AJW Zenjo Is Dream * Last Night's Explosion Commercial Tape |
Saemi Numata vs. Masami Watanabe 7:01. Entirely uneventful curtain jerker with larger and more experienced Numata overwhelming rookie ASARI in the most basic of manners. Watanabe wasn't allowed to try anything, and was basically just bullied with Numata utilizing her advantages in leverage and mass. 1/2*
WWWA World Midget Championship Match: Little Frankie vs. Mr. Buddhaman 3:39. Mercifully brief title match that came off more as a squash with Frankie using his quickness and athleticism to thwart his potbellied opponent. Frankie isn't the most graceful or athletic, but the announcers praised his originality as he managed a Tiger feint dropkick and cartwheel kick. He landed a suicida and a plancha before winning with the diving footstomp.
Suzuka Minami & Mima Shimoda vs. Terri Power & Kaoru Ito 17:53. Ito was a better wrestler in '93 than I previously realized. She lacked the brutality of her later years, but more than made up for it with fire and energy to go along with her crisp execution. She worked the majority of the match, allowing it to be as good as it could be by not giving the barbarian the opportunity to screw things up too much. Still, it was more a competent match than a good one. They ran the ropes often, but it was all low level of difficulty spots that didn't require much timing or cooperation. Power was robotic, but Suzuka and to a lesser extent Shimoda both worked well with Ito. **
Miori Kamiya (Cooga) retirement ceremony
Sakie Hasegawa vs. Tomoko Watanabe 16:00. Solid match, probably better for being a bit on the conservative building block side as Watanabe was still trying to be a flyer here, but her boomerang moves were always iffy at best. Lots of body work with Hasegawa injuring Watanabe's back and Watanabe injuring Hasegawa's left ankle. They remembered to sell these weak points until they finally opened up. Hasegawa was clearly the more confident and competent when they finally let loose. **1/2
Manami Toyota vs. Takako Inoue 22:17. Good technical wrestling match from the idol wrestlers. Takako jumped Toyota as she was entering the ring, and bashed her into some chairs. Toyota reversed a whip into the chairs, but missed a plancha off the bleachers. The hot opening had the crowd into the match before they hit the mat, where they mainly stayed for the next 15 minutes. That would normally be a downer, but the intensity was high with a lot of effort put into the facials and screams. It might not have led anywhere, but there was no question that they were into it, and their determination was clearly recognized by the audience. The sense of urgency increased exponentially when they finally got back to their feet. Unfortunately, despite the major fan support for their high spots and near falls, they weren't able to fully hold up this final portion of the match. Well, it was actually pretty damn good until Toyota ended it with 3 moonsault variations, none of which connected properly, and a Japanese ocean suplex where her right leg slipped out so she had to rebridge before the ref began counting. ***
Yumiko Hotta & Bat Yoshinaga vs. Toshiyo Yamada & Etsuko Mita 22:26. Stiff, intense, crisply executed match that was wrestled with a sense of urgency. Yamada was the standout, her diversity shown by her two best opponents being flyer Toyota and kicker Hotta. Yamada & Hotta didn't produce at the level of their singles matches together, but were certainly still the best combination in this big time striking match where everyone was on their game. Mita was the one who didn't belong, as she mainly had her double chop, which she wasn't relying that heavily upon. She took the majority of the punishment, but had her time to shine in the later stages. ***1/2
WWWA World Singles Championship: Aja Kong vs. Kyoko Inoue 26:05. They wrestled at a pretty high level, but it wasn't particularly dramatic because you never felt Kyoko had much going for her beyond desire. She tried to match Aja, which was a losing strategy that led to her selling much of the first 20 minutes. Aja overwhelmed Kyoko early, working her back and giving her some nasty punches to the face. Kong eventually beat Kyoko with chairs, because she could. Kyoko finally fired up and took it back to the outside where she gave Aja a taste of her own medicine, but Kong had sustained so little previous damage she recovered before Kyoko could reenter and slammed her on a chair. The match finally became somewhat competitive after 20:00 when Kyoko began to use her speed more to run circles around Aja and make her look foolish. Still, Aja caught Kyoko in midair, turning a tope reversa into a nasty released German suplex. I liked most of what they were doing, but with Inoue being such an underdog to begin with, their first priority needed to be finding a way to fool the fans into believing she had a chance. They never even tried, so the match didn't approach the level it should have. ***1/4
