Lioness Asuka

[elliott]

OJ, I don't disagree with any of this. THis is another thing that partially belongs in a different thread and should have been vocalized more before the project even began. 

Since the last project I've seen a number of people say that they didn't participate but enjoyed reading the discussions and have found the various wrestler threads useful resources. I know I've gone back and re-read various threads at certain points over the last 5 years. If you're unfamiliar with a wrestler, these threads can theoretically be great ways to learn about wrestlers. I sort of alluded to this above when I talked about Tommy Rogers. If I click on the Tommy Rogers thread, I would expect to primarily see a discussion about his work with the Fantastics and not his 2000s indy work. If I like the Fantastics stuff that'll lead me to the indy work. You should be able to click on any thread and learn about why someone is a candidate. What is their best run. What kind of candidate are they. Are they known for brawls are they known for technical matches? Are they a peak candidate or a longevity candidate? What should you prioritize if you're going to watch them. And yes when it comes down to it, what are the flaws. 

Until recently, this thread had minimal commentary. 2 posts from 2016. Then Grimmas' one bumping it. And then all of this. I'm a big Joshi fan. I didn't revisit anything in 2016 but in the ensuing 5 years I've rewatched a ton of stuff and watched a lot of stuff new to me as well. Going into the project I wanted to continue to watch Joshi, but also spend time promoting various candidates that I considered top tier wrestlers. I wasn't an enormous fan of Lioness in the 80s compared to her peers but I think what she shows makes her a viable  candidate for the list. Its the most important run of her career and the best work she ever did. But she's not Hokuto, Nakano, Jaguar, Dump, Devil etc etc, so Lioness wasn't a priority for me. I'd get around to talking about her eventually, but we've got 5 years and I'd rather prioritize putting over those people I really love and think are top shelf wrestlers. So I didn't feel the urgency to respond to Grimmas and start a real discussion on Lioness. Its only a month in. I figured everyone would still be talking about the people they actually liked. 

Had Grimmas not asked Jet what they meant by worst legendary wrestler ever and had I not emphasized the Crush Gals run as the key part of her candidacy, someone who doesn't know much about Joshi reading this thread might come to the conclusion that Lioness' JD & Arison work is what was important to her candidacy. Since as OJ alluded to, Jet is the only person watching JD & ARISON and they don't like Lioness, surely there's some other reason she's nominated. People should asses that and go from there. 

I understand the argument is "this project is supposed to poke holes at people and assess them critically" and thats true. But lines like "The Takada of women's wrestling" and "worst legendary wrestler ever" with no context unless pushed isn't poking holes or critically assessing. 

This is why I felt it was important to emphasize for anyone coming into this thread 1, 3, 5, 8 years from now: the reason Lioness would be considered for a top 100 list is really born out of her 80s work first and foremost. She was part of a legendary tag team with Chigusa Nagayo that participated in wild out of control brawls and clean workrate classics. There have always been complaints about her selling and tendency to eat her opponents alive, but she has a decent amount of all time great matches and the Crush Gals were such a great team she merits consideration. Your mileage may vary on her singles matches but the 1985 match against Yokota is legendary. Her series against Chigusa produced some classic matches, especially the 1987 match. There's a great match against Yukari Ohmori too that I feel was more due to Ohmori than Lioness, but it was still a great Lioness performance. Lioness & Chigusa worked a really interesting style in the context of their time. It included a ton of stiff striking, shoot style mat work and big suplexes and bombs worked at a frenetic pace. They are also probably the most over tag team in the history of wrestling so they are always working in front of insanely hot crowds invested in everything they did. They could have skated by with less effort, but at their peak of fame they consistently worked as hard as any wrestlers in the world. Chigusa was the star of the team, but those chants for Lioness are every bit as loud. Her veteran work is less famous and explored. There's a famous match from 1995 against Yumiko Hotta that is super stiff and had a huge reputation at one time. Her even later work in smaller promotions like JD, ARISON, and GAEA is less watched, explored and discussed and saw Lioness turned away from her shooty sprinty style and became more of an ECW style garbage worker with tedious set ups to spots, poor and selling structure and disappointing work in general. If you're going to consider Lioness a top 100 candidate, you are likely to do so based on the strength of her peak work in the 80s. Watch that and go from there. But watch Jaguar Yokota instead.