Amazingly, I agree with their selections of MVP and Best Match. This might be a first! To me, Yoshida is the obvious choice for MVP because she is ARSION. She is their best wrestler and their top star. Beyond that, she defines the style of the top singles matches, which are the best matches in the promotion, and the ones the promotion is identified with. Unfortunately, these matches don't define the style of all the singles matches in promotion because they haven't been the least bit strict about forcing wrestlers like Rie Tamada, Candy Okutsu, Ayako Hamada, and the Luchadors to uphold the style they set up for singles matches on their debut show. Thus, although for different reasons, you have a similar situation to All Japan where the Budokan main event and the other top singles matches are worked in one great style, but with the rest of the matches are generally worked in an inferior style.

    The other main reason Yoshida deserves the MVP is that she's done such a great job as a trainer. Mika Akino and Hamada were easily the two best female rookies of 1998. They looked good right off the bat, but also improved a great deal as the year went on. Certainly Yoshida is also somewhat responsible for the vast improvement of Michiko Omukai and Yumi Fukawa, who along with The Bloody, were the three most improved wrestlers of 1998. Futagami also improved a lot, but not quite as much as the three I just listed. Futagami had the ability when she was in LLPW, but since she was in the grandma league where no one wants to do anything new or different, she just didn't get that much opportunity to show it. In LLPW, she didn't have that big of a push, and was mainly involved in six woman tag matches. Gami was a good worker there, but when the opposition team has Eagle Sawai and Shark Tsuchiya, expectations for the match must be greatly diminished.  I think that if Gami would have had the opportunity to wrestle people like Harley Saito, Carol Midori, or Michiko Nagashima in singles matches that meant something, her ability would have been much more apparent. Since I knew she was a good prior to joining ARSION, I can't say that she improved as much as the three that I mentioned. The Bloody was a poor worker in 1997, but a top 25 female worker in 1998. Fukawa & Omukai were definitely held back in their respective leagues, but they were no better than average. I can see why some people would argue for Gami because she moved up from good to being a top 5 worker through the first seven months of 1998, but it was a weak year. I was very disappointed in her last five months, although almost none of it was not her fault. There was no excuse for her 8/9 match against Yoshida to not be **** range. It's hard to place the blame on her for not having a good match with Ayako at ZION '98 when the match was less than five minutes and Ayako was the one screwing things up. Then there was Gami Metal, which was just a waste of her talent. I mean, a comedy wrestle who does an eye gouge as a big spot is not the way you use wrestlers that have actual ability. When she was finally free from being Gami Metal, she had to do her first shoot match on the year end CARNIVAL ARSION show. Thus, while Omukai & Fukawa were having an excellent tag match, Futagami was making a different statement about her ability. Unfortunately, while that statement definitely helps her overall, since her only shoot match was against an joke of an opponent that fought like she'd never been on the ground before, I can't really point to this match as proof that Gami made any great strides in improving her ability as a shooter. Her strategy in her shoot match was good, but considering her opponent was only a standup fighter, it would have been a huge mistake to try to strike even if Gami was a proficient at it. Gami was never in danger of losing this match, but she didn't exactly run over the chump. Even if she did that wouldn't have proved she was anything great, look up Waterman, Ron to see why obliterating an opponent that has no business even being in the ring doesn't mean a damn thing.

    Even though Gami fell shy of my Most Improved, she can take solace in her "Special Award," whatever the hell that is. The same can be said of Ayako and her "Courageous Fighter Award." I have no idea what the criteria for these are, and I have no idea why they'd chose these awards over things like Rookie of the Year or Most Improved. They probably just wanted to give something to Gami & Ayako, but the Daughter of Gran Hamada Award was a little too obvious, and Mika Akino would have had to win Rookie of the Year if it was based on ability rather than push, so they came up with "Courageous Fighter Award." I guess Ayako's award could be justified because she really didn't show any fear in the ring. She did risky spots even though her execution wasn't perfect and she was injuring herself doing them on occassion. Also, she stood up to all her opponents, even Aja Kong. Of course, that would put her up for the Fails To Show Respect For Her Opponents and Elders Award, but they haven't concocted that one yet. That award would be pretty "Special" though...

Image credit: Quest
Image layering and retouching: Pierre Dour