All Time MOTY List HEAD to HEAD Santo/Casas v. Bestia/Scorpio Jr. VS. LCO v. KAORU/Yamada

Mima Shimoda/Etsuko Mita vs. KAORU/Toshiyo Yamada GAEA 4/4/99

ER: Well, this wasn't very good. This was a mess. This was sloppy, and disorganized, and had zero selling in sight, had botches and was way too long. Picture a Tanaka/Awesome match from 1999. Now picture a tear in the space time continuum, and suddenly another Tanaka and Awesome appear. And then all 4 of them start fighting. So you have two Tanakas and two Awesomes all having a Texas Tornado match. And three of them are having an off night. That's what was happening in this match. You had botches and silly spots that took ages to set up (those falling guardrail spots were terrible) and moves that meant nothing because anyone who took a move could just stand right up and do your own move. Or maybe worse is KAORU, who spent more time selling in the match than anyone else, all consecutive, and all in the first half of the match. And then she was completely fine during the finishing 5 minutes of the match. Some of Shimoda's axe kicks looked like they couldn't cut butter. The crowd brawling was worthless. Yamada was the only one in the match who was sustainably good the whole match. Yamada made this have moments worth watching. She tried the hardest to keep the crowd brawling from being listless, had the best cut off spots, hit her timing best, sold emotion the best. But by and large this was not good.

PAS: I liked this more then Eric did, although it wasn't a great match by any means. It had the kind of ragged feel of a fun Sabu match, with people trying crazy shit and not always hitting it clean, in some ways the awkwardness added to the crazy feeling of the match. I also liked how LCO kept fucking up the ref, hitting her with chair shots and rail shots for the hell of it, added to LCO's characters. They don't give a fuck and will wreck anyone. Yamada also had some awesome looking spin kicks, total game changers and momentum shifters. Still this went way too long, and had as many bad spots as good ones. I imagine all four were in pain the next day, but you don't get an A for effort in wrestling

Apuestas Tag Review

Verdict:

ER: Yeah no chance. This had none of the nuance or storytelling of the lucha tag. The blade jobs were good but not as good as the lucha tag. The build doesn't compare, the heat doesn't compare. Lucha tag in every way.

PAS: This was a blowout, I liked the Joshi tag fine, even if it was a bit long, but the Lucha tag is an all timer.

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Best of Japan 2000-2009: Aja Kong vs. KAORU, Gaea 2/13/00

1. Aja Kong vs. KAORU, Gaea 2/13/00

Aja Kong is my favorite female wrestler of all time and this match is one of my favorite joshi matches of all time (at least it was when I saw it over a decade ago) so I had tons of excitement to rewatch this one. Up until 2000 I had not seen much joshi. I'd seen Bull Nakano in WWF and WCW, and the Kong/Asari Raw match, and the only women's wrestling I had seen that was actually *from* Japan were a couple matches from FMW tapes. So then young me sees this match and was blown to pieces. I haven't seen this match in years and years and it was crazy how much still seemed fresh in my brain.

KAORU is all on fire to start and running circles around Kong and it rules, until she bites off more than she can chew and gets cute, and misses a senton off the top to the floor TAILBONE FIRST through a table. And then we get a brutal (to the shock of everybody) Aja Kong ass beating. Kong tosses her all around the building and god bless KAORU for taking the insane beating. Kong starts bouncing the broken table pieces of KAORU's face, then a couple chairs off her face, then piledrives her on the floor and runs her face first into a wall. And KAORU is busted open and Aja Kong does not give a fuck. All the speed vs. brute strength stuff works great here, with KAORU going back to the plan and ducking around a bunch of Kong backfists and playing dirty right in step by smacking Kong a bunch with a trashcan. However, again, zero fucks were given by Kong. In a crazy moment KAORU goes for a moonsault and lands face first into Kong's boots (while somewhere, a young Mistico was watching and thinking "I like that so much I'm gonna do it EVERY match!") and then when KAORU charges Kong, Kong just alley oops her in one of the more spectacular spots in wrestling history, with KAORU clearing the ropes and just crashing and burning onto the floor. It's like Kong thought of going for a hotshot, but just launched her 15 feet instead. Amazing.

Now it's Kong's turn to get cute and it costs her too. She goes for a dive and KAORU matadors her right into a table, then proceeds to beat the life out of Kong with a piece of broken table and THEN hits her top rope senton through the table (this time with Kong actually on it)! And somehow things get even more sick, as KAORU blocks a spinning backfist with the broken table and then begins slicing and smashing Kong's arm with the broken table. Kong is BLEEDING from her ARM!! Even sicker than Vader blading his chest. And forgive me for flipping out about Kong throwing KAORU to the floor earlier, because KAORU then moonsaults directly onto Kong's arm...while holding that broken table piece. I mean it looked like it just legit crushed Kong's arm.

One of the great things about the match is that all the transitions happen when either worker gets to fancy or starts playing outside their comfort zone. Kong starts to pile on and get cocky, that's when KAORU starts peppering her with stuff. KAORU starts foolishly trying to do power moves or string too many moves together? Kong backfists the hell out of her face. Kong goes to the top rope? KAORU dumps her vertically on her head with the grossest Michinoku Driver you have seen in your life. Kong should have probably died. All of this was so violent. Both women dished out furious beatings, KAORU getting punched and kicked in the face (finished off with a double backfist!) and Kong letting KAORU shine.

This match was just completely brutal. There were so many stiff shots, nasty spills and yet at no point did anything feel like overkill. Everything built, all the shifts in momentum happened logically and it was just one awesome oh shit moment after another. One of the most violent spectacles in wrestling history. I LOVED this.


BEST OF JAPAN MASTER LIST

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