Mariko Yoshida's 20th Anniversary show

Mariko Yoshida had her 20th Anniversary show Aug. 31 at Shinjuku FACE. Other than the AJW nostalgia main event, it was a standard Ibuki show. There was a career retrospective on the video screen but that's about it. But the big news to come out of this show is that Mariko Yoshida's website is closing. Yoshida's webmaster announced that the domain name will not be renewed and the site will close on Sept. 10. The webmaster has been having health issues lately and Yoshida's schedule isn't as active as it once was. I don't know if it means anything. Yoshida still has her blog but she doesn't have much to say for the most part. The pics for all the Ibuki shows are on Yoshida's site but the webmaster was the photographer too and Yoshida herself recapped the shows. Maybe they'll move all that to the Ibuki site.

The show begins with a video retrospective of Yoshida's early career including her AJW audition and her injury problems. She had a serious knee injury. Then the opening match between Tomoka Nakagawa & Esui. Yoshida says she has high hopes for both wrestlers though Nakagawa is more experienced. She is also happy to see Nakagawa return from her shoulder injury. She says she sees improvement in every match. Nakagawa won with the Tomo clutch at 4:00. Esui needs a lot of work to do to look less awkward. More video footage of Yoshida's mid-90s days at AJW with Toyota, Ito, Hasegawa and others. Next was Shuu Shibutani vs Cherry. Yoshida says that Shibutani is still a little tentative after her recent knee injury. She described it as a standard Ibuki match. Cherry won with a German suplex at 6:47.

The next part of the video retrospective covered the ARSION years including the development of the ARSION style and Yoshida's Spider Twist & Air Raid Crash finishers. The next match was GAMI & Tojuki Leon vs Manami Toyota & Ray. The emphasis was on comedy with GAMI doing her usual nonsense with the megaphone. Apparently Toyota couldn't keep a straight face. Leon won over Ray with the Leon Stone at 18:00. The next part of the video retrospective covered A To Z and M's Style and then freelancing followed by Ibuki. Then it was Kyoko Kimura & Atsuko Emoto vs Hiroyo Matsumoto & Misaki Ohata. Yoshida says the match symbolizes Ibuki perfectly. She was very happy with the 20 minute draw and plans to put these teams together in the future.

Yoshida says that the main event came from asking fans at Ibuki shows who they want to see team with Yoshida and who the opponents should be. She says Takako Inoue's name was mentioned a lot and she thought fans would like to see Kyoko Inoue as well so the Double Inoues teamed with Yoshida. The opponents were Jaguar Yokota, Aja Kong & Kaoru Ito. A definite AJW feel. Normally Yoshida would defer to the others but she realized it's her 20th anniversary so fans want to see her shine. So Yoshida got in her usual spots including the Spider Twist & Air Raid Crash. She even did a plancha. But she won over Ito with a Majistral cradle at 17:04. Afterwards, Yoshida addressed the crowd and expressed her appreciation for twenty years of support and she plans to continue her pro wrestling career and will continue to produce Ibuki. Believe it or not, a fan taped the last minute of the main event and posted it on Youtube. So here it is.