Joshi Spotlight — page 8

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.

Hey- it’s another one-match Joshi Spotlight review, since I posted Dump/Yamazaki earlier this week but needed to fill things out with another. This is from a show I don’t otherwise have, and it’s said to be one of the best early ARSION matches.

AJA KONG vs. MARIKO YOSHIDA:
(ARSION, June 21st 1998)
* This is from a short “ARSION Behind the Scenes” tape, which features the final Rie Tamada/Yumi Fukawa team match, a clip of the ARSION women training in Pancrase with Minoru Suzuki (yes, that one), upcoming prospect Ayako Hamada modeling bikini pictures in Mexico (oh yeah, Rossy Ogawa is running this promotion, alright), a 2.5-minute clip of a 15-minute Reggie Bennett/Mikiko Futagami draw, and this one. This features the #1 and #2 wrestlers in ARSION, more or less (though Yoshida hasn’t quite been “made” yet)- Aja in particular was a Main Eventer and top challenger in All Japan Women’s Pro Wrestling during 1997. Aja’s in blue & black, and Yoshida’s in the red & black spider-lady gear.

They circle each other VERY carefully to start, jockeying for position and doing non-committal grappling into the ropes- Aja lies back and dares Yoshida to come at her from there, and Yoshida taunts her by leaning casually in the corner, refusing to give in and waits her out. Aja goes to all fours, then finally backs Yoshida into the corner and viciously slaps her, Yoshida trying not to give her the dignity of a sell-job, but failing. Aja follows with the corner lariat for two and gets the mount, but each counters to get it- Aja tries to wear Yoshida down with kicks, but gets caught and taken down, only to make the fans laugh by resting her head on her hands as if she’s lying casually when she stiffens up to refuse Yoshida any leg submissions. Aja no-sells some strikes and powers Yoshida down when she attempts to grapple, showing dominance and grinding her down with a forearm. Yoshida again catches a swiping kick and tries to get a leghold, and finally gets a heel-hook to make Aja holler a bit and she has to make the ropes and work on the ankle outside the ring for a while. Back in the ring, Aja just swats the crap out of Yoshida and headbutts her, setting up the piledriver as she’s now relying on her specialty rather than trying to match Yoshida’s skillset- I feel that’s important psychology.

Hey, Joshi fans! Here’s a temporary look back into 1986, with the peak of the “Gokuaku Domei” era of Zenjo, as Dump Matsumoto and her stable of schoolyard bullies freak out Japan’s population of teenage girls as she faces Itsuki Yamazaki of the Jumping Bomb Angels in a freaky, chaotic mess! Featuring classic schoolgirl shrieking, wild comebacks, insane athletics from the Angel and Dump basing an entire match around the psychology of using SCISSORS to ruin an opponent’s appearance! Read on!

DUMP MATSUMOTO (w/ The Gokuaku Domei/Atrocious Alliance) vs. ITSUKI YAMAZAKI (w/ Noriyo Tateno):
(AJW, Aug. 21st 1986)
* Hell yes! Back to the 1980s for more of prime Dump Matsumoto in all her heelish glory! Here, she has a solo match against the faster half of the Jumping Bomb Angels- Yamazaki! Herself a former heel, Yamazaki is no stranger to cheating, and is backed by her partner (plus a squadron of rookies), though Dump has the entire Gokuaku Domei (often translated to “Atrocious Alliance”) with her, including Bull Nakano & Grizzly Iwamoto. And the referee is former stable-mate, Crane Yu. Dump’s in a black swimsuit that is ENTIRELY too small and sports a mohawk and tons of harsh makeup, while Yamazaki is in a blue one with dorky long ’80s hair. Which she is quite protective of, as we’ll learn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thZKtkkzsxM&ab_channel=PuroArchive

NEO JAPAN LADIES PRO WRESTLING- BE HAPPY 1ST:
(May 6th 1998)
* It’s time for more Neo Ladies at last (I found a LOT of March-April shows after already writing this one up), this time with Kyoko Inoue vs. Lioness Asuka in one of the most-loved joshi matches of 1998! The TWF World Title is up for grabs, with Kyoko defending the belt in her home promotion against a veritable heel brigade! The rest of the show is apparently a “random draw” of singles matches, leading to Neo’s top stars again flattening the younger generation!

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

We start off with everyone drawing names out of a box, setting up matches on the show!

MIMA SHIMODA vs. CHAPARRITA ASARI:
* ASARI was part of a “kid squad” that got demolished 3-on-2 by LCO a while before, and now she’s solo against Shimoda. Mima’s always a bit of a different animal in singles matches, where she doesn’t have as much physical credibility (translation: Mita as a beast to back her up). Both are in red & gold here, looking like a tag team- Shimoda’s snippiness with ASARI reveals that ain’t so, of course.

GAEA JAPAN- FULL BLOOM:
(April 24th 1998)
* It’s time for more GAEA- this time from April, as I kind of go back & forth in the first half of 1998. Joshi’s kind of a mess at this point, so I guess it’s fitting that I keep finding pre-May stuff after I’ve reviewed May shows, lol. The name of the game- ROOKIE-SLAYING!! Chigusa Nagayo, Aja Kong and even AJW’s MANAMI TOYOTA come in for some beatdowns of GAEA’s First Class, which is always fun, as much as I assume it doesn’t help the late-90s narrative that the veterans were “burying” the younger generation. In reality, third years have no business being competitive with veterans so these kids doing as well as they are is semi-unprecedented, but the “Rookies Held Down” narrative holds strong in wrestling commentary.

CHIGUSA NAGAYO vs. SONOKO KATO:
* Chigusa, in a blue/yellow/black outfit, takes on Kato in a clipped (edit: NOPE) match. NEW GEAR ALERT- not only for Chigusa, but Kato now has yellow outlines on her blue gear!

When you always post Joshi Spotlights on Mondays but it’s Christmas Day, so you don’t wanna waste a BIG column.

JOSHI SPOTLIGHT- MAIKO MATSUMOTO:
Billed Height & Weight: 5’5″ 154 lbs.
Career Length: 1996-1999

-Yes, it’s time for my favorite thing- padding out a week of Joshi Spotlights (it was gonna be one after a shorter show, but I realized a Spotlight was gonna fall on Christmas) with a bio of a short-lived non-star: Maiko Matsumoto gets a bio! aka “The Brown Swimsuit One”.

Okay, so Maiko is barely in any of GAEA Japan‘s YouTube uploads- they tend to spam out Meiko Satomura & Sonoko Kato matches as those ended up the biggest stars in the long run (put down that knife, Sakura Hirota fans!), and the “middle years” of GAEA were particularly… iffy, when it came to great talent “gets”. The first GAEA class (from 1995) is of miraculous scope, with Meiko, Kato, Chikayo Nagashima, Sugar Sato & Toshie Uematsu all turning into good workers within a couple years- some were having ***+ matches against each other by 1996, and the booking had set them up early on as the backbone of the entire promotion, and they wrestled like it.

Maiko is part of that SECOND class- the Class of 1996 that saw her, Makie Numao, Rina Ishii, Chihiro Nakano and Sakura Hirota debut. And they weren’t as good. They didn’t have the hustle, nor the moveset development, nor the technique to really move forward. And I’ve heard that part of it was the prior expectations not falling on them- instead of forming GAEA’s backbone and filling out the roster and getting lots of focus, they were just endlessly getting their asses kicked with 10+ senpais above them. GAEA’s First Class was getting drilled by Chigusa Nagayo (their trainer & boss), KAORU and like… Bomber Hikari until she quit. The Second and Third Classes had to get their asses kicked by them AND a whole squad of senpais who’d all turned out to be legitimately incredible finds. So imagine Japan’s rigid training structure and the “senpai/kouhai” relationship where you have to be deferential and dutiful to your seniors and there’s not that light at the end of the tunnel where you’re gonna get pushed ahead of them and score some definitive wins.

JWP SAND WOMAN:
(03/06/1998)
* It’s time for more JWP action! And this one is a show on “WOWOW” with some pretty cool matches (on paper, anyways)- Hikari Fukuoka, the JWP Champion, takes on the next in line, young Tomoko Kuzumi! Devil Masami & Dynamite Kansai each take a rookie and fight each other. And devilish Mayumi Ozaki takes on her own stablemate, Rieko Amano! So this whole show is really keyed towards elevating the younger generation. You know, that thing smartass columnists are always telling bookers they should have done in retrospect! Here JWP is actually kinda doing it!

Of particular note, though, is that Ozaki is LEAVING JWP- she’s joining GAEA Japan mostly full-time after this, ending a major era (as she’s been with JWP since the late 1980s, and was a signature wrestler in the reborn promotion)

CUTIE SUZUKI vs. COMMAND BOLSHOI:
* Oh jesus, of course the interesting JWP shows always gotta start with a Bolshoi match XD. At least this one is JIP! Cutie’s in white & Bolshoi’s in tiger-print gear.

LADIES LEGEND PRO WRESTLING:
(Feb. 15th 1998)
* WOO IT’S TIME FOR MORE LLPW! Which is like… my LEAST favorite of all the joshi promotions, but still! Completion! At least to say I watched some of their stuff! This one is billed as “LLPW vs. Guren-Tai” as Eagle Sawai’s heel stable blasts forth. And it’s also Eagle combining her stable with those of Shark Tsuchiya & Lioness Asuka (from FMW & JD’, respectively) to form a SUPER stable! So we see matches from all three of them tonight, culminating with a 6-Woman Street Fight in the main event! And HOLY JESUS that one is a spectacular mess of non-stop action, and a total must-see! Like I was dreading watching this one, but that match alone is a reason to watch this.

We start off with a TV studio interview with Yasha Kurenai, hidden behind dark shades and a dark sweater.

MIHO WATABE (LLPW) vs. MAIKO MATSUMOTO (GAEA Japan):
* It’s Rookie Mayhem! Maiko is still pretty new and is developing some power-themed offense (so I hope you like atomic drops). I don’t know squat about Miho. She’s… jesus christ, she’s *4’9*!!?! She actually has a decently long career (1996-2005 as Baby-A) and is of similar experience to Maiko here. Maiko’s in yellow & brown, and Watabe’s in frilly orange.

Why did it take so long to do a Spotlight on Rie Tamada? Well, I forgot I hadn’t already done one! Which… really says it all about Rie Tamada, if you think about it.

JOSHI SPOTLIGHT- RIE TAMADA:
Billed Height & Weight: 5’2″ 125 lbs.
Career Length: 1991-2004

-Rie Tamada is… really one of those weird forgotten wrestlers who stuck around FOREVER, but never really left any kind of a defining mark. A wrestler for All Japan Women’s Pro Wrestling, then ARSION, he peaked at “just okay” to “pretty good”, never showed much charisma, didn’t have the physical credibility to be a bigger star in her era, nor was she fast enough to make up for being kinda small. Just one of those Eternal Midcarder roles you still actually need in a good, healthy company, but nothing to write home about. Like she doesn’t SUCK or anything, but she’s just never even in the top five most interesting wrestlers on a card.

Of particular note: Rie doesn’t develop any UNIQUE MOVES. It’s a standard thing in joshi for a wrestler to start to eke out their own offense, making up the occasional thing or having some “specialty” stuff. But she’s just using the Communal Joshi Offense in every single match I’ve ever seen her in- missile dropkicks, DDTs, etc.- ending matches with a Dragon Suplex, which is a pretty common upper-tier move. It’s not the WORST thing in the world, but it’s really notable when someone who is already pretty vanilla just does the same basic stuff that half the joshi industry is doing.

Rie is in a tough spot- she’s fast, but certainly not mind-blowing- her high-flying is not more impressive than Chaparrita ASARI’s, and not even moreso than Manami Toyota (who is four inches taller and far more physically credible and explosive). She can hit all the suplexes but they just look pretty basic. She’s not a botch machine, but nor is she super impressive in her execution. Like, she ends up peaking as a ***-***1/2 performer, with the latter end of the scale being so rare I can’t think of any examples off the top of my head. So she’s never embarrassing but she’s certainly never that INTERESTING, either. And it seems like once she realizes that no push is ever really forthcoming, she just settles into that “midcard” role and never leaves it, dropping her effort level down. Notably, you can see stuff in ARSION where everyone is trying their asses off and there’s this brand new precision submission style going on, and instead of trying to learn that style she’s just doing the same basic Zenjo restholds as before.

Mikiko Futagami in the main event! And… it’s awesome?!? Read on!

https://archive.org/details/arsion-04-17-1998-starlet-98-487517522-456239306

Someone on Reddit gave me a link to the show! It’s free and I think not illegal! Hooray!

HYPER VISUAL FIGHTING ARSION- STARLET:
(March 17th 1998)
* Hooray! More ARSION! Someone on Reddit was good enough to send me a link to Archive.org’s copy of ARSION: Starlet. Of course now it’s out of order with the last show I did- I haven’t been this embarrassed since I learned the sit-out powerbomb and Ligerbomb were different moves. But ARSION doesn’t have any real continuity yet, so it doesn’t matter! This show goes from “meh” to FANTASTIC, as the main event is one of the best joshi matches of the year, and a true eye-opening performance by both wrestlers! Also come see just how hard they’re pushing Michiko Omukai!

The English-speaking voiceover says “Welcome to Hyper Visual Fighting ARSION- exciting, BEAUTIFUL, excellent lady fighters! Fighters for the new millennium- are you ready?!”. Everyone runs out in their street clothes which, because it’s 1998, looks like a scene from MTV’s Daria. Like, check Yoshida’s neon green belly-shirt with SUSPENDERS and baggy white pants.

Music is overplayed throughout, all of which is adorably “1998” as well, sounding like the songs from the Spice Girls that DIDN’T get singles or music videos. Or like the J-Pop mix-tape my host family made for me this year.

REGGIE & JESSIE BENNETT vs. MICHIKO OMUKAI & YUMI FUKAWA:
* And immediately we finally get the Bennett “family” (they are not related) together, and the powerhouses are taking on the youngest Japanese women in the company in Omukai & Fukawa, both semi-experienced types who were near the bottom of the card and joined ARSION in hopes of a push. The Bennetts are in their black bodysuits, Fukawa’s in blue & Omukai’s in red & white.

JWP- NO GIMMICK:
(Jan. 23rd & Feb. 11th 1998)
* Holy shit! I found some JWP content! It’s from early in 1998 so I only missed it in the timeline by a little bit. I do NOT think 1998 was a good year for JWP at all, but let’s take a look-see at it. The big deal here is a pair of JWP Tag Team Title matches- starring JWP’s Ace & Champion Hikari Fukuoka as she defends JWP’s honor against the Zenjo duo of Kaoru Ito & Manami Toyota- the latter of whom Hikari spent years aping (she considers Toyota an inspiration). As Toyota has beaten Hikari twice in singles, there’s a bit of drama there.

Previously (via clips): Mayumi Ozaki, demon queen of JWP and the leader of OZ Academy, brained Cutie Suzuki with a chain-wrapped backfist strike and sent all the JWP wrestlers in out of concern. And so it’s a dramatic attempt at revenge, as a furious Dynamite Kansai challengers her to another Dress Up Wild Fight as they keep chasing that dragon from their original legendary bout. They trade big moves using a table, Kansai kicking out after two chain-assisted backfists, failing to win with Splash Mountain, but finally hitting SUPER Splash Mountain to put Ozaki down. Ozaki’s subordinate Rieko Amano is enraged and challenges Kansai, then helps Ozaki into an ambulance.

Note that these matches are showed on this video wildly out of order: the first one here is on the same show as the last one.

DYNAMITE KANSAI & COMMAND BOLSHOI vs. OZ ACADEMY (Sugar Sato & Rieko Amano, w/ Chikayo Nagashima):
(Feb. 11th 1998)
* So in revenge for Ozaki’s beating, Amano brings stablemate and GAEA Japan wrestler Sato with her against JWP stars- Kansai backed up by the clown. Bolshoi’s in white tiger-print (… clown gear), Kansai’s in black & white (she’s got new gear for 1998! Only a bit of yellow anymore!), Sugar’s in white & Amano’s in blue.

HYPER VISUAL FIGHTING ARSION- ARS ’98 TOURNAMENT:
(May 5th 1998)
* Welcome back to Hyper Visual Fighting ARSION! I couldn’t find an April ARSION show on YouTube, but I did manage to get their May show- and it’s a one night tournament! This one has all the big stars of the promotion, most notably MARIKO YOSHIDA, who made her return from injury a couple weeks before! And in an all-new outfit, as she’s packed on a ton of muscle and looks like a comic book superhero in amazing Spider-Woman-esque gear (actually closer to Silk, but who’s counting?). The show, unfortunately, did a very poor house, getting only half full after some solid ticket sales for the earlier shows- the novelty wore off and people just weren’t into the style right away. WELL SCREW THEM THIS IS THE MOST FUN PROMOTION RIGHT NOW!

ARSION Roster: Aja Kong, Mariko Yoshida, Rie Tamada, Yumi Fukawa, Michiko Omukai, Reggie Bennett, Mikiko Futagami, Candy Okutsu, Jessie Bennett, Fabi Apache

ARSION ran a show on April 17th that featured Mariko Yoshida, one of their expected top wrestlers, making her ARSION debut- she beats Rie Tamada, the eternal midcarder, in (12:29). Also, Michiko Omukai & Yumi Fukawa, who just had a barnburner of a match in March, team up to beat Jessie & Reggie Bennett in (19:40), Faby Apache & Michiko Omukai beat Aja Kong & Lady Metal in (11:21) (long night for Michiko), and Candy Okutsu beats Mikiko Futagami, who is being built up as ARSION’s “Tough” wrestler, in (13:15) with the Kick of Fear in a surprise win. Mike Lorefice sings this one’s praises, giving it ****.

Other shows feature what looks to be smaller cards, though Cagematch could be missing stuff. I see Aja Kong, Reggie Bennett & Mikiko Futagami beating Yumi Fukawa in separate matches, Yoshida beating Jessie Bennett, and Aja Kong & Reggie going to a 15 minute draw.

TRIANGLE MATCH:
JESSIE BENNETT vs. FABI APACHE vs. LADY METAL:
* … okay, who the hell is Lady Metal? She’s dressed like a shitty Dollar Store Wolverine with a Wolvie torso bit but a weird mask. She doesn’t have much of a Wiki bio but has a LONG-ASS career judging by CageMatch, going from 1992 to today. ARSION booking a three-way match (one person has to stand on the apron) on one of their first shows is definitely interesting- I’ve yet to see that in any joshi. Jessie’s in black with some airbrushed designs on it & Fabi’s in black with a metal chestpiece a la Psicosis. As Fabi is horrendous and Jessie is green, I don’t have high hopes for this one.

GAEA JAPAN (April 14th 1998)
* It’s time for a BIG show from GAEA Japan, as the whole thing is uploaded to their YouTube channel! It’s the start of their Third Anniversary Tour, and features bigger matches than normal. We have a super-rare singles match between Devil Masami & Toshiyo Yamada, a match between Meiko Satomura & Chikayo Nagshima that REALLY emphasizes how great GAEA’s first class of trainees was, a cheating-filled match between an LLPW goon and GAEA’s favored rookie Sakura Hirota, and a tag match with Chigusa Nagayo once more defending GAEA Japan’s honor against OZ Academy!

MEIKO SATOMURA vs. CHIKAYO NAGASHIMA:
* CHIKAYO HAS NEW GEAR!!! She has yellow on but now a darker blue with three lines of tassels on it. Oh hey, Meiko’s red gear is also different- there’s a big gold & black symbol on the side.

GAEA Japan in March 1998:
* So here’s a batch of matches from March, plus one in April 1998! GAEA has a big show uploaded from April 14th so that’ll be a separate review. This one contains a bunch more Sakura Hirota matches (… yay), plus TWO Title matches- Meiko & Kato defend the AAAW Jr. Tag Titles against OZ Academy, and then Sugar Sato defends the WCW Women’s Cruiserweight Title (which is STILL BEING DEFENDED) against Sonoko Kato!

MEIKO SATOMURA vs. SAKURA HIROTA:
(March 15th)
* Sakura gets another solo match to shine, this time as a blood sacrifice to the craziest of GAEA’s upperclassmen. Meiko’s in red with white around the collar of her singlet, while Sakura’s pink gear has a bunch of red tummy ribbons on it.