70s Joshi on Wednesday: Ripper! Lucy!

24. 1979.03.XX1 - 01 Lucy Kayama vs. Monster Ripper

K: This was essentially a squash match, but you don’t get much more effective than this. I’m not sure how much this is due to them making some subtle improvements to Monster Ripper’s formula, Lucy putting in more effort, or the crowd being hotter than usual. Well actually it’s probably a combination of all three. I did particularly enjoy Lucy getting her own song chanted by some young women in the crowd who were very enthusiastic about her despite Lucy getting totally destroyed the entire match at that point. I also enjoyed Monster Ripper being announced as the WWWWA (4 Ws) North American Champion, a title I have no knowledge of ever existing outside of this match. She’s even wearing the belt!

This one has clearly been edited at a few points, which is a shame as one of the cuts felt like things were getting more heated but then suddenly the crowd noise drops substantially and Lucy was up on her feet despite being on the floor after having just been gorilla pressed 1 second before. Lucy sells it all pretty well and comes across like she’s fighting hard to find some kind of opening, I liked her previous match with Monster but she’s definitely giving a more engaging performance here. She has a similar gameplan to what Nancy was doing in her match with Monster where she seems to be going for a takedown, but Lucy is far more frenetic about it. She’s just throwing her head into Monster’s gut even. She goes for a flying crosschop but Monster just no sells it, which gets a mix of a gasp and laugh from the crowd. Either way it was an effective spot. A bit later we also get Lucy trying to do the AJW style Judo throw, where it’s serves the same function as a snapmare except it’s done via the arm, but of course it doesn’t move Monster an inch. Lucy has this kinda panicked expression on her face as she keeps trying lamenting that this staple move won’t work.

Lucy’s comeback comes when Monster goes for that same top rope seated senton that won her the Nancy match, so if she hits it we’re pretty sure that means 1 2 3, but Lucy dodges it just in time, and then Tomi Aoyama runs in and they do a double dropkick to take Monster down.

I didn’t like the babyface tag partner interference spots in the previous matches. I thought this one was fine though. Firstly, unlike the previous matches, Monster had been blatantly cheating multiple times without any repercussions. She’d been biting Lucy’s foot while working over her leg, and the commentary eagerly pointed out that she was using an illegal chokehold on multiple occasions, one time when she had Lucy in a backbreaker. So Tomi running in felt like she was just evening the scales a bit. Secondly, Tomi didn’t overdo it like I think the previous examples did. She just run in, hit a dropkick, and then got out.

Lucy’s comeback is really wild and ferocious. It really puts over that if she’s going to capitalise on this opening she really just needs to hit Monster with everything she’s got without any hesitation. We get a cool vertical suplex (very impressive considering the size difference), a top rope crossbody to the outside after Monster tries to roll out the ring to escape (the first time she does anything signalling she’s in some sort of trouble). After this Lucy just rams Monster’s head repeatedly into the ringpost and busts her open. The highlight is when she goes for the dive through the ropes Tomi holds Monster in place, but Monster just catches her and slams her on the floor! She then seems to grab Tomi by the neck and extracts some revenge, but the camera moves to watch Lucy grimacing on the floor so we don’t see what happened to Tomi…

We then get the finish of an angry bloodied up Monster just tearing Lucy after and before long submits her with a backbreaker. Awesome finish and made her look more fearsome than ever. This was really good and especially effective when the stipulation of the match was that if Monster wins, she gets to challenge Jackie Sato for the WWWA Singles Title.

***1/4

MD: This was a pretty awesome piece of business, actually, the logical conclusion to Ripper vs single members of pairs. If she won this match, she would earn herself a title match against Sato. She started out by dominating like usual, including dropping her leg upon Lucy’s repeatedly. Lucy would get in hope spots, but would just bounce right off of Ripper or be unable to move her, even if she broke free to try to for an armdrag, for instance.

Ripper went for the top rope vertical splash too early though and Lucy moved which let her get some offense in. She went so far as to hit a top rope body press to the floor and a chairshot that opened Ripper up, but when she went for the Queen Rocket plancha through the ropes, Ripper outright caught her and destroyed her on the outside. Great, shocking visual since that was such a protected and built up move. With Tomi’s help, Lucy beat the count, but ended up destroyed with suplexes and a nasty torture rack that ended it. Another very strong visual here as Ripper’s face was half bloody. Just a great way to build her for Jackie.