Miori Kamiya

BISON AND SOUL:
(Jd’, 1997)
* So this is some retrospective on Bison Kimura’s career, and boy it’d be well-timed because she retires in only a few months due to injury. First, we see her joining Dump Matsumoto’s Atrocious Alliance in its later days, using “evil heel eyeshadow” and teaming with a young Aja Kong. She joins Bull Nakano’s crew when Dump leaves, gaining a signature weapon with her tonfa rods. She & Aja form Jungle Jack and feud with Bull, becoming a legendary tag team and winning the WWWA Tag Belts, but Aja turns on her and slaughters her way to the World Title alone. Bison temporarily retires (probably forced out by AJW management) and later joins the new company Jd’ as its signature star.

She wins a variety of interpromotional matches in JD’s main events, but does a quick job to JWP’s Dynamite Kansai in 11 minutes via an armbar. She rallies back with a win over FMW’s Combat Toyoda via moonsault… and Combat gets the win back in home FMW territory, and Manami Toyota beats Bison, too. Then she fights Lioness Asuka- I thought I reviewed this one, but it’s an other bout they had and OH GOD THAT RUNTIME:

BISON KIMURA vs. LIONESS ASUKA:
(JD’, 5/2/1996)
* Asuka’s in black & white, while Bison’s in yellow & white.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcON99jWM30&t=2s

JD’ BEAUTY ATHLETE (August 6th, 1996):
* It’s the fourth of the JD’ Beauty Athlete shows I can find in YouTube! This one features AJW’s Chaparrita ASARI & Yumi Fukawa in a rookies match against Chikako Shiratori & Aya Koyama, then a Veteran/Rookie match between Jaguar & Yuki Lee and Cooga & The Bloody! Finally, our main event is the big star showdown of Bison Kimura (JD’s top star) vs. Lioness Asuka!

This is all shot from a single-camera point of view, similar to the wrestling of the 1950s. It’s odd how static it is, but gives the show a unique look and feel, and probably changes how the matches are wrestled, as people can’t run all over the place this way.

CHAPARRITA ASARI & YUMI FUKAWA (AJW) vs. CHIKAKO SHIRATORI & AYA KOYAMA (JD’):
* An interpromotional tag bout with two of AJW’s hottest rookie stars- the high-flying stunt worker ASARI and the more glamorous Fukawa, who keeps getting focused on around this time as an up & comer. Naturally, Chikako is a good opponent, being her JD’ counterpart. Koyama’s green as grass, though. ASARI’s in good red & white gear, Fukawa’s in a ridiculous black leotard with a pink frill going all around it, Chikako’s in black & blue, and Aya’s in a black jobber swimsuit with red & yellow stripes.

JD’ BEAUTY ATHLETE:
(July 1996)
* Hooray! More JD’ stuff! This one features AJW’s Mima Shimoda popping in to make a team with Chikako Shiratori (her partner in the upcoming Discover New Heroine veteran/rookie tournament), some focus on “the rookie we want to push” Yuki Lee, and a bunch of JD’s rookies making their debuts. And finally a “REAL DOG FIGHT” between Bison Kimura and Jaguar Yokota (under a mask).

MIMA SHIMODA (AJW) & CHIKAKO SHIRATORI (JD’) vs. JAGUAR YOKOTA & YUKO KOSUGI (JD’):
* An interpromotional match of sorts, as AJW’s Shimoda arrives to team with Chikako in a prelude to their team in the tournament coming up in a month at the Budokan show. Their opponents are JD’s most credible star (Jaguar) and brand-new rookie Yuko Kosugi. Shimoda’s in black & yellow, Chikako’s in pink & white, Jaguar’s in purple & Kosugi’s in a white jobber two-piece.

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.

Remember: JD’ is pronounced “jay-DEE-star”!

JD’ BEAUTY ATHLETE- COMING TO TOKYO:
(April 14th 1996)
* Oh hey, look! The OTHER joshi splinter promotion of 1996 shows up in my Spotlights! Mostly because MoskowDiskow was like “Hey if you’re in 1996 you should have JD! There’s 4-5 videos on YouTube!” and I was like “huh? There is?” and he linked me one person’s poorly-labeled channel. I mean, typing in “JD” into a search engine ain’t gonna net you a lot, right? But here’s an April ’96 show!

So the deal with JD’ is that some company had a TV contract and were able to lure away Jaguar Yokota, wonder-trainer of AJW’s ’80s wrestlers and a big star in her own right, along with two forcibly-retired buddies in Bison Kimura (billed as a top star) and Lioness Asuka (a huge ’80s star). Like some Ted Turner dude was like “I wanna get into the wrasslin’ business! I remember Jaguar & Lioness- get ’em for my company!” because he was old and those were the stars he remembered. And they threw together a weirdo promotion of bizarre gimmicks, terrible rookies (Chikako Shiratori) and freelancers. And now I got all these damn people to look up because I have no idea who most of these people are, lol.

We start off with a highlight reel, mostly made up of big flying moves, plus a Bison Kimura/Manami Toyota match that headlines this show. Then the CGI opening, looking like a first generation PlayStation game to a hilariously nostalgic degree, leads to mini-bios of the wrestlers. For some reason there’s super-quiet commentary AND a voiceover, like they recorded both channels and played them over each other.

… What? Sometimes, you just want to write the bio for a completely mediocre star! They can be just as informative as those for the GOOD wrestlers!

JOSHI SPOTLIGHT- MIORI “COOGA” KAMIYA:
Real Name: Miori Kamiya (aka Lady Cooga, Cooga, “Cougar”- see below)
Billed Height & Weight: 5’5″ 143 lbs.
Career: 1986-1992, 1996-2000

-It’s a testament to the training skill of Jaguar Yokota, and the preposterous level of talent All Japan Women’s Puroresu had in the Class of 1986, when the WORST person in their class of six was Miori Kamiya. I mean, the next shittiest worker in that group is either Combat Toyoda or Kaoru Maeda!

AJW Tag League THE BEST ’92- Part Two:
(02.11.1992)
* Taped about two weeks after Part One, Part Two of Tag League THE BEST involves an interesting batch of midcard bouts with obvious winners (if I hadn’t looked at the match time for one, anyways), LCO’s subordinates in a pair of them, and one hell of a Main Event on paper- Aja/Kyoko vs. Akira/Bull! This is the last “Tag League” show I can find from ’92. This takes place at Hakata Starlanes, which is a REALLY bright, very small set for something like this, giving it a whole different “look” than other AJW shows. I mean, it’s a damn gymnasium. This is like watching joshi cards after 1997, complete with a crowd that’s 90% male.

“TL;DR- Why Should I Care?”: Another night of fun wrestling matches- not as flashy or showy as a Grand Prix card tends to be, but with some fun midcard singles matches (actually a rarity in joshi) and two very good matches to end the show!