70s Joshi on Wednesday: Jackie! Tomi! Kumano! Williams!
65. 1979.10.XX - 04 Jackie Sato & Tomi Aoyama vs. Mami Kumano & Vicki Williams (2/3 Falls)
K: It’s good to see Jackie again. It hits me right at the start that she has an aura which draws me into her matches, even the way she stalls still feels like she’s just getting you to brace yourself for what’s about to happen next. She’s a very cool wrestler. I noticed as well how Vicki Williams took such a big bump for Jackie’s offense when they first crossed paths. Felt like she was consciously conveying that Jackie’s a much stronger opponent than anyone else we’ve seen her go up against.
The 1st fall was a bit messy. I did like the spot where Mami Kumano has Tomi Aoyama on the apron and pushes her into the corner post, but when Tomi spins her around and tries to do the same thing in revenge the heel ref immediately intervenes to stop first. I haven’t been very complementary about his style of heeling but I’ll give credit where it’s due. Mami has pretty strong performance here, taking up most of the match as Vicki seems a bit off at times.
The 2nd fall was a bit more structured, but the biggest problem with it is the match felt more concerned with getting heat on the referee than the heel wrestlers. There were a couple of moments where Jackie got physical with him and looked like she’s on the verge of losing her shit, but it’s not much of a payoff and isn’t worth how much his antics break up the flow of the match. We did see a very good comeback that led to Tomi picking up the pin with her top rope boomerang, but the camera cuts missed it, they really seem to hate her.
Our 3rd fall only have one purpose. Jackie is gonna kick ass and win. She did tag out for bit in the middle so the heels managed to get a bit of offense in on Tomi, there was a weird spot where Tomi came back on an Irish Whip diagonally (which seemed to break the laws of wrestling physics) and pushed the heel ref into her opponents. I got the idea but I don’t think it worked. Maybe if they all tumbled over it would have been effective, if a bit more comedic than I think was the intent here. But once Jackie was back in the ring she just turned into a superhero, repeatedly smashed Vicki Williams into the mat and got the 3 count despite the ref doing a ridiculously slow count on her. He then gets beat up for his crimes.
**1/2
MD: I’m not sure what happened to our beloved Queen Angels. I know that Lucy and Tomi wrestle at the end of the year but they were commentating like Jackie and Tomi were the strongest tag team in the world and we don’t see Tomi and Lucy team again in the footage. Williams (with Grable) was the NWA tag champion and she was fine here. You almost had to feel for her because Kumano would do her dangling choke (twice) to Jackie and then Williams would come in with a conventional choke, or Kumano would do her top rope seated senton and Williams would come in with a kick. What’s probably even going through her mind in that situation? The world is far bigger and more wonderful than Moolah told her yet she was trapped in her box forever.
This had a lot of heel ref shenanigans. It had plenty of outside interference from all of the American women. That said, it still worked just a little better than some of the other similar matches. Maybe it was just a bit more chaotic. Maybe it was because Jackie worked well from underneath and Tomi was fiery on the outside, dragged out again and again by the ref. Maybe it was because there were a few spots where the ref got comeuppance (or almost did like when Tomi pushed him into a double clothesline from her opponents). But it still didn’t clear the bar of if this was Jackie/Tomi vs Mami/Yuki. This was one where the ⅔ falls structure hurt a little too (and it usually didn’t) as the big comeback was deferred past a banana peel Tomi cross body pin to even up the falls. I wanted that big Jackie comeback and we didn’t quite get it. What we had to be satisfied with instead was the ref reluctantly counting three after Jackie’s belly to back and then him getting beaten up a bit post match (only to be helped out by Moolah; had to be an interesting tour for that guy overall, but boy am I sick of him).
Labels: 70sJoshi, AJW, Jackie Sato, Mami Kumano, Tomi Aoyama, Vicki Williams
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