80s Joshi on Wednesday: Jaguar! Chigusa!

Volume 5  

6. Chigusa Nagayo vs. Jaguar Yokota 10/27/83

K: For many years the internet has incorrectly dated this match as being from “November 1982”. Even without finding the exact date, that was very clearly wrong. For one thing Jaguar’s hair is short so it must be after the May 1983 hair match, and Chigusa is way too developed for this to be a 1982 match, and she’s announced as being one of the Crush Gals.

So now that I’ve got that little vent out of the way, I’ll talk about the match. At the start we cut to a Wile E. Coyote cam (I will not reference Jerry Lawler’s commentary in these write-ups very often) view of the action, which I don’t remember ever happening before. It shows Chigusa openly aggressively with a flying kick (of course karate girl), but it isn’t long before Jaguar dodges her next attack and gets the better of her on the grappling exchange. Chigusa puts a lot of spirit into fighting back, she’s also delightfully noisy about it, she has a good wrestling voice, but Jaguar’s too much for her and looks like she’s in control. Chigusa has to work really hard to slowly counter a hold into a Boston Crab attempt, she even fails the first time but settles for a half-crab. I didn’t like that she just dropped it to go for an Irish Whip and kick on the rebound, could have done that a bit more organically, but I do like that it was the kick that gets her back on prolonged offense (similar to the opening).

There’s a really cool transition later where Jaguar gets a hammerlock on Chigusa, Chigusa tries to counter it by hitting her with a standing back body drop but Jaguar keeps hold of the arm and actually uses the momentum to pull her arm down with her and gets herself into an even better position to work the arm. Jaguar is the champ for a reason. They stick to the match narrative in the next transition, when Chigusa regains momentum by successfully hitting another kick, an enzuigiri this time. It’s not just a repeat of the previous segment though, as this time Chigusa really throws herself into a big volley of offense, as if she’s learned that she needs to capitalise on their opening as quickly as possible or else Jaguar will turn things around on her. She’s turns Jaguar over quickly this time and locks her in the Scorpion Deathlock (this has become a signature hold). Her inexperience gets the better of her though as Jaguar is too close to the ropes for that to last.

Jaguar’s a bit pissed at being put in the Scorpion though, she gets revenge by locking Chigusa into one of her own, and then she takes her for a walk outside and throws her onto the announce table.

When they get back in the ring, they do that spot where they’re both trying to lock each other into an abdominal stretch really fast while spinning around. I noted it because there’s a famous match in 1985 where people go wild for gifs of that spot, but actually Jaguar’s already doing it here (with a different opponent). 

I’m more impressed by the massive piledriver Chigusa hits here. There’s so much struggle in getting Jaguar up into position for it I can’t say for sure if Chigusa was going for that on purpose, or if she was just legitimately struggling to pick Jaguar up. It was very similar to how she did a piledriver on Noriyo Tateno in the match we covered from August. But this time she proper planted Jaguar right on her head cleanly in the end.

Things have got really heated now. I hear the commentary talking about that piledriver for a while afterwards. There’s another segment where Chigusa is out of the ring then gets back in, and she goes for a kick again, but Jaguar sees it coming this time and dodges it and then unloads with a few kicks of her own before tying Chigusa up in holds. Very commanding performance here. It’s entertaining to watch her so clearly being the better wrestler keeping this feisty little punk down.

Jaguar gets a flash pin, and when she wins she immediately pulls Chigusa up, raises her hand and congratulates her on putting up a good fight. It felt a bit too quick maybe in how they were at each others throats barely a minute before, perhaps she could have waited for Chigusa to show a bit of frustration on the floor before pulling her up, minor complaint though. This was a really good no-stakes/obvious who was winning TV match.

***1/2

MD: In between this match and the previous one was the September match between Jaguar and Devil that we covered here on Found Footage Friday when it showed up, grail-like : https://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2025/04/found-footage-friday-pirata-ms-1-jaguar.html

I feel like the point of comparison here has to be the Jackie vs Jaguar matches, but those were more contrast, big and strong vs fast and slick. Yes Jaguar is strong, is a force, is an athletic dynamo, but there was more like and like here maybe. It was just a case that Jaguar was MORE. The meat of the match, the heart of it was Chigusa getting a hold and then having Jaguar reverse it and get three. First it was a chinlock, which Jaguar turned into a hammerlock before tying Chigusa into knots. Then it was a Scorpion, which Jaguar answered with this great leg trap version of her own. So Chigusa was competitive and this was an escalation, Jaguar catching a star on the rise, but I don’t think the end result was much at risk.The one point where maybe it seemed that way was when Chigusa was able to power Jaguar up into a struggle-laden tombstone. That felt like a huge moment for her, but it wasn’t enough.

The opening and the closing stand out to me too. They used this great overhead shot at the bell, one I haven’t seen them use earlier than this, and it captured the wild action as the two of them flew around the ring at each other and with each other, screaming. Down the stretch after a game-changing Jaguar cartwheel and some bombs, Jaguar was able to turn a belly to back attempt into a roll up and get the win. What struck me as amazing was how Jaguar quickly, immediately even, rushed right to Chigusa and grabbed her hand, lifting her up to celebrate her with the crowd. It was a real babyface vs babyface moment but also felt like Jaguar was giving a massive stamp of approval to Chigusa, maybe even naming her as her heir apparent. 

I think Chigusa got just enough here. She did command a few times, did control the action even though Jaguar got the better of her from underneath. Yes, there was a sense that Jaguar could just snatch her leg, pull her out, and toss her into the chairs at any moment, but wrestling Jaguar wasn’t fair for anyone (except for maybe Devil or someone like Ripper), and Chigusa more than held her own.