Boy, been a while since we've had an all young girls match make tape. Good or bad depending on how you want to look at it, around this time the rookies were usually edited off most of the tv and comm releases if they were even booked on those shows at all to begin with. Here it is a year or so into her career give or take a few months and this is only the 3rd time a Rie Tamada match has aired for example. They kept this short and fast paced, or atleast as fast as you're gonna get from these 4 which is about all you can hope for with a match like this. Action was actually fairly decent with Numatchi being the one who got to shine as she was all fired up tonight. Doesn't do her any good though in the end as Tamada gets the W on her after a buncha drop kicks. Just because, her & Goddess in training get in a few cheap shots post match too on her.
- Miori Kamiya & Terri Power vs Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa
One of my fav tag teams ever, years before they were ever reg partners Maekawa & Watanabe teaming up for I believe the 1st time ever here. 1st time getting to see a full match of Maekawa's after making her debut 10 months ago and it's quite the memorable one for sure. This of course the infamous match whear THIS took place
Match actually wasn't that bad for the first 2/3 of it, Kamiya & Tomoko did some decent stuff, Maekawa looked ok and Terri was fine up until the last stretch whear things just massively fell apart thanks to her. Terri still gets the win though after Kamiya hits Watanabe with a splash and Terri follows it up with a really weird & over the top silly looking elbow drop on Watanabe.
- Kaoru Ito vs Bat Yoshinaga
Cool little matchup designed to get Ito over as being the tough spunky youngster who won't quit. Bat dominates almost the whole match, in full on wrecking ball mode, killing her with spin kicks and the like but Ito keeps fighting back and won't stay down. Ito finally gains enough momentum to hit a train of 4-5 running footstomps and is able to barely edge out the victory following one last big top rope one. Fun stuff.
- Kyoko Inoue, Takako Inoue & Mariko Yoshida vs Cynthia Moreno, Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda
Heh, Dudley Sisters in the house tonight. Early on starts with a long LCO beat down on Yoshida with Moreno having no problem bitching it up to join in on the fun. When Takako gets taged in things switch up though as her & Moreno go all luchadora on each other for a nice segment. After that the rest of the match is worked sprint style as W-InoueYo go all high spot crazy. A short segment sees LCO try and slow things down after a big dive train sequence, attempting to go after Yoshida's arm but that doesn't last long and then it's right back to the near falls. Eventually comes down to Mita & Kyoko 1 on 1 with Kyoko putting her away with the Niagra Driver. Really good match.
- (Fuji TV Tag Tournament FINAL) Bull Nakano & Aja Kong vs Toshiyo Yamada & Akira Hokuto
A match they've been building up to heavily over the past few shows. It's enemies now friends Aja & Bull vs friends or atleast people who were on friendly enough terms now enemies Hokuto & Yamada. They waste no time selling you on this story in case you didn't know going in as Hokuto & Yamada get in a fight before the match even starts during pre match interviews. Meanwhile Aja & Bull are on the same page and act all stoic and scary in the back or atleast try to. In a funny moment you can actually see Aja half crack a smile while trying to mean mug the camera. Aja & Bull get straight to it as the match starts, they both bust out with Aja's sig palm strikes and follow it up with a bunch more double teams. Yamada gets mauled for a while only managing to lightly fight back. She gets in a small cradle which Aja counters by biting her in the stomach, yup, not going to be a good night for her tonight. Hokuto comes in and fares little better against the 2 monsters so she decides to grab a weapon to even things up a bit because really, when you're fighting Aja Kong & Bull Nakano at the same time it's only fair that you should be allowed to use a kendo stick or 2 or a gun, either or. Goody goody Yamada objects to this plan and gets in an argument with her partner, telling her to knock it off. Yamada hops back in and is like "I got this" and wails away with some quite stiff leg kicks on Bull, actually managing to get her down and follow it up with a few submission attempts. Hokuto again comes in and again Bull & Aja kick her butt so again she goes for the Kendo stick with Yamada trying to stop her, this time leading to a brawl between the tag partners. Aja & Bull take advantage and crush the pair with dives as things break down into a chaotic arena brawl. Hokuto eats a piledriver through the announcers table in a highlight. Back inside more fighting between Hokuto & Yamada leads to Aja cracking them both with trash can shots. Little later Yamada's had enough of this shit and short arms Hokuto on the tag, refusing to get in making Hokuto fight it alone for a bit. She actually manages to drop Bull with the NLB but it's not enough to win. Yamada finally comes back in only with no tag as aparently the ref decideds "fuck it, go ahead anyways kid" and doesn't make her leave the ring. She cleans house and Hokuto actually helps her out and it looks like they may finally be working things out but that doesn't last long, Yamada to accidently hit her with the diving enzugiri. Bull & Aja then toss Yamada aside and follow up on Hokuto, Bull hits her guiloteen leg drop and then tells Aja to go up top and HOLY SHIT, she hits a flying leg drop of her own and yeah, no one is getting up from that. Gigantic celebration post match with hugs and smiles all around as the crowd goes ape shit. Once she regains conciousness Hokuto goes after Yamada one more time and they brawl to the back at which poing Aja gets on the mic and says I believe "hey you 2, stop fucking up our victory party" and then the celebration continues. Aja & Bull congragulate each other for a job well, declare they will dominate over the entire tag division now and agree to be bffs for life. Course, Aja also reminds Bull she's coming for her 3WA title too but Bull just smiles and is like "Nawwwwwwww, don't think so". Amazing match, great wrestling, great story. AJW really was one of the best booked promotions in the world at this time.
- (IWA Title - Hair vs Hair) Manami Toyota (c) vs Toshiyo Yamada
One of the most famous matches in wrestling history so doesn't need much detailed play by play from me on this one :) I suspect most people reading this have allready seen it and if you haven't then WTF? GO WATCH IT NOW. It's by far deserving all of the praise it's gotten over the years. Aside from a small slower paced section in the middle of the match this is 20+ mins of non stop, all out high end action with a super hot crowd going nuts throughout cheering on both though you can actually tell they'd rather see Toyota win even if they do love Yamada too. In the end it comes down to a battle of the Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex vs The Gori Special Bomb with both attempting to hit their big moves and playing off their previous match, this time it's Toyota who has Yamada's figured out as she manages to escape and hit the JOCS to win. You know, following this whole story from the start, Toyota really comes across like an ass in this whole thing. It all started because Toyota couldn't handle losing so she snaped and challenged one of her best friends in the world and tag team partner not only for her title but for her hair, really out of nothing more then jealousy and ego. Knowing this, it kind of explains the post match as Toyota snaps again with the gravity of what she's done finally hitting her. There was no need for it to have come to this. Toyota breaks down, attempts to cut her own hair instead and desperatly tries to prevent the barber from shaving Yamada only to be held down by 6 or 7 other girls as it happens. One of the more emotional sceens you'll ever see in a wrestling ring. Course, knowing that Chigusa was her idol, you know deep down Yamada was probably loving every second of this too.
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