AJW in Korakuen Hall (3.17.91) review 

 

March 17, 1991 

 

All Japan Women’s Pro Wrestling. A fine promotion but all too often, you only find bits and pieces of the shows online. Luckily, for me, someone has uploaded an entire Korakuen Hall show from 1991. There’s lots happening here. Noriyo Tateno is retiring, Manami Toyota puts her All Pacific belt on the line, there’s a new Martial Arts belt having its first champion crowned and Bull Nakano is still beefing with Bison Kimura. Aja vs Hokuto in singles too. It’s a cracking card. 

 

Kazue Saito vs. Tomoko Watanabe  

Watanabe once wrestled at Survivor Series on Bertha Faye’s team. I’ve never seen Saito wrestle in my life. There’s a shit load of dropkicks in this match. Once we settle down Watanabe starts torturing Saito, testing how flexible she is and pulling her hair for good measure. Tomoko wins with a slam in short order. Nothing much happening here. 

 

Tomezo Tsunokake vs. Little Frankie 

This is a midget match. Little Frankie needs to stand on a chair to be interviewed. He looks like Gaten Materazzo. This is for “jokes”. Little Frankie finds it easy to draw laughs as he’s under four feet tall. At one point he’s Irish whipped, stumbles and ‘slides’ into the corner on his afro. The little shuffling movement with his hands is ELITE. Will Ospreay couldn’t do that brother. There’s a running gag where the referee hits them with a fan to keep them in line. Pesky midgets. Frankie falls outside and can’t get back in because the ring apron is above his head. Tomezo is all “count him out” and the ref hits him with the fan. Frankie finishes with a mule kick and the superfly splash. It takes him a while to get up there. This was GREAT pro-wrestling. **½ 

 

Debbie Malenko & Mariko Yoshida vs. Sakie Hasegawa & Mayumi Ozaki 

Debbie isn’t related to the Malenko boys but was trained by Boris so was allowed to use the name. As for everyone else; nobody has much of a look developed. They all have similar appearances and near identical hairstyles. Debbie is a different kind of worker and wants to ground the match, going after submission holds. It makes her stand out.  

 

The Japanese girls want to push the pace and sometimes that doesn’t work. Yoshida and Hasegawa blow an Irish whip so badly that Yoshida ends on her back in the middle of the ring. If you’re going to fuck something up, might as well bump it. The match has fantastic pacing though, and you can’t fault the effort. When Debbie tries to match that, you can see why she’s more interested in going to the mat, where she’s FAR better.  

 

You can see the potential from the natives here, who really go all out to impress. Hasegawa dives to the floor and then Yoshida ABSOLUTELY FUCKING CLEANS HER OUT with a crossbody off the apron. Sadly, this leads to a real injury, presumably a concussion, and the medics won’t let her continue. She is FUCKED though.  

Debs is all “is this normal?” and Ozaki decides to go it alone. Ozaki tries for a hot finish with Debbie, who cannot keep up AT ALL. Ace Crusher sets up the Northern Lights and Malenko gets the pin. This was pretty good until the injury totally derailed the match. Debbie did ok here but sometimes looked like she was on a different planet. The standard for a bunch of people in their first year in the business…in 1991…was dead impressive. **¾  

 

It’ll be interesting to watch their collective development. Debbie Malenko is in a big singles match later in the year. I wonder how much she’ll improve. This must have been quite the eye opener.  

 

WWWA Martial Arts Championship 

Kaoru Ito vs. Bat Yoshinaga 

Unfortunately, this is some weird boxing match, and it stinks. Shoot style wrestling is fine, but you bring out the boxing gloves, and you can go get fucked, in my opinion. Bat was a kickboxer, which explains why we have this gimmick. It’s basically just to help get her over. They don’t even have anything interesting here, and it goes to the judges’ scorecards after some useless pretend boxing. Hard pass. 

 

Noriyo Tateno vs. Takako Inoue 

This is Tateno’s retirement ceremony. The former Jumping Bomb Angel is calling it quits. This is wrestling though, so a couple of years later she’d be back. I think there’s a law that women have to retire at 30 years old but not one saying that they have to stay retired. She’s 27 years old here, so that doesn’t quite work. Yamazaki, the other Bomb Angel, also retired in 1991 and came back later. This is very tidy, but they keep it short and Tateno wins it with a double arm suplex. **½.  

The match was never about the result and just allowed people to cheer Tateno one last time. At least until 1993, when you can see her again. She gets retirement lariats off her mates and a giant swing for old time’s sake. You know your mates really love you when they beat the shit out of you during your retirement ceremony. If there was a comp tape of retirement beatdowns, I’d watch it with a big old smile on my face. 

 

Cynthia Moreno, Esther Moreno & Yumiko Hotta vs. Etsuko Mita, Mima Shimoda & Toshiyo Yamada 

You can tell who the Mexicans are as they helpfully wear sombreros to the ring. They also love a handspring. Everyone loves a handspring. Oddly enough it’s Hotta who has communication issues and fucks up the first three things she attempts. Esther gets back in and counters a monkey flip by handspringing out of it. Holy shit, that’s smooth as FUCK lads. That’s the kind of thing you see NOW. Cynthia isn’t quite as clinical or smooth in the ring. Esther genuinely got me excited with her counters.  

 

There’s some fun stuff from the native trio too. Mita with a cracking airplane spin. Yamada with the snappiest of snap suplexes. Shimoda is the weak link. She’s really not very good here. She only debuted in 1989, but a swathe of talent came through a year later that’s all better than she is here. She can take a beating though and Hotta kicks the fuck out of her. Shimoda also takes a variety of big spots like the Tiger Driver.  

 

Esther, clearly not happy with only blowing my mind once in this match, breaks out the double armdrag…after doing a moonsault with both arms attached. Sometimes lucha just captures my imagination. It can get so creative. They do some dives and only Esther beats the count back in. It’s a shame they had no finish on this and also that Hotta and Shimoda had so many sloppy moments at the start of the match. When this was ON, it was ON baby. ***½  

 

All Pacific Championship 

Manami Toyota (c) vs. Suzuka Minami  

I adore Toyota and gave her 4.25 for a match against Akira Hokuto a few months ago. During that match Toyota developed a knee issue and Minami works the leg here. Following the previous match it feels a little sluggish.  

Having Toyota do mat work creates some interesting submission attempts though. An unfocused Minami switches to working the arm. Her offence feels a little scattershot. Toyota feels more impactful by comparison, especially on rudimentary moves like a dropkick. Minami switches to working the back. As with her previous targets, it doesn’t seem to do anything. 

 

Maybe that’s on Toyota for not being willing to sell and we go into big bombs with Minami having ‘weakened’ Toyota but she’s not showing it. Toyota is out here doing suplexes and moonsaults and feeling no ill effects. The stretch is good fun, but it feels like the preceding work didn’t accomplish anything, a regular complaint I have about main events in Japan (and elsewhere).  

 

In the stretch they do throw in a bunch of cool moves and cheeky roll ups. Minami finishes with the straitjacket suplex. This didn’t do much for me, I’m sad to say. The crowd were into it but only towards the finish. Dave Meltzer went 4.75 on this. Which speaks volumes about how differently we perceive what wrestling is. **¾  

 

Akira Hokuto vs. Aja Kong 

This is much better with Aja beating the absolute piss out of Hokuto before she’s even taken her robe off. Hokuto runs the blade before the bell has rung and then desperately tries to win quickly before she’s lost too much claret. Aja mercilessly goes after the cut. The use of a large steel bin feels like it should be a DQ. A frequent complaint I have about Japanese wrestling from this point onwards. 

 

Kong wears Hokuto down in a way where I don’t even object to a chinlock as you get to see Akira’s blood in it. Not content with kicking her ass in the ring Kong takes it into the crowd and they brawl up the steps. I’ve seen these little Korakuen Hall tours before, but this is an early version of that particular spot. I like that they beat the count too. They’re doing it within the rules. There’s a feeling the match could end at any moment. Like when Kong goes for a DIVE to the floor. Hokuto mounts a gutsy comeback after that, including the DQ Bomb.  

 

Kong has had enough and SPINNING BACKFIST! From there it’s just a succession of violence until Hokuto can’t kick out anymore. Hokuto’s plucky kick outs are a nice character trait. There’s no quit in her. I love that she tries to bridge out of the finish but can’t get the shoulders up. Kong’s last three moves are; piledriver off the ropes, piledriver, splash off the ropes. She done murdered her. **** 

 

What a great performance from both women here. Kong, bald after losing her hair recently, looked MAD AS HELL and Hokuto was just in the way. Hokuto’s determined survivalist performance was spot on too. Post match, Kong calls Hokuto a bitch and Akira fights back. They brawl around some more. Just fucking great work all round.  

 

Bull Nakano & Kyoto Inoue vs. Bison Kimura & Mika Takahashi 

This has a ‘take your daughter to work day’ vibe with Bull and Bison the dominant duo while Inoue and Takahashi are very meek.  

I love the dynamic here as Mika tries to jump Bull ahead of the bell and just gets creamed for it. Takahashi is steaming mad, the poor girl, and tries everything but Nakano sells NOTHING and then kills her with a German suplex and insists that Bison tag in so she can get some real competition. FANTASTIC PRO WRESTLING.  

 

Kimura is also wonderful fun here. Her overhand chop on Inoue cuts the kid off before she can do anything. WHAP. Bull takes Mika apart some more, and I look at the run time. How does this go 19:12? We’re four minutes in and Takahashi is fucked. Bison is the reason why the match goes longer as she wears Nakano down with holds and gives Takahashi a chance to recover.  

 

Takahashi screams a lot and has some cool submission attempts on Inoue. I like her a lot as a worker. Bison slaps Inoue in the STF! First STF of the flashback series, I believe. Takahashi gets back in with Nakano and tries to hit her….a lot. She exhausts herself trying to beat up Nakano and Bull completely no sells everything and just death stares at her. The resultant lariat and powerbomb should finish the match, but Bison Kimura saves again. Great work in the facial area from both women during that whole sequence. Takahashi’s fear selling just before she’s massacred is brilliant. 

 

There’s another spot I really like where Jungle Jack are going to do a Doomsday Device but Inoue counters into a victory roll on Bison and the resultant ‘bump’ onto the mat dislodges Takahashi from the ropes, causing her to fall into the ring. Takahashi has to resort to hitting Bull with a chair to get anywhere after Nakano has pancaked Bison with a leg jam. Aja Kong gets into the ring too and I’m like…where’s the rulebook here ref? At least he doesn’t count the pin.  

 

There’s also time for a glorious German suplex from Takahashi on Nakano, the woman who’s been kicking her ass for 15 minutes. Bull pulls out a NEEDLESS SUPER OVERKILL somersault leg jam to kill Takahashi off. Her butt landed inches away from Takahashi’s face. It looked AWESOME. The crowd assumed there was a lot more connection than there actually was. Awesome stuff from Bull Nakano in this match. A monsterous performance from a monsterous character. ***¾ 

 

The 411: 

Even with the Toyota match not living up to the hype, at all, this is still a great card. It’s in contention for show of the year.