70s Joshi on Wednesday: Jackie! Lucy! Tomi! Ikeshita! Masami! Komine!

49. 1979.08.XX3 - 04 Hiroko Komine, Tenjin Masami & Yumi Ikeshita vs. Jackie Sato, Lucy Kayama & Tomi Aoyama (2/3 Falls)

K: Top babyface & two buddies vs. top (native) heel and two buddies. Jackie’s team really should have the clear advantage with her having Queen Angels as her partners and Yumi just has two rookies, but that’s not how the match goes. The heels dominate the early goings easily, but with Jackie never tagging in so it’s more that they’re dominating the lesser two of her team. Still it’s a bit surprising to see Hiroko Komine in control of them for so long. Unfortunately there’s a noticeable clip around here so we don’t get to see the first babyface comeback until it’s already started, or if it really even was a comeback or just an ‘extended hope’ as Yumi Ikeshita pretty quickly shuts it down. She does a cool move as she’s taking back control where she Irish Whips Lucy Kayama straight into Komine’s flying crossbody. Someone steal that. It made the Irish Whip look a lot more effective rather than just whipping someone into the ropes as there’s isn’t the time for the opponent to react.

There’s a couple more babyface comeback moments in this first fall, both of which are started by Lucy Kayama. The first one doesn’t go very far, she just counters a running move by tripping her opponent from the side, but before she gets much going Yumi Ikeshita bursts in and she has a new villainous trick for today. She has a towel wrapped around her hand and is using it like brass knucks. I guess that would probably work if the towel was tort enough. Football hooligans used to do that with newspapers around their fists, it’s called the ‘Millwall Brick’. This is what gets Jackie involved for the first time, she doesn’t stand much of a chance against Yumi Ikeshita and her towel though. The second bigger comeback from Lucy comes from a heel mishap. She moves out of the way of Komine charging at her, who knocks Ikeshita off the apron instead and they both tumble to the floor. With a good sense of urgency, the babyfaces isolate Tenjin Masami, Tomi is tagged into the do a flurry of dropkicks and a giant swing which sets up Jackie doing a big splash (stealing Lucy Kayama’s move) and she wins them the 1st fall.

The first thing I want to comment on from the 2nd fall is that Tomi Aoyama hits such an excellent violent looking dropkick it gets an audible gasp from the crowd. She follows that up with this pretty dynamic vertical suplex where she’s never stood up straight at any point, she just kinda falls into it and her opponent goes over with her. No wonder Ikeshita felt the need to bring out the towel to stop her momentum. This time she’s just strangling her with it. She even manages to simultaneously fight off Jackie trying to intervene by kicking her away while still using her arms to continue strangling Tomi. What a… villain. As we go into the finishing stretch for this fall Jackie really looks like a hero throwing everyone around. Queen Angels look cool in a different way with their cool moves. Lucy Kayama does a couple of proto Tiger Driver like moves setting up Tomi Aoyama to get the win with the Queen Special splash for a 2-0 victory. Good match.

***

MD: Maybe I’m crazy for saying this but I think certain structural things are starting to come together with the style. If you look at the matches from a year prior (or even six months), there were more momentum shifts but they all had less meaning. Now there’s more in the way of hope spots before they build to a big comeback. The large majority of this match had the Black Army controlling even though they didn’t pick up either fall and it felt a little like an initiation for Masami and Komine. Komine was slicker; she has this high-speed, too close, askew cross body that is very nice, especially when Ikeshita added oomph with a whip. Masami was more of a bruiser. She just runs headlong into people. Ikeshita was a force of nature like usual, just chucking people over her head at will.

We lose a little of one comeback due to a clip but we get this more or less in full otherwise. At one point they use a towel as a weapon, first wrapped around their hands, and then later, around Tomi’s neck. Jackie comes off like the star she is when she’s in there but she does get beaten around a bunch too. The finish of the second fall has Lucy with this run-into-the-corner headstand splash. I probably would have liked to see the Army get one fall but they did take most of this and the Angels and Jackie do come off like a super team of sorts.