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Aja was my first favorite joshi wrestler, on the basis of seeing 1 whole joshi match for my first few years of smarkdom. Since I've been watching Yearbooks, Dynamite Kansai has passed her from a match quality and personal enjoyment standpoint. I like Aja quite a bit still, but her flaws are more apparent. I *don't* have a flaw with her emoting or lack thereof. The Japanese women tend to wear their emotions on their sleeve in contrast to the stoicism of their male counterparts, so when you have one exception like Aja who DOESN'T emote that much, she stands out that much more.

The Honaga matches are also the farthest thing from "back and forth." The matches revolve around Liger brutally tearing Honaga apart and Norio trying to keep his head above water, before fluking and/or cheating his way to victory. They were basically extended squashes with swerve finishes. The acclaimed Liger/Sammy match is also full of Aggressive Liger against a sneaky heel opponent.

In fairness, when Lawler played hide-the-object it was generally with an honest-to-God chain. Not saying he never used a phantom object, but more often than not he was showing some real skilled sleight of hand and I don't say that facetiously.

I'm willing to give this guy an honest chance when I get to '96 in my viewing, but as of now I doubt I'd put him in a Top 500, much less 100.

Zbyszko vs. Saito from the interpromotional Tokyo Dome show is another good one, and another different style of match--Larry working a Japanese-style quasi-epic.

For the record, if you right-click this page and hit "View Source," elliott's post shows up with the proper paragraph breaks.

Or Sandman.

The Weekly Pro Wrestling Tokyo Dome show was the biggest wrestling event of 1995, the most historic, and the Observer readers' choice for Card of the Year. So I figure it should be looked at. I didn't want to watch the whole card but enough matches look interesting and/or have a rep that I'm going to come close... The opening ceremony is pretty comical, with the cheesy glittering curtain and electric organ music. This is a 64,000-seat domed arena and it comes off like a local TV quiz show or Rotary Club banquet. Dynamite Kansai, Candy Okutsu, Hikari Fukuoka, & Fusayo Nochi vs. Devil Masami, Cutie Suzuki, Mayumi Ozaki, & Hiromi Yagi (JWP) Reviewing this matches may prove a little difficult, since by necessity they're sort of "out of context" and presented for outsiders rather than playing into ongoing storylines. So I hope I have something to offer besides "the usual fall-out-of-bed good match." But that's what this is. Good action showcasing all eight ladies with a neat finish. Kansai stood out as the match's best worker, as you'd expect, and Oz was disappointingly absent, or at least didn't really stand out. No one else did, though they all worked hard. Aja Kong & Kyoko Inoue vs. Manami Toyota & Blizzard Yuki (AJW) Manami brings the WWWA belt with her, presumably just to troll Kong. That adds a personal bent to this right off the bat, as Kong & Inoue go to town and Toyota & Yuki can do underneath sympathy selling, lending a storyline to this that the good but exhibition-y opening 8-woman tag lacked. This is an absolutely terrific match, blowing the Double Inoue March tag out of the water. Everyone is all-out here in an effort to steal the show, but at the same time the match never becomes bloated or spot-heavy. The undercurrent of Toyota & Yuki working as underdogs having to fight and claw their way to having an advantage stays strong throughout. Terrific near-falls down the stretch and some terrific spots as well. Kong absolutely kills Toyota with one of the greatest Urakens ever. Yuki saves her once but Kong quickly puts Manami down for good afterward. This is a top-10 MOTYC at this point. ALIEN DEATH MATCH - Ryuma Go vs. Uchu Maijin Silver X (Go Gundan) Hilariously, Lou Thesz is brought out to make a speech right before this. As showmen and card planners go, the editors at Weekly Pro sound like fine magazine writers. I don't know what these guys did to earn a spot on this show, but I feel like I have to watch this one time before I die. The four aliens (very slowly) come out to "Mars--The Bringer of War," which is certainly a kickass entrance theme, and two of them are dressed in red longjohns and overalls--like the alien rednecks visiting Fyffe, Alabama that Bill Hicks spoke of. The other two are dressed like imitators of Jason the Terrible, or Lord Humongous, or the Gaspars. They do lots of spooky alien stuff like drop-downs and clean breaks and clubbering and trying to keep their hockey masks on. The sarcastic "whoooooa, OH!" crowd reactions are in full force here. This feels like it should be something out of DDT or Survival Tobita's promotion, years earlier, but aside from the liberal alien interference this is wrestled perfectly "straight," and badly at that. I don't have the slightest clue what to make of this, but considering its rep and its writeup in Foley's first book I'm not totally sorry I watched it. Cactus Jack & The Headhunters vs. Terry Funk, Leatherface, & Shoji Nakamaki (IWA) This of course starts with all 6 guys on the entrance stage, with the ring announcer not having been clued in that he was supposed to do a countdown for the guys to race for the barbed wire baseball bats. A visibly annoyed Cactus eventually takes off on his own and then the countdown starts. Most of the highlights of this come from the Headhunters flying all over the place with their big fat lucha offense, mostly directed towards abusing poor Nakamaki. At one point Shoji is sandwiched between two barbed wire beds and moonsaulted by a Headhunter. This gets better as it goes, as Leatherface, having walked out early in the match, makes a pivotal save with his trusty chainsaw and Funk and Cactus throw some awesome punches at each other on the floor. Cactus and the Headhunters pull off a Steiner Bulldog to the floor, followed by a big fat Leatherface plancha and Funk moonsault. This goes off the rails slightly when Cactus tries and fails to light one of the barbed wire beds on fire, but they recover nicely. Nakamaki eventually steals a win by rolling up a Headhunter, which isn't a finish you'd expect but plays nicely into the story of Nakamaki being their personal whipping boy. There are better, tighter death matches but this was fun. The Great Sasuke, SATO, & Shiryu vs. Super Delfin, Gran Naniwa, & TAKA Michinoku (Michinoku Pro) I hate to keep using "fall out of bed good," but that's what this is. You get the familiar arm-pumping comedy spots, and the double surfboard to triple surfboard to triple pin attempt spot, and the dive trains. What jumps out in this match in particular is the star-making performance from TAKA. He fits into this seamlessly, throwing some vicious strikes and of course wowing everybody with his spaceman planchas and springboard dropkicks. Nobuhiko Takada, Masahito Kakihara, & Billy Scott vs. Gary Albright, Gene Lydick, & Kazuo Yamazaki (UWFI) UWFI can't have run many 6-mans in its history. This has the most heat of anything on the show that I've watched, and it starts from the beginning with Yamazaki desperately trying to get at Takada before the bell has even sounded. It's a good, heated match that follows but doesn't quite fulfill the promise that it had at the beginning. When Yamazaki and Takada finally hook up, it doesn't quite live up to the hype. The Takada/Albright match-up goes much better, as does Albright murdering Scott. In the end, six guys is just too many for a UWFI match--with no saving or double-teams or anything, guys were getting lost in the shuffle. Stan Hansen, Mitsuharu Misawa, & Kenta Kobashi vs. Toshiaki Kawada, Akira Taue, & Johnny Ace (AJPW) So the story is that AJPW really wasn't enthused with this whole project. They were isolationist to begin with, and they were smack in the middle of their Champions Carnival with guys having a bunch of hard-hitting (and long) singles matches. They were planning to just send some undercarders, but with fan backlash and New Japan trotting out a main event with its two hottest singles stars, they changed course, provided an all-star 6-man tag, and from what I understand stole the show, or at least stole the thunder from NJPW. Ace is a substitute for Dr. Death, who was going through his drug/arrest troubles and was out of wrestling entirely, putting an end to a great 18-month run. This is something past "fall out of bed" good. This is one of the better AJPW matches of the year and probably the best 6-man we'll see. It's the best performance I remember seeing out of Johnny Ace. It's one of the best Kobashi-in-peril performances you'll see. It even advances the Taue/Misawa CC rivalry as Taue has Misawa on the ropes down the stretch. It has a fresh dynamic with Hansen in a white-knight role, working the hot tag and doing double-teams with Misawa. It absolutely flies by--I wasn't even considering that this might be a draw until the "5 minutes left" time call came. I could have watched these 6 guys go for another 30, easily, and my patience with hour draws was wearing thin. Ultimately this probably wasn't truly consequential enough to be a major MOTYC, but it's certainly in the top 10 right now and could easily finish in the top 15-20. Shinya Hashimoto vs. Masahiro Chono (NJPW) Few guys have undergone a more beneficial transformation during this time period than Chono. Only Doc's transition from tag wrestler to singles star compares, but Chono's career was in worse shape than Doc's. This starts off great, with Hash psychotically kicking Chono to death in the corner and abusing Tiger Hattori in the process, with Chono having to fight back just as hard. But then this just dies, with a lot of meandering and punch-kickery. Chono is charismatic in this role but this really feels like a WWF or AAA-style New Japan match. Lots of playing to the crowd between moves clubbering, and Hash does an unconvincing Hulk-Up routine. The crowd seems really restless, too. Hiro Saito's interference isn't appreciated, either. This has the attempt of an intense no-frills war, but it comes off about 1/3 as convincing as a Hash/Tenryu match would be in this setting. This isn't a BAD match, but it seems these guys expected to just walk in and have a really good match, instead of doing anything particularly special as befitting either this setting or this feud. It's just another routine Hash title defense with a routine layout and routine finish. Reaction to this match was negative enough--to say nothing of the the realization that AJPW had outclassed them in their own backyard--that NJPW basically pulled their support for this show as soon as it was over. So no home video release, no sequels (even though Mutoh was supposedly willing to put Misawa over in a singles dream match had they run this again in '96), or anything else. Too bad, because this show ultimately did live up to its hype, providing a little something for every wrestling fan without overstaying its welcome the way Big Egg did.

Masahiro Chono, Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Hiro Saito, & Sabu vs. Shinya Hashimoto, Riki Choshu, Hiroshi Hase, & Junji Hirata, NJPW 3/13/95 Not much to say about this one, but it's an impressive 2/3 fall sprint in a match built for sprints. This gets a little TOO clusterfuck-y at the end, with Sabu doing more long furniture-arranging, but for whatever reason I'm surprised at how good he was in this setting overall.

Meandering and not altogether compelling brawl. Raven and Dreamer were more energetic. Fucked-up finish too, with Cactus getting an anticlimactic victory. He gets caned afterward, with Sandman pouring lighter fluid on him, and Funk attacks him with the flaming branding iron again!

Wait, Woman's with Douglas now? Joey, as the voice of ECW, would you care to explain any of this to new viewers? No? You're just going to sit there silently with your thumb your kiester while the camera focuses in on Woman? Okay then, whatever floats your boat. Woman ends up turning on Douglas and whacks him in the knee with the Singapore cane as he's got a crossface chickenwing locked in, and Douglas falls back and gets his shoulders counted to the mat for 3. Sandman is the new ECW World Champion, as they vainly attempt to get this obvious, I-saw-it-coming-and-didn't-even-know-she-fake-turned swerve over as the shock of the century. Like anyone would be dumb enough to trust Woman or Sandman after the fake blinding. I guess for all the blather, ECW's respect for its audience's intelligence wasn't really any higher than the Big Two's. Douglas puts on a Monday Night Raw t-shirt and promises to go somewhere he can wrestle.

"I DEFY ANY OTHER PROMOTION ON THE FACE OF THIS PLANET TO LET TWO ATHLETES OF THIS CALIBER GO AT IT FOR A MAJOR TITLE." Oh, shut the fuck up, Styles. This gets good once Eddy injures his knee and Deano zeros in on it. But fairly or not, the early parity-building stuff is SO cookie-cutter and generic and indy-tastic now that it's impossible to get into. Throw Malenko in the mix, who struggled to get people to emotionally invest in any match of his (how appropriate that the most he was ever over was because he was off-camera for months while Jericho cut promos on him week after week), and the problem is exacerbated. I admire the effort of what they and Heyman were doing here, but admiring and loving are two different things.

Decent enough garbage brawl. Dreamer has an apparent pin on Raven but Richards breaks it up. Dreamer levels Richards with a DDT in a cool reversal spot, then the referee. Then he piledrives Beulah--not only is that intensely uncomfortable to watch days after the Ray Rice story exploded again, it's kind of dumb booking to pay off Dreamer's revenge on Beulah a full two weeks after her debut.

Stevie does all the talking, and explains that Beulah in summer camp was a 300-pound dermatologist's dream, who was treated like garbage by Dreamer but with respect by Raven.

Fantastic match with the ring getting destroyed. Kansai and Oz pick up where they left off when we last saw them, and it's nice to see Nagayo actually over for a change. Never seen Super Heel before and it's a blatant Undertaker ripoff (even though I think the gimmick pre-dated him by years), complete with zombie sit-ups. But it's well-done, it's a change of pace from the normally super-emotive Devil, and in a genre of wrestling where everyone seems to wear their emotions on their sleeve, the stereotypical Japanese super-stoicism feels fresh. Nagayo does the job on opening night, which is a surprise, and the finish is another kind of cheap ending after such a brutal, epic war. So this and the JWP streetfight have the same tiny flaw, but right now these are the top two matches of the year.

Finally another fun TV match from WCW. Bagwell takes an awesome-looking chokeslam from Vader, and Patriot and Vader looks like a good match-up stylistically--Patriot's another guy who can believably toss Vader around. I would have preferred a cleaner finish for the heels but the finish that they do is executed well.

Jimmy Hart has two papers that he tries to pass off as "faxes from all over the world." Hogan actually cuts a decent promo outlining his case. Again we get magical instant translation voiceover elves even though this is supposedly a live cut-in.

"Phoning it in" has never been so apt a term. Kimberly is in, practically in disguise, and quickly leaves a gift when she sees the camera.

DDP has broken the house in a Vegas casino and won $13 million, proven by a photograph in an envelope with ridiculously oversized writing on it.

Yeah, "SOMEONE PLEASE CALL 911" over the PA would never work today. Good action with a terrific angle, as Snow fulfills his earlier promise to take Morton out.

Sort of SMW-by-numbers, but the use of spraypaint was fresh and new here, at least. Tracy has words for the "California trash" and promises the South will rise again. How inspiring.

What an awesome crowd. We don't get the full match, but we get a large chunk of it, with an awesome shine sequence, and a good heel control segment, too. Al is a great southern stooge but like a not-quite-as-good Candido he has an array of more modern spots that he can bring to the table, that add to the match without calling attention to themselves. Springboarding off the chair to hit Morton, the standing moonsault, etc. Chaotic finish with Morton reaching the glove but inadvertently knocking Snow on top of a prone Gibson to net the Dynamic Duo the tag titles. One of the better SMW matches you'll see.

Good action that we see, and a good finish with Rich getting involved just enough to make a difference, but not running roughshod over the guys in the ring. Rich ends up bloodying Dundee after the match, and naturally that leads to a First-Blood Match for next Monday. After the studio brawl, Dundee says he wants Rich in a loser-leaves-town cage match.

Sort of indie-riffic here. Kanemoto pops up from a superplex like a proto-Davey Richards douche and gets leveled from behind by a flying Ohtani dropkick in the funniest spot of the match. The action is good and well-executed, but aside from the Ohtani/Kanemoto hate there's not a lot at stake or a lot of psychology here.

Well. No telegraphing of a draw here. This is pretty balls-out all the way. I wouldn't quite call it an all-time great match for psychology--the work over Kobashi's knee is pretty awesome, but doesn't really go anywhere and isn't really sold at all in the latter half of the match. But as a 30-minute sprint it's fun to watch while also being truly impressive in how well they were executing their shit down the stretch. Really good contrast to the solid but dry Misawa/Taue draw.