My First Trip to Japan and Joshi Puroresu
As the third portion on this series, I wanted to talk more about the actual purpose of my trip where I had attended mostly Japanese women’s pro-wrestling shows and my experiences out there. It was a little hard to track down some of these shows mostly because there were a few that completely went over my head. Also, I had to go back and look closer at what I saw because I ended up mixing up my timelines with another trip I would take 5 months down the line. I will say that the shows I was able to see probably were the last of the really great women’s pro-wrestling matches and shows from Japan.
I am going to come off bias about the wrestling back then because the modern stuff has evolved into this unwatchable entity for me. I think after seeing various people in person get injured and some tragedies, I mostly have been turned off by what we’re seeing now. Back then, it was still pretty harsh for the wrestlers but I think the style had a little more credence and was less dangerous than what is presented these days.
JWP 11/29/1999 Korakuen Hall
I mentioned this was the first show I attended out there. The attendance was reported to be around 1100 but I have my doubts. At this stage, JWP was barely on a lifeline and both Devil Masami and Dynamite Kansai were about to jump ship to GAEA. The one star that they were going to transition to in Hikari Fukuoka had retired and the next batch of four weren’t really ready to take the spotlight. I think Mayumi Ozaki had gone freelance and mostly worked in GAEA as one of the chief antagonist to Chigusa Nagayo while focusing on her part time Oz Academy promotion, which did occasionally feature Carlos Amano from JWP. By this point for Ozaki, I think she probably had gotten fed up with JWP’s management and distraught a while back over Plum Mariko’s passing.
From my memory, the show was not remarkable at all except for the one incident of poor Kana Mizaki getting injured. A run down of the card:
- Kayoko Haruyama defeats Kaori Yoneyama – This was the first for me to hear about Yoneyama. I do recall her having spunk and energy but she was small and hard to take serious as a future star. I think later on she did some really goofy gimmick which just put me off to her completely. Haruyama was another person who seemed like an average person that showed up.
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Carlos Amano defeats Chihiro Nakano – I can’t remember Nakano at all and I doubt most people will. Same with this match. Carlos was a decent worker at that time but she seemed small and in the scheme of things unremarkable.
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Devil Masami & Marcela defeat Acute Sae & Azumi Hyuga – Devil was already way past her expiration date and would eventually join up in GAEA. I have no idea whom Marcela is and barely recall Sae. Azumi Hyuga should’ve been a top star in a few years but never really broke out. I think Hikari Fukuoka would’ve been the one to have made her down the line. Also, around the time ARSION formed, there was a rumor of Hikari and Azumi leaving JWP to go work for ARSION. Somehow that got squashed but I think ARSION could’ve faired a little better early on having two more moderate sized names. Hikari probably could’ve been a decent star in ARSION if this had happened and would have had fresh matches against Aja Kong and Mariko Yoshida while Azumi could’ve been a nice rival down the road for Ohmukai and Fukawa if Fukawa hadn’t been injured. Candy Okutsu was already there too so there would’ve been some potential.
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Dynamite Kansai defeats Kana Mizaki – The Dark Side of the (Joshi) Ring starts for me here. What sucks is that the plancha Mizaki performed seemed like a routine dive for a lot of women out there but she just came down hard. That situation was pretty much the start of the end of Mizaki’s in ring career. Since Kansai would eventually show up in GAEA, it makes me wonder if she got mad in the back at the president especially since the crowd here was small and the injury would just shrink their already small roster down further.
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Ran YuYu defeats Command Bolshoi – I think Bolshoi might’ve been champion here. But I never cared for her because she was small and unremarkable with a bad gimmick who overstayed her welcome out of loyalty to the company. Ran YuYu wasn’t bad but again I barely could care since I was probably upset about Mizaki getting injured beforehand.
After the show, I think I might’ve visited the merchandise booths one more time. I don’t know if Kana was still around but I do recall getting a picture with Azumi at some point. Kana seemed slightly more personable between the two. Also, I might’ve taken a picture of Ran YuYu.
After this show, I think there was another Korakuen Hall LLPW show I attended. I can’t find it listed though. But I do recall meeting Takako Inoue there. I had spoken to her on her website’s BBS/chat where occasionally she would show up. I think by this point, she was doing that stupid shock stick gimmick and carrying it around. She seemed nice enough and I know for certain I took a few pictures with her at various points. But I think she was probably used to people like me and more professional overall. The LLPW show itself was like stepping into the Rocky Horror Show for the first time where you had all these bizarre “characters” in the audience. From what I knew, Rumi Kazama had been connected to some underground entertainment business (i.e. pr0n) and I’m guessing these people were fans who’d come to check out her show. There weren’t a lot of people, maybe more than what you’d find at JWP but definitely the crowd was different. After the show, I learned that the wrestlers would go downstairs to the parking lot where fans could greet them, take a picture and maybe an autograph. Shinobu Kandori probably was the company’s biggest star and surprisingly very pleasant and professional where she greeted each fans and thanked them. Note that I wasn’t really into Kandori so I didn’t bother.
It also should be mentioned that there was a Neo Ladies show around this time at Korakuen Hall but I can’t recall if i went or not. When I look at the card now, it doesn’t seem that bad as Double Inoue faced LCO in the main event and I was a fan of Yoshiko Tamura around this time. I just can’t recall going just because I might’ve started getting sick. Since I was interested in meeting the various wrestlers and getting their photos, the main motivation here would’ve been to meet Tamura but I don’t recall if I ever met her in my travels.
AJPW 12/3/1999 Nippon Budokan
I think this was the first time I had been to Budokan. I know I’ve been to at least one AJPW show but maybe this card’s lack of memorable matches made me draw a blank until I re-examined it a few times. On the other hand, Budokan itself is some place I do recall because it was a royal pain to get out of there after the show as well as getting a seat. If memory serves me correctly, I bought tickets for one of the upper floors, which to me as someone with severe acrophobia was incredibly sketchy. There’s no handrails in this old building and somewhat steep steps. So when I was walking down, I had a lot of issues, which was something I frequently encountered in older portions of Japan like at temples.
I vaguely remember getting a terrible hot dog at one of the vendors and being uncomfortable the entire time because they have these tiny seats with little back support. As someone with various back issues, needless to say, this was a terrible experience especially as the show would go for a while. Also, I guess this was the finals of the Real World Tag League and the card felt mostly bland except the main event.
- Masahito Kakihara & Naomichi Marufuji defeat Burning (Kentaro Shiga & Yoshinobu Kanemaru) – I vaguely remember these guys. Marufuji had impressed me before as did Kanemaru but this was an under match.
- Tamon Honda defeats Jun Izumida – Just older veterans filling the card.
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Haruka Eigen, Masanobu Fuchi & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi defeat Makoto Hashi, Mitsuo Momota & Rusher Kimura – More older veterans trying to kill time on this card.
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Gary Albright defeats Masao Inoue – I guess Albright was considered a shooter if memory serves me correctly. I think he was in the UWF at some point. But this wasn’t a good match.
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NO FEAR (Takao Omori & Yoshihiro Takayama) & Takeshi Morishima defeat Johnny Ace, Mike Barton & Wolf Hawkfield – When I read this match, I thought Hawkfield was Bradshaw but that wasn’t the case. Instead, I have no idea about this person. I used to call team NO FEAR, No Beer because they would probably be the two biggest personalities in a company that attempted to take wrestling fairly seriously. Morishima was a big guy and that’s all I can recall. Johnny Ace is a person who has become one of ill repute while Mike Barton is probably better known in the states as Bart Gunn where he teamed with Billy Gunn in the Smoking Guns back in the WWF. Bart ended up getting a shoot type of gimmick after legitimately knocking poor Dr Death Steve Williams out then being kind of blacklisted by the WWF and moving to Japan to continue wrestling where they tried to use that incident to get him over.
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Johnny Smith, Maunakea Mossman & Vader defeat Untouchables (Mitsuharu Misawa & Yoshinari Ogawa) & Satoru Asako – This was the second time I got to see Vader live. The first time was at the wretched Bash at the Beach in ’95 in Huntington Beach where I only have horrible memories because some white asshole was rude to me and my friend’s cousins in typical fascist/racist OC fashion. Vader in ’99 in AJPW was huge though and probably one of the best names AJPW could get after the WWF fucked his career up for the remaining time in America. Mossman is a fellow Hawaiian and a decent worker. Ogawa was like a mini Misawa except nowhere near as talented while Asako was there. Misawa at this stage was becoming near immobile so I think this match was done to help hide that fact.
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Burning (Jun Akiyama & Kenta Kobashi) defeat Akira Taue & Stan Hansen – Possibly, the only time I might’ve seen Hansen live. I think he was getting close to retiring but he was a certified legend at this point in Japan. Taue was Kawada’s partner but I think Kawada injured his elbow earlier in the year after a brutal contest with Misawa where he won the triple crown. It was also the match where the infamous “Gonzo Bomb” accidentally made its debut. Jun was set to become the next breakout star after the so-called 4 Pillars of AJPW had been dominant or so long. As for Kobashi, I’m going to say this publicly. I honestly don’t care for the guy. I know he gets heaps of praise probably because he’s been involved in a lot of high profile matches that got raves from Meltzer, etc. But I think the style that he was doing is partly responsible for modern wrestling as many people had been a fan of his crazy power moves that to me were dangerous, especially as one sees the aftermath of Misawa. Whether he’s a nice guy or not is a bit irrelevant to me just because it’s hard to disassociate all the head droppings he delivered to Misawa (and Misawa stupidly took) without thinking about the consequences.
Needless to say, I wasn’t impressed by this show. Getting out was a nightmare where you had to inch your way out of the place on this rocky ground in a see of people. I think I went again later on with better seats along with Masa Horie where Kenta took on Omori. That was a much better show but I kinda wish in retrospect that Omori had won that night.
AJW 12/5/1999 Korakuen Hall
Now, this show I do remember because it was the first I got the opportunity to meet Manami Toyota and was really ecstatic. But let me go over the card first.
- Ayako Seki vs. Miyuki Fujii – Exhibition match. I hated these because they were to show off trainees and get them exposure to a live crowd. Sadly, these matches came off more realistic than anything you can find from the modern era of pro-wrestling so I have no idea if they were meant to be shoots. I can’t recall a single thing about Seki while Fujii was someone I think they wanted to build up but wouldn’t last long in the business.
- Momoe Nakanishi vs. Nanae Takahashi – Another exhibition match. Both were reasonable at this point and Nakanishi would have her best performance the following year. Not sure why this was an exhibition style match but I honestly didn’t care for either of these two.
- Las Cachorras Orientales (Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda) defeat Miyuki Fujii & Takako Inoue – First time seeing LCO in action so I was pretty hyped up. Typical LCO style match at this stage of their career with them going into the crowd, hurling chairs, tossing their opponents at people, going up the aisles. I think Fujii took a bit of a beating here.
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Kaoru Ito & Kayo Noumi defeat Kumiko Maekawa & Tomoko Watanabe – Weird pairing. I know Noumi had a partner in Wakizaki and they had a goofy name to match their even goofier personalities. Don’t know where Wakizawa was though. I think Itoh was being pushed as the company’s actual ace at this stage, even though Toyota would still be considered the top star in the company.
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Manami Toyota & Yumiko Hotta defeat Momoe Nakanishi & Nanae Takahashi – This might’ve been a decent match but I don’t remember anything except paying attention to Toyota the entire time.
At some point when Toyota showed up to the merchandise booth, I remember going up to her and being very nervous with my god awful Japanese. I think I had posted to her website a few times so she might’ve known me. I think I managed a picture with her and possibly another one with Takako Inoue on that show. In the back, I might’ve met up with Mima Shimoda because I do recall taking a photo with her at some point in the parking lot. She’s actually a sweet lady outside of the ring.
AJW 12/8/1999 Yoyogi National Gym
Quite possibly the best live show I ever attended. There was another decent show a few days later and I did enjoy the special WCW Nitro show at the Great Western Forum in ’97 back when WCW and the NWO was at its height. But I think match quality-wise, this show left me hopeful for a small period about wrestling. This felt almost on par with other major shows in the 90s and certainly would be, at least for me, the last truly great AJW show put together before the promotion just slowly withered.
- Ayako Seki defeats Miyuki Fujii – Another boring exhibition match. Again Seki shows up and I can’t recall a thing.
- Chaparita ASARI & Hiromi Yagi defeat Kayo Noumi & Miho Wakizawa – So we did get to see Miho/Kayo here. They were along the lines of the more idol types around that time and had moderate TV exposure on variety shows. The problem was that Kayo was way too small and frankly not very good while Miho was just plain goofy. Miho had decent height but was lanky and not very athletic. Their fanbase was younger girls and probably some parents. Yagi was still a really good mat style wrestler, who would show up more frequently in ARSION since it was more suited for her while ASARI never quite got to the top level. She’s like a lot of modern wrestlers in having decent athleticism, being able to pull off complex moves but not having the size, except around the hips and rear (which was noticeable; btw, I’m not being sexist because some of the other women told me too in private). I did get to meet Yagi later on but I don’t think I met up with ASARI. Someone told me her family owned a Lawsons somewhere in Minowa probably near where I was staying. Funny thing is that around the corner there was a Lawsons that the people at New Koyo would hit up all the time. Makes me wonder if that was the one.
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Kaoru Ito & Momoe Nakanishi defeat Megumi Yabushita & Sumie Sakai – This honestly sounds like a really good match because all four were pretty good. Ito was about to become the top star in AJW while Nakanishi was the spunky upcomer. Yabushita was an amazing protege and Sakai, though, small was like a lot of the Jaguar Yokota trainees out of ‘Jd around that time in being really good. I just can’t recall all that much about the match itself sadly.
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Lioness Asuka defeats Nanae Takahashi – At this stage, Asuka was still one of the top female workers in Japan and possibly the world. Her deal was being more of a brawler and she would take out the table periodically. Some friends of mine would comment just how good she still was especially in comparison to the no selling, egomaniac of Chigusa Nagayo. But I don’t think this was all that special of a match.
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Kumiko Maekawa & Tomoko Watanabe defeat Las Cachorras Orientales (Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda) – For the WWWA tag titles. I don’t remember the specifics of this match but by this stage, LCO and Maekawa/Watanabe (no relation to me) had excellent chemistry and this was excellent. I think their previous cage match and another one from ’97 were probably better (just because they were younger) but this match was what some may call a “barn burner”. I recall personally not being happy with LCO losing but then again I was just a mark/fan for them.
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Yumiko Hotta defeats Takako Inoue – World title match at stake. I knew Takako had no chance here and the fact that they made this the 2nd to last match said something about both women at this point. I don’t honestly know what Takako had done to earn this shot but I feel that AJW just needed to fill up the gym and needed a big name type of match. However, later on one of Bull Nakano’s podcast, Takako admitted that she never saw herself as the main person for a promotion apparently. I don’t know the specifics but I think that’s fine given how she was more of an accessory like to Kyoko Inoue when they held the titles or tagged together or as a novelty in having a rivalry against Cutie Suzuki back during the interpromotional wars in the mid 90s. But it probably was a decent enough match for these two. I think Takako was came out to a different uniform to make her look more like a shoot fighter since it was kind of the rage back then.
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Manami Toyota defeats Kyoko Inoue – This match I do remember. Probably, my favorite live match just because of the people involved. This was probably Toyota’s last truly great performance that was also meaningful. 1998 was a rough year for her and AJW as they had been embarrassed by Kandori beating Toyota for the title in a fresh match and Chigusa Nagayo having an awful match with Toyota in a no-selling contest. But those two shows pretty much made AJW look bad but they were desperate at the time in drawing anything to recover from the Matsunaga brothers’ real estate misfortunes. At this point, Toyota stuck around to help keep the promotion afloat out of loyalty, which probably didn’t do her any favors in retrospect.
The match itself attempted to rekindle the Kyoko – Manami feuds of the past and they hit all their big stuff. Probably, the craziest spot I’ve ever seen live was Toyota going to the 2nd story of the arena and jumping off onto Kyoko. I think there must’ve been a ton of people underneath to catch her but I honestly thought that was a stupid move and unnecessary. Somehow no one got killed there but I guess it’s one of those things where if you’re going to do something like that, do it in front of a large crowd. The problem when you do a move like that is you setup bad expectations and it doesn’t necessarily bring in more people for the future. So the risks are very high with a tiny payoff.
Kyoko lost her and my interpretation for this situation is that at that stage, Neo Ladies was not in a strong position at all. They actually managed to do better later but it felt like another zombie promotion like a smaller version of NOAH when Misawa took his people. So Kyoko did the job unlike Kandori and Chigusa for the publicity and business. Toyota, I don’t think, ever got the rematch against Chigusa and I don’t think anyone really would have wanted to see that. And I’m guessing Hotta ended up being the person to beat Kandori, which makes sense given their styles and the fact that it would’ve been a big match.
After the show, I did meet up with Toyota again at her booth and she remembered me from a few days before. There was another British fan who was a big Toyota mark like myself so she knew both of us because I suspect there weren’t many foreigners coming to those shows in that period. I was glad she wasn’t hurt though (not that I could tell) but I’m guessing the adrenaline was still flowing after that show. Another fan I spoke with had very positive vibes after seeing the show because it was reminiscent of the older AJW shows. A shame that AJW couldn’t really follow up anymore and would be on a steady downward spiral as finances grew tighter and things closed up.
ARSION 12/11/1999 Yokohama Bunka Gym
This was the other really great show I got to see out there. Now, the interesting thing is that this show was outside of the Yamanote-sen circle that I got used to with my JR Railway Pass during this first stay. However, I might’ve been setup with Yumi Fukawa’s biggest fan/friend where she might’ve picked me up before the show. I think she was on that LA tour too so she remembered me. But I might’ve bought my tickets separately at Suidobashi station since you could do that for these shows. I did manage to get really good seats close to the front row and the video they produced later on was something I am able to see myself in (I was facing towards the camera)
- Yumi Fukawa defeats Candy Okutsu – This was before Yumi had her near-fatal injury and Candy was somewhat decent. So this might’ve been a decent match especially as an opener.
- Ai Fujita & Mary Apache defeat Linda Star & Rie Tamada – Ai Fujita was starting out and very brown like a yamamba. I think there was a joke about her being like a ganguro/yamamba as that whole subculture was about to erupt. Don’t know about Linda Star. I met Tamada a few times. Nice girl. This was before the Re-Drag group thing. Problem was that ARSION was starting to lose their identity that they tried to establish back in ’98 as a RINGs type of shoot/mat oriented promotion. I think if they had stuck their guns, they could’ve differentiated themselves but in all likelihood, there just was too much competition. Also, I think most fans just wanted basic wrestling, which is why they slowly went the other way. I read this was a lucha libre rules match but I don’t remember much if anything.
- Chaparita ASARI defeats Hiromi Yagi – I can’t recall if this was Yagi’s first bout in ARSION but she definitely fit the profile of the company. This was I think more aerial oriented because ASARI had some sort of sky title and might’ve beat Candy for it. It’s been a while so I don’t remember any of the details. Seeing ASARI here makes me think if Neo and ARSION had consolidated and grabbed Azumi Hyuga and Hikari Fukuoka at the right moment, it could’ve survived. The talent was there but too spread apart.
- Magchama TOKYO (Michiko Omukai) & Magnum TOKYO defeat Mikiko Futagami & Sumo Dandy Fuji – Some people might recall Ultimo Dragon’s promotion and he had some of his people here. I think it’s funny that Gami and Chama (Ohmukai) were paired off here. So I’m guessing because it was a big show for ARSION they needed people who knew each other.
- Aja Kong (c) defeats Mariko Yoshida – Aja was still involved with ARSION at this stage but I think she was losing her heart especially with GAEA growing. As for Yoshida, always liked her. Later on once I started living out there, I became friends with her and had dinner a few times with her. Really sweet lady that I think just enjoyed being a wrestler but wasn’t a personality-type compared to other major forces in wrestling over the years. There’s no question she had the natural athletic talent but I think she was too humble to be a top star sadly in a business where you really need flashy personalities to sell tickets and get over. I think if the promotion tried to be more earnest in keeping to the semi-shoot style, it might’ve had some chance or at least Yoshida would’ve done better in a scenario like that where you could do basic interviews rather than being loud and over the top.
- AKINO & Ayako Hamada (c) defeat Las Cachorras Orientales (Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda) – Easily the match of my trip. At that time, I probably preferred Toyota vs Kyoko because of Manami. Objectively though, this had to be the best match during that three week stay. Again, it involved LCO, who, between ’98 – ’99 probably were the best tag team in the world just in terms of consistency, match quality and being hard workers that typically brought their A game (also I heard they were expensive in terms of what they’d want up front for a show). Hamada and AKINO were the upcomers with Hamada having the “bigger” name because of her father and mother. But AKINO probably was the better of the two overall and I think a protege under Yoshida’s tutelage that served the style better. AKINO’s biggest problem though was her age in terms of when she started, which was late compared to other rookies in wrestling in the 80s and 90s. But perhaps because she was older, she took it more seriously and had a better mental game than Hamada. Match was a wild brawl as you’d expect with Hamada and AKINO getting blood.
While the match itself has been highly praised, I think it might’ve upset the core ARSION fans because of LCO’s tactics and the fact that the direction was becoming more like standard pro-wrestling. And this is a situation that’s debatable in retrospect because of how ARSION would eventually cease to exist while the more sports entertainment oriented federations started to thrive like Stardom or Hustle. On the other hand, maybe ARSION’s demise was inevitable because the style never really took off and probably would’ve ended up niche. But the promotion itself felt like it went through a lot of bad business moves and struggled to get any traction outside of ’98. But this probably was their best show.
Afterwards, I ended up hanging around a bit, saying hello to people like Fukawa. Sakie Hasegawa, who had retired, could be seen running around helping out. Also, there might’ve been a young ring girl named Miyuki Maeda. I can’t recall if I saw her at this event or at one a several months later. But I do remember the girl being very pretty and nice to me. I learned a thing or two about her eventually but I won’t go into that.
From there, I hitched a ride with that girl to a yakiniku place. It was quite good and I recall having raw beef, which was a type of specialty. As odd as that may have sounded, I didn’t mind it. I think she managed to get me back to the hotel though in one piece. But I think that was the last show for me on that trip.
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