G. Badger

Glad to have helped! 1984 has way more good stuff than I thought.

Let's keep going with 1984 All Japan! Brody & Hansen vs Baba & Dory Jr. (08/26): This was fought like a gang fight more than a wrestling match. Absolute furious pace with a stiffness you could hear. A near classic match but with the post match brawl this is a classic. There's a part of me wants to call this an all time classic if you're counting entrance to exit. Did I mention Terry is at ring side? Team Grandpa! Rough necks is scared! ----- Atsushi Onita & Masa Fuchi vs Hector & Chavo Guerrero (09/03, aired 09/15): Oh yeah! This was a great junior tag match. Absolutely as good as expected. Lots of great action, a bit of comedy, some tandem spots as well as some other spots that could have been in 1994 or 2004. I think it might be the lone Onita match for this project but it's a doozy! Jumbo & Tenryu vs Brody & Jerry Blackwell (09/03, aired 09/15): Another really awesome tag match! This was great! Blackwell is fantastic doing all kinds of big man spots but is much more than that. Jumbo goes off the top rope. Tenryu gets the crap beat out of him but gives it right back. Brody is in top form being a monster but not invulnerable. Excellent pacing and action and everything was in doubt. Gran Hamada & Mighty Inoue vs Chavo & Hector Guerrero (09/12): Very good junior tag match! I think this is the sole Gran Hamada in 1984 AJPW match but it definitely delivered! I think this is exactly what I wanted and expected. It's not better than the Onita & Fuchi vs Guerreros but it is absolutely worth your time... especially if you're interested in this matchup. The Guerrero Bros. were able to do some fantastic lucha stuff with Hamada...and let's be honest that's what you want right? Really wish it was 2/3 falls... ----- Jumbo & Takashi Ishikawa vs Brody & Moondog Moretti (09/12): Neat matchup that reminds me of the Jumbo vs Misawa feud with a heavyweight paired with a junior heavy on both sides. You had better believe the Hansen & Brody (along with their buddies) drama is THE story of '84. So it's Baba vs Hansen early on in the year but it is slowly becoming about Jumbo vs Brody and this is one more battle. It's a really good one too! Lotsa action and they never seemed to stand still long enough to get a good picture. There were a. couple more that I was going to watch but the digital VQ is just too much for me to bear. Not sure if it's my internet or the quality that they were uploaded but, its some old school digital or satellite TV pixel blur at times. But they looked worthwhile if you're interested : Tiger Mask II & Magic Dragon vs La Fiera & Jerry Estrada (10/09, aired 11/17) Jumbo & Tenryu vs Rick Martel & Terry Gordy (10/09, aired 11/17) Excellent batch of pro wrestling this week! Like I said, I'm a tag team fan so bear that in mind if you're a singles wrestling ONLY type person. Very psyched to keep going! Thanks for reading!

Let's take a look at more of 1984 AJPW. We've got a really good batch! Jim Brunzell & Greg Gagne vs Dory Funk Jr. & Kerry von Erich (04/24, aired 04/28): These next two are Roy Lucier's 1984 AJPW TV episodes and not the Retro Classics that were broadcast in the late 90's. These technically should be with Part #2 but I'm putting these here. I'll try to work new ones in chronologically as I go on. A big reason for expanding beyond just my DVD set was I noticed that there were a couple omissions that I was missing out on. A big omission was Tenryu footage. But there's a bunch of neat tags like this one as well. Cool fact, 3 second generation wrestlers all sons of promoters. All that said, this was a great tag match! Excellent control wrestling from the Highflyers on Dory. Kerry was a great bit of energy for his team (wish we got more of Kerry and Dory Jr.). There's some exciting spots here and excellent wrestling as well. Probably the best tag match that I've seen so far in '84. Not sure why this didn't make the Classics. Bruiser Brody & Stan Hansen vs Jumbo Tsuruta & Genichiro Tenryu (04/24, aired 04/28): Another where this should have made the late 90's Classics TV (and on my DVD set). Glad we got the original TV broadcast though. This is a great match! Two teams of titans tussling. It is as big and exciting as it gets so far in 1984. 80's finish? Sorta...but it's a excellent one and am excited to see them match up again...which is the point of these type of endings, I suppose. Jumbo Tsuruta vs Jim Brunzell (04/26): Another really good match! This one was just about a great one to be honest. I really enjoyed the pacing, the use of holds to structure the match as well as the simple but effective spots used. Probably better than their AWA match just because its wrestled at a puroresu pace. Definitely hope more Jim Brunzell shows up. ----- Dory Funk Jr. vs Stan Hansen (04/26): A great match that felt authentic. It was a match where the little things were done right - stiffness, going for pins, wrenching holds, taking openings when they present themselves. 80's finish keeps this from being a near classic but that finish seems to press one of the big storylines of 1984 (or that's how it seems). ----- Jumbo Tsuruta vs Rick Martel (05/13): Back in the U.S. AWA. Very good to great match with Martel escaping many of Jumbo's early holds. Not something we see. Here we get a good sense that Rick Martel has the technical edge on Tsuruta while the champ has a size & strength advantage. Martel locks Jumbo in a fierce headlock. I get the impression that he needed to keep the bigger man under control. Eventually the champ gives Rick a knee breaker but the challenger holds on. We get a clean finish with a little bit of an asterisk to keep everyone looking strong. By the way Jumbo hits an awesome jumping knee where it looks like he really blasted Martel (think he actually got high enough and hit Rick in the face with his hip). No pictures on this one as the ring wasn't too well lit but I totally recommend this! Giant Baba vs Stan Hansen (07/31): I thought about skipping this but so glad that I didn't. This was a great match and excellent follow up to their 03/24 battle. Some real nice allusions to that one. This was fast paced and intense. They understand Baba basically shouldn't run the ropes so they stick to trading blows and attacking while the opponent is on the mat. As a result, like the 04/26 Dory match, it feels authentic. Hansen is just hammering away on Baba. Baba may not be much to look at but he's one tough S.O.B. Great match, awesome post match as well. ----- Tiger Mask II vs La Fiera (08/26): Well that was every bit as exciting as I remembered. This is actually pretty similar to modern wrestling and I think anyone who is curious should check it out! I'm not going to give it a score because the historical value overshadows anything I could say. If you're reading my reviews for recommendations, then yes! go see this. If you're interested in my take for entertainment then, I thought this was a lot of fun. It certainly blows everything else out of the water in terms of spots, sequences, dare-devilry etc. An excellent introduction to the new Tiger Mask. More La Fiera please! This was a great bit of wrestling as they have all been. This was the best though. You may have noticed I skipped Jumbo vs Kerry from 05/22. I'm going to cover that as well as a couple Ric Flair matches (Kerry vs Ric for instance) in the final installment. Those are well known matches and I don't want those to steal the thunder from the unsung great matches. Stay safe! Thanks for reading!

Here we are with week # 2 of AJPW from 1984. It's a pretty good one. Let's take a look! Billy Robinson & Brad Rheingans vs Steve Regal & Kevin Kelly (03/04): Wouldn't it be funny if it was the Steve Regal and Kevin Kelly you thought it was? Its not But it's 1984 AWA via AJPW Classics. I thought this might be a boring match but it was quite fun. Regal & Kelly bumped really well for Billy and Brad. I thought they had some good chicken shit moments as well. I don't know if you're going to go out of your way to watch it but if you're doing some kind of AWA/Billy Robinson project - it's fun. Billy Robinson vs Jumbo Tsuruta (03/11): Very good title fight. Technical like you'd want but Billy gets the crowd riled up pretty well teasing punches. A slower paced match that picks up at the end like the first Bockwinkel match. I would have liked a really strong finish but its clean and definitive which is really more than you can ask for in 1984. I would recommend this one... it's Billy vs Jumbo. ----- Jerry Blackwell & Ken Patera vs Jim Brunzell & Greg Gagne (03/11): JIP. What started out as just a fun little match turned out to be a good one. Patera didn't wow me with anything but Blackwell, Brunzell and Greggie Boy had some good stuff going. Greg is kinda like Giant Baba with offense and athleticism. If you can buy what he's selling then you'll have a fun time. Note: 03-15-84 has Blackwell and Patera vs Gagne & The Crusher.This one is shorter and faster paced. One of the Vachons (Mad Dog I believe) comes out later for the post match donnybrook. Pretty fun shit! Jumbo Tsuruta vs Jim Brunzell (03/15):Beforehand Bobby Heenan chews out Jumbo and Bockwinkel has to escort him away This was a very good simple match. It honestly was getting up to somewhere like ***3/4 (being generous) because of how they were building things up...but it ended right as it really started getting somewhere. That said it was an emphatic win and made everyone look good. Yeah that's right! Jumbo doing a headstand! God bless the AWA camera men...don't you want to attend an AWA event and sit shoulder to shoulder with these fine upstanding citizens? I'm really not sure what is going on here. But why would they film this man specifically? ----- Stan Hansen vs Giant Baba (03/24): Back to Japan. Age old feud here and this might be one of my favorite Hansen vs Baba battle and story-wise maybe the best. Stan nearly kills Baba at the outset. Baba fights back but he knows he can't go toe-to-toe with the Bad Man from Borger. Instead the Giant One employs his wrestling skill and goes on the warpath to destroy Stan's arm. Excellent stuff from bell to bell! If you had someone with a bit more athleticism than Baba (or this was Baba from 10 years before) this would be a no explanation needed great match. ----- Jumbo Tsuruta vs Greg Gagne (04/19): Wow, didn't expect this but the title match was great! You could tell Jumbo was excited to work with Greg. This was wrestled as an athletic, almost Junior Heavyweight technical match for the majority of the bout. This got chippy and lead to the heated final portion. We get a finish but is a little 80's to protect Greg and/or give heat to Jumbo back in the States. This might be my favorite defense so far. Technical Junior Heavyweight Greg is way better than spunky baby face Greg Gagne that we see more often in AWA. ----- Brody & Hansen vs Baba & Dory Jr. (04/25): Very good tag title match. Joe Higuchi was sporting his Seattle Supersonics colored ref outfit. I think what held this back from being great is Brody & Hansen seemed on offense most of the time. I mean more than usual to where Baba and Dory never got more than a couple good runs. Also it seemed like Brody (perhaps) was bungling spots with Dory...there were more than a couple rough looking spots. It had it moments and the pace pretty fast in Brody & Stan's style. Plus the fans were digging it. Brody catching some air! Another really enjoyable bit of wrestling. Any of the matches where I included super grainy/pixelated photos, I'd recommend you check them out! Thanks for reading! Watch some nearly 40 year old wrestling!

I'm going to be looking at the AJPW Classics for 1984. I want to make an effort to put a sizable dent into my DVD collection this year. I was pulled a little off track with the JWP and Muto AJPW last month. And I am planning on going back to Muto's All Japan perhaps in May. Anyhow we're looking at 1984 AJPW right now. It's interesting to me as it features quite a few Americans that weren't necessarily AJPW regulars. A big part of that is the inclusion of AWA talent since this is when Jumbo was AWA champ. Jumbo & Baba vs Terry Gordy & Michael Hayes (01/20): Haha! Oh man this is a lot of fun. The best part was the tag team power bomb the Freebirds did on Jumbo. The announcers called it a piledriver so I'm not sure if anyone (including Terry) was actually doing a power bomb (at that time). That gives you the idea of how close this was to being a ganso bomb. Gordy had to muscle Jumbo up. ----- Jumbo & Kabuki vs Terry Gordy & Michael Hayes (01/22): Another real fun match and a good one at that. The familiarity the Freebirds and Kabuki have really helps make this a pretty solid match. Good sequences and spots with Jumbo playing a supportive role. No really... I feel like Jumbo was the active man maybe a few minutes. Cool finish! Kawada is Samurai clad Kabuki's second. That's awesome! ----- Nick Bockwinkel vs Jumbo Tsuruta (02/23): Great slow burning title fight. Terry Funk was the ref. He was a little distracting at first but you get used to him. He is actually a pretty conservative ref despite being a bit of a wild man in the ring. Great teases and a great finish! This is the better known of the two February matches. Terry looking like he just left the wedding from 'Deer Hunter' ----- Nick Bockwinkel vs Jumbo Tsuruta (02/26): Terry is back as referee. He's not as distracting as before This one was fast paced and featured quite a few moves early on. It slowed down as it continued but that actually makes sense when you look at boxing or MMA - you're tired, hurt and looking for an opening more than going for a big win KO. I think this was great and a wonderful compliment to their previous match. Funker checking that the hold is legal... After leaving his shift at the casino... ----- Chavo Guerrero vs Mighty Inoue (02/26): Really my cup of tea in terms of technical wrestling. Just 85% of the match is neat wrestling holds. I think this would be a great match if Mighty Inoue knew what to do for a couple later spots. He killed a rolling cradle (the move Funk & Kobashi do) and on another, Chavo put the knees up on a somersault splash or rolling senton (which not only would block it but should hurt Inoue's back) but he didn't sell it. Chavo sold it himself by kicking out at 1 instead of 2 since its one of the Mighty Inoue's signature moves. But Inoue shouldn't have gone for the cover. However it's 1984, they're unfamiliar and some of that is to be expected. I really like this nonetheless and Chavo was great. I'm pretty happy we have this footage. ----- Jerry Blackwell & Ken Patera vs Blackjack Mulligan & Jerry Lawler (03/04): The neat thing about the Samurai Classics was that they had footage from the States that would be of interest to Japanese fans and usually involved a home wrestler on the card (Jumbo was wrestling). So here we get some of the first AWA-in-the-U.S. action. This was OK and was a change of pace. It was best with Lawler vs Blackwell but disappointing overall. Jumbo Tsuruta vs Blackjack Lanza (03/04): Bless Jumbo for irritating the xenophobic idiots while still wrestling a clean technical match. I'm guessing Lanza laid out the match as he's the vet and its his crowd. I think he did a great job of working with Jumbo - letting him get in good technical offense and timing his comebacks so the fans would get all excited for a bunch of punches and a noogie. That's a good job in an good match. I'm being generous though. Overall this looks to be pretty fun so far. There's a good mix of tags, Junior wrestling and title fights. Anything above with pics I would recommend! Thanks for reading!

Back with more of Muto era AJPW! This time I'm going over 2005-2010. Well I'm actually going to sneak in a '03 & a '04 match that I found as well. This post I thought I'd change it up a bit and focus more on the Junior Heavyweight side of things.. or at least matches that included them. AJPW was never really known for their Junior division so I thought I'd check that out since there was a concerted effort by many companies to feature these guys in the 21st century. Just a guess but NOAH seemed to kick that off a little by having Kanemaru and Marufuji right out of the gate. Kendo Kashin seemed to fill that role early on but Muto probably knew he couldn't build the division on him. Kaz Hayashi will become that guy as you'll see. Anyhow, just wanted to take a different approach to this post. Let's get going! Toshiaki Kawada & Kendo Kashin vs. Shinya Hashimoto & Wataru Sakata (12/05/03): Kendo Kashin seemed to be the face of the AJ Junior division before they started pushing Kaz Hayashi and getting some of the Dragon Gate guys. I'm not going to seek Kashin out on his own but this will suffice. So the big draw is Kawada vs Hashimoto of course and it delivers on that... you know as a teaser for their 2004 singles match. But what you want to see this for is Kawada vs Wataru Sakata. Kawada whiffs on his arm hold back heel kick. He goes over Sakata's head and falls. It works a little as Kawada had been taking stiff ass leg kicks from Hash earlier. But Sakata kinda mocks Kawada for the whiff by throwing his hands up like "ha! that's what you got? it missed." But then starts nailing K with elbows and Kawada hits back (and although Kawada missed he's still in control). Sakata should start selling after like 2-3 pretty stiff elbows. Wataru Sakata decides he's Misawa and not a Zero One junior (although with some shoot background) and wants to go toe to toe. Kawada makes sure not to miss again with Sakata and if he's going to pretend his Misawa, Kawada will hit him like Misawa. It almost goes off the rails and Sakata may have tried to go into business for himself a couple times including near the finish. Kawada ends the match with a very snug looking face lock and then a rear naked choke. Very interesting stuff for sure. Kawada was a professional though and kept it on track, kept the drama on he and Hashimoto. But man he just lays into Sakata. Katsuhiko Nakajima, Genichiro Tenryu & Kensuke Sasaki vs. Kaz Hayashi, Keiji Muto & Satoshi Kojima (10/22/04): Found this one by accident but man I'm glad I did! What a line up! I always felt Kensuke Office was more NOAH oriented but they were pretty much a part of AJPW during this era. This is a real showcase for Kaz as he takes a ton of punishment from his opponents. He even makes the teenage Nakajima look fantastic. Muto and Kojima have tons of history with Tenryu and Sasaki so they are more than game to get at them. Kensuke and Muto never really in any danger whatsoever but are very good in being "Kensuke" and "Muto" which works in this setting. I'm not asking for any depth from them. You could have had just as awesome a match with Tenryu & Nakajima vs Kojima & Hayashi frankly. But I think Muto and Kensuke were a cherry on top. You can find this on your "day-to-day movement" YouTube alternative. I thought it was great! TARU/Shuji Kondo VS Satoshi Kojima/Taiji Ishimori (09/23/05): Good little tag match and a sample of the Voodoo Murders stable. Not my cup of tea but it's OK here. I wanted to give it a chance but this type of heeling is a little too American style for me. The strength in numbers, too many short cuts etc. it's too obvious and heavy handed. I got my share of it during the NWO/Corporation/Ministry era of WCW & WWF but I bet there's some quality stuff. This has some nice moments... very good TNA Impact main event for 2005 Satoshi Kojima / Kaz Hayashi VS Keiji Muto / AKIRA (06/03/05): From highs and now to some lows.This has some good moments but overall it's terribly one sided and boring. The match pretty much neutralizes Hayashi who is your explosive junior and has him in the ring to long getting his leg attacked for Kojima, your explosive heavy to really do anything too awesome. The match has no real arc either. There's a hot tag to get Kojima in and get revenge but after taking a little bit of damage he tags Kaz back in. Now we see that kind of nonsense wrestling to brush it off as "he wants to get payback too soon" but that's pretty much how the match ends up. There's no 3rd act...Muto & AKIRA are never in danger. Kojima never gets another tag to clean house for a hot final third. It's OK but you don't need to see this. Or maybe you do...??? RO&D - TAKA Michinoku/Taiyo Kea/Jamal VS Kensuke Sasaki/Akira Raijin/Katsuhiko Nakajima (12/05/05) :So just found out that Akira Raijin was Kiyoshi back in TNA and is Sushi! That's badass! This was a ton of fun. Everyone was playing their roles to perfection. Not a barn burner but surprisingly very stiff. From Jamal's tears after the match, I think it was his last match in AJPW and RO&D and he was heading to the WWE to become Umaga. This match makes me want to see more Jamal. He's got a really good energy and is booked go toe to toe with the big guys like Kensuke. This was a really fun 18 minutes. I think RO&D might be more my speed the Voodoo Murders should I revisit this time period. Katsuhiko Nakajima & Taiji Ishimori vs. AKIRA & Kaz Hayashi - (01/03/06) : Really fun tag match with just a bunch of non stop action. AKIRA who is sorta the least exciting did a good job bringing his best moves. Nakajima vs Kaz is the highlight or focus of the match. There's one little hiccup during a spot that was more confusing than anything but it can be overlooked especially since this is just meant for fun than a world title defense type thing. Satoshi Kojima vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima (04/07/06): Including this one as I remembered watching a long time ago on a comp I bought. Watched it again now and it is still pretty awesome! I thought it was great (****) at the time but I think that was on stiffness alone. This is stiff as a starched shirt. Kojima isn't known for his chops like Sasaki but he should be and that one lariat!! Holy Shit! Under 10 minute Champion Carnival match...watch it if you can find it. Shuji Kondo vs Kaz Hayashi (08/27/06): This is Kaz Hayashi in top form! He and Kondo had a fireworks show for the ages here. All kinds of crazy moves, reversals and such. Great striking too! Its a great match and one I've wanted to see for years. So psyched that Gaora posted it! Highly recommend this to Jr. wrestling fans Shuji Kondo VS Chris Sabin (07/01/07): Really good match and a blast to see Sabin in AJPW. It's something I wanted to see for awhile also. Of course it's mainly spots but they've picked some good ones. Its a little rough around the edges a couple moments but they do well in either recovering or moving on. I never felt taken out of the action. In all honesty, it's all you can ask for and more considering Sabin was not an AJ regular. At about 15 minutes, this is a blast! MCMG fans need to see this. Katsuhiko Nakajima vs. Silver King (03/01/08): Fast paced, hard hitting bomb fest! This was a blast and a half to watch! If anything though it's a bit too fast and doesn't necessarily develop but it's like match you'd see on like a TNA or ECW pay per view and be really hyped on the next few days. It's only around 12 minutes if you see what I mean. Search this one out! brother"YASSHI vs Shuji Kondo (02/06/09): History here is both guys are Dragon Gate alumni, kicked out, joined TARU and helped form Voodoo Murders, tag partners and probably way more but now squaring off for the last time. Saw something that he retired in February 09 so perhaps this is his retirement match (temporarily)? It's a wonderful under 10 minute match where they basically beat the crap out of each other. It's a great way to end their story if only for a few years. Kaz Hayashi vs Shuji Kondo (08/30/09): Well that was insane...a classic junior match for sure. I think it went beyond their fantastic 2006 match. I've heard others like the 2006 match more and I can see that. But really you need to see both! An absolute war with all kinds of moves, counters etc. like I expected. They easily could have rehashed their '06 fight but they pushed themselves to the limit. In fact, the reason this is superior is that it was full of surprises with many moves being counter strikes or reversals or things you rarely see from the wrestlers. I really like that kind of thing especially as we get into 2010's- present wrestling. This is out there for you to find. The video quality isn't amazing but it gets the job done & thanks go out to the uploader! Kaz Hayashi VS Keiji Muto (10/24/10): This is for the Junior belt. Kinda reminds me of when Kurt Angle wanted to win every title in TNA. To Muto's credit he looks in great shape and slimmed down from '05 and maybe that's the kayfabe reason? Anyhow we get some of the cool moments from the '05 tag match here in perhaps a call back. In any case this is a great match! Of course Muto does his same 2-3 moves over and over (dragon screw, shining wizard, low drop kicks) but Kaz has them scouted and that's what makes this exciting. Kaz might just have a chance to topple the living legend. Obviously this isn't as crazy a match as Kaz vs Kondo but it was a surprise. Certainly a late stage great match for Muto. If you noticed a few comparisons to TNA throughout, then you'll get a good impression of what AJPW feels like during the Muto era. It really does feel like Japanese TNA. Just from the few matches here, there was talent exchanged (Sabin and Akira Raijin) and I recall seeing the fake Muta for a little while. Afterwards as Wrestle-One I know they worked together as well. So for better and worse, that's probably the best way to describe Muto's AJPW to someone unfamiliar. I have a soft spot for old TNA and I'm forming one for this period of AJ as well. I'll definitely be checking out more. I hope you've enjoyed reading and watching some of the vids. Again, that's awesome that Gaora has been doing this. Hopefully I have helped spread the good word a little. This era of All Japan certainly is worth your time. Thanks for reading! Stay safe!

Here we are for the final portion of my early JWP project. We'll be looking at the end of 1991. The dates are not evenly spread out but this is what I wanted to see based on others recommendations and my own preferences. There is more out there like the Cuty vs Scorpion stuff from the fall that I could do without. Anyhow, let's begin! Harley Saito vs. Rumi Kazama (05/12): Wow! I was impressed with what they were able to do in an under 10 minute match! Lots of stiff looking kicks, good bits of mat wrestling sprinkled in and a nice finishing segment. The early portion looked like Rumi stiffed Harley and Harley was looking for pay back. Good to very good match. Eagle Sawai & Mayumi Ozaki vs. Devil Masami & Miss A (5/12/91) Oh man you can't go wrong with these teams in '91. Much of what makes this great is Ozaki vs Devil. She is so much smaller than the veteran Masami but has tons of fight (and hate). Eagle is the big sister bailing Oz out and Kansai/Miss A is the serious partner looking to play a good teammate. Lots of great moves throughout some are even teases but that's what makes JWP so organic and great at this time. I rarely get a feel that spots are planned and the victories feel genuine. That's pretty special in my book. Mayumi Ozaki vs. Devil Masami (06/16/1991) A really good match with Devil having some fun with the smaller Ozaki. Oz is quick and takes short cuts so Devil would only go so far until she really punished her opponent. Its a simple match but two joshi greats in the same ring always produce something worthwhile. I viewed this before the above match and it actually makes more sense to do so. Itsuki Yamazaki & Rumi Kazama vs. Miss A & Harley Saito (06/30/91) Intense fucking battle. Miss A/Dynamite Kansai is actually the least stiff of all the wrestlers. Unfortunately the version I saw has a section missing (perhaps this is the official version) but what's shown is pretty sweet. Itsuki Yamazaki is awesome in this. If shown in full this would be great. Dynamite Kansai & The Scorpion vs. Shinobu Kandori & Harley Saito (08/04/91) First "Dynamite Kansai" match that I've seen. Her gear is different and she's somehow even more of a badass. This is a very good match and you want to watch it for Dynamite just blasting Harley. It seems very clear that she has pulled ahead since their meeting 02/11/91 meeting and as tag partners. This Dynamite Kansai is even handing Kandori her ass. Harley Saito & Itsuki Yamazaki vs Dynamite Kansai & Scorpion (08/08/91) I may have spoke too soon about Harley. She wasn't scared of Kansai. Itsuki Yamazaki seems to get better as we go. Scorpion upped her game too. This was a ferocious match. The Yamazaki & Harley team was one I wish I could see more of but we're almost to the end. This was a great match...seek this one out! Devil Masami vs. Itsuki Yamazaki (08/30/91) This starts out with Yamazaki jumping Devil kinda like Hayabusa would do to Liger Super J Cup. Then it settles down into the normal flow of the match which is pretty solid as Devil injures Yamazaki's arm. The former Jumping Bomb Angel gets an opening and hurts Devil's leg or ankle specifically. I don't know if this is legitimate as Devil sold it very well then too much if you know what I mean. Yamazaki didn't really have a great plan of attack other than a figure 4 and some weak stomps and kicks. It really seemed like she took a bad bump from the apron or to the floor on earlier the comeback spot. She may have twisted it and the remainder of the match was on the fly. I've rolled or bruised my ankle tons of times skateboarding. It's not a serious injury once you can get off your feet and ice but at the time walking normally isn't happening. Standing isn't too bad though. I think once Devil was able to get standing she was able to power bomb again and things picked up for the final few minutes. Good match but it's really something that could/should have been much better as these two are consistently the best workers. I can't end things like this though so one more... Harley Saito & Itsuki Yamazaki & Hikari Fukuoka vs. Dynamite Kansai & Eagle Sawai & Reiko Hoshino (12/07/91) I think this a very good to great six woman tag in Korakuen hall. Lots of energy and action with the styles and sizes of the wrestlers meshing well. I think it's also a fitting end as this is pretty much the end of the original JWP promotion. Saito & Sawai leave with Kandori to form LLPW. Reiko Hoshino who (as The Scorpion) lost a well received wager match vs Cuty Suzuki is gone after this (and perhaps wrestling in general?), Yamazaki retires and Kansai & Fukuoka go on in the restarted JWP that 90's Joshi fans know. All that aside, this is a fun match and the ending I was looking for To wrap up this along with JWP 1990 stuff, this has been a blast most of the time. I will admit that many of the matches do run together in the sense there's few giant moments and classic matches. Instead everything is super enjoyable to watch. You get a really good mix of technical wrestling, brawling, shoot style action. Sometimes that sameness was a little discouraging when I needed to keep up with my planned schedule. However once I got going I ended up watching 3 matches in a row. So I don't know if I would recommend trying to watch these in such a condensed manner. Spread them out and enjoy them at your leisure or maybe watch a few a week. You could easily get through (and enjoy) the best stuff of 90 & 91 over the course of a month while still watching your normal wrestling fix. If nothing else, the tag matches will never let you down. This has been a great project. I feel like I filled in a blank spot in my Joshi knowledge. I got to see some workers who I've seen very little of in the grand scheme of things. I have a greater appreciation for the non-AJW side of things and its encouraging me to check out more JWP, LLPW and others this year. I hope it works for you too! Thanks for reading!

Thanks for sharing the additional info regarding Kojima! I'm really thankful that Gaora posted these and does a pretty good job about putting quality matches on there. I don't think I would have made the effort otherwise. I know when I was buying tapes and DVDs from folks, I just didn't have the cash to take a chance on this era of AJPW.

Sneaking in one more, Muto vs Kojima (09/03/04): As you can see above, this is a bit of blood bath. And that really elevated this to something special and memorable. Perhaps it's a great match as well. Seeing Muto wear the crimson mask in 2004 evokes a real sense of drama and urgency. He really put on an excellent performance. Finish was great although it is only a piece of a bigger picture that looks to be forming for 2005. I'll have to check out those matches next round.

I'm doing a mixed up March type thing so I'll be getting back to JWP 1991 next week. For this week, I wanted to follow up on another little project Muto's AJPW. This covers 2001-2011. As you may know, I did a look at AJPW in 2011 sometime ago and was really impressed. It's not the Baba era but has its charm and quality wrestling. That along with post Muto AJPW made me question my preconceived notions about the 2000's All Japan. Generally speaking, I think most people skip over it entirely except for a couple matches like Hashimoto vs Kawada in 2004. I guess I'm speaking for myself...until now. So I have a very cherry picked list to see if there's something there that I'm missing. Make no mistake, the majority of the under card matches are crappy looking... heck even upper card matches don't look great either. 2001-2004 which I'm glancing at this post is really asking for cherry picking. The company at this point really looked to be relying on the draws of Kawada, Muto and guys he brought with him like Kojima and Kaz Hayashi as well as Tenryu and the big beefy guys he brought with him (who we won't see any of here). Then of course inter promo stuff with Zero One (essentially Muto working with other NJ defectors Hashimoto & Otani). Other than that the rest of roster were journey men wrestlers from the US & Japan, friends of Muto like AKIRA, and guys past their prime like John Tenta, Mike Rotundo and in some ways Dr. Death Steve Williams. Anyhow, I'm trying to use the Gaora YouTube page as much as I can but not everything I am looking for is on there. I'll share the links for Gaora where I can so you can enjoy as well. Let's go! Toshiaki Kawada vs. Keiji Muto (04/14/2001): This was a great match that built off of Kawada attacking Muto's neck and Muto going after K's knees and arm. They didn't do anything earth-shattering but dammit it worked. This was a keep it simple stupid big match. If you're watching this in comparison to AJPW from a year earlier then I can see being let down. But in 2023, this stands on its own two feet. There's a great story, excellent selling, and explosive, meaningful action. Honestly, I really dug the neck out of this match. It was so easy to watch. A very good beginning! Genichiro Tenryu vs. Keiji Mutoh (06/08/2001) Absolutely great match that played to both guys' strengths and weaknesses. Choice highspots, surprises and competitive spirit - it again was simple but effective heavyweight big match wrestling. I think this may have been better than the Kawada match above due to the familiarity between Tenryu & Muto. Keiji Mutoh vs. Toshiaki Kawada (02/24/2002) What makes this match work as it goes on it Muto's legitimate knee problems. So we've got two guys with leg problems (and are getting older). That said, they are more familiar now and go for a more complex match and it works fantastically. They go for it and it is a classic! It's not as brutally stiff at every turn from Kawada but it shows that he's way more than stiff kicks and chops. Muto does his thing kinda like Flair but like Flair if given an excellent opponent, you get an excellent match. That's been the case so far but here they go that extra mile. Both put on an excellent performance. Genichiro Tenryu vs. Satoshi Kojima (07/17/2002) : This is one that's gotten talk in the past. A battle between youth and age. Fire vs experience. I loved it! I'm A fan of both guys so watching them go toe to toe for a half hour or so was a real treat. The fans were loving this as well. Nowadays or in the last decade you'd see stuff like this but it would be about machismo and/or hulking up but here they really sold the toll the fight was having on them. Again, Tenryu had his leg kicked in and can't bounce back from that. Kojima has been in some tough fights but these big time matches against living legends is how he's going to get him name in the record books. He's got to get chopped, punched, kicked, dropped on his head...and still get up and get angry. With all of that baked in along with WAR style that Tenryu brings and demands of his opponents, this is a classic match to me. Taiyo Kea & Satoshi Kojima vs Masato Tanaka & Shinjiro Otani (12/06/02): RWTL final match I believe. It's a really good match but I'm not too strong on the outcome. I think Kea got hurt legitimately during the early portions and it was almost a 2 on one fight. I don't think they were going for this as the story or as some homage to the 1988 RWTL final. Because the outcome didn't really make 100% sense however I do think the closing portion was extremely badass. I mean Kojima vs Tanaka is worth your time and its only about 20 minutes long as Gaora shows a bunch of pre and post match fluff. Toshiaki Kawada & Masanobu Fuchi vs Keiji Muto & Satoshi Kojima (04/12/03): Kawada's return match after the 02/2002 match above. His knee got injured again then. So you know that's fair game in this matchup. The fans even boo Muto when he goes after it. But this is not the story of the match as they don't really belabor that point. This is a nice change of pace. The knee is bugging him but not taking him out completely so you're rooting for him to stay in the fight. You're really rooting for Masa Fuchi too..don't ever count out Fuchi Dammit! Lots of great action with excellent timing and selling. This was a great match... near classic stuff to be honest. Slight joined in progress and perhaps one small clip in the Gaora footage below. Shinya Hashimoto VS Satoshi Kojima (06/13/2003): What an absolutely stiff match Hashimoto fought. You could hear his kesagiri chops! He even chopped Kojima's arm so hard you could hear it! Koji was no slouch either but man alive Hash was just laying it in. And it was a simple match that didn't have a big story within the match but was elevated by Shinya's intensity and Koji knowing he had to match it or get destroyed. It is weird seeing basically two NJ wrestlers fighting for the AJPW Triple Crown. But these two really embody the physicality of AJPW. A great match! One I don't recall hearing about. Toshiaki Kawada vs. Takao Omori (07/18/04): A really neat story match as Kawada hurts his own knee on a knee drop. What's interesting beyond that is Omori doesn't make this a Muto match and go ape shit after the leg. He instead sees it as an opportunity to beat Kawada on his own terms. Omori knows (in a way) that Kawada's kicks are hurting him with each one he throws. If Takao can punish the leg and even force Kawada to use the kicks, it will give him time find an opportunity unload his Ax Bomber lariat and Ax Guillotine Driver. This was Kawada wanting to tell a story, Omori was eager to tell that as well. Kawada sold the story just about all of the way to the end even collapsing on a kenka kick doing a back & forth segment. In some ways you couldn't tell this was 2004 or that Omori was with Zero One. It was a real turn back the clock AJ fight that built wonderfully into a nearly classic match. I've heard its better than the more talked about Misawa vs Kojima match from the same show. This has been pretty awesome so far. I do understand why people may have been disappointed at the time. It is more like NJPW of the 90's than AJPW. But that makes sense doesn't it? I would maybe say it's a bit of a hybrid. Like every promotion in the early 2000's, it was a transitional period of time. That is apparent here but the known quantities, your stars can still be depended on. Kawada, Muto, Kojima, Tenryu still bring the goods. And I'm no Muto devotee. Probably should have opened up with that but if there's any skepticism in my reviews, I wanted to say that Next time, I'll be looking at 2005-2010.

I'm back with JWP 1991. Thank you to the folks who have posted these matches online. I've got the dates in an irregular order but you still be able to find these for your own enjoyment. Hopefully you find something you'll want to check out. Let's get going! 01/06/91: Miss A vs. Itsuki Yamazaki A great bout pitting veteran technician vs the young powerhouse. I think they told that story wonderfully. Yamazaki's leg work on A/Dynamite was masterful. A eventually found the opening she needed to mount a meaningful offense. It wasn't as precise and thoughtful as Yamazaki's though. It was good nonetheless and Yamazaki continued to target As knee when she could as well as go for quick pinning maneuvers. The finish wasn't as strong as I would have liked but it's part of a tournament so its OK. It doesn't hurt the match which was pretty great. 01/07/91: Eagle Sawai vs. Shinobu Kandori Simple but effective match with Eagle's power vs Kandori's technique... until shit breaks down and Kandori is throwing chairs in the ring. Really spirited good stuff 01/08/91: Harley Saito vs. Devil Masami Wonderful little match as Devil mauls Harley for the majority of the match (to the delight of the few Americans in the audience chanting and cheering the whole time). Harley will not quit and as a result you really start to get behind her (every though its fun watching Devil on offense). 01/13/91: Miss A vs. Eagle Sawai Greatest whip into the steel barricades ever. Eagle kinda forgets wrestling physics and full speed runs/whips Miss A into the railing and it flies! It never recovers and each subsequent whip knocks it further apart. This was a great WAR-style battle. I loved it! The 3 count is suspect but that happens in JWP as they kind of just keep going which is reasonable. This was a 2 count but screw it, this wasn't about the finish it was about the violence! 02/11/91 Miss A vs. Harley Saito I should say this is UWA final and the preceding singles matches were tournament matches. This was good. Miss A showed moments of brutality with her strikes. Harley showed moments of technical prowess but there was not enough of either to make this a great final. I would have liked more parity to be frank. It felt like many other JWP matches where sometimes the actual match is negated by a quick count or perhaps a great pinning maneuver at the end. If Harley's character is that a technicians and perhaps an underdog, I understand this match. But I don't know how much of an underdog she is as shown in her great match with Shinobu Kandori in 1990 where she takes the #2 of the company to the limit. But that underdog story is what we got and it's just not that compelling. But what hurt this for me were the "submission" attempts by Miss A. The Scorpion deathlock was good but the sleeper segment and the figure 4 were boring to me. I'm so tired of seeing meaningless figure 4's. I think I liked every match before this. This was good but not great and the final should either be a great work rate match, a great story match or both. I like them as teammates more than opponents. Miss A/Harley vs Rumi/Ozaki 04/23/91 Very good tag match. Oddly A & Harley were sorta the heels here by dominating most of the match. Harley was especially stiff to the point where I really did feel bad for Ozaki & Rumi. This really picked up in the final third as they were doing all kinds of neat suplexes, double teams and saves. I don't recall anyone touting this but so glad I checked it out. 04/26: Eagle Sawai & Mayumi Ozaki vs. Shinobu Kandori & Harley Saito What an awesome intense battle! Everyone was in top form and there was so much hate from bell to bell. If the UWA finals helped push Harley and Miss A then this bout helped Ozaki. Near classic Joshi tag match, rough around the edges in the best ways and highly recommended for sure. Devil/Rumi vs Miss A/Yamazaki 04/26/91 Oh man tough act to follow but this was also pretty damn great! It had an awesome start but dip in the middle with some legwork but then picked back up for a great final segment. I shouldn't poo-poo the legwork part as it was acceptable and a means to control Devil and they never just laid there. Rumi did a very good job breaking stuff up as best she could. Yamazaki was excellent as usual and hope I get to see more of her in part #2. Yeah go see this one as well. Both 04/26 tags are worth your time if you're into old school Joshi. Lots of really enjoyable stuff here! Eagle Sawai was kind of the standout since all 3 of her matches were off the hook That's not to say anyone was a disappointment.. her performance here was a pleasant surprise. If you are low on time then, I suggest sticking to the tag matches. Those might pique your interest to make time for the others. I'll be back with Part #2.

Here we go with the final entry in my FMW 1999 project. Let's see what we've got! Darkside Hayabusa & Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Hisakatsu Oya vs Koji Nakagawa & Yukihiro Kanemura & Hido (08/20/99): jip. This looked to be like a graveyard match or something as there were big banners up, a coffin and wooden grave markers (which were used as weapons). This was fun! Hayabusa is sporting a different mask here which shows some of his face plus his hair is bleached orange. Both were ways to get fans accustomed to his new look down the road (I don't like the H look). Mr. Gannosuke vs. Masato Tanaka (08/20/99): Awesome gimmick match with Fuyuki as the guest referee. So basically a heel referee match which makes Tanaka chances slim to none. If you know Dangan then you know that's not going to stop him from trying. Gannosuke has got to use his technical skills along with his rough housing (what a skill set!) to chip away at Tanaka. Then Fuyuki can bend the rules a little to get him closer to victory. I thought I would not like this as this era of FMW with the more American entertainment style isn't my taste. This doesn't go over the line though and kinda reminds me of TNA in a good way. There's a gimmick of a heel ref but it doesn't kill the excitement of the actual wrestling. It's a great match...maybe a near classic. And if I was watching this in real time, I could see going higher. But in 2023, "great match...maybe a near classic" sounds about right. Hayabusa vs Yukihiro Kanemura (08/23/99): Saw this in highlights but looked pretty sweet! Kanemura dove off the wall and over the stairs in Korakuen onto Hayabusa & drove him through a table. Not to be out done, Hayabusa did a springboard leg drop to Kanemura who was laying across a table on the floor at ring side. Hayabusa vs Mr. Gannosuke (08/25/99): Very good match but I wish it would have built up more logically. They went from mat work into big moves with little build.. but it works in this setting as they add surprises and variation along the way. There's a lot AFTER the match so I think that's why this wasn't as developed as it should have been. Remember though this is very much the Fuyuki Entertainment style FMW at the time. They're a bit closer to ECW than AJPW now. That's a bunch of criticism from me yet I did like the match. I saw this probably 15 years ago and read my review from then and I gave it the same rating. It's a very good match but having seen WAY more FMW, I know they're capable of much more. Btw this is Hayabusa's last match as Hayabusa (for a time). He becomes the unmasked H and Gannosuke becomes "Hayabusa" with a mask for awhile but sheds it, leaves Team No Respect... I'm getting ahead of myself. ----- The Gladiator (Mike Awesome) vs. Kenta Kobashi (AJPW 09/04/99): Finally got to see this and it was really good stuff. I think these two had really good chemistry and unfortunately could have done a nice little program or feud. I think they left a lot on the table. I saw their match in NOAH and I think that they went bigger despite being older and more busted up. But this match was all Awesome/Gladiator and Kobashi was very gracious to let Mike drop so many bombs. If you're a a fan of both wrestlers, you need to see this. Heck if you just want a point of reference for how big Awesome was this is worth a gander. Dude is bigger than Kobashi. I really wish he would have stayed in Japan. Mike Awesome vs Taz vs Masato Tanaka (ECW Anarchy Rules '99): 3 way dance for the ECW title. Taz is taken care of rather quickly but he does get in some high impact offense at the start. He doesn't stand a chance with both Awesome and Tanaka attacking him though. Then the rest of the fight is Tanaka and Awesome reintroducing themselves to the ECW fans. They do their standard stuff but have a couple new moves they've picked up, most notably Dangan's Diamond Dust. It pretty good stuff overall. I think all together with Taz being on his way out, having in impromptu 3 way dance with Paul Heyman intervening & dropping F bombs, big time moves like Taz's suplexes, Awesome's power bomb variations and dives, and Tanaka's toughness & innovative offense, this was very sweet at the time. None of this stuff was being done by the big two in 1999. Always loved the ECW PPV canvases ----- Mike Awesome vs Masato Tanaka (ECW November to Remember '99): At the end Joey Styles says "this might have been the greatest ECW World Heavyweight title match we've ever seen. " Announcers are prone to hyperbole and hyping, Joey Styles especially, but he makes a good point. This was a great match. Yes, it was a collection of brutal spots but it no one was even coming close to these anywhere else. Sure earlier ECW had matches with crazier spots but the matches themselves stunk like crap in many (not all) cases. Few if any were able to put on a match like these two. I think this may be the definitive Awesome vs Tanaka ECW match. I don't know if it's their greatest but it hits everything you want in their encounters and it provides twists/surprises/teases. They were doing what people loved about the Jerry Lynn/RVD or Tajiri/Super Crazy feuds but at an extreme level, no pun intended. This felt like a heavyweight title match in ECW should. I'm very lucky that I got to see this live on PPV (and taped it) as it lived up to the hype which could not be said for many PPV big matches. In fact his PPV was probably the best later ECW PPVs with a Tajiri/Super Crazy/Jerry Lynn 3 way dance, Sabu vs Chris Candido, RVD vs Taz in his final ECW match, and Impact Players + Rhino vs Dreamer, Sandman & Raven as the main event. Kodo Fuyuki vs. Masato Tanaka (11/23/99): Great match, great throw back to the Onita days with this electric cage match too. They do the cage spots but don't make the whole thing about them. In fact the actual wrestling is quite good with Fuyuki showing us his AJPW/SWS/WAR self is still in there. He and Tanaka really lay in their shots. So we get the best kind of death match, one that focuses on the wrestling and uses the gimmick to enhance what they are doing. I'm not a big fan of Fuyuki in FMW but as a fan of Fuyuki's prior I'd recommend this. Tanaka is fantastic and is having an amazing 1999. H & Mr. Gannosuke vs. Masato Tanaka & Tetsuhiro Kuroda (12/12/99): This is another one I saw from 15 years ago. Based on my old review, I wasn't sure if I wanted to watch it again. I'm glad that I did as my opinion has improved. I thought this was a great match. I appreciate the early work Kuroda and Tanaka did on Gannosuke's leg. It neutralized him and forced H (Hayabusa) to make the save. I think if they would have gone with a 2 on 1 story, this would have been a classic. As it was we got a traditional tag match with some great action with very believable near falls. We get a pretty awesome finish too. Not a fan of the H outfit (Hayabusa has platinum blonde hair, leggings and daisy duke shorts) but Ezaki kicks butt whatever the gimmick. 1999 was a big transition year for FMW. Fuyuki took charge behind the scenes and is having the company be more like the very popular American style. I've skipped past some of worst stuff that I remember like the Fireworks in the butt wager match (which I guess Gannosuke & Hayabusa had done to them as young boys in the FMW dojo) as well as the Shawn Michaels guest ref match. What I did watch really dodged most of that crap and allowed me to watch some really great wrestling. 1998 was a fantastic in ring year for FMW but to my surprise, so was 1999. '99 was an amazing year for tag team wrestling. I was happy to include the ECW and AJPW matches as well. I think there's a Awesome vs Tanaka match that people really like from 12/23/99 but I might cover that down the road or as a bonus to this post. Anyhow, very fun project and perhaps as far into FMW that I want to dig. I think I'd much rather go back to 95-97. But I've got some other stuff lined up for March. Hope you enjoyed this or got a couple things to check out. There's got be be something here that you will dig. Thanks for reading!

Back with Part 2 of FMW in 1999. Got some cool pics (too many actually...maybe I'll post those later). All grainy & shit like we watched our Japanese wrestling back in the day son! This time it is all tag and 6 man wrestling. Fans of this stuff, you are going to find out about some good stuff. Let's go! Gannosuke/Kanemura/Oya/Hosaka/Hido vs. Ishikawa/Ikeda/Yone/Usuda/Hijikata (05/05/99): Big cross promotion elimination match for the anniversary show! BattlArts vs Team No Respect/Gannosuke Outlaws. This was a very good elimination match and had some good stuff but personally I'd love to see a tag or even 6 man match instead. We get tastes Oya vs Ishikawa or Gannosuke vs Ikeda but I wish there was more. Really exciting stuff though. BAHU has it in the top 20 matches of FMW and I think folks like elimination matches more than me so, check it out if you're interested! Hayabusa & Jinsei Shinzaki vs Masato Tanaka & Tetsuhiro Kuroda (05/05/99): This is the tag team match-up you want to see for 1999. It is a fantastic match too! Shinzaki is electric here. I'm not sure why but everything he was doing seemed to be really on point and !are things special. Otherwise they seemed to use the amazing 03/19 match as their outline. I think I would have thought this was a near classic had I'd seen this 2 months later rather than 2 days. All that said, this was a great match! This had all the stuff any wrestling fan would like in 1999 - tag team moves, big moves off the top and over the top, great near falls. I read on BAHU's site that this was not the main event (there actually a few more) and the winner of the match would fight again that night so that makes sense why this wasn't an classic. That said, this is absolutely a blast and worth your time. The bird man flying off into oblivion ----- Hayabusa & Tetsuhiro Kuroda v Mohammed Yone & Alexander Otsuka (BattlArts 05/14/99): Saw this about 10 years ago and my opinion of it has improved. This is a great match! We get really good mat wrestling, way more than we get in FMW usually but, maybe not enough to be a BattlArts match. Instead we get a really sweet hybrid (which is kinda what Batt-batt and early FMW was about) and this is awesome. I thought this was just a blast seeing these guys gel so well! (oh Hayabusa has aligned with Kuroda, Tanaka and since Gannosuke Outlaws has disbanded and Hosaka and It's are now back with FMW. Fuyuki and all of the heels are under one umbrella). ----- Hayabusa & Jinsei Shinzaki v Yoshihiro Takayama & Takao Omori (All Japan 06/04/99): Hells yeah! What a great match! They bring so much variety to the table. This was so cool because they needed to use a ton of aerial stuff and their quickness to combat the beast Takayama. Omori is pretty frigging big too so they had their work cut out for them. Tons of excitement and surprises in this one. I think calling this a near classic especially in regards to the Hayabusa/Shinzaki team is appropriate. Their 1999 stuff is awesome! A well paced and nicely laid out fight. Definitely wish we got more Hayabusa and Jinsei in AJPW. Perhaps the best flying knee drop off the top I've seen ----- Hayabusa & Masato Tanaka & Tetsuhiro Kuroda v Mr. Gannosuke & Yukihiro Kanemura & Hido (06/15/99): Back in FMW, we get a 6 man match where the loser has to eat dog food. That part isn't important but there's some stakes here with FMW vs No Respect. And from the amazing opening sequences, this match does not stop. Bell to bell action. We get a little bit more hard core wrestling than we're seen in awhile as a ladder is in play as well. Tons of great interactions and spots. Tons of fun & a great match. The cream of the crop for FMW 1999 has been excellent. Enjoyed the AJ and BattlArts stuff as well. This was a real treat for me as I'm such a tag fan. If everything goes according to plan, I should wrap up 1999 FMW next week. Find something you like and enjoy! Thanks for reading folks

This post I'm taking a look at some of the best of FMW in 1999. Without further ado, let's begin! Hayabusa v Tetsuhiro Kuroda (01/05/99): Really exciting match with some really great sequences and spots. This is a textbook example of working a body part and blowing it off though. He hurts Hayabusa's leg the Hayabusa hurts Kuroda's arm and it unfortunately has no bearing on the match's story or outcome. This is not a deal breaker at all. It's actually pretty well worked as Hayabusa keeps it somewhat interesting and they transition out of this portion in a convincing manner. I knew it was going to be like this so I enjoyed the hell out of the final 2/3rds of the match. So find this match, fast forward the arm/leg part if you want or don't worry about it too much. It's basically bringing the excitement down in order to launch it up with the remainder of the match. Personally I'd rather they only have one person work a body part and then move onto the rest of match...Kuroda's figure four segment was unnecessary and is really were I think I have issues...it was pedestrian and part of his schtick so he felt like he needed it in there. Yeah, I think that's it because if you subtract that, I think this is a great match actually! ----- Mr. Gannosuke vs. Hisakatsu Oya (01/5/99): Long, gruelling chain wrestling in FMW? Yes! This is more like a match between two NJPW guys in the late 80's than an FMW match in Kodo Fuyuki's '99 FMW. And I loved it. Slow paced but always working. Oya is looking to either pop a Gannosuke joint throughout. Gannosuke seems content on wrestling Oya's style, saying "I may be a heel but I'm the second best technician in the company. Watch out!" This is a great traditional puro match between perhaps the only two who could truly do it to this standard in FMW. Hayabusa & Jinsei Shinzaki vs Tamon Honda & Jun Izumida (AJPW 02/13/99): I had watched and reviewed this as joined-in-progress bout a few,years back but I felt like watching it again. It starts out slow with Honda and Izumida being content on head butting all match. Hayabusa is not down with that and the match starts up in earnest. And man its a slow burn but it gets really good. Most of the exciting offense is from Jinsei and 'busa but Honda isn't a slouch and throws a mean suplex. By the end the crowd is loving it and I am too. Very good match! Worth watching in full. Honda takes Shinzaki for a ride ----- Hayabusa & Hisakatsu Oya vs Mr. Gannosuke & Hideki Hosaka (02/27/99): A really, really good keep-it-simple-stupid tag match. I'm even tempted to call this a great match because it did everything so well. The pacing of the match, the moves used, the psychology of targeting Hayabusa neck but not going overboard. It's nice to see Gannosuke especially against Hayabusa. I also enjoyed Oya's Inoki-style (I need to see more Oya!). Great twist here too. This was so much fun! Masato Tanaka vs. Tetsuhiro Kuroda (02/27/99): Oh yeah what a battle!! This was an outstanding work rate type of match. In all honesty this wouldn't feel out of place in AJPW minus a couple spots. Kuroda and Tanaka take each other to the limit here. The urgency of the fight is what made this a classic to me. It really felt like these guys wanted to win. According to BAHU, "this is the beginning of the push to make Kuroda a main eventer with the company." I highly recommend checking it out! Hayabusa & Jinsei Shinzaki vs Masato Tanaka & Tetsuhiro Kuroda (03/19/99): This is an amazing tag match! Fought like an AJPW match, they take their time building it up from fundamental wrestling into a spectacular battle between the two most athletic teams in FMW. Tanaka picked an excellent partner in Kuroda. This is definitely top tier FMW tag wrestling and top tier stuff for 1999. Classic shit! Awesome job camera man...get in the shot of the other camera... ----- Overall this has been quite exciting stuff! I'm glad I've got much of this on DVD. Just about everything should be available to you online so you should check a few of these out. I've probably got 2 more instalments of FMW '99. Thanks for reading folks!

I'm very excited to be watching more FMW after a long time away (Kudo stuff excluded!). I'm not limiting myself to just FMW but am including interesting stuff from ECW and AJPW as well. I'm going off my DVDs so there's a bunch of pics. They're grainy but you get that old school VHS video quality vibe like you're watching these in '98. Hope you dig 'em. Let's jump on in! Hayabusa & Jinsei Shinzaki vs Yukihiro Kanemura & Hido (01/06/98): Oh yeah, this was just a blast! You kinda get everything you want here in one 14 minute match. It's like a Dean Malenko Nitro match from like '96 It is just 4 pros having a very good wrestling match. It tells a little story (or continues one), has some drama with the heels hitting nut shots, using chairs and making blind tags, you've got your baby faces shining with their cool moves, its a good start! ----- Hayabusa, Masato Tanaka & Hisakatsu Oya vs. Mr. Gannosuke & Yukihiro Kanemura & Hido (01/16/98) highlights only but this looked like a lot of fun. Two guys going to a Bruce Springsteen concert in 1986 and a guy in his pajamas ----- Hayabusa & Masato Tanaka vs. Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Koji Nakagawa (02/06/98) highlights but looked cool. I'm not sure Nakagawa had a snowball's chance at this point. I know later when he betrayed FMW, he got a pin over 'busa. Hayabusa vs. Jado (03/16/98) : Good match, we got Hayabusa doing his big moves, Jado and his pals doing some heeling, and a really sick power bomb from the apron through a table. I mean no one sold anything but was Hayabusa's 2nd match of the night so it's all good. Hayabusa vs. The Gladiator (Mike Awesome) (03/17/98): I wouldn't have laid it out this way but this was a very good battle between the two most flashy wrestlers. It did not disappoint one bit. There were some really great moments here and nice surprises. Really high impact stuff throughout. I thought the selling was pretty good as well. Nothing fantastic but both guys really sold the pain and struggle they were going through in this big stakes match. I think if you want to see a Gladiator vs Hayabusa match this is an excellent one to go with. Taste the Radness ----- Hayabusa, Giant Baba & Kentaro Shiga vs Jinsei Shinzaki, Jun Izumida & Giant Kimala (AJPW 05/01/98): Tokyo Dome match, in the ring with Giant Baba, that ain't too shabby! We get a couple clips here in my version (probably a TV edition) but I think a good portion of the match is shown. This thing is FUN. Baba vs Jinsei is great, Hayabusa is on point, Izumida is channeling Shinzaki and Kimala, and Kimala is a blast. So much fun, the wrestling is really good, the fans are loving Hayabusa & Jinsei... yeah this is one of those random 6 mans that you want to see ----- Mike Awesome & Justin Credible vs Masato Tanaka & Jerry Lynn (ECW Hardcore TV 07/18/98): This is a weird pairing that I don't know if there's any kayfabe reason. I guess it makes Awesome a heel for willing to team with the slimy Credible. And anybody who wanted to think Japanese=Bad guy would be discouraged by Tanaka being with the New F'n Show. All that said, this is a really good all action tag match. Of course Tanaka vs Awesome is the big attraction (this was their first appearance at the ECW Arena) but Credible did a nice job chicken-shitting with Tanaka that they told a really fun story. Jerry Lynn and Awesome worked well together but there was not much there beyond doing their athletic stuff...no little story or anything. Awesome and Tanaka had a match at the Hammerstein before this I believe but, I think this was a truer introduction to ECW fans than that singles match. This definitely could have taken place in an FMW ring. Bonus: They take this match on tour for a few nights in a row and I might like the Ft. Lauderdale fan cam 07/24/98 better. It felt like the ironed out some kinks, incorporated Jason & Chastity at ring side and gelled. Justin and the ref argue over how many brain cells he has left. ----- Mike Awesome vs Masato Tanaka (ECW Heatwave '98 08/02/98): They were a little nervous at the very beginning but once they got in the groove, they did not let up! The early portion saw a back and forth match but eventually Mike got the upper hand and starting dropping bombs and crushing Tanaka's skull with chair shots. Dangan does not stay down though! There's a great twist here and an excellent finish. It's a great match. From what I can tell, they don't face each other in singles competition on TV or PPV in the States until the next summer. Wow! What a tease! When they return in '99 is when everyone remembers them in ECW but this stuff in '98 is excellent. Tanaka in '98 is fantastic and Awesome is on a bit of a tear too. This is worlds better than the Hayabusa/Shinzaki vs RVD/Sabu match from Heatwave '98 (that's a fun but disjointed type of match). ----- Hayabusa v Rey Bucanero, Jr. (Battlarts 11/23/98): This is kind of a fun squash match. I think Rey does like 1 or 2 cool moves. It's all Hayabusa doing signature moves. Hayabusa v Hisakatsu Oya (FMW 12/13/98): I think there was a period where they were friendly and not rivals. Well that time is over! We get a clipped match but it's not a hyper clip/only big moves type deal. We actually get a good portion of the match and from what is shown this looks pretty good. I have this on two different compilations and I actually watched it twice in a row to double check that they were the same. And it was super fun both times ----- This has been a blast to watch! I'm going to keep going with stuff from 1999. Also very glad to be chipping away at my mountain of un-watched DVDs. I'm sure some of these are online so go check a few out! Thanks for reading everyone!

I decided to take a little break from JWP. No way I was going to meet my self imposed deadline. Instead I thought I would switch stuff up and watch the best of Megumi Kudo. As an FMW and joshi fan, it's a bit crazy that I've only seen like 2 Kudo matches and some clips. I skipped the one's I've seen 04/02/93 AJW and 05/05/96 Combat Toyoda retirement match. Oh I have seen the first inter-promotional match with Toyoda vs Bull & Bonito in 1992. That's covered in my 1992 FMW post from a couple years ago. I watched her other most highly recommended stuff as well as some other matches that may have been overlooked. If you're unfamiliar with her, she's Jaguar Yokota trained and AJW dojo grad. She wrestled there for a couple years until they gave her the boot as they just didn't think she'd be popular or have anything for her. Along comes Onita and FMW a couple years later. Same for her friend Combat Toyoda. Kudo's style reminds me of a baby face Mayumi Ozaki. Her move set also seems influenced by Misawa but those things are observations on my part. Megumi Kudo vs Combat Toyoda - Street Fight (08/04/1990): 7 minutes of beating the crap outta each other followed by like 3 minutes of wrestling. I'm all for that! This is very good stuff. In contrast to what JWP was doing in 1990, this was pretty crazy shit. Megumi Kudo & Combat Toyoda vs. Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada (05/05/93): Fierce fight in Kawasaki Stadium! The rematch from their 04/02/93 fight. All kinds of great action with Combat being spoiler since she's so much bigger than the AJW team. They did a great job containing Toyoda and beating the crap out of Kudo. If it was anyone else I'd be concerned but I knew she could withstand the pain until she could get Combat in there. Great match with a great final third for sure. The outdoor atmosphere was awesome too! Aja Kong vs Megumi Kudo (AJW 12/06/93): Great title fight! The opening mat wrestling was pretty awesome. After that Aja dominated Kudo until she finds an opening mercilessly attacks the champ's arm. It's a smart way for the smaller wrestler to get an advantage. Aja sells it all beautifully throughout. It's a slower paced match even towards the end as they are milking the drama of the FMW joshi not just surviving but defeating the baddass AJW WWWA champ. Again this was a great match and in my mind shows Kudo's skill as a singles wrestler beyond just death matches. I wish I knew why they showed Jaguar Yokota... Aja references her post match I assume... perhaps it is in reference to her training the both of them. Jaguar seems to get a little emotional. Later Kudo cries which I think is her thing like Onita. She seems pretty sincere here. Megumi Kudo & Aja Kong vs. Combat Toyoda & Bison Kimura (FMW 12/21/95): Great tag battle between class of 1986 AJW. This might be as good as the Toyota/Yamada match above as these teams are similar in size & styles and of course the familiarity and backstory are greater. The 05/05/93 match was probably a smoother fight but this felt grittier and more FMW. Bison was great and I've missed her..just blazing choppin' the fuck outta people. I would've like to have seen an Aja/Kudo tag run in either FMW or AJW. They are great together! Gladly could have gone a couple more minutes. I liked it a bunch. Megumi Kudo vs. Shark Tsuchiya (FMW 12/22/95 -First Ever Women's No Rope Barbed Wire Death Match): This was first No Rope Barb Wire joshi match but on 09/05/95 there's a handicap joshi tag match where they wrap wire around the ropes and boards on the floors. I could only find shaky zoomed in hand cam stuff otherwise I would have watched it. Kudo refers to Sapporo in her pre and post match interview (thankfully subtitled) so I was to find that out if you're interested. This match started out a little slow with Shark dominating Kudo but eventually things pick up when she makes her comeback They did a couple really great spots with the wire. Shark's seconds interfered during the match which annoyed me at first but once Kudome's friends helped her, it evened out. Excellent spot with the sickle, super dangerous. Of course it was best when Kudo was in control. Very good match. I'm guessing this was super gnarly at the time. It would have flipped my lid had I seen it back then -Cobra clutch with a barb wire kendo stick still is pretty awesome. Brutal finish too. Megumi Kudo vs. Shinobu Kandori (FMW 12/11/96) : About 15 minutes of all action...you know they could have gone longer. Kudo was the standout for sure. Kandori's performance was good and it got the job done. The story is about Kudo overcoming the badass that is Shinobu Kandori. She was indeed a badass who turned quite a few of Kudo's routine holds/moves into pretty intense submission holds. There were some really great moments too. I dunno, I thought this was a great match. Maybe I appreciate Kandori more after watching JWP 1990 stuff. Megumi Kudo vs Shinobu Kandori (Street Fight - LLPW 01/05/97): Almost missed this one but caught it thanks to BAHU's Megumi Kudo bio. This takes place in LLPW. A great match. Very much an FMW type match with good wrestling and spots with tables & chairs and even a chain. The finish was pretty awesome and involved that chain. My only gripe is that it was very much a tale of two matches. Kandori controlled one half and Kudo controlled the other. I think the Kandori half on a whole was not as exciting from an action standpoint. It made sense though so I can't fault it too much. I think this had potential to be a near classic and that's what I am commenting on. It was 20 minutes and maybe this would have been a classic if it were closer to 15? It was really chaotic and I think that helped keep my interest when things slowed down towards the end. Megumi Kudo vs. Bison Kimura (Jd' 01/16/97): Yup next day. No gimmicks just Bison vs Kudo. And this was a great match! I think what makes this a better match fundamentally than the street fight above is that it felt more natural. There's transitions from offense to defense. There are little windows where one might get an advantage that get closed as soon as they're opened. We get brawling on the floor, we get some chair and table stuff but more importantly, we get a match that has a good layout and pace. Awesome finish too. It's a simpler, shorter match and doesn't have the memorable spots like the street fight but is just as great. Megumi Kudo vs Shinobu Kandori (No rope Barbed Wire - FMW 03/14/97) : This was super exciting at the beginning with both wrestlers trying to avoid the wire. After Kudo went into it though it was dreadfully dull. This again was kind of like each person controlling 1 half of the match. Things did pick up when Kudo did a dive over the wire to the outside. This set up the list part of the match. This part was pretty good actually but that should be a given, right? It didn't help matters that the crowd was very quiet. I think Kandori's control section was about her trying to get heat by stomping, cutting Kudo but it didn't work really. It just didn't have a lot of energy, spots or anything to spice it up. I think Kandori felt the novelty of her being in a barb wire match would be enough? Don't get me wrong, Kandori gets the wire pretty good a few times and this is the way to end the feud but I thought this was the weakest of the three matches. This needed more wrestling in the middle. Folks doing the 1997 yearbook liked this more than me so, check it out nonetheless. Megumi Kudo & Bison Kimura vs. Lioness Asuka & Shark Tsuchiya (Bunkhouse Death Match - FMW 03/28/97) - This OK but Bison is chained up for a good portion and Lioness and Shark beat up Kudo. Kudo makes some comebacks and eh its not worth your time considering the line-up. Megumi Kudo vs Mayumi Ozaki (Double Hell Barbed Wire - FMW 04/18/97): Argh! If only there was a full version of this out there! Little clips don't matter too much but there's a big clip where suddenly Ozaki is not only in control but she's power bombing Kudo. Yet a few seconds earlier on the tape, Kudo is rolling Oz back in the ring after doing a diving splash onto the barb wire boards on the floor. Anyhow the 3/4ths of the match that's shown is awesome! They are just flying into the wire trying to dish out as much punishment as possible. And they are actually wrestling and bumping the whole time as well. Their styles are pretty similar where both are athletic, tough and not afraid to take bumps. It actually feels like competition. They are not going for drama as much as danger. Who knows what was actually omitted but some key transitions must be on the cutting room floor. What's shown is great though. This would probably be a classic if shown in full. That said, you should check it out! Megumi Kudo vs. Shark Tsuchiya (FMW 04/29/97): This was a very good and sometimes great exploding/electric barb wire death match. I think it was a fitting retirement match for Kudo. This features one of the best uses of the sickle by Shark who actually attempts to slash/stab Kudo while she's down on the mat. Shark is pretty limited in her offense but what she did got the job done as Kudo provided most of the good stuff but also took some nasty bumps. She's seriously tough. The finish is kinda cheesy as they did similar stuff during the Attitude Era, later WCW but, hey they didn't get blown up during their matches! It works here so I'm not complaining it's a nice end to this post and her active wrestling career. This was a pretty cool project. It's something that I didn't plan on. It just sort of came together on its own. I'm definitely a fan of hers now. I think if she were to have gone to JWP, she would have eventually had a good clutch of classic matches with Dynamite Kansai, Ozaki, as well as had those inter-promotional matches too. I just don't think the caliber of opponents in FMW was up to her standard other than Toyoda. All that said, in FMW she is the queen of the joshi and a star right up there with Onita and Hayabusa. So one cannot fault her one bit. I was going through an old post and I think there was a rumor that some women from AJW wanted to go to FMW back in the early 90's. I feel like they were appeased by the inter-promotional stuff throughout the early & mid 90's. Thankfully! For Kudo's & our sake we got a bunch of great memorable battles. I'm going to take a little break from Joshi in February and focus on watching FMW. This Megumi Kudo post acts as a segue into that. But I'm definitely not forgetting JWP 1991 or the couple other projects I have planned. Thanks for reading!

ROH YouTube posted this a couple hours ago

This is a project I wanted to do for a good while now. When I decided to watch all Joshi this month, this it the one I've been itching to start all month. Jetlag has done an awesome overview and Quebrada.net's reviews are really great as well. I've used those as my guide. As Jetlag has said, so little is talked about this era. I hope to add a little bit to the conversation. For reference here's Jetlag's Microscope topic: https://forums.prowrestlingonly.com/topic/39849-early-jwp-pre-splitinterpromotional-era/#comment-5816331 I have the dates first because that's how I organized the matches originally. This started out pretty small but mushroomed because I enjoyed the neck out of this stuff. Some stuff I watched in chronological order but there are some I skipped ahead to or snuck onto my watch list towards the end. So sorry for any confusion you might come across! 04/22/90: Plum Mariko vs The Scorpion Not sure what to make of Scorpion beforehand but I like her and the masked gimmick. She displayed a lot of spectacular lucha type moves. Plum was just sort of there to make those moves look smooth. But hey, she did an awesome job in doing that. This was a fun match. A very nice start! 05/25/90: Cuty Suzuki & Oscar Tomo vs. Mayumi Ozaki & Yukari Osawa Really glad that I checked this one out. It was a good tag match. Ozaki and Osawa are heels with Cuty and Oscar as baby faces. What's great is that the heels don't really get into brawling and using weapons as you'd see in AJW around this time. They take shortcuts in the ring but when the action picks up down the stretch they have the wrestling skills to rely upon. Ozaki is already on her way to being awesome. She has a ton of personality and her moves are immediately identifiable as her own. 05/25/90: Itsuki Yamazaki vs. Plum Mariko I really dig Yamazaki from the Jumping Bomb Angels so its cool to see that she went to JWP. Really good match that's veteran vs up and comer. Everything looks really good and builds very nicely. They wanted to put on a really well wrestled match that makes sense and gets the fans pumped to see Plum get an upset victory. Much more competitive than the above match. 06/14/90:Eagle Sawai vs. Maiko Tsurugi Only have seen Eagle a couple times and Maiko is new to me. Anyhow, the moves and action is a little simpler than the match above but the story is much stronger. Maiko is getting the advantage on Eagle. But Maiko gets hurt due to outside interference. Eagle then goes to work on that injury. Can Maiko survive? Very good stuff. 06/14/90: Plum Mariko & Cuty Suzuki vs. Miki Handa & Utako Hozumi A good fast paced match that got more interesting with a restart and a hot finish. Plum and Cuty are a pretty fun team to watch. I wouldn't mind seeing more Handa & Hozumi as they develop. 06/14/90: Mayumi Ozaki vs. The Scorpion Another very good match! Closing in on a great one actually. I think in part it just had those big moves towards the end or something. I mean Scorpion does a moonsault and Ozaki does a springboard cross body block for instance. That said there is a good portion of quality matwork as well. Scorpion seemed at Ozaki's level. 07/19/90: Shinobu Kandori vs. Harley Saito This is stylistically UWF meets 80's Inoki Strong Style. Nothing has been like this at all so far in JWP. Later 80's Crush Gals would do the shoot kicks but nowhere as stiff as this and not this type of grappling. It is tremendously intense and nasty at times. I think if the filming was more than fixed camera, this would be even nastier. Harley is just soccer kicking Kandori in the head for instance. It very rarely feels cooperative. One thing I've noticed is the frequent use of pinning moves in JWP at this time. That is the case here as well and I appreciate it as its going for the win by any means. I also appreciate the refs who actually count the shoulders on the mat. That plays a part here. I don't know if I could call it a classic match but it's certainly memorable, influential and highly recommended stuff. A great match without a doubt. Post match stuff is sick too! 08/12/90: Mayumi Ozaki & Rumi Yasuda & Yukari Osawa vs. Cuty Suzuki & Plum Mariko & Miki Handa Haven't heard great stuff about this but I wanted to see a 6 woman tag in JWP. One of the others I was looking for cannot be found. Plus I know all of the wrestlers at this point and it has potential. And yeah this lived up to the potential. Fast paced stuff with Plum & Ozaki being the most impressive. Plum gives Ozaki a dangerous looking backdrop also. Really fun stuff, good match. I really like the pacing and competitive nature of these JWP matches. 08/12/90: Devil Masami & Itsuki Yamazaki vs. Miss A & Harley Saito Pretty darn good match. Devil and Itsuki did all kinds of cool stuff here. This is a longer match but I think they filled the time very well. Miss A and Harley weren't necessarily putting the other team in constant danger however Devil and Itsuki couldn't put them away either. That would give the younger wrestlers and opportunity to find an opening with their kicks. I think a faster paced match would have been more exciting but they wanted to go longer. They even snipped a few minutes from the footage. I'm not sure it needed that because it didn't drag at all. The veteran team knew how to control the excitement even when the pace slowed down. 09/30/90: Rumi Kazama & Shinobu Kandori vs. Devil Masami & Itsuki Yamazaki Oh this was a great tag match! Shinobu & Rumi are not necessarily heels in deed but the fans are against them. Devil & Itsuki might be heels but the fans like them especially against Rumi and Shinobu. Or that's my point of view. Nonetheless, this is a match that pits the shooter style against the entertainment style of Joshi more than above. And Devil and Itsuki are old guard entertainment style and I imagine the tension is real in ring. It's great because everyone is professional about it and it makes for a really exciting & intense back and forth match. Seeing Devil toss around Rumi is pretty enjoyable. Some might find the finish corny but it works! 10/10/90: Plum Mariko & Cuty Suzuki vs. Mayumi Ozaki & Rumi Yasuda A clear face vs heel match which is a lot of fun. Hair pulling, biting, running the face along the ropes etc. Everything was well executed and honestly Cuty Suzuki actually wrestled well here. I'm not a big fan as we go further into the decade but perhaps the simplicity of the matches is in her favor? I wouldn't say this is a need to see bout but its fun. Also online this is listed as from 12/12/90 but double checking Quebrada as well as the finish of the Miss A/Saito vs Kandori/Kazama match, this is 10/10. Same with the below. 12/12 must just be either the tape or TV episode date. I've listed it accordingly. 10/10/90: Devil Masami & Itsuki Yamazaki vs. Eagle Sawai & Moon Ayako So yeah, Devil and Itsuki are the best tag team in the promotion. I shouldn't be surprised but this was almost a squash in that no way were Eagle and Moon going to win but this was really fun stuff. That enjoyment was pretty much all from Devil and Itsuki. They just have so much charisma and great ideas on how to work little matches. 5 minutes was cut from the footage but no matter. It was a blast! 10/10/90: Miss A & Harley Saito vs. Shinobu Kandori & Rumi Kazama I watched this the following day after the great 07/19 match. I look to this as the follow-up to that battle. I definitely think is the case or the way to watch it. This was great and perhaps a near classic with the story of that singles match (and aftermath) giving this some depth. This is more like a traditional tag match despite both teams being shoot wrestling but the intensity and stiffness is still there. Miss A/Dynamite is really laying in her kicks. Like Shinya Hashimoto, they thud. I just thought everyone was great here. There were a few callbacks to the 07/19 bout that really made this something special. I'm a tag wrestling fan and I think I liked this better but certainly the singles match needs to be seen to fully appreciate this. 11/11/90: Miss A vs. Devil Masami Whoa! This was a great match! Stiff intense battle from two of the larger wrestlers. There were less pin attempts and more power moves as a result. Therefore it felt like a big-time match with the established star Devil fighting the up and coming Miss A. Miss A/Dynamite Kansai already looks like a star in '90. There's no underdog story here. Its Miss A challenging Devil head on. The middle portion might put some folks off as they settle into some mat work but its purposeful and aggressive enough to keep things going. Again this is more like a heavyweight men's match than a hyper Joshi fight with reversals, roll ups etc. And this is only 15 minutes long, so even if you're not feeling it, the mat work transitions to the exciting conclusion rather quickly. That said, this section didn't bother me in the slightest. I'm just responding to criticism that I have read. I thought it was a good way to bring the match pace & energy down a little bit in order to have the end ramp up into something truly exciting. Works for me! Its on the JWP Best Match - Single matches compilation for a reason. 12/7/90: Plum Mariko & Cuty Suzuki vs. Mayumi Ozaki & Rumi Kazama Had trouble finding this but its on the JWP Best Of Tag Matches 1990 tape and you should be able to watch it searching for that tape title. Anyhow, this was a great match on its way to being a near classic. They never got into top gear but everything looked great. Constant action, always going for an reversal or an escape of some sort. I don't get hung up on joshi mat work as any more than a way to slow things down while putting a hurt on your opponent. Same thing goes here. Plum's different leg lock moves were awesome so I'm not going to complain that they didn't end the match. For a 13 minute match this was a blast! 12/24/90: Rumi Kazama vs. Mayumi Ozaki Great match that I haven't seen any praise for. Ozaki is already a bad ass and Rumi is definitely more than just Kandori's lackey. I just thought that JWP is like an alternative to AJW. It doesn't seem as polished as AJW but makes up for it in grit and hate. That's what makes JWP great in 1990 really. It all feels like a honest athletic competition. This match is a great example of that but also goes into high gear with great action and moves in the end. Really glad I went out of my way to watch this. Overall, this has been a fantastic project. Part of that feeling is not having super high expectations. In actually only the Kandori vs Harley match had a real must-see vibe. I think it lived up to that as it is so intense and unique. But I really took a liking to JWP's stuff in 1990. I'm always skimming the cream off the top because I have a bunch of other stuff to watch but this stuff made want to search out stuff not talked about or, if talked about, it wasn't recommended. Even those matches I enjoyed to different degrees. I think in some part this just seemed very Indie Japanese wrestling. Everyone was busting their asses to put on entertaining matches. What many lacked in technique, experience or pizzazz, they made up for in heart & fight. As I said in a few reviews, matches felt like competition with wrestlers always trying for a quick pin or for a chance to get another stomp in. It reminded me of my fondness for W*ING, IWA Japan, WAR, Michinoku Pro and FMW from the 90's. I definitely put JWP 1990 in that category of excellence now. I'm going to go onto 1991 next! Thanks to Jetlag for paving the way and thank you to the folks who have posted these matches online. As always- Thanks for reading!

Joshi January continues! This little post started out about Momoe Nakanishi and me reviewing a DVD I got 6 years ago. Anyway I was watched a couple matches and realized that the real hero was Kaoru Ito. Well shoot, I'm down with that. She's a great wrestler that unfortunately doesn't get the love because she was pushed at the tail end of AJW after many of the stars left. But Ito made the absolute best of it and had some fantastic battles. Here's just a sample from 2000 & 2001. Kaoru Ito vs. Manami Toyota (AJW 09/17/00): A great title fight for sure. There's plenty of crazy moves and action going on. Ito uses her double stomp quite a bit at the end but any criticism is unwarranted as its a strike move like a lariat or elbow. Toyota is an absolute punishment sponge and if you think it's going to take 1 or 2 stomps to win then, you're mistaken. So the folks complaining in the comments on the YouTube page... c'mon. What's a more fair criticism is that they did kind of stick to working around the one corner for the final part of the match. Kinda like if you get stuck in a corner playing a wrestling video game. That said they really made the very best of this almost like the final portion of a ladder match. But that's me just going after the haters. Personally I thought it was a great match. Ito's move set is comparable to Kyoko which meshes well with Toyota. What I like about Ito is that she isn't trying to out work or keep up with Toyota. She's probably Toyota's last great rival in AJW. Momoe Nakanishi & Nanae Takahashi & Kaoru Ito vs. Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita & Kumiko Maekawa (AJW 12/9/00 - Cage Match): An absolute war from beginning to end. Ito was an absolute beast in this match. And not in an unbelievable way either. LCO and Maekawa beat the snot out of in the late stages of the match but her powerful style along with her size advantage kept hope alive. I'm not a giant cage match fan but having to have everyone out of the cage to win is so much more exciting and dramatic than having only one member needing to escape. I'm not going to go into much more but this is exactly what I had hoped for and more. If you know a little bit of Ito's history then there's a moment that pushes this into the stratosphere. All time classic cage match. ----- Momoe Nakanishi & Nanae Takahashi & Kaoru Ito & Tomoko Watanabe vs. Manami Toyota & Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita & Kumiko Maekawa - (AJW 2/28/01 - Elimination Match): 30 minutes of mayhem! There was so much action going on that it was difficult to tell what was happening. This was especially true early on before any eliminations happened. But let's say this, being eliminated meant something different for Toyota's heel team. Or that's how they understood it This was a classic match but with an asterisk. The footnote is that recommendation or rating is based on the brutality, creativity and execution of the match. This was not as deep of a match story wise and I wouldn't say that they built the drama to the fullest potential with the eliminations. But this match lived up to my expectations in terms of the wrestling/fighting. ----- Yumiko Hotta & Manami Toyota & Mima Shimoda vs. Kaoru Ito & Tomoko Watanabe & Momoe Nakanishi (AJW 04/01/01): Similar full tilt madness like the above match but with Korakuen Hall as their playground. So we get some really creative spots as a result. What also was pretty great is the each teams' seconds got in the fighting. Maekawa was especially involved. I think I would have preferred her to Hotta as a participant but I think they are building Hotta vs Ito up down the road. Hotta just doesn't seem to have the stamina she used to. This was not an elimination match so everyone was working 27 minutes solid. So I can understand her not having as much juice by the final portion (...actually only Momoe seemed to have a lot gas left in the tank). So having her play role towards the end of the match didn't seem as impact ful as one of the main heels. But that's my only nitpick.In some ways the actual action was better than the elimination match above. I don't want to sound like a broken record but I thought this was another classic. It was not a retread of the elimination match and if you're into the brawling chaos then I think you need to see this just as much as the others. Oddly enough this wasn't on my Momoe DVD but is online. Momoe Nakanishi vs Kaoru Ito (AJW 07/08/01): Absolutely fantastic match and finish. I think what made this something special is that they stuck to selling the same story the whole match. There wasn't any time where Momoe powered up, blew off all of punishment and did 3-5 explosive moves. In fact, Ito beat her from pillar to post. Momoe was lucky to get one bit of offense in. And not in the way that Ito just hogged the match. No Momoe would get countered, blocked or overpowered. In a really subtle way, she often couldn't get to where she needed to be in time because of her severely weakened/damaged state. This was exceptionally well paced and thought out. A classic match in my book. ----- This was an absolute joy to watch and feel a little dumb sitting on these for so long. I made the time and am glad I did. Now you might be a little skeptical of my high ratings and I don't blame you. I could be wrong but this looks to be one of the last if not the last great programs for AJW (I think Momoe vs Maekawa folds into this and sets the stage for later Ito vs Momoe and the last couple Ito vs Toyota in 2002). I may think better of these matches as I'm partial to latter day ECW & FMW and some folks don't care for the style. But if you've got similar tastes then you should absolutely check these out. I think most are available online if DVDs aren't your thing Awesome stuff!

I remember being really stoked when Ayako Hamada, Awesome Kong and Cheerleader Melissa joined TNA for a brief time. Women's wrestling was actually the best stuff they had at that time. Hamada seemed to be a big deal to me as I was really getting into Joshi at the time and seeing a legit Joshi wrestler every week was pretty cool. Her and Cheerleader Melissa had an awesome match..maybe a hardcore match or something. Anyway, I never really got too see too much of her stuff in Japan. There's a couple below that are re-watches from maybe 10 years ago. Most are brand new to me. Let's get started! Ayako Hamada & AKINO vs. Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda (ARSION 12/11/1999): I really don't want to analyze what made it so special to me but it was so just damn intense and engaging. I'll do my usual qualifying statement that I was brought up an ECW and FMW and that's not everyone's cup of tea. Mita and Shimoda are in full hardcore wrestling mode here. They are some of the best at the style. This is another feather in their caps. This I think puts AKINO & Hamada on the map in my estimate. A brutal emotional all time classic. Ayako Hamada vs. Mariko Yoshida (ARSION 4/21/2001) - Very good stuff here. I really enjoyed Mariko stretching Ayako in the beginning. It seems that Yoshida or maybe Arsion here is more traditional Joshi instead of the grappling focused stuff it was 1998-99. I'm OK with that. If anything it shows Mariko's versatility. Hamada is excellent here in terms of her execution. I'm not 100% on how she sold Yoshida's Koji Clutch finisher after she was released. Although she looked positively out of it while locked in it. So I give her a B+. I think the structure was a bit weak and that's what held the bout back from being a great one. Nevertheless, it was very entertaining. Mima Shimoda/Etsuko Mita vs. Ayako Hamada/Mika Akino (AKINO) (Twinstar of Arsion Tag Title, 6/9/01): Very good match but weirdly booked as the baby faces wrestled sorta as heels but the heels LCO were put into a sympathetic position, getting jacked up and bleeding for a good portion of the fight. Of course they make a comeback but why does anyone want to see a heel team make a gutsy comeback. Its the reverse of the 1999 classic. It's not as awesome in part because of this but also its kinda a small crowd. What doesn't suck is the actual wrestling. That stuff is fantastic and that still makes this a really good match. Mita piledrives Hamada through a table! ----- Ayako Hamada vs. Michiko Ohmukai (Queen of Arsion Title, 7/3/01 Tokyo): Very good match. Lots of really cool submission moves and double blood. It felt like it lacked a distinction structure or direction. Or you know if they would have kicked it up a notch it might not have seemed that way. It lacked a distinct final third where they went for the absolute kill. I'd say low end very good like maybe ***1/2. ----- Ayako Hamada vs. Emi Motokawa (7/21/01): I actually liked this match as a whole better than the above bout. It was more basic but I also feel the Emi is more fundamentally sound than Michiko Ohmukai. Emi reminded me of someone trained in AJW, if that makes sense. A very good match, under 13 minutes but it was pretty enjoyable stuff from bell to bell. A great counterpoint to the above match...shorter but always moving, always fighting. No blood but no need to do that sometimes. Ayako Hamada vs. Mikiko Futagami (GAMI) (Queen of Arsion Title, 7/29/01): Some of the shenanigans at the beginning were in character for the GAMI persona (I got that from reading Jetlag's Match Discussion post here on PWO). The part where she used the title belt and hit Hamada and did a pile driver on it seemed silly. I mean I guess the ref doesn't mind the weapon use but he won't count Hamada as down for a 10 count either. I've seen this before but don't care for it. Slows the match down to a halt. Here its the only real drawback to the match. Everything afterwards is really good stuff. There's a couple flubs but they actually work in the context of the match. They aren't so totally blown that you feel sorry for the wrestlers, you know what I mean? They are just flubs, they recover instantly and move forward (wisely not trying the exact same move immediately after). If the crowd was vocal (and its a bigger crowd), I don't think any of this would have been noticeable. It's your stereotypical quiet Japanese crowd though. I've said too much and you're not going to watch this because who doesn't want to only watch flawless matches? Well screw that, this is a lot of fun and a very good match. Nothing wrong with a couple bumps in the road. ----- We are going to skip ahead in time a fair bit. Let's take a look at some of her matches in Shimmer. Giant thanks to Shimmer for posting these. I'll share them here. Sara Del Rey & Madison Eagles & Daizee Haze & Nakagawa vs. Serena Deeb & Cheerleader Melissa & Ayako Hamada & Ayumi Kurihara (SHIMMER 09/12/10): This was a really fun 8 woman tag match with everyone being showcased. I thought Sara Del Rey and Hamada looked the strongest in charisma, execution and intensity. Sara Del Rey & Madison Eagles vs. Ayumi Kurihara & Ayako Hamada (SHIMMER 43 10/02/11): Well we can call this a rematch sort of. That's the story I am going with Dave Prazak lays it all out for us. This is for the tag belts too. And you know what, this was awesome! All kinds of action from bell to bell. Again Del Ray and Hamada are best but Eagles and Kurihara are great teammates. Really good heel/baby face dynamic but never too much b.s. from the heel team. It's definitely a blast to watch. Exciting finish too! Kana vs. Ayako Hamada (SHIMMER 50 10/27/12): Very good hard hitting match. It's not more than an exhibition style match but they really lay into each other like you'd see in Japan. Very nice counters by both women. I really thought it ended a couple minutes sooner than it should have. It seemed to only be getting into real high gear. So again, exhibition match but absolutely worth your time. In fact, you might like it more than me. This was a really fun project that exposed me to more Arsion as well as Shimmer. The '99 tag is probably the best match I've watched in awhile and is clearly a must see for Joshi fans. It's online for you to view - thank you! The Shimmer matches are right there so you gotta watch at least one. I liked the tag best but you might want to see Kana/Asuka and Hamada beat the crap out of each other. You'll be glad you did. Again this was a lot of fun. I watched way more than originally intended but am very happy to be watching Joshi again. Thanks!

It has been quite some time since I watched 1980's AJW. After getting a taste of a few of the classic matches of the 90's from a couple Best of the 1990's compilations, I was bit by the Joshi bug. I wanted to see what all of talk was about with Crush Gals. I have always been partial to wrestling from the 80's and I wondered some 14 years ago if it was as good as the stuff from the 90's.Well hells yeah it is! Just as wrestling changed for men's wrestling so did women's wrestling 90's. So as long as you know that then, you'll have a blast. Well, for as much as I loved it I got knocked out of its orbit. I was pretty much getting DVDs exclusively 6-7 years ago and didn't want to get burned with getting a defective DVD or 3 again. So anyhow, I have been meaning to watch some of the matches below for a long time and thank goodness people have posted them online. Perhaps its because AJW is defunct but there's a lot out there! (duh grandpa)... Anyways let's get started! Crush Gals vs. Devil Masami & Jaguar Yokota (09/04/84): A frenetic match with a frenetic camera. Maybe that's just how they shot TV AJW at the time. It was a little hard to follow but this was fun. I wonder if this is one of the classic matches of the 80's. I can't agree with that. They just did everything so fast and with little rhyme or reason and they never had any downtime to let anything have much meaning. Crush Gals vs. Devil Masami & Jaguar Yokota (09/26/84): Now this is more like it! Camera work is still not my favorite but its nowhere as crazy. That aside, this is a great match. I definitely think that the 2/3 falls format helps tremendously. They can go full speed ahead and it works. What's cool here is that each fall seems to be equal in length. Most times fall #2 is super quick and almost a formality. So this is a fireworks match that could just as easily taken place in 1994 or even 2004...they were so ahead of their time in terms of speed, athleticism and moves. I can still say they did rush through things a bit more than I would have liked. I would have liked some hot tags and those things. This was just a pedal to the metal fireworks extravaganza. Dump Matsumoto & Bull Nakano vs Crush Gals (Tag League The Best '85 Final 10/10/85): Great wrestling as theatre match. It's chaotic from the moment Dump and her crew make their entrance. Chigusa and Asuka are assaulted by all of the crew (who are all wearing masks and matching black outfits). Eventually they get things a little settled and Dump herself makes herself known and the match can start in earnest. 2/3 falls format makes this even better as each fall functions as a chapter in a larger story. Now this isn't a great "moves match" or even a great brawl but the hate and determination really is off the charts. A very very simple match but a great one. Crush Gals vs. Jumping Bomb Angels (09/14/1987): Wow! This was a classic fireworks extravaganza match. Bell to bell action that was perfectly executed. I'm not sure if there was a larger story or what but, the Angels really showed that they were on the Gals level here. There are little touches that you'd see in a slower fights like Asuka re-trying pins right after a kick-out. Unlike the Devil/Jaguar match (09/14), I felt they allowed moves time to sink in and allowed drama to build with their respective Ricky Mortons in danger (Tateno and Chigusa). The girls with pompoms chanting all match was electrifying as well. I'm sure this is one of the best pure work rate matches of 1987. Crush Gals vs. Jumping Bomb Angels (05/15/1988): Yeah there's a camera man that loves doing a super quick close up to where its fucking blurry and then immediately doing a fast zoom out that is fucking giving me a headache. It like a little kid with a camcorder. I bet he thinks he's avant garde but its annoying. People want to watch the match on TV not feel like they are in a carnival fun house. That's probably the producer/director telling them to do that. Once that scrap stops, I can actually pay attention to what's going on. And this is a good match. It's not as good as the above bout but it has its moments. I think they lose track of the legal participants towards the end and the one woman has one shoulder up facing the camera on the pinfall. I dislike that more than the legality stuff. So many refs don't even see the shoulders and start slapping the canvas because it is close enough. These are the same people who don't count even when someone's shoulders are down while locked in a hold!? Similarly, the person applying the hold also must keep their shoulders off the mat for a 3 count as well. I'm ranting...Joe Higuchi was one of the best at understanding the importance of these things. So this was kinda sloppy from the crew and not really the wrestlers. It was good and full of action but held back by these distractions. Liones Asuka & Chigusa Nagayo vs Bull Nakano & Delta Dawn (04/1989): Delta Dawn did not wrestle in the match. She basically just carried a giant boa constrictor around. That's ok because Bull wrestled both Gals along with an assortment of weapons and a crony referee. That referee actually got the shit kicked out of him by the Crush Gals and they eventually got disqualified. That didn't stop the mayhem. By the way the ref no sold head kicks and chair shots like Ultimate Warrior. This was all kinds of fun! Lioness Asuka & Chigusa Nagayo vs Akira Hokuto & Suzuka Minami (04/27/89): I rarely spoil a finish but I am going to. I'll say this was a pretty good match all in all.** spoiler alert** I think the structure of the third fall was a little bland as it featured dueling sleeper holds/chin locks. I think all 4 wrestlers applied the move as well as had it applied to them. It starts to pick back up like they are working towards a big finish especially when Lioness hits Hokuto in the face with a couple kicks then tags Chigusa back in and finishes it with a really crappy northern lariat. Joshi lariats are never really awesome as at very best they are like a good clothesline. Well this is not that good, it's anemic as if Chigusa was like I'm supposed to win, I wanna go home, this will do. I think a bulldog would have been cool instead. What was interesting is that this is close to Chigusa's compulsory retirement from AJW and she seems in a foul mood. The school girls are chanting like her & Asuka are baby faces but she's seems like she is not happy and is going to take it out on The Marine Wolves...especially in fall #2. This doesn't look like part of the story as like the third fall finish and maybe the whole sleeper hold stuff, she was just over it. Like "we're doing sleeper holds until I say we're not, got it?" Lioness spices it up with sick Dragon sleepers at least. Chigusa is like "we're going to get the school girls freaking out with the least amount of work...do some suplexes, and then I'll figure out a finish." I had high hopes for this as its something I wanted to see for probably more than 10 years now but it didn't live up to the hype. I can't end it like that though... Crush Gals vs Akira Hokuto & Devil Masami (GAEA 05/14/2000): Gaea 5th anniversary main event. Nostalgia? Yes, I'll take it. This was a great match even without it though. Devil & Akira are cheating heels, this is 2000's Joshi so from its pretty close to 80's Joshi...weapons are pretty much allowed in moderation As an ECW fan at heart, I can never say no to a couple chair shots thrown in for good measure. Crush Gals are bleeding but they won't go down without a fight. Tons of great moves, very chaotic in a good way... tons of charisma as well. I really liked this and am happy to end this on a more positive note. This started out as a 3-4 match quickie project but I kept finding stuff that looked interesting. That really says something about how great the Crush Gals were. They excelled in a variety of styles with a variety of opponents. And I only touched upon them as a tag team. They were fantastic singles wrestlers as well but that's for another post. Everything above is available online so if something strikes your fancy, do yourself a favor and check it out! This was a super fun project. Glad to revisit 80's AJW & I hope do it again soon. Thanks for reading!

I was psyched to find this inter-promotional JWP show online. It's from right around the era I want re-explore. Having watched a ton of full Joshi shows, I skipped the following: Kumiko Maekawa & Rie Tamada vs. Fusayo Nochi & Hiromi Yagi, Command Bolshoi vs. Bolshoi Kid, and Cutie Suzuki vs Takako Inoue. Chigusa Nagayo vs. Mayumi Ozaki - Well, that was a war! I wasn't quite sure what to expect but the hate in this match was off the charts. It wasn't the quick burst of hate type match but more of a smoldering hate. Shit talking on the mic, stare downs, nasty looks and gestures and of course blood and kicks to the face. It wasn't pretty. It wasn't a fast paced match but I thought that it was wonderfully laid out. The match was almost a series of escalating encounters of violence. I could see some fans of more modern wrestling not liking this. In my book though this was a classic. Very distinct and memorable for sure. Kyoko Inoue vs. Candy Okutsu- From what I could tell, Candy was going to face a mystery opponent. Well here comes Kyoko! This was my favorite version of her - pulling out creative submissions, limited but energetic bursts of offense and using her strength/size while still being vulnerable. Candy I'm not too familiar with but I'm sure I've seen her before. She was really exciting here and I could draw comparisons to AJW stars, I think she's really her own wrestler. She reminds me of Mariko Yoshida at this time though. You can tell she's physically proficient, and can wrestle however she likes (at least in this match). Really cool near fall from Candy as well. All that said this was a great match. Bull Nakano & Devil Masami vs. Hikari Fukuoka & Sakie Hasegawa - Good match. I think it was a little bloated in the middle but overall it was enjoyable. I think if they could have stayed more focused after they went into the crowd (for some reason), this would have been very good stuff. The last third was pretty fun with lots of neat double team moves and that's what really saves it from just being an OK match. I don't think the outcome was in doubt so I question the booking a little bit though. Aja Kong vs. Dynamite Kansai - I've seen this rated as just an OK match. I disagree. I think it is great! It's at a pace that really requires patience with the story they are telling. It was different from what I've seen them in AJW and if you're going in with expectations based on that, I could see one's disappointment. When Kansai makes her move and shifts the direction of the match, it happens at just the right time. Had they waited one more move or done it in a less memorable way, I don't think the first part of the bout would have been worthwhile. You could just say 'well they were killing time.' Instead we get an awesome moment where Dynamite Kansai just pops Aja Kong right in the face and derails the momentum she had worked so hard to build up. Everything really just came together and happened at just the right time. The pacing reminds me of a Dory Funk Jr. match to be honest. If you're patient and stay invested in what they're doing then you'll be rewarded. I might even call this a near classic...or even classic in terms of timing and pacing. This show was a excellent example of the classic 90's Joshi period but with a twist. I'm not sure if it's a stylistic difference but these matches especially Chigusa vs Ozaki and Aja vs Kansai were more reminiscent of the slower early 80's AJW style. They focused much more on atmosphere and wrestling holds than speed and athleticism (think about AJPW 70s & 80's vs 90's style for instance). I enjoyed this quite a bit and plan to watch more JWP as a result. This is easy to find and totally recommend watching a couple matches if you're so inclined. Thanks for reading!

I've got a few New Years Resolutions and watching more Joshi is one of them. It's been a while so doing a spotlight on one of my faves Mariko Yoshida seems like a great way to get back into this style. As always, I'm cherry picking but here I'm omitting her stuff from 98-99 Arsion on purpose. I think I should do a separate post on that. Enjoy! Kyoko Inoue/Takako Inoue/Mariko Yoshida vs. Cynthia Moreno/Etsuko Mita/Mima Shimoda (AJW - 08/15/92) Great 6 woman tag match! Intensely fought from start to finish. Everyone was doing something at any point of the match. It get like each team truly wanted to score the victory. This is probably a better example of Shimoda and Mita performance than Yoshida but it is a really exciting start to this post. Kyoko Inoue vs. Mariko Yoshida (AJW 08/30/92) - This was an OK match. If you really like 10 minutes of half crabs, this is your match! Seriously, it was getting close to a SKIP but I fast forwarded to shorten the time killing half crabbing after watching 7-8 minutes. And the last 5 minutes are super exciting. Those final minutes totally save this but 5 minutes in a 15 minute match can't diminish the first 10 minutes of boredom...and I like "work a hold" wrestling. That is not Kyoko's strong suit. Mariko Yoshida vs. Manami Toyota (AJW 08/30/92) - Same night as above, not a typo. Lord reegrus! That was an awesome match! A classic and a great example of the high level that Yoshida was working at early on. Excellent work on offense and consistent selling of her arm pain. That and she very nearly matched Toyota's athleticism. She was less reckless with her body (good or bad). Yoshida was much better on the mat though and the holds were much more interesting and engaging than what Kyoko did. Toyota's work here was also pretty strong. Here in August 1992 these two were peers in my view. Yoshida very definitely is in the same class as Toyota, Inoue, Yamada, etc. at this time. I really strongly feel if injury did not sideline her, she would have moved her way up with them. What is bothersome is that she was kept down in the bookings after her return. I understand the company & the show must go on but it seems like AJW thought she would just get injured again. Perhaps that's true but also why she changed her style. Yumiko Hotta vs. Mariko Yoshida (AJW October 9, 1994) - A very good, almost great match. I would say most of that quality comes from Yoshida's gutsy performance. She utilized her aerial skills but her submission skills and toughness are what kept her in the fight with the brutal Yumiko Hotta. She did not back down and in fact opted to use strikes of her own against the hard hitting Hotta. Of course Yoshida got a bloody mouth for her trouble. Yumiko Hotta & Kaoru Ito vs Manami Toyota & Mariko Yoshida (AJW 06/18/97) - A very good tag match. It was rough around the edges but it was acceptable since it was so brutal at times. Double foot stomps to the spine & Toyota trying to stomp Hotta's head like a giant grape are two memorable instances. Yoshida & Toyota brought the more interesting offensive maneuvers where Hotta and Ito's attacks were of the cringe inducing variety. They were just so stiff. Toyota had a taped cut that got reopened but I'd think she had some far worse internal damage. I'm not aware of a story they were trying to tell here but it was really enjoyable and the Toyota & Yoshida team was most interesting. Lioness Asuka vs Mariko Yoshida (Arsion 07/03/01) - This was a great fight that meshed grappling, brawling and big moves into one. I honestly would have liked to see more matwork early on but what was done was good. I got the point across that Asuka hadn't lost her wrestling skills with age or in her brawling/hardcore style change. They put the hurting on each other in this one. Hard fought and at 14 minutes+ and it could have gone on a few more and I'd have been quite happy. Our Hero Lioness = Bad Ass Check out Asuka's arm on the right ----- Manami Toyota vs Mariko Yoshida (Arsion 11/25/01) - This is a match that they could have done in AJW years earlier had the split not happened. In a way it wasn't too dissimilar than their match in 1992 at least in terms of parity. Sure Mariko was the submission queen at this point but Toyota wrestled this no different than she normally does. Maybe that's what hold this back from being great. She never really truly sells the damage that Mariko should be inflicting on her. Toyota wanted to get her shit in whereas Yoshida wanted to create some tension. Toyota just popping up afterwards doesn't totally ruin anything as she had been doing that for at least 6 years at this point. It would have helped make this a great big time match rather than just a very good one. I think this was a excellent way to get back into Joshi. It's been quite a long while since I've watched anything. That surprises me since I preferred it to men's wrestling for years but frankly there were some let downs in 1996 AJW that kinda soured me on it. I definitely will be watching more stuff prior to then- Late 80's-94 . I know I am missing out on some really good stuff especially JWP. I think I want to revisit Mariko Yoshida 98-99 also. It's been quite a long time.. I do have some 2000's stuff in mind to watch too so, it should be fun! Everything here is online and easy to watch except the Lioness fight. I have that on a DVD compilation. I highly recommend the 6 woman tag (its in the full 08/15/92 show), the Toyota fight from '92, the 1994 tag and the Lioness fight if you can find it. Those are all absolutely worth your time. Thanks for reading and happy 2023!

I'm going to organize this years matches by what's 2010's AJPW and what's not. Sorry for some inconsistency with the labeling of dates & promotions. I hope this helps folks find cool stuff to watch as well as stir up a little interest in going back and reading old blog posts. Its my version of Match of the Year and other year end award type stuff. Let's do the superlatives first. Best Surprise I think something I would say to start with would be the high quality of wrestling AJPW was putting out in 2011-2014. I obviously have some knowledge of this at the start of the year but I bought most of these DVDs on a hunch a few years back (probably longer if being honest). So I have been pleasantly surprised that I trusted my gut. It's been like the Full Impact Pro stuff from last year. So in a similar situation, I've been surprised in the quality of Zero One and BJW. Again, not much of a positive consensus was given at the time or thereabouts on this stuff. If anything, the impression I got was purchase at your own risk. I touched on this in my previous post, the bounty of material online and the ease of access to that has given my a taste of these promotions and I like it! With many of my projects, I try to find the stuff that I think is most interesting and disregard the rest. Saves me time and hopefully saves you the trouble. More Zero One and BJW for 2023. Best surprise is probably how much I enjoyed the Eddie and Steven Regal WCW TV matches. I don't look back upon Nitro fondly and with good reason but man there was some awesome stuff before the suits took all of their time away. Dean Malenko's the best at these 5-10 minute matches. His stuff with Regal and Guerrero were the best. I'd soured on Dean but these TV bouts were his specialty. Best Feud The Zero One vs NOAH stuff was really cool and had a very 2001 in-transition magic to it. I've watched MLW from around this time and it feels like this... Kinda like "What If this promotion, which was closer to latter day ECW, took off instead of ROH?" Even the 2003_stuff including the Differ Cup stuff feels very unlike NOAH in a very good way. So it wasn't the best feud exactly but an overlooked one in comparison to NOAH vs NJPW from '02-03. I think it has way more character than the NJ one. Burning vs AJPW was pretty darn great especially in tag settings. The best was Burning vs Masa Funaki's Stack of Arms stable...specifically Aoki & Kotaro Suzuki vs Kanemoto & Minoru Tanaka. In honesty it felt like the only true feud night in & night out. Underrated Wrestler Naohiro Hoshikawa was simply awesome during the NOAH vs Zero One stuff. Never heard much about him but, he was a real stand out. Takashi Sasaki is another guy I never heard much about other than in name really. Man he's one of my favorite death match wrestlers now. He blends the wrestling and hardcore wrestling near perfectly. It reminds me of Tajiri in ECW in a way. Most underrated worker for the year is KENSO. Dude was mainly upper mid card but acted like a star and the fans responded in kind. When he was given a chance to shine he took the opportunity. KAI vs KENSO 2013 Champ Carnival is a very good example. Best Tag Team I love tag wrestling. AJPW had top shelf stuff. The 2003 Differ Cup and assorted other tags were the real high points of 2022. This is an easy one though. I gotta go with Atsushi Aoki (RIP) and Kotaro Suzuki. Their stuff in 2013 is some of the best stuff of the year. Even their stuff in 2012 NOAH was very good. I do have to give props to Junior Stars (Koji Kanemoto & Minoru Tanaka) as they were equally responsible for the awesome feud and boosting my interest in the team. A great later one to watch in 2013 is their 10/27 match vs Keisuke Ishii & Shigehiro Irie. Best Wrestler If we're looking at volume of excellent matches, Jun Akiyama, Go Shiozaki and Suwama are all very solid candidates for best wrestler of the year. Joe Doering is another very good candidate. His stuff in 2014 as champ is absolutely amazing especially his bout vs Shiozaki (more on that later). Doering before then doesn't make a big enough impression as a star. He's more like Suwama's big gaijin buddy until later. Suwama is a great ace and the face of of AJPW especially when the NOAH guys invaded in 2013. He has some real classic matches but also disappointed me in smaller bouts and even in some title fights. He reminds me of later Misawa in that regard. Not bad company to be in at but, maybe not for the greatest of reasons. Shiozaki has been the spark of AJPW in 2013 & 2014. He's brought an energy and intensity to every fight - singles, tags, six mans. That said he's one dimensional in that regard. That is how he's booked. We know that he can play plucky from his stuff in 2005, he can do powerhouse and heel stuff from his time in ROH & FIP. Here he's co-ace with Suwama and he does a great job. However every performance is coming from the same place emotionally. Akiyama is different from all of these guys as he's past his prime. He's Tenryu for the 2010's. He's tough, clever and mean. His style really harkens back to an older AJPW style now that his body won't allow him to perform as he once did. This may sound pretty silly but he actually tells stories in his matches. He makes little things matter ever if it just for one match. Like Tenryu or Fujiwara he sells a lot through his facial expressions at this point of his career. Not just selling as in "ow this hurts" but selling the story. He shows his anger, disgust, frustration. I think he's always done this but was maybe overlooked because of the types of matches he was able to do at the time. But I still wouldn't say he's the Best Wrestler for 2022. Akiyama is 2010's Tenryu and in that regard he's not really an underdog. He's still a big deal and the only BIG name in late 2013-14 All Japan. Takao Omori is my wrestler of the year. He wrestles/performs his story. That is to say, he's the heart & soul of All Japan. He wants to be there and in some ways I feel his goal was to always come back after the NOAH split and his time in Zero One. So when Akiyama, Kanemaru want to come back to AJPW and bring their NOAH pals, he doesn't want them there. He wants to be an AJPW wrestler and didn't come back for the money or notoriety or was forced to come there. But not just that, he does everything that Akiyama does. He along with Jun are bringing the old AJPW to the 2010's. You can see and feel it in how the matches are paced and structured. Akiyama will bring this most of the time but sometimes relies on routine, Omori always tries to work this older, richer style. A fantastic example is his 2013 Champion Carnival match against Shiozaki (04/25/13) or Jun Akiyama vs. Takao Omori (Vacant Triple Crown Title - 06/15/14). All in all, I want to give Takao Omori the credit he is due. For his consistency, quality, stylistic choices, and storytelling he is the Best Wrestler. Now onto the big list of matches... 2010's AJPW (and related matches) Honorable Mention: Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Hiroshi Yamato (06/02/2013) Near Classic Matches: Jun Akiyama, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Kotaro Suzuki vs Takao Omori, Manabu Soya & Kaz Hayashi (02/10/13) Jun Akiyama vs KAI (04/29/13) Suwama & SUSHI vs Go Shiozaki & Kotaro Suzuki (07/21/13) Kensuke Sasaki, Jun Akiyama & Go Shiozaki vs Suwama, Takao Omori & Kento Miyahara (08/31/13 Diamond Ring) Joe Doering & Suwama vs. Jun Akiyama & Takao Omori (AJPW - 02/08/14) Classic Matches: Sanada/Soya vs Yuji Okabayashi and Daisuke Sekimoto (03/21/11) Koji Kanemoto & Minoru Tanaka (c) vs Kotaro Suzuki & Atsushi Aoki (03/17/13) Suwama vs Go Shiozaki (04/18/13) Koji Kanemoto & Minoru Tanaka vs Kotaro Suzuki & Atsushi Aoki (04/25/13) Minoru Tanaka, Koji Kanemoto & Hiroshi Yamato vs Atsushi Aoki, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Kotaro Suzuki (04/29/13) Jun Akiyama and Go Shiozaki vs. Joe Doering and Suwama (06/02/2013) Akiyama & Shiozaki vs Omori & Suwama (2/3 falls 07/28/13) Go Shiozaki & Jun Akiyama vs. Suwama & Takao Omori (08/17/13) Go Shiozaki vs Suwama (Triple Crown, 08/25/13) Jun Akiyama & Takao Omori vs. Go Shiozaki & Kento Miyahara (10/27/13) Jun Akiyama vs. Takao Omori (Vacant Triple Crown Title - 06/15/14) Joe Doering (c) vs. Go Shiozaki (10/29/14 -Triple Crown Title) Burning Wild vs Xceed (11/29/14) Doering/Shingo vs Hino/Miyahara (12/04/14 Fortune Dream) Everything Else Honorable Mention: Bruiser Brody vs Jumbo Tsuruta (10/14/83) Dory Funk Jr. vs Stan Hansen (AJPW 11/28/83) Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Genichiro Tenryu (NJPW 09/26/1993) Lord Steven Regal vs Dean Malenko (WCW 08/19/96) Naomichi Marufuji vs. Naohiro Hoshikawa (ZERO1 03/02/2001) Shinya Hashimoto & Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs Daisuke Ikeda & Takashi Sugiura (ZERO1 09/15/2001) Ikuto Hidaka & Masao Orihara vs. Tatsuhito Takaiwa & Yoshihito Sasaki (Differ Cup 2003) Kotaro Suzuki, Yoshinari Ogawa & Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Atsushi Aoki, Bryan Danielson & Doug Williams (NOAH 10/25/08) Aoki & Suzuki vs Marvin & Super Crazy - (NOAH 07/22/12) Near Classic Matches: Eddie Guerrero vs. Chris Jericho (WCW Fall Brawl 09/14/97) Kentaro Shiga & Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Naohiro Hoshikawa & Tatsuhito Takaiwa (ZERO1 09/15/2001) Mitsuharu Misawa & Masahiro Chono vs Kenta Kobashi & Akira Taue (01/10/03 NOAH) Madoka & Kengo Mashimo vs Katsumasa Inoue & Daisuke Sekimoto (BJW 03/14/07) Classic Matches: Baba & Dory Jr. vs Hansen & Brody (AJPW 12/10/83) Eddie Guerrero vs Rey Mysterio (WCW Halloween Havoc, Mask vs Title October 26, 1997) Tatsuhito Takaiwa vs Naomichi Marufuji (NOAH 12/09/01) Jun Akiyama & Akitoshi Saito vs Shinjiro Otani & Masato Tanaka (01/10/03 NOAH) Jushin Liger & Takehiro Murahama vs. Tsubasa & Black Buffalo (02/1/03 Osaka Pro) Samoa Joe vs Homicide (ROH Do Or Die – May 2003) Samoa Joe vs Christopher Daniels (ROH Glory by Honor II - September 2003) Samoa Joe vs AJ Styles (ROH War of the Wire - November 2003) Samoa Joe vs Christopher Daniels vs AJ Styles (TNA Against All Odds 2006) Takashi Sasaki vs Yuko Miyamoto - Scaffold and Light tube (BJW 03/14/07) Takashi Sasaki vs Ryuji Ito: 300 light tube death match (BJW 07/08/07) Masato Tanaka v Togi Makabe (Zero One 08/03/08) Shiozaki, Suzuki & Aoki vs Otani, Hidaka & Hashimoto - (NOAH 05/09/12) All Time Classic Matches: AJ Styles vs Bryan Danielson (ROH Main Event Spectacles 2003) Well there it is...AJ vs Danielson. Thanks folks, see ya in 2023! ...just kidding. So the best match watched in 2022 was AJ vs Danielson at ROH Main Event Spectacles 2003. That's a known classic that lives up to the hype. That's awesome but I'm flipping the script and picking something different A couple others come to mind from AJPW 2013: Koji Kanemoto & Minoru Tanaka (c) vs Kotaro Suzuki & Atsushi Aoki (03/17/13) Suwama vs Go Shiozaki (04/18/13) Akiyama & Shiozaki vs Omori & Suwama (2/3 falls 07/28/13) Some from the Everything Else category that really stuck with me this year are: Samoa Joe vs Homicide (ROH Do Or Die – May 2003) Masato Tanaka v Togi Makabe (Zero One 08/03/08) There might be some others that I raved about in my blog at the time so by all means believe those words. However scanning over both lists these ones really, really stuck out in my mind. The first Jr. tag match is on there because its the first in their series and just knocked my socks off. Suwama vs Shiozaki is the because it's their first meeting, there's so much tension and hype but it lives up to it sets the stage for ace vs conquering ace. Its a Champion Carnival match on the first night so both guys are fresh and ready to go. The 2/3 falls tag is there because it is a stipulation you just don't see anymore but was a staple of AJPW tags going back to the 70's. That was a conscious choice to use it here in order to help revive/restore a truer All Japan style (they use it in a Shiozaki vs Suwama match I didn't see as well). We see that in how this match is worked as well. Its my quintessential Burning vs All Japan heavyweight tag. Joe vs Homicide is here because I'd didn't really see this get talked about other than Mcxal's awesome complete ROH blog. He and I match up with our views/ratings and he wasn't wrong. I didn't go one about this on my Joe post but it was because I couldn't not do it justice but, "Intense violent title fight" really is true. Tanaka vs Makabe falls into that category as well. It just did everything right for me. I said back in February, "more Southern brawl (with heel cheating) than a late 00's puro match. It had a couple hardcore spots but in the ways of later ECW/FMW plus it was intense and hard hitting as you wanted for 2008." All that aside, my pick for the best match watched in 2022 is Joe Doering vs Go Shiozaki (10/29/14 -Triple Crown Title). As much as people had said Doering was channeling Stan Hansen, Shiozaki was channeling Misawa. If this period is about restoring the true classic AJPW style then I think they nailed it here. "It never felt like they were killing time or working a sequence. Because just when you thought they were going to do something expected, they did something else. Expect the unexpected is a phrase I kept in mind early on and it stayed relevant throughout. Don't anticipate some slick or cute match. Its nasty and a little rough around the edges at times but man! That's part of what makes it worth your time. A classic match and a fight worthy of the Triple Crown title." So there you have it! Another year gone...Holy Cow! I feel like I watched a ton of wrestling this year by the looks of this list. Again, I hope this helps you out and if you're new around here, go check out my posts from 2022. And please join me in 2023! Thanks for reading! It really means a lot to me and thanks to anyone who left me comments. I've got some good stuff planned for the new year. Take care everyone

Hi folks! Going through my notes and reviews while working on my year end Best Match Watched stuff and found a bunch of AJPW stuff that I never posted. Very interesting stuff. I'd normally do pictures but I think I used some of them from my last wrestling art show thing. Giant Baba vs Stan Hansen (09/08/83): PWF Title match. For a Baba match, this was pretty good. He and Hansen work well together and work with Baby's limitations. Baba also pushed himself a bit. Perhaps I have seen this before but many Baba singles matches can feel the same. Bruiser Brody vs Jumbo Tsuruta (10/14/83): International title fight. Brody surprisingly wrestled a technical match by targeting Jumbo's injured arm. We get blood from both guys and this is really good stuff. The finish or end part of the match is fantastic! Tiger Jeet Singh vs Dory Funk Jr. (12/05/83): Very good bout. You know what you're getting here but I think they worked it very well. Started hot then brought things down and closed with a donnybrook. Baba & Dory Jr. vs Hansen & Brody (12/10/83): This is a short match but the whole thing is fought like the last 10 minutes of an epic tag bout. That's to say, this was intense as hell from bell to bell. Terry is yelling at ringside which makes things even more palpable. It was all so great and felt like a fight between foes (as it is). This was classic stuff (along with the post match stuff). Ric Flair vs The Great Kabuki (12/12/83): For the NWA World Title. Started slow with Kabuki dominating but things picked and the fans really got into the possibility of their countryman winning. It's not the greatest thing ever but it was a lot of fun down the stretch. Would have benefited from being quicker in pace I think. The Jumbo vs Brody and the tag match are highly recommended. Damn I want to rewatch these now...