Joshi Spotlight — page 10

GAEA G-PANIC! Kawasaki DOUBLE DESTINY
(Sept. 20th 1997)
* It’s time for more GAEA Japan! This show ends up being a pretty big one, with the WCW Women’s Cruiserweight and AAAW World Titles both being defended- Sugar Sato attempts to bring WCW’s belt back “home” to GAEA from an AJW wrestler (Yoshiko Tamura), while AJA KONG invades GAEA to take a swing at Chigusa’s top title! Chigusa also works TWICE, as we get her as “Zero” facing Super Heel Devil Masami (Devil doing an Undertaker schtick).

WCW WOMEN’S CRUISERWEIGHT TITLE:
YOSHIKO TAMURA (AJW) vs. SUGAR SATO (GAEA):
* WCW’s belt continues to see use, as it’s become a sort of “Rookie Title”, which is a good reward for all these promising stars. Sugar, repping OZ Academy, wears Ozaki’s distinctive fruit roll-up gear from 1993-ish in a great bit, and is taking on AJW’s best rookie, Tamura, in black & pink two-piece. This is unfortunately joined in progress 14 minutes in.

So Hikari Fukuoka defeated Dynamite Kansai to become the Ace of JWP in 1997. More vulnerable and smaller than Kansai, she wrestled a far different style that had a lot of high-flying, death-defying moves in it (a Moonsault STOMP?), and had to make do with lesser competition than Kansai often had. Late 1997 sees a pair of challengers. One match is against Command Bolshoi where the mission is to make it look like the clown has a chance, and the other with an LLPW invader, Yasha Kurenai! In maybe the latter’s best solo 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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9m7xrv3xqc&ab_channel=PuroArchive

LLPW LIVE BATTLE ’97:
* This Joshi Spotlight is a bit of an outlier- yes, this has an actual *JWP vs. LLPW* Main Event- something almost unheard of given the acrimonious split between the wrestlers in 1992, where the roster was cut in half between two different companies owing to political differences. And this is from earlier in 1997, too! And it’s headlined by a mother of a Trios match- mixing up the companies’ stars to put JWP’s Dynamite Kansai & Cutie Suzuki with LLPW’s Harley Saito on one side, and LLPW’s Shinobu Kandori & Rumi Kazama with JWP’s Mayumi Ozaki on the other! So yes, this is the first ever SHINOBU KANDORI vs. DYNAMITE KANSAI showcase of the post-1991 era!

The remainder of the show is taken up by Interpromotional matches as well, first with rookies, then with elders as Takako Inoue vs. Eagle Sawai and Lioness Asuka vs. Noriyo Tateno take up the remainder of the upper card!

YOUNG GENERATION FLYING BATTLE:
MIHO WATABE (LLPW) vs. SACHIE ABE (JD’):
* Rookie mayhem! Sachie’s in red and Miho’s in mint green. Both are super-short and I’ve never heard of them, but they actually both last a really long time, well into the 2000s- rare for rookies of this time period.

The standard “AJW Rookie Match”, made unique by the fact that it’s pretty much the only time we’ve seen one of them. AJW’s training was HARD.

JOSHI SPOTLIGHT- AJW’S FAILED ROOKIES:
* So this is a slightly unique one- a look at the various FAILED wrestlers of AJW’s rookie classes! As a promotion with a strict system of training and elevation, All Japan Women’s Pro Wrestling had a system where it would take however many applicants there were, narrow it down to a handful, train a group all at once, and then debut them around the same time.

These “Trainees” would be pared down by rookies quitting, the office deciding they weren’t going to work out, etc., but eventually we’d get small debuting classes of 4-6. As the years went on, they’d go from “opening match losers” to getting focus on TV shows on occasion, then slowly pick up wins, finally get elevated, and eventually they’d start getting real pushes and be at their peak by Year 6-7. Buuuuuuuuuuuuut along the way things can happen and the wrestlers fail. And I wanted to write a column devoted JUST to the wrestlers who failed. Some of the reasons I know, some I don’t, and oftentimes I don’t even recognize the names in general or have never seen them. So naturally I can’t write full columns on THEM. But this is a tiny bit devoted to those people who fell through the cracks.

Of particular note are the infamously bad Sontitham sisters- a pair of girls from Thailand who were in only a handful of taped matches before disappearing. And I actually review a couple of them down below!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbcWOTR3Oag&ab_channel=JolanaDoe

PLUM MARIKO MEMORIAL- ARIGATO, MARI-CHAN:
* HEY, HERE’S AN UPLIFTING SUBJECT FOR A JOSHI SPOTLIGHT! It’s JWP’s Memorial VHS tape for poor Plum Mariko, who died of an in-ring injury on a house show in the summer. This is set at Korakuen Hall, and is an in-ring ceremony honoring her. JWP’s wrestlers are seen around the ring to start, Dynamite Kansai already failing to hold it together (Devil Masami is much more stoic) and then we take it right to Plum’s debut in 1986 (!) for the original form of JWP (Japan Women’s Pro Wrestling). She’s seen in a pinstriped Jobber Singlet (with red bangs in her hair!) in her debut, then we see video clips from 1988 with her and other rookies like a young short-haired Cutie Suzuki, generic looking young kid “Miss A” (Kansai) and more. Kansai & Cutie do current interviews and we get to see Plum with goofy ’80s hair and a VERY ’80s denim jacket do the mandatory “uncomfortable bad karaoke-tier musical performance”.

1989 sees her win one of the early JWP’s belts, then we’re all the way to 1992 where she joins about 2/3 of the company in forming “JWP Project” with new management. In the inaugural show in some tiny-ass TV studio, a lavender-clad Plum beats Bolshoi Kid in one of those ludicrously long, padded JWP midcard bouts, but does a good job of it considering how green her opponent is. Later, she brings in against Kansai in a JWP Title Match, looking pretty solid in clips until she jobs to a side suplex of all things. Then we see her job to “Super Heel” Devil Masami’s guillotine legdrop, the Undertaker-knockoff character doing a sick grin on the pinfall.

GAEA JAPAN- EDGE OF THE HEART:
(Aug. 30th 1997)
* WOO TIME FOR MORE GAEA JAPAN! They tend to dominate the YouTube presence of joshi in 1997 even though AJW’s stuff is far more interesting (if only for backstage stuff). This is part of a one-night tournament of unusual tag partners- the descriptions say “MIX”.

SONOKO KATO & CHIKAYO NAGASHIMA vs. SAKURA HIROTA & RINA ISHII:
* This is two 1st Generations against the greenest rookies, so this clipped match is gonna be an easy win. Kato’s in blue, Chikayo yellow/blue, Sakura pink & Rina orange.

We start with Kato decking Chikayo by mistake, leading to Sakura’s FLYING ASS and then a NASTY sandwich missile kick that looked absolutely brutal to take. Kato saves and we’re clipped to another FLYING ASS missing and Chikayo hits a Flying Stomp for the easy pin at (1:04 of 8:25 shown).

MEIKO SATOMURA & MAKIE NUMAO vs. TOSHIE UEMATSU & SUGAR SATO:
* These are mostly 1st Generation, with Numao being in the weird start of the 2nd.

Bull Nakano and Aja Kong, years before they became the Gods of Joshi and moved up the pyramid.

AJW’S TRAINING AND ELEVATION SYSTEM:
* So this is a column that was initially going to be about “AJW’s Failed Rookies”, which is something I’ve always been interested in. But I couldn’t start that without talking about the training methods and how elevation works… and when I got into that I realized it was gonna be an entire damn column’s length, so I was like… well why not just write about THAT first? So yay me!

THE ORDER OF TRAINING:
-A lot of this comes from both watching stuff, and talking to others more “in the know” about the behind-the-scenes stuff. A few documentaries and interviews with wrestlers have backed up most of it, too. And note that the year you debuted is SUPER IMPORTANT, particularly behind the scenes- even somebody above an wrestler on the card still has to listen to a “senior”. Like no dissing an 8th Year cuz you got the White Belt and they never will. Note that “assessments” are held around January of each year, which explains why I saw so many people suddenly get huge pushes out of nowhere at the start of every year in my timeline, lol.

Note also that this is NOT limited to wrestling; the order in which you entered a place being important is a foundational aspect of Japanese culture. Anyone with more experience is a “senpai” and if they tell you to do something, you damn well do it. A “Big Senior” may as well be a god. You even speak the language slightly differently based on this level of respect. It’s huge in baseball, for example, and any company has it (especially back when you were expected to work some place for life). This is a regular source of frustration for young people, and I’ve seen a lot of people complain about it as Japan’s population ages and people don’t move out of jobs.

* “Applicants”: AJW’s heads (the Matsunagas) and their trainers (some of whom are also Matsunagas) take a look at all of the applicants. This can number in the dozens or the thousands based off of how popular the company is at any given time. The “Crush Gals” boom of the ’80s, for example, led to literally thousands of girls applying, so AJW could select from the cream of the crop. Bad years and unpopular times lead to much smaller classes- the Crush Gals Boom led to Yumiko Hotta, Aja Kong, Manami Toyota, Las Cachorras Orientales, and more… the crap year of 1990 led to Numacchi & Akemi Torisu.

It’s another one-match Joshi Spotlight! The only thing I could find from Aug. 22nd 1997 was this bout between four of AJW’s top stars, only two days after Kyoko lost the WWWA Title to Yumiko Hotta. Come see LCO churn out ANOTHER insane banger of a match!

LAS CACHORRAS ORIENTALES (Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda, w/ Saya Endo) vs. MANAMI TOYOTA & KYOKO INOUE:
* It’s another clash of “LCO vs. The People Who Hate Them”, this time with the entire list narrowed down from “everyone” to “Manami & Kyoko”. Kyoko & Aja just beat LCO earlier in the month, and this is another non-title match. LCO are in the usual purple & white gear, Kyoko’s in rainbow gear & Manami’s in black & gold. Manami vs. Shimoda matches tend to be an extra level of psychotic, since for some reason Manami only accesses the “tear their hair off” aspect of her personality when her ex-partner’s in the ring.

AJW BUDOKAN QUEENS- BRIGHTNESS:
(Aug. 20th 1997)
* And now we come to the last great hurrah of AJW, as the promotion more or less falls apart by we get two major matches- a “Graduation Match” of Aja Kong as she takes on her craziest opponent and best in-ring competitor, Manami Toyota just before Aja leaves AJW for good, and then it’s the World Title match, as Kyoko Inoue defends the Red Belt against Yumiko Hotta, one of the last holdouts as a bankrupt AJW loses almost all their big stars! Despite a year of pretty poor business, this one appears to have packed them in a fair bit, as AJW *gasp!* SHOWS THE UPPER DECKS! Aja is definitely a big draw of it here, as she’s already announced her impending departure.

Aaaaaaaaaaaand on this show (not aired here) Kyoko gets on the house mic in the opening ceremony and announces she is QUITTING THE PROMOTION, taking a few stars with her to form a new company! AJW management is understandably furious, and the heat for her World Title match tonight is therefore destroyed cuz like… everyone in the arena knows what’s gonna happen. haha, well serves ’em right for not paying her.

AJA KONG GRADUATION MATCH:
MANAMI TOYOTA vs. AJA KONG:
(Aug. 20th 1997)
* It’s Manami/Aja! One last time in a major contest (the others are far later and way past the prime of either)- the two have had more than one ***** match together, so hype would be high for this one. Aja’s in green & black and Manami’s in black with a gold chestpiece.

JWP PURE-HEART FESTIVAL:
(Aug. 17th 1997)
* A big JWP show at Korakuen Hall happens on August 17th, featuring a day show and a night show (with everyone wrestling on both shows). If I’m reading the date right, this is filmed literally the day after Plum Mariko was killed in the ring by Mayumi Ozaki’s Ligerbomb. If so, HOLY SHIT.

This one also features the Retirement Match of Candy Okutsu, as her real-life best friend Hikari Fukuoka defends the JWP Title against her, but can’t hold it together for the match- it’s a pretty unique display. How many matches do you see where one person is sobbing the entire time?

Note that there’s a Day Show and Night Show, but I can only find one Day Show match.

DAY SHOW:

TOMOKO KUZUMI & SARI OSUMI (JWP) vs. COMMAND BOLSHOI (JWP) & EMI MOTOKAWA (IWA):
* It’s lowercard madness, with the best of JWP’s rookies (Kuzumi) teaming up with brand-new rookie Sari Osumi against Bolshoi (a midcarder at this point) and the future Emi Sakura, who wrestles for IWA in its tiny women’s division at this point. I imagine Bolshoi’s team is taking this rather easily. Kuzumi’s in neon splatterpaint in an “Idol” outfit (all the cut-outs & fringe is a dead giveaway), Osumi’s in the most hideous black singlet with green leaf designs ever, Bolshoi’s in the same gear as last match & Emi’s in orange/black.

They both abuse Osumi for a while with basic stuff, and she reverses a whip to escape only for Kuzumi to now eat a beating. Bolshoi resthold, Emi flying splash & surfboard, and then Bolshoi misses a moonsault but lands on her feet, then slingshots onto both rookies, only for Kuzumi to do the same to HER team. Bolshoi quickly gets a German, and we’re clipped to Osumi eating more punishment. She gets a pop for kicking out of a rock bottom and escapes after a while, then Kuzumi hits four backbreaker variations on Bolshoi for two. Bolshoi counters up top and moonsaults Kuzumi for two, then Osumi stops a double-team and Kuzumi gets a butterfly superplex- Emi has to save. Kuzumi charges herself up, but is horrified when Osumi tags herself in and is too far away for a top-rope move so just runs up for a shitty splash pin that Emi half-heartedly breaks up. Emi runs into Bolshoi by accident and the kids set up a Doomsday Device, but Bolshoi & Osumi fuck up what was supposed to be a rana reversal and Bolshoi just punches her for the pin at (9:29 of 13:38 shown). Oh come on- at least improvise a better finish!

Boring filler match with Osumi just being abused and even Tomoko not getting to do anything. Bolshoi just kind of ate both of them alive, possibly in anticipation of their attempt to make her a bigger star. Kuzumi got a good run with her backbreakers and top-rope suplex, which means there’s a lot of hope for her. Osumi was sucky but that’s expected in her first year- her size was an issue for Bolshoi (Osumi is only 5’4″ but way taller and bulkier than Bolshoi), who should really be better than this at this point. The finisher is also on Bolshoi- she didn’t get enough elevation to spin herself around Osumi, getting her leg caught on the shoulder and then falling on her ass. Also, who does that spot with a rookie?

Rating: 1/2* (some okay stuff from Kuzumi but awful otherwise- like ten minutes of rookie beatings)

MAYUMI OZAKI (JWP) vs. YUMI FUKAWA (AJW):
* Ozaki takes on AJW’s newest wannabe Idol, Yumi Fukawa, in an interpromotional match! Few are better at getting something out of a green opponent than Ozaki, so this will be interesting. Fukawa’s in a very sparkly white outfit with blue on it- clearly someone is putting a lot of effort into her gear.

AJW (Aug. 8th 1997):

And now it’s time for a throwback- the very first column I posted to this site was a review of this match. I e-mailed this review to Scott, figuring if he didn’t want a Joshi column I’d just ship it to 411 or whatever, and he approved it (I’m 99% sure he just did it without checking, lol). And so now I’ve finally reached the point in my timeline where this match sits, so I can re-post it.

So come and read the recap of maybe the wildest and greatest of all the garbage brawls in history! This time with less ALL CAPS BECAUSE OF HUGE MOVES OMG YOU GUYS!

This also features a Semi-Final for the Japan Grand Prix 1997 (mostly unavailable on YouTube- a big channels I pull from got deleted so I don’t have much else)- Manami Toyota vs. Kaoru Ito in another great performance!

JAPAN GRAND PRIX (Semi-Finals):
MANAMI TOYOTA vs. KAORU ITO:
* It’s a big one! Ito has been getting the “Jesus Push” all year, proving nigh-unpinnable all of a sudden as AJW does the classic “OH SHIT- We forgot to push anyone to the next level!” thing (or this is just how they naturally do business every January) and then Ito is randomly impossible to hurt and beating Main Eventers. She drew with Aja, and then pinned Manami (who had only lost the 3WA Title a month or so before)! Then she went to a 60-minute broadway with Kyoko Inoue, who vacated the belt and beat Ito for it in a title match. So now this one has real drama and an “either can win” atmosphere. Manami’s in black with white fringe and Ito’s in the white with black & orange fire.

JOSHI SPOTLIGHT- AKEMI TORISU:
Billed Height & Weight: 5’5″ 220 lbs.+
Career Length: 1990-1992

-Yeah, it’s a “Short Article” week, so I figured I’d do a bio of one of the failed nobody joshi of the ’90s! Akemi Torisu is barely remembered by anyone, and those who do just recall this giant stiff. Worse still, AJW put a bunch of work into her, but it never panned out and she retired young, so it was all a waste.

The idea was… well it was doomed to failure. All Japan Women’s Pro-Wrestling (AJW) had a legit bad-ass who could do shoot matches in Bat Yoshinaga (a short but burly karate expert), and Akemi was brought in more or less as her own personal jobber. But like… in real life, as these matches were meant to add variety to the shows. Akemi had a background in karate and so actually skipped the typical “audition process” for AJW and was hired on directly to fight with Bat and be a rival for her.

However, she struggled with her weight and just didn’t pick up wrestling (granted, she didn’t have much time to do it) and faded away in a hurry. And she was AWFUL, too- even two years into her career, she moved like she was made of wet bags of cement, with most of her offense consisting of running into people. She was too big in the wrong sort of way- Aja Kong & Bull Nakano were big but could bump and choose when and how to sell or get moved, while Torisu appeared to have difficulty being moved about at all. TO BE FAIR, she was green as grass and was chosen without having to audition- there was no chance she’d have been good in only two years.

GAEA JAPAN (July 21st):
* So only two days after a major GAEA show propping up all their rookies in huge, hard-fought matches, here’s another show! Hey, why did their rookies get shitloads of injuries early on and most of them retire early, again? This one is interesting because it features a Pancrase Rules match where Toshiyo Yamada, more familiar with “Shoot-Style” wrestling, goes up against KAORU, who is the opposite sort of worker and has to adapt. Then it’s Chigusa Nagayo & a 3rd-year against two other 3rd-years in a “What have you learned?” match, and finally an interesting one where Yamada dresses up as Akira Hokuto’s masked identity and wrestles a completely opposite type of match herself. I mean, you don’t see THAT very often, and hell- it’s an impressive performance!

PANCRASE RULES:
KAORU vs. TOSHIYO YAMADA:
* Okay, so KAORU is wearing the GAEA kickpads Chigusa gifted her a few shows ago, so there’s continuity here. An all-new look for her, too, as she’s dropped the one-piece singlet look for a sports top and long shorts, plus has much shorter hair. And she’s up against the new big star of GAEA in Yamada, fresh from AJW. Both are in black in the same gear and OH, this is that Pancrase Rules match I read about on Quebrada.net! Okay, then. So Pancrase was a then-popular shootfight promotion, which a VERY controversial amount of works (those within it deny that there were many, but the fact that there were any AT ALL throws absolutely everything into question)… so this is fought like it’s UFC but it’s a work. Oh, and you get four rope-breaks before you lose.

GAEA JAPAN- THE SECOND JUNIOR ALL-STAR:
(June 19th 1997)
* A big GAEA show from June 19th, showcasing a lot of their rookies, and those from other companies. Interpromotional Rookie Mayhem abounds! Toshie Uematsu defends the WCW Cruiserweight Title against AJW’s Yoshiko Tamura, in the most effort either has shown to this level! Several people have REALLY good tag team matches while you get to see others have the same type of match with way less experience, so you can weigh just how much such things count, haha. But really, it’s like several versions of the “Flair/Steamboat of Inexperienced Rookie Matches”.

This ends up being a MONSTER review, oddly, because there’s just so many damn matches on it, and many are quite long.

SAKURA HIROTA, RINA ISHII & HIROMI KATO (GAEA Japan) vs. NANA FUJIMURA, AYA KOYAMA & MIHO KAWASAKI (Big Japan):
* hahah, good lord! BIG JAPAN of all companies had a women’s division! Mostly known for its deathmatches, Big Japan was Indie Sleaze personified from everything I’ve seen. It now sends its rookies (whom I’ve never seen before) to wrestle GAEA’s most minor recurring wrestlers. Sakura’s in pink, Rina’s in orange, Kato’s in black, Nana’s in black (but with armbands!), Toyama’s in floral-printed white & Miho’s in baggy red pants and a white t-shirt.

JOSHI SPOTLIGHT- UTAKO HOZUMI:
Billed Height & Weight: 5’2″ 117 lbs.
Career Length: 1989-1994

-One of the “forgotten wrestlers”, Utako Hozumi has the bad luck of wrestling for Ladies Legend Pro Wrestling (LLPW), the least-hyped and popular women’s companies of 1990s Japan. Performing as an “Idol”-type wrestler, she was fairly undersized and not that experienced, and never quite got out of the midcard before she retired.

Having watched a lot of her stuff, she was… fine. She needed to be carried against anyone good but she could hold up her end of a match and at least TRIED to have a character, unlike a lot of others in her company who were just kind of “there”. Mike Lorefice once bemoaned how “Hozumi is one of the marketable talents LLPW managed to completely squander. One would think a league where none of the stars had any sex appeal might do someone with one of the best looking women ever to compete, especially since she was also a good wrestler. Hozumi was a better worker than Cuty Suzuki, who was so crucial to JWP becoming the more watched promotion once the original league splintered into two.”

GAEA JAPAN- PERFECT GAME:
(May 5th 1997)
* It’s another GAEA Japan show from the Champ Forum TV show, but only two matches from it ended up on their YouTube channel. We miss what’s apparently a pretty good Akira Hokuto vs. KAORU match, possibly ending their feud that was materializing earlier in the year. Mike Lorefice says it was Hokuto’s best match of the year, even though “KAORU is just a spot machine”.

Following that, it’s some stuff from early July, though the next review later this week will sport the full July 19th show- a pretty big one for GAEA.

CHIGUSA NAGAYO vs. KAORU:
* The two top originals in GAEA fight once again! Actually they were hesitant to run this for a while at first because they were the only two actual stars there, but now that Hokuto is here it’s probably fine. Chigusa appears to have more professionally-made gear than her kinda messy usual- more streamlined tonight with the black & red and the gold stars. KAORU’s in white.

JWP IN MAY 1997:
* So “1997- The Year Joshi Was Cursed” is assuredly a thing, as not only does AJW go bankrupt, but JWP becomes one of the only companies to have an active wrestler die of an injury in the ring. This is three matches featuring what was going on in Japan Women’s Pro-Wrestling in 1997! All with the standard “gotta go to 20+ minutes” JWP effect, but there’s good effort throughout, including a big Dream Match as Jaguar Yokota & Devil Masami form an ’80s Superteam up against Dynamite Kansai & Candy Okutsu!

Also, tragically, this is the last Plum Mariko match ever recorded, as she wrestles in a very good tag match alongside Cutie Suzuki against the JWP Tag Champions, Hikari Fukuoka & Devil.

And AEW fans might get a kick out of seeing AEW star Emi Sakura in her rookie years as she joins a trios match!

DYNAMITE KANSAI, SARI OSUMI & EMI MOTOKAWA (IWA Japan) vs. CANDY OKUTSU, COMMAND BOLSHOI & TOMOKO MIYAGUCHI:
(May 10th 1997)
* It’s an interesting trios match, with the former Ace teaming with two barely-trained jobbers against Candy & Bolshoi, who are way beneath Kansai but far above the jobbers, and Miyaguchi (the future Ran Yu-Yu, which I keep having to remind myself). Also Emi, currently a second-year, is the future “Emi Sakura” and is currently an IWA-Japan wrestler. The psychology here will be interesting, as Kansai can annihilate anyone here, but her partners are weaksauce and can easily be beaten by any of the three opponents. Kansai’s in black w/ neon yellow, Sari’s in a jobber swimsuit with green leaves on dark green, Emi’s in black & orange (with a sorta-skirt), Candy’s in black, Bolshoi’s in an extremely elaborate pink/blue/black bodysuit & Miyaguchi’s in white with red.

JOSHI SPOTLIGHT- COMBAT TOYODA:
Real Name: Noriyo Toyoda
Billed Height & Weight: 5’6″ 195 lbs.
Career Length: 1986-88 (let go from AJW), 1990-1996 (FMW)

-Megumi Kudo’s great rival and partner, Combat Toyoda is the OTHER “Good Female FMW Wrestler”, and the most unfortunate thing about her is her entire career runs the length of Aja Kong’s, who did exactly what she did but was better in every way because Aja’s one of the greatest wrestlers of all time, while Combat was merely “very good”. But Combat herself has a match many would consider *****- and in her RETIREMENT match- the No Ropes Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch against Kudo herself!

As the other big female star in Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW), Combat was a perfect rival to Kudo, who was pretty, slender and sympathetic. A big, mean powerhouse, Toyoda could launch people around, defiantly no-sell, and believably crush opposition. Combat was really good as the “Monster”-style worker, particularly because she had one of the most important things a Monster needs: SELLING ABILITY. Underrated since by all rights, Monsters are defined by the difficulty in getting them to sell at all, but it’s the timing of said selling that makes it work. Combat was really good at no-selling, but only up to a point- it’s when you start selling the fourth and fifth attack that the fans start to react, as even by ignoring the first couple, you’ve “put over” your opponent by going “HOLY SHIT- that one actually hurt!” to their last shot. She doesn’t just gobble people up- like the best Monsters, she eats offense and sells when it’s time to, and makes it look like her opponent has a chance.

It’s time for another Joshi Spotlight, this one a bit of a flashback, as I take a look again at Megumi Kudo’s final run. Here, it’s a pair of Shinobu Kandori matches I missed, as they have a regular one to set up a bloody No-Ropes Barbed Wire Deathmatch shortly before Kudo hangs it up! I also found a compilation of Kudo matches from FMW & LLPW, as she faces Yasha Kurenai and does a tag bout against Rumi Kazama & Utako Hozumi!

MEGUMI KUDO (FMW) vs. SHINOBU KANDORI (LLPW):
(FMW, 12/11/1996)
* Here’s a Battle of the Aces, as Kudo takes on LLPW’s Shinobu Kandori, whose super-shooter aura used to be uncontested- this could have real Hokuto/Kandori potential given how good Kudo is at psychology. Kandori’s got blonde hair and a purple singlet on, while Kudo’s in the black one-legged get-up.

Korakuen Hall has featured a lot of great tag matches over the years, but not a lot of ones where someone gets thrown off the goddamn balcony!

AJW TWO DAY RIOT:
(June 18th 1997)
* It’s time for more AJW! However, much of this show is missing from YouTube, but at least I got the old 3WA Tag Title match from my Tomoko Watanabe spotlight! And that one’s an all-timer tag match that establishes the threat of current LCO, as they lay waste to the Tag Champions and one of them even falls off the balcony of Korakuen Hall! This is the day after the preceding show I reviewed, meaning some of these people are putting on ****+ matches two nights in a row. There’s also one hell of a sell-job from Manami Toyota as she’s brutalized by Yumiko Hotta & Kaoru Ito, then fires back with some ridiculous potato shots as SOMETHING is definitely going on.

It’s important to note that by this point, according to Evito-X, the talent hadn’t been paid in at least a month. We’re not long from the bankruptcy here- about two months, and they start losing wrestlers before that. So this is one of the last big “Full AJW Roster” big shows left!