70s Joshi on Wednesday: Lucy! Mimi! Yokota! Hanawa!

26. 1979.03.XX2 Lucy Kayama & Mimi Hagiwara vs. Rimi Yokota & Seiko Hanawa (Before April 6th as Lucy is tag champ)

K: I really like this match. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to people though, I like it for very ‘me’ reasons. I don’t even think it’s all that good. It’s certainly very flawed. But I’ve still watched it several times since the full version popped up on YouTube about a year ago (before the only available version was missing the first 8 minutes or so). It’s a rarity to see 4 very inexperienced wrestlers (they all have less than 2 years experience) being sent out to wrestle a long match like this, not to mention they’re doing it in a pretty unique style at the time so it’s not like they had many examples to be copying. They’re very much working this stuff out as they go along, and the end result is pretty entertaining stuff even if everyone (and the style itself) is a work in progress.

The match it built around two very long face-in-peril segments from Mimi Hagiwara. She’s the most junior of the wrestlers here (class of 1978, the other three are 1977 debutantes) so by default she’s gonna suffer most of the punishment, and so Young Pair are gonna be the de facto heels. Even this early on, it’s clear that Mimi’s strength is her babyface selling. The 1st of the two face-in-peril segments is the more interesting one. I particularly like this double team move they did where Rimi pushes Mimi’s neck onto the top rope, Seiko from the outside pulls her head down towards the floor and as she releases, Rimi pulls the top rope up in a spring motion to propel Mimi by the head back into the ring. It doesn’t quite work… I don’t remember anyone copying this later, but it’s an example of seeing them refining the style in real time, warts and all.

Something that worked better was the more basic ways of preventing Mimi from making a tag, and how these tactics ended up backfiring at the end of the first segment as Seiko distracting the referee didn’t actually do Rimi any favours as Mimi was able to reverse a leg-scissors hold into a Boston Crab before making her way over to get the elusive tag. Seiko would have been better off running in and causing Mimi a bit of grief before the referee intervened. It’s cool to see how engaging everyone is when they’re on the apron. They’re active participants of the match despite not being legal in how they reach out for potential tags, are ready to brawl on the outside if it comes to it and you’ll get the occasion run-in if their partner is in trouble. This dynamic gets paid off when later in both the Young Pair put the opponents in stereo submissions in the middle of the ring like it’s Tsuruta-Gun vs. Super Generation Army tag from the early 90s.

This may be an average quality match, but it’s an impressive achievement and a historically interesting watch.

**1/2

MD: Hanawa is going to fall out of the footage sooner than later, but this was a very, very good look at the Young Pair together. It’s a long (~25 minutes) one-fall tag team match up against two babyface wrestlers that weren’t in their usual tag pairs. After some early chaos, The Pair’s familiarity came into play as they took over on Hagiwara with quick switches and front facelocks, interspersed with other punishment like standing hairpulls. This is maybe the first time Hagiwara’s selling in the moment really stood out to me. I don’t know if it’s her acting background or what, but she was incredibly emotive and sympathetic. All the while, Kayama was doing everything she could to get in.

Eventually, she was able to make it in and that slight height advantage had her tossing the Pair around. Hagiwara got her share of revenge too but was soon dragged down into a second heat segment where they really tore her leg apart. Lots of good submissions here and leg whips. Laser-sharp focus from the Young Pair. Hagiwara eventually mounted a comeback where she dropped the leg selling entirely (oh well), leading to more of Kayama crushing her opponents, including with a straight out tiger driver, before Hagiwara wipes out on an unfortunate body press into the ring. There’s a great bit towards the end here as the Pair put on simultaneous figure-fours on their opponents and it feels almost like one of those FTR bits where they’re trying to hold hands while both are in a hold. The finish was just Hagiwara getting swept under from the cumulative damage. There is almost a 90s AJPW feel to the finishing stretch where the Pair really have to neutralize Kayama as well or else they’ll never be able to score a pin. The dropped leg selling was frustrating but not surprising. Overall, this was a great look at the Young Pair as a unit and Hagiwara’s (short-term) selling in general.