Aja Kong vs. Bison Kimura (AJW - 6/21/92)

Second:

This was about as close to a joshi approximation of a WAR potatofest as I've seen. It was ugly, it was messy, it was a wee bit choppy and good grief did they clobber the whole entire shit out of each other. The very first thing that happens is Bison punching Aja dead in the face and it really just escalates from there. The fact these two are partners is sort of astounding because what would they have done to each other if they were enemies? Aja is a force of nature here. She splits Bison open with a headbutt, bloodies her mouth with a grotesque punt, hammers her with chairs and some big bastard bit of metal, throws a chair at the ref' for getting in the way, and by the end Bison is missing a front tooth and it could've been from fifteen different things. Bison largely fights uphill given who she's in with, but in her brief spells of offence she gives as good as she gets. I think at some point she starts targeting Aja's arm with her big overhand chops, which I thought was a nice bit of strategy considering how she's outmatched otherwise. I also liked some of her KO'd selling, at one point just falling back after an Aja flurry, which essentially saved her from being hit with an uraken. Aja taking her jaw off with one shortly after that was ridiculous and I liked Aja paying back that arm work in kind at the end. Stylistically I'm not sure this was a massive shift from the AJW house style, but they certainly put more of a focus on the strikes rather than the big offense. And the pace was slower. So maybe it was a massive shift after all.