70s Joshi on Wednesday: Jackie! Ripper!

51. 1979.09.13 - 02 Jackie Sato vs. Monster Ripper (WWWA Singles Title)

K: Part of the appeal of pro-wrestling is getting to watch heroes in action. It stirs up some deep primal feel with us, this mix of admiration for the person we’re watching and just the raw emotion of the events taking place. The best babyfaces are able to pull their audiences into that primal state, have them feel a chill go down their spine as they watch their hero stand tall against the odds.

That feeling is what separates Jackie Sato from the pack to me. As impressive as many of these wrestlers are in other ways (it’d certainly be unfair to compare her to the heels too directly), none of them inspire that personal attachment and loyalty. Jackie would be topped by later stars, but from what I can see of the footage we have, she is the big pioneering Joshi babyface who her successors built on.

This is a match I’d already seen several times before this project as it’s one of 70s AJW’s most famous moments, but it’s still nice to have seen the build this time. That Monster Ripper had been looking almost unstoppable leading up to this probably wouldn’t surprise anyone coming into this cold, but it does help a little in knowing exactly how the booking had gone about that.

A little detail I like is how Jackie starts the match like it’s still just any other title match. She extends a hand and offers a knuckle-lock or Greco-Roman start. She doesn’t have any personal animosity towards Monster, at least not on the surface, but Monster just kicks her hand away in disdain anyway. So we know who the moral aggressor is. When the lock-up starts, Jackie first gets the advantage with a nifty move where she stands on Monster’s toes and then launches forward to headbutt her.

There’s an element of desperation and determination in everything Jackie does here, whereas Monster looks like she’s having time of her life toying with her prey. We get a repeat of the spot from their first match where Jackie ducks Monster’s flying hip attack, but it’s doesn’t lead to a comeback like in the 1st match and Monster is back up in no time. It just gives Jackie a little time to regroup. It feels like the odds are against her even more this time. All she can really manage against her to this point are sneaky rollup attempts. They aren’t really offense but it felt like a version of the Steamboat Rule in that she’s letting the crowd know she’s still trying to win the match even if she’s clearly a long way from doing that.

Jackie does something a bit odd for a babyface here, she keeps going to outside to avoid Monster, and when Monster goes chasing after her she’ll get back in. Jackie is selling her leg so maybe she’s buying time for it to wear off, or something else. It doesn’t come across as cowardly though. It all pays off when she takes an opportunity as Monster’s climbing back up to the apron to hit her with a flying crossbody to the floor. Or maybe that was the plan all along. Either way it works, and believable turns the tide of momentum in her favour and sends the crowd into a frenzy as they see Our Hero has a real chance to win this. She doesn’t let up, hitting her biggest moves in quick succession before Monster has a chance to rally. The big splash that she’d won matches with recently only gets her a 2 count though. She gets the win with a backdrop suplex bridge though, with a dubious probably 2.9 count (but this feud has to continue) but the crowd weren’t paying enough attention to Monster’s shoulders to notice that! Bit rough around the edges, but this all worked very well.

***3/4

MD: This felt suitably epic to me, the culmination of something. I’m not sure the finish quite lives up to the match and the moment but they also maybe needed to leave things on the bone if they thought they’d be using Ripper more (we don’t have more of her in 79, but she’ll show up again in 80). There’s a lot to like here. Early on, Jackie uses her speed and daring to frustrate Ripper, including with a headscissors takeover out of a victory roll position. They play at wrist control after that, and it really does become all Ripper fairly quickly. She’s too big, too fierce, too strong.

Maybe it’s just me, but they almost seemed to shoot this part of the match where she just destroys Jackie a little differently. It seems closer up, more of a horror scene. The crowd was full of Jackie’s followers, including two girls they keep cutting to with her name on their headbands, and yes, they look on in terror as Ripper ragdolls her about, ending with a destruction of the leg. As the officials check on her, Ripper rushes back in to attack. There’s nothing polished about anything she does. It’s all rough around the edges, rough in general, but it works here exactly for that reason.

Eventually she all but shoves Jackie out leading to a bit of recovery and the back half. As Jackie makes it back in, she transforms into the most magical of standing tall babyfaces just like that. She leads off with maybe the best drop down trip ever, as she just rolls into a charging Ripper. She’s too fast and too slick and goes so far as to press Ripper up onto her shoulders and drop her. They move into a more even stretch, including a really great reversal out of a backslide by Ripper that I’d never seen before where she just shimmies her way into a folding press with the legs nelsoned. But Jackie keeps pressing and hits a big belly to back (with maybe, almost certainly a shoulder coming up to diminish it a bit?), and sends the place into a fervor by regaining the belt. Very clear and crisp and brisk for most of this. A hero triumphing. Save maybe for them refusing to commit on the finish, a match very much worth the build.