badgenome said:
I have noticed that on joshi reviews. Everything is *1/2 - ** until you hit the ****+ main event. It's amazing to me how many of the top names are the same old names from when I was still watching. Granted, those girls all started super young, but shit... it's crazy that Aja and Toyota are still around. And still rocking, apparently! At least Aja is. I saw that Toyota was putting over Kaori Yoneyama, so I don't know what's up with her. But it's a big problem all around for everyone but NJPW. There's a ton of talent out there, easily enough to have two other strong feds if you consolidated AJPW/NOAH/BJW/Wrestle-1/ZERO-ONE, but everyone seems to want his own little fiefdom and be willing to wrestle in front of 100 people to do it. Of the indies, only Dragon Gate has a deep roster and healthy rate of creating new talent. |
I really hate to say it, because I want to support young talent, but some of the joshi performers on the under-card are like 16 years old and green as grasshoppers, which makes the matches terrible. That's probably why they have so many comedy matches, it looks too silly to take seriously. Some others just want to be idols. There actually are a good number of joshi wrestlers who are at the tier-B level, they're just spread out all over the place. I can name plenty who would be as good as anyone on RAW/Smackdown (not named Becky Lynch) but there seems to be some kind of allotment system where no one gets more than two at a time.
Aja is still killing it but I'm not sure why a few of the others are still working. I hope it's not because they need the money. Some, like Ozaki, have ownership stakes, so they can do what they want. Name recognition is probably a huge problem, as no one has a good TV deal. Kana getting popular with her charisma was the exception instead of the rule.
The TV thing is probably a big reason for all the small promotions with both male and female wrestling. No one has a good TV deal, not even New Japan. Younger guys have a really hard time building a name for themselves and they'll probably never be as well known as even the moderately popular wrestlers from the past.
Though I'm not a fan of Dragon Gate in general, they deserve a huge amount of credit for becoming Japan's #2 promotion. They've built a fanbase by creating their own style and unique presentation and, as you said, they're turning out some really well-trained talent. Love they way they do all the stable warfare stuff.
And Toyota losing to Kaori Yoneyama ... I'm sorry, I'm going to pretend I didn't read that.
