Manami Toyota was part of an impressive class of athletes that graduated from the All Japan Women dojo in 1986 that included Etsuko Mita, Mima Shimoda, and partner/rival Toshiyo Yamada. Toyota launched her pro wrestling career at the age of 16 (for many years a normal starting age for japanese women) on August 5, 1987 against Sachiko Nakamura. By 1989, she already showed signs of becoming a worker of legendary proportions. Her first excellent match came on 5/6/89 at Wrestlemarinpiad '89 when she teamed with Shimoda to defeat Mita and Yamada in arguably the most action-packed match of the show.
Manami Toyota's main partner at this point was Shimoda, and together they formed "The Sweethearts". Although the team produced many great matches, they never achieved legendary status together.
Instead, Toyota's legend grew over the next 2 years in a legendary feud with Yamada, and the two often stole the show with matches that were years ahead of their time and their experience. The two formed a team in early 1992 and won the WWWA tag team championship after a few months together, although their singles rivalry continued.
On August 15, 1992, the most legendary Toyota-Yamada bout took place, and the stipulation was that the loser would lose her hair. For 20 minutes, both women put on one of the best matches ever, although Toyota stood out with her best performance up to this point in her career. Toyota won, establishing herself as the bigger star of her team and as a legitimate singles superstar.
Manami Toyota and Toshiyo Yamada remained tag team champions until they were unseated by JWP team Dynamite Kansai and Mayumi Ozaki in my all-time favorite match. Those two teams would hace each other three times in a one year span, with each match being worth *****. In their final match, Toyota and Yamada regained the WWWA tag team championship. They would hold the belts until 10/9/94, when Kyoko and Takako Inoue defeated them, signaling the end of the Toyota-Yamada era.
However, by this time Toyota had already established herself as a top contender to Aja Kong's WWWA singles championship. On 8/25/94 at Bukokan Hall, she defeated Kyoko Inoue to unify the IWA and All-Pacific championships in another one of her classic matches. Three months later, in perhaps her best match in which she carried her opponent, she and Aja Kong stole the show with a 17 minute ***** classic. Kong won, but that would not be the last bout between these two.
On March 26, 1995 in Yokohama, Manami Toyota won the WWWA singles championship from Aja Kong. In addition to finally reaching the symbolic pinnacle of her career, she ended the five year period in which the title was held by the largest women in the company. It was one of the biggest symbolic rewards for one's workrate in wrestling history. Toyota only had one title defense of note, a 60:00 draw against Kyoko Inoue, but that match was perhaps the greatest 60:00 match in wrestling history. Toyota relinquished the title to Kong on 6/27/95, but won it back on 12/10 in a classic match against Dynamite Kansai. During the summer, Toyota also captured the prestigious Grand Prix tournament title.
During the year 1995, Manami Toyota became a national celebrity, appearing on numerous television variety and game shows, including one in which a man paid $4,500 to engage her in a five minute mud-wrestling match. Toyota became the most popular woman in wrestling since Chigusa Nagayo.
Toyota continued to put out one great effort after another in 1996, holding onto the championship for mostc of the year. On 6/22/96, a couple months after reuniting with Mima Shimoda, they teamed to defeat Kyoko and Takako Inoue to capture the WWWA tag team championship. Toyota became the first wrestler to hold the sinlges and tag team championships simultaniously since Lioness Askuka in 1989. She had another great match against Kyoko on 3/31 in which she retained the title, although in their rematch on 12/8, Kyoko finally defeated Toyota for the championship.
1997 saw a rather uneventful year for Toyota. More emphasis was placed on the likes of Kyoko Inoue and Yumiko Hotta, and Toyota seemed to decline just a bit in workrate. Matches against Kaoru Itoh and Aja Kong during the summer still proved her to be the most talented worker in women's wrestling.
Since the end of 1997, Toyota has declined in terms of the quality of her work, and she has not won any championships. However, her first place finishes in both the 1998 and 1999 Grand Prix tournaments show that she still has a high level of prominence within Japanese women's wrestling and on occasion she can still show flashes of the workrate that at one time was far better than the men in the entire wrestling industry.
Why do I consider her to be the greatest wrestler that ever lived? Her combination of workrate, excitement, and ability to have outstnading matches night in and night out stood out from everyone else I have seen. She is also one of the most graceful athletes I have ever seen in a wrestling ring. Some say that she has a weak command of ring psychology. Maybe that wasn't her strong point, but her psychology was still better than most and her workrate was simply unparalelled from 1992-1997. Put her in with someone with strong ring psychology, and she could completely hide that opponent's weaknesses. Out of the 4 star matches in my collection, the number of those including Toyota is as high as any other wrestler and many of her matches have been more exciting or entertaining than their rating could possibly indicate.
"I want to go HOME!"
