70s Joshi on Wednesday: Charito! Kumano! Marina! Lucy! Maki! Tomi!

19. 1979.01.XX3 - 01 Charito Silver, Mami Kumano & Marina Figueroa vs. Lucy Kayama, Maki Ueda & Tomi Aoyama (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62xZh3Dq-DY&ab_channel=kadaveri)

K: The first few minutes of this were incredibly one-sided. We had Lucy in the ring for a minute or so and the closest thing she did to displaying any agency was reaching out to tag in Tomi, who then just got beat up by the heels, who were making lots of quick tags. I guess if it was trying to achieve anything it made Maki Ueda look better than them as when she was tagged in she was able to actually fight back. Marina Figueroa has a very weird but cool-looking standing splash. It looked a bit like Rob Van Dam’s Five Star except if it was done just standing in the ring. After dominating almost all of the fall, the heels lose control of things and the Queen Angels duo get to hit some offense. There’s a wild transition where Mami Kumano tries to hit Tomi Aoyama with a powerbomb, but Tomi just twists sideways out of it, lands of her feet and hits a snap dropkick. It’s the kind of thing you’d think a current day wrestler would copy if any of them watched this stuff. The running Queen Special is a cool tag team move. And then Maki Ueda hits the Beauty Special, a Romero Special (they sure do love their Special moves eh) and then gets the pin with a vertical suplex, which written down looks kinda funny but it worked. I think this would have been better though if the babyfaces weren’t so totally dominated, or if you’re gonna do that then let the heels take the 1st fall.

The 2nd fall is really different. The heels are pissed that they dropped that 1st fall and get way more vicious, right from the start people are being choked with nunchucks and there’s a wrench being passed around as a weapon. They chaos gets a bit hard to follow at times so it’s hard to single any wrestler/moments out or describe what I feel they were going for, if anything. Queen Angels have had their stats boosted anyway as they’re now fighting with the heels pretty evenly. Tomi & Mami have a punch-out on the outside which was pretty fun and mean-looking. Amidst all this chaos there’s a countout, but Lucy’s the only one in the ring so she gets her hand raised and… oh wow the babyface team won 2 straight falls. Quite the result considering how this started out. This was an entertaining match with some cool little moments but the structure didn’t make the most of things. 

**3/4

MD: Similar to the last match in the team make-ups in some ways. This time we just have Figueroa in for Ikeshita and both Queen Angels in with one of the Beauty Pair. I think the Golden Pair were on commentary. They’re showing the crowd a bit more and I wonder if the make-up of these crowds are shifting a bit, younger, more female? I can’t tell for sure though. There are also a lot of tight camera angles which was funniest at the middle of the first fall when Kumano comes in from off screen with a chair. The fall itself was solid with very focused Black Army control in the corner, the Mexican contingent working like a well oiled machine and Kumano just stomping on throats and asserting herself (including with her driving meteora). They cycled through the babyfaces with hope spots but got cut off until the end when they finally had an advantage but Kumano came over and crushed them all with steel. On the reset, Kumano was crushing Tomi with power bombs until she somehow flipped to her feet in a way I’m not sure i’ve ever seen and the babyfaces rode that momentum to eventual victory after some Queen Angels double teams and a Maki suplex. 

For the second falls, Kumano almost immediately dragged Maki around the ring throat first with a wrench and then the Army went into using the object at will as the ref tried to hold the babyfaces back like they were tecnicos. That meant that Kumano could do her dangling chokehold (weapon assisted this time) at will and, before long, some glorious chaos, including Maki getting tossed into the announcer’s desk and Kumano dragging people around the arena. Tomi mounted a comeback once they made it back to the ring but got dragged down quickly, with Silver and Figueroa just solidly teaming up to clubber her. Maki came in with a victory roll out of nowhere though and everything built to the Queen Angels hitting successive Queen Rocket planchas, some satisfying revenge shots into tables, and the heels getting counted out. I probably preferred the previous trios since it was a little more focused and contained but there was still a lot to like here.

Read more!

70s Joshi on Wednesday: Charito! Kumano! Ikeshita! Jackie! Nancy! Tomi!

18. 1979.01.XX2 - 06 Charito Silver/Mami Kumano/Yumi Ikeshita vs. Jackie Sato/Nancy Kumi/Tomi Aoyama

K: This JIP in a strange way, they do all the ring introductions then just when the match is about to start it skips ahead into the match already in progress. This gets very chaotic very quickly. They’re brawling on the outside and a moment I really liked was just the way Jackie smashes Yumi’s head into the announcers table with real vindictiveness, Yumi actually half-rotates over the table like she was taking a bump and making it look really impactful, and then immediately afterwards Jackie has her by the throat and just starts murderously strangling her. Just to add the chaos we then cut to Tomi Aoyama doing an over the top dive to the outside. Rarely have I seen the vibe of 70s Joshi so concisely encapsulated in a 12 second sequence. And right after Yumi Ikeshita gets the win with a top rope hurricanrana into a pin to take the 1st fall. Ikeshita is a really amazing heel in that she does all this cool innovative stuff yet is such a constant villain that it never really detracts from her act.

Tomi Aoyama looks pretty good in the 2nd fall when she goes on offense. This doesn’t last long though as the majority of it is Mami Kumano going wild with a hidden wrench hitting everyone in the face with it while distracting the referee’s view. Tomi somehow manages to roll her up while everyone’s running around and the ref counts it for quick 2nd fall, which made her look pretty cool. At this point I’ll note that Nancy Kumi has done virtually nothing of note, I just remembered she’s there.

Well we do get a bit of Nancy in the 3rd fall. She comes in, hits a few moves and then tags out. And that’s the last of her contributions to this bout. Jackie comes in though and puts things straight into finishing stretch mode as she’s almost immediately ganged up on by the heels in their corner, but she manages a fan comeback where she beats up two of them at once to set up some 1vs1 action against Yumi, and after letting Tomi Aoyama in to just hit a very fast Giant Swing, Jackie gets back in and manages a snappy sunset flip to win the match. I’m going to sound a bit repetitive with my closing thoughts but, it’s just the case that a lot of these matches are like this: it has a few really good moments and spots, but as a match it doesn’t amount to much more than just being fun.

***

MD: Our first trios match has me worried about how unhinged and hard to track all of this will get. It’s the Black Army vs a group of babyfaces I can’t make sense of as they all seem like they’re from different factions (Golden Pair, Queen Angels, Beauty Pair). It does start out somewhat subdued as everyone beats on Tomi, but nothing can make a match come unhinged quite like Mami Kumano hanging them by their throats and dangling them back and forth off the apron. She cycles through with it against her opponents. Jackie comes back though which lets Tomi hit the Queen Rocket plancha but it’s all for naught as Kumano powerbombs her twice and sets her up for nothing short than a diving ‘rana off the top from Ikeshita.

The second fall is wild back and forth stuff. If it just had more time to breathe it’d all be amazing. Kumano is such a force, starting the fall by hitting a driving calf branding style meteora and then later on playing hide the object into everyone’s face. Tomi had gotten in some butt butts and Jackie an airplane spin but they’re only able to take the fall with an up and over small package out of nowhere by Tomi in the chaos as Kumano was cutting people down with her object. After the fall, Kumano tossed the ref around.

Tomi landed on her feet early in the third fall and was able to turn things around for some quick but impactful shine including Nancy finally getting to do something. Jackie ended up in the Army’s corner however, and things spilled out shortly thereafter with the Army pressing their advantage in the chaos. Jackie was able to fire out of the corner when they came back into the ring and they rushed to an exciting finish including Tomi swinging Ikeshita about as perpendicularly as you’ll ever see and Jackie turning around Ikeshita’s second attempt at a fallaway slam off the ropes to get a sunset flip for the win. This felt just a little clipped but was just grounded enough and always exciting enough to still work for me. Ikeshita and Charito are good but Kumano stands out above anyone else we’ve seen in the footage so far.

Read more!