Joshi Spotlight — page 6

GAEA JAPAN IN JANUARY 2000:
* It’s a whole new year for GAEA! With a ton of random matches! And look! A new stable! Yes, there’s a new one. I don’t know when they showed up- I mean there were literally 106 videos in GAEA’s channel for 1999 and I watched ALL of them so I don’t know why this stable’s debut is missed. BUT it’s called “D OR A” (Dead or Alive), and features Lioness Asuka, Sonoko Kato, KAORU & Aja Kong. And they’re kinda working heel and not with GAEA Japan but also hate Nostradamus. I was super confused watching the first match here but my notes from a couple years ago (when I asked someone who knew) indeed listed them among the stables so I can pretend to know what’s going on. … and then Nostradamus eventually changes their name to “Himiko”. WHY?! IT’S STILL THE SAME GROUP! WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE!?!

CHIGUSA NAGAYO vs. KAORU:
(Jan. 16th)
* So uhhhhhhhhhhh looks like KAORU did a heel turn! She’s in some stable called “D or A” with Aja Kong acting as a second. And she’s wearing a VERY unique, elaborate outfit consisting of a singlet-style bit, a black skirt on the front, various cut-outs, blue fire, etc. Okay it’s pretty ass-ugly from the front. And she jumps Chigusa before the bell, interrupting her super-peppy strange theme music to deliver a beatdown on the floor.

JOSHI IN 1999:
* It’s time for the yearly summation! And thankfully, 1999 isn’t QUITE as bad for the “doom & gloom” as 1998 was! In that most of the promotions are dying on the vine, but All Japan Women’s Pro-Wrestling (Zenjo) is getting slightly more popular again! GAEA is also doing pretty well! And so aging, increasingly-injured veterans will always have a place to work for the next 5-10 years!

uhhhhh there’s still an ass-ton of promotions, though. All of which are far diminished from the 1980s or 1990s peak periods, with some being borderline “micro-promotions”. Things are so bad that nearly every wrestler works for every promotion to fill cards with “Interpromotional Matches” because otherwise you can’t fill all the cards! We’ve also entered “The Era of the Freelancer” as a couple of people made big money as free agents working for whomever would pay them (Lioness Asuka, Las Cachorras Orientales) and so a lot of people followed them to do their own stuff. Many people who typically work in only one spot are also technically “Freelance” but it’s hard to keep track of (Mayumi Ozaki, for example, worked in GAEA Japan almost exclusively but was “Freelance” the whole time). So you get a lot of things like belt-holders being Free, Aja Kong of ARSION being both the ARSION and GAEA Singles Champions, etc. Never mind LCO going on a legendary tear through every promotion they could, making good money as they terrorized their way up the card until becoming the top tag team in GAEA, ARSION, Zenjo, etc., then doing a prominent job to put some other team over.

The General Stories:
* Freelancers running amok, as many people see $$$ in going solo and being their own boss, wrestling for whomever will shell out the money for them. And when it’s not Freelancers, it’s people doing stuff for multiple promotions (most notably Aja Kong, who becomes double-champion of ARSION & GAEA). Aja, Lioness Asuka, LCO, ASARI and more are technically “freelancers”, but most focus in one promotion or so.

* SHOTEIMANIA runs wild, as wrestlers discover that the “Shotei” (a palm thrust to the jaw area) is an over finisher, and so you see it spammed out all over the place. Multiple big matches end with sudden SHOTEIS, the other person selling them huge. Its omnipresence at points is annoying. This affected men’s wrestling, too (Jushin Liger controversially used it a lot). As sometimes it just looks like a piefacing, it can be pretty weak to my eyes.

* Business is improving! For uhhhhh Zenjo, but not most of the others. AJW & GAEA are kinda neck & neck by business standards, both doing the occasional big, well-attended show. So things aren’t nearly as depressing as the dead-zone of 1998.

LAS CACHORRAS ORIENTALES- THE FREELANCER QUEENS:
-So a weird thing develops in 1999- LCO (Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda), who had left AJW to join Kyoko Inoue’s Neo Ladies, quit the floundering promotion and go Freelance. And it’s the way to BIG money- they apparently did very, very well for themselves at this point, as it turns out “Heel Shit-Disturbers Who Harass Everyone and Challenge the Top Wrestlers” works in every single promotion in the country I guess. So the exact same angle seems to happen in every one of them- LCO enters, raises hell, scores a bunch of wins, and then does one big job and messes around until they leave the promotion. And they do all this shit SIMULTANEOUSLY, just about!

GAEA JAPAN IN DECEMBER 1999:
* oh thank christ- only nine more GAEA Japan videos to get through and I’m done for the year! DON’T SUCK, GAEA! OR IF YOU DO, AT LEAST CLIP THE MATCHES TO A FEW MINUTES!

TOSHIYO YAMADA, MEIKO SATOMURA & TOSHIE UEMATSU vs. NOSTRADAMUS (Mayumi Ozaki, Sugar Sato & Kaori Nakayama):
(Dec. 5th)
* Well that’s a unique assortment, at least- new MAD MAX FLINTSTONES Yamada with two of the Class of 1995 against Ozaki and a mid-tier goon and her lowest-tier goon.

Ozaki backfists Yamada, but all three GAEA loyalists hit their signature strikes on her for two. Of course after all these head-shots she’s fine and using an umbrella and her red bo staff on Yamada, knocking her around. They trade headstrikes in an annoying manner (these are supposed to be big moves and they’re easily recovering). Ozaki wins that but Sugar soon gets beaten up with a backdrop driver- Meiko ends up getting dragon screwed but dodges Kaori being powerbombed onto her, but Sugar blocks the Pele kick and flying elbows her. Rocket Launcher gets two. Yamada Flying Enzuigiris Meiko by accident and a Ligerbomb gets two- Toshie saves. Sugar gets delayed trying again and eats the Pele Kick/DVD combo… for two! She tries again and Sugar h its her with a RUNNING Ligerbomb, but on the kickout she snags her in a deadly armbar and wins by submission at (6:14 shown)!

Rating: **1/4 (Looks like your everyday “everyone does stuff” GAEA trios match, but Sugar looks really good with her very solid, semi-ordinary offense)

AJW AT YOYOGI NATIONAL GYMNASIUM:
* It’s time for the last big Zenjo show of the year! Featuring Yumiko Hotta defending the Red Belt against dirty rotten cheater Takako Inoue, AND Las Cachorras Orientales defending the WWWA Tag Titles against Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa! Every bout those teams have is over ****! And we end things with the ’90s Best Bout, as Manami Toyota & Kyoko Inoue have the last big match of their eternal rivalry, going 20+ minutes and pulling out all the stops!

And it’s in a big building! This arena is shockingly well-lit, and clearly full of fans- the stated attendance is 3,800! OMG, Zenjo is popular again! Compare this to the darkened hellhole that was their end of year Anniversary Show just a year prior.

AYAKO SEKI vs. MIYUKI FUJI:
* ROOKIE MAYHEM! Fujii is a skinny, buzzcutted rookie in ugly gear, while Seki is a heavyset girl in an amateur-wrestling singlet over a grey t-shirt. I’ve never seen her before! She had just debuted in November!

Seki immediately charges in and just belly-bashes Fujii into the corner, then whips her around the by hair and arrogantly flexes when the scrawny kid tries dropkicks. Clipped to Fujii with an armscissors, but Seki does the BACKLUND LIFT and just chucks her down. Fujii manages a sunset flip, but gets belly-bashed again and a second-rope splash flattens her at (1:27 of 4:23 shown). Almost a total squash by the giant-sized rookie. Holy crap! This kid has so much potential! Already knows how to throw her weight around and crushes Fujii easily and I can’t wait to see… oh, this is her second-last match. She has her last one in four more days, and only ever wrestled on TV once XD. The only thing I can find is that “bullying” might have been responsible, and she was “taken home by her parents” (this wasn’t at all unusual for trainees, but usually they hadn’t debuted on TV yet).

Rating: N/A (but it was squashtastic from the looks of things!)

The main event! LCO vs. HamaKino for the tag titles!

ARSION CARNIVAL 1999:
* It’s time for more ARSION! In that pretty stained-glass building this time! The first match is from Dec. 11th and sees Chaparrita ASARI defend her 3WA Super Lightweight Belt against the small, scrappy Hiromi Yagi of ARSION, and the other matches are themed around the Twin Star of ARSION Tag League finale on Dec. 19th. And it’s capped off with maybe the best ARSION match of all time and one of the best joshi matches of the year, as Las Cachorras Orientales’ hellraising run through the promotion is capped off with a legendary assault of the “Super Rookie” tag team of Ayako Hamada & Mika AKINO- a couple of undersized 2nd-years going up against the evil heel goliaths of joshi puro!

LCO’s run through the industry at this point is pretty legendary, and for good reason- they come in, raise hell, then cap it off with some epic bloody matches.

YUMI FUKAWA vs. CANDY OKUTSU:
* This is a rematch from the inaugural ARSION show. Candy still has Diesel pants but a much better top (gold & black). Candy impresses with some rapid-fire Tiger Mask spots (the tiger feint and spinning toehold takedown), but Fukawa counters with mat wrestling like a jujigatame & crossface, but misses a moonsault. Candy hits Rolling Germans, but her Tiger Suplex is countered to an anklelock… and she TAPS at (2:23 shown of 11:04)! Yumi beat Candy! Impressive!

LUCHA LIBRE RULES:
RIE TAMADA & LINDA STARR vs. AI FUJITA & MARI APACHE:
* The lower-ranked wrestlers do a “lucha match”. We start with Mari nailing her partner, who does a very lazy selljob and they both eat Linda’s flying plancha. Now it’s clipped to JUST the highspots- Fujita’s cartwheel handspring, Mari’s missile kick & tope con hilo (ow- her back), Fujita’s moonsault plancha, then Mari’s impressive “flip them up from a rana to a Ligerbomb” on Rie. Rie hits a sunset bomb on Mari, but takes Linda’s missile kick by mistake and La Majistral pins her. Linda manages a flying rana on Mari for three. Fujita hits her 450 Splash on Linda to win at (3:21 of 12:08 shown).

NEO LADIES (Oct. 22d 1999):
* So it’s time to finish up Neo Ladies for the year! This features a pair of “Neo Japan Cup” matches between their lesser wrestlers, a Takako Inoue vs. Yoshiko Tamura midcard match, then Chaparrita ASARI challenges for the WWWA Super Lightweight Title against Zenjo’s Momoe Nakanishi, and Yumiko Hotta tries to regain her WWWA World Title against Kyoko Inoue to get even for the cheating in the match where Kyoko won it! This is from Hakata Starlanes with a listed crowd of over 1,200… which is one of the most bullshit statements ever. This looks like a depressingly tiny, dark hall, and you can see a SEA of empty chairs- there is maybe 600 people here, tops. Man, an interpromotional match for Zenjo’s top belt can’t draw more than that?

NEO JAPAN CUP ’99:
TANNY MOUSE vs. YUKA NAKAMURA:
* …. who? Okay, Yuka debuted the year before in Neo so I shouldn’t actually know her yet. She wrestles until 2006! Not bad! She looks like a nervous kid in a red outfit with a skirt on it, and is a Kyoko/Neo trainee from 1998, and is up against Tanny, who has filled out a lot and is in a less comedic outfit (black with yellow tassels).

I’m posting the start of the Gauntlet here because… I don’t want the first match’s thumbnail showing up as the header.

GAEA JAPAN’s GAUNTLET MATCH:
* It’s time for more GAEA Japan! This time, we have a huge match- Nostradamus vs. GAEA Japan in a GAUNTLET match! 6 vs. 6! The losers are handcuffed to their respective corners so they can’t interfere as easily! This means that Nostradamus (which now adds RIE to the roster of Aja Kong, Mayumi Ozaki, Akira Hokuto, Chikayo Nagashima, Sugar Sato & Kaori Nakayama, though RIE isn’t in this match) takes on GAEA’s loyalists (Chigusa Nagayo, KAORU, Toshiyo Yamada, Meiko Satomura, Toshie Uematsu & Sakura Hirota) in a series of “600-second” matches- these are prone to flukes, sudden rollups, flash-submissions and other quick finishes, meaning there’s a lot of drama and potential for unexpected things. This is also the infamous moment we get a complete change in Toshiyo Yamada, who possesses a new look going forward. The legendary “Flintstones Mad Max” Yamada era begins here!

“All my friends have children, but… even though I haven’t any of my own… these girls have become my children”
-Chigusa Nagayo

“We are liberty! We are violent! We are freak-out! We arrrrrrrrrrrre GAEA Japan!”
-The announcer, hyping the show.

GAEA GIRLS:
Directors/Writers: Kim Longinotto & Jano Williams
Release Date: 2000 (filmed in 1999)

* Yes, it’s time we come to GAEA Girls. Released in 2000, it nonetheless is centered around 1999 and the debut of Saika Takeuchi. Directed and written by Kim Longinotto & Jano Williams and produced for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) by Vixen Films, it comes up quite a bit when discussing women’s pro wrestling, and is of course somewhat notable for Meiko Satomura, about to retire in 2024, viciously striking a prospective wrestler during training.

The brutality witnessed here is not for the faint of heart, and yet one must keep in mind the old adage “that the act of observing will influence the phenomenon being observed”… which is actually a science-themed observation, but I found one for the social sciences- the Hawthorne Effect! That is, people who are being observed and are made aware of it will inevitably change their behavior. Putting on a show, so to speak.

Chigusa herself, when discussing this documentary, has stated that her intention was to show that “Wrestling is hard”. ie. if it wasn’t tough ALREADY, she was going to make damn sure it looked extra-tough. Uncharitably, you could claim that wrestlers, always a bit side-eyed because they’re doing obvious pretend-fighting, like to go out of their way to act like “No no, we are REALLY tough”, hence all the tall tales of how tough and strong various wrestlers were in real life, how they could clear bars full of people, rouging up Matt Capotelli on Tough Enough on-camera, etc. And one has to wonder how much of that is here- “I don’t want anyone to think we’re just weak pretend-fighters, so beef up the violence for the cameras!”. But pretty much anyone who went through the Zenjo gym (ie. the one Chigusa went through) in prior eras will tell you how tough and nasty that training was. The ones who have, of course, will say “You can’t argue with the results”: if it produced Chigusa Nagayo, Bull Nakano, Devil Masami, Manami Toyota, Akira Hokuto, LCO, and others, who’s to say it doesn’t work?

GAEA JAPAN IN FALL 1999:
* It’s time for more GAEA Japan! All the Zenjo content I found was concentrated in July & September, so now I’m back up to where GAEA was. And the first match is a BIG one- an 8-woman tag featuring Super Star Unit going up against Chigusa’s GAEA loyalists, with the added factor of Lioness Asuka’s new trainee, Sonoko Kato, shoring up the SSU side against her GAEA origins! This one ends up with big repercussions for GAEA as a whole with regards to the future of Super Star Unit- what was once the biggest heel stable in joshi pro!

Then we have a “600 Spurt” tournament of matches intended to be under 10 minutes- these are fluke-heavy sprints, so prepare to have expectations torn asunder! The finale has a big impact on what’s expected of GAEA in the future, I would think.

CHIGUSA NAGAYO, KAORU, TOSHIYO YAMADA & MEIKO SATOMURA vs. SUPER STAR UNIT (Lioness Asuka, Mima Shimoda, Etsuko Mita & Sonoko Kato):
(Sept. 22nd)
* Ohhhhhhhhhhh shit, this seems like a big one. Chigusa has been feuding with her ex-Crush Gals partner all year long, and Lioness recently took Chigusa’s second best trainee, Sonoko Kato, away! And now Kato’s teaming up with LCO & Asuka against the top four people still loyal to GAEA! Chigusa’s in black & red, KAORU white, Yamada xxxxxxxxxx and Meiko red, while Asuka’s in black & silver, Shimoda black & red, Mita black & yellow, and Kato blue.

AJW IN SEPT. 1999:
* It’s time for some disparate AJW shows from September! Some feature actual stars vs. rookies, while one pays off the big Kyoko Inoue vs. Yumiko Hotta title switch from July! There, Kyoko was unknowingly helped by her friend Takako Inoue (no relation), who used a STUN-GUN to zap Hotta and leave her vulnerable to Kyoko’s finishers. Manami Toyota, a Zenjoy loyalist, hit the ring to talk mad shit on Takako for cheating in a Red Belt match (something that’s usually HIGHLY frowned upon, as the wrestlers take that belt very seriously), and now they’re gonna fight each other!

But the big selling point in this one is the GREAT Las Cachorras Orientales Tag Title defense against the rookie upstart duo of NanaMomo- the kids put on a hell of a fight and show a ton of heart against the big, cheating bruisers! Actually a lot of this review is just “here’s how good Momoe is getting”, which I’ve heard will be quite important for the future.

Sept. 20th:
* This show is from the Sept. 20th ATHENA TV show at Odaiba.

YUMIKO HOTTA & KUMIKO MAEKAWA vs. NANAE TAKAHASHI & MIYUKI FUJII:
* So the top two kickers in Zenjo take on midcard goobers Nanae & Miyuki. Probably a “put the kids in their place/show how much they’ve grown” match. Fujji’s got short hair and an LLPW-esque singlet that’s white/yellow/blue in a lot of bold angular patterns while Nanae’s wearing a weird white/purple singlet with triangles across the chest. Hotta’s in black & Kumiko’s in white/blue.

AJW ODAIBA EXPLOSION:
(July 10th & 11th, 1999)
* Hey look! Even more Zenjo stuff from the summer of 1999! I’ll never be able to escape this month! This one, however, features the famous “Match in the Rain”- though it rained a LOT on these rooftop shows at the Fuji TV building, this crazed 6-woman tag really takes the cake. I’ve reviewed it before, so I’ll slap that one in here as well. And there’s also MULTIPLE Title matches featuring invaders from other promotions, including Yumiko Hotta’s WWWA World Title being defended against Neo’s top dog Kyoko Inoue! Kumiko Maekawa defends the White Belt against the giant Misae Genki! There’s also the WWWA Super Lightweight Championship being fought for once again!

Note that almost all of these are massively clipped. And some of them happen the same day as matches I’ve already reviewed- these came undated so I wasn’t aware of when they happened until I watched them and checked my notes (ps YouTube uploaders who don’t post match dates should be drawn & quartered). And rain hits on both days of this show, resulting in an iconic mess of a match and then a disappointing World Title match.

ALL PACIFIC TITLE:
KUMIKO MAEKAWA (AJW) vs. MISAE GENKI (Neo):
* It’s Interpromotional mayhem, as White Belt holder Kumiko takes on Misae, who was three years behind her in Zenjo training classes (1991 vs. 1994). As Genki is getting a big push in Kyoko Inoue’s Neo Ladies as a rising powerhouse, she’ll probably do well but lose a “hard fought match”. Kumiko’s in white & Genki’s in her black shirt & shorts.

NEO LADIES IN 1999 (Part One):
* Hey look! I found some Neo stuff! Which… last time it was called Neo Ladies and was a Kyoko Inoue-led mini-promotion with her and some of All Japan Women’s rookies, plus Las Cachorras Orientales & Chaparrita ASARI. But wait! Neo Ladies did not do well, and so LCO and ASARI moved on to becoming Freelancers, leaving a very top-heavy group. Neo is actually two different companies, mind you- the backers shut it down (in 2000, according to Wikipedia), leaving Kyoko with a lot of debt, but it rebrands a tad and forms a new company that lasts ten more years. I keep thinking only one is in all-caps but this is all labeled that way on YouTube, probably by mistake, but I dunno. This is in the midst of a feud with Zenjo (AJW)- promotions did these little feuds to prop themselves up and fill out cards a lot of the time.

KYOKO INOUE (NEO) vs. TAKAKO INOUE (AJW):
(May 5th 1999)
* Double Inoue EXPLODES as Kyoko once again takes on her former partner, Takako. Their levels are leagues different at this point so I can’t imagine there’s any drama here. But Takako has maxed out her “cheating” skill-tree and is now sporting an actual STUN GUN as a weapon (remember that in joshi nobody ever gets DQ’d).

Is anyone ready for some shamelessly topical pandering!? I am!!

So WWE’s YouTube channel just released a bunch of content of Japanese girls hitting the WWF in the 1980s, in response to the Queen of Villains series that was just released to Netflix! This features the American tour of the Crush Gals (Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka) and their rivals Dump Matsumoto & Bull Nakano! Near as I can tell, the two teams didn’t interact, fighting only American rivals. This generally meant that someone had to act as a cheating heel. On commentary throughout is Gorilla Monsoon, who is only vaguely prepared for what he’s about to watch- he has the names of “Chigooza” and “AhSOOKa” mixed up throughout, often changing halfway through the match and isn’t corrected. One of the funnier bits is he always thinks a slam is going to be a suplex because in joshi puro they always do a front-facelock to set up a bodyslam instead of the crotch-scoop.

All four girls were of course MASSIVE stars in Japan at this point, with Chigusa being a household name and a goddess to her schoolgirl fanbase. None of which applies to the U.S. audience, so it’s interesting to see how the Gals get over- usually it’s via the heels cheating to put over the comebacks, and some natural selling from the Gals. The style of Dump & Bull was so mayhem-related, with tons of weapons and open cheating, and that can’t be done in the U.S. style which has more stringent rules- so they’re left with regular-ass selling instead of bleeding and acting near-death. Thankfully in almost every match is a woman trained in Zenjo (AJW’s nickname- ZEN Nihon JOshi Puroresu)- both Judy Martin & Leilani Kai did LONG tours there and know the style (note that when the Jumping Bomb Angels did their famous tour in the WWF, they were almost never paired up with anyone BUT the Glamour Girls, who were the only ones who could take their state-of-the-art flying offense).

All of these matches seem to be around the same couple of dates- in fact, they ran a Crush Gals match and a Dump/Bull match on each card! That’s quite a lot of show real estate to use on total unknowns who aren’t going to be coming back, either.

This is actually missing one match, so I’ll post that one first:

THE DEVILS OF JAPAN (Dump Matsumoto & Bull Nakano) vs. VELVET McINTYRE & DAWN MARIE:
(WWF, March 8th 1986)
* WHAT THE SHIT?!?! DUMP MATSUMOTO and BULL NAKANO made WWF TV in the late ’80s? This is friggin’ crazy. Dump is swinging around a chain and dressed like a dark samurai, while Bull has her hair in its mid-80s phase, blonde and shaved on one side, which is hilariously prescient to the hairstyle that became super common among women about ten years ago. They look like a Japanese, female version of Demolition or the Road Warriors, and I’m amazed somebody didn’t try to push them over here. Lord Alfred is agog (“That is a big UGLY lady!”) when Dump takes off the samurai helmet. The barefoot McIntyre had traded the WWF Women’s Title with Moolah in ’86 (and had a SPECTACULARLY bad match at WrestleMania 2). Dawn Marie (not that one) is a Moolah-style woman who was largely a JTTS. Velvet’s in white, and Dawn Marie’s in pink/purple.

ALL JAPAN WOMEN’S PRO WRESTLING:
(July 1999)
* So mere months ago, a NEW joshi channel popped up on YouTube, spamming out a bunch of content from the era I’m covering! This allows me to fill in some bases! Most of this is from the absolutely incredible ATHENA TV set-up on the Fuji Broadcasting Center building, which is on a rooftop on Odaiba Island. It’s an amazing set-up for wrestling, as it has good acoustics, is small so a smaller crowd doesn’t seem horrible, and is outdoors so you get that “windswept hair” effect and stuff.

The matches here are largely some Japan Grand Prix stuff, a good Manami/Momoe “Veteran vs. Rising Star” match, and then a mother of a tag match featuring Las Cachorras Orientales vs. The ZAPs in a Cheating Heel vs. Cheating Heel match with tons of crowd brawls, blood, huge spots on the commentary stand, and more! This is also a good showcase for just how many people used the ATHENA lighting rig for their spots, as you see this nearly constantly, haha.

JAPAN GRAND PRIX:
KAORU ITO vs. TAKAKO INOUE:
* Ito has gravitated into a much heavier, bulkier fighter since I last saw her, with her push corresponding with her squatness. Takako has become a freelancer at some point in 1999 but remains in good standing with the Zenjo office. She’s in black, with the shorter hair that she kept for a long time, and the black idol outfit that she pretty much wears to this day. And some dumbass-looking boxing gloves to put over this “Takako is a STRIKER” gimmick they sadly keep working into matches, as if she’s at all a believable puncher. Ito’s in a black & blue bodysuit with shorts.

MANAMI TOYOTA vs. YUMIKO HOTTA:
* Hey look! I found a Toyota/Hotta match from 1997 I’ve never seen before! And also one from 1999! So I can do a two-in-one deal! Their chemistry has always been very interesting, and has produced both classics as well as slogs depending on effort, nerves, and injuries. Hotta is depicted as a tough, nigh-invincible shooter who can submit or knock people out, while Toyota’s specialty is incredible speed and acrobatics. Thus, Hotta is generally expected to dominate their matches (as the senior, she’d certainly be calling the matches, too)… though Toyota can have iffy selling at points and just fly into her comebacks as if no accumulated damage was done, particularly if she’s in a mood to show off. I’ve seen them have a ****3/4 match before, and I’ve seen some bad ones where Hotta won’t sell at it seems to piss Manami off and cause her to act out, throw tantrums or try to match stiffness, and then they get increasingly clumsy as the match goes on. It’s fascinating but makes me dread seeing things like the 30-minute runtime of the first match here, haha.

YUMIKO HOTTA vs. MANAMI TOYOTA:
(Sept. 21st 1997)
* This one has been uploaded semi-recently, which explains how I missed it. This is shortly after Zenjo nearly went bankrupt and the entire roster was gutted. After a weak show in which Kyoko Inoue announced she was quitting BEFORE her Red Belt match against Hotta (thus ruining any drama as to whether or not Hotta was going to win), this is probably their biggest shot to show what they have to offer from an in-ring perspective. Manami and Yumiko were seen as the “Mom & Dad” of the promotion as the two highest-ranked wrestlers left according to others. Both are in black & white here. Hotta is the Champion but this is not for the title. Also holy god look at that ring mat. DISGUSTING. So flaky and faded, haha.

GAEA JAPAN- YOKOHAMA DOUBLE DESTINY:
* It’s a HUGE GAEA Japan show! Yokohama Double Destiny sees major matches featuring the central angles of the company, leading up to Lioness Asuka vs. former partner & best friend Chigusa Nagayo in a blood feud over ownership of the company! So last time we saw GAEA Japan and OZ Academy, they were doing shows full of multiwoman matches, Nostradamus was feuding with Super Star Unit, and then Chigusa shows up as ZERO again! Her evil heel persona is apparently what’s needed to take on these goons wrecking her company.  The Main Event is Chigusa vs. Lioness Asuka, again for the control of GAEA Japan! Then it’s AAAW World Champion Aja Kong defending against desperate rising star Meiko Satomura to cap off their long feud! And we also have Las Cachorras Orientales vs. their former mentor Akira Hokuto with Mayumi Ozaki! That’s a guaranteed ****+ match! … Right? … RIGHT?

The show opens with each of the three factions getting separate introductions- NSD’s theme is pretty great, going from medieval/classical-esque to modern dance. The big screen in the back splitting open to reveal the wrestlers is pretty epic, especially for the depressing late ’90s joshi scene.

GAEA Roster: Chigusa Nagayo, Mayumi Ozaki, Toshiyo Yamada, KAORU, (First Class) Meiko Satomura, Sonoko Kato, Toshie Uematsu, (Second Class) Makie Numao, Sakura Hirota
Super Star Unit: Lioness Asuka, Las Cachorras Orientales (Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita)
Nostradamus: Mayumi Ozaki, Akira Hokuto, Aja Kong, Sugar Sato, Chikayo Nagashima, Kaori Nakayama

SONOKO KATO vs. TOSHIE UEMATSU:
* So Sonoko’s a GAEA wrestler, but has now betrayed the fold and accepted the mentorship of LIONESS ASUKA, and now she gets a solo match against GAEA loyalist Toshie.

HYPER VISUAL FIGHTING ARSION- SUMMER CARNIVAL THE QUEENS:
(Aug. 6th & 22nd, 1999)
* It’s more ARSION! This time from a summer tour in bright-ass gymnasium-style shows. It’s always weird not seeing dark arena lighting. And we start off with the Queen of ARSION Title being defended in a bout with the company’s top two stars: Mariko Yoshida and Aja Kong! Shockingly even THAT match is clipped, though- this is a two-hour tape and they couldn’t fit their top belt’s match in full? It’s also the ZION ’99 Tournament on the Aug. 22nd show, featuring Aja, Rie, Futagami, Omukai, Fukawa and even LCO’s Mima Shimoda!

ARSION Roster: Aja Kong, Mariko Yoshida, Rie Tamada, Yumi Fukawa, Michiko Omukai, Hiromi Yagi, Chaparrita ASARI, Mikiko Futagami, Candy Okutsu, Esther Moreno, Mary Apache, Fabi Apache, Mika Akino, Ayako Hamada, Rookies: Ai Fujita

QUEEN OF ARSION TITLE:
MARIKO YOSHIDA vs. AJA KONG:
* We’ve seen this pairing a bit in ARSION thus far, but never in such a big context- the top belt in the promotion fought for by the top two stars. Both have been in the “Carrying Others” mode for more than a year by this point, usually trying their hardest to put over unready midcarders as threats. Yoshida has a taped left shoulder.

GAEA JAPAN IN AUGUST 1999:
* It’s time for more GAEA Japan! This time it’s two big matches, as Lioness Asuka, evil heel leader of Super Star Unit, takes on GAEA loyalist Sonoko Kato, with a major development after the match! Next up, the new “Nostradamus” team (a mega-stable adding AKIRA HOKUTO, back from injury at last, to one half of SSU) gives us Hokuto’s first match in a year as they take on a Chigusa Nagayo-led GAEA team. Then it’s three super-short clipped matches and finally a Super Star Unit vs. Nostradamus match on Mayumi Ozaki’s “OZ Academy” show!

GAEA Roster: Chigusa Nagayo, Mayumi Ozaki, Akira Hokuto, Toshiyo Yamada, KAORU, (First Class) Meiko Satomura, Sonoko Kato, Toshie Uematsu, (Second Class) Makie Numao, Sakura Hirota
Super Star Unit: Lioness Asuka, Aja Kong, Las Cachorras Orientales (Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita)
Nostradamus: Mayumi Ozaki, Akira Hokuto, Sugar Sato, Chikayo Nagashima

LIONESS ASUKA vs. SONOKO KATO:
(Aug. 15th)
* The vicious leader of SSU takes on the wrestler who was initially kinda dressed like the “Asuka” of their rookie team.

It’s another Bull Nakano interview… this one of lesser-known star Kayo Noumi! Kayo was a minor rookie at the point I’m in for my Joshi Spotlights, but it’s interesting to hear her talk about the struggles as a scrub moving up in the strict Zenjo hierarchy of All Japan Women’s Pro Wrestling in the late 1990s. Kayo stuck with it and had a pretty long career, though nowhere near the length of many of the ’80s stars that preceded her- she was “only” in the business for ten years, whereas most of them did 20+. Noumi is particularly notable because she quit REPEATEDLY due to how tough everything was.

These interviews are transcribed by my friend MoskowDiskow on Twitter. My Notes are in bold with “Jab’s Notes” ahead of them, so you know it’s my additions.

– Noumi first got into pro-wrestling when she and a friend rented the 1991/92 Japan Grand Prix and Tag League VHS tapes in middle school. She was a regular fan for several years, went to Big Egg, threw tape for her favorites, etc.

– During training, she was skinny and struggled to do the workouts. She failed the pro-test twice before passing. Nanae Takahashi was apparently the top performing trainee in her class, and was something of a leader among the young girls. Noumi says Takahashi always had her back and did a lot to help her out and keep her going. (Jab’s Notes: Nanae ended up becoming a pretty big star for her era, and was a name in early Stardom, and currently is in Marigold, Rossy Ogawa’s new promotion)

– Her favorite wrestler was Etsuko Mita. Once she joined, she said she never really got to talk to Mita because chances to speak with seniors are very rare, and she had to use all her opportunities to chat to issue apologies, because…

– She ran away FIVE times during training. Bull was flabbergasted by this, as it’s a very high number. She said she ran away due to being homesick, the work being too hard, etc the first few times, and the last time was when she fled with Mogami which she understandably did not want to talk about. She says Takahashi was the one who reached out to her to convince her to return.

(Jab’s Notes: So uhhhhh this was apparently due to some REALLY vicious bullying going on within the company, as it was pretty normal for one generation to treat the generation immediately below them like crap. Japan’s usual “don’t talk trash about your coworkers/other people” thing, usually about keeping the peace and not rocking the boat, is definitely in play here. Even years after the fact she’s not going to be big on dissing certain people publicly. But the bullying was bad enough that Mari Mogami has a career from 1995-1996 and never returned.)

Welcome back to yet another Bull Nakano interview- this time with the possible GOAT worker, Aja Kong! These are written out and elaborated upon by my buddy MoskowDiskow from Twitter. Aja is of course a huge legend in joshi wrestling, having come up in the late 1980s as a biracial competitor, quickly joining the heel stable and then betraying Bull Nakano to form the rival “Jungle Jack” stable, the Bull/Aja feud dominating All Japan Women’s Pro Wrestling (AJW/Zenjo) in the dark period between the Crush Gals retiring (and hurting business) and the Interpromotional Era that was a tape-trader favorite from 1992-on. Aja became dominant WWWA Champion (the Red Belt- top belt of Zenjo) during this time,l and had numerous classic matches and performances.

(Jab’s Notes: My own notes will be in bold text to differentiate them)

PART I:

This is from September 2021

– They start with some greetings and Aja talks a bit about what she’s up to these days, where she’s been working, etc. They talk about how it’s a totally different environment from the days when they were starting out in Zenjo and the newly formed JWP was the only other possible employment alternative. At that time, there was a mentality of “if you leave Zenjo, you leave wrestling.”

-Bull says that since Aja is such a good talker , she’s able to thrive in the current environment. Aja says she cringes when she sees some of her old interviews from her younger days. She says she had a high pitched voice and would speed through promos too quickly. She eventually learned to slow down to get her message across more effectively. Aja takes time to give props to Bull, because it was working with Bull that really taught Aja how to promo. She stresses the importance of reading the room during live promos, which is a skill that comes with experience.

– Aja talks about how when she was a rookie, her only thoughts were about getting through the matches. She saw Bull’s success (Aja was a junior in Bull’s faction) and realized she needed to learn more about how the more experienced Bull thought about wrestling in a broader sense. (basically going from just thinking about doing her spots to thinking more in terms of psychology, etc). Aja is a very bright person in general and went all in, studying all the interviews, tape, etc that she could find.

– Aja says she heard at one point that “the real match is with the customers” and that she finally understood what that meant once she started studying Bull. (this refers to the push/pull dynamic between wrestlers and fans, how to work, get over, etc.). Aja says that once she started looking at it like this, wrestling became a lot more fun for her.

(Jab’s Notes: THE REAL MATCH IS WITH THE CUSTOMERS. That’s it right there. The whole thing. It’s the difference between the greatest and the “merely okay”. It’s why instead of bitching about “bad crowds” not reacting to “obviously great matches”, you should wonder why the wrestlers weren’t able to shift the match to something the fans actually wanted to see)

– Aja talks about the origin of her famous technique, the Uraken backfist. In 1990 when Zenjo was starting to promote shoot boxing matches on their cards, she was training with Mima Shimoda, who the office was wanting to push at the time. Aja was wearing oversized 18oz practice boxing gloves, which made her fight like a cartoon robot (ie very stiffly), so she would occasionally bonk Shimoda with a backfist out of frustration – when a lightbulb went off and she thought “this just might work!” Fast forward to her “kakutogi street fight” match with Madusa a few months later where she hit a bunch of backfists, and the Uraken was born.

-She says the office told her to use it as a trademark, and it took awhile for her to figure out how to optimize it (lots of early matches where she would just whack people willy nilly). They laugh as Aja apologies for potatoing Bull so many times while she was figuring it out (Aja -“I really used you as a practice dummy..”)

(Jab’s Notes: If you watch 1990-ish Aja matches, she indeed just spams it like crazy as a signature strike, the way Misawa would do elbows or Kobashi chops- it’s around 1991-ish that she builds it up as a proper finisher- prepping people for it, slapping them in anticipation and BAM! ending their lives)

Aja Kong shoot KO's Tamura with an uraken (1997)
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