Joshi Spotlight — page 9

NEO JAPAN LADIES- SEVEN CHOCOLATES GRAND OPENING:
(Feb. 15th 1998)
* Yes we’re already into February for Neo’s second show, as I have nothing for AJW or any other company for January. And we’re already doing interpromotional shit, as Neo’s tiny-ass roster can’t really maintain entire shows by itself without Kyoko working three matches in one hour like LAST month! So we have mixed matches involving Jd’s Chikako Shiratori & Jaguar Yokota and a trio of Neo vs. JWP matches, then ending with ANOTHER one, as it’s two major stars- Kyoko Inoue vs. Hikari Fukuoka- the Ace of JWP! That one actually comes off as quite special and with some real mystique to it, as they haven’t locked up since Hikari was a try-hard up & comer, and never in singles!

The crowd seems decently full for the lower bowl, though you can see some empty seats around. And hey! This is that arena the one AJW/LLPW show happened in! I recognize the whole “the hard camera is a shot of a giant metal sliding door with lil’ staircases to the sides” thing.

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

SAYA ENDO (Neo) vs. CHIKAKO SHIRATORI (Jd’):
* Chikako quit AJW for greener pastures as one of the big stars of Jd’, but despite her best efforts didn’t turn into much of a worker. But here she’s against the low-end Endo, minion of Las Cachorras Orientales, probably being fed to Chikako. Chikako’s in white frilly idol gear and Endo’s in black & gold, a bit like Kaoru Ito’s look.

NEO JAPAN LADIES PRO WRESTLING- FIRST KISS (Debut Show):
(Jan. 9th, 1998)
* WOO FINALLY! It’s time for a BRAND NEW Joshi promotion to show up in my Spotlights! This one is “Neo Ladies”, a start-up centered around former WWWA Champion and AJW Ace, Kyoko Inoue! This is also where Las Cachorras Orientales end up before their freelancing career really starts up. Aaaaaaaaaaaand then it’s a bunch of scrubs! But some are pretty good! And improving! But really it’s one of three companies that have about “a third of a good roster” after the destruction following AJW’s bankruptcy (AJW, ARSION & Neo). Oh, and both Kyoko & Tanny Mouse are working more than once, which is never a good sign for effort.

Neo Ladies Roster: Kyoko Inoue, Las Cachorras Orientales, Chaparrita ASARI, Yoshiko Tamura, Tanny Mouse, Yuka Shiina, Misae Genki, Saya Endo (hooray, now I might finally start being able to remember which rookies are which on sight!)

All the wrestlers take their bows and do mini-interviews- an emotional Kyoko begins the festivities, thanking the fans for showing up. LCO, acting WWWA Tag Team Champions, brandish their former promotion’s belts as well.

TRIANGLE MATCH:
SAYA ENDO vs. YUKA SHIINA vs. TANNY MOUSE:
* Yes, the first ever match of Neo Ladies and it’s got Tanny Mouse in it. You just gotta love Japanese hierarchy-based show booking. So Saya Endo is LCO’s “Third Woman”- a rookie who follows them around. She’s in black & yellow. Shiina’s in white & red athletic gear, and is a very tanned prospect who was just rising in AJW. Tanny is a goofy-looking comedy wrestler with orange hair and another black/yellow outfit. And oh god dammit she’s still got the mouse tail.

RIP the AJW we knew- it becomes a shell of itself in 1997, losing 2/3 of the roster.

JOSHI IN 1997- JOSHI EXPLODES:
* Okay, so it’s big things afoot- 1997 is the year the joshi scene in Japan completely explodes, as All Japan Women’s Pro Wrestling (AJW), the signature company of joshi, goes bankrupt. The owners’ bad business decisions (most notably, a restaurant chain) combine with fading business all over, and AJW stops paying its wrestlers partway through 1997. Some rookies stick around, Kaoru Ito & Tomoko Watanabe form the backbone of the loyalists, Yumiko Hotta steps up as the new Ace as she’s still loyal, and Manami Toyota is convinced to give up retirement and get a contracted gig… but they lose half the wrestlers and most of the stars.

From Evito:
It’s time to talk about the collapse of All Japan Women (briefly). The Matsunaga’s wasteful spending had led to them having major financial difficulties since 1996 (and possibly years earlier). Zenjo had been cold for some time which didn’t help things, but the reason was the Matsunaga’s losses in real estate, stocks and their other businesses. During the 1980s economic bubble, the brothers got heavily into real estate, and among many other investments, attempted to franchise a Ramen house restaurant chain. Once the bubble burst and the real estate market nosedived, they took out significant bank loans to prop up their business, racking up huge debt which they were unable to pay back.

Payments to talent and office staff had been late or unpaid since 1996, and no one had been paid since March. The only reason they could survive without being paid for so long was because they lived in the company building, but on the road, they had to rely on the venues to supply food. Their patience came to an end on August 20. Kyoko Inoue, Rie Tamada, and Yumi Fukawa announced they would be leaving the company after the show and it was clear to everyone that there were issues with management. After the show, the wrestlers went on strike in front of the office and demanded their unpaid salaries. The story broke days later, and a press conference was held by the company on September 12 revealing the extent of the financial problems. The company was one step away from bankruptcy, and ended up filing for bankruptcy in October.

… hey it was otherwise gonna be just a three-match review for the Joshi Spotlight this week, okay?

JOSHI SPOTLIGHT- YUKI LEE:
Billed Height & Weight: 5’3″ 150 lbs.
Career Length: 1992, 1994-1999

-Yes, YUKI LEE. What? I wanna cover everybody and I’ve gotten through most of the people who were big from 1992-95 that I was most familiar with, and now it’s just either the dregs or the people whose careers peaked after the era I’ve seen. I can’t do a Meiko Satomura bio if I’ve only seen her as a rookie spitfire and not Joshi Mom! So now it’s just losers who retired young!

So Yuki Lee was a big centerpiece of the JD’ promotion, which got started in late 1995- she was an AJW wash-out who got re-trained and for some reason was made a star of focus on JD’s shows, which started with a big dramatic opening with the faces and names of Bison Kimura, Jaguar Yokota, AJW “Pretty Girl” loser Chikako Shiratori… and rookie Yuki Lee. I guess a lot was expected of her, but god knows WHAT.

JWP IN SUMMER 1997:
(June 29th to July 6th 1997)
* Here’s another JWP I just found- the summer sees a pair of shows starring Akira Hokuto and others! Plus a bunch of Candy Okutsu’s “Final Running” series before she retires for the first time!

TOMOKO KUZUMI vs. CANDY OKUTSU:
* Kuzumi’s a well-thought-off rookie champion at this point, while Candy’s in the midcard but just about to retire. Candy’s in black & Kuzumi’s in brown idol gear with lots of fringe.

Candy dominates the rookie to start, but Kuzumi uses speed and keeps Candy on the defensive with stretching. Candy finally catches her with a missile dropkick off a whip and DDTs her into a sleeper for a while. Seven minutes gone and Kuzumi mimics the same missile kick counter, then does a LONG set of rolling butterfly suplexes into a bridge for two. Candy one-ups her on a criss-cross, then counters her counter of the Rolling Germans for two. Candy knocks her to the floor but gets caught building her SmackDown! meter with a springboard enzuiknee and a Bridging German gets two. Kuzumi’s splash hits feet, but she manages a butterfly superplex after they re-set following Candy slipping. Straightjacket German gets two, but Kuzumi climbs and Candy catches her with a Northern Lights Superplex for a double-down- Kuzumi climbs and is caught again, but this time swings behind Candy and hits her top-rope Japanese Leg Roll Clutch for the shocker win at (11:20)- Kuzumi beats the midcarder! A true sign of her forward elevation, and Candy dropping falls on her way out.

GAEA JAPAN (Nov. & Dec. 1997):
* It’s more GAEA Japan! This time from a Nov. 30th show and a Dec. 13th show, then the Dec. 27th show, ending the year for GAEA! The first show takes place in what looks like outdoors, with big green panels behind the fans. NOPE, wait, other shots show it’s just a very brightly lit gym, with no seats sold on the upper decks.

MEIKO SATOMURA & TOSHIE UEMATSU vs. OZ ACADEMY (Chikayo Nagashima & Reiko Amano):
* A tag match with unusual partners, as Meiko (GAEA’s big ardent defender) teams up with Toshie this time, up against GAEA’s Chikayo and JWP’s Reiko. Meiko’s in red, Toshie’s in green, Chikayo’s in yellow/blue and Reiko’s in blue.

GAEA G-PANIC! TOUR:
(Nov. 18th 1997)
* The only GAEA stuff up from November 1997, but it’s a pretty big one, as the veteran squad of Yamada & KAORU take on Oz Academy, and *LCO* invades GAEA Japan to fight Chigusa Nagayo & her rookie partner Sakura Hirota! These matches all end up being great examples of what becomes known as the “GAEA Sprint”, as they cut down on visible match time and just fling all their stuff at each other non-stop.

KAORU & TOSHIYO YAMADA vs. OZ ACADEMY (Sugar Sato & Chikayo Nagashima, w/ Mayumi Ozaki):
* Another “Veterans vs. Rookies” match, as the feuding KAORU & Yamada are teamed up against Ozaki’s goons, with the boss in tow in her street clothes. KAORU’s in light blue, Yamada’s in white/black, Sugar’s in white & Chikayo’s in blue/yellow.

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.