work for GAEA Japan. Mayumi Ozaki does, too. Hikari quits, even! Suddenly everything’s coming up Bolshoi! Notably, she’s been wrestling EIGHT YEARS by the time she finally wins her first belt- the JWP Tag Team Titles, won alongside Rieko Amano after they had been vacated in Jan. 1999. They hold them a crazy 391 days before losing to the ZAPs in 2000. Bolshoi finally wins the JWP Openweight Title (the top belt) in August 2000, defeating Ran YuYu. She holds the belt 196 days before losing to Hyuga, the promotion’s true Ace. Interestingly, Regular Wikipedia says that JWP closed in 2000 and Masatoshi Yamamoto retired as President, then Bolshoi took over. JAPANESE Wikipedia says it was 2003 when a “players association” (ie. the wrestlers) took over, headed by Bolshoi. Despite being in charge, she didn’t hold the belt all that much, which might seem like faint praise but I’ve DEFINITELY seen my fair share of promotions headed by the President/Champion.

In 2001 ARSION is in need of some extra names, and so for some reason she dresses in red clown gear and calls herself “PIKO”, then recruits other shorty wrestlers as PIKA and POKO. One is Linda Starr and the other Alda Moreno. Basically… two short luchadoras helping her as card filler, doing silly “clone spots” and mimicry and comedy stuff in the midcard. She wins the JWP Tag Team Titles (2) again in Sept. 2001, teaming with GAMI to beat Azumi Hyuga & Kayoko Haruyama. They hold them for 313 days before losing to Azumi & Ran YuYu. By 2002 we’ve hit the “Everyone wrestles in 9 different promotions” era of Joshi Puroresu, as Bolshoi does 1-4 matches in feds all over the place, with a “New AJW” (man I never even heard of THAT one), JD’, NEO, OZ Academy (Ozaki’s promotion), Sendai Girls (Meiko Satomura’s promotion), LLPW and more. But most often she’s in JWP. And by this point the various promotions have so few wrestlers she starts winning a LOT of belts, usually in the tag ranks.

Daily Sports sponsored its own tag titles, which are still defended as of today- Bolshoi & Megumi Yabushita won the Daily Sports Tag Team Titles & JWP Tag Team Titles (3) in April 2009, beating Yumiko Hotta & Keito, holding them for 98 days before losing to Emi Sakura & Kaori Yoneyama. The two belts are thus combined for years. She won the Ice Ribbon ICEx60 Title in Sept. 2010, beating Hikari Minami and holding it for 94 days before losing to Tsubasa Fujimoto- her promotions regularly crossed over with Ice Ribbon. She wins the JWP Tag Team Titles (4) & Daily Sports Tag Team Titles (2) in Aug. 2012, teaming with Arisa Nakajima to beat Sakura & Yoneyama, holding them for 140 days before dropping to Haruyama & Tsubasa Kuragaki. She wins the REINA-CMLL Women’s Title in July 2013, beating Leon in Japan and losing it to Arisa Nakajima only 8 days later.

Bolshoi & Kyoko Kimura win the vacant JWP Tag Team Titles (5) & Daily Sports Tag Team Titles (3) in May 2014, holding them for 238 days before losing to Leon & Ray. She beats Kayoko Haruyama for the JWP Openweight Title in July 2015, holding it only 35 days before losing to Ozaki. In 2015, Bolshoi actually debuted as a BODYBUILDER, placing third (Meiko got 4th). She & Leon won the Daily Sports Tag Team Titles (4) from Hanako Nakamori & Kyoko Kimura in Jan. 2017, holding them for 713 days before losing them to WANTED (KAZUKI & Rydeen Hagane). She is the final JWP Tag Team Title (6) holder as well, teaming with Leon to beat Hanako Hakamori & Kyoko Kimura in 2017, holding them for 83 days until the promotion dies.

In 2017, JWP finally died after about 25 years of operation. Bolshoi quickly started her own company, called PURE-J, inspired by JWP’s name. She uhhhhhhhhhhhh seems to win the majority of her matches here, but isn’t always the Champ or anything. Snark aside, she only wins her own belt once, winning the PURE-J Title in Feb. 2019 from Hanako Nakamori and holding it for only 42 days before losing to Leon. Bolshoi finally retires in 2019 after 25 years of action, wrestling one last show in 2020. Wiki lists the reason for her retirement as “ossification of the ligamentum flavum”, which a quickie search reveals is the yellow, elastic tendons that connect the neck vertebrae and allow the neck to straighten. Well that seems bad. PURE-J continues on, but looks to be a “micro”- a puny company with almost no fans. Attendance for one show was *65*, as per Cagematch, which is still probably inflated- even TAKA Michinoku’s micro draws like 200+ sometimes.

Bolshoi has an interesting place in history- she is one of the last placeholders of the “Zenjo Style”, as JWP and Zenjo both had the incredible pace and focus on athleticism. She was never a big star, and definitely wasn’t one in the West (where she’s probably by far best known for her silly Dream Slam appearance), and mostly got where she was by waiting out everyeone else. And even then she only hold the JWP Title for like 200 days combined; not exactly a scintillating run and the belt was mostly Hyuga’s that whole time she was there.

MOVESET:
Ropewalk While Holding Hands (going forwards & backwards, then ends in chop or armdrag), Flying Cross-Body, German Suplex, Moonsault, Shotei (palm strike), Hurricanrana, 619, Tiger Suplex, Avalanche Uranage (rock bottom off the top- secondary finisher), Limelight (piggyback into a wheelbarrow flash-pin), Bolshoi Wakigatame (spinning hold into an armbar- JP Wiki says Mistico saw this and copied it as “La Mistica”)

THE MATCHES:
* This is mostly old stuff I’ve already done, BUT I found a match against Devil Masami from 2008! As I doubt I’ll continue my Spotlights past the deaths of GAEA & AJW in 2005, that’ll be a rare opportunity, lol.

PLUM MARIKO vs. THE BOLSHOI KID:
* Plum is the #5 wrestler in JWP, of sorts, and here is wrestling the Comedy/High-Flying wrestler Command Bolshoi in her first identity- I’ve seen a lot of these two paired up, owing to their status as prominent midcarders in the company. Kid is a lot lower on the card, and wearing her early ’90s gear, which is a big, baggy clown outfit covered in diamond shapes (and coming down to the same music Doink used, but with Japanese words added!). Plum’s in a frilly violet singlet I’ve never seen before.

Plum hits a Victory Roll before the bell, which I’ve never seen before, but Bolshoi does some acrobatic tosses before Plum just stuffs her with headlocks. They chain-wrestle for a while, actually doing a good job of it (Bolshoi’s very green here, yet dominates), countering to other stuff and rarely just “sitting in a hold”. Bolshoi does a Tiger Feint and Plum makes a comeback, but takes a huge bump over the ropes and takes a while to make another one, hitting high Thesz Presses and tossing Bolshoi around. Stretching follows, but Bolshoi reverses out, runs up Plum’s back, then hits a slingshot press and bows to her, finally showing some of the comedy that used to make her SUPER-hated among grumpy ’90s Joshi reviewers. She hits a running dropkick, flying overhand punch and a sleeper- that goes on for nearly a minute, but Plum soon does one of her trademark spots- reversing a whip attempt to a rolling arm & leghold (the thing Goldberg did in WCW). Plum tortures her with another leghold as she finally keeps the advantage.

Plum uses a cool bridging leg-capture suplex for two, then counters Bolshoi’s second Tiger Feint, charging in with a kick to stuff the move… then a Springboard Cross-Body! Woah- did not expect that. She charges across the apron with a running Thesz Press to the floor, then tosses Bolshoi around… but her Tombstone is reversed to Bolshoi’s own on the freakin’ floor! I know piledrivers were bullshit in Joshi at that point, but jesus, that looked brutal. Bolshoi manages a Springboard Cross-Body of her own (walking up the ropes), then hits a Moonsault Press for two- “Fuck YOU!” bridge by Plum! Bolshoi cross-bodies out of the corner but Plum hits a LIGHTNING fast bridging fallaway slam- that was astonishing speed and hit perfectly, better than any time I’ve ever seen that spot hit. Bridging German gets two. Backdrop suplex and a vicious Missile Dropkick get two. Bolshoi falls on her from a backdrop and mounts her comeback- backdrop & a Moonsault get two, but she tries a whip and Plum snaps her into a Straightjacket German, holding her down for the three (16:35).

Decent little match and then REALLY reved up in the last third of the bout- I was dreading it because I saw it was 20-ish minutes and Bolshoi was fairly new here, but Plum bounced around for her, got dominated by the early submission work, and looked good hitting her comeback- like the last bout, it was a very good use of time. And then when they started getting to the near falls and bigger moves, it felt “earned”, like they’d justified that past work and could hit the cool moves.

Rating: **** (put that on WWF or WCW in this same time period and we’d still be talking about it)
Surgeon Generals Warning: hahah oh man I’m not sure if this holds up. I was obviously effusive with praise with it but I was a bit more forgiving at this point still and I fear a LOT of my early recaps are a trifle higher than I’d rate them now. Or I just got burned out on some wrestling and Younger Jab’s enthusiasm SHOULD be how it is. But um, this was probably still excellent!

BODY HEAT TOURNAMENT:
COMMAND BOLSHOI vs. HIKARI FUKUOKA:
(August 1994)
* This is part of a tournament where everyone was working Hikari’s bad arm. Hikari’s in black (with cutouts AND garters so you KNOW she’s an idol this time around) & Bolshoi’s in green & blue.

Hikari does her cartwheel dodge, but Bolshoi keeps snapmaring her into arm submissions. Ropewalk armdrag… all the way across the ring- twice! The arm stuff is actually pretty nice, moving around alot, and Hikari finally scores a run-up missile kick to come back. She throws out restholds and a methodical beatdown, but misses a flying move and Bolshoi takes back over, not quite sure what to do (“go to the top? nope too far away”- can’t tell if she’s playing the “rookie” or just screwed up). More arm stuff, she gets powerslammed, but dodges another flying move and they take turns knocking each other off the top rope until Bolshoi hits a plancha. She uses a chair outside, but Hikari dropkicks her off the apron when she tries to bring it into the ring and gives some payback with it. SUPERMAN PUNCH~~! Bolshoi reverses a whip to a Rock Bottom, rollup & German for two-counts. Two missile kicks and a Flying Rana get two! Moonsault- another two. The crowd’s into Bolshoi’s stuff, but I think everyone knows if THIS can’t bring Hikari down, she’s toast.

Another Moonsault misses, but a super armdrag gets… no, she throws on a friggin’ KIMURA and it’s sold with desperation! She kicks and kicks, but won’t give in, and finally Bolshoi gets frustrated and lets go. German gets two, and she tries a Super version but Hikari lands on her. She’s REALLY selling that arm, now- Bolshoi uses it to get out of a German but takes a Rolling Cradle for two. She misses a Moonsault but lands on her feet, and when Bolshoi tries another German, she just WRECKS her with a Double-Underhook Powerbomb, jacknifing her over for the pin (15:02). Oh, that was nice.

Not a bad little match- a bit of “sitting on each other’s butts”, but the limbwork was at least consistent, and the “story” seemed clear- Bolshoi had a lot of go and a lot of moves, but Hikari was experienced enough to just absorb them and time her comebacks. Bolshoi’s growing frustration was nice to see, as was Hikari’s very consistent selling, which even prevented her from doing some moves (not normally something you see in ’90s joshi). Bolshoi can still evade her, but that big Powerbomb at the end was brutal, and Hikari desperately held her down to end it.

Rating: ***1/4 (one of the best Bolshoi solo matches I’ve seen from this era- only thing holding it back was some resting and the obviousness of the result)

CHIGUSA NAGAYO vs. COMMAND BOLSHOI:
(Oct. 1994)
* So it’s the biggest star in joshi history against one of the lowest-tier wrestlers in JWP’s tiny roster- seems like the most obvious conclusion ever! Chigusa’s again in that green, while Bolshoi’s in red, green & yellow.

Bolshoi does her goofy “put ’em up” dance, goading Chigusa in to trying it. Chigusa instead blows it off to the ref, who cracks the legend up by doing it, and FINALLY Chigusa is convinced to try it for a second. At which point she turns around and Bolshoi boots her in the ass and hits two Rock Bottoms, hoping for a quick win. Chigusa snags her and hits a brutal belly-to-belly to teach her a lesson. She aims for her Running Ligerbomb right away, but Bolshoi slips out for a sunset flip… and holds a struggling Chigusa down for the three (0:28)!! Major upset, stunning the crowd into silence, until the ref actually holds up the victor’s hand so they KNOW they weren’t just seeing things! Somewhat famous “fluke” win for the rookie, and done for comedy’s sake, but hey- a win is a win. Mike Lorefice of Quebrada: “Seeing the clown take the legend out like that might well be the funiest thing she ever did, even if it wasn’t meant to be a joke. Unfortunately, Chigusa ultimately got the last laugh, as she spent the next several years destroying JWP by taking all their stars.”

Rating: DUD (barely even a match)

JWP OPENWEIGHT TITLE:
HIKARI FUKUOKA vs. COMMAND BOLSHOI:
(Sept. 20th 1997)
* It’s another JWP Title defense, this one Hikari defending against Command Bolshoi of all people- Bolshoi is way subordinate in the hierarchy of JWP even by 1997, so it’s kind of an interesting choice. Given how Hikari is more of an underdog herself, it’s probably a good idea for a lot of lower-ranked wrestlers to take a shot at her when the prior champ Dynamite Kansai would have obviously been too strong. Bolshoi’s in a weird mishmash outfit that’s military fatigue-colored, while Hikari’s in the leopard-print with blue.

Hungry young Bolshoi attacks Hikari as she enters the ring, hitting a quebrada, but then waiting her out in the ring for proper introductions while Hikari just stares her down. Like a coiled spring, Hikari jacks her up at the bell, hitting her cartwheel elbow but Bolshoi slides away from a run-up move to the floor. Hikari with a Northern Lights suplex out of a lockup and a figure-four that sees them roll all the way to the floor- the ref has to break that up and a slapfight raises the emotional stakes, Hikari frequently stunning her smaller brat of an opponent. Hikari works the leg, but Bolshoi keeps dodging her shots and knocks her to the floor, only to get caught trying a baseball slide and eats an Orihara Moonsault. Hikari waits her out for a solid minute, teasing a Space Flying Tiger Drop of all things, but gets tripped and takes a Flying Rana for two. They each dodge strikes until Hikari lands a Kick of Fear, but Bolshoi rolls through a German and hits that palm thrust she was going for, getting two. Hikari beans Bolshoi out of a Tiger suplex and goes up, but a palm thrust/Superduper Rock Bottom gets two- Hikari bridges out. They’re doing solid moves, but they’re really clunkily moving through them, just not looking acrobatic or athletic at all.

Bolshoi, frustrated, actually TAKES OFF HER MASK for the first time ever, which… draws a couple scattered claps. Oh jesus- they were probably hoping for the Japanese “WOOAAAAHHHHHH!” Of Shock. Hikari looks up and flat-backs off a big palm strike for two. Hikari is doing a really good job selling that like a TKO, as she’s dead-weight and has to be dragged up- she tries a reversal but eats a big German for two. She stuffs another and counters another Super Rock Bottom with the Rider Kick (somersault missile kick) for a double-down. Hikari teases a KO but springs to life with a kick, big missile kick & Moonsault for two. Tiger Driver… reversed to a rana for two. So Hikari just dropkicks her in the brain and hits a Tiger Driver, letting go to announce the Moonsault Stomp is forthcoming. But she takes an eternity to set it up, allowing Bolshoi to sneak behind her for the Tiger Suplex, getting the closest two-count thus far. They’re both down, but Bolshoi charges in for a running palm strike, running into Hikari’s knee, and another Tiger Driver gets two. The Moonsault Stomp (checking first to make sure Bolshoi’s down) gets three at (15:05). Replays show that Bolshoi takes the bump on her ARM, which has to hurt (but appeared deliberate).

Hikari fought this one into *** territory more or less by herself, threading her cool offense in and letting Bolshoi having moments of shine. The move application left something to be desired- the “kick them in the head after dropping down out of a back suplex” spot is old-hat in joshi, but it’s ungainly seeing Hikari drop to her ass, roll back, then awkwardly poke at Bolshoi’s head with her shin. The Superduper Rock Bottom took ages to set up as well. This wouldn’t be the worst thing, but in the early going? And with Bolshoi’s tiny size she really needs athleticism to be HER THING. But Hikari was there selling the stupid palm thrusts like they were killer (ugh we’re entering the “Palm Thrust” Era of puro, where Liger starts using one and a lot of others add these weak-looking strikes to their arsenals as faux-killer moves), getting caught trying moves, barely kicking out after big stuff, and more.

Rating: ***1/4 (on one of the better Bolshoi singles matches I’ve seen, mostly thanks to Hikar going above and beyond the call of duty to act like the shrimpy midcarder had a chance)

COMMAND BOLSHOI vs. DEVIL MASAMI:
(Dec. 28th 2008)
* OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH it’s *2008* Devil Masami! She was totally physically washed even in 2001 and looks even bigger here- I just HAD to brave this one! This will also be a real test of Bolshoi’s later skill levels, as she’s obviously going to have to do the lion’s share of physical work. Few people are better at “character spots” and “playing to the cheap seats” than Devil, who still has selling and timing, so this will be interesting. Devil’s in black and Bolshoi’s in green and a LOT of tassels.

A pronounced lockup sees Devil threaten a cheap shot on the break, but she was just teasing, earning a good reaction. Bolshoi teases a slap of her own, then trips up Devil twice, leading to an impasse. Bolshoi teases a wristlock and immediately snags an arm, doing a bunch of dramatic spins to armbar Devil, but goes for the hair. Oh you know what’s coming now- Bolshoi makes a big show of swirling Devil’s mane around for a hair-toss, but of course Devil swings her head around and flings BOLSHOI across the ring in her traditional spot. Comedy bit in the corner sees Bolshoi repeatedly slap Devil and then plead forgiveness, then catches her with slapping spam and doing her long ropewalk armdrag. But Devil immediately counters a whip with the overthrow powerbomb. She misses a lariat and allows herself to get rolled up in an arm & leg hold, and is so beat that she’s in “619” position, Bolshoi doing a fairly weak, soft version (not helped by Devil selling it like a normal punch).

Bolshoi tries the same hold as before but Devil halts her and does it herself, but takes both a tilt-a-whirl headscissors & Manami Roll, really impressing me as the latter is NOT smooth (Bolshoi essentially lands on Devil’s ass, so Devil has to stand there and act “Stunned” so she can complete the roll and try for a pin on her) but she never messes it up and maintains the base on it. Bolshoi counters a lariat to a pin, Devil counters for two, then Bolshoi dodges a corner charge and kicks her- she hits a missile dropkick, but Devil rolls up and charges, only for Bolshoi to hit a shotei and Devil does a TERRIFIC “flop down in one fluid motion” sell for two. Devil springs up with a lariat for two, looking dead to the world, tries a Rikishi Driver but Bolshoi hits the world’s most awkward counter on her, herkily-jerkily sliding down her back to roll her up. But Bolshoi charges in for a rana and Devil catches her & plants her with the Rikishi Driver- two! A big Ligerbomb gets two, but Bolshoi counters for two. And then the finish sees Devil try another Driver, but Bolshoi leaps onto her shoulders, spins around, then slips off awkwardly and rolls Devil over, holding her down for the “struggling pin” at (8:54). Oh man even the FINISH was ugly. They’re all hugs and admiration after the match.

Well that was something. Devil was BEYOND done physically but still had timing and character stuff, and was big enough she could still base for Bolshoi’s counter stuff, but parts looked REALLY bad because Devil was often left standing there while Bolshoit ried to “slide” down her body and instead kept getting caught up due to either the size difference or a lack of proper athleticism to actually do the spots she was trying. Both the Manami Roll & Driver counter were UGLY and poor Devil had to just act helpless while it was happening… and then the FINISH ended up looking like that, too!

Rating: ** (some fun stuff, but several prominent botchy bits that were noticeably “Devil trying to maintain balance while Bolshoi awkwardly slides around her” held it back)