80s Joshi on Wednesday: Jackie! Masami!

Disc 1 

15. Devil Masami vs. Jackie Sato - 11/27/80 

Our first look at Devil Masami after she got her more famous name. I think the name change happened at the 8/8/80, as that's when they reset a lot of things, but I'm not sure. I'm inevitably going to focus on her in this write up as this is the first match in her career where she feels like a great wrestler in the making, as well as this being a kayfabe uplift in how she's going toe-to-toe with the company Ace despite being a junior and #3 in her own stable. She's already the new top heel in waiting.

It's not easy to break this up into sections because the match doesn't flow like that. The bulk of it is just matwork that progresses from one predicament to the next, it's impressive how seamlessly they put everything together without there being much in the way of big moments or turning points. The big takeway from this in more context is that you'd expect Jackie to be more dominant, but she's only really taking about 60% of the match and even then never really gets Masami looking like she's in serious trouble. For example there is a headscissors where Masami tries to counter by doing a forward roll out of it, but when she has her feet in the air Jackie counters it by spiking her in almost a "already on the floor" piledriver. But then Masami attempts a similar escape with more urgency and gets out. 

If anything it looked like Jackie was in more danger at times. The moment that most comes to mind is her selling of her knee by limping slightly on it after Masami  had gone for it with some holds before Jackie made it to the ropes to break. In a relatively minimalist match her doing something like that stands out a bit more. Devil is more heelish, she's targetting an injury and she does stuff like squeezing Jackie's flesh to add a bit more pain that doesn't look strictly legal, but despite all that she does come across like she's just outwrestling Jackie at some points. There's barely any 'cheating' to speak of. 

The biggest moment of the match feels like when Devil goes for a headbutt, but Jackie ducks it and turns it into an abdominal stretch for a nice little pop. She really pulls on it hard. Devil is able to throw her off, but it's to little avail as Jackie is back up soon and hits her with slingblades, vertical-suplex backbreaker, her big signature offense. All this forces Devil to retreat to the outsie and take advantage of the 20 count. When she gets back in there's a higher level of intensity to everything and the crowd seem to be getting behind Jackie a lot harder even though she's losing now. Or at least Devil is on offense for almost the entire time, and Jackie's few hopespots don't go very far. 

That is, until her very last one, which is the most ferocious and has Devil on the backfoot. She's only able to counter by using Jackie's momentum against her to toss her over the top rope, where Jackie lands awkwardly and is apparently 'injured', forcing the referee to award the match to Devil for an upset win. Slightly flukey win but a big win all the same.

***3/4

NB: I hope you liked ending the first volume with the AJW TV closing credits. If you were paying close attention, you might have noticed Jackie being helped to the back by someone in a red shirt with 'C. Nagayo' on the back. You'll be seeing a lot more of her later.

MD: Just a singles match while the tournament is going on. They go through Masami’s history as a wrestler and then talk about how she’s releasing an album on commentary. She is Devil Masami now by the way though I think her graphic says she’s formally Tenjin, and she is the #3 of the black/devil army. Mami is on the outside with a devils jacket with her name on it, so that is established now. 

I enjoyed this. Jackie leaned hard into hierarchical control to start, really flexing as the ace, doing one tricked out takeover after the next on Masami, who struggled from underneath. It opened up midway as Masami targeted a very taped up knee, and she did a lot of punishment with leglocks. From there, it would go like this. They’d build to a very spirited Jackie comeback. Masami would take a powder and then use her strength to take back over. She’d punish Jackie for a bit and Jackie would come back again. They’d go away from the knee until the finish which was fluke-y in that world of sport way as Jackie tumbled to the floor and couldn’t continue due to the knee.

What stood out the most was the intensity however. Jackie was throwing herself into everything she did and her selling was incredibly emotive, working towards the last row in the best way. There’s one comeback where she turns things around into a cobra twist before hitting big moves off the ropes and a belly to back and she looks like the best wrestler in the world over the span of that minute or so, just absolutely electric. And Masami rose to meet her, vicious and decisive in her offense. As devastating as Masami doing a seated/lifting surfboard (for instance) was, I would have rather they go back to the knee once or twice to set up the finish, but this felt like a huge elevation for Masami and one that seemed to be deserved.