AJW 1990 July - September

AJW 7/21/1990

- (Kickboxing) Sakie Hasegawa vs Mayumi Yamamoto
Some cool highlights, at the start of the last 3 rounds they come out swinging like crazy. In the middle of the 3rd round Yamamoto
tries a freaking Jushin Liger style rolling koppo kick only she does it in super slow motion, looking ridiculous. Sakie pounds her head in for her trouble. Sadly, all of the above amounts to about 1 mins worth of action and the other 11 mins this thing goes is boring as hell, total FF material. Goes the distance, Sakie wins via judges decision.

- Miori Kamiya, Kyoko Inoue & Mariko Yoshida vs Etsuko Mita, Mima Shimoda & Kaoru Ito
Totally digging Miori's bad ass green ninja body suit here. Stylistically your typical joshi sprint, non stop action from bell to bell. As far as these types of matches go though I thought this was on the higher end and a real good match. A sloppy moment or 2 but for the most part everyones on their A game, especially Kyoko & LCO. Mima gets the win after around 10 mins of action which surprised me when I looked at the clock since they cramed so much in it felt like 20.

- Mitsuko Nishiwaki, Mika Takahashi, Kaoru Maeda & Esther Moreno vs Grizzly Iwamoto, Bison Kimura, Hyper Cat & La Diabolica
Starts out similar to the last match with a lot of back & forth. Moreno who I dunno if this is her debut but it's her 1st time making tape for AJW, gets to shine early busting out some beautiful lucha high spots. Things then settle down for a bit with La Ruda's taking over and beating down Nish & Kaoru. Funny, possibly uninentional moment as Grizz blocks a head scisors attempt by stepping on Kaoru's hair as she's trying to roll through. La Technica's make their come back with Mika coming in and clearing out then things break down with every one fighting all over allowing Nishiwaki to pick up the win over Bison, rolling her up after she takes a nasty looking missed cane shot from Grizz right to the jaw. A little shorter then the last match, only maybe going 8 total sadly so nothing majorly great but this was damn good while it lasted.

- (Kickboxing) Bat Yoshinaga vs Akemi Torisu
Didn't look at the match listing before I watched this show, going in I knew the main & semi but that's it. When I saw Bat pop up for her backstage interview in Karate gear I went "fuck, not another one of these". My sadness quickly disapeared when I saw her opponent was Torisu so i'd be getting a...pre match to the awesome fucking spectacle they put on in 91. And holy cow this match was everything I could have hoped. Bat MAULS her from the start, she gets knocked down about 4 times in less then a min from blows to the head, knocked down again after a leg kick at the 90 second mark and the ref is like "fuck it, yer done  kid" and calls for the bell. Torisu cries in shame post match and begs to continue but no go. I think she may have gotten in like 2 punches during this match...maybe. Makes her performance the following year vs Bat all the more impressive and amazing.

- Akira Hokuto & Suzuka Minami vs Noriyo Tateno & Yumiko Hotta
Jet Bomb Angels in the house. A lot of back & forth between the 2 teams but at a slower paced build. Tateno & Hotta had some good chemistry together and Tateno vs The Wolves produced some good moments. Wouldn't have minded seeing this team continue with Nishiwaki soon to be retiring. Just as the match is getting going though around the 9 min mark it ends with Hotta falling prey to a Hokuto missile drop kick to the face. Another to add to the good but would have been better with 5 more mins pile.

- (Street Fight) Aja Kong vs Madusa
The backstage anouncer has the bright idea of having them do a face to face interview pre match and after Madusa does her best Luna Vachon shrieking grrr angry promo inmitation things shockingly break down into a fight but it's quickly broken up. Back in the ring Aja comes out being carried on a podeum, old school Macho Man style lookings pissed as hell and ready to murder. Then, sadly, the actual match starts and it's all down hill from thear. Angry pre match backstage brawl + "Street match" billing + girls in ripped jeans and cammo gear you would THINK = bad ass wild crazy brawl but NOPE, not tonight. This is instead, I dunno really how to even describe it. There were some brawling elements involved sure, a table was hurled at someones head, people were smacked upside the head with boots. At the same time they were also wearing large open fingered boxing gloves and they sorta but not really did some, a lot of actually fake mma stuff but not the good kind. The 1st 1/3 or so of this didn't start with heated angry exchanges it was wimpy looking punches and LONG head lock & leg bar sequences. Then atleast another 1/3 of this worked like your average joshi wrestling style with irish whips and pile drivers and flying drop kicks and shit. For the finish it delved back into kickboxing mode with a lot of punch exchanges and Madusa eventually falling prey to 1 too many urakens. No clue WTF they were going for in this match, not enteriely sure THEY knew WTF they were going for in this match. It got 21+ mins, longer then the last 3 matches combined. It definately wasn't bad, it had it's moments but I couldn't call this good either and was quite disapointing overall. And sigh, after all the hatred and anger and swearing death upon each other's heads, they hug post match.....let's move on...

- (3WA Title) Bull Nakano (c) vs Manami Toyota
A total power vs speed match. At the begining none of Toyota's attacks work. She runs at Bull, eats a lariat, runs at Bull, gets tossed asside like garbage, runs at Bull, gets slamed down. She tries a new strategy of trying to take it to the mat but that doesn't work so well either as Bull stretches her to hell instead. Like at the JGP last month the crowd is again split but this time it's around 70/30 in favor of Toyota so whenever a Bull chant breaks out it's quickly drowned by the larger Manami cheer squad. Toyota makes her come back and goes back to spazzing out like a mad woman, this time to more success. She's able to hit a lot of fast moving dives and other attacks and escapes a lot of Bull's power stuff either moving out of the way to hit a move of her own or countering into a roll up or cradle for a near fall. Crowds going nuts at this stage hoping for a title change but as is often when people try & play the speed game with Bull it ends badly because eventually she will catch you and all it takes is one monster lariat or flying leg drop or in case of the finish a nasty looking power bomb droping Toyota on her head for the win. Entire match only goes like 9 minutes but it's one of the best sub 10 matches i've ever seen and a damn great match period. Proving it's not always how much time you get but what you do with it that counts.

AJW 8/19/90

- Etsuko Mita vs Miori Kamiya
- (Kick Boxing) Sakie Hasegawa vs Kaoru Ito
Too cliped to really coment on, the Mita match looked decent from what was shown, Ito/Sakie, not so much

- Coolie SZ & Bulldog KT vs Masa Michinoku & Monkey Magic Wakita
Only quick highlights show. Nothing impressive and some sloppy looking stuff. Still neat seeing super young Jado & Gedo and an unmasked Sasuke & Super Delfin

- Kaoru Maeda Estelle Moreno & Mika Takahashi vs Kyoko Inoue Hyper Cat & La Diabolica
Good little lucha sprint. Moreno's have been rocking it on all these early AJW shows i've been watching. Diabolica was impressive too. Anyone know who Hyper Cat was? Seems kind of familiar, like it might have been one of the AJW girls under the mask

- (Kick Boxing) Mima Shimoda vs Yumiko Hotta
Hmm, Mima Shimoda in a shoot fight, that's odd.
Hmmm, Mima Shimoda in a shoot fight not only holding her own but dominating at times, that's odd.
Hmmmm, they're busting out dragon screw leg whips & step up enzuguris in this shoot fight, interesting.
Hmmmmm.....INDEED!!!!!

- Madusa & Noriyo Tateno vs Suzuka Minami & Mitsuko Nishiwaki
They're billing this as 2000th match of Tateno who debued a little over 9 years earlier as is on her (1st) retirement road. Madusa in the pre match promo claims herself & Tateno are the new breed. I know AJW used to run quite the heavy schedule back in the day but I think they're may be a lil bit of fuzzy math going on here. Madusa also claims her opponents have million dollar bodies & 10 cent brains...yup. Match itself was nothing special.

- Manami Toyota vs Akira Hokuto
Even better version of the match they had a few months later. Actually this may be the best singles between them i've seen period. Starts off super hot and then switches gears as this time Hokuto, the imortal mummy goddess goes in with a bad leg that Toyota goes to town on and the selling & drama that results is just off the charts. There was such an awesome air of desperation to everything they did as well, with it feeling like it was a true war to get any move in on the other, no one wanting to get caught in any hold w/o a fight and every big move being treated like it could be the end. A true joy to watch. I made the comment on the Yamada/Toyota match that it never seemed like they were going to a draw because they'd often work a little bit of a slower paced, long matwork section in most all their matches, here it's the opposite, this never appeared like they were going the distance either but it was because it was just non stop action the whole way through with never a dull moment.

- Aja Kong & Bison Kimura vs Bull Nakano & Grizzly Yamato
Everything I want out of wrestling & so much more. If I still gave out star ratings this would get 5. Legit one of the greatest matches i've ever seen. At it's best, great wrestling matches allways garner 1 of 2 responses from me. Either i'm jumping up & down going "fuck yeah, whoo, this is amazing" or i'm sitting thear deathly silent, intensely concentrating, not wanting to blink and miss 1 second. This match falls into the latter category. I couldn't turn away by the end, just staring with my mouth 1/2 open in disbeliefe at how damn fuckin great this was. This wasn't just good in your standard "oh they did a b & c, I like all those things, toss in a blender & mix for yummy goodness" sorta way. This was special, they did a through z then invented a 27th & 28th letter because they're just that good. Everyone was so perfect playing their roles, especially Bull as the unstopable dominant monster. Watching Bull just stand thear as Aja & Bison tried with all their heart to beat the shit out of her with Kendo sticks and Bull just had this "come on, is THAT all you've got" look on her face is one of those iconically cool moments in wrestling that you know you'll never ever forget.

AJW 9/1/1990

- (Cage Match - Special Ref Bulldog KT) Aja Kong vs Bull Nakano
The version I have is from the original TV broadcast not the AJW Classics episode that came out earlier this year. Sadly for some reason this is the only match from that tv ep that exist today and whatever earlier stuff that aired on the same episode got cut off/no one taped/isn't in circulation. They do air a highlight package at the end of the show showing briefe clips of what else took place on this show and among other things this card also had a lost Kyoko vs Toyota singles match, ending with Toyota going over with the rolling cradle in 18+ so f u to whoever forgot to set their VCR to record the rest of this show 20 years ago. I think Aja agrees as she infact has "Fuck U" shaved into the side of her head...yup.
Much like the Madusa match a couple months ago, they have Aja & her opponent do a face to face pre match promo and shockingly, it again breaks down into a crazy brawl backstage. Madusa actually seconds Aja here so I guess the post match hug during their street fight is what formed their alliance. Would have been interesting to see whear her as a member of Jungle Jack had played out long term had she not bounced in 91 to go to WCW.
Match itself is worked a little diffrently then your usual AJW cage match and thinking about it, as far as I can tell this may infact be the 1st cage match AJW ever did. To start with, this one has a ref and not just any ref no, Bulldog Fucking KT who would be better known today as Gedo who'd been in wrestling like 1 year at this point. Why in the blue ass hell he of all people is the ref for this match I have no clue. He ends up playing a big part in the match though. He won't let either wrestler use weapons which is obviously weird since it's a freakin cage match and so he's always taking them from them and getting in their face for it. Last man standing rules are also in effect so you can win via some other means then escape which doesn't even play a factor until the end. Intense hatred rite straight off the bat as they get to beatin the crap out of each other. Bull gets the early advantage but it doesn't last long and they go back and forth for a while. They alternate between brawling and trying to wear each other down with holds and power stuff and I thought they pulled off the mix well. Things get interesting when Aja decides to go after Bulls leg and goes nuts attacking it with a trash can. She opens up a pretty fair sized gash on Bulls leg and once Aja smells blood she goes to work on that for a while and while Bull tries to fight back but never fully regains control. Along the way I should mention that Gedo bets whacked a few times by both for his troubles of trying to enforce rules in this cage match and he ends up a bloody mess as well. For the finish he also ends up playing a big part as after Aja nails Bull a few more times in the leg she goes to escape and though Bull manages to get back to her feet, Gedo is standing near the ropes fully in the way preventing Bull from getting thear in time and allowing Aja to get the win.
Bull cries foul post match leading to screaming & yelling and all hell breaking loose post match with them brawling some more and having to be sperated. For what this was designed to do I thought this did a perfect job. No whear close to their more famous cage match a few months later but it was great as a set up for the re-match and just as a stand alone still really damn good.