70s Joshi on Wednesday: Jackie! Vs! Ripper!

40. 1979.07.31 - 03 Jackie Sato vs. Monster Ripper (WWWA Singles Title)

K: This is advertised as a death match. It’s no DQ or countouts, but the meaning of that is a bit different in this era to modern times, it’s really just guaranteeing the crowd that they will see a definitive finish rather than they’ll see someone get exploded or something.

Right from the start Jackie goes after Monster’s injured knee. She doesn’t wait for Monster to do something unsporting first before resorting to that. It might come across as heelish out of context, but after everything we’ve seen Monster do in the months leading to this, it more gets over that Jackie isn’t a sucker and is going to take the fight to her. She has a couple of cool moments where she’s knocked down but will then throw herself immediately at Monster’s leg or try to kick it. One of them reminded me of Antonio Inoki in the infamous Muhammad Ali fight where she’s on the ground just kicking out at Monster’s leg. It makes Jackie simultaneously come across as the underdog but also a super tenacious and determined one.

Another cool spot is the way Jackie deals with Monster’s Irish Whip > hip attack move. She just ducks and rolls under it like how you’re taught to do if your clothes are on fire, but she’s so slick about it she’s immediately back onto her feet and able to lay into Monster who’s still downed from missing her flying move.

It’s shortly after this display of coolness that the pretense of a fair fight gets thrown right out the window, and Jackie is on the outside getting beaten up by the heels. There’s a lot of chaos at ringside so we can’t clearly see what’s going on, but the important part is Jackie emerges with the crimson mask. It’ll be an iconic image of this era of Zenjo. You see the girls in the crowd getting very distressed as they see their hero in mortal danger. She keeps fighting the whole time though. We get a nice counter of a backdrop where Jackie uses her weight to force Monster down into a pinning predicament. Monster’s top rope senton that’s been built up as match-ender also gets dodged. The crowd keep believing Jackie can pull this off and she rewards them accordingly. The finish is a bit of a let down though as the referee just stops the match as bloodied Jackie is getting stomped on. This could have gone somewhere great but it wasn’t allowed to happen. We get a rematch instead.

***1/4

MD: I accidentally watched a later match on this one and I guess it’s a testament to the footage so far or my own instincts but it felt like a match that things should have escalated further to instead of the initial match. That ended up being the case. So here we are with this one, the right one, the one with more build than any other match we’ve seen yet and it was a great piece of pro wrestling.

Ripper came in with a bandaged knee, which gave Jackie a wedge against her (and a way to protect Ripper for the next match). This had more shots to the crowd than any match I remember so far. They referred to Sato as “Superstar Jackie” and she was given the reaction she was getting. She wrestled like one too, constantly leaping at Ripper no matter what was happening, always fighting back. She was only able to get an advantage when she went after the leg though, not just with kicks but also wild trips off the ropes. It all built to a bridging figure four but Cheryl Day got into the ring and while she was pushed away by the officials, it was enough for Ripper to get Jackie out of the ring.

From there things took a ghastly, theatrical turn. We mainly saw the shots of the crowd and the chaos of both groups of wrestlers swarming into each other with matching jackets, but when Jackie rolled back in, she was a bloody mess (which is not a sight we have seen much if at all in the footage). From there Ripper demolished her with multiple suplexes. Jackie was able to turn it around but only for a one count and after another sojourn to the floor, the ref called the match over blood stoppage and an elated Ripper was declared champion as they cut to multiple shots of crying young women in the stands. If I’m not mistaken, they, carny as can be, already announced that there was going to be another match at the end. As pro wrestling as pro wrestling can be.