Joshi Spotlight — page 4

AJW (Feb. 28th 2001):
* It’s time for more Zenjo at last! When we last saw, Yumiko Hotta had committed a heel turn and joined with LCO to form a rival squad to the “new stars of Zenjo” (Kaoru Ito and rising stars NanaMomo). Now smug, blonde-haired and WEARING SUNGLASSES INDOORS, Hotta is a proper heel, and her credibility as Zenjo’s “Shooter” will be important going forward. And that leads to tonight’s Vale Tudo match against Shinobu Kandori (an even more credible “Super Shooter”). Also, come see MihoKayo come out to disco while in Native American headgear! And Miyuki Fujii end up in the doghouse again after splattering a rookie!

Oh and now MANAMI TOYOTA is a heel! I don’t know when exactly she did that, but she’s definitely a heel here, having aligned with LCO and Kumiko as well! This sets up a “New Guard” vs. “Old Guard” feud, but with Manami in a role she hasn’t had in ten years- an aggressive heel. Let’s see how she does!

MIYUKI FUJII vs. MIKA NISHIO:
* Rookie Mayhem! Except Fujii is at the same experience level as NanaMomo, Wacky and others… which I always forget, because she’s so bad and always being a jobber. But she finally has an opponent she can bully! Pray she doesn’t fuck it up! And OMG the Rookie Swimsuit! The BANGS! It’s a throwback to old times! I’m oddly nostalgic for the “flavorless rookie” look now. I think this actually hails from the last show I reviewed- this is why I wish more uploaders would post dates/shows.

JOSHI SPOTLIGHT- SONOKO KATO:
Stats:
Billed Height & Weight: 5’2″ 143 lbs.
Career Length: 1995-2001, 2006-2026 (still active- retiring in 2026)
Trained By: Chigusa Nagayo

So if you’ve been following the Joshi Spotlight column, you’ll notice that I rarely do bios on the wrestlers whose careers basically last forever, or peak later. With GAEA Japan, I started watching their 1995 stuff and have only hit 2001, so I wanted to hold off on most of its wrestlers. Sonoko Kato, however, has a strange career- she gets injured in 2001 so badly that she never wrestles for GAEA again! The promotion actually DIES before she can return to wrestling, but she’s actually maintained a career since then. Which is impressive, given how she was assumed to be washed in 2000 thanks to injuries. Which was quite the fall, given what was thought of her as a rookie.

GAEA JAPAN (Jan. 27th):
* It’s time for more GAEA Japan! This is a combination of shows- a Jan. 27th one with a big Meiko Satomura vs. Dynamite Kansai match to pay off their month-long rivalry, plus CRUSH2000 challenges for the AAAW Tag Titles against Mayumi Ozaki and Akira Hokuto! After that, it’s a Feb. 2nd show with more of the veteran squad fighting Chigusa’s trainees! A Feb. 18th OZ Academy show! Then a Feb. 25th house show!

P & A (Police & Sakura Hirota) vs. Toshie Uematsu & Saika Takeuchi:
* Sakura Hirota’s goofy “heel turn” has led to her and Police being a comedy duo (with Sakura as “Akura” now I guess). And they take on the two spare GAEA wrestlers!

AJW IN JAN. 21st 2001:
It’s time for more Zenjo in January, as I check out the second half of stuff from that month! This one sees one of the most amazing “Toyota being a shitbag” performances of all, as she selfishly gobbles up humiliation spots against the supposed heels and won’t give them ANYTHING in a tag match featuring her & Kayo Noumi vs. Black Joker. BJ’s leader Eagle Sawai also takes on hapless Zenjo weakling Miho Wakizawa in a singles match, and then we get a FANTASTIC 8-woman tag with the heel army (Yumiko Hotta, Kumiko Maekawa & LCO) against Kaoru Ito, Tomoko Watanabe, and NanaMomo.

JAN 4th:

AJW TITLE:
MIHO WAKIZAWA vs. KAYO NOUMI:
* MihoKayo EXPLODES! This is for Wacky’s AJW Title (the “Rookie Elevation Belt”). Though this was apparently on the 4th so I should have reviewed it last week, haha. Oh well- it’s clipped anyways!

AJW IN JANUARY 2001:
* It’s time for more Joshi Spotlight! And that one Chinese channel that uploads a bunch of stuff has a reliably large amount of Zenjo material from 2001, some of which is in fairly long videos! Though this set starts with a lot of clips under a minute.

JAN. 3rd 2001:

GAEA JAPAN IN JANUARY 2001:
* We’ll start off with some GAEA Japan! Their 2001 playlist seems PACKED, with 11 matches in January alone! This ends up being so many, with such LONG matches, that I stop at 8, as this one features not only the huge World Title match between Aja Kong & challenger Mayumi Ozaki, but a mini-feud developing between Meiko Satomura and Dynamite Kansai, as Meiko racks up another veteran to fight! Also we get both comedy shenanigans with Sakura Hirota, and her asking to JOIN THE HEELS!

Jan. 14th, 2001:

JOSHI IN 2000:
* It’s 2000 and hey! Things are pretty good! I mean… I didn’t expect that!

So like, in 1997 or so Dave Meltzer completely stops reporting on the joshi scene and so online discourse about it drops off significantly. Almost nobody I’ve seen talks much about that era and it’s often assumed as some kind of “dark period” that lasts all the way until 2005, when both GAEA & AJW go under and things get EVEN WORSE. But then you watch 1999 & 2000 shows and… they’re packed! Fans are into it! KAORU ITO is drawing bigger, better reactions than Manami Toyota, Meltzer’s favorite! WTF is that?

So it turns out that the scene is going actually pretty good all the way through 2000, at least for the big two companies (GAEA, AJW/Zenjo). This is mostly due to the strength of their core angles and building fanbases or bringing back old ones. GAEA rides high off of REFORMING THE CRUSH GALS of all things, forming CRUSH 2000 and rebranding the company around them and their GAEA trainees (from 1995 on), up against the established veterans of the middle years (all the veterans who are making their way to the “Joshi Retirement Home” as freelancers). Zenjo hits a pretty big thing with a combination- the slow build of Kaoru Ito as the Ace and the rise of the generation of kids the new young fans “grew up with” as “our girls”, defending against the evils of puro like LCO! You can see big shows full of fans throughout the year!

And yet… some dark clouds on the horizon! GAEA still can barely keep rookies and is thus top-heavy! Freelancers who trained between 1986-1994 are the rule and clog up nearly every promotion, usually getting paid more if they lose so promoters often want to keep them happy and let them win! Zenjo still has a depleted roster! And there are some REAL dregs in the non-top promotions, as JWP dies for a second, LLPW is a non-entity, and poor ARSION keeps chugging along into disaster.

https://archive.org/details/arsioncarnival-arsion-2000

HYPER VISUAL FIGHTING ARSION- CARNIVAL ARSION 2000:
(Nov. 19th 2000)
* It’s time for more ARSION, as I was told there was one last show yet to review! And… oh boy, a TOURNAMENT! Haven’t seen one of THOSE in a month or so! It’s a “Hyper Trio Six-(person) Tag Team Tournament”! Also a singles match between Ayako Hamada & JWP’s Azumi Hyuga! uhhhhh they must be airing the tourney stuff in full, because this is a 2-hour video and there’s only a handful of matches listed. but hahaha NOPE, as I get confused near the 30-minute mark, and realize they just didn’t write down the other matches on Archive.

The second half is MUCH bigger, as we get a big double-main event featuring the Twin Star tag belts and the Queen of ARSION Title being up for grabs, as GAMI & Rie take on Las Cachorras Orientales, and Ayako Hamada gets another chance against Aja Kong! It also has Yuu Yamagata make her debut! Who I’ve never heard of, so I’m guessing she doesn’t make a major mark! Plus a lot of random tags, more man vs. woman stuff in a Trios match, AKINO vs. Chaparrita ASARI for the Sky High ARSION Title, LCO vs. GAMI & Rie Tamada, and another Aja Kong/Ayako Hamada match for the Queen of ARSION Title!

REINA TAKASE vs. LINDA STARR: It’s the green rookie vs. Starr! Who is now dressed like a superhero in much better gear- a black/pink/white bodysuit with bare arms & legs. Takase’s in red, and surprises her with a spear before the bell, but we’re clipped to a slingshot dropkick and Linda trapping her in a Tarantula variant, hanging her right-side-up on the second rope. Starr side-Russian legsweeps her into a painful-looking grounded octopus hold but gets judo-flipped into a jujigatame. Linda catches her with a big lariat for two, gets rolled up, then dodges a missile kick and… gets rolled up again, and gets pinned at (2:41 of 10:24 shown)! haha the kid beat her! Match looked by the numbers, but fine. Takase doesn’t stand out much from any other rookie, but had some fire. Starr’s stuff is usually well-executed but bland.

GAEA IN WINTER 2000:
* And now we end the year 2000! It’s GAEA Japan with one last set of seven matches. With the Tag Title Shot Tournament concluding, leading to a big Korakuen Hall finish! Sakura Hirota in cosplay again! A very surprising finish! And the return of some EVIL VARIANTS!

NOV. 26th 2000:
* This is from some small house-show looking thing.

AJW WOMEN’S WRESTLING W FUSION 2000:
(Tokyo Kokuritsu Yoyogi Kyogijo 2nd Gym, Nov. 23rd 2000)
* It’s time for a HUGE Zenjo show! I could find only three Zenjo matches from November, but the main event is one HELL of a doozy- a 30-minute video of LCO & Kumiko Maekawa taking on Kaoru Ito, Nanae Takahashi & Momoe Nakanishi! And this has 3-4 SPECTACULAR bumps, at least two of which are all-timers, as the name of the game is put over new champion Ito in every way possible. This is from a really big show in November, at the same arena as last year’s really big one. You can really tell that Zenjo has hit a new level of popularity from their “dark years”. It’s funny but Dave Meltzer quit watching the joshi scene in like 1997 and it led to a huge lack of updates on it, but this supposed “dark era” has a massively full arena and a HOT crowd as everyone pulls out all the stops.

We miss a handful of matches, but only involving the most barebones rookies. Miyuki Fujii finally finds someone to defeat, beating Chie Terashita (she lasts two years only). Miho Wakizawa also beats Mika Nishio (who lasts until Zenjo dies). A “mixed rules”/Amaresu match sees Wakizawa lose to Seiko Yamamoto.

GAEA JAPAN IN NOVEMBER 2000:
* It’s time for the AAAW Tag Title Contender Tournament! Notably, both Chigusa & Lioness, leaders of the Third Generation Army, are teaming with their mini-mes (Meiko & Kato, respectively) to try and win the belts. This leads to a lot of mix and match stuff, as Dynamite Kansai & Toshiyo Yamada form a team, taking on their own stable-mates in Akira Hokuto & Mayumi Ozaki, plus Chigusa & Meiko take on Toshie Uematsu & The Bloody (from JD’). And the final bout is Meiko & Chigusa vs. Devil Masami & KAORU, furthering the Devil/Meiko rivalry!

NOV. 3rd:

AAAW TAG TITLE TOURNAMENT:
CHIGUSA NAGAYO & MEIKO SATOMURA vs. TOSHIE UEMATSU & THE BLOODY:
* Hey, it’s The Bloody from JD! Haven’t seen her in a bit! She’s teamined up with Toshie against Team Red here, obviously a Filler Team.

GAEA Japan in October 2000:
* It’s time more more GAEA Japan as 2000 ticks down- the top veterans facing the top 1994 debuters again! We get a mix of Sept. 30th’s puny house show and a bit Oct. 22nd Korakuen show- two “Saika Takeuchi is improving” matches, a Sakura Hirota “title” defense, and the Sugar/Chikayo team once again taking on a team against their trainer Mayumi Ozaki!

MEIKO SATOMURA vs. SAIKA TAKEUCHI:
(Sept. 30th)
* Time for Saika to die against a veteran! It’s weird calling Meiko that, but she’s a 5th-year! Toyota was winning belts and shit at that level!

AJW IN FALL 2000:
* Here’s a quartet of matches, all from Sept. 30th to Nov. 19th in 2000! Come see Zenjo pull its later-year angles and stories as it settles into the “new normal”: Kaoru Ito as 3WA Champion, Momoe Nakanishi & Nanae Takahashi as Tag Champs, and Las Cachorras Orientales still kicking around as vicious heels who just won’t leave. Plus an angle where Miho Wakizawa gets showcased in some vicious beatings, both with and against Manami Toyota, who seems to be in “lecturing veteran” mode. This one also starts one of the big angles of the year with the former champions, Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa!

https://archive.org/details/arsion-zion-2000

It’s another Archive.org show!

HYPER VISUAL FIGHTING ARSION- ZION 2000:
* It’s time for more ARSION! But this is only a 1-hour tape! Well that’s interesting. And possibly not a good sign if they can only afford THAT now. This is also from Sept. 17th, which I think is the third women’s wrestling promotion running a show on that date. What is THAT about? Naturally, it’s ANOTHER TOURNAMENT, as ARSION just runs these constantly.

GAEA JAPAN IN SEPT. 2000:
(Sept. 17th 2000)
* From Korakuen Hall comes a series of REVENGE MATCHES! 7 on 7 as the 2nd Generation Army tries to beat up Chigusa & Lioness and all their friends in a series of singles matches! These all have a Time Limit of 10 minutes, which is important because the “Move Spam” is like… baked into that style rather than just being some moronic thing they’re trying. Though it took me like 6 matches in before I realized there were stips, haha.

HAND MADE TITLE:
SAKURA HIROTA vs. SAIKA TAKEUCHI:
* OH NO NOW SAKURA IS HITLER! Or maybe Chaplin. But probably Hitler. She’s got the li’l mustache and is wearing a suit. Wait it’s a tuxedo with tails it’s probably Chaplin we’re safe. Saika has upgraded to INDIE KICKPADS!

Sakura makes Saika hold a leather strap in her teeth and they tug-of-war over it until Sakura lets go, resulting in Saika getting her face smashed to tremendous heat while Sakura does this “oh hee hee- me naught” thing. She does some dances and headbutts, pratfalling as I’m guessing this is some Japanese TV host she’s parodying. Takeuchi throws some KARATE KICKS and even kicks the turnbuckles to show seriousness, while Sakura’s are no-sold as wimpy. She then gets head-kicked and takes a phony bump, demanding to be counted down, barely getting up and nearly getting rolled up trying her double-arm submission. They trip each other up for counters, then Saika nearly messes up eating the corner uraken (she barely stops her self in time to take it). Saika scores a few near-falls with rollups, but Sakura ultimately wraps her up with her trip into a Japanese leg roll clutch-ish one at (5:21) shown. Briefly amusing, played straight by Takeuchi but with typical Sakura pratfalls.

GAEA DOUBLE DESTINY 2000:
(Yokohama, Sept. 15th 2000)
* It’s time for more GAEA Japan! With another big show, with a roll call before the show! The Second Generation Army (Akira Hokuto, Devil Masami, KAORU, Mayumi Ozaki, Aja Kong, Toshiyo Yamada, Dynamite Kansai & RIE) are first, coming out to “Detroit Rock City” by KISS of all things, and the Third Generation Army (the Crush Gals as “CRUSH 2000” leading Meiko Satomura, Sonoko Kato, Toshie Uematsu, Chikayo Nagashima, Sugar Sato, Sakura Hirota & Saika Takeuchi). The GAEA loyalists do the “Crush Hand Signal” at the fans after Sakura’s opening address (the heel 2nd Generation, who hate all these girls, bail before she starts). This one is features a big “GAEA First Generation vs. Evil Veterans” concept, with five matches in a row featuring one of the Class of 1995 against the vets- KAORU, Yamada, Hokuto, Masami & Ozaki. AND it’s main evented by an amazing Crush 2000 vs. Aja Kong/Dynamite Kansai spectacle dream match!

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.