All Japan Junior Title Match: Numacchi vs. Sumio Toyama 20:00. Saemi Numata’s brain damage had turned her into Numacchi. She attacked with her plastic shovel at the start, but after that worked serious. This wasn’t all that bad. The only crime committed by this match was that it was boring until they started doing stuff towards the end, which you can blame that on the 20 minute duration. Numacchi worked over Toyama’s legs and filled up most of the match with that before they worked towards the finish. Toyama showed a bit more fire when she was on offense. The finishing run was actually good, they didn’t have many moves so it was mainly just Russian Legsweep spamming and chokeslams, but it produced some hot near falls before they ran out of time. **1/4

Infernal KAORU vs. Command Bolshoi 13:18. This was a waste of time. They fought over Bolshoi’s flower at the start. KAORU wouldn’t give it to her, so Bolshoi cried. This was the highlight of the match, and about the only thing the crowd reacted to. Once they started wrestling, it died immediately with their third rate lucha where they blew half of the spots, sat around in boring holds, or did dumb lame comedy. 1/2*

Suzuka Minami & Kaoru Ito vs. Devil Masami & Candy Okustu 14:28. Excellent match where everyone got shine. This was certainly helped by being sub-15 minutes, so it got to be all action without getting bogged down at all, yet was still paced out so well that it was always building as it went. Candy and Ito were the workhorses. Candy usually got worked over, but made hot comebacks. Minami crushed her with some of the most brutal looking backbreakers. The only negative was that Candy was a bit sloppy, but that worked for the whole veteran/young girl story that was going on. Devil was the standout in terms of carrying the match, setting things up for Candy to shine. When Devil was in, she was brutal with her lariats, stomps, Jumbo suplexes and powerbombs. At one point, she tried to Jumbo Suplex Candy onto Minami, but Minami moved. Devil took a lot of footstomps from Ito afterwards, so she got revenge for that with a big footstomp on her own, though Ito got the last laugh in the end by pinning Candy. There’s only one match anyone thinks of when they think of this show, but this one shouldn’t be overlooked. It was one of the top 5 JWP matches of the year. ****1/4

Yumiko Hotta vs. Plum Mariko 14:17. This was part 3 of the ‘Hotta is piece of shit saga’, her concussion spree on the JWP girls. She got Mayumi Ozaki during the 6/3 tag match with a head kick that put her in the hospital for the night. On 7/4, she concussed Hikari Fukuoka during a Japan Grand Prix match that showed Hotta at her worst. She wouldn’t sell anything, she didn’t help her much doing moves, and she sandbagged her at times. It was a horrible match, but the ending was where it got really bad; Hotta went for a Pyramid Driver which Hikari was supposed to armdrag her out of. Hikari lost Hotta’s arm and blew the spot and Hotta’s answer to cover that was to punt her in the head, and Hikari had no idea what day it was after that. Almost as bad was the ugly Pyramid Driver that followed. Hikari couldn’t really help her with the move, so Hotta just picked her up and dumped her on her shoulder and got the pin (for whatever it’s worth, I gave the match *). As bad and unprofessional as Hotta was in that one, this match against Plum was even worse. It was just a horrible idea from the start. They billed it as kick queen vs. submission queen, and if you watch the TV version, you can see they put some effort into building it up, but while Plum was skilled with applying her submissions, she wasn’t exactly built up as a deadly shooter ala Kandori. Hotta refused to even make her look credible from the start, blowing off her offense and submissions and kicking her. At the 5 minute mark, she sat in a camel clutch and broke it to give Plum a really vile head kick, with a loud sickening thud. Plum wasn’t right after that. She was too dizzy to complete a boomerang spot out of the corner, so Hotta covered that by recklessly shoving her outside. Luckily for Plum, she crashed into the apron before dropping the floor, but it didn’t look like a fun landing in any case. Plum took a breather, but she was struggling. She did get some offense with German suplexes and missile dropkicks, but she never got a good run. Hotta kept blasting her with vile kicks. The only good spot they did was Plum grabbing the foot on an enzuigiri to lock in an Achilles tendon hold, which was about the only thing Hotta sold for all match. Like Hikari, Plum was supposed to slip out of the Pyramid Driver and roll her up, but she missed the spot. Hotta didn’t put any effort into covering for her, but at least she didn’t punt her in the head for her mistake. Instead, she just repeated the spot and let Plum get it right before hitting the move to end this train wreck. 3/4*

60-minute Full Time Tag Team Match: Aja Kong, Kyoko Inoue, Takako Inoue & Sakie Hasegawa vs. Dynamite Kansai, Mayumi Ozaki, Cuty Suzuki & Hikari Fukuoka 60:00. This match had some special, unique rules. The team with the most falls within the 60-minute time limit would be declared the winner, and it was structured into two phases. The First Attack was four 5-minute singles matches: Hasegawa vs. Fukuoka ("Athletic"), Takako vs. Cuty ("Super Idol"), Kyoko vs. Ozaki ("Speed and Technique"), and Aja vs. Kansai ("Top Battle"). The Second Attack was a 4 vs. 4 tag team match for the remaining 40 minutes. This was an incredibly well laid out and dramatic match that was intriguing and exciting for the 60-minute duration, which t flew by with a great interpromotional atmosphere thanks to the hot crowd. Hasegawa vs. Fukuoka was the first match and at the 2:33 mark, Fukuoka held Sakie’s shoulders down with a flash pin that got a three count with Sakie flailing to get out of it but being unsuccessful to give JWP the 1-0 lead. While the wrestling itself wasn’t particularly remarkable, they set the tone that this wasn’t something you could afford to take your eyes off, & Fukuoka showed she belonged after two losses to Sakie earlier in the year. Ozaki vs. Kyoko was next, and they did take things up a gear initially. The crowd exploded as Ozaki came out trying to burst Kyoko down with a rana and DDTs. Kyoko got the upper hand soon enough though, and worked Ozaki over the majority of their match. Kyoko didn’t have the crowd support, so she seemed to be wasting her time trying to get it instead of securing a fall. Ozaki prevented the Giant Swing long enough so that when Kyoko hit it on her, she didn’t have any time to try to the Niagara Driver before the time expired on them. Takako vs. Cuty was next. Cuty dumped Takako with suplexes and booted to the face. They worked each other over a bit, and had some hot near falls. You’d think they would have had the weakest of the singles matches, but it was actually the best of them, with the most exciting near falls and Cuty pushing Takako (although Kansai vs. Aja was the most dramatic). The aces went next, and this is what the crowd were waiting for. Kansai charged in with a kick and Aja went bang! Knocking her out with a Uraken and Kansai couldn’t answer the 10-count. Just like that, it was 1-1 in a manner no one expected, and within both falls, every roll-up and uraken was now a hot move. Kansai spent the rest of the fall in survival mode. She made comebacks, but nothing that threatened Aja, although she did score some heavy kicks at the end. There were no further alarms though. With the First Attack complete, the Second Attack began, and all hell broke loose. Aja had the best of Kansai, and Kansai had to tag out. This resulted in Aja facing off against Cuty, with predictable results. At 23:04, Zenjo took the lead 2-1. The match started again from here, building the match. It took a few minutes to get moving again. There was a funny part with Kyoko getting the tag from Aja while Cuty was recovering. The crowd chanted for her, and she didn’t want to jump on her because she didn’t want to lose the crowd support, so she just toyed with her a little and tagged Sakie. Hikari cartwheeled through Takako to set Kansai up to punt her around. Ozaki took a simpler approach and opted to punch her in the head when she tagged in. Kyoko did get heel heat for preventing Kansai from taking Takako to Splash Mountain. Kyoko got Ozaki into a vulnerable position for Aja, and Aja stacked Ozaki in the corner for everyone to charge into. Aja played bully on Ozaki for a while, a brute, dragging Ozaki around like she was nothing. She put a Dragon Sleeper on her, which everyone tried to break. Cuty and Kansai’s attempts were ignored, while Hikari’s slaps annoyed her enough to break and slug her down with a stiff slap. Kyoko put a camel clutch on setting up a punt for Aja, but before that, Takako established herself as the big villain of the match, running in and stomping Ozaki first to get revenge for earlier. Ozaki was able to make a tag to Kansai, and Kansai and Kyoko had a really nice exchange of Kansai’s kicks vs. Kyoko’s Mongolian chops and boots, which Kansai won, but when she tagged Cuty in again, Cuty returned to getting killed. Sakie hit her best spot in the match, with six rolling double arm suplexes, while Aja continued joining illegally for double teams, which included another camel clutch spot to Cuty. JWP got their revenge soon after with Kyoko on the receiving end of3 of Kansai’s camel clutch punts. JWP’s advantage was again short-lived, as Aja destroyed Hikari soon after, tearing through her body attacks and suplexes. Hikari spazzed out, but Aja didn’t even react, and put her back down with one headbutt. Hikari came back on Kyoko, boomeranging out of the corner with a moonsault, landing her feet and rolling Kyoko up for two before tagging out to Ozaki. Ozaki powerbombed Kyoko, but Takako broke up the pin, and the crowd decided she’s was villiain of the match. It made sense that Takako was the big heel, though Aja was the one doing all the damage. Takako was the vulture. She couldn’t do much herself, but picked up the scraps Aja left for her. She’d also been the one who’d made the most trips to JWP, and this made the finish later even more sweet. Aja broke up the next pin, but that went all wrong, as she stomped Ozaki’s head into Kyokos, leaving them both messed up; Kyoko was busted open and Ozaki had her eye swollen. This even added to what was to come, with both looking more vulnerable as they became the target of the other teams offense. Kansai proved herself as Aja’s equal by brutalizing and stiffing the hell out of both Takako and Sakie. With over 40 minutes gone now, JWP were still a fall behind, and needed to level things up. Kyoko found herself on the receiving end of another revenge spot, with the entire JWP team charging at her in the corner. She then took a long rolling cradle from Hikari and got destroyed with dives; Ozaki’s senton, diving foostomps from Cuty and Kansai, and a Hikari moonsault for the pin while the other three took defensive line to guard. However, Aja barrelled through and knocked over the whole group to prevent the surefire pinfall. This was an incredible run and visual, but as great as that was, they were only just getting started. If that didn’t work, perhaps chaos was the answer. It began with Kyoko mounting a comeback, and then taking out both Cuty and Kansai with a dive. Meanwhile, Hikari and Ozaki dropkicked Aja out of the ring, allowing Hikari to follow up with a plancha. Ozaki attempted to hit everyone, but Takako and Sakie intervened with a double dropkick. Takako then attempted a tope on Ozaki, but Ozaki evaded, causing her to splat onto the floor. This segment ended with Ozaki and Kyoko trading near falls, but neither could catch one. Sakie got dumped on her head a bunch of times, and Takako got more heat for preventing Kansai’s Splash Mountain. Kansai and Kyoko engaged in another intense exchange, but Kyoko's Niagara Driver was thwarted by interference from JWP, which lead to all hell breaking loose again. Kansai managed to counter Kyoko's Niagara Driver and attempted her Splash Mountain, but Takako intervened again, forcing Kansai to deal with her. After dispatching Takako, Kansai returned to Kyoko, delivering a series of lariats in the corner. Meanwhile, Ozaki had made her way back to the apron, and Hikari and Cuty continued to restrain Aja. Eventually, Kansai successfully executed the Splash Mountain, and JWP finally evened the score 2-2 to end another incredible segment at 50:09. The crowd were in a frenzy at this point as the JWP team tried to catch Kyoko again, but they couldn’t get another fall on her. Ozaki got trapped in the Zenjo corner and got beaten on worse than anyone had been in the match to this point, mainly by Aja and Takako. A backdrop suplex from the top from Aja was sure to put her away, and the Zenjo team lined up in a similar fashion to guard her as JWP had done earlier, but Cuty managed to get past Sakie to interrupt the fall. Aja powerslammed Ozaki from the top rope to follow up, with Kansai barely intervening in time. Ozaki tried to come back with a sunset flip and Aja sat on her, but she managed to scamper off to make a hot tag to Kansai. Kansai came in all fired up on Aja, clobbering her, but she ate another Uraken. This one didn’t knock her out, but it left her in a state where she was in trouble. She took more punishment from Sakie and Takako and had to tag out. Cuty tried to put Kyoko away, but Takako kept interrupting the pins to huge boos. Takako and Ozaki were both legal in the closing moments. Takako hit an Aurora Special for a near fall and then the Zenjo team charged the JWP team to hold them down as she hit the straightjacket version she beat Ozaki with in June, the cluster of bodies pushing and jostling in the corner, all attempting to break up the pin was incredible, but it backfired for the Zenjo team. Ozaki refused to be beaten, and kicked out this time. Takako attempted to set up the move once more, but Ozaki countered her Irish Whip and pulled her into the Tequila Sunrise, and with no one able to intervene, she got the final pinfall and put JWP up 3-2, securing the victory 59:55! Ozaki pulled off a miracle and the underdog JWP team achieved an incredible victory! Ozaki was the hero, and everyone in the building rejoiced. Everyone except Aja, who was pissed. She challenged Kansai for the WWWA World Single Title, setting up the Budokan main event for 8/25. This match was an incredible from start to finish. It was 40 minutes of a great build up that set everything up, and a 20 minute explosion of incredible action that paid it all off, capped off by one of the greatest finishes ever! Eight distinct personalities, and they all played a role, no matter how big or minor it was. It was Aja’s career best performance to this point, but Kyoko, Ozaki, Kansai and even Takako played major roles along with her. Hikari, Cuty and Sakie, who was the worst in the match, also made great contributions. All of the little stories paid off while still leaving plenty left to come. Is is the greatest match of all time? I don’t know that I could call a gimmick match the greatest match of all time, but it’s right up there and a definite contender. *****

Best Joshi Puroresu Matches YouTube Playlist