[1991-08-30-JWP] The Scorpion vs Cutie Suzuki

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

The JWP style is a lot more grounded and deliberate than the AJW style at this point. Perhaps that always rings true. I really enjoyed this match. It was built around matwork, kicks and body part-focused attacks. Both of them sold the onslaught well, especially Suzuki, and it built to an exciting conclusion. While I think AJW is peaking higher at this point, this feels way more compelling in a totally different way. There's a charm to this. This will definitely show up on my top 100 for the year.

[Zenjo]

Few lucha moves to start even though the Scorpion is Jpese (Reiko Hoshino). The original JWP was more mat based than AJW. When the interpromotional era started then the new JWP and LLPW were a lot closer to the Go-Go-Go style because it was more popular. This match felt more Junior than Joshi at times. I found the work quite refreshingly different. Cuty always had plenty of charisma and was a master of the bitchy look. She had an continual battle through the years with Ozaki for that title. The kind of match where they could have done it on 20 shows and this would have been the best one. Everything clicked into place and they worked well above their level at the time.

[PeteF3]

Holy shit--it's some joshi girl who showed up on a random World War 3 PPV in the '90s against some other chick in a mask whom I've never heard of, in a promotion that I didn't know was a thing, and it's AWESOME. Suzuki does some awesome work destroying Scorpion's arm and Scorpion provides some awesome jack-of-all-trades offense. She can mat wrestle, she can fly, and she can throw some pretty great suplexes. I'll have to go back and re-examine some of the early-year stuff that's faded from memory but this looks like the joshi MOTY. The matwork came off as important rather than time-filling and moves had consequences. I love this style of joshi so much more than the go-go-go style that it's absurd. Best discovery of the set so far.

[soup23]

I'm with Pete as I thought this was fabulous. The armwork Cutie did on Scorpion was especially painful. I just put this on to curiously watch during the recording a podcast and ended up watching it around 3 times in a row. Really fun stuff and Scorpion seems like she may be a discovery worker.

[ohtani's jacket]

Unfortunately, there's not that much Scorpion on tape and after unmasking she only appears a couple of more times on TV before disappearing.

[garretta]

I'm not really sure what to make out of this one. There was some great limbwork by both ladies, particularly Suzuki, who looked at times like she wanted to take the Scorpion's arm home with her. The finishing sequence with all the attempted falls and reversals was warm, if not hot, and I liked the way Suzuki sold all the blows to the back of her head even after the match was over. Still, I didn't catch much of a buzz from the crowd, and this felt a lot like an exhibition in places until the last few minutes. It was nice to see more than high flying from joshi, though, and there was more of an adult feel to this match than there has been on others I've seen with squealing schoolgirls and the like.

 

I just Googled JWP and found out that they're not going to survive in this form much longer, and that's too bad. I noticed that one of its offshoots is a shoot fight promotion for women, and I'd like to see footage of it to see what a shoot-style bout between two women would be like.

[JKWebb]

The Scorpion shows off her athleticism in the early going, and I like her attack on offense. I thought her submissions looked great, and striking was impactful. The kick to the back of the head of Cuty looked great, and Cuty sold it very well. I like Cuty's attack on the mat following this. Scorpion is very smooth with her movements in the ring. Cuty does some nice work on the arm taking it to the outside. We then get some more athleticism from Scorpion with a great looking splash, and a couple of attacks from the ring to the outside onto Cuty. We get an impressive German suplex on the outside from Scorpion onto Cuty. Eventually, another great looking German suplex followed by a pin gets Scorpion the win. She was really impressive here, and I enjoyed this match a lot.

 

#477 - placetobenation.com/countdown-top-500-matches-of-the-90s-500-451/

[ohtani's jacket]

I hadn't seen Loss' #477 in years so decided to give it a whirl. Great little match. It's Joshi so some of the transitions aren't the greatest but the battle from the mat to the high impact moves is as dogged and hard fought as any match in the 500-451 to date. Cutie was always a fierce competitor and she showed that in spades here, and the Scorpion was a talented "mystery girl" in the same vein that the Tarantula had been in the 80s. Stylistically, this reminded me of what Chigusa, Asuka and Omori were trying to do on the back of the UWF boom in the mid-to-late 80s. They really mixed up shoot style and Joshi puroresu well and had a committed, hard fought bout.

[Jetlag]

Ha, forget about joshi, lucha or shootstyle. This is like one of the finest US style matches of the year. Scorpion had all the spectacular moves, and Cutie was grinding her down with holds and stomps. It might aswell be an Ole Anderson vs. Lightning Kid match, with Ole played by an 80 pound idol girl. Scorpion looks cool as hell mixing up the junior and shootstyle. When Scorpion keeps overwhelming Cutie she switches to working the arm. It's fairly basic stuff and doesn't have any consequence so it feels like high end time killing, but the match was well worked enough. Scorpion totally owns Cutie with her last comeback – normally these JWP matches are pretty 50/50 in the end run, but her Cutie is reduced to two last ditch counter moves, which makes a lot of sense in the context of the match and was probably why she got on the mic afterwards looking upset. Other that, really well worked match with fun stylistic experimentation.

[dawho5]

I really like the JWP style so much more than AJW. Things get time to breathe and there is more room for selling. Really good match and I wish more joshi like this existed than the go-go-go stuff.