ohtani's jacket

I think the booking and the layout hurt him. The actual performance was fine, though it was mostly selling and not comparable with his best stuff. A few tweaks and I would have spoken highly of the match. I didn't like Dandy losing face at the end. Fiera took the easy way out in a lot of their trios matches, refusing to lock up at the end and resorting to the low blow. I didn't really like that either, but you figure there's going to be a payoff where Dandy finally gets his hands on Fiera and the rudo gets his just deserts. Unfortunately, that didn't really happen. I get the irony they were going for, but I thought Fiera came out of the feud looking stronger than Dandy. I guess it goes back to what we always bemoan: that CMLL doesn't put much thought into their booking. (Pena-less CMLL, that is.) On the plus side, for a match that was (likely) slapped together a few weeks before the show, it was a pretty cool feud. I have a new found respect for Fiera if only for this month long run.

I don't think it was a spotfest either. The first half of the match was submission filler and they didn't kick into high gear until the stretch run. It wasn't any different from a regular Joshi tag. I remember this as being one of Chris Coey's "discoveries" of sort since it came from television and not the commercial tapes that people would buy in EP mode. Hokuto and Toyota are any unfuckable with tag team, and Aja being paired with Hasegawa is an interesting dynamic, but I don't think the roles get fleshed out to any great degree. Perhaps that's what Loss meant by a spotfest. The ending is exciting, but Hasegawa drove me a bit loopy with all those exploders. I've always found Aja overrated and matches like this are the reason. This is the sort of match where she should come across as an indomitable force that can only be beaten because she's handicapped with a junior partner, but she's just another player. I always maintained that it took her time to grow into the Ace role. The passing of the torch at Dreamrush was more like Aja trying to keep a candle from going out. She needed to be fiercer here in the face of dream pairing in Hokuto and Toyota because when she's not dominating she comes across as surprisingly small. I never really noticed how short she was until I started rewatching this stuff. She's shorter than everyone else in the match and this idea that she was a monster mostly came from her bulk. Just to show I'm not picking on Aja, it wasn't a memorable performance from either Hokuto or Toyota either. I don't really think the bout is much of a discovery anymore, but as a mostly unknown league bout from a TV episode it's not too bad. Just supplementary.

I was less than enamoured with this one as well. It was better than the JWP vs. AJW match, but I've learnt my lesson about multi-women tags from this era. It gets better after a few of the girls have been eliminated, but I think you'd have the same problems with it that you had with Thunderqueen.

Fiera's performance was too good for the bout to be disappointing, but I had a lot of problems with it structurally. There was a great bout in there if they'd just rearranged a couple of things. Dandy lost face with the finish as far as I'm concerned. I don't see that as poetic justice. He just looked weak. Fiera was fading and Dandy should have put him away especially since in the lead up Fiera was often taking the easy way out in the third caida. I suspect they were trying to play off the finishes to those trios matches but it fell flat.

The patchy hair match -- http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/blog/8/entry-437-the-fiera-vs-dandy-feud-3-the-finale/

La Fiera vs. El Dandy, hair vs, hair, CMLL 11/27/92 Here we go with the revisit then. Fiera attacked Dandy on his way to the ring, which comes as no surprise given he'd been doing it to him for weeks. Perhaps Dandy should have been better prepared for it, but I guess they were trying to sell that there was nothing he could do about it. The beginning wasn't as frenzied or as bloodthirsty as it could have been, and in truth some of the trios openings were better, but I liked the image of the big ring announcer scuttling away as he quickly finished his ring intros. Fiera's offence was excellent and he delivered a measured and precise beat down. It was excellent strategy actually. He took his time weakening Dandy, got some nice heat by standing on top of him, and made sure the audience got a good look at him writhing about in pain. I liked the way he wrapped him up for the pinfall as well. Very neat. But that's the thing: it was all a bit too neat and tidy for an apuesta match. Aside from a few of the high shots and the posing on Dandy's back, it could have been a title bout with a bit of an edge to it. Or perhaps a better way of looking at it is that it would have been okay for a mano a mano bout, but an apuesta match you expect to be wilder. The second fall was more like a classic apuesta match with Dandy bleeding and Fiera gnawing on the cut. It wasn't easy to see the blood on the Lynch copy, but the tone of the fall was classic wager stuff. Fiera did an excellent job of cutting off Dandy's comeback attempt and peppering him with chops that slipped up around the jaw. Probably my favourite spot of the bout was when Fiera threw him to the outside then delivered that vicious kick to the head. I loved the way he crouched in the ring letting Rangel administer the count while Dandy shuffled his way to the ring on his butt. In a typical wager match, Dandy would have caught an opening and fought his way back into the bout, but here he was felled by a big time DDT, and the next one would have been lights out so he had to counter it. A Northern Lights suplex isn't exactly your mama and papa's lucha, but it would have worked better if Rangel hadn't been slow to make the count. The slow counts in lucha never really bother me, but that needed a quick count. I'm not sure it was entirely Rangel's fault as he didn't seem out of position prior to the counter. He was just incredibly slow to react and stopped to check the shoulders. Fiera made it worse by wriggling about too much, which made it seem like he hadn't sustained enough damage to stay down. In any event it was in the books. Fiera may have had a slight gripe about his shoulder being up, but he chose to ignore it and pounce on Dandy instead. There was a clip at the beginning of the third fall. I'm not sure how much they cut out, but aside from a big lariat that sent they both careening over the top rope, Fiera maintained the upper hand. Watching it a second time in the stop/start manner of writing a review, you've got to appreciate how good Fiera's offence looks. Every thing he does is pinpoint. The shitty little foul in the corner and the finger wag to Rangel are other details I didn't pick up on the first time round. While it didn't have the feel of a classic apuesta match, there were a lot of great touches in this. Fiera delivered a performance that was almost on par with Satanico or Pirata Morgan. There was just something missing from the bout structurally. Dandy's big gambit was a tope suicida that lived up to its name. The match started to shape into a natural 50/50 tercera caida after that with both men struggling and missing dives. Fiera had taken a few knocks and was still trying to shake off the effects of the tope when he countered a Dandy sunset flip attempt. In a beautiful piece of selling, he checked the hand he'd used to counter and leaned into the ropes for a breather. A subtle moment in the context of a hair match, but it showed that Fiera was fading. Don't forget, he'd exerted plenty of energy pummeling Dandy, so while he'd had the momentum for most of the bout, he was feeling the pinch in the third caida. That was a tired and desperate foul on the inverted atomic drop. Was the finish the right call? That's the big question. I think Fiera was definitely fading and Dandy had just countered his power bomb attempt, so it made sense for him to try to steal the victory. Dandy on the other hand was gathering momentum. There's a certain leeway in apuesta matches for tecnicos to fight fire with fire and give rudos a dose of their own medicine, but that type of win isn't very satisfying and not exactly what you'd call payback. Fiera's selling was great throughout the post match as he complained to the ref about Dandy holding the ropes and wanted to continue the fight with a half shaven head, but to me Dandy hardly looked like a gladiator. Fiera looked great in this match; Dandy not so much. When I first sat down to write this, I considered what my angle would be. Was it a perfectly acceptable three star apuesta match or anticlimactic? A disappointment or something which couldn't be helped? While typing this out, the match struck me as slightly more nuanced than I'd imagined, but the overall flow wasn't that smooth and structurally things seemed out of place. It was an excellent performance from Fiera even if he didn't tear into Dandy, but the finish was all wrong. Dandy should have won cleanly and decisively. The order of the first and second falls could have been swapped around with the blood coming straight away followed by the clear and precise beat down and the third fall built to a bigger Dandy comeback. That would have made for at least a four star bout. Still, it was fun and there was a lot to enjoy about Fiera's performance. Dandy's selling was good without being outstanding and a clearer picture would have made the colour more dramatic. The build up promised more, but I was happy with the revisit. Moral of the story rudos? Don't wear yourself out pummeling an opponent's noggin.

How many of these workers were career lower midcarders?

According to Cubsfan, the following wrestlers are all lower mid carders: Arkangel de la Muerte Ciclon Ramirez Mano Negra Virus Halcon Negro El Cavernario

I'd actually seen a couple of these before (this shit happens.) Let's compare and see what I wrote a few years ago: Nice change of tune there!

A few oversights before I continue: Pat Patton vs. Johnny England (4/23/79) Patton's 70s hair was immense. He looked like the lead singer of Boston, Brad Delp. It took me a while to warm to Johnny England because he wasn't the most naturally gifted wrestler, but what a great character. An obnoxious little bodybuilding brat with a punk rock edge to him and a knack for getting under people's skins. We didn't see the entire match here, but already there was a chemistry between the workers and you could see why they'd go on to have such a good match in 1981. John Quinn/Yasu Fuji vs. Steve Veidor/Lee Bronson (5/13/80) This was a simple but effective tag match. It wasn't great or anything, but a damn sight better than those Big Daddy matches. The brief Quinn vs. Veidor exchanges had me imagining an alternate reality where Veidor and Quinn feuded for the World's Heavyweight title, but this was actually Veidor's last appearance on television. Walton tried to fob Quinn off as the NWA World Heavyweight Champion, which made me wonder whether if even Kent was clueless about this fake belt of Arion's. Wayne Bridges got on the house mic at the end and cut a passionate promo stating that Quinn had taken three things from his: his belt, his pride, and his blood. He told Quinn he had 90 days to defend the title and to pick the day. Quinn wanted to go there and then and Bridges had to be held back. Simple but effective stuff. Now for one last dig into 1983... Vic Faulkner vs. Mick McMichael (8/3/83) Typical Faulkner vs. McMichael bout. It took them a while to warm up but by the end they were cracking out the comedy. Walton kept saying it was impossible not to enjoy a Faulkner vs. McMichael bout. I don't know about that Kent. I will say that while the spots weren't ad-libbed in the slightest, the speed at which they were able to call them was impressive to watch. My problem is that I don't find McMichael that funny, but hey, comedy and humour is a personal thing. Alan Dennison vs. Black Jack Mulligan (8/3/83) These two always had good matches together. I'm not sure if it was because they were friends or because Mulligan always seemed to target Dennison's arms and bump big for his strength spots, but they had about as good a series as I can imagine from a run of extended squashes. Dennison always seemed to give him that little bit more. A few extra rounds, a bit more offense than usual, no bullshit comedy designed to embarrass his opponent. Quite different from a lot of the two fall maulings Mulligan received. Jim Breaks vs. Grasshopper (3/23/83) For what it's worth, this was the most fun Grasshopper match I've seen, but it was far from vintage Breaks. Even taking into account that it was a tournament bout, it wasn't up to his usual standards. Unfortunately, he got booked in a lot of these situations towards the end of his television run. Colin Joynson vs. Pat Roach (12/15/82) This was great stuff. Joynson hadn't appeared on TV since the very beginning of 1980 and this aired on 4/16/83 even though it was apparently taped five months before. Walton was excited to have him back just like he was any time an older face showed up, but what excited me was Joynson's initiation into the forearm smash club. I'm a huge fan of heavyweights who trade forearm smashes and Joynson slotted right in. They did a great job of establishing that Roach wouldn't have it all his own way while at the same time making it clear that nobody could stop him from performing a crotch hold and slam any time he wanted. Joynson was tenacious and really hung with Roach here. Every now and again, Pat would start throwing forearms and have to check himself since he was a blue eye in the movies now, but for sheer physicality this was everything you could hope for and more. Joynson was considerably shorter than Roach, but bigger than he'd ever been and he threw that bulk behind every move. I love this kind of power wrestling. This was also notable for an out of position Dave Rees getting taken out by Joynson. You don't see that too often. Even Walton commented that Rees looked a bit white around the gills after the collision. Vic Faulkner vs. Rocky Moran (11/2/83) This was one of Moran's early television bouts and he was still wrestling as though it was his first day in the company instead of as an out and out heel. That was a shame as I wanted to see him wipe that smug look from Faulkner's face. The match was disappointing short and ended on a lame injury note. Tiger Dalibar Singh vs. Colin Joynson (11/2/83) The Colin Joynson television comeback continues. According to Walton, Joynson was only a part time wrestler now. I think he owned a pub or was running a boarding house. Something like that. At any rate, Colin Joynson in 1983 equaled smash mouth wrestling. These two were not afraid to throw forearm smashes or deliver hard body checks. There was so much weight in the ring that any time they slammed one another into the canvas it looked like the most forceful body slam imaginable. Even the back body drops were a thing of beauty here. Really great Singh bout. Almost at the level of the Terry Rudge stuff. The strikes were awesome and Joynson showed why he earned his "panzar" nickname. Keith Haward vs. Kurt Heinz (8/23/83) Poor old Kurt Heinz. He actually survived into the third round against Haward, but you wouldn't know based on the way ITV chose to edit it. Haward knocked him out on a release german suplex, which was pretty loose looking. Jim Breaks vs. Rick Wiseman (8/23/83) This was entertaining stuff. It was the semi-finals of a knockout tournament but Breaks still found a way to make their ten minutes memorable. Realistically, Wiseman stood no chance, but Breaks' performance was so good it made you wonder if the upset was possible. The Swadlincote crowd rode Breaks hard and were right behind Wiseman. Walton kept going on about how Wiseman was using Breaks' own moves against him, but practically everybody tried that at some point or another. The awesome thing about this was that when Breaks finally took over and executed the Breaks Special he went after the arm with a quiet fury that was designed to shut every mouth in the hall. Not as good as Murphy/Robinson, but one of the better pre-final tournament bouts you'll see.

This wasn't very good at all. Maybe legit one of the worst matches from the inter promotional era.

What a great crowd. Delphin seemed to feed off them and gave a stellar performance, which was impressive since he was only really there to make saves. Of course Funaki and Teoh's Southern style junior tag work was great as well. Sasuke, like Toyota, is blessed with amazing flexibility which allows him to be turned every which way but loose. There's no way having him hobble about trying to hit his signature stuff would have made this any better. They got enough heat with the nearfalls and diving saves as it was. The ending was hotter than a lot of bigger halls, and as Loss mentioned, very All Japan like. Tremendous scenes at the end with the Sendai fans. Did the New Japan juniors have a better tag than this? Great match that has to be one of the high points of late 90s juniors work.

This was okay, but the botched moonsaults and JOCS at the end were a killer. Both women have had better days.

This is naturally disappointing if you compare it with both women's best matches, their name value, or even the tag matches they had against each other; but once you get over the fact it's imperfect, it's actually a match with a lot going for it. The early going is mostly bitchiness and trash talking with Toyota applying submissions that Ozaki will never give into and Oz looking to cut down the height advantage by keeping Toyota grounded. Sticklers might argue that Ozaki's arm work doesn't lead anywhere, but it's not meant to. As with most Joshi matwork, it's needle, not a serious attempt at ending the match. Ozaki is focused on attack, which she needs to be with the height she's giving away, while Toyota is more dynamic. There's a really neat spot where Ozaki ducks a front dropkick and Toyota goes flying right through the ropes. It would have made a really good turning point in a more narrative driven match, but Toyota quickly takes back the momentum with her rolling cradle. The stretch run also has some cool spots. Toyota suplexing Ozaki on the outside looked great as Ozaki created that rag doll effect when she'd bump and the follow-up moonsault had a reckless edge to it. Toyota doesn't have to dig deep enough to put Ozaki away and Ozaki isn't really given any big nearfalls where it looks for a second like Toyota might lose, which is disappointing given what a tough cookie Oz was. But if you lower your expectations to *** from ****+, I thought this was eminently watchable.

It did. It also had a clip of Blue Panther vs. Gran Cochisse that I'd love to see again.

I found some more stuff from '84 on YouTube: Eddie Riley vs. Ian McGregor (11/20/84) These two were proteges of Marty Jones. Walton was particularly fond of Eddie Riley, who was 10 st 9 lbs and speedy. McGregor was only 17 here and it's kind of hard for a 17 year old to be interesting. The closest I've seen anyone come is Dynamite Kid. The bout was okay, but nothing major. Tally Ho Kaye/Sid Cooper/Roy Scott vs. Chic Cullen/Drew McDonald/Ian McGregor (9/11/84) This has to be one of the worst worked WoS bouts I've seen in terms of how pathetic it was. How hard would it have been for them to work a short workrate sprint? The crowd would have loved it, Walton would have loved it, and everyone would have looked good. Instead they pissed around and did some comedy before Scott walked out (since he wasn't even a heel) and the Scots won. Just inexplicably poor. Steve Kelly vs. "Banger" Tony Walsh (aired 1/24/84) I'm fairly certain this was taped on 12/13/83, but we'll go with the air date for now. Steve Kelly was the son of long time independent wrestler Pete Kelly. He made his television debut in the late 70s at the age of 16, but after a handful of appearances on television wasn't heard of again until this 1983 taping. And even after this he never appeared on television again. One of those stories, I suppose. Walsh wrestled completely cleanly here, which Walton couldn't really explain. Not a great bout by any stretch of the imagination, but it was neat to see Walsh in a singles match rather than the usual Big Daddy tags. Incidentally, for those trivia buffs out there, this was the first televised bout reffed by Ken Joyce. Chic Cullen vs. Ripper Derek Collins (11/1/84) No, not that Ripper Collins. The British Ripper Collins. A long time vet who really didn't get a look in against a prime Chic Cullen in this a quarterfinal bout for the 1984 Grand Prix Belt. Short and meaningless. Lucky Gordon vs. Andy Blair (6/13/84) Gordon had to have been one of the least talented Irish wrestlers to make World of Sport. The only good thing he did in this entire bout was his headbutts to Blair's torso as Blair was trying to get up. I think this was the young Scottish wrestler's television debut. You could argue that it was solid enough in that respect, but Gordon was so talentless that it's hard to make a case. Big Daddy/Pat Patton vs. Masked Marauder/Tony Walsh (2/2/84) Big Daddy/Pete Ross vs. Bruiser Ian Muir/Tony Walsh (11/1/84) Big Daddy/Pete Ross vs. Scrubber Daly/Tiny Callaghan (11/13/84) These were all terrible as you'd expect. The mystery of the Masked Marauder being revealed as Scrubber Daly pretty much sums up how utterly shitty the booking of Big Daddy was. Then you had Charlie McGhee bringing in Tiny Callaghan as the man to finally stop Big Daddy as though he could succeed where Quinn and Stax had failed, Scrubber Daly teasing out his hair as though he were Jerry Blackwell or Moondog Mayne with nowhere near the amount of talent, and the camera man missing Farmer Boy Ross' hot tag after he had bust his ass in the ring. About the only entertaining thing in these matches was Brian Crabtree being less than amused when they played the Big Daddy music for the heels' entrance and listening to Daddy's anguished ring apron work ("C'mon tag boy! You've got to tag!") Referee Peter Szakacs deserves some credit for selling the impact of a reverse irish whip posting between Daddy and Daly as though an earthquake had just hit the hall, but that's the only selling that was going on. Well, that puts a wrap on 1984. '84 marks the end of what I would consider the best era we have on tape: 1974-84. It was the last full year of wrestling on World of Sport, and while the deflections to All-Star had hurt the talent roster there were still a dozen or so workers who made Saturday afternoons great. It was very much the era of Marty Jones and Fit Finlay, who could not only lay claim to being the two best wrestlers in the country, but were responsible for training a lot of the newcomers as well. It was the end of the Breaks era (and Faulkner too for that matter), but Murphy surprised me by taking over as a premier heel. Daddy was really stale on top and it's probably fair to say that the heavyweight division was lacking he likes of Bridges and St. Clair. But all told it was a better year than '85 would be.

These two shows: September 22nd 1984 (Malvern, 21/6/84) September 29th 1984 (Malver, taped 21/6/84) The taping date should be 21/8/84 according to the britishwrestlingarchive.co.uk site.

I agree that Hokuto being the best in the world is antiquated idea, but it came from a time when people had to pick and choose their footage and "specialised" for want of a better word. One advantage of that is if you were a "Joshi guy" then you tended to watch entire shows instead of just the pimped matches and therefore you probably got a better overall feel for the scene than may be the case these days. It's also worth noting that there were guys like Mike Oles who vehemently disagreed with the Hokuto praise at the time. I can understand getting sick of Hokuto's injury misfortunes. I got bored of it myself. I do think it's interesting though that we both rejected what smarts have traditionally wanted/demanded to see in terms of selling and/or psychology.

Not really unusual, but I'm reading the Kimagure Orange Road manga at the moment and so far there's been a mention of a Choshu/Fujinami fight and Baba vs. Stan Hansen. Pretty cool.

It's ironic that this started getting good when Manami worked over Hokuto's knee given that the submission portions of Joshi matches are often the least interesting. Hokuto's selling was excellent, but Manami deserves credit for putting her in interesting looking holds. Her attack was a lot better than Hokuto's earlier unfocused work. She kind of blew that good will with the no-sell, though. As much of a Toyota defender as I am, and as much as I feel that she's a scapegoat for people who simply don't like Joshi, that no-sell of the piledrivers was inexcusable. If there was one saving grace for the no-sell it was that they quickly moved to the finishing stretch, which was nicely balanced and didn't go overboard with the moves or nearfalls. This was often touted as a match where Hokuto reels in Toyota's annoying tendencies, which I think is a bullshit read even with the indefensible no sell (not to mention the fact that Hokuto has annoying tendencies of her own.) The match is more focused (if you want to call it that) because of their past history. If you take away their Japan Grand Prix history this is just another good Toyota match, and contrary to popular opinion there are many good Toyota matches. Judging by some of the other comments about Hokuto, it seems that the yearbooks being released out of order and not showing the full picture makes Hokuto's Dangerous Queen narrative seem less impressive than it was, or maybe her hard luck story doesn't translate well these days.

Anybody who turned professional in England in the late 70s to early 80s. Had they been born earlier they could have ended a 20 or 30 year career on television.

Pirata Morgan vs. El Dandy (Hair vs. Hair) (9/23/88) This was the semi-main of EMLL's 55th Anniversary Show, the main event being Mogur vs. Máscara Año 2000. Please note that the Anniversary card listed on Wikipedia and Pro Wrestling History is incorrect and includes title matches that took place on the following week's show. The correct card is listed here -- http://www.thecubsfan.com/cmll/events/shows/00031000/00031497.php These 1988 Anniversary show matches were released on "Viva Lucha Libre II", a Japan only VHS tape that was produced toward the end of the bubble era when hardcore interest in wrestling was strong. Thanks to the efforts of Jose Fernandez a copy of the tape was located and eventually converted to DVD. To the best of my knowledge, there wasn't a tremendous amount of back story to this fight. We have a record of a trios match on the 9/16 Arena Mexico show between Los Bucaneros (Morgan, Bala and Verdugo) vs. Dandy, Cachorro Mendoza and Ringo Mendoza, and it's safe to assume there were other matches in the build up to the event. However, it's worth noting that although the Anniversary Show is traditionally EMLL's biggest show of the year, the degree to which they stack the card varies from year to year. The booking during this era was so fluid that they could run a title match or apuesta bout with little to no build. An abundance of talent meant that a week out from the Anniversary Show the 9/16 show was headlined by a Gran Cochisse vs. Blue Panther and Satanico vs. Texano double billing, while a week later the 9/30 show was led by Bestia vs. Santo and Lizmark vs. Fabuloso Blondy. The latter two match-ups were featured in trios matches on the Anniversary Show, yet the promotion didn't even take a week to pause. There's no real evidence therefore that this was a particularly important or historic Anniversary Show, or one that was pushed as hard as previous years. And as ever with lucha, it would be ill-advised to assume that Pirata vs. Dandy was a perfected booked feud. The best case scenario is that they had some cool trios matches in the lead in. What we can make a case for is that this was Dandy's breakout year as a singles performer. His push as we see it here really began in the summer of '87 when he defeated Kung Fu for the NWA World Middleweight Title. He dropped it back to Kung Fu a few months later, but from '88 he was programmed in a feud with Satanico that saw him eventually take the National Middleweight title from Lopez while trading hair losses. Dandy was in no less than five hair matches during 1988 with his only loss coming in the return match against Satanico. Morgan was also at the height of his powers here arguably as a worker and a singles draw. He was back at Arena Mexico two days later unsuccessfully challenging Enrique Vera for his UWA World Junior Heavyweight Title, but his day in the sun would come the following year when he dethroned Satanico for the NWA World Light Heavyweight Championship and became embroiled in a memorable feud with Los Brazos, which we'll see later in the set.

This was always one of my favourite Toyota matches. If you're not a Toyota fan then there's not much appeal, and even if you like Joshi it's not really a great match per se, but what I like about it is the competitiveness. In most inter-promotional matches, Toyota would play the Queen Bee while the other girl was a second class citizen. Here she treated Fukuoka as though she were an All Japan girl. It wasn't until deep in the stretch run that she really took over, but even there Fukuoka earned a fair amount of cred for kicking out. I've mentioned before how much I enjoy these smaller league matches compared to a lot of Toyota's more high profile work. This one was like vs. like, which is seldom the best recipe for a match, so it wasn't quite the match-up that say Toyota vs. Ito was. It covered a lot of ground that I've been seeing on a daily basis from Toyota (same spots, same sequences), but again Toyota could have brushed Fukuoka off and no-one would have bat an eyelid. Hikari didn't really have the experience or confidence to stamp her mark on the bout, and the subtext of her being more than just a Toyota clone should have been more overt, but I liked this a lot. There may have been some sloppiness and dropped selling, but I don't get too hung up on those things.

Her Toyota-ness descends upon JWP for this Special Challenge match at Sumo Hall. This was entirely predictable in terms of how the hierarchical difference played out, but it was still a good performance from both women. Toyota pinched both Takako Inoue and Mima Shimoda's heel acts a bit too liberally for my liking, but she gave Kuzumi a real eye-opener in terms of what she (Kuzumi) was lacking. Kuzumi's selling was good, and she made the most of her comebacks when they came, but there was a marked difference in intensity and in the way Toyota was able to carry and project herself. Manami had the confidence to play to the crowd without worrying what her next move would be and was basically streets ahead of where Kuzumi was at. That's not to say that Kuzumi should have disappointed in her performance. She did about as well as expected and would become a great worker in her own right during the freelance era. After watching Toyota go through her own "head down, bum up" phase in 1990-91, it was fascinating watching the poised performer she'd become only a few years later. I'm not sure if Joshi workers mature faster than men, or if it's because their careers would burn faster under the old retirement rule, but the daily grind of the old system sure got them up to speed in a hurry.

I don't think that's what people mean by a top worker. "Top" means top handful in this case.