80s Joshi on Wednesday: Yokota! Mimi!

Disc 1 

11. Mimi Hagiwara vs. Rimi Yokota - 8/80

K: Before I go into the match, I’ll fill in a bit of missing context. Shortly before this match we’re covering was the biggest AJW show of 1980, which was on 8/8/80 at the Denen Coliseum. The claimed attendance was 10,000 fans, almost certainly exaggerated, but it gives you an idea. The main event was Jackie Sato vs. Monster Ripper for the WWWA Singles Title, the semi-main was Rimi Yokota vs. Yumi Ikeshita vs. the All Pacific Title. Because this is early 80s Japan, both matches ended in draws. The WWWA Title match was a double countout/no contest, and the decision was that the belt would be vacated and a tournament held to crown a new champion. The All Pacific Title match was a 60 minute draw, which tells you how much of a push Yokota was already getting that they’d book her in such a match.

Other significant things about that show include Tomi Aoyama’s retirement ceremony (sayonara, we barely knew you), and the opener being Chigusa Nagayo vs. Yukari Omori, both of whom were making their in-ring debuts, and would go on to become very important wrestlers. The company also did a bit of a reset by putting everyone into three factions, Dynamic Jaguars, Red Phoenix and Black Devils. Here is how they’re split:

Dynamite Jaguars = Jackie Sato, Mimi Hagiwara, Rimi Yokota, Yukari Omori, Tomoko Kitamura
Red Phoenix = Nancy Kumi, Lucy Kayama, Chino Sato, Ayumi Hori, Chigusa Nagayo
Black Devils = Yumi Ikeshita, Mami Kumano, Tenjin/Devil Masami, Hiroe Itoe, Kaoru Matsumoto.
Plus a bunch of rookies who we won’t see on this set. This 3 way split of the roster (they travelled separately, the stable names came from the tour buses) would remain for the next few years.

Now to the match:

This opens with Rimi Yokota going all raging bull immediately on Mimi. Beating her to the floor, then kicks her out of the ring, and then chases after her on the outside and throws her into some chairs. She looks like she's barely capable of restraining herself she's got so worked up. Mimi gets herself back into things with a fancy rollup through the ropes, but not much in the way of offense.

That opening was a microcosm of how this whole match plays out. Yokota is a dominating force of nature that Hagiwara can barely hold out against. There's a bit of heeling in there, for example Yokota sneaks in some biting where she can while working on Mimi's leg. She has a very interesting submission hold where she pulls Mimi's knee out between her own legs and just pulls at it, I don't recall seeing that anywhere else except from her.

Mimi has a good performance, although she's mostly just selling and hobbling on her leg. There's one moment where she attempts a rollup, and I'm not sure if this was deliberate or not, but she screws it up and just lies down holding her leg for Yokota to get back at attacking it. It's not like her rollups ever lead to much at anyway. Shortly after we get the closest thing Mimi's got to a comeback when she hits a couple of flying neckbreakers and follows it up with a tiger driver style sideslam, that's really all we get though, as Yokota bridges out of the pin and then one-ups Mimi by hitting a far more impressive version of that same move before getting the win.

This was very one-sided. It established Rimi Yokota as a rising force to be reckoned with, Mimi came across as a sympathetic personality, but she just couldn't hang.

***1/2

MD: Very glad to have the context, though even with it, I'm not 100% sure why the new stablemates are so heated here. But it was heated. Yokota didn't just bite, she bit three different places, the fingers in one of her early holds where she was really wrenching Mimi every which way; the knee! which makes no sense, but it did play into that weird knee submission she did; and then the foot, which got her chastised hard from the ref. I swear she also stepped on the hair and pulled at one point too, and tossed Mimi around by her hair too. 

 We haven't seen a ton of Hagiwara as of late but what I remember of her is that her strong point is her emotive selling and that was absolutely at play here. I'm not sure if her background (acting I think?) but she's excellent at it. She also had hope spots that were almost exclusively roll ups, which was interesting in a Ricky Morton sort of way. I can't say her offense was awe inspiring though, and really, when it came down to it, Yokota just cut through her. You can almost see her moving into the Aoyoma role in the hierarchy maybe?  I guess time will tell (for me at least; it's history for others but mostly new for me). This was a great showcase for her, bolstered by Mimi's selling.