Jabroniville

WWF Survivor Series Showdown 1990 (all Dream Matches!)

January 20, 2021 by Jabroniville

God I rented this so many friggin’ times from First Choice Video in my hometown.

SURVIVOR SERIES SHOWDOWN 1990:
(Nov. 18 1990- taped Oct. 29)
* And here’s another selection of unusual matches from a “Pre-Show”. This is for the Survivor Series, and is the same kind of show as the last one- each match takes a random guy from both sides and makes them fight. It creates some interesting one-off matches.

SGT. SLAUGHTER (w/ General Adnan) vs. TITO SANTANA:
* Slaughter, now a heel who admires Saddam Hussein in a sad attempt at recapturing the “Evil Foreigner” dynamic with an enemy country, is to lead the Mercenaries (Boris Zhukov & The Orient Express) in a pathetic match against Tito Santana’s Allies (Nikolai Volkoff & The Bushwhackers). Slaughter’s in his “Military Fatigue” shirt with a black singlet over it, while Tito’s, infamously, STILL IN THE STRIKE FORCE TRUNKS. Though was the lil’ sombrero always on there?

Joshi Spotlight: AJW TV (Feb. 27- Manami/Yamada vs. Aja/Sakie)

January 18, 2021 by Jabroniville

AJW TV (Feb. 27th, 1994):
* Here’s another AJW TV show, though I could only find two matches from it, making this a shorter review. One match missing off of what was taped is Bull Nakano beating Etsuko Mita- another thing is Numacchi’s retirement. So Saemi Numata had been jobbing throughout most of 1993 and engaging in some pretty horrible matches (and one miraculously “pretty good” match by Mayumi Ozaki), including jobbing big-time to both Akira Hokuto & Reggie Bennett, losing in 10 seconds and 3 minutes, respectively (in a promotion where it can take ten minutes to kill off a rookie). Her last bunch of bouts were in Oct. 1993, and one match in Jan. 1994, so I dunno what happened. Either injures or “you know what? There’s no future as a comedy jobber in AJW” and she was done. A few years later we’d get Tanny Mouse in a similar role.

Other, unaired matches: Chikako Shiratori & Kumiko Maekawa d. Rie Tamada & Tomoko Watanabe (that’s kind of a shocker- Tomoko way outranks everyone), and Suzuka Minami d. Mima Shimoda.

YUMIKO HOTTA & TAKAKO INOUE vs. KYOKO INOUE & KAORU ITO:

Joshi Spotlight: VIOLENCE WAR- Las Cachorras vs. The U*Tops (Steel Cage Deathmatch)

January 15, 2021 by Jabroniville

This one comes to us via Blog poster Evito-X-Puro, who, upon realizing that the full match was not uploaded anywhere online, posted the full version to their YouTube channel! So bask in the glory as LCO go completely insane in the match that made them semi-legendary to tape traders.

VIOLENCE WAR:
STEEL CAGE MATCH (Escape Rules):
LAS CACHORRAS ORIENTALES vs. THE U*TOPS:
(Wrestlemarinepiad 1997- 21.09.1997):
* This and the Aja/Kyoko brawl from the same year are probably the most famous matches LCO ever had- legendary brawls in the annals of Joshi. 1997 is a much different time for all four of these women- LCO (Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda) have been upgraded to Main Eventers, but only as a duo, thanks to their own greatness, and Shimoda’s multiple WWWA Tag Title reigns with other wrestlers. It’s really fun seeing Main Event LCO versus the “midcarders rising up” LCO of 93-95. Much more deliberate, and more confident- Mita always seemed like she had something to prove in 1993, but by ’97, she acted like she’d already proven it. And being so devoted to cheating that they have their own specially-made steel chairs is a master-stroke. They’re wearing reverse-colored versions of each other’s gear- two-piece outfits in purple & white.

Demolition vs. The Rockers (and other Dream Matches!)

January 13, 2021 by Jabroniville

Found this on Pinterest. It’s glorious.

Time for more Dream Matches- this time centered by an SNME match between Demolition & The Rockers! Also, a REMATCH to the classic Jim Powers/Bobby Walker vs. Renegade/Joe Gomez match I showed you last week… PLUS the legendary explosion of that very same Renegade/Gomez team! And then not one, but TWO High Voltage solo matches, as Rage & Kaos face Fit Finlay & Perry Saturn, respectively! And then we cap things off with a Papa Shango vs. Typhoon match, long after either man was relevant! I couldn’t have booked a better match myself!

DEMOLITION (Smash & Crush, w/ Ax) vs. THE ROCKERS (Shawn Michaels & Marty Jannetty):
(Saturday Night’s Main Event, July 27 1990)
* This is the prelude to SummerSlam, with the Demos now as heels. The Rockers are in bright yellow, and gaining credibility at this point.

Joshi Spotlight: Harley Saito

January 11, 2021January 11, 2021 by Jabroniville

Harley Saito in one of her most memorable spots- going all “A FELLOW ‘CHUCKER, EH?” on Bull Nakano.

JOSHI SPOTLIGHT- HARLEY SAITO:
Real Name: Sayori Saito (aka Halley Saito, Harley Saito, Karula)
Billed Height & Weight: 5’5″ 148 lbs. (though she seems MUCH shorter than that- dwarfed by the 5’8″ Suzuka Minami)
Career: 1986-2012

-And now for a bio on one of the unsung workers of the ’90s Boom of Joshi- the late Harley Saito!

Harley is somewhat notable for the fact that her wrestling style was INCREDIBLY similar to that of Sean “1-2-3 Kid” Waltman, sharing his rapid-fire kicks (including the “multiple kicks then a jumping spinkick” in the corner) and many other moves. Like, it was seriously a Dynamite Kid/Chris Benoit-like “wait a second” kind of similarity, here. I have no idea if Waltman ever saw Harley’s stuff, but it’s uncanny. Her style is a modification of what I’ve heard called the “UWF Style”- the martial arts-themed theatrical kicks and submissions, but done way more rapid-fire, as the diminutive Saito didn’t have the hitting power of say, Dynamite Kansai or Yumiko Hotta. This leads to a lot of high-workrate matches as she could fly around like the acrobats of joshi, too.

Joshi Spotlight: Miori “Cooga” Kamiya

January 8, 2021 by Jabroniville

… What? Sometimes, you just want to write the bio for a completely mediocre star! They can be just as informative as those for the GOOD wrestlers!

JOSHI SPOTLIGHT- MIORI “COOGA” KAMIYA:
Real Name: Miori Kamiya (aka Lady Cooga, Cooga, “Cougar”- see below)
Billed Height & Weight: 5’5″ 143 lbs.
Career: 1986-1992, 1996-2000

-It’s a testament to the training skill of Jaguar Yokota, and the preposterous level of talent All Japan Women’s Puroresu had in the Class of 1986, when the WORST person in their class of six was Miori Kamiya. I mean, the next shittiest worker in that group is either Combat Toyoda or Kaoru Maeda!

Yokozuna vs. Mabel (and other Dream Matches)

January 6, 2021 by Jabroniville

Note: Not from the below match. Yes they ran this more than once.

It’s time for more Dream Matches- starting with the ultimate in obesity, as 1,000+ lbs. of humanity collide in a singles match! Also some major “Wait, that really happened?” stuff, with Balls Mahoney as an EVIL SANTA, Diesel fighting goddamn TYPHOON, and Jim Powers WINNING A MATCH. And an all-time tag team dream bout, as High Voltage take on the Beverly Brothers! As WCW jobbers! oh, plus more Joe Gomez goodness, and “HARD WORK” Bobby Walker makes his “Dream Matches” debut!

As always, everything here can be found via YouTube, but can’t be posted here.

YOKOZUNA (w/ Jim Cornette & Mr. Fuji) vs. MABEL (w/ Oscar):
(WWF Action Zone, 1994)
* HELL YES, an even BIGGER Fat Man Stand-Off! Absolutely glorious! Mabel’s in mostly purple with some gold writing.

Joshi Spotlight- AJW TV (Feb. 18- Toyota/Yamada vs. Kyoko/Hotta)

January 4, 2021 by Jabroniville

AJW TV (Feb. 18th 1994):
* Weirdly, I somehow nearly missed this one entirely. A random check of Grand Prix matches from the summer somehow showed U-Channel’s two February AJW shows uploaded. I mean, I normally work a bit ahead, and this BARELY made it on time. I normally search names in English & Japanese, so I shouldn’t have missed this quite so badly. But in any case, here’s a pair of TV shows with likely some fairly edited shows.

ETSUKO MITA, TOMOKO WATANABE & RIE TAMADA vs. SUZUKA MINAMI, CHIKAKO SHIRATORI & KUMIKO MAEKAWA:
* It’s a combination of Giant, Rookie & Bottom-Tier Wrestler, though Tomoko way outranks Chikako at this point, so Minami’s practically fighting by herself. Rie’s in white & red, Tomoko’s in green & blue, Mita’s in black, Minami’s in red & black, Chikako’s in blue & white and Kumiko’s in the jobberiest blue swimsuit ever.

Joshi Spotlight: JWP in 1993 (Part 2)

January 4, 2021January 1, 2021 by Jabroniville

JWP in 1993:
* Happy New Year! Here’s the second half of my look at the JWP stuff from 1992-93 in Rico Kasi’s YouTube videos! Time to see what JWP was up to in the second half of ’93, when left to their own devices! This features a lot of matches between their top stars, plus a couple of Dream Matches of a sort when a pair of construction worker gimmicks show up from AJW for some matches. One of them features proof that Mayumi Ozaki may be the greatest carry artist of all time- going nineteen minutes with NUMACCHI.

CUTIE SUZUKI vs. HIKARI FUKUOKA:
* The Battle of the Idols! Hikari’s slowly moving up, but this is a rare opportunity to see Cutie in the role as “experienced elder”. Cutie’s in white with some black bits, while Hikari’s in her goofy pink cone-bra gear.

Joe Gomez & The Renegade vs. High Voltage (and other Dream Matches)

December 30, 2020 by Jabroniville

Gomezamania runs wild!

And we’re back with more of the best Dream Matches imaginable- headlined by the legendary Desperado himself, Joe Gomez, teaming with “Plain Old Rick” against WCW’s roidiest, midcardiest Power Plant graduates. Also, we’ll get the British Bulldogs in a standard tag match against the Fantastics from All Japan, plus a FAT MAN STAND-OFF between Mabel & Bam Bam Bigelow! Oh yeah, and one of those bizarre jobber matches where CHONO & MUTA take on goobers like El Dandy and Damian. Can the luchadores win? I doubt it.

Joshi Spotlight: JWP From 1992-93 (Part One)

December 28, 2020 by Jabroniville

JWP SHOWS (1992-1993):

-So a while back, I discovered a YouTube channel called “Rico Kasai”, which uploads exclusively JWP-produced matches. And finally, after a LOT of work (seriously, oh my god), I cross-referenced all his un-dated stuff so I can figure out an approximate order, lol. Pain in the ass, that was. It turns out a bunch of them were from 1992-93, so this allows me to complete the library a little more. This will be in two parts, with the second coming this Friday- it’s too much to post all at once.

First, a bunch of ultra-clipped matches showing only a minute or two of action. None really deserve ratings.

DEVIL MASAMI vs. MAYUMI OZAKI
(1991 sometime)
-Devil, in a black one-legged outfit, charges Ozaki (in green), but misses and gets missile kicked. She tries a Manami Roll but gets a HUGE Powerbomb, but just rolls Devil back for a rana-style pin for two, then Devil rolls her back for the same. Devil works her way into a surfboard, but Ozaki does a cool flip into a pin from up high. Clipped to Ozaki getting a German for two, but she fires too many running shots and gets caught in a backdrop-to-Powerbomb move at (2:08 of 14:39 shown).

WWF Dream Matches (SummerSlam Fest 1990)

December 23, 2020 by Jabroniville

WWF SUMMERSLAM FEVER 1990:
(1990)

* These “preview shows” for PPVs are always a great source for little-seen matches. In this one, we’re a week away from SummerSlam, we have our prelude show in Utica, New York (what kind of a place doesn’t know the expression “steamed hams”?), featuring a handful of big name vs. name matches- Earthquake vs. Hacksaw! Smash vs. Neidhart! Mr. Perfect against Ronnie Garvin! And most importantly, THE BOLSHEVIKS EXPLODE!

Joshi Spotlight: AJW Champion Legend 1994

December 26, 2020December 21, 2020 by Jabroniville

AJW OTA-WARD CHAMPION LEGEND 1994:
(01.24.1994)

* And now, with 1993 complete in my Joshi runthrough, here’s the first big event of 1994- the Ota-Ward (I assume that’s a region, since the arena’s called “Tokyo Ota-ku Taiikukan”) Champion Legend show, headlined by Aja Kong defending her WWWA World TItle against AJW’s toughest wrestler, Yumiko Hotta, in a super-disgusting fucking match that involves a BLOODY HAND. And also Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada defend the World Tag Titles against LCO! Read on!!

“TL;DR- Why Should I Care?”: This is an unsung candidate for “best short show ever”, as it’s three ****+ matches in a row- the shittiest match on this card is ****1/4. Aja/Hotta is also a must-see in terms of brutality, and this is LCO’s first TRULY awesome tag match in a long, legendary career full of them.

The British Bulldogs vs. The Fantastics (and other Dream Matches!)

December 16, 2020 by Jabroniville

So if you’re anything like me, you get up every once in a while and go “I really feel like watching a bunch of High Voltage matches!”. I could make a whole column out of that, but aaaaahhhhh here’s a rarity from All Japan, featuring a WWF-era tag team and a Southern Wrasslin’-era tag team in a rare Dream Match! Then you can see High Voltage take on such luminaries as Scott Norton, the Villanos, and Ice Train! Also, see Ted DiBiase wind down his solo career as Sid Justice enters the WWF!

As always, WWE-owned matches are non-kosher to post on the Blog.

TSUYOSHI KIKUCHI & THE BRITISH BULLDOGS (Davey-Boy Smith & Dynamite Kid) vs. MASANOBU FUCHI & THE FANTASTICS (Bobby Fulton & Tommy Rogers):

Joshi Spotlight: AJW TV (Jan. 16th 1994)

December 16, 2020December 14, 2020 by Jabroniville

AJW TV (Jan. 1994):
* And welcome to AJW in 1994! After several months of working on 1993’s shows, it’s fun to see a whole new “era”, as all the major story-arcs have ended and the feuds run their course- Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada have finally unseated JWP’s Ozaki & Kansai for the WWWA Tag Titles, and Akira Hokuto has given her win back to LLPW’s Shinobu Kandori. As a result, they’re gonna have to find all-new angles and feuds- 1994 has a handful less tapes available than 1993 did (especially if you count the Legendary Goddess ones), but builds to the biggest joshi show of all time by the end of the year- Big Egg Wrestling Universe.

This show is about an hour and a half, and covers the 1993 AJW Awards Party, as well as having four unique matches on it.

“TL;DR- Why Should I Care?”: It’s a pretty interesting show in terms of bouts you rarely see- a rare Aja solo bout to build her up for Hotta’s Title shot in a week, LCO against a thrown-together team, and the Tag Champs facing the future Double Inoue!

Dream Matches: WWF Survivor Series Showdown 1989

December 10, 2020December 9, 2020 by Jabroniville

WWF SURVIVOR SERIES SHOWDOWN 1989:
(Nov. 12, 1989)
* So this is largely a card of JUST Dream Matches, and I Bayless already covered this ages ago, but whatever- these cards fascinate me. I guess they were on the USA Network and were used as hype shows for the Survivor Series, mixing up the guys in the matches against each other. So we’re in the post-WrestleMania V era, with “Macho King” being slid down to an “Upper Midcard” position, Hogan as Champion again with Zeus as an arch-enemy, and more. And this YouTube video includes the COMMERCIALS, complete with advertising. Hm, Dyanetics or video games made by Acclaim- which is more evil to advertise to children?

Gorilla Monsoon, Bobby Heenan & Roddy Piper are our hosts, and Monsoon actually lays it out- every team member would put their names into a hat, drawing names out until one one guy remained- those guys would fight each other. This is why it looks so “random” (ie. big stars are fighting tag team wrestlers so that they can win while not hurting anyone’s push).

Joshi Spotlight: Jaguar Yokota

December 7, 2020 by Jabroniville

Jaguar’s theme song is EPIC.

JOSHI SPOTLIGHT- JAGUAR YOKOTA:
Real Name: Rimi Yokota (aka Jaguar Y)
Billed Height & Weight: 5’3″ 128 lbs.
Career Length: 1977-1986, 1995-1998, 2004-today (rarely-wrestling freelancer)
Trainees: Manami Toyota, Aja Kong, Megumi Kudo, Etsuko Mita, Mima Shimoda, Kyoko Inoue, Toshiyo Yamada, Takako Inoue, Bison Kimura, Miori Kamiya, Combat Toyoda, Kaoru Maeda

Bob Backlund, Jimmy Snuka & Mil Mascaras vs. Hector Garza & The Eliminators (and other Dream Matches)!

December 2, 2020 by Jabroniville

This week, we look at some truly bizarre one-off matches. The first is another “When You Hit Random in FirePro” match between washed-up WWF & Lucha guys, plus a rookie Luchadore and an ECW tag team. Then it’s the British Bulldogs in their forgotten All Japan run against a future legendary tag team. Then… did you know there was a THIRD Islander? And he fought future WWF superstar Steve Blackman back when he was a WWF jobber in 1987? True story! Also watch the Hardy Boyz job to the most 1996 of tag teams!

BOB BACKLUND, JIMMY SNUKA & MIL MASCARAS vs. HECTOR GARZA & THE ELIMINATORS (Perry Saturn & John Kronus):
(Wrestle Association R- I mean, who else?- 07.07.1995)
* Maffew alerted me to this one: here comes another one of my favorite things- completely insane matches of unrelated guys! So here we see the WWF’s Ace of the 1970s & early ’80s teaming with megastar high-flyer Snuka and Mexican legend Mil Mascaras, up against then-newbie Hector Garza… and ECW’s Eliminators, the embodiment of “We got some Japan comps, so…”. Garza was briefly in both WWF AND WCW, but failed in both before becoming successful as a Handsome Dad Wrestler in Mexico, but sadly died of lung cancer in 2013. Here he is clean-shaven and with bad hair. Saturn had hair at this point, and John Kronus was still relevant- he faded away from the biz QUICKLY and never returned. But the Eliminators have facepaint and reverse-colored gear that looks like powder-blue & black garters over long tights. Adding to the fun here is that the veteran team is preposterously washed-up. Like, you think CHRIS JERICHO is past his prime these days? Anyone who saw Snuka wrestle after 1989 will have WORDS with you, young man! But man, their theme is amazing- I love it.

Joshi Spotlight: AJW St. Battle Day 1992

November 30, 2020 by Jabroniville

ST. BATTLE DAY:
(20.03.1992)
* This is actually a bit of a throwback (since I just finished going through all of 1993), as I initially couldn’t find the full show on YouTube. Maffew uploaded it as “Indie Uploader”, but he was banned for copywrite violations, but someone else was good enough to upload it when I bemoaned that fact. So here we are! Finally!

“TL;DR- Why Should I Care?”: One of the better tag matches of the year and a truly important title-change… and one of the worst AJW tag matches ever- a smorgasbord for Botchamania! Watch what happens when technical wrestlers try lucha!

Joshi Spotlight: Joshi in 1993

November 26, 2020November 26, 2020 by Jabroniville

Akira Hokuto: Tape traders used to sell a collection of JUST her 1993 matches! Find out why!

JOSHI IN 1993:

And now I’ve finally reached the end of 1993 in my reviews, so I can do a “Year in Review” post. Here’s my review of 1992: https://blogofdoom.com/index.php/2020/04/24/joshi-spotlight-joshi-in-1992/