Yumiko Hotta announced at the May 3 A To Z show that the company is closing and this would be her final show as a promoter. I hope she means it. Hotta has been a total disaster as a promoter from the moment she partnered up with Hiroshi Ogawa to purchase ARSION in 2003 and changed the name to A To Z. She made the mistake of putting herself over at the expense of talent. That is a cardinal sin in the wrestling business. Also, many wrestlers fled the company after working for her for a few months. Ai Fujita, AKINO & Mariko Yoshida all left A To Z by the end of 2003. It got so bad that Mima Shimoda, who was supposed to work in the front office, had to come out of retirement. It wouldn't be long before A To Z became just another zombie fed.
The beginning of the end came when Hiroshi Ogawa decided to merge A To Z with JD Star in September 2005. He did this mainly to take advantage of JD Star's TV deal. Shimoda left and Hotta stayed but found by the end of the year that she couldn't work with JD Star management and left. Then she started producing her own shows again. She's been doing this angle with T-1 president Futami but if he's going to keep promoting shows, there's no need to have two companies. Hotta will probably end up working mostly for T-1 GP.
Sachie Abe was the wrestler most loyal to Hotta so the May 3 A To Z show featured the celebration of Abe's tenth anniversary in the joshi business. She wrestled three successive matches, each with a ten minute time limit. Abe defeated Sasori, drew with Aya Koyama and then lost to Nanae Takahashi. The main event had Yumiko Hotta & Mima Shimoda vs Manami Toyota & rookie Yasusato Nakajima. Hotta & Shimoda beat the crap out of the rookie and Shimoda finished her off with an axe kick. Hotta made her announcement and had a final match with her pal Shimoda. Hotta won in five minutes with the Pyramid Driver. Such is the legacy of Yumiko Hotta as a promoter.
T-1 GP had their show later that day. The scheduled T-1 special tag match turned into a handicap match. It was the three T-1 masks against Yumiko Hotta & Sachie Abe. Abe removed T-1 Mask V3's mask. It was Gutsworld rookie Yuri Urai. There was a ref bump and then Futami got involved and Hotta finally got her hands on him. Also, he didn't auction off his sunglasses. He said he could still use them.
Futami said in an interview with Sportsnavi that he wasn't happy with how things went. He was upset with Hotta for announcing A To Z's closing because it meant the A To Z/T-1 GP feud didn't mean anything on the T-1 GP show. But he did credit Hotta & Abe for giving their best and making the show better. I guess we can expect the spirit of A To Z to continue in T-1 GP because it looks like the Futami/Hotta feud will continue.
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