Queen of Villains - Truth & Fiction

by @kadavri on Twitter

I originally wrote this as a Twitter thread after having just finished the Dump Matsumoto ‘Queen of Villains’ Netflix series. The thread got way more interest than I’d expected! So I’ll try to tidy it up for the blog post.

This isn’t me reviewing the show. This is for anyone’s who’s watched it (this article will be full of spoilers!) and wants to see the real-life matches it's based on and understand the real history. The show contains a mix of truth and fiction, though sometimes the real story is even wilder than the fiction! I will go through it episode by episode commenting on how people and events were depicted, noting if it’s true, false, or a bit of both.

EPISODE 1: 

Kaoru Matsumoto's father was a cheating alcoholic who abused his wife and she hated him? TRUE: In Kaoru's own words, she became a wrestler because "I wanted to kill my father."

Kaoru was from a poor family, and she raised money as a child by collecting empty bottles to sell? TRUE. 

Kaoru was a wrestling fan as a child? TRUE. Though from what I've read, she was more a fan of Mach Fumiake (a wrestler mentioned but not depicted in the show) than Jackie Sato.

EPISODE 1 MATCH 1 - Jackie Sato vs. Maki Ueda (Loser Must Retire). This is a real match. You can watch it here! https://youtube.com/watch?v=Bq1a-haKZIc 

The Jackie  vs. Maki match was a 'shoot', i.e. had no predetermined winner? FICTION. Jackie winning was the "script" as Maki was retiring anyway for other reasons. 

Maki was angry at Jackie for having a boyfriend and this led to her quitting AJW? KINDA. It was a lot more than that though. She was also unhappy about her pay, she says she was being paid barely more than the average office worker despite being a national megastar. Another issue was the rough schedule, especially since it prevented her from spending time with her dying mother. Jackie’s relationship also caused problems, she once made a cryptic comment about Jackie not being able to ‘separate romance and work’. I’m also not sure this person was actually a ‘boyfriend’ either, but I won’t go into speculation there.

So this stuff in the Netflix show about some matches having no predetermined winner is just made up? No, that’s TRUE. The show fudged the details, but one of the unique things about AJW is it did a mix of normal 'fake' wrestling matches and "shoot pin rules" contests. The audience weren't explicitly told which was which.

What do you mean "shoot pin rules"? So within an otherwise worked pro-wrestling match, the wrestlers would take turns to try to legitimately pin their opponent. If you held them down for a 3 count you won, if they get up, they get the next turn. The wrestlers weren’t allowed to try to get their shoulders up until their opponent was already covering them, then they had to try and power up. It wasn’t a total shoot as in between they’d still do 'fake' moves like bodyslams to keep things entertaining. But remember, they're following that up by trying to legitimately pin their opponent, which incentivises them to be extra hard about it so their opponent is too tired/hurt to bridge up. This created a tension between the co-operative and competitive components of the matches. 

To see what this looks like, see the first match of this video: https://vk.com/video640112534_456239031 I think these matches work a lot better when you understand what’s actually going on. The younger/less experienced wrestlers regularly had matches with these rules. Higher up the card it was rarity, especially as time went on, the last time a World Title match happened with no predetermined winner was 1983. 

The Twitter user MoskowDiscow also provided some extra details, which I’ll quote here: 

“It was always dodgy to an extent too, as sometimes they'd have a preferred winner in mind and would fast/slow count the wrestlers as needed. Lots of post-match blowups over this during the wrestlers' junior years… You will also often see the person being pinned cheat by raising their shoulders at the last second before the pin begins. This, too, caused its fair share of blowups.”

It took a long time for Kaoru Matsumoto to become a wrestler? TRUE. This is even more true than the show depicts actually. She first tried out for AJW in 1976, after failing her first two tryouts, was accepted in 1979, and debuted in late 1980.

Kaoru Matsumoto & Chigusa Nagayo were best friends in the early days? KINDA. Well, they were friends, but from their interviews I don't think they were ever BEST friends like the show depicts. Kaoru was actually closer with Tomoko/Lioness Asuka than she was Chigusa.

In their rookie days Chigusa & Kaoru once sneaked out of the AJW dojo at night and went to a disco together? TRUE. Here's a translated interview of Dump telling the story:

“The period when Chigusa and I were the subject of senior bullying lasted a long time, and there were many days when matches were not set up. There were a number of times in the series when I was taken off the road and was away at the dojo.

It just so happened that we agreed that we should go to a disco because we had so much time to spare, and we went to a disco in Shibuya. A pair of rednecks from Kumagaya City and Omura City in Nagasaki, Japan. As I recall, I was seduced by the phrase "all-you-can-drink-all-you-can-eat" for 1,000 yen, but there was nothing sexy about it. All women in rubber sandals and jersey. I couldn't enter with sandals, so I bought a pair of 980 yen pumps nearby and managed to get in.

I don't dance, I don't drink, I just drink juice and eat. Flirting? It's not going to happen. Then the lights go down and the cheek time starts. 'Wow, what a world this is. They're all kissing! . We stood there with our eyes rolled as if we had wandered into the adult world. Come to think of it, it was probably a temporary escape from bullying. The dreamlike "first disco experience" with Chigusa was one of the few memories of my youth.”

EPISODE 2 MATCH 1 - Kaoru Matsumoto vs. Monster Ripper. AFAIK, not a real match. I have to caveat that whenever I say this that there are footage gaps, so it's possible we just don't have it on tape rather than it's outright made up for the show.

EPISODE 2 MATCH 2 - Chigusa Nagayo & Yukari Omori vs. Ayumi Hori & "Lovely Yoneyama". Not a real match, Lovely is also not a real wrestler. I suspect she's a stand in for Nancy Kumi, who has a reputation for being a real nasty bully, so I think Netflix decided to dodge unnecessary controversy by just not depicting her (she’s still alive).

EPISODE 2 MATCH 3 - Jackie Sato vs. Rimi Yokota. A real match! You can watch it on my 80s Joshi set here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyogO_sbduk

AJW double-crossed Jackie by having Yokota beat her for real? KINDA. It's true that Yokota beat Jackie for real. But it wasn't an actual screwjob, the match was shoot pin rules. Jackie wasn't tricked into it, she just lost. Albeit, it was obvious Yokota would win with those rules as she was an actual great wrestler for real whereas Jackie’s athletic background was basketball, so I guess you could interpret it as a bit unfair to do that to her.

EPISODE 2 MATCH 4 - Chigusa Nagayo vs. Lioness Asuka. A real match. It happened on 1/4/83 and you can watch it here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=I-u-MlMiTFs&t=121m48s It was also under shoot pin rules.

Chigusa planned to retire after this match? TRUE. The story is the match was so good because Chigusa decided her career was going nowhere and this would be her last match before quitting, so she just went all out. But when she went to the boss afterwards to say she's quitting, before she could get any words out, he praised her performance so heavily telling her she’s found herself and should keep wrestling like that, that she changed her mind before saying it.

EPISODE 3 MATCH 1 - Crush Gals vs. Dynamite Gals. Probably based on a real match that happened on 8/27/83. Sadly, there's no available footage of it for me to show you.

Jaguar Yokota and Lioness Asuka got their nicknames in the same meeting? FICTION. Lioness was still wrestling as 'Tomoko Kitamura' for at least 3 months after Rimi Yokota became Jaguar Yokota. (But that's ok, it's just a TV drama not a documentary.)

EPISODE 3 MATCH 2 - Crush Gals vs. Devil Masami & Kaoru Matsumoto. Afaik, not a real match. If it actually happened in 1983, it would have probably looked something like that though.

EPISODE 3 MATCH 3 - Crush Gals vs. Jaguar Yokota & Lovely Yoneyama. Obvs not a real match as Lovely doesn't exist. However, it is slightly reminiscent of this real match - Crush Gals vs. Jaguar Yokota/Noriyo Tateno, which you can watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYc8dfrwz3M&t=62m40s

Jaguar Yokota wanted a "unscripted" match with the Crush Gals so she could beat them easily, but tapped out to Chigusa Nagayo's sharpshooter? FICTION. This whole event is entirely made up by the show. I’m not necessarily opposed to some creative licence in making these shows, but this is the one scene I thought was a bit stupid. Jaguar (a real skilled fighter) would have steamrolled Chigusa if it was real. And the sharpshooter is not a real submission anyway.

EPISODE 3 MATCH 4 - Crush Gals vs. Devil Masami & Masked Yu. Not a real match. I guess the show created it because the debut of "Dump" was not that dramatic in real life so they needed to spice things up. She actually announced her name change pretty non-chalantly after running a 10km race, which you can see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYc8dfrwz3M&t=7433s

EPISODE 4 MATCH 4 - Crush Gals vs. Devil Masami & Dump Matsumoto. A real match! And a famous one for being the moment the Devil Army break up and Dump starts her own group. You can watch it here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYc8dfrwz3M&t=7833s

Shiro Abe refereed that match and passed Dump weapon's behind her back? FICTION. It looked to me that they were borrowing from a scene that happened in a different real match - Crush Gals vs. Dump Matsumoto & Rossy Moreno 1/5/85, which you can see here: https://vk.com/video640112534_456239024

The Japan Grand Prix was a tournament where all the matches had no predetermined winner? FICTION. This was an unnecessary embellishment imo. Of course it's AJW so things weren't necessarily all 'scripted', but afaik the winner of every match was known and agreed in advance. The winner of the tournament was going to wrestle for the World Title at AJW’s biggest show ever (at the time) later in the year, so the company was never going to run it without deciding who was going to win.

EPISODE 4 MATCH 2 - Devil Masami vs. Lioness Asuka. A real match! You can watch it here: https://vk.com/video640112534_456239025 This was also the opening of the Japan Grand Prix tournament.

AJW got its prime time TV slot back with the Japan Grand Prix? FICTION. AJW got its prime time slot back in July 1984, the Japan Grand Prix didn't start until March 15th 1985. We're well into the boom period by this point in real life. I think the show also exaggerated a bit how bad AJW’s business was in between the Beauty Pair and Crush Gals boom periods. They didn’t have a prime time TV slot, but they were still a successful pro-wrestling company.

EPISODE 4 MATCH 3 - Chigusa Nagayo vs. Crane Yu. A match that would definitely have happened due to tournament rules, but I don't believe it was ever televised.

EPISODE 4 MATCH 4 - Crane Yu vs. Dump Matsumoto 4/25/85. A real match! Except it wasn't the "semi-final", it was just part of the round robin stage. You can watch it here: https://vk.com/video640112534_456239025

It wasn't a "no predetermined winner" match like the show depicts, but the scene of Crane Yu being screwed over is actually loosely based on fact. What happened was Crane Yu was told to lose to Dump in a close match where there wouldn’t be any outside interference, and found out mid-match the real plan was Bull running in and her getting totally smashed. I guess they didn’t just tell Yu beforehand the plan was her getting beaten decisively and putting over Bull as Dump’s new #2 because she might object, so she just got delivered a fait accomplii. Yu was so mad about this she legitimately quit, but was convinced to stay come back as a referee..

So was Dump Matsumoto actually an asshole in real life as well? FICTION. Everyone got into the odd fight in AJW, but everyone who was there seems to agree Dump was a really nice person behind the scenes who actively tried to stamp out the bullying culture once she had the backstage clout to do so. Her persona was an act.

EPISODE 4 - MATCH 5. Chigusa Nagayo vs. Lioness Asuka 4/7/85. A real match! But not a semi-final, just part of the round robin stage of the tournament. You can see it here: https://vk.com/video640112534_456239025

The scene in Episode 4 where Dump crashes a variety TV show? That also actually happened, although it was Bull Nakano with her. You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bOZuq-1u8Y&t=11350s

Jaguar Yokota was being put out to pasture as the Crush Gals became the top stars? FICTION. She was never as big a star, but Jaguar was still a very popular wrestler and the company loved her. She was NOT forced to retire, the Matsunaga Brothers actually tried convincing her to keep wrestling another year. She retired out of choice after injuries started piling up.

Asuka was angry at Yokota for retiring? TRUE. She'd wanted to have a shoot pin rules match with Jaguar, as probably the only wrestler who could beat her. The scene in the show is based on a real incident where Asuka crashed Jaguar's retirement ceremony, which was not actually supposed to happen. You can see here: https://vk.com/video640112534_456239028

EPISODE 5 MATCH 1 - Chigusa Nagayo vs. Dump Matsumoto Haircut Death Match - 8/28/85. Obviously this is real... but if there's anyone reading who still hasn't seen it you need to go fix this: https://vk.com/video640112534_456239027

Dump went "off script" in the Haircut Deathmatch? FICTION. The show made this up for some reason. I think what they were trying to get across is virtually everyone watching assumed Chigusa would win. Her losing and getting shaved was one of the biggest shocks in wrestling ever. Although it’s possible the wrestlers just massively worked the show creators. 

Chigusa and Asuka didn't always get on? TRUE. They had their ups and downs and were never really best friends. The show doesn't go into details, but by 1986 things between Asuka and Chigusa got really heated. Asuka quit Crush Gals that year, costing the company (and Chigusa!) a load of money as the TV network wouldn’t keep AJW in its prime time slot without the Crush Gals together. 

She also no-showed an AJW event, which caused even bigger commotion than it normally would because

1. It was known she was having problems at the time, for example she’d recently turned up to her Sumo Hall Main Event World Title match against Devil Masami in a total state. She hadn’t slept the previous night, visibly had massive bags under her eyes and when her and Chigusa started rehearsing their singing performance earlier in the day, she just collapsed on the floor and had to be taken away in a stretcher.

2. A famous pop star called Yukiko Okada had recently committed suicide and there had been a bunch of copycat suicides which the media was in a frenzy about, so people in AJW were genuinely terrified that Asuka might have killed herself. It turned out she’d just ran away and went to live with an anonymous female rockstar who she apparently had got rather infatuated with. Chigusa called this woman a ‘grim reaper’ who’d possessed Asuka in a magazine interview, which made Asuka very angry. That whole situation was a mess. The show didn’t go into this part of the story though.

EPISODE 5 - MATCH 2. Dump Matsumoto's Retirement Match. A real match. You can watch it here: https://vk.com/video640112534_456239033 

These wrestlers really bled all over the place after being stabbed with scissors on a prime time TV show aimed at schoolgirls? TRUE. I don't know what else to tell you. There was some trickery to make it look more brutal than it really was, but it wasn't CGI or fake blood. There really was no promotion like AJW and that’s partially why I’m such a huge fan. I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily the best pro-wrestling ever (although it’s up there), but I definitely think it’s the most fascinating.