Joshi Spotlight — page 15

JOSHI SPOTLIGHT- MIKI HANDA:
Billed Height & Weight: 5’3″ 132 lbs.
Career: 1987-1995

And now we come to Miki Handa, who is interestingly forgettable given how she’s been in some incredible matches here and there. I mean, I kinda love doing Spotlights on lesser names as there’s often a lot more to discover than in an obviously famous wrestler’s case, but here I couldn’t find squat!

I sorta chalk it up to Handa being like plain bread- no taste on its own, but it soaks up the flavors of stuff around it, so it can’t hurt anything. In a sense, Miki is herself not that notable, but you can slot her in with three great workers and have a great match that she doesn’t detract from in the slightest. Not the most GLOWING of praise… but keep in mind how many potentially good or great matches are wrecked by one sub-par worker. In this sense, Miki works to the level of her opponent, and thus you’ll find a surprising number of ***1/2-**** matches from her if her opponents are good enough.

Starting off with Takako/Bison. 

AJW JAPAN GRAND PRIX ’95 (FINAL):
(Sept. 3rd 1995)
* So we’ve hit the finals of the Japan Grand Prix for 1995, with the World Title shot at stake! Unfortunately I only have two matches from this show, with the Takako/Bison match being clipped a bit. This Round Robin was a bit strange, with some flat-out odd results. You’ve got All-Pacific Champion Toshiyo Yamada tying with Shimoda, Reggie and even Kaoru Ito (!), Chaparrita ASARI getting no wins at all (with Rie Tamada above her!). Then Block B is oddly weak, with the bizarre result of TAKAKO Inoue surpassing KYOKO Inoue in the blocks. This might be because Takako scored some flukes and Kyoko jobbed to Mita and drew with Takako, I dunno. Look at poor Mita struggling in the back end of the block, though… and even Sakie Hasegawa only gets a middling rank, which is shocking given how 1995 is “The Year of Sakie’s Push”.

BLOCK A:
Manami Toyota—–11
Bison Kimura——–9
Reggie Bennett——8
Kaoru Ito————8
Mima Shimoda——8
Toshiyo Yamada—–8
Rie Tamada———-2
Chaparita Asari——0

Block B:
Yumiko Hotta——–12
Takako Inoue———11
Kyoko Inoue———-9
Mariko Yoshida——-8
Sakie Hasegawa——6
Etsuko Mita———–6
Tomoko Watanabe—4
Kumiko Maekawa—-0

Part One

AJW DESTINY:
(Sept. 2nd 1995)
* So AJW is going wild at the moment- we’re in the middle of the Japan Grand Prix round-robin, a rival promotion’s Ace (Dynamite Kansai) is AJW’s World Champion, and ticket sales are suffering in part because we’re outta fresh match-ups. Yet we’re still having ****+ matches all over the place, so fuck it- I’D be buying tickets! This is a mega, mega, mega-event, too, with TOYOTA/HOKUTO as the Main Event- two of the very best on the entire planet at this point. It’s like them, Bret, Shawn, and three of the Four Pillars and that’s it.

Also on the card are matches between upper-midcarders Yumiko Hotta & Reggie Bennett, Kyoko Inoue & Bull Nakano doing another match in Bull’s last hurrah as a major solo act (and she knows it), Aja Kong taking on her old partner Bison Kimura, and even LCO fighting the Raijin Army, which includes their trainer Jaguar Yokota. This show is STACKED, and nearly five hours long. Mike Lorefice darkly notes that this is “the last excellent top to bottom show AJW has presented”.

Of particular note is the fact that this show is literally THREE DAYS after the fantastic “Queen’s Holy Night” show, which featured Aja lose the 3WA Title to Kansai in a ****1/4 match, Akira Hokuto & Mima Shimoda hitting ***3/4, and a ****3/4-***** match between Manami & Sakie and Double Inoue! So everyone on here is busting their ass despite wrestling on the same level three days earlier!

“TL;DR: What’s The Deal?”: One of the year’s best matches in the main event, plus the big stars in assorted other bouts (including what I think is Reggie’s best match). Also shorter match lengths than in many other big shows- only two go over 20:00, so nobody is overstaying their welcome.

We start with like THIRTY MINUTES of assorted stuff, with Bull’s old stable (her, Kyoko & Tomoko) showing up for an interview, assorted signings and even memorabilia (a J.B. Angels magazine cover, ASARI’s gear, etc.). Backstage stuff with Hokuto & Bull putting on their gear together. Everyone comes out in white shirts and red shorts to start the show- the real mark of a “big event”. Biggest reactions by far are for Bull (who almost never wrestles now) and Akira. Manami & Kyoko get the next biggest reactions, but much more muted.

So with my review of AJW Destiny, with a legendary Hokuto/Toyota match on it, coming up this Monday, I figured I would finally review their first notable contest- the Jan. 11th, 1991 show! Back when Manami was the All-Pacific Champion and Akira was coming in injured. You know, for a change.

AJW ALL-PACIFIC TITLE:
MANAMI TOYOTA vs. AKIRA HOKUTO:
(Jan. 11th, 1991)
* So here’s a highly-recommended match from Evito-X’s puro channel. Neither wrestler is remotely as big as they’d later become- Hokuto is already just below the Main Event-tier, however, with a sporty haircut and in her old white & black karate gear, while Toyota’s a rising star in a black… singlet? Wow, it’s so weird not seeing her in the standard leotard. And she’s the current All-Pacific Champion! Akira is sporting a HUGE bandage wrap all up her right arm, as well as all over her right leg, which makes her look close to death and suicidally insane. So truth in advertising, I guess. Suzuka Minami, Akira’s tag partner, is her second here.

Manami hits the JB Angels armdrag immediately, then stomps the shit out of the cast to boos- hey, it’s a big target you judgemental assholes! Akira Flair-Slams her out of another armdrag but gets rolled up for one, then Manami hauls her down by the arm and starts to unwrap her like a cartoon mummy. Manami undoes the entire damn thing like she’s straight out of LCO, sending Akira scurrying to the outside for medical help, then BREAKS THE SPLINT OVER HER KNEE just to show she means it. Then she shreds the arm as soon as Akira’s back in- the medics finally re-wrap the arm while Akira moans in agony, literally heard crying on camera.

AJW OSAKA QUEEN’S HOLY NIGHT (WWWA Championship Night):
(Aug. 30th 1995)
* Welcome back to another Joshi Spotlight, as we take a look at one of the biggest shows of the year! This one has a pretty great concept- it’s just all the top belts being defended, including the fourth match between Aja Kong & Dynamite Kansai! Plus Double Inoue defend their Tag Titles against Manami Toyota & Sakie Hasegawa for the third time!

Some matches aren’t available on YouTube as far as I can tell. Mike Lorefice’s ratings are in brackets:
Rie Tamada, Yoshiko Tamura & Yumi Fukawa defeat Chaparrita ASARI, Misae Watanabe & Yuka Shiina (8:56): Basic rookie trios match. (*1/2)
Kaoru Ito & Mariko Yoshida defeat Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa (8:55): The rating seems high, here- not even ten minutes and it gets four stars (****)?.
Yumiko Hotta & Toshiyo Yamada & Etsuko Mita defeat Jaguar Yokota & Bison Kimura & Reggie Bennett (12:55): Interesting use of the Raijin Army, pairing them up with Reggie against… well a Random Grab-Bag team. (***1/4)
Bull Nakano beats Lioness Asuka (1:29): Huh. (*)

LAS CACHORRAS ORIENTALES EXPLODE!:
AKIRA HOKUTO vs. MIMA SHIMODA:
* Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh shit- here comes Hokuto bringing the hate against her stablemate and adoring fangirl, Mima Shimoda! Hokuto’s in pink & white, while Shimoda’s in red, black & gold.

Writing these columns about Joshi produces some great challenges: Finding information on incredibly obscure wrestlers; speculating on angles and wrestlers without the benefit of “being there” in context; and writing anything about Reggie Bennett without turning into a cartoon wolf.

JOSHI SPOTLIGHT- REGGIE BENNETT:
Billed Height & Weight: 5’8″ 249 lbs. (it, um, varies, though- she was very toned in her early career)
Career: 1986-2001

-Reggie Bennett is, in many ways, the perfect Upper-Midcard wrestler. Not credible enough to be World Champion, she’s just this big, powerful wrestler able to be a credible opponent for everyone from the technical geniuses to the strikers to the monsters, yet has a likeable charisma (she’s kind of endearingly cheery in pre-match promos, even against murderous opponents) and just enough cardio to both get the fans behind her and do the long matches that Joshi requires. She kind of came out of nowhere as a forgettable women’s wrestler in the US to become AJW’s new “Big Gaijin” (a role they sometimes utilized), and actually made a heck of a career of it, unlike weaker stars like Terri Powers.

While nobody thinks Reggie’s a great worker, she’s very good at her chosen style, which is “Being Big and Wrestling Big”. Not really athletic or quick, she was big and strong and fought like it. Like Andre the Giant, she wrestled like you thought a bear might wrestle- big bear paws, or just grabbing people and hauling them down. Being, um, top-heavy, she had a somewhat awkward motion, but it still looked like it hurt when she charged in like a rickety freight train. And her Splash is legit one of the best ones ever- just hauling off the ropes and doing a wicked Superman Dive and just SPLATTING people. Like, in a company with Tiger Superplexes, Electric Chair Suplex Holds and Sit-Out Razor’s Edges as finishers, that Splash still looked like it hurt like hell.

GAEA WRESTLE OF DREAMS:
(06.18.1995)
* It’s another GAEA Korakuen show, featuring more of a lesser cast that the previous ones, though if features the #2 & 3 GAEA wrestlers paired off in a match, with KAORU taking on Bomber Hikaru. The Main Event is a peculiar one- Chigusa Nagayo taking on FMW’s Bad Nurse Nakamura of all people! I’ll also add in the next show they did, featuring KAORU vs. Candy Okutsu, and Chigusa, Meiko & Kato against Devil Masami and the two Tomokos from JWP!

This one’s missing a short Meiko Satomura vs. Chihiro Nakano match (2:41), and Chikayo Nagashima beating Makie Numao in (6:03 of 12:05 shown) in Makie’s debut match. She makes a real go of it, lasting about four years, but appears to be a job girl the entire time from a quick scan of CageMatch, almost always losing.

MOST FIGHTING G vs. J:
TOSHIE UEMATSU & SONOKO KATO (GAEA Japan) vs. TOMOKO MIYAGUCHI & TOMOMI KOBAYASHI (JWP):
* Rookie Mayhem starts us off, with Uematsu (green) & Kato (blue) representing GAEA against Miyaguchi (red) & Kobayashi (yellow) from JWP. Miyaguchi is the future Ran Yu-Yu and has looked okay in the past. These names are absolutely awful for my poor typing, lol- I can’t even switch to first names, because then it’s Toshie, Tomoko & Tomomi! Thank God this is clipped.

Pretty much universally considered Shimoda’s best singles match. And it’s Manami’s THIRD ***** match of the year.

AJW JAPAN GRAND PRIX ’95- PART ONE & TWO:
(July 1995)
* And the AJW Grand Prix is back! Last year’s was almost completely blown off and Hotta quietly won it for whatever reason, but this time it’s For Serious and it’s a big deal. Except I can only find a tiny handful of matches on YouTube of the first two shows. I managed to cobble together some other info on the tournament, at least. I’m posting this as an “extra” for Friday because it’s something I’ve reviewed before, plus just a summation of the goings-on at the time.

MANAMI TOYOTA vs. MIMA SHIMODA (AJW Japan Grand Prix- Round Robin, 23.07.1995)
* This is an interesting one, timeline-wise, as Manami is the top-tier girl at AJW at this point, and pretty much a living legend of Joshi (as what was generally accepted as the best worker), while Shimoda, who was a midcard tag team player in 1993, has now elevated herself to a higher level. Both have a history- they were a tag team coming up in the late 1980s before Toyota had better success with the sportier Toshiyo Yamada. Shimoda’s cheating will be an interesting counterpoint to Toyota’s hyper-graceful style. Their pre-match interviews show both women in good spirits- Manami looks so serious most of the time, but here she’s smiling a ton and laughing along with the interviewer. Hey, both these ladies aren’t bad looking- has anyone else noticed this? And HOLY GOD, Manami’s pre-match outfit- this giant, flowing white qipao dress with enormous, fluffy feathered sleeves. Now THAT is style. Manami’s in her black leotard with the arm cutouts, while Shimoda’s still in her black & red two-piece with all the yellow tassles.

DYNAMITE KANSAI vs. MAYUMI OZAKI- DRESS UP WILD FIGHT #2:
(July 9th, 1995)

* Hey, look! It’s the sequel to the amazing ****3/4 “Dress Up Wild Fight” brawl from earlier in the year. So JWP’s Ace and the devilish Ozaki face off one more time. Last match, they beat the ever-loving SHIT out of each other, dragging one another all over the arena. Kansai bled buckets, Ozaki bit the cut and then spat the blood at the referee to be a shit about it, and Ozaki nearly died a thousand times but managed a last-second roll-up to win. So this is good old-fashioned revenge, probably selling tickets based off of how great the first match was.

DRESS UP WILD FIGHT #2:
DYNAMITE KANSAI vs. MAYUMI OZAKI:
* Both are in street clothes again, with Ozaki in a black shirt & blue jeans, and Kansai in a white shirt & green army fatigues. Ozaki hangs out in the stands during her entrance theme, so Kansai has to go find her while “Night Creeper” plays- she calls out Oz and soon it’s a brawl using a chain as the bell rings!

Kandori, looking humorously like a female version of Antonio Inoki. Especially with the Elvis hair.

JOSHI SPOTLIGHT- SHINOBU KANDORI:
Billed Height & Weight: 5’7″ 165 lbs.
Career Length: 1986-today

-Shinobu Kandori, Brock Lesnar before there was a Brock Lesnar (ie. the snide, arrogant, vicious shoot-fighter whose real-life cred is played into their wrestling character) is one of those very few wrestlers that has a match so good that it eclipsed the fact that she’s one of the only pro wrestlers to ever shoot on someone in a televised match! Her ***** showdown with Akira Hokuto at AJW Dream Slam in 1993 is heralded as one of the best matches of all time, and has an even shot at being the greatest women’s match of all time. And yet nearly all the praise went to Hokuto!

Overall, Kandori has an iffy reputation in joshi circles- people like Mike Lorefice have brushed her off as having been entirely carried to one of the greatest matches of all time- and it’s generally accepted that yeah, she was the lesser party there. She’s even ignored for holding the World Championships of TWO COMPANIES simultaneously! But I think having seen a bunch of her stuff, and great matches with a variety of opponents, proves that Kandori is in fact HIGHLY underrated and could definitely hang with the top stars. Like, I would say she was the lesser worker in every one of her great matches… but her opponents were people like friggin’ Hokuto, Kyoko Inoue & Manami Toyota, y’know? I mean, do we shit on Davey-Boy Smith because “he only had ***** matches with top wrestlers?” No- we certainly don’t put him in the Greatest of All Time lists or Mount Rushmores or whatever we classify wrestlers with these days, but he’s a well-respected worker!

GAEA SECOND BATTLE:
(4/15/1995)
* More GAEA Japan goodness, as Chigusa does a tag match alongside her Mini-Me, Meiko Satomura, against some LLPW invaders on one show, and then two months later, we check out the match everyone wanted to see- a Dream Slam rematch between ’80s icons Chigusa & Devil! Plus more from the Angry Teenager Division!

I wasn’t sure if I should split this into two reviews (1500-ish words each) or one big one, so let me know which y’all would prefer.

FMW WOMEN’S TITLE:
BAD NURSE NAKAMURA vs. MEGUMI KUDO:
(May 5th 1995)
* This is from an FMW Stadium Show, featuring Bad Nurse as the Champion and Kudo the challenger- Kudo’s already suffered some kind of injury, judging by a large bandage on her face. Kudo’s in military fatigues with her face covered by a Hanes brand towel for some kinda reveal, while Bad Nurse has the creepy white facepaint on. Aaaaaaaand then Kudo bursts forth from behind Bad Nurse & assaults her, revealing the “Kudo” in the ring as a decoy. Nice! The old Dump Matsumoto trick!

The Main Event. Great thumbnail.

AJW SAPPORO BEST*ONE:
(27.06.1995)

-Coming from Sapporo is this two-match tape featuring Las Cachorras Orientales reuniting- Akira Hokuto rejoins Mita & Shimoda to put the trio back together, and they’re out to murder a randomly thrown-together trio! And also, more importantly, the WWWA World Title is on the line once again, as Manami Toyota defends against the previous champion, Aja Kong- champ rematches seem like a rarity (Bull never got one, but she was stepping back). A now-retired Suzuka Minami joins the crew at the beginning of the TV show. And also we see clips of Kensuke Sasaki & Akira Hokuto announcing their engagement! Seeing Hokuto as a reserved bride-lady is really different. Sasaki cracks up EVERYONE at the press conference with whatever he said, too.

The Japanese commercials are back, though! There’s apparently a Japanese version of “Stand By Me”! They advertise a “Born To Be Wild” movie with a guy in a gorilla suit- never heard of that one.

The matches not shown:
Nobue Endo d. Yoko Takahashi (6:03): Rookie mayhem! I bet a bodyslam was the finish!
AJW Junior Title Tournament: Yoshiko Tamura d. Misae Watanabe (10:05): A new Top Rookie!

JWP IN CHINA:
(May 1995)

* So now I finally hit more JWP matches in Rico Kasai’s YouTube channel, and these seven matches are all from a JWP tour of China in May 1995! I’m really curious what their effort-level will be. “Bret at a House Show”-tier since the crowd isn’t even aware of them? “We want to leave a good impression” tier? PPV-tier? Um, probably not that one.

The first match opens with a bit of sightseeing and clips of Chinese people doing things, while the second involves the gang at the Great Wall of China. The first show takes place in a very small auditorium with most of the crowd being Chinese military, and a “Pure Heart China” sign that looks like it was scribbled in felt-tip market the minute before showtime. There’s some announcer talking during EVERYTHING, which is weird and kinda distracting.

“TL;DR- What’s The Deal?”: Overall, this ends up being kind of an interesting look at how you make wrestling fun to an audience that’s unfamiliar with it… while also saving your bodies by not throwing too much effort into the actual moves. And also that Candy Okutsu is very spotty and botch-y at this point.

DAY ONE:

HIROMI SUGO & SUMIYO SAYAMA vs. REIKO AMANO & TOMOKO MIYAGUCHI:
* Rookie Mayhem between the bottom-tier JWP wrestlers. Sugo looks like Dynamite Kansaicito with her yellow & green-diamonds look. Soyama’s got that black/salmon thing, Miyaguchi’s in a red/black Jobber Swimsuit, and Amano’s in a black/blue & yellow Jobber Swimsuit. That only one side has real gear makes it pretty clear who’s gonna win, I think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B_ymlL2QeQ&ab_channel=GAEAISM%E5%85%AC%E5%BC%8F%E3%83%81%E3%83%A3%E3%83%B3%E3%83%8D%E3%83%AB

The first two matches of the show.

GAEA MEMORIAL FIRST GONG:
(April 15th 1995)

* HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER! So sometime in 1994, Chigusa Nagayo, having come out of retirement the previous year and wrestled the occasional match for JWP Project (curiously, rarely at her former company, AJW), announced that she had formed a new Joshi promotion called GAEA Japan, with some different backers. Given that Joshi was still going through a Golden Age of sorts, this seemed like someone was trying to capitalize on a hot product, and Chigusa could control things in a way she liked. I dunno what the general impression was with the public at the time, but Chigusa was still the biggest star in Joshi history, even though her peak was ages ago (it would be like Hulk Hogan backing a promotion in 2001… wait, didn’t that actually happen?).

This ends up throwing a spanner into the works of Joshi promotions as a whole, as there were only four promotions really doing it (and FMW only did it as a small division of their shows). GAEA adds a fifth, though the star power isn’t huge at first- Chigusa poaches Kaoru Maeda (herself barely used by AJW) and the two train the entire first class by themselves, including names like Meiko Satomura, Sonoka Kato & Toshiyo Uemura. JWP still seems on friendly terms with her, too, judging by their usage on this show. I often wonder what would have happened if cooler heads had prevailed and the companies would just merge and be stronger- a combined LLPW & JWP would make for a much stronger company, y’know? And imagine GAEA attaching to THAT. But I guess people had to hate each other and try their own thing.

This ends up having major repercussions for the business, though- through a variety of business, economy-related and star-power concerns, Joshi goes through a major flux in the next couple of years, producing even MORE promotions as things splinter in a way that the business never recovers from… and GAEA Japan will one day sit at the top of it, getting its own reputation for good and ill (“The Joshi Retirement Home”, never mind Chigusa’s manner of booking herself). But for now it’s just one star, one minor star, and a bunch of rookies!

“TL;DR- Why Should I Watch This?”: Most of the matches here are super-green rookies debuting against each other, but the last two matches are legitimately fantastic ****-ish affairs, and are one-time only Dream Matches. Also this is the very first match of the legendary Meiko Satomura.

Sometimes I have the work of trying to sum up some of the greatest workers of all time in a handful of paragraphs! Other times I just have to sum up people like this.

JOSHI SPOTLIGHT- BAT YOSHINAGA:
Real Name: Eriko Yoshinaga
Billed Height & Weight: 5’4″ 165 lbs.
Career Length: 1989-94

-Bat Yoshinaga is one of those peculiar oddities where a wrestler is very poorly remembered, but only for their non-worked stuff. She was a perfectly cromulent undercard wrestler for much of her run (with a jobber tag team with stablemate Tomoko Watanabe in the early part, and as a martial arts bruiser for the last year or so), but on many of the most famous Joshi cards of all time (in particular the Dream Slams), she was in the worst matches- most notably, an infamously boring shootfight over her trophy WWWA Martial Arts Title. So this kind of equates “Bat Yoshinaga” with “UGGGGGHHHHH” in the eyes of many joshi fans, and since she was already gone by 1995, this kind of stuck to her.

60 minutes of the AJW Workrate Style. Just insane.

AJW KORAKUEN G*TOP:
(5/7/95, Tokyo Korakuen Hall)
* And now it’s time for Dave Meltzer’s favorite match of 1995! Manami is the WWWA Champion and having her first defense… and it’s against her old Workrate-Goddess rival, Kyoko Inoue! This one is pretty legendary in terms of what is possible for a wrestler’s cardio. AND it’s the 1995 Wrestling Observer Match Of The Year! And, on a sadder note, this show is the official retirement of Suzuka Minami, who spent most of last year in middling roles on the card and seems to have just called it quits when it’s clear there are no plans for her.

… wow, May already? AJW seems to be releasing only 1-2 VHS tapes a month at this point, so stuff is being skipped over I think. And also I have only two matches from this show on YouTube. But hey- 60 minutes in the *AJW* Workrate Style? Sign me up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw5N8OF_5BI&ab_channel=Evito-X-Puro

JWP (March 21st 1995):
* This show’s a crazy one. Ever seen a match set up so that you win on the count of ONE? Well watch a Gauntlet Match of that, ending in a Multi-Person match under the same rules. And it’s not the disaster you think it will be! JWP has the weirdest, most incredible shows sometimes.

1-COUNT PINFALL GAUNTLET/TAG TEAM MATCH:
DYNAMITE KANSAI, DEVIL MASAMI, HIKARI FUKUOKA & HIROMI YAGI vs. MAYUMI OZAKI, CUTIE SUZUKI, CANDY OKUTSU & SUMIO TOYAMA:
* Okay, so the rules here are completely insane- everyone is set up in a Team Gauntlet of five-minute solo matches, and you win the fall on a ONE-COUNT. Which… okay that’s how amateur wrestling works, but still- in puro especially, every move on Earth at least earns a two-count, so the cadence here will be super-interesting. It can create some flukes pretty easily, at least. Following that gauntlet is a standard 8-Woman Tag. Pretty one-sided teams here, as the two Aces mix with Hikari and a higher-end rookie Yagi against Ozaki & Cutie, plus Candy (a bit above Yagi, maybe?) and Toyama, who is easily bottom-tier in this crew. Kansai’s in yellow & green, Devil’s in black & purple, Hikari’s in black & white and Yagi’s in black & purple. Ozaki’s in red, Cutie’s in white, Candy’s in black & white and Toyama’s in black & orange. Kansai’s still sporting a band-aid on her forehead from Ozaki trying to eat her face only four days earlier.

Most North Koreans are relatively small, compact, and conservative in how they handle themselves. When it was time for the Japanese women to wrestle, they didn’t know how to react.

“These female wrestlers were just completely from another planet,” remembers CNN correspondent, Mike Chinoy.

“Bull Nakano had hair dyed blue, and it went straight up about six or eight inches. She was wearing a white sleeveless shirt over a leotard with half-calf boots. Manami Toyota sported a black leotard with partly opened arm coverings and looked like a dominatrix from some S&M movie. And these North Korean men were sitting there staring. Whether they had any idea what this was about is entirely beyond me.”

–https://prowrestlingstories.com/pro-wrestling-stories/collision-in-korea/

COLLISION IN KOREA:
(April 28-29, 1995)
* So today I’ll be doing a double-whammy, as we’ve hit the point in my reviews were they stars of AJW and other Joshi promotions hit both the Tokyo Dome’s Bridge of Dreams show, and go to North Korea for the WCW/NJPW dual-show, Collision in Korea! This is AJW’s contribution to the Collision in Korea double-show, as they apparently stuck to themselves and quietly went out there and wrestled. Though I think this is how Kensuke Sasaki met Akira Hokuto, his future wife.

AKIRA HOKUTO vs. BULL NAKANO:
* So they’re teaming up the next night, but today they fight each other- AJW’s top two stars, even then. Bull’s in all-black, with her giant blue hair, and Akira’s in green & white.

AJW QUEENDOM ’95:
* For this Joshi Spotlight, we take a look at the three “Wrestling Queendom” shows in March 1995! However, I’ve done two of them before, so here’s the two matches available from the first one- thankfully, BOTH are ****+! Here we see the returning veterans of the Raijin Army take on LCO & Suzuka Minami, and then the Main Event is a spectacular 8-Woman Elimination Tag with some odd rules- all to see which AJW wrestlers get to head to the “Bridge of Dreams” show and showcase their promotion at the Tokyo Dome!

This review will feature those two big matches, then end with summations for the two Queendoms.

RAIJIN ARMY (BISON KIMURA, JAGUAR YOKOTA & LIONESS ASUKA) vs. SUZUKA MINAMI & LAS CACHORRAS ORIENTALES (Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda):
* And now it’s time for Jaguar’s “Returning Veteran Squad” to take on the reunited Minami/LCO team! The Raijin Army sort of forms as a whole at this point, with the wily vets throwing a spanner into the works of AJW- this bout probably being to properly reintroduce them as a unit. There’s some fun stuff here, as Jaguar trained both Mita & Shimoda, while Mita based a huge chunk of her current act (especially her Chops) off of Bison after she retired. Jaguar’s in pink, Bison’s in white tiger-stripes, Asuka’s in navy blue, Minami’s in orange & blue, and LCO’s in white & purple. This is Bison’s first real match back, so she gets a BIG reaction. Mita talks shit on the mic and Bison grabs at her right away.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/5ce1b26edd76f82b8a052dab11c5490a/2ed9eba1953be85f-ab/s400x600/fe673f7fffd55748f691e03e59a5057608e13233.gifv

The Dreaded Rider Kick
by inSquaredCircle

Fukuoka’s Moonsault STOMP and her flipping Rider Kick.

JOSHI SPOTLIGHT- HIKARI FUKUOKA:
Billed Height & Weight: 5’3″ 143 lbs.
Career Length: 1989-1999

-And now we come to the career of the “Wait, who’s that girl copying all of Manami Toyota’s stuff?” star of JWP, Hikari Fukuoka! Hikari is often seen in some of the biggest Joshi events kicking around the midcard- sometimes taking on top stars and losing in a “good effort” match, and sometimes beating others on her tier. She’s effectively the “Sakie Hasegawa” of the early ’90s JWP Project promotion- aka “This is who’s going to be our biggest star in five years, but for now she’s just a Highly-Respected Up & Comer”. Only difference is Sakie retired young, while Hikari actually got her run with the JWP Title, holding it for almost two years. There’s also that weird thing where she often dressed in all black and lifted all of Toyota’s shit in a strange bit of idolization- you didn’t often see someone from one company entirely lift someone else in a rival company’s stuff in Japan.