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Zenjo

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  1. Zenjo
    Rather than back to back I watched the two matches on separate nights. This was still exhausting! Yamada & Kyoko were an exciting young team with plenty of fan support. It was gut check time for the tag champs as they went another 23m. So sick that they went this long again and it actually worked. Obviously the pacing wasn't breakneck but the workrate was still impressive. Bison took such a pounding and had a huge bruise on her arm. It was one hell of an effort from the Beasty Lady. JJ were able to turn it into a fight with plenty of outside action. It built up nicely to the finish and was a fitting finale. Yamada was killing Aja with vicious kicks, swinging away and looking like she was out of control. This led to the pin and joyous celebrations afterwards. The BTL was always a nice way to finish the year for Zenjo, and not at all copied from the RWTL.
  2. Zenjo
    This is from Dec 8th. Good match here with the 1st half being particularly strong. A mix of brawling and wrestling where all four women impressed. Going 22m was a mistake as Jungle Jack had to go a long time whilst holding something back. Despite appearances they both had excellent stamina but a bit tighter pacing would've been ideal.
  3. Zenjo
    Kyoko and Yamada came to the ring wearing sombreros. You can't beat the wacky entrance attire. I've watched this match several times now over the years and it gets worse with each viewing. Had it's good parts but was extremely sloppy and messy at times. Lots of experimentation that didn't work. Yamada/Kyoko kept trying all these double teams where they seemed confused over what move it was they were doing. At 32m went on too long. The whole match was flashy and unfocused, promoting style over substance. This show also had a very long main event cage match with Jungle Jack vs Bull/Monster Ripper. I've seen some high praise for it over the years from some and others who agreed with me that it sucked. Certainly a polarising match. I thought the undercard Takako vs Malenko contest was better than either of the two main events.
  4. Zenjo
    Kyoko gets her reward for winning the JGP, well kind of. After a few minutes she has this great facial expression saying 'what have I got myself in for?' Going in there was the problem of how to make Kyoko look like a credible threat. They solved this problem by having Bull bleed almost immediately. Unfortunately the blade job was highly visible. Really poor post match editing to show that. As the match wore on the champion began to take control, but had suffered a lot of damage in the early stages. In a good closing stretch Kyoko was threatening the win but didn't have the artillery to pull it off. Which was a relief as she clearly wasn't ready. At times in 1991 Kyoko looked like a star and at others seemed out of her depth in the main event picture. She'd become a great wrestler from '92 but was up and down this year. This match was a carry job from the excellent Nakano, clearly guiding her opponent. I know they were partners but Inoue totally ignored Bull's head wound. You've got to show some killer instinct, the world title is on the line. If you're going to have blood in her matches then make sure Kyoko is the one bleeding.
  5. Zenjo
    There was plenty of hatred between the teams after Jungle Jack had lost their hair at the start of the year. The intensity level was high throughout, it was electric when the two mega powers were in there. Red hot opening fall and it was looking like a potential MOTYC. They couldn't sustain that level but it was a fine match. Kyoko was again a weak link, although less so than in January. Really big win for Aja as she downs Bull with a string of urakans.
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  8. Zenjo
    I know there's a DVDR 80's Europe set planned for sometime later this decade! I can't remember seeing German or Austrian wrestling from the period discussed much if at all. So it's definitely an untapped area. Any recommendations you could make in the 80's Project Forum over there would certainly be useful down the line.
  9. Zenjo
    After watching this I went and checked what part of Japan Manami Toyota came from. Just like I suspected she was the hometown hero, it had that vibe. This was a total one woman show. Nobody else did anything special. After a fun opening segment Kong killed the momentum with crowd brawling. But then Toyota brought it back at the end and turned it into a good match pretty much single handedly. It was just a throwaway match to the others, but she was going full out.
  10. Zenjo
    This was just a solid B match. Easy to watch. Nobody was going full out as they didn't want to wear out the crowd ahead of the two interpromotional feature matches on the show. Like others have said you can't read anything into Hokuto's year from this. You could literally dedicate half the 1993 Yearbook to Joshi there were so many strong matches. I'll pimp them all in time, but I might want to save it until the end of my 90's viewing to finish on a high.
  11. Zenjo
    The first time I saw this I liked it but wasn't blown away. So when I rewatched it for the set I was quite surprised that it's one of my favourites of the year so far. Right from their 1st televised singles encounter the great chemistry was evident. Aja was ranked higher but Toyota fought as her peer. Over the course of the battle they each gained respect for their adversary. A recurrent theme was Toyota's regular moves not working because of Aja's size. Initially I might have written this off as sloppiness, but I can see now how Aja was being deliberately uncooperative on certain moves to make sure they didn't work. It came off really well from a storyline perspective. Despite the difficulties faced Manami had a deep and adaptive moveset to overcome the problems. The pacing for a 30m draw was superb and it was very well structured. Both sold well, there were frequent shifts in momentum and a nice balance to the work. They could have done with a hotter crowd and maybe a title to fight over to make it even better. This was such a fantastic show BTW with an awesome Bull/Bat vs Hokuto/Hasegawa main event. Thrilling action and it told a great story too. Plus the card was named 'We are Running Through Korakuen Hall!'
  12. Zenjo
    I've always loved the rivalry between AJW's top 2 kickers from the era. They matched up really well in both singles and tags. Both had incredible tag matches opposing JWP's Dynamite Kansai too. It's just fun seeing 2 tough women kicking the crap out of each other. This was a shoot style influenced match with matwork interspersed between the awesome kicks. Hotta was in a bitch of a mood (unusually) and stiffed the shit out of her opponent. Yamada was bleeding from the nose before long but hung in there and came back to avenge her loss from the previous month. This time around was a vast improvement and the crowd were really into it.
  13. Zenjo
    Whatever happened to Esther Moreno? She was flying about like Rey Mysterio in there. A career best performance in Japan, and she didn't have opponents of this calibre to work with back home. I was wondering how she was going to make herself look credible against Aja but somehow she managed it. Kong looked like a monster throughout but the challengers posed many problems with their quickness and teamwork. In the first fall Bison gets isolated and is taken out by a quick array of double teaming. Jack take over in the 2nd as Moreno does a meaty blade job. Then a fitting final fall with a threat of a title change. High quality throughout, a few minor errors but nothing major. A really exciting match that was better than it had any right to be. Esther excelled and the others all brought it. AJW continues to kick ass in 1991.
  14. Zenjo
    The Marine Wolves explode! Literally!!! OK perhaps not but Hokuto's poor knee takes another pounding. If she hadn't cut back her schedule she'd have probably ended up hobbling around like Mita, Mutoh and Kobashi. Minami targeted the limb in the early stages and it was well sold. The pace quickened in the 2nd half with a back and forth stretch. Hokuto had taken more damage but she was the higher ranked fighter with more powerful offense. Didn't like the finish at all. I wouldn't call it a classic, just a very good match.
  15. Zenjo
    It's WCW so you can bet Salt n Pepa were very well paid for not doing very much.
  16. Zenjo
    It was extremely intense throughout as the teams tore into each other. There was a mix of high impact moves and hardcore weaponry. They even chopped off strands of hair during the bout. Kyoko was a weak link and looked a bit out of place. I loved how Bull looked worried when her partner was on the ring and in danger of costing her the magnificent head of blue hair! The other 3 more than made up for Inoue with some real hot action. Uneven for sure, but very dramatic and memorable. The post-match was even better and highly emotional. Beasty Lady cried and Aja was the Prison Bitch from Hell! Not an in ring classic but this was an unforgettable match.
  17. Zenjo
    Toyota maintains her stranglehold over the Dangerous Queen, who again fails to win the title match. Houkuto came in wearing loads of padding and bandages on her arm which was somewhat ludicrous. It was like a homing beacon as Manami ripped them straight off and attacked with ferocity. Typically strong selling as Akira worked around the injury whilst on offense. She did some damage to Toyota's knee in retaliation but it was never going to be enough. It's an interesting one-off concept match that was different and told a story. I'm not crazy over pre-existing injury matches though, it's not usually a format conductive to good match quality. The aftermath nicely sets up the 3/17 Toyota vs Minami title bout which should have made the set.
  18. Zenjo
    Let me first address the tombstone spot which has ironically drawn some criticism. I'd say that it's the best spot of the year. The second rope tombstone piledriver. A move you hardly ever see used, and that's because it's extremely dangerous. Never was this more apparent than an unforgettable match from April 1987 where Hokuto suffered a broken neck after Yumi Ogura delivered the move to her. In an extraordinary display of courage/stupidity Hisako Uno (as she was back then) still wrestled the 3rd fall of the match whilst holding her broken neck in place. She became a wrestler known for working through severe injuries but this was something else. It took a year for her to recover and come back to the ring. Fast forward a few years where this match and this was the only other time I've seen the second rope tombstone used in an AJW ring. Like NintendoLogic said Hokuto is fucking insane for taking the move that broke her neck again. It was so fitting that it should be Bull to deliver the move as she was Yumi Ogura's career rival from the AJW Class of '83. Having Bull's tag partner assist with the move referenced how the original spot occurred in a tag match. The move not only put over how badass Nakano was to do this to someone, but also how she thought her title was in serious jeopardy. In fact Bull was very giving all match, which created a real threat of a title change. Hot start as Akira takes it straight to the champ. Then there was hold based grinding for the build before the twists and turns of the stretch. A classical structure that produced a classic World Title feel. At the end the challenger unleashed all her finishers. It wasn't quite enough, and astonishingly it never was. Whoever could have envisaged at the time that this would be her first and final WWWA title shot? What a way to kick off 1991 with the Joshi MOTY.
  19. Zenjo
    Is a long break for you a week or something? I can never believe how quickly you watch all this stuff. I've given myself 5 years to do the 90's. I was just wondering what your system is for ranking the matches each year? I know you do star ratings on the matches of the month but do you use any other formula as well? As it is there'd be loads of matches at say ***1/2 to sort through. I know some people use a percentage system. The way I do it is to split each 1/4 * into low, medium and high. So you'd have ***L, ***M and ***H. It doesn't work out much different to a % system and star rating is second nature to me when watching. Then at the end when trying to order matches of the same rating I'll look at both my reviews and the match threads to see what other people think as well.
  20. Zenjo
    Pearl Harbor sucked, Missy so did you.
  21. Zenjo
    Takada comes across as an asshole, but we knew that anyway. Berbick comes across as a whining bitch who wants his mamma.
  22. Zenjo
    Super match, action packed and really exciting. Some nice stiff shots as Mutoh stands up to Vader and gives the monster all he can handle. I loved how they played off the Vader vs Fujinami finish. All 4 nights were in Sumo Hall so that would be fresh in many of the fans minds. Vader falls victim to another cradle and the celebration afterwards was like Mutoh had won the G1 itself. Cushion were thrown in the ring and the fans go crazy. What a tournament!
  23. Zenjo
    Unsurprisingly not as strong as the group match but still a fulfilling battle that did a perfect job of setting up the grand finale. They had to hold back a little yet this was still a full length encounter. It was quite different to 2 nights earlier as Chono focused his offence on the leg. Hash came firing back with brutal kicks and the result was in the balance. Chono was able to maintain his plan of attack and just scraped through. It's amazing he had the stamina for the 30m final after the schedule of the last few days. It was the greatest week of his long career.
  24. Zenjo
    The first ever G1 draw which stands comparison with any to follow it. Both men worked their asses off and gave everything they had to give. A fantastic demonstration of the Strong Style with strikes, submissions, high impact moves, rivalry and intensity. After about 12m it looked like the start of the stretch and a draw didn't look on the cards. As they tired the action slowed down and it became more submission based. The quality level remained high throughout and the closing stretch was also strong. If you want a criticism this was only the 3rd best match of the tournament!
  25. Zenjo
    Quick start, 10m of inconsequential matwork, quick finish. A bit lazy but the bookends were decent. I preferred the surprisingly fun Vader vs Norton bout.
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