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[1993-12-06-AJW] Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada vs Mayumi Ozaki & Dynamite Kansai


Loss

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  • 4 months later...

I'm not sure I needed to see this match. These teams had already produced two of the greatest matches of all time, so I'm not sure what was left for them to do. Maybe you can compare this to the Flair/Steamboat trilogy -- Dream Rush is Chi-Town. It's probably not the "best" match of the series, but there's an atmosphere that makes the whole outweigh the sum of its parts. Dreamslam II is Clash 6 -- technically the best of the series. This is Wrestle War '89 -- a match that is well regarded and is good, but feels lacking compared to the rest of the series. Even the stuff that is well done resonates more in the previous matches. It's good for sure, and I'm glad it made the yearbook, because it needed to be here. But I think its main purpose is to demonstrate that the bar had been raised to a point where it just couldn't be held anymore, so even an excellent match seems lacking. The heat is nowhere near what it was for the first two matches either.

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I actually felt that more about the second match (which I wouldn't call the best match, either). This is at least one-fall, I guess. The booking made it inevitable; Toyota/Yamada regain the straps to off-set Hokuto's loss and retirement. It's still great, even though that was one bad last minute or so for Toyota. That Reverse Ocean Cycle was a disaster waiting to happen, if it hits clean you're looking at concussion city.

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  • 2 years later...
  • 5 months later...
  • 4 weeks later...

I think I'll have to go back to DreamSlam II again, because for right now I have this one slightly ahead of that--which means it's probably the #2 MOTY. The heat isn't there at first, but it wasn't really there at all for Kong/Kudo, and they are certainly into it by the end. This is near-fall heavy to a crazy degree but for whatever reason they never got overwhelming and ridiculous like they have in some other joshi matches--I think it's because pin saves were utilized so well and the transitions and counters, while many, all tended to make sense. Ozaki even kicks out of the JOCS, which may be a first. The JWP girls attempt the same double-Splash Mountain finish that won them the tag titles to begin with, but Toyota counters that--there are several great payback spots and little historical touches like that throughout the match that I appreciated. Eventually Toyota puts Ozaki away with basically an inverted version of the JOCS, bringing the tag belts back home.

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  • 1 year later...

A triumphant conclusion to the legendary trilogy. The first meeting between these teams was a MOTDC (decade not day). The second was a MOTYC. The third is a MOTMC. So it's still fantastic if you judge it on its own merits and appreciate it for what it was. They made an effort to differentiate all three, this one only being one fall. WWWA TT matches were always 2/3 falls so I'm not sure what the explanation was. In the context of the card it fitted in well anyway.

 

The structure and pacing were very good and the length was about right. High quality wrestling with impressive execution. Some of the move sequences were wonderfully thought out. We'd already seen how strong the chemistry was between these two units. They provided both fire and flair, and brought out the best in each other. Toyota and Dyno were the dominant personalities this time out. Yamada's performance was down on the previous matches, but still pretty good. At one stage it was threatening MOTYC standard before a few niggles in the closing minutes plateaued the level. Just missed out on my top 20. Scenes of great joy afterwards as the titles were coming home.

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  • 1 year later...

For the third match in a row, joshi delivered for me. Mayumi and Dynamite's attack before the bell set the stage, putting the challengers even further into the underdog role, which gave the match an excitement that most of the other joshi matches I've seen lacked. The drama was off the charts, with the champions looking to defeat Toyota and Yamada once and for all, end their challenge, and take the belts back to JWP for good, and the challengers fighting and scratching against almost prohibitive odds to bring their belts back home where they belonged.

 

Mayumi's a better person than I am to take both Yamada's giant swing and Toyota's rolling cradle in the same match. She probably should have sold dizziness more than she did, but I don't know of any other wrestlers who sell those moves for long either.

 

Dynamite was kind of beaten down to size a bit here. She's a bit like Vader; if she's not an immovable, unstoppable monster, she loses some of her aura. I thought she had the ability to be a real force of nature like Aja and Bull were in their primes, but she won't be seen that way if she's shown to be normal too often. This is another application of the McMahon/Roussimoff Principle: No wrestler of a certain height and/or weight should sell in the way a normal wrestler would. Otherwise, they're not big and imposing; they're just fat.

 

There were a lot of nearfalls, but the story being told meant that they added to the drama on both sides. The champions seemed especially desperate toward the end, as nothing they tried could put Toyota and Yamada away for good.

 

The celebration at the end was smaller in scale than some others I've seen in joshi, but no less heartfelt. The amazing part is, Toyota and Yamada would be on opposite sides in the Tag League final just four days later, and they didn't exactly take it easy on each other during that match.

 

Joshi's made up a lot of the ground it's lost with me over the year in these past three matches. Maybe the matches are better, or maybe I'm starting to gain more insight into the psychology of the style. Whichever the case, I'm waiting to see if the uphill climb continues during the '94 set.

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  • 3 months later...

I feel like I am closer to Pete on this one than everyone else. This wasn't as great as Dream Rush or Dream Slam but those are both *****. This was a straight sprint and ferocious type pace throughout but I also thought it never tettered into too ridiculous territory and the break up pin attempts by the partners helped smooth things over from a logic standpoint. Ozaki was a machine in this match and my favorite of the match. Kansai continues to have her supreme 1993 and bumps big for both Yamada and Toyota. Toyota had some shaky moments like the moonsault and the finish is really funky looking with her revers JOCS, but it felt satisfying seeing Toyota and Yamada win this feud overall. ****1/2

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  • GSR changed the title to [1993-12-06-AJW] Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada vs Mayumi Ozaki & Dynamite Kansai
  • 2 years later...

This is probably more in tune with what I want from a tag team match than their matches. Non-stop drama in the nearfalls with an exhausting build but with a thrilling climax. But I think it's still just shy of their second (and best) of the series. The little callbacks to the first match where Kansai booted Toyota in the throat while she was in the boston crab was brilliant. Yamada threw all she had in the kicks back. I love that the camera didn’t even catch the first kick but you could hear the THUD of the contact. Toyota was incredible towards the last five minutes. Her missile dropkick to the floor was gorgeous. And I loved the crafty clutch pin she used on Ozaki. Brilliant match all around. Just one long stretch of nearfalls. ****1/2
 

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  • 7 months later...

Holy HELL this was a performance. Completely different from the 2/3 Falls matches, this one was instead a tightly-scripted, perfectly-choreographed performance that took all their prior bouts into consideration, with callbacks throughout. The "Quick Pin" of the second match and the Doomsday Splash Mountain finale were both reversed by Team AJW in this one, for example. Yamada in particular looked amazing in everything she did, but everyone played their parts perfectly- Kansai as the lethal kicker who was nonetheless vulnerable, Ozaki as the giant bitch who was a precision attacker who would do anything to win, and Toyota as the Reversal Queen, always selling her ass off. This was one of those matches where they're 18 minutes in and you're like "this is ***** already" and they JUST KEEP GOING for another seven, because they haven't even started Escalating Finishers yet.

How does it compare to the Match of the Year at Dream Slam II? They're very different "types" of matches- this one eschews the "Stretching Portions" almost entirely in favor of Savage/Steamboat-esque match flow and reversals. Literally four times I said "oh SHIT" or "oh JESUS" at a reversal (the Doomsday Splash Mountain reversal, Toyota's Teleporting Dropkick (when she comes FLYING in from way off-camera to stop a pin), the Turning Splash reversal, and the Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex failing to score a fall), and they had me at least three or four times with the near-falls at the end (and that's me knowing who won ahead of time). This is on the short list of greatest matches of all time for me- top five at least, and has an even shot at Best Ever.

It's not quite as STUFFED as the other matches they had, but is better paced because of the shorter time and single-fall nature of the match. To me, all three matches are *****, but this is the best of the lot, made all the better if you've seen the prior two.

***** all the way for me.

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