70s Joshi on Wednesday: Jumbo! Nancy! Rios! Masami!

70. 1979.11.XX1 - 01 Ayumi Hori & Nancy Kumi vs. Raquel Rios & Tenjin Masami

K: The Americans are out and now we get a look at the mysterious Raquel Rios, who I'm assuming is a Mexican wrestler or at least that's where she seems to have worked most often, but it's hard to find info online so I'm not sure of that. 

Nancy Kumi gets quite the roar from the crowd during the introductions. I've never got why she seemed perpetually over (at least before matches start) when she rarely looks like a star after the bell rings. Anyway she sells being hurt on the outside early on and leaves Ayumi Hori to sell in the ring for the heels. Masami is incredibly expressive and loud, but lacks much offense at this point. It's interesting though that despite her being such a junior worker, she actually gets to look more dominant beating up Hori that Rios did, who when she tags in gets the tables turned on her. Devil also manages to get a comeback on Nancy after she returns to the ring by just physically overpowering her. The strangest move of the match was definitely Devil jumping up sidewards onto Hori's shoulders to do a headscissors. I didn't know what on Earth was going on at first, it was a bit too cute but fun I guess, She attempts it a 2nd time but it gets countered and allows for Nancy to get a hot tag where she does some exciting offense for about 10 seconds before it all fizzles out.

I'd normally describe this as a Tenjin Masami showcase. She certainly was the wrestler who did most of the memorable stuff in this match and showed some improvement since we last saw her. Certainly everything until the brief finishing stretch where Nancy got some nice strikes in and we saw a cool top rope crossbody from big Ayumi Hori. I'm not sure if it was deliberately laid out to get Masami over or if it was more the more pushed wrestler not bothering to do much until it was her time to get the win, but that's how it came across.
**

MD: While this did have Rios from Mexico, it’s nice to be back to normal in this footage with the Americans headed home. This was a good check in on Hori and Masami. Masami especially. She was absolutely coming along. Not everything hit clean, but everything hit with enthusiasm and verve. She had a way of hitting from every angle, and with consequence. For instance, she was able to plow right through Kumi with her charging Vader Attack style body block, but when she tried it with Hori both went down, due to Hori’s size. The commentary called those “dump truck collisions.” At one point when Rios was pinned, she walked right in and stomp the ref instead which popped basically everyone but the ref who was furious at her. I also liked her (late) Honky Tonk Man styled neckbreakers where she didn’t go over with them.

Hori had a bit more oomph behind what she was doing. Sometimes it worked out well like when she and Masami did a bit based around flying headscissors, where Masami got her over the first time but got shrugged off big the second time. Sometimes less so, like when she couldn’t get a slam off the ropes to work the first time around. Rios fit in well enough, participating in the violence and throwing headbutts. 

This was pretty chaotic throughout but had an extra bit of it early when it seemed like Kumi might have been hurt. She came back and came in hot though, flying around and hitting stuff with confidence. The finish had her hit multiple Northern Lights styled face first drops onto Masami before taking her over all the way with it. Biggest thing to see her was how Masami was just rising up the ranks of the Black Army and becoming more of a force.