Bison Kimura is one of few performers to walk away at the top of their game. In fact, this was the best singles match of her career. She wrestled it like it was her last, and only returned to the ring on 11/26/92 for her ceremony. What's even rarer is she retired on two different occasions without ever having a retirement match. She was planning on having one in Jd', but on 6/22/97, almost 5 years to this day and only a little more than two months after she wrestled her best Jd' match against Lioness Asuka, she broke her arm during a six woman tag and logically decided it wasn't worth all the rehab and training to return for a couple of matches.

The biggest reason this was a good match is they always stuck to what they do well. They wrestled smartly, staying within themselves and sticking to their simple but effective offense. What made the match stand above their regular matches and the vast majority of anyone else's is the level of brutality. There were very few times when you thought they could have hit each other harder or the move could have had more impact, and those were pretty much limited to the few occasions when they didn't hit each other in the spot they were intending to. For the most part, they relied on sheer nastiness and with their ability they were able to translate that into one of the greatest brawls ever.

The Japan Grand Prix is the most important annual event in the promotion. These two were longtime partners as Jungle Jack, but they put their friendship aside for this match. They weren't smiling and shaking hands before they went at it; they were staring each other down like they were about to square off with their arch enemy. Bison didn't wait for the bell, she smacked Aja across the face as hard as she could. Aja responded with a series of open hand blows to the head and they continued brawling until the match was over.

Aja made every move look deadly. Aja's headbutts were so hard you could hear the impact. The same could be said of Bison's chops to the body, but I don't know that there's a way to headbutt so it sounds nasty yet doesn't hurt that much like there is with chops. Even moves that are normally lame like the body attack were highly impressive when Aja did them; she plowed into Bison and sent her flying back like a bowling pin.

In roughly the first minute of the match, Bison was cut in between her eyes and on her lip from Aja's headbutts and boots to the face. The blood added a lot to the match because most of Aja's offense was stiff blows to the head, so quickly it was transformed into an attack on the weakened area. It also showed that Aja was merciless. She abused the cut every chance she got, resulting in blood all around and even going into Bison's left eye.

The match was an all out brawl, but gimmicks were hardly the backbone. This type of brawl has really gone by the wayside as the David Finlay's of the world have been replaced by the Wall's of the world. I'd rather see a good stiff knee drop than a sloppy move through a cut table that takes five minutes to set up, but I guess that's why I'm an "old jerk." Anyway, they would take it to the floor from time to time so they could ram each other into tables and bash each other with chairs. However, this was simply another way of expressing the same ideas they were putting forth in the ring. Aja rammed Bison's head into the mat and corner on the inside and a set up chair on the outside. The few wrestling moves Aja used like the piledriver stayed with this focus as well.

Bison would make comebacks every few minutes, but they were usually quickly thwarted. I liked the spot where Bison turned a body slam into a small package, but Aja simply muscled her over into a cover. After Bison grabbed the ropes to break the pin, Aja dragged her up and body slammed her. This segment could have been demoralizing, but Bison was more than willing to take as much punishment as her body could withstand.

The biggest fault of the match is Bison never made me believe she could win. She had her moments, and one big run, but I never felt like Aja was in that much trouble. Part of the problem is Bison's offense was never all that great. She performed her moves well, but she didn't have any spectacular or overly deadly moves. I can believe that some of the smaller wrestlers would lose to her chop, but it's hard to buy into Aja losing to it. She tried some of her power moves, but with Aja being such a horse they didn't come off all that well. In particular, Aja landed on Bison's face when Bison was trying to German suplex her because Bison couldn't bridge properly while lifting someone so heavy.

As the match progressed they built it off the counters. This made sense because in addition to seeing certain moves earlier, they knew each other as well as anyone. They key move was Aja kicking Bison in midair when she tried a chop off the top. The moved Aja's attack from the head to the right arm, which was a more logical attack given Bison was doing the majority of her damage by chopping her. Bison never lost use of the arm, but after two urakens and a chokeslam, she was forced to submit to an udehishigigyakujujigatame. Even after the match Aja didn't give Bison any special consideration, keeping the hold on for an extra 10 seconds. Aja did eventually pull Bison up, raise her arm, and say she wanted to face her in the finals of the league (instead she faced Manami Toyota), but Bison wouldn't wrestle again for almost 29 months.

Jerome's review:

This match is really an old school brawl. What made it so good was not only the brutality, but also the very smart way it was worked. A lot of the credit goes to Bison, who made Aja, who was far from a great worker at this point, look like a real monster. The action was mostly Aja beating the living hell out of Bison with very stiff offense. Her first headbutt was extremely brutal and the sound of it made the announcers (including Debbie Malenko) cringe. I believe Kimura got opened hardway on it, and she looked pretty messed up. Aja was smart since she attacked the cut systematically, with both wrestling maneuvers like sitting piledrivers and just plain brutal chair shots. She, of course, did a lot of kicks. Each one was very stiff and a number of them were directed right into Bison's face, which made sense because she was hurt there.

Bison took all of the abuse and put it over big time, as selling was always one of her strong points. Her facials were excellent, a mix of pain and rage, to give the audience the feeling she was both very hurt but also very mad, which was basically her character, a street brawler who could take a lot of abuse but also deliver brutal punishment. She did a transition to offense where she attacked Aja with a frenzy of chops before going outside and bashing her with chairs to take the upper hand. She worked as stiff as she could, and Aja sold her offense well. Since she doesn't have a large move set, Bison used her chop a lot, but she also executed a few stiff knee lifts and kicks to the head. That stiff brawling was the body of the match.

The quality of the match also came from the counters. Both played the game of knowing each others moves, since they were partners, and did some choice counters. It was nothing fancy since Aja was mainly using a body attack when she was not striking, but it was very efficient, like when Bison countered the attack with a stiff chop to Aja's shoulder. When Bison tried to hook her STF on Aja, Kong immediately crawled to the ropes. None of these counters were very graceful, but they were all done at the right time. Bison unloaded her arsenal of moves to build a series of good near falls, and watching her execute her suplexes on Aja is pretty impressive. She had a little trouble with the German, but it still turned out alright because she sold after it, giving Aja the opportunity to make her comeback.

The last part of the match was also very smart since a big transition saw Aja kick Bison right arm (the chop arm) and work on it until the end. Bison still did a comeback at one point, using her injured arm to try to put down Aja one last time, but Aja finally hooked her in a jujigatame to get the final win. Not exactly the finish you would expect from these two, but it was very effective considering what has been done during the previous minutes.

Bison had a great performance here, talking a huge beating and selling it the right way, knowing when to make her comebacks and basically being the workhorse in the match. She was not glamorous, but she was one hell of a brawler because she worked stiff, could take tons of abuse, and her selling was excellent. This made up for her rather limited move set, although she had some good moves for a big girl like her. Aja worked smartly also, but her work was a lot more limited than Bison's, as she hadn't developed her arsenal by this point. I wonder how this match would get over with people who are used to LCO's wild workrate brawl or Lioness' gimmick matches because it's not glamorous nor very spectacular. Just a solid old school beating, very stiff and very well built. Aja and Bison did a tribute to this match in '95 working another great and bloody brawl on 9/2 at the Tokyo Nippon Budokan.

Special thanks to: Jerome Denis

16:29

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