80s Joshi on Wednesday: Chigusa! Lioness! Matsumoto! Masami!

Volume 5 

9. Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka vs. Devil Masami & Dump Matsumoto 2/28/84 

K: Even if this was a bad match, and it certainly isn't, this was always 100% making the set; because it's one of the most important angles in Joshi history and effectively sets the scene for the next two or three years of big feuds.

The crowd is noticeably a bit wilder than usual. Both teams need to avoid rowdy fans trying to grab a hold of them, the Crush Gals are practically fighting their way to the ring. But other than that there’s nothing yet really hinting that something big is going to happen, in fact the whole 1st fall is just a match. When Dump’s in the ring she hits two big lariats to Asuka. The first one was allowed to sink in very well, the second one probably could have done without Asuka being up for a drop toehold almost immediately but I think the first one was enough to get the move over a bit. Devil on the other hand is using more wrestling skill to beat Asuka on the mat, you see the contrast when she tags in Dump after a bit of matwork and Dump’s first move is to go straight for stomping on Asuka’s hand. But the closest thing we get to cheating actually comes from Devil when she gets frustrated with being unable to keep Asuka down and starts pulling her hair. Chigusa gets very worked up about this on the apron pointing it out to the referee.

This is a fine match and all, the one good thing about it is it feels like they’re getting over more the contrast between Devil and Dump’s mode of heeling than the actual fight with the Crush Gals, who are more there as antagonists for Devil and Dump to try overcome, as strange as that sounds. There’s a little escalation in moves when Dump hits Asuka with a lariat again, but the 2nd time instead of hitting another one again, moves to two big kicks instead that got some reaction. She is very much out done in the moves department though when Devil hits an awesome tilt-a-whirl backbreaker, then locks in a Romero Special and gets the submission win and proves to everyone what a great wrestler she is.

So that’s the 1st fall, which is just a match. The 2nd fall is where it starts turning into an angle as Dump, for no real reason at all, pulls out a weapon. Now usually in AJW when heels pull out weapons in the 2nd fall, it’s because they lost the 1st fall and feel the need to stack the deck in their favour. Pulling out weapons in the 2nd fall when you just won the 1st one relatively cleanly is against the code of conduct even for AJW heels. What on Earth is Dump doing?

There’s also a funny bit where she fails to play hide-the-weapon by dropping it, but that might help the narrative a bit because it means Devil obviously notices it as well as the referee and they BOTH scold her, Devil even looks like she’s trying to get Dump to hand it over. The angle escalates more when they fight on the outside and Dump is trying to use weapons again, but Devil actually physically restrains her this time. This means Masked Yu has to get involved to keep the Crush Gals from taking advantage of the fallout. Oh no it’s all going wrong.

Now the 3rd fall is barely even a match, it’s just an angle. Dump is mad at Devil for intervening over the weapons usage and is behaving like she doesn’t care about the match anymore, she just wants to hurt someone. Her and Masked Yu jump the Crush Gals with their weapons, they get DQ’d finally, but then they attack Devil Masami from behind and choke her with a cable around her neck! What psychos. 

If I was to fault the execution of this in anyway I feel like the Crush Gals could have done a bit more than just be there, it felt like they could have put almost any other babyface tag team in their role and it wouldn’t have made a difference? But it feels silly to have any significant criticisms about this. After the match Devil announces that she’s disbanding Devil Legion, though she still leaves with Itsuki Yamazaki, so I guess they’re just a tag team now and Dump & Yu are going their own way? Tarantula is about to retire so not really a factor anymore.

Just for match itself I’d give this ***, but wrestling is more than just the matches of course.

Oh and another note, for people who are nerdy about this stuff. You’ll spot wrestlers on the outside all wearing company tracksuits with AJWW on them. Yes, an “extra” W. I say extra because afaik the company never actually called itself ‘AJW’, it’s just something Western observers came up with at some point. Perhaps someone thought having AJWW was unwieldy, dropped 1 W, and now it’s just stuck forever.

MD: We have seen some shifts over the last few months. Fans are more into Devil than before, especially the new crowd of younger girls. Obviously, they’re not going to pick her over the Crush Gals, but there has been a shift. Part of me wonders if this is because they started watching when she was having a heel vs heel feud (with her as the de facto face of sorts) against Monster Ripper in fall 83 (of that, we have the Chain match; it felt like a weather balloon of sorts). 

Dump has become Dump. Even two months before, she was still Kaoru (we also have a 2/4/84 draw with her teaming with Yu vs the Crush Gals which MIGHT have been better than this tag even if it’s not as historically important). She also wasn’t using the weapon(s) two months before nearly as much, though she was coming into her own and asserting herself. It’s striking, thinking back, how the hidden weapon was much more a part of the Black Army’s act than something the Devil Army used. You didn’t really see it much in the Devil/Tarantula or Devil/Yamazaki tags. They were mean and brutal but there was much more high tempo offense and tandem offense instead, and while the Army interfered plenty, it was all blatant and if there was a weapon involved it tended to be the sword and used to turn the tide. So you can sort of get why Devil was so frustrated here, especially as she was telling Dump specifically not to do this. 

These are the sort of distinctions that watching chronologically help us work out. We always lose some to context. There’s a different ref than usual here, for instance, and I know the commentary talked about another ref getting disqualified for being biased in a January match, but I don’t think we have the January 18 (Probably Jaguar/Chigusa vs Dump/Devil) match and I’m not 100% sure what was going on and if it’s about. Was it something that led to refs being more permissive as the year went on or just a failed way to deal with the chaos.

You really do get a sense of what Dump/Devil would have looked like as a super team. Lioness is able to deal with Dump with her athleticism but Dump has a way of turning things back over with her strength and size. She’ll turn a sunset flip right back over after Lioness gets her, that sort of thing. Chigusa is more reliant on her kicks and heart, but we’ll see more of this as the year goes on, I’m sure. First fall ended with Devil dismantling Lioness’ back and getting a submission with a tapitia, a rare sight. Second fall had the weapons come out with Devil frustrated. Maybe that let the Crush Gals come back with tandem offense, including the double kick and their belly to back/back elbow drop off the top finisher. Then, of course, the third fall devolved into chaos with Yu and Dump ultimately turning on Devil and Devil announcing the disbanding of the Devil Army. Most interesting bit of all of this was her facing off with the Crush Gals post match. You still get more of a sense that Devil’s rivals were Jaguar, Mimi, and Jumbo/Yukari and there was a generation gap of sort between her and Chigusa/Lioness, even though she was only a year or two older, but it added to the wonder of what might possibly happen next. 

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