[1994-06-03-AJW-Grand Prix] Yumiko Hotta vs Toshiyo Yamada

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Great, great match. Felt like the Joshi version of a UWFI match. As you'd expect with these two, there is a heavy focus on footwork. Yamada is the aggressor more often than you'd expect, as Hotta was the one being pushed as a killer. Funny moment when the camera zooms in on her motioning for Yamada to kick her again. Interesting in that case that Hotta is calling a match where she is letting Yamada take most of it. It works toward debunking the myth that she's selfish and unprofessional. They also do a great job of building drama, as they tease a KO, with Hotta struggling to get up by the ten count and almost not making it. In another moment, they fight over a superplex for nearly a minute, with lots of ooohs and ahhs from the crowd for each momentum shift. I wish they hadn't done the tiger driver/nearfall stuff at the end, as I liked the kicks/matwork stuff so much better, and I think they did one kickout too many, but those are very minor quibbles. These two are an awesome matchup stylistically, and this would have been a great series. UWFI body with AJPW final stretch would be the best way to describe this.

[FLIK]

These two are an awesome matchup stylistically, and this would have been a great series.

They've had several singles and usually worked well in tags. Their singles stuff is kind of similar to Bull vs Kyoko in that they could have really awesome/great matches or they could have average/disapointing ones. Yamada/Hotta from 5/26/91 is the one most worth tracking down.

[Kevin Ridge]

Lots and lots of kicks here mixed in with submissions. Looks like this will be mostly matt based but towards the ends they starting busting out suplexes and powerbombs which was kind of random as they weren’t really building to that. They should have just stuck to the kicks/submissions as a potential finish since they invested so much time in that doing them.

[Exposer]

The mean spirited kicking was great. I laughed at the camera zooming in on Hotta calling for another kick. The submissions were good too. When they kicked really hard this was good but I was a little bothered by the transition into the big move/near fall stretch. Still really good match though.

[soup23]

This was really good. Yamada has had some struggles stringing together a complete singles match and even though this featured a ton of kicks, they were all brutal and other cool stuff was thrown in to not let the kicks get overblown. Ending stretch run was very well done in my opinion. Hotta is 2 for 2 in stiff matches for the year in my book.

[PeteF3]

I liked the kicking and the more deliberate, matwork-based pace of this, but had trouble getting into it overall. I'm just not a fan of Hotta and I think Yamada is best suited in a tag setting. It also had a fairly tough act to follow, which wasn't helpful.

[Zenjo]

It would've been easy for AJW to overdo a feud like this as there was such a strong dynamic between the two. Two kickers colliding in this time period was usually a success. It had been 3 years since these two had faced off in a televised singles. The two bouts were of a similar overall standard. Hotta taking unprotected kicks to the face and asking for more was a funny moment. She loved to dish out the punishment but had no problems taking a beating in return. As well as the brutal strikes there was a strong stretch with a nicely executed finish. Could've gone a little higher with crisper execution and quicker pacing at certain times.