AJW 1991 Thoughts & Top 10 List

So having now finished everything from 1991 AJW that I know of that's available here's some random top whatever list & general thoughts

14 Shows (comm tapes & tv eps) + 2 fan cam matches
87 matches total

Top 10 matches

1. 4/29/1991 (3WA Tag Titles - 2 out of 3 Falls) Aja Kong & Bison Kimura (c) vs Manami Toyota & Esther Moreno
2. 6/18/1991 (3WA Tag Titles - 2 out of 3 Falls) Aja Kong & Bison Kimura (c) vs Bull Nakano & Kyoko Inoue
3. 9/7/1991 (3WA Title) Bull Nakano (c) vs Kyoko Inoue
4. 1/4/1991 (3WA Title) Bull Nakano (c) vs Akira Hokuto
5. 1/11/1991 (Hair vs Hair) Bull Nakano & Kyoko Inoue vs Aja Kong & Bison Kimura
6. 4/29/1991 (All Pacific Title) Suzuka Minami (c) vs Akira Hokuto
7. 5/26/1991 Toshiyo Yamada vs Yumiko Hotta
8. 8/18/1991 (JGP Finals) Kyoko Inoue vs Bison Kimura
9. 12/9/1991 (Tag Leauge The Best 91 Semi Final) Bull Nakano & Akira Hokuta vs Aja Kong & Bison Kimura
10. 11/15/1991 (Elimination Cage) Bull Nakano & Monster Ripper vs Aja Kong & Bison Kimura

Just missing the cut
8/18/1991 (JGP) Toshiyo Yamada vs Kyoko Inoue

For me nothing touched the Jungle Jack vs Toyota & Esther match in terms of pure excitement but the 6/18 tag is a real real close 2nd. The work is off the charts great but it's the neat little touches, storytelling & playing off history that bring it to another level. After that the 2 Bull 3WA matches are really close to each other as well and on another day I could easily flip the 2. And even though it draged by the end the majority of the November cage match really was too great not to have it this high.
Not top 10 or 20 or anything but special mentions to the Bat vs Kurisu shoot being the most surprisingly awesome match of the year and to Toyota vs Suzuka for being the most disapointing.

Top 10 Wrestlers

1. Bull
2. Aja
3. Kyoko
4. Hokuto
5. Bison
6. Toyota
7. Esther Moreno
8. Yamada
9. Takako
10. Yoshida

Bull's easily wrestler of the year, no questions asked. She is the Sun and everything in the Zenjo world revolves around her. It's weird too, as i've always known she was great, I had her #10 on my greatest joshi wrestler ballot over on the Smarks Choice board years ago but I still never knew she was THIS great. There's very very few people I can think of who were better playing the unbeatable monster role as she was this year.
One of the bigger stories of the year was Kyoko's rise up the ranks. I might not have had her this high up on my list earlier in the year but once she won the JGP and got out of Bull's shadow she was on an amazing hot streak of awesome matches.
Like i've mentioend before discovering how good the Moreno's were was another highlight of the year for me. Esther easily steals the show in every match she's a part of and the only reason she's as low as 7 on my list is because she didn't get as many high profile big matches to shine in and was mostly regulated to mid card matches most of the time.
Takako getting a big push as a mat wrestling/submission master took a little getting used to since that's not usually the style I associate her with damn if she wasn't great at it.
Special mention to Mika Takahashi, Miori Kamiya & Bat as wrestlers who I also came out of this year with a much higher opinion of then I did going in. Bat especially, I still wouldn't call her good or anything but I used to think she outright sucked most of the time but for much of this year she was perfectly decent. Going from someone I used to dread watching to someone I don't mind sitting through is quite the acomplishment.
And the only wrestler I can say I had a lower opinion of by the end of the year or atleast was disapointed by was Hotta. The May Yamada match was great, the Bull cage match was really good and she looked impressive hidden in a lot of random 6 man tags but I really feel like she failed to deliver when given the chance to be in the spotlight more times then not and a lot of the other good matches she was involved in this year were good despite her involvement not because of it.
Bull & friends vs Jungle Jack is obviously feud of the year but beyond that as far as secondary feuds/storylines I really dug Toyota's mini quest to take down Aja, the All Pacific title mix between Hokuto/Suzuka/Toyota, the AJW title sceen built around Takako and the way they slid in Hokuto as Bull's new bff (after having a friendly rivalry earlier in the year) right around the time they started breaking Kyoko away from that role.