Some more 80s AJW

 

Jaguar Yokota vs Devil Masami, AJW 9/7/1983

An amazing piece of new footage for the history, but also simply because it’s another Jaguar Yokota in her physical prime big match dropping on us out of nowhere. Watching this, it’s very much an early 80s AJW styled match. Serious, straight forward pro wrestling from before the Crush Gals melodrama took over. Starts with some fast paced moves, then they settle into hold-based groundwork before building up to another explosion. As much praise as Jaguar gets for being ahead of her time and insanely athletic, I always end up most impressed by the intensity of her basic wrestling. Just the fact she makes something like a schoolboy rollup look like an insanely forceful takedown or how she would pull back her opponent in the indian deathlock from the ropes. They work some momentum shifts that feel to happen at the drop of a coin but they still feel meaningful, loved how Jaguar immediately grounded the match again. Devil is as solid as you know her to be, hadn’t quite come into her character yet but her wrestling was credible and she made a fun powerful counterpart for the lighter Jaguar. However the big turning point was when Masami decided to hoist Yokota up and drop her straight on her head with probably the sickest ganso bomb I’ve ever seen. Yokota was able to slip out and hit Masami with a desperation suplex, and both of them looked like they had taken significant damage at that point. Something I miss about old school wrestling – the selling is not hyper-theatralic as it is now, but you can still tell damage was done and both of them were fighting for survival. This culminates in a brief but very memorable finishing run with some insanely intense pin attempts. Fairly modest compared to other AJW big matches, but memorable because they kept it intense and to the point. Jaguar looked liked a wrestling godess as she always does and the earnest challenger Devil Masami was really cool. A hell of a match to randomly drop on all of us.

Kazue Nagahori vs Yumi Ogura, AJW 3/20/1986

Another stellar match in the underrated careers of these two. This was both of them going hard for 30 minutes, with hardly a moment that dragged. No restholds or tentativeness, both of them go at it immediately, throwing explosive kicks and fighting like mad on the mat. Their kicks weren’t quite UWF-like yet either, so that made this pretty unique as you had the two of them spin kicking each other in the ribs and sometimes in the face. There is not a ton of overarching psychology, but there are some neat emphasized moves like the mirrored figure 4s throughout the match. Tons of cool moments of great struggle and some things that felt like a big deal. Heck, like 25 minutes into this match they would still scramble out of pinfalls before a 1 count like it was an amateur wrestling match, and that rules. Great last couple minutes with the repeated crashing and burning and both of them throwing the kitchen sink trying to win. Really unique to see a pure wrestling match in joshi like this and this ended up going down as one of the best bouts of the 80s.

Grizzly Iwamoto & Bison Kimura vs Akira Hokuto & Suzuka Minami, AJW 6/18/1989

Man checking out old AJW can be jarring. This was full-on in your face intensity, plenty of scrappy WAR-esque exchanges that would probably cause an uproar if they happened on US TV, borderline reckless brutality on display with girls slapping the shit out of each other, basic stomps and elbows executed with a real meanness, dropkicks landing flush in peoples face. First fall is pretty much an asskicking tour de force from Iwamoto and Kimura, who are in their badass military get up and there to stomp ass, with a few unpredictable babyface spots from Hokuto and Minami thrown in to keep things exciting. Minami getting punched in the face when she tried to go for a basic cover and then getting crushed by stomps and knee drops was another one of those basic but really violent moments that you seemingly don’t get in modern wrestling anymore. Minami and Hokuto won’t set your world on fire as a babyface team here, Hokuto is not yet Hokuto and Minami doesn’t have much personality at this point either, but they are energetic. Loved how Kimura and Iwamoto said ‘fuck this’ after the babyface started getting in some offense so they just grabbed some chairs and nightsticks to beat the shit out of their opponents some more. It does get a little meandering (30 minutes is long for an all out brawl) and there are some fuckups, though there is some more harrowing uncalled for kendo stick violence in the 3^rd fall, also blood because of course there’s blood. You really owe it to yourself to check this out just to see Iwamoto and Kimura kick ass.

Chigusa Nagayo vs Yukari Omori, AJW 1/5/1988

Insanely heated, bloody, clash of the titans match in Korakuen Hall, what else do I need to say to sell you on this? This was pretty fucking great, like the female version of Hash vs Tenryu but with more blood and bigger suplexes. I quite like Yukari Omori – she’s big, has a kind of understated charisma without trying to be dramatic, and her brain chops are a pretty fun different kind of weapon for joshi. She comes across like a force of nature, and Chigusa really feels that. Chiggy ends up getting chopped in the face which causes her to bounce out of the ring and bleed, which is awesomely old school. Chigusa hitting a desperation kick to Omoris face and then smashing her into a table was one hell of a comeback. After that both of them are gushing blood and it’s all desperation face kicks and shootstyle uncooperativeness. Omori is a great asskicker, and of course Nagayo is insanely good when its time to bleed and sell like you’re about to pass out. The finish was kind of beautiful as they are in kind of a stalemate and go into a test of strength – like they had done at the beginning of the match – only for Chigusa to hit a dirty headbutt and an angry Omori firing back with a swatting lariat. Kind of the pinnacle of Chigusas style, car crash violence, blood, drama, tinges of shootstyle, this may be one of my favourite 80s AJW matches I’ve seen because it doesn’t meander or waste your time. Just to the point, gory and awesome.

Even more AJW

 

Toshiyo Yamada vs. Sakie Hasegawa, AJW 3/3/1994

ANOTHER incredibly sick UWF rules match from AJW in 1994. This was an absolute monster match and I honestly thought it was up there with the very best of Futen/BattlARTS singles. Once again, they did some Irish Whips here, but because they kept the action so intense I didn’t mind. The violence was certified insane with a ton of sick kicks and suplexes, but a big part of why the match is so great is how hard they were going for such a long match. They basically started going hard at about 5 minutes into this – with Hasegawa going nearly KO on a Yamada choke and Yamada then trying to turn her lights out – and I was thinking “They are doing too much too early, there is no way they can keep this up”. But they keep it up! Holy fuck did they ever. There was a stretch in the middle of this that I thought was as good as any violent FUTEN end run, and they escalated the violence even more towards the end. And it wasn’t just moves-moves-moves stuff, they worked so many compelling transitions, teases, control segments etc into this, with a constant sense of going for the kill.

Hasegawa is once again the story in this. She’s not quite a shooter type but man does she ever establish herself here. She did a nice job stretching Yamadas leg in interesting ways, and her suplexes and kicks would have done anyone from the BattlARTS roster proud. The build to her uranages was great and when she finally got one on Yamada she absolutely spiked her. I also thought it was remarkable how they kept destroying each other and finding believable ways to comeback but also cut each other off. Like Yamada was getting killed until she was able to slip underneath and brain Hasegawa with one of her crazy jumping kicks, then she tried building up to her big kick off the top with Hasegawa desperately trying to prevent her, really great sense of struggle. I also really liked the bit where Yamada started suplexing Hasegawa, with Hasegawa barely preventing another suplex and Hasegawa then doing this “I don’t know where I am or what’s going” selling. Just a really good back and forth and despite all the violent exchanges they had me to the point where I was flipping out when Hasegawa locked in a sleeper. At that point I was already thinking that this match was on an insanely high level, and then they went even harder for an incredible last 5 minutes that saw Yamada trying to punt Hasegawas life out, a crazy palm strike exchange that was straight out of the best Tamura/Yamamoto RINGS matches, Hasegawa taking maybe the sickest bump on a suplex I’ve ever seen etc. There is some repetiveness and the referee was weirdly hesitant to start KO counts sometimes, but other than that I thought this was up there with any Misawa/Kawada, Ikeda/Ishikawa, Fujiwara/Maeda or whatever other incredibly great and violent match up in wrestling history you wanna come up with.

Aja Kong & Reggie Bennett vs. Lioness Asuka & Bison Kimura, AJW 5/7/1995

Badass match. This easily could have been throwaway mid card stuff, but leave it to Aja to make things ultra heated and unpredictable. Basically Kimura is out for Ajas blood here due to their history together, and Aja just doesn’t care for her and mauls her. Also, Asuka wasn’t super settled into her routine yet, so she makes a good opponent for Aja in a shooter vs. monster way. I was also surprised by how fun Reggie was in this, I mean Reggie is always cool but her power moves were just great and she also did a pretty good job stretching Bison. Bison getting frustrated and going for Reggies leg was great. I also loved her busting out the nightstick. So yeah, violence escalating in interesting ways, fun big vs. little spots, Aja mauling people, fast pace, this was really sweet.