Oh yeah, finally getting to it- a very famous joshi match and one of those magical moments in joshi history.

The story here is that Aja & Bull were in the same stable (made from the aftermath of Dump Matsumoto retiring and Bull taking over the Atrocious Alliance), but Aja wanted to move ahead, and so turned on Bull and wanted her spot. So she splits off from Bull’s Gokumon-To stable to form Jungle Jack with Bison Kimura. “Good for her”, Bull said in a French documentary’s interview, “I would have done the same thing in her place”. But now that’s turned into a full-on BLOOD FEUD, and we get the ultimate stipulation in joshi: Hair vs. Hair. And given how 3/4 of the people in this match have awesome hair (poor Kyoko’s dumb ’90s middle-part just isn’t cutting it), this is a major, major stipulation. Bison’s got a fantastic mane, Aja a wicked dyed mohawk, and Bull of course has the greatest hair in the history of the business, so these are REALLY big stakes. Bull is the Ace of the promotion, but Kyoko’s only in her 4th year and is well below even Bison, so the odds are even and Kyoko’s a weak link.

HAIR vs. HAIR TAG TEAM DEATH MATCH:
BULL NAKANO & KYOKO INOUE vs. AJA KONG & BISON KIMURA:
(Jan. 11th 1991)
* They build this up showing clips of prior matches- Jungle Jack beating Bull’s team with Grizzy Iwamoto (I think), leading to Bull & Aja just SCREAMING in each other’s faces in a dramatic showdown. Aja later escapes Bull in a Cage Match, then Bull gets involved when Jungle Jack beat up the Marine Wolves in a tag match using chairs. Bull later slays Aja in another Cage Match, hitting her legendary Guillotine Legdrop off the top. Aja, on all fours, talks smack from the mat, and we set up THIS match- Bison shouts at Bull, Kyoko assures her senpai that she’s good to go, and we have a Tag Team Hair vs. Hair Match.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WE1A6f2lU_8

JD’ BEAUTY ATHLETE:
(May 5th 1996)
* May 5th sees another JD’ show, this one only an hour long. This was apparently taped MUCH earlier, in Dec. 1995, as Bull Nakano is wrestling, teaming with Lola Gonzalez against Jaguar Yokota & Flor Metallica! The show looks to be taking place in a REALLY smoky hall- the kind of place Vince McMahon thought wrestling existed in before 1985. There’s some oddly-tight camera angles as a result throughout the show, and the whole thing comes off like a house show they just happened to film.

JAGUAR YOKOTA vs. LOLA GONZALEZ:
* JD’s founder takes on Lola, the first champion. This looks like it takes place in a smoky bingo hall, with Jaguar in silver & Lola in a hideous floral-print singlet. Christ, are those legwarmers?

Jaguar hits her Straightjacket German IMMEDIATELY, Lola getting the ropes. Jaguar commands “shi ne!” (“DIE!”), but is whipped to the ropes, but slingshots off with a great headscissors, putting Lola on the floor. Some half-hearted brawling on the floor leads to Lola taking over with brawling (the huge close-ups are, um, NOT advantageous), and tosses Jaguar off the top, but she bridges out and hits a rana for two. Another try sees her powerbombed, Lola hauling her up for a spinning/giant swing variation of it for two. Senton off the 2nd rope misses and Jaguar hits an enzuigiri & the Vertical Drop Pedigree for two, but misses a flying thing and Lola ties her up in the “Rock the Cradle” submission & surfboard into a powerbomb & senton for two. She hits another powerbomb, but goes up and takes a butterfly superplex for two. She tries her “lockup to Straightjacket”, but Lola takes a swing at her, ending up in a Leg-Trap Backdrop Hold for the three (5:32 of 19:19) shown.

AJW DOCUMENTARY- “LES DIABLESSES DU RING”:
* So in 1991, the “La Une” channel in France decided to do a documentary on All Japan Women’s Pro-Wrestling. They were invited to go on tour with the, interview the wrestlers, and see the day-to-day operations of the show. It’s about 55 minutes long, and focuses on a small handful of people: Highly-ranked Bull Nakano & Aja Kong, rising star Manami Toyota, and American trainee on an excursion Debbie Malenko. Thankfully, YouTube has an English subtitled version.

Despite pretty well everyone knowing the secret of pro wrestling by 1991, this whole thing is in kayfabe- rivalries are treated as real, people want to win matches to make more money, etc. Curiously, the promotion’s owners, the Matsunagas, are not really given much attention.

We start with Aja Kong & Bison Kimura doing a rad “Jungle Jack” theme song that sounds like it should be being played at the Foot Clan’s headquarters in the Ninja Turtles movie. The host speaks to the audience directly about how women’s pro wrestling is extremely popular in Japan, but it’s a harsh world where “The losers get no pay”, and while the top star is a Queen, everyone else are “like monks”, unable to have love affairs and have to do all the drudgery work like cleaning.

We start with Bull Nakano, then the Ace and WWWA World Champion- “The Blue Queen” makes 48,000+ yen per fight (like $409 in 1992 U.S. dollars?) and weighs 260 lbs. (she’s big, but that seems high- she’s only 5’8″! Are they using “Adam Cole pounds”?). Half-Black, Half-Japanese Aja Kong weighs 242 lbs. and makes 31K yen per fight. Glamorous Manami “Cinderella” Toyota weighs 138 lbs. and makes only half that. Okay, that’s news to me that either used those nicknames (unless the doc just invented it- the subtitles keep using “Manami” while the narrator repeatedly says “Cendrillon”- Cinderella’s French name). And they use that as Manami’s ONLY name during the advertising for one show! She hadn’t even won major singles gold at this point, so I have no idea why they decided to focus so much attention on 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.

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.

LCO, now with a new combination, as Hokuto & Shimoda form a duo!

AJW NAGOYA WHIRLWIND ’95:
(Nov. 3rd, 1995)
* So an entire month after Manami Toyota wins the Japan Grand Prix and is set to challenge Dynamite Kansai to bring the WWWA Title back home to AJW, we have another big-ish show. And something crazy happened in the interim- Akira Hokuto teamed up with subordinate Mima Shimoda to win the WWWA Tag Team Titles from Double Inoue! With Manami busy with World Title stuff, her team with Sakie had to wait, I suppose, and now the nigh-unbeatable Tag Champs are dethroned! I really searched for that match, but couldn’t find it. Nor Yumiko Hotta defeating Toshiyo Yamada for the White Belt on the same show! It’s not even on Mike Lorefice’s list of AJW tapes! Did they even record this one at all? Evito-X says it wasn’t. Missing two major title switches is a rarity for this promotion.

So this show features the first Title defense by Hokuto/Shimoda… and they’re up against BULL NAKANO, former Ace, with Tomoko Watanabe backing her up! Bull hasn’t challenged for gold in years, so this is pretty crazy.

Looks like the card has a bunch of stuff that wasn’t taped:
AJW JUNIOR TITLE: YOSHIKO TAMURA vs. NOBUE ENDO- Time Limit Draw (20:00)- Jesus Christ, glad we missed that’n.

YUMIKO HOTTA, MISAE WATANABE & YUMI FUKAWA d. TOSHIYO YAMADA, CHAPARRITA ASARI & MINA TANIYAMA (10:45): Seems like a pretty quick result.

IWA WORLD TITLE: REGGIE BENNETT d. ETSUKO MITA (15:36): Mita seems to be settling into Suzuka Minami’s old “good wrestler who jobs in 15 minutes” role.

MANAMI TOYOTA & MARIKO YOSHIDA d. SAKIE HASEGAWA & KAORU ITO (16:57): Meltzer gave this **** and Lorefice gave it ***1/2, saying it saved the big moves for the end. It was taped, but I can’t find it on YouTube.

Part One

AJW DESTINY:
(Sept. 2nd 1995)
* So AJW is going wild at the moment- we’re in the middle of the Japan Grand Prix round-robin, a rival promotion’s Ace (Dynamite Kansai) is AJW’s World Champion, and ticket sales are suffering in part because we’re outta fresh match-ups. Yet we’re still having ****+ matches all over the place, so fuck it- I’D be buying tickets! This is a mega, mega, mega-event, too, with TOYOTA/HOKUTO as the Main Event- two of the very best on the entire planet at this point. It’s like them, Bret, Shawn, and three of the Four Pillars and that’s it.

Also on the card are matches between upper-midcarders Yumiko Hotta & Reggie Bennett, Kyoko Inoue & Bull Nakano doing another match in Bull’s last hurrah as a major solo act (and she knows it), Aja Kong taking on her old partner Bison Kimura, and even LCO fighting the Raijin Army, which includes their trainer Jaguar Yokota. This show is STACKED, and nearly five hours long. Mike Lorefice darkly notes that this is “the last excellent top to bottom show AJW has presented”.

Of particular note is the fact that this show is literally THREE DAYS after the fantastic “Queen’s Holy Night” show, which featured Aja lose the 3WA Title to Kansai in a ****1/4 match, Akira Hokuto & Mima Shimoda hitting ***3/4, and a ****3/4-***** match between Manami & Sakie and Double Inoue! So everyone on here is busting their ass despite wrestling on the same level three days earlier!

“TL;DR: What’s The Deal?”: One of the year’s best matches in the main event, plus the big stars in assorted other bouts (including what I think is Reggie’s best match). Also shorter match lengths than in many other big shows- only two go over 20:00, so nobody is overstaying their welcome.

We start with like THIRTY MINUTES of assorted stuff, with Bull’s old stable (her, Kyoko & Tomoko) showing up for an interview, assorted signings and even memorabilia (a J.B. Angels magazine cover, ASARI’s gear, etc.). Backstage stuff with Hokuto & Bull putting on their gear together. Everyone comes out in white shirts and red shorts to start the show- the real mark of a “big event”. Biggest reactions by far are for Bull (who almost never wrestles now) and Akira. Manami & Kyoko get the next biggest reactions, but much more muted.

60 minutes of the AJW Workrate Style. Just insane.

AJW KORAKUEN G*TOP:
(5/7/95, Tokyo Korakuen Hall)
* And now it’s time for Dave Meltzer’s favorite match of 1995! Manami is the WWWA Champion and having her first defense… and it’s against her old Workrate-Goddess rival, Kyoko Inoue! This one is pretty legendary in terms of what is possible for a wrestler’s cardio. AND it’s the 1995 Wrestling Observer Match Of The Year! And, on a sadder note, this show is the official retirement of Suzuka Minami, who spent most of last year in middling roles on the card and seems to have just called it quits when it’s clear there are no plans for her.

… wow, May already? AJW seems to be releasing only 1-2 VHS tapes a month at this point, so stuff is being skipped over I think. And also I have only two matches from this show on YouTube. But hey- 60 minutes in the *AJW* Workrate Style? Sign me up.

Most North Koreans are relatively small, compact, and conservative in how they handle themselves. When it was time for the Japanese women to wrestle, they didn’t know how to react.

“These female wrestlers were just completely from another planet,” remembers CNN correspondent, Mike Chinoy.

“Bull Nakano had hair dyed blue, and it went straight up about six or eight inches. She was wearing a white sleeveless shirt over a leotard with half-calf boots. Manami Toyota sported a black leotard with partly opened arm coverings and looked like a dominatrix from some S&M movie. And these North Korean men were sitting there staring. Whether they had any idea what this was about is entirely beyond me.”

–https://prowrestlingstories.com/pro-wrestling-stories/collision-in-korea/

COLLISION IN KOREA:
(April 28-29, 1995)
* So today I’ll be doing a double-whammy, as we’ve hit the point in my reviews were they stars of AJW and other Joshi promotions hit both the Tokyo Dome’s Bridge of Dreams show, and go to North Korea for the WCW/NJPW dual-show, Collision in Korea! This is AJW’s contribution to the Collision in Korea double-show, as they apparently stuck to themselves and quietly went out there and wrestled. Though I think this is how Kensuke Sasaki met Akira Hokuto, his future wife.

AKIRA HOKUTO vs. BULL NAKANO:
* So they’re teaming up the next night, but today they fight each other- AJW’s top two stars, even then. Bull’s in all-black, with her giant blue hair, and Akira’s in green & white.

Here’s another single-match-review Spotlight, as I finally work through some more of the great stuff Evito-X put up on YouTube! Check out his channel!

WWWA WORLD TITLE:
BULL NAKANO vs. AKIRA HOKUTO:
(1.4.1991)
* So well into the WWWA Title reign of Bull Nakano comes a challenge in the quickly-rising big star Akira Hokuto. Hokuto’s megawatt charisma and great matches have earned her a lot of attention, but even AJA KONG took a while to be seen as a “legit” contender, so I don’t know what tier Akira was on in early ’91. The schoolgirl fans are way into Akira’s corner in this one, as this is early enough in the ’90s that teen girls were still the core audience. I haven’t watched a lot of this era of Bull (I mostly went from the ’80s to her legend run post-1992) but she’s a real monster here- typically her matches seem to feature her just gobbling up her opponents alive as a respected Monster Heel.

Bull’s in her standard “rock band t-shirt over black leotard” look while Akira’s in her early ’90s white & blue karate fighter gear, Bull being a lot heavier that her WWF & WCW stuff (about 210 lbs), and Akira lacking her bleach-blonde crazy-makeup look, appearing more like a short-haired normal person. Bull’s goons, Tomoko Watanabe & Bat Yoshinaga, are at ringside.

Oh shit how can I NOT use this picture for this article. This is like a friggin’ Renaissance painting of action shots.

LLPW IN 1994:
* LLPW is the joshi league from this time period with the worst online presence, especially these days, so you won’t find much. But they ran a pretty wild card in July 1994 with a lot of Interpromotional matches, being one of the companies to boost sales by running those kinds of things, and one of the only ones to try and run the cards by themselves, against companies other than AJW (most such shows just feature “AJW vs. xxxx” matches, not mixing up the other companies).

So tonight, we’ll see Shinobu Kandori & Rumi Kazama vs. Eagle Sawai & Harley Saito, a rare LLPW/FMW match where Megumi Kudo takes on Yasha Kurenai, and a FANTASTIC Chain Match between Bull Nakano & Shinobu Kandori!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiqEnpALgGQ

SHINOBU KANDORI & RUMI KAZAMA vs. EAGLE SAWAI & HARLEY SAITO:
(LLPW, June 30, 1994)
* It’s four of LLPW’s top stars in one tag match! Jesus, what’d they fill the REST of the card with? Kandori’s the unstoppable champ at this point, but Eagle always looks strong in matches. Rumi & Harley are nearly always doing the job in Interpromotional Shows, however. This looks like a fancam, so the quality is ass. Harley’s in a blue & green jumpsuit, Eagle’s in red & black, Rumi’s in a black & pink outfit with domino mask (and comes to the ring waving a whip or flail around- so yup, her thing is now that she’s an S&M domme), and Kandori’s in black with yellow stripes.

https://youtu.be/y-GuL0WuS7o

AJW TV (June 10th, 1994):
* Today’s Spotlight takes a look at a big Summer 1994 TV show featuring the WWWA Tag Champs defending their gold, and the monster duo of Aja & Bull fighting midcard crazies LCO. Curiously, AJW seems to release only a single VHS tape each month of the summer of 1994, meaning that this thing is a LOT more sparse and it’s trickier to get a feel for the stories. The Budokan Retsuden is the next show in this series, for example, and is in AUGUST. Therefore, we don’t see any of the build for it- all the matches kinda seem out of nowhere.

And we’ve already reached time for a new Japan Grand Prix! This year’s tournament only takes place across two main tapes instead of four, though a few intermediate shows have JGP matches as well. This year? They reduce the number of wrestlers GREATLY, and drop having two blocks, nor are their any wrestlers from other promotions, as AJW runs it solo. So we have only ten women present, and only a couple of big stars are in this year- Hotta, Manami, Yamada… and that’s about it- it’s just LCO, Minami, Sakie & midcard jobbers after that. No Kyoko, even!

AJW SUPER HURRICANE:
(09.04.1994)
* Here’s another named AJW show, hailing from the Sendai Miyagi-ken Sports Center! Tonight is actually more of a return to form after several All-AJW shows in a row, as we see LLPW’s wrestlers back into the mix, with three Interpromotional matches (including a rarity tag match), plus Manami/Kyoko vs. Bull/Sakie, as Sakie Hasegawa is put in a match with AJW Main Eventers yet again! Oh, they knew what they were doing. This arena looks CRAZY-empty, especially at the start of the set. As usual, this one is split up on an ancient YouTube set. You can find it all here: https://www.youtube.com/user/ringstarfield/search?query=SUPER%20HURRICANE%E3%80%80%E9%9D%92%E8%91%89%E5%9F%8E%E4%B8%8A%E9%99%B8

“TL;DR- Why Should I Care?”: Three “Dream Match” interpromotional bouts and some of AJW’s best wrestlers put their “Main Event Effort” into things. Mima Shimoda showcases her new drive, Kandori’s her arrogant best, and Bull Nakano takes on AJW’s fastest workers.

CHAPARRITA ASARI vs. RIE TAMADA:

AJW KORAKUEN HOLY WAR ’94:
(03.03.1994)
* “Seisen” translates as “Crusade”, but the Ringstarfield guy who uploaded this called it “Holy War”, which is a million times cooler so I’m going with that. The early part of the year tends to be a tad light in AJW (their big events were kinda Spring/Winter-y), but this one has some interesting stuff, though the “Interpromotional” stuff has taken a dive in favor of feuds going on within AJW itself. The Aja/Sakie duo is definitely getting pushed ahead of the “Monster Squad” team of Aja & Bull (which seems to be mostly for special appearances). We also miss Numacchi’s retirement ceremony, as the goofy comedy character only lasts about eight months or so before she’s gone.

As usual with this guy’s clips, you have to find the whole match by searching his “Videos” for the show name.

“TL;DR- Why Should I Care?”: Actually a really awesome show, with two ****-ish matches in the final slots.

KUMIKO MAEKAWA vs. MIKI YOKOE:
* Even the narration on the YouTube video advertises this as a rarity, because Miki is “Soon Retired”. Though she wrestled a TON in 1993, it was generally untelevised “exhibition” stuff. Kumiko’s in blue, and Miki’s in this hideous green/blue Jobber Singlet, with what looks like big sneakers on.

AJW TV (Feb. 18th 1994):
* Weirdly, I somehow nearly missed this one entirely. A random check of Grand Prix matches from the summer somehow showed U-Channel’s two February AJW shows uploaded. I mean, I normally work a bit ahead, and this BARELY made it on time. I normally search names in English & Japanese, so I shouldn’t have missed this quite so badly. But in any case, here’s a pair of TV shows with likely some fairly edited shows.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K5vYC7bsHA&ab_channel=U-channel

ETSUKO MITA, TOMOKO WATANABE & RIE TAMADA vs. SUZUKA MINAMI, CHIKAKO SHIRATORI & KUMIKO MAEKAWA:
* It’s a combination of Giant, Rookie & Bottom-Tier Wrestler, though Tomoko way outranks Chikako at this point, so Minami’s practically fighting by herself. Rie’s in white & red, Tomoko’s in green & blue, Mita’s in black, Minami’s in red & black, Chikako’s in blue & white and Kumiko’s in the jobberiest blue swimsuit ever.

AJW OTA-WARD CHAMPION LEGEND 1994:
(01.24.1994)

* And now, with 1993 complete in my Joshi runthrough, here’s the first big event of 1994- the Ota-Ward (I assume that’s a region, since the arena’s called “Tokyo Ota-ku Taiikukan”) Champion Legend show, headlined by Aja Kong defending her WWWA World TItle against AJW’s toughest wrestler, Yumiko Hotta, in a super-disgusting fucking match that involves a BLOODY HAND. And also Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada defend the World Tag Titles against LCO! Read on!!

“TL;DR- Why Should I Care?”: This is an unsung candidate for “best short show ever”, as it’s three ****+ matches in a row- the shittiest match on this card is ****1/4. Aja/Hotta is also a must-see in terms of brutality, and this is LCO’s first TRULY awesome tag match in a long, legendary career full of them.

AJW TV (Jan. 1994):
* And welcome to AJW in 1994! After several months of working on 1993’s shows, it’s fun to see a whole new “era”, as all the major story-arcs have ended and the feuds run their course- Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada have finally unseated JWP’s Ozaki & Kansai for the WWWA Tag Titles, and Akira Hokuto has given her win back to LLPW’s Shinobu Kandori. As a result, they’re gonna have to find all-new angles and feuds- 1994 has a handful less tapes available than 1993 did (especially if you count the Legendary Goddess ones), but builds to the biggest joshi show of all time by the end of the year- Big Egg Wrestling Universe.

This show is about an hour and a half, and covers the 1993 AJW Awards Party, as well as having four unique matches on it.

“TL;DR- Why Should I Care?”: It’s a pretty interesting show in terms of bouts you rarely see- a rare Aja solo bout to build her up for Hotta’s Title shot in a week, LCO against a thrown-together team, and the Tag Champs facing the future Double Inoue!

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!

I’d share the link to the YoutTube, but it turns out that Bull wears clothing and decorates her room featuring photographs of nude women on them, so I actually can’t, lol. So here’s that rad Bull Nakano fanart again!

And now it’s two remaining Legendary Goddess VHS reviews before I’m finally done with all the Joshi I could find from 1993! A “Year In Review” article will be up this Friday.

LEGENDARY GODDESS VII- BULL NAKANO:
* We get our “LG” tape release for Bull Nakano at last! And immediately it’s bizarre, as a denim-clad Bull, with normal hair and no flashy facepaint, walks gingerly through a ratty old shipyard while 1980s-sounding screeching guitars play. Bizarrely, her dour expression and outfit make her look older here than she does today. And then she starts breathing heavily and just goes mental on a chain link fence while her jacket is now made of leather, and says fuck across the back- God I love joshi.

Then she goes walking down some of the grimy bar-filled streets in Japan (that actually reminds me more of the real Japan than the shiny yachts & harbors they normally go on in these), shows that her jacket has a photo that is DECIDEDLY not safe for work on it (a topless woman pantomiming fingerbanging herself- well now I can’t put the YouTube video in the review, then!), then puts on a Chicago Bulls jacket, and prepares for her first match. Tremendous.

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.