Last Joshi Push

[Dylan Waco]

So I really want to give the giants of 80s Joshi a chance if nothing else. I have no clue what is online and what isn't. But if people can point me to the top matches and performances of Asuka, Jaguar, Nagayo, Sato, et. do it now.

 

I will consider giving time to Joshi from the 90s or current era as well, but the 80's is more of a hole for me because I haven't watched any of that in a decade or longer.

 

 

[donsem43]

How do people here feel about Veoh links? I haven't had any major issues personally, but I've read some who have had big problems and felt like I should ask first. That's the only place that has AJW Classics stuff online at the moment. Anything on YouTube/Dailymotion is off of TV and is a least a little bit clipped.

[donsem43]

Well after spending the afternoon looking, there isn't much of anything for 80's AJW footage, which is frustrating since there was tonnes a couple of years ago but pretty much all of that has vanished. I don't know if anyone wants to judge someone like Jaguar on just three matches with Galactica, the Lioness match, and a couple of tags with Devil vs. the Crush Gals. The only big Chigusa singles matches are the Devil Masami All Pacific title match and the first Dump hair match, that's it. If people want the links I'll post them but it's really just feels like scraps, not anything you can honestly judge someone on, especially if you haven't seen them before.

[El McKell]

There did seem to be a lot more 80s AJW footage around on yotube/dailymotion a year ago, with AJW having folded you wouldn't think stuff would get taken down too quickly.

I saw an insane sprint of a match between Jaguar Yokota and a very young Chigusa Nagayo on youtube over a year ago, gave it ****1/2, and I've never seen anyone talk about it anywhere nor can I find it online anymore and I'm starting to think it was some sort of hallucination.

[conker8]

Is it an handled ?

I have that one on a DVD.

[JerryvonKramer]

Sadly I don't think I'm gonna have time for Joshi. Something's gotta give. Damn shame.

[donsem43]

I saw an insane sprint of a match between Jaguar Yokota and a very young Chigusa Nagayo on youtube over a year ago, gave it ****1/2, and I've never seen anyone talk about it anywhere nor can I find it online anymore and I'm starting to think it was some sort of hallucination.

 

That's another problem with 80's AJW is that a lot of it isn't dated properly, if at all. If you get a bunch of TV from a tape dealer you usually get something listed as early '84 or summer '85, hardly anything with clear dates on them. Even some of the stuff that aired on AJW Classics was dated wrong.

[Dylan Waco]

I actually have gotten access to a fair amount of 80's stuff. I'll start taking a look at it tomorrow

[Dylan Waco]

I have watched a ton of Joshi over the last week, including some of the classic matches of the genre and some random stuff. I'm going to keep watching it pretty steady for at least the next two or three days. At that point hopefully I'll start posting in some of the individual wrestler threads but for now I'll say that Hokuto and Kong are absolute locks (as I figured they would be), with Masami and Kandori as very strong possibilities (about 90% sure on both of them). Nakano, Nagayo, and Kudo are all on the bubble. I need to watch more more Asuka, Kansai, and Ozaki and they will be the focus of my viewing over the next few days. Toyota and Dump are no's, and Jaguar Yokota feels that way too but I still have a few more key matches of hers to watch. Kyoko Inoue - who was someone I liked years ago but assumed I would dislike at this point - has kind of emerged as a darkhorse possibility for my ballot as she has put in a very good (at worst) performance in every match I've seen her in even with her obvious flaws. It's very possible I'll vote for Satomura too, but I should really rewatch some of her earlier work before I make that call.

[anarchistxx]

My list is full of Joshi workers. Product of becoming a smart fan via Smarkschoice I suppose. AJW Classics are some of the only wrestling discs I've kept when I fell out in love with it. Dug out some last week, Jaguar vs Galactica 1/5/85 is a top five match of all time for me. Can be watched online.

 

Watched Dream Rush and Dreamslam I & II last week as well, both held up, as well as a fantastic Aja Kong comp. Was planning to give Thunderqueen another viewing but never got time.

[Dylan Waco]

Adding Yumiko Hotta to the bubble. Wildly underrated. I'll have more to say in her thread later, but if you haven't voted yet and are considering Joshi women don't forget her.

[Timbo Slice]

Hotta seemed lost in the shuffle with Kong, Nakano and Kansai all at their peaks at the same time. She didn't have a lot at the time that stood out like the other three did. That being said, she's definitely been in some memorable matches, including what's normally considered Kong's best title defense.

[donsem43]

Seen way too many sandbag performances from her to even think of considering her. Hotta's pretty much useless after '96. Plus unprofessional bullshit like the Plum Mariko match on the ThunderQueen undercard. Honestly, go and try to watch that match with current knowledge of head injurys and how Plum died, you won't make it through it.

[Dylan Waco]

Hotta might benefit from selection bias, but I've liked her in everything I've watched over last few days which is more than I can say for many of those who are considered all time greats. I literally just watched the Mariko match and I'm not sure what you are talking about, unless you mean the shootish kicks, but she seemed to do those more often than not and I freely concede that's one of the things I really enjoy about her matches. Perhaps there is a back history and/or more specific details about the match I missed or I'm unfamiliar with.

[donsem43]

To me, the kick to the head after the camel clutch is where it starts. Plum messes up a few spots after that and immediately puts her hands up to her head. I've seen enough Plum Mariko to know that she's not that good at selling so there's something wrong. That doesn't stop Hotta from going after her head repeatedly. If your wondering why El-P would constantly dump on her all the time it's because of performances like this.

 

Now, she has had great matches but when you watch a large enough sampling of her it comes off as mainly having to have the proper motivation more than anything. Personally, that makes her kind of Inoki/Hogan like and neither of those two are anywhere close to my list.

 

Also, I'm really like stiff work. I love BattlArts/Futen and Arisa Nakajima is one of my favourite current workers. Nakajima will absolutely drill people but not in a reckless, uncaring way that Hotta would. Just the way that Hotta does it just rubs me the wrong way.

[Badlittlekitten]

Hotta >Kong

[ohtani's jacket]

What are some of the underrated Hotta performances? She has the Aja match and the tag team with Takako, but what else is out there?

[GOTNW]

What are some of the underrated Hotta performances? She has the Aja match and the tag team with Takako, but what else is out there?

She has great matches vs. Kansai and Hokuto as well

[Jetlag]

From what I've seen, Hotta is really good at punting opponents into a coma, and not at all good at anything else. Didn't think those Kansai and Hokuto matches were that great, to be honest. And I like japanese wrestlers killing each other as much as the next guy. Will be interesting to read a defense of Hotta as she strikes me as a wrestler with glaring flaws.

 

I'm also interested in that post on Devil Masami. I'm a fan of her, but couldn't find anything truely great from her 80s stuff, Chigusa match aside, and everything I've seen from her in the 90s has been straight up bad.

 

I want to throw Mariko Yoshida into the mix aswell. I've been watching some of her post prime stuff, and she still looks pretty much like herself in it. Too bad the IBUKI stuff is so clipped up. 2003 match vs. Megumi Fuji is a borderline classic and they did some really fun stuff in IBUKI too. I also give Yoshida some credit for knowing how to switch up her signature spots and keeping her matches interesting.

 

Shoutout goes to Azumi Hyuga too. I watched a match vs. Ran Yu Yu the other day where she just blew me away with her matwork. Her matwork of all things! She may be a discovery.

[Dylan Waco]

We may just have a massive gap in tastes on Joshi Jetlag because to my eyes Masami is very good in the 90s.

[ohtani's jacket]

There aren't that many full Devil matches on tape from the 80s. There's the All Japan Classics stuff and the Kandori bloodbath and that's it. The TV is all clipped and mostly repetitive. I liked her tag team with Tarantula and I think their work with Mimi Hagiwara is always a highlight. The Jaguar vs. Devil stuff we have on tape is a bit of a disappointment, but it's worked along more traditional heel vs. face lines as opposed to a serious wrestling match. He workrate tag stuff w/ Jaguar vs. The Crush Girls is good, though she's clearly the Taue of the group. The '87 Chigusa match isn't bad, but it's shorter than their '85 bout and would disappoint most folks. I remember liking a JWP match she had against Yamazaki circa '91, and I'm a big fan of her match against Ozaki from '94 though I think there are some blown spots that bother people. The stuff that doesn't really hold up for me is the '93 match against Bull or that long tag with Chigusa on the second Thunderqueen show. Not sure about the Dream Slam match against Chigusa, either. She's mostly good in random tags from that era or playing the mother figure on the outside. She'd eat the young girls alive and no-sell their offence a lot, which may bug some people, but that was part of her gimmick as matriarch. I assume her Super Heel Undertaker stuff is being ignored.

I dunno. I haven't thought about Devil for a long time. She was a pretty good worker from the late 70s through to the late 90s. That's a fairly long run for a style where most girls have short peaks.

[ohtani's jacket]

Since this came up on the prowrestlingonly twitter feed, the reasons I would rate Bull ahead of Aja are:

 

* She was a good worker from the time she was a rookie through to when she quit. She never had a bad period. Aja was monumentally green for the first five or six years of her career and YMMV on her freelance years.

* More dynamic worker, wider variety of skills, better bumper, better on the mat, better highspots, arguably a better brawler, definitely better at the up-tempo style

* More expressive, better seller, better on the mic, more emotive, better at projecting her character, greater range to her work

* Better match-up for the other girls, did more to get them over. Hokuto and Kyoko in particular matched up far better with Bull than Aja. Aja was a better striker and more likely to have better matches with a Kansai or Hotta than Bull could, but the Kandori match shows how Bull could circumnavigate that. Aja has the Satomura stuff in her favour, though Chigusa's booking played a big part there.

* Better tag wrestler, better undercard worker, better midcard worker. Aja was better on top, but Bull completely paved the way for that and went a long way to making Aja

 

Bull had some selling issues like most of the girls and structural flaws from time to time. One of the biggest things in my eyes is that during the inter-promotional era where they deliberately put her in the background and out of Aja's spotlight, she still shone, she was still the spiritual leader, she was still the one that spoke on behalf of everyone and she still had great performances. I mean I'll watch a vintage Aja performance from her prime any day of the week, but a random Joshi tag where it's either Bull or Aja in there? I'd be much more inclined to watch the Bull match.

[donsem43]

I want to throw Mariko Yoshida into the mix aswell. I've been watching some of her post prime stuff, and she still looks pretty much like herself in it. Too bad the IBUKI stuff is so clipped up. 2003 match vs. Megumi Fuji is a borderline classic and they did some really fun stuff in IBUKI too. I also give Yoshida some credit for knowing how to switch up her signature spots and keeping her matches interesting.

 

You'll want to check out her match with Megumi Yabushita from the Arsion 5th Anniversary show. They establish early on that Yabushita has the advantage on the mat so that forces Yoshida to change up her typical strategy.

 

With Bull also I do think that she was a bit of a victim of timing career wise because by the time that she was on top she all of the stars above her had left. So while she was in her prime she had work with opponents that were still developing as workers but still managed to do a great job with what she had to work with.

[Dylan Waco]

I may watch some more things here or there between now and the deadline, but I'm basically finished at this point and will start bumping and commenting in the various threads. Started with Hotta first tonight, hoping to do several more tomorrow.

[Parties]

Bull made my list, Aja didn't. Strongly agree with OJ's points above, esp. the note of seeming like the more generous worker. Kong's resume feels repetitive to me, in large part because she eats up opponents. Bull is also one of the coolest looking people in wrestling history, warming the cockles of my Brooklyn hipster heart.