AJW 5/24/1992

- Kaoru Ito & Chikako Hasegawa vs Tomoko Watanabe & Akemi Torisu
The future Chikako Shiratori making tape for the 1st time. Quite the start as she does a ridiculously silly & pointless forward roll as soon as the bell starts only to get up and hit a weak looking elbow smash on Akemi who just shrugs it off and then beats her up with her devestating array of shoulder blocks. Chikako actually looked pretty decent for a rookie but most of the match mostly follows the pattern of being pretty boring & basic whenever the 2 younger girls are in but really fun whenever Ito & Watanabe are going at it. Ito especially brings life to this match as she's just a ball of energy here bouncing around all over. They go a little too long but eh, kids gotta learn somehow I suppose. Ito picks up the win over Watanabe with the top rope footstomp, 1 of the 1st times I can remember her wining a match with that move.

- Suzuka Manami vs Miori Kamiya
Old school, throw back kind of match. Lots of traditional pro wres mat work, Kamiya works over the arm while Suzuka goes after the leg & back and in the middle of it all they take turns smashing each others heads in with chairs just to mix it up. Fun home stretch as they kick up the pace with lot power stuff and going back and forth with roll ups ending with Suzuka getting the upper hand with the leg roll clutch. Really enjoyed this a lot.

- Bat Yoshinaga vs Yumiko Hotta 
Always a fun pairing and they put on a really kick ass match here. All about them throwing 9 million kicks at each othe mixed in with a few stiff ass punches and elbows. Bat proved to be the more versitile of the 2 actually though and busted out a lot more varied offense, some of which was shitty like nerve holds and biting but she also did some pretty cool stuff too like flying dives off the top. In general she was by far the star of the match. Like their match in March she gets a lot out of standing up to Hotta's tough girl bully act. Then after establishing she's no longer a push over like she was in their 91 singles match, Bat controlls a lot of the middle portion befor going on to get a lot of close near falls at the end. Real stand out performance for her tonight. Of course Hotta's still the bigger star though and there was to be no upset tonight as she gets the win after cutting Bat off with an elbow and followed by Tiger Driver.

- Takako Inoue & Cynthia Moreno vs Debbie Malenko & Mima Shimoda
They have Debbie cutting promos in broken Japanese now instead of English, Boo. Her & Mima rocking the matching pink & black, Yay. Good to have a Moreno back for the 1st time in over 6 months even if I would rather have had it be Esther. Pretty good match though nothing special. Unlike a lot of times when the Moreno's or some of the other Mexican talent are in, they make her adapt more to their style rather then the other way around. She gets in a few traditional lucha high spots and stuff but nothing major. Probably for the best given who her opponents were tonight as lucha wasn't exactly Debbie's specialty and while Mima was usually game for going down that road she wasn't exactly the best at it either. Instead they largely work this as a mid range joshi workrate match which doesn't make for the best use of everyone's talents but makes for the best possible match chemistry wise between them as they're all atleast good, though not always great at that style. Ironically it's the two native girls who have the worst chemistry as Mima & Takako have a really sloppy sequence late in the match, most of which the blame falls on Mima's shoulders. Tak & Deb who work much better together do some cool stuff for the finish, including Debbie again busting out the sick overhead superplex. Match ends on a little bit of bad note as Takako drops her when trying to do her own shoulder suplex finish but she covers nicely, looks at the crowd and shrugs then goes "fuck it 1 more time" and the crowd responds "YEAH WHOOO" and she hits it cleanly this time for the win.

- Kyoko Inoue & Mariko Yoshida vs Manami Toyota & Sakie Hasegawa
Sakie in to start, still bandaged up from last month but Kyoko tells her to buzz off and calls out Toyota. They do some cool mirror spots & fast paced counters before tagging out to Sakie & Yoshida. Those 2 slow it down a little as Sakie goes after Yoshida's bandaged up arm for a while. Toyota tags in and is like nah to all that, prefering to spaz out on Yoshida with a million drop kicks. Things slow down again with Sakie back in and Yoshida tagging out to Kyoko. Inoue goes to work on her leg and Yoshida tags back in smelling blood and ties Sakie up in a million diffrent knots and then they switch to working over her back. Toyota taged in and once again says "fuck all this shit" more or less forcing the match to become a sprint again. For exactly 1 second was getting a little pissed at her for refusing to work anything but her style here but then the match gets AWESOME and all is forgiven because as far as crazy sprints go this was some top level shit. Just everyone clicking 100%, hitting everything cleanly. Toyota actually ended up being outshone by the other 3 in this match too. Kyoko was her usual great self of course but the real stars of this were Sakie & Yoshida. Both against each other and against Toyota or Inoue who actually didn't even interract that much in this match. Sakie was on point with all her spin kicks (a rarity), nearly taking Yoshida's head off a couple of times and her & Toyota were hitting some cool double team stuff. Yoshida was busting out all kinds of crazy dives and high spots and was mega insane over with the K-hall crowd. Lots of nutty near falls like you'd exspect for the finish and it ends with Yoshida hitting a monkey flip off the top rope on Sakie who then gets pinned after the Niagra Driver from Inoue. Huge Kyoko & Yoshida chants post match and they both get on the mic to talk shit afterwards on Toyota who looks quite pissed. Don't know if i'd put this ahead of Aja vs Bull but at worst this is the 2nd best match of the year up to this point.

- (CMLL Women's Title) Bull Nakano (c) vs Toshiyo Yamada
Always thought it was a shame Yamada never got a 3WA singles title match in her career, not that she should have won it but she would have been a great challenger. This is the next best thing I guess. Yamada waste no time going after Bull and decides she wants to employ the stategy of punching her square in the jaw and kicking her teeth in. Not always the wisest move when dealing with Bull but it works here or atleast it does for a while. Much like she did vs Bison the month before, once Yamada has her opponent down she then tries to follow it up with wear down holds but it has little effect here on Bull. Once she regains her composure Bull procedes to just have her way with poor Yamada for quite a while, torturing her real slow and painfull like. It's not until Bull takes the fight to the outside and then leaves her thear (side tangent - i've noticed this a lot in AJW matches around this time, no clue what the thinking is behind it) that Yamada can take a breather. She comes back in pissed off and swinging for the fences with strikes and then has more success working the submission game as Bull starts screaming in pain. Once out of it Yamada eats a lariet for her troubles and then the big leg drop. She survives though and kicks out at 2. Yamada with a big flurry of diving kicks but can't get the win. Yamada eats more lariets, gets sent outside, Bull with the bad ass suicide dive wiping out a million people on her way down. Few minutes later a 2nd leg drop gets her the V. Best I can tell this was the only time these 2 wrestled 1 on 1 which sucks. Not the best match ever but this was really good match and if they worked together more often i'm sure they could have had some great ones.

- Aja Kong & Bison Kimura vs Akira Hokuto & Etsuko Mita
AKIRA & MITA back from Mexico whear they picked up new gear, wicked tans and the name Las Cachorras Orientales which their debuting in Japan for the 1st time. Pre match promo Aja is not impressed and I believe says something along the lines of "so what those idiots went to Mexico, they didn't bring me back any Tacos, fuck them". Hot start for LCO but doesn't last long as JJ isolate Mita and dominate for a while. Hokuto saves the day in full on Dangerous Queen bitch heel mode. Ripping eyes, stomping faces, droping fools on their heads and the like. JJ again prove too strong though and Hokuto & Mita take turns getting beat down for a while. LCO decide to switch up and use more of their speed game, a strategy that works a lot better as they outsmart Aja & Bison. In a cool sequence for the finish, Hokuto almost ends up getting the win over Hokuto only for Aja to break things up. Mita takes her out with a piledriver on the floor and it becomes 2 on 1 in favor of LCO. Giant whacky cross armed, northern lights suplex from Mita can't get the win, Hokuto takes another turn beating on Bison and still can't put her away. Aja rises from the fucking dead like a zombie then starts wrecking shit up like a zombie from hell with rocket boots and a chain saw, collecting souls, going for brains and destroying all in it's path. Takes Ms. MITA's head off with a uraken which doesn't get her the win but does knock her silly enough that she can't take the finish properly. Mita sluggishly ducks a clothesline which screws up the timing of Hokuto trying to hit Jungle Jack with a plancha. Bison chops her ass on the way down for trying, taking her out of the picture. Aja drags Mita up to the top to hit her back drop splash but Mita just kinda falls over slipping down on Aja's back. Like Takako earlier Aja covers well enough though and a moment later they repeat it again and i'd say Aja killed her with it but Mita was allrady dead by then so this really was more like kicking a dead puppy for fun and profit. Screwey ending aside, this was a great match, just a shade under Toyota/Sakie vs Kyoko/Yoshida from earlier. Seriously thought LCO were going to win this at times and it did a good job of showing how much Mita had grown as she held her own getting to hang with and look strong against main event level talent for the 1st time in her career. Aja talks more shit post match saying I believe "screw Mexico, Japan #1, Jungle Jack #1, mwahahahaha bitches"