Manami Toyota

[ohtani's jacket]

Well, I don't think her work was at its peak, but physically she was in her prime and those were her peak years on top.

[Childs]

I've been thinking more about Loss' question of whether we should reward Toyota for her boldness in forging a style that distinguished her. It really is a fascinating question in any realm of artistic judgment. My wife and I have watched Project Runway and Top Chef at various points, and on those shows, you'll often see the judges reward sheer creative audacity instead of the chef whose food tastes the best or the designer whose clothes a non-model might actually want to wear. I believe it's important to reward creative audacity. It's part of how we move forward as a species. But when I pull that question back to one of personal choice, I would still struggle to call something the greatest if the food doesn't taste good.

[soup23]

I've been thinking more about Loss' question of whether we should reward Toyota for her boldness in forging a style that distinguished her. It really is a fascinating question in any realm of artistic judgment. My wife and I have watched Project Runway and Top Chef at various points, and on those shows, you'll often see the judges reward sheer creative audacity instead of the chef whose food tastes the best or the designer whose clothes a non-model might actually want to wear. I believe it's important to reward creative audacity. It's part of how we move forward as a species. But when I pull that question back to one of personal choice, I would still struggle to call something the greatest if the food doesn't taste good.

 

 

I usually get pretty lost with all the music and movie analogies that get thrown around but this is something I can get behind. It also says something especially in Top Chef when one of the contestants seems to use the same ingredient. While I do think someone like Hansen gives varying performances at times, I do think there is some validity to someone like Matt's argument that he also uses his version of a "scallop" as the base for all of his matches.

[Loss]

I've been thinking more about Loss' question of whether we should reward Toyota for her boldness in forging a style that distinguished her. It really is a fascinating question in any realm of artistic judgment. My wife and I have watched Project Runway and Top Chef at various points, and on those shows, you'll often see the judges reward sheer creative audacity instead of the chef whose food tastes the best or the designer whose clothes a non-model might actually want to wear. I believe it's important to reward creative audacity. It's part of how we move forward as a species. But when I pull that question back to one of personal choice, I would still struggle to call something the greatest if the food doesn't taste good.

 

I would say that there is probably a compromise rating based on that -- nowhere near #1, but a strong enough rating to show respect for what she did while acknowledging that it's not your cup of tea.

[jdw]

 

I've been thinking more about Loss' question of whether we should reward Toyota for her boldness in forging a style that distinguished her. It really is a fascinating question in any realm of artistic judgment. My wife and I have watched Project Runway and Top Chef at various points, and on those shows, you'll often see the judges reward sheer creative audacity instead of the chef whose food tastes the best or the designer whose clothes a non-model might actually want to wear. I believe it's important to reward creative audacity. It's part of how we move forward as a species. But when I pull that question back to one of personal choice, I would still struggle to call something the greatest if the food doesn't taste good.

 

 

I usually get pretty lost with all the music and movie analogies that get thrown around but this is something I can get behind. It also says something especially in Top Chef when one of the contestants seems to use the same ingredient. While I do think someone like Hansen gives varying performances at times, I do think there is some validity to someone like Matt's argument that he also uses his version of a "scallop" as the base for all of his matches.

 

 

This is an interesting analogy to wrestling.

 

As Childs mentions, one of the things that typically gets credit on Top Chef from the judges is stepping outside to comfort zone. The show often forces people out of that comfort zone.

 

There is one exception that stands out in my mind: Rick Bayless in Top Chef Masters Season 1. He sticks to his strength, Mexican food. He kind of flips things on it's head by taking the judges out of their comfort zone by showing them the wide range of Mexican food/tastes that they've never experianced before. He could take any challenge, any ingrediant and pull something from his knowledge base of the cusine and make something to blow the judges mind.

 

I think we all give credit to wrestlers who are versatile, who show different things. But it's possible for someone to master a style so well, and within that style be "broad", that the person might be a reasonable high end candidate.

 

I give Terry Funk credit for being terrific in working holds when a match calls for it, not just in applying the holds well, but working them, adding accents, pushing/pulling his opponent to work as well, and engaging the fans. But doesn't Terry really need that to be a high end worker? Perhaps not.

[MJH]

Toyota didn't "forge her own style"; she took the house style and played it faster and louder than everyone else.

[Childs]

Toyota didn't "forge her own style"; she took the house style and played it faster and louder than everyone else.

That's a semantic debate though. Loss argued that she made a bold choice about her style around 1991-92 and became a more distinctive/important wrestler for it. The discussion has proceeded from that base. I don't think anyone is arguing she completely reinvented wrestling.

[MJH]

I'm not altogether sure she did that; it's been a good few years since I watched it, but my recollection of it is that the '89 Yamada match is a lesser-experienced dry-run of their later matches, and in most matches she, like just about everyone else, was working fast, throwing out move after move, etc... she clearly made an effort to develop her move-set in '92 or thereabouts, but I can't recall any big rejuvenation.

[ohtani's jacket]

I re-watched the Toyota vs. Ito match from 8/17/01. It's an awesome match that's pretty much a typical Toyota match except it has a harder edge because she's playing a bitchy veteran heel. There were a couple of things I didn't like about it such as the crowd brawling and the fact that Ito seemed like she was wrestling The Legend that is Manami Toyota instead of stamping her authority on the match as The Woman in All Japan at that time. But the stretch run was great stuff. Toyota proved she could sell with the best of them and even when she popped up for stuff it was exciting. I'd chalk the whole thing up as a great post prime performance.

[Timbo Slice]

I can't remember which Ito match I watched of hers, but I remember enjoying it to an extent. I don't know if it was better than even the 3/26/95 title win, but it was still really good stuff.

[ohtani's jacket]

I liked the 2/24/02 Toyota vs. Ito title match as well. At this point, I'd take Toyota vs. Ito over Toyota vs. Kyoko despite Inoue being a better performer than Ito. They have great chemistry together. It's only two Ito matches, but Toyota's veteran work has been better than expected.

[ohtani's jacket]

The 9/17/00 Toyota/Ito match is heavily clipped, but it's notable for the fact that Toyota still has her 90s look and works exactly like you'd expect Manami Toyota to work. It was immediately noticeable that she shelved the rolling cradle in her '01 and '02 matches with Ito and was working a different style in those bouts. It's hard to tell how good a match is when it's clipped to shreds, but the thing I'll always remember about it is that during the finish they botched a powerbomb off the middle turnbuckle. Toyota's leg bounced off the ropes, which is something I've never seen before. Ito followed it up with a double foot stomp, but Toyota was still moving and Ito didn't hit it anywhere near as cleanly as she usually did. It actually looked like she missed, but that was the move she won the big red belt with. Not the greatest moment in wrestling folklore.

[ohtani's jacket]

I agree that Toyota vs. Yoshida starts off as an awesome styles clash, but I'm not so sure it turns into a no-selling spotfest. After the awesome start, Toyota botches a top rope dive to the outside and then takes Yoshida on a shitty tour of the arena. Then when they get back into the ring they struggle to get back into the groove, but it's basically a finishing stretch from there and there's more near falls than no sells. Toyota wins by throwing punches, which isn't something you see from her every day, so I'd dispute the fact it descends into her usual act. She's trying to do her shit at the same time as Yoshida is trying to counter with a match winning submission. It's not the greatest stretch run by any means, but the soft middle is worse than the finish.

[Quentin Skinner]

Easily making my list, probably somewhere in the top 20.

[WingedEagle]

Not exactly Toyota-specific, and at least partly due to my inability to begin framing the list, but I am having a real tough time placing the women. Not at all comfortable with them high, low, just finding it a lot more difficult to look at them comparatively than I expected.

[elliott]

Very interested to see where people stand on Toyota this time around. 

[Grimmas]

38 minutes ago, elliott said:

Very interested to see where people stand on Toyota this time around. 

I'm in early 1992 and she has the talent. Has been great in the Hokuto matches, is seemingly great in tags, but a lot of her singles matches she is too much. Like she'll be worn down with leg submissions and sell them soooo well, then she makes a comeback and hits 12 dropkicks and completely ignores the leg selling. She's infuriating.

[ohtani's jacket]

I just watched Toyota's final AJW match the other day. It's not that good, but when she walked off I couldn't help but think that woman did her thing and left her mark. All those girls started off as kids, a lot of them never made it, and a lot of them never made it that far, but you can't deny that Toyota was one of the biggest stars to ever grace an AJW ring. I hate all that pillar symbolism shit, but she was one of the pillars of the the last era of AJW and the last one to leave. I don't expect her to be popular among voters, but I hope folks don't make her a scapegoat for whatever flaws they think Joshi has. For every criticism you can make of Toyota, the rest of them do it too. I have never seen a Joshi wrestler, even the ones with strong reps, that don't drop their selling or blow spots. Toyota may be more guilty of it than most, but what that tells me is that there is something intrinsic in the style that causes this happen. A bit like there is something intrinsic in lucha that causes it to seem muddled and confusing at times. The question then becomes is this something we should simply accept (i.e. it's the nature of the style), or is it a flaw in the style that the workers are responsible for. I have always leaned toward the former. If you start leaning toward the latter then I think you need to blame the workers who lay the foundation like Akagi and Yokota, and I don't see anyone doing that.  

[Childs]

3 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

I don't expect her to be popular among voters, but I hope folks don't make her a scapegoat for whatever flaws they think Joshi has. For every criticism you can make of Toyota, the rest of them do it too. I have never seen a Joshi wrestler, even the ones with strong reps, that don't drop their selling or blow spots. Toyota may be more guilty of it than most, but what that tells me is that there is something intrinsic in the style that causes this happen. A bit like there is something intrinsic in lucha that causes it to seem muddled and confusing at times. The question then becomes is this something we should simply accept (i.e. it's the nature of the style), or is it a flaw in the style that the workers are responsible for. I have always leaned toward the former. If you start leaning toward the latter then I think you need to blame the workers who lay the foundation like Akagi and Yokota, and I don't see anyone doing that.  

This is a good point to keep in mind. I guess my take is that Toyota did more, more, more of everything, so the flaws of the style feel more magnified with her. As we discussed in the 2016 portion of this thread, you can make a strong argument that she deserves as much credit for her ambition as she does criticism for her excesses. 

[NintendoLogic]

The thing with Toyota is that she'd largely blow off long-term selling during the matches but would sell her ass off after the match. The idea is that she was pushing herself to her limits to win and give the fans all she had and felt the effects afterward. It's not my preferred psychology, but there's a clear logic behind it.

[elliott]

If you were going to tell someone to watch one Toyota match which would you pick?

[Boss Rock]

Probably the Dreamslam tag. For a singles match, probably the 95 Hokuto match or one of the Aja matches.

I think Childs hit the nail on the head with her doing the most making her the biggest perpetrator. But at the same time, her peaks are pretty dang high.

[NintendoLogic]

9 hours ago, elliott said:

If you were going to tell someone to watch one Toyota match which would you pick?

For someone completely new to Toyota, I'd go with Big Egg Universe. It's the first joshi match I ever saw, and it remains one of my favorite matches of all time.

For Toyota skeptics, I'd recommend watching her match against Kaoru Ito on 2/24/02. I wouldn't call it a great match, but she does turn in a legitimately great selling performance, both in general and of an injured body part (her back).

[El-P]

Just now, NintendoLogic said:

For someone completely new to Toyota, I'd go with Big Egg Universe. It's the first joshi match I ever saw, and it remains one of my favorite matches of all time.

It's also Kenny Omega's favorite match ever if I'm not mistaken.

[ohtani's jacket]

1 hour ago, NintendoLogic said:

For someone completely new to Toyota, I'd go with Big Egg Universe. It's the first joshi match I ever saw, and it remains one of my favorite matches of all time.

For Toyota skeptics, I'd recommend watching her match against Kaoru Ito on 2/24/02. I wouldn't call it a great match, but she does turn in a legitimately great selling performance, both in general and of an injured body part (her back).

I actually re-watched that Ito/Toyota match tonight. Really good match. Miles better than the return match.

Picking one Toyota match is tough. I like the Big Egg choice. The first matches that come to mind for me are the '89 Toyota vs. Yamada, the '93 JGP match against Fukuoka, and the '98 Kandori match. Those are matches thatches that have stuck in my head.