1/3/00
Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita vs. Kayo Noumi & Miyuki Fujii. Total domination. Noumi bled. Everything looked good since LCO were virtually the only ones to get any offense in during the first 10 minutes. The execution went down when the match finally got competitive in the loosest sense of the word. LCO got nasty to put an end to Noumi & Fujii's little rally, which was basically dropkicks and a few tries for a flash pin. Mita had Fujii pinned in the Death Valley bomb just before 17, but she pulled her up. Shimoda then took Kayo out with a piledriver on a table. Mita Death Valley bombed Fujii again, once again pulling her up. LCO did the kakato otoshi to Death Valley bomb spot, but Mita didn't try for the pin this time. She went to pull Fujii up for a 4th Death Valley bomb, but Fujii was "unconscious" so the ref stopped the match. LCO looked excellent, but the match quality was severly hampered by the one-sidedness. **1/2
2/3 Falls WWWA Sekai Tag Senshukenjiai: Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa vs. Manami Toyota & Miho Wakizawa. Lots of action, as you'd expect. Really fast-paced considering the length. Everyone worked their ass off, but unfortunately the match contained more than it's fair share of screw ups. Toyota was excellent here, and Watanabe wasn't far behind. The match was really strong when either of these two were in, but only alright when Maekawa was in with Miho. Toyota is now doing a plancha off the top of the entrance to the arena, although this is probably only 8-10 feet high. LCO came out after the match looking for a title match. ***3/4
1/4/00
Kaoru Ito & Kayo Noumi vs. Nanae Takahashi & Miyuki Fujii. Ito held the match together and, all things considered, looked tremendous. There's only so much one person can do though, and a lot of the reason she looked so great is that the others are so not good. Ito looked bad having to sell for these dropkick crazy clowns. *1/2
All Pacific Senshukenjiai: Kumiko Maekawa vs. Miho Wakizawa. A pleasant surprise. Maekawa really stepped up here. She instilled a focused storyline of Miho working over her left leg/ankle. Maekawa did a much better job of putting it over than Miho did of injuring it, especially when Miho missed it twice with the ever difficult stomp. Maekawa went after Miho's leg when she was on offense then Miho went back to working on Maekawa's when she came back. Once they went to the high spots, all the focus and carry over selling was out the window though. They did some nice sequences and dramatic near falls though. Definitely one of Maekawa's best performances, now she needs to do this kind of thing more consistently and figure out how to connect the body to the finishing sequences. ***1/4
WWWA Sekai Single Senshukenjiai: Yumiko Hotta vs. Manami Toyota. Not much rhyme or reason to anything that happened in this match. Hotta is so mediocre, and to make things worse she seemed disinterested. Toyota worked hard, but couldn't get Hotta do anything more than she usually does. Toyota did some cool moves like a tope con giro and plancha off the entrance, but they only go so far when there's not much in the way of sequences and such. Toyota won the match, thankfully putting an end to the worse WWWA world single title reign since sometime in the 70's. **1/4
Yumiko Hotta & Miyuki Fujii vs. Takako Inoue & Commando Bolshoi. Boring match where no one looked all that good. Fujii did all the work for her team, getting totally dominated for the majority of the match. Hotta would come in once in a while and kick ass; she got all the glory. *1/2
Devil Masami & Kayo Noumi vs. Tsubasa Kuragaki & Acute Sae. Devil is just too big for these girls. She wasn't in total no sell mode, but since they have no offense she may as well have been because they couldn't throw anything at her that was worthy of being put over. Devil was more motivated than usual today and carried the match, but she's not what she used to be and had nothing to work with. *1/4
Tomoko Watanabe & Nanae Takahashi vs. Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda. All out brawl that started before the ring intros and ended well after the bell. Maekawa would get involved when they were on the floor to set up next months cage match. LCO worked over Takahashi's bad shoulder, which may or may not have been why Takahashi was barely involved in the second half of the match aside from getting beat on when they were brawling around the ring. Shimoda was hitting too lightly at times, and the lack of a finish also hurt in the sense that they had done so many near falls in the last 10 minutes. It was basically a match to set up future business that happened to also be good. ***1/4
All Pacific Senshukenjiai: Kumiko Maekawa vs. Azumi Hyuga. This was like Maekawa's previous defense against Wakizawa. It should have been much better because Azumi is a far superior worker, but I thought it was a little worse because it lacked the conviction. It lacked the amount of focus and drama that the Wakizawa match had, and the finish was unconvincing "so as not to make Maekawa look bad for losing." Maekawa didn't have to work as hard because Azumi brings a lot more to the table, but Maekawa really stepping up was what made the Wakizawa match. ***
Manami Toyota & Dynamite Kansai & Kaoru Ito vs. Ran YuYu & Carlos Amano & Miho Wakizawa. The veterans dominated the match. Only YuYu really stood up to them and took it to them. She knows how to work with Kansai, and made it look like Kansai was still good. The work was good, but the intensity and rivalry you'd expect from the first main event of the new AJW/JWP alliance era wasn't there. Everyone except Wakizawa had their moments, but the match was just so standard. Hotta cut a promo on JWP/Kansai after the match, so Masatoshi Yamamoto came up from behind and shoved her. This led to a scuffle between the two, and words between Hotta & Kansai. Why didn't we see this kind of resentment during the match? ***
Kiss no Sekai practicing and recording their CD
Kiss no Sekai debut performance
Zenjo & J ~Spring Has Come~: Azumi Hyuga & Miho Wakizawa & Kayo Noumi vs. Ran YuYu & Carlos Amano & Acute Sai. The 3 JWP wrestlers that were the core of the promotion at the time all looked really good, but the other three wrestlers pretty much only reduced the match. Luckily Azumi, Ran, & Carlos were in more than the others, with Sai & Noumi mainly coming in for double teams. Sai vs. Noumi was pretty weak when it happened, and unfortunately they were in for the finish. A little sloppy or chaotic at times, but for the most part it was a good fast-paced match. **3/4
BE AMBITIOUS II: Nanae Takahashi & Miyuki Fujii vs. Lioness Asuka & Morimatsu. This match proves anyone wrestling Lioness will look competent at the very least. The execution from the AJW women was better than usual, but they lack the move set to compete. Even Morimatsu was allowed to dominate Takahashi. Aside from being one-sided it was good. The highlight was Lioness doing a footstomp off the lighting rig with Takahashi on a table. Fujii did bring a lot of energy to the match. **1/2
Manami Toyota & Dynamite Kansai & Kaoru Ito vs. Yumiko Hotta & Command Bolshoi & Takako Inoue. Some good moments, but the match never developed into anything. Ito was good, but not as good as usual. Bolshoi, who totally carried her team, was actually the 2nd best behind Toyota. Kansai wasn't very interesting after an initial heated exchange with Hotta. The match needed more of that, but it was rather mindless. **1/4
Kanaami Death Match: Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa vs. Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda. This was all LCO. They roughed the opposition up every chance they got and were in a particularly bloodthirsty mood today. They dominated up until the 7 minute mark when Mita escaped, but Mita had to come back in soon because Shimoda wasn't going to beat Watanabe & Maekawa by herself. Maekawa's kicking was really impressive; they were stiff, athleticm, on target. Her comebacks were too fiery though. Maekawa escaped, but eventually had to reenter because LCO were killing Watanabe with evil tactics like wrapping a chain around the knee they'd injured earlier and pulling in opposite directions. Shimoda did a missile kick from the top of the cage, but the timing of Watanabe putting Mita in front was off and Mita was also a few inches too far away. Later Watanabe could have escaped, but instead killed her shoulder when LCO avoided her moonsault off the top of the cage. Kind of illogical in points, but a very good brawl due to LCO. ***3/4
Kaoru Ito vs. Momoe Nakanishi
Takako Inoue & Miyuki Fujii vs. Tomoko Watanabe & Chaparrita ASARI
Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita vs. Momoe Nakanishi & Kayo Noumi
Manami Toyota & Yumiko Hotta & Kumiko Maekawa & Nanae Takahashi vs. Dynamite Kansai & Ran YuYu & Command Bolshoi & Kayoko Haruyama
3/4/00 Yokohama Bunka Taiikukan: Tsubasa Kuragaki vs. Kayoko Haruyama
SAPPORO Opening Match: Yumiko Hotta vs. Chaparrita ASARI
SCHEMER VS JWP: Takako Inoue & Miyuki Fujii vs. Kayoko Haruyama & Acute Sae
Zen Nihon Tag Senshukenjiai: Kana Mizaki & Tsubasa Kuragaki vs. Miho Wakizawa & Kayo Noumi
Zenjo vs. JWP Taikosen Kaike Sapporo Special: Kaoru Ito & Momoe Nakanishi & Nanae Takahashi vs. Dynamite Kansai & Command Bolshoi & Azumi Hyuga
2/3 Falls WWWA Sekai Tag Senshukenjiai: Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa vs. Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita
WWWA Sekai Single Senshukenjiai: Manami Toyota vs. Ran YuYu
Japan Grand Prix 2000 Koshikisen 21 Seiki (century) Leaguesen: Miyuki Fujii vs. Kayoko Haruyama. Adequately worked and marginally interesting match. The last few minutes were pretty good. Haruyama was the better of the two with Fujii showing nothing offensively. *1/2
Japan Grand Prix 2000 Koshikisen 21 Seiki Leaguesen: Nanae Takahashi vs. Kayo Noumi. They don't have moves and don't do them well. What more is there to say? Well, that's not entirely fair. Takahashi was passable because she did moves that required little to no assistance from Noumi, who was totally m
Manami Toyota vs. Takako Inoue. Toyota screwed around for the first five minutes then it got heated with Black Joker and Momoe getting involved. Takako's striking was better today because she threw a lot of quick strikes with something on them that Toyota ducked or blocked. Overall though, the execution wasn't the greatest and Toyota did jst about every good move. **
KO Kecchaku Match (must end in a KO): Yumiko Hotta vs. Kumiko Maekawa. Submissions were allowed, but obviously that's not their strength so it was almost entirely striking. It was stiff, but I'd much rather watch real kickboxers.
Japan Grand Prix 2000 Koshikisen 21 Seiki Leaguesen: Momoe Nakanishi vs. Miho Wakizawa. The quality was up and down, but for the most part Momoe was good enough to make up for Miho. Momoe's offense looked great with some impressive dives. Although there was no story the match built pretty well. Wakizawa looked bad (no comparison) when they were both doing the same moves to each other, and ran out of moves since the match was long. ***
JWP Tag Senshukenjiai: ZAP I & ZAP T vs. Command Bolshoi & Azumi Hyuga 20:29. Something of a tough go as the AJW fans didn't want to root for their most evil team or the outsider team. The match was very well executed consistently entertaining professional looking match, but one that lacked fire, intensity, and aura. Still, it might have been an excellent match if it wasn't for the limitations of the ZAP gimmick and the silly double ring out finish. While they were I & T were really good when they were wrestling rather than hitting the opposition with their oversized twigs, there's something about their style that makes even a match such as this that always has good moves tends to feel as though it's just meandering along aimlessly. Azumi was a big help, executing to perfection and adding a number of hot moves. She was easily the best wrestler in the match, followed by Ito, who was the one directing traffic. Bolshoi wasn't clowning around though, and gave a pretty slick performance in her own right. The highlight was I holding Boloshi up in powerbomb position so T could jump off the middle rope and break one of their rods over Bolshoi's head then I immediately going into a fierce Ligerbomb. As you'd expect, the biggest problem was we were given no sense that Bolshoi & Azumi would win the match. ***
7/14/00
WWWA Tag Title Tournament Round 1: Momoe Nakanishi & Nanae Takahashi vs. Miho Wakizawa & Kayo Noumi 20:26
WWWA Tag Title Tournament Round 1: Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita vs. Yuko Kosugi & Obatchi Iizuka 17:56
WWWA Tag Title Tournament Round 1: Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa vs. Yumiko Hotta & Kayoko Haruyama 15:55
WWWA World Single Title Match: Manami Toyota vs. Eagle Sawai 19:14
7/15/00
WWWA Tag Title Tournament Semifinal: Momoe Nakanishi & Nanae Takahashi vs. Command Bolshoi & Tsubasa Kuragaki 16:36
WWWA Tag Title Tournament Semifinal: Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita vs. Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa 24:23
Kiss no Sekai, Yumiko Hotta & Tomoko Watanabe, and d-power 2000 (Manami Toyota, Kaoru Ito, Kumiko Maekawa, Momoe Nakanishi & Miyuki Fujii) live performances
7/16/00, WWWA Tag Title Tournament Final: Momoe Nakanishi & Nanae Takahashi vs. Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita 22:02
Japan Grand Prix 200 Kessho Tournament Ikkaisen: Kaoru Ito vs. Reggie Bennett. Mat oriented with Ito working on Reggie's left knee a bit. Unfortunately, this matwork was of the laying around variety. Ito gave Reggie a nodowa otoshi early and built up to powerbombing her. The moves were well executed, but I didn't get into it and it was too obvious that Ito was going to win. **1/4
Momoe Nakanishi & Kayo Noumi vs. Takako Inoue & Miyuki Fujii. Momoe was the match. Her wrestling was excellent, proving Takako could still be made to look good, but no one else was even average. Aside from uninspiring wrestling, Fujii looked totally ridiculous with this orange hair that was red in front and regular lightened color on the side. Noumi was even a punching bag for Fujii. **1/4
Japan Grand Prix 200 Kessho Tournament Junkessho: Kaoru Ito vs. Tomoko Watanabe. It's hard to think of an Ito vs. Watanabe match that was better or worse than good (I think I gave their 8/22/97 match ***1/2). This wasn't one of their longer ones, so it was faster paced although it meandered with them delving into all areas and still had some restmissions. Once it got going it was damn good, but by that time there were only a few minutes left. As always, it was very well executed. ***
Japan Grand Prix 200 Kessho Tournament Junkessho: Yumiko Hotta vs. Etsuko Mita. Not very exciting, in fact it was plodding. The few sequences they did didn't look that great. *1/2
Manami Toyota & Miho Wakizawa vs. Kumiko Maekawa & Nanae Takahashi. Lighthearted. Some good moves, but it didn't gain any momentum. Once they started doing dives it got interesting. **1/2
Japan Grand Prix 200 Kessho Tournament Kesshosen: Kaoru Ito vs. Etsuko Mita. Hard hitting match. Very well executed with strong performances from both women and major crowd heat. Although the match wasn't very long, since neither has a very big moveset to begin with and they only used their high impact ones they wound up repeating themselves. Ito bled heavily early on from a Death Valley bomb out of the ring. Ito was on the defensive most of the match, and did a pretty good job of putting over the damage, but then ruined it with a Toyota-esque quick comeback selling nothing. At least Ito being fiery helped her crowd reactions. Mita's comebacks were much more believable. Ito did a diving footstomp off the balcony. ***1/2
Miyuki Fujii vs. Kayoko Haruyama 10:08. The benefit of Haruyama working with Fuji is well, um, Fujii is someone from a different promotion, and since that promotion is AJW, a few people might place minimal value in a victory over her. Haruyama gave a competent performance, and kept it from being too dull. She has always understood that people will like you if you leap off the rope enough times. I don't mind so much that Fujii lacks a move set, but rather that she is just so deliberate. Too often, Fujii seems to be thinking about what action she's going to take when she should be in the midst of taking it. Counters need to be spontaneous, but by the time Fujii contemplated following Haruyama's missed diving body press with la magistral, the moment had passed. *1/2
Yumiko Hotta vs. ZAP T 12:09. Hotta wants to be champion, but she almost never takes a full match seriously anymore. If she wrestled anywhere near her capability, it would have been fine, as Watanabe was okay, but this was some of the laziest setup, transition, and countering you'll ever see. Shinobu Kandori was watching on the outside, as this match was supposed to lead to a decisive battle between the two “shooters” who had exchanged the red belt in recent times, but it was hard to buy into the MMA aspect of the match when they rolled out some submissions with no setup that the announcers were forced to try to pass off as Vale Tudo. In between, T brawled around the building. Hotta did wake up and start moving at the 11-minute mark, and it was good from there, but unfortunately the match ended almost immediately. Hotta challenged Kandori after the match, so Kandori could pretend to need to be restrained. *
AJ Title Match: Nanae Takahashi vs. Miho Wakizawa 20:57. These two may not be great wrestlers, but they honored the title, going all out to deliver the best match they were capable of. Because they genuinely cared and put forth such a good effort, the match was not only better than it should have been, but even left you with the feeling that you really saw something. In actuality, the match was fairly ordinary for the first 15 minutes then really good for the last 5 when they went nuts unloading every move in their arsenal, and then some. Even though they ambled about early on and did nothing special move wise, what I liked about the early portion is they put enough urgency, intensity, and effort into making their basic offense matter that you cared because they cared. Bulky Takahashi has much better offense than scrawny Miho, the impact of her moves seeming to be at least 5 times that of Wakizawa's. She dominated the match, pretty much using her size to run though Miho. Wakizawa never stops screaming, but, although somewhat annoying, this often works in her favor. She did a particularly nice job of putting over Takahashi's Boston crab, and generally made the basic holds where Takahashi was stretching her out seem damaging, but she could use some more moderation, particularly when she is on offense. Wakizawa is probably AJW's 2nd most energetic wrestler, but the difference between her and Momoe Nakanishi, is Nakanishi has figured ways to channel that into exciting, high quality wrestling whereas Wakizawa is often only aided in a marginal, at least she's fighting sort of manner. Wakizawa is trying was actually the story of this match though, as she did nothing for ages then had a big run of every move in her arsenal. The match kept looking as though it were about to end, but AJW gave them some leeway and allowed them to try whatever semblance of a blowout match one can expect from AJW youngsters who are used to restrictions and restraints on their moveset. These two generally didn't show this sort of potential, but for a brief moment they made us believe in them, even feel this could be a turning point for both, as they had a legit end to the match and did a good job of getting past their shortcomings during the body of the match. The title win was, nonetheless, a nice step forward for Wakizawa, who might have worked out if she wasn't thrust into being a focal point of the promotion by default of them lacking somewhat young, remotely pushable wrestlers. ***1/4
Black Joker ATHENA Jack II: Kumiko Maekawa & Momoe Nakanishi & Kayo Noumi vs. Rumi Kazama & Eagle Sawai & Takako Inoue 22:48. Black Joker dominated this endless, meandering match which largely consisted of frivolous brawling. The problem with Black Joker in AJW is they are supposed to generate heat by dominating the home team with questionable tactics, but since they never garner more than minimal reaction, AJW is just allowing their wrestlers to get squashed for no discernible benefit. Momoe had one strong stretch toward the end with Takako, who was pretty good, but that wasn't nearly enough to salvage the match. *1/2
WWWA World Single Title Match: Manami Toyota vs. Kaoru Ito 24:02. Kaoru Ito was of the right age and certainly had more than enough ability to be pushed during the mid 90's glory days of AJW, but didn't get any love from the promotion until it was beginning to fall apart in 1997. Three years later, with her mother in the audience, she finally got her moment of glory, taking the title from the face of the promotion. Though in many ways the moment had already passed both for the promotion and for Ito, who at nearly 29 was only marginally younger than Aja Kong and Toyota, the two women who dominated the promotion in the previous decade, there was one big difference, while those two were pretty much used up, Ito was still in her prime. Ito won't go down as one of the great WWWA singles champions, but it's certainly not her fault, as her big matches during the dying days of the promotion were some of the few shining stars amidst the dark sky. Ito not only had better timing and performed her moves sharper and crisper than Toyota, she was generally a far more explosive executor at this point. Toyota wasn't missing anything though, and certainly gave her all as well, delivering a fast-paced, well worked match with several nice counters. The selling was better than expected, with Ito putting a lot of effort into putting over Toyota's attack on her right knee. Though ultimately the early knee work from both didn't play a role in the latter stages, it gave the match more diversity because they interspersed the missile kicks and lesser highspots in between the early body of the match leg work rather than laying on the mat for five minutes then kicking it into high gear. It was a fun match, highlighted by Toyota climbing up the ladder by the Differ logo for a plancha. That said, it's hard to explain exactly why this match wasn't as good as some of their others, especially since both were better wrestlers here than they were on 2/24/02. It wasn't a spotfest, yet it didn't have any particular drama, so in the end, it was a match I admired but also one that, good as it was, didn't pull me in. ***3/4
Mika Nishio vs. Chie Terashita
Kumiko Maekawa debut 10th Anniversary Ceremony
Yumiko Hotta vs. Nanae Takahashi
Eagle Sawai & Takako Inoue vs. Momoe Nakanishi & Miyuki Fujii
Tag League The Best '00 League Match: Manami Toyota & Kayo Noumi vs. Kaoru Ito & Miho Wakizawa
Tag League The Best '00 League Match: Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita vs. Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa
Miyuki Fujii vs. Chie Terashita
Miho Wakizawa vs. Mika Nishio
Amaresu: Mika Nishio vs. Ari Suzuki
Amaresu: Miho Wakizawa vs. Seiko Yamamoto
Tomoko Watanabe & Kayo Noumi vs. Eagle Sawai & Takako Inoue
Manami Toyota & Yumiko Hotta vs. Shinobu Kandori & Noriyo Tateno
Cage Death Match: Kaoru Ito & Momoe Nakanishi & Nanae Takahashi vs. Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda & Kumiko Maekawa. Great match