Posted January 23, 201411 yr comment_5581591 At least one of these threads was supposed to look like this: May 1989 TV: Marine Wolves sing Akira Hokuto will not make you forget Pat Benetar. Then we get a brief handheld clip of...something. I'm not gonna pretend I know what's going on. AJW Tag Team titles: Miori Kamiya & Reibun Amada vs. Dream Orca Interesting match. I've never seen Kamiya or Amada before, and I thought they did well here. They appear to have a beef with Toshiyo Yamada, and it's weird to watch Toshiyo Yamada spend an entire match getting the shit kicked out of her. Even when she manages to tag out to Mita, Kamiya and Amada just force her out and drag Yamada back in when they take over. This probably needed more of a Dream Orca comeback at the end to get a nomination, although the super amateur-style belly-to-belly by Yamada was a pretty cool finish, and the post-match slapfight was good, too. Hey, it's another clip of that match from earlier...and there it goes again. May 14, 1989 TV: Training drills So the AJW dojo is a scenic woodland lodge the likes of which my family would take it's summer vacation at? OK. I guess it's also the kind of woodland lodge that you'd shoot a slasher movie at, so it's balanced out. Really horrifying moment where the girls are doing and exercise involving lifting up another girl sitting on your shoulders. The jackass reporter decides to get in on the action, sitting on one of the girls' shoulders, but when she stands up, he doesn't know how to balance, and ends up dropping his ass onto her head, which is smacked into the floor. She's fine, except for the fact that she's a trainee at a Japanese wrestling dojo. And it's this match again. It's like it's some sort of weird framing device for the DVD. Itsuki Yamazaki (& Noriyo Tateno) interview and career retrospective Yamazaki is retiring, and they talk over some of her career highlights. Then Lioness Asuka shows up in a plaid sport coat, because I guess the lesbian undertones of the Crush Gals were too subtle at that point. 5 minute exhibition: Itsuki Yamazaki vs. Noriyo Tateno ("Battle of the JB Angels") Itsuki Yamazaki retirement ceremony JB Angels sing Match is a spirited little affair, and enjoyable while it lasts. The ceremony itself is simple but effective, and then Yamazaki and Tateno put on giant clown overalls and sing their terrible, terrible song together one last time. A fitting send off for Yamazaki, and the whole thing seems like a reasonable candidate for extra-dom. And there it is again. What is going on here...oh, hey, it's over! And...another one starts up. And it cuts out before they even finish the ring introductions. I genuinely do not get the point of scattering bits and pieces of a random match throughout the tape like this, but whatever. WWWA Title: Lioness Asuka vs. Bull Nakano Considering their frames, I think Bull is actually slimmer than Lioness at this point, and she's accompanied to the ring by borderline-svelte Aja Kong, for bonus points. Totally nutbar little match where Bull kills Lioness with a bunch of foreign objects, including dismantling the ring to hit her with a turnbuckle hook. She throws agiant metal trunk at her head and goes for the pin, but the referee refuses to count it, so she throws it at his head and gets DQ'd. Then she and her goons steal the belt, and she parades around with it for a while before making off with it. Slam dunk extra. June 1989 TV: X sing AJW Tag Team titles: Dream Orca vs. Tokyo Sweethearts Mostly harmless, but really kinda pedestrian. Mimia Shimoda's forward roll into a headbutt looked really stupid. We get the introductions for a fancam of Harley Saito vs. a black woman I don't recognize with Gran Hamada as the ref. And the circle continues.... Lioness Asuka & Yumi Ogura vs. Madusa Miceli & Noriyo Tateno Weird match with good action but an odd, choppy pace. Tateno worked a blistering pace and Lioness and Madusa clobbered people, but this never built to anything and had a really abrupt ending after not too long. I'll say this, the snippet of Saito vs. mystery black lady is at least good, which is more than I can say for the last match they strung throughout the tape. MBL has lome mean-looking clubbering forearms and generally comes off like Kamala with even jigglier breasts. Knowing pro wrestling, I can only assume she worked that exact gimmick at some point. Mima Shimoda & Manami Toyota visit the Ringstar Harajuku Castle (AJW shop) Tokyo Sweethearts show off 80's AJW's mad merchandising skillz, then some other people show up, and there's a birthday party and karaoke. Of course. I do come away from these clips wanting to see more of Mystery Black Lady, but I still have no idea what the point of this is. Bull Nakano vs. Mitsuko Nishiwaki Decent enough story with Nishiwaki getting mauled early only to come back and almost win before Bull put her away with a swank bridging exploder. Nice offense throughout, but also some dumb shit like Nishiwaki whiffing on an enzuigiri, and Bull just standing around waiting for her to do it again. Then she does it five or six more times before Bull sells it, because I guess her hairspray is like armor plating or something. WWWA Tag Team titles: Marine Wolves vs. Nobuko Kimura & Kumiko Iwamoto (2/3) Not very good. The heels are acceptable brawlers but lack the gusto of Dump's Army. Marine Wolves are frustrating. Hokuto has her moments, but both she and Minami have some awkward patches, and the finish is really badly botched, with Hokuto doing a dragon suplex but failing to get her opponent over and just dropping her right on top of her, and then lamely pulling her off onto her shoulders for the pin. Blech. Between the first and second fall, Saito defeats MBL in a less dopey fashion.
