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WWWA Sekai Single Senshuken Jiai: Shinobu Kandori (LLPW) vs. Manami Toyota |
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This match had what almost all the women's matches these days lack, major crowd heat. When you watch this match, you really feel like you are seeing an event. Certainly the heat doesn't compare to the heat the Crush Gals got, especially when they were wrestling Dump Matsumoto, but this match did have the aura of a world title match. The last time an AJW main event had this aura was the Shimoda & Mita vs. Ito & Watanabe cage match from 9/21/97, which was also held at Kawasaki Shi Taiikukan. "It must have ruled to have been at this match live. The crowd was great. The near falls at the end had me near marking out even though I already knew the outcome and the finish," wrote Michael. This was Toyota's best performance in the past couple of years. She's certainly had days when her work was better, but this match was her smartest by a wide margin. There is a major style clash between Toyota & Kandori. This was their first singles match, and they haven't even wrestled on the same show in a long time, so it was surprising that they understood so well what would and wouldn't work. This has never been a strong suit for either of these two. Because, among other things, they compromised their styles to an extent, went against the expected and played off each others move sets a bit, the match turned out to be about the best match they could have together at this point. "This wasn't the best match I've seen from 1998, but it was the most enjoyable. I'll definitely be talking about this match for a while. If I don't rewatch this match at least two or three times this weekend I'll be surprised at myself. I'm so happy that it not only didn't disappoint, but it rocked harder then even I had imagined it would," wrote Michael. Kandori started the match looking very tough and intense.1 Since Toyota is a face and was the "home" wrestler, Kandori bought her offer of a hand shake. Toyota surprisingly double crossed her, pulling Kandori into her own choke sleeper. Toyota was really putting everything into this move, jerking and shaking her head around. Obviously Kandori wasn't going to submit, but the move showed that Toyota wasn't going to be a slouch when it came to submissions, and might even be able to beat Kandori with one of her own holds. Toyota tried to go for her trademark series of dropkicks to start the match, but Kandori had these scouted out so she held onto the rope once and brushed them off another time. By doing this and making some faces, Kandori was showing that Toyota's high spots weren't going to work in this environment. They should have done a lot more of this because it would have made Toyota's spots mean more when she finally hit them, but instead they just dropped it. Toyota didn't back down from the punkish Kandori. Instead, she used Kandori's own move, the shotei (which she had used them on Hotta earlier in the show), complete with mocking Kandori's post shotei ritual, to put her down. Kandori stayed down as long as she could, and looked kind of ill while she was lying there, before popping up at 8 in fighting pose to show that she could continue. For Kandori, this was some of her better selling. Now that Kandori had been hurt, she wasn't able to ward off Toyota's high spots so easily. Thus, Toyota was able to do her springboard plancha. Toyota even found a few credible ways to do her high spots to Kandori. For instance, she tied Kandori up in the ropes then did a running dropkick. Before that happened though, Kandori avoided Toyota's Japanese ocean cyclone suplex and did a rolling cradle. The spot itself looked horrible, but it was important because Kandori was showing she wasn't a one-dimensional wrestler. It was a revenge spot of sorts for Toyota using Kandori's choke sleeper and shotei, showing that Kandori might be able to win with one of Toyota's own high spots. Kandori tried to catch Toyota in submissions, and the crowd was popping. Toyota respects Kandori and her gimmick, so she did make Kandori's submissions seem deadly and she didn't put Kandori in those cool looking fake submissions like she did when she wrestled the much lower ranked Hiromi Yagi. Toyota wasn't afraid to use submission or two of her own, so it wasn't entirely Kandori on the mat. She also wasn't afraid to slap Kandori when Kandori tried to intimidate her by getting in her face.2 Kandori took control using her over spots like her swinging sleeper.3 Toyota made a comeback with a rolling cradle that wasn't too impressive because Kandori didn't do a very good job of going with it. Toyota tried her moonsault, but Kandori got her feet up. Kandori surprised everyone by immediately doing, for perhaps the first time in her career, a la magistral for a near fall then went right into a Teio lock.4 Kandori powerbombed Toyota, and Toyota tried to make it dramatic by kicking out so late that Bob Yazawa had to stop his count because his hand was going to hit the mat for three before Toyota raised her shoulder. The fans chanted "Toyota" as Kandori lifted her up for another powerbomb. Kandori didn't bring Toyota up on her shoulder in the Canadian backbreaker far enough though, so Toyota wasn't able to roll through cleanly, and her comeback was debacled even though Kandori did a good job of saving it by falling into the sunset flip. Toyota was avoiding Kandori's lariats all day, and she turned this one into her Japanese ocean suplex for a hot near fall. Toyota tried her Japanese Ocean drop, but it wasn't going to work, so Kandori covered it well by simply not helping Toyota lift her anymore then catching her with shoteis as soon as Toyota put her down. Kandori did a judo throw into an udehishigigyakujujigatame. Toyota blocked the submission, so Kandori turned it into a wakigatame, but Toyota made it to the ropes. Toyota tried to come back with a springboard reverse sunset flip, but Kandori was standing in the center of the ring. There was no way that Toyota, or just about any other mere mortal, was going to be able to pull off that spot. Kandori may have thought that Toyota was going to do the springboard body attack, as she had earlier in the match. If that was the case, Kandori would have been in about the right spot. Perhaps they were on different pages or Kandori just didn't realize how far away she was, but in any case the spot turned out horrible. Kandori wasn't going to let this hurt the match any more than it had to, so she went right to the next spot, trying for an udehishigigyakujujigatame. When Toyota tried to avoid this by going to her knees, Kandori turned it into the sankakujime, which was the move she beat Hotta with to take the titles, but it wasn't enough this time. Toyota made a comeback and did a missile kick to the floor5 and her springboard topé con hilo with Kandori on an unbreakable table. Toyota got a hot near fall with her Japanese ocean cyclone suplex. They redid the finish of the Toyota vs. Hotta JGP semifinal6, and it really worked because the fans went nuts. It proved to not be a shooter killer, but the win against Hotta with this spot will keep the move over for quite some time. The crowd was screaming "Toyota" at this point. Toyota gave the sign for her Japanese ocean cyclone suplex, and lifted Kandori up for it, but Kandori countered with a victory roll and sloppily scrambled to apply a henkei hizajujigatame (what made it different was that Toyota's arm was trapped in the regular lock) for the submission win.7 This was Kandori's second title defense. They did a good job of planting seeds in this match, but they seemed to forget about their garden. Maybe they were going to pick up on some of the things they started if they had a rematch or maybe there just wasn't much of a reason for doing them in the first place? I didn't like that they didn't work to any of the submissions, and the match didn't really have any moves that weren't high spots. The work itself was better than expected, and although it was a little sloppy it was less flawed than expected because there weren't any bad comebacks or poorly sold spots. The match was far more exciting than expected. Playing off each others move sets really helped the match. It would have worked better had they saved one of those spots for later on, or used a different one toward the finish. I would have liked to see Toyota actually try to win with a submission, but Kandori doing one of Toyota's suplexes probably would have worked better. Still, both women and their styles came out looking strong. The crowd was hot throughout, and even though they were clearly pro Toyota, there was a huge pop for the finish. This tape had the post match, which I liked because Toyota really put over the finish and Hotta & Maekawa got in the ring and stared at Kandori to build up the rivalry. Miko: Wow, heat.;^) I liked this match much more than Toyota's match with Chigusa, and I would have rather seen Kandori-Toyota II than Kandori-Hotta II. One thing that stood out was the mirror spots. In particular, the rolling cradle by Kandori would have been great if she had pulled it off. I also liked when Toyota knocked Kandori down with her own shoteis in the first minute. Kandori waited until the count of 9 then got right up, like 'Just kidding'.;^) Special thanks to: Michael Smith & Miko Kubota - Michiku Pro18:08
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