Lioness Asuka

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[Timbo Slice]

Overshadowed by Chigusa but was definitely as talented as she was. Prefer her match with Jaguar to the Chig match with Devil on the 8/22/85 show, and I think over time, she ended up being the better wrestler. Liked her a lot more than Chig in GAEA. She should make my list.

[Grimmas]

This is somebody that needs more hype. Also suggestions for me to watch.

[Grimmas]

2 posts for someone who is on the upper half of my list this time is odd.

A super worker in the 80s in one of the greatest tag teams of all-time. Great matches in brawls and technical matches in her prime. Yes, she wasn't Chigusa, but nobody was.

Her return in the 90s, had her just add to her case.

Great fire, amazing kicks and toughness. I love how she makes everything a struggle. Plus, I'm a sucker for a giant swing.

[Jetlag]

Lioness Asuka has to be one of the worst "legendary" wrestler of all time.

[Grimmas]

43 minutes ago, Jetlag said:

Lioness Asuka has to be one of the worst "legendary" wrestler of all time.

I am not sure what you mean here. Lioness has had so many great matches, performances. Worst at anything seems like a bizarre statement. If you are implying of the great wrestlers, she's at the lower tier of them. Then okay? I guess.

[Jetlag]

47 minutes ago, Grimmas said:

I am not sure what you mean here. Lioness has had so many great matches, performances. Worst at anything seems like a bizarre statement. If you are implying of the great wrestlers, she's at the lower tier of them. Then okay? I guess.

Like what? She single handedly killed the main event scenes of JD and ARSION. She also had plenty of shitshows in GAEA. Quite frankly, her selling is usually non existant and she is pretty dull on offense when not throwing crowbar kicks or powerbombing people through tables. Worst of all was her tendency to do the same sloth brawling and heel faction spots in a stream of matches in the late 90s and early 2000s. Her most famous match, the 1985 Jaguar match, is just a mindless sprint and Jaguar looks better. From 1995 onwards it's quite remarkable how bad she is considering she was facing great wrestlers constantly and yet her being in a good match feels like a miracle.

[ohtani's jacket]

The Nobuhiko Takada of women's wrestling. 

[Grimmas]

1 hour ago, Jetlag said:

Like what? She single handedly killed the main event scenes of JD and ARSION. She also had plenty of shitshows in GAEA. Quite frankly, her selling is usually non existant and she is pretty dull on offense when not throwing crowbar kicks or powerbombing people through tables. Worst of all was her tendency to do the same sloth brawling and heel faction spots in a stream of matches in the late 90s and early 2000s. Her most famous match, the 1985 Jaguar match, is just a mindless sprint and Jaguar looks better. From 1995 onwards it's quite remarkable how bad she is considering she was facing great wrestlers constantly and yet her being in a good match feels like a miracle.

Thanks for justifying your statement, I do appreciate it.

I'm at 1992, so i can't comment. She ruled in the 80s up until her retirement, so I guess I'll get back to you on this in a few years.

[Jetlag]

18 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

The Nobuhiko Takada of women's wrestling. 

I don't even  hate Takada that much Maybe if Takada joined BattlARTS in 1999, hogged the main event scene by going over all the native wrestlers in boring repetitive matches, and then did the same thing to Zero1 2 years later or something.

[elliott]

I don't even like Lioness all that much but this is ridiculous. Lioness' case comes from the 80s.  

My advice to anyone that clicked on this thread would be to watch the Crush Gals stuff. 

[Jetlag]

1 hour ago, elliott said:

I don't even like Lioness all that much but this is ridiculous. Lioness' case comes from the 80s. 

My advice to anyone that clicked on this thread would be to watch the Crush Gals stuff. 

If people want to evaluate someone fairly, they should check out their whole career and not just a handful of pimped matches. That said I think Asukas 80s stuff is largely forgettable.

[elliott]

If people are gonna vote for Jim Londos based in 45minutes of footage, it's more than fair to skip the JD run and just watch her prime. 

 

[El Dragon]

Eh. I disagree with you on this one Elliot, personally. If you are gonna use that argument, then I hope your going to just judge a Kurt Angle on his 2000-2001 as he was all world at that time and not his repetitive fall from grace afterwards. Saying “I’m rating this person on a 4 year run of so and so that is good but ignoring a 4 year run that was awful” sets a precedent that’s going to be pretty damned rough.

 

I haven’t seen hardly any Lioness Asuka to compare, but saying “her run when she was in her 30’s shouldn’t be considered” is an argument I can’t really get behind. 

[Jetlag]

Well, this is supposed to be the project where we nitpick each candidate to death. Evaluating the hole career should be encouraged. If we just skip over the less interesting parts it's just gonna become a cherry pick a ton. I don't know if anyone is actually gonna vote for Jim Londos, that seems more like a nomination to stir some discussion rather than being a serious candidate. Since during the first project it was actively said that you shouldn't vote if you haven't actually seen a candidate having matches. Who knows, maybe I'm just overly negative about Asuka and the next person to go through JD' and ARSION will think she is totally rad

[elliott]

Lots of people have said they're voting for so and so based solely on their peak run. Yes everyone should try and get as full a picture as possible. But that's not what is happening here.  Boiling her run down to her late 90s and 2000s JD and ARISON work and dismissing her based on that is a misrepresentation of what her candidacy is. 

I think it's important to point out what a candidates peak actually is and what sort of candidate they are. Anyone voting for her is likely to do so based primarily on the strength of her 80s run. Nobody has ever promoted her JD run or talked about it as a meaningful building block for her candidacy. Thats not her peak run. To dismiss her as a candidate based on that stuff is like saying Flairs not a candidate because he sucked after 1996. Or Misawa was disappointing in NOAH so hes not a candidate. Nobody who is voting for Flair is doing so bc of his mid 90s to 2000s work. Lioness is an 80s candidate. People need to watch that stuff first. That's what's important. Let people watch the stuff people have actually put over. Theres plenty of people to talk about and watch. We're already at the dumping on people at random phase? That sucks if so. 

Anyway I think Lioness is like the 8th best person in 80s AJW. But that's still the strength of her candidacy and that's what folks should know. 

[elliott]

18 minutes ago, elliott said:

I think it's important to point out what a candidates peak actually is and what sort of candidate they are.

Quoting myself here. Always a special moment.

I wanted to explain more about what i mean here. Maybe it deserves its own thread. But I kinda think each candidate deserves their own explainer. 

I'm sure we'd all agree that not all candidates are equal and not all candidacy are the same. Some candidates are primarily candidates because of their peak. Others their longevity. Some because they were able to succeed all over the globe. Others because they figured out how to succeed in front of the same group of people week after week. Some are candidates because theyre awesome in TV matches reliably. Others may not have been reliable week in week out but always delivered on the big stage. Some people are candidates because they played one role better than anyone else. Other people are candidates because they succeeded in a variety of roles. Other's have a laundry list of great matches. While others made the most of the opportunities given and may not have the great match resume necessarily. Some candidates have everything you could ask for. These are the greatest of the greats. But most candidates are going to be more definable and more limited. Take Tommy Rogers. I wouldn't look at Tommy Rogers and say "I can't find a great singles main event. His mid 90s-2000s work when he was in his 30s was pretty disappointing. Not a candidate." That's a complete misrepresentation of who Rogers' is as a wrestler and as a top 100 candidate. You start with the Fantastics stuff because thats the bulk of the case. Unless someone comes in and is like "His mid 90s-2000s is awesome unhearlded hidden gem work. Tommy Rogers was great for 20 years!" Then you watch it and evaluate it on those terms. 

Yes we should try and get a whole picture of every single candidate. That should definitely be the goal. Its completely unfeasible, but sure. That's the goal. But I think its more important to understand what sort of candidate someone actually is. I don't think anyone would make the argument that Lioness is a longevity based candidate. If shes going to make your list, she going to make it on the strength of the Crush Gals run primarily. She's Tommy Rogers with a frustrating (to me) singles run. I don't see her as a top tier candidate or even a top tier Joshi wrestler. But shes a more than deserving candidate. 

[Kadaveri]

1 hour ago, elliott said:

To dismiss her as a candidate based on that stuff is like saying Flairs not a candidate because he sucked after 1996.

I don't agree with this. Flair was 47 years old in 1996, you wouldn't expect a wrestler that age to still be good so I don't hold it against him. Otherwise you're giving an unfair advantage to e.g. Ricky Steamboat for retiring relatively young. The way I see it, you can add to your case by still being great while old (e.g. Bockwinkel) but you can't subtract from it, because you're past the point where it's reasonable to expect you to keep adding to your case.

Asuka wasn't bad when old. Asuka was bad in her early 30s. You'd expect a Top 100 Greatest Wrestler Ever to still be at least good at that age, and I haven't seen the JD'Star stuff Jetlag is talking about but I can at least say in ARSION she was bloody awful. We should compare wrestlers at similar stages in their careers for meaningful assessments. If Ric Flair turned really bad in like 1985 then I would hold that against his case.

[El Dragon]

7 minutes ago, elliott said:

Quoting myself here. Always a special moment.

I wanted to explain more about what i mean here. Maybe it deserves its own thread. But I kinda think each candidate deserves their own explainer. 

I'm sure we'd all agree that not all candidates are equal and not all candidacy are the same. Some candidates are primarily candidates because of their peak. Others their longevity. Some because they were able to succeed all over the globe. Others because they figured out how to succeed in front of the same group of people week after week. Some are candidates because theyre awesome in TV matches reliably. Others may not have been reliable week in week out but always delivered on the big stage. Some people are candidates because they played one role better than anyone else. Other people are candidates because they succeeded in a variety of roles. Other's have a laundry list of great matches. While others made the most of the opportunities given and may not have the great match resume necessarily. Some candidates have everything you could ask for. These are the greatest of the greats. But most candidates are going to be more definable and more limited. Take Tommy Rogers. I wouldn't look at Tommy Rogers and say "I can't find a great singles main event. His mid 90s-2000s work when he was in his 30s was pretty disappointing. Not a candidate." That's a complete misrepresentation of who Rogers' is as a wrestler and as a top 100 candidate. You start with the Fantastics stuff because thats the bulk of the case. Unless someone comes in and is like "His mid 90s-2000s is awesome unhearlded hidden gem work. Tommy Rogers was great for 20 years!" Then you watch it and evaluate it on those terms. 

Yes we should try and get a whole picture of every single candidate. That should definitely be the goal. Its completely unfeasible, but sure. That's the goal. But I think its more important to understand what sort of candidate someone actually is. I don't think anyone would make the argument that Lioness is a longevity based candidate. If shes going to make your list, she going to make it on the strength of the Crush Gals run primarily. She's Tommy Rogers with a frustrating (to me) singles run. I don't see her as a top tier candidate or even a top tier Joshi wrestler. But shes a more than deserving candidate. 

This is a really great post, and I want to lead with that, because I do have a minor quibble overall, but I love the outline. And this probably should be moved to the “what is your criteria” thread as it’s probably more fitting, especially with my lack of knowledge about Asuka.

 

But I think as you noted as all candidates have a different candidacy, and just like how different wrestlers have a different peak, they also have different declines, and imo, that has to be put in play. You use the Ric Flair comparison, and I actually go the other way on this then Kad. Do I reasonably expect Flair to be good in his 50’s? No. I would have preferred if he actively didn’t suck during that time period and it is a knock against him at the candidates at the top of the list any knock is a knock. 
 

And as stated on Asuka, I don’t have the viewings to watch her, but if she was super awful for a run of her career that’s going to be part, especially in cases of someone deep diving a company were she stunk up the joint like Jetlag.

[Jetlag]

1 hour ago, elliott said:

Quoting myself here. Always a special moment.

I wanted to explain more about what i mean here. Maybe it deserves its own thread. But I kinda think each candidate deserves their own explainer. 

I'm sure we'd all agree that not all candidates are equal and not all candidacy are the same. Some candidates are primarily candidates because of their peak. Others their longevity. Some because they were able to succeed all over the globe. Others because they figured out how to succeed in front of the same group of people week after week. Some are candidates because theyre awesome in TV matches reliably. Others may not have been reliable week in week out but always delivered on the big stage. Some people are candidates because they played one role better than anyone else. Other people are candidates because they succeeded in a variety of roles. Other's have a laundry list of great matches. While others made the most of the opportunities given and may not have the great match resume necessarily. Some candidates have everything you could ask for. These are the greatest of the greats. But most candidates are going to be more definable and more limited. Take Tommy Rogers. I wouldn't look at Tommy Rogers and say "I can't find a great singles main event. His mid 90s-2000s work when he was in his 30s was pretty disappointing. Not a candidate." That's a complete misrepresentation of who Rogers' is as a wrestler and as a top 100 candidate. You start with the Fantastics stuff because thats the bulk of the case. Unless someone comes in and is like "His mid 90s-2000s is awesome unhearlded hidden gem work. Tommy Rogers was great for 20 years!" Then you watch it and evaluate it on those terms. 

Yes we should try and get a whole picture of every single candidate. That should definitely be the goal. Its completely unfeasible, but sure. That's the goal. But I think its more important to understand what sort of candidate someone actually is. I don't think anyone would make the argument that Lioness is a longevity based candidate. If shes going to make your list, she going to make it on the strength of the Crush Gals run primarily. She's Tommy Rogers with a frustrating (to me) singles run. I don't see her as a top tier candidate or even a top tier Joshi wrestler. But shes a more than deserving candidate. 

 

I don't see this at all. Having good matches adds to ones case, having bad matches detracts. Having a bad match once in a while is ok, being bad consistently when you are the centerpiece of a promotion and theoretically perfectly capable of at least having a pretty decent match, to the point of where it kills peoples interest in promotions (and I'm far from in the minority in thinking this) should be a pretty huge knock. Triple Hs reign of terror was bad enough to sour many people on him forever despite him being (supposedly) great at his peak (would probably rank Asuka above him, though). The thing is, there is tons of guys and girls with strong peaks, and plenty of great work outside their peaks. The last countdown had 500 people on the list, with some huge legends like Chicky Starr being at the bottom. That's why we do these deep dive discussions of wrestlers and try to figure out how great they really were. Peak alone doesn't really cut it and that was something that was mentioned a lot during the last project.

 

The wrestler comparisons you made are quite apples and oranges, too. Did Misawa have some bad matches in NOAH? Yes, but he also had plenty of great ones. It never got to the point where he become dreadful to watch or killed peoples interest in the company. To be fair, his bad outings did knock him down a few places on my list.

 

Flair? Admittedly, I didn't watch WWE and WCW on a weekly basis, but I thought he had plenty of good to great matches even as an old man. Plus, he understood his role and he was never pushed as a constant main eventer at the time. Admittedly, I think I had him outside the top 50 last time IIRC.

 

Tommy Rogers? I don't think I ranked him last time. That sad, was he ever booked in any lengthy singles matches? If he sucked in them, then yes that should be held against him. From what I can find, he had barely a handful of singles that went over 5 minutes on ECW TV in the late 90s. Not at all comparable to Asuka who had lengthy main events in singles and various tag formats left and right in almost weekly televised apperances for years.

 

Should people look at Asukas peak work? Yes, absolutely. Never said they shouldn't. I think her peak is quite overrated, often underwhelming (especially the Chigusa singles matches) and not something I have any desire to revisit anytime soon. But they shouldn't just watch her peak and be done with it. Nor should they vote for her based on the matches they liked and dismissing the rest. If you actually watch a decent sample of all her work and still vote for her, honest to god saying that you think the good outweighs the bad and justifies putting her above 400 other workers - go ahead.

[elliott]

Flair was a bad choice because of the age and he's just a bad choice in general because he's Flair  

Age isn't the important factor. Take that out of it. Lots of wrestlers are awesome at one part of their career and good, average, disappointing and outright bad at other points. Some people can have a run that is so good that it makes them a candidate for the list based on that run alone. Take Sayama as an example. I'm not a fan of Sayama as Tiger Mask but in UWF 1.0 as Super Tiger I absolutely love what he's doing and he's just churning out matches that I love. The Super Tiger run alone makes him a candidate regardless of anything else that happened as Tiger Mask. I feel the same way about the Crush Gals run. Its so good it gets Lioness in contention and probably makes the list for that alone. 

That she turned into a garbage match wrestler sucks and it certainly is one of the things that prevents her from being a top tier candidate. But I'm not arguing for her as a top ten wrestler or anything like that. I'm saying she is a candidate who shouldn't be dismissed outright and especially shouldn't be dismissed outright based on the years that literally no one would argue are her best years.

 

1 hour ago, El Dragon said:

And as stated on Asuka, I don’t have the viewings to watch her, but if she was super awful for a run of her career that’s going to be part, especially in cases of someone deep diving a company were she stunk up the joint like Jetlag.

 

This is specifically why I'm trying to emphasize watching her 80s Crush Gals peak. There are people who aren't familiar with the Joshi candidates but this time around are wanting to make a good faith effort to watch them. There hasn't been much discussion about Lioness. 2016 the JOshi wrestlers were done a disservice and its still early in this projectIf someone who isn't familiar with Joshi clicks on Lioness' name and sees Jetlag dismissing her outright as terrible based on her JD and Arison work while ignoring the Crush Gals run they might be under the impression that the JD & Arison work is what people point to when they point to Lioness the great worker. It isn't. It wasn't. It never was. Watch the Crush Gals & 80s stuff. If people like that, then watch more and eventually that'll lead you to the JD & Arison stuff. Maybe you'll like it or maybe you'll hate it. I think that's the route that folks should take. Don't just start with the unseen work nobody has ever watched and dismiss her. Watch the stuff thats actually good first.

[Jetlag]

I'm not ignoring her Crush Gals run. I've said I consider it overrated, and something I could live without seeing again. But people should watch for themselves.

 

Obviously, we have a different criteria when it comes to this. If someone is a great worker, they should be able to understand what they are doing enough to translate their greatness into different setting, in my view. I love variety, and when in doubt I will probably rank a guy with a long excellent career in a variety of settings over a guy who had a great run doing the same type of territory main event over and over for 10 years. Of course Sano in PWFG and UWFi is the best, but him being good in NOAH rather than bad is a decent push ahead.

[ohtani's jacket]

Someone needs to pimp some 80s matches to watch because Asuka was great in the 80s was not a commonly held opinion the last time I was involved in any discussion of her. My impression of her was that she refused to sell for her opponents and ate up huge portions of the match on offense. The Chigusa singles matches were considered messes (personally, I like them in the same way that I like Toyota vs. Yamada matches), and the Jaguar match was considered inferior to the Devil/Chigusa match from the same show. If opinion has swung the other way, it seems  to be off-site somewhere. Can we get a bit more to go on than Lioness was great? 

As far as judging her career goes, it's pretty clear that she had two distinct periods -- her 80s work and her 90s and 00s work. If you ignore the later then you're ignoring half of her career. Not just a few bad years at the end, but the entire second half of her career. if you like Asuka then you'll be more inclined to enjoy some of her later work. I saw her live in 2004 and together with Chigusa, she was better than another else on the card. It might not hold up that way on TV, but live she got a bigger reaction than favorites like Yoshida and Satomura. She was working against Nagashima, though, who was also good live. That Jaguar Jd' match Jetlag pimps is good. I'm sure there are other good performances. Go into bat for her if you like her that much. 

[elliott]

10 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

 

As far as judging her career goes, it's pretty clear that she had two distinct periods -- her 80s work and her 90s and 00s work. If you ignore the later then you're ignoring half of her career. Not just a few bad years at the end, but the entire second half of her career. if you like Asuka then you'll be more inclined to enjoy some of her later work. I saw her live in 2004 and together with Chigusa, she was better than another else on the card. It might not hold up that way on TV, but live she got a bigger reaction than favorites like Yoshida and Satomura. She was working against Nagashima, though, who was also good live. That Jaguar Jd' match Jetlag pimps is good. I'm sure there are other good performances. Go into bat for her if you like her that much. 

This is a fair argument but if people are going to go this route I'd hope there is at least a modicum of consistency and  people spend time watching and give equal weight to Bobby Eaton's career from 1993-2012 as they do his 80s prime for example. I'm not holding my breath that this will happen. There are plenty of people who have different phases of their career with more weight being given to more famous phases or primes. This is hardly unique to Lioness and I don't know why she should be held to a different standard. And like I said above, I don't even think Lioness is one of the best people from her company in her prime. I just think for the sake of her thread and anyone clicking on it, the time that made her an actual candidate deserves being highlighted instead of ignored. If you're going to dismiss Lioness as a candidate, do it based on not liking the AJW women stuff not the JD stuff literally no one has ever promoted. 

As for matches

Crush Gals vs Devil Masami & Jaguar 6/28/84

Crush Gals vs Jumbo Hori & Yukari Ohmori 8/25/84

Crush Gals vs Lola Gonzalez & La Tarantula 10/6/84

Crush Gals vs Dump Matsumoto & Rossy Moreno 1/5/85

Crush Gals vs Jumping Bomb Angels 1/6/85

Crush Gals vs Dump Matumoto & Crane Yu 4/2/85

Lioness Asuka vs Chigusa Nagayo 4/7/85

Crush Gals vs Jumbo Hori & Yukari ohmori 4/25/85

Crush Gals vs Dump Matsumoto & Bull Nakano 5/25/85

Crush Gals vs Lola Gonzales & Rosa Maria 5/25/85

Lioness Asuka vs Jaguar Yokota 8/22/85

Crush Gals vs Dump Matsumoto & Bull Nakano 10/10/85

Lioness Asuka & Devil Masami vs Jumping Bomb Angels 2/15/86

Crush Gals vs Jumping Bomb Angles 3/20/86

Lioness Asuka vs Chigusa Nagayo 2/26/87

Lioness Asuka vs Yukari Ohmori 4/15/87

Lioness Asuka & Yukari Ohmori & Mika Suzuki vs Dump Matsumoto & Condor Saito & Judy Martin 4/27/87

Lioness Asuka vs Chigusa Nagayo 6/13/87

Crush Gals vs Jumping Bomb Angels 9/14/87

Crush Gals vs Marine Wolves 4/27/89

 

[ohtani's jacket]

The problem is that nobody outside of Jetlag, and I suppose strangers who don't post on this site, has watched Jd' in decades. Hell, even Jetlag going through GAEA feels fresh since it's a long time since anyone cared about that promotion. And even that the height of Joshi fandom, nobody cared about LLPW. So, you're basically left with people cherry picking the best parts of certain Joshi pro-wrestlers' careers, which isn't entirely fair when other women have their entire careers held up to scrutiny. I'm generally in the camp that only cares about a wrestler's best work, and I don't think people have the time or inclination to go through the best and worst of every person they're considering voting for, but I do think that if you feel strongly about a candidate (Asuka, for example), and people have negative things to say about that candidate, that you ought to take a look at that footage, judge it for yourself, and see if it has any impact on how you view the candidate. Heck, you might even have an interesting counter argument about the matches or the work. 

Also, I think there has been a shift in people's mentality over the years where post-prime work has become increasingly valued. Maybe that's just me getting old, but I know I definitely value post-prime work more highly than I did when I was younger. We've seen a lot of great work from older wrestlers since the original poll, and in some cases that's all we have from certain workers' careers. I am pretty sure that if Chigusa, Lioness and Jaguar had strong post-prime careers that it would definitely work in their favour. Otherwise you're shoehorning them into that period where the Matsunagas thought they were of any use, and I kind thought people were opposed to their business practices these days.