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Heartbeat The Rival Bout: Manami Toyota vs. Toshiyo Yamada |
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This match kicked off the legendary four match series that was designed to elevate these two to the upper tier in the promotion, and did just that. The Toyota and Yamada we see here are very different from the Toyota and Yamada we would come to known. Of course, the obvious is that neither woman was close to as good as they'd become. However, Toyota showed some good aspects here that she didn't bother with later on. For instance, she actually focused her attack in this match. She also put more effort into selling and didn't make a bunch of quick comebacks. Looking back, you wish some one would have told her to keep this part of her wrestling, and just work on making the later parts of the match faster and more glamorous. Some wrestlers are able to change, but Toyota is one that locked in on one course, and isn't going to stray from that a bit until she gets to the end of the line. "Toyota looked to have focused her offense for once on Yamada's leg while Yamada tried to do the same on Toyota. Toyota's selling looked better here, and her comebacks weren't 'unreasonable.' I thought it was interesting how one part of the storyline was that Yamada intended to beat Toyota by kicking her to death. That's one of the reasons why Toyota was focusing on Yamada's leg so much, and why they did a few KO type of counts after Yamada beat Toyota up," wrote Keith. "Toyota's focused mat attack on Yamada's knee was good because at that time Yamada was doing the UWF kicker gimmick. Toyota's matwork was actually pretty good, as was that of Yamada. The only problem was that neither wrestler did much to sell the damage of the early submissions, and even though both had had their knee's 'injured,' Yamada used her kicks, and Toyota did her aerial moves without showing any signs of being in pain," wrote James. Toyota hadn't developed the unreasonable aspects of her game yet, and she wasn't a spot machine. Sure, she flew around, but she didn't do it until later in the match, and she didn't have nearly the move set she'd have just six months later. "Toyota's aerial move set at this time wasn't large. She relied greatly on the middle rope headbutt, a move that she rarely used in more recent years. Her quebrada didn't look all that great here as her knee's hit Yamada in the face, and she squashed some rings girls against the guard rail, but I think part of the reason for that was the lack of space between the ring and the guard rail," wrote James. "I think what happened was that Toyota was getting over really quickly on that high-paced style, which complimented her good looks. She ended up keeping those aspects of her style because it had worked for her then, but I agree that she should have kept those other aspects," wrote Keith. Yamada's style was more UWF based at this point. She certainly had some aspects of Chigusa, but she was mainly a kicker at this point. Like Toyota, it wasn't that much longer until she greatly expanded her move set, and in doing that, most of the UWF style was left behind, although she always did a lot of kicks. What I liked a lot about the match was that both women attacked the legs. This made sense because it would/could take away their opponents strength; Toyota's flying and Yamada's kicking. What hurt the match in my mind was that, while they didn't miss many moves, a lot of the moves didn't look as impressive as they should have. Both women were very intense. This helped the submission portion a lot, and also gave credence to the whole idea that these two were rivals. The early portion was all leg work by Toyota. She did all that stuff that worked in 1991, but no longer works even though she still acts like it does. This was 1991 though, so the submissions added to the match because her focus gave the match one of it's storylines. Yamada also used some leg work, but this was in between using one kick after another to beat Toyota into unconsciousness. As time went on, Yamada started mixing the leg kicks with the leg submissions, solidifying her part in the leg storyline. The second half had a ton of near falls. I was surprised that the heat wasn't better because this was some really exciting wrestling for 1991, and 1991 was before everyone became desensitized to all the high spots. Aside from a few moves that weren't executed as well as they could have been, the second half was great. It was all action with all the big moves like later Toyota, but the selling and pacing were a lot closer to the way they "should be." "I thought Yamada vs. Toyota was damn good, especially when you take into consideration the time frame. I would've rated it as a match of the year candidate, but my '91 knowledge is limited. I know that it definitely blew Hennig vs. Hart for the IC title out of that overrated 5* water," wrote Keith. One cool series was Yamada using sidebuster after sidebuster (a side suplex drop where the opponent is dropped at a more dangerous diagonal angle so they land more on their upper back and the back of their neck), but Toyota finally turning one into her rolling cradle. A bit later, Yamada got a measure of revenge by turning Toyota's dropkick into a slingshot. Toyota just managed to avoid going over the top to the floor, and was able to dump Yamada over the top when she charged her to set up her super quebrada. Toyota tried to put Yamada away with various bridging suplexes before time expired, but Yamada still had a lot of fight in her so it went to a full time draw. Jason: The first 13 minutes was mainly Toyota and Yamada working over each others legs, basically wearing each other down. Yamada's main other offense was kicking the crap out of Toyota. Toyota actually sold the kicks like they were wearing her down, which made the first portion sensible. Toyota used a lot of her flying like missile dropkicks and flying headbutts to wear Yamada down. They sold the leg submissions fairly well in the first half of the match, but seemed to forget about it later. The second half was the fast action that these two are now known for. They did slow the match down at various times by going back to the legs, but outside of one portion where Toyota appeared to be "worn down" by the series of kicks, they didn't really sell them that well. Toyota would come back with her fast-paced attack that wore Yamada out. The last half was really strong with the near falls and with no winner being declared, it really helped set up their future matches. Special thanks to: Jason Higgs & Keith Watanabe - Manami Toyota Rules! & James Phillips- Japanese Women's Wrestling 30:00
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