Talk about it here.

Aja doing a double high-cross body on Toyota & Yamada was great. Toyota feels like a battery-operated wrestler that was left on by accident, between the constant screaming and need to continuously do wrestling moves without stopping. The finish is nice, as Toyota and Yamada turn Yoshinaga outside in from the middle rope in a belly-to-back suplex position, then Toyota does a suplex into a bridge to get the pin. This is good, but too short to get to the next level.

Not really sure why this match made the cut. It's fine but there's lots of Zenjo better, and something like Debbie vs. Terri 2/28 is more interesting and notable. The double high-cross was a frequent Aja spot, btw.

Eh, didn't do much for me, the top rope reverse suplex thing was near death for Bat.

Not really sure why this match made the cut.

Heh, same thought as I don't ever recall this ever being a highly praised match or anything of much historical significance.

 

Weird pick in a year whear so much great stuff ended up not making it on.

Did they do the double/flipping backdrop suplerplex much after nearly killing Hotta on 2/28, by the way?

I take responsibility for this. Ditch said toss it and it never got tossed. I put it on in the "pie in the sky" pre-editing phase because PUNQ gave it ***1/2. It should have come off and didn't.

Irrespective of how good or bad she may be, Toyota might be the most irritating wrestler ever based on the fact she just will not fucking shut up. I've never seen Yoshinaga before, but she struck me as a sort of Aja-lite, which I'm not really opposed to. Aja was a lot of fun here, I though; just bulldozing people, accidentally backfisting the shit out of her own partner, stopping a pair of Duracell bunnies by flattening them, etc.

Does Toyota really scream that much more than anyone else? Did she even scream as much as Shimoda? Maybe I'm just acclimatised to it, or something, but I hardly notice it. The number of girls who weren't constantly making noise is much less than those who were.

Toyota screaming is the most overstated fact ever at this point. And yes, most joshi wrestlers screamed a lot.

I haven't really seen a whole lot of joshi compared to most around here, so I don't know if she screams way more than anybody else (all the joshi I have seen has been full of screaming, though), but she was really channeling Maria Sharapova with the volume turned all the way up in this. First time she gets in she's running around screaming non-stop as if she's deliberately trying to be a parody of a screamy joshi wrestler.

 

Not criticizing her as a wrestler/worker because of the screaming (I usually stay out of most joshi conversations, especially when it comes to Toyota, because I honestly don't feel "qualified" enough to say anything worthwhile on it); it's just something that was almost jarring here, especially since more often than not now I just accept the screaming in joshi as background noise and manage pretty well not to pay attention.

Toyota is probably of one the "screamiest" joshi worker out there, but that's really part of the style. Plus it fit her über-energetic character. I can understand it might be annoying to some though, but after a while you just get used to it.

Finally got around to watching this.

Like Loss said, good match only hurt by the length, in full this is 22:30 but they cut it down to about 9:00 for tv.

Any time Toyota/Yamada were opposite Aja or Bat in tags it was always gold though. Toyota & Bat especially always had surprisingly great chemistry.

 

I've never seen Yoshinaga before, but she struck me as a sort of Aja-lite, which I'm not really opposed to.

Bat was more of a mini Hotta then Aja lite. A little more energetic and with less annoying habits

 

Oh, actualy date for this match is 2/10 btw, 2/16 is just the air date.

I was very surprised there was a 1993 AJW match included that I hadn't seen. OK so it's a forgettable TV main event that got included by accident, but I don't mind.

I didn't mind this either. First time seeing Bat--she's feisty and stiff and takes some bumps but she also looks like a middle-aged elementary school teacher. I can't say that she has 1/4 of Bison Kimura's presence, even if I never saw Bison as any kind of elite worker. Toyota and Yamada seem like the best tag team in the world at this point, as they work pretty seamlessly with each other and their opponents. I'm 3+ Yearbooks in and had only seen a smidgen of joshi before that, but I didn't notice any unusual amounts of screaming here.

Scroll on bottom is already promoting Dream Slam, which is cool. Bat looks in over her head, but quickly tags Aja to control Yamada for a while. Toyota & Yamada finish this with a a gross backdrop suplex off the top on Bat, then an Ocean Suplex for the pin. Surprisingly quick. From the comments above it sounds like Toyota may not objectively scream more than some others. But for some reason it really stands out with her. Definitely grating.

 

***

This was good but ultimately inconsequential. However, it felt like a good baseline for joshi for the year much like the All Japan six man from January. Yamada and Toyota as a team is one I always enjoy seeing working together as they bring out the best qualities in each other. ***

I thought this was very good. I didn't know until reading the thread that this was a TV edit because it was so seamlessly done. At any rate, they must have cur out all the meandering, because what was left was what a joshi sprint should be: great action, but not so much that it gets confusing, with none of the noticeable "I've just been beaten to death for twenty minutes, but forget that because it's my turn on offense" routine that we tend to get in longer joshi matches.

 

I don't remember seeing Bat before (though I may very well have), but she fit in well here. Hats off to her for taking that double facebuster superplex from Toyota and Yamada like a true professional. Wow, did that look brutal.

 

This wasn't Aja's best night by a longshot, as both of her big weapons (the spinning backfist and the trash can from the second turnbuckle) backfired on her in the same bout. I'm surprised that they chose to book their ace that way, even in in an inconsequential TV main event.

 

I've noticed that a lot of Japanese female wrestlers scream, but no more so than the guys, though the girls do tend to be louder. At least they have a reason to scream; if you want inconsequential screaming, check out a match involving Moolah's girls and any move that's not a hairpull (and even those are oversold).