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THE DREAM CAME TRUE AAAW Single
Senshuken: Chigusa Nagayo (GAEA) vs. Manami Toyota |
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This was a really sad match to watch on a number of levels. Toyota has just been left behind because she refuses to move her style out of 1994 and into 1998. In 1992, she was the best flyer of all the Japanese women, but so much has changed since then. Many a great athlete has come along, moreso in the men's leagues, and made moves that were once unimaginable into moves you might see five different wrestlers do in the same week. Meanwhile, while Toyota may have seen immortal at one time, age and injuries have caught up to her just like they catch up to any athlete after over a decade in a sport, although some show the effects of them earlier and to a greater extent than others. The result is Toyota's athleticism has declined to the point where she can't do certain moves that were once staples of her offense. In her formative years, she was a great innovator, but in recent years she not only hasn't come up with new moves, but she hasn't altered her move set beyond taking a few moves out. The result of this is that her matches seem like the same old thing, except she blows more spots and the ones she hits don't look as good as they used to because she's simply not as athletic. Her disinterest in learning how to work in the newer submission style that other wrestlers are using (although most have unfortunately gone away from it already), combined with the inability to properly sell submissions is really hurting the body of her matches. Furthermore, the total lack of her once incredible intensity is making it more obvious that she's not firing up for many matches these days. Don't get me wrong, Toyota could still be a great wrestler, but she needs to rededicate herself to being the best and make the necessary changes to get by with less athleticism. It comes down to whether she's willing to start using different cool moves that she's capable of hitting just about all the time and learn the mental aspects. As much as I'd like to say this is going to happen, I just don't see the desire or drive to make me think that things will get better rather than worse. Speaking of worse, Chigusa did a great job of making this match worse than it had the right to be. Her ego seems to grow by the day, as these days she doesn't want to sell for more than a handful of veterans that she respects, and that not so coincidentally wrestle in GAEA at least some of the time. Toyota is not one of these veterans, so Chigusa was no selling her spots way too often. Toyota engaged in a lot of no selling as well because she was working Chigusa's style match. In a way, this match seemed to be more about showing the other up than about delivering a good match, but Chigusa was already being forced to really overexert herself by having to wrestle a whole 14+ minutes, so you couldn't expect that she'd use any energy actually selling the moves. Toyota German suplexed Chigusa right off the bat. She wanted to go right to her missile kicks, but Chigusa "exposed" the move by standing there and telling Toyota to jump. The rest of the first eight minutes were pretty useless unless you enjoy watching the figure 4 back and forth. It was basically wear down submissions with a few of Toyota's poor strikes and an occasional high spot thrown in. Chigusa did no-sell Toyota's dropkick, which had to endear herself to all the Toyota fans. Toyota did a missile kick to the floor, which was great. She followed with a springboard tope con hilo, which was lame because she is only able to get one bent knee onto the top rope, and she has to hold the rope with her hand for balance before doing the flip. This is what just doesn't make sense about Toyota's current offense. Most of what makes the springboard tope con hilo great is that the person is able to jump cleanly to the top rope. The vast majority of wrestlers can't do this, so there's certainly no shame in not being able to do it. Instead of just climbing to the top and doing the tope con hilo like Hokuto does, and the flip part can look even more impressive when it's done this way because you can jump out farther when you are standing in the corner since you don't have to jump immediately or worry about losing your balance on a shaky loose rope, she continues to do the same old spot that she can no longer perform well. After they exchanged Dragon screws to continue their weak knee storyline, Toyota did one of the slowest rolling cradles she's ever done. At 11:15, they did a stupid no-sell sequence where Toyota no sold a freaking Death Valley bomb and Chigusa barely sold Toyota's Japanese ocean drop. Toyota then no sold Chigusa's running three finisher, then Chigusa no sold a terribly executed Japanese ocean cyclone suplex that came on the heels of Toyota blowing the move. Of course, it was no surprise that Toyota's JOC suplex wasn't done well because Toyota has a lot of problems doing the move to women who weigh far less than Chigusa, yet she continues to use the move all the time in spite of her problems executing it. Anyway, after all these ridiculous no-sell spots, Chigusa did one of the weakest looking semi-botched super freaks in history, and they both sold this spot. Just terrible wrestling. To make things worse, Toyota cut Chigusa off in the corner and did the most debacled victory star drop, if it can even be called that, you'll ever see basically pulling Chigusa down right on top of her. Toyota tried another Japanese ocean cyclone suplex, but Chigusa avoided it and went right into the manjigatame for the flash submission. If Chigusa was Inoki, I wouldn't mind this finish, but since she's not it was just awful. I can't believe AJW would agree to this finish, as it's ridiculous for a huge star to lose out of nowhere to a move that's not even a finisher in women's wrestling. I wouldn't even expect Chigusa to beat Makie Numao or Maiko Matsumoto with this move (assuming they were still wrestling), much less Toyota. Furthermore, it can't even be justified by anything that happened in the match because the body of the match consisted of leg and knee work with the sasorigatame and figure 4. This whole show was a debacle to the point that this turd was a fitting conclusion to it. This was the worst performance either of these women have ever had on a major show I've seen by a wide margin, as it really didn't even have one redeeming factor. Miko: This match hurt the perception of Toyota. Losing by submission to Kandori didn't hurt her, because it's Kandori. However, losing by manjigatame to Nagayo is weak. Even Hirota doesn't lose to that move.;^) Wrestling wise, it was a disappointing, mainly because it was such a Nagayo match. I'd give it **. On the positive side, there was some good work, especially by Toyota. On the negative side, there were too many rest holds and some of the no-selling was really annoying. The no-selling got a reaction from the fans, which is not a bad thing, but I've never been a fan of no-selling finishers. Actually, I think no selling getting reaction by the fans is a bad thing because that means it "worked." If the fans never reacted to it, then we might be rid of it. Instead, the no-selling was one of the only things that got reaction, which probably means we are destined to see a lot more of it. James: Even though Chigusa Nagayo has turned into Chigusa Hogan over the last few years, I hoped that she would at least work hard in this match. Unfortunately, Chigusa doesn't even work hard in GAEA anymore so it was too much to hope for her to work hard at another promotions show. The match started out well, but degenerated to a total waste of time when the no-selling crap started.
Michael: I'm sure I'm in the major minority here, but I actually liked and enjoyed this match. I thought Chigusa did a barely passable job of selling for Manami even though she did more selling then usual. The sequence where both no-sold big spots was nice, but it wasn't as effective or exciting as when Chigusa and KAORU did it on G-PANIC! #11 because in that match it led directly to the finish. The only effective thing about that no-sell sequence was it effectively killed off some credible finishers. It was totally pointless because the capper was the weakest move in the sequence. When they sold that spot, it killed whatever toughness and credibility they thought they gained from no selling the spots that looked deadly. Michael: A lot of people probably didn't like that Manami was beaten with a move that Chigusa doesn't normally use as her finisher. If you think about it though, it was okay because she did it right out of countering the JOC suplex (which Manami already had trouble executing her on earlier) and had Manami tied up and "surprised" at the same time. Manami was locked up enough to where she couldn't reach the ropes and had "no choice" but to submit. Your justification for this flash victory could be used for any flash victory because it's always a "surprise" when your move is countered and you are always tied up to some typically lesser extent if you are in a submission hold or pinning predicament. Beyond the fact that this is a move that Toyota probably wouldn't even sell if it wasn't supposed to be the finish of the match, you have to look at the magnitude of the match and the country it's taken place in. This was like a screw job by the standards of world title matches in AJW because there was absolutely no build to the finish and the match not only ended early and out of nowhere after they'd put over that all these killer moves can't even do any damage to them, but it ended with a move that no one in this audience is going to see as a possible finisher in a women's world title match. Certainly Inoki could have acceptably won in this manner, and being Inoki's protégé, Fujinami probably could have as well, but Inoki made this move in an entirely different era. These days, a finisher has to be either glamorous, deadly, or legit, and this certainly is none of those. Toyota is too big of a star to get beat with a move like this, or at least she used to be. Special thanks to: Michael Smith, Miko Kubota - Michiku Pro, & James Phillips- Japanese Women's Wrestling14:42
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