Ma Stump Puller Posted May 10 Report Posted May 10 More Deep stuff here Introduction This is a collected version of my notes regarding Mariko Yoshida's volume of work from her departure from ARSION/AtoZ (2004 to be exact) all the way to her retirement in 2017. This was something that I originally set out to doing about 2 years ago as I was fairly curious as to what existed beyond her strongly acclaimed 90s stint especially since there really was next to no real documentation on the matter, so you kinda had to go off vibes for the most part. This sets out to cover almost everything from that time period barring a very small couple of things that I either did not watch (the Yoshida/Fujiwara vs Ishikawa/Amano tag, for instance, which was so aberrant that I outright refused to give it the dignity of a full review at all) or are just too lacking in content that I decided otherwise (some 3 minute exhibitions she has in IBUKI during her mini retirement) Bolded are matches that I think are must-watch though if you're a completionist like me I doubt it'll matter that much lol. I also do dates in the Euro-style so it's day/month/year. 2004/2005 Spoiler 2004 is annoying because a LOT of Yoshida's matches simply weren't televised; she wrestled mostly in the kinda/sorta successor to old ARSION as a co-creator involved in M's Style, which got zero real coverage. Everything else? Pretty much impossible. For example, she was in a intergender tag match against Thanomsak Toba (!!!) during the old days of DDT, that's the kind of pure based quality we're having to skip over here. Some stuff is available though. Carlos Amano vs. Mariko Yoshida (GAEA 30.04.2004) Pretty great! This was worked like a uber-urgent shoot style bout where the two basically just wrestled though a bunch of awesome sequences of mat-sprawling. The start focused on defence (or lack of it) as Amano got sloppy at the start and almost died to a Spider Twist while Yoshida was too comfortable afterwards and got thrown into a standing cross armbreaker submission. After that the two were a bit more tentative with Yoshida winning out due to her superior wrestling. Carlos has a harder head though so she went into throwing sick headbutts and doing Samoan spots like Yoshida hurting her hand off trying to punch the hard part of said hard head. Everything felt like it could've logically ended the match and the pair really got that over with their big bombs and submission counters being treated as uber deadly with struggles convincingly drawn from escaping these potential moves more so than the application of them at points. Yoshida's best material comes from more simplistic narratives like this where she's just trying to hit a specific move (or struggling against one done to her) and yeah it was no shock that these parts were tense and strong. One might be wondering "surely you can't build a match off submissions and headbutts only?" but you actually can when you're as good as these two. The finish is a bit weak as Yoshida basically eats a ton of offence before hitting a wiffed boot in response to a running headbutt before hitting another one + Air Raid for the win. I guess it fit the frantic nature of the match however for me it seemed a tad disrespectful to Amano to be basically eaten up so easily. Post match is funny with Carlos trying to Fujiwara out of a handshake offer before Yoshida rolls out, boots her again, then Carlos offers a second handshake, this one being legit. It was a good spot if only because of how Carlos sold it afterwards as more of a moment of legit frustration rather than anything truly malicious. Anyway, this was very solid, probably one of the better shoot-style experimentations post-PRIDE all things considered even if it leers on the less serious side of things (as opposed to the hyper-realism from U-Style/RINGS). This was one of the big showings that also pilled me on the incredible Carlos Amano and led to me doing her C&A, so there. Makai Majo #1 & Makai Majo #2 vs. Mariko Yoshida & Michiko Omukai (M's Style 04.04.2004) The only M's Style match televised that has Yoshida on it and it's a crappy NJPW tie-in and sloppy brawl. Who are these mysterious Makai Club goons? Well we know Majo #1 is Kaoru Ito, who's supposed to be quite legit. The second.....no idea. Murakami also being here is super fun though given he gets to just punch everyone here at will and have no one tell him off for doing so. Omukai blades early but you'd be hardly sinning if you didn't notice that given how messy this was. It's a shame as well because her selling for this was pretty solid all things considered, and Yoshida having a awesome hot tag with her also doing Murakami's corner foot stomps was equally as awesome. The second half honestly is half-decent because we actually get some wrestling with Yoshida doing all of her usual spots before Omukai got back in and things got all messy again with random dives to the outside and triple powerbomb spots. Lots of stuff happens here and while it's pretty all over the place it's AT LEAST cool-looking stuff so I can't complain that much. Everything seems lost as Murakami marches back in for more face punches, then the Makai goons end up taking each other out and Omukai gets the upset with a Shining Wizard for the pin. Skip the nothing first half and this is actually quite good for a crazy spotfest. Kyoko Inoue vs. Mariko Yoshida vs. Takako Inoue (NEO 14.08.2004) Matches with three people in them are always a bit messy and this was no different. The main gest of this was that they wanted to do comedy spots and as such this is mostly comedy spots, who knew? Double Inoue despite being against each other in theory obviously really aren't so this is more of a 2 v 1 with occasional moments when Takako would run in to try to cheekily steal the win. I guess if you like mid-2000's shticky Joshi comedy then maybe this'll be worth something of a mention but this went a bit too long for my liking given what this was trying to be. Kyoko could still kinda go though, a shame it had to be wasted on something like this. The finish being Takako botching a backfist to then get caught with a running reverse Victory Star from Kyoko was funny enough to finish this off despite the rest dragging. I guess if you like this kind of barely serious stuff then MAYBE give it a watch but otherwise it's just a waste of time. Depressing having this be alongside the Amano match, that's how this goes I guess. Kyoko Kimura & Yuka Shiina vs. Mariko Yoshida & Shuu Shibutani (NEO 05.05.2005) This was basically a IBUKI-themed match on a NEO show; much like those this seemed to be clipped by a couple of minutes. Shibu is super green given she's only five months into wrestling and it really did show despite having Kyoko Kimura guiding her as best as possible. She's fine, but lots of mistiming and weird awkward stuff that just didn't click. Yoshida comes in only for a few minutes and those were easily the best bits since the action got a lot more scaled down to just bombs and submissions. Kimura Pummelling her arms to throw her into a double wrist lock backbreaker before Yoshida caught her in a headscissors was epic stuff, so much so that they rip this exact sequence beat for beat for future matches together. Got some real snappy sequences with her and Shiina as well as she kept trying to wangle in submissions while Yoshida used her slippery defence to keep in the game. Shibu got back in to basically do the job as she ended up doing the usual friendly fire sequences with a missed dropkick on Yoshida instead meaning Shiina was free to stick her in submission chains until a STF Dragon Sleeper tapped her out. Really robust sprint that despite some green stuff was still super good, lots of fast paced sequences on the mat that went by with ease. Sleeper hit all things considered and a solid watch. Ayumi Kurihara & Kyoko Kimura vs. Mariko Yoshida & Megumi Fujii (IBUKI 05.06.2005) Megumi Fujii in action is always worth a long watch, even if this match was messy in places. The main issue is that these are two of the greatest female mat-wrestlers to ever do it vs two gals who aren't really close to that level of skill, not even close in fact. That being said this was still REALLY good, the first fall coming after Fujii tripped Kimura up before rolling back into standing position into a slick Triangle choke and winning in the first minute of the match was a amazing spot alongside Kimura just being shocked afterwards and truly cemented Fujii as THE big problem of the match. The fact that they run it back with Fujii doing a slick Frankensteiner only adds to proceedings. The less experienced duo try to use double team antics to stop another fall but Fujii's so sick that she easily dodges a Kuri dropkick to go for a nasty-looking inverted toe-hold. Kuri's wimpy stomps and dropkick aren't so hype but then we get a absolutely amazing back and forth between Kuri's pro-style rollups and moves while Fujii just relentlessly keeps finding ways to transition into armbreakers until she ends up tapping out! Crazy stuff. Yoshida comes in basically just to feed for the two as they resort to dirty rudo-style antics to keep control. Of course this doesn't work for long as Yoshida escapes a attempted kneebar to go into her own lucha submissions. Her stomping on Kuri's back and raking her shoes on her shoulder while she's trying to reach for the ropes was just plain revolting and always feels like a brutal spot no matter how many times I see it. Kimura strikes are good, Fujii does a bonkers tornado DDT transition for a front guillotine until Kimura actually manages to overpower her for a Fujiwara armbar before trying to pin her off the threat of a double wrist lock. The duo continue with Kimura just straight punching Fujii in the face at one point to set up a Poetry in Motion-lite dropkick. Fujii escapes a powerbomb and instantly goes into a fast rolling toe-hold. The last third gets a bit weak in places as Kimura has to get over her no-selling shtick a bit too much for my liking by tanking a bunch of convincing finishes. Kimura gets in some spirited offence and kick-outs before a Air Raid firmly ends the match. This was more or less a squash and operated that way, with a lot of room made to show off Fujii as a complete killer. Mission accomplished there: she's pretty damn amazing for her second match ever, some occasional sloppiness but that's acceptable all things considered when you're as sweet as she is at basically everything else. Everyone else works fine.....well mostly. Kuri felt like a weak link and Kimura's gimmick gets old fast even if Yoshida works with it well with some real stiff stuff in response. It just never really fully clicked despite the quality spots and sequences on display here. Mariko Yoshida vs. Nozomi Takesako (T-1 23.08.2005) Smack bang average. Takesako is a very small wrestler with sloppy offence......and she's a Emi Sakura trainee! Shocker. Yoshida is just basically here to embarrass her with endless submissions and bullying routines. Brutally funny bit where Take goes for a sloppy Frankensteiner off the corner and Yoshida doesn't even bother bumping, though she does for a Kelly Kelly-tier flying scissors hold. Yoshida most of the time isn't even bothering to sell, she's just staring and waiting for the next spot to happen so she can do whatever. You get the idea that this is to get her over and it has numerous moments where Yoshida is clearly trying to do that with Take getting the usual snappy roll-ups and the like in response to the proper match-ending moves but frankly she's just not good, Yoshida spending most of this slapping her around just feels like a burial more than anything else. This never was going to be anything that incredible and the finish gives off that impression as Yoshida just does her default signature bits one by one until the pin is obtained. Nothing much else to say. Mariko Yoshida vs. Rebecca Knox (APW 28.10.2005) The infamous "Yoshida wrestles a young Becky Lynch" match that's probably her most well known post-ARISON showing. Knox has never been that smooth in the ring and you especially feel it here as she's quite slow and a bit janky when it comes to working in stuff. The match is still relatively decent though; they have some neat work together as Yoshida plays the confident vet while Knox has to operate mostly from behind as the less experienced talent that can only get small pockets of offence in before getting countered and thrown back into things when she tries to capitalise further. Aside from that....this honestly wasn't that impressive. Knox has a couple of really niche lucha holds that definitely impress but other than it's mostly just occasional counters or bad forearms to the chest. She throws in a decent Exploder (and a outright rough looking top rope leg drop) alongside a backslide, however it's all for nothing as Yoshida tags with a solid boot and facebuster to finish things up. This was basically just like the average Yoshida work you'd see in ARISON, just a run-through of some transitions, some good work and then closing up shop. Ref and commentary weren't very good either which dragged this down a notch. I mean I'd say give this a shot if you want something outside of the grain but far from the better material from around this time. Bambi & Mariko Yoshida vs. Kaoru Ito & Shuu Shibutani (IBUKI 13.11.2005) Oh lord it's great when the first minute is just trashy brawling that looks like complete shit, wonderful. I mean Bambi's supposed to be at least good IIRC but at this point she was very hit and miss so she's hardly going to be much worth talking about at this point. Ito gets in and you immediately see a difference in the work; it actually looks clean and properly aggressive. Her shit looks like it's actually supposed to hurt- it's not just goofy forearms to the shoulder, you immediately understand that this is someone with an actual legit training background. Even the way she does a Figure-Four looks like she's trying to break the fucking leg as she twists into position rather than just sitting in it makes you understand the importance of experience. Yoshida bumps well for another one of her students (Shibu) doing her usual Tenryu impression with stiff boots to the head and some proper rough submissions. Unlike some of the other rookies Shibu looks actually quite good; well at least her spots anyway, given she perfectly nails a springboard bulldog and seems to have a good grasp on timing as she battles against Yoshida's bombs with roll-ups as per standard. Typical antics but Yoshida can do these sort of matches in her sleep at this point. Bambi struggles until Yoshida gets in to pull Shibu off the top rope by her hair before getting caught with a corner crossbody for a near fall. Double submission spot from the two, no tap-out though. Bambi botches a Northern Lights as the two stumble over, the second time looked flush though. Ito comes in to do some more sick stuff like a bottom rope dropkick to the duo on the outside and a brutal powerbomb. They work the foot stomp well into the finishing sequences as Yoshida has to do a lot to stop Bambi getting wrecked off it, with the first one being delayed and then countered with a big boot and dodgy Shining Wizard. Bambi is isolated for the actual finish as Ito and co hammer on the pressure, and so Ito ends up finally winning off a violent top rope foot stomp to finish things out. This was another fairly decent rookie showcase, even if the rookies are obviously not quite fantastic. Bambi's worked a few years at this point but this entailed mostly limited DDT comedy stuff so her experience is noticeably quite lacking in places I.E. having to actually make her moves look impactful. Yoshida felt pretty passive in this one as Ito and Shibu really cranked things up with the action and aggression. Really mean undercard that starts hard-hitting and ends the same despite some shaky moments. Dark Angel vs. Mariko Yoshida (JD' 27.11.2005) Wild that the full show is lost to time but you can find this random match on YT to this day without any trouble. It's a sign of the very bizarre old wrestling scene and the likely very many hidden gems that are covered up due to being long in the tooth, tons of channels being removed and just purely bad titles burying them. Dark Angel would turn out to be quite the strong talent but this is still fairly fresh into her career and before the more well-known material from her Stardom days would be a thing. She still looked fine enough grappling and her spots didn't seem overtly out of place for what this was. I think all things considered she was one of the more proactive one-off grapplers that didn't just seem like she was there to sit around, instead always either seeming like she was looking for a counter or changing things up. This might've had to do with her extensive lucha background which lent a sense of her at least being more comfortable working the mat than others Yoshida went along fine (even with Angel's less than stellar strikes) and even mixed it up with a wacky wheelbarrow submission out of nowhere which was a fun surprise. This honestly felt more like the old Yoshida matches rather than her more shoot-style work all things considered with what she was throwing out with more of a focus on flash rather than gritty sprawling. The second half was conventional with Angel throwing out some cool power moves and submissions to work on the back before Yoshida started to toss in the usual counters and signature spots, finishing up with the Fujiwara into Spider Twist transition she does regularly for the submission win. Not a hidden epic yet a good example of her working well with a random opponent and showcasing their best features, I'd say better than the Knox match easily. Kei Akiyama & Mariko Yoshida vs Emi Sakura & Yuki Miyazaki (Jd' Star (09.12.2004) This was really just a nothingburger watching it. Emi looked awful here especially, multiple flubs, super late leg slaps, just a all-round stinker of a performance when she wasn't on the top rope. Yoshida does well enough here as a kind of name-value appearance where her value is more from just her being there than actually doing anything substantive on her part, though she does get in her usual spots for the time so that's something. Akiyama is super green (had only been going for about a year at this point) though does throw in a couple of cool submissions (like catching the ankle off a kick for a toe-hold, arm drag into armbar etc etc) that at least shake things up here. The action picks up in the third half where they start doing some substantive big spot work which didn't look awful for what it was, especially since the standards were so lower here that seeing any kind of pace was a improvement, Akiyama's FIP status remains until the very bitter end as despite getting a roll-up thanks to a Yoshida boot she still ends up losing out to Sakura landing a 450 for the pinfall. All in all: not really worth a watch unless you're really desperate for the only time we'd see Yoshida/Sakura going at it. Aja Kong & Mariko Yoshida vs. Ayako Hamada & Hikaru (OZ Academy 11.12.2005) This was potentially going to be great but you can very easily notice the odd one out here. I'm not going to diss Hikaru: someone has to take the beatings here: but she's miles off these three and the match doesn't even try to pretend otherwise as she's basically set up to fail as the eternal FIP. Yoshida throws her around on the mat and Kong doesn't have to sweat much to throw her around. Speaking of Kong, this was a bit of a day off for her. Lots of goofing off, just not really taking anyone seriously until way at the end. She gets hit with the worst spear probably ever from Hikaru at one point and just flops over to take some crappy forearms, lame. She has some better exchanges with Yoshida who's more generous with her bumping and selling alongside some stronger work around Yoshida trying to crank her head off with whatever she can grab on. I hoped that Hamada's work was going to be a lot stronger, but she was very reliant on weapon spots and spamming the exact same spinning kick for offence which was also a shame. Her trying to outstrike Kong barely looked convincing. She did attempt a good chair-mounted moonsault at one point before Kong just blasted her away with her legs lol. The usual Kong in danger routine near the end with some double-team antics before she inevitably pushes though and wins with a second rope elbow + two Uraken shots on Hamada to finish things up. Kinda felt like a typical B-show outing with everyone just doing stuff until the end. Hamada looked shockingly lazy and Hikaru was just mostly a super weak link. Yoshida and co were noticeably putting in a bit more into this but it just never clicked for me, I'd say skip. 2006/2007 Spoiler Akiko Narikuni & Mariko Yoshida vs. Atsuko Emoto & Shuu Shibutani (IBUKI 29.01.2006) Emoto and Yoshida start and it's a pretty good exchange, with both women throwing some mean shots. The grappling is a little bit too slick and easy for my liking but it worked in fine into the match without coming off as awkward. Akiko Narikuni is a pet-project of IBUKI and Yoshida in particular, green as grass, her stuff is kept to relatively tight sequences. Shibutani is lanky and focuses on lots of lucha-style offence, some parts she doesn't really fit doing (like senton splashes and the like) yet mostly seemed competent like last time. Was funny seeing her screaming her head off while Yoshida did boots to the face though only for her to flop over when she got nailed with a pretty on the money running version instead. We got more of Narikuni and it was mostly her doing her amateur-wrestling shtick, so lots of takedowns, slams, all that shit, she's like if Angle actually wrestled the way people think he does if that makes any sense, pretty sweet. Weird edits are used to hide some of the botches here; one has them mistime a standoff and they just cut to the next thing instead of showing that, very sneaky. Nari no-sells a dropkick like she just shit herself before Emoto runs in to bonk her with a wiffed forearm. Shibu tries to get her in a backslide but Nari can't stay in place so the spot gets blown. It's weird how she can't do basic stuff like that, but a whole sequence involving multiple twisting neck takeovers into a weird slide leg takedown into a inverted figure four w/ hair pulling (seriously wtf kinda move was this?) is all done perfectly. Bizarre stuff. Shibu taps out to a choke for the first fall. They scrap again but Nari makes the mistake of trying the same trick twice and ends up dropkicked in the face instead. She no-sells to do multiple suplexes and a body slam because of course. Despite getting in trouble again she spears the opposing pair (badly) and tags out. Yoshida gets in some more solid knees to the face before mostly selling and bumping for the duo. Nari has to fight to get in to break things up with a rough running shoulder charge. Generic double-team with Yoshida doing her Air Raid/Spider Twist while Nari also did stuff in sync. The sprint for the finish with Emoto speedrunning though roll-ups and bombs to try to take a win was solid, even if Yoshida immediately no-selling a huge top rope dropkick to the back of the head was pretty stupid. She finishes off with a stiff boot and second Air Raid to close things out. This promises to be real good in places and doesn't quite hit that mark for me ultimately. There's some definite pacing issues where the match will go from 1 to 10 out of nowhere. This mostly just exists to give Yoshida and her student a nice little main event outing and hey, if you like what she puts to the table, this definitely won't disappoint, I just think this could've been way better with some actual experience also on said table lol. Mariko Yoshida & Shuu Shibutani vs. Megumi Fujii & Natsuki Head (IBUKI 19.03.2006) The Shibu/Natsuki bits were just generic rookie joshi puroresu sequences; lots of dropkick exchanges, bad forearms to the chest, hair-pulling, all the usual beats with safe but reliable stuff. The Yoshida/Fujii spots are EASILY the best parts of the match, these two were basically built for each other. Of course we still have to had Yoshida bumping to the lamest cross-chops you've ever seen, but they actually built a nice little narrative around Natsuki being a shit and trying to grab Yoshida's body in side-mount, hooking a Half-Nelson pinning position to try to get a cheap ass victory which Yoshida then does right back to her to basically mock those attempts which then nicely results in Yoshida eating a uber close near fall when she gets complacent while bullying her around. This sets Yoshida off for a rear naked choke into extended rolling Spider Twist which gets the first fall fairly early into things. Yoshida is on a power trip as she tries for a immediate Air Raid as soon as the bell sounds and gets predictively punished by a Natsuki sleeper. Yoshida tries this again on Fujii a minute later and it's the same result, only instead we get a really awesome submission exchange between the two where they go from hold to hold with ease. It's not done for the sake of flashy transitions: Yoshida really makes a marked attempt to showcase Fujii as this amateur demon who just dominates with speed and aggression, forcing Yoshida to snap on some unorthodox pro-wrestling stuff to survive as it's not her forte. Because Fujii is so light as well she can fling herself around easily for bumps; letting stuff like her going flying across the ring after a bow and arrow hold, for instance. Stuff like that you simply don't see often if at all. The stuff between her and Shibu is cool as well as she tries for some lucha stuff before that just turns into her trying for roll-ups. Fujii does a super sick roll into instant kneebar for the second fall in swift fashion. This keeps the tension well as the two teams get on some submissions that you are never quite sure will be the conclusive finish or not. Fujii even works her own Spider Twist on Yoshida to rub it in and it leads well to her being in danger of being choked out from a follow-up Guillotine and Nats sleeper, crowd buy it because it's been built up well from early on as a true existential danger to everyone involved. Yoshida counters a running takedown into probably the sickest Sugar Foot transition ever but that gets hooked into a pin attempt instead. We get more Yoshida in Danger spots as she gets hit with a accidental dropkick and some additional sick roll-ups. After this the match does somewhat turn into the usual ho-hum rookie exchanges with the occasional decent bit, it did lose that intensity that it had built up for the first half. Nats doing Honda-lite headbutts is great but that isn't enough to make this much interesting. The finish is Shibu doing this weird wonky arm-trap side German suplex as well that sucked, boo. First half is a amazing blend of shoot/high-flying work before it settles into a decent but lacking stretch for the last-third. Needed more Fujii and Yoshida doing cool grappling ngl. Mariko Yoshida & Shuu Shibutani vs. Meiko Satomura & Tomoka Nakagawa (IBUKI 06.05.2006) Meiko still looks super young and hasn't aged a day since her GAEA stint pretty much. This is another Yoshida/rookies match, only it's got one of Meiko's underlings as well to boot. As you might expect they tend to lead things. Meiko's even nice enough to bump for Shibu after a series of dropkicks turn out to be tougher than expected to no sell, which was a cool subversion of the usual bully vet routine (maybe a callback to Gaea Girls? That'd be funny if it was) Shibu does lots of screaming but her work is standard and pretty flush all things considered. We get a small tease of a potential Yoshida/Satomura singles (that NEVER actually happens ffs you had one job) their stuff is, of course, super sick. Yoshida is more of a grappler while Meiko leads with kicks, though she does slap on a lovely rolling cross armbreaker after a kick at one point. The pair exchange some nasty suplexes as well, Yoshida gets in a deep head-spike Exploder and then eats a cartwheel gutwrench afterwards. The mat-work is dominated mostly by the latter as Meiko's arm gets wangled with multiple awesome submissions like a deep Spider Twist double wrist lock and a no-hands shoulder separator using Yoshida's leg as leverage to try to basically snap the arm off. Like I said, super sick. We get the typical Yoshida/rookie bits as Naka has to use headbutts (!) and cheap roll-ups to get the advantage. This bit is noticeably cut up a fair degree, which is a shame. Naka's arm is damaged in a cross armbreaker and that becomes the focus of team IBUKI as they hammer that down. She's done, so Meiko comes in to kick the dogshit out of everyone before leaving again. There's a amazing bit with all of the scuffle going on where Meiko jumps off the apron for a foot stomp on Yoshida only for her to then get ankle locked out of that so she can interrupt the other submission. Lots of pin interrupts, lots of screaming, crowd loved it though. The finish is smart as Meiko's kick-happy attitude gets punished with her accidently kicking her own partner in the back of the head via Shibu's antics, letting her get the finish with her typically terrible arm-trap side suplex thing. This was good for a midcard outing; it's the typical IBUKI pace for the most part, however it's the slower half that seems the strongest. Yoshida got to cook very well with someone like Meiko and it's a international tragedy that they never followed up with a singles after this, because it could've easily been a all-timer. Rookies got good shine and they were actually good this time despite being fairly bland. If you liked the other Yoshida/rookie feature matches this is basically the same but with more meat on the bones with Meiko here. Mariko Yoshida vs Cheerleader Melissa vs Hailey Hatred vs Jessica James vs Reggie (Cauliflower Alley Club 10.06.2006) This isn't in full with the only evidence of it even being recorded being a terrible 6 minute segmented video with The Who dubbed over it. Why? Fuck knows, it's a cool match though. Most of it is focused around just a sprint of everyone getting their shit in (this is a elimination match, so no worries about accident finishes) before Yoshida and Melissa basically have a mini singles match as the last two left. This is obviously the best combination you could get and it shows from the more scrappy grappling we end up having, including the two just throwing hands at each other. Melissa at one point does Vader hammer blows to stop Yoshida targeting the leg, more of that from wrestling please. The cuts hurt this a far bit but the two seem to really throw some cool stuff on the other as Melissa refuses to get caught with any of the old tricks, they exchange forearms and Yoshida then quickly ends things with a boot and Air Raid. The quality hurts this bad, but if you want (to my knowledge) the only partly-intact interaction with Yoshida/Melissa bar their heavily clipped ARISON match then this is definitely worth seeking out. Hiroyo Matsumoto & Mariko Yoshida vs. Ray & Tomoka Nakagawa (ICWA 07.07.2007) German Catch matches are historically not that well documented footage-wise (let alone way past the peak of wrestling popularity there in the 2000's) but some random fan like 16 years ago caught this full thing on camera and so this is preserved pretty much perfectly from start to end. The match itself is fairly by the numbers and something that would be fairly decent on a IBUKI card but nothing that great. What makes this so good however is the German crowd who are very receptive to everything on display here. As a result the four tend to switch up things for more of a casual house show feel, with Yoshida doing funny stuff like Lawler turnbuckle punches and heelish antics to get over the younger talent. It's awesome to have a crowd that pop at a crossbody or a backslide rather than do cringe chants or try to get themselves over, and that's most of the appeal of this match all things considered, the crowd heat is solid; the talent involved adapt with that to give a more traditional match than what you might have seen before. Matsumoto especially thrives on this to be a annoying geeky sidekick heel who interferes and taunts the crowd with her antics. The finishing stretch is solid with Ray throwing in a cool top rope backkick before finishing off Matsu with a near perfect moonsault. Not amazing workrate-wise but it's cool to see a change of pace from the usual matches I'd seen from the four, that's always welcome. Kaneko Yurie vs. Mariko Yoshida (Sendai Girls 09.07.2006) Basic rookie squash on the first Sendai card. Mostly Yoshida dominating on the mat with great leg submissions, Yurie selling hard and running to the ropes. Yoshida is great working as a bully vet that eggs Yurie on to throw more takedowns while she either counters or sprawls out of them. Eventually one works but when she tries to take a leg Yoshida just spins her around for a mean facelock. Yurie does better in the second half with conventional bombs as Yoshida keeps missing her boots, leading to lots of neckbreaker spam. Predictable sloppy stuff near the end as Yurie gasses up and starts to fumble, especially with the finish which was outright botched. Yoshida does her own version of the classic Tiger Mask Victory Roll/kneebar transition and wins off that with a tap-out. As I said this was a basic rookie squash, honestly it's not that great of a match but it was fine for what the format required. Kyoko Kimura vs. Mariko Yoshida (IBUKI 16.07.2006) Reviewed this before, probably one of Yoshida's best performances of this time period. Cherry & Kyoko Kimura vs. Mariko Yoshida & Toshie Uematsu (IBUKI 10.09.2006) More Kimura/Yoshida, god is good. Cherry is....eh, and Toshie Uematsu is fucking awesome, she gets no credit smh. She was a bit hit and miss here though; her bullying of Cherry at the beginning was fine, but it never really got to a degree where the heat could've really been at, it always just stays acceptable on the degrees of violence. Sure Cherry screams a lot and does some suplexes, that's not really much to talk about there. Kimura is again a good hand, fiery, didn't really do anything wrong here all things considered. Yoshida is mostly here to get Cherry over with a sequence of fairly smooth lucha-lite roll-ups and submissions. Her selling is also solid in the middle half where she's having to endure the two working on her arm before a Dragon Screw though the rope on Kimura mid-boot opens her up for submissions. This is more or less a rehash of the singles match, however we also get to see Kimura work in a new counter to the Air Raid via turning it into a Cobra Twist, so that's cool. Yoshida works in a counter to the big boot with a rolling calf crusher, also pretty sick as a continuation from their singles. They do a good job subverting the usual tropes as Kimura slaps on a cross armbreaker to counter, Yoshida tries to roll out as per standard to escape, fucks up on doing so and just ends up almost choked out as a result from Kimura's free arm grabbing on a bulldog choke. All in all, felt like a solid addition to their singles last show and definitely not just a repeat. Only thing that bugged me was Kimura basically no-selling a Air Raid to then go for a roll-up during the near fall, that felt cheap. Typical scrappy finish with everyone getting their shots in (including a well-timed top rope dropkick to Kimura mid run by Uematsu) before Yoshida aims for the leg again and actually gets the submission win with a figure-four on Kimura after a Air Raid near fall. All in all, this was decent. There was a few issues with Cherry and Uematsu not exactly adding a whole lot to things (maybe that's the slight clipping, who knows) and a fairly tame tempo that never really got past second gear. Yoshida and Kimura showed some solid chemistry here again though, definitely best part of this. It's not essential for Yoshida/IBUKI viewing but if you liked everything else this is pretty much going to still hit the spot. Bambi & Rei vs. Mariko Yoshida & Tojyuki Leon (29.10.2006) Yoshida/rookie matches are super hit and miss depending on who we get showing up and it's not a particularly compelling selection bar Leon. This was mostly focused around Rei/Ray and Leon doing lucha work and it's fine, just really basic transitions and whatnot. Yoshida and Bambi also do some scrambling on the mat that's smooth mostly a bit heatless bar a early rear naked choke attempt by the latter. The middle portion is cut a fair degree seemed to be Rei being worked over by the pair. Her chops are garbage but they thankfully move away from that to instead do more high-flying work. Bambi tagging Yoshida with a roundhouse was a cool enough spot as was the STF attempt afterwards, though it was used as a choke and not as it's supposed to be (the F is for facelock smh) but whatever. Yoshida bumps and sells well for the duo as she struggles to outpace her faster opponents, having to rely on the classic boots to catch them mid-run. You notice Rei's getting the classic rub as Yoshida gets caught with the same few counters to her big bombs (backslide, sunset out of Air Raid, etc) she does eventually get some shots in it's just to lead in Leon for more work. She hits a forearm before botching a springboard bulldog, then we get a decent spot with Rei hurling a fancy back high kick to knock her up and over the top rope. Rei gets in a solid moonsault to the outside and a weird rope/handspring dropkick off the top rope, looked good enough for this though. Last few minutes is a sprint focused around the masked duo doing fairly decent sequences involving Yoshida ending up bonking Leon with a big boot by accident and Rei half-botching her weird cartwheel roll-up. It's all good though as Leon ends up winning anyway with a frog splash. This had moments of being solid but I think Yoshida moving to the side here to let the younger talent shine was actually a mistake, because her sections are better than theirs pretty much. Rei and Leon at least seemed robust for what they were here to do despite little interest in what they were actually trying to do. Mariko Yoshida vs. Yoshiko Tamura (NEO 03.11.2006) Despite not shown in full anywhere (the best you get is the Battle Station version which clocks at 17 minutes, a far cry from the 23 minute length) this is still fantastic. You got the feeling from the start that this could've easily been a NJPW-tier match where it was mostly just sitting in holds and dancing around for the first half, it wasn't thankfully. Typically Yoshida matches are very limb-orientated, working around her bad arm or attacking the legs. This was the latter with Tamura working them after a low dropkick while focusing on the knee as well. Yoshida generally had to work a bit smarter on the mat, using lots of catch-style stuff where she's basically just dragging bait holds out to soften the opponent up before then pulling for the real big submission after. Tamura had her own sort of bombs to beat up the knee. Yoshida's arm work was great; lots of defensive antics, snippy counters, and moments of her just throwing vicious strikes to open up her opponent to gain a major pass or further attack with holds. Selling was top notch as well, always drew focus to it even when she was doing spots and moves as a dangerous factor. The fact that her main plan here was just to do all of her big plays as soon as possible to win rather than drag things out with her crappy knee made lots of sense and actually created a need for urgency beyond just doing big movez. Tamura's stuff being mostly just roll-ups and hitting good strikes was cool and it built well with her surviving long enough to throw her shots and win off a running elbow. I don't think this got quite to the top tier level that others have put it as, but it's still relatively solid as a outing. The two work well as a pair and Tamura held well working a Yoshida-style outing. Aoi Kizuki & NAO vs. Mariko Yoshida & Yuka Shiina (IBUKI 17.12.2006) This was fine but felt back by some imbalanced opponents. I mean Shiina is decent and was quite good at one point however this is way at the backend of her career and after a long struggle with knee problems, Kizuki is just sloppy as shit. NAO ironically was probably the second best here and she was still a very inexperienced rookie. Of course she was trained by Yoshida so there you go. She's got some snappy amateur-wrestling takedowns and submissions which looked good alongside her mentor selling well for them. Shiina looked fine here but her limited involvement is somewhat telling as she kept mostly to somewhat restrained antics. Kizuki as per expected from a Sakura trainee moves like shit, almost everything she does looks light and unconvincing and she screams a lot.....hardly shocking, no? This was worked as a typical rookie squash match though so a lot of it was just built by those sort of expectations. At one point Kizuki hits Yoshida with some terrible stomps and she gets pissed enough to audibly slam her head into the turnbuckle, yikes. Probably the spot of the match was NAO moving at incredible speed to slap on a inside cradle before going for the La Campana of all things, but it was awesome either way. The ref basically got shat on for the last third as the rookies kept just doing double team moves with little protest, these were fine but it was all just a rush of spots as everyone at times were waiting on the side for their cue to jump in. Finish came with a double submission as Shiina throws on a cool deep rolling Dragon Sleeper. Post-match Shiina gets a nice little celebration with flowers as this was presumably during her retirement tour before bowing out later in the month. This was fine. I think Yoshida and NAO could've had a solid matchup as a singles showing that could've trumped this by a good bit. Shiina noticeably didn't bump a whole lot but she still looked quite capable despite limited interactions. Kizuki is just bad and is thankfully mostly kept to leaping off stuff, of which she's the least bad at. Atsuko Emoto vs. Mariko Yoshida (IBUKI 28.01.2007) Already done, probably one of Yoshida's best matches all year around. Atsuko Emoto vs. Mariko Yoshida II (IBUKI 18.03.2007) These two had a 25 minute match to follow up their fantastic first outing! It was cut to 8 minutes. Sigh. I mean it's expected from indie shows, this is taking the piss though. It's a shame as well because these two have a pretty heated match for what we see, with lots of hard hits and Emoto really pushing herself with some big spots. Most nasty spot was unintentional: she went for a Tenryu back elbow off the middle rope, Yoshida gets the knees up and she goes basically headfirst onto them, oof. Yoshida was doing some murder-time shit, stiff slaps, going for a weird botched Steiner Screwdriver thing (? ) and Emoto ends up having to eat a few near falls before just spamming lariats for what seemed like forever. She then hits her suplex/Flowsion variant for the clean pin! Yeah it's a shame this is so chopped to pieces; it seemed like a fairly solid outing. Either way, blame the editors, most evil indeed. Just pretend this happened right after their draw to settle the score and enjoy. Hiroyo Matsumoto & Shuu Shibutani vs. Mariko Yoshida & Meiko Satomura (IBUKI 05.05.2007) This was disappointing. You'd think with a still pretty young Satomura and Yoshida alongside two growing talent (Matsumoto especially, who even here looked solid) that you'd get something solid, but this just never fully composed itself. The main issue is that this match NEVER slows down. There's no weardown spots, no long submissions, no heel/face heat, it's just moves into moves into screaming into more moves. This means you aren't likely to get bored, but it also means that we have a lot more sloppiness and the match never settles enough for the crowd to get into the characters and their dynamics. I'll also say that Shibu was really not that good here either. She's got a few good spots, other than that her strikes suck: wouldn't be so bad if she wasn't paired up against prime Meiko, who, like, is one of the greatest aggressive wrestlers ever. All of her stuff clicks, she's stiff as hell, and her intensity radiates hard, even in this kind of match. Yoshida is also fine, but she sticks to lots of her regular routines (some Spider Twist transitions, boot exchanges, etc) and doesn't really get much of a opportunity to actually work nuanced mat-work in this one, so it's not her prime element. This is basically just a generic Joshi squash for most of it as the younger talent mostly struggle to do much of anything bar double-teaming and some spirited comebacks. The big fumble comes when Sato roundhouse kicks Yoshida by mistake, allowing Matsu to get in their big bombs before Yoshida actually jobs to a solid Dangerous Backdrop, though she no-sells right after. This felt built around the fluky finish: having it relatively short and action-filled as to get though everything and justify said fluke without it seeming forced or awkward. It surely seemed a bit that way, but a Dangerous Backdrop + extra moves is definitely enough for me. The match suffered as a result, however, stuff just drifts past without much attempt to ground it in anything, so you get a mostly nice slice of action then said slice is replaced after you've had the first bite....just seems a bit annoying given the talent we've got working together. Oh well. Aoi Kizuki vs. Mariko Yoshida (Gannosuke Produce 29.11.2007) It says a lot about the amazing talent of Yoshida that she can even make terrible Emi Sakura students look good. Kizuki is pretty bad: her strikes are shoddy and she has that signature Sakura-charm in that almost everything she does wiffs and looks off. Yoshida feeds and bumps for her for about the first two minutes before she just has enough of this shit and turns a hair pull into a cross armbreaker before transitioning into a figure-four necklock from the side. She dominates with basic but effective offence, including boots in the face, headlocks, etc. She goes from a headlock into a kneebar and that looks sick as shit as per standard. Kizuki eventually gets back into this with three limp crossbody drops, all with extended screaming because why not. She also does probably the worst stomps I've ever seen and Yoshida just has to sell and lay down for it, sad stuff. She tries for some sort of leg hold, however is so useless that she can't even apply it properly and Yoshida has to basically no sell and beat her ass more. She tries to work over the back for psychology even sticking her in a really nasty looking Bow and Arrow, but Kizuki just no sells everything to land two running forearm/elbow shots and a scoop slam for a pin. Yoshida keeps cranking the back with submissions until her opponent counters a clothesline into a plodding backbreaker rack before doing a second rope senton. She falls back first as well on Yoshida with no give, basically how Jeff Hardy did his Swanton Bomb....expect Jeff was in his mid 40's and was broken down at that point, so there's not really any excuse for the crappy work here. Her big move is some wacky top rope side moonsault thingy: I'm trying to be nice but it looked like she just leapt sideways off and did a lazy moonsault, basically. Yoshida chokes her out with a Guillotine for a near fall until she springs to life randomly to shit all over the move so she could get more movez in, but her terrible leaping splash misses and Yoshida lands a vicious scoop slam into backbreaker. Kizuki throws shitty forearms and we get a bunch of random roll-ups until Yoshida finishes her off with a big boot and full/Boston Crab. This had WAY too many near falls for a Joshi rookie match, and it doesn't help Kizuki is utterly dreadful in the ring so Yoshida REALLY had to put her foot into gear and make this decent, which it did end up being. Fine for a example of Yoshida carrying lesser talent to better things, but other than that this wasn't very refined and certainly not that enjoyable. 2008 Spoiler AKINO & Mariko Yoshida vs. Command Bolshoi & Megumi Yabushita (WAVE 23.02.2008) This was fairly good in places despite it mostly being worked like a bang average show. Yabu's cross armbreaker shtick is fun and there are a couple of spots where this feels like it could be building around a nice technical showcase and then it'll go into just crowd-pleasing spots instead. Bolshoi landing a top rope foot stomp on AKINO while she was in a figure-four looked like death though. This instead felt like more of a lucha match where stuff is generally more faster paced, more spot and heat-focused, etc, at least for the first half anyway. Yoshida still gets some of her ballpark involved as her and Yabu have a pretty great back and forth submission war between armbreakers and the lot and we also get some of that illusive Bolshoi/Yoshida encounter as Yoshida escapes the same Frankensteiner to triangle armbar transition from their 2000's match, but then gets stuck in it anyway after Bolshoi grabbed her arm and effortlessly spun around to reapply the hold! Cool stuff. They milk a long rear naked choke as Bolshoi escapes a Spider Twist yet still gets drawn down anyway; it's a bit too long to be realistic, mind you, however it worked to get the crowd heated up. Lots of double team stuff as we get dual submissions. Bolshoi sells her ass off until a clip occurs (there's a version without it, it adds nothing) then she's fine and snaps this bizarre sunset flip onto a bottom-rope Tarantula? Either way it's a top tier sick spot that you could only really do at her size and height, Bolshoi be the GOAT as per standard. The last five minutes are just a burst of spots pretty much as Bolshoi goes though her arsenal of lucha flash pins/submissions on AKINO, then her having to endure even more from her partner. There's a couple of mistiming, that's expected with something as fast-paced as this was. Yoshida wasn't involved much bar some involvement at the end with big boots. Ultimately the selling goes completely out of the window as AKINO no-sells a powerbomb to then do one or two spots to win the match...felt a bit unearned given the asskicking she'd taken, alongside them just ignoring the arm work that was present for certain portions of the match. This was still solid, though it didn't really have much of a structure to it ultimately, it was essentially all four choosing to do cool spots at the end of the day. Yoshida felt more of a afterthought; she gets some shine in the middle half, otherwise you could honestly side her out with nearly anyone and you couldn't really tell the difference. In general this was fine as a movez match, adds nothing to Yoshida's case though. Haruka Matsuo & Ray vs. Kyoko Inoue & Mariko Yoshida (NEO 20.04.2008) It's not a NEO match if it doesn't take place in the middle of nowhere with only about a few dozen people! Yeah this wasn't amazing. It's cool that Yoshida came down to work with Ray (around this time they'd actually had a good few matches with each other) but this still felt like a dire house show all things considered. Lots of stalling, lots of basic wrestling, just the usual gimmicks to drag this out. Matsuo looked pretty great for this quality of show spot-wise. Kyoko Inoue of course right after just stinks things up with long holds and endless hounding for clapping. The younger talent take their lumps as the vets basically control the pace of the match for the middle half, namely for the heat antics. The comebacks would go from eh to decent, depending on who was selling and who was doing them. Ray shockingly didn't look that flush here at all and was way overshadowed by Matsuo. Mistimed dives to the outside with some Inoue usual power moves, etc etc. Ray looked better near the end with some usual spots, though Inoue wasn't bumping for much here at all lol. The finish was just generic as hell as Yoshida ran though all of her stuff before finishing off with a Air Raid. As stated this felt relatively low effort with only a couple of moments really impressing. Matsuo felt WAY too good for this shit as she mostly got squashed by Inoue's plodding power-based offence. Yoshida was more or less the person bumping for next to everything so I guess that's cool? Atsuko Emoto & Kyoko Kimura vs. Io Shirai & Mariko Yoshida (IBUKI 03.05.2008) We only get a couple of minutes of this, though it's notable for having a appearance from a uber-young blonde Io who's unrecognisable. She's got some decent dropkicks, mostly gets beaten down by the far more competent and balanced opposing duo though. Despite all of this she still pretty much nails all of her spots, including a Muto-style back elbow/bulldog and a great moonsault, even this early she was pretty ]decent at this wrestling stuff. Emoto quickly gets back the advantage with some rough lariats and a near fall from a top rope back elbow. We get a awesome spot where Emoto grabs on a inverted figure-four before turning it into a Giant Swing! After she has her fun she just sinks in the hold to make her tap out for the easy win. It's hard to judge this because there's a fair degree clipped purely as a Io showcase, but I think for what it's worth it was enjoyable and clearly everyone was taking it more lax given this was more of a house show. Check out for the oddity factor mostly. Hiroyo Matsumoto & Misaki Ohata vs. Mariko Yoshida & Ray (Hirotsugu Suyama Produce Hardcore Ladies 04.05.2008) Everyone in this match bar the obvious was trained by Yoshida, how cool is that? This was the only match on the card that wasn't hardcore rules, which is both good and bad, mostly bad because of the morbid curiosity of how they'd work a match like that is gone. The match went 12 minutes, we only see around about 8 in total. The match itself was more of a opener kind of pace with lots of cool Yoshida-style grappling. She wants to get over the newer talent who are on the other team so they function as the FIP that her and Ray control for a while. They after a while take back control by working over the crappy taped up arm of their mentor and some miscommunication. There's some clearly botched bits that do kill the buzz of the match at times, but it never gets overtly over the hill in terms of quality. Yoshida eventually hits all of her usual hits until a Air Raid beats Ohata clean. The match itself was fine.....the crowd was just so dead for this though. Bar Yoshida they don't react to anyone really despite all of their spots, even for the finish. It's not like they were dead in general because they were loud and mostly into the matches afterwards including the main so I guess this was either a old AJPW majority crowd that are conditioned to not give two shits about undercard matches or they didn't care about this non-hardcore stuff either can be likely. Middle of the road, done well despite poor reception. If you do watch this also check out the main event immediately. Mariko Yoshida vs. Toshie Uematsu (NEO 05.05.2008) Annoyingly cut to 5 minutes from the original 10, because we needed all the time for a obnoxious eight-man 30 minute Iron Man match (wtf) I guess. This looked pretty solid with the two working a more scrappy pace. Seen a few too many of the "x steals the Spider Twist and almost wins" sequence at this point though. Middle half had Uematsu focus on the throat, namely choking on the ropes and kicks. Strong offence continues with a dropkick to a kneeling Yoshida and a mean Dragon Suplex, just all of the good stuff. Yoshida inches back with punches to the body and face alongside her signature boots as both scramble for counters. There was a cool subversion of the usual Air Raid spots/expected counters as Yoshida actually hit it flush the first time but Uematsu just managed to wangle her for a roll-up anyway by overextending for the move itself. That still stuns her enough for Yoshida to just creep up and quickly steal the win with a rollup right after anyway. I mean it's hard to judge this completely because the clipping removes the establishing work, however I'd still say this was enjoyable given who was involved. Nothing to really be amazed at but if you tend to like more sprinty Spider Yoshida matches then this is definitely one to search out. Kyoko Kimura & Mariko Yoshida vs. Misaki Ohata & Ray (IBUKI 25.05.2008) I could only find a 6 minute version of this. Good violence between Ray and Yoshida as they went back and forth, with Yoshida having to heavily rely on her boots and usual bombs to keep things under control. The main theme was that Ohata was the weak link that simply couldn't keep up with anything. Ultimately there isn't really a moment where this changes, she's still useless up until the finish where they do the usual "Yoshida gets hit by her tag partner by accident" shtick, only it's a Kimura big boot instead and that's more than enough to win off a mean Frankensteiner for the upset. There's just not enough to judge this reliably despite what remains being pretty good for what it was supposed to be. Chihiro Oikawa vs. Mariko Yoshida (Battlarts 08.06.2008) By far the superior Oikawa/Yoshida match, probably because they actually showed it in full for one. Opening exchanges get Yoshida over as clearly the superior mat-worker, but Oikawa has the gift of being a little shit so she goes for slaps, hair pulling, and even headbutts when needed. Such a brutal series of moves naturally makes her the clear babyface for the blood-hungry maniacs that are the Battlarts crowd, and so Yoshida works this as a heel in response, bullrushing her after some kicks to get the upper hand and doing some really nasty shoot-bully antics like grabbing her arms in full mount and wrapping them together to try to make her choke herself out or doing horrible facelocks. They worked well to Oikawa's clunky roundhouses getting some falls and even some cool submissions until this inevitably ended with Yoshida crawling out of a desperate armbreaker to effortlessly apply a rolling Spider Twist for the win. Robust and super easy to watch, pretty good introduction into the kind of stuff Yoshida is really all about style-wise. I feel bad that Oikawa didn't wrestle more because she looked smooth and confident working her despite this being her first official match as a wrestler (the first two before were exhibitions, basically). Great watch. Chihiro Oikawa vs. Mariko Yoshida II (IBUKI 28.09.2008) Yoshida's back to working starting matches with promising ex-MMA rookies! This is cut to about 5 minutes though, so bad vibes already. Oikawa is obviously green, but her striking shtick is awesome, she's not smooth and definitely no Tiger Mask when it comes to hitting with precision, instead going for more clunky roundhouse kicks and whatnot to get the job done. Yoshida does her usual selling and bumping routine to get over her as a dangerous threat (including some great submission work) but ultimately she gets the win after baiting Oikawa to the mat with a Fujiwara armbar set-up, catching her with a Spider Twist when she tries rolling to escape by hooking the back, a standard sequence all things considered. This seemed solid enough for a opener with a sprint-ish pace to it as the two went though their main moves fairly quickly. Nothing groundbreaking, just a solid sturdy performance from both. Again I'd kill to see more Oikawa in action. Fuka vs. Mariko Yoshida (19.10.2008) This was alright, mostly wrestled like Fuka wanted to do a ARSION match 10 years late. Fuka is one of those quite rare cases of someone being not as remarkable as a wrestler than they are as a trainer. As a wrestler most of her stuff was in the Dark Ages of Joshi Puro in the mid 2000's where nearly all promotions were untelevised, massively reduced in availability or downright went under, so the stuff available is limited and not particularly in-depth, so she suffers from not having her best years on film. As a trainer she basically trained up half of the old Stardom roster and mostly the good ones at that like Mayu or Starlight Kid....not hard to see which one comes out better. Yoshida was more than game to work the more slower methodical style Fuka wanted to do, even if Fuka's actual wrestling was a bit limited in what she could do that looked good. They worked some nice drama with Yoshida mostly stretching out the legs while Fuka got the occasional counter but her main gift was her kicks which she used for the most advantage here. Yoshida mostly carries this with her usual spots and some great wangling on the mat to gather sympathy. Fuka answers with a weak spinning headscissors and a shit 619, not great. This was another match that focused around Yoshida's crappy bandaged arm with dropkicks, kicks, and armbreaker spam, helping to ground Fuka's offence into a tangible gameplan. Fuka's stuff looks good and Yoshida's selling is as per standard quite solid, she built up some good tension around not being to use the arm for her usual bombs and forgoing her usual aggression for Fujiwara-lite passivity and defence, waiting for Fuka's kicks to then snap into submissions. Fuka runs out of tricks thus keeps spamming the cross armbreaker Kashin-style, even rolling out of a Air Raid to do one. They build to a strong pace as Fuka throws out about everything and then some to get a upset (including lots of roll-ups!) but she eventually gets choked out by the Fujiwara transition into Spider Twist spot for the TKO. The mat-work isn't anything special though with Mariko Yoshida matches: you really get a bit spoilt given how elegant she is at making these sort of things work. Fuka is game; despite her size and height being less than convincing she does a good job working around that to be a believable threat. The second half is more frantic to the degree of a usual finishing stretch of the time. If you can get into that style the match is quite rewarding even if I think better exists pretty much everywhere else including the ARSION material that this was trying to ape. Mariko Yoshida vs Random German wrestler/Tom Delacroix (ICWA ??? 2008) I debate even having this here given it's not even a match (instead being more of a training session for Delacroix) but it's still wrestled to a fall so I'm counting it, sue me. It's pretty cool to see Yoshida doing a Fujiwara by doing this exhibition in casual attire and fooling around with someone clearly not in their league, that's basically the main appeal of this match all things considered. Dela isn't the most clean and is generally kinda the standard scrubby indie wrestler at the time (little to no definition, wearing a shirt and long trousers, random kickpads, etc) but he at least seems to be fairly decent as a cocky counterpart that Yoshida gets to work around with inverted kneebars, double wrist locks and....eyepokes? I guess? Delacroix pushes his luck when he tries to choke Yoshida out and gets vicious clubs to the back before she big boots him once and gets the pin off that lol. I mean listen if you've read THIS far it's not going to wow you at all, it's just a funny laugh watching one of the greatest grapplers ever do stupid Catch with some no-name for a couple of minutes. Wilderness Years Spoiler After 2008, Mariko Yoshida basically vanishes from wrestling, publicly at least. The main story is that she wanted to instruct women in self-defence and follow up on her ambitions in exercise therapy/Feldenkrais Method stuff so she didn't have time beyond that and apparently helping to train other wrestlers. We do get her back two years later alas it's only for two exhibitions that combined in length go up to six minutes (yes, that much). I skimmed these a while back, I honestly couldn't say anything on them. She'd wrestle a fair bit in Pro-Wrestling Diana and such with these shows to my knowledge being mostly unaired. Some outside of Diana were but good luck finding reliable versions of those either, every search has went up cold on those and I'm not spending 40 bucks for a potentially good match via overpriced DVD copies either lol. As such, we only have a few matches to go though, not including her one minute of action against Manami Toyota for her retirement bout, because no. Keiko Aono vs Mariko Yoshida (Diana 17.04.2011) This was quite solid. Especially so when you consider the fact that Yoshida had been out of regular wrestling for multiple years now. She's lost some of that infamous shredded look that she sported then yet the skill and experience are all still intact. Keiko Aono is a sleazy LLPW talent that kicks fairly hard. Yoshida always sells great for strikers and this is proven very early on as she sells a roundhouse Kawada-style with the glazed eyes and crumbling up afterwars. She takes control in the first half with kicks and bombs until Yoshida is able to bait her into a Spider Twist. From then on it's a battle of attrition as the two exchange strikes to submissions, each focusing on either the head (Aono) or the arm (Yoshida) whenever they can. This felt like more of a establishing of Yoshida as a act; she goes over a lot of the usual spots you'd expect, the cross armbreaker, the Irish Whip kneebar counter, etc etc. Felt like she was going more back to basics with this which makes sense given how out of wrestling she's been. Things get good in the last few minutes as Aono hits some stiff kicks and keeps doing a cool Shining Wizard variation where instead of a knee she just bonks you with a foot to the dome lol. Despite a very dodgy spinning wheel kick she's still quite good. Finish felt a bit cheap as Aono just kicked Yoshida in the head a few times and won. Sure it's realistic, sure there's a sense of brutality to it that makes it seem impactful, I just think that it seems a bit out of the blue and it wasn't built up a whole bunch with actual escalation, kinda like if a rollercoaster just started with the crazy speed and stopped a minute later. Yoshida also felt quite protected here as she got in her basic stuff without really anything beyond the basics, as I said I think this was down to her mostly keeping to a more simplistic style to ensure there wasn't any sloppiness shown on her part. Ayako Hamada, Cherry & Misaki Ohata vs. Mariko Yoshida, Moeka Haruhi & Yumi Ohka (WAVE 17.07.2017) The names here seem all random but all of the opposing team are Yoshida trainees! That's a cool touch. Cherry and Yoshida start with some slow grappling that wasn't great before we go right into a long nothing outside brawl. Opposing trio beat her up a bit with hair pulling before more outside antics; yeah it's one of those matches. Cherry's stuff is pretty rough, her dropkick is basically her flopping down on one leg with no real impact. Bar that Ohata and Hamada are especially great as the roughhouse heels of the bunch, especially Hamada as she pulls from her extensive rudo playbook with lots of dirty double teaming and such. Haruhi spends most of the start and middle being worked over until she gets a ok hot tag to Yoshida for big boots and then we get to see Ohka in action. She's tall....that's about it for distinct features. She does the big boot and generic tall person spots, even does a lame version of Taue's Snake Eyes off the ropes. She bumps well at least and does a solid backdrop driver so that's something, still feels like a even tamer Lady C all things considered. Yoshida comes in to work in her signature bombs and spots (including some old counters to the Air Raid! ) alongside bumping big for Ohata and Hamada though the latter's stuff was predictively the best out of the bunch. We got some trio spots involving a triple submission and suplex, that's all fine. Haruhi does some alright high spots with some bad botches in-between. Everyone brawls and breaks up some near falls until Hamada hits her Fisherman's Buster two times over to finish things. This was fine enough for a enjoyable rush of old faces to scrap with the new in typical Yoshida-fashion where the new faces get the bulk of the action but the match itself wasn't that interesting bar some decent exchanges. Yoshida for what it's worth still looked great inside a ring and probably could've easily kept going into her 50's if she really wanted to do so, her style is that low-impact. Leon vs Mariko Yoshida (PURE-J 11.08.2017) This was a pretty good showing considering Yoshida was only 3 months away from retiring here, got to remind folks reading that this was at the age of 47 (!!) because she looked about half of that here when moving around and taking sick bumps. I also appreciate that Yoshida is purely here to get over Leon as the big deal they (rightfully) were considered to be at this point, spending most of this on the backend selling for the faster and more hungry opponent especially at the start where Leon has all of the pace on her side. Like with most late-Yoshida showings she doesn't get to have a hold-for-hold battle instead we get essentially the bite size version by having her get occasional pockets of opportunity to snap on counter traps for submissions instead; nothing mind-blowing, though seeing her counter a running spear into a Fujiwara Sugar Foot (a spot reused from her earlier work) was fucking awesome for what it was so I can't complain too much. She also gets in a very long hammerlock guillotine combo that was quite enjoyable to watch despite Yoshida very obviously yapping to her opponent in the hold in front of the ringside cameras. I appreciated that they didn't try to pretend this was going to be anything but a short affair as Yoshida went right into trying to hit all of her signature bombs to get a quick finish so you knew from very early on that there was no illusions of this being unnecessarily dragged a-la Michaels/Flair or something as silly as that. One instead understands immediately that this is going to be a race to the finish with as many attempts at finishes at possible. Despite getting a Air Raid AND a Spider Twist Leon is able to hold on long enough to get the ropes before winning in swift fashion with two iffy spears and a Cross for a swift finish. This was perfectly fine for what it was supposed to be; a quick run-through between mentor and student meant to showcase everything great about the pair alongside giving Leon the seal of approval with the victory. Yoshida does about as well as she can really do here and I'd say despite those limitations they do a good job milking the drama in the holds, successfully might I add since the crowd were heavily into these whenever they happened. Decent outing despite not having much depth to it. Ayako Sato vs Mariko Yoshida (Diana 01.10.2017) Potentially could've been lost, but Sato apparently had this recorded and uploaded to her channel so I guess she had some sort of fancam version available. This is also Yoshida's last singles match for Diana before retiring at the end of the year. I will say that this being clipped is quite annoying; we get about 7 minutes of the 13 runtime; but for what it's worth I don't think this was that special to be going crazy over that. Most of this was worked around Sato targeting the back with dropkicks and submissions, which caused Yoshida to sell hard and also get her revenge later on with her own back work. Sato looked flush with her work as she aggressively pushed the boundaries of what the vet could handle, from dropkick spam to upping the pace when needed with bigger moves. However I'd say this never really got that interesting; it was mostly Yoshida pushing though with the usual bombs and signature bits before Sato escaped a Air Raid to throw on the usual roll-up, but ultimately got wrecked off a big boot and then a proper Air Raid to finish things up. Felt really basic and by the numbers, I don't know if it was because of the clipping because there just wasn't any real meat or heat to make this a worthwhile watch, it just felt like a typical showing that didn't do anything different to actually make it mean anything. Yoshida still felt flush in the ring and Sato has clearly impressive atheticism, I'd say all things considered I was left waiting for the two to really click though since their distinct styles felt a bit too distinct here to justify any sort of major chemistry. The final three matches happen on her own retirement produce indie card on 19.11.2017, so no need to address the date for these ones. Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue & Mariko Yoshida vs Debbie Malenko, Jaguar Yokota & Kaoru Ito This was the opener, so no crazy moments all things considered. It was really cool to see Debbie back in a ring after 20+ years out of action, especially with the sad way she went out before. She wasn't obviously going to be amazing given the tremendous rust she'd naturally have but she looked confident working basic technical work with Yoshida and didn't seem like she was being carried at any point here, holding her own remarkably well. Kyoko and Ito produce the BEEF with stiff lariat exchanges, that's fun. Yoshida also gets to struggle against Ito as powerhouse and that's also quite enjoyable for what its worth, what with the attempted murder from a Ito foot stomp and senton splash. Second half was more comedy focused as the trio try to catch Yokota out with double teaming, but she's just too good with her uber-experienced lucha roll-ups to get caught. She does eat a German off Takako AND a top rope superplex off the other Inoue, which is fairly crazy all things considered by anyone but her since she's clearly just that awesome. Much like Tenryu Yokota hasn't really aged a whole lot since the 2000's, she's just basically doing all of her old spots lol. Malenko gets in for the last few minutes to take the usual bumps and land a fairly weak Northern Lights, though applies a STF correctly (gets ****1/2 from me). Everyone gets thrown out for a brawl bar Yoshida and co as per standard (including Kyoko going nuts with lariats and Taka dangling around a stunstick) Yoshida did a few of her old pre Spider Lady lucha roll-ups before finishing off with the Spider Twist for the tap-out on Malenko. Nothing much special here, just a fun vet showcase between buddies. Aja Kong, AKINO & Mary Apache vs Leon, Mariko Yoshida & Melissa We got Yoshida's past, now we have her ARSION/2000's contemporaries, from her trainees (Leon/AKINO) her CMLL leanings (Apache, who took the gimmick from Lady Apache, old nemesis of Yoshida's lucha days etc) and even some wacky faces (Cheerleader Melissa!). Obviously given their history no one on the opposing side wants to shake Yoshida's hand. AKINO offers later but then tries for a backslide! What a sneak. This was worked as a more fast-paced lucha style with everyone working at a sprint more or less. Apache was awesome and moved tremendously well for someone who wasn't exactly small, also got in some cool spots and exchanges whenever. Match slowed when Aja was around, that's to be expected though. Her and Yoshida had some decent back and forth stuff as a reminiscence over their 90s work together mostly Aja throwing people around and mean-mugging. AKINO came in to do the usual "stealing the Spider Twist" bit for like the 1000th time but it had good heat so I can't really complain as much as I'd like to. Melissa more or less did most of the actual heavy-lifting which involved doing some cool top-rope spots and moving around the more immobile characters involved. They thankfully build the finish around Leon doing cool stuff on AKINO while everyone else tries to interrupt and do their own stuff. Everything seems lost when Kong and co clean up and leave Leon on her own, yet she's able to dodge her and Apache to take them out. Finish is solid as she throws kicks and ultimately gets caught with a tremendously smooth AKINO Frankensteiner for the pin. This is much better than the last match given the faster pace and stronger focus on action, even if Yoshida (by design) takes a backseat here in favour of her students. Hiroyo Matsumoto vs Mariko Yoshida The guts of Yoshida to wrestle her retirement match as a spoiler-heel is pretty amazing. She starts off with a emotional handshake offer before going for a backslide a-la her stealing AKINO's shtick and then starts doing hair pulling lol. This is a retirement match so we get the usual story beats involving Yoshida getting beat down by all of her closest peers and numerous people she's trained with. I loved her playing dead after some of them just to get pulled back up into position. Matsumoto spends most of this beating her mentor down with stiff slaps and whatever she can think of while Yoshida can do very little but cry and hope for the miracle submission, which she does indeed get in the middle, leading to some solid grappling on the mat. Yoshida is still slick as anything and she pulls out all of the stops to try to stop her much stronger opponent despite the impending doom this match carries. The two have a strong sequence where Yoshida gets countered out of her Air Raid and into a deadlift powerbomb out of a sunset flip before she herself counters the bomb for a near fall sunset flip, probably one of the best examples of a Air Raid sequence ever all things considered and it's RIGHT at the end of her career. Yoshida's strikes suck, yet that's kind of the point: she's just not good enough anymore to handle Matsumoto's insanely beefy forearm smashes and thus is continually against the current of the stronger and more fired up youth. We get a lovely near upset as Yoshida seamlessly counters a backdrop attempt seamlessly into a Air Raid for a super near fall, but she eventually can't keep the pressure up and loses to a lariat and a backdrop for the win. This was honestly pretty great for a retirement match: Yoshida is right at the end here and still goes pretty much the same pace as her prime bar a step or two lost. Matsumoto is also a solid final opponent with her bombs and big offence fitting in perfectly as a direct foil that seemed unstoppable here. They really paced this out and definitely didn't waste any time getting their stuff over, said stuff was flush and worked in the context of the match. All in all, a reliably solid outing; fitting given the great talent involved on both sides, ending with Yoshida doing what she'd been doing for the last 15 years by getting another person over on her behalf. Conclusion All in all, I'd say every bolded match included here is absolutely worth watching one way or another. Does that mean everything not bolded isn't? I'd say no. There's definitely still plenty to be found with those and if you like them more than me, that's also cool as well. I think the main thing I got from watching all of these was that Yoshida was in the very rare position of being a tremendously gifted wrestler who was equally as generous to boot. As Jetlag said in the original thread this was thrown in at the time, she tends to play second fiddle to other wrestlers; this is on purpose mainly to show them off in a strange inversion of the usual hierarchy-based structure that is quite typical of promotions to follow from even to this day wherein the bigger stars get, well, the bigger spotlight. The issue is that she's STILL head and shoulders above pretty much all of said wrestlers, so it never really clicks in the way that you'd expect, even with the matches that are actually quite solid there's a sense of incoherence that follows from them that I don't think I ever shook off despite watching so many of them at once. If she had more of a ego, could've had led to her having bigger and better matches? I'd say so, and that's a pretty shocking conclusion considering how much of wrestling is dominated by unneeded egos. I think the other issue is that Yoshida was never really challenged in the same way she was in the ARSION work; you didn't have a Hiromi Yagi or a Megumi Fujii-tier talent to really get her grappling skills tested to the maximum meaning a lot of the matches feel like her more or less in second gear and thus not in her full element all things considered. Still solid, but it's a waste having someone who was clearly very talented on the mat not be able to experiment as much as those late 90's years. It's kinda like if Fujiwara didn't go on to create PWFG in the 90s and just stayed in the mid-card of NJPW having competent and occasionally good showings while never being able to truly get his best trait tested as much as it did there. Regardless she's still a pretty stellar GWE addition that can't really be argued against given her wealth of solid matches, tremendous match-carrying and incredible consistency across the board. I hope this has proven that the case and then some. Quote
Ma Stump Puller Posted May 15 Author Report Posted May 15 21 hours ago, Owen Edwards said: Really appreciated this. thanks! if you want more based late-Momota matches his 1999 Fan Appreciation Night match is really stellar Quote
Owen Edwards Posted May 29 Report Posted May 29 On 5/15/2025 at 5:42 PM, Ma Stump Puller said: thanks! if you want more based late-Momota matches his 1999 Fan Appreciation Night match is really stellar I've identified what looks like the fullest version of this via Quebrada, but just to check - what tape do you have this on? looks really, really fun Quote
Ma Stump Puller Posted May 29 Author Report Posted May 29 2 hours ago, Owen Edwards said: I've identified what looks like the fullest version of this via Quebrada, but just to check - what tape do you have this on? looks really, really fun I found it on YT actually, there's the TV version that gives you 14 minutes of the original 20 As always I would also say to consult the AJPW 90s Omnibus since that tends to have the occasional deeper slice of matches (or things outright omitted otherwise) Quote
Owen Edwards Posted June 26 Report Posted June 26 On 5/29/2025 at 7:01 PM, Ma Stump Puller said: I found it on YT actually, there's the TV version that gives you 14 minutes of the original 20 As always I would also say to consult the AJPW 90s Omnibus since that tends to have the occasional deeper slice of matches (or things outright omitted otherwise) AJ Hour #94, available via Quebrada, has the whole with no video problems either. I watched the clipped/damaged version a while ago and liked it, thanks for the link, watched the whole match today and thought it was slightly better again. I'll get on to the Yoshida ARSION watch-through soon, though, I promise... Quote
Ma Stump Puller Posted June 26 Author Report Posted June 26 6 hours ago, Owen Edwards said: AJ Hour #94, available via Quebrada, has the whole with no video problems either. I watched the clipped/damaged version a while ago and liked it, thanks for the link, watched the whole match today and thought it was slightly better again. I'll get on to the Yoshida ARSION watch-through soon, though, I promise... Yeah figured as such, those longer hour-long Specials aren't as publically available as the TV slots. You can still find them but it's somewhat of a struggle. Appreciated that you enjoyed the match itself ARSION is pretty good just as a solo watch, it's completely isolated from other promotions at the time so you don't need to know some sort of secondary "lore" to know what's going on. It's slow for the debut year but the late 90s are a joy to go through if you click with the house-style. Quote
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