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DIR Return to: Sheriff Lonestar's PPV of the Week
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#Post#: 19085--------------------------------------------------
Sheriff Lonestar's PPV of the Week; Planting the Seeds
By: SheriffLonestar Date: October 5, 2013, 3:18 am
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Japanese business culture has always been that little bit
different to everyone else’s. They have a nationalistic
philosophy that has been strongly beneficial to their companies.
They are also hampered by geography. The country isn't quite big
enough to have separate markets. That is why in wrestling there
are less indies and regional promotions than there perhaps
should be given the economic stability of the nation and its
population size. The big companies have always thought
nationally and see the whole place as a territory and market. It
is only recently, within the last 20 years or so that indie
promotions have become more and more prevalent. As such the
companies involved in wrestling tend to be what I would call
“cradle to grave” affairs. It is quite possible and indeed the
norm to see wrestlers train in the dojo of one company and stay
with that company till they retire. AJW was one of those
companies. It took young girls and made them superstars before
they retired at 26. Eight years in which to make it or that was
the way of things. The expectation was that the girls would go
and start families after they retired. In fact the Dojo class of
'87 was expected to do just that. What they did instead was
break the mould and by extension change Joshi and in the long
term professional wrestling forever. Today's PPV of the Week is
the day they graduated from being the opening match/mid card
players to taking over the company.
The AJW Japan Grand Prix tournament was an annual event to
decide the number one contender to the WWWA title, the longest
serving and most respected title in women’s wrestling ever. It
had direct lineage to Mildred Burke's NWA title run of the
1940's and was held in very high esteem throughout the wrestling
world. The 1990 edition of the tournament would be a coming out
party for Akira Hokuto, or that was the plan, to cement her
ascendency as a main event star after a year out with a broken
neck. Wrestling a three fall tag match she was pile driven off
the second rope in the second fall when the break occurred. She
got up, held her head in place with both hands and finished the
third fall. She is by far and away the toughest wrestler male or
female I ever heard of. She would taste another bitter pill of
disappointment on this night. Booked to win the tournament she
entered the first round against the young Manami Toyota and
performing a top rope plancha caught her knee on the guard rail
tearing the ligaments. As you can see in the show she wrapped it
up and tried to keep going as she knew this was the opportunity
to make her career but for once her iron will gave way to pain.
She literally couldn't stand up. She wanted to continue, that's
how much she wanted this, but it left the door open for others
to take top spot.
The show opens with the All Pacific title match between Aja Kong
and Suzuka Minami which is a fantastic brawl, the tournament
then starts and I won't go into who wins what as always with
tournament cards but it featured an array of talent that would
be the cornerstone of the organisation; Yumiko Hotta, Grizzly
Iwamoto, Madusa Miceli and Noriyo Tateno as well as the
aforementioned Toyota and Hokuto. In the next three years these
wrestlers would go on to have the highest rate of four and five
star matches in the shortest time period of any promotion at any
time in history. They where artistic dynamite and they held the
money at the box office as well. The foundations for the Dream
Slam events written about in an earlier PPV of the Week where
built on this card.
The influence of AJW on women's wrestling is immense, but also
on the wider wrestling world. These days the WWE and TNA both
have to have in house training schools to develop talent. Their
dojo system is modelled after those of NJPW, AJPW and of course
AJW. It just took them 30 years to catch up, once they had
gotten rid of all competition of course. They have to create
their own talent these days rather than pick it up from
somewhere else. This tournament shows you how it can be done.
Enjoy the show.
HTML http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwZ8-3emToQ
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