[1998-08-02-Jd'] Lioness Asuka vs Kyoko Inoue

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Last few minutes. These two had a series in 1998-1999 that was critically acclaimed but was exactly the type of crap Joshi people have watched and not particularly enjoyed in previous years. I had no use for any of these matches when I watched them and thought it was probably better to spotlight stuff about which people will generally be positive in 2014. This finish is here pretty much only to show that we are aware this feud existed. But Kyoko was past her peak by this time and with very few exceptions, Lioness Asuka seems to have left her ability to work a no-frills, gimmick-free wrestling match in the previous decade.

[Childs]

Thanks for explaining the reasoning, because I felt like this could have been left out. And I don't say that often. Without any context, it just came off as a garbagey ending to a feud I never knew existed.

[soup23]

Yeah this looked pretty lackluster and sad because Lioness and Kyoko are two people I have enjoyed in the past but it really felt like they were trying desperately to hold onto any past glory with the clips here.

[Zenjo]

I used to like this series of matches. They do nothing for me anymore and are quite annoying. If you like the Trashi style of one match then you'll probably enjoy them all. The hour draw might be a stretch, although it was clipped thankfully. I've rewatched the 1998 material in my collection from Jd'. The overall quality is quite reasonable but the promotion wasn't exactly setting the world alight. A couple of matches that I would recommend are:

 

Jaguar Yokota & Yoko Kosugi vs Lioness Aska & The Bloody (Jd 2/2/98)

Yoko Kosugi vs Sumie Sakai (Jd 12/29/98)

[PeteF3]

This is a sort-of dream match between two big names and the result is absolutely awful. Inoue spends the whole match getting quadruple-teamed by Asuka and three goons, thus sparing us the sight of having to sit through an actual wrestling match, because we all know wrestling is out in 1998. Lots of feng shui furniture-arranging in lieu of action, including a top-rope power bomb that involves some of the most bush-league, business-exposing, amateur-hour execution I've ever seen in a joshi match. Inoue gets her ass kicked the entire match that we see and then pins Asuka in one move, and on top of that the finish is blown, too. Maybe the worst joshi segment of any Yearbook.

[Evito-X]

Of the three matches they had in 1998, this one is horrible compared to the other two. Kyoko gives a really bad performance and Lioness doesn't carry as well as she normally does. The finish is atrocious, with those tables spots that took an eternity to set up. They tried to top their previous efforts and this is just a display of how that can go massively wrong.

The first one on 4/26 is good because of Lioness, but Kyoko was really bad in that one also and it's nothing I'd recommend too strongly either.

The 5/6 match in NEO is high quality and really worth a look at. Kyoko pulled out some of her old form, her comebacks weren't as annoying, the big bumps were good and the finish actually made sense, it's one of the better women's matches of the year.