Articles by Jabroniville — Page 5

Violence, stiff punches and Hossing it up! What could be better?

So when I watched the great Kudo/Kong vs. Combat/Bison match a month back, I was stricken by how it seemed to push Aja vs. Combat, giving them a lot of sequences where Combat was like “Bitch, you will NOTICE me!”, defiantly opposing the bigger monster. I was like “Wow it looks like they’re teasing us for a solo match” and wouldn’t ya know it- this is prove Joshi REALLY knows how to book ’em, even in-ring.

We seem to miss a semi-interesting TV show from January, as Rie Tamada & Yumi Fukawa beat Nobue Endo & Kumiko Maekawa (17:50!!) to retain the All Japan Tag Titles (the jobber ones), Aja Kong & Mima Shimoda defeat Etsuko Mita & Yumiko Hotta (17:07) in the battle of the toughies & LCO (one on each side), Sakie Hasegawa defeats Tomoko Watanabe (17:59) in a shocker since Sakie is leaving in a couple months and they seem keen on pushing Tomoko, and Double Inoue beat Manami Toyota & Kaoru Ito (19:31) in a match Meltzer rated ***3/4. This might be for a tag title shot, as Double Inoue take another run at the gold before the month is out.

Later in this week I’ll take a look at a GAEA show, since this one is a one-match review.

AJA KONG vs. COMBAT TOYODA:
(Jan. 10th)
* Aja’s in white & gold here, while Combat’s in black & red. Unfortunately, this looks like a REALLY small gym.

Future puro stars pop up in the strangest places in their early years- like CIMA making Nitro & Thunder appearances!

Welcome back to more Dream Matches! This week we have a wild assortment of weirdness, as I finally get to showcase something I’d been wanting to share- the time CIMA & Tokyo Magnum hit WCW! See, Ultimo Dragon wanted some training time for his boys in what was then called Toryumon, and so we have them acting as jobbers in all sorts of WCW programming, taking on guys in true “Wait, THAT happened?” bouts- such as here against The Public Enemy in their second WCW run!

Also the KOTR run of Chyna inspired me to check out an IC Title defense from the same era, as she takes on DX stablemate Mr. Ass! Then watch a bizarre OVW trios match, as “The Main Roster Failures Squad” (Sean O’Haire, Lance Cade &  Renee Dupree) take on The Big Boss Man (an OVW trainer at this point!), Charlie Haas and John Cena! Also an all-time dream match as Blake Beverly takes on SMASH… but in WCW when the latter was completely washed up and doing the “Hole in One” gimmick on WCW Saturday Night. TWICE they wrestled- smell the ratings! Finally, more of my dive into lucha as Silver King, 2 Cold Scorpio & El Texano team up against Dr. Wagner Jr, Scorpio Jr & Black Power.

THE PUBLIC ENEMY (Rocco Rock & Johnny Grunge) vs. SHIIMA NOBUNAGA & TOKYO MAGNUM:
(WCW Thunder 07-08-1998)
* GOD I love WCW! Where else can you see shit like Dragon Gate guys fighting TPE on the B-show? The rookie trainees already have great looks and good gear, but they’re taking on an increasingly-rotund TPE (Grunge in particular is HUGE now). Magnum’s in pink & black, Shiima’s in yellow & black, and TPE have big white jerseys on.

Among the more identifiable joshi of all time is “The One Who Dressed Like The Ultimate Warrior For Some Reason”. And I mean, it’s an awesome look.

JOSHI SPOTLIGHT- KYOKO INOUE:
Billed Height & Weight: 5’5″ 238 lbs. (note: varies considerably- she was a skinny kid in 1991 and got bulkier as time went on, being noticeably heavy in 1996-97)
Career Length: 1988-today
Trained By: Jaguar Yokota

-I swear the Joshi Boys on the Blog all had the same realizations towards Kyoko Inoue: When we first started watching 1990s Joshi during livewatches, we were all blown away by Kyoko Inoue. 10 matches in, we were all thinking she was an underrated fourth pillar of all-timers alongside Manami, Aja & Akira. 30 matches in, we started seeing some cracks… and by 70 matches in, she was barely in anyone’s top ten. It’s the damndest thing.

So the deal with Kyoko is that she was a super-charismatic, likeable, popular mega-babyface in some of the best matches on any given year- ****-***** ratings abound. EXTREMELY athletic, and the only woman in joshi who could keep up with Manami Toyota at full-bore for limitless amounts of time (she’s actually a superior athlete all-around- less flippy but with even better balance and strength). Possibly the best-ever for cardio and hitting moves crisply an hour into a match. Absolutely brilliant at running up the ropes (harder than it looks), boomeranging off the middle rope, and even doing this insanely-precise little “skip to each side of the turnbuckles to lead the others on a merry chase” thing that I’ve never seen anyone else do and she made look easy. Her tag team stuff is much of the era’s best- with Takako Inoue, she had a TON of amazing 40+ minute tag bouts with false-finishes out the ass.

She did the “Manami/Jaguar Yokota Pace” but with power moves- hitting All Japan-esque pulverizing stuff in succession- her big finish was the Niagara Driver, an over-the-shoulder sit-out powerbomb that looked like death and whiplashed the person to the mat. Her early-match submissions were great fun- hanging people upside-down in a deathlock while pulling on their arms, or rocking people back and forth in a standing surfboard. Some of her set-up moves are high-tier “why isn’t THAT a finisher?” stuff like the Avalanche Powerslam, Run-Up Headscissors, etc. The crowds adored her, doing a distinctive *clapclapclap* KYO-KO!” chant in every match, no matter her opponent. And also she dressed like the Ultimate Warrior. An absolute mega-superstar, right?

Paul Orndorff was in his 40s in WCW, but it’s still weird to me he has crossover with guys I associate with the late ’90s, like Disco.

Welcome back to more Dream Matches! This week, I have one of those crazy matches where you realize that ’80s star Paul Orndorff had crossover with late ’90s WCW comedy act Disco Inferno. Two separate squash matches from 1995, in fact! I’ll also take a look at another one of the Al Snow/Sabu indie wrestling series, plus the monster Meng vs. Saturday Night stalwart, Roadblock!

Oh, and you want an all-time “I can’t believe we were lucky enough to see that” Dream Match? Come check out MEAN MIKE of Disorderly Conduct against LIGHTNING FOOT Jerry Flynn! Then what’s advertised as a “HOT MUSCLE MATCH!” on YouTube, between Scott Steiner and rookie bodybuilder Chase Tatum. And we end things with future New Japan Ace, Yuji Nagata vs. the Chairman of WCW, La Parka! So it’s mostly a WCW-inspired one tonight, but then they always WERE the best source of weirdo disparate matches.

“MR. WONDERFUL” PAUL ORNDORFF vs. DISCO INFERNO:
(WCW Nitro, Dec. 12th 1995)
* Yes, Mr. Wonderful & Disco Inferno had some crossover. This is nuts to me, but indeed Paul lasted a while until his career faded away. Disco’s in white bell-bottoms (with a full Tony Manero pre-match outfit) and Paul’s in white trunks. He’s coming out to what sounds like the anthem for Anvilania in “Animaniacs” and looking in a mirror. When the voice gets REALLY high, Heenan declares that Gene Okerlund recorded this while sitting on a 40-lb. block of ice.

1995- The year Toyota finally became AJW’s World Champion.

JOSHI IN 1995:

And now we’ve reached the end of what I can find for Joshi in 1995, so here’s my summation for the year!

This is a year of massive transitions for joshi as a whole, as everything is shifting in ways that wouldn’t be clear until MUCH later. This is both the year in which Aja Kong is finally unseated as Ace for good, cementing Manami Toyota at the top of the card… AND the gear GAEA Japan debuted, giving us what would eventually be the most popular joshi company in Japan! In addition to that, it’s the dominance of Double Inoue, the transition of Akira Hokuto from a top singles star to a tag wrestler, then the fading careers of Bull Nakano, Sakie Hasegawa & Suzuka Minami! Mayumi Ozaki becomes the insane “Dress Up Wild Fight” nutjob that would define the rest of her career (for better or worse), and things look strong going to the future… except there’s cracks all over the place, AND the Japanese economy is about to be destroyed for the next twenty-five years, and that alone would probably eighty-six a ton of plans! So let’s get to it!

1995- THE YEAR AJW WENT CRAZY:
* The booking of the Red Belt in 1995 was absolutely apeshit compared to any other year. AJW often had a very “static” company, full of very slow rises- wrestlers would often challenge and re-challenge for belts, coming a little bit closer each time before winning. It was a steady, reliable way to make new stars- Aja Kong defeating Bull Nakano after a massive feud lasting years was a great example of this. Manami Toyota had clearly been set up as a big star by the end of 1992, but spent two years coming closer to toppling the big stars, as she was a dominant tag wrestler at the time. Kyoko Inoue was clearly just a bit behind her.

So this is a bit of a double-whammy, as I find the last two things on the unusually-packed December 1995 for Joshi- a big final battle between Akira Hokuto & Bull Nakano, as they pull out ALL the stops against each other, and the Manami Toyota Gauntlet I reviewed a couple of years ago! That one’s a re-post, but otherwise this review would only be 650 words long- and hey, it fits the schedule!

AKIRA HOKUTO vs. BULL NAKANO:
(Dec. 30th 1995)
* A weird random match from December sees Bull (who’d recently lost to Kyoko Inoue, passing the torch to her former subordinate) taking on Akira in what seems like the end of an era for them- Bull’s career is slowly ending while Akira is still going strong, and they were old rivals back in the day. Bull’s in black with white lightning all over it, while Akira’s in red & gold.

Bull gets a backdrop suplex immediately, but takes a bridging German for two- Akira avoids a lariat to cheers, but Bull turns a test of strength into another one. Bull is noticeably limping with every step but manages two more lariats for two, then kicks her ass for a bit until Akira drags her outside to toss her around some, then powerbombs her onto a goddamn table while’s she’s STANDING ON IT, causing her to fly backwards head-first into the table beside them when it collapses! Jesus Christ what an insane woman. Akira manages to get back into the ring, nodding at Bull for some reason, then of course stops her entry with a Tope Con Hilo to the floor! She telegraphs a missile kick back in the ring and misses, but locks Bull in a leghold when she pounces- she switches to Stranglehold Gamma when Bull makes the ropes, drawing a big pop for using her husband’s move. Bull kinda treats it as a “weakly struggle to the ropes” move, then reverses another to an inverted DDT for two.

WWF KING OF THE RING (2000)- SECOND ROUND:
* Continuing the previous review, the second round of the 2000 King of the Ring features some of the more “Okay, come on- is this really a random draw?” matches, as a few guys fight unrelated opposition, but we have Chyna/Eddie, Rikishi/Scotty, and Crash/Hardcore.

Because Early 2000 WWF: BULL BUCHANAN! Whether you want him or not!

PERRY SATURN vs. BULL BUCHANAN:
(June 18th, Heat)
* Saturn beat D-Von Dudley thanks to DX interference, while Bull handily defeated Steve Blackman.

The much larger Bull uses his size to start, shoving Saturn around, but eats a boot in the corner and a dropkick off the middle. He throws punches but eats a clothesline, but a third straight “whip to corner” reversal sees Saturn back on the advantage, tripping Bull into the ropes and hitting a T-bone suplex for two. But Bull comes off the ropes with a boot and hits his Ax Kick finisher for the quick win (1:51)! Jesus christ that was fast. As a match, this was nothing- Bull was so green they just did three “whip to the corner, but the guy who hits it reverses the charging move” spots to switch momentum, then ANOTHER whip-reversal to set up the finish. 2 minutes for a clean win marks Saturn as the “Jobber” of the Radicalz, which is funny as he was one a lot of fans (including me) assumed was gonna be the biggest star.

Rating: 1/2* (very quick and mobile match, but super-short and a glorified squash)

KING OF THE RING (Qualifying Matches) 2000:
* So I finally remembered to do another one of these, though we’re past the point where I can recall most of the angles. The name of the game this tournament is the same as last one- Make A New Star. Hopefully this “Kurt Angle” guy will prove more successful than Billy Gunn. This will be a MONSTER set, so I’ll split it up for today and tomorrow.

This tournament is unusual due to the MASSIVE roster of guys- the jam-packed company and no Russo at the time (therefore his attention span couldn’t wreck it) made for a 32-man tournament! We’ve got a huge assortment, though, as all four Radicalz (then newly-hired by the company), Chyna, Jericho & Rikishi provide serious competition, while the company’s vast tag ranks fill out slots left & right for “easy wins” or upsets- Too Cool, APA, T&A, the Hollies, Dudleys & Edge/Christian. This is a verrrrrrrrry interesting time for the company, as they put the final nail in WCW by hiring away four of their top workers, while Jericho & Rikishi had gotten over and Angle was now a completely miraculous rookie find. And what was a company based around having shitty 2-minute brawling matches now had a ton of great wrestlers all over the place, which was kind of shifting the basic style to longer matches with high spots.

Of course, having looked at all these matches… they’re still mostly super-short (as KOTR matches have been since 1994, to be fair), and OH GOD a ton of guys are still stuck in the “Punch & Kick” mode. Bad agenting was all around at this time, with only a handful of guys avoiding it. But it’d be a long, hard road to hit the point of improvement, and a lot of dudes who couldn’t make that transition saw their careers die. You’ll see a very high level of “the guy who loses the match does most of the offense”, probably in a way to look a bit strong or make him feel better about losing- this goes back a ways (you see mid ’90s joshi do this a bunch, too).

I’ll do the first round in one post, then see what I can find for the second round for next week.

RIKISHI vs. SHANE McMAHON:
(May 29th, RAW)
* Okay, I forget the story behind this. Shane is entered in the KOTR, but has to fight Rikishi, who is in the midst of his biggest year ever before everything went horribly wrong. Shane, in a WWF shirt & regular jogging pants, boasts about “beating the Big Show” and how Undertaker couldn’t beat him, marking him as a smart-mouthed wimpy heel.

So I’m finding assorted stuff from the unusually-stuffed Dec. 1995 to review before I sum up the entire year, and I found ANOTHER one-off Dream Joshi Match! It’s a fantastic Interpromotional Tag Team Match, as the former Jungle Jack and FMW’s top two women’s wrestlers are split up and made to face each other, as Kong & Kudo take on Combat & Bison! Oh, and the next night, we get a BARBED WIRE DEATHMATCH between two insane women, as Megumi Kudo shows just how she got the title “Deathmatch Queen”.

GAEA COME ON HURRY! XMAS FIGHTING:
(Dec. 23rd 1995)
* It’s another GAEA show, this one with only two (clipped) matches shown from a GAEA vs. FMW show! Chigusa Nagayo takes on FMW’s legendary Combat Toyoda in a true Dream Match, while KAORU & Megumi Kudo pair off with their promotions’ rookies in a trios match. This gives us possibly our only instance of Kudo vs. Meiko Satomura, which is a DEFINITE Dream Match if it happens a few years later.

SCRAMBLE SOUL TO SOUL:
MEGUMI KUDO, KAORI NAKAYAMA & YUKARI ISHIKURA (FMW) vs. KAORU, MEIKO SATOMURA & TOSHIE UEMATSU:
* Well damn. Kudo vs. Meiko is a Dream Match if it happens even a handful of years later, but we’ll have to do with Meiko’s rookie incarnation. Kudo’s now in a black halter top & short shorts combo with crimped hair, looking like she’s done a heel turn or something. Her partners are both rookies- Kaori’s in crimson & black and looks to have an idol look, and Yukari’s in blue & black. Kaori outlasted FMW by two years, but Yukari retired in 1996. KAORU’s in the usual white, Meiko’s in red & Toshie’s in green.

The before-time, when Lita was introduced to the WWF audience as ESSA RIOS’ manager!

Welcome back to more Dream Matches! This time it’s a bunch more WCW stuff, but I throw in more Los Cowboys! We start off with an early Hardy Boyz match as they take on Eddie Guerrero & Essa Rios! Then it’s Yuji Nagata on his Western excursion as he takes on WCCW star Chris Adams, popularizer of the Superkick! A FAT MAN STAND-OFF as the One Man Gang takes on P.N. News!

Then come see Los Cowboys (Silver King & El Texano) as they take on the guys from last week- Doug Furnas & Phil LaFon! But as masked heel wrestlers in Mexico! Then it’s popular late-stage WCW act 3-Count (Shane Helms, Shannon Moore & Evan Karagias) oppose three jobbesr… including ELIX SKIPPER AND SONNY SIAKI, who yeah- were late WCW guys! Late WCW is more like Early TNA sometimes. And finally, as I have some space to fill, here’s the debut of the legendary HORSHU in WCW, as he faces poor schmuck Joey Maggs on the D-show.

EDDIE GUERRERO & ESSA RIOS (w/ Chyna & Lita) vs. THE HARDY BOYZ (Matt & Jeff Hardy):
(WWF RAW, April 17th, 2000)
* Here’s one recommended by Steve Austrian, with strangeness abounding as Lita leads a team AGAINST the Hardy Boyz, because when the former Miss Congeniality of ECW debuted (and had the mandatory surgery), she was the manager of the former Aguila. They barely even tried with Essa Rios, as he barely ever got mic time or any big wins, and quietly vanished. He’s in white tights with red, while Lita’s in a red bodysuit with cut-outs instead of her iconic gear. Eddie, meanwhile, is studying for his GED in an angle I don’t remember, and wearing a “VaChyna” t-shirt. Jeff’s got a black shirt and Matt has his best “2000s club guy” velvety blue shirt on.

Here’s a tweet of Grizzly hitting people with kendo sticks for 50 seconds: https://mobile.twitter.com/cultofbull/status/1473830077834084362

JOSHI SPOTLIGHT- GRIZZLY IWAMOTO:
Real Name: Kumiko Iwamoto (aka Dynamite Bear)
Billed Height & Weight: 5’5″ 147 lbs.
Career: 1985-1990

-One of the more-ignored wrestlers of the Atrocious Alliance/Gokumon-To stables of heels, Grizzly Iwamoto stands out a little bit because of two reasons: 1) Despite being too small to have the “Monster Aura” of Dump Matsumoto or Bull Nakano, she looks the most to me like the stereotype of a scary, vicious young hooligan; and 2) she is, quite possibly, the LEAST likely person you’d ever have expected to be named “Grizzly” (ally Bison Kimura shares a similar trait).

Grizzly Iwamoto only had a five year career, but it was part of the nutso “Crush Gals Era” in which she was a member of various heel stables, primarily Dump Matsumoto’s Atrocious Alliance. Sporting leather outfits and with wild, curly hair, she actually had the “Juvenile Delinquent” look that you often seen in anime & manga from the time period. So while she didn’t have the mass of Dump, Bull, Condor or Aja, she still came off like she was more dangerous than the honorable, upstanding Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka.

There’s not a great deal of stuff featuring her online (even matches on YouTube are scarce), but what’s there indicates she’s a perfectly-acceptable brawler with decent moves. In what’s probably her best match (the tag match I’ll review below), she is an excellent seller, doing great “falls straight back looking agonized” stuff, plays up being defiant against dangerous opponents, and gives good spirited comebacks. She fires off kneedrops with great intensity and precision, and can even hit a powerslam on AJA KONG, putting over both the difficulty of it and making the move look like it hurts. This to me indicates she’s a good “utility” wrestler- while not GREAT, and not likely to have **** solo matches, she can be slotted into any tag match and will go all-out and not negatively affect the match at all. You need those types.

Shinjiro Ohtani: If disdain was a person.

Welcome back to more Dream Matches! This one features a true wild one for me, as we see two of New Japan’s top Juniors… in WCW, taking on the American Males! Koji Kanemoto & Shinjiro Ohtani vs. Bagwell & Riggs! Plus, four of the most disparate guys you can imagine end up in one match- ’80s tag legend Bobby Eaton, ’90s failed Power Plant grad Kenny Kaos, never-was failed ’90s hire Bobby Duncum, Jr., and former Beverly Brother Mike Enos have a tag match on Saturday Night! And I’m pretty sure the ending is buggered!

Then ANOTHER possibly buggered ending, as that weird Late-96, Early-97 WWF era where they’re just throwing EVERYTHING at the wall to see what sticks rears its head, as we have Mexican legends Pierroth & Cibernetico taking on All Japan top team Doug Furnas & Phil LaFon! But check that weird ending!

Also, come see Lex Luger & The Giant take on two roided Power Plant guys I’ve never heard of in “The Power Company” (here called the Power Team)! And did you know that ELIX SKIPPER got his TV start in WCW? It’s true! Come watch him get some showcase as a job guy for Billy Kidman! Plus a random mess of a match as Barry Horowitz is left trying (and failing) to wrestle a lucha-style match against Silver King!

KOJI KANEMOTO & SHINJIRO OHTANI (w/ Sonny Onoo) vs. THE AMERICAN MALES (Marcus Alexander Bagwell & Scotty Riggs):
(WCW Worldwide, Dec. 2nd 1995)
* Oh YES!! Two of the best New Japan Juniors and they go to WCW and end up stuck with the Power Plant pretty boys! Now THAT’S a weirdo “WTF? This happened?” match! Ohtani in particular is THE SHIT, famous for the sheer amount of disdain he holds for every opponent. Kanemoto I’ve seen less, but he was the third Tiger Mask and I’ve seen a LOT of **** ratings thrown his way. The Males are still in the midcard at this point, and OH MY GOD they’re so ’90s. I love Buff’s bouffant hair and Riggs with his dirtbag semi-mullet. They have hideous black & white-striped singlets and jean shorts on, while Ohtani’s in his trademark plain black trunks, and Koji’s dressed like Bruce Lee with a white belt. Curiously the size difference is nowhere near as prominent as I was expecting- Bagwell isn’t any taller than Ohtani from the looks of things.

THE JWP OPENWEIGHT TITLE TOURNAMENT:
* A double-whammy tonight, as I review both a fantastic JWP Tag Titles match from December, but the two final matches of the JWP Openweight Title Tournament! My memory’s so bad I was about to review the Ozaki/Cutie match because I just happened to find in on YouTube, but then I looked up the rest of the tournament and realized I’d already reviewed it! Which saves me some time- hooray! So this is half-repost, but I have another review coming this Friday, anyhow.

JWP OPENWEIGHT TITLE TOURNAMENT SEMI-FINAL:
CUTIE SUZUKI vs. MAYUMI OZAKI:
(15.10.1995, Korakuen Hall)
* So JWP’s top title had been vacant for a year, right during the Interpromotional Era for some reason, and here’s the semi-final match in the tournament to decide the winner. Cutie’s hair is now MUCH longer, while Ozaki has her signature red gear, covered in ribbons and cut-out bits. Her curly hair, dyed somewhat red, indicates a hooligan/heel nature if I know my 1990s manga.

Konnan! Back when he was super-built and wore all the colors!

Welcome back to more Dream Matches! Today I have a pile of totally random stuff, as usual- a few requests plus the beginning of the infamous “Konnan Push” in WCW, as he takes on the US Champion One Man Gang in a totally random match. Also witness the last of the Ice Train stuff I could find, as he squashes the Gambler in 1996, then gets flattened by Goldberg four years later, this time as “M.I. Smooth”!

Next up is the long-awaited reappearance of the Deceptively-Stocky Rockers of Lucha- Los Cowboys! Silver King & El Texano team up with Villano III against the weirdo team of Yokozuna (Kokina Maximus), Miguel Perez Jr. & “The Killer”! Next it’s Disorderly Conduct, but against all-time great workers instead of the usual Saturday Night dregs, with Eddie Guerrero & Rey Mysterio taking them on! And we end things with the death of WCW Saturday Night (it continues on as a recap show after this)- a look at WCW’s horrible hardcore division, based around BRIAN KNOBBS of all people, as he takes on Norman Smiley, Rick Fuller, Al Green as a barking dog, and… two jobbers? Really? Just match-filling nobodies? THIS is what you book as the final match in Saturday Night’s history? oh, WCW.

WCW U.S. TITLE:
THE ONE MAN GANG vs. KONAN:
(WCW The Main Event, Feb. 4th 1996)
* This is one of those completely random, out of nowhere WCW bouts that ended up being a shocker, as the One Man Gang beat Kensuke Sasaki in a match both WCW & NJPW couldn’t ignore fast enough, and now the Gang is defending against some totally random dude- a guy most American fans had never heard of who is the Mexican Champion, and OH MY GOD what in the name of god is Konan wearing? He’s got a blue mask, shiny blue cape with “KONAN” written in block letters, blue tasseled tights and a gigantic “fake muscles” novelty shirt in hot pink. This is the ugliest ring costume I’ve ever seen, and I’ve watched like 200 Kaoru Ito matches. Despite the idiotic gear, Konan (that’s the spelling at this point) actually has a really good physique at this point, not hiding it behind baggy jeans and shirts like he would shortly afterwards when he was rowdy-rowdy and bout-it bout-it.

The Tournament Finals! Manami Toyota & Kaoru Ito vs. Kyoko Inoue & Tomoko Watanabe!

AJW Tag League THE BEST 1995 (Part Two):
* The second part of this tape (which starts off with an October show) sees the 1995 Tag League THE BEST Tournament end, as AJW tries desperately to put over some new stars. This is a very weird one, as we’re extra-close to the end for Lioness Asuka, Bull Nakano, Akira Hokuto & Sakie Hasegawa, which has severe repercussions for AJW. But hey, another ****+ Main Event! Good ol’ AJW!

The Standings:
Kyoko/Tomoko: 10
Manami/Ito: 10
Reggie/Hotta: 9
Aja/Takako: 9
Hokuto/Shimoda: 8
Dream Orca: 6
Yoshida/Sakie: 4
ASARI/Kumiko: 0

-As expected, ASARI’s team does poorly. But I’m shocked that Kyoko & Manami’s teams did the best, since they’re teamed with midcarders. The teams below them would seem to hold a bigger advantage… and then there’s Akira & Shimoda in the bottom half! Like, what the hell is THAT? They’re the Tag Champs! They manage to beat Dream Orca & Aja/Takako, but all the other top ranked teams wipe them out. Orca seems to start fine, beating Sakie/Yoshida, but loses to Manami/Ito as well. But they do beat Reggie/Hotta, who beat Kyoko/Tomoko for their only loss.

Of course, looking at this list knowing what’s to come… the REAL purpose of this year’s Tag League is to elevate both Ito & Tomoko. Makes sense, as AJW blew 1995 trying to get Sakie over, and she is now hurt and doomed to retirement. The company probably realizes it needs to elevate Ito & Tomoko NOW and this is their way of doing it. It’s kind of transparent, actually- like this palpable sense of “OSHIT we wasted all that time on Sakie and now we have to make do and act like the other two are on her level!”.

Now we hit the portion of the show from December! Two months later, the rankings have sorted out and we get a 3rd Place Match and the Finals.

Still the most bitching entrance in wrestling history, probably.

I think it was Scott Keith who mentioned that WCW had such a bad PR department that they had a man dresses as a giant skeleton who hit people with chairs and then danced atop the chairs, yet failed to market him to children. And that anyone who failed in such a thing had no business promoting ANYTHING, much less wrestling.

So on that note, we have a new Dream Matches column, this time showcasing what Scott’s talking about as La Parka is set up as one of Goldberg’s many victims! Also more of the Best of Ice Train, as he and fellow “forgotten big guy” Roadblock fight on the D-show! Then one of the all-time lowest-tier matches ever, as the former “Squire” Dave Taylor fights MEAN MIKE of Disorderly Conduct! Also, a pair of 1995 WWF matches, as Bam Bam & Henry Godwinn take on Ted DiBiase’s teams- first Tatanka & Kama, then Sid & Kama, in successive B-shows. Good ol’ 1995 WWF! If you think any shows TODAY suck, take a look at ’95!

Then we end things with me looking at Mid-South of all things, as my search for One Man Gang matches sees him teaming with Ravishing Rick Rude against Bruiser Brody and the Missing Link… with the latter two being BABYFACES! Oh, and also a request, as Dustin Rhodes faces Bobby Eaton, with both guys being totally washed up in the dying days of WCW.

WCW US TITLE:
BILL GOLDBERG vs. LA PARKA:
(WCW Nitro, June 1st 1998)
* This is an epic one- La Parka is beloved online, but to WCW he was just a chair-wielding jobber, so here he is to be sacrificed to Goldberg on a Nitro in Washington, DC. And HOLY SHIT is Goldberg over, with the full regalia, fireworks and his bitching theme song and everything. And he hits the ring like a twitchy madman and the fans are going nuts already.

Can Manami Toyota successfully come out on top of a year of World Title switches? Read on!

AJW MONDAY NIGHT SENSATION:
(Dec. 4th 1995)
* It’s time! JWP’s Dynamite Kansai won AJW’s WWWA World Title in August and has held the rival promotion’s World Title ever since! Takako Inoue took a shot at her, but had no chance and was beaten- but now Manami Toyota’s year-long storyline comes to an head as she takes one more shot at the Gold! So in the year preceding this, Manami Toyota lost a classic match to Aja Kong at Big Egg Wrestling Universe in the Tokyo Dome… but months later, she took another shot and actually won the Title! But then she went to a 60-minute draw against Kyoko Inoue and then failed her very next challenge, as Aja won her Title back. Along the way, Manami took several failed attempts at the WWWA Tag Titles with Sakie Hasegawa as her partner, then had an insane pair of matches against Akira Hokuto (a ***** classic) and Yumiko Hotta (possibly Hotta’s greatest match, nearly getting the same rating) in which Hotta tearfully insisted Manami bring their Gold back home.

The rest of the show is a bit peculiar, as it’s very rookie-focused, with the first three matches featuring them in prominent positions. Then we get a lot of “establishing” matches, as it’s Tomoko/ASARI, Sakie/Ito, Takako/Reggie, Hotta/Yamada & Aja/Kyoko in bouts that seem designed to showcase the bigger stars and where they are in the pecking order. This entire show honestly feels like “So Here’s Where We’re Going”, with a lot of potential up & coming stars. Of course the Ringstarfield account I’m getting these from spoils nearly every single result, making that even more clear, haha.

The other insane thing is the vast majority of matches here are SHORT- kept to about 9-11 minutes apiece, which is just over half the length bouts of great importance would be. Only two matches on the card are left going longer than that and it’s the top two. That’s very unusual for AJW in general and I wonder why that is.

GAEA THE WORLD:
(Dec. 2nd, 1995)

* One more GAEA show- this one has a weird look to it, where the ring is HIGHLY reflective and looks nearly silver on the tape transfer, so there’s these super-prominent dark shadoes of the wrestlers. It’s very odd.

BOMBER HIKARU & CHIKAYO NAGASHIMA (GAEA) vs. BAD NURSE NAKAMURA & MIWA SATO (FMW):
* A weird “Dream Match” of sorts, as FMW’s mid-tier heel team takes on GAEA’s Bomber, plus a rookie. Sato has frizzy, crimped hair (the universal sign of the high school ruffian) and silver facepaint, Bad Nurse has black clothes and ghost-white facepaint, Bomber’s in black/purple/green & Chikayo’s in yellow/black. And the GAEA girls storm the ring during the introductions to go right on the attack!

Bomber stacks the heels up and splashes onto them, then scraps with Sato, who actually does the JB Angels bridge-out before getting caught in a crab. Chikayo takes a beating once she’s in, Sato & Nurse making like LCO and repeatedly double-teaming her and taunting the crowd. This goes on for way too long, with nothing more complicated than a bodyslam, but Chikayo finally hits a Stone Cold Stunner and escapes, only for Bomber to get nailed from the apron and whipped with a flag (?) and struck by multiple soda cans (which a camera close-up reveals are EMPTY). But Nurse eats one by mistake and Bomber steals hers and whales away with it. Chikayo does rookie offense on Nurse but actually nails a rana, then leapfrogs off Bomber’s shoulders with a dropkick for two. But the towel gets involved and they beat on Bomber with some very basic stuff, then Nurse uses a rolling cradle of all things for two. She does an STF so bad even Cena would shame her, but runs into a powerslam for two.

The only Big Fat Heels I’ve never heard of- the Colossal Kongs! And HARLEY RACE was their manager! While he was managing Vader!

Welcome back to the final Dream Matches column of 2021! And true to form, I fill it with Big Fat Guy matches! This week, we’ll be taking a look at a request that netted me TWO bizarre matches- bouts featuring the Colossal Kongs! First, we see the pair of rotund near-clones as they take on two of the Four Horsemen- Arn Anderson & Paul Roma! Then we see one in a strange JTTS match against Ric Flair of all people, as Flair tries to use his “Broomstick TV Match” template on a hopeless obesitron!

Then take another look at mid-90s Nitro mishmash bouts as Lord Steven Regal takes on a young, masked Juventud Guerrera! And we see Freddie Joe Floyd for one final time, as I’ve run out of matches of his- here he teams up with Barry Horowitz as the “Elite Jobber” team up against… the Headbangers! Yes, Freddie Joe Floyd and the Headbangers interacted! How’s THAT for a wacky “Dream Match you never knew you needed”?! Then watch the strange circumstances of WCW boldly hiring away ECW’s 911 only to use him as a piece of shit jobber, taking on Ice Train on the D-show! And then it’s a glorious Fat Guy Dream Team as the One Man Gang teams up with John Tenta against the Armstrong Brothers… sadly, it’s Tenta as The Shark, but still! This would have been a mega-team in 1990!

THE COLOSSAL KONGS (Awesome Kong & King Kong, w/ Col. Rob Parker) vs. ARN ANDERSON & PAUL ROMA:
(WCW, Oct. 24th 1993)
* Shockingly, the Kongs are a pair of Big Fat Heels I’ve NEVER HEARD OF, but were apparently in WCW for a little bit. They debuted separately, but looked similar enough that they were eventually paired up, but neither ever became anything. Rob Parker is subbing for Harley Race, said to be busy with Vader at the moment. Awesome Kong is the hairier one of the two. And they’re taking on two of the Four Horsemen, which at this point features infamous failed star Paul Roma. Roma’s in long white tights and Arn’s in manly powder-blue trunks.