70s Joshi on Wednesday: Lucy! Maki!

16. 1979.01.XX2 - 04 Lucy Kayama vs. Maki Ueda

K: I did enjoy this, but it’s not a great sign that after watching this 20 minute match I don’t feel like I have that much to say about it. The match was mostly holds and targeting limbs, but there was a slight lack of urgency about the whole thing that kept it from being an overall good match for me. Lucy was able to take the advantage pretty early on, which is a bit surprising when she’s very much the underdog in this match as she has less than half the experience Maki does. Lucy’s work on top was mostly attacking Maki’s arm, but it doesn’t really lead to anything as Maki has enough of that after a few minutes and takes over, and she switches to attacking Lucy’s leg. I did enjoy when Lucy tried to escape one of Maki's holds and almost succeeded until Maki grabbed her by the ankle, leaving Lucy hopping on one foot trying to get away. It was slightly comical without being too ridiculous. This is probably the best segment of the match. It’s unfortunate that this also doesn’t end up leading to anything as Lucy just gets back on offense and the match just resets. We go to the time-limit draw soon after but it didn’t feel like either of them particularly wanted to win anyway. Again this was enjoyable, but it could have been so much better by just linking things up and putting a bit more conviction into trying to get the win.

**3/4

MD: A twenty minute draw, this might be the most complete singles match we’ve seen so far. It was hold based, certainly full of action, but everything still had room to breathe. There were momentum shifts but they never felt capricious or meaningless. Maki charged in early to get the immediate advantage but things went even with a test of strength and Lucy took over with her short elbow smashes, followed by a rolling guillotine (and subsequent roll back DDT). She shifted to the arm and they worked holds accordingly until Maki was able to stand up out of an arm puller and take over. She did some stuff out of a body scissors (including the lifting butt slams and rolling with it) before taking over onto the leg after Lucy came back in. Lots of legwork here which was dropped right when Lucy took back over, hitting a double arm backbreaker and atomic drop specifically using her legs. I need to just learn to be ok with it but it feels like an almost personal shot when the comeback offense involves the limb that’s just been damaged. That feels degrees worse than just dropping it. They’re all young but there should be an instinct away from that specific impulse. It was made worse because Lucy’s selling on the outside had been so good. Things break down into a pretty hot back-and-forth finishing stretch with the two of them spilling back outside and Maki finally getting on a tapatia as the bell rings. I’ve got my nitpicks but overall this would have stood up well against a lot of similar twenty minute draws elsewhere in the world at the time.