Joshi Spotlight — page 15

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.

AJW TV (March 1995):
* This is an episode taped on Feb. 15th, but aired in early March. This one largely features a handful of “Filler” bouts, a very good Aja Kong/Etsuko Mita match, and most importantly- Kyoko & Takako Inoue vs. Manami Toyota & Yumiko Hotta- the person scoring the winning fall will challenge Aja Kong at Wrestling Queendom 1995! Watch as a fascinating little story of inter-team squabbling plays out!

And wouldn’t ya know- it’s apparently U-Channel that bit the big one and made all its videos private, which kills a lot of Joshi videos on YouTube. So these ones have all been deleted between my reviews and my posting, but at least I got ’em. Sorta! Take my word for the match ratings!

AJW TAG TITLES #1 CONTENDERS MATCH:
TOMOKO WATANABE & KUMIKO MAEKAWA vs. MARIKO YOSHIDA & RIE TAMADA:
* A match to determine the top contenders for the lowest ranked Tag Belts in the company, as the future U*Tops duo take on Yoshida (who is still kind of hovering in the lower-midcard) & Tamada. Yoshida’s in her white gear, Rie’s in white w/ ’80s wallpaper accents, Tomoko’s in black w/ tassles, and Kumiko’s in a sports bra and shorts in 1980s wallpaper decor. Man, all rookies have to dress in these garish designs, I swear.

This damn match has 3-4 “Holy fuck, who agreed to THAT?” spots in it.

JWP HARD CORE GIG:
(Feb. 25th, 1995)
* Welcome to another set of JWP matches, this time from the first three months of 1995! This features a handful of throwaway bouts to start, but ends with the absolute best goddamn Street Fight I’ve ever seen save Triple-H/Foley. This match is INSANE, as diminutive Mayumi Ozaki pulls out some of the most Satanic evil shit in wrestling against the bigger, stronger Dynamite Kansai. It’s proof of how weirdly good JWP can be, where hordes of matches that “go way too long” or “Matches that would be ****+ but they wanted to give the rookies lots of match time” will suddenly be capped off with one of the best matches of the entire year.

Here’s another single-match-review Spotlight, as I finally work through some more of the great stuff Evito-X put up on YouTube! Check out his channel!

WWWA WORLD TITLE:
BULL NAKANO vs. AKIRA HOKUTO:
(1.4.1991)
* So well into the WWWA Title reign of Bull Nakano comes a challenge in the quickly-rising big star Akira Hokuto. Hokuto’s megawatt charisma and great matches have earned her a lot of attention, but even AJA KONG took a while to be seen as a “legit” contender, so I don’t know what tier Akira was on in early ’91. The schoolgirl fans are way into Akira’s corner in this one, as this is early enough in the ’90s that teen girls were still the core audience. I haven’t watched a lot of this era of Bull (I mostly went from the ’80s to her legend run post-1992) but she’s a real monster here- typically her matches seem to feature her just gobbling up her opponents alive as a respected Monster Heel.

Bull’s in her standard “rock band t-shirt over black leotard” look while Akira’s in her early ’90s white & blue karate fighter gear, Bull being a lot heavier that her WWF & WCW stuff (about 210 lbs), and Akira lacking her bleach-blonde crazy-makeup look, appearing more like a short-haired normal person. Bull’s goons, Tomoko Watanabe & Bat Yoshinaga, are at ringside.

AJW TV (Feb. 4th, 1995):
* So here’s an AJW TV show from February, centering around a bunch of random stuff, like Aja & Manami facing off in a tag team match with unrelated partners, resulting in a high position on the card for young Kumiko Maekawa. Oh, and that JAGUAR YOKOTA is back- at nearly 40 years old, the trainer of Aja Kong, Megumi Kudo, Manami Toyota and a LEGION of some of the best workers of the ’90s is suddenly back wrestling after Big Egg Wrestling Universe showed she still had it, and she’s going to execute a rookie to prove it again.

Aaaaaaaaand all these videos are private now? I guess? That’s weird.

I had a video here, but it died.

Hey, look! Some random clip of the Class of ’89 (Sakie, Tomoko, Ito) showcasing the Rookie Class of 1995, which features… okay I know Nanae Takahashi became a thing. Kayo Noumi I think I’ve heard of. The others mostly washed out, according to the YouTube comments I translated via Google (someone quit and went to FMW). And then we get the REAL money- ROOKIE INTERVIEWS OF TODAY’S STARS! Baby Aja Kong with her hair in a big bun! Baby Manami! Baby LCO! Baby Yamada! This is amazing!

Double Inoue vs. Manami Toyota & Sakie Hasegawa.

AJW TV (Jan. 1995):
* And welcome to the beginning of 1995 in the Joshi Spotlight! So I found a handful of stuff from the early part of the year, but of primary importance here are the huge Title defenses of Double Inoue & LCO!! So this is a “two-match review”, as both major Joshi promotions defend their top gold in the early part of January 1995!

So first off, Double Inoue make a very big WWWA Tag Title defense as Manami Toyota comes back for her gold, but with Sakie Hasegawa as her new partner! And then we have Las Cachorras Orientales defending the JWP Tag Team Titles on JWP home turf against the odd pairing of evil Mayumi Ozaki & rising idol Hikari Fukuoka! Both matches are absolute bangers, so come take a look!

This is, bar none, the greatest gear in wrestling history. She looks like a goddamn SUPER-VILLAIN.

JOSHI SPOTLIGHT- MARIKO YOSHIDA:
Real Name: Mariko Morita
Billed Height & Weight: 5’4″ 139 lbs. (varies in body type considerably; translation: gets swole)
Career Length: 1988-2017

-One of the unsung heroes of Joshi would be Mariko Yoshida, probably most notable to Western fans for having almost the exact same name as Wolverine’s lady-love for about a decade, one Mariko Yashida. This is most likely a coincidence, though Yoshida’s real family name is apparently Morita. Her biggest contribution to Western wrestling might be the creation of the Air Raid Crash, an over-the-shoulder move where she drapes the opponent across her back, cradles a leg and their neck, and drops down in an Inverted DDT hold. It was swiped by Mike Modest, appearing prominently in Beyond the Mat (Jim Cornette marks out upon seeing it). This devastating-looking move is STILL a big maneuver, and is currently used by AEW’s Britt Baker, among others.

Yoshida was surprisingly one of the most interesting workers in 1992 AJW (with only four years in the biz at that point), using Lucha Libre-influenced stuff to great success- her sunset flips, quick runs up to the top rope, and more led to a very good “come from behind” rookie style that made flukes seem like a constant threat. Hilariously, she uses a friggin’ Super DDT as a mere “prelude to the big stuff” move, as it had zero credibility as a finisher. – Rookie Yoshida in 1992 was one of AJW’s top eight best wrestlers easily (possibly behind only Bull, Aja, Akira, Yamada, Manami & Kyoko). Her future seemed bright, before a horrible neck injury put her out for nearly two years.

Akira Hokuto retired this year! Until she didn’t!

JOSHI IN 1994:

And now we’ve reached the end of what I can find for Joshi in 1994, so here’s my summation for the year! And it was a big one, with the future looking bright! Until it wasn’t! Read on!

Joshi had its biggest year ever in 1993, thanks to the massive Dream Slam, Thunder Queen Battle, and more, all culminating in St. Battle Final by the end of the year- 1994 had a lot to live up to, but went from strength to strength as they cap things off with the biggest joshi card in history at the Tokyo Dome- Big Egg Wrestling Universe is, to this day, the largest gate for any women’s pro wrestling event. Though they didn’t come close to filling the Dome and that’s hard to call a major success, it’s definitely made an impact. During most of the year, Akira Hokuto proclaims the “Dangerous Queen Final Countdown” as she prepares to leave AJW and move to Mexico, so she has all kinds of amazing Dream Matches in cards until Summer… and then she’s just back in AJW and that’s that for a while.

The year starts with a brutal, bloody Aja/Hotta match that sees Aja tear Hotta’s hand apart and dominate her. Kyoko beats Yamada for the All Pacific Title and that’s mostly it for Yamada’s push. The Tag Champs reign supreme for ages until October, and Manami Toyota’s push builds and builds throughout the year. She & Hokuto are the obvious work-horses of the year, putting out crazy batting-averages for great stuff. The year gets off to a great start with March’s Wrestling Queendom ’94, having a ridiculous string of awesome matches (Kansai/Sakie- ****1/4, Manami/Plum Mariko- ****1/2, LCO vs. Ozaki/Cutie- ****3/4, Aja/Bull vs. Kandori/Hokuto- *****), capping off the amazing Hokuto/Kandori feud with a story of them gaining respect for each other in a tag match against the former and current Aces of AJW- Kandori helps Hokuto pin Aja Kong to win the match, then slaps her hand out of respect and marches off leading her LLPW ring girls to the back. Just an amazing moment capping off a huge card.