4. Tomi Aoyama & Jackie Sato Interviews - 2/21/80
5. Lucy Kayama vs. Yumi Ikeshita (All Pacific Title) - 2/21/80
K: Before we get to the match, we have an announcement from Commissioner Ueda that Tomi Aoyama will have to vacate the All Pacific title and cancel her title challenge against Jackie Sato due to an injured knee. This is all real, but they make the most of it for TV purposes by getting over how devastated Tomi is to lose this opportunity, saying that she doesn't care if she loses a leg in trying to win the title. The next interview with Jackie about the situation also holds the line, as she talks about how she missed a lot of time due to injuries early in her career. It all makes wrestling feel very important and winning a title to be the crowning achievement of their lives.
So this is for the vacated All Pacific belt. There's a high level of ambition to this compared to most of the matches going on around the time. The first 10 minutes or so are mostly just matwork, but it's very gritty and interesting matwork with a slight feeling of escalation throughout. You don't see either of them having an obvious strategy or targetting a specific limb or anything, it's more like they're just reacting in the moment with whatever opportunity is available to them. It's "riffing" but it feels more genuine than in the Zack Sabre Junior sense, as I don't get the feeling that any of this was choreographed.
Examples of interesting offense around the many hammerlocks include them doing that turning Greco-Roman test of strength spot that I associate with Billy Robinson vs. Giant Baba, but with a twist that Ikeshita brutally forces Kayama backfirst straight down onto her knee. Ikeshita also headbutts Ikeshita's shoulder while working her arm on the mat. There's a fanastic spot that Matt's already GIFed on Twitter when Ikeshita walks up Kayama's body onto her shoulder to turn her over into an armbar (I don't know how to describe it exactly). It's cool enough that Ikeshita makes the mistake of attempting it a second time a few minutes later, but Kayama counters it this time and creates space for her comeback segment.
I think there's a nice contrast between the two segments in that while Ikeshita was on top for most of the first 10 minutes, Kayama was still fighting back and standing up to her. However, once we get into Kayama's segment where she has the momentum, Ikeshita comes across as unsporting and while not quite 'cowardly' she's hardly showing fighting spirit. She backpeddles constantly, tries to get to the ropes and goes to the outside for an extending period breaking up Kayama's flow. There's nice little moment where she backs off from Kayama and actually falls over looking kinda foolish for a second. Her brief 'hope' spots are totally opportunistic and acts of savagry where she goes straight for the throat or eyes. This escalates into her pulling out a weapon and trying to stab Kayama with it to shrieks from the crowd, which sets up Kayama snatching it off her and getting it a stab of her own on the outside, justified revenge, but perhaps a mistake to fight Ikeshita on her terms.
Ikeshita can't quite help being a kinda "cool" heel, but her performance here certainly isn't going for that and I think it is effective with her audience, even if me in 2025 still thinks she's kinda cool :)
The more this turns into a brawl the more sloppy and difficult to follow it gets. It's entertaining but I don't think it quite developed from the bulk of the match up to this point, the shifts in momentum start to feel a bit random until the finishing stretch, which was good. Lucy goes for a big dive to the outside and misses, but unlike earlier in the month where she won the tag titles soon after missing a dive, this time Ikeshita immediately pounces on the mistake and soon has her in the ring, gives her two big piledrivers and takes the win and the belt.
Not quite a great match, I think I've said this a few times, but they mostly have the right idea and it feels like they're getting a bit closer to reaching the stars. Certainly a very interesting one.
***3/4
MD: Here’s the big title match to decide who gets Tomi’s vacated All-Pacific title. And it’s really something. They did some fairly scrappy matwork to begin, more so than I would have expected. That’s not to say they weren’t swinging at each other while in holds. Ikeshita was able to seize an advantage by working the arm, building to this great step up short armscissors takeover and roll. That opened things up enough for her to hit her fall away slams.
When she went for the step up again, Kayama was able to hang on, hold her high and drop backwards with her. I know this doesn’t seem like a ton (though it was a great spot) but that sort of transition with a callback really isn’t the sort of thing we saw much in 79. She honed in on the leg but couldn’t hold the advantage for too long because Ikeshita started playing hide the object. That led to yet another callback spot. She had nailed Lucy in the gut off the ropes with it. When she went for it again, Lucy was able to get a sunset flip hope spot out of it. It just feels different to me, closer to more modern, more complex wrestling. And it’s two matches now, so that’s a bit of a pattern.
Kayama got the object on the floor and mounted a bit comeback turning a teeter totter tombstone bit into a slam and following up with a gutwrench and tiger driver. Ikeshita sometimes went right to her belly so she couldn’t get pinned or put her knees up to avoid it, and she did the former here. It was a nice touch, as was the transition where she just launched a headbutt into a charging Lucy. Finishing stretch had her clock Lucy and the ref with chairs. Lucy was able to use her athleticism to vault over her only to get taken down. Ikeshita followed up with another series of bombs (Power slam, butterfly suplex, leaping bulldog) but missed a dive. Unfortunately, Lucy missed the Queen Rocket and Ikeshita put her down with a belly to back and two pile drivers, which is not a move we’ve seen much in the footage so far. The finish left everyone dejected but it made Ikeshita into someone to chase. There were definitely more modern elements here (callbacks for transitions and hope spots, dueling limbwork, etc.) and it felt like a very complete match overall to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment