Quebrada #27

by Mike Lorefice (M.L.Liger@juno.com)

7/13/97

AJW Japan Grand Prix ’97

The annual Japan Grand Prix round robin singles tournament began today and runs through 8/10. The tournament will be run in the same manner as last year with everyone in the same bracket. Two points are awarded for each win and one point is awarded for each draw. The winner of the tournament will get a shot at the WWWA title sometime after 8/20, but before the end of the year. The participants are Manami Toyota, Mima Shimoda, Etsuko Mita, Kaoru Ito, Mariko Yoshida, Yoshiko Tamura who’s subbing for the injured Takako Inoue (see the injury section), Tomoko Watanabe, Kumiko Maekawa, Misae Genki, Rie Tamada (she might not participate, but the tournament has already started and a decision is yet to be made, see the injury section for more details), Saya Endo, & Tanny Mouse. Yumiko Hotta isn’t in the tournament because she is already getting the next title shot. Kyoko Inoue isn’t involved because she is the WWWA champion. Aja Kong isn’t involved for the reasons I discussed in the last column.

I don’t have any schedule of matches for the tournament, so this is not going to be so easy to predict, but I’ll try to anyway.

Manami Toyota looks to be the odds on favorite. Toyota has two things that are really in her favor. First of all, she’s far and away the biggest star of the bunch. There’s nobody in this group that has had any success against her in singles matches. Her loss in the 1995 Japan Grand Prix came to Reggie Bennett, who’s no longer with the promotion. Her draw in 1995 was against Mima Shimoda. That was a great match, the best in the 1995 Japan Grand Prix. There were tons of false finishes and it never looked like it was going to go the distance. A ****3/4 match that’s one of the most exciting matches I’ve ever seen, but I digress. The main thing Toyota has going for her is that she should be next in line for the revolving title shot. Toyota lost the WWWA title to Kyoko on 12/8/96. The other contenders, Takako, Aja, and Ito had their title shots while Hotta’s is upcoming. There are no other contenders right now, so unless they move someone up in this tournament, it’s back to Toyota. Another thing that points toward Toyota is that AJW will have the title defense on a major show. They need someone to draw, so that kind of ensures that you won’t see a fluke winner. Toyota’s health is still a question, but with the poor attendance on both the major shows and the spot shows, it will be hard for AJW to keep out of the spotlight much longer. Toyota won both the 1990 & 1995 tournament and was runner up in 1992. Toyota’s the only former winner that’s in the tournament, which is not a good thing. I’ll go with Toyota to win it all.

Mima Shimoda is the only other woman who seems to have a good chance of winning the tournament. Shimoda and Mita are the top heels in the promotion right now, so they are going to be pushed more heavily in singles then they ever were before. Shimoda is by far the better worker of the two and she has finished higher than Mita for the past two years. She’s also healthier than Mita, so it’s pretty certain that Shimoda will be pushed higher than Mita again this year. The key thing if you look at the standings is that although Shimoda finished 5th last year, there’s not one woman in this tournament that finished ahead of Shimoda last year. This says a lot for the lack of depth of the tournament, not because Shimoda isn’t real good, but because only 1 of the top 7 women are back this year. Imagine if the same was true in the Champion Carnival. If between Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi, Kawada, Akiyama, Ace, & Williams, only one of those guys was in the 1998 Carnival. The Carny would be ruined as there would be nothing left but a bunch of Kimala II’s and Izumida’s to waste everyone’s time. Going back to 1995, the only woman that is in this tournament that finished ahead of Shimoda is Toyota. Shimoda has a pretty decent chance of winning, but I think Toyota will just edge her out.

Kaoru Ito will probably finish third. Ito is with Hotta’s group now, which is receiving a heavy push. Ito is ahead of Watanabe & Maekawa in that group, so she should beat them out. The reason I give Ito no chance of winning I simple, she already had two title shots and they flopped at the box office. She could finish as high as second, but AJW can’t go back to her again as another Ito vs. Kyoko match would not excite people and it seems to soon for an Ito vs. Hotta match, which would also not excite people.

The next two finishers will most likely be Etsuko Mita & Tomoko Watanabe. Both are also getting pushes due to being involved in a group. Mita has finished 2 points ahead of Watanabe the last two years. Watanabe has surpassed Mita in workrate and singles push though, so I think there’s a good chance that these two will either tie or Watanabe will just edge Mita out.

Mariko Yoshida should finish 4th to 6th depending on how the ties work out. She’s the last remaining legitimate star in the field. She has the CMLL title, not that the CMLL title is very prestigious, but it should give her some credibility here. I think that she could tie Mita & Watanabe. She’s not aligned with any newly formed group though, so that seems to put her at a disadvantage. One thing that may help her, not that this is a good thing by any means, is that her tag team partner Takako is injured. Since Takako is out, they may use Yoshida in singles more rather than giving her a temporary partner or partners.

Kumiko Maekawa should finish around 7th. She stinks but they act as if she’s good. Her membership in Hotta’s group should assure that she’s kept fairly strong. She’s also a former WWWA tag champ, so she’s got experience in more important matches over the rest of this pack.

Saya Endo should finish around 8th. Saya just turned heel (see regular AJW section), so they will want her to win some matches so she gets over as a heel. She’s real bad, but she’s positioned higher than the others.

Everyone’s favorite Genki, who I finally got a slight clue about Kanji and realized is Misae Genki and not Genki Misae, should finish 9th. She’s got age on her side. She sucks. We move on.

Rie Tamada should finish about 10th if she’s in the tournament. Normaly I’d predict her to finish ahead of Saya & Genki, but since she has a known injury, she’ll probably get a little less of a push. It used to seem like Tamada was pushed higher than she should be, but now she seems to be lower than she should be. She’s actually got some talent and is a pretty good worker, but they aren’t making her credible enough these days. However, if she is in it and AJW disregards her injuries, she could finish as high as 7th. If she’s out then I don’t know if her bouts will be forfeited or they will have someone like Yumi Fukawa, who should have been in here in the first place, in the tourney as Tamada’s replacement.

Tanny Mouse & Yoshiko Tamura will job, job, and job some more. It’s not out of the question that one of them could go winless, although with such a weak bottom half, they’ll probably each get 1 win or so. Tanny sucks mightily. She’s a comedy wrestler, but she’s so bad that there’s nothing funny about her. Tamura is ok. She doesn’t step up when she’s in with the veterans though, so there’s not much they can do with her. She’s definitely a good athlete with potential, but she lacks polish and maturity.

Overall, this has to be the weakest field in the history of the tournament. There will definitely be some good and very good matches and maybe one or two great matches. The depth just isn’t there though. Hopefully the younger women can get better by working with the veterans as the league is just going to continue to decline unless that happens.

Results of the 7/13 Japan Grand Prix bouts courtesy of Koji Yamamoto

Saya Endo (10'16" Diving legdrop -> pin) Tanny Mouse

Mima Shimoda (14'55" deathlake drive -> pin) Yoshiko Tamura

Etsuko Mita (14'55" death valley bomb -> pin) Mariko Yoshida 

1996 Japan Grand Prix Final Standings

Place Wrestler Wins Losses Draws KO total points

1. Aja Kong 8 3 16

2. Yumiko Hotta 7 3 1 14

2. Reggie Bennett 7 3 1 14

2. Kyoko Inoue 7 4 14

5. Toshiyo Yamada 6 5 12

5. Mima Shimoda 6 5 12

7. Takako Inoue 5 6 10

7. Kaoru Ito 5 6 10

9. Mariko Yoshida 4 7 8

9. Etsuko Mita 4 7 8

9. Tomoko Watanabe 4 7 8

12. Chaparrita ASARI 2 9 4

1995 Japan Grand Prix Final Standings

Red Zone

1. Manami Toyota 5 1 1 11

2. Bison Kimura 4 1 1 1 10

3. Reggie Bennett 4 2 1 9

4. Mima Shimoda 3 2 2 8

5. Toshiyo Yamada 4 3 8

5. Kaoru Ito 4 3 8

7. Rie Tamada 1 6 2

8. Chaparrita ASARI 0 7 0

Blue Zone

1. Yumiko Hotta 6 1 12

2. Takako Inoue 5 1 1 11

3. Kyoko Inoue 4 2 1 9

4. Mariko Yoshida 4 3 8

5. Etsuko Mita 3 4 6

5. Sakie Hasegawa 3 4 6

7. Tomoko Watanabe 2 5 4

8. Kumiko Maekawa 0 7 0

Previous Japan Grand Prix Finals

1985-Lioness Asuka over Dump Matsumoto

1986-Yukari Omori over Chigusa Nagayo

1987-Chigusa Nagayo over Dump Matsumoto

1988-Bull Nakano over Yumiko Hotta

1989-Mitsuko Nishiwaki over Madusa

1990-Manami Toyota over Yumiko Hotta

1991-Kyoko Inoue over Aja Kong

1992-Aja Kong over Manami Toyota

1993-Akira Hokuto over Yumiko Hotta

1994-Yumiko Hotta won round-robin

1995-Manami Toyota beat Yumiko Hotta

1996-Aja won round-robin

Toshiyo Yamada Moves to Gaea

Toshiyo Yamada is leaving AJW to join Gaea. The main reason for this is that Yamada idolizes Gaea’s top star Chigusa Nagayo. This move will allow the two to work together on a full-time basis. Yamada had been working Gaea on and off for over a year, but Chigusa recently asked for her full-time services. Moving to Gaea is also something of a pre-retirement move as they run far fewer shows than AJW does. Gaea mainly does a lot of developmental tag matches with one veteran and one or more youngsters on each side, so the veterans work less time in each match and are not normally expected to work good long singles matches. We all know that Yamada is banged up, so this will allow her to take it a bit easier while still contributing to her promotion. She’ll be working less frequently, so there’s a good chance she’ll be able to have good to very good matches when she’s positioned to do so because she won’t have to worry about being booked 20 consecutive nights after she gives the extra effort on for the bigger matches. Akira Hokuto is proof that this is true as she is still really good in the bigger matches, but her body wouldn’t hold up to that level of workrate every night. It’s just part of getting older and injured up.

Yamada’s move should be a big boost to Gaea, a promotion that’s gained a lot of steam this year and was already crushing AJW when it comes to getting the hardcore fans to attend Korakuen Hall for their shows, as Yamada should really help their youngsters develop. Yamada works the style Chigusa used to be able to work and the style that Chigusa’s protégé Meiko Satomura works, so that should especially help Satomura develop. Yamada will also help out Sonoko Kato, who she formed a team with in AJW’s Discover New Heroine tag tournament and on some Gaea shows, a great deal.

The sad thing about my statements about how much Yamada will help the Gaea youngsters is that AJW could use their veterans in the same way, but chose not to. They run similar matches with veterans vs. youngsters in tag and singles, but the youngsters are generally squashed rather than made credible like they are in the Gaea matches. Yamada leaving will really hurt AJW as they are lacking in both stars and healthy bodies right now. This will place extra stain on the remaining veterans as they’ll be relied upon even more than they already are. I don’t know how much longer their bodies can hold up. AJW has a ridiculous 27 shows booked in July. 4 off days in a month is not good for aging wrestlers or really any wrestlers for that matter as there’s no time to heal. I would not be surprised if one of AJW’s veterans either retires or goes the way of Yamada and joins a smaller promotion with a lighter workload like Gaea or Jd’.

Yamada’s final AJW match is scheduled to be against her legendary tag team partner Manami Toyota on 7/13 at Tokyo Korakuen Hall. Yamada and Toyota had a legendary series of matches in the early 1990's that produced two of the greatest women’s matches of all-time and really made the two into big stars. The first match in the series (not to be confused with the first match they ever had) was on 9/7/91 at Omiya Skate Center with the two going to a 30:00 draw. This match was the 4th match on a 6 match card (Kyoko Inoue vs. Bull Nakano for Bull’s WWWA title was on top). This was not a spotfest by any means, rather it had good build and very good timing. Much simpler then you would expect due to the two being 4 years into their careers and still a bit green. A **** match that stole the show and definitely outshined the Akira Hokuto vs. Yumiko Hotta match that went on after it. The two met again on 1/4/92 at Korakuen Hall. This was a fantastic match that is totally different than the typical great Toyota match. This match started slow and was pure building. It had strong matwork and better than expected psychology. The work was "believable" by the standards of pro wrestling as the high spots were worked in really well. About 18 minutes in they went to simple near falls and the pace didn’t start to really pick up until the 23 minute mark. The match went to a 30:00 draw, but they had two 5 minute overtimes to bring it to a 40:00 draw. The first and only dive of the match was Toyota missing her Super quebrada and this spot didn’t come until the match was almost 40 minutes old. It was a bit sloppy and the execution could have been crisper in points especially toward the end when they seemed to run low on gas. Toyota & Yamada met again on 6/21/92. Their series had risen to main event status now, and they really stepped it up, delivering the best ring work of the series. Yamada won this with her reverse Gori special bomb. The series culminated with another great match on 8/15/92 in a hair vs. hair match. This is the most famous match of the series, an absolute classic due to the drama and emotion. Toyota won with her Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex, evening the series and once again showing the equality of the teammates. Yamada’s career was patterned after Chigusa right down to losing a famous hair vs. hair match. Even the post match was very memorable as Toyota freaks out and keeps trying to stop them from cutting her partner Yamada’s hair. Yamada was an awesome performer back then.

I would not expect the current match to be nearly as good as these old matches due to both Toyota & Yamada being banged up and the fact that it should be an emotional experience for the two friends as it may be the last time they ever wrestle each other. The match will at least be good, but most likely be very good. Toyota should win because she’s positioned much higher than Yamada these days, but more importantly, she’s the one who’s staying in the promotion. It’s assumed that AJW will give Yamada a formal sendoff at the show. [Since I’ve been working on this column forever, the match already took place before I got the column out. As expected, Toyota won the bout using a slingshot sunset flip. It was said that 10 thousand red streamers filled the ring, so Yamada must have gotten a fine send off. Sounds like the kind of sendoff Megumi Kudo should have gotten.]

Yamada had two runs with the All-Pacific Title (11/28/93-3/27/94 & 3/26/95-9/24/95), two runs teaming with Toyota with the WWWA tag titles (3/20/92-4/11/93 & 12/6/93-10/9/94), a run teaming with Etsuko Mita as Dream Orca with the All Japan tag titles (6/14/89-3/90 vacated due to Yamada’s injury) and a run with the All Japan Junior title ( 7/19/88 vacated later in 1988 due to injury).

Michinoku Pro Crumbling

The only promotion in Japan that was producing good matches from top to bottom, seems to be crumbling due to bizarre events and stars leaving the promotion on both a permanent and temporary basis.

The first in the series of confusing events took place on 6/22 in Namie City. Originally this day's line-up was announced as Dick Togo vs Gran Naniwa. Delfin asked Naniwa to give him the match with Togo instead. Naniwa turned him down, but Sasuke, the promotions president and booker, changed the card anyway. On the previous day, Delfin was beat up and pinned by Togo, so Delfin was looking to avenge that loss. Togo challenged Naniwa that day saying, "Weren't you supposed to take on me?" Naniwa replied, "I will fight you tomorrow!" So you had two guys that wanted to fight Togo and both had been booked for the match at one point in time. Togo was in the ring first. Delfin's entrance music was played, but Naniwa came out then Delfin followed. The two partners were arguing over which one would fight Togo. After some discussion between the two, Delfin came into the ring to wrestle and Naniwa watched from the aisle. Delfin began on offense hitting several of his favorite moves including his swinging DDT off the 2nd. Delfin applied his Delfin clutch finisher, but Togo kicked out easily. Togo then went on offense. Togo brawled outside the ring using a chairshot and a DDT from the stage onto a table which caused Delfin to bleed. Togo slammed Delfin on a table then put Delfin through the table with a diving splash. Togo used a series of suplexes, but didn’t try for the pin. Delfin was in the corner saying "No." The fans initially thought the ref was asking him if he wanted to quit. What actually was happening was the ref was trying to persuade Delfin to fight back and Delfin was saying "No!" Togo got on the house mic and said "Shame on you! If you crawl through my legs, I will stop attacking you." Crawling through someone’s legs is a sign of submission in Japan and China, although it’s certainly not too honorable for a combatant to give up in this fashion. Defin got down on his knees and crawled through Togo’s legs though, so the match ended after a mere 11:11. Togo said, "Did you really think I was going to stop?" Togo then attacked Delfin using his senton off the top among other things. Kaientai members then cut Delfin's costume apart, cut his hair, and sprayed "Fool" on his back. Sasuke made the save while Naniwa was no where to be seen. The fans were not happy with this match as Naniwa vs. Togo promised to be a good main event and it was changed to a very non-satisfying match. I predicted Delfin would win this match and establish himself as an equal to Togo. Instead, he was disgraced and made into a complete fool.

Sticking with the stuff that’s an angle for the moment, Delfin disappeared from the promotion. He left a letter that said he was sorry that he was a coward, but he is afraid to wrestle in Michinoku rings. The DX don’t want to wrestle him anymore, especially TAKA, who legitimitely hates him. This may lead to him joining the DX, but nothing is certain right now.

Onto the stuff that’s not an angle. There seems to be big problems in the promotion as the workers aren’t happy anymore and are looking for employement elsewhere. Shiryu has left the promotion due to "irreconcilable differences." It seems that Shiryu is unhappy with the way the promotion is being run as they have done nothing from an attendance standpoint since drawing 5,195 to Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center on 1/14. With Sasuke devoting his time to the WWF, things in Japan are further eroding and the promotion isn’t gaining any steam toward their big show at Tokyo Sumo Hall on 10/10/97. In any case, Shiryu has moved to Mexico and will work with either AAA or EMLL depending on who gives him the best deal. The pay in Michinoku Pro must be awfully bad if Shiryu is looking to Mexico for employment. The loss of Shiryu really hurts as this guy is a really good unselfish worker and he's still young enough to become a draw for them in the future.

TAKA Michinoku has been working in Mexico for EMLL. He dropped his Independent Jr. Title to El Satanico on 6/29 at Arena Coliseo. He was opposed to working with Sasuke in the WWF for whatever reason, but it seems like once he got there he liked it (for unimaginable reasons). TAKA got over better in the WWF than Sasuke did. Sasuke never actually signed the six month contract and it seems that WWF isn’t happy with him as a businessman nor are they happy that he was less over than the guy who was there to put him over, TAKA. It appears TAKA will sign a contract with the WWF although I’m unclear as to what the details of the contract will be. I don’t think it will be exclusive, but it may be longer than 6 months. WWF will pay TAKA a lot more than he makes in Michinoku Pro. TAKA is the best worker in Michinoku Pro. If he’s not there, the match quality will certainly drop. TAKA, 23, will be the star of this promotion sometime down the line if he stays. Since he’s so young, he’s as important to the promotion as anyone other than Sasuke.

Jinsei Shinzaki seems to be looking to bail out of Michinoku Pro as well. He’s been working on some FMW shows, which may just be part of Michinoku Pro & FMW’s working agreement, however Shinzaki said he’s not just there to help his friend Hayabusa. Shinzaki is suddenly interested in fighting barbed wire matches and death matches. Shinzaki is booked to appear on the next two FMW tours. Much stranger than Shinzaki working FMW is Shinzaki stating that he would like to make All Japan his permanent home. Baba’s policy right now is to let the guys from other leagues come in and work the undercard, so it’s likely that Shinzaki will work for AJ at least a little bit. I can’t see him going full-time with AJ though. His weaknesses are in the categories that AJ excels in. He would fit in horribly. Speculation is that Shinzaki is also unhappy with the way things have been going in Michinoku Pro. Sasuke doesn’t seem to be the most popular guy right now. Shinzaki really has no place in Michinoku Pro. However, Michinoku Pro is an easy pay check for him since he’s buried on the undercard in short matches. FMW and AJ almost certainly pay better. I can see why Shinzaki would want to get into AJ. There must be more to this than just money if Shinzaki’s reason for risking injury in death matches is to avoid working Michinoku Pro shows. I wonder what NJ will think of Shinzaki working AJ. It should mean that we won’t have to see anymore Shinzaki vs. Michiyoshi Ohara matches, which is a good thing. However, it could mean relations between Michinoku and NJ will be discontinued. Luckily, I think NJ could care less about Shinzaki. If it was someone like Togo or Delfin, I think they would be more apt to be angered.

Things don’t sound promising with all these events happening in such a short time period. I may be overreacting, but who’s to say that the stars that have been quite so far are happy with the promotion. Most things, including the New Japan relationship, seem a bit up in the air here.

Injury and Even Disease Plagues Women’s Puroresu

It seems like women have been dropping like flies since my last column. The latest injury was suffered by Takako Inoue, who broke her orbital bone (bone behind your eye). It was thought at first that Takako might be out the entire year, but AJW announced that she would be wrestling on their 8/20 Budokan Hall show. With AJW’s history, one has to wonder if she’ll actually be healthy for that match or she is being rushed back because they need every name possible on that show, which looks to be another financial disaster. In any case, the injury must be pretty serious. Great Sasuke & Shiryu both broke their orbital bone earlier in the year and I’m not even sure if they missed a show. If they did, it was only a few. Mitsuharu Misawa broke his orbital bone during the match with Toshiaki Kawada in the 1995 Champion Carnival. Misawa worked a match against Akiyama two nights later and continued working throughout the rest of the tournament. Granted Misawa must have had a lot of pressure on him to continue working because he was booked to win the tournament and then win the Triple Crown from Stan Hansen. AJW’s recent history has Chaparrita ASARI returning less than a month after breaking her hip, only to reinjure it and miss the next six months, so if AJW is saying Takako will be out over a month and a half then it’s definitely trouble. One thing to remember with AJW though is that the wrestlers are paid by the show so they don’t make money while they are injured like Danny Tartabull does (love those 7 at bats). This is not good for the wrestlers since they aren’t the richest people in the world and it makes them want to come back quickly, and sometimes quickly is too quickly. This injury puts Takako out of the Japan Grand Prix and puts Yoshiko Tamura in as her replacement. Takako was set to have eye surgery, but the surgery has been postponed because she got sick. Due to this, her comeback will also be postponed.

The other major blow is JWP’s top star Dynamite Kansai is out of action again due to her disease. Kansai has collagen, which is an autoimmune disease. An autoimmune disease is an illness in which the immune system reacts to normal components of the body as if they were foreign substances. Since the body thinks these substances are foreign, it produces antibodies against them. So basically, her body is producing something that’s unknowingly designed to kill part of her own body. Lupus, arthritis, and the skin diseases scleroderma and dermatomyositis are called collagen diseases because of the damage the associated antibodies cause to connective tissue which is made up of collagen. By definition, collagen is the fibrous protein constituent of bone, cartilage, tendon, and other connective tissue, so that’s the area Kansai’s disease is damaging. JWP has only announced to the media that Kansai has an unnamed disease. The date of her return to the ring has not been announced. The loss of Kansai is a crushing blow to not only JWP, but women’s wrestling in general, as she’s both a draw and a great performer. Hopefully she’ll be ok.

Bison Kimura, who was scheduled to retire on 9/7 at Tokyo Korakuen Hall, fractured her left arm in two places on 6/22 in Osaka during a 6-woman tag match where she was teaming with The Goddess Chikako Shiratori & Yuki Lee against Lioness Asuka & The Bloody & Ryura. The injury occurred when one of Bison’s opponents executed a leg drop or hip drop on Bison. Bison was escaping it, but her opponent fell on her arm. Bison is expected to be out for 8 months. Jd’ was building the entire summer around her retirement tour, but now it will have to be pushed back if she decides to come back at all. It’s kind of ironic that she’ll most likely be waiting until she is healthy to retire. *For all intents and purposes, this ended her career*

Sonoko Kato of Gaea recently had knee surgery. Kato and Meiko Satormura are scheduled to defend their AAAW junior tag title against AJW’s Saya Endo & JWP’s Tomoko Miyaguchi in the main event of the Women’s Junior All-Star show on 7/19. Gaea and Kato herself are saying that she will be back for the show. It seems kind of soon to return at 100%, so it’s possible they just don’t want to pull her from the match since it’s the biggest match of her career. Kato, Satomura, & Miyaguchi are all capable workers and, despite Saya’s involvement, that looked to be a good match, but now things are a bit more questionable. This will most likely put a lot of pressure on 17-year-old Satomura to carry her team, but I think she can respond to it.

Chigusa Nagayo recently suffered a fractured foot. Chigusa isn’t going to miss any time though, rather she’ll just tough it out and work on the bad foot. As Gaea’s top star and main drawing card, the promotion would definitely be hurt at the box office if she sat out and heeled. The problem is, the injury will take much longer to fully heel since she’s working on it.

Rie Tamada may be out for 6 months due to knee surgery. Tamada’s knee had been injured in the spring and she didn’t sit out long enough for it to fully heel, which lead to the current problem. If she gets the knee surgery then she will miss the Japan Grand Prix tournament. If not then she will work the tournament on her bad knee.

Aside from top star Kaori Nakayama, the whole FMW women’s face side was injured. Rie & the FMW bump girl Yoko Ikeda are both out of action. Rie had a back injury while Ikeda fractured her wrist. This left Kaori with no partners, so Jd’ sent Yuko Kosugi & Miyuke Sogabe to help Kaori out. What this means is that you’ll have a 16-year-old girl and a 17-year-old girl getting cut up by Shark and her cronies. It also means that Kosugi, who has potential and Sogabe, who’s never really impressed me but is so young that she could turn out good, will stay the same or regress as they will be working with a bunch of poor working, useless, no-sell stiffs. The only good thing about this is that Jd’ chose to send the two youngsters to get carved up rather than The Goddess Shiratori.

On the positive side, Chaparrita ASARI is set to return on 8/9. ASARI broke her hip in January and came back in February only to quicky reinjure it and be out of action all this time. As long as she’s actually healthy this time, this is a big plus for AJW as a healthy Chaparrita would be one of the best workers they have right now. The main thing though is that she is potentially a good draw and is she’s used properly, she could help renew interest in the promotion. The main problem of course is that ASARI is so much smaller than the veterans. At this point, AJW needs to say the hell with size and let her be more than credible against everyone but the ridiculously large women like Aja.

New Japan 7/6 Sapporo

New Japan sold out Sapporo Makomania Ice Arena (10,000) on 7/6 for a loaded show with several main event matches. The surprise of the show was this years Top of the Super Jr. winner El Samurai capturing the J Crown from Jushin Thunder Liger. Samurai won what was said to be an outstanding bout at 19:40 with his reverse DDT. With this result, and the fact that WAR took back it’s International Jr. title on 6/6, it looks like the J Crown will be predominantly a NJ title and things will not be much different then they were when NJ just had the IWGP Jr. title. If so, Liger had already beat the other two contenders this year, so dropping the titles to Samurai creates new matches while keeping the title would have meant starting the cycle over again and going back to either Otani or Kanemoto as the next challengers. I would not be surprised to see another promotion take their title back soon.

Naoya Ogawa defeated Kazuo Yamazaki in a mixed martial arts match with a triangle hold at 8:30. This result was a given. The main thing in this match was Don Frye, who recently signed with New Japan was at ringside starring at Ogawa. Frye, a two time UFC champion, will be Ogawa’s big challenge. Frye’s NJ debut is on 8/2 at Sumo Hall vs. Kazuyuki Fujita. Fujita is not a star in NJ, but he has a legit fighting background as he was a member of Japan’s national Greco-Roman wrestling team. He’s a credible opponent in a legit style match that will put Frye over. Frye will get a big push here. I expect Frye to beat Ogawa in their first match, but the feud should culminate on 1/4/98 at the Tokyo Dome with Ogawa going over.

Riki Choshu, in the 2nd match of his 8 match final countdown to retirement, teamed with Shinya Hashimoto to defeat the NWO Japan team of Masa Chono & Great Muta. Choshu scored the pin on Chono with the lariat at 12:39. That finish is kind of surprising since Chono is challenging for Hashimoto’s IWGP title on 8/10 at the Nagoya Dome. One would think that they either would have used the finish to build toward the Hashimoto vs. Chono title match or Choshu would have pinned Muta. Choshu pinning Chono seems like another questionable booking move by Choshu as I don’t see where it could be leading. I guess the most notable thing about the match was that Muta & Chono brought and used weapons on their foes. At one point, Choshu had his famous scorpion deathlock on Chono, so Muta came in and started hitting him with a black cane.

Pancrase 6/30 Hakata Star Lanes

Semmy Schilt took King of Pancrase Yuki Kondo to the 20:00 time limit in the main event of Pancrase’s soldout (2,800 which sure sounds low for a Hakata sellout) show on 6/30 at Hakata Star Lanes. Kondo was victorious in the match, winning via judges decision, but it’s a major surprise that Schilt has come far enough that he’s now able to take The King 20 minutes. Back in 1996 when Schilt debuted, people figured here’s some big tall karate champ that won’t know what to do once he’s taken to the mat. He’ll quickly leave one of his big limbs open and the experienced grappler will capitalize and put him away. It’s safe to say this guy proved everyone wrong. I picked Kondo in 5-10 minutes, so I blew the length big time.

Former King of Pancrase Masakatsu Funaki made short work of Wes Gassaway, beating him with an ankle lock at 1:05. I picked Funkaki via submission in under 5 minutes, so I was right, but I expected Gassaway to at least last a bit longer than he did.

Bas Rutten was once again successful, defeating Takaku Fuke via arm bar in 4:28. Bas promised that we’d see "The Bas Rutten of old" on this show and with the short win, he may have backed it up. However, I think little of Fuke these days and I’ll wait until Bas beats some quality opposition before I declare "The Bas is Back." I took Bas in under 5 minutes, so I got that one.

Guy Mezger defeated Keiichiro Yamamiya by points 2-0 after the bout went the 15:00 time limit. People are still doubting Yamamiya’s skills. He lost, but definitely put up a good fight that I’m looking forward to seeing. Yamamiya is a smart scrappy fighter who’s a guy to keep an eye on. He might be well served to put on 10-15 pounds in the gym through training, as he would have a much better chance against the best guys if he was closer to their weight. Since Guy trimmed down for UFC, the weight disadvantage should have been minimal here. I picked Guy in upwards of 8 minutes, so I got that right too.

Osami Shibuya defeated Brian Gassaway at 8:47 with an arm bar. It’s possible Shibuya wasn’t 100% since he fought on the 6/18 show also. Pancrase guys are rarely booked more than once a month, so two matches in 12 days is really overworking them, at least in comparison to what they are used to. It’s a good showing for Brian regardless, especially since he’s supposed to be the worse of the Gassaway brothers. Granted, his brother Wes had much tougher competition. I took the easy way out and just said Shibuya would win this one, so I got a tainted victory with this.

Alex Andrade had a successful debut, defeating Satoshi Hasegawa by points 2-1 after the bout went the 10:00 time limit. Andrade is a student of Guy Mezger’s from Dallas, Texas. He had a 7-0 record in kickboxing with the WKA, which is no big deal. He also competed in the second Russian Absolute tournament, losing to the eventual winner, Ricardo Morias, in the first round. Losing to Morias is expected because that guy beats everyone. Being that Andrade is a kickboxer, it’s surprising that he won, even against a prelim guy. Guy must be training him well. Andrade has been signed for several more shows. I figured Andrade was a jobber, so I blew this one. Oh well, 5-6 picking the winners and 3-6 picking the winner and the proper time frame is not so bad.

Pancrase 7/20 Tokyo Korakuen Hall

The next Pancrase show is 7/20 at Tokyo Korakuen Hall and features the annual Neo-Blood tournament. Last year Yuki Kondo won the Neo Blood tournament and you see how far he’s come, so this tournament should not be looked at as some meaningless tournament with a bunch of unknowns.

Guy Mezger was scheduled to meet Bas Rutten in one of the main matches and his student Alex Andrade was scheduled to meet Ikuhisa Minowa in a Neo Blood match, but the two cancelled the show due to a serious injury suffered in a car accident. As of now, the extent of the injury (or injuries) is unknown.

The first round of the Neo Blood Tournament has Satoshi Hasegawa vs. David Moore, Ikuhisa Minowa vs. Hayger Chin (replacing Andrade), Yukio Kubota vs. Kim Jong Wan (replacing Harout Terzian), & Keiichiro Yamamiya vs. Les Johnson. Hasegawa, 21, debuted in last year’s Neo Blood tournament. He has a year’s worth of Pancrase experience while his Australian opponent, David Moore, has one Pancrase match under his belt. I think it’s time Hasegawa stepped up, so I’ll take him in this one. Ikuhisa Minowa is debuting, so I have nothing to base any prediction about him on. Hayger Chin is from the Lion’s Den. He has been pretty sucessful when he’s competed in NHB events, although his success hasn’t been on a high profile events. He also has Pancrase experience. I’ll take the more experienced Chin over the debuting Minowa. Yukio Kubota is making his debut. Jong Wan is Pancrase’s all time jobber. I think I could beat this guy. I’ll take Kubota as a guy as bad as Jong Wang would not make it out of the Pancrase dojo. If Jong Wang is ever going to win a match, or let’s set our sights low and say just last 5 minutes in a match, then this is his best chance. For a youngster, Yamamiya is just plain good. Les Johnston is said to have improved and he’s definitely more than a suitable first round foe, but I think Yamamiya will win in around 8 minutes. Look for Yamamiya to win this tournament.

The main match should be a good one as Minoru Suzuki will face Jason DeLucia with the winner getting as shot at the King of Pancrase. This is the first test of Suzuki’s comeback. I think this could go either way. If there is a lot of standup fighting, then DeLucia is going to win the bout. Suzuki should be smart enough to know he can’t win a standup fight though. If Minoru can take the action to the mat, he has a good chance. Suzuki’s opposition has been real easy since his comeback. I see him losing this since it’s the first tough opponent he’s faced in months. It should be a fairly long bout though. I’d say upwards of 8 minutes.

Masakatsu Funaki will meet Osami Shibuya. Shibuya has improved, but I don’t think he’s at the level where he can really push Funaki yet. I don’t think it will be an easy match though. Funaki should win by submission in upwards of 7 minutes.

Yuki Kondo takes on Jason Godsey. This is Godsey’s 2nd Pancrase bout. He lasted 11:55 with Takafumi Ito, who’s nowhere near as good as Kondo. I think Kondo will win the bout, but Godsey won’t roll over by any means. Kondo in upwards of 5 minutes.

Takafumi Ito will take on Leon Dijk. Dijk has participated in several RINGS cards. He’ll try to make this a standup fight. If Ito can take him down, he should win. Most likely, Dijk will outpower him and out strike him. It’ll probably be an ugly bout with Dijk winning in upwards of 7 minutes.

I don’t know if there are any other matches since Guy vs. Bas, which would have been a good one, is off due to Guy’s injury and Semmy Schilt vs. Kim Jong Wan is off because Schilt cancelled and Jong Wan was moved into the Neo Blood tournament.

WAR 7/6 Tokyo Sumo Hall

Genichiru Tenryu defeated Tarzan Goto in the main event of WAR’s 7/6 show at Tokyo Sumo Hall. Tenryu, as usual, won this "Terrible Death Match" with his powerbomb. The match was said to be stiff, but sloppy. By stipulation of the match, Goto now has to be Tenryu’s second in future matches.

Yuji Yasuraoka retained his WAR International Jr. title defeating Masao Orihara in what was said, as expected, to be the best match on the show. Koki Kitahara & Nobutaka Araya & Lance Storm won the vacant WAR 6-man titles defeating Koji Kitao & Tommy Dreamer & Nobukazu Hirai. Dreamer was hurt legit when Lawler caned him low on 6/28 at the ECW Arena and wasn’t going to be close to 100% for this show. I imagine that either Hirai worked 90% of the match or this thing totally sucked. Yoshiaki Fujiwara surprisingly maintained his last shred of credibility by forcing Abdullah the Butcher to submit to his wakigatamae.

W*ING 7/13 Tsu Messe Wing

FMW’s W*ING group ran a show on 7/13 in Tsu Messe Wing, Mie which is the hometown of W*ING Kanemura, leader of the group. The show drew 1,800 and $84,700 with merchandise included. This is pretty disappointing as the arena is set up for 3,200, but they supposedly scaled it down to set up TV and video equipment. I’d say they didn’t get the advance that they were hoping for. This was supposed to be a death match tournament, but turned out to just be a bunch of singles matches under bunkhouse rules. Dragon Winger scored a huge upset beating W*ING Kanemura at 9:58 with a move known as the Backyama special (?). Kanemura also jobbed in the main event as Masato Tanaka & Koji Nakagawa & Tetsuhiro Kuroda defeated Kanemura & Hido & Hosaka when Tanaka pinned Kanemura with his Thunder Fire powerbomb at 11:34. Kanemura jobbing twice on his own show in his own hometown proves he’s no Choshu. The match is another chapter in the Tanaka vs. Kanemura feud, which should culminate with their death match on 8/2 at the Tokyo Shiodome. Masato Tanaka pinned (new) Mr. Pogo at 8:44 with his roaring elbow (discus elbow). No suprise there. Hido defeated Ricky Fuji in a mere 7:09 with his Hido clutch. Fuji’s the bigger star, but it is a W*ING show and the stipulation matches are their specialty. Hideki Hosaka defeated Tetsuhiro Kuroda at 11:09 with a flinging suplex (you got me). Kuroda is an Onita cronie, but it’s a W*ING show so I figured this would be the result. Everyone on the W*ING team won except the star of the team Kanemura. All the matches were short, but I guess that could be expected since pretty much everyone was working tag later in the show. Kaori Nakayama & Yuko Kosugi of Jd’ defeated the lowest form of life Shark Tsuchiya & Miss Mongol when Kaori pinned Mongol at 14:35 with a bridging suplex. Hisakatsu Oya & Mr. Gannosuke beat Koji Nakagawa & Hayabusa when Oya pinned Nakagawa with his backdrop at 18:42. Hopefully the length is a sign that these guys worked hard. If everyone worked up to their capability, it would be a good match for sure, but expect laziness from Gannosuke. I don’t know what caused Oya to go so far south, maybe it was seeing the Head Hunters get away with giving no effort every night, but he unfortunately has. Overall, this show sounds like it was much worse than I had expected and I didn’t exactly have a ton of interest to begin with.

AJW

Kaoru Ito has indeed joined Yumiko Hotta’s group, which will be called U*TOPS. A U*TOP match is a non worked Vale Tudo style match, so it seems they are sticking with giving Hotta the shooter gimmick. I don’t think this name means that the group will be participating in a lot of shoot matches though. It’s probably more of an aura thing to get over the toughness of the group, but I guess we’ll see.

Hotta & Maekawa & Watanabe won the "Grand North 6 women tag league." This is a minor tournament, but shows that AJW will be pushing the U*TOPS heavily. Aja Kong & Rie Tamada & Yumi Fukawa took second place. The interesting thing about that is that it means they beat out Los Cachoras (Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda) & Saya Endo. Saya has dropped her comical gimmick and turned heel. Saya-endo is a species of the vegetable the pea. When AJW changed her name from her real name, Nobue, to Saya, it was done as joke. They made her wear a pea costume. So it appears she will still be Saya Endo, but she will wrestle seriously and she won’t wear the pea costume anymore. Saya wants to join Los Cachoras. If so, she would be the first disciple in that heel group. Pretty disappointing choice as there’s a big difference between Saya’s workrate and the workrate of Reiko Amano, who was the first disciple in the Oz Academy.

Gaea

Gaea has been moving more toward the shoot style lately. Because of this, KAORU has moved to the undercard. KAORU says that she doesn’t know the kicking and submission style (that's for sure), so she wants to be trained along with the young wrestlers. With Yamada coming in, Gaea has exactly 4 veterans (Chigusa & Hokuto being the other two) along with Mayumi Ozaki who works Gaea but is in JWP. KAORU is 28-years-old and in her 11th year as a pro. This move makes absolutely no sense, especially since this is not a star-laden promotion. The shooting thing however, may be a good idea since unlike AJW, they aren’t waiting until people are 30 to make them into shooters. The ability to utilize submission moves will allow the workers to be more complete and the matches to have better psychology and storylines. I doubt KAORU will make much progress learning the style, but it should be a worthwhile experience for Satomura & Kato.

It’s still up in the air as to whether Mayumi Ozaki and Akira Hokuto will ever form what would be the best team in women’s wrestling right now. Ozaki said, "It will be interesting if we get together." Hokuto said, "Nothing is sure." Chigusa said, "Ozaki, Hokuto, & Devil are all enemy to me!" She also said, "No more grudge matches between teams." The angle that set up Ozaki, Hokuto, & Devil as Chigusa’s enemies seemingly occured on 4/29 and in two plus months, the only thing that’s materialized is the match on the 6/8 JWP show where the Oz Academy met Chigusa & Devil & Satomura & Miyaguchi. On this weeks Champ Forum, Ozaki & Sugar Sato met Chigusa & Sonoko Kato. Hokuto was sitting at ringside watching the match. Toward the end, she interjected herself into the match by attacking Chigusa. Hopefully Hokuto helping Oz is leading somewhere this time, but I thought that was the case when Hokuto helped out Oz on 4/29. It may be that they aren’t friends, but just share a common enemy in Chigusa.

JWP

Mayumi Ozaki & Reiko Amano vs. Akira Hokuto & Maiko Matsumoto headlines JWP’s 7/18 show at Tokyo Korakuen Hall. Due to what I wrote above about Ozaki & Hokuto, I’d expect Ozaki & Amano to work their regular heel style as Ozaki has no allegiance to Hokuto at the moment. This should be slightly better than the 4/29 Gaea Korakuen main event which was Ozaki & Chikayo Nagashima vs. Hokuto & Matsumoto due to the higher standards expected of a JWP Korakuen main event. Probably Ozaki & Hokuto will work a bit more against each other in this match. It should be good to very good.

Candy Okutsu has been doing a lot of jobs on the road to her 8/17 retirement as her back is in pretty bad shape. Candy lost a non-title match to open weight singles champ Hikari Fukuoka on 6/25. After the match, Candy wanted Fukuoka to accept her challenge for a title match, but Fukuoka rejected her. This may or may not be an angle. Speculation is that Fukuoka may have rejected the match because she knows Candy’s condition is too bad to work a title match as that would be a long strenuous match. It’s also possible that he match was rejected because Candy hasn’t really beaten anyone lately and she couldn’t beat Fukuoka in a non-title match, so she didn’t earn the right to challenge for the title.

Candy actually got a win on 7/6 beating 18-year-old Kanako Motoya. Since she’s hurting, Candy has been working shorter matches lately. This bout was just 11 minutes. It was said that Okutsu looked so damaged.

FMW Megumi Kudo’s Retirement Commercial Tape 4/29/97 Yokohama Arena

This was FMW’s major show of the spring. The show was built around the retirement of the top female star in the history of FMW, Megumi Kudo. As expected, everything about Kudo’s retirement other than her retiring as champion, was done entirely wrong. This show would have been at Kawasaki Stadium, which holds at least 50,000 fans, but Kawasaki Stadium was being renovated, so it was moved to Yokohama Arena and changed from the traditional 5/5 date to 4/29. The financial success of the show kind of depends on how you look at things. The show sold out Yokohama Arena to the tune of 16,000, which is good. The thing is, the worst attendance at Kawasaki Stadium during the 1993-96 period where they ran once a year on 5/5 was 33,000 plus. I don’t know the reason for this, but Yokohama Arena fans seem to be the quietest fans in all of Japan. Just like all the AJW Yokohama Arena shows, the fans didn’t pop for anything. My thought is that maybe the big city fans expect only the best because it seems you have to give them matches that are **** or better to get them to pop, but that’s just speculation. Megumi Kudo didn’t get a big or even a good reaction at any time before, after, or during her retirement match. Atsushi Onita didn’t even get any reaction, which is something that you absolutely never see. The match quality of this show could generously be described as mediocre. The whole undercard was clipped, but with the possible exception of Koji Nakagawa vs. Katsutoshi Niiyama, none of the matches looked like they would be good in unedited form. Basically it was a one match show with Hayabusa really rising to the occasion and proving that he actually doesn’t suck. Mr. Gannosuke proved that he can actually work when he’s not lazy. Megumi Kudo, more than ever showed that she’s the most selfless wrestler of her era, while Shark Tsuchiya once again proved that she’s the lowest form of life.

Ricky Fuji & Ricky Morton vs. Dragon Winger & Hido (both W*ING) in a match billed as "Born to ROCK vs. Born to be W*ING." Morton & Fuji did simultaneous topes. Fuji gave Dragon a jumping DDT. Fuji then brainbustered Dragon for the win. About 1 minute was shown, but it didn’t appear to be much of a match. Finish was kind of lame. Hido seems to be taking it easy on the undercard and not taking any chances on hurting his bad neck. Crowd was totally dead. The most notable thing about this match was the postmatch where Fuji & Morton are presented with posters of some sort of muscle drink by representatives for the Japanese GNC. Morton & Fuji use the signs to pretend they are drinking the muscle drink, which was amusing. 11:03

Hayato Nanjyo & Tetsuhiro Kuroda vs. Flying Kid Ichihara & Crypt Keeper (both F.M.W. as in Funk Masters of Wrestling). Highlight was Hayato hitting the Shiryu somersault tope, too bad he hit his own partner with it. Keeper did about the worst Tiger Driver you’ll ever see to Hayato then Ichihara moonsaulted Hayato for the win. Just over 1 minute was shown. Even though Hayato & Ichihara are good, this match probably wasn’t because Keeper just plain sucks. It’s ridiculous that a guy as bad as Keeper is employed by FMW, EMLL, WWF, & WWC, but that just goes to show how much power and influence Victor Quinones has. Crowd was dead for this too. Too little was shown to really tell anything. 11:11

Koji Nakagawa vs. Katsutoshi Niiyama (F.M.W). Kind of ironic that this was the only match on the undercard that might have been good, but the result is that Niiyama winds up out of the league. This match certainly had the Indy feel to it, but at least it was the good Indy feel as both guys worked hard and you could tell they spent a lot of time laying out this match. Nakagawa is a Bret Hart wannabe while Niiyama is pretty much another Kensuke Sasaki, except he’s actually somewhat cool. Nakagawa had bad ribs coming into the match, so Niiyama worked on that weakness. Niiyama hit a diving headbutt to Nakagawa’s bad ribs. Niiyama did a diving wheel kick for a near fall. Niiyama tried his uranage off the top, but Nakagawa knocked him off the top. Nakagawa then used a diving shoulderblock. Nakagawa charged, but Niiyama powerslammed him for a near fall. Niiyama hit 2 lariats for a near fall. Niiyama tried his uranage, but Nakagawa blocked, so Niiyama kneed him in the ribs and was now able to deliver the uranage. Niiyama tried for his uranage again, but Nakagawa blocked. Niiyama then tried for his lariat, but Nakagawa ducked and used Niiyama’s own move, the uranage, on him. Nakagawa ducked a lariat and hit a rolling German suplex for a near fall. Nakagawa hit an exploder suplex. Nakagawa used another exploder for the win. About 4 minutes was shown. The match was good in that they worked their holds in well and built a solid match, but the transition between holds was kind of weak. About what you would expect when Indy guys do a well thought out and well booked match. After the match, Niiyama, who’s a heel in Funk’s group, showed emotion and sportsmanship, which is a no-no when you are supposed to be a heel. Niiyama cried. The two were suddenly friends and they shook hands and hugged each other. Niiyama was probably really happy about the match turning out so well, but he should have waited until the dressing room to show it. Speculation is that FMW got rid of him due to his post match actions. 10:54. Average to good.

Kaori Nakayama & Michiko Omukai (LLPW) & The Goddess Chikako Shiratori (Jd’) & Mizuki Endo (LLPW) & Yoko Ikeda vs. Lioness Asuka (free agent but basically Jd’) & Eagle Sawai (LLPW-GUREN) & Crusher Maedomari (Moudou-Kai) & Michiko Nagashima (LLPW-GUREN) & Miss Mongol (Moudou-Kai) in a match billed as "Revolutionary Girls Change the World." This match was really screwed up on the tape. Only 1:30 was shown and with 10 women involved and them jumping around in the editing, it just seemed like a chaotic mess. Everyone wasn’t even involved in the match during the clips shown. Rie was originally scheduled for the match, but she was injured so Endo replaced her. Endo has some semblence of workrate, so that makes her an improvement over Rie. Mongol gave Kaori a senton. Crusher tried to Tiger Driver Endo, but Omukai gave Crusher a diving knee to the back. Kaori bled. Kaori Frankensteinered Mongol off the top for the win. Mongol is ok because her and Miwa Sato are the only ones in Moudou-Kai that will sell. You don’t get a good look at Omukai, so she’ll remain the hottest babe in wrestling that no one really knows, sees, or talks about. The good thing about this match being so chopped up was that Eagle never entered the ring and they didn’t show Asuka disgracing herself by mimicking Shark. 13:03

Super Leather (F.M.W) vs. Jinsei Shinzaki (Michinoku Pro) in a match billed as "Hell Hound on the Trail." Shinzaki is the better of these two. Need I say more? Shinzaki did his stupid rope walk. Leather missed a forearm drop off the top. Shinzaki then tried for his powerbomb, but Leather back body dropped him. Leather missed a diving knee drop. Shinzaki hit his diving shoulderblock. Shinzaki delivered his powerbomb for a near fall. Shinzaki got a near fall with a missile dropkick. Shinzaki applied the gokuraku hold (version of the sleeper where you cross your opponents arms around their neck) for the win. About 3 minutes was shown. Slow-paced with slow set up. This match seemed really bad. Even the highlights weren’t interesting. 10:29

Hiromuchi Fuyuki & Jado & Gedo (all Fuyuki-Gun) vs. Head Hunters & Hisakatsu Oya (all F.M.W)in a 6-man Street Fight billed as "Losers are Warus (chickens)." This was definitely better than expected as Gedo finally remembered how to work and the Head Hunters actually tried. Fuyuki-Gun hit consecutive lariats in the corner to Oya. Jado & Gedo then spiked Fuyuki’s powerbomb off the 2nd, but a Hunter saved Oya. Fuyuki used his lariat on Oya. Fuyuki applied the stretch plum on Oya, but the Hunters broke it up. Hunters gave Jado a sky high lariat, but Gedo saved. That spot took forever to set up. B tried a missile dropkick, but Gedo moved so A got hit. Gedo plancha’d A. Fuyuki used 3 lariats on B for a near fall. Oya superplexed Gedo then A hit a diving headbutt for a near fall. A slammed Gedo and B gave Gedo a diving splash, but Jado saved. A jackknifed Gedo for a near fall. A Tiger Drivered Gedo for a near fall. A had a hard time climbing up the ropes, but finally moonsaulted Gedo for the win. About 5 minutes aired. About what you would expect from Fuyuki, but the Hunters, Gedo, & Jado tried harder than normal. Those four actually used to have pretty good matches when they feuded in W*ING, so maybe it’s just a good pairing. Hunters still took too long to set up their spots. Oya didn’t show any signs of returning to 1996 form. Seemed like a decent match. 12:30

Hayabusa vs. Mr. Gannosuke (F.M.W.) in a Mascara Contra Cabellera (mask vs. hair) match. This was a pleasant surprise as Hayabusa showed that he could have a good match singles match without a good opponent or a lot of gimmicks. The storyline here is that these two were long time friends, but Gannosuke had joined the dark side so to speak by joining the Funk Masters of Wrestling. Hayabusa was trying to bring him back to the light, or in other words get him to leave Funk and Quinones and join the FMW faces. Gannosuke lariated Hayabusa as soon as he hit the ring. Gannosuke tried to whip Hayabusa into the apron, but Hayabusa jumped onto the apron and did a reverse diving punch. Hayabusa did a nice Liger dive. Hayabusa tried a wheel kick, but Gannosuke forward rolled under it and lariated Hayabusa. Hayabusa ran on the apron at Gannosuke, but Gannosuke lariated. Gannosuke tried his lariat, but Hayabusa kicked him then suplexed him off the apron to the floor. Hayabusa slammed Gannosuke then placed chairs on him and moonsaulted him off the apron. Hayabusa did a swandive somersault senton. Hayabusa ran off the ropes, but Victor Quinones tripped him. Hayabusa got up and looked at Quinones, so Gannosuke enzui lariated him. Quinones got in the ring and held Hayabusa so Gannosuke could lariat, but Hayabusa avoided and Quinones got hit. Seeing Quinones take a bump makes it well worth buying a 1st generation copy of this tape from Zach Arnold. According to Dean Rasmussen, who writes the fine Death Valley Driver column that you definitely should read, you should add a star to all Mima Shimoda matches if she’s wearing her sexy hot pants. So by that logic, this should be at least a **** match since seeing the guy we all love to hate, Quinones, take a bump has to garner at least one star, maybe five, but I digress. Hayabusa used a Machine windmill suplex for a near fall. Hayabusa tried a springboard moonsault off the 2nd, but Gannosuke got his knees up. Gannosuke broke Quinones rod and stabbed Hayabusa in the gut with the splintery end 3 times. Hayabusa came back with punches and ran off the ropes, but Gannosuke jabbed him in the gut with the stick. Gannosuke drove the stick in again. Gannosuke whipped Hayabusa into the ropes and tried to stick, but Hayabusa slid under it and did a jumping high wheel kick. Hayabusa set Gannosuke up with the fisherman suplex. Hayabusa then hit his firebird splash (Scorpio splash) for a near fall. Hayabusa got a near fall with his falcon arrow (verticle suplex position then jump and drive your opponent like the Michinoku Driver II). Hayabusa went for a moonsault, but Gannosuke cut him off and suplexed him off the 2nd. Gannosuke jackknifed Hayabusa, but both sold. Gannosuke used Hayabusa’s own falcon arrow on Hayabusa for a near fall. Gannosuke tried a Thunder Fire powerbomb, but Hayabusa slipped out. Hayabusa did a nice Frankensteiner for a near fall. Hayabusa jackknifed Gannosuke. Hayabusa then tried his awesome Phoenix splash, but Gannosuke rolled out of the way. Gannosuke used a released German suplex for a near fall. Gannosuke got a near fall with his Northern Lights suplex finisher. Hayabusa countered a suplex by landing on his feet then enzui lariated Gannosuke. Hayabusa falcon arrowed Gannosuke for the win. Good match and not just a bunch of high spots. Both guys really stepped up. The work was pretty good. It didn’t have the usual Hayabusa problems of bad set up and no transition. If Hayabusa was given the opportunity to work with someone real good that wasn’t a big high spot guy like Sasuke, I think he could have a very good match. Gannosuke was much better than normal. This is most likely the best match Gannosuke has ever had. This is definitely the best match I’ve seen him involved in. He finally wasn’t lazy. Too much time was spent on the stick, especially since devoting so much time to a weapon in FMW usually means juice, which this match didn’t contain. Hayabusa sells well when he’s on defense. When he goes back on offense, rather than continuing to sell his "injuries" a bit, he acts as if he’s 100%. Match didn’t build that great and the finish came too soon after Hayabusa’s comeback, especially since the lariat (or enzui lariat) isn’t one of Hayabusa’s special moves. After the match, Hayabusa begged Gannosuke to leave Quinones and join him on the face side. Hayabusa didn’t want Gannosuke’s hair shaved and said that he would let him out of the haircut if he turned face. Hayabusa offered his hand in friendship, but rather than shake it, Gannosuke kicked him then jackknifed him. Gannosuke elbow dropped Hayabusa then ripped Hayabusa’s mask off. Gannosuke chaired Hayabusa. Gannosuke poured alcohol on Hayabusa and was ready to fireball him when Shinzaki came in and made the save. So it was an American style cop out where they didn’t go through with the hair cutting stipulation, but instead, had Hayabusa lose his mask for five minutes. 13:32. ***

Atsushi Onita & Masato Tanaka & W*ING Kanemura vs. Terry Funk & Gladiator & Cactus Jack (all F.M.W) in a Texas Western Tornado Street Fight death match. This match was basically Tanaka, Gladiator, and 4 stiffs. Tanaka once again proved he’s the best working man in the company as he was the only one who really looked good here. Gladiator was pretty good. Gladiator and Tanaka worked some nice sequences together, but there was nothing nice or good or even average about the other guys work. Funk is well past the retire immediately point. He tricked father time for a long while, but eventually every performer becomes over the hill and far away and Funk has reached that point. It seems that Cactus has been converted to the do nothing and get the easy pay check style of the WWF. Actually, he did much less then he does in the WWF. Basically, Cactus offered nothing and seemed out of place, which was especially disappointing since he was programmed with W*ING, who he had a very good death match with on 5/5/96. Onita wasn’t over and predominately sold. Kanemura, who normally shines on the big shows, had nothing to work with, so he was kind of invisible. They worked this match about the same way that the 12/11/96 death match was worked, in that generally 2 guys would work in the ring while everyone else brawled outside the ring. This was a brawl from the outset. Onita piledrove Funk on a table outside the ring. Tanaka used an elbow suicida on Gladiator. Gladiator tried to powerbomb Tanaka over the top rope through a table that was set up outside the ring, but Tanaka slipped out. Good tease of a traditional big spot in Gladiator vs. Tanaka matches. Tanaka then knocked Gladiator over the top onto the apron with a series of elbows. Tanaka ran off the ropes and tried a running elbow, but Gladiator hit a slingshot shoulderblock. Gladiator lariated Tanaka over the top rope to the floor. Gladiator dove over the top rope with his typical plancha that’s very impressive for a man of his size. Tanaka bled. Onita DDT’d Funk for a near fall. Onita DDT’d Funk again. Gladiator suplexed Tanaka on the floor. Funk used his burning branding iron on Onita. Funk ripped Onita’s shirt then branded his back with the burning branding iron. Gladiator came off the top and broke a chair over Tanaka’s head for a near fall. Kanemura hit Funk & Gladiator with a barbed wire bat. Kanemura tried to hit Cactus with the bat, but Cactus grabbed the bat and got it away from Kanemura. Cactus hit Kanemura with the bat, which sent Kanemura to the floor. Funk used the barbed wire bat on Onita’s back. Gladiator did a devastating running Thunder Fire powebomb off the apron through a table to Tanaka. The whole face team was bloody. Gladiator Liger bombed Kanemura, but Onita saved. Funk used the bat to Onita’s back some more. Gladiator set a table up in the corner then broke a large piece of the wood off it. Cactus whipped Tanaka into the table. Gladiator tried a diving table, but Tanaka dropkicked him in midair. Cactus tried to hit Onita with the bat, but Onita blocked it with a piece of the table then hit Cactus over the head with the piece of table. This actually got a good pop. Onita stiffed Funk with a piece of table for a near fall. Funk was also bleeding now. Onita ducked a lariat and tried a backdrop, but Cactus blocked it, so Tanaka elbowed Cactus. They tried a double backdrop, but Cactus still blocked, so Kanemura dropkicked him, which allowed Onita and Tanaka to backdrop Cactus for a near fall. Onita tried his Thunder Fire powerbomb on Cactus, but Gladiator broke it up with a lariat. Funk blew a fireball on Onita for a near fall. Cactus piledrove Onita on chairs for a near fall. Cactus spiked Funk’s piledriver on Onita off the top rope for a near fall. Cactus held Onita so Funk could fireball, but Tanaka saved by dropkicking Funk. Onita DDT’d Cactus for a near fall. Tanaka used his jumping elbow on Gladiator. Gladiator ducked Tanaka’s lariat and gave him a released German suplex, but Tanaka rolled through and got back up. Tanaka then went to bounce off the ropes, but held on for some reason, so not knowing what to do, Gladiator lifted his boot for a high kick. Tanaka never ran off the ropes at Gladiator though, so the spot looked completely ridiculous. Gladiator tried to lariat, but Tanaka gave him a lame high kick. Tanaka hit his roaring (discus) elbow for a near fall. Tanaka Thunder Fire powerbombed Cactus. Tanaka got a near fall on Cactus with his swinging DDT off the 2nd. W*ING & Tanaka gave Cactus a double roaring elbow. W*ING and Tanaka then gave Cactus a double back suplex. Kanemura did a guillotine leg drop for a near fall on Cactus. W*ING tried to powebomb Cactus, but Gladiator lariated him. Tanaka tried his running elbow, but Gladiator high kicked him. Gladiator then Liger bombed Tanaka, but Onita made the save. Cactus hit his double arm DDT on Tanaka, but W*ING saved. Gladiator got a near fall on Tanaka with a diving splash. Gladiator Kamikaze bombed (powerbomb off top) Tanaka through a table, but Onita saved. Killer spot, but it took too long to set it up. Gladiator hit Onita with the table. Gladiator and Cactus held Onita for 25 seconds while Funk was setting up his Orihara moonsault. Funk finally did the Orihara moonsault, but he came up short and cracked his skull on the floor. Funk suffered a concussion and was in need of medical attention, so they went home early. Tanaka elbowed Gladiator. Kanemura chaired Cactus. Kanemura used his diving chair on Gladiator for the win. Finish was real flat as they seemed to be improvising, and not doing much of a job of it, since Funk was injured. Too much dead time. The set up took forever. There was no psychology. Transition wasn’t too good. The heels dominated way too much. The match seemed to go on forever. I was bored. I’m not really a fan of this type of match and I’m sure some people will really like it, but to me it was garbage. After the match, Kanemura challenged Onita to a singles match at Kawasaki Stadium. Tanaka then asked his mentor Onita to grant him the match instead of Kanemura. 20:20. *1/2

U.S. Representative for FMW Zach Arnold contests this rating saying it was sure better than the 12/11 street fight. He gave the 12/11 street fight a *** death match rating and says this street fight deserves a ***1/2 death match rating.

Megumi Kudo vs. the lowest form of life Shark Tsuchiya (Moudou-Kai) in a No Rope, 200 Volt, Double Hell, Double Barbed Wire Barricade, Double Landmine, Glass Crush, Electrical Barbed Wire Death Match for Shark’s WWA & Independent women’s titles. This match was billed as "Nightmares of Hell and Retirement." Certainly a fitting name as this match was a nightmare. I don’t even know where to begin with this review. To say that this match sucked wouldn’t even begin to scratch the surface. To say that FMW didn’t do Kudo justice would be a major understatement. To say that Kudo did more than anyone has the right to ask of a wrestler would be accurate. To say that it was a total one woman show by Kudo would be accurate. To say that Kudo was on the receiving end of two of the craziest gimmick spots in the history of garbage wrestling is sad, but true. To say that Shark is the most useless and selfish woman in wrestling seems accurate. To say that Kudo is the most selfless woman in wrestling would be accurate. To say that the fans sucked and barely popped at any time, before, during, or after the match would be accurate. To say that the real highlight of the match was that I didn’t quite get to the point of wanting to vomit or fly to Japan to assassinate Shark (figuratively, not literally of course) would be accurate. To say that this match confirms everything I’ve been saying about both Kudo and Shark sure seems accurate. Kudo was introduced first because she was the challenger. It was her night (at least in theory), so she should have came out last. She had a new all white two piece outfit that’s designed to show off her superbly conditioned abs, but one side of her ribs was all bandaged, most likely as a result of from her death match with the minky one Mayumi Ozaki. How much better would Kudo’s retirement match have been if it was against Ozaki as originally planned? I’d say the the difference would be that the Ozaki match would be a very good to great enjoyable match with both taking crazy bumps and selling for each other, while this thing was a lousy match that no one should enjoy with Kudo taking all the bumps. Just from the clips on Samurai! TV’s women’s news show, I could tell the Ozaki match is worlds above this thing. I’ll have it in unedited form soon, so I’ll wait until I see that to make the comparison. Getting back to the actual topic, Kudo’s outfit offered little protection while Shark wore some sort of padding under her typical green and black outfit. Shark tried to push Kudo out of the ring into the land mine, but Kudo stopped her. Shark tried to whip Kudo into the electrical barbed wire, but Kudo slid to avoid it. Shark tried a lariat, but Kudo blocked it. Kudo kneecap dropkicked Shark. Kudo used her legs to try to push the downed Shark into the land mine, but Shark stayed on the ring apron. Kudo used a sliding dropkick, but Shark still stayed on the apron. Shark tried to front kick Kudo into the wire, but Kudo kept her balance, which got a pop. Kudo tried to whip Shark into the electrified barbed wire, but, of course, Shark reversed it and Kudo went into the very non-forgiving 200-volt barbed wire for the 1st gimmick bump of the match. This was a large explosion and it was quite loud. Kudo had black spots on the back of her outfit from the explosion. Shark worked on Kudo’s injured ribs. Shark got a near fall with a side suplex drop. Shark tried a kick, but Kudo Dragon screwed her. Shark took a lame unconvincing bump on this, which ruined the whole move. Shark ducked a lariat and tried to run Kudo into the explosive barbed wire, but Kudo blocked. Shark tried her back suplex, but Kudo landed on her feet. Shark missed a slow lame lariat and clumsily got into position for Kudo to try to German suplex her, but Shark did a go-behind and pushed Kudo face first into the explosive barbed wire. Kudo got her hands up to protect her face, but suffered 2nd and 3rd degree burns on her arm from the explosion. Not pleasant by any means, that’s why no one tried it before. Shark repeatedly used her sickle to cut Kudo’s scalp and make her bleed a lot. Shark swung the sickle at the downed Kudo twice, but both times Kudo rolled out of the way and the thing punctured the ring. Kudo knocked the sickle out of Shark’s hand and put her down with a punch. Kudo actually picked up the sickle for once, the crowd actually popped, and tried to hit Shark with it, but of course, Shark cut Kudo off by kicking her. Shark used the sickle on Kudo’s scalp again. Shark choked Kudo with the chain that’s attached to the sickle. Shark choke sleepered Kudo with the chain. Kudo was having trouble with blood getting in her eye. Shark tried to throw Kudo out of the ring into the landmine, but Kudo did a nice reversal and, for once in her life, Shark took the big explosion, WOO-HOO! This was the highlight of the show, even topping Quinones taking a bump. Shark tried her Tsuchiya bomb, but Kudo countered with a Toyota roll for a near fall. Kudo tried to whip Shark out to the ring into the landmine, but Shark reversed. Kudo reversed it again and turned it into her Kudome Driver (Tiger Driver) for a near fall. Kudo tried a lariat, but Shark ducked, so Kudo elbowed her for a near fall. Kudo tried for her spinning Kudo driver. Shark stopped it by trying to push her off the apron into the landmine, but Kudo stopped in time. Kudo ducked a lariat and tried a huracanrana, but Shark caught her in the air, spun her around, and Tsuchiya bombed Kudo off the apron into the landmine for the explosion. It seemed like Shark tried to place Kudo’s feet on the apron so Kudo could quickly jump into the landmine herself, but Shark released Kudo before her feet were planted so she fell backwards at a bad angle and landed flush on her skull in the landmine. A vicious, hellacious, and horrific bump that Kudo got a concussion taking. The barbed wire that is on the explosive platform was stuck in Kudo’s leg. Kudo was injured and shaken up from this bump and she had problems just trying to stand up after this. Shark used her back suplex on Kudo. Shark back suplexed Kudo again. The ref checked Kudo because she wasn’t moving at all. Shark lifted Kudo up and back suplexed her again. Kudo had a hard time getting to her feet and into position for Shark to back suplex her. The ref quickly checked Kudo again before starting the count for the pin, which Kudo kicked out of. Shark piledrove Kudo for a near fall. Kudo lied on the mat without moving during all of these spots. Shark piledrove Kudo on a chair for a near fall. Kudo’s side had a nasty cut from the barbed wire. Shark blew a fireball in Kudo’s hair. Now that was just ridiculous, especially with the length of Kudo’s hair and that fact that she was half out of it from previous injuries. Kudo’s hair and her frilly costume were burning, but luckily they didn’t catch flame like they could have. Kudo immediately jumped to the ref, basically tackling him, and the ref used his hands to put out the fire. Kudo’s hair was discolored and singed. It looked like a bad wig (then again, so does a "good wig"). So Kudo took two gimmick spots that even Onita wouldn’t take, not that this seems like something to brag about. Shark got a near fall with her Tsuchiya bomb. Shark tried to lariat Kudo into the barbed wire, but Kudo stopped just in time. Shark lariated Kudo, but Kudo got her arm up to and lariated Shark. Both went into the explosive barbed wire, with Kudo taking the brunt of the explosion of course, and Kudo fell on top of Shark for the pin. Kudo won the WWA & Independent women’s titles. Kudo joined legend’s Mildred Burke, Jaguar Yokota, & Lioness Asuka as women who retired as world champion. Finish came out of nowhere and was a bad American style finish with the person who takes the brunt of the bump getting the pin as both are "knocked out." I have to think that they went home early due to Kudo’s injuries. Finish didn’t get much of a pop. Shark was a selfish piece of crap cutting Kudo off quickly every time she went on offense and not taking bumps as usual. Shark was on offense most of the match. Kudo was bloody with cuts on her head, side, arm, and leg. She had black on her costume and face from the explosions. Not to mention a concussion, 2nd and 3rd degree burns, and singed hair. Meanwhile, Shark had one red spot on her elbow that may have been a small cut or scrape and a couple of spots on her uniform that were nothing. Kudo had trouble standing up after the match and was holding her burned arm. Kudo got a disgracefully small amount of applause when the ref raised her hand. They brought the belts and trophy into the ring, but Kudo wasn’t in any condition to hold them, so they didn’t even bother trying it. Kudo then talked on the mic for a few seconds, which got a bit of a reaction, before falling down and being carried to the back on a gym mat. They plopped Kudo in the hallway so all the photographers could take a million pictures while she laid there groaning and holding her burned arm. Onita and Hayabusa took their shirts off, put them in water, and used them to wash Kudo off. Then they laid the shirts over her. Onita cried. Kudo continued making whimpering noises and holding her arm. Kudo took her title belts and gave them to Kaori Nakayama, Rie, & Yoko Ikeda. The basis of this is that Kudo was leaving it up to them to win these belts, carry them with pride and dignity, and keep them away from Moudou-Kai. They all hugged. Kudo then told Kaori to do her best. Kudo was put on a stretcher with a blanket over her head and taken off to the hospital in an ambulance while Kaori, Rie, & Ikeda cried. Pretty touching. Definitely sad. Shark took so few bumps. Shark was clumsy and slow between spots. Highlight was Shark's bump into the landmine outside the ring. Lowlight was almost the entire rest of the match. I don't really know how to rate this turd. Kudo was really good and really classy. She did far more than you anyone could ask of any wrestler. Shark was so incredibly useless and terrible. She killed the match and pretty much ruined Kudo's performance. It’s amazing that Kudo didn’t pack it in after her only remaining good opponent, Combat Toyoda, retired on 5/5/96 and coast into retirement. When you try your best for a good match, when you give your heart and soul, but you are working with Shark Tsuchiya, man it’s got to suck. 21:47. *

AJW Real Earnest Commercial Tape 12/8/96 Tokyo Sumo Hall

This was AJW’s major year end show. It’s also the last show that they ran that really drew well as it drew a 10,500 sellout as opposed to those wonderful announced crowds of 3,000 to 5,000 on this years big shows. It should be noted that Manami Toyota headlined this show and didn’t headline any of this years flops, but realistically, AJW has a ton of problems and attendance was about to slide no matter what. Overall, this was a good show, but not on the level of the major shows AJW has presented in the past. The undercard, aside from the Chaparrita ASARI vs. Fusayo Nouchi match, was not good or really that close to good. The problem, which has been well documented, is that the youngsters in AJW aren’t working on the level. Even if they work with the better youngsters from other promotions it’s quite likely that they won’t be able to answer them and they will be outclassed. The veterans, although aging and breaking down, are still very good workers and their matches were very good to great. The shoot stuff didn’t work out because Yumiko Hotta lost to Rosina Elina again, so that was the major failure of this card since Hotta was still unable to become a big star based on her toughness and shooting ability. As a whole, this card was about what you would expect going in. If anything, the match quality was a bit better than expected because Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita & Toshiyo Yamada vs. Tomoko Watanabe & Reggie Bennett & mystery partner, which turned out to be AJW rookie of the year Momoe Nakanishi was definitely better than expected, especially once the mystery partner was announced.

Momoe Nakanishi vs. Miho Wakizawa in the 1996 Rookie Queen Tournament final. I’m convinced that Momoe is going to be good. The key to telling whether or not an AJW rookie has good potential is whether they look good doing what they are allowed to do, which Momoe does. She’s the one youngster that they are handling right, and at 16, she’s got all the time in the world to develop. Wakizawa hasn’t shown anything in any match I’ve seen her in and this was no exception. Momoe used submissions early. Momoe hit 5 consecutive dropkicks (her big move). Momoe then back body dropped Wakizawa for the win. Momoe was named 1996 AJW Rookie of the Year. Very basic, obviously. Momoe dominated the match. 5:06. *

Misae Genki & Tanny Mouse vs. Tomoko Kuzumi (JWP) & the pale one Emi Motokawa (IWA). This match showed the problem with the AJW youngsters. Kuzumi & Emi were poised to have a good match, but Genki & Tanny couldn’t answer them. Kuzumi is the best worker of all the youngsters, while Tanny is among the worst of the non-rookies. The worst thing about Tanny is that her entire offense consists of lame looking headbutts, which not only kill the match, but make it comedy rather than serious. Tanny & Genki whipped Emi into the ropes, but Emi dove to the mat, allowing Kuzumi to swandive missile kick both. Tanny put Emi in the boston crab, so Kuzumi came in and kicked her to try to break the hold. Tanny wouldn’t break, so Kuzumi pulled her tail. Genki whipped Kuzumi into the turnbuckle, so Kuzumi jumped onto the 2nd rope and missile dropkicked her. Emi slammed Genki and Kuzumi flying splashed her for a near fall. Genki & Tanny double dropkicked Kuzumi. Tanny then covered, but Kuzumi did the Jaguar bridge out then dropkicked Tanny. Emi whipped Tanny so Kuzumi could swandive missile kick Tanny. Emi missile dropkicked Tanny while Kuzumi plancha’d Genki. Emi got a near fall on Tanny after 3 running elbow drops. Tanny did 2 spear headbutts. Tanny then did 4 of her Tannybutts (falling headbutt/diving headbutt from a standing position) for a near fall. Kuzumi used the Japanese leg roll crotch hold on Genki for a near fall. Kuzumi did two Suzuka Minami style backbreakers to Genki for a near fall. Kuzumi then slammed Genki and Emi did a diving splash for a near fall. Match started to fall apart at this point as Genki was getting confused and screwing up spots. Genki’s transition from offense to defense is just not good. Genki tried a slam, but Emi got on her shoulders and tried to twist into a sunset flip, but Genki didn’t release Emi’s leg, so both legs were on one side and it was botched. Tanny headbutted Kuzumi off the apron. Genki set Emi up on the top rope. Genki then scooped Tanny up in running powerslam position and used her as a battering ram to headbutt Emi to the floor. Tanny did a Tannybutt to Emi outside the ring. Genki gave Emi a back suplex with an overhead flip, but Kuzumi made the save. Emi did her reverse huracanrana to Genki, which surprisingly worked very well, but Tanny saved. I realize I errored in saying that Emi was the first I’ve seen use the reverse Frankensteiner as while watching some older AJW tapes, Akira Hokuto did the move on more than one occasion. Genki avoided Kuzumi’s missile dropkick. Tanny whipped Kuzumi into the turnbuckle and Genki dropkicked Kuzumi. Tanny then charged the corner with yet another headbutt. Genki then slingshotted Tanny for another headbutt on Kuzumi. I feel sorry for Kuzumi, who had to sell these lame spots big time since they are Tanny’s main offense. Tanny & Genki hit a sandwhich headbutt and dropkick respectively on Kuzumi, but Emi made the save. Tanny did her sky high Tannyrocket (diving headbutt) to Kuzumi, but Emi saved. Tanny missed her Tannyrocket. Kuzumi used a bridging underhook suplex on Tanny for a near fall. Kuzumi did the Sakie Hasegawa rolling underhook suplex, but bridged the 4th one for a near fall on Tanny. Kuzumi missile dropkicked Tanny for a near fall while Emi plancha’d Genki. Kuzumi tried her German suplex, but Tanny tried to elbow out, so Kuzumi ducked it and German suplexed Tanny for the win. Hard match to judge. Kuzumi & Emi were definitely good and the match was good when they were on offense. Match died when Genki was on offense because she has no move set, but was much worse with Tanny and her pitiful offense which consists of a few variations of the headbutt. At least Genki is bad, but works a serious style. Emi has improved a lot. She’s a pretty good wrestler if you can look past the the trailer parky biker look. Emi vs. Kuzumi would be a good match. 15:38. **

Yumi Fukawa & Yoshiko Tamura & Yuka Shiina vs. co-master of spotblowing Chiquita Azteca (Esther Moreno of EMLL) & co-master of spotblowing Pequena Azteca (Alda Moreno of EMLL) & Bloody Phoenix (Jd’). Don’t ask me why AJW would use the overweight, out of shape, washed up Moreno sisters. The thing that makes less sense is that they had their youngsters sell most of the match then put over the Moreno’s. The match was actually pretty decent as the Moreno’s weren’t as off as they usually are, and the AJW women, especially Fukawa, are good at selling, but I don’t see what AJW gained from it. I would have put Fukawa & either Shiina or Tamura (Shiina is better, but Tamura is more athletic and might work better with Kuzumi) in the match with Kuzumi & Emi since they could have answered and had a good match. Put Genki & Tanny in here as the less offense they are expected to show the better. Pequena blew her first spot of the match. Bloody plancha’d all 3 opponents. Pequena then gave her opponents a rolling senton block off the 2nd outside the ring. Chiquita followed with a somersault tope con hilo that was supposed to hit all her opponents, but it’s Esther, need I say more? Bloody got a near fall on Tamura with a bridging suplex. Azteca used a rolling la tapatia (Romero special/inverted surf board) on Fukawa. Fukawa hit a flying headscissors then a headscissor cradle on Chiquita for a near fall. Fukawa, Shiina, & Tamura used consecutive diving splashes for a near fall on Bloody. Bloody toped all. Pequena did the Shiryu somersault tope to all the opposition. Chiquita did the Orihara moonsault on all, but overshot it and hit her head on the guard rail. Bloody used her rolling German suplexed on Fukawa. The visitors did a simultaneous triple flying spot with both Azteca’s doing moonsaults and Bloody doing a reverse splash off the top. Chiquita moonsaulted Fukawa. Chiquita moonsaulted Fukawa again, but Shiina saved. Shiina used her missile dropkick off the 2nd twice on Chiquita for a near fall. Shiina went for her missile dropkick off the 2nd again, but Chiquita Frankensteinered her off the top, but Fukawa made the save. Pequena gave Shiina two Hikari Fukuoka style somersault missile kicks, but Fukawa made the save. Pequena tried a huracanrana, but Shiina turned it into the Kenta Kobashi powerbomb and jackknife combination for a near fall. Shiina hit her missile dropkick off the 2nd for a near fall on Pequena. Shiina tried her missile dropkick off the 2nd again, but Pequena avoided. Pequena gave Shiina a very sloppy rana into a huracanrana for the win. The Moreno’s did nice high spots, as always, and for them their execution was good. All the Moreno’s high spots made the AJW youngsters offense look real weak because you had the Moreno’s doing glamourous dives and flying moves then Shiina trying to put them away with her simple missile dropkick off the 2nd. Fukawa & Shiina were good in their role, which was mainly selling, but Tamura was a non factor. 13:31. **1/2

Rie Tamada vs. The Goddess Chikako Shiratori (Jd’) for Tamada’s AJ title. This match was pretty disappointing as these two didn’t work that well together. Shiratori was returning to her former promotion, AJW, but she wasn’t very good in this match, and did nothing to make AJW wish she was still with the promotion. Maybe she was nervous working in front of a real crowd as there were 20 times as many people in Sumo Hall as Jd’ gets for their typical show. Shiratori climbed the ropes and plancha’d Tamada. Shiratori did two jumping neckbreaker drops for a near fall. Shiratori did her dropkick for press slam spot. Shiratori used 2 underhook suplexes for a near fall. Shiratori superplexed Tamada for a near fall. Tamada did her twisting high cross body for a near fall. Tamada tried a diving splash, but Shiratori got her feet up. Shiratori performed her La Magistral for a near fall. Tamada dropkicked Shiratori off the top to the floor. Tamada then plancha’d Shiratori. Tamada hit two of her missile dropkicks for a near fall. Tamada tried a German suplex, but Shiratori went behind her and tried one of her own. Tamada countered this attempt with a bodyscissor victory roll for a near fall. Shiratori ducked a lariat and went into her cross-arm German suplex for a near fall. Shiratori avoided Tamada’s missile dropkick. Shiratori got a near fall with a bridging back suplex. Shiratori DDT’d Tamada off the top for a near fall. Tamada ducked a lariat and went into a German suplex for a near fall. Tamada tried her Dragon suplex, but Shiratori sat down and cradled Tamada. Shiratori slipped trying a flying move, but Tamada was going to dropkick her in midair anyway, so it didn’t make much difference. Tamada delivered her Dragon suplex for the win. Some nice high spots, but the work wasn’t too good. Quite weak for a title match. 10:27. *3/4

Chaparrita ASARI vs. Fusayo Nouchi (JWP) for ASARI’s WWWA world super lightweight title. This is a good matchup because both women can work, but they are so small that it’s hard for them to be pushed to as far as their talent says they should because it’s hard for them to be credible with the Aja’s or Kansai’s of the world. Although they work for different promotions, these two actually debuted on the same day, 11/19/92, but Nouchi, 21, is two years younger. Nouchi is one of the best workers of the young women. You would probably like her if you had the impetus to get a hold of a JWP tape. ASARI wanted a handsake, but Nouchi slapped her in the face. ASARI tried to slap Nouchi back, but Nouchi ducked and delivered a released German suplex. Nouchi did a DDT for a near fall. ASARI did her handspring counter for Nouchi’s attempted slingshot then hit a high cross body. Nouchi got a near fall with a back suplex. Nouchi used the bridging back suplex for a near fall. Nouchi missed a senton. ASARI tried her Londart kick (whip into the corner then roundoff combat kick), but Nouchi avoided and facebustered. Nouchi facebustered ASARI again for a near fall. ASARI went to the top rope, but Nouchi superplexed her for a near fall. Nouchi tried another superplex, but ASARI landed on top for a near fall. Nouchi ducked a lariat and tried a German suplex, but ASARI turned it into a bodyscissor victory roll for a near fall. ASARI did her huracanrana from the corner for a near fall. Nouchi plancha’d ASARI. Nouchi hit 2 missile dropkicks for a near fall. Nouchi missed her senton off the top. ASARI plancha’d Nouchi. ASARI missed her Sky Twister Press. Nouchi German suplexed ASARI for a near fall. Nouchi hit her senton off the top for a near fall. ASARI got a near fall with a Northern Lights suplex. ASARI went to the top, but Nouchi gave her a Super gutwrench superplex for a near fall. Nouchi went to the top, but ASARI Frankensteinered her off the top. ASARI did a cool pinning move that’s kind of a modified version of the lateral guillotine for the win. Very good match. Work was good. Great high spots and lots of near falls. Very exciting. About what you would expect from ASARI. 14:34. ***1/2

Yoko Takahashi (Jd’) beat Saya Endo via decision after three rounds of kickboxing. Saya can’t kickbox either. Yawn. 9:00

Kumiko Maekawa beat Aya Mitsui (Fudokan karate?) via decision after five rounds of kickboxing. This was pretty good, particularly the last round. 15:00

Kaoru Ito vs. Marika (Mosado Gym kickboxing) in a Vale Tudo rules match. Marika just tried to punch. Ito got behind her and took her down. Once they were on the ground, Ito had a huge advantage because Marika is a kickboxer and it appeared she had not done much cross-training, thus had little idea of how to fight on the mat. Ito quickly applied the the jujigatame (cross armbreaker) for the win. A walkover for Ito. :51

Yumiko Hotta vs. Rosina Elina (judo) in a Vale Tudo rules match. This was the rematch from the finals of the U*TOP tournament. Another total disaster as Hotta wasn’t able to avenge her August loss. This basically killed what AJW was striving for, which was to get Hotta over big based on her legit toughness and fighting ability. It was a bad idea in the first place, but the fact that she couldn’t deliver made it qualify for total debacle territory. The beginning portion was all standup fighting and Hotta was the better of the two. She wasn’t able to land any damaging blows though. Hotta made a crucial mistake by trying to throw a kick. Elina took Hotta down when she tried to kick and that was basically the end of Hotta’s offense in the bout. Elina worked for an arm submission the whole time they were on the mat. Eventually Hotta couldn’t block any longer and Elina got the jujigatame on for the win. 4:29

Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita & Toshiyo Yamada vs. Reggie Bennett & Tomoko Watanabe & Momoe Nakanishi. Momoe was the mystery partner on Bennett & Watanabe’s team due to winning the Rookie Queen Tournament final earlier in the night. She wasn’t out of place in this match, which is definitely a good sign, but she was definitely overmatched. This was basically a Shimoda and Watanabe exhibition with three other veterans tagging in and showing their usual offense and a rookie getting beat on a bit. Shimoda is probably the best woman I’ve ever seen at carrying a match from defense. She’s definitely great at taking bumps and controlling the overall flow of the match. A superb tag team wrestler, who makes everyone, especially her own partner Mita, seem better than they are. In this match, Shimoda basically did all the selling for her team. With the exception of the finishing sequence, when Shimoda made her comebacks she did a spot or two and then tagged out. Watanabe deserves a lot of credit here too. She’s kind of resented these days because she had the tag titles with the useless Maekawa, but should be given a lot of credit for the work she did in carrying a stiff of a partner to good to very good matches. It was no surprise that Watanabe was very good in carrying things for her side in this match. Mita had her bad knee, which would later require surgery, taped up. Watanabe did her springboard reverse cross body off the 2nd to Mita & Yamada. Watanabe did her Dragon screwed to figure 4 combo to Mita. Momoe tried for a Boston crab, but Mita slapped her. Momoe slapped Mita back twice, which got a big pop since the rookie wasn’t backing down from the veteran. Mita reversed Momoe and slapped her. Momoe was dominated from that point on. At first, the veterans wouldn’t come in and make the save, which is something that occurs in all the leagues in Japan. Basically, the veterans are saying that they can’t be saving the rookie all the time, so the rookie has to step up or lose. Finally Watanabe came in and dragged Momoe to the corner so she could tag. Momoe never reentered the match. Bennett used her Reggie Rack (torture rack) on Shimoda, but Yamada came in and kicked Bennett, so she released the hold. Shimoda used her diving headscissor cradle on Bennett for a near fall. Mita tried her Death Valley bomb, but Bennett blocked and tried to powerbomb Mita. Mita blocked the powerbomb and Northern Lights suplexed Bennett for a near fall. Watanabe did her diving body scissors drop for a near fall on Mita. Shimoda ducked Bennett & Watanabe’s double lariat then used her jumping neckbreaker drop on both. Shimoda missile dropkicked Watanabe for a near fall. Yamada ducked a lariat and backdropped Watanabe. Yamada gave Watanabe 2 more backdrops for a near fall. Yamada tried her reverse Gori special bomb, but Watanabe powered out. Yamada tried her enzuiguri, but Watanabe blocked it. Watanabe went to the top, but Yamada arm dragged her off. Yamada did her jumping high wheel kick for a near fall. Mita tried her Death Valley bomb, but Watanabe slipped out and hit her lariat. Bennett used her Samoan drop on Mita. Bennett splashed Mita for a near fall. Yamada & Mita back body dropped Bennett over the top rope. Mita toped the opposition. Shimoda followed with a plancha to the opposition. Bennett surprisingly toped the opposition. Bennett used her Liger bomb on Mita for a near fall. Bennett tried her Liger bomb, but Mita sunset flipped her for a near fall. Shimoda used a Super underhook suplex on Watanabe. Yamada hit a released German suplex on Watanabe. Mita then gave Watanabe a released German suplex. Shimoda then used her Tiger suplex for a near fall on Watanabe. Shimoda ducked Watanabe’s diving crotch and tried to German suplex her, but Watanabe went behind her and German suplexed Shimoda for a near fall. Watanabe tried her screw driver, but Shimoda turned it into a facecrusher. From this point on, Shimoda and Watanabe exchanged thier various finishing holds back and forth for a hot finish. Watanabe hit her lariat on Shimoda. Watanabe then delivered her screw driver finisher, but couldn’t put Shimoda away. Shimoda used her finisher, the Tiger suplex, but Watanabe kicked out. Shimoda ducked Watanabe’s lariat. Shimoda hit her released Tiger superplex finisher for a near fall. Watanabe went back to her screw driver for a near fall on Shimoda. Watanabe used her screw driver to finally put Shimoda away. Watanabe was definitely the star of her team as she carried the action and scored the big upset win. Mita was pretty good considering she was working on a bad knee, but you could tell she was hurting. Yamada showed some nice offense when she was in. Shimoda was real solid as usual. Lots of near falls. Good set up and transition. A bit sloppy. It was a smart move to not take the easy way out and have Momoe job as that would kind of defeat the purpose of including her in this match. 18:46. ****

Aja Kong & Dynamite Kansai (JWP) vs. Takako Inoue & Mariko Yoshida. Aja and Dynamite formed their large woman dream team for the 2nd time. The first time was on the 10/13/96 JWP Sumo Hall show, where they were upset by Kyoko Inoue & Devil Masami. This seemed like a mismatch due to the size and toughness difference, but Aja & Kansai were very good in making Takako & Yoshida look credible. Yoshida kneecap dropkicked Kansai. Aja canned Takako & Yoshida then offered the can to Kansai, but Kansai wouldn’t take it. Kansai brutalized Yoshida with kicks. Aja splashed Takako for a near fall. Kansai tried a kick, but Yoshida caught her leg and went into an ankle lock, which Kansai escaped by a rope break. Takako & Yoshida worked Kansai’s legs with submission holds, which was good psychology since taking the leg away would negate Kansai’s size advantage. Yoshida whipped Kansai into the corner and charged, climbing the ropes and kneeing Kansai in the head. Yoshida repeated the spot successfully, but when she tried it for the third consecutive time, Kansai reversed the whip into the corner and lariated Yoshida. Aja & Kansai did consecutive lariats in the corner to Yoshida. Kansai tried her Splash Mountain on Yoshida, but Takako broke it up. Takako & Yoshida double DDT’d Kansai. Kansai tried to backdrop Takako, but Takako shifted her weight and landed on top. Takako used her nodowa off top for a near fall on Kansai. Takako tried a huracanrana, but Kansai powerbombed her for a near fall. Aja ducked Takako’s Destiny Hammer (diving knee to the back of the head) then Kansai lariated Takako. Aja went to the top, but Takako arm dragged her off. Aja high cross bodied both opponents. Yoshida & Takako did simultaneous topes. Aja Northern Lights bombed Takako, but Yoshida saved. Aja tried her back body drop off the top rope on Takako, but Yoshida stopped it, allowing Takako to nodowa Aja off the top. Yoshida tried a diving splash, but Aja got her legs up. Aja missed her splash off the 2nd, so Yoshida tried her La Magistral, but Aja stopped it. Yoshida blew a diving sunset flip, but still got a near fall on Aja. Aja tried to high cross body both again, but they avoided it. Takako & Yoshida set Aja up on the top rope and climbed to the 2nd, but Kansai threw both of them off. Aja hit her splash off the 2nd for a near fall on Yoshida. Yoshida tried one of her spots flying where she climbs to the top rope, but Kansai pushed her off the top to the floor. Kansai held both and Aja toped them. Yoshida countered a double lariat with a handspring. Aja then tried to suplex her, but Yoshida turned it into her La Magistral for a near fall. Aja brainbustered Yoshida, but Takako saved. Aja set Yoshida up for her uraken, but Takako Destiny Hammered Aja then Yoshida La Magistralled Aja, but Kansai made the save. Aja backdropped Yoshida. Kansai tried to backdrop Yoshida, but Yoshida did her Air-raid crush (crucifix dropped into a samoan drop. Looks similar to the Death Valley bomb and Northern Lights bomb) for a near fall. Yoshida hit her running plancha on Aja. Takako did a reverse Destiny Hammer for a near fall. Takako went to the top, but Kansai punted her. Kansai Splash Mountained Takako then Aja reverse diving elbow dropped Takako, but Yoshida made the save. Kansai backdropped Takako for a near fall. Kansai tried her Splash Mountain on Takako, but Yoshida missile dropkicked. Yoshida ran up the ropes and tried her reverse cross body, but Aja & Kansai kicked her in midair. Kansai hit her Splash Mountain on Takako, but Yoshida saved. Aja hit her uraken (spinning backhand punch) on Yoshida. Kansai then delivered her Splash Mountain on Yoshida for the win. Very good match. Good build, stiffness, and psychology. Several false finishes. A bit sloppy. 19:15. ****

Manami Toyota vs. Kyoko Inoue for Toyota’s WWWA title. This match was named match of the year in AJW’s year-end awards. Toyota vs. Kyoko has to go down among the greatest fueds of all-time as far as match quality goes. For women’s wrestling, I’d say this fued is the best singles fued of all-time from a match quality standpoint. This is the 5th match between these two that I have seen (4/25/92, 8/24/94, 5/7/95, 3/31/96 being the others) and I’ve rated all of them as ****3/4 or better. This match was the most similar to the 8/24 match in that they would have had ***** if Toyota would have executed her springboard maneuvers to perfection. The somewhat frustrating difference between those two matches is that on 8/24/94, Toyota botched the moves early basically immediately killing the chance for *****, while in this match, they went 14 minutes before things went slightly awry. Toyota jumped off the top with an arm drag then tried for the jujigatame, but Kyoko avoided. Toyota countered Kyoko’s press slam with a dropkick. Toyota whipped Kyoko into the ropes, but Kyoko did her springboard reverse elbow off the 2nd. Kyoko whipped Toyota into the ropes, but she countered as well, hitting her springboard reverse cross body. Toyota tried her missile dropkick, but Kyoko stepped back to avoid it then used her giant swing on Toyota. Instead of releasing Toyota after the giant swing, Kyoko went into a Boston crab. Kyoko began working on Toyota’s back by putting Toyota in a torture rack then dropped it into a backbreaker. Kyoko put Toyota in the torture rack again, this time releasing the hold by throwing Toyota. Kyoko put Toyota in the torture rack outside the ring, this time releasing the hold by throwing her onto a table. Kyoko applied the camel clutch. Kyoko used la tapatia. Kyoko whipped Toyota into the corner, but Toyota countered with a missile dropkick off the 2nd. Toyota knocked Kyoko to the floor with a missile dropkick off the 2nd. Toyota avenged Kyoko by putting her in side suplex drop position and dropping Kyoko on a table. Toyota set Kyoko up in the corner then ran across the ring and dropkicked Kyoko in the back twice. Toyota tried a German suplex, but Kyoko made it to the ropes. Kyoko reversed a whip into the corner then DDT’d Toyota off the 2nd. Kyoko went back to working on Toyota’s back by slapping on a ½ crab. Kyoko used a fall away slam then a DDT. Kyoko went back to the camel clutch. Toyota countered a suplex by landing on her feet then went right into her rolling cradle for a near fall. Toyota went for her moonsault, but Kyoko gave her a released German suplex. Kyoko went to the top, but Toyota kicked her to the floor. Toyota climbed the ropes to plancha Kyoko, but Kyoko got up and slammed Toyota off the top to the floor, which looked like a rocket launcher. Kyoko lariated Toyota over the guard rail. Toyota got a near fall with her Toyota roll. Toyota went to the top, but Kyoko tried to superplex her, so Toyota knocked Kyoko off the top then missile dropkicked her. Toyota hit another missile dropkick. Toyota tried her moonsault, but landed on Kyoko’s knees. Kyoko tried a lariat, but Toyota backbody dropped her over the top rope. Toyota tried her springboard somersault plancha, but she lost her balance on the top rope. She was able to save it by turning it into a regular springboard plancha, but she overshot it because you jump further when you aren’t doing the flip. The downside of doing difficult moves is that they don’t always work and when they don’t work things can look pretty bad. Toyota placed Kyoko on a table and tried her springboard somersault plancha again, but lost her balance, so she flipped back into the ring. Toyota then ran across the ring to get her momentum and hit the springboard somersault plancha, although her balance wasn’t even perfect on this, which cracked the unbreakable table. The problem with redoing this spot was that Kyoko had to sell on the table forever. ***** was now out of the question. Toyota tried her Japanese Ocean suplex, but Kyoko got to the ropes. Toyota tried an Irish whip, but Kyoko reversed it. Toyota then reversed it again and pulled Kyoko back into her Japanese Ocean Suplex for a near fall. Toyota went to the top, but Kyoko headscissor cradled her off the top for a near fall. Kyoko went for her reverse diving elbow, but Toyota stopped it then did and, with both standing on the top rope, did an incredible move which has no special name, but is called an avalanche (means from the top in Japan) sunset flip. The move is basically like a Super version of Kansai’s Die Hard except Toyota uses her legs rather than her arms. Kyoko kicked out of this at 2 9/10. The crowd was very much into this match. Toyota hit her Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex for another 2 9/10 count. Toyota tried her Japanese Ocean Cyclone suplex, but Kyoko countered with a vicious clothesline-which Toyota took a flip bump on-for a 2 3/4 count. Kyoko tried for her Niagara Driver, but Toyota wouldn't go up. Kyoko tried her lariat, but Toyota ducked and tried her Toyota roll, but Kyoko powerbombed her for a 2 ½ count. Kyoko hit her Niagara Driver for a 2 3/4 count. Kyoko went for another Niagara Driver, but Toyota turned it into her Toyota roll for a 2 9/10 count. Toyota staggered to the top, but before she could jump off, Kyoko recovered and arm dragged her off the top for a near fall. Kyoko tried a powerslam off the top, but in the air Toyota turned it into a small package like maneuver, which was a new invention, for a near fall. Toyota tried for her Japanese Ocean Cyclone suplex, but Kyoko slipped out and hit her lariat. With Toyota leaning against the ropes, Kyoko hit two stiff lariats. Kyoko tried for a third lariat, but Toyota ducked it and German suplexed her for a 2 ½ count. Toyota did two more German suplexes, getting a 2 ½ count on each. Kyoko got a 2 ½ count with her Niagara Driver. There were chants of both Kyoko and Toyota. Kyoko tried her Niagara Driver, but Toyota blocked it. Toyota tried a bridging suplex, but Kyoko slipped out. Toyota hit another Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex for a near fall. Both sold. Toyota put Kyoko on the 2nd and tried for her Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex, but Kyoko jumped off, so Toyota gave her a front kick. The selling was good and long during this final portion. Kyoko got a near fall by countering the Japanese Ocean with a German suplex. Kyoko hit her Niagara Driver for a 2 9/10 count. The crowd was buzzing. Kyoko tried her new move, the rack bomb (Death Valley bomb, but it’s inverted so it starts out in torture rack position), but she didn’t have a good grip and just kind of dropped Toyota. Kyoko then hit the rack bomb to win the WWWA title. Big pop for the finish. Super match. Only the couple blown spots kept it from *****. Great work. Excellent set up and transition between holds. Very good psychology. Good crowd heat. Great high spots and near falls. It even had creative spots. The selling in this match was much longer than the typical fast-paced AJW match. Toyota and Kyoko were even dragging each other up, so they could keep some pace yet the moves would not only be sold but no one would recover too quickly. This was everything you could expect from these two. A match of the year candidate, although clearly not match of the year. 24:52. ****3/4

Special Thanks to (in alphabetical order) Zach Arnold, Dave Caldwell, Scott Lacy, Glenn Tsunekawa, John D. Williams, & Koji Yamamoto

I botched up these standings in my column. These should be correct now (fingers crossed).

1995 Japan Grand Prix Final Standings

Red Zone

1. Manami Toyota 5 1 1 11

2. Bison Kimura 4 1 1 1 10

3. Reggie Bennett 4 2 1 9

4. Mima Shimoda 3 2 2 8

5. Toshiyo Yamada 4 3 8

5. Kaoru Ito 4 3 8

7. Rie Tamada 1 6 2

8. Chaparrita ASARI 0 7 0

Blue Zone

1. Yumiko Hotta 6 1 12

2. Takako Inoue 5 1 1 11

3. Kyoko Inoue 4 2 1 9

4. Mariko Yoshida 4 3 8

5. Etsuko Mita 3 4 6

5. Sakie Hasegawa 3 4 6

7. Tomoko Watanabe 2 5 4

8. Kumiko Maekawa 0 7 0

I translated these standings off AJW's Japan Grand Prix 1995 commercial tape. I screwed up Takako & Kyoko's names, so in actuality, Takako was the one in 2nd place with 11 points and Kyoko was the one in 3rd place with 9 points. Dumb mistake on my part. On the tape, they credited Bison & Bennett with 1/2 a point for their 7/23/95 match which was a no contest when both women were KO'd. The tape lists Shimoda in 2nd place. However, the finals and 3rd place match of the Japan Grand Prix took place on 9/3/95 at Tokyo Korakuen Hall. Toyota beat Hotta in the finals, as you know, which got her the title shot on 12/4/95 where she won the WWWA title by defeating Dynamite Kansai. The third place match on that show was Takako vs. Bison with Takako winning, so she got 3rd place overall while Bison was 4th. This win got Takako her first WWWA title shot, where she lost to Kansai, as Toyota's title shot was held off for the final major show of the year. Getting back to Bison, the question is how did she get the tie breaker over Shimoda and Bennett. Well, I'm sitting here looking over all the results seeing that Bison drew Shimoda, had a double KO with Bennett, and lost to Toyota. Meanwhile, Shimoda beat Bennett, drew Toyota, and drew Shimoda. Then it comes to me that these records aren't checking out with what I have listed here. The Shimoda vs. Bison draw isn't showing up anywhere in the standings. Instead, Shimoda is listed with 4 wins instead of the 3 she actually had and Bison is listed with 2 losses instead of the 1 she actually had. I didn't understand the .5 points for a no contest in the first place as that makes things come up 1 point short (every match is worth 2 points, so if both competitors get .5...)

Some other notes, clarifications, points I forgot to make, updates, etc.

Regarding Rie Tamada-Tamada is in the Japan Grand Prix, so her knee surgery is apparently being put off.

Regarding Takako Inoue-Takako had her eye surgery on the 14th, so her sickness couldn't have pushed it back very far. I would not be too surprised if she still returned on 8/20 since AJW will want an All-Pacific title match on the big show. Observer says she also had a concussion. This would make sense as to why it was originally thought she would be out for the rest of the year. The only thing that's been released to the Japanese media is a broken orbital bone though. I can see why Kansai's disease would not be released as that is a personal matter, but why a concussion would be concealed is beyond me.

Regarding Yamada going to Gaea-Observer says AJW wanted to retire her this week (maybe the 13th?) but she met with the AJW office and they agreed that she could work in Gaea. Observer says AJW's reason for wanting to retire Yamada is that they stopped pushing her. If AJW wanted to get rid of her, it would seem like more of a cost cutting move than anything else. Attendance is so low now and it's even worse than last year when they lost money. Yamada makes a lot in comparison to many of the other wrestlers because she's been with the promotion since 1987. I question the timing of wanting Yamada to retire this month. If they wanted to retire her, why not have her in the Japan Grand Prix and use her to put over a few of the lower level wrestlers that they are planning on pushing? Then have her retirement on 8/20 in Budokan since they need something to sell tickets for that certain failure. Why reunite the legendary Toyota and Yamada team only to get rid of Yamada two months later? This leaves Manami Toyota without a tag partner and her previous partners are unavailable as Ito is with Hotta, and Yoshida is with Takako (well, I guess she's available at the moment), and Shimoda is with Mita. The only star without a tag partner right now is Kyoko, but I don't see that pairing. Maybe someone like Tamura or Tamada might be moved up and team with Toyota, which would not be a good move right now because if you've seen Toyota matches when she teams with a weak partner, she takes it upon herself to make sure the match is still good. This means she works a good portion of the match, more than she would when she had good partners. The problem with this is that she's not really in the condition to do this now. Yamada debuts for Gaea on 7/21 vs. KAORU.

Regarding Delfin vs. Togo-I don't think I made it clear that this match killed Delfin so to speak. It was basically a burial for him as the #2 face in the promotion. Sasuke said in a press conference that Delfin quit the promotion, but press conferences can be used to get angles over so that's not necessarily the truth. If Delfin comes back, which I think he will, it will have to be in a different role (heel, new gimmick, etc). The fans are unhappy with him because this match and the subsequent disappearance established him as a coward if not a colossal wussy.

Regarding Shinzaki-For Shinzaki to work some dates in All Japan, he would most likely have to leave Michinoku Pro (he could be a free agent or join a promotion like FMW that already sends Hayabusa to AJ). If he stays in Michinoku Pro and still works some AJ dates, then I think that's a sign that the NJ-Michinoku working relationship is finished. I don't think NJ cares too much about Michinoku guys working in the WWF because it doesn't really affect NJ. It affects Bischoff, but I don't think NJ will give up matches that can make them money just to appease Uncle Eric. However, I do think NJ would be unhappy if Michinoku was working with their leading rival, All Japan.

Regarding Schilt vs. Kondo-I confused someone about the result, so maybe I confused others as well. The result was Kondo via judges decision after the match went the 20:00 time limit. I was focussing on Schilt so much because I'm impressed with how far this guy has come.

Regarding the WAR 7/6 show-This show drew 6,000 to the 10,500 seat Sumo Hall, which is not good, especially since the card was to celebrate Tenryu's 20th year in wrestling. Tarzan Goto doesn't mean anything at the box office these days, or in the ring for that matter. Tenryu seems to be running out of opponents that he can draw big houses with. Last year he did Muta & Takada. Akira Maeda was at the show, but Maeda vs. Tenryu will never happen because Maeda working a match with Tenryu would kill the credibility of his RINGS promotion. Abdullah's job to Fujiwara was Abby's first job in WAR.

Regarding the Ozaki & Sugar Sato vs. Chigusa & Sonoko Kato match-The finish was as follows: Chigusa had Oz alone in the ring and applied a sleeper hold. Akira Hokuto came in the ring in her street clothes and started kicking Chigusa. Then, Chigusa and Oz started brawling outside the ring. Sugar, who was the legal wrestler for her team, stayed in the ring and Sonoko went somewhere, but wasn't seen on camera. Chigusa was getting counted out as Oz was holding her to prevent her from reentering the ring. Oz Academy won via countout. Strange finish for Gaea as they normally don't have countouts. The other strange thing is that the Oz Academy was extremely excited about this, celebrating as if this count out win was a real big deal. Maybe they were just trying to rub it in as a bit of taunting was going on.

Special Thanks to Scott Lacy