67. 1979.10.17 - 02 Fabulous Moolah vs. Nancy Kumi (NWA Women's Title)
K: This is a big match for Nancy Kumi. Even if the NWA Women’s Title wasn’t as established in Japan as the Men’s equivalent, I have to assume the prestige of the organisation would make it being defended here feel like a big deal. Nancy did have a couple of tag title reigns before this (with Jackie Sato, and later with Victoria Fujimi as Golden Pair) so it’s not like she isn’t an established star. But from watching the footage, she frankly has rarely came across as one, albeit we’re missing any from those aforementioned reigns so it may be a sampling anomaly.
Moolah succeeds in coming across as all Queen evil here. I don’t think her wrestling is very entertaining or effective really, it feels like she generates more heat just from her personality than anything she physically does, so the result is something that feels like it might get good but never does. Plus we’ve already seen so much of these American heel tactics (including the crooked ref) that they feel burned out already. If Moolah came out as some Final Boss of the Americans who brought the heeling to higher levels maybe it’d work, but it’s just more of the same choking, hiding the weapon and dodgy refereeing. I did like her trapping Nancy’s head in between the ropes at least.
But the only good reason to watch this is Nancy’s comeback, the best we’ve seen her look to date. There’s a big roar of the crowd as she starts losing her shit on the outside, first turning Moolah’s weapon against her and then beating up the referee when he tries to stop it. She really kicks his ass and leaves him on the floor reeling. Her fury turns her invincible as she lays into Moolah in the ring, but she’s apparently too insane with anger to realise that she can’t win with her pin attempt as she just took out the ref. The DQ was obviously going to happen, so that puts an end to that. Pretty fun way to rage quit.
**
MD: Pretty fascinating match all things considered. I don’t know the last time I saw a Moolah match, no matter how many Martin/Kai matches I’ve seen. This was for the NWA belt (the one with her face on it) and she’s striking and ghoulish. Watching this and knowing more about the times, I wonder how much of this phase of Moolah’s career was inspired by Bette Davis and Jayne Mansfield in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? It’s a horror movie and she was horrific. I had always thought she had been hanging on to youth with the dyed hair and painted on eyebrows and wasn’t really fooling anyone but herself and those who had to be her sycophants, but it comes off as far more self aware than I expected here (even if I knew it did a few years later). The faces she makes, the things she says, she comes off as absolutely, gleefully monstrous.
Kumi misses a dropkick early and Moolah chokes and knees and grinds. She’s entirely professional here, which means when Kumi takes over, she feeds big for all of the monkey flips and what not. When she takes back over it’s by grabbing a can and a towel from her minions and using them as weapons. I don’t think anything in the first two thirds of this are entirely unexpected.
What is unexpected is Kumi’s big comeback at the end. This had our nemesis the heel ref we’ve been dealing with for the last month or two of footage, and Kumi ultimately has enough, first getting the can and then a chair and she comes off like a completely unhinged star full of righteous fury, just smashing Moolah to pieces with it before she turns it on the ref. She starts slamming his head into the post and it’s very satisfying (even if you knew the finish, after a visual fall, was going to be very unsatisfying). I don’t think this payoff is necessarily worth all of the frustrating heel ref antics BUT in the moment it was pretty great and if Kumi came out of this a bigger star (I have no idea if she did but maybe Kad can speak to that), maybe it was worth it after all.
Phil Schneider, Eric Ritz, Matt D, Sebastian, and other friends write about pro wrestling. Follow us @segundacaida
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