80s Joshi on Wednesday: Mimi! Yukari! Masami! Tarantula!

Volume 4 

2. Devil Masami & Tarantula vs. Mimi Hagiwara & Yukari Omori (WWWA Tag Team Titles) - 8/10/82

K: This is a rematch of the 1/4/82 main event, since Tarantula is Wild Kazuki in a mask.

This has a very measured start. Tarantula doesn’t actually do anything other than start the match, stalls a bit and just tags in Devil. I was reminded a bit of Randy Savage’s heel stalling tactics, but it didn’t actually turn into that. Rather we had Devil methodically grinding Mimi Hagiwara down, she does a cool little sidewards half crab sticking her knee into Mimi’s back. When she’s in Tarantula is actually the more aggressive one this time. 

There aren’t many big moments here other than a well worked match typical of the style. People following these write-ups won’t be surprised to learn that the first transition came after Mimi got thrown into the chairs on the outside before getting a good comeback getting back in. After that the momentum never really swings back to the heels like it was in the opening minutes.

2nd fall is where things get more intense. Mimi starts things off by unloading her boxing skills on Tarantula with a load of skinny-armed bodyshots. This sets up Devil a bit later on getting her hands on Mimi, and first thing she does is start savagely biting Mimi’s hand and working over her that way. That’s her way of working a limb basically. The babyface team are protected a bit by only losing this fall by countout due to the heels throwing them out and attacking them with weapons. Mimi does some really great selling on the outside as she’s being helped out, looking like she might vomit into a bucket. Not very glamorous of her I know.

When the 3rd fall starts, Devil and Tarantula stand in front and behind of Mimi holding her in place, and take turns to headbutt her? Like, Devil will headbutt her and send her head backwards a bit, but then Tarantula headbutts her from behind like a human pendulum system. Made them look very creative as well as a bit nuts.

More brilliant selling from Mimi throughout all of this. She looks like she’s just struggling to move any part of her body and is not fully conscious as she crawls over to her corner to try and tag in Omori. The longer this goes on the more it feels like the babyfaces just aren’t going to turn this around. They’re being outgunned constantly. And just at moments where you think this would be the natural time to start a big comeback, it just doesn’t happen, and when it nearly happens it gets cut off pretty quickly before any real damage was done. To add to the relatively humiliation. The finish is Omori tapping out to Devil Masami’s Romero Special, which rarely ever won matches.

Mimi adds to her stellar performance tonight by going absolutely berzerk at the result. Looking like she’s going to try and beat up the AJW officials for not intervening to stop the heels cheating. It’s quite the scene as she has to be physically restrained and carried out by her fellow wrestlers. 

This felt like a lesser version of the 1/4/82 match. I wouldn’t normally review a match as good as this with what seems like a negative comment, I just wish they added some extra element to it other than getting the opposite result (Mimi’s tantrum not really being part of the match). Still this was very good and effective at furthering the feud.

***3/4

MD: Most interesting thing from the pre-match commentary is that they outright note that Tarantula is Wild Kazumi who has donned a mask. Look, I’m working off of the youtube translation here so it’s dubious, but I think the commentators start to get on her case for choosing a creepy name like Tarantula instead of the name of a flower. So that’s 1982 AJW for you? I guess? 

Devil and Tarantula controlled this to start when Devil nailed Mimi off the ropes. Lots of stretching her, hairpulling, etc. Devil did a sort of side crab at one point. Tarantula came in with dramatic claws and chokes. Things spilled to the outside and both of the champs got stacked on the announce table. Tarantula had some nice knees in the ropes in here. She was working quite big. Mimi and Omori got a bit of hope but were cut off until Tarantula accidentally hit Devil with a missile dropkick and knocked her from the ring. That let Omori and Hagiwara fight fair and Mimi soon had Tarantula down and out with her bodyslam suplex variation and one shoulder electric chair finisher to end the fall.

Second fall had Omori and Hagiwara pressing the advantage. Tarantula hit an explosive dropkick (she feels a little more explosive than most of the heels, more like the faces, maybe, at least in this guise), but they couldn’t control things until they reversed a whip and hit simultaneous tombstones (with Devil’s a really nasty front one). After that Mimi was in really bad shape and they were able to take things outside and whack them with objects until the countout to win the fall.

Third fall had Mimi as basically a walking corpse. She has some of the best body language I’ve ever seen. I don’t think that’s hyperbole or wanting to rediscover someone. She really was that good in this specific area of her selling. They hit her with so many headbutts including pingponging ones back and forth. Omori tried to assert herself but the ref kept taking her out. Finally, she did make it in and was able to turn the cane attempts back on the Army. The numbers game was too much and when she had an abdominal stretch on Tarantula, Devil grabbed her hair from outside. Things spilled to the outside and Mimi tried to help but she was just too worn down. Inside the ring, Tarantula did a splash off Devil’s shoulders and then Devil locked in a Tapatia as Tarantula held back Mimi for the win and the title change. Post match, Mimi lost it on the ref, looking like a woman possessed. I thought this was good and very complete (even though I swear some of it was clipped). I liked the ending of the second fall especially. They could have finished it after the tombstones but it was more to the heel’s style to force the countout with chaos and violence. It was gratuitous but that was the point. Tarantula looked good and added something different (even from what I remember of her as Kazumi) on the heel side and it was another legitimately great performance from Hagiwara.
 

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