Assorted Joshi

 Some guy is uploading a bulk of old joshi to YouTube again, so that's a good chance to check out some forgotten gems.

Cutie Suzuki vs Chikako Shiratori, JWP 10/11/1998

Total out of nowhere bloodbath. Right away Shiratori blasts Suzuk with a big backfist and it's a hate filled brawl. I've never really noticed Shiratori as a worker, and I've never seen anyone talk about her aside from her looks, but she looked really impressive controlling the action here. When Suzuki resisted the hair toss, Shiratori make sure to shove her knee into her throat and then drive her face right into the mat. Pretty violent. The match also had plenty of face stomps, biting, hard slaps, and the right sense of escalating violence with chairs and a kendo stick being brought in. You don't expect these two to wrestle like Pirata Morgan vs Faraon but they totally rock it. Even something like a missile dropkick from Shiratori landed flush in Suzukis face. Kendo stick shots looked really grizzly and I dug how Shiratori would seemingly summon that thing out of nowhere. By the end Shiratori was bleeding too and getting dumped by Suzukis crazy suplexes, including one with the kendo stick behind her head, pretty insane. Both were on their way to retirement (Shiratori would quit joshi orgs and instead work Osaka Pro for a year) and this kinda had the feeling that they both didn't care about keeping their faces unscarred and decided to do something really grizzly.

Yumiko Hotta & Kumiko Maekawa vs Michiko Nagashima & Sayuri Okino, AJW 1/3/1998

Absolutely insane wild match. Eagle Sawai is with the LLPW girls in her awesome track pants and shirt, and right away she goes wild brawling before getting on the mic, apparently talking some trash to Shinobu Kandori who is sitting at ringside (looking amazing with her bleach blonde hair and suit). Kandori who has her arm in a sling gets attacked too, then Hotta jumps into the fray, chairs are thrown and this is crazy. Back in the ring the first thing Okino does is bite Hotta in the face, and sure you know the first chance Hotta gets she tries to kick peoples faces in. Okino and Nagashima are really good here brawling and doing chain punches. They handcuff Maekawa and Maekawa ends up taking a big beating, taking bumps with her hands cuffed on that ultra stiff AJW ring while Eagle and Hotta are brawling on the floor again. Hottas tag in and everything that came after building to her finally getting that big run of offense was pretty amazing. Hotta kicking the kendo stick is up there with the wildest kendo stick spots I've seen ever. The heat was super too with the crowd for some reason booing everything Hotta did, I guess LLPW fans must have done an invasion or something. Totally chaotic, violent and unpredictable fight, these kinda brawls are probably the most underrated part of mid-late 90s joshi.

Tomoko Miyaguchi & Kanako Motoya vs Tomoko Kuzumi & Dynamite Kansai, JWP 11/15/1998

I have to say, while some people say Kansai was largely done after 1997, I find she adds a lot to every match she's in simply by bringing a ton of violence and being a big menace. Not as hard as in 1993 but this is still a veritable great match largely thanks to Kansais presence. The match is fast action stuff when Hyuga is in, and focussed on young Miyaguchi & Motoya trying to take down Kansai when she's in. It leads to this really great sequence where they finally get her prone on the mat and start rushing her with all they've got, with Miyaguchi cracking Kansais jaw with probably the greatest elbow smash I've ever seen in a match. Hyugas all action stuff was good, Kansai as a hard to take down dangerous giant story was good, last couple minutes were pretty damn great with big bombs, Kansai kicking everyone in the face etc. Well worth checking out.