Hiromi Yagi vs. Aja Kong, JWP 6/16/1996
Considering Yagi was just barely 18 months in wrestling at this point, it’s pretty sick that they gave her a Korakuen Hall main event against Aja. And this match was pretty sick too and a really great big vs. little match. You know Yagi can’t really do a mat based match against Aja here, so they just go for maximum effect and have Aja beat the living shit out of Yagi. It’s funny how you can watch a ton of Aja beating the heck out of people and still see her coming up with new stuff, in this she throws Yagi onto the turnbuckle, smashing her head into a trashcan, throwing really stiff out of nowhere kicks etc. All of Yagis hope spots were great because she was just constantly trying to grab a limb and force a submission, with Aja swatting her away before she could lock anything in. It made the match feel like it could all turn around if Yagi got in just one armbar or legbar and that made it really exciting. I also loved how they built up Ajas splash as a big deal. Yagis brief comebacks including kicking Aja in the face were great. Aja also nuked Yagi with a huge deadlift German at one point which is not something I can recall her doing in other matches. Simple, to the point, stiff, super intense, hot crowd, this was great.
Hiromi Yagi vs. Jaguar Yokota, JWP 9/8/1996
Oh man what a sweet match up, we are on an all time level stretch of great womens wrestling on this blog right now. Yagi is pretty much the Yagi we all know and love here and they do an ARSION match before ARSION. The story is that Yagi is a beast with the submissions and rips up Yokota with a bunch of neat flash legbars and Yokota does a bunch of classy wrestling to put this fiery grappler away, 80s joshi technician vs. modern day shooto/MMA submission artist is not something you see a lot in wrestling, Yokota is so much faster and more agile than any old Tatsumi Fujinami type. Yokota is great here, she really lets Yagi shine and puts her over as this beastly grappler, while having some nice subtle holy shit spots of her own, early on she hits a really fast judo throw on Yagi to mock the judoka, later she catches her with this awesome legsweep, she also proves she still has incredible athleticism and litheness with her handsprings and bridge ups. Yokota busts out her insane double underhook piledriver, absolutely spiking Yagi and then struggles to continue in a nice nod to Yagis leg submissions, great moment. This went 15 minutes and they never slowed down, without going all spot-spot-spot, just a great duel between two great wrestlers.
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