Puroresu Show Reviews

The tape starts off with a rather long introduction scene where the press conference for the show and the participants were interviewed by the press as their matches were announced. Went just a little too long for my liking, but you get to see the human side of some of these gals as they mostly give modest interviews and not the old “I’m gonna kick your ass” badass type interview.

Shoot Boxing Match: Fumiko Ishimoto VS Kaoru Ito
You can strike, kick as well as do take downs in this one, so that made it more exciting than the previous shoot bouts. It also didn’t seem to drag on as much as the previous kick boxing match even though it went the distance of going to the judge’s decision. Pretty good fight overall.
Match Rating: None

Chigusa Nagayo VS Reggie Bennett
For some reason I’ve always enjoyed watching Reggie Bennett in action, and she’s actually kinda cute for a big girl. The minute Bennett attacks Nagayo on the rampway and Nagayo is busted open just from a simple brawl, I knew where this match was going to go. Reggie dominated for most of the match using her size and power advantage. She even did a very good Giant Press off the second rope. Nagayo played the underdog, but got in several big kicks and a big dive out to the outside on Bennett, but not really much else as she was selling her bleeding head. I also thought Reggie kinda got screwed at the end when Nagayo hit the flash cradle for the pinfall, but it looked like Reggie had kicked out in time before the three count. A good brawling singles contest.
Match Rating: **

Shinbou Kandori & Mikiko Futagami VS Toshiyo Yamada & Tomoko Watanabe
Kandori looks so disturbingly like a guy that it’s not even funny! The main heat from this match came from Kandori and Yamada’s exchanges, which the crowd really ate up. This was when Yamada was still a hungry young lioness finding her niche in the business, she had a great performance here as she kicked away relentlessly at Kandori. Futagami and Watababe played second fiddle to their senior partners, but Watanabe got a good series of offense in where as Futagami didn’t do much to catch my attention. A really good heated match overall.
Match Rating: **1/2

UWA Tag Team Titles: Yasha Kurenai & Michiko Nagashima VS Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda
This was a really fun match as they took it straight to each other from the opening bell and didn’t let up for a minute! You could also make a point about either team not selling for the other though, as neither side could chain many moves together without their partner’s help since they would just pop up after every move thrown! Mita and Shimoda (arguably one of the greatest tag teams EVER) were in their prime here, and used their size advantage well against the smaller LLPW team. I thought it was rather funny the commentator called Shimoda’s big boot the 16tn Boot, since that was name of the move popularized by the late Giant Baba. But this was mostly a roller coaster back and forth match with a lot of big tandem moves thrown in like Kurenai & Nagashima’s Doomsday Device-like chokeslam move. They messed up a few spots due to missed timing, but it was still the best match up to now.
Match Rating: ***

Legends Memorial Fight: Bison Kimura & Jaguar Yokota VS Lioness Asuka & Yumi Ogura
Normally when you hear the term “legends match”, you think out of shape, past their prime wrestlers working a comedy style, or a sure to be stinker of a toilet break match. That is NOT the case here as these four joshi legends are far from past their primes. The only reason you could consider them legends or even retired is because joshi stars tend to retire young, mostly while in their prime. I don’t think these ladies were even past their mid thirties at most. Heck, Lioness was still very active in the business up until a few months back when she officially retired!
From the opening bell these ladies put on a heck of a match! I was easily impressed by Jaguar as even though she easily looked like the oldest person in the match, she moved and worked incredibly well! She even pulled off several moves I didn’t think was done back then, including the Jackhammer and the Money Maker!
I also liked watching Ogura in action as she is one of those “faster than a hiccup” type speed wrestlers, and Bison was the big brawler of her team. This was a the best match of this second quarter of the show, with these veterans easily showing why they are some of the best in the business, and the crowd enjoyed every minute of it like I did.
Match Rating: ***1/2

Overall: Much better than part one with more great action as we build to the highlight of the show: the V*TOP Tournament! This edition had lots of great action in it that’s not to be missed.

Labels: Joshi