FLIK

Latter especially. Early LLPW & Early JD are really the black sheeps of joshi. Lots of great stuff to be found but very few (myself included) ever take the time to explore it deeply. *EDIT* There's tons of great Kandori matches one could bring up but just real quick i'll give a special mention to the matches vs Devil & vs Kansai in 80's JWP just as an example that she'd allready been really good for years before the Hokuto match which is usually the earliest one ppl talk about among her work.

AAA & LLL

Checks Sunday update, right back to the same old, yay.

FMW 8/22/93 Megumi Kudo & Miwa Sato vs Aja Kong & Kaoru Ito Perfect kind of match for a supplimental year book set. Real good match that's not very well known. Aja & Kudo is always a great pairing and this was the set up match for their 3WA bout a few months later. Rookie/Vet vs Rookie/Vet might be my favorite dynamic in puro and they worked it well here.

Well true, but I don't think anyone claiming that anticipated Eric Bischoff & Hulk Hogan being next in line to take over. Going from Russo to them is like going to a Dr and being told instead of amputating both legs they're only gonna need to chop off 1. To be fair as botched as it was, I don't think AJ would have even gotten as far as he did, getting on & off main event pushes and world title runs without Russo tho. The only positives I ever liked about Russo is that he always tried to give everyone on the show something to do instead of only caring about the main eventers and that he was never afraid of pushing younger, newer or smaller tallent on top.

........wait, why are the Gringos teaming with Panther at all?

Haven't seen much myself, prob less then 10 matches. There isn't that much that exist to begin with, mostly 78 & 79 stuff and a handfull of earlier things that aired on AJW classics in highlight form. I know MJH got Dan Ginnety's 70's to early 80's AJW TV Set that came out a while back which I still need to pick up. That has about 4 or 5 disc worth of 70's stuff which is the most i've seen gathered together.

Nothing specific to add atm but yeah, 1970's are all about WoS being the best wrestling in the world at that particular time.

Russo? Been gone for months now

It's funny to look back on AJW and see how deep the booking was at times. Back when I used to cherry pick random big shows and watch them out of order it was easy to miss a lot of stuff. You can take something starting in early like 1990 Bull becoming top dog with Aja as her high ranking cronie and then trace it to Aja & Bison spliting off to form their own group and feud with Bull. Kyoko rises up to become Bull's new #2 in the war. Kyoko gets her big singles push in mid to late 91, wins the JGP and challenges Bull. Still reamins part of Bull's group and friendly with her but kind of breaks away from teaming with her on a reg basis. Late 91 Hokuto takes Kyoko's spot as Bull's new BFF. Early 92 Kyoko & Hokuto become rivals which last throuout the year. Eventually the Bull/Hokuto friendship splits off into a feud in mid 92 and Hokuto forms her own stable. At the same time Aja starts teaming with Kyoko when Bison goes out with an injury. Then FMW invades a show to kick off the interpromotional era leading to Bull & Hokuto reforming their team to take on the invaders and Bull & Hokuto vs Kudo & Combat being the 1st interpromotional match. And finally all of the above paying off with Aja beating Bull after a 2 year chase to take over as the new ACE just in time for the interpromotional war to really kick into high gear and a new era to start. The Aja vs Hokuto matches 10/9/93 which was supposed to be for the 3WA title but Hokuto is too injured so ask for it to be made a non title match before the bell. She guts things out but her leg is shot. Always memorable to me because they show backstage footage of Hokuto getting pain killers injected into her knee when she gets to the back. 11/20/94 Built around Hokuto trying to take out Aja's leg this time. Considered to be Hokuto's consolation prize for not getting the 3WA she got to win the V-Top tournament. Aja even gives her the belt post match if i'm remembering correctly. Only as a gesture of course with Aja still remaining champ. They had another singles in 91 which isn't particularly memorable or important beyond just being a random good match at the time. The Hokuto/Bull/LCO stuff 12/1/90 - fits into the same catagory as the 91 Aja match. Good match from what aired (only 6 or so mins) but not really important otherwise 1/4/91 3WA title match - amazingly great match 5/26/91 (2 out of 3 Falls) Bull & Bat vs Hokuto & Sakie - Bull & Hokuto basicly showing off beating up each others young girls. It didn't last long but Sakie was actually a heel and part of Bull's stable at one point previous to this. 8/18/1991 Suzuka Minami & Etsuko Mita vs Bull Nakano & Akira Hokuto - 1st time Bull & Hokuto really team up. They beat the snot out of Hokuto's former tag partner Suzuka & Future cronie Mita. Bull & Hokuto teamed up in the tag league that year with the notable stand out match being 12/91 vs Aja & Bison in the finals. 3/15/92 Bull vs Hokuto - Real good not quite great match. 3/20/92 Hokuto vs Takako - Squash match for Hokuto. Bull's cronies Bat & Watanabe are working as 2nds for Hokuto but post match Hokuto recruits Mita to be her cronie giving birth to what would become LCO. Same show has a Bull vs Kyoko singles match. 7/15/92 (CMLL Women's title) Bull vs Hokuto - Bull had kinda ran through the roster by this point so having her defend the CMLL title for a while instead of the 3WA gave her some fresh stuff to do and let them recycle challengers while they held off on the title change until the big show at the end of the year. Kyoko & Watanabe are Bull's 2nds for this. Hokuto only has Mita so Shimoda comes into the ring pre match and begs to join Hokuto's team which she reluctantly agrees to making LCO complete. All 4 of the 2nds end up getting involved in the match later on & fighting with each other. Hokuto also has injured ribs during the match which plays into the finish. Bull hits her with the moonsault her most powerful finisher, Mima & Mita run in to protect Hokuto from any further damage and the DR stops the match. Hokuto's in tears post match, Bull tells her to fuck off. Probably their 2nd best match after their 1/91 title bout Same show has Aja & Kyoko vs Yamada & Toyota for the tag titles. Since Bison is injured Aja's allowed to pick anyone to replace her and request Kyoko which surprises everyone, including Kyoko who'd allready wrestled earlier vs Terri Power in an All Pacific Title match. Post match Shark Tsuchiya & Crusher from FMW invaded to issue an open challenge and start shit, Bull runs down and chaos errputs. 7/30/1992 (Cage Match) Bull vs Hokuto - Hokuto wins, only the 3rd match Bull had lost in 2 years with the only other person who'd beaten her at that point being Aja. 8/15/1992 (Fuji TV Tag Tournament Final) Bull Nakano & Aja vs Yamada & Hokuto - This got covered on the 92 set 8/30/1992 Bull, Hotta & Suzuka vs LCO - one of the best matches of the year. 9/19/1992 in FMW Kudo & Combat vs Bull & Hokuto - Great match, super hot crowd 11/2/1992 Aja & Kyoko vs Bull & Hokuto - also on the 92 set There's other stuff too but that's most of the important bits as far as getting the angle over goes.

Since you're more familiar with those involved now and know more of the context I think you'd really enjoy the 2 Aja vs Hokuto matches in 93 & 94 and the Bull & Hokuto partnership that split off into the Bull vs Hokuto resepect feud that led back into the Bull & Hokuto partnership in late 91 & 92. Those 2 angles along with the formation of LCO tell a big part of Hokuto's story and add even more depth to matches like this one. Also worth pointing out that Hokuto only wrestled on 3 shows in 94 with it being thought that she might retire so they treated every one of them as a super big deal and Big Egg being built around her.

Well, she was adaptable and was fine doing that style if the occasion called for it, especially a big 6 or 8 woman tag or if it fit more to her opponents strengths. But with the right opponent who was game for it she was def more about mat work, suplexes and flash submissions. Really JWP on it's own in general was a slower paced promotion compared to AJW. Yoshida is actually a great comparison for her. Them against each other was always a dream match for me but they sadly never got to cross paths due to injuries both had at diffrent times in their careers and then Plum's tragic death. Probably a good chance Plum would have ended up in ARSION had she lived, she was perfect for that style. Anyways, the Devil/Plum vs Chiggy/Cutie match on the 93 set is a better example of the type of match Plum was best at. The Plum vs Bolshoi Submission match from 1/93 for sure, i've been pimping that one for a while as a lost gem, I know MJH & others have too. Link for it's still good on my old match download site if anyone wants to see. Mentioned this in another thread but I think the Plum vs Chigusa match in JWP from 2/94 is a top 10-15 joshi match for 94 and probably Plum's best singles match ever. Devil Masami & Debbie Malenko vs Dynamite Kansai & Plum Mariko from 2/93 is a real good match. The footage that airs (about 17 mins of a 33 min match) is more about highlighting the Kansai vs Devil interactions but the few mins we get of Plum & Debbie going at it are fun. Original Dreamslam match was supposed to be Debbie & Sakie vs Plum & Fukuoka but then Debbie got injured 2 weeks later.

Always liked this match a lot but yeah at best this is maybe the 5th best match on the Quendom show to me. Main event of course but I also thought Dynamite Kansai vs Sakie Hasegawa & Toshiyo Yamada vs Kyoko Inoue smoked this match and the LCO vs Ozaki & Cutie tag was better too. Hm, curious what led you down that line of thinking? I'd always considered them polar opposites style wise. I think Plum more worked more to Toyota's strenghts in this one but overall I mean. Toyota the poster child for "sprint style" joshi and Plum being more about matwork, submissions and suplexes.

Hopefully it last this time. They did this for 1 or 2 days a month or so back then promptly went back to the original death scroll format.

Heh, yeah Douglas posted a youtube response to the show the other day http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmgvVzwhqLo Gist of it is basicly that he was disapointed in the show & the behavior of some of the wrestlers too. Promised to do better next time, that he wouldn't wrestle on further shows and that the roster would be freshened up. IPPV/Download version of the show is supposedly going up soon.

Heh, on that subject Another podcast recomendation that ppl might skip over or not know about otherwise. On the Rinbells show they did an interview with Little Egypt of GLOW fame a few weeks back. She makes some pretty head scratching ridiculous claims like GLOW being the inspiration for the WWE Divas & TNA Knockouts and gets some basic facts wrong like saying Ivory held the WWF women's title for 3 straight years but if you can get past that stuff it's a good listen otherwise. Some entertaining stories about GLOW, the upcoming documentry, tracking down former GLOW wrestlers to be involved in it, Cauliflower Alley and other stuff. They just put up a new show with Ivory today that i'll get around to checking out soon http://ringbellesonline.com/category/podcast/

That makes sense, but doesn't really fit with the stories that Paul Heyman was giddy over getting the Philly hardcore fans to chant Dick Flair. The goal from Heyman's perspective seems to have been to turn WCW into the ultimate heels. Well, Douglas just said Heyman wanted him to do something to try and turn the crowd against him but that it was his own idea to burry Flair. When they got the opposite reaction I could see Heyman being fine/happy with the anti Flair/WCW aspect of it atleast or atleast wanting to run with it. From a bunch of stories diffrent ppl have told Heyman seemed to have that "go with the flow" attitude

I'm curious if he wrote this before RAW or after RAW. Because if he wrote this after RAW, then I'll never listen to anything he ever says again. He also tried to play the "he lost his first fight in UFC too!" card which just makes him look like a damn fool. Before RAW And yeah this. I'm surprised ppl missed that point to nit pick that of course he didn't literally win every single match he had in his original 2+ year run.

Hm, I thought that had been an open secret (no pun intended) for a while now anyways.

Confused now Was this a 10 way match or a 10 man tag?

Funny "what could have been" scenario. Shane Douglas in his 94 ECW timeline shoot says during one of the periods Flair was having problems with Bischoff he had Arn contact Heyman about Flair possibly coming in to ECW to work with Douglas. Said the proposed idea was to do a 3 match series of Flair beating him in Charlotte, Douglass beating him in Pittsburg and and a final blow off in Philly with Douglas winning on PPV. Said Flair initially agreed to do it for a guarantee of 100 to 150 grand but then a few days later he ended up signing back with WCW. Douglas also said one of the reasons he even started talking shit about Flair to begin with was because he was in a weird tweener position with the crowd and he thought burying Flair would turn him heel in Philly but that it kind of backfired on him.

Lance Storm on Brock http://www.stormwrestling.com/043012.html

What kept their 12/93 mask match from reaching that lvl for you?

Well, he & to a lesser degree Meltzer rarely accept things for what they are or judge them on their own merrits. Anything that doesn't fit into what his pre determined idea of what good wrestling should be is usually burried pretty badly. From day 1 they were bitching to high heaven that the match shouldn't have even been happening (too soon) and then once they were over that they decided that Lesnar winning clean was the only acceptable finish and that anything else would be stupid.

Well, she's always been like that more or less. Played a big part in the feud vs Toyota, her not having the killer instinct/the big move that could finish Toyota so they always went to a draw until Yamada invented the Reverse Gori Special Bomb and finally beat her.