70s Joshi on Wednesday: Kumano! Ikeshita! Rimi (Jaguar)! Seiko!

50. 1979.09.13 - 01 Mami Kumano & Yumi Ikeshita vs. Rimi Yokota & Seiko Hanawa (2/3 Falls)

K: This is a Named Team vs. Named Team match so you know it’s a big show. Yumi Ikeshita is wearing a dinner jacket for the introductions. How I’m supposed to root against someone in such a cool outfit I have no idea. Actually I do, it’s Yumi Ikeshita she’ll make me snap out of it soon enough.

The start to this is wild. Young Pair try to jump Black Pair at the start but it backfires and then get beaten the hell out of and thrown out of the ring to the screams of the fans and all of that action happens in 15 seconds. Once Hanawa is back in the ring Mami Kumano has got out THE TOWEL and uses it to strangle her, but she also does this kinda funny thing where she’s constantly shifting her body around to block the vision of the referee who knows she’s doing something untoward but can never quite see it… If anything Ikeshita then ups the ante when she’s tagged in, using the towel to strengthen her punches before just assaulting Hanawa’s face and dragging her face all across the mat like she’s trying to make her look ugly. We’re two minutes in when Young Pair get a moment’s reprieve to regroup. They achieved a hell of a lot with those two minutes making the Black Pair look both like absolutely vicious ruthless animals and the Young Pair look brave by daring to try stand up to these awful people.

That 2 minutes was like a compact preview of the 1st fall. Things are less chaotic, for the most part, but you never really believe Black Pair were ever at serious risk of losing control of things. Maybe the closest that comes to it is when things spill to the outside and Young Pair come into the ring swinging chairs, but they’re quickly overpowered. Actually it wouldn’t make sense for them to beat Black Pair at their own game.

I felt like the 2nd fall played off this, as Young Pair manage to even things up after they manage to turn it into a competition of technique, and Rimi pulls off a nifty rollup to get a pin. The 3rd fall then follows that up as Black Pair start by just immediately blasting their opponents with some metal bins and turn things chaotic and full of rampant rule-breaking again. It works because it feels like both teams are trying to change the dynamic of the match to fit their styles. The 3rd fall is really good stuff and Yumi Ikeshita really feels like she had to power up at the end to get the win for her team. This is the best Young Pair have looked so far.

***1/2

MD: This was an absolute mauling. The Young Pair tried to ambush at first and they just got thrashed and the Black Pair didn’t look back. A lot of variety of violence overall. Early on they used the towel and shots to the throat. Yokota wiped out huge with a posting from the apron. Just a lot of kneeing and stepping to the throat. As the match went on thee was a flowing element to the carnage. They’d sweep an opponent across the ring with a yank and then whack them in the back of the head, one side of the ring to the other. They’d hide a choke from the ref almost dancing around the ring with their opponent. And when things escalated they escalated big, like with Ikeshita’s hanging tree choke.

Yokota and Hanawa did better when they could double team but they’d be quick to miss a move or just to get cut off. A chair picked up on the outside jammed into a stomach, a bucket wielded across the skull, the Black Pair were simply unrelenting. The end of the first fall had the Young Pair grab chairs and attack Ikeshita and Kumano in the middle of the ring. Ikeshita absorbed it with her gimmick hard head and Kumano caught it, set it up, and choked one of the Young Pair with her dangling choke. Just unstoppable. In the second fall, the Young Pair did get a banana peel roll up and it made the comebacks in the third fall exciting because it did seem like maybe they could get lucky again but no, no they did not. A fun thrashing which really showed the power and presence of the Black Pair and what made them special.