Manami Toyota

Manami Toyota (豊田 真奈美) is a retired professional wrestler, best known for her work with All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling (AJW).

She is widely considered to be one of the greatest female professional wrestlers of all time.

Following AJW's closure, Toyota continued to work in other joshi promotions such as GAEA Japan and NEO Japan Ladies Pro-Wrestling

The match saw Toyota reach the summit of AJW when she won and became the 39th WWWA World Single Champion.

On May 7, Toyota defended her crown against arch-rival Kyoko Inoue at the Korakuen Hall, where the two fought to a 60-minute time limit draw.

Despite piledrivers on the floor, German suplexes off the top rope, and multiple finishers, neither combatant was able to secure outright victory.

Manami Toyota made her professional wrestling debut on August 5, 1987, at the age of 16, in a singles match against Sachiko Nakamura.

Her big break came in her second year, on the first Wrestlemarinpiad show at Yokohama Arena, on May 6, 1989.

Teaming with Mima Shimoda as the Tokyo Sweethearts, she defeated Etsuko Mita and Toshiyo Yamada in a match that nearly stole the card from the more established veterans.

The bout had all the basic ingredients that made Toyota a star, including flashy moves, fast and frequent tags, double-team moves, and a long series of dramatic near falls.

When the bout was released as part of a four-hour commercial tape, Toyota became recognized as a wrestler to watch.

Toyota won her first title on November 18, 1989, when she defeated Mika Takahashi for the AJW Championship.

Between 1989 and 1991 they wrestled many times.

She defended the title three times, including one defense against her future rival Kyoko Inoue (on August 1, 1990), before vacating it on September 1.

The following month (October 7 in Tokyo) she challenged Bison Kimura for the All Pacific Championship and emerged victorious.

However, she only managed to defend the title once before losing to Suzuka Minami on March 17, 1991.

Parallel to this success ran Toyota’s feud with future tag-team partner Toshiyo Yamada.

Initially, following Tokyo Sweethearts' success, the AJW braintrust felt they could well be the new Beauty Pair or Crush Gals.

However, Toyota's real chemistry came not with Shimoda but with Yamada, whose style was unlike Toyota's and provided more of a contrast.

Yamada was a slightly built, short-haired, kicking specialist, who idolized both Chigusa Nagayo and Akira Maeda.

Unlike other wrestlers who rely on kicks and submissions, Yamada could also work the rapid-paced matches and was accomplished at building to near-falls with repeated kick-outs at the last possible moment.

To begin with, however, Toyota and Yamada were opponents rather than partners.

At the start of 1992, the two won their first tag team championship when they defeated KAORU and Lady Apache in Tokyo on January 19 for the UWA Women's World Tag Team Championship.

Their singles feud was not yet over, however, and it reached a climax on August 15, 1992 in a hair vs. hair match.

The bout was a dramatic one, not least due to what occurred after the match was over.

Toyota, even though she had won the match, did not want Yamada to get her head shaved, and had to be forcefully restrained by five prelim girls, who eventually forced her back to the mat.

In respect of the match conditions, Yamada wanted her head shaved and went ahead with the stipulation.

Soon after this match the two stars once again teamed up to win their first WWWA World Tag Team Championship in March 1992, defeating Jungle Jack (Aja Kong and Bison Kimura) in Tokyo.

On November 26, at AJW’s Dreamrush show Toyota and Yamada defended their WWWA Tag Team titles against Dynamite Kansai and Mayumi Ozaki in a 2/3 Falls match, which was rated 5 Stars by Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

In April of that year, Toyota furthered her singles career by defeating rival Kyoko Inoue on April 25 in Yokohama for the IWA Singles Championship.

At Dreamslam II, on April 11, 1993 Toyota and Yamada fought a rematch against JWP Joshi Puroresu's Kansai and Ozaki in yet another highly rated two of three falls encounter.

This time, however, Toyota and Yamada were on the losing side, and Kansai and Ozaki got their revenge.

The feud concluded at AJW’s St. Battle Final event, on December 6, 1993, where Toyota and Yamada regained their tag titles.

On August 24, 1994 Toyota once again squared off against Kyoko Inoue and defeated her to unify the IWA and All Pacific Singles Championships.

Toyota’s run with the two titles was not to last long.

On October 9, Inoue gained a measure of revenge against Toyota, as Kyoko and her partner Takako Inoue (no relation) won the WWWA Tag Team Championship from Toyota and Yamada.

Toyota defended that title eight times over the course of three years, before losing it to Reggie Bennett on May 15, 1995.

It was at around this time that Toyota's talent was being compared to most male competitors, as one of the best wrestlers in the world.

Toyota then vacated her All Pacific Championship, prior to her first WWWA Heavyweight Championship match against the monstrous Aja Kong at AJW’s Queendom III show, on March 26, 1995.

Nonetheless, Toyota retained, and the match was voted Match of the Year for 1995 in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.