Sometimes I have the work of trying to sum up some of the greatest workers of all time in a handful of paragraphs! Other times I just have to sum up people like this.

JOSHI SPOTLIGHT- BAT YOSHINAGA:
Real Name: Eriko Yoshinaga
Billed Height & Weight: 5’4″ 165 lbs.
Career Length: 1989-94

-Bat Yoshinaga is one of those peculiar oddities where a wrestler is very poorly remembered, but only for their non-worked stuff. She was a perfectly cromulent undercard wrestler for much of her run (with a jobber tag team with stablemate Tomoko Watanabe in the early part, and as a martial arts bruiser for the last year or so), but on many of the most famous Joshi cards of all time (in particular the Dream Slams), she was in the worst matches- most notably, an infamously boring shootfight over her trophy WWWA Martial Arts Title. So this kind of equates “Bat Yoshinaga” with “UGGGGGHHHHH” in the eyes of many joshi fans, and since she was already gone by 1995, this kind of stuck to her.

ST. BATTLE DAY:
(20.03.1992)
* This is actually a bit of a throwback (since I just finished going through all of 1993), as I initially couldn’t find the full show on YouTube. Maffew uploaded it as “Indie Uploader”, but he was banned for copywrite violations, but someone else was good enough to upload it when I bemoaned that fact. So here we are! Finally!

“TL;DR- Why Should I Care?”: One of the better tag matches of the year and a truly important title-change… and one of the worst AJW tag matches ever- a smorgasbord for Botchamania! Watch what happens when technical wrestlers try lucha!

It’s time for another bunch of Legendary Goddess VHS reviews! Three at a time in this one, since it’s a lot of retread material, but DAMN some of it’s great footage.

LEGENDARY GODDESS IV- AKIRA HOKUTO:
* This one starts with some hilariously overwrought footage of Hokuto stalking around a temple wearing her traditional Noh theater garb, complete with big sound effects, which would be so incredibly stupid on anyone without Hokuto’s credibility. So instead it’s awesome. Partway through, there’s this “normal person” interview of her laughing and smiling on while some silly symphony plays, and it’s so unsettling to see the Dangerous Queen as a human being. Like, her mystique actually makes this stuff come off as odd. Then she strolls around in denim shorts and a floral-print shirt in black & white.

AJW TV SHOW (Aug. 5th, 1993):
* So in the midst of the never-ending AJW Grand Prix, here’s an August TV show I found! It was taped at the Kasumigaura Cultural Gymnasium in Kasumigaura, Ibaraki on August 5th, airing Aug. 13th, and features a Grand Prix match between Akira Hokuto & LLPW’s Harley Saito! There’s also a pair of Big Monster Veteran (vs) Up & Coming Undercard Wrestler matches.

So highlights here are a one-time-only bout (Hokuto/Saito I do not believe ever met in singles competition again), and the goddamn Dragon Ball Z theme song being used as an entrance theme. Plus the truest test yet for Bat Yoshinaga after a fairly impressive year for the up & comer.

AJW TV SHOW (July 1993):
* Oh good! I found another one of these! Always fun to check out their weekly TV show (with ads! One features an AMAZING trailer for a “tiny samurai” movie where he opposes a cat and a street-sweeper. I wanna see that movie).

“TL;DR- What’s The Big Deal?”: These shows are always fun, if only for the commercials and the rare matches. It’s very interesting to see the weekly TV of a promotion most would only recognize from their biggest shows only. Okay, that’s just a nice way of saying “it’s fine and nothing stands out as overly great”, but it shows a complete package of the promotion!

The best match of the show! As always, ya gotta search & paste in Ringstarfield’s YouTube channel to get all the matches in succession.

AJW GRAND PRIX 1993 (Part Four):
(04.07.1993)
* Part four away! Once more, the tournament includes JWP’s Hikari Fukuoka & LLPW’s Harley Saito on different sides, meaning there’s a lot of never-before-seen Dream Matches here.

“TL; DR- What’s The Big Deal?”- One of those nights when almost every single wrestler is gunning to steal the show, so there’s multiple great matches all evening. Also, a BAT YOSHINAGA match nearly gets four stars.

The Main Event 6-Woman Tag.

AJW GRAND PRIX 1993 (Part Three):
(11.06.1993)
* Part three of this series of shows! I actually reviewed Part Two a year ago, not realizing a more full set was around at the time: https://blogofdoom.com/index.php/2019/10/04/joshi-spotlight-grand-prix-93-semi-finals/. Once more, the tournament includes JWP’s Hikari Fukuoka & LLPW’s Harley Saito on different sides, meaning there’s a lot of never-before-seen Dream Matches here. Hikari/Kyoko, Sakie/Yamada and a big-time 6-person tag await! Oh, and a super-famous joshi match…

“TL; DR- What’s the Big Deal?”: This contains what is easily the most famous squash in Joshi history- a true unexpected gem. Also every match but the squashes is at least “very good”, there’s a few pairings you’ll literally never see again, and a kick-ass main event! Actually a hell of a show!

The main event- LCO vs. LLPW’s #2-4 stars!

AJW vs. LLPW- ARASHI NO KAISEN! (The Outbreak of the Storm):
(24.01.1993, Korakuen Hall)

* And we’re back with the first big Interpromotional show of 1993- another “Rivals” show with an AJW card but an LLPW/AJW match in the Main Event! In this, it reflects the AJW/JWP “I Know You” show from December 1992 in that it’s mostly AJW at work, but with a main that’s all-new and would thus have a lot of drama attached to it. During the announcements of the wrestlers (who enter the ring and take their bows), they announce parts of the Dream Slam card! Debbie & Sakie are set up to take on the JWP team of Plum Mariko & Hikari Fukuoka, as all are around the same level… but Debbie would be swapped out for Kaoru Ito, for reasons we’ll soon see. Double Inoue (vs) Ozaki/Cutie only draws the same applause as that bout does, but the crowd is REALLY impressed to hear Dynamite Kansai (vs) Yumiko Hotta getting announced!

“TL;DR: Why Should I Care?”: The final two matches are really incredible Dream Matches, featuring 4 of AJW’s 7 best in a classic tag war, and then a 6-Woman tag that gets ugly in the best possible way.