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    This promotion was consistently putting on the best shows of all the women's leagues in 1997, but the foundation could only withstand so many hits before it came crumbling down. At first it was largely bit players, Saburo, Fusayo Nochi, and Yuki Miyazaki (although I felt she could have been very good if not excellent if she would have hung around), but when you lose wrestlers the caliber of Hiromi Yagi, Candy Okutsu, and Mayumi Ozaki, you are just out of luck. These people can't really be replaced, especially when the only new additions are rookies. The death of Plum Mariko, then retirement of Cuty Suzuki in December of 1998 and, on top of that, their champion and best worker Hikari Fukuoka in March of 1999. What can you say?  It no longer becomes an issue of their depth being killed, it becomes a total rebuilding period because their whole roster is gone. Of the seventeen wrestlers they had on the roster in December of 1996, only seven (Kansai, Devil, Bolshoi, Kuzumi, Amano, Miyaguchi, and Motoya) are still wrestling for JWP. It's certainly no mystery why match quality and attendance has taken a nosedive. This was my favorite promotion, and I still want to love them, but they don't really have much to offer at this point.  The fans and all the other leagues realize this sad fact. This is the worst time in years to be rebuilding because the fans aren't paying to see new stars, and even the biggest shows with marquee matches between the stars of the interpromotional era aren't drawing very well at this point.

    I don't really feel that there was an MVP in this promotion in 1998. Hikari Fukuoka seems like the obvious choice because she held the title the entire year, and unfortunately this is mainly a cosmetic award. However, she didn't have any championship performances. She wasn't having any exceptional singles matches, wasn't raising the level of the opposition, and wasn't putting asses in the seats. If you come right down to it, she was wrestling stupid matches where nothing happened early on to build the match in any way, and then they eventually started doing their spots until the finish. Kuzumi was programmed against Hikari in singles, and with Hikari in tag, so she was under the tutelage of someone who really didn't know what she was doing. Sure they had a few excellent tag matches, 2/11 against Manami Toyota & Kaoru Ito & 6/14 against Devil & Cuty Suzuki, but that was only because they are exceptional workers. Their singles matches declined because they didn't have anyone to carry them. Hikari wasn't wrestling Kansai for some unknown reason even though Kansai was theoretically the top contender for the title, probably because they didn't want Kansai to put Hikari over again. Kuzumi didn't have Yagi to carry her, and her matches against her peers declined when they did less spots because they didn't build the match around the spots they were doing, they just wasted time early on like Hikari.

    "Hikari's title stint in general was a big disappointment.  As far as I know, after her initial title win against Kansai, she never defended it against anyone who was on or above her level (i.e.. Devil, Kansai or Cuty). The highest ranked wrestler she beat in a title defense was probably Command Bolshoi in September 1997, and Bolshoi hardly oozes credibility," wrote James Phillips.

    She beat Cuty in a singles match on 5/5/97 that was the JWP "Match of the Year" for 1997, but to my knowledge the title was not on the line. I disagree that Bolshoi was the highest ranked wrestler. She might be listed ahead of Kuzumi in the profiles because she's been around a lot longer, but all that time has shown that she's really no threat to anybody. At best, she's someone who gets lucky once in a blue moon, like when she beat Chigusa Nagayo in 0:28 10/20/94.  Kuzumi had obviously surpassed The Damn Clown, and you knew with all the matches they were having, she eventually had to win one.

    "The one time they put Hikari in the ring with Devil in singles (August '98), Hikari did the job. Surely if Devil *had* to win here, they could have followed it up with Devil getting a title shot, giving Hikari the chance to prove that she can beat Devil?  There's no reason why Devil couldn't have received a title match on account of the win against Hikari, and why Hikari couldn't have had beaten her - Devil had already jobbed to Amano and Miyaguchi in '98, so they wouldn't have been giving much away by having her put over Hikari when she had already lost to lower ranked wrestlers," wrote James.

    JWP has become the most bizarre organization when it comes to using their top title. Instead of giving shots to the established top stars, they give them to the up and comers and the never was or will be Bolshoi.  I don't understand the statement they are trying to make with their title. Kana has never beaten anyone, yet she gets a title shot. Meanwhile, Kansai, Super Heel Devil, and Ozaki (before she left) post the best singles records in the league, but never get a title shot. It would be like if All Japan scrapped their rotation and started giving TC shots to Omori, Izumida, and Inoue while Kawada, Kobashi, and Taue were just wasting away.

    It's ridiculous that Super Heel does not get a title shot even though she held the most prestigious of the never defended GAEA (AAAW) titles, and has shown she can still beat Hikari in a singles match. It's even more ridiculous that Kansai, the woman who totally dominated the title in the first five years of it's existence, is not given even one rematch after losing it. Even boxing is not usually that ridiculous because they know there's money to be made off these kind of rematches.

    I don't feel that Kuzumi improved last year, and really neither did Rieko Amano, Tomoko Miyaguchi, and even Kanako Motoya (she improved the most of these four, but her overall improvement was marginal). They had made huge strides in 1996 and 1997, but there just wasn't any direction on top to get these four to do anything other than spots.  The aforementioned departure of their best and smartest wrestler, Ozaki, who became a free agent and barely worked in JWP after early March, was a key to this. The other two veterans who understand psychology and know how to carry matches, Dynamite Kansai & Devil Masami, didn't even try. They seemed too worried about keeping their spots to be bothered trying to teach the younger wrestlers how to advance beyond matches with strong work and spots, so it never really happened.

    "I don't think Kansai and Devil were ever in danger of losing their spots. JWP is a small promotion, and they were forced to sustain losses of several key players over the last two years, such as Yagi, Okutsu, Plum, Ozaki, etc. This left Cuty, Fukuoka, Bolshoi, Devil, Kansai and a group of youngsters. Out of the entire roster, the drawing power of all but Kansai and Devil is very questionable.  If those two were moved out of the main event completely rather than just out of the title matches, attendance would surely have dropped, and that's the last thing JWP needed," wrote James

    "Um exactly when was the last time Devil or Kansai in a main event actually drew a house? I seriously doubt either of them (especially Devil) has meant much of anything at the box office in at least two years," wrote Michael Smith.

          The Jaguar retirement match on 12/26/98 at Tokyo Ariake Coliseum drew 5,800, which happens to be the highest paid attendance of a women's wrestling show in 1998 (the announced attendance of the AJW 30th Anniversary show and LLPW L-1 were highly inflated). The thing is they probably could have drawn the same number if Yuko Kosugi was in the main event, and Jaguar putting her over would have done so much for Jd' whereas Jaguar putting Devil over did nothing for anyone other than Devil herself. I really don't think people were paying to see Jaguar's opponent (I mean, obviously Jaguar vs. Fang wouldn't have drawn that kind of crowd, but you get the point), but I really do think JWP screwed up by not doing anything with Devil's win there. It's not that I want to see Devil in big matches, she is a slug at this point, but if Jaguar wouldn't put Hikari or Kuzumi over, the next best thing is to try to transfer the glory to them by having them beat Devil in the main event of the "big" JWP show the next month. The other option is to keep Devil hot by giving her some "high profile" wins in JWP, and then have her do one big job say four months down the road.

    Since I don't give Devil credit for the 5,800, in the last few years Devil has only drawn on the rare occasion that Chigusa was involved. In her defense, it's not like they build say Devil vs. Hikari or Kuzumi up and then took out a big arena only to draw 1,000 or whatever. They haven't run any front-line matches, so it's not necessarily that she can't draw anymore, we don't really know. We know that Kuzumi vs. Kana or Amano for the title wasn't a draw.

    "There's a difference though. Kuzumi vs. Motoya, Amano and Miyaguchi doesn't draw (aside from the recession) that well because none of them have come close to being built properly.  While they usually have mid-high *** matches against each other, I guess they don't mean that much to the general wrestling public. Devil has been around forever, and should be able to draw on her name alone like an Austin or Hogan (although obviously not on nearly as high a level)," wrote Michael.

    I don't see the comparison to Austin when he's only meant something for three years. Before that he was a "Ringmaster" that only won the King of the Ring because Helmsley had to go and make a stupid sign with the Bad Guy and the future Bad Booker (like Bad Lieutenant he's not worthy of being called a real name, the difference is Harvey Keitel was typically incredible and gave one of the great uncompromised, realistic performances ever as Bad Lieutenant, while Bad Booker is consistently horrible no matter the name or the endeavor) at the Garden. Anyone can be killed off no matter how big a name they are. Vader was a dominant monster everywhere he went, capturing world titles on seemingly every continent, but how many people was he drawing for his all important PPV matches against that guy that used to have a first name Bradshaw or Mark Henry? Certainly he could have drawn in the WWF, but Vince apparently will only push big guys that have no talent see Undertaker, Kane, the guy you call "Big Slow," and all those "legends" that fought Hogan in the 80's like King Kong Bundy and Big John DUD. I can do a lot better than the Vader example though. How about WCW killing off Flair even in the Carolinas. The clowns thought it was more important to carry out their vendetta than to book for business. The result was they killed off the whole territory, and Flair as a great TV ratings draw, and none of this was Flair's fault unless you blame him for going through with these angles and matches that obviously were not going to do anyone a bit of good.

    "My point in mentioning Austin and Hogan in comparison to Devil was that Devil is a legend who still should be able to draw on her name (had she stayed in shape, etc.), while Austin is this guy who draws against anyone even though he's not half the worker he was 2+ years ago.  It's not only declining in-ring ability that's hurting Devil, maybe it's that she's not as big a star as we think. A legend? Yes. Someone the fans care about? That's not exactly been shown over the last couple of years." wrote Michael.

    If she was truly a legend, it wouldn't even matter if she stayed in shape. See that svelte, ripped "shooter" Akira Maeda. The thing with women's wrestling now is it just isn't drawing to that point that how much someone meant five, ten, fifteen years ago has become almost across the board irrelevant when discussing current drawing power.  The shelf life of the women isn't nearly what it is for the men, and unfortunately they just haven't made that kind of impact on people to get the to point where they transcend wrestling and become national heroes or cultural icons.

    "Besides Devil's poor physical condition and weak, lackluster matches, she really doesn't mean anything at the gate anymore except against Chigusa who apparently draws against anyone except Manami," wrote Michael.

    Chigusa's drawing power in 1998 was non-existent. GAEA was drawing over 1,000 fans to about two shows a month, the only thing that makes their attendance figures look impressive is that they average 1272 announced per show because they only ran 38 shows in the entire year. In comparison AJW averaged 1241 announced, but that was over 184 shows. I think the AJW house show attendance is really exaggerated, but the point is GAEA wasn't getting the job done. Every Korakuen show they ran but two drew 1,500 fans or less, which certainly isn't impressive when that's one of the two or three shows you run in a month. The two that drew more were both sellouts. The first of the two was for a loaded show on 8/23/98 where Aja & Oz captured the AAAW tag titles and, in the main event, Chigusa captured the AAAW singles title from *cough* Devil. *cough* The other time was on 12/27/98, and Chigusa wasn't even in the main event or the semifinal. Certainly the Sato & Nagashima vs. Chigusa & Suckura match that was third from the top was not the reason this show sold out. In my estimation, the show only sold out because the Cuty retirement was held at the same arena earlier in the day, so people hung around for the GAEA show.

    I assume that a match against Devil match would draw better, even if it was also totally devoid of any build up like those two were, but I don't really know because they refuse to run it. The whole problem with what they are doing is that they aren't making her seem like she's still something. If they were, she'd be in important main event singles matches. However, they also aren't protecting her. If they were, she wouldn't be doing what for her is a high ratio of jobs per competitive matches. Basically they've devalued her by not valuing her, and the result is they don't get what they should out of the jobs that she does do.

    Michael wrote, "We don't necessarily know if Devil vs. Amano would draw better then Kanako vs. Amano regardless of one match being much better than the other. Realistically is there any reason to think Devil vs. anyone would draw a great number based on it being Devil as opposed to her opponent?"

    I don't think there is any match in JWP that will draw cold. Kansai, Devil, Kuzumi, Amano, Miyaguchi, and Motoya are all capable of drawing if JWP could make the match seem like people needed to see it.

    Michael wrote, "As for devaluating Devil, I agree, but she really can't work anymore anyway due to her weight so what's the point in rewarding that?"

    That could be a description of Chigusa as well. If Chigusa was in JWP, her drawing power wouldn't have underwent the resurgence it has this year in GAEA due to the SSU angle and her first matches against Lioness in a decade. It wouldn't be Chigusa's fault, it would be JWP's because they wouldn't have set up the angles and matches that gave her the opportunity to draw.

    "They messed up in how they phased her down, but who knows if she had a hand in that or not (i.e. like the aforementioned Hogan and Austin, she only does a job when it's clear that she was 'putting someone over' as opposed to losing to them if you understand the difference although Austin never loses so I guess that'd be Hogan and Nash)," wrote Michael.

    Promotions that can't effectively phase out the old are doomed to die out when the old retire. Most of the time they have enough money to hang around long enough for the next generation to get over, but even so, the ideal situation is to not go through long down periods. I have no idea if Devil had a hand in it, but if JWP lets Devil get away with the kind of stuff Hogan gets away with, they have no one to blame but themselves.

    Kansai has a good history of drawing, not only for JWP, but also for AJW.

    Michael wrote, "Not that I'm completely disagreeing here but aside from Aja and one match against Manami who has she drawn big against in AJW or anyone else outside of JWP?"

    I think that's kind of a weird question because there were only three headliners for AJW during the interpromotional period, Aja, Hokuto, and Toyota (Yamada was ranked ahead of Toyota for a long time, but never had any main event singles matches). So, I'll give you what I believe to be Kansai's drawing history (based on Observer numbers) when she was in a key match on a major AJW show. That way everyone can decide for themselves what kind of draw she was. All of the following are shows with Kansai in the main event except 12/6/93, where her match was under the big Hokuto vs. Kandori rematch and 8/30/95, where in my opinion she was in the semifinal because AJW wanted to give the biggest push to Toyota, who they were setting up to challenge Kansai, rather than a JWP wrestler.
 
 

Date	Location	Match	Crowd
11/26/92	Kawasaki Shi Taiikukan	3WA Tag: Yamada & Toyota over Kansai & Ozaki	sellout
4/11/93	Osaka Furitsu Taiikukaikan	3WA Tag: Kansai & Ozaki  over Yamada & Toyota	6500
6/3/93	Sapporo  Nakajima Taiiku Center	3WA Tag: Kansai & Ozaki over Hotta & Takako	3500
8/25/93	Tokyo Nippon Budokan	3WA Single: Aja over Kansai	14500
12/6/93	Tokyo Ryogoku Kokugikan	3WA Tag: Yamada & Toyota over Kansai & Ozaki	sellout
8/24/94	Tokyo Nippon Budokan	Kansai & Hotta over Aja & Hokuto	sellout
8/30/95	Osaka Furitsu Taiikukaikan	3WA Single: Kansai over Aja	sellout
12/4/95	Tokyo Ryogoku Kokugikan	3WA Single: Toyota over Kansai	sellout

   "In trying to prove your point on Kansai's drawing power, the only show you listed that wasn't a loaded interpromotional show was the show where she beat Aja for the akai (red) belt. Granted, she was in the headline match on those shows, but it's somewhat of a false statement to say that her drawing power can be proved by them. It's true that she was a part of those crowds, but not as big a part as had the shows not been totally loaded," wrote Michael.

    They were loaded shows because unlike wrestlers like Hikari Fukuoka and Harley Saito (who were in the JGP '93 so they had singles matches against everyone in their block. These two, along with Ozaki, were the other outsiders on the Sapporo JGP '93 show that didn't draw that well), AJW wouldn't waste Kansai on the smaller shows. The biggest testament to Kansai is that after 11/20/94, when AJW stopped using wrestlers from other promotions because it was too much of a headache and they were tired of splitting matches with the lesser promotions, they kept using one outside wrestler as a headliner.  It wasn't Kandori, it certainly wasn't Kudo, and it wasn't any of the lesser stars from JWP, it was Kansai. She went on to become the first wrestler from a rival promotion to win the akai belt. The two shows in 1995 that she was on were not interpromotional shows, they were AJW shows that had Kansai, AJW wrestlers, and free agents that had been working in AJW all along like Jaguar, Lioness, Bison, and Bull. If AJW wouldn't have wasted Kansai's title reign and then eliminated her from the picture, they could have drawn big houses for a rematch against Aja, a rematch against Toyota, and a first match against Hokuto. Kansai vs. Kyoko probably even would have drawn a good number, and Hotta could have got a shot as well although she has never been a draw and that would have been another 6/3/93 situation. Instead, they just let Toyota run through everyone and then she had no matches left and they had no one to give the title to that could draw. I think Kyoko could have worked out a lot better if they had given her a short reign earlier on, before she gained weight and her ability slid. The discussion of AJW's mistake in discarding their former champions rather than keeping them strong with lateral wins to lead up to transitional title reigns is one for another day though.

    Kansai hasn't popped houses in the past few years, I agree, but she hasn't really been given the chance. Her situation is similar to Toyota's, they decided someone else was going to be the star of the promotion for better or as it really turned out worse, so she just didn't get the front-line matches anymore. Kansai has done less jobs than Toyota. However, Toyota at least had major interpromotional matches with Kandori and Chigusa to give us an indication of the drawing power she still has (4,000 range). Kansai hasn't been put in a position where she could still be a big draw on a major show.  Her situation is similar to Aja Kong after AJW took the title off of her. Once the focus was taken off of her, the mystique just seems to vanish and her indestructible monster aura is diminished. Suddenly, she's just a wrestler who has been depushed, so people aren't as interested in seeing her matches as they used to be. This is why Misawa fucked up so royally in his handling of Vader. He never even gave him the chance to be the monster that he was in UWF-I. Instead, he decided he "had to" go over him in their first two singles matches even though they easily could, and should, have done a draw in the Carny and Vader had much more to gain and maintain by winning the dome match. The reason Kansai has not been a draw for them of late is that within JWP they don't do anything to make people care about seeing her matches, and outside of JWP they haven't given the fans the matches they'd like to see like Kansai vs. Kandori, Kansai vs. Hotta (this would draw well by today's greatly lessened standards of what a good house is), Kansai vs. Toyota, Kansai vs. Chigusa, etc.  Kansai's drawing numbers in 1999 still wouldn't be as good as they were in 1995, but she certainly is capable of doing more in that regard than she has, and more importantly, she could increase the minimal drawing power of Kuzumi, Amano, and Miyaguchi if they did something to make people want to see the newer wrestlers against the few remaining mainstays.

    "They should've been kept reasonably strong going into late last year and this year, but JWP let them pretty much run rampant over the fab 4 last year and it's not like that's changed a whole lot even though Kuzumi is the champ. By now both should've put over at least 3 of the 4 in "credible" matches but that still really hasn't happened," wrote Michael

   I don't think it's so much a matter of wins and losses in JWP, but that the matches aren't given meaning so the results doesn't have that much meaning either. They just don't seem to be doing anything to make you want to see the younger wrestler get the win. Certainly it would come off better if the finish was more convincing when the younger wrestler went over, but it still wouldn't have the meaning that it should.

    Michael wrote, "I disagree with that because at this time what's the point of having Devil or Kansai going over Amano, Miyaguchi, or Kanako?"

    When you only have six wrestlers that mean anything at all, what is the point of killing off two of them? If they still win some of the time, that gives you options, it gives you some matches that you can run that people might want to see. Not every promotion is like the WWF, who has gotten away with running the same two or three matches on top for the past two years without people really even realizing it. That's what you get when you have a fan base that believes in that "I want to be entertained" b.s. Hey, I want to be entertained as much as the next person, but when I say that I mean I want to see things that are thought provoking, not that I want to shut off my brain for two or however many hours so I can put up with the ridiculous disgrace to wrestling known as Sports Entertainment.

    "I do agree that the finishes need to be more convincing (here that DDP, you punk ass mark), but I guess contrary to what some people think WCW isn't the only company that has selfish, past their prime wrestlers clogging up the top spots," wrote Michael.

    The difference is that Kuzumi, Amano, Miyaguchi, and Motoya are in main event matches all the time. When was the last time a guy under 35 not named Goldberg was headlining a WCW PPV? I can run off a long list of guys whose top spots are being hogged by geezers like Hogan, Nash, Savage, etc. Whose top spot is Kansai or Devil taking up, The Damn Clown's? I'll Never Draw Like Shinya Hashimoto's? The Bridge of Sai's?

    "People can say what they want about Chigusa and she deserves some of the criticism that she gets for not jobbing but at least she draws and means something," wrote Michael

    I think she's drawing right now because she's given the fans reasons to want to see the matches, even more so than because she's loaded the opposition side with big names. Even with all the big names they have been using of late, GAEA still has only run two major shows in the history of the company, so it's not like Chigusa is really packing the fans in. It would be interesting to see how much money she has to pay the SSU to pack that extra 600 fans into Korakuen, but GAEA is the hot promotion right now and the Lioness vs. Chigusa rematch will be another sellout.

    "GAEA was still drawing the best joshi crowds at Korakuen even before the SSU angle," wrote Michael.

    Their numbers sucked, they drew less fans than  LLPW even though LLPW ran three less shows. Attendance was horrible for all the women's leagues. GAEA's  drew better than Neo for instance, but that doesn't make GAEA's numbers good, it makes them less awful.

    "Granted, it's not like Chigusa is carrying the whole company like Austin and Maivia, but the point is that more people are paying to see her vs. SSU then are paying to see Lioness on a Jd' show or LCO on a Neo show before they went freelance," wrote Michael.

    Lioness was the only name left in Jd' and the only other name in Neo was Kyoko. GAEA has no names within their league either, but they got them all to come in. I don't think it's unreasonable to think that the crowds would have been that much different if ARSION, Neo, and Jd' got to run some of the big GAEA vs. SSU matches on their shows, but Chigusa was smart. She consolidated the whole feud to her league, and left all the understudies like Bloody, Fang, Ryuna, Amano, and Saya out so only her young wrestlers could gain anything from the feud.

    "The lack of big shows run by GAEA isn't that big of a deal because none of the women's groups would consistently draw crowds in excess of say 2,200-2,500 people anyway," wrote Michael.

    The point is that the drawing power of GAEA is way overrated. I'm not impressed that they have to book Lioness, Aja, Ozaki, and LCO in key matches just to draw 2,000 fans. You shouldn't be either. It's like they are running all interpromotional shows to draw numbers that are better than the other leagues regular shows, but only impressive if you get into percent more figures (i.e. 2000 is 100% more than 1,000). They are giving away every big match that's out there and doing almost nothing to elevate their young wrestlers. Thus, when this thing runs it's course, and believe me it'll do so ten times quicker than it should, they might be right back to drawing 1,500 at Korakuen again because they'll have nothing left to present. It really depends how much of a fan base they can pick up right now, and how smart they are when it comes to switching people around to extend the shelf life of the talent they have.

    Getting back to my main point though, these matches that are just put together because they sound appealing, but otherwise there is no reason for them to be happening, like Chigusa vs. Toyota, aren't drawing as much as they should on paper and could in actuality. Even though the younger wrestlers in GAEA have less success than the younger wrestlers in JWP, GAEA does a better job of making you want to see them get the big win and on the extremely rare occasion that you do, it's convincing. Thus, something like Satomura over Aja in tag comes off like the big event it should. On the other hand, Kuzumi over Kansai in a singles match should be ten times bigger, but it comes off flat.

    Michael wrote, "At this point are Devil and Kansai doing anything more then living off their pasts and killing JWP by holding down what's no longer the future but the present?"

    Not really. They are causing problems in the ring, and no one is stopping them. The bookers need to either do something with them to justify them still acting like they are the top two stars or force them to wrestle like Kuzumi, Amano, Miyaguchi and Motoya as at least their equals.

    "Devil and Kansai had to be kept strong, even if they weren't in the world title picture anymore," wrote James.

    What is the point of not having them in the title picture if they are kept strong? What is the point of keeping them strong if they are not in the world title picture? I would understand if they had several other people they could rely on, but even All Japan needs more than four headliners and needs more challengers for Misawa than Kawada, Kobashi, and Taue.

    Devil does not need to be on top though. The only reason I'd want her on top at her age is that people won't buy Kuzumi or Amano on top unless they take Devil's spot away with force. They need to beat her convincingly in the center of the ring, maybe even twice in a row because the fans aren't accepting the wrestlers that debuted in the 90's as headliners.

    Devil has been kept strong, but she has not been a focal point of the promotion in years. Even when she was the champion, she wasn't the focal point of the promotion because the big thing was interpromotional matches, and AJW gave all the big matches to Kansai. Devil never played a key role in an AJW interpromotional show unless it was a nostalgia match (like Chigusa vs. Devil at Dreamslam). AJW was very clear in sending the message that Devil was no longer a key player, if they had her on their show at all. Even though their records were still good, Cuty and Devil have been losing ground in JWP for years. Since Kansai was feuding with Ozaki, and Hikari was the new superstar that was being groomed to take the title, that didn't leave much for those two. They were involved in the tag title scene, but Hikari's teams dominated that title as well. When Devil & Hikari lost the titles to Toyota & Ito, only to have Hikari & Kuzumi win them back almost immediately and Devil not move on to bigger things, that was a pretty clear sign that Devil's stock was going down and Kuzumi's was going up.

    Kansai should still be on top because Kuzumi hasn't taken that spot away from her. Kansai started to lose ground in 1997. She missed time because she had collagen, and sandwiched around that she was limited to tag matches where she didn't log as much ring time. During this period, she also lost the title to Hikari. The thing is that JWP doesn't understand that one win doesn't erase everything that happened previously, which is why Hikari and Kuzumi only seem like the top star because the promotion suddenly decided that they were. Anyway, with Hikari as the new top star within JWP, and Kansai and Ozaki never getting to wrestle her, it was pretty obvious who the focal point of the promotion was. The thing is that JWP was never able to get much for Hikari outside of JWP, so she never reached the level of stardom that she should have, and didn't surpass Kansai or Ozaki in the minds of the other leagues and probably the fans as well. Some of these series against the other leagues never really went anywhere to get to Kansai though. Kansai vs. Shinobu Kandori was the marquee match in the JWP vs. LLPW feud, but it only lasted long enough for them to have a semifinal tag match under Hikari vs. Yasha Kurenai. Kyoko vs. Kansai needed to be booked in early 98 when both were over a lot more.

    GAEA would use Kansai, Devil & Ozaki heavily early on, but Hikari almost never wrestled there. As time went on, it was mainly Ozaki who was being used fairly regularly. She was playing more of a key role in GAEA than in JWP in 1997, as her Oz Academy was in the primary feud against Chigusa and her protégés, and she was the number two wrestler they were using, beating everyone including Chigusa. This feud ran over into JWP somewhat, but the only major match it produced in JWP was the 8 woman elimination on 6/8/97. As time went on, Ozaki's standing in GAEA dropped somewhat, as it had in JWP when Hikari became champion (since Ozaki was no longer the top opponent for the champion, or even an opponent for the champion) because GAEA started using Aja Kong and later on Lioness Asuka as regular heels. This meant that Ozaki went from the top heel, to the 3rd highest ranked member of the SSU.

    Certainly Kansai & Devil were not going to vanish from the main events. To run those six and eight women tag matches that are the last match on the smaller shows, JWP has to use almost their entire roster, even Watanabe. The drawing power of Kansai & Devil was eroding though because every time JWP would announce a major match within the promotion, it would involve other wrestlers. The message was that you were supposed to pay to see Hikari or Kuzumi, but the fans didn't show up. It's too hard to place the blame on any one thing because the drop in attendance could be because the fans weren't getting the matches they wanted, or because the product was sliding on every level at the same time that attendance for all the women's leagues was dropping.

    The way they set up the matches between the older wrestlers and the younger wrestlers didn't really create interest in them. Part of the problem is that Fighting TV Samurai! is really low budget, so they just roll the matches out. When JWP was on WOWOW, they had the budget to package highlights of previous events and matches (several of which would not have aired otherwise, and don't now because only one show per month is even taped for the Samurai program) to tell stories and set up the current matches. These days, it was like you wondered if Kuzumi or Amano or Miyaguchi would get a win over Kansai or Devil or Hikari or Cuty, but nothing was done before or during the match to really make you long for that result. I felt cheated when I saw some of these results because they payoff was so badly lacking. You felt like Kansai & Devil were pouting the way they wouldn't sell much, and made their loss seem like nothing but a fluke. It should have been two fired up wrestlers having a heated and intense match, with the younger one coming closer and closer until eventually they won. If it was done in this manner, with a credible convincing loss by Devil or Kansai in the center of the ring, you'd still want to see a rematch to see if it was a one-time thing or if the younger wrestler had got that good. I don't understand why JWP doesn't see this, and why they didn't see the interest there would have been in a Hikari vs. Kansai rematch. I don't want to make All Japan sound like they know what they are doing, but things haven't gotten so bad there that they will suddenly stop promoting Misawa vs. Kobashi matches when Kobashi finally takes the TC from Misawa.

    In Amano's case, she was especially hurt by having to be a submission wrestler instead of a heel when Ozaki left. It's not that there's anything wrong with that gimmick, but when your opponents don't put the submissions over to make them seem dangerous and credible...

    "I have to agree with everything that Mike wrote about JWP in 1998.  It was kind of  an "even for the course" year for them.  Nobody really improved or declined except for maybe Devil Masami, whose ability declined a little in 1998.  Losing Ozaki in the spring really hurt because she was the one who lit some fire in the younger girls and gave them some opportunity to improve.  Also, Amano lost her whole edge after Ozaki left because, while she remained a member, that essentially put an end to her involvement in the Oz Academy," wrote Jason Higgs.

    Anyway, you either had matches that were all spots or matches where they killed time and then did spots. While Kuzumi, Miyaguchi, Amano, and Motoya got some wins in their own league to warrant considering them stars, they didn't really look ready to take over the company because of the way the matches were wrestled and the fact that Masami, Kansai, and too a lesser extent Fukuoka didn't really put them over. Beyond that, they didn't look like a threat to anyone outside of JWP because they didn't get a chance to have singles matches with veterans from other leagues where they were considered as their equals, or at least something close.

    "Exactly!  Kuzumi & co. have been positioned on the same level as the likes of Yoshiko Tamura in interpromotional matches, which is a complete joke when you look at how they are booked 'at home.'  As you pointed out, in Neo Tamura is buried on the undercard working half hour draws against Misae Genki. She's not even in the ring with Kyoko or Shimoda, let alone in a position where she might have a chance of beating either of them.  Kuzumi, on the other hand, has been pushed in JWP. She beat Cuty and Hikari last year, won the Open Weight title from Hikari in February, and retained it against Kana and Amano in April. I think that in 1999 JWP might be able to justify naming Kuzumi as their MVP, based on achievements if not on her stagnated ringwork.  The only aspect of JWP's booking of Kuzumi so far this year I can find fault with is that her first win over Kansai came in the tournament, rather than a title defense, and that after two defenses in April, it's now three months since she last defended the title," wrote James.

    A few years ago, I thought JWP booking, like JWP wrestling, was excellent. Now I seem to disagree with everything they do. I  think that Kansai vs. Kuzumi should have been they key match they presented this year. I mean, I can't even begin to justify the notion that anything else could be the top priority. To me, since this was the first match between the two where you really felt like Kuzumi had a chance of winning (they had mainly been kept apart since Kuzumi got a serious push, but I'm sure if I wanted to go back a few years I could find matches where Kuzumi was still at junior level so she didn't have a prayer) they had two options. A win for Kansai sets up the title match that she may never get. A draw shows that they are both equal. Both women could benefit from that, and it would make me more interested in seeing a title match that would decide who was really the better of the two. Of course, neither was the result they chose. The problem with the way the tournament is set up is that Kansai might have run the table if Kuzumi didn't beat her. Instead they did this match very early in the tournament even though it was THE MATCH in that block. Then they made it not be the match by eliminating Kansai fairly early for no good reason. Now, it's down to whether Haruyama or Kuragaki can play spoiler, and who really cares about them or their matches to pay to see them try to shut Kuzumi down so Amano can win the block?  Then you have the other bracket where Devil and Kana are already done, so all Miyaguchi has to do is win one out of two to beat them out, and the odds of that are extremely high when she doesn't have to worry about beating Devil or Kana already since she already did that. Bolshoi could tie since Watanabe has to get a win, but how many people really care whether Bolshoi can tie or not? The AJW JGP is booked so much better except they are seriously screwed up having Takahashi finish ahead of Wakizawa. Still, with one match left, Hotta, Takako, Ito, Maekawa, Momoe, & Toyota all could either win outright or create some kind of mega playoff. JWP just doesn't doesn't have the guns to pull off a two block tournament right now. If you threw everyone together, they'd be give away more matches (they can't make them meaningful anyway), but then they'd actually have some options when it comes to who is going to keep people's points down. Also, as long as they were going to work with Neo, why not get Genki or someone ranked higher into the tournament. At least the way Genki is booked these days, a win or loss against her would have some meaning for Amano, Miyaguchi, and Kana. The tournament would be better without Watanabe, but as it is they weren't even able to get the same amount of wrestlers in each block!

    Kuzumi won the award, I assume, because they decided she was it was going to be their top star in 1999. The problem is they failed to do the necessary things to bring her to that level. As I said before, the veterans didn't really put the younger wrestlers over that much, especially in the instances where the younger wrestler was winning. None of the younger wrestlers got even one big interpromotional win in a singles match. Kuzumi teamed with Hikari to take the tag titles from Toyota and Ito, but that was about the and end of the "fab four's" major interpromotional wins. Almost every other time Kuzumi was in an interpromotional match, she was against wrestlers around her age that didn't have her push in their league, and that was just keeping her down. If you thought it was bad for Kuzumi, it was that much worse for someone like Kana, who wasn't even dominant against junior level opponents.

    "For most wrestlers, any day on the August 17 weekend could be called "The Day The Wrestling Died", but for Kanako, nothing was worse than February 15 and the Tanny Mouse fiasco.  I don't think the interpromotional booking of Kana has been as bad as that of Kuzumi.  Admittedly, Kuzumi never had to job to the second worst worker in all of Japan, Tanny Mouse, but at the
same time she never got the push in JWP that Kuzumi did (until recently). Kana has never beaten Kansai, Devil, Hikari or Cuty. As far as I know, the 'biggest' win she has had was against Tomoko Miyaguchi, who is hardly a legend in the making herself," wrote James.

    I have to stick up for Tanny Mouse for the first and most likely last time in my life. She's not as bad as Shark Tsuchiya, Crusher Maedomari, Obatchi Iizuka, Megumi Sato (before she retired), Erika Watanabe, and you could argue a few other women. There are plenty of men that are worse in the indy leagues like Daikokubo Benkei, Masanobu Kurisu, "Great" Kojika, Ryuma Go, Kendo Nagasaki, Yuuichi Taniguchi, etc. I think Don Arakawa still tries to wrestle. Plus, Rusher Kimura and Haruka Eigen are technically wrestlers.

    It seems like JWP forgot about Miyaguchi. She was right on Kuzumi's level through most of 1997. Since they she hasn't been used very prominently and Amano passed her by.  She still has a lot of potential, but not as much as she used to, she's been toiling  for much too long and her work has stagnated. She really needs an identity, and I don't mean that ridiculous new name they gave her. I have to ask, what is the point of changing names when everyone still wrestlers and is pushed exactly the same?

    What was even worse is that these matches with JWP's new stars would come on really early in the show because they truly were prelims. This certainly isn't the answer, but it would have been better to have kept Kuzumi off all the interpromotional shows than to do what they did. I mean, they had her in the opening match at Together '98, on the undercard on the AJW 30th Anniversary fiasco, in tag matches early in the year against women like Yoshiko Tamura and Tanny Mouse whose questionable credibility was nose-diving due to Neo booking them into oblivion, and they "groomed her" to eventually take the title with a "key" interpromotional win over the legendary Yuka Shiina.

    "Kuzumi and Tamura were at more or less the same level when Tamura was still with AJW, but times have changed.  Kuzumi's stock has risen in JWP, whereas Tamura continues to rot on the Neo treadmill, almost to an extent that I would be pissed if Tomori Kobayashi or Mari Mogami came out of retirement and jobbed to her," wrote James.

    While I can't argue with the idea beyond naming Kuzumi MVP, it cheapens the award because her body of work just doesn't back it up. Of course, Kuzumi was their MVP in 1996, mainly because she teamed with Kansai to win the Discover New Heroine tag tournament that was one of the two "big attractions" on the AJW Budokan double flop on August 12th and 13th, so the precedent had already been set. In retrospect, it wouldn't have made much sense to name Hikari MVP since she was retiring soon, but I'm pretty sure they already selected the award before she made that decision. In absence of anyone else doing anything on top or against the other leagues, I don't see where there's any other options. The award should have been given to the wrestler who held the singles title all year and the tag title most of the year, Hikari.

    As far as Match of the Year goes, this is the second year in a row that JWP selected a match that may not have been seen by anyone other than those in attendance.

    James wrote, "They might choose to include it on one of their 'Official Release' handheld tapes, but I'm not holding my breath.  Why do I get the feeling that the January 15 Amano/Bolshoi vs. Hikari/Kuzumi tag title switch, another match that nobody saw (only a clip aired on TV), will be the 1999 JWP MOTY?"

    Cuty gets the meritorious service award for being with the promotion since it's inception. The fact that she hung around for an extra year in light of Plum's death to help the decimated promotion out may also be a factor in her receiving this award.
 

Credit: WON, Shukan Puroresu
Image Credit: Wani Books
Special Thanks to: James Phillips- Japanese Womens Wrestling Michael Smith & Jason Higgs