{"id":74748,"date":"2020-08-21T14:21:19","date_gmt":"2020-08-21T18:21:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprowrestling.com\/?p=74748"},"modified":"2020-08-21T14:21:19","modified_gmt":"2020-08-21T18:21:19","slug":"tomi-aoyama-the-best-wrestler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2020\/08\/21\/tomi-aoyama-the-best-wrestler\/","title":{"rendered":"Tomi Aoyama: The Best Wrestler You&#8217;ve Never Heard Of"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Professional Wrestling has a vast history with many legendary names that fans all across the globe know.\u00a0 Names like\u00a0<strong>Antonio Inoki, Hulk Hogan,<\/strong> and<strong> Giant Baba\u00a0<\/strong>are in the repertoire of almost every wrestling fan.\u00a0 As with anything though some talented performers get lost to time and never really receive the adulation they deserve.\u00a0 All Japan Women&#8217;s Pro Wrestling alumni Tomi Aoyama is one such performer.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\u2049WHAT\u2049 THAT IS INCREDIBLE! Tomi Aoyama with a no hands crossbody in 1979! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/vSMXsQDvb0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/vSMXsQDvb0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; John\u300c\u3075\u308a\u30fcWiFi\u300d (@DK1105) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DK1105\/status\/1296556535179612166?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">August 20, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Aoyama debuted way back in 1977 for AJW.\u00a0 It&#8217;s unfortunate that even the most avid historians can&#8217;t find much content from this era but every time a match with Tomi Aoyama in it pops up she impresses.\u00a0 She is a performer who&#8217;s matches hold up even by today&#8217;s standards.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Starlight Kid or Mio Momono needs to revive this move. Tomi Aoyama is awesome <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Ht9y4EFYFo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/Ht9y4EFYFo<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; John\u300c\u3075\u308a\u30fcWiFi\u300d (@DK1105) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DK1105\/status\/1296555164288024578?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">August 20, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>While AJW at the time was focused more on a slightly more technical, realistic style of wrestling Aoyama dazzled by adding in moments of athleticism to her matches.\u00a0 She was capable of pulling off maneuvers that we wouldn&#8217;t see replicated for over a decade, the no-hands springboard cross body is just one example.\u00a0 She was a revolutionary and anyone that has seen her perform heralds her as such, especially when she is compared to her contemporaries.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/i\/status\/1261998243820560384<\/p>\n<p>Doubters may wonder &#8220;if she was so good, why does no one know her&#8221;.\u00a0 And that&#8217;s a valid thought.\u00a0 The reason Tomi Aoyama is so un-recognized is because she unfortunately only wrestled for three years\u00a0 In 1980 she injured her right knee twice and retired in August 1980.\u00a0 In addition to her short career, she also wrestled in one of the least accessible eras of AJW.\u00a0 As mentioned previously even the most ardent Joshi historian has trouble getting their hands on Aoyama matches or even just any matches from that time period.\u00a0 \u00a0Despite her short career, Aoyama did win the WWWA tag team championships and even captured the All-Pacific Championship, the 1B title of the company.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the obstacles we must make the most of what content we have available and based on every Tomi Aoyama match we&#8217;ve ever seen she is one of the best wrestlers of her era and easily one of the most innovative performers of all time.\u00a0 Aoyama, unfortunately, passed away in 2011 but her legacy lives on, and hopefully, she can be remembered as the revolutionary performer that she was.<\/p>\n<p>Stay tuned to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprowrestling.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a> for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world.\u00a0 <em>Looking to talk wrestling, pro football, or any number of sports? Head on over to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/boards\/index.php\" target=\"_self\">LWOS Boards<\/a>\u00a0to engage in conversation with fellow fans!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Professional Wrestling has a vast history with many legendary names that fans all across the globe know.\u00a0 Names like\u00a0Antonio Inoki, Hulk Hogan, and Giant Baba\u00a0are in the repertoire of almost every wrestling fan.\u00a0 As with anything though some talented performers get lost to time and never really receive the adulation they deserve.\u00a0 All Japan Women&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2013,"featured_media":74752,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,13,5302],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-international","category-joshi"],"modified_by":"Alex Richards, LWOF Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2013"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}