This was an important match for me because it was pretty much the first joshi I'd seen outside of the legendary loaded interpromotional Dreamslams. Those shows are kind of an illusion because there's so much talent to burn and the crowd is a lot more juiced for new dream matches, especially in the days when they happened while the wrestlers were in their primes. 2/3 of the tape had gone by without anything special, and it was difficult to tolerate this smeary soundless copy that I was stuck with. The tape took a huge turn for the better when these two came out though. They kept me transfixed to my screen, riveted by something that stylistically was nothing like I expected but no less great and perhaps more exciting for it.

Yamada's performance was particularly a revelation because she'd been on the steep decline and had her last great match (3/26/95 triangle with Takako & Reggie) 3 or 4 months before I saw this match. Obviously everyone was down on her at that point, and in reading about the current product I had no idea that she was better than the big stars of that time - Aja, Toyota, & Kyoko - just three years earlier.

The high quality of this match is far more due to Yamada than Toyota. The three basic elements that made Yamada great were stiffness, athleticism, and fire, but the thing is they always went hand in hand. She'd be all intense and psyched up flying at you with a nasty brain kick. And almost everything she did was done with great precision, although this match isn't the best example of that. While offensively she resembles current "star" Kumiko Maekawa, Yamada was an all around wrestler. She could do the other person's style, she could bump and sell, she had great stamina, and she could carry a match (though more so later in the year and for the next two).

Toyota had more great matches because she was a great opponent for anyone who wanted to do a spotfest, and she was certainly Yamada's greatest opponent. She was fearless and could take as well as anyone. She didn't usually continue to put the moves over very well, but while they were going on she made them look great. Considering Yamada almost never tried to do a realistic match (a couple times against Hotta), Toyota's offense was the perfect compliment to Yamada's. Like Toshiaki Kawada at the same time, Yamada didn't fly by choice not because she couldn't have done it well. Toyota had the speed and quickness to pull off whatever counter for Yamada's offense they could think of and then transition right into an aerial attack. Whether it be ducking Yamada's high kick, jumping over her low kick, or turning a mid kick into a Dragon screw, Toyota could do something spectacular and come back at Yamada with a move so fast.

I really wish Toyota would go back and watch this match because there's no reason she can't still be great today (aside from now being in the quality killing promotion known as GAEA).

Michael: Do you think she still has the athleticism and flexibility to be close to that level again? I wish I could say that, but I just don't think she does 10 years later. I think she's still great by today's standards, but I don't see her being able to return to more than say 75 or 80% of what she was. Granted, that is still better than most who have ever stepped into a ring.

Her execution was somewhat off here like it typically has been for several years. The match wasn't spot oriented or even about high spots, so the match wasn't hurt as badly by some poorly executed moves (although at one point there was a group of them and the timing could hardly have been worse) as many of her later matches that were solely about the offense. Even though she's not as athletic as she once was, she can still go crazy with the highspots when she wants to. The big difference between this match and what we saw today is the difference between a smart focused opening and jerking and joking around until it's time for the spots. If she took the whole match seriously instead of just clowning around and going through the motions until it was time for the spectacular, she'd still be able to have ****+ matches when the opportunity arose.

Michael: I think a better way to phrase this would be to say "Her execution was somewhat off here like it typically has been for most of her career. That is to be expected though being that she does much more difficult high spots than most women have ever tried."

That's more of a problem in the later years when she's not as athletic and has neck problems but is still trying to do many of the same moves that she had little problem pulling off in her prime. Overall, I would say that her problem is she's more concerned with doing things fast than she is with doing them right. The level of difficulty allows less margin for error, but most of the spots she blows in her prime are because she gets out of control trying to do one spectacular move after another. In this particular match, she is not even that spectacular, she's on par with or probably a little below the Kyoko vs. Hokuto main event and well below her standard later in the year and over the couple after that.

This was a more traditional style match with the U.W.F. influence being readily apparent. It wasn't realistic in the U.W.F. sense, but Yamada's offense was certainly kick, suplex, submission and Toyota's was dropkick, suplex, submission. The match had focus and built well, so the spots had some meaning. Even though Toyota's pinning predicaments were pretty much out of nowhere, since Yamada was dominating the match they were what she had to do and moves you could see working in this stripped down setting.

The match got off to a quick start like almost all of Toyota's do, but then they went into a long semi-focused period of matwork. Toyota began working over Yamada's knee, but it was Yamada's subsequent knee attack that made up the bulk of regulation. Toyota was a great person to do submissions to in her youth because she was remarkably flexible. You could pretzel her, bend her in half, contort her in every which way. It really looked brutal, but it could be meaningless because Toyota typically didn't have too much enthusiasm for these sections.

Michael: I feel she was always good at putting over the submissions while she was in them, but obviously not nearly as much when she went on offense. Therefore, I don't think it's totally fair to say it could be meaningless because in those sections she was putting the submissions over as you mentioned earlier.

She could put over submissions if she wanted to, but certainly by '97 she no longer cared to. I don't want to rehash the infamous 1/14/97 Toyota vs. Hiromi Yagi match again, but there are at most a couple matches since then where she showed any interest in putting over a group of submissions, and they certainly weren't against anyone that was "below her" even if their gimmick was submission wrestling.

What made the bulk of the match work was not so much anything Yamada did, but that Toyota was interested in putting her attack over. There was an urgency to the way she moved and acted that we haven't seen from her in ages, and this by far the biggest the reason the mat segments worked here while they don't anymore. Certainly she'd never been known for her selling, but today her screams were putting the knee over and garnering sympathy rather than just being loud. She made her quick comebacks, but did some things like hobbling and grimacing (more when she was in the hold though) to make up for it to some extent. And Toyota's quick comebacks were also more forgivable because they provided the excitement of the match since Yamada had largely grounded her.

Michael: It was okay for Manami to get the brief flurries and flash pin attempts because she was being dominated for most of the first half of the match. It wasn't like Toshiyo owned her, but since Toyota isn't a submission wrestler it made sense for her to try and counter them with "regular" spots and pin attempts. It's not like Toyota is Super Koji.

She's probably almost as bad, it's just not as apparent because she doesn't really mix styles when she carries the match. Toyota's carried matches have little if anything to do with psychology and don't deliver in the early portion after the quick opening unless the opponent brings something good in that area, while Kanemoto delivers some good focused U.W.F. style (though like Yamada not with the goal of overall believability). By working a much better early portion where Kanemoto goes after a weak spot, taking his opponent apart with kicks and submissions that are generally focused on that area, it makes the later portion seem that much worse because most of this good tends to be abandoned in favor the same thing Toyota delivers, a bunch of big moves. Koji is also more frustrating because he usually makes a quick comeback off the same move, the overhead belly to belly, and he sometimes pulls it out at the most inopportune times.

Toyota's flying wasn't overly developed at this point, but since there were so many kicks in the match, it wasn't a bad thing today. Both wrestlers really had their kicking style. Yamada packed a huge punch on her kicks that showed impressive flexibility and athleticism. A larger woman like Dynamite Kansai exceeded her in stiffness, but her kicks were never as exciting because she didn't have the diversity. Yamada would come at you from most angles (which meant she was the less accurate of the two), while Kansai would just plant with her left leg and lay into you, mainly with roundhouse kicks. Toyota didn't do any traditional kicks, but she basically torpedoed herself at Yamada with dropkicks and missile kicks. It was hardly the best flying she's done, but it fit the match.

Yamada's goal was to beat Toyota down and force her to cry "uncle!" She had a chance to beat Toyota with her reverse Gori special bomb around 15:00, but she just tossed Toyota off her back instead and went back to a 1/2 crab. Yamada was very focused in sticking to this method of attack until the final minutes of regulation. At that point, it made sense to give up on it. It was time to swallow her pride and try to get the win in any fashion to avoid arrogance leading right to another draw. I believe the first pin Yamada went for was on a belly to belly at 25:30.

Michael: One of the things that I liked the most about this match was that despite it being 40 minutes it was very well paced with no "dead" or obvious rest spots. Manami has never been known as one of the more talented women when it comes to psychology and selling, but she knows those are not her strengths so she relies on what she does best, being a pure workrate Goddess. That said, her selling continually improved during the match and she even sold a bit when running the ropes and hopping the corners. Yamada did a good job keeping her grounded for a lot of the original 30 minutes this match was scheduled to go, but Manami went all-out in the overtimes.

I was shocked at how interesting this match was without Toyota's spots, but eventually we got them. Since they came in the final minutes, there was a desire and desperation from both parties to squeeze out the win. It was a good thing that they didn't pull that suddenly energized crap where they amazingly transform into jackrabbits after the whole body had been average paced. Since the match was so long with the two 5 minute overtimes, there was actually almost 15 minutes of great action. We saw nasty jumping piledrivers from both and many interesting bridging suplexes from Toyota. In particular, there was this bridging doublearm suplex where Yamada's arms were in front of her head with Toyota hooking them near Yamada's ears rather than near her back.

The crowd had been fairly quiet, but they started getting really into the all out final segment of regulation. All of this kind of made up for the fact that this portion wasn't always as smooth as you'd like. Unfortunately, when everything seemed to be going so well there was a spot with about 40 seconds left where Toyota went for her rolling cradle and Yamada bent down real low to block it, but Toyota jerked her back. Instead of them going to the ground lightly and smoothly to start their momentum on the roll, it was more like Toyota gave Yamada a Russian leg sweep so there was no roll. They couldn't get back on the same page for the rest of regulation, so they limped into overtime. The thing is even though they knew they were doing two, the match wasn't scheduled to have overtime so there was just a bit of polite clapping until Toyota shook the ref and introduced the idea of continuing.

Michael: Unfortunately, one of the negatives about this match for me was the last couple of minutes leading to the extra 10 minutes. Both women got very sloppy in the last seconds, with Toyota blowing two cradle attempts for pins and Yamada getting very lethargic all of a sudden. Whether this was both of them selling or being truly fatigued it led to there being no real drama at the end of the original allotted time. Granted, they were going longer and knew it, but to me not having the crowd on fire wanting more action going into the extra time hurt the match (though as I said the mess-ups could've been because both were legitimately tired and not poor planning).

Both women refused to lose. Toyota wanted to fight all night, and would just attack Yamada to start the overtimes. She started the first with her moonsault and tried to start the second with her (in ring) quebrada, but was having problems getting her footing in the middle of the ropes. Yamada finally went for her Gori special at the end of overtime. Toyota was about to counter it with a victory roll, but Yamada sensed this and threw her forward. In the final minute of the second overtime, Toyota finally did a dive and this time she was able to pull off the quebrada. Even though 25 minutes probably should have been their max, both showed great stamina in wrestling 40 at a pace that fit their match.

Michael: The first 5 minute period was great with Manami pulling out a lot of big moves in an attempt to put Toshiyo away quickly, even attacking her before the match was officially restarted. The 10 minutes as a whole was much like the overtime of a Stanley Cup playoff game. Usually both teams will go all out in the first and last few minutes trying to get a quick win or at the end trying to win before they have to go to another overtime. But they slowed things down during the middle 10 minutes, and that's what hurt this match (though it was about a 3 minute stretch here). The first 5 minutes were fantastic, heated action, but the second and final 5 minutes of overtime got progressively worse with Yamada getting slower and sloppier and Manami showing some weakness as well. Toyota really put over how desperate she was to win by pulling out the quebrada 39 minutes into the match. The match finished with a great near fall with Manami getting the JOC and a two count on Yamada as the bell rang, but it wasn't as great as had they not stumbled into it.

I thought the second overtime was a great example of trying to will yourself to victory. Yamada controlled most of it, but she would sell (I don't think it was fatigue, but sometimes her acting wasn't the best) between moves and just do the next one when Toyota got up. In a shorter match I might want something more exciting than this method, but in a match of this length I preferred both putting over the toll. As hard as they'd fought and as tired as it had made them they still couldn't get the other to give an inch much less quit, and that's what the match was about.

Michael: I think you can do both though, put over the toll but have "just enough" left to make it more exciting than it was. You know I'm one of the biggest Manami marks ever and someone who'll normally give her the benefit of the doubt (see the aforementioned Yagi match), but I think the lack of action in the second overtime, not matching what happened in the first OT, dragged this down a bit. The finish wasn't that exciting because while you (and I for that matter) can credit them for putting over the toll of the match they still needed to go more all-out in the last 45-60 seconds to end it on a great note instead of a passable one.

I don't see why you say they fell into the Japanese ocean suplex. It looked totally planned with Yamada climbing the ropes once she heard the 10 second call. If there was a problem with the spot, it's that the announcer didn't give them another call so Toyota had to guess when to do the suplex and actually only got a one count before the bell rang.

Michael: I didn't quite say they fell into it because that would denote that it was sloppy looking. My point is that, whether the announcer is to "blame" or not, I think Manami dragging her off the middle rope then picking her up didn't look as good as had she done the cyclone suplex off the ropes. I realize I didn't originally state it in this manner, but after rewatching the finish I feel that this would've been the better way to go. Especially since the bell saved Yamada instead of her kicking out of the JOS.

I agree that would have been better, but she was very early in her development here. That kind of finisher upgrade tends to come much later in the process when you've learned most of what you are every going to use and are just looking for some differentiation to spice your move set up.

This program made both women stars, but this second match of four was really the pivotal match. The result was the same, as the equality was the whole point, although with the overtimes it showed they were even for an extra ten minutes. The difference was they took the quality up a few notches to the level of greatness. With a great draw, you really wanted to see one of these two prove their superiority in a rematch because they rewarded you for the time you spent on them.

Michael: Overall this was another classic between them, but it was hurt by the aforementioned sloppiness including Toyota selling 4 or 5 phantom kicks from Yamada throughout the match. If the two overtimes had been switched around with the first 5 minutes being the build and the last 5 minutes being one big move after another (and the heated crowd to go along with it) this match would've been pushing ***** in my opinion. However, those mistakes and the ending to the first 30 minutes "dragged it down" and I give it ****1/2.

I thought the overtimes were properly ordered. If the first one was slow then they would have been pushing the fans patience considering they crawled to the end of regulation. By showing they still had it they redeemed themselves and won the fans back.

Michael: I disagree with this because the fans were hot for the first overtime to happen and would've been into Yamada controlling and Manami fighting to stay alive (and maybe getting a quick flash pin at the start to keep them into it) because that's how the majority of the regulation match was. It wasn't as much that the second overtime was slow on it's own, but it was compared to the first and I don't think it would've killed the crowd to build the overtimes to a climax instead of starting out hot then getting colder as it went on.

I agree they were hot anticipating the first overtime, but I think the fact they found out that they were getting something extra had something to do with that. If they didn't like what they saw once it started that heat would have dissipated really quickly. I don't think the fans would have been too excited to see them go back to the same thing they saw much of regulation instead of building on the final minutes where they went away from this.

They "spent themselves" in the process though, so the final period was slower. The wrestling was still still effective and well executed (except for two spots before the quebrada), so it was a totally different feeling from the end of regulation. What they did in the second overtime wouldn't have built to what we saw in the first overtime. Since you made the hockey reference, this second overtime was like the third overtime in the NHL when there's no question of the players desire and they are still playing solid hockey but they are obviously skating on fumes.

Michael: I think it would have because regulation ended with two pin attempts by Toshiyo on Manami (albeit very weak ones) and in control. Since Manami had more offense in the actual first overtime, having Yamada start the overtime on offense and Manami slowly getting back into the match would've made more sense. Maybe it could've been built better, but having the first overtime end with the JOC pin attempt and then going into the back and forth for the second overtime could've made the finish much hotter and more acceptable.

Your premise is faulty because Yamada wasn't in control at the end of regulation. The match just broke down in the last 40 seconds when Toyota tried the rolling cradle, and no one was able to reestablish themselves before the bell rang.

Michael: I know, which is why I didn't say she was totally in control. She did have the last couple of pin attempts though, which could make her starting the first overtime on offense and Manami battling back acceptable.

Special thanks to: Michael Smith

30:00 + 5:00 + 5:00

Rating:

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