[1994-03-03-AJW] Manami Toyota & Aja Kong vs Bull Nakano & Kyoko Inoue

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

I am sick of watching 30-minute Manami Toyota tag matches, so I was dreading this, but this was a lot of fun. Bull and Kyoko work really well as a team, and Bull and Aja on opposite sides of any match is always worth watching.

 

Some of the things that are at times grating about Toyota and Kyoko (and even Aja) at times were tempered by Bull's presence. Her offense on Toyota looks brutal, including some nasty looking shots to Toyota's back before she and Kyoko did a doubleteam reverse slingshot suplex, if you can picture that! I wouldn't mind seeing a series of singles matches between Bull and Toyota at some point. What's teased here is like an even better version of Kong vs Toyota. Even Kyoko and Toyota are having a really good night and work the mat more than you'd expect from them. I love Kyoko's inverted surfboard (for lack of a better name for that hold) and her coherence with Bull as as a partner is really fun. Bull has all sorts of tricked out holds to apply to Toyota, and Toyota's shrieking fits the context of the match instead of being annoying because the holds look legitimately painful.

 

I wouldn't say Bull carried the other three, but she did encourage the best in all of them. She's so desperate to stop Kong that she brings nunchucks into the ring. Even when she's selling, Toyota and Kong doing the stereo headbutts to her back is the highlight of their teamwork. 1994 seems to be a great year for her.

[silverwidow]

It's been a good eight years since I've seen this; sadly, the only thing I remember was Toyota's out-of-control screaming. Ha.

 

Looking forward to your review of Aja/Bull vs. Hokuto/Kandori. This is the quintessential AJW story match; the closest approximation to All Japan at its best that you'll find.

[MJH]

An old favourite of mine. It's so... casually excellent, for lack of a better phrase.

[Ditch]

I am sick of watching 30-minute Manami Toyota tag matches, so I was dreading this, but this was a lot of fun. Bull and Kyoko work really well as a team, and Bull and Aja on opposite sides of any match is always worth watching.

I'm with you, though I tend to be of a mind that based on who else is in a match I can be fairly sure how the match will turn out. Even one next-tier-down wrestler (especially in terms of execution) can throw a wrench in the spotfest that these matches usually are. Early '94 Hasegawa should not have been in long tags; ditto early '94 LCO (or any LCO, for my money).

[Childs]

This had a lot of great action featuring two of my favorite joshi workers, Bull and Aja. But it also featured a lot of what I dislike about joshi, with Toyota screaming in pain one second and sprinting across the ring to hit springboard spots the next. The good outweighed the bad in this case.

[ohtani's jacket]

This match had a good dynamic, but it went on for far too long. Stylistically it was the same match that Joshi pro-wrestlers have been having for twenty years now, but it mostly worked well because of Bull and to a lesser extent Aja. Submission work went nowhere, which doesn't bother me so much but added to the length of the match. Didn't have a problem with the spot Childs mentioned, however, as the same thing happens in Southern style tag wrestling after the hot tag and is just a concession you make when watching wrestling. Aja looked small to me in this match or at least she worked small. Not the performance you'd expect from an ace, but then Bull always outshone her in the ring.

[Exposer]

Bull Nakano rules! Her control segment on Toyota was a sight to fucking see. Those holds looked unbearable at times. The nunchucks being used was a creative way to try and dispose of Aja. This was a really good tag with Bull kicking ass on offense and selling her back well even at the finish.

[soup23]

Really good tag team match. I have not watched much Toyota at all in the past 4-5 years so I am not sick of her and have been impressed so far with how much she she has hit of her offense. Bull vs. Aja is always great and has great intensity. I though Kyoko was also really good in the Toyota heat segment being a spunky punk working her over. Real good tag match and I can't wait to see the Queendom tag. This yearbook is making me love Joshi again.

[PeteF3]

Toyota and Kong as partners is an eyebrow-raising event, so this has something positive going for it right from the start. I wasn't as high on this as most of the others but I did love the crazy submissions that Toyota kept getting put in. Kyoko was pretty awesome all-around here, in all facets.

[Zenjo]

Started off well enough for the first quarter. Then the Kyoko FIP segment started to drag. That was immediately followed by a turgid period with Toyota as FIP. Shut up woman. Then when Bull and Aja finally square off it's no time at all before a crab hold is applied. I was so beyond caring by the time the stretch eventually came around. Going nearly half an hour was way to long, especially considering that the semi final had also done do. The first AJW misfire of the Yearbook for me.