Joshi Puroresu Discussion Thread

[Eivion]

Uh huh, yeah that feels like bs to defend a favorite.

[Kevin Wilson]

OZ Academy had a WAVE-like attendance for their Korakuen Hall event on 1/25 (530). I was wondering what the dip would be after Dynamite Kansai retired but that was a bit more than I was expecting. I still wouldn't judge it from one show though, since it didn't have a typical OZ Academy main event. But the main event looks great to me so I'm looking forward to watching it on 2/11 when it airs. Here were the results:

• Aoi Kizuki defeated Yako Fujigasaki
• Manami Toyota and Tsukushi defeated Tsubasa Kuragaki and Kaori Yoneyama 
• Ikuto Hidaka defeated Mitsuhisa Sunabe
• Aja Kong, Rina Yamashita, and Saki Akai defeated Mayumi Ozaki, Maya Yukihi, and Yumi Ohka
• Meiko Satomura, Chihiro Hashimoto, and Mika Shirahime defeated Sonoko Kato, AKINO, and Kaho Kobayashi
• OZ Academy Tag Team Championship: Hikaru Shida and Syuri vs. Hiroyo Matsumoto and Kagetsu ended in a Draw

[Eivion]

I was surprised when i saw that attendance. I wonder if it would have been different had Hiroyo been defending the belt.

[JMTD]

7 hours ago, .STAP said:

Yoshiko has been training with Nanae and the SEI☆ZA girls for a while. She's ready for this.

 

I kind of get a feeling that Arisa will join SEAdLINNNG. She is very close with them.

Yoshiko has done absolutely nothing wrong.

Yeah, no. She's a disgusting person who ended the career of another wrestler in an inexcusable way. How anybody can even attempt to defend that is beyond me. Zero desire to ever watch her wrestle a match again.

But hey, if you like people that legit beat the shit out of others in what's supposed to be a scripted and worked match and take away their career from them, that's up to you.

[.STAP]

3 hours ago, JMTD said:

Yeah, no. She's a disgusting person who ended the career of another wrestler in an inexcusable way. How anybody can even attempt to defend that is beyond me. Zero desire to ever watch her wrestle a match again.

But hey, if you like people that legit beat the shit out of others in what's supposed to be a scripted and worked match and take away their career from them, that's up to you.

 

Act clearly shot first placing Yoshiko in a position where she had to defend herself. She is not blameless and certainly no victim.

 

Yoshiko's reaction may have been over the top, but you mess with the bull, you get the horns, etc.

[JMTD]

37 minutes ago, .STAP said:

 

Act clearly shot first placing Yoshiko in a position where she had to defend herself. She is not blameless and certainly no victim.

 

Yoshiko's reaction may have been over the top, but you mess with the bull, you get the horns, etc.

Load of absolute nonsense. What Yoshiko did was nothing short of absolutely disgusting and to be perfectly frank she shouldn't be wrestling again period.

Absolutely zero respect or care for the woman after that incident. Even more disgusting considering how she targeted the bad eye of Act. She ended the career of somebody who absolutely loved the business and somebody who had been through a large amount of stuff in her life yet overcome it to continue in wrestling. Your choice how you want to see it though, was just stating that I'll never personally watch any match involving her again and will only tune into the MMA fight in hope of seeing her get finished.

[Overly Critical Man]

Apparently Arisa did join SEAdLINNNG if the pictures from the main event are any indication.

Can't wait to see Arisa's MMA debut.

Is this Nanae's true aim? To be a joshi Inoki and turn everyone in her promotion into pseudo mixed martial artists?

[Eivion]

5 hours ago, .STAP said:

Act clearly shot first placing Yoshiko in a position where she had to defend herself. She is not blameless and certainly no victim.

 

Yoshiko's reaction may have been over the top, but you mess with the bull, you get the horns, etc.

I'm not even sure how you can count Act throwing a strike a shooting. It wasn't any harder than I recall her doing in the past. Kairi & Io hit each other harder. Whats more there is a such thing as going too far. Its fine if you want to like Yoshiko, but don't deny the woman was an asshole here.

[Overly Critical Man]

Not wanting to get into this argument over who shot first, but Act and Japan seem to have forgiven Yoshiko and moved on from the incident, why can't we? 

[Eivion]

Act never forgave her, she just moved on. I generally can move on from it too, but when someone makes such a bullshit claim to defend a disgusting assault its hard to ignore.

[Kevin Wilson]

10 hours ago, Eivion said:

I was surprised when i saw that attendance. I wonder if it would have been different had Hiroyo been defending the belt.

I was thinking that, or if the main event was a crazy OZ Academy Ozaki-gun match. Its not a style I personally enjoy but it has worked well for the promotion, the main event they had included quality wrestlers but it doesn't really scream 'OZ Academy', so maybe some of their regulars skipped it.

[Overly Critical Man]

8 minutes ago, Kevin Wilson said:

I was thinking that, or if the main event was a crazy OZ Academy Ozaki-gun match. Its not a style I personally enjoy but it has worked well for the promotion, the main event they had included quality wrestlers but it doesn't really scream 'OZ Academy', so maybe some of their regulars skipped it.

That's probably it. OZ Academy has made that heavy interference gang warfare-style match their calling card. I'm sure a lot of their fans weren't interested in a straight up tag team match as the main. Especially after that amazing sendoff that was Ozaki/Kansai.

[Eivion]

48 minutes ago, Kevin Wilson said:

I was thinking that, or if the main event was a crazy OZ Academy Ozaki-gun match. Its not a style I personally enjoy but it has worked well for the promotion, the main event they had included quality wrestlers but it doesn't really scream 'OZ Academy', so maybe some of their regulars skipped it.

I honestly skip Ozaki'gun matches whenever I do catch Oz Academy shows. Are those styles of matches really getting that much support from the audience?

[Kevin Wilson]

2 minutes ago, Eivion said:

I honestly skip Ozaki'gun matches whenever I do catch Oz Academy shows. Are those styles of matches really getting that much support from the audience?

They seem to enjoy it, I mean its what the promotion is known for and generally their attendances are higher, so I assume their fans come to see it. It is one of the things that sets OZ apart from other Joshi promotions and has been a staple there as long as I can remember, if fans in general didn't like it I don't think they'd still consistently get 800+ at Korakuen (before this show). I couldn't find the last time they had this low of an attendance, maybe they normally don't run mid-week on a non-holiday or there was some other outside factor I am not aware of.

[Hoope]

That card had no business being in Korakuen.

 

It would've worked in Shinjuku but they just did a show there or Osanbashi Hall maybe. But other than Meiko being there, that card looks nothing like a Korakuen Hall show that would do well. 

[.STAP]

2 hours ago, Overly Critical Man said:

Not wanting to get into this argument over who shot first, but Act and Japan seem to have forgiven Yoshiko and moved on from the incident, why can't we? 

Yoshiko was never 'forgiven' because she did nothing wrong. Io, Mayu and Hiroyo literally begged her to not retire, Suwama told her to not give in and stay strong, and I think they would know more about the situation than any of us would. Mayu still tweets Yoshiko publicly and no one is crying about it. Most fans know she did nothing wrong. Moreover, I haven't seen any of the Stardom girls (other than Fuka) talk to or even take pictures with Act since she left Stardom and she has attended several of their several shows. So we have one party who is universally loved and booked everywhere and another who is shunned by the roster, speaks volumes about who is in the wrong.

[Kevin Wilson]

The fact is, none of us knows what happened between Act and Yoshiko so I generally just stay out of it as its none of my business. Act was still actively in Stardom for 1.5 years after the incident (at least, don't know the current status) so I haven't seen any evidence Stardom is mad at Act or thinks she did anything wrong, she has a recent picture of her with Kris Wolf on her timeline and would likely still be wrestling in Stardom if the doctors didn't advise her to stop. But wrestlers/promoters don't seem mad at Yoshiko either, from vets of other promotions to current Stardom wrestlers. My assumption from the little we do know is that Act and Yoshiko legitimately didn't like each other at all and chose a really bad time to 'work out their differences,' if they had squared off in the dojo un-televised then fans wouldn't have gotten so mad about it.

I don't think a debate will change anything but y'all of course can have at it

[.STAP]

Last year OZ had the added boost of two retirements and an anniversary show at Korakuen, this recent number isn't all that different than what they normally get, just 200 less. Their year-end show in 2015 (non-retirement) drew 750 with with Kato/Ohka, Ozaki/Bolshoi and Yoneyama & Tsubasa/MK4 on a Sunday. Maybe a portion of their fans would rather see older women main eventing instead of 4 young freelancers. Just give Yumi Ohka the belt.

[.STAP]

12 minutes ago, Kevin Wilson said:

she has a recent picture of her with Kris Wolf on her timeline and would likely still be wrestling in Stardom if the doctors didn't advise her to stop

Yeah, the gaijin are the only ones who show her any kind of support and take pictures with her, not so much the native roster.

[JMTD]

40 minutes ago, .STAP said:

Yoshiko was never 'forgiven' because she did nothing wrong. Io, Mayu and Hiroyo literally begged her to not retire, Suwama told her to not give in and stay strong, and I think they would know more about the situation than any of us would. Mayu still tweets Yoshiko publicly and no one is crying about it. Most fans know she did nothing wrong. Moreover, I haven't seen any of the Stardom girls (other than Fuka) talk to or even take pictures with Act since she left Stardom and she has attended several of their several shows. So we have one party who is universally loved and booked everywhere and another who is shunned by the roster, speaks volumes about who is in the wrong.

"Speaks volumes about who was in the wrong..."

It's pointless even continuing the discussion when you're making comments like that. Yeah, Yoshiko did nothing wrong. Let's ignore the actual video evidence showing Yoshiko beating the ever living sh*t out of Act, beating her to a bloody pulp and even going as far as to target the eye she had surgery on. Poor old Yoshiko, such an innocent loving woman. Who cares about the woman who got absolutely battered, hospitalised and had her career brought to an end.

[Hoope]

The girls coming out to stop her from retiring says nothing about their feelings towards Act, just how they feel about Yoshiko. 

 

There's is no right person/side here.

[.STAP]

2 hours ago, JMTD said:

"Speaks volumes about who was in the wrong..."

It's pointless even continuing the discussion when you're making comments like that. Yeah, Yoshiko did nothing wrong. Let's ignore the actual video evidence showing Yoshiko beating the ever living sh*t out of Act, beating her to a bloody pulp and even going as far as to target the eye she had surgery on. Poor old Yoshiko, such an innocent loving woman. Who cares about the woman who got absolutely battered, hospitalised and had her career brought to an end.

The very video evidence that shows Act shooting first and initiating the incident.

 

I agree with Hoope that there is no right party -- to an extent, I still think Act should have never tried to start a shoot to begin with. She was the senior in this situation, she should have known better.

[Kevin Wilson]

I seem to be the only person that points this out each time, but the most interesting thing about it to me is that after they got the initial fisticuffs out of the way, they both started "working" after that. Which implies it wasn't a spur of the moment "I lost control" attack but something they were aware would happen, which would also explain why Wada didn't seem too alarmed. Act was just too messed up which is why it was stopped. That is why my theory has always been (based on nothing insider, just from what we saw) that they didn't like each other and both knew they were going to really go at it at first, then go into the planned action. There really is no way from video to see who 'shot' first since both were hard hitters anyway and I think a lot of 'worked' strikes in Joshi look quite real, but in my theory that doesn't matter as I think both knew what was going to happen when the bell rang. But that is all it is, a theory.

I have no issue with Yoshiko as I'd be a hypocrite if I did. There is a long list of wrestlers that have intentionally punched an opponent in the ring, this one was just seen as worse because Act was a popular wrestler with a legitimate underdog story based on her life. But I don't blame people that don't have any interest in seeing her, I'm just not an overly sensitive person, I'd watch a Benoit vs. Snuka match right now if it existed.

[Kyle Casey]

A theory I've heard was that the plan was to do a super-stiff worked shoot, similar to Akira Hokuto vs. Shinobu Kandori in 1993, and it just wound up getting super out of hand for whatever reason. Maybe because they didn't like each other? Whatever the reason, it would explain Wada's nonchalance about what was going on, as well as Act's insisting on continuing, despite clearly being too fucked up to do so. Kyoko Kimura also clearly got hot at Yoshiko after the match for going too far, and you could see as Act was being tended to outside the ring, she had this kind of "What just happened?" expression. 

I find Yoshiko's role in the whole deal distasteful, but a) I never was a huge fan of hers to begin with, and b) Act was probably my favorite wrestler from STARDOM, so I know those two factors color my opinion of it. That said, I have no problem with either the frame of mind that says "I will never watch anything she does" nor the one that says "It's time to move on from it." I find both points of view equally valid. I suppose it's all a matter of perspective.

Just my .02

[Trocar Slush Weasel]

5 hours ago, Kevin Wilson said:

The fact is, none of us knows what happened between Act and Yoshiko so I generally just stay out of it as its none of my business. Act was still actively in Stardom for 1.5 years after the incident (at least, don't know the current status) so I haven't seen any evidence Stardom is mad at Act or thinks she did anything wrong, she has a recent picture of her with Kris Wolf on her timeline and would likely still be wrestling in Stardom if the doctors didn't advise her to stop. But wrestlers/promoters don't seem mad at Yoshiko either, from vets of other promotions to current Stardom wrestlers. My assumption from the little we do know is that Act and Yoshiko legitimately didn't like each other at all and chose a really bad time to 'work out their differences,' if they had squared off in the dojo un-televised then fans wouldn't have gotten so mad about it.

I don't think a debate will change anything but y'all of course can have at it

We also have to consider the culture.  In America, Yoshiko would have been banished to a career in Insane Clown Posse's shitty fed.  While in Japan, Shibata can be a total asshole and take liberties all over the place and be revered.  My theory is that Act/Yoshiko was supposed to be a light beer version of Hokuto/Kandori but Yoshiko completely lost the plot.  To say that Yoshiko was within her rights to "defend herself" is ludicrous.  Those shots by Act weren't any stiffer than she would get from anybody else. You want to be a professional, you need to act like a professional.