80s Joshi on Wednesday: Mimi! Martin!

Addendum 

BONUS: Mimi Hagiwara vs Judy Martin (All Pacific Title) 8/8/83

K: Mimi Hagiwara gets carried on the shoulders of her seconds for her entrance like she's a monarch. She's even wearing a crown. In any other context you'd think she was working an arrogant heel gimmick with an entrance like that but she pulls off being a deserving princess.

Judy Martin on the other hand makes her entrance by complaining about not being the champion already in poor announcer Shiono's face. The match practically starts in front of his desk when the heroic Princess Mimi valiantly storms over to save the announcer in distress from the evil Judy. The Rocky Balboa punches are flying.

This is held back by the match feeling a bit disjointed sometimes. I don't think they really got things flowing properly until the spot where Judy has a chair, and then Mimi comes back into the ring with her own and they do the duelling chairs battle. If there was a theme it's Mimi subverting her visual presentation by acting kinda badass, but still very girly. The crowd being quite vocal in chanting for her as well.

Cool finish. Mimi looks like she's about to lock Judy Martin in a sharpshooter, but she doesn't spin around to apply it as a submission, she just stands there and pushes her shoulders down into a pin. I think the announcer called the hold a 'Venus' something. She wins a few other matches with this in 1983. Unfortunately this is the period where Mimi is being put out to pasture so she isn't getting any real feuds anymore, just random matches which don't seem intended to amount to much. This was quite good though.

***

MD: Very glad Kadaveri slipped this one on for me since it’s one more chance to see Mimi, and she’s up against Judy Martin who is my favorite Moolah disciple, the apex of Moolah-ism. Maybe most of all, I love the crowd interaction here. Mimi had a bunch of guys in red shirt (We’ll call them young but it might be debatable) who were waving things and chanting Mimi. This is the most anyone has been chanted for since Jackie retired really. And Judy was pissed at their existence. She sold the chants. At one point, she rushed out to steal a sign or banner or fan or whatever they had and destroy it (She had previously gone after the scroll for the title announcement). And then later when she took Mimi to the apron, they had learned their lesson and all ran away. 

I’ve seen people complain about the refs not doing anything when the heels cheated and interfered but there really is a sense that everyone is terrified of the heels and they have no recourse but to let them get away with things and run away from them. It adds to the atmosphere even if it does get old sometimes. Here, as Judy slammed Mimi into those vacated chairs, it did not. 

At the start of the match, Judy had complained on the mic and when Mimi came over to hit her, she choked Mimi with it. This was pretty back and forth overall with smart transitions (like Mimi going for a victory roll and Judy hitting an electric chair). Another time Mimi was throwing her great punches and Judy just got under her to heft her up, walk across the ring, and drop her. Mimi opened things up with a catapult and figure-four but then Judy smashed her with a chair on the outside. That led to a pretty nice chair battle, Judy getting her chair stuck in the corner, then getting rolled up, and ultimately the finishing stretch. Judy stretched with some neckbreaker drops, but Mimi reversed a whip, hit a belly to back, and won it with a pretty interesting pin in a Scorpion Deathlock set up position. I’m sure this has a lucha name but I’m not quite sure what. This was nice if bittersweet as we only have Mimi’s retirement match ahead of us.

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