80s Joshi on Wednesday: Lucy! Nancy! Kumano! Ikeshita!

Addendum 2 

3b. Lucy Kayama & Nancy Kumi vs. Mami Kumano & Yumi Ikeshita (WWWA Tag Team Titles) - 2/5/80

K: Already sneaking in a match that isn't on the set proper but I've since uploaded a supplementary volume to include it. It was always being considered, but I'd made myself a rule to keep each volume to under 4 hours and this ended up being cut because it doesn't really link up with the rest of the 80s matches as it's really wrapping up an angle which played out through 1979, and I made the set assuming viewers wouldn't know anything about what happened before 1980.

However I've just done write-ups for every AJW match of the 1970s on this very blog, so now leaving this off would be a far more significant omission. So let's get into it.

The AJW crew really let you know from the start that a match is not gonna be just them going through the motions by how ferociously they go at it when the bell sounds. We didn't get a start like this for Jackie & Tomi's big match, though I guess the crowd were already hot for that one so there wasn't a need to catch their attention.

Nancy hits some slams and goes for the big classic Joshi pin early here, only for Ikeshita to block it with her knees like it was a frog splash. Cool little exchange that only really works in this promotion because of how they do pins. That counts as a babyface shine though. Throughout the 1st fall I feel like they do just about enough for Queen Angels to come across as on Black Pair's level as wrestlers, but they just don't have an answer for when Black Pair just start relentlessly cheating, which they do a lot. At one point Mami Kumano has Nancy Kumi by throat and hoists her up to her feet while strangling her and it looks so evil and feral, like Nancy just doesn't how how to deal with such a crazy person who'll do that. This probably goes on a bit too long as they meander a bit towards the end until Ikeshita gets the win with a very well-executed German suplex.

We get the customary 2nd fall. Black Pair beat down on Lucy meanwhile Nancy does good work on the apron looking genuinely concerned and sticking her arm out to try and make the tag. Mami puts Lucy in her dreaded pendulum swing which provokes Nancy into running around the run to put a stop to it but Ikeshita cuts her off, and this creates a soft reset on the outside. Then things get a bit strange. Nancy apparently cannot stand watching Lucy getting beat down any longer so just runs into the ring without a tag and starts wildly slamming everyone. It's a really good freakout actually. The referee protests for a bit but then seems to let it go. Things break down a bit more and before long Nancy hits a big slam on Mami Kumano, pins her and wins. Wait what, she wasn't the legal woman, and the referee knew it! Well I dunno about that. 

They up the ante a bit more for the 3rd fall. Mami Kumano kinda gets revenge for the terrible refereeing by whacking him with a chair, as well as everyone else, including her own tag partner! The spirit of Zenjo Reckless Abandon manifested itself in Lucy Kayama when went up top for a big splash to the outside but appears to have totally missed and just smacks herself into the side of the announce table in an awful looking bump. But because it's AJW she's back up and makes it back into to ring to win by countout. Another dubious finish to a fall that I suspect wasn't intended to happen exactly like that.

Well the finishes of the 2nd and 3rd falls clearly hurt this otherwise quite enjoyable match and crowning of new champions.

***

MD: Kadaveri summed this up well in that it felt different. They went through a lot of similar motions to other Black Pair tags from the 70s, with the initial burst by the babyfaces, by the long beatdown on Lucy interspersed with little bits of hope, with a chaotic brawl on the outside, with weapons coming into play, but there was just a bit more energy to it, just a bit more desperation. In the post match, I’m pretty sure Lucy said she did it for the injured Tomi and maybe that was what put her over the top. 

Some of the specific moments of transition and hope worked well for me. Lucy’s leapfrog out of harms way to set up a hope spot. The chairshot where Kumano cracked Ikeshita that I had to go back on a few times because it was timed so well. And yes, Nancy rushing in. There was also a moment where Lucy deliberately went to the floor to escape a potential pin which seemed a bit more strategic than usual. And of course, as Kadeveri mentioned, there was getting the knees up, but another thing you’d see Ikeshita do was to roll onto her stomach after a move so she couldn’t get pinned. When you add in the bridging escapes, it really does give the spirit of these pins a unique feel that you don’t get anywhere else in the world at this time.

Kumi scoring the pinfall didn’t take me out of it too much because I could see how it was easy to lose track in the chaos, but the dive absolutely missed and looked very nasty. Nancy was able to keep the Pair from making it back in, but that was certainly unfortunate. In general, this felt meaningful enough to be a title change, and it felt earned, even with a few blemishes. Lucy went through hell and took advantage of a few lucky moments, but you can’t beat the Black Pair without both resilience and luck.