70s Joshi on Wednesday: Jackie! Tomi!

31. 1979.05.XX1 - 02 Jackie Sato vs. Tomi Aoyama

K: This one feels like a stylistic shift as we move on from the Beauty Pair era, with Jackie in particular portraying herself as a more serious straight-shooter wrestler. The opening half is played very straight, revolving around her and Tomi grappling for holds. Tomi is more aggressive, but also comes across a bit more frantic in her temperament whereas Jackie is a bit more reserved and psychologically in control of everything. Even when Tomi has her in a whole, Jackie has this unphased aura of "no need to worry, I'll get myself out of this before long." I say 'psychologically' because I'm not saying she's always physically in control, in fact something I like about how she sells is she makes it look like she's really getting thrown about and is only just about able to stop herself from falling. The way she takes an Irish Whip for example is much better than most wrestlers.

There's not much focus on a specific body part or anything. It feels like whatever limb they grab is more just seizing opportunities as they appear rather than them working to a gameplan. I think the match would have been better with some kind of hook like that, though what we what was still good and I don't think it ever felt like basic logic fell apart.

Tomi does a really cool counter in the opening portion that - I say this a lot - someone should steal. Jackie tries to wrap her up from behind, but Tomi blasts her away with a reverse dropkick, if that's the right word for it.

They built things quite well in that first half for things to get increasingly heated in the 2nd, and that's where Tomi starts throwing her more spectacular moves. I think this is the first time chronologically that we see her do her boomerang move off the top rope. It's pretty wild to see that in 1979. I remember seeing Manami Toyota do that move in the 90s and the commentator calling out Tomi's name in response. Tomi also does an over the top dive to take out Jackie on the outside, and it actually gets her a countout win. Jackie was about to get back in just in a time but Tomi kicks her from inside the ring to seal it. It's a relatively weak win, but it's still a big win because it's Jackie Sato she's beat. It's also nice that we got to see the Beauty Pair vs. Queen Angels match, as I now know that Tomi's already scored a win on Jackie with that move before, albeit that was one fall in a 2/3 falls tag match, so this feels like a bit of a progression in a rivalry.

***1/4

MD: This was from the “White” league of the mythical US-Japan league that they mentioned previously. They claim that so far Jackie is 6-0 and Tomi is 5-0-1 and that seems dubious to me. But then midway they start to mention the women (I picked up Moolah, Vickie Williams, Joyce Grable, Judy Martin, Lealani Kai, and one more). I guess we’ll see if this happens at some point. I think they mentioned September.  No more eyepatch for Jackie. This was nominally a babyface match (the crowd is obviously with Jackie).

Tomi came in hot with a lot of dubiously spaced flying kicks where the sum of them is worth more than any individual one. She controlled for the first few minutes, primarily with a cross-toehold but this was fairly even and back and forth, but with longer periods of control. Tomi fought furiously but Jackie was just on another level with her execution. There was a lot of force behind everything she did and when she locked on a cobra clutch for instance, it was very mean. Hot finishing stretch where Jackie inadvertently sent Tomi over the top and started crushing her with big moves after she got back in, only for Tomi to do a great press off the top rope to hit a body press and come back. They ended up tangled in the ropes and Tomi, apparently hot over what had happened earlier in the match, cheaply sent Jackie over. Then Lucy (on the outside) went so far as to hold Jackie so Tomi could hit the Queen Rocket and get the shock countout (using her foot to keep Jackie out at the last second). It felt a bit like a heel turn though I’m not sure it was played that way. Still, it felt like a big deal in the moment.