[1993-02-28-AJW] Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada vs Yumiko Hotta & Takako Inoue

[PeteF3]

(3WA Tag Titles - 2 out of 3 Falls) Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada vs Takako Inoue & Yumiko Hotta

1st fall starts out hot with Takako jumping Toyota, doesn't last long tho with Manami getting pissed and just blasting the hell out of Tak in retaliation with a punt to the forehead and a follow up series up stiff kicks. Jeez, pre show they had to have had a big roster meeting whear the Matsunaga's were all like "ok girls, we don't have Bull & Hokuto on the show tonight so our brutal ass whoop quota is going to be a little low, think you could step it up?" because everyone's been super amped up on this show. When you're in a match with Toshiyo Yamada & Yumiko Hotta and it's Toyota who's laying in the skull crushing blows you know someone's spiked the water. Things settle down a bit after that into a more routine back and forth match and and it ends with Hotta getting the duke over Yamada afer 3 powerbombs. 1st time in a long while that Yamada's been the one to eat a pin for their team. 2nd Fall we get start with more Hotta/Yamada kick exchanges which are always a highlight. Takako tags in and all of a sudden a boxing match breaks out which she loses getting droped on her ass by a straight Yamada punch to the dome. More Toyota/Tak follows and it degenerates into a hair pulling war with Inoue fairing better this time around. Really angry violent match this is. Hotta kicks around Toyota for a bit then Tak comes back in and ups the bitchyness factor going for revenge and really heeling it up on her. Things settle down a little bit again until the finish, funny botch as Toyota goes for a dive on Hotta but slips and falls right on her face. Shook her up a little bit as Toyota flubs another move or 2 but nothing serious and she recovers well enough. Few double teams from the champs and then Toyota drops Inoue with a double chicken wing suplex to even things up. 3rd fall Toyota & Yamada try to blitz Inoue and score a quick win but it's no go and then things break down into an ugly chair swinging brawl for a little bit. Back inside Takako starts tossing out lariats and then goes for a few leg bar attempts. After that the match becomes a war of attrition with everyone wearily going all out. By this point they're nearing the 30 min mark and given they weren't working a lot of time killing rest holds you can tell they're starting to feel it. Finally in the end it comes down to Toyota & Yamada again busting out a big array of double teams, they nearly kill Hotta with their fliping backdrop off the top rope, ironic given how many times the situation has been reversed. Finally after 32+ Yamada gets her win back from earlier and finishes off Hotta with the Gory bomb. Post match Takako gets on the mic and issues out some singles challenges, don't know what gets said back by Yamada but i'm sure it was nothing nice as Tak walks away dejected and in near tears. Not a great match, there were def some flaws. Went a little longer then it probably should have and if you're the type of person who's gonna be all "they didn't execute this or that to perfection - minus 1/4 *" then this may not be for you. Still, I thought the good far far outweighed the bad, this was a war and felt like it, ugly & nasty & gritty. For her part, Takako has been turning that corner from mid card technical wrestler into bad ass butt kicker with an attitude problem for a while now and for me this was the 1st time whear it really felt like she'd finally finished turning and was fully heading straight down that road. She may not have won every exchange but she gave as good as she got and dind't look outclassed, a step below or like the weak link here at all. A damn good match to end the night.

 

[garretta]

This one was a bit sloppy in the first two falls, but cleaned up its act in the third. But even when the execution was sloppy, these four gave off the vibe of going all-out to win, so the sloppiness was forgivable. It had a bit of everything, from shoot-style exchanges to a chair-throwing melee, so everyone should like at least part of it. I wish I could say more, but I've seen so little of these workers that the spots they performed make more of an impression than they do themselves. Still, if you like joshi, you should definitely check this one out.