The big interpromotional explosion year. For match quality, there’s nothing that even comes close to comparing to 1993. A total of 47 matches were rated ****+ (over 20 more than the next best year), and almost one third of all matches rated were ***1/2+ (again, no other year approaches this). 1993 also marked the third and final boom period for women’s wresting. It was different to the previous two, which were fuelled by prime time television seeing huge TV ratings and a fanbase of teenage schoolgirls. This boom period was fuelled by the magazines and the big arena shows with a fanbase largely consisting of male wrestling fans. It was also the shortest boom, beginning with the All-Star Dream Slam show on 4/2/1993, and lasting only throughout 1993 (although history has dictated it ended at the Tokyo Dome on 11/20/94, but even in that case, it was still the shortest boom). The Matsunaga’s vision for the year was the interpromotional rivalry, starting with All-Star Dream Slam on 4/2/1993 in Yokohama, and culminating at the St. FINAL show on 12/6/1993 (originally intended for the Tokyo Dome but relocated to Sumo Hall due to the belief that they wouldn’t be able to draw 30,000 fans required to break even). The plan was to continue with one rivalry show per year at the Tokyo Dome thereafter. However, interpromotional big shows continued as they had in 1993 with no signs of stopping. Initially, the balance seemed right, with 1 or 2 interpromotional matches on selected cards leading up to Dream Slam in April and Legacy of Queens in August. However, as the year progressed, they overdid it with too many interpromotional cards from September to December, and some of those not holding up to a high enough standard.

This time we’re looking at the best matches, the major interpromotional shows in their entirety and other noteworthy matches. Whilst All Japan Women was great outside of interpromotional matches and have plenty of coverage here, the smaller leagues, JWP and LLPW don’t have much outside of the interpromotional matches they hosted, so there’s some additional recommendations at the end for these leagues specifically if someone who wants to dive into them.

1/15/93 JWP: Dynamite Kansai & Mayumi Ozaki vs. Yumiko Hotta & Takako Inoue 29:44. Ozaki was 0-2 against Zenjo, and after Hotta spent most of the previous match pulverizing Hikari, who was way out of her league, Kansai had to come in to even up the odds. Losing was simply not an option anymore, they had their best two wrestlers and had to win to prove they could compete with Zenjo. The crowd were red hot, giving this match a special atmosphere. It was the most important match in JWP’s short history up to this point, the crowd knew it , and the wrestlers treated it that way with everything they did. They didn't do much early on in terms of high spots, building the match up and keeping it pretty basic and believable, with the intensity through the roof. The feel was entirely different than the typical mindless Toyota style joshi matwork oriented openings, even before she stopped even trying in the early sections. Here, everything, no matter how basic, had importance. The teams worked so well together, and though they are both similar, subtle contrasts made them very different. Takako was able to get offense in, but only when Hotta weakened the opponent first. On the other hand, Ozaki was more confident in her ability, and able to scrap and wear down her opponent, then bring in Kansai to deliver the heavy damage. They started moving things along after the 14 minute mark with a brawl, which led to Takako getting murdered with brutal kicks from Kansai in the ring, and later, Ozaki getting the same treatment from Hotta. The stiffness from Hotta and Kansai throughout the match was everything you could have wanted throughout the whole match, but especially during these beatings. The last 5 minutes were all the big moves and saves they’d been building towards. There were a bunch of great near falls in there. I liked how they brought it back to Ozaki vs. Takako for the finish. They'd been killed for most of the match, but Ozaki getting the win herself made all of her pain worth it after her two previous failures. Any doubt she belonged competing at this level was erased, and her post-match reaction made it all the more sweet. You could see how much this meant to her, Kansai, and all of JWP. This match accomplished everything it set out to do, and was an all time great tag match. Ozaki and Kansai were the best workers, and were on their game, with Ozaki slipping back into the underdog role this time since Kansai was there to be the asskicker. Hotta gave the best performance of her career. She was in the right environment, and totally on point with her brutality and carrying things. Takako generally did fine, but didn’t do much beyond the standard weak link role she was playing. They perfectly built up the Hotta vs. Kansai single match (which was the main goal and was set up in the post-match), continued the Takako vs. Ozaki feud, and left the door open for a rematch down the line. They were able to do everything they did over the course of a half hour, and still leave you wanting a lot more. *****

1/24/93 AJW: Kyoko Inoue vs. Takako Inoue 21:09. The first half was slow, nearly all holds, with the only idea around it seeming to be that Kyoko’s domination would fire Takako up. Once Takako got on offense and started booting Kyoko in the face and slapping her, it got a lot better, and for a while, it turned into greatness. Kyoko initially brushed her off and began to blow her away with spots until Takako was able to turn the tide with a neat counter where she snagged Kyoko’s leg when she went for her run up diving elbow. She followed that with a tope, beat up Kyoko outside, and gave her a double arm suplex on the on the floor. That wasn’t good enough, so as soon as Kyoko got up, she gave her an Aurora Special on the floor as well. Kyoko sold it huge and struggled her way back in, milking the 19 count for all it was worth. Takako tried to put her away and got some great near falls as Kyoko’s selling made it really look like Takako was going to win. The run was over too fast though. Kyoko kept selling and struggled her way back in initially, but then started steamrolling her with spots of her own, ultimately hitting a powerbomb that got a one count, but kept Takako down for a 9 count on the KO. Takako defiantly made it back up, so Kyoko punched her in the face and pinned her. This match definitely worked to elevate Takako, but it could have been so much better with a better start and end. ***3/4

1/24/93 AJW: Toshiyo Yamada & Manami Toyota vs. Aja Kong & Bull Nakano 21:28. Familiar build and nice pacing with the monsters working over both Toyota and Yamada. Bull was in fine form here, and stood out the most of anyone in the match. She was still more menacing than Aja, but played the vulnerable one, and took all the punishment for the team. When Yamada and Toyota got the chance to work her over, she put them over well, and did little things to put the focus more on Aja when they were in control; at one point being unable to break Toyota’s bridge, so she stomped on her hands and let Aja crush her. Once the pace increased, Toyota and Yamada came into their own, hitting all their big moves on Bull. Bull avoided Toyota’s quebrada, and Aja followed it with a plancha, but accidentally took out Bull. Toyota got great near falls with a double backdrop from the top and a Japanese Ocean Suplex, but she couldn’t hit the Cyclone. Once Bull tagged Aja, there was no contest. She completely turned the match, killing Toyota’s momentum and bringing her down with a few big moves before switching back over to Bull to finish with a moonsault. Bull made the match, and everyone was good here, so good that if felt like they were only scratching the surface. ****

1/24/93 AJW: Akira Hokuto, Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda vs. Harley Saito, Eagle Sawai & Miki Handa 24:27. An intense, hateful, scrappy, unpredictable, and beautifully ugly match kicked off the Zenjo vs. LLPW interpromotional rivalry. It had a different feel compared to the Zenjo vs. JWP matches, which were fought with just as much intensity, but one where respect could be earned. Here, respect was never on the table. Hokuto makes things more personal with her demeanour. She looks upon anyone beneath her with contempt, more specifically to LLPW, the way she called out Kandori originally, and right from the start of this match it’s on show with a disrespect pose where she jumped on Eagle’s back and flipped off the LLPW team. The crowd were the same way. It was the most hostile crowd since the 10/17/92 match where FMW first appeared in All Japan Women, and they weren’t prepared to give LLPW any respect either, cheering on everything LCO did. This felt more like a fight than a wrestling match. The wrestling was loose and basic. There were no flashy sequences to be found here, and it was sloppy by design. Instead, every move they did, from simple suplexes to holds, had more venom behind it. Every moment was treated as a struggle with no one prepared to give up control, the desperation that if they did it could cost them a match that neither team could afford to lose. The intensity remained constant, and the pace never slowed down. There wasn’t a great deal of brawling, but they brawled enough to make it feel more exciting and out of control, and it was always done with high-energy (you will notice a lot of what defined LCO present in this match, and plenty of it originated here, even the big piledriver through a table). The finishing run was short and sweet, and fit the match perfectly. Handa told Harley to get on the top turnbuckle and when she did, Eagle happened to be next to Harley on the apron, and Hokuto pounced, knocking both outside with a single dropkick, then taking them out with a somersault plancha. That spelled the end for Handa, and the match, as she was isolated against all three, and was quickly destroyed and defeated. Hokuto was the dominant force in the match. She was a one-woman wrecking crew, consistently coming to the aid of her teammates. Amongst the LLPW team, Harley stood out, and was the only one capable of holding her own against Hokuto. Those two were the best by far, but Mita and Shimoda also delivered the best performances of their career up to this point. The aftermath of the match was just as intense as the match itself. Hokuto made sure Shimoda, the weakest link in the match, got the pinfall so she could rub salt into the wounds, and once again called Kandori out. A challenge was issued for the LLPW 2/13 show, which Hokuto accepted. However, she refused to attend herself. She was scheduled to be in Mexico and didn’t want to help their shitty, second rate league. Suzuka Minami stepped up and Hokuto gave her the match. The backstage interview was also particularly notable, or rather, the lack thereof. Hokuto had Mita and Shimoda line up in front of her, and she proceeded to slap them hard in the face, before spending several minutes scolding them. The gist of her message was that those two were solely focused on winning and weren't ‘wrestling from the heart’. It’s seen as a great ‘character’ moment for Hokuto, but the true meaning was that she felt Shimoda and Mita had failed to showcase the strengths of their opponents. The real goal was to make women’s wrestling more exciting together by creating a strong rivalry with LLPW. If Mita and Shimoda appeared stronger than Harley and Eagle, it wouldn’t be worth talking about. The phrase ‘wrestle from your heart’ means delivering a match that touches the heart of the audience. ****1/2

2/11/93 JWP: Devil Masami & Debbie Malenko vs. Dynamite Kansai & Plum Mariko 33:36. The first instance of opposing leagues teaming up, with Debbie sent over to JWP. Debbie and Plum had a good match between themselves, generally trying to catch the other in submissions and get them into vulnerable positions for their partners to do heavy damage, building to the showdown between Kansai and Devil. That came with a chaotic brawl outside that saw them beating on each other with chairs, and take each other out with lariats in the ring. At this point, they seemed to going into the finishing run, but slowed it back down, and went almost another 20 minutes. While the match was excessively long, and at times felt like it was in a holding pattern rather than building anywhere, the action was always entertaining throughout, and did a pretty effective job of building the Plum vs. Debbie rivalry – the Dream Slam tag was supposed to be Hikari Fukuoka & Plum Mariko vs. Debbie Malenko & Sakie Hasegawa, and surely would have spawned some Plum vs. Debbie singles match, like Hasegawa vs. Fukuoka had, but Debbie got injured before Dream Slam, so it never happened. The big highlights came late in the match, starting with Plum doing a plancha off Kansai’s shoulders from the apron to the floor, and Malenko hitting her tope. There were double diving headbutts and stereo superplexes. In amongst the big moves, Malenko was still looking for a submission with a wakigatame on Plum until Kansai delivered a kick to put a stop to it. I always liked how Malenko would stick to her guns on the submissions until the end, and since particular emphasis was put on many of them throughout the match, it helped to buy them a potential finish later. It ended up with Kansai and Devil powerbombing each other, but their partners kept saving. Malenko thwarted Plum when Devil was able to turn Kansai’s final pin attempt over on her and get the flash pin. ***1/2

2/13/93 LLPW: Shinobu Kandori & Harley Saito vs. Suzuka Minami & Etsuko Mita 21:22. Another classic interpromotional match, albeit one that may have slipped under the radar as it took place in LLPW. The crowd had been dead through the first four matches, but came to life for this big clash. This had the great interpromotional atmosphere, and there were plenty of Zenjo fans amongst the usual LLPW crowd. The opening was an incredible explosion. Kandori got booted in the face immediately by Minami, and then was wary of it happening again the next two times she looked to shoot in. In any other match this would have just resulted in a stalemate, but instead they were both blindsided by the other two, leading to a wild brawl on the outside. After the opening, the match was really split it into two halves. The first half saw lots of double teams, scrappy fighting and submissions which were played up as deadly. Mita got worked over heavily. She tried to fight with everything she knew, slapping, kicking, and biting, but she had no chance on the mat against either Harley or Kandori. Kandori just mocked her feeble attempts at legwork and tried to snap her in half. They seemed more intent on torturing Hokuto’s #2 then really wanting to beat her. They knew they could do that at will, and Mita put it over big, screaming in pain. This all culminated around 11 minutes in with a great spot where Kandori choked out Mita with a sleeper hold. Minami came into break it up, so Kandori just released the hold and Mita dropped to the mat, ‘unconscious’. Minami cleaned house with a pair of backbreakers, and then tended to Mita. The second half was spot oriented. The intensity and focus on team remained constant, and it got more urgent, but it wasn’t as strong as the first half until they got into the final minutes. They hit all kinds of dives, big moves and constantly saved each other from pins, leaving everyone exhausted by the end. It just came down to Kandori barely being able to hold off Mita while Harley pinned Minami with a Tiger Suplex hold. Kandori worked as hard as she ever did, and came off like real superstar. She had her aura and intensity back from the old JWP days, and was in her element here. Harley was in a more understated role as Kandori’s sidekick. She never overshadowed her, though her and Minami were technically the best in the match, with Minami delivering arguably the best performance of her career, at least her best since the match against Hokuto on 4/29/91. Mita gave an excellent performance in this match as well. She played her role as the weak link really well, while being able to stand out at times in the later portion. They all worked to make this match special, and they delivered to best match to ever take place in LLPW. ****3/4

2/28/93 AJW: Aja Kong & Kaoru Ito vs. Kyoko Inoue & Bat Yoshinaga 18:42. The start of this was a waste of time, as Kyoko and Bat just put holds on Ito, but once Aja tagged in, all hell broke loose, and it was a really good, hard hitting match from there. It got going with a wild striking exchange between Bat and Aja, which Bat actually won, and they continued to have the best exchanges in the match. Those two were the standouts in the match. Surprisingly, Kyoko was the worst in this, while Ito was mainly just there to get beaten up. Aja actually dealt with Kyoko easier than she dealt with Bat here, which makes you wonder what match they were building. It was Aja vs. Kyoko next month and Kyoko picked up the fall at the end on Ito, but she couldn’t do anything to Aja, whilst Bat could, and Aja and Kyoko weren’t particularly good working together either, so it didn’t make me believe Kyoko was a threat to Aja, nor were they likely to have a particularly good match. That aside, this was a really good match at a time where Bat was becoming quite good, but constantly stuck being wasted in stupid martial arts title matches that appealed to no one except for the Matsunaga brothers. ***1/2

2/28/93 AJW 2/3 Falls, WWWA World Tag Title Match: Toshiyo Yamada & Manami Toyota vs. Yumiko Hotta & Takako Inoue 11:48, 9:53, 10:31. This was all action for the majority of the overly long 32 minute duration, only really slowing down for a period in the second fall. They went all out with lots of big moves, kickfests between Hotta and Yamada, which are always good, and plenty of hair pulling and slapping fights with Takako. The major issue in the match the execution problems. Toyota and Hotta blew a lot of spots, Yamada was whiffing a lot (clearly, she didn’t want any receipts from Hotta). The good outweighed the bad though. Hotta and Takako were really good tag teamm with Hotta being in the only role she likes to play, as the unstoppable asskicker, while Takako is the weak link, doing all the selling and picking up the scraps after Hotta would take someone down. If she was to hold her own, it would come from slapping fights that could throw her opponents off their game. She’d really found her persona as the heel bitch, almost like an anti-Mimi Hagiwara at times, even to the point of starting a boxing fight with Yamada. The champions had more miscommunication, but collectively they were stronger. The first fall ended up with a decisive win for the challenger, whilst the second saw the champions comeback taking a fall on Takako, and then picking up the third by dumping Hotta on her head with that double backdrop from the top rope. ***1/2

3/16/93 LLPW: Rumi Kazama & Miki Handa vs. Noriyo Tateno & Utako Hozumi 12:23 of 15:36. This was a good, ill-tempered match that exemplified what LLPW did well. They put emphasis on matwork and double teams. The action was good, with a nice mid-tempo to it, and heated throughout. Tateno led the way with her heeling. She was biting, hair pulling, mugging people on the outside, often leading to revenge spots later from Kazama. Hozumi and Handa worked faster paced sections. Handa was the best technically. Hozumi was getting quite good around this time. Tateno brought the heat, and Kazama brought… a great resting bitchface. Handa ended up pinning Hozumi with a German Suplex hold, but Hozumi kept fighting after the match. ***1/2

3/20/93 AJW: Manami Toyota vs. Takako Inoue 22:17. They got off to a hot start, with Takako jumping Toyota and throwing chairs on her, and then spent the next 15 minutes working each other over. It was better when Takako was in control. She focuses better and enjoys torturing anyone. Toyota did a decent enough job of putting her over, but didn’t really do much to keep her working, though part of the idea seemed to be that Takako was too quick to grow complacent. Toyota did a bunch of her weird stretching. Their faster paced transitions were good though, and it was the final portion made it all worth it. It could have been executed better, with Toyota trying three moonsault variations and not executed any of them properly. Takako pushed her really well though, getting a convincing near fall with a top rope chokeslam. Toyota fought back with a ton of desperation, and hit her Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex to win, but Takako pushed her hard, and it ended up being a really good match. ***1/4

3/20/93: AJW Aja Kong vs. Kyoko Inoue 26:05. The wrestling here was really good overall, there were just some issues with Kyoko’s lucha matwork because Aja was too big, but everything else went well. They forgot to make Kyoko a threat though, and the match went about 10 minutes too long, with a painfully long and slow opening. The result was that it was an Aja mauling with all of her usual stuff for about 20 minutes, with the odd fiery comeback from Kyoko that didn’t last long, and was just enough to keep her in the match. This wasn’t surprising after viewing the 2/28 tag match. By the time it did turn into a competitive match at the end, it was too late. However, they did achieve a good near fall for Kyoko with a powerbomb. This was the last big match before All-Star Dream Slam, so Aja got the whole roster in the ring and gave a speech after the match. This also marks the last time the best ring mat was used on big shows/TV, as they’d switch the 25th Anniversary mat for Dream Slam. ***

3/21/93 JWP JWP Tag Title Match: Cuty Suzuki & Mayumi Ozaki vs. Dynamite Kansai & Devil Masami 29:16. These two teams had a good match on 2/25/93 from KBS Hall that would warrant a recommendation to someone who wants to see more of this. This was a better match on a bigger show though. It’s a long match with a lot of fun and creative ways that Ozaki and Cuty would use their speed to take down and evade their larger opponents, trying to stay on them relentlessly though holds and double teaming. It was quite drawn out, like most JWP matches, but like the better JWP matches, it found ways to continue being entertaining throughout. Devil and Kansai would catch them occasionally, get holds on or brutalize their smaller opponents, but Ozaki and Cuty would always find ways to slip out or avoid lariats and pounce to get into positions of control. It always felt like they were hanging on, but it wasn’t clear how they could actually win. Once Cuty got caught towards the end and worn out with kicks from Kansai, their house of cards fell down. Ozaki was able to be competitive, but her partner was no longer any help, and she couldn’t do much alone. They were able to save each other, but the finishing portion was a rout, eventually ending with Cuty being pinned after a doomsday device. ***1/2

AJW 25th Anniversary ALL-STAR DREAM SLAM 4/2/93 Yokohama Arena (att: 16,500) Complete Show Review

Sakie Hasegawa & Kaoru Ito vs. Plum Mariko & Hikari Fukuoka (JWP) 16:32. Everyone debuted new gear for this event, and for the most part, it was a win. However, not in Ito’s case, who looked ridiculous dressed up like Peter Pan. Originally, Debbie Malenko was supposed to be in this match, but due to her career ending injury, Ito replaced her. This match served as the perfect opener for the show. A high energy Zenjo-style tag, with a good pace, plenty of action and frequent tags. The slowed things down in the middle with some submissions, and then the final portion was filled with great spots and near falls. Sakie got busted hardway, and her eye was swollen later in the match. Each wrestler delivered big spots. Among a lot of suplexes and double teams, Fukuoka did her moonsault and rolling cradle, Plum delivered a powerslam from the top turnbuckle, Ito unleashed about six foot stomps to Plum, and Sakie hit her usual rolling savate kicks and exploders, though her best spot was the rolling double arm suplex. In the end, Plum pinned Hasegawa with a Frankensteiner. Those two did the most, and Plum was technically the best in the match, but it took them a while to get it together, as weren’t on the same page all the time. Ito and Fukuoka might have been the ‘lesser’ partners, but they made themselves stand out the most because of their fire and passion. ****

Suzuka Minami & Etsuko Mita vs. Rumi Kazama & Miki Handa (LLPW) 22:25. Despite being too long and Kazama doing her best to ruin it near the end, this was a really good match. It was a slower, more LLPW paced match most of the way through, focused on submissions. Minami gave her typically excellent, though understated performance, hitting her backbreakers and setting things up for Mita. Mita took it and ran with it, really standing out and showing a lot of intensity with everything she did. When she worked over Handa, she looked psychotic, and Handa did a really good job selling for her, making even a basic crab look like it was pure agony. Handa used her offense effectively later. Mita sold well in return, making an Achilles holds Handa got on her about halfway through look like a potential match ender. Handa got some good near falls with her suplexes. There was a lot of action towards the finish, which was good despite Kazama screwing almost every spot she did with Mita, struggling to hit suplexes on her and trying an ill-advised powerbomb, but at least the German Suplex she beat her with was executed properly. ***1/2

Chigusa Nagayo vs. Devil Masami 17:27. The memorial super fight. Ironically enough, the only match on the show that wasn’t billed as an interpromotional match, despite Devil actually being in JWP. Chigusa had been out of the ring four years, and was trying to find out if she still had it. She could still go, but didn’t add much to the match. She was along for the ride. Devil took her own one, and was exceptional, making the match a memorable one. This was a very well built, slower placed Devil match. Chigusa caught suplexes and tried takedowns, and armwork, but Devil answered everything and dominated her, mocking the Chigusa chants as she went along and happily played up to her own chants when they came. Chigusa fired up, and they both hit lariats on each other. Her blank stares didn’t quite make the moment, but her comebacks later in the match were better. She caught a plancha off the apron, and in the ring, she scored a bunch of kicks and a had a big smile on her face as she was starting to feel it again, which was a great moment. The match became properly competitive from there, with Chigusa getting a Sharpshooter and a Romero Special. The two made comebacks on each other and hit big moves, but Masami had more impact and hit the killer blows. She hit a plancha and a powerbomb on the floor. Chigusa came back in the ring with German Suplexes, but those paled in comparison to Masami’s three powerbombs she hit later. Chigusa survived them, but there was no surviving a Northern Light’s Suplex from the top rope. ****

Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue vs. Mayumi Ozaki & Cuty Suzuki (JWP) 16:44. W Inoue’s entrance was pretty funny. They’re the most odd pairing that everyone just accepts because they share the same name. Kyoko had mini-Kyoko with her, and pretty much made the ultimate babyface entrance jogging to the ring, while Takako wandered down at her own pace scowling at her opponents who were waiting in the ring. This was the third Takako vs. Ozaki tag, and Takako wanted to pin Ozaki after losing to her on 1/15. Kyoko wanted to steal the show, and while she might not have done that, the 38-revolution Giant Swing she gave Cuty was the spot of the show. Kyoko knew she was the best and wanted to show off her abilities, it was up to Ozaki and Cuty to bring out her competitive side. Everyone was at the top of their game here. Kyoko and Ozaki were the best. Ozaki brought the most, whether in the ring or on the apron cutting off her opponents. She always takes you on a ride, and did again her with Kyoko. Takako and Cuty were both excellent in their secondary roles. They started out hot and maintained it, always keeping things moving and escalating. If Kyoko was taking her opponents a little lightly, she got a wake up call at the 10-minute mark, which saw her take a beating on the outside and repeated diving footstomps in the ring. From there, her and Ozaki went on to have the best exchange on the show, leading to a great finish. Takako saved Kyoko from the Tequila Sunrise, and Ozaki hit a German Suplex when Kyoko attempted a slingshot. She hit her diving body press before an attempted rana saw her get caught in a powerbomb. Later, Kyoko hit her slingshot elbow and went for the Niagara Driver. Ozaki countered it twice, the same way she counters the Splash Mountain and then hit the rana for a near fall. The match turned for the final time when Kyoko slingshotted off the ropes into the dropkick, and then she was able to hit a Liger Bomb. Takako tagged in and perched on the top rope for a double team. Ozaki would’ve ordinarily shoved her off, which might have left Kyoko open, but the tag forced her to meet her up top and try to finish her, while Cuty had to switch to Kyoko, whom she was no match for. Takako hit a chokeslam on Ozaki and Cuty made another last second save, but Kyoko easily dispatched her, and a Niagara Driver chokeslam double team to Ozaki gave Takako the pin. This match was on a level way above every match before it on the show, and would have been the best match had it been on most any other show in the history of wrestling. In the post-match, Kyoko was informed we hit 38 revolutions, she thought it was 40, so she was going to aim for that next time. ****3/4

Aja Kong & Bull Nakano vs. Eagle Sawai & Harley Saito (LLPW) 14:08. This was basically about Aja vs. Eagle, but they didn’t actually do anything particularly interesting, mainly just power spots and no-selling, trying to build their rivalry. They were alright. Aja was really hamming up the monster role, no selling oil can shots, and they had some fun spots. Bull and Harley, though in the secondary roles, were the reasons this was good. Harley hadn’t been particularly well liked by the Zenjo crowd, but she won them over with an early exchange with Bull where she hit a plancha. Bull went for the nunchakus and Harley disarmed her and did an exhibition with them, with a fun reaction from Bull. The action between the two was good. Harley got plenty of offense in, and was respected by both Bull and Aja. Bull sold a lot while letting Aja have the spotlight, but she shone when she was in. She was slimmer, moving and bumping as well as she ever did, and her offense was great. The highlight of the match for the crowd was Bull and Aja hitting consecutive topes. Harley was the obvious loser here, but she took a lot to be put down. She ate two urakens and a guillotine leg drop before being put away with the somersault guillotine leg drop. In the post-match, Harley was carried off injured, but not before Bull handed her the nunchakus as a show of respect. ***1/2

Yumiko Hotta vs. Dynamite Kansai (JWP) 16:43. This match was eight years in the making, as the two made a promise to eventually face each other. Finally, the day arrived, and it was on the biggest stage in women’s wrestling. This match was expected to be an ultra-stiff kickfest, and it delivered all the brutality it promised, with both exchanging heavy blows throughout. It was largely back and forth with good transitions. Kansai manages to deliver the most brutal looking kicks of any of the women, while also being arguably the best strike seller, looking completely messed up, glassy-eyed and staggering around after big shots. Hotta did a great job of putting over Kansai as well here. The selling and the brutality are what really made this. Both scored some early flurries, but protected themselves. Kansai attempted to target Hotta's back, but Hotta retaliated with a sucker punch, followed by a series of damaging kicks, later, scoring a nasty high kick. After Kansai regrouped, Hotta positioned herself on the top turnbuckle to execute a flying elbow attack, but it was too telegraphed, and Kansai suckered her in so she could kick her on the way down. Kansai got revenge and unleashed her brutality, targeting Hotta with a series of kicks on the outside while she was pressed against the guardrail. Upon Hotta's attempt to return to the ring, Kansai continued her assault with more kicks, teasing a TKO with an 8-count. Hotta struggled to recover, repeatedly getting kicked by Kansai whenever she showed signs of stirring, eventually forcing Hotta to retreat outside. The match turned into a more traditional pro-wrestling match for a while, as Kansai methodically worked over Hotta until Hotta managed to block a lariat and retaliate with a backdrop suplex. Hotta followed up with kicks and the momentum shifted, but Kansai regained the upper hand. She went to the top turnbuckle, and it worked out as well for her as it did for Hotta earlier. Kansai was hung upsidedown, with Hotta delivered free kicks to the head. Hotta hit a series of big move and kicks, the Pyramid Driver and Caribbean Splash for near falls, but the missed a kicked and Kansai picked her up and delivered her Splash Mountain to win. It’s a shame they couldn’t come up with something a little better than that. Hotta threw out everything she had and Kansai negated it all with one move, and to make it worse, Hotta clearly kicked out before three. Considering how easily Kansai turned her over after such a lopsided run, it didn’t exactly save her reputation. Kansai’s classic reaction to the win almost makes the whole thing worth it though. Weak ending aside, this was a tremendous match that delivered exactly what it was expected to. ****1/4

Akira Hokuto vs. Shinobu Kandori (LLPW) 30:07. The feud between Hokuto and Kandori began at Dream Rush in November. Kandori had spoken out about how she doesn’t care for Zenjo, but she came to the show, and Hokuto took exception and called her out for it. Kandori sees herself as superior to pro wrestlers and looks down on them, while Hokuto views Kandori as a failed judo wannabe. These two were under each other’s skin for months. They hated one another, and they were ready to tear each other limb from limb. The press conference showed these two couldn’t even be in the same room together and be civil. Hokuto’s goal in the match was to kick Kandori’s ass and expose her as nothing more than a failed judo wannabe. Kandori wanted to shut her up for good, and even she didn’t know how far she’d go. Everyone knew Kandori was a dangerous shooter, and she might just want to break Hokuto’s heart, just like she did to Jackie Sato all those years ago. The way the match was built and positioned, with Hokuto representing pro-wrestling and Kandori, representing judo, had already captured the imagination of fans, and it was already a classic before the bell even sounded. Not many matches ever manage to live up to such hype. This one not only lived up to it, but far exceeded it. The bell rang, and they cautiously approached each other, demanding the other come forward. When Hokuto finally closed the distance, she immediately punched Kandori hard in the face, and not just a punch, it was a potato, and you could hear it. It knocked Kandori down, but it was more humiliating, Hokuto taunted Kandori over the mic to get up. In response, Kandori retaliated with a violent slap followed by a lariat. She then seized Hokuto's arm and locked in the wakigatame, really cranking up on it causing Hokuto to scream in agony. The way Hokuto sold it like it was seriously injured, she made it seem the match might even end there. Once they restarted, Kandori outwrestled Hokuto, going for some submissions, but Hokuto was quickly into the ropes and fell back on her brawling. The fight spilled outside and Hokuto tried to Tombstone Kandori on a table, but Kandori turned the tide without trouble, driving her into the table. There was a big crack in the table, which drew a pop when the camera focused on it. Kandori was happy with that. When Hokuto reappeared, she was sporting a crimson mask, her face drenched in blood, with her once-blonde hair now stained red from the flow. Kandori had Hokuto where she wanted her, more toying with her now that Hokuto was battered and progressively becoming weaker with the blood loss. Hokuto grabbed her foot, dragging her outside for another brawl. This time Hokuto scored a victory out there, doing a number on Kandori, and busting her open. Hokuto continued laying boots to the face in the ring, but Kandori fought back and pushed her further. She got her in a brainbuster, but instead of doing that move, she just dumped her face first outside and followed up with a pescado, then back into the ring for more abuse. Kandori went for a backdrop, and Hokuto tried to get out of it by scrambling to the ropes, but it didn’t deter Kandori, and she still hit it. Hokuto was successful in making sure she didn’t get it cleanly, but that’s all she accomplished. It’s was enough though, as Kandori jumped back into a submission, and Hokuto was able to get into the ropes. Hokuto slapped her, and hit a nasty piledriver and a spin kick, but she struggled to really follow up again. She had the bad arm, but at this point the blood loss was more of an issue. Kandori continued to outwrestle her, and Hokuto shifted her strategy, taking to the air, but even this was nullified. She hit one diving body press, but Kandori saw a second one coming and got the knees up. Kandori hit a powerbomb for the first really big near fall of the match, just short of the 20-minute mark. She then became overambitious, trying a missile dropkick, which Hokuto easily swatted her away. Hokuto tried a dive soon after, which didn’t work either, as Kandori yanked her out of the corner into a sleeper. Hokuto survived that and Kandori tried another Powerbomb, but this time Hokuto countered it. Hokuto then countered an Irish Whip and hit her own Powerbomb. Both were really struggling now, the toll was heavy, but Hokuto was in bigger trouble. Hokuto fought with desperation and managed another spin kick, sending Kandori outside. She hit her somersault plancha and a missile dropkick out there. Hokuto attempted the Nothern Lights Bomb, but Kandori again outwrestled her, and zeroed in on the bad arm. Hokuto was focused on getting to the ropes, which allowed Kandori to hit the Tiger Driver. After that didn’t get the job done, Kandori just wailed away on Hokuto, knowing that she only had so much energy left. But the key was she still had something left. Hokuto avoided a swing and hit a backdrop suplex for a big near fall. She followed with a Northern Lights Bomb to a huge pop from the crowd and an even bigger near fall. Kandori couldn’t kick out, it was just a small jerk of the shoulder, enough to stave off defeat. Kandori fired back with her own Northern Light’s Bomb for two, in what would’ve been the ultimate insult. They were both down, and neither had anything left. They could barely muster up the strength to slug at each other. They did though, with each striking each other down, and then both went for a punch at the time. Hokuto was a split second faster, and crawled over for the pin to end this war. Kandori was woken up by the LLPW girls, and she was in a filthy mood and stormed off, but not before getting the house mic and telling Hokuto, "this isn't the end". Hokuto couldn’t get up at all. Mita and Minami tried to help, but she just collapsed. She got on the house mic and screamed at Kandori "you’re not a real pro-wrestler! I’ll never lose to a judo wannabe!". This was the full package of build, storytelling, selling, drama and intensity, and is one of the greatest matches of all time. *****

Toshiyo Yamada & Manami Toyota vs. Combat Toyoda & Megumi Kudo (FMW) 28:13. This was the main event due to FMW politics, but realistically, it was, at best, the 4th more important match on the card, and if you go by fan response during the opening ceremony, it was well below the five matches that preceded it. It really didn’t have a chance from the start considering what it had to follow, and to make matters worse, the show ran so late that the last train was leaving, and that announcement was called just before the match. So, before the match, and as it was beginning, people were filing out (allegedly 2,000-3000 people left), giving the match a horrible atmosphere to start with. The first 20 minutes of were poor. Combat and Kudo were leading the match, and barely gave Toyota and Yamada anything because they were losing, while also contributing little that was any good themselves. There was no chemistry. The teams really weren’t on the same page, with a whole lot of awkwardness when they weren’t just sitting around in holds. The timing was never in tune with what the crowd wanted; for instance, they wanted a Yamada comeback, but by the time they actually got it, minutes later, they barely reacted to it. Combat had a particularly poor performance. She did nothing to make her opponents look good, and her offense was considerably worse than everyone else’s for the most part. She wouldn’t cooperate with spots, and she didn’t bump or sell well, if she even bothered to do either. Kudo was better, she didn’t have those problems. Her problem was sitting around in holds for an eternity. All of this goes out the window in the last 7-8 minutes. The match became excellent with a great finishing run that served to redeem the whole match. While not enough to elevate the match to the "great" status some may claim, they certainly redeemed it and ended things on a high note, making it a good overall contest. Kudo and Combat showed they could keep up. Starting with some big bombs and dives, with Kudo hitting a tope, Combat doing a plancha and Toyota hitting her quebrada this became an interesting match. There were innovative top rope double teams, cut offs, saves and reversals. Kudo and Toyota did the bulk of it and worked really well together in this part. Combat kept saving Kudo, so Yamada baited her into a kick that she could avoid and Combat nailed Kudo with it. Toyota hit the Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex on Kudo, a deadly one where Kudo came down on her neck to get the win. After the match, Kansai and Ozaki came out and wanted another fight for the WWWA tag belts. Yamada accepted for Osaka, and the Dream Slam II main event was set. All four were upset with how the match went, and none were willing to give an interview. Toyota was seen crying against a wall, which was actually how the show ended. For all the dumb theories I’ve seen about this, she was legitimately crying because she thought the match went badly. While it was the least of all of the big matches on the card, it was still good, though it would have been much better had it been shortened to 15 minutes. ***

AJW 25th Anniversary ALL-STAR DREAM SLAM II 4/11/93 Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium, Osaka (att: 6,500) Complete Show Review

Sakie Hasegawa vs. Hikari Fukuoka (JWP) 18:05. Another hot opening match involving these two. Hasegawa was much improved here compared to the Yokohama show since she was willing to work with Fukuoka. The match was long, and given all the pointless matwork in the first half, it could have stood to have been a few minutes shorter. Once they got into the second half, it was a fiery back and forth battle with the two throwing everything they had at each other, and similar to the quality of the 4/2 tag match. They did a great job with the near falls, kicking out of them late, albeit a little too late in once instance. It would have been nice if Sakie knew a few more moves, with three Rolling Savate Kicks and three Exploders, before putting Hikari away with a fourth Rolling Savate Kick. They had a rematch on 5/30 in JWP, which Sakie won as well, surprisingly. It wasn’t a good match though, nowhere near the level of this one. ***1/2

Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda vs. Combat Toyoda & Megumi Kudo (FMW) 17:53. A much better performance from Combat and Kudo here than in the first DREAM SLAM main event. They had good opponents in Mita and Shimoda, who were hungry and out to make a name for themselves. They did a much better job of leading things with a match length (10 minutes shorter) that was more suited to them. Combat was still the lesser of the four in the match, but significantly better here than the dismal performance she gave was against Toyota and Yamada. Her offense was way better, and she worked well with her opponents. The dynamic between the teams worked really well. Mita and Shimoda brought a lot of intensity, while the more experienced Combat and Kudo would shut them down and look to dictate a slower pace. Shimoda and Mita got some bursts and double teams, but they’d get overwhelmed by Combat’s power and Kudo’s experience. Around 12 minutes in Mita and Shimoda got their big comeback, and looked to put Combat away with double team moves in the ring. The FMW team came back and destroyed LCO outside, with Combat powerbombing Shimoda on the floor, and Kudo giving a Mita a tiger driver on the announce table. The finishing run was great with LCO trying to fight back from there. Kudo and Combat hit a brutal looking doomsday device, and Mita managed to save the match. They even got into a position to try double teaming Kudo, but she thwarted that, and once Combat got rid of Mita, Shimoda fell victim to a powerbomb/inverted DDT double team, and then Combat folded her up in a powerbomb to win. ***1/2

Kyoko Inoue, Takako Inoue & Yumiko Hotta vs. Cuty Suzuki, Plum Mariko & Bolshoi Kid (JWP) 21:28. A quality, fun, action packed match. Kyoko was the standout here, more because of her exuberance than her work itself, though her work was the best. She did the comedy sequence with Bolshoi at the start, and it was a lot of fun. Takako was good, taking her pleasure in torturing Cuty, though she was best with Plum here. Hotta was just there to be Hotta. She didn’t much other than punt the clown and everyone else. Her big spots at the end moved the finish along well enough. The smaller JWP team had their moments, but more as a collective, they needed to use their teamwork, double and triple teaming their opponents. There was a lot of Bolshoi, and Plum and Cuty spent a lot of time helping her out or getting bumped around by Hotta. Plum looked great when she was trying to tear up Takako’s knee. Kyoko aimed for the 40-revolution Giant Swing, this time on Bolshoi, but she came up short again (this time in the low 30s). They did a big train of dives at around the 10-minute mark, with Hotta even doing a tope. Kyoko took the footstomp train towards the end, playing off the DREAM SLAM spot, but this time she survived it easier. In the end, Bolshoi was way out of her league and found herself outmatched, getting destroyed with Kyoko securing the victory after a great Helicopter Slam. ****

Suzuka Minami vs. Harley Saito (LLPW) 13:31. These two wrestlers were arguably the most underrated on the scene at this point. The Zenjo crowd never really embraced Harley, and Minami was relatively low on the totem pole, thus they saw it as only a midcard battle, and following the six-woman tag may not have helped them. Regardless, they delivered an excellent, hard-fought match, and both looked great. They executed and sold well throughout. They kept things moving along, staying busy in the slower portion, and built it nicely into the big spots and a good finish. They both stuck to what they do best, Minami working the back and hitting her brutal backbreakers, Harley hitting her suplexes and firing off her kicks. The finish saw Harley hit her Tiger Suplex and get a near fall, but she missed a diving headbutt. Minami hit back with a powerbomb and hit her diving senton to get the three count. ****

Memorial Superfight: Chigusa Nagayo vs. Bull Nakano 15:08. They got off to a great start, exchanging blows, a missed tope from Chigusa and a quality beating outside from Bull. Then the bulk of the match was largely long stretching and submission segments from Bull. Chigusa made some comebacks in between, she did a fighting spirit spot and both exchanged a sharpshooter. Chigusa’s selling and reactions were better here than was against Devil, especially in the latter portion, but she was still underwhelming. She blew a few things, and Bull either covered her or went along. Bull gave a really solid performance, but a pretty stoic one, so it wasn’t as fun as Devil’s. Chigusa demanded that Bull perform her guillotine legdrop to prove she was tough enough to endure it, and it would have been a classic if that had ended the match. Chigusa executed a couple of suplexes afterward, and disarmed Bull of her nunchakus by kicking them out of her hand. However, Bull hit a German Suplex, and finished with a powerbomb and a second Guillotine Legdrop. ***

Aja Kong & Akira Hokuto vs. Shinobu Kandori & Eagle Sawai (LLPW) 20:43. All the tension and hatred was on display here with Hokuto and Kandori from the start. Even before the bell rang, they were ready to spill blood, but Aja and Eagle held them back. Kandori upset Aja during this as well. When Hokuto and Kandori clashed, Hokuto relied on her speed and tried to apply submissions, which included an early insulting one, using Kandori’s spinning sleeper on her. She’d still get caught though, and within about 5 minutes, her cut was reopened. Aja made a difference, intervening to save Hokuto, and when the time came, she wanted to show up Kandori as well. There was a moment where she applied a crab hold on Eagle and defiantly shrugged off all of Kandori’s attempts to break it. Aja's performance was notably improved here compared to the first DREAM SLAM. Not everything worked, a headbutt contest with Kandori was a bit lame, and her flubbed tope that Kandori avoided didn’t quite go to plan, but she was able to come across as near-invincible and cocky while making her opponents look good, rather than cartoonishly invulnerable. Eagle didn’t really have a role beyond being Kandori’s underling and doing a few ‘fat guy spots’ with Aja at the start. She wasn’t bad, but having someone who could’ve bumped around or sold more, like Harley, would have been a better contribution. There were plenty of highlights late in the match. Hokuto took a spike powerbomb on the floor, which saw Aja have to survive a couple of minutes alone. Hokuto stormed back into action with a missile dropkick on Kandori when she was about to apply a sleeper hold to Aja. Kandori continued looking to press Hokuto, but Aja, again, made the difference blindsiding her with a uraken. Aja also took down Eagle with strikes, a powerslam from the top, and superplexed Hokuto onto her. Eagle fired back with her own, and Kandori followed up with two more, with Aja making a dramatic save. Kandori hit a Tiger Driver and Hokuto kicked out. Kandori geared up for a lariat and got caught in a wakigatame, Kandori made the ropes, and then reversed it. Aja managed to save Hokuto twice before Eagle restrained her outside the ring. Kandori turned Hokuto’s Dragon Suplex into another wakigatame, and this time she couldn’t be saved. Hokuto refused the submit, but the referee pulled Kandori off and called off the match. Kandori added further insult by not even paying attention to Hoktuo while she was injuring her arm, focusing all of her attention on Aja. An excellent match and postscript to Yokohama. Kandori got some revenge and Hokuto once again had something to prove. The match did the most effective job of building Aja vs. Kandori though, and a lot of the heat shifted in that direction in the second half, and into the post-match, but it never happened (I’d assume the Mastunaga’s wanted it for Budokan in August or one of the other big shows, but they couldn’t convince LLPW to get Kandori to job twice). ***3/4

2/3 Falls, WWWA World Tag Title Match: Toshiyo Yamada & Manami Toyota vs. Dynamite Kansai & Mayumi Ozaki (JWP) 0:12, 14:55, 16:04. The second match in the famous trilogy, and the crowd were quite supporting of the JWP underdogs from the start. The start of this was legendary. Ozaki shared a tense stare with Toyota, clearly remembering their previous encounter. Those two went at it, but Kansai wasted no time and delivered a devastating kick to Yamada’s head, followed swiftly by Splash Mountain, securing the first fall in just 12 seconds. The crowd lost their minds, It was the last thing they expected, and all Toyota could do was scream about it. Yamada’s selling helped too, normally a quick fall like this would see the recipient pop up as if it was lucky she had been caught, but Yamada sold it like the knock-out blow that it was. If the crowd weren’t already on team JWP, they sure were now. In fact, it wasn’t long before the Zenjo team were booed. Yamada quickly tagged out to Toyota, who came in spamming her dropkicks, and after missing a moonsault, Yamada interfered to keep the advantage and the crowd turned on them for the time being. Toyota didn’t add anything good, and she had the same ridiculous costume from the first DREAM SLAM, dropping feathers left and right (thankfully it would never be seen again). She gave Yamada enough of a rest to recover properly though. Kansai had delivered a camel clutch punt to Toyota earlier, so they got revenge for it on Ozaki. Kansai and Yamada had another great exchange, similar to what they had done at Dream Rush. Yamada’s kicks were ferocious, and she upped her intensity to match Kansai, but was also able to use her agility, which was the one advantage she had over her. Later, when Yamada was working a stretch muffler on Ozaki, Kansai ran in and got some revenge by punting Yamada a few times to break it. The fall kicked up a gear after Ozaki avoided a corner lariat from Toyota with Kansai charging in with her own. Ozaki backdrop suplexed Yamada, leading to dives on the outside. Ozaki and Kansai attempted to finish off Toyota with a double flying headbutt. They followed that with an incredible sequence where Ozaki was perched on the top turnbuckle and Toyota dropkicked her down, immediately following with a quebrada while Yamada returned to blindside Kansai with a kick. They should have just gone home there because the rest of fall couldn’t live up to this, even if it was still good enough to keep you guessing. Toyota and Yamada tried to dump Ozaki with a double-team sidebuster, but Ozaki didn't go around all the way, and ended up on her head. Kansai intervened to help her hit a German suplex on Toyota. From there it was a back and forth to the finish. There was a good Splash Mountain tease when Kansai ducked a Toyota’s charge and Ozaki held her back, but Yamada fought out of the attempt to hit a German Suplex. Toyota returned to tag in and assist Yamada with a double powerbomb on Kansai for a near fall (no idea what even happened to Ozaki as the camera never showed her again, I assume Toyota knocked her off the apron but they never showed it), then Toyota finished the fall with her Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex. The third fall started great with Toyota looking for a quick finish with a German Suplex on Kansai before she regained her bearings. That didn’t work, so Yamada came in with a bunch of kicks and an elbow smash with Ozaki interrupting the pin. Yamada worked over Kansai with a stretch muffler and then Toyota rushed in doing her missile dropkick routine, which didn’t fit what Yamada had set up at all. It was the problem with Toyota throughout though. In the first fall, it was her weird stretching, in the third fall, she just came in doing high spots with no regard for anything that was going on in the match. Thankfully, Ozaki cut her off and gave her a thrashing on the outside, while Kansai got a breather and did the same to Yamada. This was the fall for Kansai and Ozaki to shine, and they did. Kansai asserted her dominance and was the real game-changer. Ozaki was the resilient underdog, clutching onto submissions and hanging on, showing fight and getting big near falls, but also being the most likely one to take the loss. Ozaki received the double backdrop and the straightjacket German suplex from Toyota, the same sequence that spelled her end at Dream Rush, but Kansai frantically broke up it up this time. Yamada held Kansai outside, and she could only watch Ozaki as Toyota tried to finish her off, but Ozaki refused to be denied, kicking out of the Japanese Ocean Suplex. Kansai was able to help afterward, clobbering both Toyota and Yamada, and after a Doomsday Device, and a Doomsday Splash Mountain, Ozaki got the pin to a monster pop. Overall, this was a great match, with an exceptional beginning and an equally impressive ending. It leaned more towards the traditional Zenjo big match format, focusing more on delivering thrilling near falls at the expense of the more clever ideas present in their initial encounter. JWP had taken the WWWA Tag Team belts, and the post-match was an all-time great scene, as Ozaki crawled on her knees to Kansai and fell into a big hug with Cuty, Masami and Plum right there. If the first match put JWP on the map, this match legitimatized them, and with the tag team mountain climbed, their next challenge was for the dominant Kansai, to test herself against Aja Kong. ****3/4

4/18/1993 JWP: Devil Masami vs. Bull Nakano 37:36. A natural match after these two had both defeated Chigusa Nagayo in previous weeks. This was dubbed as a “Super Heavyweight Fight”, and it was a unique, slow-paced struggle. They stretched each other, hit each other hard, took big bumps, milked everything and delivered something no one except for these two could have pulled off. The used plenty of weardown holds and sold them as weardowns. They didn’t oversell, but sold them until they were drained. The facial expressions were great, with Bull looking utter misery, while Devil took pleasure in working her over. Devil sold like crazy too when Bull had the upperhand. They hit the odd spot, but the earliest big run saw Devil execute a brutal powerbomb on Bull outside and footstomp off the apron. Bull took further punishment from the powerbomb and a superplex, and when she tried to comeback, Devil hit a German suplex and a missile dropkick. Bull took a breather to regroup, and resorted to her nunchakus, which led to the famous spot this match is known for, where Devil demanded to be hit by them. Bull obliged, and followed with a moonsault, but Devil bridged out of the pin. Bull worked some nasty leg submissions and won a chair battle outside. They hit guillotine legdrops and powerbombs to each other for dramatic near falls amongst topes, planchas, suplexes and lariats in the final third. Devil controlled a lot of it, but Bull outlasted her. Devil tried a final superplex and Bull reversed it, following up with a second guillotine legdrop for a near fall. Devil stirred, but she couldn’t get up, and Bull delivered the somersault version to win. Sure, this match could have lost 10 minutes quite easily, but it was 37-minute match that flew by because it was paced out so well, always kept escalating and rarely dragged. ****1/2

4/24/1993 AJW: Aja Kong & Kyoko Inoue vs. Manami Toyota & Yumiko Hotta 17:41 of 18:35. Aja did a great job of guiding the match, with the spotlight squarely on Toyota as the hometown hero. Aja spent most of the match punishing Toyota, setting up her comebacks, which the crowd popped huge for. Kyoko was mainly there to take Toyota’s real comebacks, and do athletic spots with her. Built well into a good finishing sequence, which saw a good run of near falls with Toyota winning with the Japanese Ocean Suplex. ****

5/3/93 AJW Japan Grand Prix '93 Red Zone: Etsuko Mita vs. Harley Saito 19:38. There were two outsiders in the Japan Grand Prix. Hikari Fukuoka was representing JWP, and had a pretty lousy match with Kaoru Ito where they spent 3/4 of their 24 minutes in crabs and chinlocks. Harley represented LLPW, and had a much better match here with Mita. Mita was fun with the heeling, and Harley’s armwork was good. Later, they worked the legs, and worked it well enough that a long figure four spot drew people into the reversals. They went all out with lots of near falls at the end. Harley won with a Tiger Suplex, so Mita slapped her afterward. ***1/2

5/3/93 AJW Japan Grand Prix '93 Red Zone: Akira Hokuto vs. Toshiyo Yamada 17:55. Yamada targeted Hokuto’s injured shoulder, zeroing in on it with kicks and holds. Hokuto had to get it retaped and gutted through. Yamada had the best of it early, but Hokuto came back, and worked her over in response. They fought over their holds and struggled, and the faster paced transitions were intense and well done. This was a smaller house show, so they didn’t do as much as they would on a big show, but it didn’t feel that way since most of the bumps they took were meaningful. They worked a hot finish where they slipped out of each other finishers before Hokuto finally hit the Northern Light’s Bomb. After the match, she gave Yamada a slap and earned a lariat for it. ***3/4

5/5/93 FMW: Megumi Kudo & Combat Toyoda vs. Toshiyo Yamada & Manami Toyota 22:17. FMW needing to get their win back gave these two teams a chance to have the match they were capable of. They got things going with a hot brawl outside, and then the FMW team controlled the early portion again, but this time it flowed and built well, they didn’t get bogged down sitting around in holds forever. Yamada and Toyota weren’t so blunted, and were able to stand out more with their hot comebacks with better timing. The final portion was just about as good as they di’d in April. Kudo took a ton of big moves from Toyota at the end and survived or was saved. Combat turned the tide for her, and they did a brutal Doomsday Device, which should have been the finish as the sloppy powerbomb and a Tiger Suplex that followed weren’t so impressive. This might have been a bit sloppier than their first match, but it was such a major improvement in all other regards that it’s hard to be critical of that. Combat and Kudo were significantly better, and none of the issues that plagued that match were present here. ****1/4

5/8/93 AJW Japan Grand Prix '93 Red Zone: Suzuka Minami vs. Etsuko Mita 19:38. These two had a good match on the 4/24 TV show which was clipped to 10 minutes. Minami won that won with a diving senton. Mita didn’t fall victim to it this time, and got a win back here in the JGP with her Death Valley Bomb. The wrestling was solid, nothing spectacular, but it was an interesting and well worked veteran vs. junior type of match. Minami dominated Mita for most of it, working the leg early, which wasn’t anything special, but Mita sold really well for her. Mita would try to cheat but get shut down there, but it ended up being the high risk moves that cost her. ***1/2

5/8/93 AJW Japan Grand Prix '93 Red Zone: Takako Inoue vs. Harley Saito 30:00. A great, dramatic match, and one of the best matches either ever had. The first 10 minutes were there, but it was an injury to Harley where it really kicked off. Takako did a double arm-suplex from the top which seemed to legitimately injure Harley’s rib. After an armdrag, she looked to be in horrible pain, and bailed out to get some attention. They put a brace put on her, and she continued on with Takako ruthlessly going after her. The injury made it that even a body scissors had drama. Later, she dragged her outside to beat on her with chair. When Harley tried to return to the ring, Takako stomped her ribs and stood on her fingers. Harley made a really hot comeback even if the crowd were all about Takako. She hit a leg lariat and a German suplex, then did some damage to Takako’s arm with a wakigatame. Takako sold the arm enough that both were wounded going into their final portion. Harley kicked the hell out of her and had the momentum, Takako stalled her with a backdrop suplex, but Harley reversed the Aurora Special, and hit a springboard dive and suplex on the outside. Takako came back in the ring with a German Suplex and her Aurora Special. The last few minutes were incredible, dramatic and frantic with the crowd eating up every near fall. Takako went to the top and got superplexed down, with Harley following up with a flying headbutt and a Tiger Suplex. Takako hit back with a German suplex and put Harley on the top turnbuckle, hitting her chokeslam. Harley refused to be beaten, and Takako got more urgent, quickly trying to put her away with a backdrop suplex, but her frustration led to Harley hitting a bunch of suplexes but the time expired on them. This was a crazy performance from Harley as everything she did had to have really hurt like hell. Had there not been an injury this might not have been special. The way Takako took it to Harley put it another level, and made her comebacks all the more impressive. ****1/2

5/8/93 AJW: Akira Hokuto & Toshiyo Yamada vs. Yumiko Hotta & Manami Toyota 21:51. Yamada and Hokuto gave Toyota some good abuse, with Yamada throwing her kicks and plenty of nasty stretching from the pair. Hotta and Yamada kicked the crap out of each other, and had the best exchanges. Yamada did most of the work for her team, and was standout in the match, while Hokuto took more a backseat. Toyota didn’t have a bad day on spots despite blowing her first high spot of the match. She was particularly excellent in the last few minutes when she rolled out her spots in style. It ended up being a bit of a route, as Hokuto was incapacitated, and Yamada was easily finished off with a Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex from Toyota. Hokuto did an angle with Rumi Kazama and LLPW after the match. ***3/4

5/11/93 LLPW: Miki Handa vs. Mima Shimoda 13:03 of 19:22. Good, action packed interpromotional match. It had plenty of heat and both were urgent and hungry. They both seemed to be trying to prove they were better than they were being featured at. They had the intensity, they were pulling hair, biting their legs, brawling and dumping each other with suplexes. It got better and more heated as it went along, though it was brought down a little with some sloppiness and miscommunication. ***1/2

5/11/93 LLPW: Suzuka Minami & Bat Yoshinaga vs. Rumi Kazama & Yukari Osawa 17:36 of 21:15. If this match was going to be even decent, you’d have thought it would have required Minami to carry it and do more most the work, but no, she was good, but this was BATOMANIA! Bat turned into the karate Aja Kong for a day. She was the wrecking ball. Sshe showed more charisma than anyone knew she had, and delivered the most incredible performance of her career with the entire crowd chanting her name because she was such a badass. Minami worked a solid match, cracking backs and working the more athletic sequences, setting things up for Bat, who’d come and deliver her kicks, and tank as much abuse as she could when she was on the receiving end. It helped that Kazama had a good day as well, performing above her usual level. This time her kicking battle with Kazama was actually good where it hadn’t gone anywhere on 4/11. Osawa wasn’t great, but she was adequate enough. Bat threw all kinds of kicks to Osawa and put her in a crab, which Kazama came in to break up with her kicks, but Bat just looked at her with disdain and refused to break the hold, which had the crowd chanting for her. The next time she was in, she did the same when Osawa tried to break it up, although this time Bat broke the hold so she could kick back. The moment that made the whole match was when Osawa had a crab on Minami, and Bat sauntered in and broke it with one kick. The match built into the more typical joshi big finish. The LLPW team got on a roll and seemed to have things in the bag, but Bat was the gamechanger there as well, hitting her big rolling kicks to Kazama, and taking out Osawa with one, while Minami finished off Kazama powerbombs and her diving senton. Hokuto was in the crowd for this and started more shit with LLPW afterwards. They were building the 6/15 interpromotional card from Ota Ward Gymnasium, though Hokuto refused to wrestle on it herself. The matches we would get were Eagle Sawai & Leo Kitamura vs. Aja Kong & Kyoko Inoue and Shinobu Kandori, Rumi Kazama & Miki Handa vs. Suzuka Minami, Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda. The latter was the better of the two as you’d expect, but they chopped it up with almost half of it missing on the comm tape. ****1/4

5/30/93 JWP: Devil Masami, Mayumi Ozaki & Plum Mariko vs. Dynamite Kansai, Cuty Suzuki & Candy Okutsu 27:41. This was about 20 minutes of excellent stuff, plenty of good action and Ozaki wearing a hot pink outfit for something different. Some funny spots and good heat segment on Candy, with Plum getting the revenge spots later. Devil and Ozaki were the best here, with some good stuff from Kansai. It’s JWP though, so we had to have too much of a good thing, and after 20 minutes it started dragging. It was nice that Plum actually got to win with a submission for a change, submitting Candy with an STF, though it would have been better if they’d give her wins with her kneebar every now and then since it looks so much more devastating and was a more over move. ***1/2

AJW All Japan Women vs. JWP Fierce Fighting in the North! 6/3/93 Nakajima Sports Center, Sapporo, Hokkaido (att: 3,500) Complete Show Review

6/3/93 AJW Japan Grand Prix '93 Red Zone: Toshiyo Yamada vs. Suzuka Minami 17:58. This was the second match on the card, as they omitted Etsuko Mita vs. Mima Shimoda, which went on first. This was a pretty solid match most of the way, they worked over each other legs, with Minami getting the worst of it, but she came back by roughing Yamada up outside, and worked her back over inside. Somewhat mundane, but solid and well-executed. It got really good in the last third. Yamada won with her Reverse Gory Bomb, and also managed to extract one of Minami’s teeth. ***1/4

6/3/93 AJW: Akira Hokuto & Kyoko Inoue vs. Aja Kong & Bull Nakano 16:20. Bull and Kyoko worked the majority of this and were really good, even if not giving their maximum effort. Kyoko was on the receiving end of it for the first six minutes, getting worked over by Bull with Aja following up. She got her offense in on Bull later on. Hokuto made a minimal contribution, but she was good when she was in. She could go with Aja, and got the best of Bull, which had Bull using the nunchakus, prompting Hokuto to take revenge with her bokken later. Outside of that, she assisted Kyoko from the outside, turning the table so she could hit her offense on Bull, but Aja also assisted Bull. The monsters showed better teamwork though, and that’s what ended up getting them the win. ***1/2

6/3/93 AJW 2/3 Falls, WWWA World Tag Title Match: Dynamite Kansai & Mayumi Ozaki vs. Yumiko Hotta & Takako Inoue 60:00 (16:56, 18:11, 24:13). Team JWP’s first defense of the tag belts, and a rematch on the 1/15 classic. This was paced out for 60 minutes so it was slow with lots of holds, but it built up well and there was plenty of attitude on display, which kept it entertaining. Takako and Ozaki played the little sister roles, getting worked over. Hotta and Kansai dominated and punted them around while those two would pick up the bones. Ozaki ended up getting the worst of it in the first fall, and despite them not doing a lot, it was interesting watching everyone trying to one-up each other. Kansai rushed in when she couldn’t stand it anymore, taking matters into her own hands and escalated things. She proved April was no fluke, pinning Hotta with a Splash Mountain. The second fall saw Hotta and Kansai take a turn getting worked over before Takako found herself in Ozaki’s role in the first fall. Kansai got the best of Takako. They did an interesting spot where Hotta ran in and kicked her in the face to save Takako, but Kansai held onto her and recovered to regain control. Takako got worked over, usually by Kansai with Ozaki mugging her on the outside and stomping on her hand. Hotta was able to thwart a double team from the apron to get the tag in and cleaned house, punting Kansai and hitting a Tiger Driver, which didn’t finish, but after miscommunication from Ozaki and Takako successfully assisting with a double team, she put her away with a Pyramid Driver. Takako’s ribs were injured so she got them braced up between the second and third fall. Ozaki removed the brace and used it as a weapon against Takako, followed by Kansai unleashing her kicks. Takako came back on Ozaki and hot tagged Hotta, who kicked Ozaki around in response, but Hotta potatoed her with a head shot and legitimately concussed her. Kansai had to come in to improvise while Ozaki tried to remember where she was (this was the beginning of Hotta run of concussing the JWP girls, where she concussed Ozaki, Hikari and Plum over the course of June and July). Kansai did a great job of frantically trying to protect Ozaki, while Ozaki continued trying to fight. Hotta kept kicking her down and Ozaki would fire back. The match was off the rails and the roles essentially reversed out of necessity, but what was working for it was that it was so dramatic. A concussed Ozaki seems to bring about great performances (she gave an all time great performance at Dream Rush after being concussed within the first minute of the match as well). She struggled through a crowd brawl with Takako, while Hotta and Kansai went at it. In the ring, it wasn’t pretty. Ozaki couldn’t do everything, she did her spots as well as you could expect, but it was sloppy and everyone could see she had nothing left but was refusing to die. By the end, Kansai and Ozaki were looking to put Takako away, but were unable to do it and the time ran out. This wasn’t a classic, but it was consistently good throughout with a great twist and drama in the final fall. ****

6/11/93 AJW Japan Grand Prix '93 Red Zone: Toshiyo Yamada vs. Sakie Hasegawa 15:54. Yamada worked over Sakie’s bad leg and potatoed her with kicks. She was gushing from the nose, and it can’t have felt good, but it really added to her comeback. Picked up in the final third with a good comeback and turned into the dramatic final portion. Sakie’s best trait is her fire, and she had plenty of that here. She scored the upset with a flash pin to claim the biggest win of her career. ***1/2

6/11/93 AJW: Akira Hokuto vs. Yasha Kurenai 2:17. Greatest ‘anything’ of all time is usually a big statement, but I have no hesitation in calling this the greatest squash match of all time. Everyone came out of it better off, it furthered the Hokuto vs. LLPW angle, and it was just funny and entertaining. Let’s put this into the proper context. This was supposed to be the JGP match between Hokuto vs. Harley Saito, but Harley was injured and was unable to compete (their match was postponed to 8/5). So, it was Hokuto vs. “X”, with someone from LLPW replacing Harley. Hokuto thought the president herself, Rumi Kazama, should step up and fight, but little unknown Yasha Kurenai walked out, a low ranked heel who none of the Zenjo fans had even heard of. The crowd were not impressed by this, but it was the biggest moment of Yasha’s career. She let everyone know who she was and proclaimed she was here to take over the world, then she spat in Hokuto’s face. Hokuto’s too cool to react to that, but everyone knew what was going to happen. Hokuto slaughters people she likes, much less some scrub from another company who just spat in her face. Yasha had to die. Match started, Hokuto mocked her pose, Yasha jumped on her and went to town on her leg with a shinai and hit all of her offense. Hokuto ate all of it, got the knees up on a diving body press, tossed away the shinai but she didn’t need it, and then finished immediately with a Northern Light’s bomb. Hokuto spoke afterwards and gave her credit for coming out alone. She didn’t get a chance to introduce herself, so she let Yasha know who she is and gave her some respect. The idea was that Hokuto was going to squash some unknown and make a name out of them in the process, get herself over and further the angle with Kazama. It all worked, and probably better than anyone thought it would. It made Yasha, and it’s probably Hokuto’s most famous match at this point because the video went viral in Japan at some point in the last 15 years, and now way more people know about it than the Kandori match.

6/11/93 AJW: Yumiko Hotta, Manami Toyota & Takako Inoue vs. Aja Kong, Bull Nakano & Bat Yoshinaga 25:29. Well executed all action match to end the show, typical of Zenjo. It had more of a hard hitting flavour with four bruisers being in there. Toyota threw in her spots and took some big bumps. Takako was the odd one out, but she did what she could to fit in. Everyone was good here. Toyota and Takako took most of the beatings., Toyota spazzed out at one point, potatoing Bull a few times, so she received some brutal receipts. ***3/4

6/20/93 JWP: Mayumi Ozaki vs. Takako Inoue 26:33. These two were the center of the JWP vs Zenjo rivalry, having faced each other 5 times in tag matches since December. They were even at 2-2 in those with the recent draw. Ozaki had pinned Takako twice, and Takako had only pinned Ozaki once. So, now it was time for the 1 on 1 showdown on the first JWP TV. Takako won the opening, hitting three tombstone piledrivers and working Ozaki over. Ozaki had been overpowered, and came back with viciousness in response. She used hair tosses, choking, and roughed Takako up outside. Ozaki worked over the arm and bit her while she was at it. Takako was able to catch her with a boot in the corner, but Ozaki just nonchalantly sidestepped a dropkick. They continued that by sidestepping each other’s dropkicks, then avoided each others dives to the outside. Takako regained control inside the ring, delivering another tombstone and her Aurora Special, but that didn’t get the job done, so she soon reverted back to the matwork. It had been a slow burn, interesting build up to this point, and Ozaki had enough timing with her spots and adding things like hair pulling from underneath to try to keep things from being too mundane, but it stagnated here. Takako could have retaliated with revenge dirty tactics and turned it into a scrappy, vicious affair, which she was good at, but instead, she didn’t do enough to match Ozaki’s struggle, and the match never really felt like it was going anywhere anymore. It just meandered until they picked things up again. They worked a nice sequence off Ozaki’s comeback where she hit a superplex, but Takako snagged her knee and put her in a kneebar. Coming off that, we had an excellent run that would’ve made for a great finish; Ozaki countered the top rope chokeslam with a Judo Throw, and Takako fended off two Tequila Sunrise attempts, then hit and her Aurora Special for a two count. She applied a dragon sleeper and Ozaki walked up the ropes and got behind her to hit her Tequila Sunrise. The theme of missed dives costing Ozaki continued. She was able to suplex Takako on the floor to do some damage, but she missed dives before and after. They stomped at each other and fought over suplexes. Their own finishers hadn’t worked so they self-destructed stealing each other finishers, an interesting idea to manufacture a couple more near falls, but it was too cute. I wouldn’t expect them to execute them perfectly, but it was a bit too ugly, and Takako blew her first try at the Tequila Sunrise and had to redo it. In the end, another dive attempt cost Ozaki the match. Takako used her own finishers, bringing her down with a chokeslam and finished with a straightjacket version of the Aurora Special. This was a good, but flawed match, and most of the issues could have been solved by simply cutting 10 minutes from it. They just didn’t have enough offense or ideas to cover 27 minutes. ***

7/4/93 AJW Japan Grand Prix '93 Blue Zone: Kyoko Inoue vs. Bat Yoshinaga 16:14. Bat didn’t get that many chances to have quality singles match, and this was almost certainly her best singles match ever. She hit her brutal kicks and gave Kyoko a good working in the middle, which Kyoko sold huge for. She was happy enough to work holds, but when Kyoko would try to reverse or make comebacks, Bat would kick her down or do a spot. Bat showed some hesitation, so the transitions weren’t always as smooth as they could have been, but it got better as it went along and they didn’t have an issues once they hit the finishing run. Kyoko kept trying to take control, but Bat would cut her off. Kyoko avoided two rolling kicks so Bat drove her face first onto the exposed floor, and then killed her with rolling kicks in the ring. Kyoko bumped all over the place for them. Bat’s kicks looked great anyways, but Kyoko’s bumping added to it. Kyoko made a comeback with a slingshot, but Bat shoved her into the corner to avoid the Niagara Driver. Kyoko punched her off and a quickly dropkicked her. Bat continued to avoid the Niagara Driver, but got caught with a punch and a German suplex. She survived those and got the pin upset with another rolling kick. ***3/4

7/4/93 AJW Japan Grand Prix '93 Red Zone: Akira Hokuto vs. Suzuka Minami 16:20. The first part of this was hilarious with Minami jumping Hokuto unsuccessfully twice trying to hit backbreakers while Hokuto was still robed up. Minami was embarrassed at that, but once Hokuto disrobed, she made up for it by hitting a tope and a powerbomb on the floor. Hokuto had the upperhand after that, torturing her with submissions until Minami came back with a backbreaker and returned the favor. They did another funny spot where Minami kept running away from Hokuto’s somersault plancha and waited in the ring. It seemed like a low effort from two pros with incredible chemistry and the ability to make the most of it to this point, but really kicked things up a gear for the finish. Minami got too aggressive through, and they fought over a suplex on the apron which resulted in Hokuto suplexing her from the apron to the floor and hitting her somersault plancha. Minami avoided a missile dropkick and demolished Hokuto with powerbombs, but she went up top and got superplexed down. They hit piledrivers on each other outside and Minami did a flying kick. Minami hit her diving senton and almost got the win with it. She challenged Hokuto to get up to powerbomb her, which was a bad idea that resulted in Hokuto hitting two powerbombs. Minami made one more mistake, which was Irish whipping Hokuto, as Hokuto reversed it and hit a Northern Light’s Bomb to put her away. ****

7/4/93 AJW: Manami Toyota, Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda vs. Aja Kong, Bull Nakano & Tomoko Watanabe 20:14. Typical very good Zenjo six woman tag. Plenty of good stuff from everyone, even Watanabe wasn’t blowing spots today, perhaps losing the mask helped her. Shimoda got worked over in the middle and it might have been a bit slow at times. Toyota actually got to do the rolling cradle on Aja, which was a rarity. Everyone ran in after that, and it was mayhem for a while, with some good near falls. Bull crushed Toyota with lariats and pinned her with a diving legdrop. ***3/4

7/26/93 AJW Japan Grand Prix '93 Blue Zone: Kyoko Inoue vs. Manami Toyota 17:14 of 30:00. This didn’t air on TV, and was only showed on Classics. I’m sure having 13 minutes of this cut helped because it would have taken out a lot of the pointless matwork that drags Toyota matches down, but I far preferred this to their overrated 1992 ‘classic’. Kyoko injured her knee on the outside, which gave Toyota something to focus on with her matwork, and a little more substance than we usually get from Kyoko vs. Toyota matches. As always with these two, it’s all about the spots though and they did a lot of them, and their execution was excellent. Kyoko battled her way through, selling her leg throughout, which made her a bigger underdog. It did become a back and forth spotfest by the end as they tried to hit their finishers to win, and there were tons of great counters, big spots and near falls. In the end, neither could hit the Niagara Driver or the Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex, and they ran out of time. ****1/4

7/26/93 AJW: Akira Hokuto & Suzuka Minami vs. Yumiko Hotta & Toshiyo Yamada 15:42 of 16:21. If you went to classics to watch Manami Toyota vs. Kyoko Inoue, you might as well stick around for this one as well, as classics aired almost all of it, while the original TV version butchered it and showed less than half of it. Marine Wolves one night reunion against the Zenjo kick queens. This was a really good, fast paced tag match with plenty of hard kicks and brutal spots. Hotta and Yamada controlled most of it with hot comebacks from Hokuto and Minami. Tons of big spots and double teams at the end. Marine Wolves hit a double dropkick on Hotta for old times sake, and Hokuto pinned her with a Northern Light’s Bomb to finish. ****

JWP Thunder Queen Battle in Yokohama 7/31/93 Yokohama Bunka Gymnasium, Yokohama, Kanagawa (att: 5,500) Complete Show Review

Suzuka Minami & Kaoru Ito vs. Devil Masami & Candy Okustu 14:28. Excellent match where everyone got shine. This was certainly helped by being sub-15 minutes, so it got to be all action without getting bogged down at all, yet was still paced out so well that it was always building as it went. Candy and Ito were the workhorses. Candy usually got worked over, but made hot comebacks. Minami crushed her with some of the most brutal looking backbreakers. The only negative was that Candy was a bit sloppy, but that worked for the whole veteran/young girl story that was going on. Devil was the standout in terms of carrying the match, setting things up for Candy to shine. When Devil was in, she was brutal with her lariats, stomps, Jumbo suplexes and powerbombs. At one point, she tried to Jumbo Suplex Candy onto Minami, but Minami moved. Devil took a lot of footstomps from Ito afterwards, so she got revenge for that with a big footstomp on her own, though Ito got the last laugh in the end by pinning Candy. There’s only one match anyone thinks of when they think of this show, but this one shouldn’t be overlooked. It was one of the top 5 JWP matches of the year. ****1/4

60-minute Full Time Tag Team Match: Aja Kong, Kyoko Inoue, Takako Inoue & Sakie Hasegawa vs. Dynamite Kansai, Mayumi Ozaki, Cuty Suzuki & Hikari Fukuoka 60:00. This match had some special, unique rules. The team with the most falls within the 60-minute time limit would be declared the winner, and it was structured into two phases. The First Attack was four 5-minute singles matches: Hasegawa vs. Fukuoka ("Athletic"), Takako vs. Cuty ("Super Idol"), Kyoko vs. Ozaki ("Speed and Technique"), and Aja vs. Kansai ("Top Battle"). The Second Attack was a 4 vs. 4 tag team match for the remaining 40 minutes. This was an incredibly well laid out and dramatic match that was intriguing and exciting for the 60-minute duration, which t flew by with a great interpromotional atmosphere thanks to the hot crowd. Hasegawa vs. Fukuoka was the first match and at the 2:33 mark, Fukuoka held Sakie’s shoulders down with a flash pin that got a three count with Sakie flailing to get out of it but being unsuccessful to give JWP the 1-0 lead. While the wrestling itself wasn’t particularly remarkable, they set the tone that this wasn’t something you could afford to take your eyes off, & Fukuoka showed she belonged after two losses to Sakie earlier in the year. Ozaki vs. Kyoko was next, and they did take things up a gear initially. The crowd exploded as Ozaki came out trying to burst Kyoko down with a rana and DDTs. Kyoko got the upper hand soon enough though, and worked Ozaki over the majority of their match. Kyoko didn’t have the crowd support, so she seemed to be wasting her time trying to get it instead of securing a fall. Ozaki prevented the Giant Swing long enough so that when Kyoko hit it on her, she didn’t have any time to try to the Niagara Driver before the time expired on them. Takako vs. Cuty was next. Cuty dumped Takako with suplexes and booted to the face. They worked each other over a bit, and had some hot near falls. You’d think they would have had the weakest of the singles matches, but it was actually the best of them, with the most exciting near falls and Cuty pushing Takako (although Kansai vs. Aja was the most dramatic). The aces went next, and this is what the crowd were waiting for. Kansai charged in with a kick and Aja went bang! Knocking her out with a Uraken and Kansai couldn’t answer the 10-count. Just like that, it was 1-1 in a manner no one expected, and within both falls, every roll-up and uraken was now a hot move. Kansai spent the rest of the fall in survival mode. She made comebacks, but nothing that threatened Aja, although she did score some heavy kicks at the end. There were no further alarms though. With the First Attack complete, the Second Attack began, and all hell broke loose. Aja had the best of Kansai, and Kansai had to tag out. This resulted in Aja facing off against Cuty, with predictable results. At 23:04, Zenjo took the lead 2-1. The match started again from here, building the match. It took a few minutes to get moving again. There was a funny part with Kyoko getting the tag from Aja while Cuty was recovering. The crowd chanted for her, and she didn’t want to jump on her because she didn’t want to lose the crowd support, so she just toyed with her a little and tagged Sakie. Hikari cartwheeled through Takako to set Kansai up to punt her around. Ozaki took a simpler approach and opted to punch her in the head when she tagged in. Kyoko did get heel heat for preventing Kansai from taking Takako to Splash Mountain. Kyoko got Ozaki into a vulnerable position for Aja, and Aja stacked Ozaki in the corner for everyone to charge into. Aja played bully on Ozaki for a while, a brute, dragging Ozaki around like she was nothing. She put a Dragon Sleeper on her, which everyone tried to break. Cuty and Kansai’s attempts were ignored, while Hikari’s slaps annoyed her enough to break and slug her down with a stiff slap. Kyoko put a camel clutch on setting up a punt for Aja, but before that, Takako established herself as the big villain of the match, running in and stomping Ozaki first to get revenge for earlier. Ozaki was able to make a tag to Kansai, and Kansai and Kyoko had a really nice exchange of Kansai’s kicks vs. Kyoko’s Mongolian chops and boots, which Kansai won, but when she tagged Cuty in again, Cuty returned to getting killed. Sakie hit her best spot in the match, with six rolling double arm suplexes, while Aja continued joining illegally for double teams, which included another camel clutch spot to Cuty. JWP got their revenge soon after with Kyoko on the receiving end of3 of Kansai’s camel clutch punts. JWP’s advantage was again short-lived, as Aja destroyed Hikari soon after, tearing through her body attacks and suplexes. Hikari spazzed out, but Aja didn’t even react, and put her back down with one headbutt. Hikari came back on Kyoko, boomeranging out of the corner with a moonsault, landing her feet and rolling Kyoko up for two before tagging out to Ozaki. Ozaki powerbombed Kyoko, but Takako broke up the pin, and the crowd decided she’s was villiain of the match. It made sense that Takako was the big heel, though Aja was the one doing all the damage. Takako was the vulture. She couldn’t do much herself, but picked up the scraps Aja left for her. She’d also been the one who’d made the most trips to JWP, and this made the finish later even more sweet. Aja broke up the next pin, but that went all wrong, as she stomped Ozaki’s head into Kyokos, leaving them both messed up; Kyoko was busted open and Ozaki had her eye swollen. This even added to what was to come, with both looking more vulnerable as they became the target of the other teams offense. Kansai proved herself as Aja’s equal by brutalizing and stiffing the hell out of both Takako and Sakie. With over 40 minutes gone now, JWP were still a fall behind, and needed to level things up. Kyoko found herself on the receiving end of another revenge spot, with the entire JWP team charging at her in the corner. She then took a long rolling cradle from Hikari and got destroyed with dives; Ozaki’s senton, diving foostomps from Cuty and Kansai, and a Hikari moonsault for the pin while the other three took defensive line to guard. However, Aja barrelled through and knocked over the whole group to prevent the surefire pinfall. This was an incredible run and visual, but as great as that was, they were only just getting started. If that didn’t work, perhaps chaos was the answer. It began with Kyoko mounting a comeback, and then taking out both Cuty and Kansai with a dive. Meanwhile, Hikari and Ozaki dropkicked Aja out of the ring, allowing Hikari to follow up with a plancha. Ozaki attempted to hit everyone, but Takako and Sakie intervened with a double dropkick. Takako then attempted a tope on Ozaki, but Ozaki evaded, causing her to splat onto the floor. This segment ended with Ozaki and Kyoko trading near falls, but neither could catch one. Sakie got dumped on her head a bunch of times, and Takako got more heat for preventing Kansai’s Splash Mountain. Kansai and Kyoko engaged in another intense exchange, but Kyoko's Niagara Driver was thwarted by interference from JWP, which lead to all hell breaking loose again. Kansai managed to counter Kyoko's Niagara Driver and attempted her Splash Mountain, but Takako intervened again, forcing Kansai to deal with her. After dispatching Takako, Kansai returned to Kyoko, delivering a series of lariats in the corner. Meanwhile, Ozaki had made her way back to the apron, and Hikari and Cuty continued to restrain Aja. Eventually, Kansai successfully executed the Splash Mountain, and JWP finally evened the score 2-2 to end another incredible segment at 50:09. The crowd were in a frenzy at this point as the JWP team tried to catch Kyoko again, but they couldn’t get another fall on her. Ozaki got trapped in the Zenjo corner and got beaten on worse than anyone had been in the match to this point, mainly by Aja and Takako. A backdrop suplex from the top from Aja was sure to put her away, and the Zenjo team lined up in a similar fashion to guard her as JWP had done earlier, but Cuty managed to get past Sakie to interrupt the fall. Aja powerslammed Ozaki from the top rope to follow up, with Kansai barely intervening in time. Ozaki tried to come back with a sunset flip and Aja sat on her, but she managed to scamper off to make a hot tag to Kansai. Kansai came in all fired up on Aja, clobbering her, but she ate another Uraken. This one didn’t knock her out, but it left her in a state where she was in trouble. She took more punishment from Sakie and Takako and had to tag out. Cuty tried to put Kyoko away, but Takako kept interrupting the pins to huge boos. Takako and Ozaki were both legal in the closing moments. Takako hit an Aurora Special for a near fall and then the Zenjo team charged the JWP team to hold them down as she hit the straightjacket version she beat Ozaki with in June, the cluster of bodies pushing and jostling in the corner, all attempting to break up the pin was incredible, but it backfired for the Zenjo team. Ozaki refused to be beaten, and kicked out this time. Takako attempted to set up the move once more, but Ozaki countered her Irish Whip and pulled her into the Tequila Sunrise, and with no one able to intervene, she got the final pinfall and put JWP up 3-2, securing the victory 59:55! Ozaki pulled off a miracle and the underdog JWP team achieved an incredible victory! Ozaki was the hero, and everyone in the building rejoiced. Everyone except Aja, who was pissed. She challenged Kansai for the WWWA World Single Title, setting up the Budokan main event for 8/25. This match was an incredible from start to finish. It was 40 minutes of a great build up that set everything up, and a 20 minute explosion of incredible action that paid it all off, capped off by one of the greatest finishes ever! Eight distinct personalities, and they all played a role, no matter how big or minor it was. It was Aja’s career best performance to this point, but Kyoko, Ozaki, Kansai and even Takako played major roles along with her. Hikari, Cuty and Sakie, who was the worst in the match, also made great contributions. All of the little stories paid off while still leaving plenty left to come. Is is the greatest match of all time? I don’t know that I could call a gimmick match the greatest match of all time, but it’s right up there and a definite contender. *****

8/5/93 AJW Japan Grand Prix '93 Red Zone: Akira Hokuto vs. Harley Saito 16:02 of 17:51. Harley was fired up and gave a great underdog performance with her excellent selling and comebacks, while Hokuto spent her time abusing her injured ribs on her way to finishing first place if the Red Zone. Hokuto’s knee was in a bad way coming in, and worsened significantly throughout the match, which caused the match to suffer in one way, but made it more compelling because Harley never had a chance of taking down a full strength Hokuto, but this made her a threat. Hokuto responded in the only way the Dangerous Queen does, she carried on and gutted her way through every spot. Harley never quit fighting back, but by the end of the match, even kicking out of a pin attempt was causing her intense pain. In the end, she almost pulled it off with a Tiger Suplex, but missed a Flying Headbutt afterward, and was put away with the DQ bomb. ****

8/16/93 JWP Openweight Title: Dynamite Kansai vs. Mayumi Ozaki 20:29. Part of JWP's marketing strategy seemed to be doing their title matches on the Osaka house shows to draw. They weren’t shown on TV or released on commercial tape though, so this is only available as a handheld, a bad one too – the quality of the footage is excellent, but it’s shot from a corner angle from the ground, several rows back. It started out interestingly with Ozaki going for a rana and getting caught in Splash Mountain for a near fall, then a diving headbutt before Ozaki hit her Tequila Sunrise for a near fall. The entire middle portion of the match was just boring, and the footage is probably a large part of the blame for that because you couldn’t see much of what was going on, just that Kansai was working Ozaki over with holds. Once they picked things up for the final five minutes, the action was really good. I’m not sure Ozaki was ever a serious threat at any point in the match, but she tried, and the theme of her countering the Splash Mountain was in effect, as it took Kansai three attempts to hit at the end to get the win. ***

8/21/93 AJW Japan Grand Prix '93 Semi-Final: Manami Toyota vs. Akira Hokuto 16:37. Despite her knee being in shambles, Hokuto was still a force of nature. Toyota found out all too quickly, as she tried to blow her away at the start, only to find herself on the receiving end of Hokuto’s abuse. After a comeback, she started to play a smarter match, and went after Hokuto’s knee. She did a great job of it tearing it up, and it wasn’t just Hokuto’s superior selling that made it, Toyota actually matched Hokuto’s intensity and focus both on the mat, and later on when they went into their high spots. As the match progressed, Toyota's viciousness echoed her performance from their previous encounter in 1991. Hokuto made valiant efforts to fight back, and got a breather, but Toyota was relentless, immediately pouncing on the knee after Hokuto returned to the ring. Hokuto fought back with whatever means necessary. She managed to halt Toyota's assault with a chokehold. In doing so, she halted Toyota’s progress, but also broke her focus. Toyota strayed from what was working, and into a more high risk game. Hokuto had no answer for the legwork, but risky moves were always open to be countered. Toyota attempted a Manami Roll, but Hokuto countered it into a powerbomb. Hokuto sought to finish Toyota off quickly with a Northern Light’s Bomb, but Toyota countered that into a Rolling Cradle. She sailed outside when Hokuto avoided her dropkick. Hokuto capitalized by executing her Somersault Plancha. She gave Toyota two piledrivers on the floor, which were the only really dumb spots they did because they were so pointless. Toyota’s comeback was incredible though. Toyota made a spectacular comeback, rebounded with a body press off the announce table, and went in for the kill with dives, including a tope, a plancha, and quebrada. This run of offense was so great that the whole chanted for Toyota for the first time that I can think of since 1990. Toyota hit a moonsault in the ring for a near fall, and Hokuto thwarted her attempt to hit the Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex. Hokuto launched a comeback, countering with a backdrop suplex followed by a missile dropkick. Hokuto persisted trying to put Toyota away, once again aiming for her Northern Light’s Bomb, but once again Toyota denied her, this time catching a Japanese Ocean Suplex. Toyota missed a second moonsault, and instead of trying her Northern Light’s Bomb again, which Toyota likely might have evaded, she hit her relatively new finisher, the DQ bomb to get the win. Hokuto carried it so well, it was loaded with drama and her great selling. Hokuto was smart, and played to her strengths, mitigating her flaws, and Toyota was on point with her attacks. Really great match, the best one they ever had together. ****1/2

8/21/93 AJW Japan Grand Prix '93 Final: Akira Hokuto vs. Yumiko Hotta 19:52. This was a similar match to Hokuto vs. Toyota, but with Hotta bringing a different personality. She’s more methodical, confident in knowing what she had to do, and less frenetic, which gave the match a different dynamic even though it was telling the same story. Hotta was more dominant and in control, but she still couldn’t stop the force of nature that was the Dangerous Queen. In the initial stages of the match, there was a deliberate pace. Hotta targeted Hokuto's injured leg with her kicks. Hokuto’s selling was perfect, she let out agonized screams for each kick, but in her realistic way, and she never oversold. Hokuto tried to make comebacks, but was quickly cut off. She caught a break outside and got a breather, then took over in the ring. The transition was probably a little too weak compared to how Hotta had been built, with Hokuto simply kicking her in the leg and taking over. Hokuto’s control segment wasn’t so hot either, but the match picked up soon after. Hotta displayed her own tenacity, absorbing kicks to the face and getting angry. Hokuto elbowed her down to put out her fire, and settled into a dragon sleeper and camel clutch. They brawled outside, with Hokuto roughing Hotta up more. In the ring, they moved into the final portion. Hokuto missed a plancha and Hotta hit an elbow attack from the middle top to the outside. Hotta took another risk, going for a leg lariat from the top, but Hokuto avoided it. She repaid the favor when Hokuto went for a missile dropkick, Hotta sidestepped it, and kicked her leg on the way down. They countered each others finishers, and Hotta was able to hit a Tiger Driver for a near fall. Hokuto came back and hit a DQ bomb, but only got two. Hokuto struggled to the top turnbuckle, but Hotta met her here, and hit her Caribbean Splash for a near fall. They’d hit the secondary finishers, and all that was left was to hit their finishers. Hokuto was done for, and Hotta hit a nasty release Pyramid Driver, just dumping her on a neck, but Hokuto was unbeatable and kicked out. Hotta went up for one more risk, and it allowed Hokuto back in again, she backdropped suplexed her down. Now, Hotta was done for, but Hokuto’s knee was too messed up for her to execute the Northern Light’s Bomb normally, so she whipped Hotta to use her momentum to execute it, and got the three count. The post-match summed everything up perfectly. Hokuto came out of the Japan Grand Prix with a perfect record. She was entitled to her shot at the WWWA World Single title, but it came at the cost of her knee, which was so badly injured that it now required surgery. Hokuto's frustration was clear, as she threw away the winners trophy. This was another Hokuto classic, leading her second match of the night, and to directly compare them, this wasn’t far behind the Toyota match. I found Hotta more threatening than Toyota, and I thought the first half was a bit better despite them doing less, but the Toyota match had a better second half. ****1/4

The 1993 Japan Grand Prix was the best edition of the tournament they ever did. Many of these matches have been covered above, but here’s the full list of match ratings for all of the 24 JGP '93 matches:

5/3/93 Japan Grand Prix '93 Blue Zone: Hikari Fukuoka vs. Kaoru Ito. **

5/3/93 Japan Grand Prix '93 Red Zone: Etsuko Mita vs. Harley Saito. ***1/2

5/3/93 Japan Grand Prix '93 Red Zone: Akira Hokuto vs. Toshiyo Yamada. ***3/4

5/4/93 Japan Grand Prix '93 Red Zone: Harley Saito vs. Tomoko Watanabe. **

5/4/93 Japan Grand Prix '93 Blue Zone: Manami Toyota vs. Yumiko Hotta. ***1/2

5/8/93 Japan Grand Prix '93 Blue Zone: Kyoko Inoue vs. Saemi Numata. *3/4

5/8/93 Japan Grand Prix '93 Red Zone: Suzuka Minami vs. Etsuko Mita. ***1/2

5/8/93 Japan Grand Prix '93 Red Zone: Takako Inoue vs. Harley Saito. ****1/2 (Best match of the tournament)

5/19/93 Japan Grand Prix '93 Red Zone: Akira Hokuto vs. Etsuko Mita. **

5/19/93 Japan Grand Prix '93 Blue Zone: Hikari Fukuoka vs. Mima Shimoda. ***

6/3/93 Japan Grand Prix '93 Red Zone: Toshiyo Yamada vs. Suzuka Minami. ***1/4

6/3/93 Japan Grand Prix '93 Blue Zone: Manami Toyota vs. Hikari Fukuoka. **

6/11/93 Japan Grand Prix '93 Red Zone: Toshiyo Yamada vs. Sakie Hasegawa. ***1/2

6/11/93 Japan Grand Prix '93 Blue Zone: Kyoko Inoue vs. Hikari Fukuoka. ***

7/4/93 Japan Grand Prix '93 Red Zone: Takako Inoue vs. Sakie Hasegawa. ***

7/4/93 Japan Grand Prix '93 Blue Zone: Kyoko Inoue vs. Bat Yoshinaga. ***3/4

7/4/93 Japan Grand Prix '93 Red Zone: Akira Hokuto vs. Suzuka Minami. ****

7/4/93 Japan Grand Prix '93 Blue Zone: Yumiko Hotta vs. Hikari Fukuoka. *

7/4/93 Japan Grand Prix '93 Red Zone: Toshiyo Yamada vs. Harley Saito. ***1/4

7/26/93 Japan Grand Prix '93 Blue Zone: Kyoko Inoue vs. Manami Toyota. ****1/4

8/5/93 Japan Grand Prix '93 Red Zone: Akira Hokuto vs. Harley Saito. ****

8/21/93 Japan Grand Prix '93 Semi-Final: Manami Toyota vs. Akira Hokuto. ****1/2

8/21/93 Japan Grand Prix '93 Semi-Final: Yumiko Hotta vs. Harley Saito. **

8/21/93 Japan Grand Prix '93 Final: Akira Hokuto vs. Yumiko Hotta. ****1/4

AJW Budokan Legacy of Queens 8/25/93 Tokyo Nippon Budokan (att: 15,400) Complete Show Review

Elimination Match: Bat Yoshinaga, Bull Nakano, Etsuko Mita, Mima Shimoda & Suzuka Minami vs. Eagle Sawai, Harley Saito, Leo Kitamura, Miki Handa & Yukari Osawa (LLPW) 15:47. This was the first proper match on the show, and it was an excellent one. It also must have been a rib getting the annoying FMW ring announcer (who sounds like that guy on the Simpsons who says “e-yes” all the time) to introduce the match with the most wrestlers in it. It did suffer from the limitation of being a 15 minute elimination match where everyone wanted their chance to shine. It was spot after spot the whole time, and well laid out. Not a second of it was wasted, and everyone was good. BATOMANIA wasn't confined to the LLPW 5/11 show, as she got massive reactions in this match as well. While not the best in the match, she was the standout performer, leaving the biggest impression and delivering the most memorable moments. Kitamura, Handa and Osawa were the first three out within about 2 minutes of each other, leaving the LLPW team 5 v 2. The point here was to make Eagle and Bat look great, though Eagle was probably the worst one in the match due to some issues she had lifting Bull on spots. Eagle eliminated Minami and Shimoda within 10 seconds of each other, and followed up getting rid of Mita soon after, bringing it back to 2 v 2. Harley and Eagle were trying to put Bull away, but failed and Bat came in like a total wrecking ball. She demolished Harley with a rolling kick, Eagle with one, Bull with one by accident, and delivered one to Harley to eliminate her. It was only a matter of time before Eagle followed. She survived a lot of what Bull threw at her, but Bat destroyed her with a rolling kick, and Bull finished up with a somersault guillotine leg drop to win. ****

Takako Inoue vs. Cuty Suzuki (JWP) 18:17. While it didn’t quite match her matches with the Scorpion in 1991, this was one of Cuty’s more notable singles matches, and Takako’s to an extent. The first two thirds were mostly just the two working each other over in holds. Cuty did a decent job on top, but it was a lot better when Takako was working her over. Takako did a good job with her knee work, and the way Cuty put it over made this portion of the match, she actually gave a really good babyface performance in general, though she wasn’t really the fan favorite given she was an outsider. They dropped the submissions and started working for their key spots, and did a really good job of it. They threw out just about everything they knew. Cuty survived the top rope chokeslam, and Takako kicked out of a Dragon Suplex. They ended up decking each other, with Takako recovering first. She kept knocking Cuty down, and hit a diving knee attack to get the win. As good as this was, and they made the most of what they do well, it was probably 5 minutes too long and did show that these two were better suited to tags. It was really good match though. ***1/2

Toshiyo Yamada & Kaoru Ito vs. Megumi Kudo & Yukie Nabeno (FMW) 14:24. Zenjo sent Ito over to FMW to job, so FMW repaid them by sending Yukie Nabeno. Maybe they should have sent Numacchi, that was about the talent level of Nabeno. This match was probably at its worst when it fell into the veteran vs. youngster match that took up the majority of it. Yamada couldn’t do much with the hapless Nabeno aside from punt her around, and Kudo didn’t work well with Ito. There was plenty of awkwardness, and at one point, Kudo made the strange decision to do four Tiger Drivers in a row because I guess nothing else was working. Then Yamada saved her from a fifth, which saw Ito go on offense immediately after (that may have been one of those times where a chinlock might have been a better choice). Kudo and Yamada were good together, and Nabeno followed along better with Ito, who was all fired up to get her win back from the FMW show. The finish was excellent though. Some really good spots, and Kudo looking to finish off Ito while Yamada frantically saved her after dealing with Nabeno. The urgency was high throughout this portion, and the finish was great with Ito eventually stomp spamming Nabeno, hitting a diving footstomp to take Kudo out on the outside before finishing Nabeno with a diving footstomp in the ring. When this match was bad, it was really bad, but when it was good it was really good. ***1/4

Kyoko Inoue vs. Shinobu Kandori (LLPW) 17:46. Kyoko embodies the goofier aspects of pro-wrestling with her Mongolian Chops, wacky lucha matwork, run up dives, giant swing and slingshots, while Kandori embodies the realistic shooter side. These two were like oil and water, and the idea that this match could work seemed to be if Kyoko compromised her style to work a more realistic one to fit what Kandori does, however she went the opposite way, and it worked perfectly. She was just as jovial as she always was, and did every wacky spot she knew, while selling Kandori’s submissions as frantically as was warranted. Kandori didn’t compromise either, and knew how to sell Kyoko’s wrestling with a mixture of pain, surprise and anger. The match started off brilliantly, Kandori aimed to rough up Kyoko, but found herself caught in a helicopter slam. Kyoko ran through her non-threatening submissions and Kandori gave her a reality check by roughing her up when she got the chance and going for her more lethal submissions. Kyoko did eventually concede that she couldn’t mat wrestle with Kandori, and would have to rely on superior speed and athleticism. That worked until Kandori began anticipating her moves. One of the most effective spots in the match occurred when Kyoko attempted a slingshot elbow, only for Kandori to step back and apply a sleeper hold in the middle of the ring. It wasn’t the most well-executed spot they did, but it didn’t need to be. Kandori really wanted to choke Kyoko out, and every subsequent sleeper spot was great, with Kyoko frantically getting out of them. Kyoko was worn down, but she’s the most energetic player in the game, and always had something left in the tank. She wore Kandori down with spots to where they were both getting tired. Each tried for their finishers, but were still able to counter them. Kandori struck hers first, hitting the Tiger Driver, but only got a two count. Kandori went for flash submissions, Kyoko went for flash pins, and they both countered each other. The great thing was it really felt like a flash finish was just as, if not more likely to end it than a finisher. Kyoko hit the Niagara Driver, but it also only got two, and Kandori came back from the dead, locking in a wakigatame. Kyoko made the ropes once, but Kandori reapplied a modified version to get the win. Kyoko led a great match, and gave an amazing performance in all aspects, but it was far from a one woman show. The idea that Kandori was a bad worker who only brought a reputation is beyond me while matches like this exist. While it's true that she wasn't always motivated, she was prone to forgetting planned spots, and she had limitations in terms of technique and execution, she got pro-wrestling, she was unique, she knew what worked and she understood her own limitations. ****1/2

Yumiko Hotta, Manami Toyota & Sakie Hasegawa vs. Mayumi Ozaki, Plum Mariko & Hikari Fukuoka (JWP) 25:10. Coincidentally, or uncoincidentally this was Hotta coming up against all the three JWP girls she concussed. Given how badly Hotta abused them all, you probably wouldn’t even buy the JWP team in a 3 v 1 handicap match against her. Beyond that, there were rivalries with Sakie and Toyota too, so there was more than enough here to pique the interest. The beginning saw Hotta get triple teamed which had no effect, then she kicked Plum out of the ring and did a tope. Toyota perched up for a dive, but Hikari dropkicked her. She couldn’t stop Sakie, who hit a plancha, but missed. Plum and Ozaki followed up with her special dive from the middle rope. That was the first minute gone, and it was equally as messy and pointless as it was spectacular. They settled things down and worked a good slower phase where everyone just seemed to trying to one-up each other. The dislike between both teams were on show with a bit of extra niggle and a little extra on their moves, holds and pins, with no one wanting to give an inch. Just as it appeared someone was about to get worked for a traditional extended heat segment, they’d make a comeback and the momentum would change. It was a really intriguing build with lots of good action throughout, but it always felt on the verge of falling apart. Hotta did a grab of carrying the match, while Toyota did a terrible job of it because she just wanted to get her shit in all the time. Plum and Sakie were fine. Ozaki didn’t have a great day, which may have been due to some head bumps she took about half way through or just a lack of interest. Hikari wanted to stand out and tried the hardest on her team, but she could only do it if Sakie was in with her, she couldn’t do much to Hotta, and Toyota wouldn’t give her anything. At one point, Hikari and Toyota fought over a rolling cradle and Hikari got the better of it, but Toyota did her own straight after, except for twice as long just to put her in her place. The match picked up with plenty of suplexes and saves. The JWP team kept Hotta under control by triple teaming her, and got her set up for Hikari’s moonsault, but she got her knees up. The match was threatening to fall apart, and it did with a classic Manami jumpstart that turned it into a complete mess. She started a dive sequence early, sprinting past to the opposite corner and quickly climbing onto the turnbuckle. Ozaki wasn’t in position and had to rush over to dump her. Hikari and Hotta weren’t ready either and looked bewildered. Hotta tried to improvise something, directing Hikari, but Hikari must have been too confused by what her idol was doing to pay attention, and they ended up just standing around awkwardly. Ozaki held Toyota on the outside a while, and Hikari went up top and hit a plancha, Plum followed with one, Hotta was almost comically just standing making no attempt to even get involved while they were getting this sequence over with. Toyota finally got to hit her quebrada, so at least she got her dive in and to hell with the match that was happening. They got things back on track and finished up with the usual big run of spots, finishing up well at least, and something of a surprise was Hikari getting the pin on Sakie to finish the match. This match was always entertaining on at least some level, it was brilliant at times, and a complete farce at others. ***1/2

All Pacific Title Match: Akira Hokuto vs. Rumi Kazama (LLPW) 15:53. Hokuto was so great at this point that a mere good match was well below her standards, and this could only be good. She had a knee that badly needed surgery, and her opponent was decent at best. Kazama was up for this. She always displayed good aggression and disdain, but her performances typically left a lot to be desired. On this occasion, she gave one of her better efforts, executing better than normal and selling well. Hokuto worked her over first and Kazama came back on the leg. Hokuto would desperately try to thrash her way back, but Kazama was relentless, staying on the leg even when they tumbled outside. Hokuto successfully turned it into a scrap after that point and the second half, but Kazama was able to stay on top until she missed a plancha and Hokuto hit her somersault plancha. Hokuto went for the Northern Light’s Bomb and Kazama kicked her in the mouth to counter, which was a strange looking counter that Hokuto either sold a lot more than was warranted or she really did potato her (I’d assume the latter since Hokuto was straight back on offense). Hokuto went for the DQ bomb but that was also countered, and Kazama caught her in a kneebar soon after, which given the state of Hokuto’s knee was probably Kazama’s most threatening spot in the match. Hokuto came back with a DQ bomb and Kazama survived it but she was done. She looked defiant, but held a glassy eyed stare and looked like she had nothing left. Hokuto just needed to put her down. Kazama mustered up the strength to hit a German Suplex and a Powerbomb after she slipped out of the Northern Light’s Bomb, but Hokuto hit another DQ bomb and finished her off with the Northern Light’s Bomb. With President Kazama beaten, Hokuto called out Kandori after the match, and bet her life on the rematch, stating she’d retire if she lost, setting up their 12/6 rematch. This was a good, even really good match. Hokuto’s selling made it compelling, and Kazama held up her end well enough. Maybe comparing to Hokuto’s matches against Toyota and Hotta is unfair, but those matches were significantly better, and it’s hard not to group them when they all told the same basic story and came only four days earlier than this one. ***1/4

WWWA World Title Match: Aja Kong vs. Dynamite Kansai (JWP) 22:54. Coming off their first encounter at JWPs Thunder Queen Battle, this promised to be a hard hitting, stiff and brutal war and that’s exactly what it delivered, even the opening staredown was great. Early on, the pace was deliberate, as both competitors sought to wear each other down with submissions while occasionally attempting something more ambitious. Aja had more control throughout this, but Kansai did her share of damage as well. There were hints at their striking throughout, and it became clearer as it went along that this was their key to winning. It was a very slow first half, but it served its purpose, and set the stage for the second half, which turned the match into one of the most dramatic of the year. They mirrored each other at times, with both catching corner boots and lariats. They were more wary of the strikes than the big moves, so they had an easier time with suplexes and then landing knockout blows. Kansai hit a tope and diving headbutt. Aja got out of the first two Splash Moutain attempts, and a piledriver attempt soon after saw Aja wipe her out with a Uraken, perfectly timed and couldn’t have potentially been a finish, particularly after they’d established precisely that it was at the Thunder Queen Battle. Kansai didn’t even start stirring until the count of 5, making it up at 8. Aja pressed on, hitting a diving body press. She went for another, which saw Kansai kick her on the way down, but Aja came down on the leg, making it worse for Kansai. Kansai avoided two Urakens and kicked Aja’s arm on the third attempt. She did her own Uraken, which was a lousy one, so she kicked Kansai in the head with her left leg instead, which made up for it. Aja got up at 9, but was playing possum, and caught Kansai with a backdrop. She went up to the top turnbuckle, but Kansai grabbed her and hit Splash Mountain for a huge near fall. Aja blocked her second attempt at it and dropped to the mat, so Kansai put her in an STF, then teed off with kicks. Aja came back looking for suplexes, but came up with another Uraken after Kansai elbowed her way out of one. Another Uraken followed, and then two bare fisted Urakens followed, but Kansai refused to surrender and kept getting up. Aja kept slamming her with Urakens, and hit the Waterwheel Drop to put her away. ****3/4

9/5/93 AJW: Akira Hokuto vs. Numacchi 0:07. The perfect Numacchi match. Hokuto got the best out of everyone she wrestled in 1993, and Numacchi was no exception.

9/5/93 AJW, Captain Fall Survival War: Manami Toyota, Toshiyo Yamada, Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda vs. Kyoko Inoue, Aja Kong, Sakie Hasegawa & Kaoru Ito 25:31. The work was excellent from start to finish, and it was really fun ride with everyone getting their chance to shine. Toyota and Kyoko were the captains. The early portion saw a lot of really well done tandem moves from both teams. Toyota’s team attempted to seize the opportunity to take out Kyoko when she missed a diving elbow on Mita, and the whole team did diving headbutts to her. Kyoko survived that and an electric chair from Mita, turning the tide when Mita tried another Electric Chair and elimitated her with a German Suplex at 8:23. Kyoko continued to get worked over, but Aja soon emerged as the dominating force she is. She destroyed Yamada on the outside and Toyota was no match for her in the ring. The next two eliminations came a little after the 18 minute mark. Yamada managed to score a kick on Aja, but she couldn’t get two and Sakie took over. Yamada survived and tagged Shimoda, who avoided a rolling savate kick and eliminated Sakie with a Tiger Suplex. She got caught up in celebrating, and got rolled up by Ito straight after. Ito got her chance to shine finally, hitting her dives and spamming her stomps. She missed the diving footstomp on Yamada, so Aja nailed Yamada with an oil can and then Ito hit the diving footstomp on the second attempt. Toyota saved though. Aja tried to intervene again with a Uraken, but accidentally took Ito out with it. Toyota and Yamada focused Kyoko from there while keeping Aja out of the ring. The double backdrop didn’t get the job done, but Toyota’s Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex did. ****1/4

9/5/93 AJW, UWA World Women's Tag Title Match: Akira Hokuto & Suzuka Minami vs. Yumiko Hotta & Takako Inoue 24:56. Hokuto’s final match before her long overdue knee surgery, and her second match of the night after being taken to limits after the gruelling 7 seconds with Numacchi earlier. Indeed, the ‘Hokuto fights through a crippling injury’ story that had been going since the Japan Grand Prix was getting a bit old by this point, however, this match is probably the best of the bunch (at worst it’s second to Toyota vs. Hokuto from 8/21). The early portion was largely Takako getting treated like a piece of trash, and the highlight was a camel clutch punt from Hokuto, the kick was loud and Takako’s reaction was a look complete disdain. It visibly hurt, but she was determined to have her revenge. Hokuto further insulted her by dismissing her to fight Hotta, and the match really began. Hotta made her pay for that in a hurry, immediately taking apart Hokuto with kicks and working her over, while Takako ran in for illegal double teams, making sure to take over the crab so she could have her revenge with Hotta delivering a free kick, and worse, she kicked Hokuto in the knee. Their focus was great, and the heat segment was tremendous. Hokuto just sold the whole time while Takako and Hotta did nasty things to her knee and cheated as much as they felt like. After Hotta held the leg on the apron for Takako to deliver a diving knee, Minami had seen enough and attempted to take matters into her owns hands on the outside, but Hotta took care of her and continued abusing Hokuto in the ring. Hokuto was so messed up that her knee gave out when Takako tried to Irish Whip her, since this was such a ‘Southern style’ match it might have been nice if they’d milked the hot tag a little more instead of Hokuto simply avoiding a dropkick and scampering to the corner, but it got the job done. Now it was Takako's turn to endure punishment, with Minami targeting her back. Hokuto recovered to assist with a double missile dropkick for a near fall, with Hokuto clutching onto Hotta to prevent her from breaking the pin, but Takako was able to tag out afterward. Minami worked over Hotta’s knee with Hokuto following up. They tried a double team, but Takako was able to halt one attack, and Hotta came back herself. Takako and Hokuto were legal again soon after. Takako targeted the knee again with another submission and delivered a diving knee to Hokuto’s knee. Hotta tagged in and missed a flying elbow, and Hokuto once again tried to scamper to the corner, but Takako stayed in the ring and did the perfect cut off by simply standing in between Hokuto and her corner, while Hotta recovered and dragged Hokuto away like she was prey. Minami ran in with a lariat, but Hokuto turned the tide herself, cartwheeling Takako off the apron and dumping Hotta outside. Minami and Hokuto hit their big dives and sensed an opportunity to finish the match. The final run was excellent. Minami cleaned house with her backbreakers, but her momentum was halted when Hotta dodged a charge, causing Minami to fly outside the ring. Hokuto quickly intervened, preventing Hotta from executing her tope. Hotta was double powerbombed and Takako broke up the pin. Takako cut Minami off when she went to the top turnbuckle and chokeslammed her down, and that was followed with a flying knee to the back of Minami’s head. Hokuto came back and delivering her DQ bomb for a near fall. Minami then launched Hokuto off the top rope with a rocket launcher con hilo. Hokuto climbed but got caught by Hotta taking a brutal Caribbean Splash, though Minami broke up the pin. Takako got rid of Minami, and it was down to Hokuto and Hotta to finish it off. Hokuto was able to counter the Pyramid Driver and went for the Nothern Light’s Bomb, but Hotta reversed that and hit her Pyramid Driver to finish. Hokuto was the standout like she always was, and Minami was really good in a more lowkey role. Takako and Hotta were tremendous and had such a great dynamic as a tag team. One of the best non-interpromotional matches of the year. ****1/2

AJW Zenjo vs. LLPW Nagoya Super Storm 9/29/93 Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium, Nagoya, Aichi (att: 4,800) Complete Show Review

Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada vs. Harley Saito & Miki Handa (LLPW) 16:49. Disappointing match with the two best LLPW workers against Toyota and Yamada. I’m not sure if Harley was injured coming in, but after taking that double backdrop late in the match (which always looks like a recipe for disaster), her shoulder was pretty messed up. This wasn’t anyone's finest hour. Harley and Yamada were well below their usual level. It was mostly Yamada and Toyota working over Handa, with Handa doing a good job of putting them over. Picked up at the end with the usual spots, as the Zenjo team just ended up overwhelming them. The only real surprise was that Harley ate the pin, but it took Toyota’s best move, the Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex, to put here down. **3/4

Yumiko Hotta vs. Shinobu Kandori (LLPW) 20:43. The start of this was great, with Hotta attacking before the bell, and Kandori looking indignant about it all and throwing her robe down in disgust. This was all about strikes vs. submissions, and they did it the right way. Hotta was far more dominant early on than Kandori. She gave her some abuse, and quickly made the ropes whenever Kandori went for a submission. Hotta had the submissions under control with her defense, and started getting her kicks through. Kandori ended up changing her gameplan to her own strikes, and she found more success with that. Hotta’s head was bandaged, and that was removed and she bled. Striking wasn’t Kandori’s best looking offense, but it looks painful. Hotta still won that battle though in the end, putting Kandori down for a couple of TKO teases. Kandori ended up looking for pins and bombs, taking them into their final portion, which was a really good exchange of powerbomb variations since these two don’t have much else, though it went a bit too long and did go past the peak. The actual finish was a bit lame. Kandori finally locked in a flash submission which was good, the problem was Hotta made the rope and Kandori just dragged her back without releasing first. After the match, she refused to break the hold, so Takako ran in laying the boots to her and got smacked around for it. Overall, I liked the match. It told its story even if it did take a little while to get moving and didn’t know when to end. Hotta did a good job controlling and leading it, and Kandori did well in a role we don’t usually see her in. ***1/2

10/9/93 AJW, WRESTLE MARINEPIAD '93, Tokyo Bay NK Hall (att: 6,700) Complete Show Review

Roller Coaster 4 x 4 Captain Fall Match: Mima Shimoda, Kaoru Ito, Chikako Shiratori & Chaparrita ASARI vs. Cuty Suzuki, Plum Mariko, Hikari Fukuoka & Command Bolshoi (JWP) 27:49. Shimoda and Cuty were the captains of their teams. It was spotty in the sense that all the mattered was the spots, but it was put together with plenty of twists and turns on the eliminations. Some sloppiness, but it didn’t drag, and got better as it went. The questionable three were all fine here. Bolshoi was in the serious gimmick, not the clown one, so she was okay and got eliminated early anyway. ASARI and Shiratori had their best performances up to this point. None of the three added much, but they didn’t drag it down. Bolshoi was first out at 8:48, so she didn’t last long. Shiratori just did basic stuff, which she was capable of, and could execute moves properly. Her offense was about what you’d expect from a junior from ten years prior, which wasn’t a bad thing, especially when it’s something she could do. The problem was her timing is such that she’s a step late on just about every running move, which makes her look awkward still. ASARI managed to execute the Sky Twister Press flawlessly, and that’s all she needed to do. Everyone else was good and had their chances to shine. Ito was maybe the best overall, but Shimoda was all fired up, and Cuty had some really good moments, though with her it was more on defense, as her selling was tremendous and really helped get the JWP over as the underdogs. There was a run of eliminations starting at the 14 minute mark, with Hikari first being eliminated after Ito’s flying footstomp, and things weren’t looking good for JWP. However, Cuty came back and pinned Shiratori with her diving footstomp at 16:37, and pinned ASARI with her Dragon suplex at 16:50 to quickly even things up. They basically reset and rebuilt from there. The Zenjo team started blowing away JWP with spots. Ito hit her footstomp and paid the price when JWP came back taking consecutive ones from Cuty and Plum later. Shimoda and Plum traded suplexes, and Shimoda went up to the top turnbuckle, only to get rana’d down, which gave Plum the pin on her to end the match. ****

Sakie Hasegawa & Takako Inoue vs. Shinobu Kandori & Yasha Kurenai (LLPW) 11:09. This had a lot of heat because of Kandori, but neither Sakie or Takako were even remotely a threat to her. She respected Takako when Takako fought back hard enough, and did put her over though, and it’s what really made the match. She gave her enough without giving her too much. Against Sakie, Kandori just mauled her, but in the way Bull Nakano would where it’s more just dominating her and toying with her, looking to get the best out of her rather than killing her off. Yasha didn’t add anything aside from a few chokes, and served to give the Zenjo team a chance that they could win. It wasn’t the most competitive match, the only credible finish the Zenjo team came close to was a count out tease on Kandori (which was pretty well done), but the Takako vs. Kandori stuff was really fun. ***

Zenjo vs. JWP 3 Match Series #1: Kyoko Inoue vs. Devil Masami (JWP) 19:51. This was the beginning of the Zenjo vs. JWP series, delivering a truly excellent 'Devil-paced' encounter. The match buildup was solid, with Devil methodically controlling Kyoko, and Kyoko making hot comebacks that would usually get off quickly. Kyoko was great in the match as well. She was pretty much perfect in her role aside. You never had to worry about her execution in these days, but she could struggle at times against the bigger opponents. Here, she struggled on a few submissions, but that was about it. Devil got tossed around more than she usually does, and put Kyoko’s offense over strongly so you always felt like Kyoko was gaining on her. They kept the crowd engaged the whole time, with Kyoko being the fan favorite and Devil admonishing them, though at one point a brief Devil chant did break out. Devil was constantly trying to powerbomb Kyoko, but Kyoko always had an answer for them. It did come down to the battle of powerbombs. Devil’s powerbomb vs. the Niagara Driver, but since the match ended on a flash pin and they kicked out of each others, we never got an answer to that, which was fine, but it would have been nice if the finish was a bit more fleshed out. I have no problem with the flash pin in a match like this where it was so well put together and Kyoko was gaining on Devil the whole time. However, it did seem like the match was missing the last few minutes, and they might have thrown a few more high spots in to build to those powerbombs. In any case, the overall quality was exceptional, with both delivering outstanding performance, and serves as a prime example of how to elevate an underdog in a veteran vs. underdog matchup. ****1/4

Zenjo vs. JWP 3 Match Series #2: Manami Toyota vs. Mayumi Ozaki (JWP) 20:16. There was plenty of venom here, which isn’t a surprise when Ozaki is involved, but can be when Toyota is. There was a lot of matwork here, with the two stretching each other with the intention of weakening them to hit their high spots. The build was excellent, and there was a lot of hate and emotion shown. There was plenty of hair-pulling, slapping, kicking, scrapping. Toyota had some fire during this part that we don’t normally see from her, and a real chip on her shoulder. She just wanted to bully Ozaki. Ozaki had to scrap and claw her way back in with Toyota showing more viciousness. The only thing that was really bad was the transitions, which were of Toyota’s typically brainless rope running variety. As the match picked up, Ozaki kept coming up with answers for Toyota, but was always the clear underdog. The major turning point for Toyota was when she German suplexed Ozaki on the floor. She hit some big moves, finishing up the run by completing a moonsault and a dragon suplex. Neither move got the job done, and the crowd broke out in an Ozaki chant, which Toyota wasn’t happy about. She went for the Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex and Ozaki turned it into a Victory Roll for a near fall. She tried her finisher again, but Ozaki slipped out, and hit her Tequila Sunrise for the biggest near fall in the match. She followed that with her body press from the top, but Toyota got the knees up and finally hit the Japanese Ocean Cyclone to finish. The first half of the match was strong. The second half was stronger, although the segments didn’t necessarily connect together that well. But it was strong in the ways Toyota matches aren’t usually strong, and although it built up to some good spots and near falls, it didn’t have that all out explosion you usually watch Toyota matches for. ****1/4

Zenjo vs. JWP 3 Match Series #3: Toshiyo Yamada vs. Dynamite Kansai (JWP) 19:42. Kansai and Yamada had the best exchanges during the great tag team matches, and they had the best match on this show as well. Yamada was at her best in 1992/93 as a worker, but her singles matches rarely lived up to her talent level. Kansai was a smarter worker than she gets credit for, and knew how to get the best out of Yamada. The two gelled together really well. Kansai’s execution was never anything you had to worry about. Yamada’s was, but she was spot on here. They did a lot of matwork, and struggled their way through, though it was largely Kansai trying to bully Yamada, with Yamada making hot, vicious comebacks. They kicked each other as stiff as you’ll see, and held nothing back there. They worked more high spots in as it went on, with Kansai setting up for her diving headbutt. She missed it, and Yamada started levelling her with brain kicks to really put Kansai into trouble. They both countered each other's finishers twice, forcing their opponent to settle for something weaker. Yamada kept going for brain kicks in between, but she lacked the firepower of Kansai, who levelled with a brutal high kick, leading to Kansai hitting a diving back elbow drop. Yamada reversed a backdrop suplex from the top, but Kansai again kicked her down with three nasty kicks. The third one was probably enough to win by itself, but she hit Splash Mountain and Yamada wasn’t surviving that. That gave JWP a win. Even though the three match series was gone, they avoided a 3-0 whitewash. A gruelling match with both at their peak. ****1/2

The Marinepiad Biggest: Aja Kong vs. Akira Hokuto 20:09. The imfamous match where Hokuto was just coming off knee surgery, turned up to the building on crutches, in no condition to wrestle, but went ahead with the match anyway. It was supposed to be a title match, but she got on the house mic before the match and wanted it changed to a non-title match because challenging in her state would disrespect the belt. It’s a memorable match due to the circumstances. It adds to the legend that is Akira Hokuto, but she really can't go. There’s nothing wrong with the work, but it couldn’t be anything other than a one sided slaughter. Hokuto did her big dive and then spent the match getting worked over and beat on while making a few comebacks. She even hit a Northern Light’s Bomb towards the end. There are some dramatic moments in there, and watching Hokuto gut her way through makes it compelling in a way. But the way she gets controlled and worked over, she had no chance at all. She’s really just sacrificed herself because pulling out of the match would have been too embarrassing. She is no threat to Aja, so it had no actual drama, and there’s so much padding that it just becomes something to fast forward through. I suppose it’s the logical ‘tragic’ payoff to Hokuto’s Japan Grand Prix story, aside from the small caveat that Hokuto had already had the surgery and shouldn’t have been wrestling here. There’s no amount of praise sufficient enough to give Hokuto for wrestling the match, much less for a full 20 minutes to give the fans the match they’d paid to see is a level guts only she possessed, but that doesn’t mean the match should have happened. This is one of those matches I have no idea how to rate, or whether it even should be rated. It is worth watching as long as you know what it is going into it. Otherwise, it would be a massive disappointment. I think it would be an easier recommendation had they ever had the match they were capable of. ***

10/10/93 AJW Tag League The Best '93: Bull Nakano & Suzuka Minami vs. Yumiko Hotta & Takako Inoue 21:09. This was a real slow builder to put it nicely. They didn’t do much at all in the first half. Everyone took turns getting worked over, and the work was solid. There was some decent stuff scattered around, but it wasn’t until the second half that things really picked up and it got good, with the last 5 minutes, leading to a huge upset win that was nothing short of great. Takako and Minami were the workhorses, and did a good job, but Bull and Hotta’s exchanges late made the match. After Minami took Bull out accidentally with a missile dropkick, she was on receiving end of a couple of double teams, including Hotta helping Takako hit the Aurora Special because she couldn’t lift Bull herself and the idea that she could lose was introduced. Later, she fell victim to the Carribean Splash from Hotta for a huge near fall. Minami hit some offense afterward, but Hotta ended up hitting a Tiger Driver to win the exchange. The finish itself was perfect teamwork, with Bull set to finish Hotta off with the guillotine legdrop. Takako tried to halt her, but was unsuccessful. She did give Hotta just enough time to move out of the way though. Takako went up immediately as Bull was getting up, and nailed her with a diving knee attack, which set up Hotta’s Pyramid Driver to take the big win. ****

10/10/93 AJW Tag League The Best '93: Aja Kong & Sakie Hasegawa vs. Toshiyo Yamada & Kyoko Inoue 24:54. This was another slowly built match, but compared with the previous match, it was a fair bit more interesting. It unfolds in the way you’d expect; Aja mostly dominates, Sakie gets in small bursts and comebacks, but can’t maintain the lead. It’s far from perfect. There’s more than a few ill-advised spots that were blown, but overall, everyone did a great job here, and there’s plenty of good action. Aja and Sakie’s dynamic is a lot of fun, with Aja protecting her and trying to bring the ruthlessness out of her. I loved one camel clutch punt spot where Aja delivered the kick and Sakie even sold the impact of it. Towards the end, Aja took Sakie out with an Uraken and the match exploded to life, giving us another great finish. It looked like Aja cost them the match, but Sakie managed to survive and come back on Kyoko with an exploder. Kyoko and Yamada had Aja’s number too at the end. They got in a big run of near falls, but Sakie managed to make saves for her. Aja managed to get out and tag Sakie in. She got a burst in on Kyoko, but was ultimately able to set up for the Niagara Driver, and Aja managed to deliver an uraken to give Sakie the big upset win over Kyoko. ****1/4

11/9/93 LLPW, LLPW vs. Zenjo: Zenmen Taikosen Waisha Kamikiri Death Match, Komazawa Gymnasium, Tokyo (att: 4,500) Complete Show Review

~Elimination Battle Field~: Yumiko Hotta, Suzuka Minami, Etsuko Mita, Mima Shimoda & Numacchi vs. Eagle Sawai, Harley Saito, Noriyo Tateno, Yasha Kurenai & Mizuki Endo 17:39 of 26:39. The first of three ‘real’ matches on the show, and it was worth the wait. Really good fast-paced match that was laid out well, though it did go a little over the top with the booking. There were enough people in the match that the weaker wrestlers involved couldn’t drag it down. The majority of the 8 minutes clipped were before the first elimination (which came at 5:11, but the actual time was 11:27). Yasha and Endo were the first ones out, and Minami and Tateno were out soon after. That left it being Harley & Eagle vs. the entire Zenjo team minus Minami. They went for a few minutes, and Eagle eliminated the last four inside of a minute, which started with Numacchi nailing Hotta with a shovel of all things. It must have been a rib to have Numacchi be the final elimination. ***1/2

Bull Nakano & Takako Inoue vs. Shinobu Kandori & Utako Hozumi 14:38. Really heated an intense bout designed to build up Bull vs. Kandori, which it did a great job of. They barely interacted, but when they did, it was it was meaningful and memorable. In between it was mainly Takako vs. Hozumi, who had a good match themselves, no one cared much about it, but they weren’t really supposed to, and they did a good job in their holding role. The rest of the time, they just served as fodder for Bull and Kandori. The match probably doesn’t sound interesting, but it was due to the heat, intensity and the quality of everyones performances. They worked in a nice finish with Kandori repeatedly attempting to submit Takako and being saved by Bull. Bull broke up one attempt by dropping the leg on Kandori’s arm, which got Takako a nice near fall with Hozumi breaking up the pin, but she eventually got caught in a wakigatame and submitted before Bull could get over to break it up. ****

Hair vs. Hair Death Match: Akira Hokuto vs. Rumi Kazama 13:47. Hokuto’s first and only match in LLPW, and it took a hair match to get her in there. I believe the hair stipulation was originally being saved for the Hokuto vs. Kandori rematch, but when Hokuto decided to retire if she lost, they didn’t need it to sell tickets anymore, and there wasn’t much else that could have made Hokuto vs. Kazama II particularly interesting. Within one move you knew where we were going. Hokuto did a backbreaker on her bad knee, so Rumi sold her back huge and Hokuto sold her knee like she blew it out again. Comparing to their first match, that one had more action, but this was better in the sense that it was a bit more dramatic, and had Hokuto stepping more into the heel role (although half the fans were Zenjo fans anyway, so she didn’t get any heat for it), showing more disdain and arrogance than we’d seen from her in her recent matches. Her arrogance cost her, and Kazama came back attacking the bad leg. Hokuto’s selling was so good, and Kazama was good enough in her role that they actually made her credible by the end of the match, and perhaps even more than that until a missing diving senton put a stop to her run. It was mainly one way traffic from there, with Hokuto eventually ending it with a sleeper. The haircut angle wasn’t much. Hokuto didn’t even care enough to cut any of Kazama’s hair, or even stick around for the haircut itself. ***1/4

11/12/93 AJW Tag League The Best '93 League Match: Yumiko Hotta & Takako Inoue vs. Toshiyo Yamada & Kyoko Inoue 17:27 of 19:40. Takako’s leg and shoulder were bandaged up, with the leg being the focus of the day. Interestingly enough, Kyoko went for the bad leg while Yamada was more interested in the good leg, just do she’d have no to leg to stand on. She hit an Aurora Special out of nowhere and scampered off to tag Hotta, who came in kicking the hell out of Kyoko. As always, Takako wouldn’t be outdone and Hotta was happy to let her get some revenge once she’d weakened Kyoko enough for Takako to have her fun. Takako went after Kyoko’s leg, and it was shaping up to be a similar match for the 9/5 tag, with Kyoko playing the Hokuto role. Kyoko’s selling during this phase was excellence, but to compare them, there was no one capable of creating the drama that Hokuto could. It ended up with an intense crowd brawl, which saw Hotta and Yamada throwing kicks in the crowd while Takako tried to finish Kyoko with kneebars in the ring. The finishing run was great when Kyoko and Yamada were pushing Hotta, with Takako making really well timed cut offs and saves. It came down to their teamwork. Kyoko and Yamada had good teamwork, but Takako was always there when she was needed, and Hotta would have been put away without her. At the end, both Hotta and Yamada had a shot, but Takako was the difference, prevented a doomsday brain kick and taking out Yamada, allowing Hotta to hit the Pyramid Driver to finish Kyoko. ****

11/12/93 AJW Tag League The Best '93 League Match: Manami Toyota & Akira Hokuto vs. Aja Kong & Sakie Hasegawa 22:59. As good as the previous match was, this one just blew it away, and was easily the best of the league matches. Toyota found herself on the receiving end of brutal submissions from Aja, with Sakie following on nicely. Toyota was on point here too. She sold, and when the time came for the comeback, she took the opportunity to springboard and get out as quick as she could. Hokuto worked over Sakie, maybe not as brutally as Aja had worked over Toyota, but it wasn’t far behind, and Toyota came in for some revenge, with sheer delight when Hokuto invited her to come in. Her reaction to camel clutch punting Sakie was a classic, and Hokuto got one in too. It wouldn’t be so fun for Hokuto later when Sakie and Aja took their revenge for that. Sakie was best in the first half. She stretched Toyota pretty well and took a good beating, but later in the match, her segments weren’t so good, as she’d just grab an uninspired hold. Aja was always there to pick the match back up again though, and this did work out as part of the story. When Sakie was ruthless, she was competitive, and looked like she belonged. When she wasn’t, she could only hold the advantage for so long. Toyota hit the Carol killing rolling cradle 17 minutes in, and did it for about 60 seconds (maybe if she did it for 90 seconds she could have won with it), and that set up a great final portion. Aja tried to save Sakie from a moonsault, but Hokuto intervened and Toyota hit it. Sakie got the knees up on a diving body press though. Soon after, Hokuto and Toyota both hit their big dives on the outside - the somersault plancha and the quebrada - before almost finishing off Aja in the ring with a double missile dropkick. Aja came back with a backdrop suplex and took over on Hokuto. Toyota dove in trying to save her partner, but Aja caught her, and the momentum from the dive caused Aja to fall back onto Hokuto. Hokuto did recover to slip off a backdrop suplex, hitting her own, forcing Aja to tag out. Sakie tagged in, and got DQ bombed for a near fall. Toyota intervened with a headbutt, inadvertently striking Hokuto. Sakie executed uranages on both opponents, securing a near fall on Hokuto, which Toyota interrupted. Aja came into finish things off, delivering a pair urakens to Hokuto, but Toyota broke up the pin. Sakie dispatched Toyota once more, allowing Aja to set up for a mountain bomb. However, Hokuto countered with a sunset flip, pinning the champion for the victory. Hokuto’s reaction was priceless, she couldn’t believe it until Toyota ran over for the celebration. ****1/2

11/18/93 JWP, Thunder Queen Battle in Yokohama II, Yokohama Bunka Gymnasium, Yokohama, Kanagawa (att: 5,200) Complete Show Review

Pure Heart Meets The Dangerous Queen, Only One Time Singles Match: Mayumi Ozaki vs. Akira Hokuto 18:26. Hokuto's involvement with JWP was relatively limited during the rivalry year. This was her first real interaction with JWP, and she gave about the same amount of respect she’d shown to LLPW. You’d think putting the two best workers of 1993 against each other would have great results, it didn’t get up to that level though. Ozaki didn’t have her best performance, there was nothing wrong with her work, she did all the moves fine but the attitude wasn’t there. She seemed intimidated by Hokuto when she should have matched and upped her nastiness as she would have done with anyone else. It turns out that there’s some things you can’t bluff; Ozaki really was in awe of Hokuto. She said in an interview that wrestling Hokuto was different, she had an aura like no one else and all she could think of when she was in the ring with her was “wow, it’s Akira Hokuto”. The focus of the match was Hokuto's knee, as usual, and Ozaki effectively targeted it throughout the match. Hokuto's selling was top-notch, and the second half saw an escalation of big moves. They sold the big moves and made most of what they did meaningful. At one point, Ozaki powerbombed Hokuto outside and waited in the ring, taunting her doing jumping jacks so Hokuto even made that into a revenge spot later, doing pushups after her somersault plancha. Ozaki never really had a chance to beat Hokuto, but they managed to put that in doubt with a kneebar she caught towards the end. She had a run where she had to counter Hokuto and eat a DQ bomb, but ended up hitting the Tequila Sunrise for a near fall. That was really it for Ozaki’s hope, and they went home straight after, with Hokuto avoiding a cannonball, hitting the Henkei backdrop and a Northern Light’s Bomb to quickly finish. This was far from the best match they could have had together, but it was still a really strong and smart match in terms of structure, execution, selling, and it had enough drama. However, what was lacking was urgency. As mentioned earlier regarding Ozaki's persona, and for Hokuto’s part she was rather subdued compared to her performances from earlier in the year. These two having a match of this quality despite neither being anywhere near their best should tell you all you need to know about how great they were, but it’s hard not to be a little disappointed by it. ***3/4

Most Special Persons Wrestling Jam: Devil Masami & Plum Mariko vs. Chigusa Nagayo & Cuty Suzuki 33:07. This was the real main event of this show, which is saying something when you had Ozaki vs. Hokuto and Kansai vs. Kyoko on the card, and this wasn’t even an interpromotional match. It was however, the proper return of Chigusa Nagayo, after returning for the two Dream Slam shows to promote her movie (which bombed) she didn’t return for Legacy of Queens as planned, but ended up joining JWP (I believe specifically as an exclusive freelancer). Special would be the way to describe this match. Immediately Chigusa entered, and it was like the 80s again. There were enough schoolgirls (I suppose they had grown into women by this point) in the crowd to give it that atmosphere. The opening staredown from Devil and Chigusa had more substance to it than Hikari and Toyota’s entire match. The master plan unfolded with Plum attacking Chigusa while she was preoccupied by Devil, but their quick double-team attempt was thwarted when Chigusa evaded it. Chigusa dumped both out and teased a dive, and then the match got underway properly. Cuty found herself on the receiving end of some basic offense and heel tactics. Chigusa wasn’t happy with the heel tactics and Plum relished in taunting her, teasing Cuty with the tag before cruelly pulling her away. Devil and Chigusa had their first proper confrontation, and it was careful. They built the tension and heat. Plum got a kneebar on Chigusa and Chigusa played face in peril, when it looked like she was going to make the comeback in a figure four leglock. Devil ran in and stomped, then did a great Jumbo Suplex where she suplexed Cuty onto Chigusa. Chigusa hit a powerbomb and leg lariat on Plum to set up her sharpshooter. Devil came in to cut it off, but Chigusa never released the grip and put it on her. Plum got worked over for a bit, which was only really notable for introducing the sleepers to match, while Cuty’s wasn’t particularly effective, Devil made sure to interrupt Chigusa’s. After Cuty tried to quicken the pace, Plum countered her and tagged Devil. Cuty surprisingly managed to get the best of Devil briefly, avoiding a lariat and coming up with a Dragon Suplex which was a great near fall and set up Chigusa to take over. Chigusa unleashed a leg lariat on Devil and locked her in the Sharpshooter. However, Plum's interference prompted Chigusa to break off and attack her, allowing Devil to take over again with an Electric Chair double team with Plum hitting a seated senton. Plum put a dragon sleeper on Chigusa, but she snapmared her way out of it. Devil press slammed Cuty and dragged Chigusa into a powerbomb, she hit one but then Chigusa started countering her. Chigusa was too predictable with the leg lariat but Devil was too predictable with a lariat, and they both evaded. After Devil’s lariat attempt, Chigusa caught her with a kick to the back of the head, and Cuty came off the top rope with a flying knee. Cuty tried to finish off Devil with another Dragon Suplex and Chigusa helped her with a kick, but Plum intervened and Devil escaped. This was so perfectly built up now that Plum put a kneebar on Cuty that people really believed it was the finish, Devil took out Chigusa so all Cuty could do was hang on. The only criticism of the spot was that it probably went on too long, but Plum’s kneebar was never a protected move (though it probably should have been). Eventually, Chigusa avoided Devil's baseball slide and high kicked her, which allowed her to save Cuty. Devil and Chigusa got into an argument while Plum had Cuty in an STF, which was actually the more credible of her submissions in the sense that she’d actually won matches with it before, but the kneebar was more over and the STF was just used as filler. Chigusa got the hot tag soon after and took it to Devil, but Devil turned her high kick into a half crab. Chigusa came back grabbing Devil’s foot when she went for a kick and landed a bunch of strikes. They did a TKO tease of Chigusa's elbow. The first great sleeper spot followed with Chigusa getting it on Devil with Plum trying to break it up and Cuty doing her best to keep her away. Soon after, Devil did an even better sleeper spot. Devil jerked her around and Chigusa was not only looking like she was about to go out, but started frothing at the mouth. Cuty ran in and Plum got rid her. It was so good that it should have been the finish, but it did make things academic. Chigusa endured two powerbombs, and Cuty suffered one for her efforts to disrupt the pin. Plum attempted to set up Devil for a guillotine legdrop with a German Suplex, but they had to execute the move twice due to positioning issues. Devil got another near fall with a German suplex before pinning Chigusa with a guillotine leg drop, sealing the victory. Devil gave one of her best performances in terms of leading the match, and she was the standout. Plum wrestled the match of her life, being the workhorse and her submissions were worked into the match as major spots. Chigusa was a little rusty but significantly better than she was on the April shows, offensively she did enough, and her selling and apron work was tremendous. Cuty had the lesser role, but did a really good job as well, and made her moments count. This is 1993, so this doesn’t quite make a women’s match of the year contender. It is however, the best non-interpromotional women’s match of the year. ****3/4

Full Throttle Thunder Queen World: Dynamite Kansai vs. Kyoko Inoue 20:46. This match is more than good enough as a main event, but they had some trouble following the previous match, and like Hokuto vs. Ozaki, it was a little hard to buy Kyoko as a threat to Kansai coming in. In a perfect world, you’d have had Kyoko vs. Ozaki and Hokuto vs. Kansai, but at that point it would have been an arena card. This was the battle of the Splash Mountain vs. The Niagara Driver, but ultimately it was about the firepower to hit it. The first half was a lot of weardowns with some spots interspersed for transitions. Kyoko managed to do a pretty impressive giant swing considering Kansai’s size. Things weren’t really established until the second half. Kyoko had Kansai pretty well scouted, but it was Kansai’s kicks that made the difference. Kyoko could counter them, but couldn’t counter enough of them. The last few minutes were mostly all Kansai, with Kyoko hitting desperation suplexes and flash pins. She almost hit the Niagara Driver, but Kansai got out of it. After Kyoko’s flash pin attempt, Kansai rocked her with another kick, and that was enough to hit a backdrop suplex and then the splash mountain to put her away. This another well put together and well executed match. ****

11/28/93 AJW, Wrestling Queendom 1993, Osaka Jo Hall, Osaka, Osaka (att: 9,600) Complete Show Review

Bull Nakano vs. Hikari Fukuoka (JWP) 13:48. Bull gave Hikari a platform, carried a smart enough match and she was happy enough to put her over. The problem was she didn’t actually add much to it beyond that. Bull did little else than wear down Hikari with holds and let her up to make her hot comebacks, which Hikari made the most of. It probably would have been an excellent match had Bull gave her the beating she’d give out when she was her most inspired. After the 10 minute mark, it turned into a really good match when Bull started actually trying to beat Hikari, and it became a competitive match. Hikari hit her hot moves, she didn’t get a credible near fall, but she took enough abuse from Bull before she was put away. ***

First Attack Captain Fall Survival War: Suzuka Minami, Akira Hokuto, Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda vs. Dynamite Kansai, Devil Masami, Mayumi Ozaki & Plum Mariko (JWP) 41:45. This was Zenjo’s take on the 7/31 JWP match. They had the four one on one, five minutes segments and then it turned into a tag match. The singles matches were Devil vs. Minami, Ozaki vs. Shimoda, Mita vs. Plum and Hokuto vs. Kansai. Unlike 7/31, the single attack phase didn’t accomplish as much. Each of the mini-matches were good and built the rivalries, it also gave us an epic Kansai vs. Hokuto battle, which was the most dramatic of the four. There was stalling and tension building. Hokuto was just pure arrogance, and got put in her place as Kansai kicked the crap out of her knee. Hokuto fought back, but she didn’t have an answer for Kansai’s kicks. Kansai hit Splash Mountain as the time ran out. Transitioning into the tag match, the JWP team executed superplexes on all four Zenjo members from each turnbuckle to get it started. They went back and forth for a few minutes and then a small explosion happened. Minami managed to dodge a triple-dropkick only to fall victim to Plum's Rana, resulting in a two count. Minami inadvertently crashed into LCO with a cross-body, but she quickly regained control with a powerful Ligerbomb, securing the pinfall over Plum. It was now a handicap match, and it only got worse for JWP a few minutes later. Ozaki began using her heel tactics on Minami while Kansai landed cheap shots from the apron. Masami was accidentally taken out with a missile dropkick, and Mita and Minami thought they’d try a double team, but only got copped a lariat from Devil for their trouble. An attempted powerbomb on Mita was interrupted by Hokuto, and although Kansai tried to intervene, she was swiftly taken out once more, tumbling to the outside along with Devil. Shimoda and Hokuto were launched onto the JWP team, and Minami followed up with a tope that didn’t go to plan. Marine Wolves attempted a double missile dropkick, but Masami evaded, and ran through Hokuto in the corner. Kansai and Masami delivered a sandwich lariat to Hokuto, but a guillotine legdrop missed its mark, allowing Hokuto to capitalize with a victory roll to eliminate Masami at the 32:42 mark. The odds were stacked against JWP now with only Kansai and Ozaki against the entire Zenjo team. Ozaki got worked over with the Zenjo team doing whatever they wanted. They cheated, they cheapshotted Kansai, Hokuto flipped off the JWP president. Kansai came in and got double teamed and then ate four diving headbutts. Hokuto tried the Northern Light’s Bomb, but Kansai had other ideas and walloped her in the mouth. Hokuto was able to hit the DQ bomb though, but Ozaki broke up the fall. Hokuto went after her, but got nailed by Kansai. Ozaki did a powerbomb, but Shimoda broke up the pin, and Ozaki went after her. They clotheslined each other, and Ozaki missed a dropkick. Shimoda tried another clothesline, but Ozaki got behind her, and hit the Tequila Sunrise to take her out of the match at 37:29. Ozaki found herself double teamed and in trouble as the crowd chanted for her. She made a comeback on Hokuto, hitting a boomerang and a rolling senton. A powerbomb and stereo flying headbutts got a near fall. Ozaki went for a Tiger Suplex, but was cut off. Minami hit powerbombs, and Mita hit an Electric Chair, but Ozaki refused to die. She got the tag to Kansai, who thwarted a double team, taking both Minami and Mita out with lariats before eliminating Mita with a high angle backdrop suplex at 41:20. She immediately snatched Minami up in Splash Moutain with Ozaki adding a neckbreaker drop to it to eliminate the captain and get the win for JWP at 41:46. The match was great, it had so much cool stuff, much like the match at Thunder Queen, though it couldn’t be as good as that. They were all excellent in this, no matter how little they were in. The underdog JWP story was really well done, and unlike the LLPW tag from a few weeks earlier, it wasn’t overdone. Kansai just ended it quickly with two fast eliminations after Ozaki survived an onslaught. ****1/2

All Pacific Title Match: Manami Toyota vs. Toshiyo Yamada 30:53. Hokuto vacated the All Pacific belt, so they decided to have these two shoot out for it. Since 1/4/92 exists, it could only be their second worst televised match together up to this point (though all but the 1989 one were excellent to be fair). After you’ve seen their two good matches from 1992 there’s just nothing else to look forward to with them – you’ve seen the best they were capable of, and everything they could do, executed as well as they could. This match was good, but it was stretched out to 30 minutes. Another thing that really didn’t help was the Osaka crowd were quiet, so Toyota’s ridiculous screeching and screaming made it something I’d recommend watching with the sound down, she’s unbearable. By this point in their careers, they weren’t fooling anyone. Everyone knew what was a waste of time, and they were just waiting around for spots, so it took them past 20 minutes to wake up the crowd. The last 10 minutes were damn good though. They both hit their usual spots, and though Toyota didn’t have her cleanest day execution wise, she made the match this time. Yamada didn’t add much to it. In fact, she was the ‘dumb’ one, making more questionable decisions with her spots, and even killed the match briefly when it was cooking because she felt the need to spam half a dozen backdrop suplexes in a row, just to completely kill the move off and make sure no one ever reacted to it again (worse, she kept doing it as a regular spot). It was Toyota bringing the intensity, the better spots, better bump taking and selling. When Toyota’s Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex failed, it was the best part of the match, as she screamed at the ref, which fit the intensity she had shown building up to it. She couldn’t hit it again, as Yamada slipped out of her next attempt, and hit the Reverse Gory Bomb to get the win. ***1/2

UWA World Women's Tag Title Match: Yumiko Hotta & Takako Inoue vs. Shinobu Kandori & Miki Handa (LLPW) 21:49. This had more hatred than anything else on the show. It had the intensity. There was a lot of brawling. Handa took an enormous beating, with her and Takako both bleeding. They tried to make this a main event level match, but it needed Harley as Kandori’s partner. Handa did her job well, but she was no threat. Still, her and Takako were the best here. Hotta and Kandori spent most of the match on the apron, slow burning to their big confrontation at the end which wasn’t that good. Hotta did come to the party at the end though, and the finish was outstanding. Handa tried to fight off the Carribean Splash, but eventually got caught with it. Kandori broke up the pin, so Hotta proved herself genius by hanging Kandori up in the tree of woe so she couldn’t go anywhere, then hit the Pyramid Driver with Takako adding a clothesline to it on Handa to get the win. There was a lot to like here, but it really wasn’t big show main event caliber. ***

12/6/93 AJW, Kokugikan Super Woman Legend St. FINAL, Ryogoku Kokugikan, Tokyo, Tokyo (att: 11,500) Complete Show Review

Suzuka Minami vs. Combat Toyoda (FMW) 13:55. A very solid match that was a good bit better than expected because Minami did a good job of working a smart match. Iit would have been better had she been more competitive. She didn’t have much that could threaten Toyoda aside from the diving senton, which she couldn’t hit. The match built up well and was solid all the way through. Combat tried, and for the most part she was good enough. She had enough variety, but she’s also prone to throwing out some bad looking offense and letting things get dull. Even though the last few minutes were lopsided with Combat hitting big move after big move, seeing Minami survive as long as she did was fun and the crowd were impressed. **3/4

Bull Nakano, Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda vs. Cuty Suzuki, Plum Mariko & Hikari Fukuoka (JWP) 20:36. JWP battling Bull was the most fun here. At the start, Cuty demanded to fight her instead of LCO, with Plum and Hikari sneaking in for a triple team. It failed as Bull decapitated them all with lariats, but they had more success later. Bull and LCO played heel with Bull being the dominant monster, while JWP were the smaller underdog babfyaces, which suited everyone best. It was really good and entertaining throughout, with lots of fun double and triple teaming. Bull was the best and Hikari stood out the most because she had the coolest spots, but everyone had their moments. LCO set the entire JWP team up for Bull to do the guillotine legdrop to all three, but everyone moved, and Bull received a train of diving footstomps in response. ***3/4

Kyoko Inoue, Takako Inoue & Yumiko Hotta vs. Harley Saito, Eagle Sawai & Rumi Kazama (LLPW) 15:38. Kyoko got by far the biggest reaction of anyone, and the match was dependant on who was in at any given time. Eagle doesn’t provide anything of interest. Hotta and Rumi tried to have an intense kick battle but it didn’t matter how well it was executed, Rumi’s too small for it to look credible and Hotta wouldn’t sell anything she did anyway. Hotta vs. Eagle was better since Hotta had to work to hit a Tiger Driver, which was particularly brutal. Interspersed was good stuff from Harley and Kyoko, with Harley on the receiving end of a long giant swing. The latter part of the match was a really good spotfest, they really just did non-stop action and near falls. Harley and Kyoko were the best here, and Takako provided some good stuff with Harley as well. Eagle was better hitting her power moves for near falls and took a few big bumps, one particularly nasty one off a release German from Kyoko. It came down to Kyoko and Harley, Kyoko survived the Tiger Suplex but Hotta turned the tide for Kyoko, allowing her to hit her diving elbow and a Niagara Driver to win. ***1/4

WWWA World Title Match: Aja Kong vs. Megumi Kudo (FMW) 22:34. Initially proposed during the Japan Grand Prix, where Weekly Pro Wrestling surveyed fans in Korakuen Hall for potential challengers for Aja Kong's title, Kudo's nomination was initially met with laughter in contrast to the big reactions for Dynamite Kansai and Shinobu Kandori. However, by the end of the match, they wouldn’t laugh again, and any doubts about Kudo's credibility were dispelled. While it’s not normally ideal for the WWWA World Singles Title match to be third from the top, it was the correct call here as they weren’t going to be able to follow the flashiness of the tag title match, nor the drama of Hokuto vs Kandori, both matches being heavily hyped rematches. It also freed them to show their best points and work a different match to what might have been expected had they been in the main event. It built like a mens match, Kudo was competitive at the start, but the early going saw Aja predictably brute force Kudo down and methodically dismantle her. When she got the chance, Kudo immediately went after Aja’s arm with a jujigatame, and relentlessly went after it. Aja sold the arm huge while fighting back with her other arm. She still tried to bully her, but wasn’t able to. One great spot saw Aja hit back with various weak strikes with her left hand and Kudo nail her with a right to knock her down. I’m not sure Kudo was ever a major threat, but Aja sure as hell made it look like she could win. Aja came back, and Kudo had to use her speed to regain her advantage. She avoided a bunch of Urakens and dumped Aja, hitting a tope. She continued to avoid the Urakens in the ring. The ref bump spot may not have been welcome, as the chorus of boos suggested, and while the bump itself was okay, referee Bob Yazawa kneeling over in the corner for a minute looked pretty stupid. The phantom pin off the rana did make it seem like Kudo could have won, and you never saw ref bumps in these days. Aja crushed Kudo with multiple urakens for a TKO, but she wanted Kudo to get back up and screamed at her. Kudo made it up at 8 and the crowd lost their minds when she countered Aja’s waterwheel drop with a sunset bomb. Kudo looked to follow up with a Tiger Driver, but Aja slipped out of it and gave her one more Uraken, no TKO this time, she just pinned for the three count. After the match, the two from the 1986 class reunited properly after five years. Their old mentor, Jaguar Yokota, who was sitting at the play-by-play table, was also crying. ****1/4

WWWA World Tag Title Match: Dynamite Kansai & Mayumi Ozaki (JWP) vs. Toshiyo Yamada & Manami Toyota 25:34. The final match of the classic trilogy. They had great history to play off of and did so. It’s the most coherent of the three matches from bell to bell and everyone was in great form. Toyota, in particular, excelled as the match was tailored to her style, featuring a shorter runtime and a one-fall format. Whilst being the most action and spot oriented, it was filled with great sequences and never really went overboard so that you couldn’t follow it. However, being one fall cost them early drama. The match started in the same way the second one did, although Toyota saved Yamada but found herself in trouble. No one in the building bought it or even reacted, it’s a one fall match, and it wasn’t ending in the first 30 seconds. To that end, Ozaki and Kansai didn’t have much hope and everyone wanted Yamada and Toyota to take the belts back, especially since the league refused to book Ozaki and Kansai as a strong team (they had one defense in 8 months and weren’t even allowed to win that). Toyota was worked over early. She was stretched and was on the receiving end of a kicking from Kansai before coming back to spam some dropkicks, Kansai cut that off pretty quickly, but was taken out by an Ozaki cannonball, allowing for the tag to Yamada. A few minutes after that, we had the first great exchange between Kansai and Yamada. Kansai thought she was going to jump on Yamada and kicked the hell out of her, but Yamada ended up winning the battle, causing Kansai to bail out and restart. The match just had an excellent flow through the weardown, and built up really well. Yamada ended up winning another kick battle with Kansai, and set up Toyota to do a camel clutch, and instead of just one kick, Yamada kicked her repeatedly. Toyota tried to follow up, but her boots to Kansai’s head only upset Kansai. She attempted a boomerang out of the corner, got caught in a Northern Light’s Suplex but managed to come back with a moonsault afterward. Kansai wasn’t taking the stupid rolling cradle and shrugged Toyota off, but Yamada assisted her and she got it on Ozaki. It wasn’t long before Kansai was kicking Toyota around like a football again though. Kansai couldn’t hit Splash Mountain between Toyota escaping it and Yamada saving her. Kansai could hit everything else, including a brutal diving footstomp which allowed her to finally hit the Splash Moutain, but Yamada made the save by kicking her in the head. Another great spot followed with Ozaki and Kansai essentially doing a reverse doomsday device. Toyota took the diving lariat on Kansai’s shoulders, but managed to make it into a victory roll for a near fall. Kansai and Ozaki kept trying to finish Toyota. Ozaki took Yamada out, and they tried the Splash Mountain neckbreaker drop, but Toyota kicked Ozaki off the turnbuckle. Yamada made the tag, and her brain kick was avoided, but she came back with a stiff spinning one before doing her dumb backdrop suplex spamming. Kansai took a diving brain kick for a close near fall, and kept coming back, but it was 2 v 1. Another diving brain kick hit with Kansai on top of Toyota’s shoulders, but Ozaki saved the match. Ozaki did thwart their double teaming finally and tagged in, but with Kansai out and both Yamada and Toyota in good shape, she was on the receiving end immediately. She avoided a moonsault and Kansai recovered to assist with a lariat, leading to Ozaki hitting the Tequila Sunrise with Yamada saving the match. Ozaki’s diving body attack met knees, but Toyota’s Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex got turned into a Victory roll for two. Kansai wanted to do something from the top, but Toyota saw her early and kicked her off. Yamada held them on the outside for Toyota's quebrada but that didn’t quite go to plan, Toyota landed on the apron, and not only took a bad landing herself but kneed Kansai in the face on the way down. They did the dangerous backdrop to Ozaki, but Kansai made it in to break up the pin. Toyota hit the cyclone suplex, but it only got two. All of the near falls and the saves were just incredible, none of the stuff used in the first two matches had worked, so what was left to do? Something new. Yamada dragged Kansai out and Toyota missile dropkicked her, and back in, Toyota debuted a new finisher… and it was an absolute shocker. It was like a Japanese Ocean Alabama Slam, and it wasn’t even executed well. It was so bad Ozaki should have really kicked out and told her to just finish it with another Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex or anything else, a rookie bodyslam would have been a better finish than this. It was such a bad way for such great match and trilogy to finish. Aside from the 11/26/92 match being the best of the trilogy, I’m not sure which one ranks as the runner up; 4/11/93 was more memorable, has the benefit of a great beginning and finish, more drama with the three falls and had a stronger story since it was the conclusion of Ozaki and JWP’s mission to show they were just as good as the big league. So, it probably, almost certainly wins while taking those factors into account. However, if those things aren’t important to you, 12/6/93 is the superior match for pure bell to bell action. But who cares? All three of them are all time great matches and warrant the highest recommendation. ****3/4

Dangerous Queen Tokyo Trial: Akira Hokuto vs. Shinobu Kandori (LLPW) 21:07. This was not the in ring classic that their first match was, but it is the captivating, emotional and dramatic payoff to Hokuto’s 1993, and her career as a whole. As a companion to their first match, it works, but it’s far better within the context of following Hokuto’s rise and fall. She began 1993 performing at her peak. She defeated Kandori in a match where she was mostly dominated, but had the determination, fighting spirit and ability to just pull it off, aided by Kandori’s own arrogance. She went through until August at her best, defeating everyone in the Japan Grand Prix, but throughout the tournament her body broke down. She had a broken back, her knee gave out against Harley Saito, all the wear and tear from eight years of injuries was also catching up with her. She fought through it against Toyota and Hotta to win the tournament, she also defeated Kazama. Her knee was so bad that it needed surgery, and after surgery came Aja; too soon for her to be competitive and too prideful not to take the match, she was picked apart and beaten, forgoing her second chance at the red belt in the process. She made the Kandori challenge and maintained insistence that she would never lose to a ‘judo wannabe’, and if she did, she’d retire. Despite her diminished physical state, Hokuto displayed enough resilience to overcome adversaries like Kazama for the second time, and Ozaki. This was the last trial, unlike in the Aja match, she was able to compete, but it was a question of if her body would hold up. It seemed like Hokuto had it all to lose, but she felt she had nothing to lose. She had to be the best, and if she couldn’t beat Kandori, then it was all for nothing anyway. Kandori had been insulted by Hokuto plenty before their first match, but the biggest insult was that she lost it and she wanted to dominate Hokuto even more thoroughly this time. The match started literally how the last one finished, with the two nailing each other in the face and knocking each other down. These were stiff shots and the first blood was drawn with Hokuto bleeding from the mouth. Hokuto went for Kandori’s leg and hit two early DQ bombs. They got into a slapping fight but Kandori just suckered her into Wakigatame, then immediately released it, wagging her finger.It was going to be a long night for Hokuto before Kandori was satisfied. Hokuto hit a piledriver, but it didn’t do a lot. Kandori started striking her with body blows, headbutts, and boots to the face, disdainful taunting her. Hokuto fired up and fought back and had some success, but Kandori got her in the same position before too long. While Hokuto was trying to make the most of her offense, Kandori was toying with her and not particularly threatened. Hokuto did some damage from the air with two missile dropkicks, and after Kandori rolled outside, she followed her and did the Northern Light’s Bomb on the floor. The games were over as far as Kandori was concerned. When she returned, Hokuto caught her with a savage spin kick. Kandori snatched a sleeper, but got jawbreakered. Hokuto went up and Kandori basically did a tiger driver from the second buckle, which got a TKO count of 9. On both occasions, Hokuto signalling for crowd support and wasting seconds allowed Kandori back in. Hokuto fought back with her own burst when Kandori took her foot off the gas, hitting a lariat and her somersault plancha. Kandori delivered a lariat in the ring, sending Hokuto crashing to the mat once again. Hokuto pressed on though, hitting a German and Backdrop suplex. She went up top for a flying body press, but Kandori rolled through her. Kandori stomped at her and Hokuto used another backdrop suplex, unable to bridge, but she did get a two count. She went up top again and Kandori and ran up, slapping her and dragging her down into a vicious kneebar. The crowd lost their minds at that, but Hokuto made the ropes quickly enough. Kandori dragged her back, but Hokuto fought her off, that’s all she could do though. She nailed Kandori with everything she had and rocked her, but Kandori had more in the tank. They slugged at each other, and it was clear Hokuto was going down, but she was going down swinging. The camera cut to Mita and Shimoda, who were bawling, with Aja, Hotta and Minami behind them - they made the finish even more than the wrestlers did. The camera caught Kandori whiffing an uppercut, which was unfortunate, but the next one struck. Kandori grabs the leg and opts to hold her down for three. Kandori’s done it, and LCO are beside themselves. Anticlimactic as the finish is, there was no other way for it to end. It’s definitive, Hokuto didn’t give up, her body did because of Kandori and all she had to do was put her out of her misery. It was about proving superiority, they had to take each others best shots to do that and they had to do it while showing the arrogance they were known for, whether that gave the opponent chances of not. Kandori got on the mic and told Hokuto if she loves pro-wrestling, to continue doing it, but Hokuto's resolve remained unyielding, driven by her stubborn heart. Initially she was to retire on 3/27/94, but that was changed to be the first of three retirement matches, starting there, going through 8/24/94 and finishing at the Tokyo Dome on 11/20/94 (though she ultimately didn’t retire there either). This didn’t top their first encounter. I don’t think it was even really supposed to, and it shouldn’t be compared directly to it. In the correct context, it’s great pro-wrestling and a great sequel. Structurally, it was odd, and there were decisions that in a regular match would have been bizarre, but within the story they were telling everything worked. It was stiff, they generally executed well (aside from that uppercut late), and it was packed with emotion and drama. The long walk was an epic and emotional scene as well, Hokuto took the walk alone, under her own power with a parade of journalists and the wrestlers in tears behind her. ****1/2

12/10/93 AJW Tag League The Best '93: Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda vs. Kaoru Ito & Tomoko Watanabe 19:10. An interesting match that came four years before these teams had the greatest cage match in history. This wasn’t one of the higher end tag team matches of the year, but was a really good one. It was well structured with a good build, well-paced with quality action all the way through. It had a fair bit of sloppiness, but anything blown was usually covered well enough, particularly as they ramped up the spots in the back end of the match. It was probably the best match that LCO had led up to this point, and the junior team followed along well. It was a breath of fresh air when compared to the recent tag matches Ito had been involved in against LLPW teams. ***1/2

12/10/93 AJW: Bull Nakano & Chaparrita ASARI vs. Yumiko Hotta & Suzuka Minami 15:33. This was one of those ‘stiff the junior’ matches. Minami certainly got her shots in, but it’s mainly a good example of Hotta being incredibly reckless. Again. The Hikari match was bad, the Plum match was far worse, and this takes the cake. Unlike those matches, this was actually a good match. The start was quite fun, with ASARI throwing dropkicks and Hotta making her do 10 of them, but after the tenth one, Hotta punted her in the jaw, breaking her jaw and knocking a couple of teeth out in the process. The match was mainly ASARI trying to do things and getting stiffed for it in response. Hotta didn’t sell a single thing she did on her own, but it was fun watching ASARI try. The injury made it "memorable", but it might have been more fun had she not been holding her face together. Bull kept things competitive and helped her to get a little revenge on Hotta, setting up the Sky Twister Press, which ASARI executed properly (to the one opponent who probably deserved to take knees). After that, Bull missed the guillotine legdrop and Minami got rid of her, leaving ASARI and Hotta all alone with Hotta putting her away easily. ***1/4

12/10/93 AJW Tag League The Best '93: Aja Kong & Sakie Hasegawa vs. Eagle Sawai & Yasha Kurenai 21:25. The Tag League was still alive in this match. Aja and Sakie were finished, but if Eagle and Yasha won they’d had made the finals. This wasn’t always pretty, but it was heated and fun. Yasha and Sakie spent most of it on the receiving end. Yasha took an enormous beating from Aja and tried to use her shinai later, but it was no match for Aja’s oil can. Eagle and Yasha did a pretty good job, the usual problem, particularly with Yasha, is that her heeling has too much comedy to take her seriously and that was present here, but they were pretty good working over Sakie. They built it well into a good finishing run though the finish itself where Yasha hits her chokeslam from the top and Sakie just pops up and hits her rolling savate kick to win was pretty lousy, not that crowd minded, they were happy to see the home team play spoiler and keep LLPW out of the finals. ***1/2

12/10/93 AJW Tag League The Best '93: Akira Hokuto & Manami Toyota vs. Toshiyo Yamada & Kyoko Inoue 15:36, Tag League The Best '93 Final: Akira Hokuto & Manami Toyota vs. Toshiyo Yamada & Kyoko Inoue 14:49. These two matches are essentially one match. A two-fall match, or if you want to think of it in a traditional way, a 2/3 falls match with Hokuto and Toyota having a 1-0 lead. Had Hokuto and Toyota won the first match, they’d have won the tag league outright with no need for a final. Yamada and Kyoko needed to win two matches in a row to take the tournament. They won the first match and the two teams immediately restarted with the tiebreaker final. The tag league was never the most prestigious tournament, particularly after they started messing around with random teams (not to say it was ever a joke tournament), but there was special meaning here as it was Hokuto’s final day as a full time wrestler after losing to Kandori just four days earlier. These matches are probably the best representation of the Zenjo house style, combining the best aspects of the classic Zenjo sprint with a lot Hokuto melodrama. Its action packed, frantic, high-effort go-go style with lots of great spots and the latter part (the second match) had a lot of drama and selling with Hokuto’s knee being the main focus. Kyoko and Yamada were in a must win situation in the first match, and were the underdogs. They took their openings to get offense, but were countered often. The finishing run saw a lot of cool things and hot near falls, but by the end Toyota was isolated, and though she was able to thwart the double teaming she fell victim to Kyoko’s Niagara Driver, which not only gave Kyoko and Yamada the win, but knocked her silly and set up all the drama that followed. Hokuto tried to cover for Toyota, but Kyoko wasn’t having that and left her at Yamada’s mercy. Toyota was finally able to get away and tag Hokuto, but her bad knee became the target of the abuse. A submission was never on the cards, but it left her weakened and vulnerable to the big moves. Hokuto managed the tag, but Toyota tagged her back in too quickly. Limping badly, Yamada brain kicked her down, delivered a vicious kick to the face and hit a diving back elbow for two. Hokuto avoided a double team and Toyota intervened with a missile dropkick. Hokuto attempted a tombstone, which was reversed by Yamada. Kyoko executed a plancha and things were looking bad for Hokuto. Yamada hit her Reverse Gory Special Bomb after two attempts in the ring, but Toyota saved the match. Kyoko took over to attempt to finish herself, but Hokuto slipped out of the Niagara Driver and tagged Toyota, who hit three different kinds of moonsaults for near falls, meanwhile Hokuto took Yamada out with a dive. Toyota hit the Japanese Ocean Suplex, but Kyoko avoided a double missile dropkick. Yamada almost pinned Toyota with a diving brain kick while Kyoko held back Hokuto. They continued trying double teams, but after Toyota took out Kyoko, it was down to Hokuto and Yamada to settle it. They countered each other’s finishers but, in the end, Hokuto was able to hit her Northern Light’s Bomb to win the tag league and end her year on a high note. A feel-good win for the Korakuen fans, especially the ones who had seen her take the long walk back just four days earlier. ****1/2

Since 1993 is already absurdly long, let’s make it longer! The smaller promotions haven’t received a great deal of attention here themselves due to Zenjo and the interpromotional matches being so far ahead. Here’s a chronological list of matches I would recommend if you want to take a deeper dive specifically into JWP and LLPW. These matches are predominately in the ***-***1/2 range, anything above that has been featured above.

1/15/93 Submission Match: Plum Mariko vs. Command Bolshoi

1/15/93 Dynamite Kansai & Mayumi Ozaki vs. Yumiko Hotta & Takako Inoue

2/11/93 Sumiko Saito Retirement Match: Sumiko Saito vs. Hikari Fukuoka

2/11/93 Devil Masami & Debbie Malenko vs. Dynamite Kansai & Plum Mariko

2/26/93 One Night Tag Tournament Final: Cuty Suzuki & Plum Mariko vs. Hikari Fukuoka & Command Bolshoi

2/27/93 JWP Tag Title Match: Mayumi Ozaki & Cuty Suzuki vs. Devil Masami & Dynamite Kansai

3/21/93 JWP Tag Title Match: Cuty Suzuki & Mayumi Ozaki vs. Dynamite Kansai & Devil Masami

4/18/93 JWP Openweight Title Match: Dynamite Kansai vs. Hikari Fukuoka

4/18/93 Devil Masami vs. Bull Nakano

4/20/93 Mayumi Ozaki & Cuty Suzuki vs. Takako Inoue & Sakie Hasegawa

5/4/93 Mayumi Ozaki vs. Cuty Suzuki

5/4/93 Dynamite Kansai & Sumiyo Toyama vs. Devil Masami & Candy Okutsu

5/30/93 Devil Masami, Mayumi Ozaki & Plum Mariko vs. Dynamite Kansai, Cuty Suzuki & Candy Okutsu

6/20/93 Mayumi Ozaki vs. Takako Inoue

7/11/93 Devil Masami vs. Mayumi Ozaki

7/31/93 Suzuka Minami & Kaoru Ito vs. Devil Masami & Candy Okutsu

7/31/93 Thunder Queen Battle: Aja Kong, Kyoko Inoue, Takako Inoue & Sakie Hasegawa vs. Dynamite Kansai, Mayumi Ozaki, Cuty Suzuki & Hikari Fukuoka

8/15/93 Hikari Fukuoka vs. Devil Masami

8/15/93 Plum Mariko vs. Infernal KAORU

8/16/93 JWP Openweight Title: Dynamite Kansai vs. Mayumi Ozaki

9/23/93 Candy Okutsu vs. Kaoru Ito

9/23/93 Dynamite Kansai & Devil Masami vs. Mayumi Ozaki & Plum Mariko

11/18/93 Mayumi Ozaki vs. Akira Hokuto

11/18/93 Devil Masami & Plum Mariko vs. Chigusa Nagayo & Cuty Suzuki

11/18/93 Dynamite Kansai vs. Kyoko Inoue

12/12/93 Mayumi Ozaki vs. Super Heel Devil Masami

12/12/93 Cuty Suzuki & Plum Mariko vs. Dynamite Kansai & Hikari Fukuoka

1/4/93 Shinobu Kandori gauntlet (Harley was the first match, and the ‘good’ one, but the whole thing is a lot of fun)

2/13/93 Shinobu Kandori & Harley Saito vs. Suzuka Minami & Etsuko Mita

3/16/93 Rumi Kazama & Miki Handa vs. Noriyo Tateno & Utako Hozumi

5/11/93 Miki Handa vs. Mima Shimoda

5/11/93 Suzuka Minami & Bat Yoshinaga vs. Rumi Kazama & Yukari Osawa

6/15/93 Harley Saito & Utako Hozumi vs. Yasha Kurenai & Midori Saito

6/15/93 LLPW vs. Zenjo: Eagle Sawai & Leo Kitamura vs. Aja Kong & Kyoko Inoue

6/15/93 LLPW vs. Zenjo: Shinobu Kandori, Rumi Kazama & Miki Handa vs. Suzuka Minami, Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda

8/29/93 LLPW Single Crown Decision Tournament Semi Final: Eagle Sawai vs. Noriyo Tateno

8/29/93 LLPW Single Crown Decision Tournament Semi Final: Shinobu Kandori vs. Harley Saito

8/29/93 Rumi Kazama & Yasha Kurenai vs. Bull Nakano & Mima Shimoda

9/9/93 Harley Saito & Carol Midori vs. Eagle Sawai & Miki Handa

9/9/93 Noriyo Tateno & Yasha Kurenai vs. Megumi Kudo & Miwa Sato

10/25/93 Carol Midori & Utako Hozumi vs. Eagle Sawai & Mikiko Futagami

10/25/93 Shinobu Kandori & Mizuki Endo vs. Harley Saito & Miki Handa

11/9/93 Yumiko Hotta, Suzuka Minami, Etsuko Mita, Mima Shimoda & Numacchi vs. Eagle Sawai, Harley Saito, Noriyo Tateno, Yasha Kurenai & Mizuki Endo

11/9/93 Bull Nakano & Takako Inoue vs. Shinobu Kandori & Utako Hozumi

11/9/93 Hair vs. Hair Death Match: Akira Hokuto vs. Rumi Kazama

11/29/93 Rumi Kazama & Noriyo Tateno vs. Utako Hozumi & Mizuki Endo

11/29/93 Miki Handa vs. Bull Nakano

12/24/93 Yasha Kurenai & Carol Midori vs. Rumi Kazama & Utako Hozumi

1. 1 Akira Hokuto. No one’s ever had a year like Hokuto in 1993, until August, she was on a level no one else has ever been on, ever, and beyond that, even with a seriously injured knee and the rest of her injuries slowing her down she was still the best. On top of that, her year is a journey and the story is told through almost every match she had. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t have a happy ending, and 1993 was her last year as a full-time wrestler.

2. Mayumi Ozaki. If there was anyone who came close to Hokuto, it was Ozaki. She was larger than life, one of the smartest wrestlers around, could work with anyone and make it compelling (she even managed to get a decent 20-minute match out of Numacchi). She excelled the most in interpromotional tag matches, and was the key to many of the early classics, including the match of the year on 7/31/93 and close runner up on 1/15/93.

3. Kyoko Inoue. Everyone seemed to peak in 1993, and Kyoko was another one. She was one of the best wrestlers in the world, and the most popular with the Zenjo fanbase. She was mainly known as a spot worker, and while she was the best spot worker because her execution was the best, she was a smarter worker than she gets credit for, the best example of this being 8/25 match with Kandori.

4. Dynamite Kansai. Another standout wrestler during the interpromotional rivalry matches. Of all of the brute wrecking balls, Kansai was the best of them in 1993. She may not have done the athletic spin kicks you’d see from Yamada, but hers were the most brutal looking and vicious, and while being the size of Bull or Aja, she was able to move around a lot faster than you’d think.

5. Harley Saito. Being in LLPW meant Harley never got that many chances to really shine. Had she been featured as much she probably could have been as high as #4, but through a couple of interpromotional matches and participating in the Japan Grand Prix, we did get to see the best of her on a few occasions. What was unfortunate was that she wrestled through the JGP injured, but even still, she had some of the best matches in the tournament, including the best one against Takako Inoue.

6. Toshiyo Yamada. Yamada’s 1993 was arguably better than 1992. These two years were unquestionably her peak, and between the classic tag team matches, and a great war with Kansai in October, she proved it. Her output of quality matches put her near the top of the list. While there’s no question of her ability, her decision making, much like her partner Toyota, can be problematic and her wrestling IQ seemed to lapse more and more as the year went on. One specific example being the stupid ‘death by backdrops’ spot where she does about 6 backdrop suplexes in a row (not chained, which would be impressive if she could have figured out a way to do that), taking a move that people popped for as a transition move and completely killing it.

7. Devil Masami. Devil Masami has always thrived on the big occasion and there were plenty of those for her in 1993. In stark contrast to the fast-paced wrestling that was becoming the popular thing, Devil is methodical, every motion has meaning, and everything she does is milked to maximum effect. It’s why she can wrestle for 37 minutes against Bull Nakano and it doesn’t feel like 37 minutes, and much like it was in 80s, she still manages to get the best out of Chigusa Nagayo, making her return matches in April and November so memorable.

8. Manami Toyota. Toyota was capable of being one the best workers around, and on her day, she was, particularly if she had a senior like Hokuto to lead her in the right direction. Her output is too good to ignore, and she was involved in plenty of incredible matches. She was the ultimate try-hard, and no one tried as hard as Toyota, the problem is that all too often she wants to show off rather than have a good match, and when left to her own devices (without a senior to keep her under control) she tends to make awful decisions.

9. Aja Kong. Aja’s first big year holding the red belt was a successful one overall. The first half of the year was a bit rocky, she had a somewhat disappointing title defense against Kyoko and took a back seat while the interpromotional rivalries were getting going. This is largely why she’s this far down in the rankings. She came into her own in the second half of the year, and really hit her peak through the tag league. She was great in the 7/31 match of the year, and went from strength to strength, her title defenses against Kansai and Megumi Kudo standing out as some of the stronger singles matches of the year.

10. Takako Inoue. Takako had her breakthrough year in 1993 turning into the ‘bitch idol’. She had some good singles matches, but was best as a tag wrestler, and she was the perfect tag team partner for Yumiko Hotta, as she was the weak link. She’d come in and pick the bones after Hotta had warn down an opponent, fuelling the heat to see her get her comeuppance and do all of the selling that Hotta never wanted to do.

11. Suzuki Minami

12. Bull Nakano

13. Shinobu Kandori

14. Yumiko Hotta

15. Etsuko Mita

16. Plum Mariko

17. Mima Shimoda

18. Cuty Suzuki

19. Sakie Hasegawa

20. Kaoru Ito

1. Dynamite Kansai & Mayumi Ozaki. Kansai and Ozaki only came together for interpromotional matches, and only had four of them (which was the cut off for consideration), but it’s impossible to deny them when three of those were three of the best tag team matches of the year, and the fourth was one of the better 60 minute draws you’ll see. What’s unfortunate is that All Japan Women really dropped the ball with their tag team title run. During their eight month reign, they successfully defended the belts once, and didn’t even win that match (the 6/3 draw). The belts rotted away for six months until it was time to drop them back to Toyota & Yamada on 12/6. Of the regular tag teams, Hotta & Takako were the best, as the two complimented each other so well and had the best output, surpassing Toyota & Yamada, the other standout regular team. #4 and #5 were Tag League The Best teams (Yamada & Inoue also teamed a couple of times at the beginning of the year), Hokuto & Toyota were probably the best team in it, but only two of their matches were shown (3 if we want to count the finals as separate matches). So where is LCO’s Mita & Shimoda then? Surprisingly not close, in fact Suzuka Minami teamed with Mita more than Shimoda did in 2 v 2 tag matches, and one of those was the 2/13 classic against Kandori & Harley in LLPW.

2. Yumiko Hotta & Takako Inoue

3. Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada

4. Toshiyo Yamada & Kyoko Inoue

5. Aja Kong & Sakie Hasegawa

1 4/2/93 AJW, All Japan Women's Pro Wrestling 25th Anniversary ALL-STAR DREAM SLAM

2 8/25/93 AJW, Legacy of Queens

3 12/6/93 AJW, Kokugikan Super Woman Legend St. FINAL

4 4/11/93 AJW, All Japan Women's Pro Wrestling 25th Anniversary ALL-STAR DREAM SLAM II

5 7/31/93 JWP, Thunder Queen Battle in Yokohama

6 10/9/93 AJW, WRESTLE MARINEPIAD 1993

7 11/18/93 JWP, Thunder Queen Battle in Yokohama II

8 8/21/93 AJW, Japan Grand Prix ’93 Final

9 1/24/93 AJW, Zenjo vs. LLPW Arashi no Kaisen!

10 12/10/93 AJW, TAG LEAGUE THE BEST ’93 Finals

1. 7/31/93 JWP Thunder Queen Battle: Aja Kong, Kyoko Inoue, Takako Inoue & Sakie Hasegawa vs. Dynamite Kansai, Mayumi Ozaki, Cuty Suzuki & Hikari Fukuoka *****

2. 4/2/93 AJW Akira Hokuto vs. Shinobu Kandori *****

3. 1/15/93 JWP Dynamite Kansai & Mayumi Ozaki vs. Yumiko Hotta & Takako Inoue *****

4. 4/11/93 AJW 2/3 Falls, WWWA World Tag Title Match: Toshiyo Yamada & Manami Toyota vs. Dynamite Kansai & Mayumi Ozaki ****3/4

5. 4/2/93 AJW Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue vs. Mayumi Ozaki & Cuty Suzuki ****3/4

6. 12/6/93 AJW WWWA World Tag Title Match: Dynamite Kansai & Mayumi Ozaki vs. Toshiyo Yamada & Manami Toyota ****3/4

7. 11/18/93 JWP Devil Masami & Plum Mariko vs. Chigusa Nagayo & Cuty Suzuki ****3/4

8. 8/25/93 AJW WWWA World Title Match: Aja Kong vs. Dynamite Kansai ****3/4

9. 2/13/93 LLPW Shinobu Kandori & Harley Saito vs. Suzuka Minami & Etsuko Mita ****3/4

10. 5/8/93 AJW Japan Grand Prix '93 Red Zone: Takako Inoue vs. Harley Saito ****1/2

11. 8/21/93 AJW Japan Grand Prix '93 Semi-Final: Manami Toyota vs. Akira Hokuto ****1/2

12. 8/25/93 AJW Kyoko Inoue vs. Shinobu Kandori ****1/2

13. 12/10/93 AJW Tag League The Best '93: Akira Hokuto & Manami Toyota vs. Toshiyo Yamada & Kyoko Inoue ****1/2

14. 1/24/93 AJW Akira Hokuto, Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda vs. Harley Saito, Eagle Sawai & Miki Handa ****1/2

15. 11/28/93 AJW First Attack Captain Fall Survival War: Akira Hokuto, Suzuka Minami, Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda vs. Dynamite Kansai, Devil Masami, Mayumi Ozaki & Plum Mariko ****1/2

16. 4/18/93 JWP Devil Masami vs. Bull Nakano ****1/2

17. 10/9/93 AJW Toshiyo Yamada vs. Dynamite Kansai ****1/2

18. 12/6/93 AJW Akira Hokuto vs. Shinobu Kandori ****1/2

19. 11/12/93 AJW Tag League The Best '93: Manami Toyota & Akira Hokuto vs. Aja Kong & Sakie Hasegawa ****1/2

20. 9/5/93 AJW UWA World Women's Tag Title Match: Akira Hokuto & Suzuka Minami vs. Yumiko Hotta & Takako Inoue ****1/2

21. 12/6/93 AJW WWWA World Title Match: Aja Kong vs. Megumi Kudo ****1/4

22. 5/11/93 LLPW Suzuka Minami & Bat Yoshinaga vs. Rumi Kazama & Yukari Osawa ****1/4

23. 10/9/93 AJW Kyoko Inoue vs. Devil Masami ****1/4

24. 8/21/93 AJW Japan Grand Prix '93 Final: Akira Hokuto vs. Yumiko Hotta ****1/4

25. 7/26/93 AJW Japan Grand Prix '93 Blue Zone: Kyoko Inoue vs. Manami Toyota ****1/4

1. All Japan Women

2. JWP

3. LLPW

Yumi Fukawa

Miki Yokoe

Best Joshi Puroresu Matches YouTube Playlist