[1993-06-03-AJW vs JWP] Manami Toyota vs Hikari Fukuoka

[ohtani's jacket]

This was always one of my favourite Toyota matches. If you're not a Toyota fan then there's not much appeal, and even if you like Joshi it's not really a great match per se, but what I like about it is the competitiveness. In most inter-promotional matches, Toyota would play the Queen Bee while the other girl was a second class citizen. Here she treated Fukuoka as though she were an All Japan girl. It wasn't until deep in the stretch run that she really took over, but even there Fukuoka earned a fair amount of cred for kicking out. I've mentioned before how much I enjoy these smaller league matches compared to a lot of Toyota's more high profile work. This one was like vs. like, which is seldom the best recipe for a match, so it wasn't quite the match-up that say Toyota vs. Ito was. It covered a lot of ground that I've been seeing on a daily basis from Toyota (same spots, same sequences), but again Toyota could have brushed Fukuoka off and no-one would have bat an eyelid. Hikari didn't really have the experience or confidence to stamp her mark on the bout, and the subtext of her being more than just a Toyota clone should have been more overt, but I liked this a lot. There may have been some sloppiness and dropped selling, but I don't get too hung up on those things.

[garretta]

YouTube this, please!

[Zenjo]

I liked the beginning best as they were sharply into the matwork. They went 50/50 for the most part with Hikari providing a stern test. Toyota then took over at the end and won with something to spare. She certainly wasn't in jeopardy. The level peaked early and went on a slight downhill gradient over time. Because of appearances and sharing a few of the same moves Fukuoka was seen as JWP's version of Toyota. In terms of experience and ability her equivalent wrestler was Sakie Hasegawa instead.