Jetlag
DVDVR 80s Project
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Everything posted by Jetlag
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So just a couple days ago after watching that tag I looked up Fujiwaras matches in SWS and how did this fly under my radar? This was really good and an excellent example of how to work a quasi-shootstyle match in a big stadium. Ishinriki has looked good in matches I've seen him in, but he completely blew me away here. Pretty unique structure with Fujiwara not being very dominant at all as Ishinriki constantly pushed him. It makes sense for a sumo guy to have a strong standing game to prevent getting thrown as shown here. The sumo rushes ruled obviously as did Fujiwaras sudden kick combos. This is a rare match where Fujiwara gets frustrated throughout. Ishinriki landing PRIDE stomps on the ground made me wish more juniors would try to set up a flying move like that. Classic finish. This had great heat, nasty strikes throughout and a couple big moments. -
Minami/Iwashita was a nifty undercard shootstyle bout. Won't make you forget U-Style but probably a Top 10 japanese match if it happened tod- ah I'll shut up. Really dug the tenacity and struggle over everything while keeping a steady pace. Highlights include Minami locking Iwashitas arm behind his back and surviving a nasty guillotine while his face turned blue. They have the MMA gloves but aside from a few body punches and low kicks they stick to grappling. Neat finish with several cool armlock variations before one forces the tap.
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Mineno vs. Johta (or Jyota?) was a boxing gloves match because every japanese sleaze indy company has an annoying guy on the booking team who constantly goes „But where is the booooooxing match?“. They actually do some grappling with double leg takedowns, armbars and suplexes but it was of course limited. However these two guys absolutely slaughtered eachother in the standup with awesome fast punches and spin kicks. No pussy shit here for sure. Plus you get the fun aspect of guys awkwardly falling into the guardrails when getting kicked. This is rounds so they work some actually cool „safed by the bell“ moments. I am stoked to check out these boys in a match with regular MMA gloves.
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I assume the main event is like the quintessential Capture match. Lots of wild swinging punches and kicks that connect with full force. Kawauchi, who I saw in his debut match at a 1998 KAGEKI show against Masakazu Fukuda would go on to work Osaka Pro as Hideyoshi and is now grizzled veteran GENKAI in Kyushi Pro, so he has quite the history of japanese indy wrestling. Kawauchi is good as the energetic youngster here with explosive takedowns and pummeling violently on the ground. Ichimiya who is some comedy character in DDT looks credible here as a heavyweight shooter. His super violent, quick assault on Kawauchi in the 2nd fall using the guardrail may have been the highlight of the match. His extremely vocal selling also added some more grit. Kitahara is as you expect. His punches and kicks were Ikeda level but I was also surprised how brutal his chokes (or choke setups) felt. He also got his "Kitahara is a bastard" moment when he kicked Ichimiya in his bandaged arm. The matwork here is mostly working punches from mount and has a really smothering feel to it, though there is the occasional submission attempt and the finish is a neat submission counter. The match is short enough so it totally works.
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Capture International is a shootstyle org founded by Koki Kitahara in 1997 and it's even weirder than Kitao Pro. They wrestle on a mat with a barricade around and you can actually grab the barricade to break a submission. They have 2 out of 3 falls matches and some kind of point system which apparently punishes tag partners when they run in to break a submission. It's roster is a pretty random mix of indy undercarers and martial artists. It's roughly 9000% japanese pro wrestling and produces some really violent and entertaining matches. There is not much footage of this... a total of 3 TV episodes and 2 old videos on Kitaharas YouTube channel. Maybe if I talk about it, more will show up? Capture 10/5/2002 Teruhiko Iwashita vs. Hayato Minami Basara vs. Jiraiya Masayuki Mineno vs. Johta Koki Kitahara & Daiyu Kawauchi vs. Shoichi Ichimiya & Kazunobu Nakamura Minami/Iwashita was a nifty undercard shootstyle bout. Won't make you forget U-Style but probably a Top 10 japanese match if it happened tod- ah I'll shut up. Really dug the tenacity and struggle over everything while keeping a steady pace. Highlights include Minami locking Iwashitas arm behind his back and surviving a nasty guillotine while his face turned blue. They have the MMA gloves but aside from a few body punches and low kicks they stick to grappling. Neat finish with several cool armlock variations before one forces the tap. Basara-Jiraya – OF COUUUURSEEEEE this fed has masked guys working undercard quasi shootstyle matches. And what a threat to see Yume Factory boy BASARA again. He seemed to have gained some confidence looking quite aggressive at times. However, not having a ring took away his strongest aspects here – his great powerslam and frogsplash. Jiraya is a japanese wrestler who apparently spent a lot of time in Mexico. Not that you noticed much lucha in his style here, as he was rocking the kickpads and working for armbars on the ground. Neither of these guys is a wrestling master but there were enough smacks to keep this entertaining and the finish was cool. Mineno vs. Johta (or Jyota?) was a boxing gloves match because every japanese sleaze indy company has an annoying guy on the booking team who constantly goes „But where is the booooooxing match?“. They actually do some grappling with double leg takedowns, armbars and suplexes but it was of course limited. However these two guys absolutely slaughtered eachother in the standup with awesome fast punches and spin kicks. No pussy shit here for sure. Plus you get the fun aspect of guys awkwardly falling into the guardrails when getting kicked. This is rounds so they work some actually cool „safed by the bell“ moments. I am stoked to check out these boys in a match with regular MMA gloves. https://youtu.be/rs9ChWMNDwE I assume the main event is like the quintessential Capture match. Lots of wild swinging punches and kicks that connect with full force. Kawauchi, who I saw in his debut match at a 1998 KAGEKI show against Masakazu Fukuda would go on to work Osaka Pro as Hideyoshi and is now grizzled veteran GENKAI in Kyushi Pro, so he has quite the history of japanese indy wrestling. Kawauchi is good as the energetic youngster here with explosive takedowns and pummeling violently on the ground. Ichimiya who is some comedy character in DDT looks credible here as a heavyweight shooter. His super violent, quick assault on Kawauchi in the 2nd fall using the guardrail may have been the highlight of the match. His extremely vocal selling also added some more grit. Kitahara is as you expect. His punches and kicks were Ikeda level but I was also surprised how brutal his chokes (or choke setups) felt. He also got his "Kitahara is a bastard" moment when he kicked Ichimiya in his bandaged arm. The matwork here is mostly working punches from mount and has a really smothering feel to it, though there is the occasional submission attempt and the finish is a neat submission counter. The match is short enough so it totally works.
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Quality main event. There are some rudo interference shenanigans early on, but we get a long 1st fall with everyone wrestling. You know it's gonna be good when El Dandy is in his Kazuo Yamazaki tights and UWF kickpads. I especially liked the Dandy/MS-1 matchup. MS-1 is a trickier grappler than he looks like and they play up the size difference. Popitekus is an awesome big tubby luchador and also way brave as he bumps bigger and more often than a guy his size should. Pierroth Jr. deciding to work over Mogur with stiff kicks to the spine was quite unexpected and things took a harsh turn when Mogur decided to fight fire with fire and also rip his mask. Pierroth cracks him open and we got ourselves a heated third fall with a bloody and beaten Mogur trying to stand up to him. At one point El Dandy was hitting these fast enzuigiris and spin wheel kicks before Mogur clocked Pierroth Jr. with a desperation lariat for a big nearfall and it's like this is NJPW now or something. Cool finish which reminds the fans every move is important. I think the match didn't even have a dive so reminder that lucha can be cutting edge and economic too.
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Long, quality lucha that told a story. Early on Emilio Charles Jr. gets the better of Azteca during a wrestling exchange. Of course Angel takes great offense to this and immediately goes after Emilio. Azteca going out of his way to ram into Emilio with a huge forearm while in the middle of a rope running exchange with Espectro was straight out of the AJPW playbook. Of course Emilio Jr. makes him pay dearly later when he slaps the hell out of him during the beatdown. That along may have been the highlight of the match along with Aztecas bumping, including flying with his back into the edge of the ring apron. Of course Super Astro and Kung Fu also do lots of fun wrestling. Astro is such a trip to watch with the insane height on all flying moves, while Kung Fu manages to not suck doing his faux martial arts stuff and hitting weird/cool kicks, punches and leg trips. We also get the awesome and devastating tope to the floor from Super Astro aswell as Emilio Charles Jr. not falling for The Star.
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Well this was just a classic lucha romp with that rudo/technico dynamics. Tons of highly entertaining technicos one upping the clumsy bad guys sequences. The rudo trio is pretty dedicated – Hijo de Gladiador takes a front flip bump when he misses a punch, and Herodes is just gleeful about his own evilness, while El Supremo has a very different presence. I liked how the rudo beatdown started with Supremo basically having enough and clocking Pantera with a stiff elbow. Of the technicos I'd say I liked Pantera II the best who has such beautiful armdrags and his trademark rope running spot altough everyone did something cool. The 3rd fall had some really amusing chase spots. I was surprised how easily the rudos won this one.
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Way to salvage the show. For those of you who don't know: this is just out of nowhere turns into one of the goriest matches ever. I dunno how good LCO actually are, but they are pretty effectiv here abusing the young girls and their cheating and not giving Hamakino much offense added a ton to the match. Shimoda leaving a bloody handprint on Aja's shirt was probably the baddest thing she ever did. Ayako and Akino put on an unreal performance – really one of the best „outmatched babyface“ performances I've ever seen. They worked together, and when it was time to bleed, they coated everything in red. Ayako was stunning in particular with her selling of the blood: at one point, she ducked a clothesline and just collapsed, as if she slipped on the blood. When she busted out the scissors and her's Papas signature headbutts as if she was channeling his spirit you know you are watching a classic. Hamakino sticking to flash pins and submissions during the finishing stretch was perfectly believable and produced great nearfalls, especially due to the booking of past matches. Intricate structure and really a total classic of a match, and probably an easy candidate for the best match ever that has two workers in their second year of wrestling.
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This is the predecessor to their match a week later. I had no idea this match even happened, gotta love the internet. This wasn't a classic like the rematch but still really good technical lucha action. Dandy choking out Azteca in the opening fall was a really cool way to start. Then, we get the usual classy exchanges throughout. Man I love old school lucha with the focus on simple hip throws, fireman carries and leg trips. Everyone is almost offended when Azteca throws a punch. Then, Chavo Sr. Proceeds to get heel heat for complaining about forearms. Great finish to the 2nd fall. 3rd was really good with Dandy almost knocking out Azteca with a dropkick and Texano hitting a brutal powerbomb. Loved the big Chavo suplex, too.
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Apparently Agua has better taste in joshi than people give you credit for. Some awkward execution and some of the back and forth felt random, but otherwise this was a pretty violent spectacle with good selling. I haven't noticed Iwatani before but she was quite good here aside from some obvious thigh slapping and made this feel pretty violent: she constantly threw these really nasty sounding kicks. Even her frog splash landed with a nasty thud, and she absolutely obliterated herself bumping for a Hayashishita lariat. Hayashishita sold really well and I liked her submissions. The best thing bout this was how organic this felt. Hayashishitas Camel Clutch felt like a credible near submission in context and the sleeper over the ropes (a spot which can be trite) was great too. So Hayashishita was apparently 2 months into her career in this match. HUM, way to go.
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Overly long, bloated, melodramatic stereotypical japanese big match in the Year of 2018. People have talked about AJPW having a resurrgence, and that it's an alternative to NJPW. Well, I don't know the business side of it, but judging from the match quality here there is nothing too interesting going on. The first half was your typical time killing competition, lots of strolling here and there, waiting for the other guy to get in position, then hit a spot for a pop, etc. Some of the ideas they had were good, but they didn't know how to elaborate them. There was some good legwork happening with Zeus ramming Miyaharas knee into the guardrail, but moments later they simply forgot about it. Miyahara hit a stiff headbutt, and then he went and hit some more for the crowd. Isn't this the year where that guy Shibata almost died doing something like that? Classic Pro Wrestlers are Idiots. I've nothing against stiff headbutts, as long as they mean something. I liked how parts of the match saw Kento acting cocky and cutting off Zeus. However he also did these really zany "I'm crazy" facial expressions for the camera. The 2nd half is trash. Zeus does a job putting the previous apron stuff over, but then just no sells back to offense immediately. It's almost a comedy. Both guys take turns doing this while hitting a zillion knees and lariats. There is nothing wrong with either guys offense, Miyahara in particular has good looking knees and big boots. I also liked his beatdown of Zeus with the stomps to the back of the head, one of the few moments of genuine aggression in the match. I've no idea what people see in Zeus as he's pretty much your standard roided japanese guy. They try to bring some leg attack stuff into it again, but because Miyahara didn't sell it at all there was no sense of threat or drama from it. After about 20 2,99999s Zeus gets the win.
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Classy match. Mostly textbook matwork and exchanges built around hip throws and armdrags. There was no outright rudoism, but the sympathies were clearly on the side of the sun brothers and they played to that. It's another good way to work that kind of match to break up the monothony of skill vs. Cheating. The highlight was easily El Supremo getting his shoulder mangled. Unique spot leads to the finish. This won't blow your mind if you've seen a ton of lucha but it's another good round at Arena Coliseo.
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Monthly Sleaze Indy Review: This time we got Kendo Nagasakis NOW. NOW 8/9/1992 Goro Tsurumi vs. Unidentified Rookie Don Arakwa vs. Kishin Kawabata Apollo Sugawara vs. Hiroshi Hatanaka Goro Tsurumi vs. Fumihiro Niikura (Boxing) George & Shunji Takano vs. Kendo Nagasaki & Kenichi (Hisakatsu) Oya NOW was one of 3 or 4 companies that SWS split into. And well this sure does look like an SWS card without the big stars or foreigners doesn't it? There is some fun stuff to be seen here though. The opener is a 3 minute exhibition with Tsurumi looking the best I've ever seen him as this match was nothing but amateur style grappling. SoTsurumi is not required to do any pro wrestling or match struture and instead is just there credibly putting a nondescript black trunks guy in his place by tapping him repeatedly with nasty crossfaces and toeholds in entertaining fashion. Arakawa/Kawabata was also unexpectedly great as it was that classic japanese material of two tubby guys trading big fucking beatings. Arakawa is known as a comedy worker and while there are some laughs and exaggerated body language this is competitive. Starts great with Kawabata slapping him and Arakawa dumping him with a huge german suplex. Lots of hurty looking slaps and Arakawa punches ensue. We also get some fun Arakawa matwork aswell as a dive tease. This was the most inspired I've seen Kawabata look as he would really lay into Arakawa with kicks and palms and ram him like a bull. What does it say about Kawabata that his most inspired performance is some fancam undercard match against a comedy wrestler from some long forgotten offshoot company? Sugawara/Hatanaka was a long, basic match. Both guys could lay in a stiff shot once in a while and had some nice offense (Hatanaka in particular), but I'd be lying if I said if they weren't slightly over their heads going 15+ minutes when these two belong in tags at this point. Tsurumi/Niikura was a boxing gloves match and much less exciting than Tsurumis grappling in the opener. Niikura always throws boxing punch combos in in pro style matches and that is much cooler than fake boxing. The main event had little story to it but was a string of cool moments. You had Shunji Takano working as sleazy Jumbo Tsuruta walloping everyone with huge kicks and knees, George Takano & Oya having a great moment trading shotais and Nagasaki in his working boots hitting the mat and dishing out big kicks. Oyas execution was sharper than later in FMW but he didn't seem to have a clue on how to add direction to the match. Just when things started to get heated when Nagasaki said Fuck This and went to blast Shunji Takano with the chairs as Kendo Nagasaki does an Umanosuke Ueda run in happens and the match just ends. Kind of a bullshit thing to end your main event of a Korakuen Hall show like this but I actually want to see more NOW now.
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Tubby japanese guys slap the shit out of eachother for 20 minutes. Love this because it's a really good example of how to build a lengthy match around a handful of strikes. Nakano and Kitahara are not over at all due to the SWS midcard being almost meaningless, but they give their all taking on these tanks and get the everliving crap kicked out of them. Hara & Tenryu deserve some credit for selling a good deal for these middleweights while outgunning them completely. Lots of neat spots and there are some good examples on how to make basic strikes interesting by SELLING. See: Tenryu getting caught in the ear by an enzuigiri or selling Nakanos corner dropkick. Hara is also really good at taking kicks to various body parts and refusing to bump. By the end Kitahara and Nakano are basically beaten half to death. There is one great sequence where Nakano is giving everything he has hitting several dropkicks and enzuigiris only to be forced to tag back in and run on empty. Tenryu just powerbombing him is an example of no selling that works because it was done in context of the match with a set up and purpose. Kitaharas leg selling was also cool and added some direction. This is a rare match where one side never comes close to winning but still ends up being great in my book.
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JWP TV taped 11/2/91 Tokyo Korakuen Hall Mayumi Ozaki vs. Hikari Fukuoka Fukuokas Toyota worship was already becoming apparent here. What makes this more than your average rookie squash is Ozaki kicking the living hell out of her and doing some gritty armwork. Ozaki working like Regal rules. She rocks a mean Fujiwara armbar and will pull your fingers apart. Her kicks and stomps were also pretty manly. Eat your heart out, britwres shitters. Eagle Sawai & Reiko Hoshino vs. Itsuki Yamazaki & Mami Kitamura Hoshino is the newly unmasked Scorpion. This was an undercard tag that felt like they made it up as they went a long. The match still had a story with Sawai really roughing up young Kitamura and her going against the vets with Yamazaki helping her along being the plot of the match. Nothing out of the extraordinary here but the match had it's moments and some nice smacks. Cuty Suzuki vs. Plum Mariko I like both these workers, but there wasn't much to this. Just your usual perfunctory holds → filler legwork → couple nearfalls affair. Felt like a touring match, but they were in Korakuen Hall. Shinobu Kandori & Miki Handa vs. Devil Masami & Utako Hozumi The Kandori/Devil matchup is interesting in theory, but they didn't deliver a whole lot. It was a short match to begin with and they wasted a good chunk of time with Boston Crabs and mild outside brawling. Not exactly a working boots performance from Devil and Kandori wasn't exactly fired up either. Match had it's moments such as a few stiff lariats and a big press slam into a splash. UWA International Title: Harley Saito vs. Dynamite Kansai Great ultra stiff fight between two of the stiffest workers not just in womens wrestling. These two had been battling it out fierce for over a year and this was probably their most brutal outing. Just two asskickers cracking eachother with shots. The opening minute are fire, and we get some really good battle for control stuff with Harley making use of the kneebar and both of them really punishing the other. One thing that stands out about JWP is that there was no „I hit you, you hit me“, it's a constant battle for the advantage until one gets control and just tees off on the other. To be honest Kansai doesn't have much character or selling ability compared to Kandori so this wasn't as good and they went for the usual 50/50 exchanges in the last third. However the finish gave the whole thing a touch of epic as it was quite unique for japanese wrestling which has conditioned us to expect a different outcome from that kind of move. I'd say Harley did well here carrying this selling and giving Kansai as good as she had making this the 1991 MOTY as it's more compact than their earlier match.
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SWS style tag with Fujiwara thrown in the mix. So you have tubby juniors exchanging brutal spin kicks and lariats at a fast pace and Fujiwara throwing in some lightning fast counters and hitting the mat. The 3 young guys are really good and Fujiwaras presence adds just what this kind of undercard match needs. Ishinriki is a former sumo who works like a junior and junior who used to be a sumo is much better than junior who used to be a gymnast. He hits some big dive and also nice palm rushes and lariats. Kitahara and Nakano look good hitting the mat with Fujiwara. Highlights include Fujiwara hitting a huge Bas Rutten style body punch for a near KO aswell as trading some brutal battering ram headbutts with Nakano. Fujiwara fits really well with these energetic dudes. Apparently this match got **** from Meltzer proving he had some taste at one point. It has a few big moves and nearfalls too.
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Fun, super heated, fast paced tag match centered around the megastar charisma of Kandori and Nagayo. Kandori may have been in peak form here with her awesome mugging and flash submissions. Ohmukai didn't have the gloves and kickpads here, but she and Sato were fine secondary girls working stiff dropkicks and body slams for a minute before tagging in the leaders. Also, because Sato is a 1 year rookie, the match felt like it could end whenever she was on the receiving end. Her interactions with Kandori were also really fun, and I loved how frantic Nagayo & Sugar were in preventing Kandori's submissions. Really good main event style wrestling.
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Wee little Meiko flails her arm and pounces on Yamada like a pitbull, trying to force a submission by constantly going for an armbar throwing wild elbows and slaps and generally being a wild house of fire. Yamada wasn't wearing her kickpads so not quite what you expect in this match, but she does nearly kick Satomura's head off with a sickening dropkick (did we just see her passing the curse here?), working some nasty crossfaces and throwing some jaw dislocating slaps. The subsequent armbreaker spot and Yamada selling that shit like a pro was tremendous aswell. Great heated rookie/veteran sprint, exactly how it should be worked.
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About as perfect a 7 minute opener as you can ask for. This was Reds TNA debut and they work a slightly more traditional style (if you can talk traditional when you have crazy moves dished out by the minute) with some arm drags and Ki beating him down good with his awesome neck headbutts etc. They pull out some of their spectacular kung fu sequences later for great effect. Amazing how these two always managed to mix up their stuff.
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Great match in their signature style. Excellent mix of lightning fast intricate counters and evading, crazy moves and stiff blows. It's highly athletic, spectacular wrestling, but they have a great sense for momentum shifts. You also get stuff like Ki obliterating Red with the koppu kick which is ballsier than what most spot monkeys do. Red looks like the greatest Elks Lodge kid wrestler ever. The insane handspring spin kick moves look hurty and they always make sense in the context of what's happening. They basically never let up. Great finish where they tease another reversal with Red escaping but Ki holds on and drops him anyways. US MOTY?
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Another of those really good matches CMLL would produce multiple times a week. We get some quality Virus matwork aswell as unusually heated exchanges between Halcon Negro and Olimpico. It's also really nice to see Kendo doing his awesome thing in Mexico.
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Lots of good stuff in this Cibernetico with the opening exchange between Ultimo Guerrero and Olimpico being especially good. Really fast and intricate knucklelock work. Lots of great athleticism on display throughout. Unfortunately there were quite a few botches, including Bucanero hitting an accidental(?) avalanche Powerbomb on Sendero and then just killing him with an avalanche brainbuster that seemed to have knocked him out cold. It kind of killed the crowd too because everyone was thinking that poor guy might be dead. Buccanero eliminating a bunch of guys added some intensity and the finish was good.
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This is about the smartest Manami Toyota match you'll ever see. Hokuto comes in with a bad arm in a cast and Toyota immediately pounces to kick the shit out of that arm. The transition is supposed to be Toyota (drawing boos) going arrogantly for a dive and banging up her own leg allowing Hokuto to go on offense. This works but of course Toyota sells fuck all and goes back to hitting suplexes. But the focus of the match is Hokuto who probably the most credible tough lady wrestler in history and her selling and one armed comebacks were all credible. She survives longer than you'd expect but it's Hokuto she survived a broken neck and cancer. Predictable match but work thanks to the novelty of it. Great Hokuto performance and Toyota looked good beating her.
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Gentle reminder.