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Post by El Mckell on Feb 2, 2018 5:29:35 GMT -5
The start of this match is one of my favourite things in wrestling, Hokuto in black wedding dress going after Toyota before the bell then a dive while still in the dress; we then get rapid teases of Toyota determined to hit a dive to get her own back until eventually hitting a fucking missile dropkick to the outside to back of Hokuto's head. This match is all the quick athletic stuff you expect from a Manami Toyota match in 1995 but with more hate than you usually get. Love the vicious hair pulling, love the table spots where the tables never break. Love this match. ****3/4 The version that was on Youtube was slightly clipped for some reason so I uploaded the full thing youtu.be/DrEXm-kvy5A |
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Post by microstatistics on Feb 3, 2018 16:53:08 GMT -5
Second. Super match with great action, drama and emotion. The spotfest criticisms make no sense to me. As mentioned, the Hokuto entrance and the start rule.
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Post by bossrock on Feb 3, 2018 20:53:36 GMT -5
Third.
One of the best matches of either's career. Gets off to a great start and doesn't let up for a second. The hatred between these two leads to not only some gritty brawling but some absolutely insane and dangerous spots.
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Post by elliott on Oct 5, 2018 20:09:51 GMT -5
Really loved this match on a rewatch. I do think the finishing section falls off the rails a little bit with all the focus on the table spots. But up until then, this is top notch. Pretty much exactly what you want from these two. Insane pace with them throwing a ton of bombs at each other the whole time. Totally agree with El McKell about the opening with Hokuto in the black wedding dress. Not really a candidate for my top 100 because of the finish dragging, but this would almost certainly land in a top 200.
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Post by Cap on May 30, 2019 19:12:18 GMT -5
I actually sort of like that they get so focused on trying to murder each other with a table they nearly lost their focus on the match. If they had sort of created contrived spots like you might see in the WWE right now it would be one thing, but it was mostly them trying to drive one another through unbreakable tables with all their fucking might. To me, the finish is where the escalates into the top 100 conversation for me. Going to be a strong contender for next year's list for me.
This is probably my favorite singles Toyota match. I love some of the Aja matches, but somehow Hokuto's aggression from the start reigns Toyota's worst (or at least my least favorite) instincts in better here.
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Post by tetsujin on Jun 3, 2019 12:21:58 GMT -5
Just watched this. What an amazing, full of hate, kind of a spotfest-brawl hybrid. I love how Hokuto is wearing a black dress and Toyota is wearing a white one, such cliché sets the tone for their rivalry perfectly. And then we have tons of viciousness, incredible ofense and a final act where the match goes out of control and they just wanna kill each other. Great fight between two of the greatest wrestlers in the world at that moment.
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Post by Cap on Oct 28, 2019 20:22:50 GMT -5
From my watching project...
Akira Hokuto vs Manami Toyota (9/2/1995) Current Rank: 58 Trending: Down Bell to bell this match is an absolute blast. Hokuto brings in an almost Hansen-esque frenetic energy to this match. She is a force of nature from the moment she hits the ring and divebombs on Toyota in a god damned black wedding dress to when she attempts to break her in half on a table that will… not…. break. Everything about Hokuto in this match screams hatred. Like the aforementioned Hansen in the 91 Kobashi match, she is out to murder Toyota. The result is that I think we get my favorite Toyota performance. She is more or less in survival and desperation mode the whole time and I think that keeps her work a little tighter and more grounded. It also really plays into her comebacks and hope spots, once again another parallel I couldn’t help but draw to the Hanse/Kobashi match in this grouping. Their dynamic is really captivating and organic. It gets that feeling of unhinged chaos that really gets me, sucks me right in. Some of it is intentional, some of it seems somewhat organic. For example, there are a few moments where they seem just a little off balance or slightly out of sync and then they do something it looks like they are about to break their necks, yet barely escape disaster. I always say it isn’t a great Joshi match if you don’t think someone just died, so I suppose that is somewhat par for the course. This escalation of this match to Toyota and Hokuto throwing their bodies at one another in a futile attempt to drive each other through an unbreakable table was excellent. By the time they crawl back in the ring there is a real sense of drama surrounding who will get the next move because it will likely be the last. You also wonder if they are actually injured, which is somewhat unsettling. Then Toyota goes for the killshot with two finishers because she has to put down this monster that has been trying to murder her for 20 minutes… that is great wrestling to me. I love the whole match, but the finishing stretch really puts this one over the top. This one hit me as a middle of the pack top 100 match the first time I watched it. It is clearly elite to me. The second time I watched it I came away with roughly the same opinion. I could see it dropping just a touch if other things leap frog it. This match has an ethos I love. Its out of control, but never loses the plot. When that balance is found with good execution you get a winner. Full Post: gweproject.freeforums.net/thread/657/caps-watching-project-reports?page=2#ixzz63hZtVb00 |
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Post by elliott on Dec 3, 2021 1:14:21 GMT -5
This is better than I remembered and something I wish I voted for
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Post by KB8 on Jul 3, 2023 6:21:33 GMT -5
I saw folks were watching this on the discord last night so finally decided to check it out. That first 10-minute stretch is as good as anything I've seen in ages. It wasn't even Hokuto who tried to start shit before the bell - it was Toyota who flung off the robe, turned and ran over to blindside Hokuto with a dropkick. Hokuto moving and Toyota basically taking a Hamrick bump to the floor before eating a somersault senton, with Hokuto still in the black dress, was a great way to start. It pretty much set the table for the next 20+ minutes. Toyota is certifiable and her whole strategy was built around flinging herself at Hokuto with as much force as possible from as great a height as possible. Springboards, dropkicks, moonsaults, everything. Hokuto responding by stretching her to hell and basically savaging her was the perfect response. Toyota popping up from that first backdrop probably would've annoyed me ten years ago, but I think at this point I understand Manami Toyota better; the character, the person. Her style and approach will probably never be my favourite, but I can at least appreciate that her pain threshold is ridiculous. She landed flat on her back off that missile dropkick to the floor and got right back up, so if she's willing to put HERSELF through that sort of shit then I can buy an opponent having to go above and beyond. I thought the transitions during those first 10 minutes were basically all great, from Toyota hitting her first in-ring springboard and following up with one of the nastiest dropkicks ever, to Hokuto putting Toyota clean on her head with this ugly reverse powerslam thing. With Toyota you almost have to be wary of even whipping her into the ropes, such is her desire to propel herself off of them and back into your face. So Hokuto grounding her with the disgusting bow-and-arrow and Sharpshooter ruled. Everything had a real sense of enmity, even the way Toyota would twist a handful of Hokuto's hair - it was like an arm-wringer to the ponytail - before chucking her across the ring. They didn't exactly lose me around the midpoint but I thought the match took a bit of a dip when they went into trading finishers for a minute or two. Considering the transitions and build had been A+ up to that point it was a noticeable drop off. But they moved past that quickly enough and the build to the actual finish from there was really good. The youtube file was over 40 minutes long so when they started throwing bombs about 15 minutes in I was worried. Thankfully a chunk of the video was the post-match and I don't think they ever really went overboard. The escalation worked for me and so did the stuff with the table. It felt like it happened fairly organically, at least in that, as we've established, Toyota is a fucking nutcase. If I buy anybody resorting to putting someone through an unbreakable table because nothing else works, I buy Toyota. Not a chance Hokuto is taking that and not dishing out a receipt so I had no issue with her retaliating. The actual spots themselves looking brutal didn't hurt (well they didn't hurt ME). I know some folk think this is a spotty match, or even an outright spotfest. I don't really see it that way, but I guess the pro wrestling is a matter of perspective and I don't feel strongly enough to argue. What I absolutely disagree with is that there was no selling towards the end, or that Toyota in particular wasn't selling. I suppose you could question how she was the first one to hit any offence after the last table spot when she's the one who was actually on table, but Hokuto clearly sold it like the senton nearly crippled her as well. They both crawl in the ring and Toyota, in her physical prime with inhuman resilience, happened to get up half a second earlier than Hokuto. So she spikes her because that's about all she has left. I mean, the last couple minutes of the match were basically all selling with two moves. I have no real personal attachment to either of these women so I'm not going to bat for favourites or whatever. If anything I've seen enough Toyota where I wish she'd sell more that this didn't feel like it was even in the same ballpark. Either way I thought this was pretty awesome.
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Post by Kadaveri on Jul 3, 2023 18:13:17 GMT -5
What I absolutely disagree with is that there was no selling towards the end, or that Toyota in particular wasn't selling. I suppose you could question how she was the first one to hit any offence after the last table spot when she's the one who was actually on table, but Hokuto clearly sold it like the senton nearly crippled her as well. They both crawl in the ring and Toyota, in her physical prime with inhuman resilience, happened to get up half a second earlier than Hokuto. I don't think Toyota getting up first at the end despite being the one on the table is a problem in this specific match because the whole story is Hokuto is an injury-ridden veteran and Toyota is the younger superior athlete fighting to take her spot at the top. It makes sense that Toyota's body could just withstand a lot more punishment than Hokuto's could, even if Hokuto maybe didn't realise this until right at the end as she is pretty damn prideful and arrogant. |
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Post by KB8 on Jul 3, 2023 18:40:26 GMT -5
Yeah, for all the disregard she'd have for her own safety at times, Toyota hadn't, you know, broken her neck or something. While Hokuto...had. The different stages they were at in their careers definitely helped in making that particular spot work.
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