AJW 1999
These are some highlights from 1999 All Japan Women's. For my full review and pics, see:
https://wrestlingdreambattles.blogspot.com/2025/11/all-japan-womens-wrestling-1999.html
Zenjo vs. Neo SCRAMBLE BOUTS 5 X 5: Manami Toyota & Momoe Nakanishi & Nanae Takahashi & Miyuki Fujii & ZAP Isozaki vs. Kyoko Inoue & Chaparrita ASARI & Misae Genki & Saya Endo & Yuka Nakamura (02/16) - This was great!!! Takes a minute to figure out but, its a team elimination match. An each pair has a 5 minute time limit. There's really clever booking here as Toyota starts for the AJW team. What's really fun is that the other women can intervene like any regular tag match so we get double team moves, dive trains and brawling. And this gets heated! Heck Kyoko even throws around her former teammate Takako Inoue (who's not actually in the match!). This match is so much fun and has great wrestling in a relatively short amount of time. Definitely recommend it!
ZAP T vs. Eagle Sawai (03/13) - A chain, double blood, chairs, handcuffs, handcuffing to each other...this is awesome pro wrestling. Again, I have the Athena TV version which was sweet but I knew I needed to see the full version. Thankfully, the full version is online (with 700k views !?). Go see this if you are thinking you might like it...even just a little bit. ZAP T/Watanabe and Eagle put on a brutal classic here. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita vs. Momoe Nakanishi & Nanae Takahashi (09/29) - Great LCO mayhem tag match per usual for this era. I can't say there's selling or structure but these definitely feel like chaos in the best way. After seeing a fair amount of Mita & Shimoda, I think the quality and variety of their matches truly depends on their opponents. Here Momoe is a great opponent because she brings speed and agility to the table. Nanae is a suitable teammate because she's got a bit more power to her move set. LCO stick to their routine with certain spots and weapons. The interesting thing here is how Momoe & Nanae fit into that puzzle. The take away greatness of this match is Momoe. This is worth your time.
BJW 1999
Here's some highlights from early 1999 BJW. There's no blood & guts in any of this stuff. Just good Indie Wrestling. For the full review with pics, see the full blog post:
https://wrestlingdreambattles.blogspot.com/2025/11/big-japan-wrestling-early-1999.html
Ikuto Hidaka vs. Fantastik (01/07) - Hidaka, I know. Fantastik is new to me but, I like him. He did this dive that was super dangerous looking... and super cool!! Definitely want to see more of him. These two did a really fun fireworks action match. There were lots of awesome aerial moves and moves off the Irish whip. Fun bit of lucharesu.
Ikuto Hidaka vs. Minoru Fujita (02/28) - Oh yes!!! They went for broke! This was a great junior battle. One that was way better than you'd think seeing as it was tucked away in the mid card of a BJW show. It was very exciting and very intense. There's plenty of action and great submission wrestling too. It's been awhile since I've seen them in BattlARTS but it definitely had that vibe. I'm a fan of both but seeing them this young and hungry was great RECOMMENDED!
Katsumi Usuda & Ryuji Yamakawa vs. Abdullah Jr. Kobayashi & Daikokubo Benkei (02/28) - I liked how Usuda & Yamakawa weren't really getting along early on. Yamakawa sold this so well 😄 Eventually they got on the same page. Abby Jr. was going off today so, they had to get him under control. Benkei can be a big oaf sometimes but here he's a big oaf like he needed to be. He's like a tree trunk - able to withstand Katsumi & Ryuji's attacks. It's about 13 minutes long and a ton of fun.