70s Joshi on Wednesday: Ripper! Kumi!

23. 1979.02.XX1 - 02 Monster Ripper vs. Nancy Kumi

K: This was pretty similar to the last match we covered. I will just throw out now that it’s a fair critical of this era of AJW that the matches were quite repetitive. The company had been running since 1968 (and the Matsunagas had been involved in promoting women’s wrestling since the mid-50s) but they didn’t get a TV deal until 1975, so I feel like they were still treating it as a touring show performing in front of a different audience each time who wouldn’t realise they were doing almost the same match as the one on the previous town. It’s not until they get the prime-time TV deal for the second time in 1984 that it feels like they’d gotten their act together to book a week-to-week wrestling TV show.

This was a slightly better version of last week’s match though. Ripper does actually come across as intimidating and dangerous, and seems to be putting effort into getting this all over. There’s a cool spot where she traps Nancy in the ropes and repeatedly bounces her off them onto her own body like a forced running body attack. Nancy Kumi just looks like she’s here to get thrown around for the most part to. There is more of a logic to how she’s working, she keeps going for a takedown and then to work Monster’s leg, but she struggles to really ever get going with it because Monster’s too big for it to work. She only gets anywhere when Victoria Fujimi interferes, and again, I don’t like this psychology of the babyfaces illegally double teaming the monster heel, especially when I’m not sure Monster even did anything illegal herself. She was just winning.

Thankfully justice is done when Monster hits Nancy with a seated senton off the top rope that did look pretty devastating. My nick-pick is I’m not sure why she felt the need to get off her but then pin Nancy with a normal cover when she could have just pressed down on her shoulders staying where she was as it was already a pinning position anyway, but maybe I’m being extra there. It was a good and memorable finish and I wouldn’t buy many wrestlers kicking out of that move if Monster were to pull it out again. Victoria running in and trying to push Monster off but totally failing to break up the cover was kinda funny.

Also, I noticed very briefly someone the commentary identified as “Takahashi Masami” getting involved right at the end. It’ll be a while before we see her wrestling, but that’s the first time we’ve seen her get physical on Zenjo TV that I’ve spotted anyway.

*3/4

MD: This was not dissimilar to some of the other Ripper matches we’ve seen where she was up against one of a pair. We’ve seen our share of Kumi but nothing has stood out in the least in her matches so far. This wasn’t much different to be honest. She got mauled here from the get go. In general, Ripper was protected perfectly and knew exactly how much to give. Hope spots for Kumi were her getting a go behind waistlock, that sort thing, basically just a sign of life. Or she might somehow stretch around for an abdominal stretch only to get shrugged right off.

Meanwhile, Ripper dismantled her with slams and body blocks (including multiples in the ropes) and gnarly legdrops to the belly. After Fujimi interjected, Kumi finally got something of a real comeback, including getting to slam Ripper a couple of times, but she got cut off quickly and Ripper hit a vertical splash off the top to squish her. Post match, the Golden Pair tried their luck together once again but really just held Ripper at bay.