Joshi Spotlight — page 9

JWP PURE HEARTS FESTIVAL- PART TWO:
(Aug. 17th, 1997)
* So a couple years ago, Rico Kasai uploaded a ton of JWP stuff to a YouTube channel, and I spent HOURS finding all of them (since dates weren’t included), searching Quebrada.net for who had wrestled whom and when… but some eluded me. But I decided to look up the “extras” at last… and sure enough, they’re mostly from the same freakin’ show! One I already kinda reviewed! It was a two-day show at the JWP Pure Hearts Festival. It would’ve been better to just include the “Day Show” and the “Night Show” separately, but for some reason I never realized the matches I hadn’t placed belonged there- I obviously didn’t cross-reference my lists, or missed when I searched last time (I swear I checked YouTube in two languages, lol). ANYWAYS I BLAME RICO KASAI FOR NOT DATING THEIR SHIT.

This is mostly a collection of random stuff that isn’t super-great, except for ONE match- Tomoko Kuzumi vs. Tomoko Miyaguchi in maybe the best match you’ll EVER see featuring 2-year veterans! The two kids have one of their best matches for the JWP Junior Title!

DAY SHOW:

TOMOKO KUZUMI & SARI OSUMI (JWP) vs. COMMAND BOLSHOI (JWP) & EMI MOTOKAWA (IWA):
* It’s lowercard madness, with the best of JWP’s rookies (Kuzumi) teaming up with brand-new rookie Sari Osumi against Bolshoi (a midcarder at this point) and the future Emi Sakura, who wrestles for IWA in its tiny women’s division at this point. I imagine Bolshoi’s team is taking this rather easily. Kuzumi’s in neon splatterpaint in an “Idol” outfit (all the cut-outs & fringe is a dead giveaway), Osumi’s in the most hideous black singlet with green leaf designs ever, Bolshoi’s in the same gear as last match & Emi’s in orange/black.

GAEA JAPAN- G-PANIC! Critical Hit!:
(Oct. 18-19th)
* More GAEA Japan awaits, as a pair of matches are on their YouTube channel from late October, just after the last show I did. They’re in a teeny-tiny white gym, and starting off with Aja Kong coming to GAEA again to mess with Chigusa.

CHIGUSA NAGAYO & SAKURA HIROTA (GAEA) vs. AJA KONG & YOSHIKO TAMURA (Free Agents):
* An interpromotional tag! But it’s goofy ol’ Sakura doing her “training with the boss” thing again, taking on Aja (free from AJW) and Tamura. Chigusa’s in her black & yellow singlet again, Sakura’s in purple, Aja’s in green & black and Tamura’s in black & pink, looking pretty gigantic in there now. Sakura gets a good reaction for stepping in front of Chigusa when Aja taunts her- a “take ME on!” moment from the tiny kid.

Shark, like Dump Matsumoto before her, liked to use blades to cut up the heroic babyfaces.

JOSHI SPOTLIGHT- SHARK TSUCHIYA:
Real Name: Eriko Tsuchiya
Billed Hgt & Wgt: 5’7″ 194 lbs.
Career Length: 1989-2010

-Of all things, among the most constantly-uttered refains in all of Joshi fandom is “Shark Tsuchiya sucks”. Despite being FMW’s #2 or #1 heel depending on the year and a huge recurring rival of Megumi Kudo’s, there is NOBODY who has more universal disdain leveled at their in-ring skills than Shark. And hoo boy does she earn it. Apparently a nice lady, though!

So Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling had an issue: Women’s wrestling was part of its shows, but only two of the women- Kudo and Combat Toyoda- were well-trained. Everyone else was just kinda junk by comparison. Yet you couldn’t JUST run Kudo/Combat matches, so you had to elevate some of the others. And so this snarly brawler got to join in as well.

Shark wasn’t really physically dominant like the big Combat was- she was just kinda built like a regular American person (though as she’s Japanese, this made her a lot more bulky than the average person there). And she moved like she’d never really trained in athletics her entire life- a very plodding, stumbly style. Her use of weapons was to simply place the item against someone’s forehead and just stand there- I’ve never seen someone use such little perceived force. And her match flow was terrible, too. I’ve seen more Shark matches than I care to count that were borefests extended to sixteen minutes to kill time and featured her just wandering around, holding weapons against someone’s forehead, or taunting.

GAEA JAPAN- CRITICAL HIT!:
(Oct. 10th 1997)
* It’s time for more GAEA Japan! I splice two shows together- small spot shows from Oct. 10th and Oct. 13th 1997.

Chigusa Nagayo has just recently lost the AAAW World Title to Devil Masami in a pretty disappointing match (unfortunately, Chigusa was forced to work twice on the show after Akira Hokuto got hurt, necessitating worse work in two matches). But this one half-focuses on Sakura Hirota, the rookie who is paired with Chigusa repeatedly on these shows.

GAEA-KAI RULES:
TOSHIYO YAMADA vs. MEIKO SATOMURA:
* Another match of the Chigusa Clones! Meiko is still in the “surprises veterans with her tenacity” zone, with Yamada being good enough to make anyone look decent. Both are in matching black shorts & sports tops, with Yamada in white kickpads and Meiko in red, making this a martial arts contest. You’re allowed two Downs and four Escapes judging by the rules that pop up later.

So one month before this, LCO have one of their all-time best matches (a month after their OTHER all-time best match, against Aja Kong & Kyoko Inoue), losing to Kaoru Ito & Tomoko Watanabe in an absolute bloodbath of a Cage Match, Tomoko doing some of the best babyface selling ever, acting in complete agony as LCO tear her apart. LCO were at their whiny best, screeching every time they’re made to sell, while being as unsympathetic as possible because of the glee with which they tore into their opponents. But LCO were ultimately vanquished, Ito hitting the mother of all Flying Stomps to Mita from the TOP OF THE CAGE before escaping. Review here: https://blogofdoom.com/index.php/2021/01/15/joshi-spotlight-violence-war-las-cachorras-vs-the-utops-steel-cage-deathmatch/

But LCO are still the World Tag Team Champions, and now one of the former champs (Kumiko Maekawa) is teaming up with a 17-year old girl to take on the still lethal, still chair-tossing savages of LCO.

WWWA WORLD TAG TEAM TITLES:
LAS CACHORRAS ORIENTALES (Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita) vs. KUMIKO MAEKAWA & MOMOE NAKANISHI:
(Oct. 18th 1997)
* A pretty wild Tag Title match tonight, as LCO have beaten Kumiko’s team with elder Tomoko Watanabe twice this year already, and now Kumiko (herself debuting 4 years after LCO did, and thus being way lower on the totem pole) is allying with MOMOE? Momoe is green as grass at this point, being only a 1-year veteran- she is spectacular for her level of experience though, being a real prodigy. As AJW is being gutted by people quitting over the not being paid, it’s time to elevate some rookies VERY VERY QUICKLY, I guess! Though this should mostly be LCO destroying their opponents- Momoe is 17 years old and has no experience in big matches. The kids are in light blue & white matching gear, Kumiko in her sporty two-piece and Momoe in a singlet- the Champs are in purple & white, Shimoda now with Karen hair as she walks up to flick at Kumiko’s face just to be a snot.

JD’ IN 1997:
* So JD’ has some shit luck in 1997, as Bison Kimura breaks her arm in a trios match in the summer, and as she was aiming to retire anyways, just hung it up for good. She never wrestles again. Mike Lorefice says that JD’ never recovered from this loss, as Asuka (a Freelancer) and Jaguar (the trainer) were left to shoulder the entire promotion while the rookies gained reps.

BUT, they still have Lioness Asuka & Jaguar Yokota, who pretty much low-key become the best workers in all of joshi in 1996-97… despite being two of the very oldest to do it. Wrestling is weird.

TRANS-WORLD FEDERATION WORLD TITLE:
LIONESS ASUKA vs. JAGUAR YOKOTA:
(JD’, Oct. 22nd 1997)
* One of the greatest matches of the 1980s was Lioness vs. Jaguar, as Jaguar was essentially Ricky Steamboat at three times the speed and Asuka could hang with her the entire way, and they’ve had a match or two since JD’ began. This is allegedly one of their better ones, however. Jaguar’s in white and Lioness is in black & white. Asuka has her heel goons with her again, but draws applause just by shooing them away (wait- cheers for NOT CHEATING? That’s like… the literal minimum you should use for a polite response at best!)

GAEA G-PANIC! Kawasaki DOUBLE DESTINY
(Sept. 20th 1997)
* It’s time for more GAEA Japan! This show ends up being a pretty big one, with the WCW Women’s Cruiserweight and AAAW World Titles both being defended- Sugar Sato attempts to bring WCW’s belt back “home” to GAEA from an AJW wrestler (Yoshiko Tamura), while AJA KONG invades GAEA to take a swing at Chigusa’s top title! Chigusa also works TWICE, as we get her as “Zero” facing Super Heel Devil Masami (Devil doing an Undertaker schtick).

WCW WOMEN’S CRUISERWEIGHT TITLE:
YOSHIKO TAMURA (AJW) vs. SUGAR SATO (GAEA):
* WCW’s belt continues to see use, as it’s become a sort of “Rookie Title”, which is a good reward for all these promising stars. Sugar, repping OZ Academy, wears Ozaki’s distinctive fruit roll-up gear from 1993-ish in a great bit, and is taking on AJW’s best rookie, Tamura, in black & pink two-piece. This is unfortunately joined in progress 14 minutes in.

So Hikari Fukuoka defeated Dynamite Kansai to become the Ace of JWP in 1997. More vulnerable and smaller than Kansai, she wrestled a far different style that had a lot of high-flying, death-defying moves in it (a Moonsault STOMP?), and had to make do with lesser competition than Kansai often had. Late 1997 sees a pair of challengers. One match is against Command Bolshoi where the mission is to make it look like the clown has a chance, and the other with an LLPW invader, Yasha Kurenai! In maybe the latter’s best solo match!

JWP OPENWEIGHT TITLE:
HIKARI FUKUOKA vs. COMMAND BOLSHOI:
(Sept. 20th 1997)
* It’s another JWP Title defense, this one Hikari defending against Command Bolshoi of all people- Bolshoi is way subordinate in the hierarchy of JWP even by 1997, so it’s kind of an interesting choice. Given how Hikari is more of an underdog herself, it’s probably a good idea for a lot of lower-ranked wrestlers to take a shot at her when the prior champ Dynamite Kansai would have obviously been too strong. Bolshoi’s in a weird mishmash outfit that’s military fatigue-colored, while Hikari’s in the leopard-print with blue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9m7xrv3xqc&ab_channel=PuroArchive

LLPW LIVE BATTLE ’97:
* This Joshi Spotlight is a bit of an outlier- yes, this has an actual *JWP vs. LLPW* Main Event- something almost unheard of given the acrimonious split between the wrestlers in 1992, where the roster was cut in half between two different companies owing to political differences. And this is from earlier in 1997, too! And it’s headlined by a mother of a Trios match- mixing up the companies’ stars to put JWP’s Dynamite Kansai & Cutie Suzuki with LLPW’s Harley Saito on one side, and LLPW’s Shinobu Kandori & Rumi Kazama with JWP’s Mayumi Ozaki on the other! So yes, this is the first ever SHINOBU KANDORI vs. DYNAMITE KANSAI showcase of the post-1991 era!

The remainder of the show is taken up by Interpromotional matches as well, first with rookies, then with elders as Takako Inoue vs. Eagle Sawai and Lioness Asuka vs. Noriyo Tateno take up the remainder of the upper card!

YOUNG GENERATION FLYING BATTLE:
MIHO WATABE (LLPW) vs. SACHIE ABE (JD’):
* Rookie mayhem! Sachie’s in red and Miho’s in mint green. Both are super-short and I’ve never heard of them, but they actually both last a really long time, well into the 2000s- rare for rookies of this time period.

The standard “AJW Rookie Match”, made unique by the fact that it’s pretty much the only time we’ve seen one of them. AJW’s training was HARD.

JOSHI SPOTLIGHT- AJW’S FAILED ROOKIES:
* So this is a slightly unique one- a look at the various FAILED wrestlers of AJW’s rookie classes! As a promotion with a strict system of training and elevation, All Japan Women’s Pro Wrestling had a system where it would take however many applicants there were, narrow it down to a handful, train a group all at once, and then debut them around the same time.

These “Trainees” would be pared down by rookies quitting, the office deciding they weren’t going to work out, etc., but eventually we’d get small debuting classes of 4-6. As the years went on, they’d go from “opening match losers” to getting focus on TV shows on occasion, then slowly pick up wins, finally get elevated, and eventually they’d start getting real pushes and be at their peak by Year 6-7. Buuuuuuuuuuuuut along the way things can happen and the wrestlers fail. And I wanted to write a column devoted JUST to the wrestlers who failed. Some of the reasons I know, some I don’t, and oftentimes I don’t even recognize the names in general or have never seen them. So naturally I can’t write full columns on THEM. But this is a tiny bit devoted to those people who fell through the cracks.

Of particular note are the infamously bad Sontitham sisters- a pair of girls from Thailand who were in only a handful of taped matches before disappearing. And I actually review a couple of them down below!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbcWOTR3Oag&ab_channel=JolanaDoe

PLUM MARIKO MEMORIAL- ARIGATO, MARI-CHAN:
* HEY, HERE’S AN UPLIFTING SUBJECT FOR A JOSHI SPOTLIGHT! It’s JWP’s Memorial VHS tape for poor Plum Mariko, who died of an in-ring injury on a house show in the summer. This is set at Korakuen Hall, and is an in-ring ceremony honoring her. JWP’s wrestlers are seen around the ring to start, Dynamite Kansai already failing to hold it together (Devil Masami is much more stoic) and then we take it right to Plum’s debut in 1986 (!) for the original form of JWP (Japan Women’s Pro Wrestling). She’s seen in a pinstriped Jobber Singlet (with red bangs in her hair!) in her debut, then we see video clips from 1988 with her and other rookies like a young short-haired Cutie Suzuki, generic looking young kid “Miss A” (Kansai) and more. Kansai & Cutie do current interviews and we get to see Plum with goofy ’80s hair and a VERY ’80s denim jacket do the mandatory “uncomfortable bad karaoke-tier musical performance”.

1989 sees her win one of the early JWP’s belts, then we’re all the way to 1992 where she joins about 2/3 of the company in forming “JWP Project” with new management. In the inaugural show in some tiny-ass TV studio, a lavender-clad Plum beats Bolshoi Kid in one of those ludicrously long, padded JWP midcard bouts, but does a good job of it considering how green her opponent is. Later, she brings in against Kansai in a JWP Title Match, looking pretty solid in clips until she jobs to a side suplex of all things. Then we see her job to “Super Heel” Devil Masami’s guillotine legdrop, the Undertaker-knockoff character doing a sick grin on the pinfall.

GAEA JAPAN- EDGE OF THE HEART:
(Aug. 30th 1997)
* WOO TIME FOR MORE GAEA JAPAN! They tend to dominate the YouTube presence of joshi in 1997 even though AJW’s stuff is far more interesting (if only for backstage stuff). This is part of a one-night tournament of unusual tag partners- the descriptions say “MIX”.

SONOKO KATO & CHIKAYO NAGASHIMA vs. SAKURA HIROTA & RINA ISHII:
* This is two 1st Generations against the greenest rookies, so this clipped match is gonna be an easy win. Kato’s in blue, Chikayo yellow/blue, Sakura pink & Rina orange.

We start with Kato decking Chikayo by mistake, leading to Sakura’s FLYING ASS and then a NASTY sandwich missile kick that looked absolutely brutal to take. Kato saves and we’re clipped to another FLYING ASS missing and Chikayo hits a Flying Stomp for the easy pin at (1:04 of 8:25 shown).

MEIKO SATOMURA & MAKIE NUMAO vs. TOSHIE UEMATSU & SUGAR SATO:
* These are mostly 1st Generation, with Numao being in the weird start of the 2nd.

Bull Nakano and Aja Kong, years before they became the Gods of Joshi and moved up the pyramid.

AJW’S TRAINING AND ELEVATION SYSTEM:
* So this is a column that was initially going to be about “AJW’s Failed Rookies”, which is something I’ve always been interested in. But I couldn’t start that without talking about the training methods and how elevation works… and when I got into that I realized it was gonna be an entire damn column’s length, so I was like… well why not just write about THAT first? So yay me!

THE ORDER OF TRAINING:
-A lot of this comes from both watching stuff, and talking to others more “in the know” about the behind-the-scenes stuff. A few documentaries and interviews with wrestlers have backed up most of it, too. And note that the year you debuted is SUPER IMPORTANT, particularly behind the scenes- even somebody above an wrestler on the card still has to listen to a “senior”. Like no dissing an 8th Year cuz you got the White Belt and they never will. Note that “assessments” are held around January of each year, which explains why I saw so many people suddenly get huge pushes out of nowhere at the start of every year in my timeline, lol.

Note also that this is NOT limited to wrestling; the order in which you entered a place being important is a foundational aspect of Japanese culture. Anyone with more experience is a “senpai” and if they tell you to do something, you damn well do it. A “Big Senior” may as well be a god. You even speak the language slightly differently based on this level of respect. It’s huge in baseball, for example, and any company has it (especially back when you were expected to work some place for life). This is a regular source of frustration for young people, and I’ve seen a lot of people complain about it as Japan’s population ages and people don’t move out of jobs.

* “Applicants”: AJW’s heads (the Matsunagas) and their trainers (some of whom are also Matsunagas) take a look at all of the applicants. This can number in the dozens or the thousands based off of how popular the company is at any given time. The “Crush Gals” boom of the ’80s, for example, led to literally thousands of girls applying, so AJW could select from the cream of the crop. Bad years and unpopular times lead to much smaller classes- the Crush Gals Boom led to Yumiko Hotta, Aja Kong, Manami Toyota, Las Cachorras Orientales, and more… the crap year of 1990 led to Numacchi & Akemi Torisu.

It’s another one-match Joshi Spotlight! The only thing I could find from Aug. 22nd 1997 was this bout between four of AJW’s top stars, only two days after Kyoko lost the WWWA Title to Yumiko Hotta. Come see LCO churn out ANOTHER insane banger of a match!

LAS CACHORRAS ORIENTALES (Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda, w/ Saya Endo) vs. MANAMI TOYOTA & KYOKO INOUE:
* It’s another clash of “LCO vs. The People Who Hate Them”, this time with the entire list narrowed down from “everyone” to “Manami & Kyoko”. Kyoko & Aja just beat LCO earlier in the month, and this is another non-title match. LCO are in the usual purple & white gear, Kyoko’s in rainbow gear & Manami’s in black & gold. Manami vs. Shimoda matches tend to be an extra level of psychotic, since for some reason Manami only accesses the “tear their hair off” aspect of her personality when her ex-partner’s in the ring.

AJW BUDOKAN QUEENS- BRIGHTNESS:
(Aug. 20th 1997)
* And now we come to the last great hurrah of AJW, as the promotion more or less falls apart by we get two major matches- a “Graduation Match” of Aja Kong as she takes on her craziest opponent and best in-ring competitor, Manami Toyota just before Aja leaves AJW for good, and then it’s the World Title match, as Kyoko Inoue defends the Red Belt against Yumiko Hotta, one of the last holdouts as a bankrupt AJW loses almost all their big stars! Despite a year of pretty poor business, this one appears to have packed them in a fair bit, as AJW *gasp!* SHOWS THE UPPER DECKS! Aja is definitely a big draw of it here, as she’s already announced her impending departure.

Aaaaaaaaaaaand on this show (not aired here) Kyoko gets on the house mic in the opening ceremony and announces she is QUITTING THE PROMOTION, taking a few stars with her to form a new company! AJW management is understandably furious, and the heat for her World Title match tonight is therefore destroyed cuz like… everyone in the arena knows what’s gonna happen. haha, well serves ’em right for not paying her.

AJA KONG GRADUATION MATCH:
MANAMI TOYOTA vs. AJA KONG:
(Aug. 20th 1997)
* It’s Manami/Aja! One last time in a major contest (the others are far later and way past the prime of either)- the two have had more than one ***** match together, so hype would be high for this one. Aja’s in green & black and Manami’s in black with a gold chestpiece.

JWP PURE-HEART FESTIVAL:
(Aug. 17th 1997)
* A big JWP show at Korakuen Hall happens on August 17th, featuring a day show and a night show (with everyone wrestling on both shows). If I’m reading the date right, this is filmed literally the day after Plum Mariko was killed in the ring by Mayumi Ozaki’s Ligerbomb. If so, HOLY SHIT.

This one also features the Retirement Match of Candy Okutsu, as her real-life best friend Hikari Fukuoka defends the JWP Title against her, but can’t hold it together for the match- it’s a pretty unique display. How many matches do you see where one person is sobbing the entire time?

Note that there’s a Day Show and Night Show, but I can only find one Day Show match.

DAY SHOW:

TOMOKO KUZUMI & SARI OSUMI (JWP) vs. COMMAND BOLSHOI (JWP) & EMI MOTOKAWA (IWA):
* It’s lowercard madness, with the best of JWP’s rookies (Kuzumi) teaming up with brand-new rookie Sari Osumi against Bolshoi (a midcarder at this point) and the future Emi Sakura, who wrestles for IWA in its tiny women’s division at this point. I imagine Bolshoi’s team is taking this rather easily. Kuzumi’s in neon splatterpaint in an “Idol” outfit (all the cut-outs & fringe is a dead giveaway), Osumi’s in the most hideous black singlet with green leaf designs ever, Bolshoi’s in the same gear as last match & Emi’s in orange/black.

They both abuse Osumi for a while with basic stuff, and she reverses a whip to escape only for Kuzumi to now eat a beating. Bolshoi resthold, Emi flying splash & surfboard, and then Bolshoi misses a moonsault but lands on her feet, then slingshots onto both rookies, only for Kuzumi to do the same to HER team. Bolshoi quickly gets a German, and we’re clipped to Osumi eating more punishment. She gets a pop for kicking out of a rock bottom and escapes after a while, then Kuzumi hits four backbreaker variations on Bolshoi for two. Bolshoi counters up top and moonsaults Kuzumi for two, then Osumi stops a double-team and Kuzumi gets a butterfly superplex- Emi has to save. Kuzumi charges herself up, but is horrified when Osumi tags herself in and is too far away for a top-rope move so just runs up for a shitty splash pin that Emi half-heartedly breaks up. Emi runs into Bolshoi by accident and the kids set up a Doomsday Device, but Bolshoi & Osumi fuck up what was supposed to be a rana reversal and Bolshoi just punches her for the pin at (9:29 of 13:38 shown). Oh come on- at least improvise a better finish!

Boring filler match with Osumi just being abused and even Tomoko not getting to do anything. Bolshoi just kind of ate both of them alive, possibly in anticipation of their attempt to make her a bigger star. Kuzumi got a good run with her backbreakers and top-rope suplex, which means there’s a lot of hope for her. Osumi was sucky but that’s expected in her first year- her size was an issue for Bolshoi (Osumi is only 5’4″ but way taller and bulkier than Bolshoi), who should really be better than this at this point. The finisher is also on Bolshoi- she didn’t get enough elevation to spin herself around Osumi, getting her leg caught on the shoulder and then falling on her ass. Also, who does that spot with a rookie?

Rating: 1/2* (some okay stuff from Kuzumi but awful otherwise- like ten minutes of rookie beatings)

MAYUMI OZAKI (JWP) vs. YUMI FUKAWA (AJW):
* Ozaki takes on AJW’s newest wannabe Idol, Yumi Fukawa, in an interpromotional match! Few are better at getting something out of a green opponent than Ozaki, so this will be interesting. Fukawa’s in a very sparkly white outfit with blue on it- clearly someone is putting a lot of effort into her gear.

AJW (Aug. 8th 1997):

And now it’s time for a throwback- the very first column I posted to this site was a review of this match. I e-mailed this review to Scott, figuring if he didn’t want a Joshi column I’d just ship it to 411 or whatever, and he approved it (I’m 99% sure he just did it without checking, lol). And so now I’ve finally reached the point in my timeline where this match sits, so I can re-post it.

So come and read the recap of maybe the wildest and greatest of all the garbage brawls in history! This time with less ALL CAPS BECAUSE OF HUGE MOVES OMG YOU GUYS!

This also features a Semi-Final for the Japan Grand Prix 1997 (mostly unavailable on YouTube- a big channels I pull from got deleted so I don’t have much else)- Manami Toyota vs. Kaoru Ito in another great performance!

JAPAN GRAND PRIX (Semi-Finals):
MANAMI TOYOTA vs. KAORU ITO:
* It’s a big one! Ito has been getting the “Jesus Push” all year, proving nigh-unpinnable all of a sudden as AJW does the classic “OH SHIT- We forgot to push anyone to the next level!” thing (or this is just how they naturally do business every January) and then Ito is randomly impossible to hurt and beating Main Eventers. She drew with Aja, and then pinned Manami (who had only lost the 3WA Title a month or so before)! Then she went to a 60-minute broadway with Kyoko Inoue, who vacated the belt and beat Ito for it in a title match. So now this one has real drama and an “either can win” atmosphere. Manami’s in black with white fringe and Ito’s in the white with black & orange fire.

JOSHI SPOTLIGHT- AKEMI TORISU:
Billed Height & Weight: 5’5″ 220 lbs.+
Career Length: 1990-1992

-Yeah, it’s a “Short Article” week, so I figured I’d do a bio of one of the failed nobody joshi of the ’90s! Akemi Torisu is barely remembered by anyone, and those who do just recall this giant stiff. Worse still, AJW put a bunch of work into her, but it never panned out and she retired young, so it was all a waste.

The idea was… well it was doomed to failure. All Japan Women’s Pro-Wrestling (AJW) had a legit bad-ass who could do shoot matches in Bat Yoshinaga (a short but burly karate expert), and Akemi was brought in more or less as her own personal jobber. But like… in real life, as these matches were meant to add variety to the shows. Akemi had a background in karate and so actually skipped the typical “audition process” for AJW and was hired on directly to fight with Bat and be a rival for her.

However, she struggled with her weight and just didn’t pick up wrestling (granted, she didn’t have much time to do it) and faded away in a hurry. And she was AWFUL, too- even two years into her career, she moved like she was made of wet bags of cement, with most of her offense consisting of running into people. She was too big in the wrong sort of way- Aja Kong & Bull Nakano were big but could bump and choose when and how to sell or get moved, while Torisu appeared to have difficulty being moved about at all. TO BE FAIR, she was green as grass and was chosen without having to audition- there was no chance she’d have been good in only two years.

GAEA JAPAN (July 21st):
* So only two days after a major GAEA show propping up all their rookies in huge, hard-fought matches, here’s another show! Hey, why did their rookies get shitloads of injuries early on and most of them retire early, again? This one is interesting because it features a Pancrase Rules match where Toshiyo Yamada, more familiar with “Shoot-Style” wrestling, goes up against KAORU, who is the opposite sort of worker and has to adapt. Then it’s Chigusa Nagayo & a 3rd-year against two other 3rd-years in a “What have you learned?” match, and finally an interesting one where Yamada dresses up as Akira Hokuto’s masked identity and wrestles a completely opposite type of match herself. I mean, you don’t see THAT very often, and hell- it’s an impressive performance!

PANCRASE RULES:
KAORU vs. TOSHIYO YAMADA:
* Okay, so KAORU is wearing the GAEA kickpads Chigusa gifted her a few shows ago, so there’s continuity here. An all-new look for her, too, as she’s dropped the one-piece singlet look for a sports top and long shorts, plus has much shorter hair. And she’s up against the new big star of GAEA in Yamada, fresh from AJW. Both are in black in the same gear and OH, this is that Pancrase Rules match I read about on Quebrada.net! Okay, then. So Pancrase was a then-popular shootfight promotion, which a VERY controversial amount of works (those within it deny that there were many, but the fact that there were any AT ALL throws absolutely everything into question)… so this is fought like it’s UFC but it’s a work. Oh, and you get four rope-breaks before you lose.

GAEA JAPAN- THE SECOND JUNIOR ALL-STAR:
(June 19th 1997)
* A big GAEA show from June 19th, showcasing a lot of their rookies, and those from other companies. Interpromotional Rookie Mayhem abounds! Toshie Uematsu defends the WCW Cruiserweight Title against AJW’s Yoshiko Tamura, in the most effort either has shown to this level! Several people have REALLY good tag team matches while you get to see others have the same type of match with way less experience, so you can weigh just how much such things count, haha. But really, it’s like several versions of the “Flair/Steamboat of Inexperienced Rookie Matches”.

This ends up being a MONSTER review, oddly, because there’s just so many damn matches on it, and many are quite long.

SAKURA HIROTA, RINA ISHII & HIROMI KATO (GAEA Japan) vs. NANA FUJIMURA, AYA KOYAMA & MIHO KAWASAKI (Big Japan):
* hahah, good lord! BIG JAPAN of all companies had a women’s division! Mostly known for its deathmatches, Big Japan was Indie Sleaze personified from everything I’ve seen. It now sends its rookies (whom I’ve never seen before) to wrestle GAEA’s most minor recurring wrestlers. Sakura’s in pink, Rina’s in orange, Kato’s in black, Nana’s in black (but with armbands!), Toyama’s in floral-printed white & Miho’s in baggy red pants and a white t-shirt.