70s Joshi on Wednesday: Jackie! Nancy! Tomi! Kumano! Petrelli! Ikeshita! JACKIE!

25. 1979.03.XX1 - 02 Jackie Sato, Nancy Kumi & Tomi Aoyama vs. Mami Kumano, Marlene Petrelli & Yumi Ikeshita

K: The picture is weirdly blurred on the footage of this one so we can’t see any detail of anyone’s faces on the hardcam shots. It looks like someone’s censored them. Thankfully everyone has fairly distinctive outfits so I never mixed anyone up.

This is in front of a pretty lively and excitable crowd, which the wrestlers play into well and makes what would otherwise be a rudimentary trios match into something more memorable. Jackie being the centrepiece of the whole match also helps as she’s by far and away the most over person in this match. In the first fall the heels are all over her before she has much of a chance to do anything. A new bit of villainy is Mami stealing her entrance jacket and using it to try and strangle her. There’s a moment that made me smile when Jackie struggles her way out of this, and the camera cuts to two fans who do a ‘high five’ esque motion to each other, now just delighted to see Jackie get out of that predicament but in a way which felt like they’re part of the team.

This is ⅔ falls, and another thing I found memorable is that all 3 finishes were someone being pinned despite a partner(s) trying to push the winning wrestler off the one being pinned but failing. That never seems to happen at all in modern wrestling, for some reason just touching someone while they’re in the middle of pinning someone just breaks the count even if I’ve never heard it said that that’s an actual rule. I’ve seen it happen in Monster Ripper matches where she’d get a pin by just powering through opponents trying to break it up but I don’t think I’ve ever seen this happen in all 3 falls.

Another general point is the lack of any real spectacular moves or high-flying, even with Tomi Aoyama being in the match. The one exception was Yumi Ikeshita’s hurricanrana pin move, but that was the finish to the 2nd fall, it wasn’t just randomly thrown in anywhere. It was very efficient in how good this was despite them leaving loads of tools still in the box, which helps avoid diminishing returns when they do pull those tools out.

The finishing stretch was really cool in how one-sided it was. Jackie, who had been prowling up and down the apron looking all agitated at what was going on in the ring, gets tagged in and her mean mood just seems to make her unstoppable. She takes out all three of her opponents one by one with a different move each time (coz they keep getting up for more), and gets the win with a very aesthetically pleasing backdrop. Tomi & Nancy both have good timing in storming across the ring to prevent the heels from breaking up the pin. It doesn’t quite work (Jackie’s too superpowered to pull off though so that didn’t matter), but that kind of thing gives the vibe of this being a team sport and they’re putting tactics into practice that they will have done drills for in training.

Really good and well put together match

***1/4

MD: It’s been building over the last few months here, but we’re in a new world now. There’s a different level of energy, like always, when Mami tags in early and starts beating on Tomi, but the second Jackie comes in, it goes from energetic to absolutely electric. The crowd has changed. The screams are now ever-present. The passion is flowing. Mami, arch villain that she is, immediately snatches Jackie’s robe from the cameraman (it has the name of her new song on it) and starts choking her with it, the others in the makeshift Black Trio joining in and the crowd shouts out in agony at the affront. The world will never be the same again.

Jackie, like all of the great babyfaces, takes and takes, and then when it’s time to comeback she hits her float over head drop and unleashes fury upon the heels. Petrelli, billed as one of Burke’s crew, takes all the offense well, including a giant swing to end this fall and an inverted whirlybird from Tomi towards the end. Tomi and Nancy are in this one and they assert themselves at times, including Nancy looking as much of an entity as we’ve seen her with a chairshot on the outside, but this is the Jackie Show.

The Black Trio takes the second fall with a great Kumano assisted springboard seated senton to a standing opponent followed up by Ikeshita (who is a slugger herself)’s top rope arm hook rana, but Jackie comes back strong in the third fall, taking on everyone all at once like an absolute super star as the crowd goes wild. It just feels like we’ve entered a different one, one more reminiscent of what’s to come in the 80s.