70s Joshi on Wednesday: Rimi! Seiko! Chino! Martin! Kumano! Masami!

58. 1979.09.2X2 - 01 Chino Sato, Rimi Yokota & Seiko Hanawa vs. Judy Martin, Mami Kumano & Tenjin Masami (After 9/21, possibly October)

K: The Americans are very visible at ringside for this one but thankfully they appear to not be in constant interference mode for this low stakes matchup. We start with Chino Sato goes for some kind of grab attack on Mami Kumano which seemed to throw Mami off a bit, but Chino didn’t have a 2nd move to hand to capitalise before she got cut down to size to begin a period of heel domination. This first section is wrapped up with a pretty cool moment where Yokota is being stomped in the heel corner, and just for a second Judy Martin lets go, and with cat-like reflexes Yokota dashes all the way across the ring to her corner to make a tag and she does it so quickly it really looked like Judy had made a mistake and was physically unable to stop Yokota getting away.

The big babyface comeback comes from a Seiko Hanawa rollup of all things. Once the heel’s offense is broken up, it’s like they can’t get their machine up and running again. For the final few minutes the pace really speeds up and the babyfaces basically take turns to hit their signatures moves and tag out before they get tired. So we get Hanawa fireman’s slam, Sato hits a couple of powerbombs and then Yokota is flying around with her very aggressive crossbodies and it’s all too much and somehow in the mix of things they get the win with a snap pin that looked a bit awkward and probably came too soon.

Pretty inconsequential match, but fun for what it was.

**

MD: This was pretty straightforward but Martin, Kumano, and Masami are a bit of a WAR team when you think about it. Martin is, in my mind, the ace of Moolah-ism. No one makes hair throws and clubbing shots work better than her as she bases and makes everything make sense. They sent Sato out to die at first and the Young Pair didn’t do much better, getting only tiny spatterings of hope. Kumano pulled hair and jammed her knee into throats and stepped on faces, but Masami would tear at them with her nails instead. A different sort of villain.

When they finally mounted a comeback, Sato got to shine with a Giant Swing and some of the most direct power bombs we’ve seen yet (we saw some of the leg hook flip ones here instead). I don’t remember seeing a straight one quite like this earlier in the footage. Kumano had none of it though and dragged her down until things devolved into chaos and the babyfaces won with a fairly dubious sunset flip. Lots of chaos on the outside with the seconds as you’d expect too. This was ok but needed more hope if it wasn’t going to get a shine.