80s Joshi on Wednesday: Jackie! Ripper!

5a. Jackie Sato vs. Monster Ripper (WWWA Singles Title) - 3/15/80

K: This is another match I left off the proper set after giving it some thought. It's certainly a big match. But it's a big match AJW didn't plan on having until a few weeks before, it was supposed to be Jackie Sato vs. Tomi Aoyama, but Tomi was injured and had to pull out. So rather than Jackie facing the heir apparent, she's back facing an old foe from the previous year without much of a build (especially if you haven't seen the 1979 matches).

It's also because we got a rematch at a bigger show on 8/8/80, but there's no footage available of that one, so this is left without much connective tissue to anything else on the set.

But it's still worth watching just as a good match. We start off hot with Jackie hitting a fast proto-slingblade right at the bell to fire everyone up. After then it's a bit of a mixed bag. There's some interesting moments in how they're exchanging holds while keeping the crowd relatively subdued (I mean there's still quite a lot of shrieking, but by Jackie Sato title match standards it's subdued). I liked how Jackie reversed being in a from-behind sleeper position by going between Monster's legs to get into a reverse-sunset kind of counter, which Monster countered into a bodyscissors and actually went for a pin with it. But the moments in between these little exchanges were a bit wanting, they felt like resets and Monster wasn't as physically imposing as I'd like her to be. 

It does get better when she shifts more into using her strength and size advantage. The big spot that gets us really going again is when Jackie manages to overcome Monster smothering her by back body drop style lifting her over the top rope to the floor to huge cheers. They did a good job of milking that moment and Monster looking all outraged and flummoxed on the outside helped get over that this was a potential turning point. Monster storms back into the ring but has been thrown off her gameplan now and Jackie is able to hit her with a bunch of moves, until I swear it looked like Jackie was going for a Diamond Cutter but Monster was too strong and kept on her feet. We get a cool brief image of Jackie on the ground and Monster towering over her, kinda symbolising how much of a mountain Jackie still has left to climb.

Alright so here we go. It feels like we're starting to move into a higher gear as Jackie gets back to keep fighting, and things move closer to being evenly-matched. Monster hits Jackie with 2 of her big hipdrops from the top, and another regular one, but doesn't go for a pin. This felt a bit off to me when that move has been established as a match winner. Instead she throws Jackie out of the ring and then the Black Pair (who'd done nothing to this point) beat up Jackie on the outside and just before she's able to get back in the ring, they hold her back in time for her to lose by 20 count. You can lose titles in AJW on a countout so Monster is the new champion. 

It did get the desired response from the crowd to be honest, but I couldn't get into that, it just felt like too much of a bullshit finish that didn't play off anything that happened beforehand at all. Monster looked like she was winning without outside interference anyway, so I don't get why she even did that. It's like she chose to win by bullshit because she didn't want to just beat Jackie fairly.

The scenes of the crowd crying and shrieking are impressive. They certainly delivered drama even if the match had glaring flaws.

*** 

MD: To me, there’s a clear difference in the crowd here relative to Jackie’s matches over the last six months or so. There had been a tick-up for the Tomi match, maybe, but this is night and day. There’s constant screaming, constant shots of worried or elated young women. Just from what we’ve been able to see, the difference is Ripper. She was a threat to be overcome, a true monster. A monster heel. The US contingent with Moolah were irritants with their heel ref and numbers. The Black Pair were competent and dangerous and violent. But Ripper was a Monster, protected and treated like one, and she was truly something for Jackie to overcome. And the crowd felt that, lived and breathed it.

This wasn’t the Jackie of the previous year though, nor was it the Ripper. They were both advanced in their work and their roles. Ripper felt a little more deliberate and focused, less raw. She made a lot out of the early feeling out, using one hand to combat Jackie’s two in a test of strength, that sort of thing. Meanwhile, Jackie felt like she had more agency, could meet Ripper more as an equal. Yes, there was the vault over ambush at the start, but even just holding her own. Ripper didn’t open the match up until five or six minutes in. That wasn’t because Ripper was diminished. It’s because Jackie had grown into a larger than life ace. 

Ripper did open the match up by hefting Jackie up into a fireman’s carry and just pushing her off into a forward drop. She controlled for a while until Jackie could return the favor in a big moment. Again, there are more parallel spots in 1980 than in 1979. Twice could be a coincidence, but this is three matches we’ve seen it in so far. Jackie had another one where she got Ripper up and over the top.

This was somewhat clipped as Jackie was going for an Octopus and we come back with Ripper fighting out of a cravat (nice struggle there). Unfortunately, and why this probably didn’t make the set, the finish is pretty lame for the setting, with Ripper getting Jackie out and then everyone fighting on the floor to draw the countout and the title change. It protected Jackie while allowing the title change and a subsequent chase. I assume that Tomi’s injury was legitimate and not a work but this sets up a few matches and probably did business. It was a lame finish in the moment though.