[1992-08-30-AJW-Grand Prix] Manami Toyota vs Mariko Yoshida

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[FLIK]

(JGP 92 Semi Final) Manami Toyota vs Mariko Yoshida

Picture's worth 1000 words and the pouty look on Kyoko's face as she sits on the sidelines doing commentary for this says it all about what she's thinking. Basic speed/flash vs technical battle to start this off which sees Yoshida come out on the winning side as she steals Kyoko's strategy from earlier and works over Toyota's back & legs for a while. As she's want to do on many an ocasion, Toyota says screw that mess and once given the chance turns things into her "style" of match. This would be a really annoying trait to have except that 99% of the time her style of match usually kicks ass so she can get away with it and this was no exception. Yoshida, can more then keep up with her in that department and infact ends up outshining Toyota here and regains controll of the match. Match then becomes a super long stretch of near falls as they bust out every suplex, dive and cradle you can imagine. Big highlight for me was watching them bust out the Malenko/Guerrero roll up spot years before Malenko & Guerrero were doing it. Fans not particularly cheering on either one in this match but they're popping huge for all the big moves making for a great atmosphere. Toyota plays dream crusher tonight and puts away Yoshida to win with a hamerlock german suplex. Post match Yoshida does get a huge amount of cheers from the crowd for her effort while Toyota waste no time on celebrating as she rushes to the back knowing she's going to have to come out again next. Another really good match.

[MJH]

I actually thought the one downside of Yoshida's matches with Toyota and Kyoko on this show was that you could see she wasn't quite on their level. Not far off, but not quite there. I don't really see the point of having one and not the other, but both were good, fun matches. That said, Aja winning the JGP is the important moment (not that it was in much doubt), and the best match on this show by far from my recollection is the Bull vs. LCO tag.

[Loss]

This was good, but definitely not worthy of the praise I've seen from Lorefice. Fairly quiet crowd and a solid match, but nothing worth going out of your way to see. All the two counts at the end are very Savage/Steamboat-esque, but the crowd isn't buying a thing.

[Ditch]

It really helps if you watched Kyoko Inoue vs Yoshida from right before this, because it adds something to Yoshida's competitiveness.

[Tim Evans]

Only thing I remember from this match is Toyota missing a dropkick in the ropes and landing on her neck.

[Zenjo]

Kong vs Yamada which isn't on the set is comfortably the best match from the show.

 

Yoshida did a fair bit of body part work, targetting the leg. It wasn't very good. She kept releasing holds after a few seconds like she was worried the fans would get bored. They'll be interested if the mat work is purposeful. The later stages didn't quite click either with multiple repeated moves. Not a bad match by any means but it wasn't well planned.

[WingedEagle]

Yoshida takes a page out of Toyota's book with a flurry of early dropkicks before working the knee to keep her opponent grounded, and she continues working this smart strategy. As Flik points out, Toyota's not about to sell that the whole way through but her offense is awesome enough to overcome that a lot of the time. She had a *great* kick off of Yoshida into an armbreaker. The bump she took off of the missed dropkick into the ropes was just sick. Yoshida plancha. After Toyota's top rope Asai moonsault and Ocean Suplex are only good for a near fall, Yoshida capitalizes on a missed moonsault with la magistral for a hot near fall. After a strong finishing stretch Toyota finishes with another Ocean Suplex. Too bad I didn't know the backstory about the tournament before watching this but it was still really good. No Joshi on this set has been even remotely disappointing.

 

***3/4

[PeteF3]

The matwork portion didn't do much for me, though I suppose it would have made some more sense with the Inoue match. It was quickly blown off so Toyota could get her stuff in, but just as with the Steiners, when it works, it works. The near-falls and move-trading down the stretch were quite fun, though I agree the crowd seemed oddly muted.

[garretta]

The last part of this was really hot with all the attempted pinfall reversals, and I really liked Yoshida's fighting spirit. She knew she was the underdog, but she never gave up and battled Toyota to the very end. Speaking of which, nice way to pull the JOCS out of your hat, Manami.

 

Yoshida seemed to be bleeding from the mouth after the match, and she sold the back of her neck a lot more intensely than I recall most girls doing after taking the JOCS.

 

That brings me to my pet peeve: I really liked the legwork done by Yoshida early in the bout. The problem is, it led to absolute zip. Manami sold it for about five seconds once or twice, but was doing bridges, cartwheels, and her endless dropkicks as if nothing had ever happened. I know that this is par for the course where she's concerned, but the camera caught her not really selling this time, which made it stand out. A few screams and a face-scrunch or two was all we got. She even barely sold her entire lower body getting whacked into the railing.

 

Did they do matwork early in AJW bouts because they believed that that's what the crowd wanted? If so, they missed the boat, because it makes the first ten minutes of each match seem like a waste of time unless Aja or Bull, who work their own way regardless, are in there. You could literally cut from the hot start to the finishing sequence of an AJW match and not miss a thing of consequence, which is a sad state of affairs when it comes to wrestling.

 

It was nice that Yoshida got the respect of the crowd after the match due to the fight she put up during it. It reminds me of just how different Japanese crowds are from American ones.

[dawho5]

Not a Manami Toyota fan.

I am impressed by her ability, both athletically and executing wresting moves.  Great dropkicks for sure.  And she could run circles around just about anyone in a wrestling ring.  I doubt it will surprise anyone that I'm not a huge fan of a wrestler who constantly has to be sprinting around the ring, even if it is an impressive thing to be able to do.

She sucks the life out of this match for me by blowing off the legwork and going into the "look how impressive I am" offense.  What impresses me is wrestling within the story of a match, not getting your shit in at the expense of it.