Akira Hokuto

[jushin muta liger]

She's been the one Joshi wrestler that I've dived into deep since I started going back and finding as much older Joshi as I can. OJ is the best guy to talk to in terms of promos since he lives in Japan.

 

But from what I've seen of her, she's a heel to the AJW roster when she comes back from Mexico in 92 but stands up for them against the outside women. She beats up Yamada before and after the Finals of the Fuji TV tournament against Aja and Bull but tags with Bull when they go face Combat and Kudo at the FMW show. She's a dick to Mima Shimoda when they win the 3WA tag titles by taking both belts. So it goes like that from what I see.

 

And I haven't seen a match with Kansai either.

[ohtani's jacket]

I think the only match she had with Kansai was the Eight Man Survival Elimination tag from 11/28/93. As far as the blade job goes in the DreamSlam match, the stroy has always been that the ref cut her too deep.

 

As for whether she was a heel, it's complicated. The easy answer is that she was and that in inter-promotional matches she was standing up for her company, but it's not as simple as that. She wasn't a clear cut heel in the way that the Black Pair were, or Monster Ripper, Devil Masami or Dump Matsumoto. Those girls were heels because they cheated and lived to abuse poor helpless girls. Hokuto was a different type of character. She was stubborn, strong willed, bitchy and aggressive, but followed a certain code of ethics and had strong opinions about right and wrong behaviour. She wasn't the first "heel" character to take a more nuanced approach than hair pulling and foreign objects (Bull was arguably the first), but a good way to look at it is either a tweener with an attitude or a heel with a strong sense of morality. During the LLPW/AJW feud, for example, she scolds her kohai, or subordinates, LCO, as much as he lashes out at her LLPW opponents, the same way a sensei would. Heel or face, to me she was Hokuto. She was a force of nature. Her body was basically fucked during her entire run and she was wrestling with her injuries as much as herself, and when she took things out on other people she was often fighting with herself. I'm inclined to sum the whole thing up as she was angry. Every time she was about to get ahead, she'd injure herself. And she never reached the heights she thought she was capable of. It's hard to articulate, but I'm sure you'll appreciate it, Jimmy.

[Jimmy Redman]

Definitely. That pretty much matches up with my impression of her. She's kind of an asshole, but she also has this real, sympathetic streak during matches where you're hoping that she gets through it without dying. You come away impressed with her sheer force of will, more than anything.

 

Her stubbornness bleeds through every single match, whether she's refusing to tag in Kandori for like half an hour, just on principle, or just refusing to stay down when she's being killed. It's a pro wrestling kind of hubris, turned up to 11.

 

I really enjoy wrestlers who seem like...The Other. Who have something about them that makes them stand out, makes them different from everyone else around them. That certain level of transcendence. Hansen, for instance, had that the moment I laid eyes on him. Hokuto has that.

 

There's the question about how long her run is, but to me it's all part of the package. She was a candle burning at both ends. Her peak was incredibly high but incredibly short because you can only tiptoe across that highwire for so long before the inevitable fall. But while she was up there, she was higher than anyone else had ever been.

[Grimmas]

For 2026, this is my starting #1.

I've been going through joshi very thoroughly and I'm at 1992, she's already feels like the greatest wrestler ever and has felt that way since maybe 1989 maybe 1990 at the latest.

She has been in amazing stuff going back to her rookie year in 1986, so this she wasn't great until 93/94 is BS!

What I love about watching her is all of the little things. The way she works submissions, always finding ways to make everything more vicious is a joy to watch. Add that to her making any single piece of offense feel like a finisher. It's really odd seeing her top rope dropkicks look like pure death in a promotion where Manami Toyota is there who is known for her dropkicks.

Her selling is unreal too, some subtle stuff but a very realistic way of selling.

Add the charisma and intensity, it's really hard to match her.

I've seen the main matches from her prime, but it's been awhile, so I'll have a stronger case to come. I've recently seen her 2001 match against Meiko Satomura and that feels like one of the best matches I've ever seen too. 

The case for Hokuto being 92-94 is silly, she's an all time great for a LOT longer and I hope others start to consider her for #1!

[El-P]

I will definitely go back on her case to see the earlier stuff, but I concur, when I was watching 90-91-92, Hokuto already appeared as a legit great worker as part of the Marine Wolves and then when the end of 92 hit with the start of interpromotional stuff , she was on top of the food chain to me along with Nakano. 

[El Dragon]

I’m not ready to go quite as high as Steven is, yet. But Hokuto is jump off the page good to me in 90-91. Outstanding bumper and seller, killer looking offense, very very strong at the in between stuff. She’s not the total character she ends up becoming, but she’s a high point of every match I’ve seen her in. At present, she’s in my top 25, and could see her moving up.

[elliott]

Greatest offensive wrestler ever? Greatest seller? Greatest big match performer? Greatest peak? Greatest character ever? 

Hokuto has to be on the short list for #1. 

[Kadaveri]

Hokuto gets held back a bit by people cherrypicking 4+ Star matches and not getting the wider picture with her. I know we all do that to some extent as there isn't the time to watch everything, but my thoughts on compilations have changed now, they should really aim to give a representative picture of a wrestlers wider body of good work rather than just the greatest matches.

I'd say the great matches she has in the 80s are:

1. Chigusa Nagayo & Yumiko Hotta vs. Hisako Uno (this is Hokuto wrestling under her real name) & Yukari Omori - 10/10/86. To be clear this match is mostly down to Nagayo and Omori, who're both at their peaks here, but Hokuto contributes to the match and is a level or two above Hotta.

2. Hisako Uno & Yumiko Hotta vs. Judy Martin & Leilani Kai - 04/15/87. Unfortunately Hokuto breaks her neck a couple weeks later and is out for a year

3. Akira Hokuto & Suzuka Minami vs. Mitsuko Nishiwaki & Yumiko Hotta - 03/04/89

4. Akira Hokuto vs. Chigusa Nagayo 03/19/89 - This match seriously rules. You know how great Hokuto already is at this point because this is her first ever opportunity in a main event singles match and she knocks it out the park in imo the best Joshi match of 1989.

5. Akira Hokuto & Suzuka Minami vs. Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka - 04/27/89

6. Akira Hokuto & Mitsuko Nishiwaki vs. Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka - 05/06/89

7. Akira Hokuto & Etsuko Mita vs. Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada - 10/08/89 - Some familiar faces to 90s fans here, but Hokuto is way ahead of the rest at this point.

8. Akira Hokuto & Suzuka Minami vs. Aja Kong & Bull Nakano - 10/XX/89

There is also the neck break match on 04/27/87, which obviously is gonna turn off some people but it was looking like a great match up until the botched piledriver, and even then seeing Hokuto give the most astounding display of toughness in wrestling history is quite something.

But this is simply Hokuto's output when she was a midcarder, where 99% of the time it wasn't really her job to have great matches. But watch any match with her in it certainly from 1987 onwards and she's a stand out. An example I'll give now is 03/21/87 tag with Hotta against the Red Typhoons. There's only 10 minutes of the match shown on Classics (pretty sure it's clipped) so it's not great, but Hokuto looks like an absolute badass in it. Already at this point her execution is so on-point she can make almost any move look like a believable finisher.

This is still true about her even in her much-lauded 1993. Here are two matches that you'll probably never see in Western fan's compilation where we're just looking for 4+ Star Matches, but they're a big part of the puzzle of why she was so over:

Akira Hokuto vs. Yasha Kurenai - 06/11/93 - Note this is actually the most viewed Akira Hokuto video on YouTube at 4.3 million, but it's entirely Japanese fans in the comments. I never would have found this had I not thought to search for '北斗晶' instead of 'Akira Hokuto'.

Akira Hokuto vs. Numacchi - 09/05/93

I know it's controversial whether or not we should take promo ability into account and yes I don't speak Japanese so can't truly know for sure but....... Come on. She is so obviously an effective promo here just by watching the crowd react and it's part of her aura. I don't think we can truly separate e.g. Steve Austin from his promos, so I'm gonna make a little effort here to at least get a vague idea of what the non-English speaking wrestlers could do and how they got over.

Hokuto's not a #1 contender for me because, in spite of everything above, she doesn't quite have the longevity to justify it. When I see someone like Daniel Bryan who imo has had a 4.5 Star match every single year from 2001-21 except when out injured in 2016-17, she can't really compete with that. But longevity is certainly not some weakness for her either, she was probably great for longer than half the wrestlers who made the Top 100 last time. I think a flaw in how people visualise these things is they see every worker as having their own individual 'peak', and then confuse how long that was with their longevity as a whole. So for argument's sake (you could dispute the dates but let's just go with it to make my point clear), we can say Hokuto's individual peak was November 1992 - March 1994, i.e. just over a year. Whereas Shinsuke Nakamura's individual peak was 2011-16. So 6 years. So Nakamura has more longevity then?

No he doesn't. Because you're not actually comparing like for like here, because someone can be before/after their individual peak, but still better than another wrestler ever was. That's the messy thinking which I think got Hokuto unfairly marked down last time, her November 1992 - March 1994 (yeah it's one of the best year-or-so runs by any wrestler ever) is so breathtakingly awesome, that the rest of her career gets harshly judged because it's not at that level. A better way to think about these things would be to (I'm coming close to reinventing BIGLAV here I know...) just look at every individual year of a wrestler's career worth judging and then comparing them with another wrestlers best years so the comparison is more meaningful. Another guy who had a similar "case is mostly confined to one year" narrative about him like time was Rick Rude, who ranked #77. Well let's compare Hokuto's best 10 years with Rick Rude's:

#1 Year - Hokuto's 1993 vs. Rude's 1992.

Rude's 1992 is a great year and all, but it's not on the same level. The best match he was in (WarGames) he's not even really a stand out performer in it (I'd say that goes to Dustin and Austin), which is not something you'll ever hear about a great Akira Hokuto match post-1986. The Iron Man match with Ricky Steamboat and the Chono match are really great, compared to the Kandori matches or the 93 Tag League final? Well, you know who I'm going with but at least there's some semblance of a debate there.

#2 Year - Hokuto's 1992 vs. Rude's 1989.

This just got a whole lot more lopsided. Hokuto reinvents herself as the dangerous queen, has a great series with Bull Nakano (I think their cage match is a little overrated, but that's balanced out by their less famous 03/07/92 match being a banger), which I'll include the Fuji TV Cup Final as part of (another great performance from her even if the match isn't amazing great). There's great stuff before that, she starts the year with a really great title match with Kyoko Inoue on January 4th where, amongst other things, she counters an Irish Whip into the turnbuckle by doing a somersault, spinning around and laughing in Kyoko's face all in 2 seconds in one the most amazing 'taunt spots' I've ever seen and already cooler than anything Rick Rude did in 1989. And that's not even the best match she had with Kyoko that year, you'll have to wait for 11/26/92 for that. Rude's best matches in 1989 just don't compare at all, tbf he's in the WWF and there's only so much you can get out of The Ultimate Warrior, but he was wrestling Roddy Piper and Ted Dibiase in singles this year too and there's a lot of good but I don't think there's anything even at the level of the Kyoko match (and Kyoko was still developing at this point and was a bit sloppy there).

#3 Year - Hokuto's 1991 vs. Rude's 1993

I'm not sure if this would be considered Rude's #3 year, just from what I've seen, but this is just an annihilation. For whatever reason Rude just isn't the same guy as 1992 anymore, even some of the charisma is gone, nevermind his matches. He does have some really good matches with Dustin Rhodes, but that's about it, and Dustin's arguably the best guy in WCW at that point. Akira Hokuto has two matches in January alone which are miles better than anything Rick Rude did, the 01/04/91 match with Bull Nakano (tbf Nakano is one of the best in the world at this point) and the 01/11/91 Manami Toyota match. The Manami match isn't quite as good but I'd call it the most impressive match seeing how Hokuto's one of the few people who can really get Manami to wrestle a focused match with a structure rather than just spamming moves (even if they are great moves). Much watch. Hokuto's also in a fantastic tag match on 11/21/91 where she's the best performer in it and has the best non-Bull singles match Aja Kong had ever been in to date on 03/17/91. There's also singles match with Suzuka Minami on 04/29/91, 10/04/91 and against Yumiko Hotta on 09/07/91 which are relatively throwaway but still significantly better than any singles match Rick Rude had in 1993 with anyone who wasn't Dustin Rhodes.

#4 Year - Hokuto's 1994 vs. Rude's 1990

I'm not sure at all how to rank Rude's years now because this is getting almost silly. Hokuto doesn't wrestle much in 1994 (and it's mainly in Mexico), but she does have one of the greatest matches of all time on 03/27/94 and another Top 100 contender on 08/24/94, and both of those matches she's the most important wrestler in them in terms of driving the narrative. Does Rick Rude even have more than two clearly "good" matches in 1990? And he's wrestling on TV a lot you know.

#5 Year - Hokuto's 1989 vs. Rude's 1988

Rude has a really good match at the Royal Rumble with Ricky Steamboat. It's better than any Rude match in 1990 actually, but I'm taking into account that he's wrestling Steamboat here so is obviously better, whereas Rude does deserve some credit for his performance against the Ultimate Warrior at Summerslam 1990 even if I think the match was only just about good. Hokuto's best match in 1989 is against Chigusa 03/19/89, which is clearly better and isn't a carryjob at all. In fact what really makes the match is how much Hokuto really doesn't care about Chigusa being so popular and on her retirement run, she takes the fight straight to her and really wants to win. Hokuto has a bunch of other great or at least really good stuff in 1989 I've listed above, Rude's 1988 other than the Steamboat match is a hold load of nothing.

#6 Year Hokuto's 1997 vs. Rude's 1987

I know I'm being silly now. There's still a lot of Hokuto in 1997 I haven't seen yet and she's clearly past her best, but by her standards that still means having the odd great match. The 04/12/97 KAORU match rules and is probably the 2nd best match of KAORU's career. If you watch a lot of KAORU you'll know she's a great athlete but a bit of mindless spot machine, so you have to give Hokuto a lot of credit for having a match with her with so much character and grit to it. The 02/16/97 tag with Chigusa vs. KAORU and Maiko Matsumoto is a match I only saw a few weeks ago and is a complete textbook case of how to work a veterans vs. a young underdog in a tag match with how they cut off the ring and just bully the shit out of Matsumoto. This match is better than any match Rick Rude had outside 1992 nevermind 1987, where all I can think of really is his performance in the Survivor Series tag. Plus we should throw in Hokuto's match against Madusa at the Great American Bash, which is one of the best Madusa matches ever and she's way past her best at this point.

#7  Year Hokuto's 1995 vs. Rude's 1986

Getting more stupid. If I'm missing something feel free to shout at me but I have Rude's 1986 as 'had a good match with Wahoo McDaniel at Starrcade and I can't think of a single other thing he did and I've got nothing in my notes. Hokuto was a part-timer and struggling with injuries in 1995, so she "only" has a Top 100 contender against Manami Toyota on 09/02/95, which is also better than any Rick Rude match not in 1992. She has a couple of really good Joshi tags in WCW which are worth checking out, especially just to see how they get themselves over with an audience who didn't seem interested in them at all at the start of the match. There's another great match with Mima Shimoda on 30/08/95, which is probably the best singles match of Shimoda's career (she was better in tags).

I can't even rank Rick Rude years after this because there's really just nothing but I could honestly keep going with Hokuto just to compare:

#8 Year Hokuto's 1990

I feel like I may be snubbing this year a bit because she looks like such a fantastic wrestler throughout, it just lacks in really great matches but you have to look at the level of her opponents here. She doesn't feud with Bull until 1991-92, and those two are by far the best wrestlers in AJW in 1990. Hokuto looks really impressive in the 01/04/90 tag with Hotta against Etsuko Mita and Toshiyo Yamada, which is almost great. The Manami match on 06/17/90 was looking like it was about to turn into a great match until Hokuto got injured (yes I know), but they have an actually great match on 08/19/90 to make up for that. I'd also recommend the Akira Hokuto & Suzuka Minami vs. Aja Kong & Bison Kimura 12/09/90 as a match which isn't quite great, but it totally would have been if Hokuto had better/maybe just more experienced wrestlers to work with as she's again clearly the stand out here.

#9Year Hokuto's 2001

This is mostly just the one match, vs Meiko Satomura on 04/29/01. I know not everyone loves it but imo it's a Top 50 match ever. And still even at this point, Hokuto is the one driving the match narrative and the biggest performer. It's not a carryjob, but it would be many, many years before Meiko had anything even close to as good as this other than the Aja Kong matches. I don't want to sell her short though, as she also has a bunch of really good tags that build to this that should be watched. These are:

1. Akira Hokuto & Mayumi Ozaki vs. Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka - 01/27/01
2. Akira Hokuto & Mayumi Ozaki vs. Chigusa Nagayo & Meiko Satomura - 03/11/01
3. Akira Hokuto & KAORU vs. Lioness Asuka & Meiko Satomura - 04/15/01
4. Akira Hokuto & Mayumi Ozaki vs. Chikayo Nagashima & Sugar Sato - 04/22/01

These are all 3.5 or 3.75 Stars to me, with Hokuto being the #1 or #2 best performer in all of them. This is pretty good going considering the popular narrative is she's a washed up has-been almost 10 years past her peak at this point.

#10 Year Hokuto's 1987

The match with the Glamour Girls is the only real standout as a match here, but she's spends almost the year in midcard tags which either didn't get much time or have been heavily clipped for TV so she doesn't have a chance to have much more. There's still enough to see she's a really good wrestler though and already has some of the best looking offense in the company.

And even after then there's 1996 where she doesn't really do anything this year except have a MOTYC contender on 01/22/96 with Mima Shimoda against Double Inoue, which is easily better than any Rick Rude match outside 1992 and 1989. But she only wrestles 17 matches all year so as she's injured. 2000? Again doesn't really do much of note except have a 4 Star match on 05/14/00 with Devil Masami against the Crush Gals (and Devil wasn't looking good here, Hokuto totally carried this), and then has an even better tag with Mayumi Ozaki vs. Chikayo Nagashima & Sugar Sato on 12/17/00, a totally crazy brawl with people being thrown down steps and everything and better than any Rick Rude match outside 1992 and 1989 (and that's just if you really love that Warrior match, which I don't but I'll concede some people think it's great).

So here's how I'd rank these years altogether:
Hokuto's 1993 > Hokuto's 1992 > Rude's 1992 > Hokuto's 1991 > Hokuto's 1989 > Hokuto's 1994 > Hokuto's 1989 > Hokuto's 1997 > Hokuto's 1995 > Hokuto's 1990 > Hokuto's 2001 > Rude's 1989 > Rude's 1993 > Hokuto's 1987 > Hokuto's 2000 > Hokuto's 1996 > Rude's 1990 > Rude's 1988 > Rude's 1987 > Rude's 1986

Heh I didn't start writing this post intending to massacre Rick Rude like that, I actually like him, but if anyone ranking Rude and talks about how great his 1992 I don't see how they can even contemplate not ranking Hokuto higher. Easily in my Top 30 at this point and might go quite a bit higher than that.

 

[El Dragon]

53 minutes ago, Kadaveri said:

Hokuto gets held back a bit by people cherrypicking 4+ Star matches and not getting the wider picture with her. I know we all do that to some extent as there isn't the time to watch everything, but my thoughts on compilations have changed now, they should really aim to give a representative picture of a wrestlers wider body of good work rather than just the greatest matches.

I'd say the great matches she has in the 80s are:

1. Chigusa Nagayo & Yumiko Hotta vs. Hisako Uno (this is Hokuto wrestling under her real name) & Yukari Omori - 10/10/86. To be clear this match is mostly down to Nagayo and Omori, who're both at their peaks here, but Hokuto contributes to the match and is a level or two above Hotta.

2. Hisako Uno & Yumiko Hotta vs. Judy Martin & Leilani Kai - 04/15/87. Unfortunately Hokuto breaks her neck a couple weeks later and is out for a year

3. Akira Hokuto & Suzuka Minami vs. Mitsuko Nishiwaki & Yumiko Hotta - 03/04/89

4. Akira Hokuto vs. Chigusa Nagayo 03/19/89 - This match seriously rules. You know how great Hokuto already is at this point because this is her first ever opportunity in a main event singles match and she knocks it out the park in imo the best Joshi match of 1989.

5. Akira Hokuto & Suzuka Minami vs. Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka - 04/27/89

6. Akira Hokuto & Mitsuko Nishiwaki vs. Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka - 05/06/89

7. Akira Hokuto & Etsuko Mita vs. Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada - 10/08/89 - Some familiar faces to 90s fans here, but Hokuto is way ahead of the rest at this point.

8. Akira Hokuto & Suzuka Minami vs. Aja Kong & Bull Nakano - 10/XX/89

There is also the neck break match on 04/27/87, which obviously is gonna turn off some people but it was looking like a great match up until the botched piledriver, and even then seeing Hokuto give the most astounding display of toughness in wrestling history is quite something.

But this is simply Hokuto's output when she was a midcarder, where 99% of the time it wasn't really her job to have great matches. But watch any match with her in it certainly from 1987 onwards and she's a stand out. An example I'll give now is 03/21/87 tag with Hotta against the Red Typhoons. There's only 10 minutes of the match shown on Classics (pretty sure it's clipped) so it's not great, but Hokuto looks like an absolute badass in it. Already at this point her execution is so on-point she can make almost any move look like a believable finisher.

This is still true about her even in her much-lauded 1993. Here are two matches that you'll probably never see in Western fan's compilation where we're just looking for 4+ Star Matches, but they're a big part of the puzzle of why she was so over:

Akira Hokuto vs. Yasha Kurenai - 06/11/93 - Note this is actually the most viewed Akira Hokuto video on YouTube at 4.3 million, but it's entirely Japanese fans in the comments. I never would have found this had I not thought to search for '北斗晶' instead of 'Akira Hokuto'.

Akira Hokuto vs. Numacchi - 09/05/93

I know it's controversial whether or not we should take promo ability into account and yes I don't speak Japanese so can't truly know for sure but....... Come on. She is so obviously an effective promo here just by watching the crowd react and it's part of her aura. I don't think we can truly separate e.g. Steve Austin from his promos, so I'm gonna make a little effort here to at least get a vague idea of what the non-English speaking wrestlers could do and how they got over.

Hokuto's not a #1 contender for me because, in spite of everything above, she doesn't quite have the longevity to justify it. When I see someone like Daniel Bryan who imo has had a 4.5 Star match every single year from 2001-21 except when out injured in 2016-17, she can't really compete with that. But longevity is certainly not some weakness for her either, she was probably great for longer than half the wrestlers who made the Top 100 last time. I think a flaw in how people visualise these things is they see every worker as having their own individual 'peak', and then confuse how long that was with their longevity as a whole. So for argument's sake (you could dispute the dates but let's just go with it to make my point clear), we can say Hokuto's individual peak was November 1992 - March 1994, i.e. just over a year. Whereas Shinsuke Nakamura's individual peak was 2011-16. So 6 years. So Nakamura has more longevity then?

No he doesn't. Because you're not actually comparing like for like here, because someone can be before/after their individual peak, but still better then that another wrestler ever was. That's the messy thinking which I think got Hokuto unfairly marked down last time, her November 1992 - March 1994 (yeah it's one of the best year-or-so runs by any wrestler ever) is so breathtakingly awesome, that the rest of her career gets harshly judged because it's not at that level. A better way to think about these things would be to (I'm coming close to reinventing BIGLAV here I know...) just look at every individual year of a wrestler's career worth judging and then comparing them with another wrestlers best years so the comparison is more meaningful. Another guy who had a similar "case is mostly confined to one year" narrative about him like time was Rick Rude, who ranked #77. Well let's compare Hokuto's best 10 years with Rick Rude's:

#1 Year - Hokuto's 1993 vs. Rude's 1992.

Rude's 1992 is a great year and all, but it's not on the same level. The best match he was in (WarGames) he's not even really a stand out performer in it (I'd say that goes to Dustin and Austin), which is not something you'll ever hear about a great Akira Hokuto match post-1986. The Iron Man match with Ricky Steamboat and the Chono match are really great, compared to the Kandori matches or the 93 Tag League final? Well, you know who I'm going with but at least there's some semblance of a debate there.

#2 Year - Hokuto's 1992 vs. Rude's 1989.

This just got a whole lot more lopsided. Hokuto reinvents herself as the dangerous queen, has a great series with Bull Nakano (I think their cage match is a little overrated, but that's balanced out by their less famous 03/07/92 match being a banger), which I'll include the Fuji TV Cup Final as part of (another great performance from her even if the match isn't amazing great). There's great stuff before that, she starts the year with a really great title match with Kyoko Inoue on January 4th where, amongst other things, she counters an Irish Whip into the turnbuckle by doing a somersault, spinning around and laughing in Kyoko's face all in 2 seconds in one the most amazing 'taunt spots' I've ever seen and already cooler than anything Rick Rude did in 1989. And that's not even the best match she had with Kyoko that year, you'll have to wait for 11/26/92 for that. Rude's best matches in 1989 just don't compare at all, tbf he's in the WWF and there's only so much you can get out of The Ultimate Warrior, but he was wrestling Roddy Piper and Ted Dibiase in singles this year too and there's a lot of good but I don't think there's anything even at the level of the Kyoko match (and Kyoko was still developing at this point and was a bit sloppy there).

#3 Year - Hokuto's 1991 vs. Rude's 1993

I'm not sure if this would be considered Rude's #3 year, just from what I've seen, but this is just an annihilation. For whatever reason Rude just isn't the same guy as 1992 anymore, even some of the charisma is gone, nevermind his matches. He does have some really good matches with Dustin Rhodes, but that's about it, and Dustin's arguably the best guy in WCW at that point. Akira Hokuto has two matches in January alone which are miles better than anything Rick Rude did, the 01/04/91 match with Bull Nakano (tbf Nakano is one of the best in the world at this point) and the 01/11/91 Manami Toyota match. The Manami match isn't quite as good but I'd call it the most impressive match seeing how Hokuto's one of the few people who can really get Manami to wrestle a focused match with a structure rather than just spamming moves (even if they are great moves). Much watch. Hokuto's also in a fantastic tag match on 11/21/91 where she's the best performer in it and has the best non-Bull singles match Aja Kong had ever been in to date on 03/17/91. There's also singles match with Suzuka Minami on 04/29/91, 10/04/91 and against Yumiko Hotta on 09/07/91 which are relatively throwaway but still significantly better than any singles match Rick Rude had in 1993 with anyone who wasn't Dustin Rhodes.

#4 Year - Hokuto's 1994 vs. Rude's 1990

I'm not sure at all how to rank Rude's years now because this is getting almost silly. Hokuto doesn't wrestle much in 1994 (and it's mainly in Mexico), but she does have one of the greatest matches of all time on 03/27/94 and another Top 100 contender on 08/24/94, and both of those matches she's the most important wrestler in them in terms of driving the narrative. Does Rick Rude even have more than two clearly "good" matches in 1990? And he's wrestling on TV a lot you know.

#5 Year - Hokuto's 1989 vs. Rude's 1988

Rude has a really good match at the Royal Rumble with Ricky Steamboat. It's better than any Rude match in 1990 actually, but I'm taking into account that he's wrestling Steamboat here so is obviously better, whereas Rude does deserve some credit for his performance against the Ultimate Warrior at Summerslam 1990 even if I think the match was only just about good. Hokuto's best match in 1989 is against Chigusa 03/19/89, which is clearly better and isn't a carryjob at all. In fact what really makes the match is how much Hokuto really doesn't care about Chigusa being so popular and on her retirement run, she takes the fight straight to her and really wants to win. Hokuto has a bunch of other great or at least really good stuff in 1989 I've listed above, Rude's 1988 other than the Steamboat match is a hold load of nothing.

#6 Year Hokuto's 1997 vs. Rude's 1987

I know I'm being silly now. There's still a lot of Hokuto in 1997 I haven't seen yet and she's clearly past her best, but by her standards that still means having the odd great match. The 04/12/97 KAORU match rules and is probably the 2nd best match of KAORU's career. If you watch a lot of KAORU you'll know she's a great athlete but a bit of mindless spot machine, so you have to give Hokuto a lot of credit for having a match with her with so much character and grit to it. The 02/16/97 tag with Chigusa vs. KAORU and Maiko Matsumoto is a match I only saw a few weeks ago and is a complete textbook case of how to work a veterans vs. a young underdog in a tag match with how they cut off the ring and just bully the shit out of Matsumoto. This match is better than any match Rick Rude had outside 1992 nevermind 1987, where all I can think of really is his performance in the Survivor Series tag. Plus we should throw in Hokuto's match against Madusa at the Great American Bash, which is one of the best Madusa matches ever and she's way past her best at this point.

#7  Year Hokuto's 1995 vs. Rude's 1986

Getting more stupid. If I'm missing something feel free to shout at me but I have Rude's 1986 as 'had a good match with Wahoo McDaniel at Starrcade and I can't think of a single other thing he did and I've got nothing in my notes. Hokuto was a part-timer and struggling with injuries in 1995, so she "only" has a Top 100 contender against Manami Toyota on 09/02/95, which is also better than any Rick Rude match not in 1992. She has a couple of really good Joshi tags in WCW which are worth checking out, especially just to see how they get themselves over with an audience who didn't seem interested in them at all at the start of the match. There's another great match with Mima Shimoda on 30/08/95, which is probably the best singles match of Shimoda's career (she was better in tags).

I can't even rank Rick Rude years after this because there's really just nothing but I could honestly keep going with Hokuto just to compare:

#8 Year Hokuto's 1990

I feel like I may be snubbing this year a bit because she looks like such a fantastic wrestler throughout, it just lacks in really great matches but you have to look at the level of her opponents here. She doesn't feud with Bull until 1991-92, and those two are by far the best wrestlers in AJW in 1990. Hokuto looks really impressive in the 01/04/90 tag with Hotta against Etsuko Mita and Toshiyo Yamada, which is almost great. The Manami match on 06/17/90 was looking like it was about to turn into a great match until Hokuto got injured (yes I know), but they have an actually great match on 08/19/90 to make up for that. I'd also recommend the Akira Hokuto & Suzuka Minami vs. Aja Kong & Bison Kimura 12/09/90 as a match which isn't quite great, but it totally would have been if Hokuto had better/maybe just more experienced wrestlers to work with as she's again clearly the stand out here.

#9Year Hokuto's 2001

This is mostly just the one match, vs Meiko Satomura on 04/29/01. I know not everyone loves it but imo it's a Top 50 match ever. And still even at this point, Hokuto is the one driving the match narrative and the biggest performer. It's not a carryjob, but it would be many, many years before Meiko had anything even close to as good as this other than the Aja Kong matches. I don't want to sell her short though, as she also has a bunch of really good tags that build to this that should be watched. These are:
1. Akira Hokuto & Mayumi Ozaki vs. Chigusa Nagayo & Meiko Satomura - 03/11/01
2. Akira Hokuto & Mayumi Ozaki vs. Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka - 04/08/01
3. Akira Hokuto & KAORU vs. Lioness Asuka & Meiko Satomura - 04/15/01
4. Akira Hokuto & Mayumi Ozaki vs. Chikayo Nagashima & Sugar Sato - 04/22/01

These are all 3.5 or 3.75 Stars to me, with Hokuto being the #1 or #2 best performer in all of them. This is pretty good going considering the popular narrative is she's a washed up has-been almost 10 years past her peak at this point.

#10 Year Hokuto's 1987

The match with the Glamour Girls is the only real standout as a match here, but she's spends almost the year in midcard tags which either didn't get much time or have been heavily clipped for TV so she doesn't have a chance to have much more. There's still enough to see she's a really good wrestler though and already has some of the best looking offense in the company.

And even after then there's 1996 where she doesn't really do anything this year except have a MOTYC contender on 01/22/96 with Mima Shimoda against Double Inoue, which is easily better than any Rick Rude match outside 1992 and 1989. But she only wrestles 17 matches all year so as she's injured. 2000? Again doesn't really do much of note except have a 4 Star match on 04/15/00 with Devil Masami against the Crush Gals (and Devil wasn't looking good here, Hokuto totally carried this), and then has an even better tag with Mayumi Ozaki vs. Chikayo Nagashima & Sugar Sato on 12/17/00, a totally crazy brawl with people being thrown down steps and everything and better than any Rick Rude match outside 1992 and 1989 (and that's just if you really love that Warrior match, which I don't but I'll concede some people think it's great).

So here's how I'd rank these years altogether:
Hokuto's 1993 > Hokuto's 1992 > Rude's 1992 > Hokuto's 1991 > Hokuto's 1989 > Hokuto's 1994 > Hokuto's 1989 > Hokuto's 1997 > Hokuto's 1995 > Hokuto's 1990 > Hokuto's 2001 > Rude's 1989 > Rude's 1993 > Hokuto's 1987 > Hokuto's 2000 > Hokuto's 1996 > Rude's 1990 > Rude's 1988 > Rude's 1987 > Rude's 1986

Heh I didn't start writing this post intending to massacre Rick Rude like that, I actually like him, but if anyone ranking Rude and talks about how great his 1992 I don't see how they can even contemplate not ranking Hokuto higher. Easily in my Top 30 at this point and might go quite a bit higher than that.

 

This shit is why I was so excited to have this back, btw.

[elliott]

Great write up Kadaveri. 

[soup23]

Thank you for the 80s Hokuto recommendations. I think she clearly is better than Rude and the comparison played that out. I would like to see more detailed arguments on her as #1 candidate as has been presented because while she may have great stuff outside of 92-94 to pad the resume, I would still say the case is strongly built on those years. If not and Hokuto has WOTY cases from 89-91, I’m all ears but don’t see it based on the footage I’ve watched. 

[ohtani's jacket]

I don't believe for a second that Hokuto was one of the best workers in the early during the 80s and early 90s, but Jetlag's recent reviews have left me interested in her GAEA work. I quite liked the little of it I saw from 2000-02. I have to say those squash matches that were posted did little for me. 

[Grimmas]

1 hour ago, ohtani's jacket said:

I don't believe for a second that Hokuto was one of the best workers in the early during the 80s and early 90s, but Jetlag's recent reviews have left me interested in her GAEA work. I quite liked the little of it I saw from 2000-02. I have to say those squash matches that were posted did little for me. 

Have you seen the Meiko match? 

[ohtani's jacket]

Yes, several times. It's an emotional match and one of the better swan songs in wrestling history. 

[ohtani's jacket]

I watched a couple of her matches from 1997. They were decent, but I don't think they help her case. Her work doesn't completely fall off a cliff, but she reaches a point where she's not having great matches anymore. Others may see it differently, but to me great matches, or great performances at the minimum, are the burden of expectation that Hokuto carries. Hokuto set the bar extremely high; to the point she was on par with contemporaries like Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi, etc. You won't watch those wrestlers hoping to see something decent. You expect greatness from those wrestlers, and personally I put the same expectations on Hokuto, which is a sign of respect as much as a fan expectation. I wouldn't recommend her later stuff (outside of the Satomura match) unless you're into completionism and want to see a wrestler at all stages of their career. I'm not sure why there was a decline. I suppose it's pointless to speculate. I feel as though if she had come back as a part time freelancer/attraction that she could have had more memorable programs, but I did like her tag work in GAEA at times and that Showa era faction she was part of was fun. I kind of wish promotions had used her the way they used Aja. Another possibility is that the character was tired. She'd said all she had to say and the character reached a fitting end when injuries robbed her of her greatest aspiration and forced her to semi-retire. That was a fitting, tragic end to her character's story arc. Of course, wrestling isn't like written literature and we shouldn't expect storybook endings, but the Dangerous Queen character in these GAEA matches isn't as engaging.  

[elliott]

Something El Dragon said during the launch podcast with Grimmas stood out to me and I wanted to push back on it. He said the rhetoric around Hokuto has always been that she was a good worker before 1993 when she exploded into the all timer we think of her as. That's never been the case. If you read old WONs from 91 and 92 Hokuto and Toyota are regularly spoken about in glowing terms. Whenever Dave would talk about the best worker in the world, he would always end it with something like "of course none of these people are in the same universe as Hokuto and Toyota." Eventually Kyoko started to get mentioned in that group as well. Shes always had a big reputation. Even before what would become her signature run. This got lost over time because the DreamRush - Queendom run (some might stretch it to the 95 Toyota match) is so great. 

It was alluded to above, but Hokuto set the bar too high for herself. Everyone arrives at Hokuto now hearing about the DreamRush-Queendom run so when you go backwards and  watch 1991 Hokuto and shes not the Dangerous Queen, its jarring. Shes still amazing, but folks are expecting something else because they watched DreamSlam first so that pre 93 era has gotten the reputation as "not as great" when Hokuto up until 11/92 was still better than almost everyone ever. Yall watching her journey from the beginning is the way to do it. 

[Kadaveri]

Even earlier than that Elliott. Here is Dave Meltzer in the Observer October 22nd 1990:
 

Quote

All Japan women 9/16: 1. Manami Toyoda beat Kyoko Inoue (a young heel) to keep Japanese title in 18:41. Mainly submissions early turning into a real good match with lots of hot moves before Toyoda won with a rolling cradle. ***1/2;

2. Akira Hokuto & Suzuka Minami & Mika Takahashi beat Madusa & Mitsuko Nishiwaki & Yumiko Hotta in 11:56. Real fast paced. At one point the winning team did simultaneous crossbody blocks from the top rope outside the ring. Hokuto, who is the best female wrestler in the world right now, pinned Nishiwaki with the Fantastic flip. ***1/2

 

And again on November 19 1990

Quote

4. Aja Kong & Kyoko Inoue beat Akira Hokuto & Suzuka Minami in a non-title match. Hokuto is just an incredible worker (best woman wrestler in the world by far right now) and did great with Inoue. Kong is just a gimmick and only an average worker but is really over. Inoue has made tremendous improvement since the summer. Hokuto juiced after being hit with a chair and piledriven on a chair. Ref stopped match ruling Hokuto unable to continue and after the match Bull and Aja had a pull-apart brawl to build up their cage match on 11/14. ***1/2

I'm hardly a "Meltzer said it so it must be true" guy, I'm just pointing out that people arguing for Hokuto as a super great worker way before 1993 aren't really revisionists here; that's how she was talked about at the time, it's just been forgotten for some reason. I'd guess the reason why it's been forgotten is: look at the match ratings. Everyone goes back and cherry picks 4+ Star matches and you aren't going to get many of those from Hokuto in this period because she's spending almost all her time in midcard tags with workers nowhere near her level. But when you go by Charles' recent comments about assessing a wrestler's performance by "In each environment that this wrestler was in, did they do everything they needed to do to be as great and effective as the environment allowed?" she's way higher to me than wrestlers who's best few matches may have been a bit better, but were regularly in main events with top opponents and weren't anywhere near as consistent.

I wouldn't argue for her as a BITW overall candidate anywhere in 1989-91 because Flair's got 89 locked up and I think Jumbo is just so transcendently great around 1990-91 that she can't really compete with that. But is she an obviously great wrestler with performances that significantly add to her GWE case? Absolutely.

[ohtani's jacket]

I like Marine Wolves Hokuto as much as the next guy. The 4/91 Minami match was always one of my favorite Hokuto matches back in the day. But as soon as people start chucking out BITW claims my mind starts rattling off a list of alternative names. I don't think that sort of hyperbole does wrestlers any favors. Dave's comments are problematic in that they ignore Bull and don't paint Aja in a great light. 

[Kadaveri]

Who else ever had a singles match with Minami of that quality? And it's not even in her usual style (a lot slower paced).

I'd put Bull above Hokuto too, but nah his comments about Aja are perfectly fair for 1990. I'm gonna be pushing for Aja elsewhere as she gets way better later, but the picture with her gets distorted by her feuding with Bull almost non-stop in 1990-92, making her look a lot better than she was until you dig a bit deeper. I've been part of the Joshi watchalongs Grimmas has been running and the only thing people are debating about Aja after having watched virtually all the footage available from 1990-91 is who's better out of her and Bison. I'll check next time but I don't think a single person thinks she's remotely close to as good as Bull or Hokuto at this point.

[ohtani's jacket]

I can't remember too many Minami singles matches off the top of my head. I am pretty sure the other matches that had together were decent but nowhere near as good. 

I'm not a huge fan of Aja even in her prime, though I do respect her and there are matches and performances that I hold in high regard. The reason I say it's problematic is that it's only a matter of time before someone tries to define the length of time that Aja was good and tries to paint her early work as a positive. I understand people pushing their favorites, and I also understand that if you like a worker you're probably more inclined to think their pre/post primes were better than they're given credit for. I'm sure I'd do the same for my favorites. I don't want to say that's what's happening with Hokuto, but I do know from personal experience that when you deep dive a promotion or style, it's an entirely different perspective from cherry picking other folks' recommendations. Pretty much every WoS wrestler that I couldn't stand at one point or another I built a tolerance for after watching all of their matches. If you're watching all of the available AJW then I imagine you're developing a fondness for the midcarders, and you're getting into the crew as a whole, and perhaps you're seeing in great detail how Hokuto is head and shoulders above her peers, which she pretty much was athletically except for Nagahori. Folks are not going to be able to process that level of detail. Perhaps they'll take people's word for it, but I think they need to see it instantly in the matches. When I watch Hokuto's 80s work, for example, I don't see the GOAT or the BITW. I see a promising youngster. I think the Chigusa vs. Hokuto match is fantastic, but in my mind Chigusa is on another level in that match. Just like Bull was when Hokuto feuded with her. When Hokuto wrestles Toyota and Minami then I see her against her peers and can make that direct comparison, but I am not convinced that Hokuto had the immediate impact that say Yokota did. Her early work is a positive, for sure, but I don't see it as a trump card. 

[El Dragon]

8 hours ago, elliott said:

Something El Dragon said during the launch podcast with Grimmas stood out to me and I wanted to push back on it. He said the rhetoric around Hokuto has always been that she was a good worker before 1993 when she exploded into the all timer we think of her as. That's never been the case. If you read old WONs from 91 and 92 Hokuto and Toyota are regularly spoken about in glowing terms. Whenever Dave would talk about the best worker in the world, he would always end it with something like "of course none of these people are in the same universe as Hokuto and Toyota." Eventually Kyoko started to get mentioned in that group as well. Shes always had a big reputation. Even before what would become her signature run. This got lost over time because the DreamRush - Queendom run (some might stretch it to the 95 Toyota match) is so great. 

It was alluded to above, but Hokuto set the bar too high for herself. Everyone arrives at Hokuto now hearing about the DreamRush-Queendom run so when you go backwards and  watch 1991 Hokuto and shes not the Dangerous Queen, its jarring. Shes still amazing, but folks are expecting something else because they watched DreamSlam first so that pre 93 era has gotten the reputation as "not as great" when Hokuto up until 11/92 was still better than almost everyone ever. Yall watching her journey from the beginning is the way to do it. 

I should clarify meaning more around this board. A common thing I'd hear is her only elite years are in 93-94, when I think it's more she found a different level then almost any wrestler you will ever see in those years but was already a best in the world candidate before that. You basically covered and explained what I do think happened overall: The Dangerous Queen run was so good that in hindsight her earlier work gets underplayed which I think hurts the narrative around her career. One you watch year by year it becomes so much more clear what she actually is.

[Alex]

S-tier wrestler.  Definite top 5 for me.  

The only run where I haven't seen anything of hers is her Reina Jabuki run in CMLL.  Are there any good matches from her there?

[elliott]

I ranked Hokuto #22 in 2016 and I blew it. She's a top 5 contender. At Hokuto's best the best wrestler I've ever seen. I can't get all the way to #1 because I think Terry Funk's best is only like 0.01% worse than Hokuto's but Funk was at that level way longer. The Hokuto vs Matsumoto battle for my #2 is gonna kill me. 

[KetamineEnjoyer]

I always appreciate a sense of danger in matches, and Hokuto always brought that in spades. I disagree with the idea that she peaked aroung 93/94, she'd been an amazing wrestler since the late 80s, and she has a decent catalogue from around that time to show it. And her peak work (the Kandori match, tag with her against Kong & Nakano, the Nakano singles, etc.) is just all time great stuff. Definitely a top 100 for me, no question.

[Grimmas]

I had her #24 in 2016 and what a fucking mistake. She's my #1 right now and I still have 93-94 to watch more thoroughly. I don't know what it will take to take her out that spot.

I just can't get over how much she gets out of every second of the match, from working the apron, to her selling, to her submissions, to each move she does.