[1994-12-10-AJW-Tag League The Best] Aja Kong & Reggie Bennett vs Kyoko Inoue & Sakie Hasegawa / Manami Toyota & Takako Inoue vs Aja Kong & Reggie Bennett / Manami Toyota & Takako Inoue vs Kyoko Inoue & Sakie Hasegawa

[PeteF3]

Last few minutes of some decent action as Hasegawa gets in a bunch of hope spots but is ultimately put down by Aja.

 

Next match is all about the monsters guzzling Toyota & Inoue, and it's pretty effective as instead of Toyota flying all over the place she does what she does better than anyone, which is get twisted into knots. Aja & Bennett dominate the entire match but Toyota gets in her Victory Star Drop on Aja for a shock pinfall. Out-of-nowhere, but that move is treated as a killer so I can buy it.

 

So evidently this is a round-robin or gauntlet or something, because back come Hasegawa & the Other Inoue. Last match starts off slow then turns into a sprint towards the end. Not a psychological masterpiece--I didn't like Toyota's JOCS getting basically blown off the first time she does it--but they do hit all their spots and this doesn't drift too far into excess. Toyota scores both pins and it looks like her WWWA title push is underway.

[Zenjo]

Reading this thread has made me realised how self-centred I've been whilst watching wrestling events from decades ago. Nay have I spared a passing thought for Mr. Takahashi in the 6th row and whether he made it aboard the last train to Chiba. The next time I'm enjoying a long main event I'll consider the very real human cost that may have been exacted.

 

As an overall show this worked well. The last 5 matches all followed on from each other and rolled into one. The 6 wrestlers involved here all competed 3 times, which is a credit to their conditioning. Aja had deceptively good stamina. It was a credit to Reginald that she managed to last the course, particularly as the giants team didn't have any break. From an individual match quality point of view then it's far from an ideal format. The three matches here were all decent enough, but nothing standout as tiredness became a factor. The booking was rampant ToyotaMania, which was annoying. The Golden Girl pinned Bennett, Kong and Kyoko in the same night. Takako won the tournament as well.