Every Wrestler With 10 Or More Dave Meltzer 5 Star Rated Matches

10. Manami Toyota - 13 Matches

Will Ospreay
By Jocsh3 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The only woman on the list, Manami Toyota made her pro wrestling debut in 1987 for prominent joshi promotion All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling (AJW).

Toyota was extremely successful across her 30 year career, capturing almost a dozen championships in AJW and winning the fantastically-named "Tag League The Best" five times. She was also a hit at the Observer awards winning "Match of the Year" twice and "Most Outstanding Wrestler" in 1995 - the only woman to ever claim said award.

It's not surprising that the Observer loved Toyota so much; her mixture of explosive speed, hard-hitting offence, and lack of fear made her a true spectacle to watch. Couple this with the state of Western women's wrestling during the years she was performing and everything starts to make sense.

Meltzer was a huge advocate for joshi wrestling in the 90s and Toyota was one of AJW's biggest stars. She had an equally-talented field of competitors to wage war against, from Kyoko Inoue to Akira Hokuto to Aja Kong. She may not be the most famous wrestler of all time, but we all owe Mania Toyota a great debt for keeping Dave sane during a rough time for wrestling.

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Contributor

Jacob Simmons has a great many passions, including rock music, giving acclaimed films three-and-a-half stars, watching random clips from The Simpsons on YouTube at 3am, and writing about himself in the third person.