Shinobu Kandori

So I am not sure it properly counts, but i randomly came across the scuffle with Gabi Garcia when they were hyping a fight between them and it was pure wrestling joy. No part of me wanted to see them fight, but but by the end when they were holding Kandori back I was like, "LET HER GO! GET HER, KANDORI!" She embodied wrestling in a really powerful way with everything from her movements to her facial expressions.

I agree her top 10 holds up next to anyone's (I'd also through the Sato match from 87 that seems to get a bit out of hand in for consideration, though Kandori/Hokuto II is the better choice). I would be really hard pressed to say anyone (sans MAYBE Kobashi or Hansen) have a top 5 I would prefer.

I recently wrote up a long argument as to why I think Shinobu Kandori is one of the true greats over on PWO so I thought I would just go ahead and add it to her thread here. I thought since I spent a fair amount of time on it I would go ahead and use it for this blog I neglect. This is a version of that post.

In 2016 I was just getting into Joshi, had maybe been watching a year. At the time I said Kandori was my favorite female wrestler ever. At the time she took it by a country mile. The gap has closed between her and quite a few others, but she remains at the top of the list for me. What’s more, in the time since I posted that she moved from just being my favorite to being – least with more conviction – my “best”. It isn’t damning with faint praise to make a gendered distinction either. That places her #7 on my working list, with room to move up. Given just how high I am on her, I’m going to break it down into some sections that I think highlight her across-the-board strengths.


Top Matches

I think Kandori has a fairly strong, well rounded case, but the biggest and most impressive section of her resume is her top matches. Kandori’s top 5-10 matches stand up to just about anyone in wrestling. While tastes will vary, looking at my current greatest match ever list from the GME project, she is currently part of my #1, #6, #19, #37, and #56 matches of all time. But that is, again, personal taste. Let’s think more broadly and take a sampling of some of her top/hyped matches.

v Sato (7/18/87)
v Devil (7/14/88)
v Saito (7/19/90)
w/Saito v Dynamite and The Scorpion (8/4/1991)
v Hokuto (4/2/1993)
v Inoue (8/25/93)
v Hotta (9/23/93)
v Hokuto (12/6/1993)
w/Hokuto v Bull and Aja (3/27/94)
v Bull (Chain – 7/14/94)
v Kudo (Street – 1/5/97)
v Kudo (Barb Wire – 3/14/97)
v Hotta 3/21/98)
v Toyota (8/23/98)
v Satomura (2/12/07)

Take your top 5-10 from that list (or maybe I am even missing something in this rough top 15) and I think it stacks up against just about anyone in terms of match quality. I often think of Kandori as a big match worker, and one that has an argument as THE big match worker. She has an acute ability to go out and have a great match and bring something special to that match (more on this to come). While it is obvious from the volume of matches above that she isn’t just carried to quality matches, it is important to note that she is a pretty active part of why each of these matches were great. For what might be a counterintuitive example, I would argue that she is absolute crucial to that 94 tag match. I often see people talk about everyone but her, but Kandori is irreplicable in that match. She navigates all the complex dynamics and does lot to moderate the pace of everything throughout. It is a long match and her particular approach to wrestling regulates much of it perfectly. It is a case where the often more “unsexy” parts of wrestling like pacing are so important in creating big matches and why her specific skill set warrants bigtime consideration.

Personally, I focus a bit more on peak as a product of my watching patterns and habits, so this is a big category for me. When you were at your best… how good were you? That is something I find fascinating. When Kandori has been at her best, there just aren’t many I think are better. What’s more, I am not going to make a real longevity argument because I haven’t done as much of a dive into the latter parts of her career and am still sorting through some of the earlier stuff we have readily available, but the fact that she has 2 pretty commonly hyped matches 20 years apart is not nothing.

Singular Performer/Uniqueness

Spoiler alert: this section is the longest because it grounds much of what I will discuss in later sections. I often will harp on “singularity” in my reviews or my effusive praise of particularly wrestlers. Lots of folks carry the quality with them, for sure, but Kandori stands out even among them and it really elevates much of her work. To me, being singular or unique just means that through the combination of their skills, tendencies, and approach a wrestler has carved out a distinctive place in wrestling. In turn, it is hard to imagine someone else doing what they do in a match, feud, or run. This is sort of a sticky one. The more I think about this the more I think it isn’t a quality that is unique among elite wrestlers. Rather, I think any wrestler worth their salt should do this to some degree. That said, I would argue that Kandori excels in this regard. I’m going to touch on a few quick examples that I think serve as microcosms for her larger body of work

I’ll hit the big example first, I count Hokuto vs Kandori DreamSlam as the greatest match of all time and one of the primary reasons is that Kandori presents a challenge to Hokuto that no one else on earth could. As much as I love Aja and Bull and even Dump in the way they bully someone and come off as a “final boss” type figure, Kandori’s danger is different. She is the boss that makes you realize the big scary one was just the penultimate hurdle where the real greatest challenge of all comes from someone who might not look quite as scary, but is cerebral and technical. Ok, I’ll get away from the metaphor because it has its limits here, but you get the point. In the above-mentioned greatest match ever, Hokuto is rightly praised as an other-worldly protagonist, and this isn’t to take anything away from that. However, I find the idea that she was much better than Kandori on that night silly. I would argue that without the combination of malice, technique, and violence that Kandori brings and without her setting the tone with really her facial expressions as much as anything early on Hokuto could have never put on that performance. Now, don’t hear what I am not saying. I don’t think Kandori necessarily outperformed Hokuto. I personally like her style more in the match, but I think it is two top shelf performances coming together in a really special way that night (like probably most truly elite matches)

Let me take on another example in a little more detail that I think brings her singularity into some focus, the 8/25/93 match against Kyoko Inoue. While this is not the best Kandori match, it might be one of her best performances. Again, this isn’t to take anything away from Kyoko Inoue, who is awesome and is definitely awesome in this match. First and foremost, there is just not anyone who could present the brand of danger Kandori brings in this. No one I can think of at least. She is dangerous from anywhere and everywhere. There is just this sense that no matter where she is she might grab Inoue and finish her right there and then. It is almost relentless through much of this match, even when Inoue is sort of laying it in early on. Weather she is hitting a slick leg sweep from her back and moving right into a submission after taking a beating or firing out of the corner with headbutts, she sells while always giving you the sense that she could turn the match around in the blink of an eye. This compounded by her great nonverbal work. Her facial expressions and gestures bring a lot to a match. In this, I think there are moments in many of her matches where her intensity and her entire approach to a wrestling match just elevates the match often very subtly. In this match there are two really good, simple early examples. First, when she comes out of the corner after taking some offense and is pissed, just leveling Inoue with a few (aforementioned) headbutts in the first couple minutes of the match. She later takes a baseball slide drop kick on the outside and her shoe is untied. Kandori turns tying her shoe into a fucking part of the match. She seems absolutely furious that her shoe is untied and walks around like Inoue is going to take a bad one for it. It is in the little ways she responds to these things. In the first she is elevating the pace and violence and establishing that no matter how bad it looks for her she is dangerous. The second she is letting something linger a minute to provide gravity (to something sort of frivolous no less). What’s more, I think these are pretty par for the course for her. She does stuff like this all of the time. Kandori is a master at elevating the pace, intensity, and/or violence in match at just the right time and she doesn’t always need to be touching her opponent to do it. It is just her entire approach to who she is in a match that I think makes everything bigger and better than it would otherwise be. The final aspect of her singularity is how efficient she can be. This obviously contributes to the first part of my discussion of this match. Kandori isn’t exactly a minimalist, but as many pointed out both during the 2016 project and the recent start up for 2026, she isn’t exactly like many of her peers. She is more grounded, pace oriented. I would argue most of the great joshi workers have good to great psychology, but Kandori works hers differently and finds a way to make it work with divergant opponents. In this match Kandori gets a whole lot done with a rear naked choke and a fujiwara arm bar, especially down the stretch. The last quarter of this match feels like every time she puts a rear naked on it might be over. She makes simple holds look absolutely deadly and to Inoue’s credit she is selling everything like it could be the end. But it is this ferocious, relentless, and well-timed application of the sleeper that caries all the intensity of the match at the end. Finally, I love this finish. This is a wonderful way for Kandori to end a match given how she has articulated her danger throughout. She has Inoue so bound up and locks on a makeshift americana and that is it. Despite it feeling very much like Inoue gets the lion’s share of offense Kandori’s offense does more damage and – again – she could finish it at any moment.
Another very brief example is the T. Inoue/ Hotta vs Kandori/Miki match where much of the match is built around Hotta and Inoue being desperate to keep Kandori on the outside and not allowing her to ever have isolation, esp with Inoue. Once she makes the hot tag it isn’t the cleanest or best sequence, but there is this awesome little moment where Hotta comes off the top and sort of misses the kick. Kandori is standing their bracing herself and realizes it doesn’t hit hard. She doesn’t just fall; she drops in for a straight ankle lock and the crowd sort of reacts like that could be it. Her aura of danger is not the flashiest part of the match. It isn’t the most overt or exciting… but it is the best part of it. This is a match that is good, but not elite to me, but it still reflects what Kandori brings and how it can be used to make everything better.
This is really underdeveloped, but the closest sort of adjacent wrestlers to Kandori in this regard are maybe like Fujiwara, M. Suzukij, and maybe, oddly enough, Bryan? I would maybe say Brock, but much of his singularity comes from being such a physical/imposing presence and Kandori’s presence is obviously different, closer to the others mentioned. Regardless, all people I think quite highly of. These obviously aren’t qualities that are unique to Kandori, but she brings them in a way and puts them in a package that I just don’t see another version of in wrestling. Her version of this wrestler is very distinct. Doing it in a time where most of her peers were working a different style (or one of a few other styles), Kandori stands out in the crowd to me and in turn, her matches stand out in a big way (more to come).


Versatility

This is a pretty simple section. Kandori is a versatile performer and I mean that in sort of the most basic way imaginable. She has success in singles, tags, various gimmick, epic, compact, bloodly, and more light-hearteded matches. While I have not done the week-to-week dive on (and I’m probably not doing that for anyone because it just isn’t how I watch wrestling), I can’t think of a scenario she was put in where she felt like she couldn’t excel. Again, to circle this back to the top match section, she has a fairly diverse set of really top end matches. Even if you don’t love her work quite as much as I do, she pretty unquestionably has a varied set of highly praised matches that get noticed.

Psychology

I always find the idea of “psychology” a bit tricky. I have a sort of broad approach to psychology. To me, psychology is telling a story that achieves fidelity between all the moving parts (the participant, their relationship, the story, the promotion, etc) in a given context. There is wrestling psychology I like and wrestling psychology I don’t like, but it comes in many forms across time and space. Psychology also gets a little nuanced and layered as said fidelity is related to card placement, match timing, physical storytelling, playing off the audience, etc. Kandori is really really good at psychology, maybe to a fault. I can’t really think of a time where she didn’t work to achieve fidelity to her character and motivations. I can’t really think of a time she didn’t work to achieve fidelity to her relationship with her opponents or partners (though admittedly some of this may be lost on me watching with less context than when I watch… say… CM Punk matches, which I more organically followed in real time and understood in context). Additionally, I have spoken above about Kandori’s timing. I think she is also a very good physical storyteller, using moves to create a clear and salient narrative. Finally, take all I said about her singularity and just add that she uses it to really create drama and investment in a match. I often find the home stretches of her matches insanely engaging for this reason.

This ties quite a few of the previous sections together as well. Kandori has excelled in a variety of match types and they are all held together through her commitment to who she is and what she does. Again, this might be to a fault. Kandori might actually benefit a little bit if she gave a little more, but generally speaking I see this in the same vein as Hansen. When Kandori gives and when Kandori goes to war with someone it means a great deal more. Leading me to……

Elevating Others

There are lots of ways wrestlers can elevate others, but one of the clearest ways is having another wrestler’s best match. I’m not going to spend much time on this because this one probably come down to my personal taste more than any other section because it comebines big match and style preference, but even if you don’t think Kandori has Bull’s, Hokuto’s, Devil’s, Inoue’s, Siato, and Hotta’s best singles matches and Aja’s best overall match in the form of that tag… which I do, she has matches that are in the conversation for a slew of joshi legends (those listed and quite a few others). Let’s crosspollinate these sections again. Because of her singularity and commitment to her Kandoriness, she brings the best out of a lot of people. Getting the best of Kandori takes work and it feels like an accomplishment. Kandori is always bringing the urgency (one of my favorite qualities of a great match) and the violence and that often brings out the best in people. Granted a lot of those people are ultra talented, but I’m at least as interested (honest, more interested) in wrestlers who are able to help talented counterparts level up and create something that stands out in their great catalogues.


Doing Stuff in The Match: Offense and Selling

Back in 2017 OJ provided some pieces of a review over at PWO in response to a question I had about people being previously low on Kandori. In it was a line that I now always associate her now, "This allowed Kandori to be on offense most of the match, which she believes is her divine right anyway." Fuck yeah it is her divine right. Kandori’s offense is awesome. Honestly, she isn’t the tightest grappler or striker, but she is quite good at both and her intensity and urgency hold everything together. Her big spin puts all others to shame because she does it by someone’s fucking neck. Everything she does looks solid to great… but the important thing is it all looks like it hurts. She strikes a balance between execution and grit that I think is universally great, but was especially potent in 90s joshi. Even when there is a misfire she rarely lets anything sit long enough for it to matter. Her selling is also quite good. She gives steadily that really allows her opponents to earn their ground, making everyone look better and everything matter more. Additionally, her long-term selling is also very good (another testament to her psychology). The long and short is that Kandori is good at the meat and potatoes of the match.

P.S. Longevity

I said I wasn’t going to make a real case for her longevity, and I won’t, but I’ll make a passing comment. I can’t speak to how much quality wrestling she has been producing in the last 10-12 years at this point, but she has been an active wrestler for 35 years. Even if – hypothetically – she has been the drizzling shits in the last 10 years and even if it was technically for MMA, that build with Gabi Garcia was as pro wrestling as it gets. Look up the photos of her in her full walk out robe at the presser. I think she even punched a picture of Gabi. Look at the mid ring pull apart she had with Gabi. That was top shelf pro wrestling. I didn’t want to see her fight Garcia in the least, but she had me biting on the hype. It is who she is in her soul, so I can’t imagine she wasn’t at least still FINE in the ring.


In conclusion, I want to reiterate, most wrestlers that are going to make my list (especially those who will place highly, are going to have some combination of the attributes above I listed. Kandori isn’t unique in being great and having a well-rounded case. I’m not interested in lobbying for her to get top 10 votes (though it would warm my dark little dork heart). However, she belongs in that conversation in my mind, that elite conversation. She is probably going to be in my top 5-15 at the very lowest and I am going ahead and making my case for that here early and getting it out o