ohtani's jacket

I just watched Toyota's final AJW match the other day. It's not that good, but when she walked off I couldn't help but think that woman did her thing and left her mark. All those girls started off as kids, a lot of them never made it, and a lot of them never made it that far, but you can't deny that Toyota was one of the biggest stars to ever grace an AJW ring. I hate all that pillar symbolism shit, but she was one of the pillars of the the last era of AJW and the last one to leave. I don't expect her to be popular among voters, but I hope folks don't make her a scapegoat for whatever flaws they think Joshi has. For every criticism you can make of Toyota, the rest of them do it too. I have never seen a Joshi wrestler, even the ones with strong reps, that don't drop their selling or blow spots. Toyota may be more guilty of it than most, but what that tells me is that there is something intrinsic in the style that causes this happen. A bit like there is something intrinsic in lucha that causes it to seem muddled and confusing at times. The question then becomes is this something we should simply accept (i.e. it's the nature of the style), or is it a flaw in the style that the workers are responsible for. I have always leaned toward the former. If you start leaning toward the latter then I think you need to blame the workers who lay the foundation like Akagi and Yokota, and I don't see anyone doing that.

Can someone recommend a half dozen or so Martel matches?

I watched a couple of her matches from 1997. They were decent, but I don't think they help her case. Her work doesn't completely fall off a cliff, but she reaches a point where she's not having great matches anymore. Others may see it differently, but to me great matches, or great performances at the minimum, are the burden of expectation that Hokuto carries. Hokuto set the bar extremely high; to the point she was on par with contemporaries like Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi, etc. You won't watch those wrestlers hoping to see something decent. You expect greatness from those wrestlers, and personally I put the same expectations on Hokuto, which is a sign of respect as much as a fan expectation. I wouldn't recommend her later stuff (outside of the Satomura match) unless you're into completionism and want to see a wrestler at all stages of their career. I'm not sure why there was a decline. I suppose it's pointless to speculate. I feel as though if she had come back as a part time freelancer/attraction that she could have had more memorable programs, but I did like her tag work in GAEA at times and that Showa era faction she was part of was fun. I kind of wish promotions had used her the way they used Aja. Another possibility is that the character was tired. She'd said all she had to say and the character reached a fitting end when injuries robbed her of her greatest aspiration and forced her to semi-retire. That was a fitting, tragic end to her character's story arc. Of course, wrestling isn't like written literature and we shouldn't expect storybook endings, but the Dangerous Queen character in these GAEA matches isn't as engaging.

Completely agree about her being one of the greatest babyfaces of all-time.

Yes, several times. It's an emotional match and one of the better swan songs in wrestling history.

Yes, that's the one.

I really liked Takako's narrative during the inter-promotional era. It was fun to watch her growth during that period. Some of her stuff with Kyoko is good as well, but I didn't see much value in her freelance work and she strikes me as more of a tag wrestler than an all-round great.

I actually wrote it before I saw your reply. I think their peak ran until 2000, btw. The big AJW cage match from that year is one of the best matches of 2000.

I don't believe for a second that Hokuto was one of the best workers in the early during the 80s and early 90s, but Jetlag's recent reviews have left me interested in her GAEA work. I quite liked the little of it I saw from 2000-02. I have to say those squash matches that were posted did little for me.

How much new Cesca footage is there, anyway? I can't remember off the top of my head. Rene Ben Chemoul was hyped as the best ever in the French sources I read. He's clearly not. I would call him the Johnny Saint of catch for as overrated as he is, but Saint had better matches than Ben Chemoul.

LCO had a handful of classic matches but the average LCO match is unbearable. Shimoda was good at what she did, but she wouldn't rank very high on my list of the 100 best Joshi workers let alone the 100 best workers of all-time.

It's hard to judge Cesca without more of his singles stuff available. The footage didn't do any favors for Catanzaro either, IMO, and Ben Chemoul has been a whopping disappointment. I actually think his ITV footage would be the key here -- matches against Breaks, McManus and Faulkner.

I don't know if he is able to do it himself but that's not a reason to ignore his viewpoint.

Parv is great. People just need a thicker skin. They also need to learn how to appreciate opposing viewpoints. You learn more from someone who challenges your ideas than someone who agrees with them. I guess people are pushing for polite discourse, and that's fine, but there are folks reading this thread and posting shit on Twitter. The same thing happened during the last poll. I would love to know the difference between Parv posting in this thread and the reactions on Twitter and wherever else. Perhaps the Twitter folks feel justified, but they're not being very inclusive. It seems like a bunch of posturing to me instead of arguing for what you believe in. As a resident hipster/boomer/gatekeeper, I wonder if people know how to argue for what they believe anymore.

Ikeda falling out of the top 100 would be a disgrace.

You haven't seen his pre-match getups yet. He looks like Rudy Ray Moore.

Indeed.

Steady on young fella! Jaguar was a phenomenal pro-wrestler, who is completely overlooked these days, but she had contemporaries. Not only in Joshi, but look at some of the other talent from that era -- Fujinami, Hara, Marty Jones, Marc Rocco, Fit Finlay, Dynamite Kid, Mile Zrno, Franz van Buyten, Steve Grey, Jim Breaks, Jon Cortez, and God knows how many luchadores. In Jumbo's defense, those were all lighter wrestlers. The primary comparison for Jumbo ought to be heavyweights, and the big tick he gets there is that he had a much bigger arsenal than a lot of his contemporaries because of how many suplexes he was allowed to use. Which is great if you like suplexes, but if you prefer mat wrestling then you're out of luck. I'm an outlier, but at this point I'd rather watch some worked BS MMA match between Inoki and a martial artist than watch Jumbo channel the NWA heavyweight style. But in all honesty, it probably comes down to Jaguar's glare vs. that dumb look of disbelief that Jumbo always has.

SWS was fascinating. The amount of money Tanaka spent was sickening. Most folks' natural reaction is to suspect it was a tax write-off, but whatever it was, it was exorbitant. At first, it seemed like Tanaka wanted to create a rival to the UWF (perhaps when he couldn't buy the existing one), then it morphed into some kind of idea where Japanese wrestling would merge into one entity. From a personal viewpoint, Tanaka giving Fujiwara a loan was one of the reasons why UWF split up, which pisses me off because the UWF was one of my favorite all-time promotions. But, on the other hand, they would have split up anyway, and Tanaka helped bankroll PWFG, which we're forever grateful for. Another rumour I read was that SWS were targeting Fujinami.

This was Manami Toyota's final match in AJW. It's fitting that it was against Ito as she was Toyota's last major rival. It's not the best or most exciting match the two had, but it more less delivered down the stretch. The match layout was a bit funny with Ito dominating the majority of the bout and Toyota trying to work heel against a crowd that was clearly in her corner. Since she was leaving, it might have been better for her to drop the heel façade and embrace the crowd reaction more. Ito had this really ugly colour scheme going on, which I personally found off-putting, and basically large chunks of the match felt awkward until they hit the stretch run. After the match, Toyota cut a promo telling the crowd she was leaving, which was a shock for the folks in attendance. Then she limped to the back in what was an unceremonious end to one of the great AJW careers. I don't know how management or the other wrestlers felt about Toyota leaving, but Ito and Toyota did not acknowledge each other at all after the bout, which I thought was odd. It makes me wonder if the match was off because of conflicting emotions.

I'm glad Satanico is still active. I was kind of bummed to find out about Tenryu's health problems.

It's all hearsay, but Tenryu offered to double Misawa's salary and when Misawa said he was happy with his current situation, Tenryu told him to forget about it because it was discussed over drinks. Another story is that when Baba was willing to work with WAR on the condition that Tenryu apologize on his knees to Misawa and the other wrestlers. Tenryu was willing to do so for Baba but not the others.

In 2006, I voted for Jaguar Yokota. I abstained last time round but it probably would have come down to Satanico, Fujiwara or Jim Breaks. If you asked me today, I would lean towards a more historical candidate like Thesz or Londos. When the results came out last time, I realized I had seen very little older footage so I devoted a lot of time to watching 30s-50s footage. But to move a bunch of those guys onto the list, I'd have to take a bunch of guys off. I like the idea of a list that grows and changes depending on viewing habits. I see it more as a personal statement than a carefully considered, well-reasoned ballot.

To me, a more interesting story is the rumour that Tenryu tried to get Misawa to leave All Japan. Imagine how that would have changed the course of things.

There should be a rule where you vote in reverse, so Bryan is your #100 and Porkchop Cash is your #1. I would freaking love that.