From 1992-96, these two had some of the best matches ever with one another. They also never failed to deliver a great match. A lot has changed for them and women's wrestling as a whole since that period, and while some aspects of decline have been overrated, it's hard to argue that little has been for the better. There was no reason to expect them to continue their string of great matches, but unless you absolutely cannot bring yourself to enjoy a lesser match from them, there's no reason not to enjoy this match.

"It's saying something with this attendance. AJW had a better overall lineup here, but they drew more in the same building last month for a cage match and a meaningless tag match with Hotta and Kandori," wrote Nick.

Cage matches always draw for AJW. Considering their last cage match in March, which had three of the same wrestlers, supposedly drew 5,600 (granted that's more than Yoyogi holds) and the semifinal on that show was a six woman that was mainly only offering Hotta vs. lesser draw Kansai, I'm not that impressed with the 11/23/00 show beating the 12/8/99 show by 146 fans. I agree that the lineup for the 12/8/99 show was much better on paper from a wrestling sense, but that's because you had non-draws like Hiromi Yagi, Megumi Yabushita, & Sumie Sakai, who happen to be very talented wrestlers. I think AJW went to the cage because it's drawn in the past, but it wasn't the most logical matchup (the big angle is Maekawa turning on Watanabe, yet Watanabe isn't in the match) and it wasn't that long ago that we'd seen it, so if I were them I'd be I'd be wary of dragging the cage out too soon again. What makes the Toyota vs. Kyoko attendance unimpressive is that their last big match in Tokyo drew a sellout 10,500, and by not going back to it for three years, it's not as if people were "sick of seeing the same two wrestlers have great matches."

Although these are two of my all-time favorites, I haven't really enjoyed their typical matches in a long time, as both annoy to me for basically the same reason. Kyoko squashes "her" wrestlers instead of bringing them up to the point they can give her the kind of match people want to see (it does seem like Yoshiko Tamura is finally getting a break, but then again we aren't seeing these matches), while Toyota basically laughs the lesser opponents off before vanquishing them. Their match might still be good, but it's not close to the level it could be and the sameness and burying of the opposition (even though they are hardly alone when it comes to this) is a real turn off. This was anything but a typical match though, and the fact remains that when they are in with an opponent they respect and consider to be on their level, they do whatever it takes to have the best match within their style and mentality of wrestling. They once again proved the ability is still there, it's the the venue that's lacking.

If you've seen these two before, you know what aspects this match isn't going to contain. There was no change in this regard. The submissions early on were still a useless waste of time, and age has not gotten them to embrace build, psychology, or selling. At this point, it looks like they are always going to be who they are going to be. They could be even better than they are, but so could everyone else, the only difference is they were two of the few that it didn't keep from reaching the top of their profession. The main thing was this match wasn't goofy, and it was an excellent match in the style Toyota always chooses.

"The submissions might not have done much to advance the match, but at least they had some variety. For instance, Toyota using a bow and arrow for the first time in quite a while rather than endless Boston crab's and the like," wrote James.

Toyota has made a conscious effort to make her matches be "fun" since she started teaming with Emi Motokawa two years ago. For the most part, this has driven me crazy because it was at the expense of us being able to take her opponent as a threat. In this match, while this aspect wasn't emphasized, she made it work. She made Kyoko look stupid by pulling her hand away during the opening hand shake, but then allowed Kyoko to have the last laugh. Kyoko suckered Toyota into trying to shake by getting down on her knees and begging, only to return the favor of pulling her hand away when Toyota finally agreed.

"This spot annoyed me somewhat, messing around with a handshake seemed far too American," wrote James.

It is very American, but it worked here because it's almost never done in Japan. If we started seeing it all the time then it would get stupid and lose all it's effect like it has in the US. Later on, Toyota made fun of Kyoko's little jig before doing her kamagatame. It was a spot you could smile at, and if you did it achieved it's goal, but in any case it didn't demean Kyoko as a wrestler in any way. When Kyoko was on offense, although granted that seemed to only be 25% of the time, Toyota sold everything and didn't brush off any big moves. Toyota, of course, still isn't a great seller, but the point is that her intent was not to put herself above her opponent like it is when she's wrestling say Miho Wakizawa.

"Any kind of Americanization is definitely not a step forwards to me because it's impossible to know where it will end. I guess it can be overlooked this time since they haven't (as far as I know) done it since," wrote James.

"The match was slightly one-sided, but luckily Toyota's selling was better than it has typically been in her low end matches, and far better than in at least one of her high profile singles main events of the past few years (vs. Chigusa at the AJW Anniversary show)," wrote James.

There was one point where I was all set to be pissed off. Kyoko had her best chance of winning at the 20 minute mark when she set up her lariat following Toyota kicking out of her Niagara driver, but Toyota got up and did some annoying Toyota power sign. Kyoko made a funny face to show her surprise at Toyota being able to withstand her best moves like they were nothing, and then tried her lariat only to have Toyota duck it and German suplex her. What saved it was that Toyota did sell at this point, looking like she wasn't all there, and she let Kyoko follow up by hitting the lariat and then going into the deadly Victoria driver, the finish of their last match, for a near fall.

"This was an interesting portion of the match. I can't think of a point in any of their past encounters where they have done a no-sell spot along the lines of this one, it seemed almost like some of the ones the All Japan heavyweights use," wrote James.

You mentioned the 11/29/98 match vs. Chigusa earlier, this was similar to the goofiness Chigusa has displayed there and in other big matches. I'm not going to justify it, but it was done with some intelligence in that it was only one spot that wasn't sold heavily though, rather than several finishers being totally blown off.

"I thought Manami kicking out of the Victoria Driver actually hurt the match to some extent. Here you've got a move that's so devastating it puts Misawa in the hospital whenever Kobashi uses it on him, yet Toyota comes back to win the match and is up and walking about after like there's no problem," wrote Nick.

That's certainly a fair point, but aside from maybe the first usage, Kyoko's version has never been put over at close to the extent that Kobashi's has. I agree that this is a mistake, but it's the difference in how one wrestler's big move is put over in comparison to another

For all the talk about Kyoko's offensive decline, and it's certainly true, you wouldn't know it from this match because she dusted off old moves that I didn't think she could do properly with any consistency anymore. I'm probably right as a whole, but she perfectly executed her tope reversa, climb up arm whip, and whatever her corbata off the top rope into a pin is called. The main thing though is that Kyoko realizes offense is no longer her strength, so she avoids making that fact a negative aspect of her big matches.

"Kyoko's offense has declined, but only in meaningless matches. Whilst this is the only time I can think of that she has used the aforementioned top rope move, Kyoko has used plenty of her old flying spots such as the springboard elbow off the ropes in important matches like the TWF title series with Asuka as well as in this match," wrote James.

Toyota still does all kinds of great moves when she wants to, and even though Toyota isn't a heel, Kyoko let her supply most of the offense. From a match quality standpoint, this was clearly the right thing for Kyoko to do. We've seen Kyoko do this in ever match against Lioness Asuka, but Lioness dominates everyone, even Chigusa, and also jobbed to Kyoko in every other match. Kyoko knows she may never wrestle Toyota again, but she allowed herself to look bad from the all important who is the better fighter standpoint so both could still look lay claim to being two of the best wrestlers in the world.

"As with the matches against Asuka, Toyota dominating the match didn't hurt Kyoko too much because Toyota has probably been pinned by Kyoko close to as many times as she has pinned her, although many of Kyoko's wins over Toyota have come in tag rather than singles," wrote James.

The big difference is that regardless of the amount of offense Kyoko got in, she would come back and beat Asuka within a couple of months, if not weeks. Since it was only one match, the argument (if we can consider it a legitimate contest for a second even though it isn't) is whether Kyoko has lost a lot more than Toyota since they last met or it was some combination of Toyota giving a dominant performance and Kyoko not giving her best performance. Although the question might never be answered by a rematch, the results of Kyoko's other pro wrestling matches still prove her to be one of the top women, and that's why she could withstand this loss.

As has been well documented, Toyota doesn't fly as well as she used to. To some extent, she's replaced quality with quantity. The moves she does don't look quite as cool, but she was all over the place in this match. She always did a lot of dives in her matches with Kyoko, but it has been so long since we'd seen her go crazy with moves that are so risky for her own health. I didn't know if she still had it in her, but she proved she does. She technically hit both of her springboard planchas, a regular body press and a tope con hilo with Kyoko on an unbreakable table, although the former wasn't close to clean (she couldn't get her balance so she had to just push off before she fell off) and did nothing to make me stop saying she should scrap these moves in favor of dives where she just jumps off the top rope in different ways. Even when she hits them, since she at best gets one foot onto the top and at worst gets one knee onto the top, they pale in comparison to everyone else that gets both feet onto the top. She may have went for safety on her missile kick to the floor, as she kept her legs bent at the knees so she could brace her fall on Kyoko and land cleanly on her back. Her new plancha off the balcony was both a pleasant surprise and definitely a huge risk though. I'm not sure how high this balcony actually was, but I'm sure J.R. & Burger King would claim it was at least 25 feet.

"The fall looked like it might have been around 15 feet or so. I guess that even if they had done absolutely *nothing* else this match would have at least been 'worthy' of **** since falling from '30 feet' and doing nothing else apparently constitutes ***** these days," wrote James.

Nah, that doesn't follow the hypocrisy of geography theory. See, if you fall "30 feet" on the show of any promotion that doesn't emanate from Stamford, the stunt is worth 1/2*, at most. It's only when you fall "30 feet" on the show of a promotion that emanates from Stamford that you've guaranteed a big rating for your match.

"I thought this was, overall, a great match. It was hurt somewhat by Toyota's botched dives, but Inoue, if anyone, knows how to reign in Manami's bad habits and get an enjoyable match out of her," wrote Nick.

Toyota isn't nearly as into bumping as she used to be. With all the injuries she's had during her career, you can't blame her. When she's trying to have a great match though, just like with the dives, she'll still risk it. Although Kyoko has become a big bumper and was on the receiving end most of the match, Toyota was the one that took both the best and the nuttiest bumps. She was slammed off the top rope to the floor less than 30 seconds into the match. She took a crazy nadare shiki no German suplex where Kyoko threw her into the middle portion of the 30th Anniversary logo (that hasn't been replaced despite the 31st Anniversary passing). She took a nice flip bump on Kyoko's lariat toward the end of the match, which I thought increased the possibility of the move being the finish because it made it look so much more impressive than it usually does. This wasn't the finish, but it did set up and even better near fall from the same thing, which also wasn't the finish but there was definitely the feeling that there was less chance of Toyota kicking out the second time.

"There is little reason for Toyota to take loads of bumps in low end matches that are leading nowhere. It's definitely better for her to save herself for the more important matches and take the big bumps there," wrote James.

The point that she takes less bumps than she used to holds up relative to all types of matches she's in. It definitely has lowered the quality of her matches. Whether it's better or worse in the long run is something no one can really answer because you never know how much the body can take.

"Depends on how healthy she is. As she isn't willing to bump non-stop for nobodies like Noumi, it's pretty clear that she either wants to prevent them from being in better matches or she doesn't want to risk getting hurt," wrote James.

One thing that surprised me about this match was that there were hardly any near falls in the first 15 minutes. Perhaps I've gotten so used to shorter matches that I forgot that AJW hasn't jumped on this bandwagon? In any case, while there were a few interspersed, the first near fall that was somewhat credible came at 15:30 after Toyota had done 3 consecutive moonsault presses. After this point they were acting tired, and did a good job of making several moves look like they could be the finish. I really thought that the last 8 minutes of this match were dramatic. It wasn't deep, but they did so many big moves, and with their opponent in worse shape they'd go back to the same finisher that failed earlier and it would still fail in one way or another until. The match actually having some semblance of heat definitely helped, but I think it was mainly the structuring and selling that, while not anything spectacular or earth shattering, was good enough when accompanying finishers that are either great moves, have been proven effective, or both.

Toyota's execution has been a problem even in some of her best matches, but while there were minor miscues, that was only the case here when it came to the finish. Toyota does not have the strength in her neck that she used to, no doubt because of neck injuries that probably never healed properly, so her Japanese ocean cyclone suplex finisher is often a problem. I could not believe that for the finish she didn't take the easy way out and pull Kyoko off the middle rope into it because Toyota has often had problems doing this move to wrestlers that weigh 120 pounds, much less a horse like Kyoko. What made this more surprising is that one of the clever new additions to the match was Toyota turning Kyoko's reversa into a piggyback drop, which has the same main set up point (opponent on your shoulders) as the JOCS hold. The reason Toyota didn't take the easy way out may have been that she had done it for a hot near fall at 16:25. She did the move the normal way at 18:30 though, so we'd seen both versions without seeing the set up she typically used against Aja Kong where she'd cut her off when she was climbing up the turnbuckles . These pulling the opponent of the middle rope versions are a chance thing, so it's kind of cheap to do it more than once during a match. Given the circumstances, I contest that this is why the near falls from this move were a bad idea. They definitely made Kyoko look better, but I'd rather find a different way to do that when there is an extremely high risk of blowing two key spots, especially when one is the finish of the match.

I'm not sure what exactly was supposed to happen at the finish, I just know it turned out bad. Toyota landed on her feet for the Niagara driver, and then it just fell apart. Toyota was probably trying to use Kyoko's own Victoria driver on her, or it could have been an Eagle Sawai style powerbomb or aurora special. All I know is that she was trying to lift 95% of all that weight with one shoulder, and there was just no way that was going to happen. Kyoko jumped up, but Toyota just had to drop her in a way that screamed blown spot. Toyota followed with the Japanese ocean cyclone suplex hold for the win. This worked, but looked ridiculous with Kyoko squatting down and doing this big ass jump that made it so obvious she was helping Toyota out. Your opponent always helps, but this kind of reminded me of the famous bodyslam on the USS Intrepid where Lex Luger essentially caught and dropped the late Yokozuna.

"The fact that Kyoko started to visibly giggle when Toyota still almost dropped her didn't help," wrote Nick.

"The finish here looked really bad. In particular, Kyoko jumping when it was obvious Toyota couldn't lift her was weak and contrived looking. Likewise, Toyota trying to lift her a second time didn't look good. Going straight to a JOCSH from there wasn't an ideal way to end the match; I think the finish would have come off better had they wrestled for another minute or so. However, this really wasn't nearly as bad as Lex Luger bodyslamming Yokozuna," wrote James.

Some of the beauty of their previous matches was gone, but the effort is really what made the match. The entire match still revolved around the spots, as all their matches do, and they aren't nearly the athletes they were the last time they met. The speed that was demonstrated in their previous matches, especially when it comes to Kyoko, was gone. There's no way to get around this, things are just going to be done slower. There's no rule that says their match has to be fast, but they did go at least near top speed enough that it usually was anyway. Speed is only an issue because we've seen their previous work.

For the most part, that we've seen their previous work is the reason they are currently criticized. Kyoko has eliminated most of the flaws that popped up due to age, injury, and/or weight gain, she's really a different wrestler now, relying on power moves instead of speed and technique and bumping like crazy to make the big matches. Toyota hasn't changed her style much. She still has some problems, but they are usually from trying to do too much, and when they are she still usually makes up for them by hitting enough great moves. No matter what, the comparisons involving them always seem to relate to 5-7 years ago vs. today as if nothing happened in between other than them getting fat or breaking down. That's an easy way to discredit them because it ignores how they compared to their peers then and now. Their best matches are 1/2* to * star lower, but so are everyone other woman's. When you look at the best women's matches of the year, they are both in more than one as they both have been in every year since at least 1992. In 1999, this puts them in the class with Lioness Asuka, Mariko Yoshida, Mayumi Ozaki, Mima Shimoda, Etsuko Mita, Aja Kong, and Meiko Satomura, only one of which (Aja) can make the same claim. They are neither the best nor the worst in this group, the only distinction they hold is getting the most negative things written about their wrestling, boatloads more than is written about Aja's despite her being in more disappointing matches than the two of them combined. The gave all they had in this match, and they played the roles necessary to make their match still work. It wasn't 5/7/95, but it was in the same ballpark as any other top women's match from '99. At this point, that's all you can ask for.

Jerome's review:

I don't know two great workers with more detractors than Toyota and Inoue. Even though they are the best pure workers of the decade, people seem to totally dismiss their ability. Too bad, because even though they are way past their prime, won't correct their flaws, and we've seen this pair having much better matches before, they proved in late '99 that they still could deliver one of the best matches of the year. Of course it's was spotfest and there wasn't much psychology, but for so-called "washed-up" legends, they're handling themselves pretty well. This was the classic Toyota vs. Kyoko match, all in acceleration from beginning to end, with tons of great spots and more near falls than you can count during the finishing sequence. The detractors won't fail to notice that Toyota doesn't sell the submission holds and makes ludicrous comebacks. Well, she did that her entire career and it's a minor negative point compared to the level of workrate she constantly delivers. Her execution on her springboard moves is obviously not the same as before, and sometimes you fear that she'll crash to the floor, but the young woman is totally fearless and still has more stamina than most active workers. She also has too much experience and talent to work a disorganized spotfest; she always orders her spots within each series to get the most of them. Here she executes a series culminating in a spot that demonstrates Toyota is not only fearless, but probably insane too: she quite simply does a plancha from the balcony. Like it was not enough, she also executes her trademark missile dropkick from the top to the outside. On the other hand, Kyoko tried to keep up the pace with her rival, and succeeded. Her execution was awesome for someone her size, as she has really become comfortable with her large body. She took her share of big bumps, but for once she wasn't the one who took the worse ones. These two workers have so much experience working with each other that it's always a pleasure to watch them do quick sequences, even though sometimes they get a little goofy. But, it's no big deal. If this was a "nostalgia match," then the young generation is in big trouble because the veterans are still better in big matches and, unless someone proves it wrong, the only big match draws these days. This is one of the top 5 or 6 women's singles matches from '99, along with Yoshida vs. Futagami 3/16, Aja vs. Satomura 9/15, Yoshida vs. Yagi 2/18, Lioness vs. Kyoko 8/22, and perhaps Lioness vs. Kyoko 1/24 (haven't seen this one yet).

Special thanks to: Nick Higley, Jerome Denis, & James Phillips - Japanese Women's Wrestling

23:03

Rating: