Joshi Spotlight — page 7

Here’s the second a series of interviews Bull Nakano did on her YouTube channel with various women’s wrestling stars! These were recapped by my buddy MoskowDiskow (on Twitter) and posted here with his permission.

My Notes are in Bold, titled “Jab’s Notes” so you know it’s not me trying to take credit for his hard work, lol.

– They start off talking about Toyota’s retirement match, which was a “50 person gauntlet” match with 1 minute rounds. Bull can’t really remember how it worked despite taking part. Bull says it must have been hard, Toyota compares it to a public execution (lol). Toyota says that really, she just wanted to experience working with all the people who helped her along the way one last time. Bull says that for her one minute segment, she couldn’t really move around well so she just did some posing to let Toyota get some rest.

– When asked about why she decided to retire, she noted that the wrestlers in the scene were getting smaller while Toyota was getting bigger (Jab’s Notes: Despite looking in the ’90s like a slender “pretty girl” wrestler, Manami was 5’6″ 160-170 lbs.- she was MUCH larger than even the ’90s generations of rookies, much less the stick-thin idols common today). She felt that her unique style was based on running and jumping, and she couldn’t really do it anymore at her size. “I’ve just become a random fatass that can’t fly” is her direct quote. The smaller size of modern wrestlers also meant that there was nobody that could catch her safely even if she tried a dive or something, which created a significant injury risk (Jab’s Notes: catching people is actually one of the most dangerous routine spots in wrestling in terms of breaking bones and the like). Since it was her 30th anniversary, she decided the timing was right to retire.

Hey All! I have something totally different for you today- a series of interviews Bull Nakano did on her YouTube channel with various women’s wrestling stars! These were recapped by my buddy MoskowDiskow (on Twitter) and posted here with his permission. Why am I posting someone else’s work on here? Well I find this super, SUPER fascinating, and I want a more people to see it, in a more permanent spot. Also I’m doing a 2-week vacation and I need extra content without having to fall way behind, lol. This will feature all of his writing, with my additions (ie. notes on what’s been mentioned) in Bold.

BULL INTERVIEWS CHIGUSA NAGAYO:
Jab’s Notes: Chigusa is of course the all-time biggest star in women’s wrestling history. She was the big star of the 1980s joshi boom, as her “EveryGirl” persona drew legions of schoolgirls to Zenjo (AJW), as the evil Dump Matsumoto and her stable of bullies took advantage of contemporary issues in Japanese society (the bullying epidemic- Chigusa was a stand-in for the fans and the Gokuaku-Domei were stand-ins for the mean bullies they feared) and made bucketloads of money. Dave Meltzer idiotically stated that Rossy Ogawa was responsible for all of this, a blatant lie told to him by his Japan contact Fumi Saito (a friend of Ogawa’s).

– They start with some very polite introductions and Bull jokes that she’s nervous (Nagayo is her senior) (Jab’s Notes: This is super-fascinating to me, and reflects how serious the “Senpai/Seniority” system is in Japan- that a 55-56 year old retired woman would pretend to be nervous around a senior). Bull immediately goes into a story of when she was a rookie, and was excited to have been sat next to Nagayo on the team bus. They were passing by some apartments on the freeway and Chigusa told Bull to look carefully at the buildings. When Bull asked what she was looking for, expecting some wisdom, Nagayo told her “sometimes you can see people changing” and got a big laugh. Bull says that after that, she couldn’t help but look everytime they passed the same area “I got an eyeful”-Bull.

You know, I think joshi wrestlers may be nuts.

GAEA JAPAN IN JAN-FEB. 1999:
* Welcome to 1999 in the Joshi Spotlight! Starting with GAEA Japan! After a pretty boring 1998 the promotion suddenly starts HOT, with Lioness Asuka coming over to betray her former tag team partner and form Super Star Unit with heel main eventers Mayumi Ozaki & Aja Kong! Then LAS CACHORRAS ORIENTALES show up and begin their famous Freelancer Run of 1999 and beyond! This is actually what LCO are mostly known for from what I understand, so it’s great to finally see it start.

oh also KAORU ends up doing THAT spot up above.

GAEA Roster: Chigusa Nagayo, Mayumi Ozaki, Akira Hokuto (still hurt), Toshiyo Yamada, KAORU, (First Class) Meiko Satomura, Sonoko Kato, Sugar Sato, Chikayo Nagashima, Toshie Uematsu, (Second Class) Makie Numao, Sakura Hirota, Hiromi Kato, Rina Ishii, (Rookies) Mizuki Ishii

JAN. 8th:
* This is some tiny little gym with wooden walls and maybe a 30-ft. ceiling.

JOSHI IN 1998- THE MULTI-PROMOTION ERA:

And we’re here! The end of 1998! From here, I move onto 1999, but I’ll sum up the year first!

* Wonder of wonders- the already split, frayed joshi scene in Japan gets EVEN WORSE, as now we have two additional companies alongside AJW (Zenjo- Zen Nihon Joshi Puroresu, but I don’t feel like explaining that every review, lol), GAEA, JD’, LLPW & JWP. As several of these companies have similar identities, it’s a bit annoying to see the entire scene split up so. But now we have Neo Ladies (a Zenjo-esque promotion with Kyoko Inoue as the top wrestler and Las Cachorras Orientales as the top tag team, still being vicious heels most of the time) and ARSION (a grappling-focused promotion set up by Aja Kong & Rossy Ogawa). So now it’s AJW, JWP, LLPW, GAEA, JD’, ARSION & Neo Ladies. To say this is ruinous is an understatement, as some of these companies are just fading so badly that they might as well barely exist- JWP & LLPW, the vestiges of the 1980s “JWP” promotion, are losing money- LLPW loses TV entirely in 1998 and won’t get it back for like 5-7 years.

One wonders if 1-2 Superpromotions out of all this varied talent would have done better, but that it’s the puroresu way- it’s better to make promotions out of 1-2 stars and a lot of unready bullshit wrestlers clogging up the midcard!

HEELS RUN JAPAN:
* Of particular interest is nearly every promotion in Japan suddenly runs to the old joshi default: The Heel Army. In particular, three promotions combine their heels into one super-stable, as Lioness Asuka brings two goons from JD’, Shark Tsuchiya brings a couple from FMW, and Eagle Sawaii adds hers from LLPW. And this leads to a LOT of dramatic cheating, as nobody can wrestle a match against one member without sometimes 1-3 people running in constantly! This effectively turns everything into a handicap match since the heels can cheat and run in with impunity, and no DQs really exist in the scene. This makes things feel very “same-y” when EVERY MAJOR BOUT feels that way, but also helps build heat and puts over the heels. The heel army ends up nuking much of LLPW and Neo Ladies, even invading GAEA and JWP (where LLPW wrestlers rarely appeared, because the promotions had an acrimonious split in 1992).

Hey, remember when I said the GAEA show I just did was the last Joshi thing of 1998! Well I found an un-dated match and looked it up, and sure enough it’s from that December too, lol. So have a Friday Spotlight based around one match! Also I found the full version of the WWWA/LLPW Double Title Unification match from early 1998 so I’ll include that here!

YUMIKO HOTTA, MANAMI TOYOTA & TAKAKO INOUE (AJW) vs. KYOKO INOUE & LAS CACHORRAS ORIENTALES (Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita) (Neo):
(JD’ Together Women’s All-Star, Dec. 8th 1998)
* Because Joshi, I found an un-dated match that’s actually highly-regarded and from a late 1998 JD’ show. And it features Zenjo’s Big Three against the “traitors” who weren’t getting paid and formed Neo Ladies! Kyoko’s in purple, Mita’s in white, Shimoda’s in red, Hotta’s in black, Toyota’s in red & Takako’s in light purple.

Things get heated straight away with Double Inoue EXPLODING as Kyoko & Takako meet up to start and Kyoko gestures to Takako’s partners and completely disregarding her old pal, just tossing her and brawling with Hotta, the woman who took the 3WA Title from her. And then LCO charges and they take out the partners and lay a three-woman beating on Hotta! Team AJW lashes out and does the same and now they’re all fighting outside the ring in a very epic version of what’s usually a routine spot, featuring multiple momentum-shifts and Shimoda chasing Toyota around the ring until she runs into Hotta, and Mima gets launched into the chairs. Clipped to Toyota’s Running No-Hands Springboard countering Shimoda & Kyoko, and she dropkick spams Kyoko and Kyoko/Takako go at it. Takako gives as good as she gets, firing Kyoko off the top rope, but she gets wasted by three lariats and goes completely dead-weight, getting dragged out of the ring so Manami can charge in- Manami gets Ligerbombed out of a Manami Roll, but immediately gets the move next try in one of the most lightning-fast versions I’ve ever seen (Kyoko is an INCREDIBLE base for that move). But she backflips off a lariat bump and has to avoid Shimoda’s Tiger Suplex, going into a rolling cradle as things get a bit clunkier. Shimoda reverses the Japanese Ocean Cyclone for two, but Toyota gets a dive onto Team Neo.

GAEA JAPAN (November to December 1998):
* We’re clearing out to the end of the year! Time for some more GAEA Japan! And we end the year with a BIG angle, as the formation of a new Super-Heel Army occurs and Chigusa faces more and more heartbreak!

KAORU & RINA ISHII vs. MEIKO SATOMURA & TOSHIE UEMATSU:
* It’s the Class of 95 against a veteran and a comparative rookie- if Meiko/Toshie can single out Rina they’ll win, but KAORU can probably beat either, especially Toshie. Meiko’s in red, Toshie green, Rina orange & KAORU powder blue.

https://archive.org/details/arsion-carnival-arsion-december-18-1998

It’s on Archive.org! And my favorite thing- tag teams in matching gear!

HYPER VISUAL FIGHTING ARSION- CARNIVAL ’98:
(Dec. 18th 1998)
* It’s one more ARSION show before the end of the year! This one is called “Carnival ’98” and has eight matches, including a Trios lucha match, two “Shoot Style” ones, and the Twin Stars of ARSION Title Match between Hiromi Yagi & Rie Tamada and Michiko Omuka & Yumi Fukawa!

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

We start with the musical instrument most synonymous with pro wrestling, the harp, then the standard ARSION opening with the announcer introducing all the women- the roster is now quite huge with the addition of more luchadoras, plus the fighters. A veritable sea of empty seats can be seen on the hard cam, though, which has gotta feel dreadful. They drew about 1200 to a 5500 seat venue. Rossy Ogawa = GENIUS BOOKER! Remember that! Meltzer said it, not having at all been fed info by a friend of Rossy’s!

MIKA AKINO, MARY APACHE & FABI APACHE vs. ESTHER MORENO, JESSE BENNETT & METALIKA:
* A strange one for sure, as two luchadora teams add non-lucha talent, with the best rookie (Akino) teaming up with Gran Apache’s daughters to take on Esther Moreno (new to ARSION but an old hat working in Japan, often doing mini-tours here and there for AJW and other companies) & Metalika, plus the American rookie Jesse Bennett, here in a US-flag designed singlet. Moreno’s in brown, Metalika’s in orange, Akino’s in white & green, and the Apaches are in all the colors & tassels (Mary), and black (Fabi).

AJW 30TH ANNIVERSARY MEMORIAL HALL OF FAME:
(Nov. 29th 1998)
* AJW is finally back on TV! They made a deal with Athena TV for a timeslot and everything! And it’s their 30th Anniversary show! Granted, the gutted company needs to fill the entire card with Interpromotional Matches to draw some interest (and there isn’t much- the show doesn’t draw well), but it’s a pretty big assortment of stuff- a JWP/AJW rookie tag, an AJW vs. ARSION rookie tag, the ZAPs vs. Eagle Sawai & Shark Tsuchiya in a big heel vs. heel tag, and most importantly, CHIGUSA NAGAYO, Ace of GAEA Japan and the AAAW World Champion, heads back to her original promotion to defend it against the Ace of 1995 AJW, Manami Toyota! It’s legend vs. legend! Sure to be an amazing match and not an infamous shit-show! RIGHT?

The arena is very weirdly set up, with people sitting at round tables with dinner and everything, like they’re just holding the matches right in the celebration hall. But importantly, AJW FINALLY, at long last, has swapped out their hideous, faded ring mat for a fresh new one! This one has the classic Zenjo logo but in red.

The Stuff We Miss:
Chikako Shiratori (JD’) & ZAP Isozaki (AJW) d. Sachie Nishibori & Yuki Lee (JD’) in (7:27).
Midget & Mixed Tag Match: Alexander Otsuka, Kanako Motoya, Little Frankie & Yone Genjin d. Emi Motokawa, Gran Naniwa, Tomezo Tsunokake & Yuki Ishikawa (11:49)
Eagle Sawai (LLPW) & Shark Tsuchiya (FMW) d. ZAP I & ZAP T (10:38)

A TYPHOON:
RIE TAMADA & MIKA AKINO (ARSION) vs. MOMOE NAKANISHI & MIYUKI FUJII (AJW):
* Oh dang- Akino, the best rookie trainee of ARSION, teams with former AJW wrestler Rie (who is BY FAR the most experienced person here) against two AJW rookies. Momoe is already fantastic but I haven’t seen Fujii much. Momoe’s in powder blue, Fujii’s in yellow & blue, Akino’s in grey sports clothes and Rie’s in animal print.

GAEA JAPAN IN SEPTEMBER 1998:
* It’s more GAEA Japan time, this time with some interpromotional matches, then a new idea featuring a lot of “chain/catch-wrestling” style matches (called “Roman”-style).

This time it’s the bottom quarter of the year. Chigusa’s the AAAW Champion at last, Aja Kong & Mayumi Ozaki are the tag champs, and now we’ve got FMW’s Bad Nurse Nakamura running around doing interpromotional matches. Oh, and MANAMI TOYOTA shows up, here to do her “LOL this rookie SUCKS!” act with Meiko Satomura of all people! That’s right- it’s the first ever match of the joshi legends- Toyota vs. Satomura!

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) Meiko Matsumoto, Makie Numao, Sakura Hirota, Hiromi Kato, Rina Ishii, Mizuki Ishii

BAD NURSE NAKAMURA (FMW) vs. MEIKO SATOMURA (GAEA):
* Bad Nurse, a white-faced ghoulish heel from FMW (her babyface persona is RIE), has been moving through GAEA in much of September, beating Sakura Hirota with green mist and a dragon sleeper Sept. 19th, and Chikayo Nagashima with a rollup the next day. Man, these are some SPARSELY attended shows. Sonoko Kato does much better on the 23rd, taking red mist a lot, but using a chain to counter Nakamura’s stick, then using her Dragon Suplex for the win. And… now we see Sept. 5th’s show. Why are they showing the other matches first, lol?

It’s time for a two-match Spotlight review! But it’s a big one, as one of Zenjo’s top wrestlers tries to bring the title back from the LLPW interloper who took it! The other… is Manami Toyota vs. Emi Sakura back when the latter was rookie doofus Emi Motokawa, and that one ends up being Botchamania material. Read on!

WWWA TITLE MATCH:
SHINOBU KANDORI (LLPW) vs. MANAMI TOYOTA (AJW):
(23.08.1998)
* Kandori is now WWWA Champion, having defeated Yumiko Hotta earlier in the year, and two-time champ Manami has come to bring the title back to AJW! Oh hey, I’ve seen this arena before- it was home to a lot of those “House Show”-tier AJW matches… apparently it hosted a lot of former main events when it was darkened, but the house lights make it look cheaper. Manami’s now in her read gear, which showed up a lot more in the late ’90s & early 2000s, while Kandori has her hair bleached blonde and is wearing one of those ultra-garish, super-detailed LLPW singlets, this time all purple, orange, white & gold. Like, who PICKS these color schemes? In any case, the two get into it as soon as Kandori hits the ring, with their ultra-flashy robes still on. Always like to see that.

https://archive.org/details/arsion-08-31-1998-zion-tournament-98

It’s on Archive.org! 

ARSION- ZION TOURNAMENT:
(Aug. 31st 1998)
* Hyper Visual Fighting ARSION returns with a one-night 8-woman TOURNAMENT! The announcement- in English- states that the ZION (pronounced “Sheown”) tournament is to determine the strongest. Oh, and Candy Okutsu is being repackaged as we see the debut of TIGER DREAM, the amazing PINK variant of the Tiger Mask legend, as one of ARSION’S bigger stars gets her biggest push yet!

This is a LONG two-hour show with tons of matches so I’m gonna try to do a less-recappy version for some of it. I tend to be long-winded naturally though, so no promises, lol.

ARSION Roster: Aja Kong, Mariko Yoshida, Rie Tamada, Yumi Fukawa, Michiko Omukai, Reggie Bennett, Jessie Bennett, Mikiko Futagami, Candy Okutsu/Tiger Dream, Rookies: Fabi Apache, Mika Akino, Ayako Hamada

THE PARTICIPANTS:
AYAKO HAMADA: Oh crap, HAMADA debuts! So Ayako is the daughter of wrestler Gran Hamada with a Mexican woman, and her looks are quickly going to get her a LOT of attention. uh, but she’s only like 17 here, so easy, fellas! As a rookie, she’ll probably be toasted but made to look good.
MARY APACHE: A luchadora, probably brought in as a jobber. She does a lot of ARSION shows, though.
MIKIKO FUTAGAMI: Quickly rising up the company as a “tough-girl” shooter-type who hits hard. Put over strongly by others.
REGGIE BENNETT: The big powerhouse from AJW, reintroduced in ARSION as a top-tier threat.
YUMI FUKAWA: An undersized Idol-type who’s nonetheless put in the most work of anyone and does the “ARSION House Style” of submissions. Has just recently picked up a decent win.
MICHIKO OMUKAI: A tall, skinny attractive girl given an incredulous push as a deadly striker. Awkward, but seems to be trying hard.
MARIKO YOSHIDA: One of ARSION’S top “gets”, having redone her style to be a superior “Worked Shoot” wrestler with lots of cool grapples. Chokes people out with a Modified Sleeper (double-arming their necks against her bent leg and choking them out that way).
RIE TAMADA: Career midcarder in AJW now kinda-sorta being given a push to the next level to see where she ends up.

GAEA JAPAN IN AUGUST 1998:
* Here’s more GAEA Japan! And the entire thing but the first match is from an August 23rd show that sees both the AAAW World & Tag Team Titles up for grabs! It’s JWP’s Devil Masami defending against Chigusa Nagayo, primary star and booker of GAEA, and the tag titles are defended by GAEA First Class members Sugar & Chikayo against their mentor Mayumi Ozaki, and ARSION’s Aja Kong! A main event squad against two kids? Uh-oh. Plus it’s a LONG Meiko Satomura/Sonoko Kato match, as GAEA tries another “New Idea” in a series of them that they’ve been doing all year!

CHIGUSA NAGAYO & TOSHIE UEMATSU vs. OZ ACADEMY (Sugar Sato & Chikayo Nagashima):
(Aug. 10th)
* Ozaki’s brats take on the boss and the boss and one of their classmates, the struggling Uematsu. Chigusa’s in yellow/black/blue, Toshie’s in green & white, Sugar’s in white & Chikayo’s in yellow & blue.

NEO LADIES- STAGE THREE:
(Aug. 14th-16th, 1998)
* It’s time for more Neo Ladies! I can never remember if Neo is supposed to be capitalized at this point yet (the corner pads say “Neo Ladies” so I guess not). The compilation is made up of Korakuen Hall shows over three nights, interspersed, and much of it looks to be Interpromotional. And… my god, NICOLE BASS is on this one! This isn’t long before she becomes part of the Attitude Era in a short-lived run that ends with her accusing the WWF of sexual harassment (WWF? Sexual harassment? Who’d ever believe THOSE charges?). The first-ever match of Neo/NEO mainstay Yuka Nakamura! AND the second match of Hiromi Yagi’s comeback to joshi from her 1997 retirement! And a “Tournament of Neo Stage 1998” deal.

We start with J-Pop singing over a compilation of moves from this show (Nicole Bass looks to fuck up a powerbomb near-fatally on Kyoko, so that’ll be fun to see…). This is an hour and a half with a billion matches, so I can only imagine it’s going to be heavily clipped, but we’ll see (Edit: YUP- gonna do quickie recaps of those).

Neo Ladies Roster: Kyoko Inoue, Las Cachorras Orientales, Chaparrita ASARI, Yoshiko Tamura, Tanny Mouse, Yuka Shiina, Misae Genki, Saya Endo, Yuka Nakamura

MIMA SHIMODA vs. YUKA NAKAMURA:
* It’s Yuka Nakamura! Who looks to be about twelve, and dressed up in bright pink. She turns out to be a big NEO mainstay, wrestling from 1998-2006 all in Kyoko’s companies. And of course they send her against the nastiest heel in the entire promotion. Shimoda’s in red, and at 5’5″ absolutely towers over her tiny opponent.

GAEA JAPAN IN JUNE:
* It’s time for more GAEA Japan (cuz they have the most stuff on YouTube, lol)! This batch of matches comes from June 1998. This show features the first round of a tournament to declare the #1 contenders for the AAAW Tag Team Titles! This is a big deal, in part because the tag belts are now switching from a “Junior” title for younger wrestlers to one for EVERYBODY, as we have veterans like KAORU & Yamada in there against Meiko & Kato, the top First Class members of the GAEA roster.

#1 CONTENDER FOR THE TAG TITLES TOURNAMENT:
ROUND 1:
MEIKO SATOMURA & SONOKO KATO vs. KAORU & TOSHIYO YAMADA:
(June 13th)
* This is interesting, because while Meiko & Kato are former champions, they’re Third Years going up against veterans in KAORU & Yamada. Meiko’s in red & gold, Kato’s in blue, Yamada’s in yellow and black & KAORU’s in white, and we’re joined in progress.

GAEA Japan helpfully color-coded all their wrestlers, especially in the beginning of their careers (where they wore Arena swimsuits). This helps the generic kids with same-y movesets stand out from each other. Hiromi Kato, today’s Spotlight star, is on the left in the black uniform. Sakura Hirota (pink) and Rina Ishii (orange) are her partners.

JOSHI SPOTLIGHT- HIROMI KATO:
Billed Height & Weight: 5’5″ 143 lbs.
Career Length: 1997-1998

-Yes, it’s another “Short Bio Week”, with HIROMI KATO of all people getting one! Hiromi, much like Maiko Matsumoto before her, has the ignominious honor of debuting as a good-sized wrestler who was turned into a Powerhouse-Type by GAEA Japan… but was still a jobber because she was a rookie, so you mostly just saw her hitting power spots on people before getting crushed. The Class of 1997 wasn’t any better than the Class of 1996 at GAEA, and suffered similar fates- they couldn’t get ahead, and weren’t nearly as good as the first class (which included future stars like Meiko Satomura, Sonoko Kato, Chikayo Nagashima & Sugar Sato), and they eventually retired early. Kato in particular has a career lasting only a single year, debuting just before the start of Year Three and retiring at the start of Year Four.

Why a bio on her? Well, I wanted to do more GAEA stuff on the short-lived scrubs and haven’t seen enough of the longer careers of the successful ones to properly assess them as a whole yet.

Kato had a decent look (though it’s funny because she looks big in GAEA but was normal-sized compared to AJW’s standard only a few years earlier) and could hit some power stuff, though obviously didn’t have time to develop. She would hit backbreakers quite often as her “definitive move” (GAEA was big on training their rookies to have unique offense early on, to shake up the card openers), and in her debut, already used a TORTURE RACK of all things, even on a big-ish opponent.

GAEA JAPAN (July 19th 1998):
* Here’s a GAEA show from July 19th, and it features a fairly unique match with Las Cachorras Orientales invading from Neo Ladies to take on Mayumi Ozaki and her OZ Academy trainees! Damn I’ve missed seeing LCO in my 1998 watch-through. It also features two matches in tournaments to determine the AAAW Title contenders- Chigusa Nagayo vs. KAORU (the two founders of GAEA) to challenge Devil Masami, and Meiko Satomura & Sonoko Kato vs. Toshie Uematsu & FMW’s RIE in a tourney to determine the tag challengers! And the latter has some very interesting inter-team rivalry going on. And holy god Chigusa/KAORU ends up a weird case of wrestling psychology.

AAAW TAG CHAMPIONSHIP CONTENDER TOURNAMENT:
SEMI-FINALS:
MEIKO SATOMURA & SONOKO KATO vs. TOSHIE UEMATSU & RIE:
* Okay, this is a weird one- the Super-First-Year Squadron of Meiko/Kato takes on classmate Toshie and… RIE? Who is actually Bad Nurse Nakamura from FMW. The GAEA girls are all in their more elaborate color-coded outfits (Meiko red, Kato blue, Toshie green), while RIE’s in a very plain two-piece with like… long shorts. I’ve never seen her un-gimmicked before, so this will be interesting.

https://archive.org/details/arsion-07-21-1998-complete-arsion-vol.-1-487517522-456239301

There’s a version on YouTube, but it’s almost without sound, so I used Archive.org.

ARSION COMPLETE, VOL. 1:
(July 21st 1998)
* At last! It’s time for another ARSION show! One from Korakuen Hall, attended by… oh god, 1,450 people? That does NOT sound good. *checks* okay the max is 2,000 so if they’re not lying (they probably are) it’s not THAT bad. But this show features the first time I’ve seen Mika Akino in my watchthrough, so there’s that! And the main event is newly-pushed Rie Tamada (who won that ARS ’98 Tournament, remember?) vs. undersized JTTS Yumi Fukawa! Yeah, that’s uh… a CHOICE for main event.

This is on Archive.org but thankfully isn’t messing up in my browser. The YouTube one doesn’t have any sound. We’re immediately greeted by a shot of Candy Okutsu tapping out Reggie Bennett at the ARS ’98 Tournament, followed by Yumi Fukawa’s ass in a blue bikini. Yeah, Rossy Ogawa is in charge, alright. A ton of it is a clip show of everything the promotion’s done since it’s Feb. 1998 debut. Then the girls do a tour of Los Angeles for something, then we’re introduced to Ayako Hamada… in a red bikini. Wait I already mentioned Ogawa. Then it’s Mariko Yoshida fighting Lady Apache for the CMLL Women’s Title in June 1997, being tapped out by a wacky lucha submission in less than 5 minutes, then winning the next two falls quickly. She holds that belt well into 1999! Then it’s clips of Yumi Fukawa dropping a fall to Aja Kong in 21 minutes (!!) and Reggie Bennett in 18, as they really emphasize her “tries hard and pushes everyone to the limit before jobbing” thing.

Finally, an HOUR IN, we have our first match:

THE FIRST STARLIGHT:
MARIKO YOSHIDA vs. MIKA AKINO:
* It’s Mika Akino! She later becomes AKINO and a decent star for the era, and she’s a big trainee of ARSION’s, as the company is also doing in-house training and is getting its own rookies to be threaded into the cards. And of course Akino comes out to be destroyed by one of the promotion’s top stars. Akino’s classmate is Ayako Hamada, who also gets a huge push because of her looks and athleticism, and they form a “Sporty Girl/Pretty Girl” pair pretty much immediately, in a clear attempt at recapturing old Joshi standbys, started by Beauty Pair, the Marine Wolves, and later Manami Toyota/Toshiyo Yamada. In any case, Akino comes out with “Sporty Girl” short hair and a more elaborate outfit than most rookies- the Sporty Girl two-piece get-up but in green, white & yellow. Yoshida’s in the incredible black & red Spider-Woman gear.

LADIES LEGEND PRO WRESTLING- LIVE BATTLE ’98:
(June 21st 1998)
* It’s time more more LLPW! As I’ve found a pretty big (by their standards) tape they put out featuring various matches. I think from different dates. This one is headlined in a Double Title match, as Shinobu Kandori defends the LLPW & WWWA World Titles against FMW’s Shark Tsuchiya! As Shark is one of the peak heels behind the G-MAX stable (combining the heel armies of LLPW, FMW & JD’ into one), that’s a pretty big deal, sure to be full of lots of cheating. Also featured are AJW’s top star Yumiko Hotta against Mizuki Endo, a bunch of LLPW-focused matches, and Michiko Nagashima shows up! That’s awesome- I’ve just been getting into her stuff! And here’s her… retirement match.

GODDAMMIT!!

At least it’s against Yasha Kurenai! Oh, and we’re starting off with the biggest match first:

WWWA WORLD TITLE & LLPW WORLD TITLE:
SHINOBU KANDORI (w/ LLPW loyalists) (LLPW) vs. SHARK TSUCHIYA (w/ goons) (FMW):
(June 13th 1998)
* Remember in the very beginning of my 1998 reviews when Kandori beat Yumiko Hotta in a short shoot-style match for AJW’s Red Belt? But there’s little follow-up since AJW & LLPW have ass presence on YouTube for 1998? Well she’s still champion! And she’s up against Shark Tsuchiya, the infamously bad worker who was FMW’s dominant heel for years, using matches full of weapon shots and cheating, and now she’s part of a mega-heel stable. Shark’s in green & black and Kandori’s in her day-glo yellow & orange bodysuit. Shark takes a casual gangster pose in the corner while the office guy does the opening-match Title spiel, and actually whacks his scroll away with her barbed-wire shinai, drawing in Kandori to shout at her incredible lack of respect and decorum!

GAEA JAPAN IN MAY:
* Here’s a bunch of GAEA matches from May 1998! This one features the usual bunch of disparate, clipped matches, but also has the debut of new rookie Mizuki Ishii! Who… uh-oh. No Cagematch profile! Also Aja Kong comes over from ARSION to form a regular team with Mayumi Ozaki, shaking up the top of the cards. This is also the “Night of a Billion Urakens”, something that’s only going to get more prominent in GAEA as Ozaki, Sugar, Sakura and others start spamming that move like crazy, giving an annoying same-iness to a lot of matches.

GAEA Roster: Chigusa Nagayo, Devil Masami (sorta), Akira Hokuto, Toshiyo Yamada, KAORU, (First Class) Meiko Satomura, Sonoko Kato, Sugar Sato, Chikayo Nagashima, Toshie Uematsu, (Second Class) Meiko Matsumoto, Makie Numao, Sakura Hirota, Hiromi Kato, Rina Ishii

MAY 18th SHOW:

MAYUMI OZAKI vs. TOSHIE UEMATSU:
* GAEA loyalist Toshie, in green, faces the devious Ozaki, in red & black.

GAEA JAPAN THIRD ANNIVERSARY SHOW:
(April 19th 1998)
* Hey look! GAEA’s third anniversary! This is a good way to assess things, as by this point most of the First Class has turned into good workers, but as yet still don’t have the credibility to truly press the veterans. GAEA itself has grown, though- initially the vets were just Chigusa (the top wrestler) and KAORU, but now Toshiyo Yamada AND Akira Hokuto have shown up. Hokuto is often injured and wrestling at half-speed still, and is not the draw she once was, but both make the promotion a bit healthier. Yamada’s feud with KAORU has ended and both are sorta on that same “below Chigusa” tier.

This show features Chigusa’s heel character “Zero” (UGH), FMW’s Bad Nurse Nakamura, a KAORU/Yamada team against the invading heel super-stable from LLPW, and a “600 Seconds” tournament for the First Class, where matches have a 600 second time limit! And after winning THREE MATCHES, the winner becomes Chigusa’s partner against a Super-Veteran squad of Aja Kong & Mayumi Ozaki, who are a new alliance!

ZERO (GAEA) vs. BAD NURSE NAKAMURA (FMW):
* OH GOD DAMMIT WE’RE NOT DONE WITH ZERO YET. Yes, Chigusa’s evil heel character returns, complete with black & purple lighting all over the place. At least her minion Zera has returned to her home planet or whatever. Bad Nurse is an FMW heel- the villainous persona of Nurse Nakamura. Both are in mostly dark clothing, with Zero packing the silver & black facepaint. There’s also weird Halloween-ish “howling” going on over the arena while this is going on.