Joshi Spotlight — page 4

It’s time for another Joshi Spotlight! This one features a Tag Title defense from the new champions, plus a huge Zenjo show from September! This one features Black Joker against a Zenjo team, Miho Wakizawa in her biggest match ever against Nanae Takahashi for the AJW Title, Yumiko Hotta vs. Tomoko Watanabe in an establishing match, and the biggest bout of KAORU ITO’s life, as she finally gets a shot against the Red Belt, held by world champion Manami Toyota!

MOMOE NAKANISHI & NANAE TAKAHASHI vs. KAYO NOUMI & MIHO WAKIZAWA:
(Sept. 9th)
* The two “Young Girl” teams in Zenjo go at it- NanaMomo have reached the level of “Serious Midcarders” but the others are still jobbers. NanaMomo are in matching tiger-striped gear (Momoe with blue; Nanae with pink), Wacky’s in yellow & Kayo’s in blue.

AJW- THE JAPAN GRAND PRIX 2000:
* It’s been a while since I’ve seen these, but the person who runs this YouTube channel just uploaded clipped versions of all but the finish. This is actually a single-elimination tournament, but HOLY COW that last match is a must-see! Zenjo enters “Push Ito” territory big-time and they make it a doozy in the end.

The participants:
Yumik Hotta: Shoot-style worker and Zenjo’s most credible wrestler.
Manami Toyota: The current WWWA Champion.
Kaoru Ito: Rapidly entering the main event tier.
Tomoko Watanabe: The new All-Pacific Champion.
Kumiko Watanabe: All-Pacific-level wrestler and typically Tomoko’s partner.
Nanae Takahashi: Kind of a powerhouse but a lesser star rising the ranks. Current Tag Champion.
Reggie Bennett: Reggie’s back! She left Zenjo when its financial fortunes failed in 1997, and she joined the newbie company ARSION, but is already gone from there (probably for similar reasons).
Etsuko Mita: One-half of LCO and always willing to eat pins.
Mima Shimoda: The other half of LCO.

AJW ODAIBA W EXPLOSION:
* All Japan Women’s Pro Wrestling reaches the summer of 2000! The big Odaiba shows are some of the top shows of the year for Zenjo, so this is rather important. This one features Manami Toyota making a defense of the Red Belt against Black Joker’s Eagle Sawai, backed by her stablemates Rumi Kazama & Takako Inoue!

Plus there’s a tournament to determine the WWWA Tag Team Champions! The belts were vacated for… “Undocumented Reasons” in May, so like, everyone’s gotta fight each other in matches featuring mostly “obvious stars” (LCO, NanaMomo, U*Tops) and losers with zero chance! And this one ends up being a BIG story arc culminating in a year or two of build, as the tons of new, younger fans who joined Zenjo after their 1997 downturn and adopted NanaMomo as THEIR TEAM come out in force to cheer them on against the evil demons of Las Cachorras Orientales!

NIGHT ONE:
(July 14th 2000)

WWWA TAG TEAM CHALLENGE TOURNAMENT:
FIRST ROUND:
NANAMOMO (Momoe Nakanishi & Nanae Takahashi) vs. MIHO WAKIZAWA & KAYO NOUMI:
* The two “Young Girl” teams in Zenjo go at it- NanaMomo have reached the level of “Serious Midcarders” but the others are still jobbers. NanaMomo are in matching tiger-striped gear (Momoe with blue; Nanae with pink), Wacky’s in yellow & Kayo’s in blue. This is heavily clipped.

GAEA JAPAN IN SUMMER 2000:
* It’s time for more GAEA, as we finish off the rest of July and move in to August! Last we saw, DYNAMITE KANSAI had just left the dying JWP and joined GAEA Japan, joining the Second Generation Army (all the GAEA veterans besides Chigusa). Sugar Sato isn’t in many of these, but apparently wrestled a bit around this time, so it wasn’t because Dynamite Kansai murdered her by Razor’s Edging her off the top rope last time. This is mostly just a huge series of the 2nd Generation crew (vets who hate the Crush Gals) facing Crush/Kid teams of them and the Class of 1995- 5th years who have yet to be really elevated.

So after the first match, I realized that my plan involved FOURTEEN MATCHES, so I decided to be a lot less recappy and more try to just get a sense for the match. This is harder to do than it sounds, though.

Also Dynamite Kansai makes this face at one point.

JULY 20th:

THE SECOND GENERATION ARMY (KAORU & Dynamite Kansai) vs. THE THIRD GENERATION ARMY (Sugar Sato & Toshie Uematsu):
* Kansai has now fully joined the veterans group of heels, and they’re taking on mid-ranked Chigusa trainees.

https://archive.org/details/arsion-07-16-8-18-2000-tournament-sky-2

HYPER VISUAL FIGHTING ARSION- TOURNAMENT SKY II:
(July 16th & Aug. 18th 2000)
* It’s more ARSION! With another SKY tournament- the one devoted to undersized wrestlers. This also features Yumi Fukawa’s last-ever match! And Aja Kong defending the Queen of ARSION Title against Ayako Hamada! And a VIP vs. ReDRUG Gauntlet Match! And MAN these crowds really establishes the different demographics of the joshi pro companies. GAEA Japan has all these late-20s early-30s Crush fans in the crowds and leans heavily female. Meanwhile…

HARD CAM FULL OF BORED DUDES! Hard to say if this is because of their bikini-calendar focus or what, but… well, that’s Rossy Ogawa’s gameplan. Put big-eyed waifus in the calendars and lure in the pervy uncles and create a “strip club except everyone’s weirdly lurking and super-quiet” atmosphere. Like they wanna enjoy it, but only PRIVATELY, so everyone’s silent and cross-armed with serious expressions. totally what wrestlers want in a crowd- stoic, silent guys afraid to reveal that they’re a fan of someone. Are they afraid to start a fight over who is the true Best Girl? OBVIOUSLY IT’S MITA YOU GITSi mean this is just not a great look for a promotion trying to succeed.

TOURNAMENT SKY II:
(July 16th 2000)

LAS CACHORRAS ORIENTALES (Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita) vs. AJA KONG & MARIKO YOSHIDA:
* The ARSION super-team takes on LCO- one half of whom took the Twin Star (tag belts) from them. This is mostly just scattered clips to start, LCO divebombing them and kicking ass. Yoshida throws a goofy boxing combo to Shimoda (it loses impact because Shimoda doesn’t react to half the punches so it looks phony) but eats the DVD from Mita for two. Yoshida dodges the tandem finisher and her team fires off stereo finishers for two, and Yoshida flattens Mita with a punch for two (GREAT “flopping dead sell” by Mita), leading to Aja’s Brainbuster for two. A MASSIVE Uraken kills Shimoda when she breaks it up with a yellow chair, and Aja keeps on killing Mita with Urakens until Time Expires at (3:20 of 20:00 shown)- Mita’s dead-eye sell is great as she collapses off each shot, and even Shimoda gets one. Pretty wild to have Aja sacrifice a win just to do more punishment, but at least it wasn’t the Kicking Too Much Ass finish. Aja talks shit after the match, slaps around the VIP stable, and gets into it with them backstage, too.

WWWA WORLD TITLE:
JAGUAR YOKOTA vs. DEVIL MASAMI:
(AJW, 9/7/1983)
* Someone finally uploaded it! This match between the two top singles wrestlers of their day has been considered “lost media” for years (ie. TV, movie, a book that has fallen into such obscurity that nobody can find proof it happened, or watch the product: https://lostmediaarchive.fandom.com/wiki/Lost_Media_Archive). But finally someone uploaded this VHS transfer two weeks ago. Jaguar was the World Champion at this point- a legit badass and grappling superstar who was said to be untouchable on the mat, and had been the champ ever since Jackie Sato was dethroned. Devil Masami had been rising up for a couple of years, having failed in her 1982 attempt at the gold. Jaguar comes out with a lil’ pork pie hat and shirt like a background tough in a Mexican gangster movie (except for all the pink). Devil makes an even bigger entrance, coming out wearing the same Noh theatre mask that Akira Hokuto would later use, but painted gold, and riding on a luchadore’s shoulders to the ring. Jaguar at this point has super-short hair, while Devil’s is longer. She’s got a lot of weight on her tiny opponent, looking bigger and stronger in her purple 80s Swimsuit.

Both women are very respectful in the opening match handshake and we’re off- Jaguar immediately monkey flips Devil and bounces her around with dropkicks until she does the “big bounce to the floor”, looking mad. haha Jaguar messed up the first kip-up and made sure the second was GOOD. Jaguar pounces on the apron and judo flips Devil back in, but finally Devil uses her size to counter and catches her leap with a big press slam. Jaguar snags the ropes off a whip and they’re back to square one, doing a good bit with a lockup. Mat wrestling gets nasty when Devil hauls Jag up by the hair and bounces her off the top rope, but Jaguar finally hauls her down with fundamentals. Interesting how Jaguar mostly controls with speed and precision while Devil can use power to leverage her way to moves. Classic “80s wrestling” as Jaguar counters a jujigatame attempt with a backwards roll, slips the arm out and locks up the knees and bashes them with her knee. The usual bodyscissors spot that’s seen well into the 2000s has them reverse to pins and Devil finally snags the hair and wrenches the neck, then the standing back-stretch puts them right back into the bodyscissors! See, this is the “slow part” but it shows them fighting for every bit of ground and acting like EVERYTHING hurts and they have to fight out. And you can tell by the sweat that they’re not just havin’ a rest.

Just your everyday turning a younger wrestler into a sandwich board.

GAEA JAPAN IN JUNE 2000:
* It’s time for more GAEA Japan! I nearly did more ARSION but it’s been too long since I grabbed this one. GAEA recently had their Fifth Anniversary Show- their biggest show in history, with Chigusa & Lioness reforming the CRUSH GALS and defeating the heel stable in the main event. As a result, they formed the GAEA Third Generation Army underneath them, even convincing Chikayo Nagashima & Sugar Sato to leave Mayumi Ozaki and rejoin their original mentor! However, this action incensed many of GAEA’s veteran wrestlers, who now formed a super-stable under Ozaki and her crew. This set of matches features some pretty big stuff, as we get Sakura Hirota doing Swan Lake, DYNAMITE KANSAI joining GAEA Japan, and some pretty dramatic Rising Stars vs. Veterans performances as Sugar & Chikayo take on their ex-mentor in tag matches.

JUNE 11th:

https://archive.org/details/arsion-2000-04-20-05-07

Come watch it on Archive.org! Which was a HUGE pain in the ass that kept skipping on me and freezing, so I had to download the 2-hour thing and watch it on a video player, which had issues skipping back & forth in time to re-watch points of the matches!

ARSION- HYPER VISUAL FIGHTING TOURNAMENT:
* Yes, it’s an ARSION Tournament! You can tell Rossy’s booking when… I wonder if this one will be full of inexplicable flukes!

There’s no sound to start (probably copywrite), but it shows the VIP stable walk around in designer clothes, which might be their signature. Tragically, Mita isn’t in a designer dress like Omukai but a ’90s mom sleeveless turtleneck. Also Bionic J kind of doesn’t fit the overall motif. You can tell Omukai’s getting the push because she’s wearing a full-on gown- everyone else is wearing what COULD pass for “everyday people clothes”.

APRIL 20th:

GRAN APACHE & LINDA STARR vs. MARI & FABI APACHE:
* OH GOODY MORE INTERGENDER STUFF. With Apache wrestling both his daughters, lol. Well I guess that means we won’t be getting hentai spots. oh please don’t prove me wrong…

AJW IN JUNE 2000:
* It’s time for more Joshi, as we finally hit the mid-point of 2000! And it’s the rise of BLACK JOKER! This is the heel stable comprised of Takako Inoue (Freelance) with LLPW’s Rumi Kazama & Eagle Sawai. Takako is then a Freelancer mostly working for Zenjo still, but the other two are from LLPW and now getting into the “Dominant Heel Stable” schtick, albeit with more of a Team Uniform and focus.

This set features Black Joker teaming up against some hapless Zenjo kids, and ends with Takako Inoue taking on the WWWA Champion, Manami Toyota, in a match that’s a prelude to Toyota’s later title defense against Eagle Sawai. We also see more JWP interactions, as there’s both a rookie fight and ace Azumi Hyuga teaming with Command Bolshoi against the heel ZAPs.

MIHO WAKIZAWA & KAYO NOUMI vs. BLACK JOKER (Takako Inoue & Rumi Kazama)
* This is just clipped to nothing, but it’s the first time BLACK JOKER appears in my watchalong! They’re of course wearing all black and brutalize the Zenjo rookie squad. Wacky bleeds! Takako hits a big powerbomb (that is such odd offense from her) but Kayo slides out, annoying her. She hits a backfist that has Kayo barrel-rolling forward, pulls her up before three, then hits another two that leaves her a pile of limbs on the sell-job- that’s it at (1:28 shown)- Black Joker of course winning decisively. I actually have no idea when this match took place (it’s not on Cagematch, I think), but here’s as good as any.

June 11th:
* All of these are from the same show.

GAEA JAPAN- THE FIRST FIVE YEARS:
* So with GAEA’s Fifth Anniversary Show just being posted, I realized I’d done exactly five years of their content, so I figured I’d do the column I’d been thinking about for a while- a summation of their first five years of existence! As the promotion only lasted about ten, it’s fitting to strike at the halfway point.

The story of GAEA Japan is more or less how Chigusa Nagayo, the biggest women’s star of all time, came out of retirement and after a year or so of working with JWP on occasion (she had a fairly adversarial relationship with the Matsunagas, the heads of her old home at All Japan Women’s Pro Wrestling, owing to a variety of things), formed a new promotion with her own trainees and a few wrestlers from elsewhere. Within a couple years, the promotion was a pretty big hit, and soon was able to stop working interpromotional matches all over the card as her first class of trainees, a miraculous group all things considered, slowly improved and mostly became good workers. By 1999-2000, GAEA was easily the #1-2 joshi promotion in the world, usually fairly even with Zenjo (AJW), which ran way more shows but probably drew less money to the average show.

I’ve read that a huge part of GAEA’s early appeal was “Doing It Ourselves”, with a women-led company (only the money guy was a dude), countering all the other promotions run by men. That Chigusa, the biggest star ever, was there only helped, as she brought in all the ’80s girls now that they were in their 20s and 30s. GAEA audiences tend to be the most woman-heavy, with lots of amused moms in the crowd.

THE INAUGURAL CLASS:
Chigusa Nagayo: The biggest star in joshi history, a megastar of the 1980s. She retired in 1989, coming back at the 1993 Dream Slam show and working periodically for JWP before training GAEA’s first class and getting a backer for a promotion. She was the head trainer AND booker, while someone provided the money and another did the business.

KAORU: The next most experienced wrestler- she had debuted for Zenjo 1986, but left the company for a couple years before returning in an iffy role. KAORU had some of the laziest performances by a veteran I’d ever seen in some of the early ’90s shows, oftentimes doing the job or getting a midcard match where she has to go 20 minutes with a nobody. But then in 1994 wrestles the match of her life against Mariko Yoshida (a 30:00 draw that turns into an overtime that KAORU quickly wins). She leaves Zenjo a second time and founds GAEA. In GAEA she’s the obvious #2 native, and in the early era is usually paired with another promotion’s wrestler in a “Sub Main Event” type of match. And she wrestles like she absolutely knows she needs to succeed to make GAEA work, and puts on some of the best performances of her career.

Bomber Hikaru: A weak-ass wrestler of dubious experience who is hired out of nowhere by Chigusa, acting as a “mid-tier” veteran below Chigusa & KAORU, but above the green rookies. Her role seems clear- to act as a barrier to them as they rise up the ranks.

THE ROOKIES:
* All of them are given Arena swimsuits in a single block of color- a brilliant move to immediately differentiate all of them. This becomes a GAEA trademark- I see it all the way up to 1999 debuts. To say this class is a big miracle is a huge understatement- you will likely never see this much raw talent in the early years of their careers before or since. Of the class of six, all five were at least “pretty good” within a year- pure insanity. These girls were clearly meant to be the backbone of the company, so they wouldn’t have to rely on “Dream Matches” to fill out the cards, and they wrestle like it- each one fighting to show that they deserved to be there and wanted a shot. Alas, GAEA never succeeds to anywhere near this level ever again.

GAEA JAPAN- 5TH ANNIVERSARY DAY:
(May 14th 2000)
* GAEA Japan is officially 5 years old! Their big anniversary show takes place in a good-sized arena (the Tokyo Ariake Coliseum) and features a lot of big matches for the company- The CRUSH GALS REUNITE as Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka take on Devil Masami & Akira Hokuto! The two biggest stars of the ’80s take on one of their top rivals AND one of the top stars of the ’90s! Aja Kong defends the AAAW World Title against Meiko Satomura once more, in a rematch of GAEA’s best-ever match! A giant weapons brawl between Mayumi Ozaki & KAORU where one of them invents the One Winged Angel! Toshiyo Yamada getting fed to Neo’s Kyoko Inoue! Rookie Saika Takeuchi being faced by heel cheater RIE! We start off with the introductions, each group showing up separately.

GAEA Roster: Chigusa Nagayo, Devil Masami (sorta), Mayumi Ozaki, Akira Hokuto, Toshiyo Yamada, KAORU, (First Class) Meiko Satomura, Sonoko Kato, Sugar Sato, Chikayo Nagashima, Toshie Uematsu, (Second Class) Sakura Hirota
Himiko Roster: Mayumi Ozaki, Akira Hokuto, Devil Masami, Sugar Sato, Chikayo Nagashima, RIE, Kaori Nakayama
DorA Roster: Aja Kong, Lioness Asuka, KAORU, Sonoko Kato

AJW IN SPRING 2000:
* It’s time for more Zenjo! With a bunch of random tag matches from March and May! We start off with a bit part of the AJW/JWP feud that’s been going on, with Manami Toyota leading a team of AJW wrestlers against JWP in a Gauntlet Match! And things culminate with a WWWA World Title defense as Manami Toyota defends against Ran YuYu! Meanwhile, Tag Champions Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa continue their year-long feud against Lac Cachorras Orientales in a title defense!

Imagine about 197 spots like this, mixed with male-on-female assaults, and you’ve got this show.

https://archive.org/details/arsion-battlarts-king-queen-tournament-03-12-2000

ARSION/BATTLARTS- KING & QUEEN TOURNAMENT:
(March 12th 2000)
* I found a random ARSION thing on Archive.org! And it’s… a dual show with BattlARTS? Or Battlarts. Which is one of those “Fake Shoot” companies. It’s a mix of ARSION stuff, BattlARTS stuff, and men vs. women matches which are sure to be comedic and not at all repulsive!

SO uh, if you spend any amount of time in Japan, you might find their late nite TV very… distinctive. When I did a school exchange there in 1998 or so, my friend and I marveled at how their late nite comedy was basically all perversion, with topless women and the gag being that guys would ogle them. This was clearly seen as the height of comedy, as immensely chauvinistic as it was. Naturally being like seventeen we thought it was the greatest thing ever. If you look at Shonen Manga (manga targeted at young boys to preteens) you get a lot of the same sort of thing- usually one prominent “pervert” character constantly feeling up enraged women, and that’s like… the entire gag. “LOL he’s a pervert and non-consensually grabs women, and sometimes takes a beating for it!”. This nowadays creates some disconnect when the works are published here because now 2025 Western society is all “OMG” about it (with… exceptions). BUT LIKE… this is sort of the culture in which this 2000 show is dropping. REMEMBER THAT.

KING AND QUEENS TOURNAMENT (Elimination Style/Battle Royal)- SEMI FINALS:
CANDY OKUTSU, AI FUJITA & YUKI ISHIKAWA vs. ETSUKO MITA, KAW*KAW & TAKESHI ONO:
* So it’s a tournament made up of what looks like randomized teams, though one has two women and the other just one. Yuki is a Plain Undies Puro Guy, teaming with the CAZAI members Candy and Ai. KAW*KAW (there’s a star between KAWs) is some dude in a black bodysuit & mask. Ono is a longtime BattlArts wrestler who moved to some indie I’ve never heard of (Fu-Ten?), and is some young dude with Arrogant Blond Hair, a scrawny body and black pants. He really has that Adam Cole look- the scrawny body with the big head.

AJW IN MARCH 2000:
* It’s time for more Zenjo! This is primarily from a March 4th show, but I found a single JWP match from the same month, and a March 11th one from a Rikidozan Memorial Show. The wildest one is probably an AJW/JWP mish-match with Manami Toyota & Kaoru Ito teaming up with Dynamite Kansai of JWP against Yumiko Hotta, Takako Inoue & Command Bolshoi! But the BEST one, though, is a big Steel Cage Deathmatch between Las Cachorras Orientales and Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa! The last time LCO was in one of these, they were in a generational ***** match- can they match that success swapping Kaoru Ito for Maekawa? Read on!

NANAE TAKAHASHI & MIYUKI FUJII (AJW) vs. LIONESS ASUKA & MORIMATSU (JD’):
* JD’ comes to down with Asuka taking one of her goons against the low-end Zenjo squad, including their barebones rookie Fujii. Morimatsu’s the JD’ goon with black & blue Ultimate Warrior facepaint and Dudley Boyz gear otherwise. Asuka’s in black, Fujii’s in yellow/blue/black, and Nanae’s in this spectacularly ugly red singlet covered in orange tassels and pink streaks.

GAEA JAPAN IN APRIL 2000:
(April 8th 2000)
* So having finally caught up to the other joshi promotions in 2000, it’s time to head back to GAEA Japan! Which still has three stables vying for control in wacky matches. This week is like… okay there’s ONE really good match! Four KAORU matches as she gets a new toy (hoo boy, watch for that table piece she’s got) and a new move and wants EVERYONE to see it.

GAEA Roster: Chigusa Nagayo, Mayumi Ozaki, Akira Hokuto, Toshiyo Yamada, KAORU, (First Class) Meiko Satomura, Toshie Uematsu, (Second Class) Sakura Hirota
Himiko Roster: Mayumi Ozaki, Akira Hokuto, Devil Masami, Sugar Sato, Chikayo Nagashima, RIE, Kaori Nakayama
DorA Roster: Aja Kong, Lioness Asuka, KAORU, Sonoko Kato

D OR A (Lioness Asuka & Sonoko Kato) vs. MEIKO SATOMURA & SAKURA HIROTA:
(April 8th)
* Kato & Satomura have an ongoing issue thanks to being ex-partners.

Meiko & Kato trade kicks before Meiko gets a vicious hiptoss counter, and Sakura’s in and WANTS ASUKA. Asuka is caught laughing a bit out of character at this, and Sakura puts on some knuckle-wraps and throws on a mouthguard- Asuka easily fends her off and Sakura shouts “JACKIE CHAN!” and starts making goofy Bruce Lee noises, her elite new martial arts skillz also failing. She tricks Lioness into checking an injury and eyepokes her, but stalls and gets wiped out. She grabs Asuka’s table to avoid taking bumps on it, but runs it at her and gets kicked down. They punch each other in the crotches (it’s not very effective…) and Asuka gets the Giant Swing, and is so dizzy she tags out to Kato. She finally clobbers Asuka and hits her double-arm submission, then gets the boomerang uraken and Meiko runs wild. Lioness & Meiko trade shots until Asuka gets a release Blue Thunder Bomb. Kato & Meiko start throwing bombs at each other, Kato gets a German & enzuigiri, Meiko reverses Kowloon’s Gate but eats a rolling kick, and they counter each other a while until Kato catches a Meiko kick and tries an anklelock, only to be countered into an armbar and tapping at (10:26). Somewhat unexpected! One of those weird “50% comedy, 50% actual match” things where Sakura’s doing goofy spots and amusing the crowd while the others are working at half-speed to play up a rivalry and the Sakura stuff is honestly getting louder responses, haha. The Meiko/Kato stuff felt like the “meat” of the match and was largely fine but scrappy and not all that interesting, with a finish kinda out of nowhere.

Every once in a while someone in joshi shows they’re still all crazy, even with business down. A goddamn German Superduperplex.

https://archive.org/details/jd-2000.01.10

JD TAG EXPLOSION:
(Jan. 10th 2000)
* So I reviewed the last JD’ show of 1999 a couple weeks ago to prepare for their 2000 stuff- I can only find two videos but that’s almost prefered since I won’t have to watch TONS of stuff. This show features a BIG interpromotional match- JD’s top star Lioness Asuka vs. the former Ace of JWP- Dynamite Kansai! In 1995 this is a guaranteed ****+ match! Unfortunately it’s 2000 so don’t get your hopes up! Also we get the “good rising stars who debuted in 1995” with Yoshiko Tamura vs. The Bloody! Then some other invader matches as AJW sends Nanae Takahashi & Miho Wakizawa to take on JD’s youngster team. Plus Cooga gets her retirement ceremony!

COOGA’S RETIREMENT CEREMONY:
* Cooga’s a funny one with me. I was only vaguely familiar with her until I started my “start from 1992 and move forwards” Spotlight run (when I first did the column I just kinda found shows “wherever” and watched them at random)- she was the one Zenjo wrestler I didn’t recognize, because it turned out she retired by year’s end! She was Miori Kamiya, a thoroughly mediocre wrestler from the Class of 1986 (the one that produced Aja Kong, Megumi Kudo, Combat Toyoda, Bison Kimura and KAORU), and was clearly on her “veteran who now jobs to up & comers to establish them at the next tier” tour of duty- she ends the year jobbing out to Mima Shimoda and gives it up. When JD’ is formed by Jaguar Yokota and some others, she turns up as the masked “Cooga” (which is supposed to be “Cougar”, from all evidence I’ve found) with a fire under her ass, having like… okay **1/2-*** matches but it was pretty decent. But she had fallen apart a bit judging by later stuff I saw, and wrestled her last match in 1999.

hahahaaha. Rossy Ogawa, future creator of Stardom then Marigold. Looking like the guy all the strippers warn each other about.

https://archive.org/details/arsion-millenium-premium-starlet-03-15-04-07-2000

ARSION MILLENNIUM STARLET:
(March 15th & April 7th 2000)
* It’s time for more ARSION! This is a mix of stuff, with Jessie Bennett returning under a new identity, the various lucha-style wrestlers taking on bigger stars, and more. This is a massively clipped show, but NOT as bad as past ARSION affairs- instead of cutting many matches to 1-2 minutes and leaving 2 full ones, it’s essentially a ton of matches cut by half, leaving more of the meat intact. Still not quite getting the full shows, though. Of note here is STABLEMANIA RUNNING WILD as Las Cachorras Orientales’ “VIP” goes up against GAMI’s “Re*Drag”, Jessie Bennett returns as “Bionic J” to join VIP, Re*Drag trying to win back their tag belts from Aja Kong & Mariko Yoshida, and a Father/Daughter tag match as Gran Hamada & Ayako take on Apache & Fabi Apache! And the dads actually FIGHT the girls in this one!

STARLET 2000:

AI FUJITA vs. RENA TAKASE:
* Fujita now has a REALLY dark tan and what looks to be a huge amount of lip filler- early 2000 is a tad early for Ganjuro fashion, innit? Rena is ARSION’s brand-new rookie. Fujita’s in pastel blue & white and Rena’s in red. This looks to be a full match.

They do a pretty basic rookie match to a quiet audience, Rena showing little fire as Fujita leads her through a lot of legholds and bodyscissors for several minutes before finally starting up with character stuff and running dropkicks. Hilariously Takase’s forearms already look better than Fujita’s, and she takes the senior down with a SPEAR of all things before Ai just lets her try dropkicks that are sold half-heartedly (I can’t tell if Fujita is TRYING to no-sell or legit just sucks at it). Fujita avoids a jujigatame and hits her sloppy cartwheel handspring (elbows? body attacks? She’s not sticking a limb out or anything) and finishes with a Boston crab at (6:07).

FEB. 11th SHOW:
* This is all from the same show, taking place Feb. 11th at Korakuen Hall. Featuring several weird mish-mash matches (Hotta & rookie Fujii vs. Takako Inoue and COMMAND BOLSHOI? Manami Toyota & Kaoru Ito teaming with Dynamite Kansai of JWP against two Class of ’95 JWP girls and AJW’s Wakizawa?), culminating in an All Pacific Title match between Kumiko Maekawa and JWP’s top wrestler, Azumi Hyuga! Also it has Las Cahorras Orientales against Tomoko Watanabe & Nanae Takahashi!

YUMIKO HOTTA & MIYUKI FUJII vs. TAKAKO INOUE & COMMAND BOLSHOI:
* This is a weird one- Hotta is one of Zenjo’s top stars, and she’s teaming with it’s lowest-end rookie against the freelancer Takako and… JWP’s clown wrestler Command Bolshoi? A weird pair the spares match. Takako cost Yumiko the belt last year, and lost to her in a title match, so there’s some history. Also they were a great tag team in the early ’90s. The match is pre-faced by the JWP President and AJW President coming out to greet the fans- haha Matsunaga looks likea Japanese version of my grandpa. That plaid shirt with the giant pockets over grey slacks. Takako’s in black & Bolshoi’s in red & gold, looking like a Power Ranger (er. Sentai, since this is Japan). Hotta’s in black & Fujii’s in yellow & blue. With a more slender look and black leather on, Takako looks basically exactly the same as she does now. Like, still wrestling 25 years later.

AJW in JANUARY 2000:
* Here’s some stuff from a pair of Zenjo shows in January 3rd & 4th from Korakuen Hall! A double-whammy sees the Tag Champions defend their belts against a Veteran/Kid squad of Manami Toyota & Miho Wakizawa, then the Wacky showcase continues as she fights Kumiko Maekawa for the All Pacific Championship the next night! And then a big WWWA World Title defense as champion Yumiko Hotta defends against the only one in the company who could beat her- Toyota!

WWWA WORLD TAG TEAM TITLES:
BEST 2 of 3 FALLS:
TOMOKO WATANABE & KUMIKO MAEKAWA vs. MANAMI TOYOTA & MIHO WAKIZAWA:
(Jan. 3rd 2000)
* A bizarre tag title match, the Tag Champs end up fighting a Main Eventer and the World Title contender on a show the very next night… and newbie Wakizawa. I can’t imagine anyone thought Wacky’s team had a chance here (she’s way too green to have a hope against either champ), making this an odd “filler” bout. The champs are in blue tasseled gear, Toyota’s in red & gold, and Wacky’s got like… a red, white & yellow top with a belly cut-out and a white skirt attached. A weird combination of “ugly 1980s singlet” gear with modern stuff. It clashes.

GAEA JAPAN:
(March 2000)
* Okay, so horror of horrors- I coudn’t find hardly ANYTHING for joshi in 2000 at all save for GAEA’s always-full channel. 80+ matches in the GAEA style… *shudder*. I mean LAST SHOW had two excellent matches on it but there’s so much crap at the same point, lol. The only Zenjo stuff I could find was in the fall. I might try for a “just the highlights” style of reviewing for some of this as I’d probably get bored of this promotion in an extended go, but we’ll see. THANKFULLY I managed to find a lot of ARSION & JD’ on Archive.org, as annoying as that site is to watch stuff on (the “skip” function is quite poor and the viewing window is no fun).

But wait! This show actually has some stuff! A new member joins the big heel stable HIMIKO! We further the angle between the former Crush Gals uniting against evil heels! And a match over *** happens again!

GAEA Roster: Chigusa Nagayo, Toshiyo Yamada, Meiko Satomura, Sonoko Kato, Toshie Uematsu, Sakura Hirota, Saika Takeuchi
HIMIKO Roster: Mayumi Ozaki, Akira Hokuto, Sugar Sato, Chikayo Nagashima, RIE, Kaori Nakayama
DorA Roster: Aja Kong, Lioness Asuka, KAORU, Sonoko Kato

TOSHIYO YAMADA vs. TOSHIE UEMATSU:
* An interesting combination, as Yamada is repackaged as a Flinststones character and Uematsu is the least credible of GAEA’s Original Five.