#12: Bull Nakano vs. Akira Hokuto, AJW (1/4/1991).
This is for Bull's WWWA World Championship.
As someone who has only scratched the surface of 1990s Joshi, this shot out to me as an absolute dream match. These are two of the most hard hitting badasses Japanese women's wrestling has ever produced, and I was excited to see this one. This is the second singles meeting between the two. Hokuto doesn't have her trademark look down just yet. Bull, meanwhile, is wearing a Napalm Death shirt like a fucking badass.
The match is off to a fast start, as Hokuto is quick to be on offense. Bull powers back by press slamming Hokuto with basically no ease. On the outside, Bull grabs a ringside hammer and doinks Hokuto over the head. Both women exchange hard slaps inside the ring. Bull chokes Hokuto against the ropes, and then just gnaws at the top of her head like a barbarian.
Hokuto is busted open. Bull keeps a chokehold locked on for a bit, switching from her leg to her arm. Hokuto counters with a submission of her own, a nice stretch. Bull with a sharpshooter now - or was it still called the Scorpion Deathlock here? There's a good back and forth on submissions there for a moment. Topped off with an armbar from Hokuto.
Bull brings the match to a high octane with two straight nasty back suplexes that fold Hokuto up like a pretzel. Hokuto escapes Bull's trademark top rope leg drop and goes right into a tiger suplex that gets a nice nearfall. She then scales the top rope and hits a nice shotgun dropkick to Bull. Then, she repeats it again, and again, and again! Four straight! Bull still kicks out at 2!
Kyoko Inoue, who I didn't even realize at first was at ringside, assists Bull in hitting a middle rope Tombstone piledriver to Hokuto. In typical Japanese referee fashion, he won't count that shit! He will, however, count the pin as Bull hits a back suplex cradle pin and retains her championship. This is a match that just gets better the longer it goes on. Some nice physicality from both. It's blatantly obvious that Bull is a future Hall of Famer here. Hokuto, meanwhile, shows some signs of the great career she would have as the 1990s wore on.