Joshi Spotlight: Joshi in 2001

JOSHI IN 2001:
* 2001 is a strange threshold year in joshi puro- despite this being considered a bit of a dark period by some, business was UP for a good while! Fans are into the shows and the scene is doing the things that they were frequently accused of failing at- ELEVATION! Both AJW (Zenjo) and GAEA Japan were rapidly elevating their undersized tryhard wrestlers into Champions, Zenjo establishing Momoe Nakanishi as “the next one” while GAEA finally pulled the trigger on Meiko Satomura after YEARS of build! Things are looking up! Except they’re not! Read on!

One interesting undercurrent to the year is “Inventing New Finishers”. Kinda all at once it feels like wrestlers have been spending the year trying to juice their offense by using new moves (though some started in 2000). I’m not sure if someone did it and everyone copied them or what, but it wasn’t quite like AJPW/NOAH’s “Finisher Expansion” but kind of reminds me of that. Chigusa starts using a spinning back elbow (like Jericho’s current finisher), KAORU has started using Excalibur (a Michinoku Driver), Manami Toyota uses the Queen Bee Bomb (a cutthroat/cross-arm grip Northern Lights Bomb ripoff), Mayumi Ozaki uses Witchcraft (high-angle Inverted ddt/brainbuster), Michiko Omukai swipes Great Muta’s Shining Wizard (leaping off someone’s bent knee to knee them in the head), and at year’s end, Meiko Satomura copies the “Shining” moves with a Shining Ax Kick to win the AAAW Title.

The year is actually pretty solid in terms of booking, but kinda sub-par in-ring from what I’ve seen. Some of the top angles are good and it really looks like people are being ELEVATED, even though it turns out for naught. Some good stories throughout, especially Momoe’s rise, LCO getting more comeuppance, and D-FIX getting theirs.

GAEA JAPAN:
-GAEA’s struggles really begin around this point, as Meiko Satomura is getting the mega-push… BUT isn’t quite over enough to be Champion yet. And so “PUSH MEIKO” becomes the key priority for the entire year. As such, multiple things start happening at once. Longterm AAAW Champion Aja Kong loses the belt to Mayumi Ozaki, the only other credible main eventer, because she can’t just hold it for EONS or fans would get bored. Meiko is also put over every veteran they can in succession- the shock win over Devil Masami in 2000 is added to with a legit win over Dynamite Kansai, then an amazing nailbiter against Akira Hokuto (****1/2) where both go all-out, Hokuto fighting up from a double-KO only to falter at 9.5 and fall back, allowing Meiko to win. This is transparent as hell but probably kinda working, as Meiko’s now a six-year veteran and getting built as the future.

HOWEVER, this comes at a cost- Hokuto misses half a year owing to the terror this match put her body through. Devil Masami ends up BADLY injured on the same show, having her leg blow out. Chigusa Nagayo, the reason GAEA exists, goes out for shoulder surgery and misses the entire summer. Sugar Sato also misses a year due to a bad leg injury, which they at least knew ahead of time. And Sonoko Kato was washed by injuries, missing 4-5 years of her career as a result. And just as all this happens, Saika Takeuchi quits wrestling in the middle of the year- the last chance of a prospect for GAEA (who hasn’t had a debut stick it out since *1995*!). Oh, and Lioness Asuka gets fully hired to book ARSION and be their top star, killing the “CRUSH 2000” angle (which, to be fair, was largely “pair them up to wrestle dream matches against duos of main eventers”) and leaving GAEA down another top star. So basically GAEA loses about 50% of its wrestler corps to injuries and people leaving, which has the company completely gutted for an entire summer until Chigusa trickles in around the Fall.

Similarly, the company realizes too late that “OH SHIT WE FORGOT TO PUSH THE OTHERS!”, as the Meikocentric booking bites them on the ass when Chikayo Nagashima & Toshie Uematsu, her training class’s partners (all three debuted when GAEA Japan opened in Spring 1995), haven’t really had any kind of focus for ages. And so Chikayo is very clearly co-elevated alongside Meiko, being made to fight Ozaki repeatedly and doing better all the time. She’s the most athletic of the girls and the best in terms of technique, but doesn’t have Meiko’s personality or fire, and her moveset has limitations, meaning she just ends up spamming Fisherman’s Busters all match long. Uematsu… they barely bother with. She gets a near-win over Aja (Aja having to do a leverage flash-pin to escape defeat) as they build her for the summer but mostly give up after that.

And of course GAEA comes up with a new “Stable Reshuffling” idea. In this case, the babyface stable is still “Chigusa & Pals” with her and her trainees. Aja Kong splits off from Ozaki and forms Rai Rai Ken with Dynamite Kansai & Toshiyo Yamada, two fading veterans. Mayumi Ozaki, KAORU & Police form D-FIX, one of her longest-lasting stables. They’re the new top heels. KAORU actually gets a serious push as things go- she defeated Chigusa at the end of 2000 to re-cement her, and takes on Asuka in a (30:00) Draw Hardcore Match that covers all of Korakuen Hall. This fails to really make up for KAORU’s nuuuuuuuuuuuumerous shortcomings as a worker but at least there seems to be an acknowledgement that they need to pretend people are main eventers for the time being.

The deck now is such:
Team Crush: Chigusa Nagayo, Meiko Satomura, Chikayo Nagashima, Toshie Uemtasu, Sakura Hirota
Rai Rai Ken: Aja Kong, Dynamite Kansai, Toshiyo Yamada
D-FIX: Mayumi Ozaki, KAORU, Police (manager)

Of these, Aja & Ozaki are still freelancers. But for the most part, they are full GAEA wrestlers and are treated as such, being on nearly every show and being the top stars.

So basically, the year goes like this: Aja & Ozaki split, leading to Ozaki taking Aja’s AAAW World Title in the Spring. Meiko’s dramatic match against Hokuto marks her as “the future Ace”, as both struggle to get up during a Double-KO spot, but only Hokuto falters and Meiko keeps standing. But that night leaves half the company gone- Chigusa, Asuka, Saika, Sugar, Sonoko, Devil and Akira. So the Summer is dominated by weird gimmick shows and an endless KAORU push of sub-par matches as her D-FIX team with Ozaki dominates show after show. Excitement as Chigusa finally returns in the fall!! Except… she’s allied with D-FIX. She humbly goes along with them, so obviously half-hearted as a generic minion that you KNOW something’s up, and sure enough, she deliberately botches a match of theirs, which means that Aja gets a rematch. In a violent, bloody bout, Ozaki is crushed half to death and pinned, and the D-FIX thing pays off with Las Cachorras Orientales coming in to dust them off in a “Moneyball Ladder Match”. But Aja’s run as Champion is short-lived- Meiko soon defeats her for the World Title! New Ace!! Buuuuuuuuuuuuut

GAEA’s Wrestlers:
* Meiko Satomura, the tryhard shorty, has been obviously groomed from her debut to be a Future Ace- wearing Chigusa’s red coloration, she was pushed from day one. Her hamminess and all-out effort gave way to a slightly more measured, restrained performer, and her push ramps up. Fluke wins over wrestlers in the intervening years now lead to her defeating former Main Eventers in 100% legit finishes. The dramatic Hokuto win was a huge one for her and possibly her best match ever, too. She even debuts new offense to cement her place- a Shining Ax Kick, taking an ax kick that’s getting increasingly common in the scene (her, Kumiko Maekawa & Mima Shimoda all use them now) and using the modification that the Great Muta started doing in his All Japan run, stepping off the opponent’s knee and using the momentum to finish them with a strike. It looks… iffy and can whiff pretty bad, but it’s there. Problematically, though, Meiko wins the 3AW World Title and the very next show… gets an anemic reaction. This is a big deal when someone’s supposed to be the new star.

It’s hard to say exactly what the problem is. Maybe how obvious they made it? The booking in GAEA has always been particularly easy to “guess” and figure out, and the fact that May 1995-Dec. 2001 has been so predictable instead of organic has maybe dulled the fans to Meiko. Maybe they just don’t feel the new generation is “really” up to the level of the previous big stars, no matter how much they job Kansai, Hokuto & Kong to them. Maybe the weird “Aja loses to Ozaki, then wins it back just to immediately lose it” thing didn’t work out.

* Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka were still CRUSH 2000 for a bit, but mostly doing stuff separately and reuniting for “Dream Matches” against rival squads of big names, in increasingly weaker matches mostly designed to get some cheap pops. Chigusa & Lioness briefly put on their heel makeup but I don’t think anything comes of it because they wrestle no matches like that. Chigusa misses the whole Summer due to getting shoulder surgery, and her big return is to fake allegiance to D-FIX and set up Ozaki to lose her belt, then mostly wrestle filler matches, standing aside so Meiko can succeed.

* Sonoko Kato ends the year early, badly hobbled by injuries. She will return to wrestling only years later, and never wrestles for GAEA again- it does before she can make it back.

* Chikayo Nagashima is now fully in position as “The Next Challenger”- the “oh shit we forgot to push her!” gives way to her suddenly rapidly improving, catching main eventers in armholds, and showcasing more and more stuff. Her moveset is a bit “locked”, though, meaning most of her matches feel the same. But she has the most agility and technique of anyone in the promotion, is working hard, and is being set up to challenge Meiko.

* Sugar Sato‘s knee gives out fully and she misses everything after the spring.

* Toshie Uematsu continues to struggle with aimlessness, as always. Around this time they start doing an “Uematsu is rapidly getting good!” micro-push, but it always only leads to a prominent jobbing and she’s back to where she started. The fans can always tell when someone’s being pushed down the card.

* Sakura Hirota continues to be a comedy highlight, though whenever they try to have her wrestle “for serious” (still goofy but not in cosplay) it’s pretty bad. But the cosplay stuff is ACTUALLY funny- one of the only times a Japanese comedy wrestler has legitimately amused me.

* Mayumi Ozaki leads D-FIX the heel trio, and becomes top heel again thanks to defeating Aja for GAEA’s top belt. D-FIX is continuously dominant during the year, but at least it FINALLY leads somewhere- a ton of very public jobs. D-FIX loses to LCO in a “Moneyball Ladder Match”, bleeding like crazy, and Oz puts over Aja like gangbusters, again covered in blood, as she loses the belt back. While most every D-FIX match is just “Police (the manager) runs in to cheat” and it’s mostly sloppy weapon-based stuff, and not that good. One weird thing is her inventing a big new move (Witchcraft) and then never using it.

* KAORU is another low-light, as usual. As part of D-FIX, she’s a constant cheater, and as her athleticism starts to fade she relies on weapon shots more and more, doing goofy spots with a half of board. By the Summer she’s dominating cards in the gutted company, winning matches cheaply via weapons or interference before jobbing out in the end part of the year. Like I can see WHY they’re using her that way (the company is gutted and needs a “story”, and you don’t wanna job out one of the only veterans on staff), but it’s awful and she can’t do good solo matches anymore- just wants to do her stunts.

* Akira Hokuto is a done physically, and pulls out all the stops to have one of GAEA’s best ever matches against Meiko in the spring, faltering at the last second of a Double-KO spot in a great finish. But that appears to take EVERYTHING out of her fading body, and she misses half the year, and when she returns it’s more multi-woman matches and a filler squash against Miho Wakizawa in her retirement run. Hokuto won’t be long for 2002 and retires for good very quickly- I dunno if we get even one more good match from the former best in the business.

* Dynamite Kansai is a Freelancer but only works for GAEA, mostly. She’s a shell of her former self, but is good enough to do a clean job to Meiko in the Spring to help set her up. She’s still kicking around mostly in multi-woman matches thanks to her collagen disorder leaving her a physical wreck, but they’ve been sure to keep her semi-credible, which will be important in later years.

* Devil Masami is basically donezo. She’s still around, but MANGLES her leg in a singles match on a disastrous GAEA show that’s also Sugar & Chigusa’s last one for ages, and sobs as she apologizes to the fans for having to end the match early. This might have been one that was to put over Chikayo Nagashima, too. But she’s injured in the Spring and misses the rest of the year. And she was hobbled and slowed before THAT, having to rely entirely on charisma and timing. She reappears hanging around ringside during D-FIX matches, largely acting as a spooky heel who scares people, but hasn’t done anything yet. She’ll be paired with Uematsu shortly.

* Toshiyo Yamada is just “Ring Filler” at this point. Probably had her last good match, and almost literally just fills the card in random tags. At least she isn’t dressing like a Flintstones character anymore.

* Saika Takeuchi, the rookie showcased in “GAEA Girls”, retires mid-year for some reason and never wrestles again. Thus giving GAEA yet another failed trainee, which isn’t helping the top-heavy nature of the promotion. They do at least get a couple more in later years that work out much better.

ALL JAPAN WOMEN’S PRO WRESTLING (Zenjo):
AJW Roster: Kaoru Ito (Ace), Yumiko Hotta, Manami Toyota, Tomoko Watanabe, Kumiko Maekawa, Momoe Nakanishi, Nanae Takahashi, Kayo Noumi, Miho Wakizawa, Miyuki Fujii, Rookies: Mika Nishio

-Zenjo feels like it’s in a relatively strong position, matching GAEA Japan in success for the most part (but wastes too much time travelling everywhere and losing money vs. GAEA’s fewer, bigger shows so they end up with parity). Which is too bad because they’re about to lose TV and that’s gonna fuck them over way more than booking could. But Kaoru Ito is over as a strong, credible champion. She has good matches and some of the year’s best performances, and is VERY over with live fans.

2001 is a giant “shifting” year for Zenjo, and the bookers made goddamn sure we knew it. Like, the Japan Grand Prix is as obvious I’ve ever seen for bookers going “Okay, guys- this is it. This is proof we’re emphasizing THESE PEOPLE (new stars) and de-emphasizing THESE PEOPLE (lazy preceding stars). A big story is the obvious rise of Kumiko Maekawa & Momoe Nakanishi- the bookers have made it very clear, in every way they know how, that these are the future main eventers of the company. This is most obvious during the Japan Grand Prix, the yearly round-robin tournament that lasts for the entire summer- both of them pick up big wins over Main Eventers like Hotta, Toyota, and more, draw fairly even with the Ace, Ito, and end up #1 and #2 in the tournament and fight to a dramatic finish, Momoe winning.

Kaoru Ito is the Ace and top wrestler, but Momoe Nakanishi’s hard work pays off and she gets the Rocket Push in the year, and Kumiko Maekawa (a 9-year veteran who was WAY late getting pushed thanks to the logjam in the midcard & upper-mid ranks) suddenly comes out of nowhere and gets huge emphasis as well. And then in a great bit, Momoe challenges Ito and is DESTROYED. Rather than show parity or “just about got ‘er”, this is Ito establishing that no, for all Momoe’s skill, she’s not ready yet, and has a year’s build to go AT LEAST before she’s a reasonable challenger. This goes to put over Ito, and to put over Momoe herself when she DOES build to this level. Momoe & Kumiko are put against one another in an Hour-Long Draw that further establishes their parity and “#1 and #2” in the company.

So things look good for the future… or they would if they didn’t lose TV, meaning all of this goes to shit anyways, lol.

Meanwhile, Manami Toyota is forced to turn heel and openly half-asses it all year long, appearing to not know how heeling even WORKS, and Yumiko Hotta just gets increasingly lazy. Both are rapidly tumbling down the ranks and made to lose to said up & comers. When the JGP comes down to Meiko vs. Kumiko in a huge struggle of a match, it’s clear- “THESE ARE THE FUTURE”. This makes the re-energized fanbase, full of girls who saw “their girls” in Momoe, Nanae, Miho and others, realize there’s some hope (a very important thing in dark times). Meanwhile, the veterans are FUCKED- Hotta and Toyota are jobbed out all year. Hotta loses a dramatic, long weapons-filled match against Ito earlier in the year, then loses a Hair vs. Hair Steel Cage Deathmatch at the end of the year to fully establish that Ito is superior. These matches are WAY too long and Hotta is beyond washed but the booking is solid given Hotta’s past credibility. So Ito is situated as this ridiculously strong Ace.

The heel “stable” sort of forms around “The Old Guard” to fight this new guard. Former Aces Yumiko Hotta (as a disaffected, bored-looking “cool kid” in sunglasses) and Manami Toyota join it, alongside Las Cachorras Orientales (who are freelancers, but spend most of their time in Zenjo & ARSION). However, Kumiko Maekawa, who SHOULD be one of the new faces, is instead a traitor to her “kind” and joins the heels (which also has a side-effect of giving us lots of New Face vs. New Face matches instead of just Vets vs. New Faces). Kaoru Ito & Tomoko Watanabe (debuted 1989) form the “New Faces” as despite being 11-year veterans, they spent eons waiting for their pushes. Momoe, the obvious best of the newer kids, joins them alongside partner Nanae, then Wakizawa & Kayo Noumi below them. But Toyota & LCO kinda leave separately and it feels quietly ignored for the most part aside from the occasional team-up.

* Kaoru Ito is still the Ace, and actually doesn’t lose the belt despite the dominance of the heel army. I used to dislike her stuff, but she’s improved tons and is one of the best workers at this point. She has two of the year’s best Zenjo matches, hitting ***3/4 with Manami & Momoe during the JGP, and ****1/4 with Momoe for the belt. Her utter destruction of Momoe was a great “establishing moment” for Momoe’s future rise, and Ito gets two emphatic victories over Yumiko Hotta, the former Ace, to cement her.

* Momoe Nakanishi clearly becomes “The one to get pushed” this year. Her tag team of NanaMomo is even split up! Nanae is paired off with another partner so Momoe can win the Japan Grand Prix (hitting ***3/4 with both Ito & Kumiko) and get a push to a World Title shot. She has some of the year’s best singles matches and shows up in the “Best of the Year” more than any other worker. The fans are behind her, which is pretty great when she still can’t beat Ito, breaking their hearts and proving she still has a long ways to go- that goes a long way towards making rises look organic. But still- JGP winner! And she has an hour-long draw against Kumiko by year’s end! They only give those to the wrestlers they REALLY want ot focus on!

* Nanae Takahashi is in a tricky spot, as she’s always the “Worst Part of Great Matches”, appearing in plenty of ****-ish bouts, but usually in a spot where you’re like “Man, this would be SO MUCH BETTER if Nanae could hang with the rest of them”. She just hasn’t mastered timing, execution or charisma yet, and it holds a lot of matches back (you can see Momoe have to shoulder 90% of their big tag matches herself, as she’s the only one who can ensure they’re good enough). However, they start figuring her out by just… having the others sell more for her. Like Etsuko Mita before her, her size means she’s better off as a dominant powerhouse, not a struggling underdog. As Momoe is so good she ends up with a rocket push, Nanae needs another way to get elevated… so they pair her up with reliable old Tomoko for a new top babyface tag team, reflecting Tomoko’s role with Kumiko in years prior. It’s as good an idea as any- if you can’t learn babyface fire & selling from TOMOKO, you can’t learn it at all.

* Tomoko Watanabe has realigned with Nanae as her new partner, and they’re in similar gear doing Tag Title matches. She also drops the All Pacific Title to ex-partner Kumiko to further that push, and sort of plateaus- they don’t see her as the Champion, nor the Top Rival so it’s just and endless thing with her. She still has the most vicious moves in the company, though, either vertically yeeting someone onto their own head with the Screwdriver, or tiger driving them vertically with the Hellsmasher.

* A HUGE part of the year becomes “The rise of Miho Wakizawa“, as Wacky goes from “ungainly but energetic up & comer” to “we’re actually going to push her in the future” as she has important matches all over the card and is given tons of chances. Which is really too bad because she RETIRES by year’s end! It’s really too bad- though she was never even a *** worker yet, her raw energy and personality made watching her stuff a real highlight of Zenjo cards. Though I found myself getting bored of them by the end of the year, as she doesn’t have the moveset or selling to really pull off 15+ minute matches.

* Manami Toyota…. hoo boy. Always with iffy effort post-1996, Toyota goes into FULL “Drag-Ass” mode all year long, as she’s forced to turn heel. A job I’m convinced she’d be GREAT at, but she seems to openly hate it and doesn’t want to learn, and so her exciting, “tons of moves” offense is simply reduced and she just does… less stuff. She never revels in her foes’ pain or acts like an ass (something she oddly did as a BABYFACE when fighting rookies). She doesn’t even CHEAT! She’s just so uninterested in being a heel that her matches suck and fans turn into vacuums whenever she’s in. Like, remember watching RAW and Jacqueline or Ivory would come out and the fans would just go noticeably silent? That’s where Toyota is right now. Which is funny because she wrestles her IRL friend Ito and suddenly “Trying Toyota” comes to life and she has a ***3/4 MOVEZ match and still appears in “the year’s best matches” twice. But uhhhhhhhhhhh the bookers have noticed. They really, really did. And so all year long Manami is de-emphasized and de-pushed, being made to do jobs up and down in the Japan Grand Prix, losing to Wakizawa and others and has one of the most middling scores (barely higher than Shimoda). In December she does the job to form Zenjo rookie jobber Misae Genki in a tag match, letting the NEO wrestler pin her. The bookers are making it VERY VERY CLEAR that they want Manami to get the fuck OUT of here, and she will if she values her career and doesn’t want to be jobbing to Kayo Noumi in 2002. *spoiler alert: she does*

* Yumiko Hotta is in the same boat as Manami, but isn’t as de-pushed. But she’s been openly lethargic all year long and having just as many bad performances as Toyota, without the peaks. LONG matches full of her barely trying and not bothering to sell much. Some of it might be injuries- she’s been at this longer than anyone in the company, and everyone else around her age has been at 3/10 speed, too. I’ve also heard she kind of just wasn’t part of the group anymore- she was Big Senior and had her own friends and life and shit by this point, being years older than everyone else. But she seems MASSIVELY checked out and disinterested.

* Miyuki Fujii struggles as the new “bottom-tier rookie”- she’s awkward, ungaingly, and unimpressive-looking. Most wrestlers just eat her alive. Still. I just duplicated this from my 2000 thing because nothing has changed. Oh wait! She wrestled ONE good match in the 2001 Japan Grand Prix, hitting **3/4 with Nanae Takahashi by going all-out and spamming elbow smashes. Don’t laugh- that’s like ****+ from anyone else. Too bad she lost that and every other JGP match again.

* Kumiko Maekawa is another “Future Star” as she wins back the All Pacific Title from Tomoko, heels it up all year long, and is showing lots of effort. Her “All Kicks” style leads to some matches feeling same-y, but she’s improving steadily and it’s been decided she’s gonna be a bigger star, as she gets #2 in the Grand Prix, gets to fight against Momoe in the finals, then defends her belt in an Hour-Long Draw by the end of the year.

* Kayou 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… but Wacky got the big push and then had to retire, so Noumi’s year has ended up kind of a waste.

* Mika Nishio is brand-new, and appears to be doing pretty well for a rookie, having a mini-feud with an annoyed Takako Inoue.

LAS CACHORRAS ORIENTALES- THE TOP FREELANCERS:
-So LCO are still doing the freelancer thing, and… the wheels are sorta starting to come off! No shade on them, really- it was an astonishing run. But they’re faltering and it’s about done.

Their job was clear- come in, raise hell, beat everyone, then “give back” those wins periodically through the year. As freelancers, they can pick and choose when to job, making bank whenver doing so (the great wrestling balancing act- do NO jobs and no one will want you around- job in only the biggest of matches and you can make serious money, and hope this doesn’t hurt you in the long run). 2000 kind of saw the last “big” year for them, as they won multiple companies’ top belts and did jobs only in losing them. But now they’ve started to pick up a lot of big losses. In Zenjo, they’re put to rest by the vicious ZAPs, as Ito & Watanabe put on their heel masks and absolutely DESTROY the duo for ages before pinning them in a one-sided beatdown. In ARSION, they’re the Twin Stars of ARSION and have been since Dec. 2000, but do the job to Lioness Asuka & Mariko Yoshida in July and their VIP stable (with Bioinc J & Michiko Omukai) largely does nothing, even as Omukai gets pushed. In GAEA, LCO oddly get to beat D-FIX in a big “Moneyball Ladder Match” (a fun clusterfuck where everyone spazzes out constantly, bleeds, does big bumps and then LCO grab the ball full of money), but then lose to Aja & Chigusa on the Christmas Day show.

LCO matches have gotten a fair bit worse- what was reliable a ***1/2 baseline is now struggling to get over *** a lot of the time, and their macthes are now far more same-y. More reliant on “let’s go brawl into the crowd for a while”, far less energetic, and more. Shimoda has faded a good bit physically- her stuff was never that clean or crisp, but now it’s almost embarrassingly sloppy and casual the way she just “flings” people for offense and doesn’t bother to hit strikes correctly. Mita is getting bad with injuries but still has precision and good technique- you can sorta see it because LCO matches rely on her in the back half almost every time, now, as she still won’t mess stuff up. Zenjo had sorta started using her in a “challenge for the main eventers” thing in 2000, but that’s mostly stopped and she’s just a tag wrestler again. And yeah… now that it’s time for the chickens to come home to roost and for LCO to be doing their expected jobs, MYSTERIOUSLY their effort level and motivation has faltered. MYSTERIOUSLY.

Hyper Visual Fighting ARSION IN 2001:
ARSION Roster: Ayako Hamada (Ace), Lioness Asuka (Booker), Aja Kong (haha for a bit), Mariko Yoshida, Mika Akino, Rie Tamada, Yumi Fukawa, Michiko Omukai, Candy Okutsu (briefly), Bionic J (Jessie Bennett), Hiromi Yagi, GAMI, Linda Star (PIKA), Alda Moreno (POKO), Mari Apache, Youngsters: Fabi Apache, Ai Fujita, Baby-A, Reina Takase, ROOKIES: Yuu Yamagata, Ryu Miyuki (BUT NOT SO FAST THEIR PARTNER)

-hahahaahah OHHHHHHHHHH SHITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

So in 2001, the wheels come off of ARSION and it never recovers. Aja Kong, the previous booker of the company and the person running a lot of it, has it out with president/runner Rossy Ogawa, who basically makes booking demands she doesn’t like and she’s out. This one has more information about it, since it came out in court. Aja had issues with Rossy and resigned from ARSION. Rossy booked an angle where the wrestlers get on the mic and demand that Aja quit (after Aja completely wrecks LCO with ultra-stiff moves). Aja then declares that she is leaving the company and walks out on the match. This leads to Yoshida getting her ass kicked and jobbing. Rossy then SUED AJA a couple years later- “Rossy tried to sue Aja for damages on grounds of default in 2003, which he had no grounds for after staging her exit. Aja countersued and the judge ordered Rossy to pay ¥6.7m (around $58,000 USD in 2003) to Aja for unpaid wages, and a further ¥500k (around $4,300 USD).” So basically a giant legal clusterfuck that embarrassed Rossy and the company, and Aja quits.

At year’s end in 2000, the Ayako Hamada mega-push metastasizes and she becomes Queen of ARSION against a disinterested Aja Kong, who barely sells for her friend. And the fans go into Japan’s equivalent of an open revolt- the Hamada push has been so obvious, and so excessive, since the moment of her 1997 debut that they’re just DONE with her, and choose to make this apparent in a very “Japanese” way: impolite silence. See it’s not actively RUDE because they’re not booing the way Western fans would an overpushed wrestler, but it’s still KINDA rude because it’s like they’ll be like YAY YAY YAY during a tag match, giving at least polite applause to some effort shown, then someone tags Ayako and it’s “…”. Like it’s super-duper noticeable and there’s no getting away from it. She’s “vacuum”-level non-over. And she’ll be doing athletic, acrobatic moves and then FIGHT UP and scream to the fans for support and it’s still like “…”. It’s awkward, embarrassing and pitiful and actually makes me feel bad for Hamada, even though it’s still a lot on her that she still sorta sucks.

Oh AND THEN… well I’ll just show you.

MICHIKO OMUKAI vs. RYO MIYUKI:
* So the backstory here is that Miyuki, an over-pushed shitty rookie (who got pushed and elevated immediately because she was tall AND hot), had been missing dates or something. Wrestlers were pissed and she was leaving the company. Per Mike Lorefice, “Rossy’s answer was to have her walk out from the crowd in street clothes, get squashed by Omukai and quit”. Omukai shows up in all leather and wielding a fake sword (bokken) looking all pissed, her jaw clenched in fury. They’re like “oh no one is here” but LOOK! THERE SHE IS! Miyuki comes out dramatically on the hard camera with a flannel shirt over her street clothes (including a blue Selena shirt). What’s “SHE’S SHOOTING!” in Japanese? Miyuki is totally breaking the script I bet! You can tell the fans are in awe by their utter silence and guys aimlessly fidgeting and looking at random shit. The dude rubbing his chin and looking down right next to Miyuki seems entranced by what’s going on. Omukai just points her bokken at Miyuki, who eventually walks right up to it after a two-minute pause (that mystifies the fans for about a minute, then a few dudes are heard randomly screaming something).

Miyuki finally yoinks the bokken and gets up in Omukai’s face, both pulling the other’s hair (a standard worked “post-match” spot). Omukai then “pulls” Miyuki into the ring and it’s amazingly obvious this isn’t a shoot at all (like Miyuki is CLEARLY stepping through the ropes and not being pulled in), and Miyuki falls on her ass before getting up and scoring an elbow. Another staredown results, and Miyuki goes for an Irish whip, just like you would in a shoot fight, and Omukai counters and whips her off the ropes, then ducks a big wheel kick. Omukai pulls her by the hair and scores some knees (THOSE look snug, though), then a slap, but Miyuki backdrops her out of her finisher attempt. Miyuki scores her wheel kick, but Omukai kicks out immediately. Miyuki tries a fireman’s carry, but Omukai pops out and Miyuki spins into some REALLY tight backfists (looking like shoot-forearms to the neck- a safer strike that can be snug without being dangerous). Omukai naturally doesn’t sell them at all, ducking a third and CRACKING her across the chest with her own backfist. Miyuki goes down and Omukai just kneels on her chest for the pin at (1:07).

Post-match, Omukai grabs the hair and the two say some things, Miyuki tapping the back of her head like a reassurance, then they get up. Omukai cuts a promo with Miyuki staring with a scrunched-up expression. So this was obviously booked like it was a shoot, but was not over with the fans, nobody reacted, and it just looked uncomfortable and weird. Miyuki is just buried on the way out. She then gets on the mic and apparently resigns, but says she isn’t quitting pro wrestling. We’ll see her in GAEA Japan before too long… and poor Chigusa, lol. Miyuki is told to “practice more” after one of the worst botches in wrestling history, and is out of any women’s promotion for good- she spends the rest of her career doing comedy stuff in DDT (yes, that one), retiring in 2003.

Rating: DUD (shockingly, this is by far Miyuki’s best match in ARSION, and the one that exposes the business the least)

Both of these things were booked to look like shoots, a la Vince Russo, but it made ARSION look even more clownshoes- ARSION always did pretty shitty business, but things got even worse after this (losing Aja, who had looked the strongest in 2000, probably doesn’t help). They were obviously fake.

Evito-X (who posts here from time to time) notes “After a few matches (1 of which was a tag that ended up in edited form on TV), and some hype I think ARSION decided enough is enough and ended the experiment with a pretty decisive result to say the least. I guess we’ll never know how it got this far in the first place, let alone how she ended up in GAEA straight after, whether she had some celebrity status? or if everyone just lost their minds because she was so tall.” Another fan notes “I don’t remember all the details, but I think she was another example of a “rossy merch project” getting overpushed and pissing people off, particularly Aja who was supposed to be the booker but was having to mess up all her plans for Rossy to sell merch to the uncles with Hamada and Miyuki. Then they did all the worked shoot angles at this show, but both her and Aja really left and never came back lol”

Halfway through the year, the disaster continues to unfold- the Hamada title reign is a huge bust, fans reject it, and ticket sales deplete. As a desperation move, Lioness Asuka is hired to become the public booker and face of the company. She quickly wins the tag titles and gears up for a Hamada feud, then handily dusts her off in December. Hamada reads the writing on the wall and herself will quit ARSION within the month, the story going she felt she was being blamed for the promotion’s ills, either by the fans or Rossy himself. This is only available on an ANCIENT, dead website and is hard to corroborate but has been repeated as fact ever since BUT I’ve heard multiple people suggest it. But yeah IF SO I can see her point; while she isn’t as good as she should be, it’s not HER FAULT her push sucked and it’s not like teenage Ayako was making a power play by demanding to be called “Super Rookie” and beat everyone- she was just doing what she was told by seniors and management.

In maybe the most damning thing, nearly every one of the best performances in ARSION for 2001 is from Azumi Hyuga. Who isn’t an ARSION wrestler but a JWP one doing a guest tour. She comes in, beats most of the midcarders in good matches, then has one of Ayako Hamada’s best matches as she defends the Queen of ARSION belt against her. Oh and Mariko Yoshida, “ARSION True Heart” for being a signature star, former Ace, and the one person who held to the “Grapplefuckery” mat style the company started out with… wrestles Manami Toyota in an Interpromotional match and does a job, and the fans mostly pop for Toyota’s signature moves, which feels like it’s particularly damning of ARSION’s style.

SO UHHHHHHHHH the company now has had several embarrassing black eyes in its short history and 2001 was a complete disaster for them. Lioness Asuka taking over is likely gonna turn it into another “Veterans Dominate” promotion and we’ll see where they go from here. At least some of the rookies stand the test of time (one or two are still active!).

* Ayako Hamada has been a total disaster as top draw. She is so un-over the fans immediately cut all noise whenever she’s in the ring, a form of protest that avoids being “in your face” yet is so noticeable it still comes off as rude and I actually feel pity for her, haha. Her matches are kind of OKAY on the surface but nowhere near as good as they should be. Her & Michiko Omukai have a hard-fought match full of psychology and callback spots that almost SHOULD be getting over, but their poor selling and the Hamada push kill it so the match ends up subpar. The two win the Twin Star of ARSION belts from Asuka’s team but immediately give them up, and Hamada quits the company in January. She appears to dislike Rossy, not appearing with him publicly until a 2025 ARSION Revival Show.

Big issues remain in her toolkit- she has, ON PAPER, a great moveset that can create all sorts of opportunities in a match, and she’s fairly athletic still, but she never figured out how to connect with an audience or even sell that well, which are critical things about being a main eventer. 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. A lack of strong singles wrestlers in ARSION still held her back, so we’ll see what happens when she turns up in GAEA Japan.

* The Michiko Omukai Superpush is still going- it’s only marginally more organic than the Hamada Superpush was, but the fans at least haven’t rejected her entirelyl. Her big “beats EVERYONE” tournament wins have stopped and she’s settled into an upper-mid role and actually fails in many big matches, which might go a long way towards making fans accept her. She still isn’t great, though- she has adopted Sakie Hasegawa’s Uranage & Sobat (spinkick), and now uses the Shining Wizard, but has yet to get good at selling, still doing only the “Perfunctory Scream” before popping up to hit her moves like nothing happened.

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.

* Lioness Asuka is lured over from GAEA, ending the CRUSH 2000 novelty run, and she becomes the booker of the promotion, quickly unseating LCO for the tag belts in the summer. She mostly “settles” for tag stuff for a couple months, but in a foregone conclusion, defeats Hamada for the top belt in December. She splits with Yoshida when they lose the tag belts but has noki-A as a partner.

* GAMI has a weird 2001. She spends most of the year doing quasi-comedy bits and is in a goofy-ass stable- the weird Re*Drag or Re*Drug or whatever, which is comprised of her, Rie Tamada, rookie Reina Takase, and THREE midget clowns- PIKO (Command Bolshoi), PIKA & POKO (Linda Starr and Alda Moreno, both short Luchadoras). The clowns are mostly interchangeable and wearing identical gear, doing comedy spots. Except GAMI randomly wins stuff like a tournament over the summer. GAMI also wins the JWP Tag Titles alongside Bolshoi. But she’ll be a SERIOUS WRESTLER at points and then do comedy spots with a little clacking fan and then just do a job to a midcarder. Like it’s so bizarre and changes by the minute just exactly what kind of performer she’s supposed to be- she’s either getting bad direction or she’s given too much power and her motivation falters every other week. Maybe both.

* Mariko Yoshida is now a midcarder, but was chosen by Lioness Asuka as her tag partner for a Twin Star belt run, beating LCO but losing to Ayako & Michiko’s “Superteam” (lolz). Nobody else is wrestling her style, and when she wrestles people with different ones full of BIG MOVES (Manami), the fans openly prefer that person’s stuff. So she’s kind of left in this odd role- technically senior to most wrestlers but her push is dead, and uncomfortably in front of the people they WANT to push.

* Candy Okutsu retires on Jan. 5th so is not really worth mentioning, haha. Losing her cuts out a solid piece of ARSION’s midcard, though she wrestled her last good match ages ago. Her career is honestly that of someone who seemed like they SHOULD have developed into a great worker at some point, but never quite did.

* Ai Fujita would arguably have been built up as the “Next Hamada/Omukai” except STILL that hasn’t happened yet. She’s usually just paired off with the luchadoras in flippy matches. Her team with Candy Okutsu floundered and Candy quit (I only remember it because I’m using 2000’s Template), she F’d around a while, then suddenly came back with “OFFSCREEN BOXING POWERS” (ARSION has repeatedly shown someone “training” in vignettes and acted like this is an upgrade to renew their push; this never works as its very inorganic and the fans can tell what they’re doing), wearing MMA gloves using “Boxing” techniques. The first match this appeared in was in December so it’s BRAND NEW, but it’s pretty weak so far, sold well only by Hyuga, who is excellent. She forms a team called CyberJunk with Omukai at year’s end and they’ll probably be the new big team of 2002, probably to help build both to the next level.

* AKINO (Mika Akino) is fantastic, but has been BADLY de-emphasized all year for some reason. She’s usually the masked noki-A in matches, and is subordinate to Asuka & Yoshida in their mini-stable. She’s insanely acrobatic, tries harder than anyone else, actually acts like the crowd is there and should be interacted with, and more, and… she just holds the Sky High (tiny person) belt until mid-2001, vacating it. Given her talent level and overness, she SHOULD HAVE received the pushes Hamada & Omukai got, but she doesn’t look good enough in a bikini so obviously Rossy’s hands were tied, RIGHT? At least Asuka seems to like her, as noki-A gets to the finals of a one-night tournament, beating Hamada AND Omukai in the process before jobbing to Lioness. Her 50/50 record is mostly 80/20 by year’s end.

* Bionic J is still kicking around as the “gaijin jobber”. They actually elevate her a TINY bit, as in she now goes 10 minutes against stars and can beat other midcarders, but she’s still not in the “can easily crack **” crowd yet.

* Rie Tamada is still there. I barely remember she exists because she’s kinda given up but she’s in GAMI’s stable as “Ring Filler”.

* Chaparita 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 is a mega-jobber by this point from the looks of things, having to put over all of ARSION’s top wrestlers and anyone above midcard status.

* Miho Watabe leaves LLPW and joins ARSION around this time, but I haven’t seen her at all in my watchalong. She quickly adopst the gimmick “Baby-A”, which she keeps till she retires in 2005.

* 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. She’s one of the clowns now, blending into the background for comedy spots. As PIKA, she’s just a JTTS who can beat only rookies and will lose to anyone else. POKO (Alda Moreno) retires in the Fall, wrestling her last matches for ARSION from the looks of Cagematch.

JWP IN 2001:
JWP Roster: Azumi Hyuga (Ace), Command Bolshoi, Ran YuYu, Carlos Amano, Kana Mizaki, Acute Sae, Erika Watanabe, Tsubasa Kurakagi, Kayoko Haruyama.

-JWP struggles badly during 2001- the promotion DIED in 2000, but relaunched under Command Bolshoi, who quickly wins their top belt, but Azumi Hyuga defeats her in February and dominates the rest of the year as Ace. Hyuga mostly wrestles in ARSION in my watchalong, and is actually their most reliable source of good matches. She’s in that “not THAT high a peak, but can carry ANYBODY” tier, which is arguably as beneficial to a company as a huge star, because suddenly Ai Fujita doesn’t look like a useless load in the ring, but only against Hyuga. JWP is just not that visible on YouTube, but it actually sticks it out and survives past GAEA AND Zenjo.

LLPW IN 2001:
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.

* Carol Midori actually becomes LLPW Champion in July, which shocked me, as the promotion has had only 3 champions since it’s inception and I only recall Midori as a jobber/midcarder in a promotion which almost NEVER had any forward progression.

* 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. Takako at least is doing really well, being as quick and athletic as I’ve ever seen her- she’s the only woman on the scene who debuted in the ’80s who is in BETTER shape than she was in the ’90s.

* Shinobu Kandori is basically not a part of the scene’s narrative at all for whatever reason. Not much on CM. Harley Saito, either.

* 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 in 2001.

NEO IN 2001:
NEO Roster: Kyoko Inoue, Misae Genki, Yoshiko Tamura, Yuki Miyazaki, Tanny Mouse, Yuka Shiina, Saya Endo

-NEO is still kicking despite rapidly failing to get an audience, and has no YouTube representation for the most part. Kyoko actually wrestles the majority of her time in *FMW* of all places, doing over 100 matches between 2000 & 2001, sometimes against male wrestlers. She gained a bunch of weight to more “reasonably” fight them, and I swear I was gonna cover that at some point but uhhhhhhhhhhhh maybe in its own article someday, haha.

Yoshiko Tamura is one of the bigger stories, as she improves and improves and has been elevated to Main Eventer by this point- she has the NEO Title twice in the year, including beating Lioness Asuka for it in December, starting and ending the year with it. I only have one bout for her in the year, though. Misae Genki has also been elevated, winning the NEO Title but also sometimes turning up elsewhere, like in Zenjo, where she PINS MANAMI TOYOTA at the end of a tag match! The former beanpole is now a big, thick powerhouse wrestler.

JD’:
-haha I haven’t seen anything and if you suddenly produce shows full of matches where they don’t announce the wrestlers again I’ll come up with a reason why I won’t. Uh but they lost Lioness Asuka, who was poached by ARSION, so that’s not great for them.

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

****1/2:
Akira Hokuto vs. Meiko Satomura (April 29th)

****1/4:
Yumiko Hotta, Kumiko Maekawa & Las Cachorras Orientales vs. Kaoru Ito, Tomoko Watanabe & NanaMomo (Jan. 21st)
Kaoru Ito vs. Momoe Nakanishi (3WA Title- AJW Odaiba W Explosion)

***3/4:
Kaoru Ito vs. Manami Toyota (Japan Grand Prix)
Momoe Nakanishi vs. Kumiko Maekawa (Japan Grand Prix Finals)
Kaoru Ito, Tomoko Watanabe & NanaMomo vs. Manami Toyota, Kumiko Maekawa & Las Cahorras Orientales (Elimination Tag, Feb. 18th)
Kaoru Ito vs. Momoe Nakanishi (Japan Grand Prix)
Las Cachorras Orientales vs. Lioness Asuka & Mariko Yoshida (Twin Stars of ARSION Titles, July)

-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”. BUT Hokuto & Satomura have the year’s best match, and Ito & Nakanishi appear several times, which is a really good showing for the future as well. Also check out LCO appearing three times even as their run dies down.

GAEA JAPAN’S TITLES:
AAAW WORLD TITLE: Aja Kong (May ’99), Mayumi Ozaki (Jan. ’01), Aja Kong (Oct.), Meiko Satomura (Dec.)
AAAW WORLD TAG TITLES: Akira Hokuto & Mayumi Ozaki (Dec. 2000), Chikayo Nagashima & Sugar Sato (April ’01)

AJW’S TITLES:
WWWA WORLD TITLE: Kaoru Ito (Sept. 2000)
ALL PACIFIC TITLE: Tomoko Watanabe (July 2000), Kumiko Maekawa (Sept. ’01)
AJW TITLE: Miho Wakizawa (Sept. 2000), Rumi Kazama (May ’01), VACANT (May), Kayo Noumi (July), Kayoko Haruyama (Sept.)
WWWA SUPER LIGHTWEIGHT TITLE: Chaparrita ASARI (Oct. ’99)
WWWA WORLD TAG TEAM TITLES: Momoe Nakanishi & Nanae Takahashi (July 2000), Las Cachorras Orientales (Jan. ’01), Tomoko Watanabe & Nanae Takahashi (July)
JAPANESE TAG TEAM TITLES: Kayo Noumi & Miho Wakizawa (May 2000), VACANT (2001 sometime?)

JWP’S TITLES:
JWP OPENWEIGHT TITLE: Command Bolshoi (Aug. 2000), Azumi Hyuga (Feb. ’01)
JWP JUNIOR TITLE: Tsubasa Kuragaki (Sept. 2000), VACANT (Oct. ’01), Kobina Ichikawa (Dec.)
JWP TAG TEAM TITLES: VACANT (June 2000), Misae Genki & Ran YuYu (March ’01), Azumi Hyuga & Kayoko Haruyama (Aug.), Command Bolshoi & GAMI (Sept.)

LLPW’S TITLES:
LLPW TITLE: Eagle Sawai (Aug. 2000), Carol Midori (July ’01), VACANT (Nov.)
SIX-WOMAN TITLES: Black Joker (Sept. 2000)

JD’S TITLES:
TWF TITLE: Lioness Asuka (Jan. ’99)
TWF TAG TITLES: Drake Morimatsu & Fang Suzuki (Oct. 2000), Kamen Tenshi Freya & Kamen Tenshi Rosetta (Jan. ’01), Fang Suzuki & The Bloody (May), Hiroyo Muto & Sumie Sakai (July), KAZUKI & Sachie Abe (Dec.)
JD’ JUNIOR TITLE: Hiroyo Muto (Jan. 2000), VACANT (some time?)
QUEEN OF THE RING TITLE: Megumi Yabushita (Dec. 2000), Sumie Sakai (March ’01), The Bloody (April), Fang Suzuki (Dec.), VACANT (that day), The Bloody (Dec.)

ARSION’S TITLES:
QUEEN OF ARSION TITLE: Ayako Hamada (Dec. 2000), Lioness Asuka (Nov. ’01)
TWIN STARS OF ARSION TITLES: Las Cachorras Orientales (Dec. 2000), Lioness Asuka & Mariko Yoshida (July ’01), Ayako Hamada & Michiko Omukai (Oct.), VACANT (Oct.)
SKY HIGH OF ARSION TITLE: AKINO (Dec. 2000), VACANT (Aug. ’01), Fabi Apache (Oct.)

NEO’S TITLES:
NEO WOMEN’S TITLE & NWA PACIFIC WEST TITLE: Yoshiko Tamura (Dec. 2000), Mima Shimoda (Feb. ’01), Kyoko Inoue (March), Misae Genki (June), Lioness Asuka (Sept.), Yoshiko Tamura (Dec.)
AWF WOMEN’S TITLE: Megumi Yabushita (Nov. 2000- unified with JD’s Queen of the Ring Title), Sumie Sakai (March ’01), The Bloody (April), Fang Suzuki (Dec.), VACANT (that day), The Bloody (Dec.)
NEO ITABASHI TAG TEAM TITLES: Tanny Mouse & Yuka Miyazaki (March ’01), Acute Sae & Chiaki Nishi (June), Tanny Mouse & Yuka Miyazaki (Aug.), Chibi Rats & Debu Rats (Nov.), Tanny Mouse & Yuka Miyazaki (Dec.)
NEO KITAZAWA TAG TEAM TITLES: Tanny Mouse & Yuki Miyazaki (March ’01), Yuka Nakamura & Yuka Shiina (July), Tanny Mouse & Yuki Miyazaki (Sept.)