80s Joshi on Wednesday: Chigusa! Masami!

Disc 2 

5. Chigusa Nagayo vs. Devil Masami 1/81

Chigusa Nagayo debuted on 8/8/80 against Yukari Omori but this is her first televised match and the commentators talk about it being her ‘debut’. She’s announced as a member of Red Phoenix. This is obviously included for the historical significance, at the time it probably just looked like a random squash. 

The intention of this match is more giving Devil Masami a little babyface to squash and it’s effective at doing that job. She doesn’t just win easily but visibly takes delight in tormenting an opponent clearly incapable of putting up a fight against her. She pulls at Chigusa's hair when there wasn't any need to do that except inflict a bit more pain and humiliation. About halfway through this short bout she has Nagayo face first on the mat and is standing on her like she’s riding a surfboard, pressing her feet into her torso. Nagayo stretches out an arm to try and reach the ropes and then Masami switches to standing on her wrist to block it. Nice little moment that conveys the futility of trying to struggle against Masami here.

I thought the most notable thing from Chigusa’s side is that her first offense, well not including an Irish Whip, was kicks. First a standard fare dropkick that most of her contemporaries did. But she follows that up with her leg lariat that she’d do her entire career and then a more straight martial arts style kick, we haven’t seen much of that style of wrestling at all up to now. The commentators then start talking about her karate background. It’s interesting as it shows that Chigusa had the karate ‘gimmick’ from the start and it wasn’t just a Crush Gals thing, but I’m looking ahead a bit here. 

They finish off with Masami getting the win by submission with torture rack, which is called a backbreaker here. Also the first time we’ve seen a submission win in a while but it was a bit more common in these kind of matches than in the main events. What gave her win a bit of extra spice though was she celebrated by raising her hand in the air while trodding on Chigusa keeping her face down to the mat under her boot. Mean.

**1/4

MD: Chigusa’s TV debut. It does not go well for her. This is the first match where I really, truly felt Devil Masami’s expressiveness. Maybe it’s because it was less chaotic than tags or maybe because she really got to lean on Nagayo, but there’s no one who expresses sadistic glee in punishing an opponent quite like her and that, more than anything else, was on display here. 

She gave Chigusa little moments. She went over the top early on a whip so that Chigusa could hit a dropkick as she got back in. She ended up in a crab. But then, of course, she just powered out. Most of Chigusa’s shine and hope was just in surviving, in bridging up out of a pin, in kicking up her feet to swipe at Masami to get back into the fight. Her biggest moment was ducking a shot to lock in an abdominal stretch and when that wasn’t going to work, turning it right into a slick roll up. Then, of course, she paid for it. 

At one point, Masami brought her over to the announce desk and the sound got distorted multiple times as she slammed her head into it. And she stretched her all over the place, including finishing her off with a brutal torture rack. While Chigusa had some fire and fight to her, there was nothing here that necessarily showed her to be the star that she would become. It was a great showcase for Masami though.