Command Bolshoi

[Grimmas]

SegundaCuerda said: "Great wrestler with a fascinating submission-based style that feels different from the rest of the Joshi wrestlers. She's one of my favorite woman wrestlers and I think she is an interesting case of the best Joshi who has made her career outside of the most important groups. I love the fact that there's a very romantic touch in her career story,  how she resurrected and reinvented JWP,  and how she had managed to kept her name and birth day secret as far as I know. I love that something like that is possible in 2021. She also has great athletic abilities which can be seen in her participation in the Chikara King of Trios, but where she really shines is on the mat."

[Jetlag]

Very interesting stylist. She's had lots of good to great matches which are really overlooked and there's still many matches from her back catalogue that I have yet to watch. On the other hand, I have seen her in some stuff that was pretty bad/underwhelming. The plus side is she stayed good for a really long time, like she was clearly good up to her retirement, just dealing with really bad opponents most of the time.

[Jetlag]

Bolshois been uploading hard to come by stuff to her YouTube channel and its a treasure trove:

https://reverseviperhold.blogspot.com/2021/07/a-treasure-trove-of-command-bolshoi.html

Really one awesome match after another. If this keeps up she's heading straight for my Top 100. Her clown sambo lucharesu technician style rules so much.

[elliott]

Awesome! 

At the start of this thing, I asked Grimmas for recommendations for modern Joshi and Command Bolshoi was one of the first wrestlers they mentioned and I literally lol'd because my only memory of Bolshoi was the old "Hotta punts the Clown." But now that I've watched some matches, Bolshoi is clearly an incredible wrestler that is completely worthy of strong top 100 consideration. They're someone I'm looking forward to watching  a lot more of because everything I've seen so far has ruled. One of those wrestlers I can't imagine people not digging the hell out of once they give her a chance. 

[Grimmas]

Watching a ton of her to put together a watch list for the watch party this upcoming Saturday and damn she seems like such a no brainer choice. She debuts in 1992 and not only is a good comedy worker, but is good on the mat and a great flyer. As her career goes on she develops into one of the greatest technical wrestlers of all time. It's really wild. Has great match up to 2019, when she retired.

The fact she can be a Russian Clown who can do comedy, technical, flying, and pure bad assery is an impressive resume. She has the great matches to back it up to. I have no idea how you can leave her off your list, unless you just refuse to watch her.

[Ma Stump Puller]

When the 2026 list comes out I feel like she's going to be one of the biggest shifts on the list all things considered, the footage out there for her is pretty immense at this point as opposed to when the last one was made.

You can definitely get hit and miss material as Jetlag said but even then you've still got one of the sickest Navarro-acts going for the stuff that matters, there's no question she's on that list somewhere solid, especially when we've probably not even hit close to the end of her iceberg in terms of obscure indie dates she did. Crazy stuff.

 

[Mr JMML]

She's a great worker and people are starting to realise how good she is.

[fxnj]

What's everyone's favorite stuff on her Youtube channel? I've seen all her matches involving Kana and they delivered what I wanted with the two of them working kickass shoot-style mat sequences in all of them, but not sure what else to seek out. The nearly 400 matches she's uploaded is a bit daunting.

[Jetlag]

5 hours ago, fxnj said:

What's everyone's favorite stuff on her Youtube channel? I've seen all her matches involving Kana and they delivered what I wanted with the two of them working kickass shoot-style mat sequences in all of them, but not sure what else to seek out. The nearly 400 matches she's uploaded is a bit daunting.

I went through much of her channel

So far the best matches Ive seen have been vs. Haruyama, Hanako Nakamori, Kuragaki, Hikari Fukuoka, Arisa Nakajima and Kaori Yoneyama. There's also a bunch of good tags.

https://reverseviperhold.blogspot.com/search/label/command bolshoi

[Grimmas]

Here too:

https://forums.prowrestlingonly.com/topic/54421-command-bolshoi-send-in-the-clown/

[justinsdrown]

On 7/27/2023 at 1:12 AM, fxnj said:

What's everyone's favorite stuff on her Youtube channel? I've seen all her matches involving Kana and they delivered what I wanted with the two of them working kickass shoot-style mat sequences in all of them, but not sure what else to seek out. The nearly 400 matches she's uploaded is a bit daunting.

Just watch it all. No joke. She’s extremely entertaining. She’ll go on my list. Given her style she’s going to be one of the harder wrestlers to place.

[Ma Stump Puller]

I had Command Bolshoi #49 on my ballot and I feel pretty good with that placement. As I said above I think Bolshoi will be one of the major culture-shocks coming from the 2016 list since her work has become a lot more recognised (partly with the help of myself and others, partly because of footage accessibility pushed by Bolshoi herself). Even early on when she was more of a pure high-flyer act she definitely had a way of working that seemed totally dynamic compared to the scene at the time with her influences varying from IIave, lucharesu and a bit of like 80's-era NJPW, it's pretty fascinating. I'd argue though that her best work was in the 2000's/2010's where she finally gets it and becomes this super cool grappling master who can hang with the best in the field, an almost Bret-like figure who elevates whoever she'd be in the ring with while also nailing everything she herself is trying to do or communicate to the crowd. In terms of pure grappling I'd say very few surpassed her in the field, maybe Yoshida/Fuiji but that's a stretch. 

Watching her (unaired) JWP shows as well right now and she's always a highlight, either working silly undercard comedy, a vet/rookie tag trying to get other people over or the occasional big-time main event, there's never a feeling that she's not in her element or struggling to make it work. Generally I'm a huge fan of swiss-army types and Bolshoi is I think one of the more refined examples of that, only hampered by lack of footage/exposure. Thank god that seems to be changing though.