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Post by mrjmml on Jun 3, 2023 19:39:27 GMT -5
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Post by mrjmml on Jun 17, 2023 19:06:06 GMT -5
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Post by mrjmml on Jun 18, 2023 12:08:06 GMT -5
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Post by mrjmml on Jun 22, 2023 12:27:34 GMT -5
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Post by mrjmml on Jul 9, 2023 12:32:24 GMT -5
Complete and accurate Megumi Kudo
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Post by mrjmml on Jul 9, 2023 12:32:40 GMT -5
Akira Hokuto & Bull Nakano vs. Combat Toyoda & Megumi Kudo FMW 09-19-1992 This match is a handheld from the FMW’s 3rd Anniversary Show, it was the third to last match of the show, it was proceeded by Grigory Verichev & Tarzan Goto (c) vs Brian Theodile & Leon Spinks for the tag team belts and Atsushi Onita vs Tiger Jeet Singh (c) for the heavyweight championship, the match we are discussing today was the best of the show by far. It was a clash between two of the best wrestlers of AJW against the best female wrestlers in the roster of FMW, this match was the first one featured in the Megumi Kudo Queen Of The Death Matches DVD that was a compilation of the best matches in the career of the best female wrestler in FMW history, in this DVD you can find the classic she had against her Combat Toyoda (her partner tonight) in 1996 that is my favourite deathmatch, even better that Terry Funk vs Atsushi Onita in my opinion, I highly recommend that DVD if you are interested in her career.
Now the match, during most of it the Zenjo (AJW) team of Bull and Hokuto were incredibly dominant which was predictable considering how over both of them were at the time, they are far superior wrestlers and they know it, the crowd knew it too, the crowd was pure fire in this one, I think they compensated the state of footage because as I said earlier this was a handheld so the quality isn’t the greatest. The only control segment that the FMW team had was when Combat Toyoda entered the ring and hit a clothesline to the corner then it was cut short by Bull Nakano, from there it was smooth sailing, they got the victory after hitting their finisher simultaneously for the three count ending the match.
It’s one of my favourite handhelds ever, I really like it and if you like 90’s joshi you’ll like it too, the only thing holding it back for some people is the quality of the footage but seriously give it a try.
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Post by mrjmml on Jul 9, 2023 12:33:10 GMT -5
Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada (AJW) vs. Megumi Kudo & Combat Toyoda (FMW) (April 2, 1993) Dreamslam 1 It’s time for another Megumi Kudo match this time against Manami Toyota and Toshiyo Yamada with her usual partner Combat Toyoda, last time I reviewed a tag team bout with those two teaming up against Akira Hokuto and Bull Nakano in FMW. This one is very different from the last one, let’s get the obvious out of the way first, the quality of the footage is way better but what makes this match so different is the match structure, the last one was a spotfest full of big moves and very little in the way of in-ring psychology while this match is particularly good in that department, surprisingly good considering the participants especially Manami Toyota who usually worked without a match narrative with few exceptions luckily this is one of them. This match flies by in part thanks to that match narrative that is followed throughout the entirety of this contest, every move is meaningful and purposeful which is something I didn’t expect going into it when I first watched it a few years ago. It’s overshadowed by the legendary main event of the show, Akira Hokuto vs Shinobu Kandori the greatest wrestling match in the history of the business that I reviewed in spanish two months ago, if you know spanish feel free to read that one first and read this later, if you haven’t watched it yet watch it, it’ll make your day.
Now, the match was great the AJW team especially Toyota sold the FMW girls like a legitimate threat, sometimes it felt a bit sloppy but I think that sloppiness added a profound sense of struggle that worked well to put over Combat Toyoda as a powerhouse, Toyota and Yamada were always ahead, I felt like they always knew what they were doing thanks to that they were able to beat them, they weren’t as superior as Bull and Hokuto were though.
I recommend you to watch the entire event not just this match, there’s two matches that are better than this one but this isn’t a criticism just a testament to the event’s quality.
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Post by mrjmml on Jul 9, 2023 12:33:42 GMT -5
Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita (AJW) vs. Megumi Kudo & Combat Toyoda (FMW) (April 11, 1993) Dreamslam 2 Exactly a week after the match I reviewed yesterday, this time their opponents are an up and coming team by the name of LCO ( Las Cachorras Orientales) as you may know one of the best tag teams in wrestling history formed by Mima Shimoda and Etsuko Mita, they began to team up in 1990 but they didn’t have a name until 1992 but their prime years were from 1997 to the year 2000 in my opinion having great matches in AJW, GAEA and ARSION during that time, this time they’re proving themselves against a team that may sound familiar to everyone that has been reading this substack in the last few days, the FMW team formed by Megumi Kudo and Combat Toyoda. Their opponents today are inferior to Manami Toyota and Toshiyo Yamada or Bull Nakano and Akira Hokuto so they might have a chance to win this time after losing the first two matches I reviewed, let’s see how it went.
It starts the way you imagine if you are familiar with LCO, they didn’t wait for the bell to rang at all, they went straight at them without hesitation, things calmed down in the next few minutes though. It’s evident that the match is closer in terms of ability, once again Megumi Kudo has a supporting role while Combat Toyoda is the powerhouse and the anchor of the team as always their opponents’ main goal is to takedown Toyoda. This is one of those matches in which the narrative is secondary as it’s the case with many LCO matches the spots are the protagonists, the crowd loves them and I can’t blame them. The highlights of the match are the table spots,the piledrivers and Combat Toyoda’s powerbomb. Combat Toyoda dropping people head first is always great and Kudo’s Tiger Driver looks nasty every time.
I wouldn’t recommend this match unless you are into spotfests and you like table spots, it’s just not for me.
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Post by mrjmml on Jul 9, 2023 12:34:08 GMT -5
Megumi Kudo & Combat Toyoda vs. Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada 5/5/93 FMW Origin Before we begin, yes Atsushi Onita vs Terry Funk happened in the same show, a match very superior to this one but this project is about Megumi Kudo and she’s a highlight in this match, if you like crazy spotfests full of head drops this is for you if not don’t watch it, sometimes those spots feel uncomfortable to watch, not in the same way that Kana vs Kyoko Kimura was but still pretty unsettling nonetheless. It’s the same pairing from Dreamslam 1 the FMW team of Megumi Kudo and Combat Toyoda vs Manami Toyota and Toshiyo Yamada this time in FMW’s 4th anniversary show, I can’t help but think that the outcome of this match was determined by politics. It’s something similar to what they did four years earlier with the Atsushi Onita vs Masashi Aoyagi trilogy, you win the first two I win the last one kind of deal. I don’t think that the FMW deserved a win considering their position in the world of Joshi at the time, they were basically nobodies in comparison to AJW’s up and comers, I think their win against LCO was justified but this one, there’s just no way to justify it, there’s no build up to the victory, it feels forced, that decision doesn’t feel right.
The match began with some brawling in the outside of the ring, then it settled, in the ring the action was what you could expect, a suplexfest without anything resembling a match narrative and the before mentioned head drops that plagued this particular match, as you can probably tell from the last paragraph the FMW team won against all odds. I can’t wait to do a Terry Funk deep dive so I can review the greatest match of this show.
If you like suplexes and head drops go watch this, this is not a masterpiece or anything but it was fun.
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Post by mrjmml on Jul 9, 2023 12:34:43 GMT -5
Megumi Kudo vs Aja Kong 12/6/1993 AJW St Battle Final Time to end Megumi Kudo’s 1993 with the best of her career yet, a singles match against one of the greatest wrestlers ever Aja Kong, she’s clearly the underdog in this match not just because of the size but also in in-ring ability is not that Megumi is a bad wrestler, it’s just that Aja is a sublime one, once again this match isn’t the best of the show. Remember this show featured the rematch between Akira Hokuto and Shinobu Kandori as the main event after the masterpiece they put together in Dreamslam 1 so the match I’m reviewing didn’t come close but it didn’t have to, it was better than I remembered it being, there’s a lot of good stuff throughout. Aja’s selling is outstanding, it’s something that not many people talk about, her ability to make everyone look like a legitimate threat to her 3WA title while always looking strong. This match is unique in joshi during this time period, it’s a match so different from the others, it’s a style marked by wrestlers that prioritize spots over selling so having this is a pleasant surprise to say the least, the match narrative took the front seat in this one and I’m incredibly grateful for that, some joshi wrestlers around that time should have learnt from this match.
The match is amazing from the beginning, Megumi’s limbwork is incredible, she knew that it was her only chance to get away with the victory, Aja looked visibly weakened by those attacks, at first she’s unable to hit her signature offense because of it but as time passed she began to feel better and once she was able to regain her composture Megumi couldn’t stop her. From there, it was Aja’s show, the only moment when Megumi posed a threat was when she tried to hit her Tiger Driver but she couldn’t, Aja hit a flurry of urakens to get the win and retain her title as expected.
I think everyone should watch this one, if you think joshi is all spots no narrative this match proves you wrong.
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Post by mrjmml on Jul 9, 2023 12:35:05 GMT -5
Megumi Kudo vs Yumiko Hotta 5/5/1994 FMW 5th anniversary show We start Megumi Kudo’s 1994 in a familiar spot FMW’s anniversary show, the only copy we have of this match is clipped so like seven minutes are missing, I think you know the dynamic by now a big name from AJW comes to FMW to face her ace. It played out like that, Yumiko Hotta was a recognizable name at this stage of her career specially when only a few months earlier in January she faced Aja Kong in a match considered by many (myself included) an instant classic so she was a big opponent for Megumi, once again her match isn’t the best of the show, remember the main event of this show was Atsushi Onita vs Genichiro Tenryu in a No Rope Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch with the stipulation being that if Onita lost he had to retire from wrestling, spoiler he lost and ‘‘retired’’, you know how retirements in wrestling work so you know that it wasn’t his last match, in fact, he wrestled as recently as June this year. The match I’m going to review is Megumi’s first defense of her FMW Independent and WWA World Women's Championship.
I don’t know how to feel about the match, looks great but almost half the match is missing, I think that if we had a complete version of this I could confidently say that this match is great, as things stand today, I can say that the match was entertaining but the missing parts seem important to understand the match structure, Yumiko Hotta did a great job making it look like she was going to win the title in Megumi’s first defense, the kickouts were very intense, some near falls really looked close but the ace of FMW got away with the victory with a cradle for the three count.
What we have is very good but I can’t help but think that if we had the match in full it would have been much better.
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Post by mrjmml on Jul 9, 2023 12:35:31 GMT -5
Cuty Suzuki & Takako Inoue vs Megumi Kudo & Hikari Fukuoka 11/20/1994 AJW Big Egg Universe This match was a part of the greatest event in joshi history, 10 hours of wrestling in the Tokyo Dome something I think will never happen again, a stack card full of big names from start to finish headlined by the final of the VTOP Woman Tournament that ended up being Akira Hokuto vs Aja Kong, supposedly Hokuto’s retirement match. You know how retirements in wrestling usually work, she wrestled regularly until 2002 when she retired this time for real, that match was better than the one I’m about to review today a tag match that involved two of the biggest personalities in the history of joshi in one side ( Takako Inoue & Cuty Suzuki) against the biggest name FMW had to offer ( Megumi Kudo) and JWP’s copycat of Manami Toyota ( Hikari Fukuoka).
The match was much better than I expected going into it, the level of intensity is amazing but that’s expected out of this four, it’s an awesome joshi spotfest with lots of piledrivers, kickouts and headrops. Takako Inoue is one of the most badass wrestlers ever in the history of joshi so everything she did during the match was incredible, the standout wrestler of the match without a shadow of a doubt is Megumi Kudo, her performance during the finishing stretch of the match was absolutely jaw-dropping. Cuty Suzuki is more of the same, charismatic and hard-hitting, there’s nobody like her on any joshi roster at the time, everytime she wrestled you noticed her, something that I don’t feel when I watch Hikari Fukuoka wrestle, she was fine in this match but nothing if it wasn’t for the title of the video I wouldn’t have noticed that she was involved in this match, she had some good matches in 1993 against Manami Toyota and she was the weakest member of the JWP team in the Thunder Queen Battle 8 woman 60-minute ironman match. The finish of this match was wild, Megumi hit 3 Tiger Drivers in a row to put Takako away.
I recommend you watch the entire show not just this match, this event is legendary.
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Post by mrjmml on Jul 9, 2023 12:36:10 GMT -5
Bad Nurse Nakamura, Miwa Sato & Shark Tsuchiya vs. Combat Toyoda & Megumi Kudo (Barbed Wire Deathmatch) 9/5/1995 FMW Super Dynamism Tag 11 This match isn’t only the first deathmatch I review, it’s the first handicap match I review, it’s one of those matches that were booked out of necessity considering that no tag team in the women’s division of FMW was credible enough to pose a challenge to Megumi Kudo and Combat Toyoda after beating Las Cachorras Orientales, Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada and Megumi Kudo beat Yumiko Hotta in a singles match in the anniversary show of the previous year, they were unstoppable at that time. That’s the reason why they booked a handicap match, it’s a very similar reason why AWA in 1982 booked a handicap match with Andre the Giant and Hulk Hogan in one team and Bobby Duncum, Bobby Heenan and Nick Bockwinkel in the other, they were so unstoppable they had to be outnumbered. Her opponents tonight are Miwa Sato, Shark Tsuchiya and Bad Nurse Nakamura, Miwa Sato had been wrestling in FMW since their first year ( 1989), she was trained by Tarzan Goto, in the summer of 1995 she turned heel for the first time after revealing her mystery partner Bad Nurse Nakamura who was a part of Shark Tsuchiya’s stable Mad Dog Military, that heel turn made this match possible.
The match itself wasn’t very good but I think you figured that out just by looking at the lineup, Megumi is the highlight of the match specially in the finishing stretch, there’s many spots related to barbed wire in one way or another, in the beginning it was more the possibility of making contact with it then it escalated, they started using tables with barbed wire in them. The strategy of Tsuchiya’s team consisted on double teaming Combat Toyoda, it didn’t work, Megumi hit a Northern Lights suplex on Shark Tsuchiya for the win.
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Post by mrjmml on Jul 9, 2023 12:36:40 GMT -5
Megumi Kudo vs. Shark Tsuchiya 12/22/95 FMW Yamato-Nadeshiko II Korakuen Hall Megumi Kudo’s second deathmatch and her first in singles competition, the ring is surrounded by barbed wire without ring ropes like the last time, Shark Tsuchiya isn’t the greatest worker so the match is basically a Megumi Kudo carryjob from start to finish, she does a great job selling and putting over the barbed wire throughout the match. She even made Tsuchiya look decent during her control segment, she made sure the match was as good as it could have been, one thing that’s clear about the FMW women’s division is the lack of talent, when the trainees entered the ring it was obvious how clueless they were about putting the babyface over, that’s interesting because Megumi trained all the wrestlers in the women’s division of the company. Shark had a great match by her low standards, one thing I hated about this match specifically is the crowd’s lack of engagement with the match, they were almost completely quiet during the whole affair, it looked like a match from the undercard not the main event of their Korakuen Hall show, they were disinterested in the match.
The match began with Tsuchiya’s control segment, irish whipping Kudo to the barbed wire repeatedly during the first half of the contest, Tsuchiya also used an instrument that I don’t know how to name to cut Megumi’s forehead open so she started bleeding profusely because of that cut, you can see that she also had cuts in her body because of the barbed wire of course. Then Shark used one of her trainees to beat Kudo with barbed wire that she cut herself and another one to bring a kendo stick to the ring, I want to point out how heartbreaking Kudo’s screams are. The final stretch consisted of Kudo’s comeback culminating with her new finisher the Kudome, the same finisher that The Hurricane and Homicide used for the victory.
I don’t recommend this match, the next matches will be much better but this one is skippable.
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Post by mrjmml on Jul 9, 2023 12:37:00 GMT -5
Megumi Kudo vs. Combat Toyoda 5/5/96 FMW 7th anniversary show I think this is the match we all think of when the name Megumi Kudo is brought up, the best match in the history of FMW in my opinion, the level of intensity and the use of the stipulation are sublime, everything about it is awesome, from the presentations to the post-match, without a doubt the best retirement in the history of wrestling. First, this is Combat Toyoda’s retirement match, it happened in FMW’s 7th anniversary show, it’s a No Rope Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch which means that the ring is covered in barbed wire and it explodes when touched so there will be a lot of playing around with the possibility of touching the ropes and they’ll do their best to avoid them. If you remember, a month ago I uploaded my GME ballot to this substack, this match was very high on that list and I don’t regret putting this match as high as I did because it really deserved its placement, this is one of my favourite matches in wrestling history and the main reason why I decided to make a Megumi Kudo retrospective in the first place, If you haven’t watched it yet watch it now this review can wait.
The match starts with matwork, they set the stakes during the first few minutes establishing the stakes, they put over the barbed wire by avoiding it at all costs, great stuff, Megumi is the first one who had contact with the barbed wire after receiving a dropkick from Combat Toyoda that launched her into the ropes, the ropes exploded and Megumi started bleeding from her arms, Toyoda eventually had contact with the ropes as well. Then, the famous Toyoda suplex to the barbed wire happened and that marked the beginning of the finishing stretch, Megumi hit her opponent with her Tiger Driver, a powerbomb and a Kudome for the win, both had to leave the ring in a stretcher.
Just watch it if you haven’t already, it won’t disappoint you.
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