Decent action, no one really stood out but it was fun enough. Cynthis spent a large amount of time playing whipping girl which really seemed like a waste. Nothing wrong with her selling or anything but when you see her name on the card one gets excited to see her on offense not the other way around. Suzuka gets the win with an assisted power bomb on Mita.
- (AJW Tag Titles) Takako Inoue & Mariko Yoshida (c) vs Mima Shimoda & Debbie Malenko
So the theme of this show is to have all the titles in the company on the line (except the jr) thus we get Yoshida defending the 1st of her 2 titles here. 30 seconds in and the fans are allready chanting her name as she's like the most over chick in the company at this point. Basic back & forth stuff for the 1st few mins of this until Yoshida & Tak wipe out Debbie with a doube suicide dive on the outside which ends in disaster for both teams. Debbie hurts her ankle pretty badly during the fall, Yoshida aggrivates her allready banged up shoulder and they both take a long time to get back in. Debbie quickly tags out and gets her ankle taped up while Shimoda gets worked over for a while. When Debbie's finally recovered enough to get back in she does pretty well for a 1 legged woman. She limps around lariating people in the jaw, bust out a northern light suplex from the top rope on Yoshida and then tries to take out her shoulder. Takako breaks it up quickly and then we get a bunch more back & forth stuff. Shimoda & Deb look to nearly win things but Takako again swoops in to save, she takes out Mima, sending her outside, then suplexes Debbie off the top which allows Yoshida to hit her step up plancha for the pin. Real good match, went 15 mins or so but felt like only half that.
- (AJW Title) Mariko Yoshida (c) vs Sakie Hasegawa
No rest for 2 gold Yoshida. She has time to go to the back, do a quick interview and put her ring jacket back on and that's it. Sakie won't even let her get a full ring intro and attacks her before the bell rings while streamers are still coming down in a cool visual. Sakie immediatly goes after the bad shoulder and destroys that for a while. Yoshida makes little come backs here and thear but even on offense she continues to sell her arm. Eventually she gets a longer term advantage on Sakie by going after her leg, she tells Hasegawa "you will pay" and puts on a clinic in 1 armed submission holds. Missed dive allows Sakie to take back over and again she goes after the shoulder but after a missed move of her own Yoshida fights back. Big sacraficial suicide dive from Yoshida, knowing she was going to take damage in an attempt to wipe out her opponent. Back in the ring Yoshida tries to go for the kill busting out whatever big moves she's got left but she can't get the win, Sakie rolls thru one of them for a huge near fall that has the crowd going nuts. Sakie starts going on a spin kick flurry and hits a large amount with Yoshida getting up slower and slower each time. Yoshida does a cradle of her own out of nowhear for another giant near fall. Big Yoshida chants again during this. Yoshida again counters something from Sakie by just punching her square in the face but Sakie catches her with 1 more spin kick and we've got a new champion. Great match, Sakie was awesome here but this was made by Yoshida and her awesome selling. Better then their JGP form a month earlier and possibly Yoshida's best singles match of her career up to this point (either this or the Mita title match from June).
We then take a little break as they introduce the teams for the upcoming Fuji TV tag tournament and like allmost all AJW tag tournaments that means WACKY mixed up tag parters baby. Bison Kimura & Debbie Malenko were supposed to team up in this but Aja kind of murdering Bison sorta put a stop to those plans so it's a 7 team tournament with 1 team getting a bye.
The 7 remaining teams are
"Gokumonto Young Soldiers" Bat & Watanabe
"No cool name in English" Etsuko Mita & Takako Inoue who get the Japanase equivilant of "WTF" as the crowd goes "EHHHHHHHH" when they're arounced as a pair.
"Wonder Powers" Kyoko Inoue & Terri Power
"Tokyo Sweethearts" Toyota & Shimoda
"Team Why the hell not" Hokuto & Yamada
"#1 Pair" Yoshida & Sakie who are all buddy buddy after beating the heck out of each other a few mins ago. They even have a cool team pose
"Team I'd Rather Be Dead Then Team With Her" Bull & Aja
All the other teams up to this point came out all happy & smiling and shook hands with each other but Aja & Bull aren't having any of that. They come out ticked off, Aja gets in the ring, no hand shake, she shoves Bat, talks some shit on the mic and then storms off with Bull leaving soon after herself. They're given the extra slot to the 2nd round because I think everyone else was too scared to tell them they couldn't have it. The rest draw #'s out of a box to determine 1st round match ups in what looked to be an actual legit drawing.
- (All Pacific Title) Kyoko Inoue (c) vs Terri Power
Back to action as the Wonder Powers explode. Creepy anouncer guy feels up Terri's muscles during the pre fight interviews "oohhhh nice body". Terri's not going into this one overly optomistic "Kyoko's a genius, i'm new to this spot. Uhhh i'll see what I can do" is the gist what she says and well, Terri tried, I can say that. For someone pushed as a muscular she beast she really doesn't work the gimmick very well. She does very little actual power stuff, she can thorw an OK lariat and a few slams but that's it really. The rest of the time she wrestles like any other girl or atleast attempts to and tries way to hard to show she's more then just the muscles, attempting a lot of wacky high spots. Some of which she can do decently, her rana isn't bad, she can pull off the skin the cat well enough, some of which is just god awful and she blows embarasingly like any time she tries a dive, the rest she just does really stiff and unnatural so it comes off forced and awkward. Kyoko for her part attempts to keep things on the simple side and the match goes about as good as could be exspected for the 15 or so it last. She gets the win with the Niagra driver to retain her title.
- (CMLL Women's Title) Bull Nakano (c) vs Akira Hokuto
So in fine lucha tradition this starts with a pre match photo of the champ, challenger and their seconds. Bull has Kyoko & Watanabe with her, Hokuto only has Mita. Mima Shimoda noticing the uneven odds here kinda casually strolls into the ring, gets on the mic and is all "Yo, Hokuto, can I be down? I see you're in need of another lackey." She then gets on her hands and knees and begs her to take her in. Hokuto remembering that Shimoda's kind of a scrub who's ass she kicked...badly the last time they met has a WTF, I dunno about this look on her face and takes a long time to answer. She finally gets on the mic and is all "you sure kid? gonna have to beat you into shape if you wanna roll with me" and Shimoda, still bowing down is all "yes yes, please please please" after some more contemplating, finally Hokuto responds "Ehhhhhh I guess, you're holding up the match here, shit, ok fine" And thus LCO as a trio was born. Like their last match Hokuto again sneak attacks to start. She drops Bull on her head a few times with DDTs and suplexes and what not then starts layin in the kicks. Also like their last match though Hokuto's early dominance doesn't last long. Bull lariats her out of the ring then takes her out with a suicide dive and Hokuto gets her ribs crushed on the landing. Hmmm deja vu. For good measure Bull also bust Hokuto's head open by shoving her face into a table among other things. Bull continues going after the ribs, Hokuto tries to get a german in but can't hold the bridge. Bull tortures her for quite a while here to the point Hokuto can't even run the ropes and just colapses. When Bull tries to pull her up Hokuto bites her leg in desperation, right in the scar at that and is able to get her down for the scorpion. Bull gets the ropes so Hokuto grabs her kendo stick and starts swinging away trying to do anything she can to stay in the fight. She tries for the NLB but can't holdBull up for it, Bull again hits another dive as they go back outside. Mima & Mita proving to be good little lackeys start attacking Bull at this point and it turns into a briefe gang fight with Kyoko & Wat. Hokuto digs deep and goes for one last ditch effort, she hits the NLB succesfully this time but only gets 2, a high angle pedigree again gets 2. After nursing highly injured ribs the entire match Hokuto has the bright idea to try a superfly splash from the top and she eats knee on the way down spelling the end of of her. Powerbomb & leg drop from Bull get 2 so at this point Bull says screw it and decideds to go straight to her ultra super you ain't getting up from this shit bitch move, the moonsault which causes Mima & Mita to panic. Mima attacks Bull to stop her while Mita thors her body over Hokuto to protect her as Akira is just lying in a heap and not moving having used up the last of her energy. The ring Dr. rushes in to check on her and he calls for a stopage. A few mins later when Hokuto finally comes to, she gets on the mic and is legit in tears. Bull doesn't want to hear it though and is like "fuck is this shit, there's no crying in wrestling you weakling" then she throws down her belt and just storms off in disgust. Great match, their 2nd best after the 3WA title one from 91. Only went 12 mins but unlike their last one which went 15 didn't feel rushed or anything.
- (3WA Tag Titles - 2 out of 3 Falls) Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada (c) vs Aja Kong & Kyoko Inoue
Since she took out her own, Aja goes into this match with no anounced partner so she's allowed to pick anyone she wants to as a replacement. She comes to the ring and is like "hey, Kyoko, get your crazy ass out here girl". Kyoko not really exspecting it is all shocked but in a happy way like "title match? hell yeah". Thus the Super Maniacs are born though it'd be a while yet before they went by that name. Aja & Kyoko dominate the 1st fall of this, in an awesome moment we even get some CLUBBERIN
Aja follows that up with a million palm strikes E-honda style and I so wish I knew how to make animated gifs. Toyota breaks up the pin by just shrieking at the top of her lungs at Aja in a weird moment. Aja looks at her like "girl, no, stop" After whopin up on Yamada for a while she finally hot tags in Toyota who goes all nutty as she's want to do. They isolate Kyoko and slow things down again until Aja's able to come back in and start smashing things up. Toyota & Her flash back to their previous match when Aja again tries to get her up for the back drop smash and Toyota rolls through but this time Aja holds on to the ropes and just drops down on her chest Yokozuna style. Few mins later it's all over after Kyoko gets rid of Yamada, she hits Toyota with her diving back elbow and then Aja follows it up with a hurty looking Macho Man style flying elbow drop of her own to win the 1st fall.
They give Toyota an extra long rest period between falls to recover from that, a good 2-3 mins. When things finally re-start they don't even make her continue the fall so we get Aja & Yamada going at it to kick things off. They stiff the heck out of each other for a min or 2, a battle which sees Aja win. Yamada tries to get Toyota to double team her but she's still hurting and goes down after one attempted move leaving Yamada alone again. They bust out the infamous AJW BIG BROWN BACK BRACE for her at this point which allows her to recover enough to start kickin butt when she's taged back in. She starts flying all over with her usual array of moonsaults & stuff and when Aja accidently takes out her own partner it allows the champs to double team Kyoko and then Toyota finishes her with the JOCS to even things up. 3rd fall Toyota continues the attack trying to finish quick but Aja's not having any of that so she just runs in and chaos erupts. Things turn into a crazy brawl that leads to Aja fighting with Yamada deep into the crowd with entire sections of chairs getting demolished and fans runnint every whear. Aja continues the beating on Toyota once things settle down back in the ring, ripping off her brace. For the finish we get the usual assortment of hot near falls, some of the highlights being a Niagra driver on Toyota for 2, brutal uraken on Yamada and an attempted double Oaklahoma stampede from Aja on the champs. End comes when she goes for the corner splash on both but they catch her and lift her up top for their double back flip move. Toyota get's knocked off but Yamada remains and is able to hit a back suplex to win. Loved this match, just great stuff from bell to bell for the entire 33 mins it lasted, easy top 5 or so match of the year so far.
BUT WAIT - There's more.
In a true holy shit moment, as Toyota & Yamada are celebrating Shark Tsuchiya & Crusher Meademori from FMW run through the crowd with a letter issuing a challenge to AJW.
Out of nowhear Bull runs up and gets in their faces and crazyness follows. Shark & Crusher get draged away by the AJW young girls as a near riot breaks out and Yamada tells them to kiss her rump
The FMW girls are able to make their way back to ringside one more time and they deliver their letter to the AJW commishioner. The interpromotional era has officially begun.
My new pick for best AJW show ever up to this point. 6/21 had slightly better wrestling but in hindsight this is one of the most historicly significant shows in company history as the entire Joshi world would literally never be the same after this event.
No comments:
Post a Comment