Puroresu Show Reviews

It starts off with a great build-up of the event, as we see highlights from several big AJW shows featuring Akira Hokuto, Aja Kong, Bull Nakano, Toyota Minami and others. We cut to the Tokyo Dome where the fans are arriving for the show, and then on to the show itself which kicks off with a parade of the wrestlers and fighters that will be taking part in the show tonight. The layout of the Dome is pretty interesting as they’ve set up a HUGE entrance stage in the shape of a “V” with 2 ramps representing the blue and red corner. And looking at it, you know you could tire yourself out by just having to walk that distance to the ring.

Chaparrita ASARI & Bomber Hikaru VS Hiromi Yagi & Hiromi Sugo
Chaparrita pulls a Mary-Lou Retin when she backflips almost the entire length of the entrance ramp to the ring! ASARI was hands down the best part of this match as she flipped and dove around to keep things interesting against Yagi & Sugo of JWP, who are more or less just rookies. Bomber Hikaru played the powerhouse senior, but that was about it as ASARI made this match. She hit a cool sky-twister press out to the floor which instantly got the crowd popping, as well as her handspring dropkicks. I think only the ending spot where she did this bizarre turning dropkick off the top killed the heat a bit since it wasn’t really anything special.
Match Rating: *1/2

Midget Match: Tsunokake Silver X VS Buta Genjin & Great Little Muta
This was supposed to be a comedy match, but I really didn’t find anything funny or entertaining about it as I never really liked midget wresling.
Match Rating: DUD

AJW Jr. Title: Candy Okutsu VS Rie Tamada
Well this was rather boring, title match or not. Can’t really recall anything outstanding out this match other than they had a slow pace that made it feel like the match was going too long for it’s own good.
Match Rating: *

Suzuka Minami VS KAORU
Best match on this disc right here! From the opening bell, these two tore into each other and showed a lot of great stuff, from countless hurricanrana’s by KAORU, to the sick head dropping moves of Minami, especially the rather sick looking Liger-bomb near the end that got a big reaction from the Tokyo Dome crowd. This match kept me interested, and that’s how a good match is supposed to work.
Match Rating: ***

(The following matches on the show were shoot fights, so I won't really rate them)

Kick-Boxing Match: Kumiko Maekawa VS Sugar Miyuki
The longer this one went, the more boring it got. I know Maekawa went on to be a full time wrestler, but this was just boring and the striking just didn’t have any “oomph” behind them to get the crowd excited. Also didn’t help that it was a major mis-match since Maekawa was taller and had longer reach than Miyuki.
Match Rating: Boring

Amateur Wrestling Match: Kyoko Hamaguchi VS Doris Blind
How do you rate an amateur wrestling match when most, if not all, of what they do is grappling on the mat? The ring also kind of worked against them as there were many rope breaks, and really nothing much to see here either. Best part was probably Anima Hamaguchi psyching up his daughter Kyoko to do his animal pose, which was cute to say the least. Who would have thought that a decade later old Animal would be causing a scene at the Olympics?
Match Rating: None

Amateur Wrestling Match: Miyu Yamamoto VS Anna Gomez
See above. If you have no idea how amateur wrestling goes, you’ll probably find this as boring as I did.
Match Rating: None

Overall: One really good match, one fun match, one boring match, one DUD, and three shoot matches. Not really a lot to get into in this first disc, but that’s probably to be expected considering the length this full show went, as they had to have some passable matches at the beginning of the show to heat up the crowd as they arrived (there were still visible empty seats in the front rows as the show kicked off). Probably essential to get only if you want to the full collection (which is probably what most of you have in mind)

Expect my review of Pt.2 coming soon!

Labels: Joshi