It’s a two-match Joshi Spotlight for you today, as there’s a 3WA Tag Title defense between Manami Toyota & Mima Shimoda and upstart midcard team Kaoru Ito & Mariko Yoshida! Come see how AJW tries to fill out shows with their greatly diminished roster as 1996 rolls on! This match is mostly notable for being the first instance I can find of one of the late 1990s’ most spectacular moves- the Air Raid Crash!

Also, I found a random squash from February so this isn’t just a one-match review. I forgot we only saw Sakie Hasegawa retire earlier in 1996.

PS I finally made a “Master List” of all my Joshi Spotlights in order of when the shows happened: https://www.echoesofthemultiverse.com/viewtopic.php?t=2086

WWWA TAG TEAM TITLES:
BEST TWO OF THREE FALLS:
MANAMI TOYOTA & MIMA SHIMODA vs. KAORU ITO & MARIKO YOSHIDA:
(Sept. 28th 1996)
* So it’s come to this- the 3WA Tag Team Champions facing down a pair of midcarders who have no chance in the world. Sometimes these matches produce some real classics, though (Las Cachorras Orientales had no chance against Toyota & Yamada years ago, and that match was ****1/2 or so). Ito has a slick green & silver bodysuit, having escaped her “worst gear in wrestling” tag years ago, and Yoshida’s in yellow. Manami’s in black & gold and Shimoda’s in red & gold.

GAEA- WAR IS A FRIDAY NIGHT:
(Feb. 16th, 1996)

* With possibly the greatest show tagline of all time, we’ve got an interesting mixed batch here, as I found the first GAEA vs. *AJW* match I can find, as Sakie Hasegawa gets to go to GAEA Japan on her retirement road and face Chigusa Nagayo!! And Chigusa leads her girls against heel invaders from LLPW, with Eagle Sawai’s GUREN Corps showing up to act as ANOTHER “Evil Girls Group” against mega-babyface Chigusa.

CHIGUSA NAGAYO, BOMBER HIKARI & SONOKO KATO (GAEA) vs. GUREN CORPS (Eagle Sawai, Jenn Yukari & Michiko Nagashima) (LLPW):
* So what looks to be LLPW’s big heel stable at the time (Eagle had recently been LLPW Champion) invades GAEA, with Chigusa shoring up a lame “veteran” and a rookie against Eagle & midcarders Jenn Yukari (a person so minor I could barely find squat to focus on in a Spotlight just for her, haha) and Nagashima. Chigusa appears to respond to a GUREN invasion and taunt-job simply by asking two people to join her for an impromptu match. Chigusa’s in red/yellow/black, Bomber’s in black/green/white & Kato’s in blue, while Eagle’s in black, Yukari’s in red/green/white & Michiko’s in a black “Manami Toyota”-esque outfit with cut-outs.

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.

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.

AJW TAG LEAGUE THE BEST 1995 (Part One):
(Oct. 1995-Dec. 1995)
* So the final AJW tape release of 1995 appears to be a compilation of the Oct. 10th show and the Dec. 10th show, where the round-robin of varied teams is played up for Tag League THE BEST. We start off with four tourney matches, two of which are VERY clipped, then a show two months later where they have the Tournament Finals, with complete matches and some undercard stuff. Most of which is also badly clipped. I’ll split this in two, since it’s two different shows entirely and this would be an immense review otherwise. I’ll post this part part when the matches actually fit into the timeline.

The teams this year are actually sort of bizarre, as nobody is with their regular partner except for Akira/Shimoda- everyone else is in these mish-mash teams. The roster this year: Akira Hokuto & Mima Shimoda (the WWWA Tag Team Champions); Manami Toyota & Kaoru Ito (at least they’re stablemates); Aja Kong & Takako Inoue (called “Beauty and the Beast” entertainingly enough- the team of a dethroned Champ and an up & coming upper-carder); Kyoko Inoue & Tomoko Watanabe (a rising star and her style-clone; former stablemates); Reggie Bennett & Yumiko Hotta (the strongest & best fighter in the company, respectively- both upper-level wrestlers who are a threat to anyone); Sakie Hasegawa & Mariko Yoshida (former feuding wrestlers, now stablemates); Toshiyo Yamada & Etsuko Mita (the reunited DREAM ORCA, though both now as midcarders, sorta); and Chaparrita ASARI & Kumiko Maekawa (jobbers, especially here).

Tag League THE BEST ’95:
REGGIE BENNETT & YUMIKO HOTTA vs. CHAPARRITA ASARI & KUMIKO MAEKAWA:
* Ohhhhhhhhhhh my god someone is going to murder these poor girls. Stiff, unprofessional bully Hotta teaming with the powerhouse against poor diminutive ASARI and a rookie. Yikes. ASARI’s in red & gold, Kumiko’s in blue & white, Hotta’s in black (with much longer hair that any time previous) and Reggie’s in black & purple.

JOSHI SPOTLIGHT- MIKI HANDA:
Billed Height & Weight: 5’3″ 132 lbs.
Career: 1987-1995

And now we come to Miki Handa, who is interestingly forgettable given how she’s been in some incredible matches here and there. I mean, I kinda love doing Spotlights on lesser names as there’s often a lot more to discover than in an obviously famous wrestler’s case, but here I couldn’t find squat!

I sorta chalk it up to Handa being like plain bread- no taste on its own, but it soaks up the flavors of stuff around it, so it can’t hurt anything. In a sense, Miki is herself not that notable, but you can slot her in with three great workers and have a great match that she doesn’t detract from in the slightest. Not the most GLOWING of praise… but keep in mind how many potentially good or great matches are wrecked by one sub-par worker. In this sense, Miki works to the level of her opponent, and thus you’ll find a surprising number of ***1/2-**** matches from her if her opponents are good enough.

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.

AJW OSAKA QUEEN’S HOLY NIGHT (WWWA Championship Night):
(Aug. 30th 1995)
* Welcome back to another Joshi Spotlight, as we take a look at one of the biggest shows of the year! This one has a pretty great concept- it’s just all the top belts being defended, including the fourth match between Aja Kong & Dynamite Kansai! Plus Double Inoue defend their Tag Titles against Manami Toyota & Sakie Hasegawa for the third time!

Some matches aren’t available on YouTube as far as I can tell. Mike Lorefice’s ratings are in brackets:
Rie Tamada, Yoshiko Tamura & Yumi Fukawa defeat Chaparrita ASARI, Misae Watanabe & Yuka Shiina (8:56): Basic rookie trios match. (*1/2)
Kaoru Ito & Mariko Yoshida defeat Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa (8:55): The rating seems high, here- not even ten minutes and it gets four stars (****)?.
Yumiko Hotta & Toshiyo Yamada & Etsuko Mita defeat Jaguar Yokota & Bison Kimura & Reggie Bennett (12:55): Interesting use of the Raijin Army, pairing them up with Reggie against… well a Random Grab-Bag team. (***1/4)
Bull Nakano beats Lioness Asuka (1:29): Huh. (*)

LAS CACHORRAS ORIENTALES EXPLODE!:
AKIRA HOKUTO vs. MIMA SHIMODA:
* Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh shit- here comes Hokuto bringing the hate against her stablemate and adoring fangirl, Mima Shimoda! Hokuto’s in pink & white, while Shimoda’s in red, black & gold.

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.

AJW QUEENDOM ’95:
* For this Joshi Spotlight, we take a look at the three “Wrestling Queendom” shows in March 1995! However, I’ve done two of them before, so here’s the two matches available from the first one- thankfully, BOTH are ****+! Here we see the returning veterans of the Raijin Army take on LCO & Suzuka Minami, and then the Main Event is a spectacular 8-Woman Elimination Tag with some odd rules- all to see which AJW wrestlers get to head to the “Bridge of Dreams” show and showcase their promotion at the Tokyo Dome!

This review will feature those two big matches, then end with summations for the two Queendoms.

RAIJIN ARMY (BISON KIMURA, JAGUAR YOKOTA & LIONESS ASUKA) vs. SUZUKA MINAMI & LAS CACHORRAS ORIENTALES (Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda):
* And now it’s time for Jaguar’s “Returning Veteran Squad” to take on the reunited Minami/LCO team! The Raijin Army sort of forms as a whole at this point, with the wily vets throwing a spanner into the works of AJW- this bout probably being to properly reintroduce them as a unit. There’s some fun stuff here, as Jaguar trained both Mita & Shimoda, while Mita based a huge chunk of her current act (especially her Chops) off of Bison after she retired. Jaguar’s in pink, Bison’s in white tiger-stripes, Asuka’s in navy blue, Minami’s in orange & blue, and LCO’s in white & purple. This is Bison’s first real match back, so she gets a BIG reaction. Mita talks shit on the mic and Bison grabs at her right away.

Double Inoue vs. Manami Toyota & Sakie Hasegawa.

AJW TV (Jan. 1995):
* And welcome to the beginning of 1995 in the Joshi Spotlight! So I found a handful of stuff from the early part of the year, but of primary importance here are the huge Title defenses of Double Inoue & LCO!! So this is a “two-match review”, as both major Joshi promotions defend their top gold in the early part of January 1995!

So first off, Double Inoue make a very big WWWA Tag Title defense as Manami Toyota comes back for her gold, but with Sakie Hasegawa as her new partner! And then we have Las Cachorras Orientales defending the JWP Tag Team Titles on JWP home turf against the odd pairing of evil Mayumi Ozaki & rising idol Hikari Fukuoka! Both matches are absolute bangers, so come take a look!

AJW TAG LEAGUE THE BEST 1994:
(10.12.1994)
* And now the final VHS release of 1994 for Joshi, as we end the 1994 Tag League! It looks like tonight it’s a three-way “Playoff Final” for the top ranks, as Aja Kong & Reggie Bennett, Kyoko Inoue & Sakie Hasegawa and Manami Toyota & Takako Inoue all end up tied (aw man, poor LCO)! Tragically, we’ve missed Kumiko Maekawa vs. Yoko Takahashi in rookie mayhem, and some showing of their trip to Bali in mid-December. Last year’s show saw a legendary bout in which Manami Toyota & Akira Hokuto beat Kyoko Inoue & Toshiyo Yamada in a PAIR of ***** matches back-to-back (the only time in history this has been done), so this show has an awfully big pair of shoes to fill.

Tag League THE BEST 1994:
MARIKO YOSHIDA & CHAPARRITA ASARI vs. TOMOKO WATANABE & RIE TAMADA:
* Both teams are ranked at the bottom, making this a solid early match. Tomoko & Rie both look heartbroken for their low standing, while the other two are Deer-In-Headlights. Yoshida’s in that gloriously terrible blue/pink/yellow thing, ASARI’s in light blue & silver (hey, that’s a new one!), Tomoko’s in black & white, and Rie’s in white & orange.

The Main Event- Aja vs. Hotta for the WWWA World Title.

AJW WRESTLEMARINEPIAD ’94 EX:
(12/4/94)
* Here’s an odd little show near the end of the year- a mere TWO WEEKS after Big Egg Wrestling Universe in the Tokyo Dome, we get a reasonably-big show that features a WWWA World Title defense, “new act” Blizzard Yuki against a Main Eventer, and more. Though… only the top three matches are particularly big- everything else looks like “card filler”. Thankfully I found the card on Ringstarfield’s channel, and… oh thank god, we have FULL VIDEOS of each match! Like, not all cut up into separate parts! These videos are only NINE years old, meaning that YouTube then allowed people to upload things over 10 minutes long, so we get 26-30 minute videos in some instances. That makes watching this a whole lot more pleasant.

“TL;DR- Why Should I Care?”: Well, two weeks after the biggest show in AJW’s history, they’re back AGAIN pitting superstars against each other. Most are beat to hell and shooting more for *** than ****, but check out Manami being a crazy person in another extremely long eye-opening match to put over a big new act.

AJW TV (Oct. 31st):
* Another week of AJW TV hits us, and we have a bunch of matches, including a very big Manami Toyota vs. Takako Inoue All Pacific/IWA Title match, plus Kyoko Inoue vs. Reggie Bennett! This show features a huge amount of hype for Big Egg Wrestling Universe– the upcoming Tokyo Dome show. And more Japanese commercials! An English voiceover describes to pretty-boy actors in the film Night Head, while we also hear about the Japan Supercross ’94, a serious-looking movie called Stay Gold (the producer an Outsiders fan?) and TUNNELS having a concert tour. Oh boy- TUNNELS!

SUZUKA MINAMI & KAORU ITO vs. SAKIE HASEGAWA & MARIKO YOSHIDA:
* Wow, Sakie & Yoshida- old rivals- are now paired up against the low-tier team of Minami & Ito. Yoshida’s in her blue, pink & yellow “M Y” gear, Sakie’s in all the splatter-colors, Ito’s in green & yellow, and Minami’s in some odd, loose-fitting shiny lavender thing.

Debbie Malenko with her regular partner, Sakie Hasegawa.

JOSHI SPOTLIGHT- DEBBIE MALENKO:
Real Name: Debbie Drake
Billed Height & Weight: 5’6″ 143 lbs.
Career: 1990-1993, Barely-Active since 2000-something

-So one of the few bad things during AJW’s rise in the early 1990s was the very short career of the promising Debbie Malenko, who was the sole foreigner on many AJW shows of the time period. She had formed a spunky undercard tag team with Sakie Hasegawa, and was utilizing some very unique stuff for the “GO GO GO!” joshi style (being more of an American-style technical wrestler with precision offense taught by Boris Malenko, who let her use his worked surname). Hitting big-time STFs and stuff as major offense was typically not done around this point, as AJW’s style was more “you sit on them for stretching to kill time between major periods and to take a rest”, save a few exceptions. Best of all was the duo dressing like the Steiner Brothers in distinctive multicolored amateur-wrestling singlets and even doing the “Rick Steiner barking run” and Debbie crawling under Sakie for the “Steiner Pose”. Great midcard tag stuff.

AJW TV (Oct. 13th, 1994):
* So we’ve entered a strange bit of time in available Joshi matches, as we just started Tag League THE BEST 1994, but there’s two months before it ends and in the meantime there’s a dozen random JWP & LLPW bouts available, PLUS some shows I already reviewed fall here, such as the major Tokyo Dome show!

But for now, here’s another edition of the AJW TV show, with LCO fighting the monster squad of Aja Kong & Reggie Bennett, plus Double Inoue vs. Sakie Hasegawa & Toshiyo Yamada. This aired in October but was taped in August, as we seem to miss September ENTIRELY for AJW releases (I guess they made one commercial tape, with an interesting Manami/Sakie/Kyoko vs. Reggie/Aja/Ito match on it). But thankfully we’re back to Japanese commercials! Clipper, the chip-like snack with the kawaii mascot! A Japanese version of A Christmas Carol! And they announce Sakie Hasegawa’s new persona as the manga character brought to life- Blizzard Yuki! This would be them finally shooting their shot at making her a huge star.

The best match of the show, BY FAR- Las Cachorras Orientales vs. Manami/Takako.

TAG LEAGUE THE BEST (Part One):
(10.08.1994)
* And 3/4 through the year, we hit another Tag League THE BEST installment! This one features some established squads, plus weird random duos (Manami/Takako?). There’s also a “Junior League” of rookies between AJW & JWP, giving us Interpromotional Rookie Mayhem once more! At last! this one is highlighted by a TREMENDOUS LCO vs. Manami/Takako match, as well as showcases for Mariko Yoshida, Sakie Hasegawa, and the monster Aja Kong/Reggie Bennett team.

“TL;DR- Why Should I Care?”: LCO vs. Manami/Takako is another classic in a long line of great Toyota & LCO matches this year. The rest of the card is mainly about the rookies and some rising up the card for Sakie Hasegawa against an old standby “gatekeeper”, but the main is also very good.

The Main Event- another Toyota/Yamada match in their never-ending series of ****+ masterpieces!

AJW GRAND PRIX 1994 (Part 2):
(28.08.1994)
* And it’s time for another edition of the yearly AJW Grand Prix. Since the first one isn’t on YouTube, I only have this second part here for review. We get a couple of matches from it, plus the return of MARIKO YOSHIDA, who has been out since just after *1992*’s Grand Prix, missing out on most of the Interpromotional Era due to a neck injury. The neat things about Grand Prix shows is that everyone has a huge fire lit under their ass to perform- like it’s as big as the “Arena Shows” or what-not, and they’re looking to show off and have the best match possible. The hard camera front row is pretty funny- two nerdy guys and a Skeevy Porn Dad, plus a bored-looking girl with dyed red hair.

This year’s edition worked slightly differently- it’s a ten-woman round robin tournament instead of featuring “blocks”. And a few big stars are out- Aja (the Champs are never in these, I think), Akira Hokuto (kinda maybe retired) & Kyoko Inoue. No interpromotional guests this time around, either.

“TL;DR- Why Should I Care?”: This is a remarkably epic show, with a FANTASTIC match between a returning Mariko Yoshida & KAORU, then another classic bout in the storied Toyota/Yamada rivalry. Plus a remarkable three midcard matches actually hit ***1/2, which is pretty rare for any show.

AJW TV (Aug. 1994):
* Here’s a couple of random matches I found from AJW in August! Plus a video all about Akira Hokuto’s career- match clips and interviews that would probably be awesome if you understood Japanese!

TL;DR Version: Hey, two ***+ matches in one TV show- not bad, right? AEW hasn’t spoiled us THAT much! And this is like *1994*!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FshXiGCE_w

YUMIKO HOTTA & TOMOKO WATANABE vs. SUZUKA MINAMI & MIMA SHIMODA:
* This was from Aug. 31st, and is pretty much a “random grab-bag of wrestlers” match (though Minami sometimes pairs up with LCO). Minami’s in a hideous red outfit with floral-print, a zipper, and a wide collar, while Shimoda’s in the usual red & black. Tomoko’s in the black with tassles, and Hotta’s in blue & yellow.

AJW BUDOKAN RETSUDEN MAX:
(24.08.1994)
* And now we hit one of the biggest Joshi cards of the year, in one of the most legendary arenas in Japan, with the now-rare Interpromotional Matches taking up the entire card! They’ve really edged off on those in 1994 (they’re probably difficult to book, and I’d imagine most don’t want their top stars to lose to others), but we add one more Dream Match to Akira Hokuto’s generous supply, putting her up against Dynamite Kansai in an elimination tag match! We’ve also got FMW’s top women’s star, LCO vs. an LLPW team, Takako & Cutie forming an Interpromotional Idol Team against two other JWP wrestlers, an ultra-rare Chigusa Nagayo match against AJW wrestlers, and a Kyoko Inoue/Manami Toyota singles match! aka the pairing that first broke Dave Meltzer’s ***** scale! This is a MONSTER show, and a long review- let’s get to it!

We start with a full half-hour of “arriving at the arena and doing photo-shoots” stuff, really padding out a 5-hour (!!) tape. Everyone shows up, people shoot the shit, and at one point Manami & Takako switch outfits. Oddly both seem to fit, despite their different body types. Takako seems to be mimicking Minami by doing endless hair-flips and glamor-girl poses, which is pretty hilarious. Everyone does test-bumps and rope-jumps in the ring, too. Our Main Eventers are all pretty jovial, Hokuto cracking everyone up instead of setting off real-looking fights like usual. Oh man, the show’s announcer is wearing a LIME GREEN suit- that’s top-notch.

I should emphasize right away that this crowd is TOUGH to win over- they pop for comedy and real effort, but they will sit the fuck on their hands if you try stretching or other “match-filler”.