AJW EXCITING ZONE Omiya Night Commercial Tape 9/7/91 Omiya Skate Center

Bat Yoshinaga & Tomoko Watanabe vs. Mayumi Yamamoto & Kazue Saito. All four women were from the class of '89, so they had graduated to working semi-regular matches by this point. Of course, they still didn't have any great high spots or have very deep move sets. In fact, the spots were somewhat repetitive. However, they kept a good pace and everyone worked hard, so it wasn't too bad. Unfortunately, the work wasn't particularly good either, especially since they (mainly Bat) were somewhat sloppy. Bat's calf branding neckbreaker drop to Yamamoto that came right before the finishing backdrop looked particularly uncoordinated. 11:13. *1/2

Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda & Mariko Yoshida vs. Mika Takahashi & Miori Kamiya & Kaoru Ito. The typical fast-paced, all action AJW match. Thus, it was exciting, but the selling was not good at all. Still, the pace really picked up as time went on, so you can't really complain about the hyper action.

"The 6 woman tag was all action. I couldn't even breathe without something happening," wrote Keith.

On one hand, the match needed to last longer because I'd rather see some build to the really fast action, and even if there isn't much build, 10 ½ minutes is still really short for an AJW spotfest. On the other hand, the shorter length was good because these women were still learning, and quite limited at this time, so it allowed them to look good without exposing their weaknesses to the average fan.

Mita, Shimoda, and Yoshida all showed promise. They got to beat the slightly senior opponents, although, not surprisingly, the young punk Ito was the one Mita pinned with the piledriver. Takahashi was the best here because she had more experience than everyone but Kamiya (they debuted against each other on 9/25/86), whom she had much more natural ability then. Unfortunately, Takahashi announced her impending retirement after the match. 10:28. **3/4

Suzuka Minami & Takako Inoue vs. Jungle Jack (Aja Kong & Bison Kimura). This was a pretty disappointing match given the talent involved. It was short, and there were too many submissions considering they played no real role in the match, and it was a short match to begin with.

Aja was fine when she was in, but she really didn't do anything of note. She was not a great worker at this point by any means, but I expected her to do a few things to stand out. Bison was solid, but to my mind she didn't really give an all-out performance. Takako was the kid who "didn't belong" in the match, so she was just a bump girl.

Jungle Jack played heel, of course, with Takako being their main foil. The brawling was pretty stiff, but I didn't find it that interesting since Takako really wasn't fighting back. Either that match was designed to further put Jungle Jack over as a dominant force, or Takako was just too timid to hit them back. In any case, there wasn't really any problem with the work or execution, but there was too much squash Takako even for someone like myself who kind of enjoys when that happens. What was really goofy to me was that after Takako got destroyed the whole match, Suzuka, who worked maybe the other 1/4, was pinned by Aja's diving body press off the 2nd. It's like, if you are going to do a whole match of squash Takako, then either pin her or have her comeback and win. Sure, it helped Takako a bit that she survived when they didn't want to let her, but to me, it mainly hurt Suzuka. 12:46. **

Keith: This was a cool match. Takako was definitely a punching bag here. She needed Suzuka to soften Bison up a bit before Takako could get some of her offense in. I definitely appreciate Suzuka's earlier efforts because her speed, etc. are pretty good in the earlier years. I was caught off guard when Suzuka got pinned; I expected Takako to get pinned here.

Heartbeat The Rival Bout: Manami Toyota vs. Toshiyo Yamada. This match kicked off the legendary four match series that was designed to elevate these two to the upper tier in the promotion, and did just that.

The Toyota and Yamada we see here are very different from the Toyota and Yamada we would come to known. Of course, the obvious is that neither woman was close to as good as they'd become. However, Toyota showed some good aspects here that she didn't bother with later on. For instance, she actually focused her attack in this match. She also put more effort into selling and didn't make a bunch of quick comebacks. Looking back, you wish some one would have told her to keep this part of her wrestling, and just work on making the later parts of the match faster and more glamourous. Some wrestlers are able to change, but Toyota is one that locked in on one course, and isn't going to stray from that a bit until she gets to the end of the line.

"Toyota looked to have focused her offense for once on Yamada's leg while Yamada tried to do the same on Toyota. Toyota's selling looked better here, and her comebacks weren't 'unreasonable.' I thought it was interesting how one part of the storyline was that Yamada intended to beat Toyota by kicking her to death. That's one of the reasons why Toyota was focusing on Yamada's leg so much, and why they did a few KO type of counts after Yamada beat Toyota up," wrote Keith.

Toyota hadn't developed the unreasonable aspects of her game yet, and she wasn't a spot machine. Sure, she flew around, but she didn't do it until later in the match, and she didn't have nearly the move set she'd have just six months later.

"I think what happened was that Toyota was getting over really quickly on that high- paced style, which complimented her good looks. She ended up keeping those aspects of her style because it had worked for her then, but I agree about keeping those other aspects," wrote Keith.

Yamada's style was more UWF based at this point. She certainly had some aspects of Chigusa, but she was mainly a kicker at this point. Like Toyota, it wasn't that much longer until she greatly expanded her move set, and in doing that, most of the UWF style was left behind, although she always did a lot of kicks.

What I liked a lot about the match was that both women attacked the legs. This made sense because it would/could take away their opponents strength; Toyota's flying and Yamada's kicking. What hurt the match in my mind was that, while they didn't miss many moves, a lot of the moves didn't look as impressive as they should have.

Both women were very intense. This helped the submission portion a lot, and also gave credence to the whole idea that these two were rivals. The early portion was all leg work by Toyota. She did all that stuff that worked in 1991, but no longer work even though she still uses them. This was 1991 though, so the submissions added to the match because her focus gave the match one of it's storylines. Yamada also used some leg work, but this was in between using one kick after another to beat Toyota into unconsciousness. As time went on, Yamada started mixing the leg kicks with the leg submissions, solidifying her part in the leg storyline.

The 2nd half had a ton of near falls. I was surprised that the heat wasn't better because this was some really exciting wrestling for 1991, and 1991 was before everyone became desensitized to all the high spots. Aside from a few moves that weren't executed as well as they could have been, the second half was great. It was all action with all the big moves like later Toyota, but the selling and pacing were a lot closer to the way they "should be."

"I thought Yamada vs. Toyota was damn good, especially when you take into consideration the time frame. I would've rated it as a match of the year candidate, but my '91 knowledge is limited. I know that it definitely blew Hennig vs. Hart for the IC title out of that overrated 5* water," wrote Keith.

One cool series was Yamada using sidebuster after sidebuster (a side suplex drop where the opponent is dropped at a more dangerous diagonal angle so they land more on their upper back and the back of their neck), but Toyota finally turning one into her rolling cradle. A bit later, Yamada got a measure of revenge by turning Toyota's dropkick into a slingshot. Toyota just managed to avoid going over the top to the floor, and was able to dump Yamada over the top when she charged her to set up her super quebrada. Toyota tried to put Yamada away with various bridging suplexes before time expired, but Yamada still had a lot of fight in her so it went to a full time draw. 30:00. ****

All Pacific Title: Akira Hokuto vs. Yumiko Hotta. This was one of the many great subtle performances by Hokuto. Well, subtle and Hokuto don't go hand in hand in a way because she is more the type that makes sure things are blown a little out of purportion so everyone understands and reacts accordingly, but this was subtle in that I don't think people would realize how great her performance here was if they weren't familiar with how mediocre Hotta's ability is and her singles matches against other opponents are. I mean, Hotta has had some excellent singles matches, but they are few and far between. Once in a great while she has an excellent performance, but no one gets more out of her than Hokuto, and Hotta's simply not capable of having an excellent performance by getting a lot out of her opponent (she might kick a lot out, but that's a different story).

"Hotta vs. Hokuto was great because of Hokuto. Her moves were well placed, and she did a good job of leading Hotta. Everytime I see Hokuto, I gain more respect for her," wrote Keith.

Hokuto's performance had nothing to do with the spots. In fact, she didn't do many moves and didn't take any great bumps. What she did do was get Hotta to beat the hell out of her with a focused attack. Hotta blistered Hokuto's leg with kicks, and Hokuto took it like a queen. This not only gave some meaning to Hotta's offense, but it allowed Hokuto to play the injured up underdog role that Hokuto would go on to become famous for. Basically, what Hokuto did was make Hotta happy by letting her do her thing, except Hokuto figured out how to turn Hotta's thing into a logical match that highlighted the strengths of both performers.

This match actually had a lot of mat wrestling, but that was alright due to Hotta's quasi- shooter gimmick. Hokuto controlled the match early, attacking Hotta's leg. Hotta didn't do much of a job of selling this until the match was three minutes old. From there, she did a lot of screaming and grimacing as she struggled to make the ropes. On the other hand, Hokuto's selling was always great, and she got plenty of opportunity to prove that in this match.

Hotta's kicks to the back of Hokuto's knee were brutal. She should have stuck to those instead of giving us the whole variety though because it would have strengthened the psychology of the match.

Hokuto finally came back at 12:30 with a Dragon suplex, and soon did her tope con hilo. They did a bunch of dramatic near falls in the closing minutes, requiste Hokuto at her finished, but one spot really stood out.

The spot I really liked saw Hokuto going for her Northern Lights bomb, but her knee gave out so Hotta was able to come back. It's a simple spot, but it's a great transition spot for a number of reasons. They all come down to one thing though, that it's logical because of what was established earlier in the match with Hotta debilitating the knee. Now, Hotta could have countered the move in a different way, but that wouldn't make any sense because it wouldn't fit what they set up earlier in the match. However, whether you care about logic or not, the thing that makes it stand out is they make it the pivital moment by placing it deep enough into the match. If Hokuto hits her finisher here, I believe there's a very strong chance that she'll win. I mean, beyond the fact that Hokuto is the favorite, it's the Northern Lights bomb for god's sake. If she doesn't hit it, then her chances of losing go way up. Once Hokuto's knee gives out, there's no questioning Hotta's comeback because Hokuto could get away with selling this for five minutes if she felt she needed to. Thus, this side of stupidity from both parties, which isn't going to happen, there's almost no way Hotta can make a quick comeback here. Now that we know the match isn't over quite yet, the main question switches from will this Northern Lights bomb be it to will the knee injury cost Hokuto her belt? We also have a secondary question, if Hokuto still has some fight left in her, what can she still use to beat Hotta?

The main thing that hurt the match was that the secondary question wasn't handled well. I wanted to see Hokuto come up with something new or at least different for her to beat Hotta with. Having her knee not give out trying the Northern Lights bomb didn't make any sense to me because of the timing. If there was time for some actual "healing," it would have been okay. What they did though is have Hotta on offense until Hokuto avoided her diving wheel kick. Hokuto then did the sloppiest victory roll of her career before winning with her Northern Lights bomb. How did the knee improve to the point that Hokuto could now hit the move during a period that Hokuto was only taking more punishment? 16:16. ****1/4

WWWA World Single Title: Bull Nakano vs. Kyoko Inoue. Kyoko earned this title shot by winning the '91 JGP, which was a one night tournament that year. Since Bull was Kyoko's senpai, that made Kyoko's first WWWA World Single Title shot all the more special. What made the match is that Bull really went out of her way to put Kyoko over. This was a match where I doubt anyone really believed that the title would change hands, but the point was that Kyoko looked "worthy" of the title, even though it would be more than half a decade before she'd actually get it (which was a mistake on AJW's part because she was already past her prime when she finally got it).

The first half of the match didn't serve that much of a purpose. Bull bladed 1 ½ minutes into the match after being posted, but there was no more brawling in the match. The blood never played any role in the match at all unless you want to use that lame boxing argument about the person that looks like they are in worse shape must be losing the fight. As long as Bull was bleeding, I felt Kyoko needed to attack the cut because winning the title has to be the most important thing. Instead, they just did a bunch of useless submission holds, sleepers and the like, to kill time.

Kyoko just had so much energy at this point. I didn't think she did enough running around considering that would be too her advantage since Bull is bigger and slower, but she did enough to keep the early portion interesting. Her tope reversa (springboard reverse elbow off the 2nd)was utilized well, and it was particularly cool when she did it outside the ring toward the end of the match, which knocked Bull into the guard rail. Getting back to the early portion though, a lot of the submission moves were as unnecessary as Bull gettinng "the crimson mask."

One thing about Bull is that she's usually a bit sloppy, but it's hard to complain about her sloppiness. The reason for this is that her moves usually are more deadly when she doesn't hit them perfectly, which obviously is good for the fans, but sucks if you are her opponent.

The match actually became really dramatic even though the outcome wasn't truly in doubt because Kyoko got all kinds of near falls on Bull in the second half. The near falls were credible since Bull had no reservations about making Kyoko look as good as possible, so you were able to "suspend disbelief" about Kyoko winning.

Kyoko was just throwing everything she had a Bull. There was a lot of back and forth though, so it "seemed like anyone could win" and you didn't run into a situation where someone ran out of moves so you knew they were about to be countered and lose after a few big moves. The heat really picked up around the fifteen minute mark with "Kyoko!" chants.

Bull, of course, did some really impressive moves for her size. I thought her countering some throw by Kyoko with a cartwheel was the most impressive, as that seemed like something only a junior would do in 1991.

Kyoko nearly pinned Bull with her Niagara driver after she hit her tope reversa outside the ring. She started utilizing her advantage better by doing a lot of flying, including getting a near fall with Bull's own guillotine leg drop. What I didn't like is Bull came back and it only took two moves, the second of which was a moonsault, to pin Kyoko. I guess it wasn't so bad due to the back and forth factor and Kyoko only being a pro for 35 months. In any case, it was a valiant effort by Kyoko. After the match, Bull and Kyoko hugged each other. 20:01. ****

Keith on AJW 12/6/93

Yeah, the whole show looked great. I just finished watching Hokuto vs. Kandori

and thought it wasn't close to their first match up. But goddamn, all the zenjo

girls, especially Mima and even Kong crying because of the "zenjo pride" and

because of what Hokuto meant to AJW at that moment. The aftermath was incredibly

emotional, definitely more emotional than the first match up. Kandori gets on

the mic and goes, "Hey, Hokuto. I just beat you. You should retire." Then

Hokuto is like, "My feelings haven't changed." This match lacked the intensity

of the first one, but it was still pretty good. I think Hokuto legitimately blew

her leg out again on that tope con hilo on Kandori. I wonder if that affected

the match any?

Kudo vs. Aja seemed to have a good storyline with Aja feeding Kudo her arm. I

didn't mind the ref bump that much as I thought Kudo still wouldn't have beaten

Aja with her nadare shiki no rana. It did generate a lot of heat though and put

some doubt into the match. I thought what was really interesting was how Kong

kept delivering urakens to Kudo. She must've hit 5 in a row then the ref started

doing a K/O count out. Aja left the ring to grab the mic and scream at Kudo to

get up. Kudo managed to make it before the 10 count, but Aja still was too

much. Kudo vs. Aja in '95-'96 might've been a different story though, imo.

Double Inoue+Hotta vs. Saito/Kazama/Sawai was good but predictable in who the

jobber was going to be. I wanted Kazama to lose for once. That S/M biker outfit

with the short hair is so freaky on Kazama. Saito was excellent here.

LCO+Bull vs. Hikari/Plum/Cuty was also good. I wish that Takako had been in this

match and Bull in the other match. They could've billed this one then the battle

of the babes (with Takako in it, of course :p) and the other one Bull Durham.

Anyway, there were some really good moments in this one. I liked Hikari/Plum/and

Cuty's triple teams. Damn, should've taken better notes.

Kansai/Ozaki vs. Toyota/Yamada was excellent. I liked how they built up the

initial moment with Kansai attempting to go for her Splash Mountain move with

Toyota dropkicking Kansai to prevent history from repeating itself. The work was

down slightly compared to the previous two, imo, but there were many great

moments. I really liked how Toyota was extremely frantic in the beginning. I

think she was anxious in preventing the titles from changing again so she was

mouthing off Kansai and Ozaki quite a bit. It later worked into the story of the

match when Ozaki and Kansai were going for a double team and that Kansai knocked

Yamada out first then immediately kicked Toyota off the apron. She predicted

that Toyota would go for the double team. Damn, should've taken better notes. ;)

Also, I liked the Northern Bomb on the outside. I thought they could've used that

one towards the end. They really needed to do the no DQ, falls count anywhere

stipulation from DS I to re-capture the magic of that match. With the exception

of Shimoda and the girls bawling at the end of the match, the drama wasn't

anywhere close to DS I as it should have been.

Keith on AJW 3/27/94

I caught glimpses of Fukuoka vs. Asari. Asari was still in development from what

I saw. Fukuoka looked really hot here. And I don't just mean work-wise.

LCO vs. Cuty/Ozaki was pretty good. I kinda figured that Etsuko was going to catch

with the DV Bomb Cuty when Cuty climbed on top. I would've prefered seeing the

first DV Bomb score the pin just to carry the momentum of the move over. Shimoda

was cool acting like the total bitch, especially to Yamamoto san.

Hasegawa vs. Kansai was painful. Those kicks to Hasegawa's face were nasty. She

had a lot of guts for stepping in the ring with Kansai. I didn't expect that one

to last long and thankfully it didn't. I think there's only a few women that can

and should be able to take that kind of a beating. Hasegawa, despite having a

height as an asset, just isn't one of them, imo. Her work was good but she seemed

more like one of the bargaining chips on the table since LCO was going to get the

straps.

Toyota vs Plum was better than I expected. I think after Plum rolled Toyota up

with her hiza jujigatame, Toyota actually sold her leg. Not the best, but she

would stretch it out to show the "damage" it had down to her leg. One of Toyota's

planchas looked absolutely crazy. She got some serious elevation on it and I

thought she was going to kill Plum with that one.

Kyoko vs. Yamada was extremely disappointing to me. I hated the ending. That

submission hold didn't work for me for some reason. Maybe because I never heard

of Kyoko winning with that move. I was surprised that Yamada tapped out of that

one. Those dangerous backdrops that Yamada does though looked brutal. Kyoko

really put the first one over when she looked like she was on the the outside not

responding. Also, I really expected more out of Yamada after seeing her matches

with Toyota.

Main event was incredible. Hokuto+Kandori on any side of the team+Aja+Bull = one

rollercoaster of fun. Hokuto and Aja were the best, imo. Hokuto is just so

dramatic that you have to love her. The initial misgivings between Kandori and

Hokuto were hillarious. Both women punting each other whenever they tagged out.

Eventually, they had to work together, begrudgingly, to score the win. So when

both went for a submission on Aja at one point, the crowd popped like mad and gave

Bull a lot of heat for breaking up this rare team effort between Kandori and

Hokuto. The end was cool. Kandori put her sleeper on Aja and motioned to Hokuto,

who was on the outside to make the final cover. That lead to Hokuto applying the

Northern Lights Bomb (a few times) to score the huge win. Then Hokuto actually

sticking her hand out and Kandori showing a rare moment of respect for Hokuto by

slapping it. Awesome storyline, got really good at the end, especially with the

crowd being absorbed into the match. Work-wise this one wasn't close to matching

up to the Kansai/Ozaki vs. Toyota/Yamada classics. But storyline-wise this has to

be one of my favorite tag matches in general, especially after seeing all the

confrontations between Hokuto and Kandori.

Yeah, one of the best storylines I've seen in a tag match. I liked how Kandori

and Hokuto would get in each other's hair initially. However, as the match

progressed you'd see glimpses of the two double teaming Bull and Aja. One

awesome segment had both Kandori and Hokuto hit a wakigatame on Aja (I think) and

Bull came in to make a break. Bull got so much heat for that because the

audience finally had the opportunity to see Hokuto and Kandori work in cohesion,

but that momentary point of mark-ness for the Japanese audience was short lived.

Later on, after Hokuto took out Bull on the outside, Kandori had pulverized Aja

with her swinging chokesleeper and told Hokuto to come in to finish Aja off with

her Northern Lights Bomb. Finally, when Hokuto got the pin we got to see a

transient period of respect as Hokuto offered her hand to Kandori, and Kandori

"reciprocated that respect" by slapping it. Fun, fun, fun match.