Mariko Yoshida: Complete & Accurate

[KB8]

I brought up doing a Complete & Accurate of Yoshida in her GWE nomination thread a few days ago because: a) she's awesome so why the hell not? b) the ARSION stuff rules and it's probably my favourite joshi promotion ever and Yoshida is the primary reason for it, c) I haven't seen too much of her earlier AJW stuff and 00s Yoshida - like lots of 00s joshi, I guess - is pretty underexplored, and d) she's awesome so why the hell not? 

I had her at #69 for GWE 2016 based off of like a week's worth of watching her right before the deadline. I revised my list a couple years ago and I can tell you she was very many spots higher, and for 2026 I can see her being higher still. The ARSION peak is sublime, but is there enough outside that to make her a top 30 candidate? Is she a major peak candidate who's hurting a bit on longevity? Does she have the longevity but not a ton of quality beyond that awesome peak? I suppose that's what we're trying to find out. 

I may be joined on this journey by @elliott and I'm sure @El-P will have something to add as he may be a fan of hers. @Jetlag has also written about most of the ARSION run in his ARSION thread, which has been really useful as a point of reference. 

Big Stupid Master List of Shit You Should Definitely Watch will categorise matches into EPIC, GREAT, GOOD, FUN and SKIPPABLE, as Segunda Caida have a winning formula so why change it? I'll just start C&Ping stuff I've written here and on my dumb blog and it'll build from there. 

 

1990

Mariko Yoshida & Yumiko Hotta v Bison Kimura & Madusa Miceli (AJW, 11/14/90) - FUN

 

1991

Mariko Yoshida & Akira Hokuto v Bull Nakano & Kyoko Inoue (AJW, 6/5/91) - GOOD

 

1992

Mariko Yoshida & Takako Inoue v Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda (AJW, 1/4/92) - FUN

Mariko Yoshida & Takako Inoue v Debbie Malenko & Sakie Hasegawa (AJW, 4/25/92) - GREAT

Mariko Yoshida v Kyoko Inoue (AJW, 8/30/92) - GOOD

Mariko Yoshida, Yumiko Hotta & Toshiyo Yamada v Bull Nakano, Aja Kong & Kyoko Inoue (AJW, 9/15/92) - GREAT

 

1994

Mariko Yoshida v KAORU (AJW, 8/28/94) - GREAT

 

1995

Mariko Yoshida & Aja Kong v Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue (AJW, 3/21/95) - GOOD

 

1998

Mariko Yoshida v Rie Tamada (ARSION, 4/17/98) - EPIC

Mariko Yoshida v Mikiko Futagami (ARSION, 5/5/98) - EPIC

Mariko Yoshida v Reggie Bennett (ARSION, 5/5/98) - EPIC

Mariko Yoshida v Yumi Fukawa (ARSION, 5/8/98) - GREAT

Mariko Yoshida v Aja Kong (ARSION, 6/21/98) - GREAT

Mariko Yoshida v Mikiko Futagami (ARSION, 8/9/98) - EPIC

Mariko Yoshida v Michiko Ohmukai (ARSION, 8/31/98) - GOOD

Mariko Yoshida v Reggie Bennett (ARSION, 8/31/98) - GREAT

Mariko Yoshida v Ayako Hamada (ARSION, 8/31/98) - FUN

Mariko Yoshida v Candy Okutsu (ARSION, 12/18/98) - GREAT

 

1999

Mariko Yoshida v Mika Akino (ARSION, 1/17/99) - EPIC

Mariko Yoshida v Yumi Fukawa (ARSION, 9/26/99) - EPIC

 

2000

Mariko Yoshida v Aja Kong (ARSION, 10/17/00) - GREAT

Mariko Yoshida v Ayako Hamada (ARSION, 10/17/00) - EPIC

 

2001

Mariko Yoshida v Yuu Yamagata (ARSION, 12/8/01) - GOOD

 

2002

Mariko Yoshida v Cheerleader Melissa (ARSION, 8/29/02) - FUN

Mariko Yoshida & Yumiko Hotta v Sumie Sakai & Megumi Yabushita (AJW, 11/3/02) - GOOD

 

2003

Mariko Yoshida v Yumiko Hotta (AtoZ, 11/9/03) - GREAT

 

2004

Mariko Yoshida v Carlos Amano (GAEA, 4/30/04) - EPIC

Mariko Yoshida v Sakura Hirota (GAEA, 11/3/04) - FUN

 

2006

Mariko Yoshida v Yoshiko Tamura (NEO, 11/3/06) - EPIC

 

2007

Mariko Yoshida v Atsuko Emoto (IBUKI, 1/28/07) - EPIC 

[KB8]

Mariko Yoshida & Yumiko Hotta v Bison Kimura & Madusa Miceli (AJW, 11/14/90) - FUN

Pretty sure this is the earliest match I've seen from every woman involved. I didn't think Madusa showed up in AJW until a couple years later, but it turns out she'd already been there as early as '88. Her heel shtick was sort of amusing, she threw a few nice kicks and she wasn't afraid to cheapshot someone. Hotta never really potatoed anybody and worked pretty light with Madusa. Maybe she hadn't yet developed that crowbar streak, or she wasn't quite as comfortable full force punching the foreigner in the nose. Yoshida played a fun FIP, got ragdolled for a few minutes and took a few nasty face-first bumps off of hair swings. She wasn't into the shoot style/lucha funkiness yet -- this was her doing a bunch of Irish whips and bridge ups at a hundred miles an hour. Not the best version of Yoshida, but I'm interested in watching some of her earlier stuff and for a two year pro there weren't many holes to pick. Finish being a plain old slap was...strange.

 

Mariko Yoshida & Takako Inoue v Debbie Malenko & Sakie Hasegawa (AJW, 4/25/92) - GREAT

This was pretty much the definition of a Leaving It All Out There joshi tag, coming with all that entails. Not one of them had even been wrestling for four years at this point (Malenko barely two) so it was a young lions version of a Leaving It All Out There joshi tag, coming with all THAT entails. Yoshida is a personal favourite but even still I was shocked at how good this was. Some of the transitions were ropey and they raced through some stuff, the execution wasn't always perfect and at a couple points I wanted them to slow it down a bit and build some more heat before moving onto the next segment. But they had that crowd hooked completely by the end and I'll be fucked if I wasn't all in as well. Yoshida's the one I was most interested in here and she was really fun in that sort of lucha-esque way, where she could still tie someone in knots but she was also happy to take to the air at the same time. In ARSION she was more Negro Navarro or Blue Panther, here she was still Atlantis or Angel Azteca. Some of her flying was delightful and of course she got to apply a preposterous hold for fun. Debbie Malenko looked raw as hell but her exchanges with Takako got real gritty and I dug them slapping each other about the ears. Takako wasn't in full bitch more yet but she clearly had a mean streak a mile wide and Debbie bore the brunt of it. Sakie took most of the beating and played a fun babyface who wouldn't quit, quite literally I suppose as she spent a fair amount of time being stretched. Not all of her strikes landed flush, but she gets an A for effort and when they did land it was usually right under the chin. Liked the opening with Yoshida and Inoue going straight after her and cutting her off from her partner, and even if the hot tag could've been built to a little more I thought Malenko was impressive coming in bringing the thunder. All four of them probably overreached at least once but, not to sound patronising, there was a charm to all of it. More than the charm I appreciated how much they took the 20 minutes they had and tried to grab their chance at impressing. I think they succeeded all ends up. Super pleasant surprise. 

 

Mariko Yoshida v Kyoko Inoue (AJW, 8/30/92) - GOOD

Yoshida is my favourite women's wrestler ever and ARSION is my favourite style of joshi. ARSION was something unique and Yoshida was the very best at doing what made it so fun. This wasn't that Yoshida and it sure as shit wasn't ARSION. This wasn't Yoshida with the awesome spider-suit and the grappling; it was young plucky flier Yoshida with about four years' experience as a wrestler. And it wasn't amazing or anything, but it was a neat look at one of the coolest wrestlers ever in her more formative years, like Springsteen throwing out word salads on 'Blinded by the Light' before settling into his true calling of telling us about Wendy and the highways jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive. She worked most of this from below with Kyoko controlling, often through half and full crabs. It wasn't always the most compelling honestly, but it was interesting how much more established Kyoko felt here than Yoshida despite them both debuting in 1988. Felt like Kyoko had her own style fleshed out a bit more while Yoshida worked almost as if she was a skinny rookie at times. I can't say I have much knowledge of early Yoshida overall though, so maybe she worked as the underdog often (and she was certainly good at it so I suppose that would make sense). It's not until she reels off a few big dives that Yoshida gains some even footing and that segues nicely into the short finishing stretch. It was a really good few minutes with a nice sense of drama. I never knew the result either so naturally I was pulling for Yoshida, and even if the finish wasn't TOTALLY perfect I liked the idea behind it a lot. It felt like a very Yoshida thing to do, just with a dive off the top rather than a Fujiwara armbar. 

 

Yumiko Hotta, Toshiyo Yamada & Mariko Yoshida v Bull Nakano, Aja Kong & Kyoko Inoue (AJW, 9/15/92) - GREAT

This seemed to be geared more towards "fun" than "epic" (yet winding up being better than just fun), which I was perfectly fine with. It's 2/3 falls and the last 2/3 falls joshi match I watched went fifty minutes and they went into the finishing stretch after about seven of those minutes. It was not enjoyable. This wasn't like that and they never went overboard at any point. Maybe it's because I was focusing mostly on her, but I thought Yoshida was really good in this and my favourite girl in it. She's young and scrawny and rookie-ish so of course she gets steamrolled, but she had some awesome bumping for fat lady offence. She was also SPUNKY and stuff, so whenever she fired back with some offence it felt really scrappy and desperate, which is exactly what you want out of a four year pro against a couple monsters like Bull and Aja. She was very fun in this match is what I'm saying. Hotta and Aja really smack the crap out each other like you'd expect. Aja drills her with an absolutely fucking ungodly spinning back fist and it looked like Hotta's molars flew out a hole in her cheek. 

 

Mariko Yoshida v Rie Tamada (ARSION, 4/17/98) - EPIC

Yoshida's first match in ARSION and fittingly it's a doozy. Some of her matwork in this was breathtaking, how she'd just yank Tamada into a hold and give her no peace whatsoever. One of my favourite things about her as a worker is how nothing against her comes easy, even if it's trying to gain side control or apply a routine hold, she makes you work for every little thing and we saw it in abundance here. Her dominance on the ground sort of created a story of Tamada being forced to try every other strategy possible in response, from taking to the air to attempting a bunch of DDT and suplex variations to straight elbowing Yoshida in the mouth. Not that she was a slouch on the mat, but if she was stubborn enough to keep the match there then it wouldn't be long before Yoshida hooked her in something she couldn't get out of. We saw this when she started going after Yoshida's leg, grabbing a few kneebars that forced her to scramble to the ropes, but then she got ahead of herself shooting in for the single leg and Yoshida tied her up in two seconds flat. I can't even describe how she did it, but man was it gorgeous. Classy match. 

 

Mariko Yoshida v Mikiko Futagami (ARSION, 5/5/98) - EPIC

What a cracking little bout. Where the last match started with a minute of ropey fighting spirit guff, this started with a minute of sprawling and scrambling for limbs that ended in a stalemate. Yoshida was an absolute marvel in this. She mostly works dominant and it's because she's such a dynamo on the mat. Futagami is the more accomplished striker, but most of her big hits land almost surprisingly. She has to get tricky with them because Yoshida seems to have them largely scouted, and once or twice, probably out of frustration, she throws a couple that could be considered cheapshots. Early on they engaged in a knuckle lock and Futagami started throwing kicks, thinking she'd keep hold of Yoshida's hands so she wouldn't be able to block. Except Yoshida used her arm and managed to corral a body kick anyway, which she then turned into a rolling kneebar. On the couple rare occasions it looks like Futagami might have Yoshida in a dangerous spot, Yoshida will spring a counter and apply an ankle lock with her own feet or a kimura to escape a choke (and I love that she coughed and spluttered a bit afterwards to sell it). I'm not sure what prompted it specifically, but at some point Yoshida started selling her taped up wrist and it gave Futagami something to target in times of need. Some of her hits started landing a little more flush as well and they had me convinced she was winning after the brutal koppo kick. But really, Yoshida did about five things on the mat that I don't think I've seen before. There was one point where Futagami tried to pull some Manami Toyota neck bridging out of a pin shenanigans so Yoshida grabbed a choke with her legs. A couple beats later Yohida hit a folding powerbomb, and as Futagami kicked out Yoshida instantly transitioned into an ankle lock. The way she wound up with a gogoplata out of a gutbuster at the end was absurd. ARSION had such a cool house style and this was a superb ten minutes of it.

 

Mariko Yoshida v Reggie Bennett (ARSION, 5/5/98) - EPIC

So earlier in the tournament it was established that Reggie Bennett is able to not only trade blows - albeit briefly - with Aja Kong, but even take her to the mat and put her to sleep. Yoshida is a different animal entirely, and while she can't throw bombs like Aja she can work the mat to an elite level. As you'd expect she goes right to that, so Reggie has to use every bit of grappling skill along with her clear weight advantage to stay above water. Yoshida is always shifting for position, riding Bennett and looking to grab stray limbs as Reggie tries to basically smother her at points. The story is pretty simple in that respect. Yoshida needs to win with her grappling while Reggie, who's competent on the mat from at least a defensive perspective, is looking to slam Yoshida through the mat. In the back half Yoshida has to do everything a little quicker because Reggie is finding openings and starting to unload. There's a great nearfall where Reggie locks in a similar choke to the one she put Aja away with, and Yoshida is just incredible at milking everything right up to the point she manages to finally grab the ropes. It's not Shawn Michaels flailing around in the ankle lock for five minutes, it's not big an exaggerated where she's playing to the back row of the Omni. It's much more subtle and I love that little moment before the break where she reaches the hand out, misses the rope by a millimetre, looks all but done for, but then with her one remaining bit of energy she weakly wraps her fingers around it before getting put out like a light. I've said it a few times on this dumb blog and it still rings true - she might be the very best ever at milking a submission nearfall. Of course this whole thing was badass. 

 

Mariko Yoshida v Aja Kong (ARSION, 6/21/98) - GREAT

I'm not sure why this had a fifteen minute time limit, but either way it was kept relatively short and compact as a result. First half was solid enough but never had a ton going on. There was one cool moment where Aja hit the deck and tried to goad Yoshida into grappling, but Yoshida just strolled into the corner and crossed her legs. This was actually a pretty cool and different look at Aja. I'd never really seen her hit the mat before, and while it's not her game it did make for a fun dynamic. Second half picks up and really builds to a nice finish. Yoshida didn't get TOO tricky on the mat, but she did start rolling out some super neat stuff, and that forced Aja to go back to what she knows. What she knows is how to back fist people in the gub and holy lord did she back fist Yoshida in the gub. Yoshida's KO sell of it was fucking spectacular as well. This kind of almost stripped back style of joshi is far, far more my thing than the go-go-go bombfests, so I'm not sure why I've never really taken a closer look at ARSION in the past.

 

Mariko Yoshida v Candy Okutsu (ARSION, 12/18/98) - GREAT

This was pretty damn terrific. Yoshida was really awesome in this and came across as being totally unique, at least in comparison to all the other joshi I've seen personally (I haven't bothered with any joshi post-2004 or so, but I don't doubt plenty of girls are aping her these days). Okutsu isn't on the same level on the mat, but she holds her own fairly well when they take it down there. Some of the sprawling and grappling actually felt a bit like low-to-mid-level RINGS, and I absolutely mean that as a compliment because even low-to-mid-level RINGS can mean really damn good matwork (and when you talk about high-level RINGS you're talking about the level of Tamura, Han, Yamamoto, Kohsaka, etc., and only a handful of wrestlers in history reached that level). Yoshida herself will burst into super quick submissions by grabbing limbs and working them into angles limbs shouldn't be worked into. Her speed on the mat is pretty Tamura-esque, but she's not always grabbing shoot holds as such; more like something Trauma II would throw on someone. So, you know, I never expected a kind of Tamura/Trauma II mash-up from a joshi worker. She will also blast you in the face with a knee Ikeda-style so there's your Battlartsian influence to REALLY make me gush with praise. There was one bit where she literally monkey flipped Okutsu into a cross armbreaker and it just about blew my mind. Eventually the match takes on a grappler v flyer dynamic of sorts, which builds to a big climax that never feels overblown. 

 

Mariko Yoshida v Yumi Fukawa (ARSION, 9/26/99) - EPIC

I probably should've watched their May match before checking this one, but this felt like it was still pretty easy to follow on its own. I don't think I've seen Fukawa wrestle before, but she can handle herself on the mat. She's not as quick as Yoshida though, and it kind of leads to a few moments during the early exchange where Yoshida has to leave herself open or feed Fukawa in semi-obvious fashion. It's not massively glaring or anything, though. Thought Yoshida was really awesome in this, particularly as the match goes on and she can't seem to put Fukawa away. Fukawa kicks out of an air raid crash and Yoshida has this great look of almost shock before quickly gathering herself to go in again for the kill. Then Fukawa somehow makes the ropes when it looks like Yoshida has her Volk Han'd in the middle of the ring and Yoshida's "fuck sake, this should not be taking this long" expression was awesome. Fukawa sort of targets Yoshida's knee towards the end and I dug Yoshida's selling of it. It's pretty subtle, but at one point she tries to stand up and the leg buckles briefly, so Fukawa just launches herself at that leg like a shark smelling blood. Finish got an audible "What?!" reaction out of me as well. This was really good. I feel like I need to see every single thing Yoshida did in 1999.

 

Mariko Yoshida v Cheerleader Melissa (ARSION, 8/29/02) - FUN

This might be the first and only Cheerleader Melissa match I've ever seen. That seems unlikely considering she's been around forever, but other than her maybe showing up in ROH 12-15 years ago for a Shimmer showcase I can't think of any other reason I'd have been watching her. She'd just turned 20 here so you forgive her for not being great. She kind of worked like a slightly more spry Brian Lee, threw some clunky forearms to the chest, sort of lumbered around like you'd expect from someone who's only previous wrestling experience had been in a fairground. I don't know if it was the plan all along or Yoshida decided to take matters into her own hands but the match largely turned into Yoshida flinging her about the place with tricked out submissions. To Melissa's credit she actually grew into the match a bit and the last few minutes were pretty decent. It went 14 minutes all told and it never felt like that. So there you go. 

 

Mariko Yoshida v Carlos Amano (GAEA, 4/30/04) - EPIC

Cracking little match. Yoshida is a wonderful pro wrestler and we got to see plenty of what makes her so here. Her early grappling and tying up of Amano's limbs was Navarro-esque, only quicker and slicker. Pretty soon this became about how Amano could possibly survive Yoshida's masterclass, and she'd eventually get her answer by using her head as a weapon. She'd just launch herself head-first at Yoshida with these wild headbutts from various angles, which opened the door for her to bust out some of her own slick grappling. For an eleven minute match they did a pretty great job of getting across how dangerous the Air Raid Crash is, as every time Yoshida went for it Amano would frantically try to escape or reverse it into a hold. That then meant we got to see Yoshida come up with ways of escaping those predicaments, and I don't know if there's anybody better at milking a possible submission than Yoshida. Those little struggles over a cross armbreaker or a neck crank -- nobody does them better.

 

Mariko Yoshida v Yoshiko Tamura (NEO, 11/3/06) - EPIC

This was edited to about half of its 27-minute runtime, although the editing was pretty damn good because it felt fairly complete as it was (I'd never have guessed so much was clipped out before seeing the runtime in the post-match graphic). You can't really judge the whole match (or maybe there's a full version somewhere in which case you can if you bloody well want to), but the 14 minutes we got were really good and Yoshida still looked fucking awesome in 2006. It started with some real Battlartsy grappling and Yoshida dropping punches from the mount, waiting for Tamura to cover up before grabbing a nasty key lock. Again, there may have been lots of dodgy no-selling going on during this and the editing did away with it, but for a match where one woman had their leg worked over and the other had their arm worked over I thought the long-term selling was totally on point, especially from Yoshida. Tamura worked it over initially with some cool fisherman busters where she dropped Yoshida face- and knee-first, and Yoshida never let you forget the knee was a problem the whole way through. Lots of times she'd hit a move and try to knock some feeling into that knee afterwards, or she'd attempt a move, fail, and slap the knee in frustration. The coolest example of it was when she went for a second air raid crash and just about muscled Tamura up, but then the leg buckled and she collapsed under the weight. She was also a machine going after Tamura's arm and I'll be fucked if I know where she got it from but there was one armbar that Han would've been proud of. Late in the match she wound up in the mount again and when Tamura wouldn't give up the arm Yoshida just started dropping Joe Riggs hammer fists on her face. I think this is the first Yoshiko Tamura match I've seen. She was clearly a compatible dance partner for Yoshida. Her grappling was strong, she threw mean forearms, and while her selling of the arm maybe wasn't as good on the whole as Yoshida's selling of the leg I sure bought her tapping on more than one occasion. I liked what was shown of this a lot. And I guess I should check out some more Tamura? 

 

Mariko Yoshida v Atsuko Emoto (IBUKI, 1/28/07) - EPIC

It's a shame that most of these matches are clipped up a bit. Even if I'm not always into the idea of watching a 30-minute draw this had some truly awesome stuff in it and I'd like to see it in full. We get about 17 minutes overall though, so more than enough time to get a handle on what they were doing. It's another duelling limb work match, with Yoshida going after Emoto's arm and Emoto basically going after Yoshida's entire torso. I suppose it's hard to tell how consistent they were with the selling, but even with the editing it sure LOOKED like they were drawing constant attention to what ailed them. Sometimes it would be as simple as Emoto grabbing her arm after slamming or suplexing Yoshida, sometimes it would be something really cool like Yoshida grabbing her lower back WHILE being whipped into the turnbuckle. The actual offence was great all the way through and largely stayed focused. Emoto hitting a front suplex on the ring apron looked brutal, her Billy Robinson backbreaker looked brutal, that one release back suplex looked reckless AND brutal, and Yoshida was amazing at grabbing all sorts of submissions from unnatural positions. Loved the bit where Emoto applied a Boston crab and really leaned back at a nasty angle, then had to transition to a single-leg version because the bad arm couldn't keep hold of Yoshida's leg. Emoto was more than capable rolling around on the mat as well so there were a few sequences that were honestly breathtaking, not just because of how smooth they looked but because they felt appropriately desperate at the same time. I mean Emoto reversing a kimura into a stretch muffler was fucking badass. The last few minutes made up what was probably my least favourite part of the match, but Emoto's arm remained a factor right until the end. I don't even mind her gritting her teeth and going for a lariat with the bad arm - I'd assume it's one of her big moves and she'd approach it like a "this'll hurt me but it'll hurt you more" type of thing. They just ran out of ideas a little and you pretty much knew it was going to the time limit. Joshi feels dead as dirt in the mid-late 2000s but there was probably a decent amount of worthwhile stuff going on (never thought I'd be one of the folk going to bat for Kwame Brown/Laron Profit era joshi yet here we are. 2020 be wild as hell, boys). 

[elliott]

Yessss. Lets do it. 

I watched Mariko Yoshida & Akira Hokuto vs Bull Nakano & Kyoko Inoue 6/5/91 - GOOD

Yoshida is playing the role of way way way way way out gunned wrestler and she looks great getting beat up and bumping around. Honestly there's not much we can learn about her here other than that she was a great athlete capable of taking some really great bumps. There's a fun little storyline of Yoshida trying to monkey flip Bull and it goes poorly each time except when she turns it into a sunset flip. Yoshida looks good here but its a super limited role. Looking beyond Yoshida, I would recommend the match and call it good because Nakano is in full on Best in the World mode and looks awesome. She casually destroys Yoshida and the Bull vs HOkuto matchup is always great. 

 

[Jetlag]

Yoshidas AJW work is worth digging through. Even though she was not yet the spider lady, she was in some quite epic matches that were pretty different from the usual AJW material.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-poooLaCsxo

 

[KB8]

I'll definitely dive more into the AJW run. There seems to be more of it on youtube than when I last took a proper look (and searching her name in Japanese brings up even more results).

 

Mariko Yoshida & Takako Inoue v Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda (AJW, 1/4/92) - FUN

This was alright, if a bit messy here and there with a few transitions even shakier than you'd expect. It felt like a bit of an off night for Yoshida, unfortunately. She flubbed a handful of things and there were some awkward moments as a result. On the other hand, one of those flubs led to maybe the most interesting part of the match, as Mita just started potatoing her in frustration. Yoshida countered what would've been an eardrum-exploder of a slap into a roll up and it did not look like Mita was expecting it. Mita was pretty fun here in general, how she was rolling out several big throws that got progressively more complex over the course of the match, culminating with a super fast airplane spin where she chucked Inoue across the ring. Towards the end Inoue and Yoshida started picking apart Shimoda's leg and it looked like they were going to make a thing of it, but then Shimodo just bolted to the corner immediately following a tandem missile dropkick and that was that for your late-match heat segment. 

[ohtani's jacket]

You need to watch the Yagi matches pronto. I think there's another Fukawa match as well. You also need to see the Megumi Fuji match.

 

[KB8]

The 2/99 Yagi match and the Fujii match from '03 (presumably the one you're talking about) are two I've been hyped about finally seeing for a long time. I'm not sure why I seem to be saving them for a special occasion or whatever, but I'm up to the end of '98 going through the ARSION stuff so I'll at least get to the Yagi match pretty soon. 

[Kadaveri]

Mariko Yoshida vs. Hiromi Yagi - 02/18/99

Mariko Yoshida vs. Mikiko Futagami - 04/14/99

Mariko Yoshida vs. Yumi Fukawa - 05/04/99

Mariko Yoshida vs. Aja Kong - 08/06/99

Some other Mariko matches I have marked as great last time I watched this stuff.

[Phil Schneider]

Everyone posting in this thread needs to buy my book for jacking my C+A concept

[Shrike02]

I've seen maybe one Yoshida match at random from YouTube surfing about four years ago and she was really great in it. Maybe she can be my gateway into joshi. I've watched less than six joshi matches total if we're not counting WWE women's matches involving Japanese workers.

If some of these matches could be found in the GWE Links document that would be very helpful.

[ohtani's jacket]

I was curious about that KAORU match from '94. It was okay, but a little rough around the edges and very much in the vein of midcarder trying to have a great match. 

[NintendoLogic]

I haven't seen it in a while, but I liked this 8/18/91 match against Takako Inoue enough to use it for Secret Santo.

 

[KB8]

Mariko Yoshida & Aja Kong v Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue (AJW, 3/21/95) - GOOD

This was a semi-final match of a one-night tag tournament (at least I think it was the one night), so they never went full bore, but I thought they played to their spot on the card really well. Under different circumstances maybe they'd have gone longer and built to a bigger finish, but even at 16 minutes they still managed to do their thing and it's not like the finishing run was a lead balloon. Aja was outstanding in this. She didn't even do that much, it was mostly standard fare for where she was at in '95, but where she was at in '95 was top of the mountain (for another few days at least) and she very much carried herself as someone at the mountain top. She also thumped the hell out of both Inoues, and often at that. Yoshida was almost little sister in that respect, where she would come in a try to sustain the advantage, but rarely would she actually gain it for her team. I was looking forward to her exchanges with Takako but it seems the former teammates didn't harbour any ill will towards one another. Maybe their pairing ended amicably and not with one of them throwing the other head first through a barber shop window. I had no idea who was winning this so the last few minutes were pretty exciting, and the finish itself ruled. GOOD in isolation, possibly GREAT within the context of the tournament. 

[KB8]

Well damn, I forgot about this thread! I haven't gone two and a half years without watching any Yoshida.

 

Mariko Yoshida v KAORU (AJW, 8/28/94) - GREAT

This wasn't perfect. It was rough around the edges and at times they maybe struggled a wee bit to fill the half an hour, but at the very least they went out and worked something different to just about any AJW midcard match of the time (not that I've seen a ton of the 1994 AJW midcard, mind you). Yoshida is returning to action after nearly two years out with a broken neck and it turns into a minor story point throughout. If you'd only seen wrestling from America you'd be shocked that a broken neck isn't the main focus of the match, sort of like how Shawn Michaels came out of retirement after a slipped disc and everyone worked over his back for the next eight years. KAORU hits a couple piledrivers early and Yoshida's selling for the next little while was sublime, the way she'd snap KAORU into a leglock but immediately have to give it up, clutching her neck like the jolt from dropping to the mat had undone two years' worth of rehab. KAORU would go back to it sporadically throughout the match as well, sometimes just to give herself some distance by punching Yoshida in the neck. It worked every time so it would be hard to fault her. Yoshida never brought the same grappling that she would a few years later, it was very different here, much more scrappy and unrefined, but it was also really compelling. It was always gritty if nothing else. Sometimes she'd just grab KAORU's leg and twist it, whereas in ARSION she'd have turned it into something preposterous and beautiful and KAORU would've been scrambling for the ropes. I did love her putting KAORU in a half crab and tearing away her knee strapping, even biting her on the kneecap while the ref' wasn't looking, then she turned it into an STF where the leg was torqued at a putrid angle. Where the match mostly stood out from other AJW stuff was the pacing, which almost felt like a New Japan match at points. They'd go into stalemates and resets, regroup and come back at each other with different strategies. It meant we got a bit of everything, some matwork, some flying, some striking, a few bombs, but I never really thought they were just doing shit to be doing it. Some of the flying was great, especially KAORU's Asai moonsault, and one of Yoshida's topes where she landed all sideways. When it came to the striking they'd often shit-talk each other before throwing brutal slaps. And for the big high impact stuff, Yoshida practically hitting a Ganso Bomb was ludicrous. As the time limit approaches you kind of know what's coming, the bell ringing as Yoshida is pressing to secure a leglock. When they manage to get it restarted Yoshida comes out fast again, but then the neck comes back to haunt her as KAORU just spikes her with a tombstone. Very nifty. 

 

Mariko Yoshida v Yumi Fukawa (ARSION, 5/8/98) - GREAT

It feels like I say this every other time I write anything about her, but my god is Mariko Yoshida a force of nature when she really goes after someone. She takes about 80% of this with Fukawa having to claw for every morsel. Fukawa tries a rolling armbar early on and pretty much whiffs it, so Yoshida looks at her in disgust and stomps on her head. My favourite bit of Yoshida matwork here was how she prevented Fukawa from rolling through on a legbar attempt. The first time she went for that legbar Fukawa did roll through and Yoshida couldn't lock it in. When she grabs it again later Fukawa tries to roll through once more, but this time Yoshida sticks a foot out to stop her, then somehow manages to corral Fukawa's other leg in the process. It probably sounds mundane when you're only reading about it, but it's the micro-details like those that separate the good mat workers from the great ones and Yoshida's attention to detail is magic. Some of the grappling exchanges were excellent, especially when Fukawa was able to keep those exchanges relatively even. Towards the end Fukawa manages to actually put Yoshida in trouble, but then Yoshida grabs her in the middle of the ring and is totally relentless in working through several submission attempts until Fukawa finally succumbs to the inevitable. 

 

Mariko Yoshida v Mikiko Futagami (ARSION, 8/9/98) - EPIC

What a wonderful wee eight minutes. It's sort of jarring watching this back to back with Yoshida/KAORU from four years earlier. Obviously Yoshida's aesthetic presentation is much different in '98, but stylistically it's almost night and day difference. She was once again a demon on the mat, ripping Futagami into armbars and leglocks. There was nothing about her act that felt like it needed refining or like she was trying stuff to figure out what she wanted to be -- this was final form Yoshida and it's one of the best things ever. Futagami is hardly a slouch on the ground but, similar to their match from May that year, she needed to rely on the strikes if she was to have a chance. She rocked Yoshida initially with a palm thrust, then later connected with two absolutely brutal koppu kicks. The set up to the second one looked a bit ropey at first, like Futagami was on some All Japan fighting spirit juice after taking a German suplex, but I think she was supposed to flip out of it and just undershot the move in the first place. So we may all sleep easy. I've said this a bunch of times as well and it rings true again; Yoshida is probably the best I've ever seen at making you think she's going to submit to a hold. Part of this is the ARSION house style of course. You can buy someone submitting in six minutes in ARSION because of the shoot style elements and that matches are naturally shorter anyway, whereas if it happened in AJW I doubt I'd be buying it six minutes into a match no matter how good an actress she is. But it is what it is and it's hard to be The Ace while selling plausible vulnerability so early in a match. She never goes half-baked on trying to make the ropes and there's always that seed of doubt in your mind that she'll make it. The finish being what it was here just reinforces that things can end quickly in ARSION, and even the spider queen isn't safe. I love this pairing. 

 

Mariko Yoshida v Michiko Ohmukai (ARSION, 8/31/98) - GOOD

This was Ohmukai with a kicker's chance against Yoshida who will tie her up and rip her limbs off if given half a chance. Both of them worked this with a sense of urgency, but Ohmukai almost felt desperate at points given her busted up shoulder. You knew that if Yoshida got a hold of it then it would probably be curtains, and Ohmukai knew that as well, so she swung for the fences straight away. There wasn't a ton of variety to what she did, I guess other than which type of kick she was throwing. The kicks looked mean though, most of them landing with a thud, a handful catching Yoshida flush. One in particular caught her right under the chin as Yoshida came back off the ropes. It wasn't a long match, but the longer it did go the more Ohmukai needed to push things and that left open doors for Yoshida, who will happily walk through a door and submit you. Even something fairly standard can look spectacular when Yoshida does it and this time it was the way she dropped to a knee for a rear waistlock as a counter to a simple arm wringer. Other than that she was hooking things from all angles, sprawling and rolling through and generally being relentless. She wasn't even all that bothered about targeting the shoulder. When the opportunity presented itself she went for it, but she wasn't perturbed when Ohmukai managed to escape. When she caught one of Ohmukai's high kicks and yanked her into a sick ankle lock you kind of knew it was inevitable. The only question was what Ohmukai would tap to. Because in the end they all tap. 

 

Mariko Yoshida v Ayako Hamada (ARSION, 8/31/98) - FUN

The final! Hamada came into it having bested - or perhaps upset - Futagami and Mary Apache and maybe figured she'd have an outside chance of dethroning the queen in waiting. She was clearly a fool as this was basically an extended squash. What an extended squash though, with Yoshida twisting her into knots and never giving her a second's peace. She was relentless and any time Hamada looked like putting a run together she would be stopped emphatically. Yoshida is spectacular as always, just ripping off armbars and leglocks while this kid wonders what she's gotten herself into. There was one brilliant nearfall off a backslide where Yoshida managed to get a toe on the rope, then she got up and Hamada never got close again. In the end the poor lass is carried out like a pit fighter that Yoshida made an end of. The queen of ARSION.

 

Mariko Yoshida v Reggie Bennett (ARSION, 8/31/98) - GREAT

This is a great match up and of course this was badass. I like just about all of the wrestlers on the ARSION roster from this period for one reason or another, so this shouldn't be read as a knock on them, but Yoshida is different gravy and looks flat out amazing nearly every time she shows up. The early matwork here was fantastic and nobody else really does it quite at that level. The struggle, the way it looks uncooperative but slick, it's really great. She was crawling all over Reggie trying to work around the size disadvantage, trying to hook a limb in a way that wouldn't allow Reggie to literally just fall on top of her and smother her. Reggie is a blast and more than holds her own on the mat. Where did she actually go after ARSION? She'd have been a great Serena Deeb opponent in the year 2022. Yoshida was for giving nothing easy and Reggie had to fight for every throw just as much as Yoshida had to fight for every armbar or ankle lock. Yoshida cracking the code with the slickest armbar you've seen is a pretty awesome finish as well. It wasn't like she focused on a specific limb through the match, she was just grabbing whatever was there, used one hold then would transition to another when it presented itself, just constantly recalibrating as necessary. One of the best to ever do it. 

 

Mariko Yoshida v Yuu Yamagata (ARSION, 12/8/01) - GOOD

Here's a revelation for you - Yoshida was very different in 2001 than she was in 1990. This was peak Yoshida, oozing confidence and working at a ridiculously high level, really just one of the best wrestlers ever. Her silver Spider-Man 2099 getup was also A+. I'm sorry but I do not have a clue who Yuu Yamagata is. Apparently she's a rookie. I can believe that because Yoshida smashed her to bits. Yoshida stretching a rookie with submissions is something you expect and she really tortured the poor girl. What's unexpected is the way she was also throwing hand grenades, backing Yuu into the corner and unloading with a huge punch flurry, these big sweeping haymakers right on the button. You maybe don't think of Yoshida as a great striker, or at least that's not the first thing you think of with her, but she sure had some great strikes here. I liked how she sold for Yuu as well. There was dismissiveness when Yuu tried a feeble backslide, annoyance when she tried it again and got a two count, frustration when she refused to be hooked in some preposterous hold, then even a pinch of concern when Yuu managed to hook something of her own. In the end the kid had to submit, but she gave an okay account of herself all told. If it turns out to be my only Yuu Yamagata singles match I will cherish it dearly.

[KB8]

Mariko Yoshida v Ayako Hamada (ARSION, 10/17/00) - EPIC

This was the final of a one-night tournament and only went 11 minutes. A tournament final, even of one held on a single night, going 11 minutes and not 52 today feels damn near inconceivable. Shit even for 2000 it feels inconceivable, but then ARSION were all about doing things differently for a while there. A great little promotion. For a while there. These two were in a tournament final from '98 that I watched about a year ago now and at that point Ayako Hamada was in a very different place. That match didn't even last 11 minutes and Yoshida basically mopped the floor with the poor lass. I think she even beat her with a foot on the chest and then Hamada got carted out by three people like she was a carcass left in a ditch. Two years later and Hamada is now the grand old age of 19. I guess in pro wrestling terms you grow up quick because she handled herself much better here and at least felt plausibly on Yoshida's level. Yoshida was so fucking good. I don't just mean here, I mean in general. She can demolish you in a dozen different ways and she started this by jumping all over Hamada and trying to yank her into armbars and chokes and anything else she could think up. When Hamada tried to catch her in a bodyscissors, maybe just for a tiny bit of respite if nothing else, Yoshida applied the fucking STOMACH CLAW and then threw some of the greatest body shots she's ever thrown. For a glorious 90 seconds she then worked the midsection with gutbusters and body blows and this was looking like a legitimate 12-star affair. Pretty quickly Hamada made a comeback and they never returned to the body work, but it was amazing while it lasted. You also make peace with them moving past it as Yoshida very soon punches Hamada in the face so hard she starts selling her own hand like she broke it. Yoshida's arm is already taped up so I'm guessing this plays off a previous tournament match, but even on its own it ruled. This was also just about the greatest punch Yoshida's ever thrown. It was largely a sprint from there, but they absolutely blistered each other and I never felt like they went fully into spotty territory. It felt frantic, like two people who've just wrestled twice on the night know the adrenaline is going to wear off pretty soon. Some of the striking was exceptional and you had Hamada recklessly spin kicking Yoshida in the face and neck and Yoshida throwing haymakers. Hamada in particular worked with a real urgency, probably because she knew Yoshida needed to be put away with some haste. She tried one preposterous rolling submission thing that she definitely learned from her old man and Yoshida reversed it into a fucking kimura and I fell out the bed. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't vote Yoshida top 10 in the '26 GWE.

[KB8]

Mariko Yoshida v Aja Kong (ARSION, 10/17/00) - GREAT

This was a semi-final bout of a one-night tournament (the final of which I talked about a few days ago). It was also an ARSION tournament in Korakuen Hall and not a seven-hour All Japan Women Tournament in the Tokyo Dome, so it wasn't likely to be a lengthy affair. For 10 minutes of brute force against dexterity it'll be hard to go wrong with these two, and this was a badass 10 minutes. At some point in the year 2000 Yoshida started incorporating more striking into her arsenal, and by striking I mean absolutely walloping people in the face with her fists. It meant this had an extra layer to their usual dynamic, where Yoshida didn't have to rely on JUST the grappling and could throw hand grenades when she had openings. She had several openings and threw a goodly amount of hand grenades. Obviously Aja tagged her back and there was one incredible sequence where Yoshida was throwing lefts and rights to the head, Aja standing there out on her feet, then from nowhere she unleashed a back fist that about ripped Yoshida's face in two. In the end though, if Yoshida was going to win she'd need to do it with what she did better than anyone. It was just a question of whether she could do it to someone with as much BEEF as Aja. Or if she could do it before Aja caved her head in. 

Mariko Yoshida & Yumiko Hotta v Sumie Sakai & Megumi Yabushita (AJW, 11/3/02) - GOOD

I initially came across this when trying to find the Yoshida/Hotta singles match from November 2003 (in a promotion called AtoZ, which I honestly had never heard of in my life). Yoshida and Hotta teaming together seemed interesting if nothing else, and that team against a couple girls who'd only been wrestling for about five years was an interesting spot for them to be in. I figured Hotta would do what she usually did against lower-ranked opponents and I've watched enough peak Yoshida against wrestlers like that to know it's probably going to be good. And this was decent enough, mostly for those reasons, but also for the infighting between Yoshida and Hotta. While it's probably a stretch to assume they used this to build to a singles match a whole year down the line, it must've at least whet the appetite. Hotta was in a sprightlier mood than usual here and I don't think she full force punted anybody in the face even once. She was more condescending than anything else, hooking Sakai in an armbar while grinning up at Yabushita on the apron. The young girls threw a few stiff shots and not once could you say Hotta flew off the handle in response. Yoshida wasn't in as jovial a mood, nor was she particularly interested in playing with her food. The first thing she did when entering the ring was kicking Yabushita in the head and she was very businesslike the whole way. There was one exchange in the middle between her and Yabushita that was excellent, really snappy grappling with Yabushita holding her own admirably. I knew Yabushita was a kickboxer but I didn't know she could bring the MATWORK~ like this. As the match goes on the more cracks between Hotta and Yoshida start to form. Yoshida held one of the youngsters for Hotta to smack, but the youngster moved and Yoshida took the shot instead. It didn't sit well with her and when the shoe was on the other foot later you almost wonder if she wasn't outright aiming for Hotta. They didn't come all the way to blows, but they were close and when Hotta told Yoshida to move so she could put a ribbon on things at the end you know Yoshida wanted to fucking kill her. Luckily I do not have to wait a year before seeing a singles match, although knowing me it'll be a decade before I actually get around to it. 

[KB8]

Mariko Yoshida v Mika Akino (ARSION, 1/17/99) - EPIC

An absolutely ferocious Yoshida performance. If you're Akino, a whole six months into your career at this point, you almost need to wonder what you can even do. Go head first at Yoshida and she'll catch you and tie you in knots. Hang back and let her come to you then Yoshida WILL come to you and that might be even worse. Yoshida is just about the greatest swarm in wrestling history and she was all over Akino from the bell, twisting her every which way while Akino had to frantically scramble to keep her head above water. There was an absolutely spectacular exchange where Akino managed to finally buck Yoshida off and they went into kneeling switches for waist control, then when they got up to their feet I thought they were going to do a show of respect and instead Yoshida just kneed Akino in the face and monkey flipped her into a cross armbreaker. The greatness of Yoshida's grappling doesn't necessarily lie in how much cool and inventive shit she does as opposed to the intensity with which she does it all. That said she had at least three holds here that I can't remember ever seeing before and the reverse figure-four thing had my jaw on the floor. None of those holds looked contrived though; they all had logical setups and felt organic. You couldn't see the wheels turning, couldn't see her working through the components in her mind as she was doing them, no "this crosses over this and I do this to put this limb here" or whatever. She snapped into them as quickly as she'd snap into any basic hold and they actually felt like appropriate responses to what the situation gave her at the time. It wasn't a fancy armbar setup just to be fancy, she did it because Akino's proximity and body position made it the most feasible at the time. Just because 95% of wrestlers ever couldn't think of it doesn't mean it's not the smart thing to do. Most of Akino's offence came in bursts but she got to look spunky and explosive and that's about all you can ask for. She also got to look resourceful at points with how she'd attempt one thing and Yoshida would counter it, then if she went back to it a second time she'd switch it up and connect on it. The cool part was that if she went to it TOO often Yoshida would inevitably bring it back around and find yet another solution. That's what Yoshida does and I guess if you're Akino you live and learn. I thought for sure the kid was tapping on at least two choke attempts so she got to look tough as nails by hanging in there and eventually making the ropes. Yoshida was a monster in '99 and I'm looking forward to watching all of it, some for the first time and some for a second time. This was a great way to start off a banner year. 

[KB8]

Mariko Yoshida v Yumiko Hotta (AtoZ, 11/9/03) - GREAT

I guess these joshi promotions of the 2000s really liked running one-night tournaments. We know Tony Khan was a DVDVR poster back in the day, can we be sure he wasn't also one of the three dozen people still following joshi during those dark years? You'd assume he watched a lot of IWA Mid-South but do we know for a fact he didn't develop his fetish for wrestling tournaments from places like AtoZ (which I did not realise before was just a rebranded ARSION) and Ice Ribbon? This was relatively short and compact and had a real nice sense of escalation running through it. The first few minutes weren't anything special, because Hotta isn't the most compelling mat worker, but it didn't feel like they were simply going through the motions either. It got really good when tempers flared, though. I've watched enough 2000s Yoshida recently to figure that eventually she'd punch Hotta in the face at some point, and I've watched enough Hotta from any time period to know how she would respond to that. Yoshida was absolutely clobbering her with shots and Hotta would just punt Yoshida in the face, almost casually which somehow made it even more callous. It wasn't personal for Hotta, no more than the torturer cutting a confession. She just is what she is and this was no more than business. I don't remember ever seeing Yoshida take a shot like the roundhouse kick to the face while she was on her knees. Maybe that made it personal for her and the moment she ripped her glove off and fucking nuked Hotta with a straight right was biblical. You could literally hear this thing. 

Mariko Yoshida v Sakura Hirota (GAEA, 11/3/04) - FUN

This was a comedy match and a pretty whimsical six minutes all told. I would assume Hirota is a comedy wrestler by trade, like your Kikutaro who does impressions of other wrestlers. She was dressed in a spider suit getup and credit where it's due, her Yoshida impression was highly amusing. She had the swagger down, did the perfect double biceps pose, and the moment where even Yoshida broke into a chuckle felt legit. 2004 was also a very different time than 2023 so I guess Hirota doing a bunch of creepy weirdo pervert stuff was less frowned upon. She tried to plant the lips on Yoshida at several points and then she broke a submission hold by jabbing her in the butthole with a finger, which is the sort of thing many a 90s message board poster would've paid obscene amounts of money for. Yoshida didn't even punch her in the face once but in the end she did tie her up in enough of a knot that Hirota couldn't sex pest her way out of it.