Kana/Asuka

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[Scarlet-Left]

I watched this match yesterday, and I love it. It actually felt like a squash match in the early goings, so effective was Kana's heel work and her opponent's selling, but it became competitive after a while.

 

 

There's actually a lot in there that reflects what I love about her.

 

There's a good tag match, with her working against this same girl. It's a lot of fun, and there's a good face-in-peril segment from Shirai that is interrupted when Kana clocks Hamada around the head with a stiff kick. Good sport!

 

[MoS]

If this were a "Which present wrestler excites you the most while watching a match?" list, then Asuka would be number one, closely followed by Sasha, but only because she has done nothing of note in the last few months.

 

Unfortunately, it is not, and as such, I do not think both of them are in the running for Top 100 wrestlers of all time. Maybe next time.

[fxnj]

I haven't seen her NXT work, but I think she has a very strong case for female worker of the half-decade based on her work before that. Things like the heel JWP run, the SMASH ace run, the intergender matches, and the rivalries with Satomura, Kurihara, and Syuri are some of the main reasons why I used to be excited every time she showed up on tape. Also, I really respected how she was the only worker, male or female, who was trying to carry on the legacy of the BattlArts style and refused to cave into doing the joshi go-go-go style that she hated, even when it restricted the places she could work. It's amazing that she's become the first female Japanese worker to get pushed as a star attraction by WWE, but I'd argue she already has too much quality on her resume to be easily dismissed.

[Jimmy Redman]

I love Asuka so much. I'd love to rank her but I'd have to have a good look at her pre-NXT work to do that, so it's a question of whether I am able to do that in time. Seems like there's a decent assortment available online to dive into, but if anyone has specific match recommendations I'm all ears.

[donsem43]

I was going to link to the thread from when she first signed with WWE but a lot of those links there are dead so here's some fresh ones:

 

vs. Serena: SMASH 5/3/11 - best place to start since it's the most WWE-like match that she had in Japan.

 

vs. Syuri: SMASH 6/25/10, SMASH 2/19/12, REINA 12/26/14

 

vs. Meiko Satomura: Triple Tails 2/13/11, 2/25/14 Kana Pro

 

w/ Ayumi Kurihara vs. Meiko Satomura/Ayako Hamada: KanAyu 6/15/13

 

vs. Yoshiko Tamura: NEO 5/31/09 , NEO 11/17/09

 

vs. Tomoka Nakagwa: SMASH 1/19/12

 

w/ Konami vs. Syuri/Hikaru Shida: Kana Pro 3/8/15

 

vs. Ryo Mizunami: Pro Wrestling WAVE 6/14/15

 

All this plus the two other matches already linked is what I'm using to decide if and where she ends up on my list.

[donsem43]

I was going to link to the thread from when she first signed with WWE but a lot of those links there are dead so here's some fresh ones:

 

vs. Serena in SMASH 5/3/11 - best place to start since it's the most WWE-like match that she had in Japan.

 

vs. Syuri: SMASH 6/25/10, SMASH 2/19/12, REINA 12/26/14

 

vs. Meiko Satomura: Triple Tails 2/13/11, 2/25/14 Kana Pro

 

w/ Ayumi Kurihara vs. Meiko Satomura/Ayako Hamada: KanAyu 6/15/13

 

vs. Yoshiko Tamura: NEO 5/31/09 , NEO 11/17/09

 

vs. Tomoka Nakagwa: SMASH 1/19/12

 

w/ Konami vs. Syuri/Hikaru Shida: Kana Pro 3/8/15

 

vs. Ryo Mizunami: Pro Wrestling WAVE 6/14/15

 

All this plus the two other matches already linked is what I'm using to decide if and where she ends up on my list.

[conker8]

Any recommandation matches from 2004-2009 ?

[El Dragon]

Feels odd this one hasn’t been bumped up, as she has to be a high contender for wrestlers who the last 5 years in WWE has been a major net positive. Whenever she’s been put in a major role it feels like she’s succeeded at doing something cool, and she had a solid career predating her WWE run too.

I had her on my list last time and I’d be very surprised if she isn’t on it again.

[Childs]

What's the general view of her Japanese career? I've seen a few great matches but have little grasp of the total picture other than some vague sense that she was uneven. 

[WingedEagle]

Her matches never quite rise to the level that some people seem to hold her when I watch.  In Japan, workers like Meiko & Io Shirai produce better on worse days, while in the states Bayley, Sasha, Charlotte and Rousey have all had higher highs.  This isn't to knock her as bad or anything of the sort, but I simply don't see her as best in class anywhere she's been. 

[GlassS0Ldier]

Triple Tails & Kana Pro are just about the coolest things on the entire planet, Kana/Asuka deserves for that alone. 

Truly a standout for how much she went against the grain in the Joshi landscape during the relatively dry 2000s. Kana didn't have the "privilege" of an environment like late 90s/early 2000s GAEA or other equally intense, cutthroat promotions to showcase her skillset, but did something even more worth commending in creating those opportunities herself, primarily running produce shows and freelancing, putting on some of my favorite Joshi Intergender matches ever with the best of Japan's indie scene. While greats from a similar timeframe like Meiko have Kana beat in terms of volume of great matches, Kana I'd argue is on par with, and at times exceeds her both on the mat and striking.

Their trilogy from 2010 - 2014 highlights this. She wasn't content to just book shows with BattlArts/Futen or other indie workers either, though, as she'd often bring her own unique vision to each of her matches on her shows. As pretentious and pseudo-artsy as it may come off as, I adore the atmosphere of the last match in her trilogy with Satomura from 2014, and wish we got to see more of it today. 

The only thing I feel really works against her is that she wasn't quite as brilliant until after 2008 or so, and that, as stated before, she lacks the dense catalogue as some of her other contemporaries, which can be contributed to how only so much of what she's done is available for us to see (though this is a bigger issue for others).

It's also astonishing that once she came to WWE as "Asuka", she stripped her own wrestling style down so heavily, and yet was still head and shoulders above the level of even some of the best that WWE had to offer. Even if her work in the states is a far cry from what she did on the Japanese circuit, she still stands out as prolly the best women's workers in WWE, with only Sasha Banks coming in as a close second. Easily a top 10 Joshi ever for me.

[kas]

Kana is someone who I could very easily see sneaking into my top 20. She has an exceptionally high floor, usually able to get something good out of even the most dire talents and has some of the best Joshi matches to have taken place in the 21st century. She's incredibly versatile, capable of working several different styles at a high level, and as GlassS0ldier mentioned has the tendency to push boundaries and present a unique vision of what pro wrestling could be.

[kas]

In addition to the matches already pimped, here's some more stuff that really round out her case. The more I watch, the stronger my conviction of her being the best modern Joshi and a top 20 candidate.

Kana vs Kyoko Kimura 08/16/08 - https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x60c9le

 

AKINO & Chihiro Oikawa vs. Kana & Nanae Takahashi 12/28/2008 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4kKmFGE7NY&ab_channel=theresnoreasontolive

 

 

Kana & Nanae Takahashi vs. Natsuki Taiyo & Passion Ray 11/22/2009 - https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4ha1qm

Kana vs Meiko Satomura 04/29/2010 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hhv86X56XGM

Kana vs. Sara Del Rey 10/01/2011 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHqWOt0K_wk&ab_channel=RateTheWrestling

Kana vs Sara Del Rey 10/08/2011 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JO_GeYiRjw4&ab_channel=CHIKARALive

Kana vs Hanako Nakamori 10/14/2013 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dgcB6NCII8

 

Kana & Meiko Satomura vs Hanako Nakamori & Arisa Nakajima 11/24/2013 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=517ylNpK0P4&ab_channel=Evito-X-Puro

 

Kana & Minoru Suzuki vs. Syuri & Yoshiaki Fujiwara 10/07/2014 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUau1M81dLA&ab_channel=【KanaChanTV】あるじの居ない部屋

Asuka vs Emma 12/16/2015 - https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x49yxfz

Asuka vs Bayley 04/01/2016 - https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5vp0b2

Asuka vs Bayley 08/20/2016 - https://vk.com/video73122125_456239101

Asuka vs Ember Moon 08/19/2017 - https://vk.com/video-176123987_456239065

Asuka vs Sasha Banks 01/29/2018 - https://vk.com/video-109963232_456240428

Asuka vs Becky Lynch vs Charlotte 12/16/2018 - https://vk.com/video-176123987_456239063

Asuka vs Becky Lynch 01/27/2019 - https://vk.com/video-154481559_456241599

 

 

 

 

[moskowDiskow]

Kana had that run in 2013-15 where she was very, very good but hasn't really done too much of interest outside of that window, as she was still figuring her stuff out beforehand and was limited by WWE after. She was certainly good but Top 20 is a bit stiff I think. Even Top 100 is iffy considering she's likely only a top 25ish all time woman wrestler.

[kas]

Did a write-up on Kana that go through some matches of hers that really showcase her diverse skillset 

https://kaswrestlingblog.substack.com/p/greatest-wrestler-ever-the-case-for-kana-asuka

[fxnj]

Been watching a lot of her stuff lately after I couldn't get into some other pimped joshi like I wanted to, and female GOAT sounds about right. There's definitely stylistic preferences in play (but I don't think it's possible to rank wrestlers without also ranking styles), but for me it's Kana, then Mariko Yoshida, then everybody else. Over time I've kind of convinced myself that my belief back in the early 2010s of her operating on a different level than any other female wrestler mostly stemmed from the novelty of her being my first big exposure to serious intergender wrestling and joshi shoot-style, but that's bullshit. Nobody did intergender wrestling better than her and I'm still very impressed by her shoot-style ability, doubly so given that she came up at a time when big joshi promotions were actively hostile to her style.

More great matches:

Kana vs. Ayumi Kurihara (Passion Red 2009) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEpS8ggfhTs

Brutal stuff with several places where I could have sworn Kurihara must have broken a limb. They also had a rematch in WAVE 2011 that's even better, but I can only find the vid on websites that also host a bunch of porn, so not sure about linking it.

Kana/Fujiwara vs. Ishikawa/Amano (KanaPro 2011) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWL9AdKh7yM

Top tier intergender match with everyone giving amazing performances. A nice companion piece to the more famous tag with Ikeda.

Kana vs. Ayako Hamada (SHIMMER 2012) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eKQ2YZ0-_0

Best stateside match I've seen from her. Just these two doing exactly what they're best at and gelling really well in front of a crowd that appreciates it. 

Asuka vs. Charlotte vs. Becky Lynch (WWE 2018) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfIMuOu9wl0

My view on her WWE work has tended more towards respecting it than getting into it in the same way I get into her Japanese stuff. In something like this though, she gets an opportunity to tap back into some of that classic brutality, and she's also the one driving most of the action overall.