elliott Posted May 7, 2021 Report Share Posted May 7, 2021 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grimmas Posted May 7, 2021 Author Report Share Posted May 7, 2021 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elliott Posted May 7, 2021 Report Share Posted May 7, 2021 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grimmas Posted May 7, 2021 Author Report Share Posted May 7, 2021 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soup23 Posted May 7, 2021 Report Share Posted May 7, 2021 Tough question Elliott. Right now I’d lean the Bull series but all four are fantastic feuds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elliott Posted May 7, 2021 Report Share Posted May 7, 2021 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boss Rock Posted May 8, 2021 Report Share Posted May 8, 2021 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted May 9, 2021 Report Share Posted May 9, 2021 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Troyvang Posted February 9, 2024 Report Share Posted February 9, 2024 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EnviousStupid Posted June 29 Report Share Posted June 29 I think the biggest struggle I have with her in the context of GWE is how she winds up being typecast for most of her career in a similar way that Vader wound up being. They had their role and worked to that specific ideal, better than maybe any other wrestlers of the like (potentially a curse of being so good that bookers and whoever else don't want to mess around with something that already works great). And yet despite her showing flashes and examples of what she might also have been capable of, I find myself taking them as more of exceptions to the rules they regularly abided by throughout their careers. It's not quite like a Hansen; someone who fits the archetype but was able to emulate a freight train of sorts in one side of the world while taking incredible beatings on the other, or even just embracing new vulnerabilities overtime that distinguishes from their past work. She absolutely belongs in the discourse for all-time greats, especially with how capable she still is, though I hesitate to put her ahead of some contemporaries like Bull, Chigusa, Meiko, etc. Are there many matches people here know of that show Aja in a different light or doing things that she's not particularly known for at large? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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