80s Joshi on Wednesday: Guam! Ayumi! Rimi! Richter! Ikeshita!

Disc 1 

12. Fun in Guam

MD: Everyone sings. For Jackie and Mimi, that makes sense, but they keep going down the roster with each being more of a surprise than the last. I’m not sure exactly when this was shown, but when they show Masami as a surprise, they call her Devil, which is the first time I’ve heard that so far. Nancy and Lucy (the tag champs) totally fumble their song to high comedy. Then they do a charity auction for unicef with clothing/gear and Jackie was very appreciative of everything raised and I will leave it at that. This was a fun little look at life beyond the ring, even if it was a life mandated by the company.

13. Ayumi Hori & Rimi Yokota vs. Wendi Richter & Yumi Ikeshita - 9/30/80

K: I enjoyed Wendi Richter flexing her muscles in the introductions. They weren't even that impressive, which made it even more heelish that she thought those arms were worth flouting to the crowd.

That arrogant introduction sets up the match pretty well though, as she very quickly gets embarrassed by the much smaller Rimi Yokota, who's able to bodyslam her and almost pin her within a minute. Yokota is such a ball of energy flying at you it's hard to do anything to stop her. Ayumi Hori gets tagged in, she's one of the biggest wrestlers AJW ever had but she's still the rookie in this match (class of 1978, but didn't debut until 1979 due to injuries) and isn't able to hold out long before Richter takes back control and tags Ikeshita in.

Hori still looks a bit awkward and clumsy here, kinda hesitant when hitting moves, but she never gets to stay on offense for long. After the setback early on, the heels have committed to breaking up any momentum the babyfaces get going and isolating Hori in the corner whenever they can. There's a kinda strange tag where Richter hits Hori with a body block coming off the ropes, but instead of going straight down, Hori just bounces off towards her corner and tags Yokota in. It was logical in a vacuum but made me laugh a bit at why other wrestlers don't do that.

Yokota isn't able to break the heel control when she tags in. Ikeshita just slots her into her routine, including that cool unique move where she places her heel on the mat, toes sticking up, and impales Yokota's midsection onto her foot. The babyfaces do have a fun moment where things break down and they manage to get the heels in double figure fours before Mami Kumano runs in and gives them a beating for their audacity. Yokota does have a bit more success against Richter when nobody else is getting involved, but once Ikeshita is back in it's clear she is being positioned as the stronger of the two heels here.

Also, they brawl on the outside for a bit and Ayumi Hori gets slammed into a table. Nothing special, but we do get an early glimpse of the Dynamic Jaguars seconds, a very young Tomoko Kitamura (later known as Lioness Asuka) and Yukari Omori. 

The biggest crowd reaction comes after when Yokota finally manages to pull of a successful comeback sequence on Ikeshita (rather than Richter). It looks like the babyfaces are gonna go on a conquering rampage when Yokota tags in Hori, who hits Ikeshita with a few more moves and hoists her onto the top turnbuckle for something big, but Ikeshita turns the tables on her with an awesome rollup from up top which actually wins the match outta nowhere.

This was a very enjoyable TV tag that isn't trying to be any more than that.

***1/4

MD: Basically a mixed tag, believe it or not. Richter came off as a giant here. I don’t remember her being quite so tall, but she was perfectly matched with Hori, size-wise which made Ikeshita and Yokota seem tiny. Jumbo and Jaguar controlled for the first few minutes, including Rimi slamming Richter right from the start and Ayumi rolling back with her with a front face lock into a body scissors (Richter picked her up out of that by her head but just dropped her instead of doing the French Catch forearm to escape). Ayumi hit a Baba-esque Russian Leg Sweep in there too.

Ikeshita took over by tossing Ayumi out and then tossing her into a table which went crashing every which way. The transition had a very chaotic feel to it. Things calmed down after that with Ikeshita and Richter using a lot of throat shots and clubbers to keep control. Things built to a fun comeback with a tandem figure-four spot. We’d seen this before in a singles match with interference but it worked well here too; it did lead to interference though as someone came in to help Ikeshita. Rimi kept the comeback going on Richter (really throwing herself at the larger woman) but Ikeshita asserted herself with her great offense (beautiful fall away slam, her gutwrench power slam). 

The finishing stretch was very good here. After some more chaos on the outside, Rimi turned things around on Ikeshita by pressing herself up and landing right on her with a vertical splash twice. Ayumi then came in with some really big offense including a slam out of a fireman’s carry that I hadn’t seen before in the footage. When she put Ikeshita up on the top turnbuckle (likely just to toss her off by her head), Ikeshita was able to smoothly roll into a small package for the win though. Very slick. This was fun and sprinty with the interference and chaos on the outside used well to transition things while not outliving its welcome.