Manami Toyota vs Shawn Micheals

[Grimmas]

Who said Toyota had no influence on the modern scene?

[ohtani's jacket]

On 6/17/2021 at 8:07 AM, Kadaveri said:

She's far from the biggest Joshi star ever, stylistically she's not exactly representative of even just her era (Aja, Dynamite and Bull were the other world champs in her peak and she works nothing like them) and long-term she's not especially influential seeing how no one really works like her anymore, yet in 2021 Stardom has a bootleg Dump Matsumoto as their top heel.

 

[Grimmas]

"... she's not especially influential seeing how no one really works like her anymore... "

@ohtani's jacket

"No one really" doesn't mean absolutely 0. It means it's not highly popular. Toyota is not this huge trend setter in joshi that most people copied.

 

[Kadaveri]

I had checked out of this thread, but for the record me saying Manami Toyota is "not especially influential" earlier was not me saying she's had NO influence. The point is she seems to have an inflated reputation with older Western fandom than what I see evidenced justification for. The Mayu Iwatani talk is another example of that; completely basic stuff like "prolonged selling" just gets pulled out of thin air and attributed to the influence of Manami Toyota. If anything (remembering the thread title) Mayu sells more like Shawn Michaels than Toyota, and there's about as much evidence that she was inspired by him.

[ohtani's jacket]

It's almost impossible for people to copy Toyota directly as she was the strongest girl on the AJW roster with the most stamina and crazy flexibility. She deliberately created moves that were difficult for other wrestlers to copy because was driven to be the absolute best. I don't know how closely the Ice Ribbon girls she endorse resemble her style, but if there is still workrate Joshi, the go-go-go style still exists, and there are feminine ultra competitors with elaborate ring attire, then they have been influenced by Toyota in some way even if they're not aware of it. I'm guessing there are girls today who weren't even born during Manami's best years. 

[DylanZero]

2 hours ago, Kadaveri said:

I had checked out of this thread, but for the record me saying Manami Toyota is "not especially influential" earlier was not me saying she's had NO influence. The point is she seems to have an inflated reputation with older Western fandom than what I see evidenced justification for. The Mayu Iwatani talk is another example of that; completely basic stuff like "prolonged selling" just gets pulled out of thin air and attributed to the influence of Manami Toyota. If anything (remembering the thread title) Mayu sells more like Shawn Michaels than Toyota, and there's about as much evidence that she was inspired by him.

Literally I could google Mayu and come up with like 5 GIFs immediately of Mayu going crazy on some bump in a way that HBK never has in his career and Toyota has dozens and dozens of times what are you talking about? Literally just watching one big match of hers would disprove this statement. Even that article Grimmas posted, her bumping style was described that you could also attribute to being highly similar to Toyota's, though worded in a notoriously Mayu way of course.

 

I think perhaps me and OJ are just on different wavelengths to what influence is to you guys because what he said is exactly what I would say irt Toyota's modern influence, and then you are saying these things are apart of a Western overheralding of her and even that it's coming out of thin air in cases.

 

And even then, who exactly would have influenced the modern style more in Joshi? Again I would list Jaguar & Nagayo who both came before Toyota herself, perhaps Hokuto and Meiko in her own way (although even among her trainees their styles I would list as almost universally as not similar to Meiko herself at all in-ring). And then who? You can attribute quite a few things in the modern era to Toyota which have already been mentioned. I don't know if that's true of virtually anyone else of her era.

[Kadaveri]

I just think the problem here is people just taking any kind of vague similarity between Manami Toyota and later wrestlers deciding that is some evidence of 'influence' when the vast majority of this is just general Joshiisms. Manami Toyota did not invent taking big crazy bumps. Have you seen Akira Hokuto wrestle? Mayumi Ozaki? The 80s Joshi scene is also full of this stuff, Kazue Nagahori probably took madder bumps than Toyota did, including backflips off lariats onto her neck. Go watch Tomi Aoyama matches, she retired in 1980 and she's already doing this stuff and that's when it kinda was new and calling her influential because of it may have some merit.

^For example. Manami Toyota hadn't even debuted yet. One plus of an 80s Joshi set being released is people will see big bumping workrate Joshi was already a thing long before the interpromotional era, even if the moves weren't as complex.

And there's a simple 2 part explanation for why Joshi in general has a lot of this stuff. They are much lighter than male wrestlers, they can take these kinds of bumps without it being as damaging. And because Joshi developed separately to men's wrestling rather than just being an extension of it like in American wrestling, you see them go down this route more. Part 2 is the retirement at 25 rule that existed until the early 90s. This created a bigger riskier bumping style because the wrestlers did not need to worry about having a style that they could perform into their 40s and retire on their earnings because nobody expected to be wrestling very long anyway.

That is the source of the big bumping style you see is widespread in Joshi both in Toyota's heydey and before she even wrestled. It is a product of environment, not the legacy of one wrestler.

And likewise for 'feminine wrestlers' wrestling a workrate style. How does that not describe the Jumping Bomb Angels. Manami Toyota did an interview at a Chikara show here where she was asked about her influences and talks a lot about the JB Angels and even specifically mentions their feminine look. If anything it makes more sense to credit them for that influence, seeing how a lot more people were actually watching AJW in the JB Angels' heyday than Manami Toyota's peak. But really the reason why you see more feminine looking wrestlers with elaborate gear is Joshi is simply following wider cultural trends in Japan. Look at how the idol industry evolved in the last 40 years. Joshi was naturally going to turn into something like that because the previous schoolgirls/families fanbase of the 70s and 80s disappeared and by the mid-90s with the exception of GAEA (who you may note did not follow this trend) the fanbase became 90% adult men.

Again, this is a product of environment, not the legacy of just one wrestler. It's not like Toyota was even unique 'feminine with elaborate gear' either. Look at Takako Inoue, Mayumi Ozaki and Cutie Suzuki at the same time. That's already where things were going.

As for who influenced the modern style of Joshi more. Well Jaguar and Chigusa obviously. But with them you can actually point to new and different things they did that others went on to adopt. Like taking elements of UWFI strikes and incorporating it into Joshi, that's Chigusa. That's a specific thing she did that there just isn't precedent for but loads of wrestlers afterwards worked like that. Before that there's Beauty Pair for establishing the Joshi tag-team prototype with the butch/fem dynamic, which was still the standard in the 90s. Mariko Akagi is someone we don't have enough footage of to really prove with our own eyes, but we consistently hear from interviews that she's primarily responsible for innovating a lot of the 'workrate' Joshi style and from the 2 full matches we have of her that still looks very plausible. Devil Masami is a big name because she basically created and defined the role of the aging veteran in Joshi, which literally did not even exist before her as everyone retired. After that you've got Mariko Yoshida for training so many wrestlers and creating a new style in ARSION with the RINGS-influenced grappling, which although nobody outright works like that anymore it still introduced that style into Joshi and you see Kana/Asuka, Syuri have carried on some of that stuff. Meiko is still a lot higher because she trained so many wrestlers, even if they don't all work like her (a lot of them do though, like Kagetsu is an obvious Meiko trainee with how she structures things and just works a lot slower than is typical). Emi Sakura is probably the biggest of the last decade or so as she trained so many wrestlers in Ice Ribbon and Gatoh Move with the philosophy that 'everyone can be a pro-wrestler' and has led to a big increase in not exactly athletically talented people becoming pro-wrestlers by working around those limitations, which someone needed to do as Joshi's falling popularity meant it couldn't just pick recruits from the top high school athletes anymore.

There's probably some names I forgot, but that should at least get across what 'wavelength' I'm on when talking about influence. It's specific unique stuff that you did which changed the direction of the scene in a way that can be evidenced, not just spotting vague similarities and joining dots on a whim. Applying that to Toyota, I'd say her influence really lies in how she'd come up with increasingly complicated versions of moves as 'super-finishers' like the Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex, I can't think of anyone else in Joshi doing that before her, and later versions of that seem in line with those naming conventions (or at least wherever Rossy Ogawa's booking) I think that's evidence linking it to her. Momo Watanabe is who you should be talking about then, not Mayu Iwatani.

[ohtani's jacket]

You're contradicting yourself. At first you said stylistically she wasn't representative of even just her era. Now, you're saying all she did was general "Joshiisms." You seem to think that to have an influence on anything you have to have been an originator. If that is the case, there is nothing influential about Chigusa. What did she do that was any different from Jackie Sato? They were both part of idol tag teams. They both developed into serious singles wrestlers. They both feuded with monster heels. Influence doesn't work like that. Wrestlers build on what came before them. Of course, Toyota was inspired by her mentor, Yamazaki. Did she go out there and surpass what Yamazaki did? By most measures she did except for folks who'd claim that Yamazaki was a better and smarter worker.

Comparing Toyota to idol workers like Cutie and Takako is so wrong. It's as wrong as me pigeonholing Takako and Cutie as idol workers. It reminds me of that show where Fumi says Toyota appeals to the male fan and Yamada appeals to the wrestling fan and Malenko pulls him up on it. Manami Toyota was incredibly serious about wrestling. She isolated herself from her peers, refused to ever watch male wrestling, and from all accounts was on her own island during her heyday. She may have looked like an idol type, but she had the mentality of a Misawa. Yes, there's nothing new on the sun. You can look at those Toyota/Yamada matches where she really cut her teeth and say they're just an extension of the Chigusa/Lioness series, but there is something there that made Toyota a star. Ironically, it's probably the no-selling and continuous offense, so you know that pops a crowd. But there was something in the rhythm and flow. She wasn't the only one who worked that style and she wasn't the only worker from her era that was influential. They took Joshi to new heights. People may prefer 80s Joshi in this day and age, but I don't see how anyone can claim that Toyota wasn't advancing the style or how the 90s style as a whole doesn't have a major influence on the Joshi that came after it. People give Jaguar credit for the modern style, but not Toyota. What's with that? I stopped watching Joshi in the 00s, but even then you could look at Hyuga and see some Toyota in her. Someone needs to explain this major paradigm shift to me.  

[Kadaveri]

44 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

You're contradicting yourself. At first you said stylistically she wasn't representative of even just her era. Now, you're saying all she did was general "Joshiisms."

No you're confusing two different points, which is coming from people confusing stuff that was distinctively Manami Toyota with stuff that was general Joshiisms.

1. General Joshiisms = bridging out on pins, big bumps onto the neck. a fast rhythmic style, lots of crowd engagement. This is all stuff you'll find Joshi has a lot of whenever you watch it, but often people attribute this stuff to a specific wrestler probably because they're the first wrestler in that style they've seen and are confusing a house style with them as a worker. Joshi workers who do this stuff are just being Joshi workers. People seeing Manami Toyota do this stuff, and then seeing a later worker do it, and attributing it to 'Toyota influence' are confusing Joshiisms for Toyotaisms.

2. Individual Aspects: This is where Joshi workers build upon the foundational style and craft something of their own onto it. Manami Toyota has a lot of aspects to her style which were distinctive to her rather than just part of the house style. We'll call these Toyotaisms. Her distinctive elements I'd say are how she would put on matches that were primarily about putting on breathtaking displays of fired up athleticism and crazy moves. Loads of flying around with dropkicks and dangerous looking moonsaults. The multiple complicated suplex variations and headdrop moves as finishers and super-finishers. All delivered at breakneck speed. Almost no time for selling except right in the moment, there's more moves to hit. The most physically intense non-stop action crazy wrestling ever.

That's Manami Toyota. Were Toyotaisms just part of the AJW house style? No. Others started to get in on it later, but she's the one who innovated that and the others were following. But most Joshi workers of the 90s never even tried to work like this. This is how she was stylistically unrepresentative of Joshi as a whole in her era. It's also what I'm referring to when I say no one really works like her anymore.

44 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

If that is the case, there is nothing influential about Chigusa. What did she do that was any different from Jackie Sato?

I said:

9 hours ago, Kadaveri said:

Like taking elements of UWFI strikes and incorporating it into Joshi, that's Chigusa. That's a specific thing she did that there just isn't precedent for but loads of wrestlers afterwards worked like that.

Chigusa (unlike Toyota and maybe most Joshi workers of that era) watched a lot of men's wrestling. She was a fan of Akira Maeda, brought elements of that UWFI style into Joshi and created something new with it. Nobody worked like that before her, and there's no Toshiyo Yamada,  Dynamite Kansai, Yumiko Hotta etc without Chigusa. That lineage is still going strong today, in fact it's almost become a new Joshiism for the wrestlers to square off with these big stiff kick exchanges her influence was so strong there.

You're getting a bit carried away with the 'Manami as an idol type' thing. I didn't say she was an idol and certainly did not say she didn't take herself seriously as a wrestler. I don't get what you're responding to tbh. All I said was she wasn't exactly unique in being a 'feminine' looking wrestler who wore 'elaborate ring attire'  (those were your words) so I don't see any justification for claiming any Joshi worker who had a fancy girly outfit simply must have been influenced by Toyota "even if they're not aware of it". That kind of stuff is just how Joshi was moving anyway.

44 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

I stopped watching Joshi in the 00s, but even then you could look at Hyuga and see some Toyota in her.

Azumi Hyuga retired 12 years ago.

[ohtani's jacket]

Nobody is claiming that Toyota invented the basic Joshi style.. What we're claiming is that those "Toyotaisms" influenced the style and changed the way the matches were worked. Manami Toyota had a massive influence on the way Joshi matches were worked in the 90s. I will ignore any influence beyond the 90s because if people don't believe she was influential in the 90s then the argument stops there. Joshi changed in the 90s. Joshi changed dramatically from the early 90s to the mid 90s, then it shifted again in the late 90s. If you compare a match from 1983 to 1993, etc., you will see similarities but also key differences.

One of the biggest changes is that there was more emphasis on the matches. As the workers became more athletic and the audience shifted from schoolgirls to male hardcore fans (a gradual shift), singles matches became more significant, tag matches became longer, the cards became deeper, and AJW gradually began to resemble AJPW or NJPW in the way they booked shows. Of course, it was the interpromotional era so a thing of things were possible that weren't achievable in the 80s. The promoters were able to play around with the cards, create new match-ups, and promote dream matches. Unfortunately, they ran it into the ground, which led to the bloated and excessive mid-90s style where the only alternative left was to do more, work for longer, do bigger and more dangerous spots, and try to outdo what they'd done before. And no-one was more guilty of that than Manami Toyota. Nevertheless, as the style began to change in the early 90s, Manami was at the forefront of this new wave of women's wrestling. She was influential not only in singles matches, but also in tag matches. In fact, you could argue that she was more influential in Joshi tag wrestling than singles, but from the time Meltzer anointed her as the most outstanding wrestler in the world, she was the standard bearer for what was then modern Joshi. And later she suffered the backlash toward Joshi and the things Meltzer wrote about her in the Observer. Why's that? Because she was synonymous with the style at the time. If you didn't like the Joshi style of working, then Toyota was the main target. We know she didn't create the go-go-go workrate style of Joshi. We know the roots of that style go back to the 70s. We know she wasn't the first highflyer, for want of a better term. It's very easy to trace her basic style back to the Jumping Bomb Angels. But she took the go-go-go style and worked matches that kept growing bigger and bigger, and more and more ambitious. She had an influence on the pace of matches, the rhythm,, the layout, how hard-hitting the action was. You could argue that lot of her opponents were forced to work her style and her type of match, but look at how the workrate began to increase across the board. Look at how tag matches began to be worked in the same style across different promotions. Again, there are tropes you see in the 80s, but watch the workrate creep up and up. The midcard girls started upping their workrate. The heavyweights started upping their workrate. Some girls were regarded as flat out Toyota clones. Hikari Fukuoka being the prime example. Now I'm not saying that Toyota was responsible for all of this, but she was sure as hell at the forefront of it. Hokuto was important and Kyoko Inoue too. Yamada actually deserves some credit too. 

I get why people like Hokuto, Bull and Aja but they don't like Toyota. Christ, that's been going on for the past 25 years. But outright dismissals of Toyota's influence or the role she played in women's wrestling? C'mon. Maybe we're going her too much credit, but you can't just give her no credit whatsoever. Think of a Joshi worker who people don't like -- Momoe Nakanishi, for example, or KAORU. Who do they more closely resemble in style? Jaguar Yokota, Hokuto, Chigusa, or Manami Toyota? I think the answer is pretty obvious. 

After Maki Ueda retired, Jackie Sato became a very serious worker with more focus on mat work then during the Beauty Pair era, though I can't say that with entire confidence since we don't have a lot of her singles stuff from that era. However, there was a definite shift from brawling to serious wrestler. The same thing happened with Chigusa. The difference is that she stole some moves from the UWF guys. I can't remember off the top of my head if Sato was influenced by Inoki or took any holds from strong style or men's wrestling in general. Nevertheless, idol star turned serious competitor was already a thing. I understand that the next generation of Joshi workers who idolized Chigusa wanted to work that hybrid style of hers. But it's strange to me that mock shooter gets accredited to Chigusa throughout modern Joshi history, but Toyota has no influence? 

The whole feminine thing was Toyota's own words about what she set out to do at the beginning of her career. Ring attire, image, the way a person looks, what type they are, etc. is a huge part of Joshi. We tend to not focus on it as much as Japanese fans do (although fans may do on other platforms), but in image conscious Japan it is a big deal. I was at a show once and some fans were discussing the size of Takako Inoue's nose compared to on tape. Crazy. I don't know if Toyota was the first to start wearing more elaborate attire, but she created a specific image for herself beyond bathing suits and wrestling boots. She even has this strange philosophy behind wearing black.