70s Joshi on Wednesday: Hori! Iwai!

 46. 1979.08.XX3 - 01 Ayumi Hori vs. Kazuko Iwai

K: Iwai just debuted on 7/31, Hori is only a little more experienced but she’s also much bigger so gets to look stronger on offense even if this never looked like turning into a squash. They’re both rookies so their offense is very basic and consists of a lot of repeated moves.

I noticed Iwai’s stance right at the start seemed very reminiscent of Jackie Sato’s fighting stance. She looks ok in this. The match has a pretty low ceiling because of the limitations of the wrestlers and the restrictions they’re working within, but everything she did looked pretty decently executed. There is a pretty nifty move where she looks like she’s going for a snapmare, but actually jumps really high in the air with her feet sticking up, and on the way down uses that extra momentum to actually execute a kind of flying snapmare.

Hori takes over by countering a bodyscissors by standing up, pulling Iwai up with her and splatting her on the mat. It’s a transition I recall seeing multiple times now. Her turn on offense isn’t as interesting as Iwai’s. She’s treated as a powerhouse juggernaut but I don’t think there’s ever really enough force in her moves to really convey that, and I know the idea is she’s going on a rampage, but since she doesn’t pull that vibe off it just comes across as unfocused. This does play into the finish though, where she misses and running splash which allows Iwai to get back into it and sneak the win. Not a bad showing, but I thought Iwai clearly looked the better of the two at this point.

*3/4

MD: Some specific moments I liked a lot here. Early on Iwai had to really heft up to get Hori at all. Hori was so big that it didn’t make sense to do snap mares but instead to have the same bodily effect with a headlock. Iwai on the other hand had to fly up high for flying headlock takeovers. On the third, she fell down on her for a pin which was an interesting sort of thing I’ve never seen before. Some of it seemed a little too cooperative overall, but it did lead to a very nice bodyscissors big where Hori had to get out with that great headlift drop you’ll see sometimes. A lot of the rest of the match was just Hori crashing into Iwai until Iwai was able to get a small package out of nowhere. They both had promise in their own way but at this stage in their journey they probably needed to be against other people to shine.