Akira Hokuto & Bull Nakano vs. Cutie Suzuki & Mayumi Ozaki

[7.0] "This match is great but a little messy in parts. Clearly the babyface team of Cutie Suzuki and Mayumi Ozaki are bit green or at least simply not as good as Bull Nakano and Akira Hokuto but in the first half of the match there was a few moments of hesitation and weak looking offence from the two. Luckily the match seems centered on the heels which gets everyone over. Bull specifically looks monstrous, throwing Ozaki around with ease and absorbing punches like from Suzuki as if she were a toddler. I also really like Hokuto teasing Suzuki by holding Ozaki's hand out for a tag. Once the faces start getting a comeback the crowd is fully into the match. Bull takes a spam of Double Foot Stomps which was pretty unheard of in the west at the time but the heels are pretty quick to cut them off in devastating fashion. Hokuto hits both a 450 Senton to the outside as well as a beautiful Shotgun Drop Kick from the top rope and Nakano hits her Guillotine Leg Drop for the finish. Really cool to see the women getting over by sheer wrestling ability. If you can get through Bobby Heenan's horrible commentary this is such a good watch. obviously he's a heel, he's playing to the audience and it's 1995 but holy shit so much racism, misogyny and blatant disrespect for women's wrestling is said at that table"

[4.0] "They tried, but it wasn't very good. Babyface team especially looked rough with too many awkward, botchy looking spots. Girl in white has the weakest looking kicks I have seen."

[7.0] "Good match to introduce yourselves to the world of 90s joshi because it's fairly basic match with nothing special but you clearly understand who's who and what they're capable of."

[8.0] "Love seeing Bull in action, along with Mike Tenay giving insight on all the girls. All four wrestlers look great, Bull looks an absolute monster. They get the crowd on side fairly quickly, a testament to all four girls and shows how great wrestling can transcend all borders. Sick looking Doomsday device by the faces, holy heel! Fantastic match, putting the men to shame thus far on this show. You could put this match on TV today and it wouldn't look out of place at all."

[8.0] "It's so bittersweet watching joshi in America in the 20th Century having sick sprint matches that get crowds who barely know who they are invested knowing it never turns into anything substantial. Hokuto & Nakano are phenomenal here, just absolute jerks from the jump (loved Hokuto teasing the tag in the abdominal stretch) that bumped big when it was time to give Suzuki & Ozaki shine but made sure they bumped even harder for their big spots later. Ozaki eats a German and a Doomsday Device right on the crown of her fucking head, that absolutely ruled. Bless Mike Tenay on commentary knowing what he's talking about because Schiavone is only barely keeping up and Heenan is just cracking the most bottom-of-the-barrel jokes in the early going (nothing against Tony & Brain overall, they just had nothing here). ****"

[8.0] "Mike Teney is a fantastic annoncer for matches like this because of the knowledge he has for international wrestling so those unfamiliar (like myself) have a backstory to these wrestlers while the other two are just blown away by the action. Bull Nakano is probably the only woman there who the crowd would have been familiar with, but they get them involved immediately when the heel team start the match with a cheap shot on Ozaki as they cut the ring off very quickly. When she finally does get the tag to Suzuki the crowd does come alive for them when they start to get more high flying moves in. The moves towards the end of the match are just insane where Hokuto gets an insane moonsault on both of her opponents on the outside and the finish where Nakano gets a leg drop from the top rope looked amazing."

[8.0] "Amazing match. All four women slowly win over the audience with their hard-hitting insanity and amazing tag-team chemistry. Feels leagues ahead the type of wrestling that WCW is doing at the time in their undercard and main events."

[7.0] "This one starts out pretty slow but really gets hot down the stretch with some nice near falls and some great Suplex's and top rope moves that the crowd popped well for. Solid 3 stars."

[6.0] "First of all I'm always amazed by how easily the japanese women get the american crowd involved. They knew that not many people in audience knew them, so they went for some hard hitting moves in the beginning and got the audience hooked for the rest of the match. Would have been better if the tag team aspect of this wasn't meh, but it was still a pretty solid match."

[7.0] "Definitely the best match on this PPV. It really feels like a tag match that could have happened in the last couple of years. Very ahead of its time compared to 99% of other matches that took place in America at the time."

[7.0] "The crowd are not sure what to make of this but the Hokuto and Bull deliver enough big spots to get them into it and to impress. I actually think they all could have got massively over if WCW had brought them in more and gave fans a reason to care."

[5.0] "Wow, there was a joshi match on this show? I almost forgot. For those US fans who were first seeing Japanese women wrestle in 1995, they must have been wondering what the fuss was about as this was decent but unspectacular. Heels are the highlights of this match as both faces make a few very noticeable mistakes. There also seems to be an ignorance of how tag team wrestling actually works (with the lack of tags for double teams, it's like early AEW in places)."

[8.0] "Starts out legitimately awkward but once it kicks into gear its awesome. Some of the spots towards the end are just insane, especially for that time period."

[6.0] "Didn't care for this match when I first saw it, but I grew to appreciate it more over the years. Hokuto and Nakano just murder the poor babyface team all match but all 4 of them are light years ahead of 98% of the slugs the US scene would produce all the way up until today."

[6.0] "A mixture of some really cool work and some really sloppy work. A lot of their movements and bumps/sells were pretty awkward (mostly from Ozaki and Cutie), showing how even some of the top women's wrestlers back in the 90s were still relatively unrefined with their basics. Nakano and Hokuto thankfully saved this match from being too bad. Their admittedly melodramatic but still confidently vicious heel work was quite entertaining, with Nakano impressing as the monstrous powerhouse and Hokuto impressing as the slick aerial-based attacker. Their bullying and isolating of the JWP wrestlers was good fun, especially as they got to smother and crush them with their far more impactful attacks. Cutie and Ozaki showed decent babyface fire but their offence was pretty bad at points, featuring some overly weak and sloppy-looking attacks that didn't look credible against their far more imposing and physical AJW opponents. They had a few nice moments like their repeated top-rope double footstomps and Ozaki's big arching half-nelson suplex, but for the most part they looked really outclassed and constantly risked dragging the match down into mediocrity or worse. Hokuto and Nakano managed to salvage this into an alright match. I honestly think their rematch on Nitro the next night was much better (***1/4 - ***1/2) despite being about half as long at just over 5 minutes, since they packed far more action in, Cutie and Ozaki had far better offence there, they all generally had far better chemistry, and they produced some far nastier and more impressive spots, all while working at a very engaging sprint pace. This is definitely worth a watch just for the sake of Hokuto and Nakano's work, plus it was pretty cool seeing a western audience in real time come to realise just how far behind American women's wrestling was compared to the Japanese women, as they clearly became more and more impressed with how athletic and physical they could be. ***"

[8.0] "This is presumably WCW's answer to WWF's Survivor Series match with a bunch of Japanese women, so they've followed suit by bringing in some excellent wrestlers that no-one in the crowd has any reason to care about. As far as I know there was no real build to this, or introduction to the wrestlers, and only Bull Nakano would be at all familar to American viewers at the time. This is an excellent match featuring legendary talent, but unfortunately nobody seems to care, including two thirds of the commentary team. Two of these women fought each other at Collision In Korea, and there was a rematch on Nitro the next night, but apart from that they wouldn't be seen again in WCW. Great stuff, and it's a real shame that Joshi didn't have more crossovers with US wrestling after this and the WWF match, it could have lead to much improved women's wrestling much earlier."

[6.0] "This wasn't great. Nakano and Hokuto start by clotheslining Ozaki, with Nakano hitting her with a few hair-takedowns before pummeling her in the corner. Hokuto comes in and works over Ozaki some more as she tries to tag in Suzuki. Nakano bites Ozaki and Heenan calls Hokuto "Hirohito" as we roll on. At one point, both Suzuki and Ozaki lock in half crabs to the pair to a cheering crowd. Sloppy grappling ensues until they resume double-team wrestling. There's a diamond in the rough where Nakano misses a moonsault and gets battered with double-foot stomps. After a senton to the outside by Hokuto, Nakano guillotine leg-drops Ozaki for the pin. The high-spots in this match were great, but the wrestling was a tad sloppy and the commentary team weren't invested. Poor girls. ***"

[8.0] "A match seemingly out of nowhere in mid-90's WCW featuring some of the greatest Joshi talent of all time? I was very surprised when I saw this match going through this era of WCW, but they let (seemingly random? ) great talent work on their platform more often than you'd expect, and this match is a prime example of how, even without storylines building up to a match, great wrestlers can just put on a phenomenal bout. Even with just about 10 minutes to work with, they work an excellent match, Hokuto & Nakano obviously as the heels, and Suzuki & Ozaki as the plucky babyfaces getting jumped before the bell, and control most of the match Tenay on commentary actually knows what's going on and kind of saves it, but the other commentators are a bit unbearable. Suzuki & Ozaki trap Nakano in the corner at one point and land 4 (four! ) consecutive double foot stomps from the top rope, which is just awesome. Ozaki hits a beautiful Tequila Sunrise Suplex for a two, but Nakano ends up getting the 3 count with a wonderful guillotine leg drop. Great short match, highly recommend checking out."

[6.0] "It's out of context, with no background at all in WCW. They just threw them in the ring to have a match and expect the fans to appreciate it, but the crowd was not interested. The match is good, if you look at it for the quality it delivers a lot. If you look at it as part of the event it's irrelevant. **3/4"

[10.0] "One of my favorite matches of 95, it comes out of nowhere on a random WCW PPV but these women absolutely tear the house down. Nakano is especially phenomenal but everyone does a wonderful job. The commentators are blown away, except Tenay who knew what to expect. Heenan is especially appreciative, even if he can't pronounce the names!"

[9.0] "WCW really excelled at let's give great talent some time and make great matches and this another example of that in action."