Aja Kong

[elliott]

I would really encourage folks check out that Aja Kong & Bull Nakano vs Marine Wolves 10/89 match. Aja in the 80s was always a shock because she was so wildly different from the Aja Kong we're all familiar with. Its late 89, but its the 80s nonetheless and the earliest awesome Aja performance I've seen. Plus its just a straight up awesome match and Bull Nakano is spitting mist which she never shouldve stopped doing. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVFVVbsPmMo

 

[Grimmas]

3 hours ago, elliott said:

I would really encourage folks check out that Aja Kong & Bull Nakano vs Marine Wolves 10/89 match. Aja in the 80s was always a shock because she was so wildly different from the Aja Kong we're all familiar with. Its late 89, but its the 80s nonetheless and the earliest awesome Aja performance I've seen. Plus its just a straight up awesome match and Bull Nakano is spitting mist which she never shouldve stopped doing. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVFVVbsPmMo

 

That one rules so hard, plus another great piece of evidence for the greatness of Hokuto pre 93. The mist is amazing and it's such a classic structure. One of the rare matches that made me try to figure out how gifs worked.

[elliott]

I know Grimmas hasn't gotten there yet so they may not be ready to answer this. But I was wondering. What do people think is Aja's best career rivalry? She's got some great candidates:

vs Bull Nakano 

vs Dynamite Kansai

vs Manami Toyota

vs Meiko Satomura

 

[Grimmas]

5 minutes ago, elliott said:

I know Grimmas hasn't gotten there yet so they may not be ready to answer this. But I was wondering. What do people think is Aja's best career rivalry? She's got some great candidates:

vs Bull Nakano 

vs Dynamite Kansai

vs Manami Toyota

vs Meiko Satomura

 

I've seen one Meiko match and it was a little too much finisher spamming for me, but that's just one match in the series!

If anything is better than the Nakano series, than Kong will be jumping into my top 10.

[soup23]

Tough question Elliott. Right now I’d lean the Bull series but all four are fantastic feuds. 

[elliott]

I'm not sure I would have put it together until typing them out, but Aja's best feuds are all really different from each other. 

vs Nakano is a battle of monsters on the surface but its also an established monster vs the newer younger monster. Aja grows up proving herself against Bull, becomes her peer and eventually claims her spot. 

vs Toyota is a classic bigger heel vs smaller babyface matchup

vs Kansai is two big time heavyweights in their prime throwing bombs at each other to prove who is the real Ace of the women's landscape

vs Meiko is a classic established veteran trying to fend off the hot shot up & comer. 

I have my preference, but I think any of them are viable options and show Aja working a different role or style. I think this is pretty impressive. 

[Boss Rock]

I think I gotta go Bull. Not just the cage match or the cathartic passing of the torch, but those vicious tag matches with a combination of Iwamoto, Kimura, and Inoue.

[ohtani's jacket]

On 5/8/2021 at 3:04 AM, elliott said:

I would really encourage folks check out that Aja Kong & Bull Nakano vs Marine Wolves 10/89 match. Aja in the 80s was always a shock because she was so wildly different from the Aja Kong we're all familiar with. Its late 89, but its the 80s nonetheless and the earliest awesome Aja performance I've seen. Plus its just a straight up awesome match and Bull Nakano is spitting mist which she never shouldve stopped doing. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVFVVbsPmMo

 

Some thoughts:

The crowd was non-existent at this point. Not only were the lights turned off, but there was barely even a smattering of applause. Unfortunately, that made a lot of the gimmickry come across as lame because there was no reaction for it. Those Marine Wolves costumes at the start were embarrassing. I don't know who thought that was cute. The match had a house show fell to it, and the falls weren't very good as a whole, but it was interesting to see a leaner, more mobile Aja working through the exchanges she would have practiced at the dojo a thousand times. Bull didn't really have it all together as a headliner at this point and couldn't carry the bout. Hokuto put in a decent performance. I really hated the hand clapping she tried to start in the third fall, but I imagine working in front of a dead crowd is tough, especially in a rhythm-based style like Joshi pro-wrestling. I was impressed with Minami. She had all the physical tools, and you could tell that Jaguar had a hand in her training because of the force with which she applied her offense. She could have been a bigger star in the mid-90s if she'd had a stronger personality and more charisma. 

[Troyvang]

I've mentioned somewhere else that I am very new to most great wrestling and am really doing this project to actively watch wrestling. Places I am unfamiliar with, people I am unfamiliar with, etc. I'm ashamed to admit that I'm a member of the prowrestlingonly forum and had never watched a full Japanese match!

 

So, Aja is one of the wrestlers that has really opened my eyes and caught my attention in this quest. She's so good, a total badass and can work with a variety of opponents very well. I really like to watch big people wrecking shit (see my avatar) and she's one of the best at doing that. I know I'm not really saying anything new, but she's really effing cool.