PeteF3
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Talk about it here. -
Talk about it here.
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This is definitely up there with any other NJPW/WAR bout you'd care to name--from work, pace, heat, and drama standpoints. Tenryu and Hase absolutely beat the shit out of each other and Fujinami is pretty feisty himself. Meanwhile Ishikawa works most of this like a '70s style babyface until the end, when he's put in the unusual position of savior, as the NJPW team isolates Tenryu and absolutely brutalizes the shit out of him. Tenryu gets leveled with double-teams and most of Hase's big moves and I really thought he was going down. It takes two Ishikawa saves and every effort to neutralize Fujinami for Tenryu to land a power bomb to escape with a win. One of the most breathless finishing stretches of any match this year, right now sitting as a top 10 bout.
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In terms of singles it stayed a theoretical idea unfortunately. Over the year and a half there were many interpromotional shows. After the Tokyo Dome show it just became appearances from a few outside wrestlers rather than whole events. Ultimately AJW had the most booking power and that could be seen in the long run. They didn't necessarily need outside help at the time but rightly saw it as an opportunity to help business. Before 1992 relations with the original JWP were non-existent. When they split into 2 new companies in JWP and LLPW that helped things along too. It's Dreamslam I that was the bigger card and the most talked about show. It was in Yokohama drawing 16,500. Dreamslam II was in Osaka and drew 6,500.
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[1993-04-11-AJW-Dream Slam II] Bull Nakano vs Chigusa Nagayo
PeteF3 replied to PeteF3's topic in April 1993
She would do commentary on the TV shows sometimes. After her comeback she would wrestle a series matches for JWP over the next couple of years before GAEA got up and running. It's amazing how strong most of those matches were considering her inactivity. She was upset at being forced to retire in 1989 when the mandatory retirement age was still in effect. Clearly Chigusa had a lot more to give. -
Definitely up for seeing more of Hokuto vs. Kandori, but the Kandori/Aja dynamic gets a lot of play here as well. Lots of spots of Kandori trying to take Aja down and bouncing off of her like a Nerf ball, lots of intensity when Hokuto's in the ring. Great closing stretch of bombs being unleashed on everybody, even if Sawaii is just along for the ride. Lots of mirror spots from the Dreamslam 1 match as well, climaxing with Hokuto stealing Kandori's Fujiwara armbar the same way Kandori stole Hokuto's finisher the week before. But Kandori counters it and then goes back to Hokuto's arm, bending out of place again while Sawaii holds Aja at bay on the floor. The referee steps in and this time the match is stopped. Hmm...ideal booking would seem to have this match first to set up Dreamslam 1 later, where Hokuto weathers the arm work and comes back for a dramatic victory. Seems kind of backwards, but this does nicely set up at least a theoretical Kandori vs. Aja Kong match, as evidenced by the post-match confrontation, and that's something I can definitely get behind. I would love to know the politics of all these interpromotional matches, with regard to who could job to whom and in what capacity and who got to get "paid back" for who put whom over, not to mention who booked what. It all sounds so complicated that I can scarcely believe these shows ever got put together. The other striking thing is how decisively AJW put over the other, smaller promotions here. Was this a case of AJW struggling and needing the other promotions' support, or AJW somewhat generously figuring that stronger rival promotions would be better for joshi as a whole? Without going through every match, Dreamslam II may be the most significant women's card ever and certainly the highest-drawing at least to that point, but there's no way I could rank it ahead of Dream Rush as far as highest-quality cards ever go, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't put it ahead of 6/5/89 or possibly the 4/18/91 Budokan show either. Dream Rush beat this as far as in-ring action and despite the presence of four different promotions coming together, still felt like it had greater historical impact with Bull passing the torch to Aja. That said, DSII is a hell of a show with some pretty great wrestling and booking, and I can't see anything else touching this for Best Major Card when I get to the '93 year-end awards.
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What was Nagayo doing between the Crush Gals and this show, anyway? Or until the formation of GAEA? I do admire the booking of this show for laying out so many disparate styles, especially for a big joshi show where one of my criticisms is that the styles and matches tend to run together. This is a hard-hitting slugfest between two old rivals, with some crowd brawling and some intense submission work before we start hitting the near-falls. I don't know what Nagayo's status was but for a legend-returns-to-the-ring match this was pretty awesome, and she didn't look to have lost a step. Nagayo gets a nice comeback after kicking out of the Guillotine Legdrop, before Bull shrugs it off to put her away.
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The only other Bolshoi I've seen is a submission match with Plum that's worked like joshi UWFI, so I confess between that and this that I still don't quite know her deal. That match was worked completely straight and here we get a comedy opening that's out of a Brazos match. It is amusing shtick and probably fits in well with the overall card, and Kid brings the goods when it comes to offense and bumping and selling later in the match, being the real workhorse of her team. That being said, there were long stretches of this that were loose and cooperative-looking as hell, and other than the dive train, Plum's cool takedown and leg submissions, and the JWP team doing a bunch of top rope double stomps in a row, very little of this stood out. Almost totally heatless, to boot. Kyoko pretty convincingly kills Bolshoi dead to end a disappointing match. Grover talked about this whole card aging surprisingly poorly--I don't know if that's the case, as the main event sure didn't seem to, but this would be a match to point to to support that assertion.
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This had a slow beginning and Team FMW simply wasn't very interesting, and outside of her big fat plancha Toyoda still isn't. Other than that she contributes very little to this. I should be a fan of a team slowing the pace of a joshi match down, as they did here, but it didn't really work. This turns into a good to very good match, but it strikes me as a Toyota/Yamada carryjob--it's amazing how Toyota has been carrying herself as a grizzled veteran in these bouts, having a real knack for timing and building up to the big spots. The whole layout really seems to be dictated by the AJW team. On top of that Toyota decides she's going to murder herself getting the FMW ladies over, most notably including a HOLY SHIT backflip off a Combat lariat. Just an array of one sick bump after the other before she starts her comeback, leading to a fun stretch run with Kudo finally deciding to pull her weight. We get an incredibly clever finish--Combat saves Kudo from one Japanese ocean cyclone suplex, so Yamada stands in front when Toyota goes for a second attempt and then ducks away when Combat tries for a second save, suckering her into clobbering her partner. Toyota then hits the JOCS cleanly for the win. Even in a match with probably one too many miscommunication spots down the stretch, that stood out. The result of this, despite the loss, was sort of a coming-out party for the FMW ladies. But it came off more like a selfless performance from the AJW team to get them over, rather than Combat & Kudo doing a ton to get themselves over. This was a good match but an overall fantastic performance from Toyota & Yamada, saving this from a dull start.
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