80s Joshi on Wednesday: Yamazki! Noriyo! (Jumping Bomb Angels Pre-explode!)

Volume 5 https://vkvideo.ru/video-230463180_456241257

2. Documentary 

K: I'm not sure if this was shown on an AJW TV episode or if it was part of some other show, it feels like it's aimed at people who aren't watching wrestling as it over-explains some things. Still this is a cool look at life for the AJW roster. Funnily enough most of the footage for this documentary was filmed backstage at the 6/17 show which we're missing the main event of.

I liked Jaguar's comment saying the way to succeed in pro-wrestling is to find something unique to you. 

Chigusa is quite charming in her brief interview, we get a brief glimpse of her selling the hell out of her knee in a match.

The text notes that Mimi is 27 here. I'll just note for anyone confused about AJW having a "retire at 25 rule" that I can't find any source from the company itself saying they had this rule, I think it's just fans/journalists making a general observation which over time got misunderstood as being a hard rule. The more accurate way of putting it is AJW wrestlers started young and, in a manner not dissimilar to the territories in the US, once they were considered to be getting stale the company would move them on. But AJW also had a monopoly on women's wrestling in this time, so that effectively meant no one could have a career more than 10 years, if that. But there was never a fixed age at which they "had" to retire.

MD: This is relatively lengthy and gives us a look at life on the road and in the dorm and the gym with lots of snippets of interviews. We’re lucky to have it. Some quick thoughts:
Matsumoto said that the TV execs said she looked too charming to be a villain.
Tarantula had already dislocated her knee multiple times though she didn’t want to quit, because there were more belts to get (she’d have less than a year yet).
Lots of ichibans in Ripper’s promo but she also said Mimi! Rimi! And I bet she rhymed the two of them a lot. 
On the other hand while the babyfaces were all working out they had a Mimi & Yokota shirt on.
They made sure that the masked heels had their masks on for the bus rides for the sake of this.
It was interesting the brief moment we saw them all putting up the ring. 
Mimi, at 27, was as much as 12 years older than some of them. I thought she’s been the best wrestler we’ve seen in the footage in late 82-early 83 (even more than Devil or Jaguar) and some of that is absolutely singular talents with her expressiveness and selling, but how much of that was also the experience advantage?

3. Itsuki Yamazaki vs. Noriyo Tateno (AJW Junior Title) 7/9/83 

K: Junior Title time. For those who recognise these two as the Jumping Bomb Angels, don't watch this match with that on your mind as not only is this before they become a tag team, they're actually in opposing factions at this point. Itsuki Yamazaki is a heel in Devil Masami's Devil Legion, and Noriyo Tateno is in Jaguar Yokota's Dynamic Jaguars.

One thing they do have in common though is they both debuted in 1981, so they're natural rivals.

I think this is easily the best match for this belt since the days Jaguar was wrestling for it. Noriyo impresses with a rolling attack at the start, which maybe doesn't achieve that much but make her look determined to win but it's still a cool way to start. I think she does a better job at putting her personality into things than Yamazaki, who is quite cold and aloof. Not the worst thing for a heel to be but sometimes it came across like she was less invested in winning than Noriyo was.

Noriyo has a couple of brilliant battling out of pins here where she's just forcing her shoulders up off the mat and hanging on for dear life when she gets a hold of an arm or something so she can keep herself lying on her front so Yamazaki can't pin her. The best one comes right after Yamazaki hits two of her jumping inverted DDTs (I don't know what to call this, Matt has already highlighted it).

The crowd is relatively quiet but they have a good enough match that there's a lot of loud chanting towards the end cheering on Noriyo. There's not a whole lot of structure but at least they peaked at the right time with the frantic pin attempts as the time limit is getting close to expiring.

**3/4

MD: These Junior matches are all about the last few minutes with them scrambling desperately for any pinfall possible. I don’t really have a great sense of Yamazaki but she felt quite evenly matched with Tateno. I’d call her the aggressor for a lot of this after she took things to the floor early. She had some good stuff and some stuff that was good just based on quantity, be it these float over layout reverse DDTs or a flurry of four dropkicks in a row towards the end. But she kept overdoing it and not putting Tateno away and you got the sense that she was almost gassing herself with all that offense which let Tateno come back. Tateno, down the stretch, had much more in the way of roll ups. I don’t know if it was the location or what, but we’ve gone a couple of years without young people in the crowd chanting and living and dying on a wrestler. There was a bit of that with Tateno, at least one chant. I think maybe she had more of that connection and maybe the crowds were shifting a bit? Anyway, neither did pin the arms down of the other (shoot or work) and this ended as a draw.

4. Devil Masami Sings 'Till I Burn Out'

MD: She sure does. Actually, what's great about this is that if you look at the lyrics, it almost plays out like a Disney Villain song. Go look for yourself. Link is above and the subtitles are there.
 

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: Jumbo! Yukari! Devil! Tarantula!

Volume 5

1. Devil Masami & Tarantula vs. Jumbo Hori & Yukari Omori (WWWA Tag Team Titles Best Of 3 Series, Match #3) 6/13/83 

K: The clip at the start was fun, but really there was no way an AJW-AꓭBA crossover was missing the cut. 

So here we are at the 3rd match of the best of 3 series for the tag titles. They did a good job of making the 2nd match feel different and a sequel to the first, and they pull it off again here even if in the end, it’s not very satisfying.

I thought the opening of the match was quite striking in its extreme minimalism. Devil Masami and Jumbo Hori square up to start things, look like they’re about to start grappling a few times but back out at the last second. Looking like they were trying to find an opening against the other but then seeing that one wasn’t there. Eventually Devil just decides she isn’t going to bother with this anymore and tags in Tarantula without any action at all having happened. They teased a Devil vs. Jumbo showdown but what we get is more of the usual Devil & Tarantula dirtily double-teaming an isolated opponent.

When Tarantula’s in she doesn’t just show off her cool rolling into a dropkick move, but has a roll into a headbutt in her arsenal now. The Dynamite Girls have more luck against her than Devil and have a gameplan of targeting her knee. This begins in the 1st fall and actually becomes more important as the match progresses (prolonged limbwork/selling not exactly being early 80s AJW’s strongpoint). 

Devil Masami appears to have been watching her Dynamite Kid tapes, as that falling headbutt off the top looked very familiar. I might have to do a Top 300 Devil Masami moves video to showcase how vast her arsenal is.

The 1st fall felt a bit basic and could have done with a bit more fight, but at least it gave them somewhere to go for the 2nd. Tarantula is selling the knee work from the 1st fall, hobbling a bit as she gets into the ring off the tag and when she’s hitting an Irish Whip. Again she’s taking the brunt of the Dynamite Girls’ offense, including Yukari Omori spinning her off the ropes and dropping her straight on her head. Might have been an accident but it fit the narrative of the match that she get a bit more vicious. They pay off the kneework by having the finish of the 2nd fall be Omori hitting a Vader Bomb directly onto Tarantula’s leg rather than across the chest as normal, and then she hits a big piledriver for the pin.

The 3rd fall is where things get really interesting. If you haven’t seen the 1/4/82 tag then firstly how dare you undermine this project by watching things out of order erm sorry I mean maybe it’d help if you at least went back and checked out our write ups? The big drama of the 3rd fall in that match was Omori’s partner being taken out injured, leaving Omori forced to defend the tag titles in a 2 vs. 1 situation against Devil & Tarantula. In a karmatic twist, tonight Tarantula goes down injured and has to be removed, and rather than forfeit the titles, Devil tries to fight 1 vs. 2 against the Dynamite Girls. Whether they were deliberately playing this as OMORI’S REVENGE or not I don’t know, but fans used to craft all kinds of long-term narratives over All Japan matches many years apart so I’m certainly allowed my turn here. It actually works that when they restart as a 1 vs. 2, Jumbo Hori actually plays by the rules. It’s only when Devil gets her in a Romero Special that Omori storms the ring to not only break it up, but to then do an attempted mob beatdown on Devil. The match then just completely breaks down as Omori just wants to take this opportunity to beat the hell out of Devil, until eventually Jumbo gets a vicious look on her face like she’s started to enjoy this and decides “ah screw it yeah let’s just kill Devil she deserves this.” 

A lot of heel wrestlers would struggle in this situation. How are you supposed to be the heel when you’re fighting in a handicap match and at least 1 of your opponents is flagrantly ignoring even the rules of handicap matches as she just wants to kick your ass in an unfair situation? I thought it was really impressive how Devil never really came across as sympathetic in any of this. Firstly, she gets help from the Devil Legion seconds on the outside, so it’s not that much of handicap. But even more, she still just acts evil. She’s an impressive fighter for sure, but it comes across like she’s channelling some unnatural demonic energy to even the odds. There’s a hell of a lot of headbutts being thrown and some choking and biting as well when they’re going crazy outside. Devil even manages to hit a big revenge piledriver on Omori (see end of 2nd fall) before the time limit expires, so we don’t get a finish. Very impressive Devil performance in difficult circumstances, but the match being quite strange makes it memorable at least.

By the next time we see them, these two teams will have had another title match which the Dynamite Girls win, but we don’t have that match unfortunately.

***1/2

MD: There’s a brief clip of the babyfaces taking a boat to the next show in Hokkaido before this. Not a ton to say about it except for you get glimpses of all of their personalities. They do a funny bit as it turns about food and Jaguar tells them all they have to train only for the interviewer saying that Jaguar was talking about food too secretly. They are very young. In engaging with the text, sometimes I overlook that too much. It’s remarkable they were able to do so much at their age. 

This was the third match of the series. It’s interesting, I’ll say that. Both teams work together extremely well by this point. There are some great tandem moves from Devil and Tarantula, double cross chop/headbutts or dropkicks, and of course the way that they just control the action if someone gets too close to the corner. They rode that to victory in the first fall pretty soundly, though not without taking things to the floor. There’s one table bump by Omori that’s brutal since the table gives out on her. Dynamite Girls have a dynamic (it’s true, sorry) sequence of moves to win the second fall after Jumbo catches Tarantula for her swinging bear hug slam. One bomb after the other, some literal. Just an amazing flow to it. They finish the sequence with a vicious Omori tombstone on Tarantula.

That brings the match to a halt as Tarantula can’t go on. Devil (and the Dynamite Girls) agree to go 2 vs 1 but Devil (after throwing headbutts at everyone like a whirlwind) immediately brings her minions into it so it’s not really 2 vs 1 at all. She starts throwing wild chairs too and the commission threatens to throw out the match. That leads to everyone bullying the ref and them restarting things for a by-the-rules 5 minute period. Devil hangs in there best she can (heavily protected) but even after a tombstone of her own she can’t get the pin before the time ends. This sets up one more match later on. That we don’t have but the Dynamite Girls win by TKO due to Tarantula’s hurt leg. They finally get the belts on them but this was an almost absurd way to protect the heels (Devil especially) throughout. That’s not to say the action wasn’t very good though even if it’s all anti-climactic since we don’t get to see the title change.

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

Volume 4   

12. Devil Masami & Tarantula vs. Jumbo Hori & Yukari Omori (WWWA Tag Team Titles Decision Match #2) - 5/7/83

K: This is a best of 3 series for the WWWA Tag Titles where all 3 matches are ⅔ falls. Yeah it does feel like they’re duplicating a gimmick but there you go. We get a recap of the 1st match so you know Dynamite Girls are 1-0 up on Devil Legion going into this one. 

The Dynamite Girls are wearing these little frilly dresses for their introductions, which looks especially weird on Yukari Omori. Also during the Devil/Tarantula’s entrance you can spot 15 year old Bull Nakano doing some crowd stewarding.

Babyfaces take control early and really go hard-hitting from the start. Devil Masami is selling well and fighting to get herself back into it. When she does Omori takes a hell of a bump off a Devil Masami cross chop. Proper hauls herself hard across the ring for it. There’s a really good superplex a bit later on due to Devil really milking the struggle she’s having to make of getting Omori up for it, but she eventually gets her up and gets a nearfall from it to a good crowd reaction. Omori’s too hurt to put up much of a fight though when Devil drags her up, and then I’m not sure what to call this move (Devil’s arsenal of offense is immense), but she gets Omori up from the apron and seems to hit her with a twisting brainbuster? Although it’s more on her face than her head. It’s really cool though and looked just as damaging as the superplex but more novel, so deservedly gets the 1st fall. So far, very good.
It also felt like the Dynamite Girls took most of the fall, and should really have extended the advantage they held from winning the first match, but they dropped a fall against the balance of play.

Again the babyfaces take control early in the 2nd fall. This time we get a little brawl on the outside when Jumbo Hori drags Devil Masami out and tries throwing her into chairs, but it doesn’t quite work as planned and they fight it out relatively evenly. By the time they’re getting back into the ring Devil is on top and Jumbo is doing a good sell job. I liked the pained expressions as she was on the mat. Once Tarantula gets tagged in though Jumbo is demolishing her again pretty quickly. She even throws her onto Devil at one point like she’s fighting both of them at once. Jumbo’s also utilising her size here a lot with big power moves like that, which is something I wish she’d done more often.

It’s a strange finish that you don’t see coming. The babyfaces look like they’re in control when they swing the heel team into each other. Then Tarantula gets thrown into the corner where Devil is, presumably to set up a spot where both heels are in the same corner and get hit with a running splash or something. But no. Devil darts out of the way and Tarantula she jumps up the turnbuckle, boomerangs back into Devil, who then fallaway slams her onto Jumbo Hori so it becomes like an assisted crossbody pin, and Tarantula actually wins it to take a 2-0 clean sweep. Again, against the run of play. You can’t really call it a fluke because it looked like a maneuver Devil & Tarantula had practiced hard in training to pull off in a situation like this, more of a very crafty sneaky win. Not sure if that’s really heelish or not.

The 1st match of the series was kinda just a going through the motions tag match. This was definitely not that. It felt like you were watching a crafty sports team with their backs against the wall coming in with a gameplan to steal a win and pulling it off, even if their tactics weren’t crowd-pleasing. Memorable stuff.

***1/2

MD: I don’t spend much time talking about gear here because I am ill-qualified to do so, but there was a real Mork and Mindy stripes with suspenders deal going on with Omori and Hori, with some odd color choices. They were the Dynamite Girls which I did not realize until after the fact. Devil and Tarantula had thematically (though not color) matching split colored deals with their names up the leg that were far cooler. I’m sure you’re glad you know that. Look, I have a whole spiel about how Mimi was full elf and Jaguar was half elf and Omori was half dwarf and Hori was some sort of giant race but I don't 100% know what D&D races exist and I don't want to call her a troll, so we'll  just move on.

Some thoughts from the first fall. The babyfaces tried for the first attack but they didn’t get far. The Devil Legion got them to the floor and took over. That said, their comeback was so good with so much of their signature stuff (Omori with a Russian Leg Sweep, a fireman’s carry throw, and her reverse bearhug drop down, which is what she took over with, Jumbo with these neat driving arm breakers, her fireman’s carry widowmakers, and a body block) that I thought it was going to lead to the finish with an Omori Vader bomb but Masami got her knees up. She followed it up with a brutal tapitia where she made Omori land on her face after the fact. Devil had some new tricks in the last few matches I’ve seen, including a throat cross chop (with Tarantula having these sweeping and overdramatic martial arts strikes), and a superplex from the second rope. That didn’t finish Omori off but a great outside in gourdbuster with a little half turn did.

Second fall had more of the same with the heels pulling them out to keep control. Wonderful visual of Devil revelling in it all as she hit a double underhook suplex from the outside in. Tarantula hit her rolls into dropkicks, which might be the best roll-into-a-move of all time. This time Jumbo came back with her twisting bearhug slam and they did a bunch more of their signature stuff. Jumbo hit the power bomb into throwing Jumbo suplex combo, Omori did her reverse tilt-a-whirl dropping Masami right on Tarantula. But Devil fought back out of a Jumbo full nelson and got her feet up as Omori charged in. After some nice tandem moves (double flying headbutts, double neckbreaker drop) by Devil and Tarantula, Omori and Jumbo came back, only to run right into a great finish as Devil hit a fall away slam on Tarantula so that she’d land in a body press and get the pin. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that before and it caught both me and Hori/Omori by surprise. So they took it in two falls after only losing the first match because of the second fall DQ. It certainly put Omori and Hori behind the eightball for the third match (which thankfully we do have).

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

Volume 4   

8. Devil Masami & Tarantula vs. Jaguar Yokota & Mimi Hagiwara (WWWA Tag Team Titles) - 1/4/83

K: Well here we go it's the absolute dream team of Jaguar Yokota & Mimi Hagiwara (who hold the two most important singles belts) against tag champs Devil Masami & Tarantula. Devil makes a bit of a ceremony of giving up her wooden sword to Commissioner Ueda before the introductions, in stark contrast to her recent antics when she was fighting him over trying to wield it as a weapon.

The opening is conceptually captivating. Tarantula gets a bit too close to the babyface corner when she's circling the ring, so the first offense is actually Mimi grabbing her on the apron for Jaguar to charge in and double team. It conveys that the babyfaces aren't gonna be goodie-two-shoes tonight after all the shenanigans we've seen this heel team commit over the last year (they main evented last year's 1/4 show). 

Naturally, the babyfaces are less experienced in these tactics so it doesn't immediately go their way. In fact, Tarantula is able to pretty quickly dodge and escape the double team attempt, and also pulls out a pretty cool spinning trip to take down Jaguar and send her to the outside to set up a double team for their team. But Mimi is on it, runs over to fight Devil before a double team can happen, so the babyfaces end up winning the opening skirmish with the symbolic throwing onto chairs/table.

I'm sorry if that was a bit too play-by-play so to sum up what I take from it; it's that we're gonna see feisty babyfaces ready to fight the heels on their own terms if necessary - who may not be as good at dirty tactics - but their determination and fighting spirit may be enough to get them the win. 

The first few minutes are quite hectic and get all this across before settling into something more conventional: long Mimi babyface in peril. Again, she's very good at this. She veers on looking a bit helpless at times, but she fights back just about enough so you don't give up on her. Tarantula takes most of this, at one point she's got Mimi tied up in the ropes while Jaguar protests the referee, and she pulls Mimi's hair across her face to add some extra nastiness to it. When Jaguar gets tagged in she does her usual handstand flip comeback, but this time she does a twisting bodypress rather than a dropkick. Bit of an evolution on what we're getting used to. 

This built nicely into a Jaguar tag and comeback (with some setbacks). The flaw here is that Jaguar's tag-in felt too easy after all that buildup, and so did he picking up the fall. She hits a bridging vertical suplex that didn't feel like a particularly big move, and actually gets a 3 count from it.

The energy heightens for the 2nd fall and the levels of violence escalation. Devil & Tarantula feel like they're setting the pace now and the babyfaces are struggling to keep up. Although they have collided a bit in the 1st fall, when Devil & Mimi square up in the 2nd they give it a lot of gravitas as if this was the first time they’d tagged in against each other, but they’re also long-time rivals (by AJW standards) so it’s effective and there’s genuine anticipation there.  This may be because of direction choices, but for a lot of this it feels like Jaguar has gone missing/been taken out while they focus on poor Mimi. The end for her starts when Devil has her cornered on the outside and is choking her with a microphone cord, and then later uses the microphone itself as a weapon to loud electronic thuds.

When Mimi is pulled into the ring, Devil hits her with this spinning backbreaker where she has her upside down in what looks like a tombstone position for a moment, but rotates her round and down hard onto her knee. Devil has such a huge arsenal it feels like she hits a cool new move in every match. This gets followed up with Devil & Tarantula both lifting Mimi up high to hit a double gutbuster move.

The 3rd fall starts hilariously as the babyfaces pull the referee out of the ring and bonk him on the head with a ringside table while looking very mad. The bell sounds after they do this so it's not strictly part of the match.

Devil is going on a rampage as soon as the match properly starts though. She has Jaguar up in a big military press and throws her OUT of the ring. She's so strong. She's also bleeding, I guess it's from getting hit with the table earlier when she was trying to save the referee. The blood seems to make her even stronger. She throws Mimi straight out of the ring too. She just totally demolishes both of them and... she wins. Wow. The 3rd fall is usually a lot longer than the 2nd but they flipped the switched here to make Devil look unstoppable after her blood was spilled. Jaguar is kicking off complaining about who knows what while the heels celebrate.

This is all really good stuff, the only significant flaw really is that just as they seem to be hitting a higher gear to turn this into a great match, someone picks up a fall.

***3/4

MD: We’ve always seen Jumbo or Omori in the mix and they’re fine, well and good, but at this point, Jaguar and Mimi feel like a super team to me, the best suited to try to take the titles from the Devil Army. Pre-match Masami gives up her boken and I don’t know if that’s a symbolic gesture that this was going to be a fair fight or what. It’s certainly not going to be a restrained one. Jaguar and Mimi go right on the attack, but they have immediate miscommunication as Jaguar punches (a clearly cheating) Mimi (on the apron) by accident. Things spill out and are quite chaotic until they’re able to work Mimi into the corner. It feels like there’s maybe even a bit more intense screaming here than in previous matches as they go at it. 

Most of the first fall is them working over Mimi and it’s all nasty as you’d expect, lots of draping over the rope throat first and falling headbutts by Tarantula. Jaguar comes in hot but has to work from underneath until she nails the bound off the ropes against Tarantula and then barely goes up and over with a body press. That leads to a killer knee attack off the top by Mimi and Jaguar taking the fall with a bridging front vertical suplex done in away you almost never see where she just holds it and gets her shoulder up. 

What stands out to me the most in the second fall is the way Masami took over on Mimi. They locked up and she slowly walked her back towards Tarantula. Simple, right? But the expressiveness on Masami’s face is some of the best pro wrestling I’ve ever seen. She had a deranged, obsessed look in her eyes, lips wide, gritting her teeth, pressing back step after step, leading with her chin. Incredibly compelling, believable struggle that felt inevitable all the same. They took things outside after that, using the microphone cable to choke with Tarantula dangling her opponent off the apron simultaneously. Back in the ring, Tarantula hit her rolling dropkicks (which work so well because of the lack of time between the roll and her having to get up for the dropkick giving everything a frenetic feel), and they finished Mimi off with a double press gutbuster after Devil’s brutal tilt-a-whirl backbreaker.

The final fall starts well for Jaguar and Mimi, as they smack a table into Masami, opening her up. But the Devil Army thrive on chaos and they soon take back over on the outside. That leads to Devil press slamming Mimi from the ring to the floor, the beginning of the end. A bit more mayhem and chaos, and then tandem suplexes back in the ring and even the super team of Jaguar and Mimi fall to Devil and Tarantula’s reign of terror.  

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: Jaguar! Jumbo! Masami! Tarantula!

Volume 4  

5. Devil Masami & Tarantula vs. Jaguar Yokota & Jumbo Hori - 11/4/82

K: Tag champs Devil Masami & Tarantula in a non-title match here. It's still 2/3 falls because AJW TV just did that regularly for main event tags whether it was for the titles or not. 

They flip the script a bit here by having the heels jump the babyfaces right at the start, rather than later into the match as a reaction to the momentum swings against them. The announcers are very alarmed that Jaguar & Jumbo were still in their entrance gowns while being accosted. 

The 1st fall feels more like a heel showcase with the occasional comeback spots. Tarantula inherits Yumi Ikeshita's plant opponent onto sticking up toes move, but follows this up by savagely biting Jaguar's neck like she's a vampire or something. Later Tarantula has Jaguar in a headlock, but with the other hand she's pulling her hair just out of sight of the referee. It's delightfully villainous how the ref can see she's doing something untoward, and Tarantula isn't really trying to pretend she isn't doing something illegal, but is just about managing to stop the referee from directly seeing it, like that's what really matters. I thought the finish to this fall was a bit odd. Jaguar Irish Whips Devil into Jumbo Hori, presumably to set up some double team move, but Devil just spins around her, hits Jumbo with a side suplex as Tarantula prevents Jaguar from breaking it up. It made sense in conception, other than the move to actually pin Jumbo didn't look that strong.

But that slight complaint about the 1st fall goes out the window with the finish of the 2nd fall! Jumbo hits a slam, and then Jaguar does a missile dropkick from the top rope to take out Devil, but lands into a pinning position on top of Tarantula and gets the win! Surely someone else has done a finish like that before but I don't remember it. I've only mentioned the finish, but more generally the 2nd fall had a nice pickup in pace and Tarantula in particular was showing out.

The 3rd fall is almost an inversion of the 1st in that its the babyfaces who almost ambush the heels at the start, there's a big double figure four spot that they like to do. But before long the heels take control and methodically grind them down without many big spots to specifically point out, but it's all good stuff. Devil & Tarantula are very good at coming across like they really are just an excellent tag team (whether they fight dirty or not) and it’s just really difficult for anyone to sustain any momentum against them. I liked when Devil was using the big hanging choke on the turnbuckle while Tarantula got her chops in. Devil goes wild with her cane while the referee gets distracted and this sets up Devil getting a rare pinfall win with her leaping senton (usually used for a nearfall). I like how although wrestlers have signature moves, nobody really has a finisher here, so what will win a match is far less predictable.

Jumbo punishes the referee for his poor eyesight by throwing him into the crowd. A strong AJW babyface tradition.

***1/2

MD: Masami and Tarantula had become a pretty effective team by this point. They ambushed to start. Tarantula would sneak in a choke or just bite you in the face. Masami was relentless. There was a real sense that if you got breathing room by going one way, they’d be the other ready to get you. Still, the big difference I’ve noted in 82 relative to 79 or 80 was just how much the babyfaces could fight back. The Devil Army made them really, really work for it though. One second of lapse and Tarantula’s hand would be right in your face. Hori came back only for Devil to stop short on a whip and nail her in the back. Yokota fought back only for Masami to get a foot up from a prone position. When they did mount a comeback at the end of the first fall with a series of press up seated sentons by Jaguar, all it took was one duck by Devil and she hit a belly to back on Hori for the fall.

Second fall had Jaguar winning a test of strength against Jumbo which seems a bit silly and then laying in headbutts. Tarantula hit her roll-into-a-dropkick which is one of the few good rolls in wrestling history, then a missile front dropkick. Again, they made Jaguar work for it as she hit her forward vault to start her comeback but Devil caught her on the apron and she had to side step. I won’t use the word “evolutionary” but I do think that they were building on things so fans did not grow accustomed to the same match over and over. Jumbo came in with a massive power bomb, leading to a sort of bridging exploder and a great finish where Jaguar hit a missile dropkick on a charging Devil and then landed with a top rope splash on Tarantula. Great end to the fall.

In the third fall, Devil tried to hit some of her big offense (like the press slam) but Jaguar kept escaping. She and Tarantula had more luck choking with an outside bit of rope/wire. She also did a dangling choke from the top while Tarantula hit some chops which is not something you see every day. When she was firmly in control she hit all that offense she wanted before like the press slam, which felt perfectly petty in the best way. She followed that up by being even more petty and vindictive with the stick and won it with a flip senton, which is not something I think I’ve seen her do chronologically up until now. This was a good distilled version of the style at the time. We’ve seen a few tags like this now and you can tell where they were developing different aspects over time. I’m curious if that survives into the next generation’s tag matches. Post match, Jumbo goes after the ref again. We know that’s not going to do them much good over time.

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: Mimi! Masami! Jaguar!

Volume 3   

13. Mimi Hagiwara sings 'Broadway Dream'

K: Matt got to this first and made me chuckle that he keeps reviewing the singing segments, not something I ever intended anyone to do! It’s just part of AJW. You have to watch it. If anything my curation has significantly downplayed the proportion of 80s AJW TV that consisted of wrestlers singing. Part of it was to try and sell records (these songs were all released as singles), but I also think they match up well with their in-ring personas and aren’t just random songs.

MD: I don’t know? What do we say about this. It’s weird to see Mimi in red and not white. She’s more expressive selling than singing but she’s clearly good at this? This was disco-tinged in a way I may have expected a year or two earlier. I got nothing. I’m tone deaf. 

14. Devil Masami vs. Jaguar Yokota (WWWA Singles Title) 7/19/82 

K: We don’t have much info on attendances for this era of AJW but I’d make an educated guess that this was the biggest show of the year. It’s Ota Ward and it looked pretty packed. We’re missing a lot of the TVs before this one unfortunately. We do know that Mimi Hagiwara & Yukari Omori successfully defended the tag belts against Leilani Kai & Velvet McIntyre in a show shortly before this. They beat Princess Victoria & Wendi Richter in the match before this one, plus earlier in the show Lioness Asuka beat Masked Yu to win the AJW Title (which had been vacated by Devil Masami earlier). 

Right from the introductions you can hear that there’s sizeable contingent in the crowd who are cheering for Devil Masami. Anyone who tells you fans cheering for heels is something that only started recently needs to brush up :) It’s worth noting not just because it’s unusual, but I also think it informs how the match plays out. If the reason for Devil getting cheered is some fans liked how violent and ‘badass’ she comes across, this got undermined by Jaguar Yokota really pulling out that side of her tonight, which was a good thing.

Devil’s more crazed shenanigans are put on the backburner tonight, it feels like her and Jaguar really want to deliver more of a classic style wrestling match. They distinguish themselves not by Devil cheating as such, but the different way the transitions play out. Firstly, we have them go to the mat, where Jaguar is pretty dominant in locking Devil up in various leg-focused holds (which Devil sells with excellent facial expressions). Devil switches things by powering out of a butterfly suplex position. Later again when she’s on the defensive it’s because Jaguar has her in an unusual submission where she’s pulling both Devil’s shoulders back behind her like she’s about to do a really big sitting chest press but is overdoing it… but Devil has the brute strength to power out and take Jaguar down. On the other hand, whenever Jaguar takes the advantage, it’s by using some combination of speed and technique, for instance when she leaps at Devil off an Irish Whip and rolls her up into a pinning predicament. 

Power vs. technique, but also there’s an added malice to Devil’s offense, for instance in how she slams Jaguar face first into the match, like she’s adding a bit of gratuitous violence/humiliation into it. She’s also the first one to take things to the outside, where she throws Jaguar into the chairs. It’s such a ubiquitous spot I sometimes think you need to think of Joshi match structure as shine - heat - throw into chairs - hope - comeback or something. It works as a signifier that we’ve moved onto a new section of the match.

Jaguar gets back into the ring and has an angry vibe about her. She quite quickly gets the advantage when they start a Greco-Roman style struggle, which you’d normally think would favour Devil, but Jaguar’s able to use her leverage to flip Devil over in a kind of monkey flip move and then goes to work on her. She’s so aggressive and vicious at going after Devil’s leg that Devil actually flees to the outside limping! There’s a big roar from the crowd supporting Jaguar here, it’s as noisy a crowd as we’ve had in a while. She gets a reprisal in and throws Devil into the outside chairs.

The big criticism at this point has to be about Devil mostly dropping selling her leg after the restart, or after a minute or so. I don’t think it’s accurate to say she drops it entirely, she does subtly walk a bit unevenly on it for a little bit and when she has Jaguar up in the military press she does a movement just as she drops her that her leg was about to give out if she held up Jaguar a moment more. I’d put this in the category of it would have elevated the match if Devil sold her leg more, but it’s not egregious enough to actively drag things down. We’re also just hitting a climax here which is exciting enough that I don’t really notice unless I’m really paying attention. 

Also, Jaguar hits and OVER THE TOP ROPE dive onto Devil on the outside. I’m pretty sure she’s only the 2nd woman - after Tomi Aoyama - to ever successfully hit that move. Puts over that you’re watching a special match when something like that gets pulled out.

We’re not getting a winner here. We’ll have to wait another year for that. Double countout it is. Thematically, the way they executed this works. Jaguar has tapped into her most vicious side and - unusually for her - is showing a lot of emotion and expressiveness in dishing out punishing to Devil. She actually looks gleeful at times. It all gets out of control when she’s swinging a chair around at her as Devil gets her cane to try to fight back, but despite that being her element, they come across as evenly matched at this. A flaw is Jaguar’s chair shots are a bit weak, although I may be looking at them with post-ECW eyes, and it is a positive that wrestlers didn’t seem to need to actually scramble their opponent’s brains to get a reaction from a chairshot.

Excellent match and one of the best of the early 80s for AJW.

****1/4

MD: Long title match between the top face and the top heel and a great way to end the disc. What clearly stands out in this relative to Jaguar’s predecessors, and a theme for this disc in general, is just how much she took the fight to Devil. Despite being carried out by her faction, they would be a non-factor here, only intervening when everything broke down at the end and maybe acting as moral support when Devil was hurt the worst. Jaguar had enough of Masami’s crap and she was going to take no more. 

While Devil tried to attack her at the start, she turned it back on her with a cross body block off the second rope and after trading a few holds (including a deep tapitia/cavernaria variation by Devil), Jaguar honed in on the leg. That meant a brutal figure four, with the two selling huge in what seemed to be oppressive heat. It meant wrapping the leg around the rope and kicking at it. It meant her short leg scissors. It meant a toehold with her knee dug into Jaguar’s leg. Jaguar sold it with her usual expressiveness and Jaguar put over the effort like the most important thing in the world.

Which, of course, meant that Devil would drop it completely as she headbutted her way back into a comeback, immediately locking in a tapitia that used the leg like nothing had happened. Bit of a shame, not because you have to sell religiously but because it was both the meat of the match and so well done while it was happening.

That said, the bombs they bridged to next were compelling.They both had a lot of stuff and some good transitions as well. Jaguar flipped through a tilt a whirl backbreaker attempt. Devil reversed a second tombstone. It seemed like maybe, just maybe, Jaguar was going to get her after bridging up out of a pin and finally hitting her double underhook and belly to back suplexes, but Devil survived.

They spilled to the outside to finish the match (having visited it once or twice already) with Jaguar again getting fed up and launching an assault on Devil with a chair. Devil came back with the kendo stick and they jousted for a while before taking out the ref and forcing the match to be thrown out. It was still pretty satisfying even if they clearly left a lot more for the future. We tend to not hold the dropped limbwork against them because they just hadn’t mentally worked their way through that sort of longterm consequence but here it did particularly grate. Still, the good was exceptionally good. 

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: Tateno! Jaguar! Mimi! Yukari! Masami! Kai! McIntyre!

Volume 3  

11. A Day In The Life of Noriyo Tateno

K: Something you'll get from AJW is all their wrestlers were trained from scratch by the promotion itself, so watching wrestlers develop from very limited rookies into fully-fledged stars is all part of the show. So sometimes they'd dedicate a bit of TV time to introduce viewers to a newer wrestler and get over their personality with the audience, before they have much wrestling skill to speak of. This one is for Noriyo Tateno. On episodes before this they did segments for Chigusa Nagayo and Yuriko Takagai. Nagayo gets plenty of attention later on and Takagai retires at the end of the year/is historically irrelevant, so I chose to include the Noriyo feature. It all helps to get a broad understanding of the vibe of AJW TV.

MD: This is pretty much what you’d expect. They do it in a clever way to have the segment start towards the end of her day (late training and going to bed) and then end as she’s coming out the curtain for a match the following evening. Tateno is 16 here. I’m kind of curious what she was reading that we only get a glimpse of. It’s also interesting they’d show the training because it mainly consists of rolling and taking back bumps and that’s the sort of thing that feels like it might raise some flags. Yes, they need to know how to fall, but they sure do a lot of that in training… anyway, we’re going to be probably spending quite a bit of time with the Jumping Bomb Angels on future volumes so this felt like time well spent even past seeing the inside of 1982 shops or local strawberry fields.

12. Devil Masami, Leilani Kai & Velvet McIntyre vs. Jaguar Yokota, Mimi Hagiwara & Yukari Omori 5/15/82 

K: K: In this match we have a trio of the WWWA Singles Champion Jaguar Yokota and the WWWA Tag Team Champions Mimi Hagiwara & Yukari Omori. Talk about overpowered. Mimi Hagiwara comes to the ring wearing a crown and a semi-transparent white gown. The way she's presented would feel heelish in almost any other context, but she is unironically pushed as a sweet and pure Disney princess like character. 

There's a lot going on in this 1st first, it almost feels like a full match by itself. The main narrative here is that Devil is just unstoppable. She does have a title shot against Jaguar on the 7/19/82 show coming up, so keep that in mind. We open with Mimi charging at the Devil and unloading a flurry of her signature boxing punches on her. It does seem to work for ten seconds maybe when Devil flees to the outside, but then gets the better of Mimi fighting on the outside.

Devil gets revenge for Mimi's punches by continually working over Mimi's hand all through the fall. She starts when she isn't even in the ring yet. Velvet McIntyre has Mimi caught up in the ropes, and then Devil comes over, grabs Mimi's hand and bites it! She goes after it again once she's the legal woman, and it becomes the focal point so much that McIntyre and Kai also go after it when they're up against Mimi. Mimi is able to put up a much stronger fight against the two foreign wrestlers, for instance she's handling Velvet very capably at one point, but then she runs into Devil, who she just can't handle it seems.

Jaguar and Omori don't do a whole lot in the 1st fall really. They're both hot tags but in a different way. Omori just pops in to do some power moves before she runs out of steam and get beaten up. She has an interesting one that starts like a powerbomb, but then she tosses her opponent to the side instead. Jaguar gets more of a reaction when she's tagged in, but she's overzealous in trying to just launch herself at the heels that she gets trapped in their corner and triple-teamed quite quickly. The babyfaces just aren't working together very effectively, meanwhile the heels put together some joint offense to win the 1st fall.

The 2nd fall is mostly just a compressed version of the 1st. This time Mimi does well beating up Leilani Kai, that is, until Devil Masami intervenes and goes to work on her hand again. The twist here though is this time when Jaguar gets tagged in she gets to shine a lot more and evens things up for the babyfaces.

The 3rd fall is when things develop more, there's just a bit more heat in how everything's worked and the babyfaces have more a determination to win about them. Things spill out to the outside a couple of times and the fighting is fierce. Mimi looks downright mad and violent when she's throwing people around on the outside. There's a better throw into chairs on Jaguar though, because she doesn't exactly take a bump but just runs straight into them. 

We get a bit of a Devil vs. Jaguar teaser here. There's a cool moment where Devil swings Jaguar into the corner, Jaguar goes for her boomerang counter off the turnbuckle, but Devil just ducks under it with great timing so that if she hadn't ducked that split second the move actually would have hit. It looks so much better when I've seen so many other wrestlers try these spots but can't make them look anywhere near as believable. 

There's also a funny moment where Velvet McIntyre has Jaguar held up in the air in a choke. Mimi runs in and pushes her so Jaguar just gets dropped to the mat. I'm not sure if that's what Mimi was going for there, but I guess it stopped the choking at least.

We get a rare-for-AJW DQ finish here. Devil for some reason really totally loses it and decides that breaking Mimi Hagiwara's hand is a more important goal for her today than winning this match. She brings her cane into the ring and just starts smashing her hand up with it. After the DQ the Commissioner and referee try to pull that cane off her but she's goes even more wild, throws the referee into the chairs and actually tries to throw a strike at Commissioner Ueda but is restrained by the seconds at ringside. We have a nutcase on the loose.

One of the best TV trios matches we've seen so far. We're a long way off Devil vs. Jaguar so I'm not sure if it was really all intended to build that match, but unfortunately we're missing 6 or 7 shows in between, so seeing it that way is probably the best we can do from an enjoyment standpoint.

***1/2

MD: Tons of pomp right from the start here. I feel like we haven’t seen a ton of Yokota and Hagiwara together this year. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s Kumi who’s been off on her own? But Mimi’s out looking like a white princess, crown and all. Jaguar has more of the martial arts look in black. Devil’s dressed like an evil musketeer (you’ve seen the look, I’m sure), and Kai has the whole “Queen of Hawaii” deal going. Quite the entrances. 

This was pretty great. Omori played her role of taking some beating and coming in strong with small bursts of strength. Likewise Velvet stood out in a big way when it came to effective Moolah-ism (hairpulls, stepping on the hair, maring someone with the hair) and Kai had that plus strength on top of it. Really though, this was about Mimi, Jaguar, and Devil. 

Mimi took it right to Devil at the start, throwing those boxing blows. That meant when Devil could take over later, she started targeting the hand, biting it, stepping on it, punching it! Who punches someone’s fist? Devil Masami, that’s who. Mimi, of course, sold brilliantly, as she is want to do, both in the ring while it was happening (while constantly registering, fighting, struggling, reaching - what a babyface she’s become) and on the apron when they cycled through.

The heels took the first fall after cutting off some fire with Devil being an absolute monster. She pressed slammed Mimi in front of her corner then hit a spinning one to make her land on her hand. When Omori came in they made her take a Bret bump into the heel corner and then Kai finished her off with a splash. Second fall had more working over Mimi’s hand and Jaguar coming in only to eat a gutbuster from a suplex position from Jaguar (who just had so much stuff in this match, so much of it organic and nasty). Yokota did come back ducking under Kai and Velvet before hitting a missile dropkick and beautiful butterfly suplex with an even more beautiful bridge on Velvet. 

Third fall was chaos leading to one more massive move from Devil, being a press slam into the corner onto Jaguar. Things spilled out and when they got back into the ring Jaguar bridged out of a Kai pin and bounded her way back into it. Just when it seemed like their side might win, Devil came in with the kendo stick, targeting Mimi’s hand specifically. The commissioner threw it out and gave things to the babyfaces but Jaguar was absolutely furious at him and everyone else for what had occurred. Between the hand focus and Mimi’s selling and Jaguar’s violent tendencies and how well everyone else played their role, this worked quite well for me.

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: Lioness! Mimi! Yukari! Masami! Matsumoto! Ripper!

Volume 3 

9. Devil Masami, Kaoru Matsumoto & Monster Ripper vs. Lioness Asuka, Mimi Hagiwara & Yukari Omori 3/30/82

K: This is the main event of the go home show before the big Monster Ripper vs. Jaguar Yokota WWWA Singles Title match. This made the set mainly for that reason, but it's also nice that it's a good match with Lioness Asuka and Kaoru Matsumoto in, thus fulfilling my rule that there been at least one match from them in 1982 so viewers can track their development.

I wouldn't say the first fall was all Monster, but it almost was. While the other pairings had some back and forth, whenever Monster Ripper was in the ring she was just demolishing everyone and never looked to be in any real danger. This starts right from the beginning when the heels get trapped in the corner and hit with a sequence of running splashes, but when Omori jumps at Monster she just bounces off her like Monster's made of steel. The closest thing we get to Monster looking like she's in trouble - and even then, not really - is one point where she goes for the flying hip attack twice, but Lioness Asuka rolls underneath her the second time so she crashes and lands. I'll also note that whenever anyone gets Monster into a pinning predicament, she immediately just kicks out before the referee can even begin a count.

Kaoru Matsumoto has a decent showing here for the little that's expecting of her. She doesn't have much in the way of offense, but I thought she threw a pretty mean lariat at Asuka early on. And something about the way she walks around the ring just feels like an arrogant strut, and it's not even clear that she's doing a strut.

Mimi Hagiwara was easily the best on her team, no surprise there really. Her and Devil Masami keep up their good chemistry. I think Devil might actually be physically stronger than Monster despite not being as big, Monster at least looked like she had a bit of a struggle lifting Mimi over her head, but for Devil she just goes straight up into the military press like she's picking up a co-operative 6 year old. I have enough recent experience to know the "co-operative" qualifier was very important there. Mimi also does a funny little butterfly suplex move, or at least that's what I'd call it from the set up, but Mimi doesn't go over with Devil for it, she just drops her straight on the mat. Looked painful actually.

Matsumoto gets the most focus in the 2nd fall, kinda makes sense since if they're going to level things up she's the obvious heel to take the pin, so might as well give her some ring time. She gets a bit of work to do with everyone, but we get an AJW 'flew too close to the Sun' finish pretty quickly where she's trapped near the babyface corner, gets hit with move after move until Omori gets the pin as Mimi and Asuka mark the heel corner to prevent a break-up. I like how they incorporate teamwork into tag matches like you probably would do if this were a real sport. Omori gets the win on Matsumoto, starting the most heated feud in AJW history :)

The 3rd fall is just the heels getting revenge for losing the previous fall. Monster Ripper looks especially awesome going on a rampage including having a chair wrapping around Asuka's neck and swinging her around the outside and onto chairs, before Matsumoto gets her on top of the announce table to pose looking all proud of herself. Bit of stolen valour in there. Omori is the victim here and gets taken out. Heels stand tall.

This would have been a better match if the 3rd fall had more to it than just the babyfaces getting demolished. Might have undermined the wider purpose of the match, but I'd say pulling that off while milking a bit more drama out of it would have been the bigger challenge, and more impressive to pull off. But for what it was, this was good stuff.

***¼

MD: I thought Matsumoto was on her way here, even if she was on her way to a different place where she’d eventually get up. She was very good at asserting herself and using her size. Sometimes it was a little rough around the edges but she was additive to the super powered heel team that was Masami and Ripper. Those two were in matching black and despite the size difference, there were times where for a split second, I thought Ripper WAS Masami, solely because she was doing something so vicious and cruel. There was a point where she wrapped a chair around her opponent’s neck and dragged her around ringside and it’s exactly the sort of thing Devil would do.

I honestly think she had not just improved tenfold since her run a couple of years earlier but was actively great at times. Once Mimi hit her cross chop and Ripper didn’t just no sell it, but she dusted herself off like she was Samoa Joe or something. Coolest person in the room. The match started with everyone charging at all three heels pressed into the corner and it worked right until Ripper simply stepped forward and made it work no longer. And she had all of the huge offense like the press slam backbreaker. Devil contributed more than enough too of course.

Mimi continued to stand out on the babyface side. She was not quite an ace but she was very good at this point. I’m going to have to see more out of Asuka especially but I know that’s coming. This was a means to an end to heat up Ripper even more and it certainly achieved that goal even if that came at a slight cost.
 

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: Devil! Ripper! Jumbo! Mimi!

Volume 3

6. Devil Masami & Monster Ripper vs. Jumbo Hori & Mimi Hagiwara March 1982 

MD: My biggest takeaway here is that all four of these women had improved quite a bit from 79-80. But my bigger takeaway from this and the disc overall so far is that Mimi has gotten very good. Generally, I think of her selling and emoting and we saw a ton of that in the Devil’s singles, but this was more about her taking stuff in the moment and dishing it back out. She matches up very well with Devil. Meanwhile, while not quite as improved, Hori is still much better at working her size and asserting herself.

The combination of the two, combined with a house style which has shifted to more even wrestling and not just chaotic heels steamrolling people, gave this a much different feel than it would have gotten a couple of years before. Ripper wasn’t nearly as protected, though she was a bit on the finish, managing to clothesline both Mimi and Hori before they ducked and got her back (that drew Devil in with the stick to end the match). Mimi had a lot of clutch roll ups out of nowhere while Hori was able to just ragdoll Devil at times. We didn’t get a Hori vs Ripper match up though the match seemed to build to it. They had a singles eventually  but we don’t have it on tape. Devil did take over in the second fall and it was by smashing Mimi in the head with a chair a few times; it didn’t matter how assertive the babyfaces were in the face of that. I’m not sure this one ever really settled down but it each fall had a nice, exciting, sprinty feel to it, at least. And it’s convinced me that I’m right about how far Hagiwara has come and the fact she probably doesn’t get enough credit.

K: 2/3 falls main event tag match. Pretty common on AJW TV at this time.

The purpose of the first fall seems to be developing the feud between Devil Masami and Mimi Hagiwara. Not that Monster & Jumbo don't contribute anything, but there's no real big moment from them, although part of that might be when they're all brawling on the outside the camera is following Devil & Mimi fighting a lot more often. Even compared to their last singles things feel a bit more frantic in how they're throwing themselves at each other desperate to gain the upper hand. It's a good vibe. Things look pretty dangerous when Mimi hits her special backdrop and looks like she almost drops Devil on the back of her head, and then straight afterward picks Devil up for what looked like a very low piledriver. Devil sells it extremely well or is legitimately knocked loopy...

I actually think it is Devil just selling really well though, as she's still acting like she's been knocked loopy in the 2nd fall, however takes a perfect bump for a Mimi punch which, if I can break kayfabe a little, obviously wasn't hard enough to actually put her on her ass. Very good Devil performance here.

This second fall is when we switch to showcasing Monster Ripper a bit. The moment she tags in for the first time, she shoves Mimi and Mimi goes so far flying backwards the crowd audibly gasps. Great bump, but also very effective in the wider context as this gets over that Monster is superhuman strong and we should be very worried about the babyfaces in this match, but also future matches Monster's gonna be in on this tour. Monster also gets to throw around and suplex Jumbo Hori when they're paired, which you don't see often.

Mimi gets hit with a big backbreaker and it's her turn to still be selling when the 3rd fall starts. Devil hits a nice Jumbo Tsuruta style running knee, I've heard that she was one of the few AJW wrestlers to watch men's wrestling, so that might have been evidence of it. She also looks really good crush Mimi's throat with her shin and then dragging her across the match in that position so she's in the heel corner. I've seen that move from Yumi Ikeshita before, but the not the dragging across the mat escalated version. 

There's no 'big' moment to point to here, but Mimi's selling in this whole section is very good. She looked exhausted and struggling to just hang on and survive. Even her elegant rollups still have an element of 'just acting on instinct' in them. Melancholy is in the air. She's doing a lot of work here and it's not that much of a problem that Jumbo Hori, hasn't really done much. She hits a couple of cool looking powerbombs in this 3rd fall but other than that her tagging in feels like just parts where Mimi can get a break. 

One of those matches that’s clearly good, if not entirely satisfying, but you’re definitely wanting more. But of course I would say that wouldn’t I? 

***1/2
  

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: Mimi! Devil!

Volume 3  

5. Devil Masami vs. Mimi Hagiwara (WWWA Singles Title Next Challenger Tournament Final) 3/7/82

K: So this is the state of play going into this match. Monster Ripper just returned to AJW, she tagged with Wild Kazuki in the match before this one defeating Jumbo Hori & Nancy Kumi. She has a title match against Jaguar Yokota booked at the next big AJW show on April 7th at Yokohama Cultural Gymnasium, which they're already promoting. This match is the finals of a #1 contenders tournament, but that title shot will be against the winner of Monster Ripper vs. Jaguar Yokota at the next big AJW show after that, which is July 19th at Ota Ward. GOt that?

This has one of the wildest starts to a match you'll ever see. Right at the bell Devil grabs her cane and charges at Mimi swinging. Mimi flees to the outside with Devil chasing after her, Mimi picks up a chair and they have a medieval duel on the outside swinging cane and chair at each other. It's kinda funny when the bell rings, I hadn't noticed the match hasn't formally started yet.

That crazy start makes everything feel high energy and heated as they start wrestling in the ring. That and Devil's disturbing yells as she takes delight in maiming poor Mimi. This is hardly original insight here but yes what makes this rivalry work is you've got an all-time great offensive wrestler beating up a great sympathetic seller. Less talked about though is Mimi's got some great offense of her own. Her first big comeback (that doesn't last long) is just her throwing flurries of punches that knock Devil down. She doesn't scream 'great puncher' when you look at her and her skinny arms but she actually makes it believable with how much conviction she throws into them. 

Devil has a cool hold where she wraps up Mimi's arm in a sitting armlock, and then does forward rolls to clinch it in more, like she's countering a rollup but she just rolls all the way through. This is a start of a really good heat segment where Devil deploys a new method of torturing Mimi's arm every 30 seconds. A bit later on she's got Mimi's arm wrapped up in the ropes, contorting it around while her Devil Legion goons are getting cheap shots in. 

Mimi does a bit of prolonged arm selling that gives Devil's heat section feel like it had consequences for the whole match. When she puts Devil in the figure four she lifts herself up with only the good arm instead of the usual two. She goes for her special backdrop but isn't able to hit it properly with her arm hurt. To correct this injustice caused by the interference earlier, Lioness Asuka runs in and bodyslams Devil while Mimi goes up top to hit her flying knee, but the referee won't count the pin. Can't remember if I've mentioned this before or not, but AJW refs are very reluctant to call for DQs, so they'll do stuff like refuse to count a pin if someone just did something illegal rather than DQ them.

The finish is Mimi getting beaten up by Devil & goons on the outside and is counted out. It's a fine idea but the execution was lacking. Firstly, the babyfaces are completely ineffective at stopping the heel seconds from attacking her and it makes them look a bit useless, secondly it looked like Mimi had got into the ring in time but was counted out anyway. I don't think we needed a double injustice when her being attacked by Devil Legion already achieved that, so that just made the referee look bent. But still this was a very good match, almost great, and now we have Devil Masami world title match to look forward to.

***3/4




MD: This was the finals of a tournament and there’d be a big trophy at the end and everything. And I suppose a title shot? Devil had left her cane on the top rope as she was getting her robe off. The second she got it off, she grabbed the cane and charged and we got a fun bit of dueling with Mimi snatching a chair, before things broke down. Duel is actually a good word for the early goings here. It felt almost like a joust with each wrestler flying at one another simultaneously to see who would get the hair/head and whip the other down. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it done quite this way and it was neat. There was much more of a sense of urgency to it than some of the face offs we see today.

Match opened up when Devil pried off an arm and really went to work with it. There was a nice long short arm scissor sequence where Mimi was able to roll her over but not do much else. Devil also used pumphandles over her shoulder but she decided to drag Mimi across the ring at the same time and it looked brutal. And of course they wrapped her arm in the ropes and everything broke down again, Mimi’s close-up emotive selling stealing the show. Mimi did escape and took Devil down to put on a figure-four. The selling never lasts too long in any of these matches but I really appreciated Mimi trying to manage the figure four with just one arm. While it got broken up by Devil’s goons, Mimi had some help too and after an assisted body slam came off the top but the ref wouldn’t count it due to the interference.

Beginning of the end here was Mimi flying off the ropes and tragically missing a cross body, landing on her arm and rolling to the floor. This broke down once again but this time half the seconds were keeping her from getting back in to beat the count and the other half were trying to push her back in. Devil just stood there, feet towards the rope, to block her and draw the count out. The commentary treated it a bit like a loophole in the rules, and Devil won the big trophy in a very unsatisfying way. That didn’t stop her from blowing big kisses to the crowd though. Mimi is really one of the most interesting and emotive sellers of all time. I don’t think that’s a crazy statement. 

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: Jaguar! Masami!

Volume 3

2. Devil Masami vs. Jaguar Yokota 1/26/82 

K: This is the first time on the set we get to see the company top babyface vs. top heel in a singles match. So much has changed since we last saw these two against each other wrestling for the Junior Title. Jaguar's the World Champion here, but this match is non-title (world title defences are rare and saved for big shows).

At the start Devil Masami seems unaware that bringing a weapon into the ring is illegal when the referee ushers her to remove it. This doesn't do much good as one of her seconds just passes her a chair instead, which Devil immediately uses to swing wilding at Yokota's head. But this backfires as Jaguar is too fast and one time Devil swings it so wildly her momentum takes her over the top rope and Jaguar chases after her. The opening makes Devil look very villainous and wild, but also a bit dumb. The brawl continues on the outside until Jaguar takes a big bump into the announcers after Devil banged her head on their table. So far, so good. Devil comes across as almost out of control.

Devil can't match Jaguar for wrestling skill. An interesting thing about the structure of this is the 'slow down' parts are actually when the babyface is in control, as Jaguar's mostly just keeping Devil trapped on the match and applying holds, whereas when Devil escapes everything gets wild again, but she can't do that without outside help/using her cane. Devil also tries to get a win by countout a couple of times, she'll take anything to get a win here.

I noticed the commentary shout out Mami Kumano when Devil gave us a big pendulum swing on the apron.

Towards the end is when we get the more classic exciting babyface segment. Jaguar begins her comeback with her spectacular handstand through an Irish Whip and into her flashiest offense to send Devil into retreat. She goes for 1 high-flying move too much though misses Devil with a crossbody to the outside and instead hits Masked Yu (a Black Devils crony). She looks very cool doing it though, however Devil can only capitalise on this by bludgeoning her with her cane over and over again until it looks like Jaguar has been injured. That's basically your finish. Devil rolls her into the ring, hits her with a big military press and actually pins her with it. They show Jaguar reach for the ropes, but actually Devil clearly got the 3 count before Jaguar had the ropes. Huge win for Devil.

Very good match. Devil vs. Jaguar is on.

***1/2

MD: This was pretty well constructed, actually. On top of it being Devil vs Yokota with both of them more or less formed. The openings that Masami got were because of interference, or feints, or decisions Yokota made. But it didn’t feel as haphazard or random as the Black Army sprawls of a couple of years earlier. It felt more measured and intentional. A tighter narrative.

Early on that meant that Masami was prevented from using the cane but swung the chair. Yokota dodged it (and they were big swings to dodge) but ended up getting thrashed on the outside. Masami pressed by attacking the throat and having a lot of mean, borderline illegal offense, but Yokota came back with the sunset flip reversal and then leaned in hard with the figure-four and then the nasty single leg version. That was broken up by Yu. That distraction allows Masami to use the cane and then the Kumano Swing. Yokota comes back with her dynamic handspring (which is up there with Fiera’s spinning kick as one of the best comeback moves ever), but she chooses to hit a dive on Yu instead of Masami. Good revenge but it clears the way for Masami’s last assault with the cane and the press back into the ring and the one in the ring for the win.

Previously there was just as sense all of that was happening almost at random or as part of the chaos and carnage of the Black Army. Here though, there was much more of a method to the madness and it made for a stronger match.

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

Disc 2 

14. Devil Masami, Wild Kazuki, Mimi Hagiwara & Yukari Omori Interviews 1/4/82

MD: The interviewer has a Stan Hansen moment when she tries to go see Masami and Kazuki (still called Ito here) in their locker room. Masami almost kills her. It’s great. Then we get a decent amount of insight from Hagiwara and Omori. They just won the belts. Omori would try to follow Mimi’s lead. Hagiwara would hope to win with her special move, the backdrop, and they thought they had a real chance if the Black Army didn’t cheat on them.

15. Devil Masami & Wild Kazuki vs. Mimi Hagiwara & Yukari Omori (WWWA Tag Team Titles) 1/4/82

K: Mimi Hagiwari and Yukari Omori won the WWWA Tag Titles from Jumbo Hori and Nancy Kumi on 11/9/81. That match isn’t on the set though it is available in clipped/joined in process form. The finish of the 3rd fall was Mimi hitting the massive Jumbo Hori with her Mimi Special, which is a backdrop where she hoists her opponent up sitting on her shoulder before dropping them backwards. Impressive feat of strength for someone so nimble, Mimi talks up her move in the pre-match interview. This match is their first defense. This is also our first look at Yukari Omori, who is part of the class of 1980.

Afaik, this is the first time Devil Masami came out to her ‘Black Soldier’ theme, which she’d keep up until 1986. Back when I was watching the full TVs, hearing that theme always cheered me up as I’d so rarely have to watch a bad match after hearing it.  A set like this won’t capture this, but I’d say Devil Masami was the most consistent AJW wrestler from 1982 to her retirement.

Omori gets beaten down pretty bad at the start and doesn’t look like a champion at all. She gets trapped in the ropes by Wild Kazuki who then digs her elbows into her to torture her and she seemingly can do nothing to resist. When Mimi tags in we get a bit more of a fight and at least Kazuki tags in Devil for some help and they do some double teaming in the corner. There’s a blatant clip to Devil using a weapon on Mimi and then denying it to the ref. The clip messes up the flow a bit but it’s enjoyable to see how indignant Mimi is about this. She has a good angry face and starts shouting to the announcer’s table (where the commission also sits) complaining about what’s happening while Devil continues to protest her innocence. 

I have to laugh at how useless Omori is. She tags in, gets punched in the throat by Kazuki, goes down clutching her throat and Mimi has to tag back in she’s already so done. This fall is turning into a prolonged beatdown on Mimi, but mainly because Omori is so incapable of taking a beating for more than 10 seconds that Mimi has to heroically sacrifice herself to save her. But no! We get a miracle. Miscommunication at the junction when Kazuki inadvertently dropkicks her own partner when Mimi moves out of the way. Omori rushes in for a quick double team on Kazuki, which Mimi follows up on with a big Mimi Special and Omori does something useful and keeps Masami pinned down on the outside. 1, 2, 3, and the babyfaces have stolen the fall with a flash good bit of teamwork.

The 2nd fall is a lot shorter and descends into chaos pretty quickly. We get delightful scenes of Masami running around with a wooden pole trying to injure with it. This ends up in the ring where the heels both hold Mimi down while Masami whacks her with that pole and jabs it into her back until eventually she starts to go limp like she’s losing consciousness. There’s a very cold moment where Devil lifts her up for a military press, but just drops her onto the top rope where she falls out of the ring, and then Wild Kazuki does a running jump over the top rope to the floor footstomp on her! But it gets better! Mimi is tossed into the ring, Devil holds up, give her a HEART PUNCH and then pins her with one foot on her chest. Awesome finish for the 2nd fall.

After the finish seconds run in to give Mimi medical treatment and she’s carried out of the ring. It appears she cannot continue. The commission announces that Mimi has been taken out of the match, but Omori wants to keep fighting so he’ll allow the match to continue.

The previously-established as useless Yukari Omori now has to fight the scary heel team on her own! Here comes some drama. Right from the off, Omori appears to have received an upgrade. She doesn’t have any moves, she just fights with shoulder tackles to knock both Masami and Kazuki down, but she has a fierce determined will about her this time that wasn’t there before. She can’t let Mimi down. Masami has a great look on her face when the camera cuts to her on the floor, she’s actually smirking, like she didn’t know Omori had this in her and is kinda impressed. 

Outside of kayfabe, I also think this is the first time in her career Omori shows signs of talent. She’s balancing very well between fighting off two pushed heels by herself, while still coming across as an ill-equipped rookie who is only just about managing to survive out there. She looks super strong when she shoves Wild Kazuki away and sends her flying halfway across the ring, but still it’s only a shove, it’s not a demonstration of ‘wrestling skill’. 

We get the big climax when, just as Omori’s miracle is starting to die as the heels successfully take her down and start tearing her apart, a still-selling Mimi Hagiwara staggers into the ring and begins her rescue. Her hair is strangely wet it looks like she had a shower while she was out getting treated. Her fightback is like she had all the fighting spirit Omori showed just before but actually has some skill as well. We get almost a repeat of the 1st fall where she counters an Irish Whip from Devil Masami into the Mimi Special, then a double suplex and Mimi takes out Kazuki as Omori is still the legal woman, so Omori gets the win by pinning Devil Masami. Probably not what anyone was expecting. 

This was a really great match. Great performances, good narrative, everyone had their role and stayed within the lines. Both Omori and Mimi felt like they came out of this as more credible ‘tough’ wrestlers than they were at the start.

****1/4

MD: We’re into 1982. 81 went quick. We’ve seen so many go now, Maki, the Queen Angels, Jackie, Kumano. Yokota was pushed above Hagiwara and Kumi though they are still formidable stars. I’m not actually super sure what’s going on with Jumbo Hori though she was tag champ. I would have expected us to see her more. This will be our first look in the project at Omori though. 

Masami and Kazuki look pretty stylish coming out with purple and red outfits, jackets, and hats. Masami has a bat of sorts and she’s quite happy slamming it on anything in her path. The first fall is mostly controlled by the heels. They try for an ambush but Hagiwara and Omori are ready for them, but they get swept under due to an object that Yokota hides for a lot of this. You do have to love the combination of power bombs and memphis heeling. I also love Kazuki’s use of her elbow digging it into Hagiwara’s eye and stomach. It’s pretty unique to be honest and the second time we’ve seen her do it, and it’s the sort of thing that will make me gravitate towards a heel. They run the hidden object about as far as they can before some heel miscommunication allows for the babyfaces to come back. After a double team press slam, Mimi hits her “backdrop” which in this case is a straight back drop with an opponent sitting on her shoulder (like Savage and Liz). 

Second fall starts well for the babyfaces, but once Hagiwara tosses Masami out, everything goes very wrong. Masami grabs a stick (maybe the same bat she came out with; I couldn’t tell) and chases her around the ring screaming bloody murder. They get back in but before long it gets introduced and after that it’s an absolute mauling. Just a brutal massacre leaving Hagiwara all but dead in the ring. After a press slam to the floor, Masami picks her back up and clocks her with a punch and then pins her with a foot on the stomach. They carry her out leaving young Omori to fight alone for the final fall.

For the first two minutes, she holds her own, keeping her back to the ropes so they can’t ambush her, taking on one at a time, and using miscommunication. But then Masami pulls her out and she gets swept under. Two minutes after that, however, Mimi drags herself back out. This is Mimi Hagiwara, actress, idol. She sang earlier in the night. She is disheveled, a wreck. She gets a much needed tag but can barely stand. Then they bring the piece of wood back in and start to use it as a weapon. 

Things spill to the floor. Kazumi is such a natural already as she demolishes Omori on a table. But Omori turns it around. Hagiawara somehow picks up a row of chairs and slams it onto Masami. Mimi rolls back in and it seems like they might win by countout. But Masami rolls back in at the last second and begins to thrash Mimi once again. But when all seems lost, Mimi is able to sidestep her, hit her special backdrop, and pull out what felt like an absolutely impossible win. Everything breaks down post-match but this was great, rousing stuff with absolutely top tier selling by Mimi after she made it back. 

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: Masami! Tomoko!

Disc 2  

8. Devil Masami vs. Tomoko Kitamura (AJW Title Decision Match) 5/9/81

K: Tomoko Kitamura, in case you didn’t know, would later adopt the ringname Lioness Asuka. That her name is actually Tomoko is never really hidden from fans from what I can tell. In later years you can clearly hear wrestlers calling her by this name in on-set skits and stuff that aired on AJW TV regularly. 

As mentioned in a previous write-up, Kitamura is (still) the AJW Junior Champion, which she won in a decision match after Rimi Yokota vacated the belt. This match is for the AJW Title, which is the next belt up in the company’s hierarchy (which around this point, becomes well-defined) and, believe it or not, was also recently vacated by Rimi Yokota. It shows you how rapidly Yokota was pushed, and that it probably wasn’t all a long-term plan, that in the space of a few months she’s had to vacate lower-card belts she held because she’d become too strongly pushed to lose to anyone else who would be competing for them.

This is also - as far as I’m aware - Devil Masami’s first challenge for a singles belt that wasn’t the Junior’s Title. Her gradual improvement has been very noticeable watching all the footage, even athletically, she feels a bit more flexible and snappier with her movements than a year ago. But of course with Masami, her strongest attribute is how brilliantly expressive she is. You don’t need to understand a word of Japanese to just pay attention to Masami’s facial expressions and be engaged with what’s happening in the ring. As well as showing pain, she just looks sad when Tomoko’s got her in a hold she’s struggling to get out of. You see the fears moving in her brain when she stops to thinking of a new way to get herself out of this predicament after her previous idea didn’t work. She’ll look proper chuffed when one of her moves pays off, and she’s able to exact a bit of vindictive retaliation. Another nice touch is how she’ll make a brief pause, shout something, because hitting a move, like she’s signalling to he crowd to pay attention to what I’m about to do because it’s going to be something important in the match, without being so obvious about it that it suspension of disbelief gets killed. And she achieves all this without it ever getting too hammy, it’s the kind of thing I think Edge often tried to pull off, but he’d usually overdo it and just come across goofy. Even in this match, when she’s not fully put it together yet, and there’s a purposeless limitation on how great the match can be because of their position on the card and that’s how AJW did things, Masami looks like a special talent. She’s just so watchable. 

It may feel like I’m being harsh on Tomoko by having less to say about her, but that wouldn’t be entirely fair. She has a good performance here, even if she feels like she’s being carried in terms of who is driving the match narrative. But she hits all her spots well, her dropkicks are impressive and you can hear she’s getting the crowd behind her in her big comeback segment. She’s definitely more over than Chigusa is at this point if you compare crowd reactions in their matches against Masami. The famous clapping and screaming young female fans of this era usually aren’t that hot for anyone not the Beauty Pair, but they get pretty loud of Kitamura here, and a few of them look physically distraught when she loses in a questionable three count. I’ll note that the main event of this show (not on the set) was Rimi Yokota defending the WWWA Singles Title against Peggy Lee, and the crowd didn’t feel like they were getting behind Yokota as much as they were for Kitamura by the final minutes of this.

I’m probably going to be higher on this than most people. There weren’t many standout moments and it’s all quite basic wrestling, something about this style when done right just connects with me. There’s a gritty determination to win coming from both wrestlers in their battles on the match and over the shoulders with the various pin attempts, even if she’s a villain I still feel “oh that title means something” when Masami looks all emotional upon winning it. The selling was a bit better than normal, it’s mostly in the moment selling, but when nobody’s doing things like spending several minutes attacking a specific body part, there’s no need for anything more than that. 

The other bit of context for this is that Jackie Sato and Yumi Ikeshita are now both effectively retired. Jackie’s retirement ceremony will be a couple of weeks after this. So this match can also be read as an audition for moving up the card, someone has to fill those top babyface/heel spots, and the wrestler who moves up to fill them then has to have their previous spot filled by someone below them. It’s all quite interesting.

***1/4

MD: As best as I can tell this was the end of a Grand Prix for a chance to face Rimi, but I’m sure we’ll have more on this up above (and we did. It was for a secondary title I never heard of, unless it was the Hawaii/Pacific title's next evolution). Kitamura was the 1980 Rookie of the Year and the current Jr. champion and the future Lioness Asuka. Masami, of course, has a giant butterfly on her white gear despite being a Black Devil. 

More on Kitamura in a moment, but I find Masami fascinating to watch already. I mentioned previously how Hagiwara, a former actress, was incredible emotive in her selling. She was, but I’d say that she was conventionally emotive. Very good in all the ways one would look for and expect. Masami is emotive as well, but in unconventional ways. Her performances reach out and grasp you; they surprise you and draw you in. I had expected that when she was on offense, because she’s known for projecting a sort of malevolent glee; I’d go a step further and say that it’s almost languid at times, casual, as if she’s having a special conversation with the referee as she’s tearing apart her opponent. It’s true when she’s taking offense too though, the way her face seems to contort in both agony and near-disbelief that this is somehow happening to her. 

My big take on our first look at Kitamura was that she was very competent. She wrestled in a straightforward manner with lightning sharp focus. She won the early exchanges. Masami was able to turn things around using the ropes into a rowboat type move, but even then, Kitamura dragged her back to the mat. Mid-match she took over once again, now using dirty tactics, but Kitamura withstood them and was able to bring things back to even. It was only after things took a tumble to the outside and Masami started using foreign objects that she took over for good and was able to quickly drop her and get a, I would say, heavily contested win. It’s one thing to do these shoot pins and have wrestlers force one another’s shoulders to the mat, but we’ve seen a couple of matches now where they clearly were unable to keep them down, or even come close to keeping them down and the count continued anyway. It all feels very weird to me. Overall, this had a different feel to me as Kitamura brought something different to the table, maybe something a bit more straightforward while still being formidable nonetheless. 

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: Chigusa! Masami!

Disc 2 

5. Chigusa Nagayo vs. Devil Masami 1/81

Chigusa Nagayo debuted on 8/8/80 against Yukari Omori but this is her first televised match and the commentators talk about it being her ‘debut’. She’s announced as a member of Red Phoenix. This is obviously included for the historical significance, at the time it probably just looked like a random squash. 

The intention of this match is more giving Devil Masami a little babyface to squash and it’s effective at doing that job. She doesn’t just win easily but visibly takes delight in tormenting an opponent clearly incapable of putting up a fight against her. She pulls at Chigusa's hair when there wasn't any need to do that except inflict a bit more pain and humiliation. About halfway through this short bout she has Nagayo face first on the mat and is standing on her like she’s riding a surfboard, pressing her feet into her torso. Nagayo stretches out an arm to try and reach the ropes and then Masami switches to standing on her wrist to block it. Nice little moment that conveys the futility of trying to struggle against Masami here.

I thought the most notable thing from Chigusa’s side is that her first offense, well not including an Irish Whip, was kicks. First a standard fare dropkick that most of her contemporaries did. But she follows that up with her leg lariat that she’d do her entire career and then a more straight martial arts style kick, we haven’t seen much of that style of wrestling at all up to now. The commentators then start talking about her karate background. It’s interesting as it shows that Chigusa had the karate ‘gimmick’ from the start and it wasn’t just a Crush Gals thing, but I’m looking ahead a bit here. 

They finish off with Masami getting the win by submission with torture rack, which is called a backbreaker here. Also the first time we’ve seen a submission win in a while but it was a bit more common in these kind of matches than in the main events. What gave her win a bit of extra spice though was she celebrated by raising her hand in the air while trodding on Chigusa keeping her face down to the mat under her boot. Mean.

**1/4

MD: Chigusa’s TV debut. It does not go well for her. This is the first match where I really, truly felt Devil Masami’s expressiveness. Maybe it’s because it was less chaotic than tags or maybe because she really got to lean on Nagayo, but there’s no one who expresses sadistic glee in punishing an opponent quite like her and that, more than anything else, was on display here. 

She gave Chigusa little moments. She went over the top early on a whip so that Chigusa could hit a dropkick as she got back in. She ended up in a crab. But then, of course, she just powered out. Most of Chigusa’s shine and hope was just in surviving, in bridging up out of a pin, in kicking up her feet to swipe at Masami to get back into the fight. Her biggest moment was ducking a shot to lock in an abdominal stretch and when that wasn’t going to work, turning it right into a slick roll up. Then, of course, she paid for it. 

At one point, Masami brought her over to the announce desk and the sound got distorted multiple times as she slammed her head into it. And she stretched her all over the place, including finishing her off with a brutal torture rack. While Chigusa had some fire and fight to her, there was nothing here that necessarily showed her to be the star that she would become. It was a great showcase for Masami though.

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: Jackie! Masami!

Disc 1 

15. Devil Masami vs. Jackie Sato - 11/27/80 

Our first look at Devil Masami after she got her more famous name. I think the name change happened at the 8/8/80, as that's when they reset a lot of things, but I'm not sure. I'm inevitably going to focus on her in this write up as this is the first match in her career where she feels like a great wrestler in the making, as well as this being a kayfabe uplift in how she's going toe-to-toe with the company Ace despite being a junior and #3 in her own stable. She's already the new top heel in waiting.

It's not easy to break this up into sections because the match doesn't flow like that. The bulk of it is just matwork that progresses from one predicament to the next, it's impressive how seamlessly they put everything together without there being much in the way of big moments or turning points. The big takeway from this in more context is that you'd expect Jackie to be more dominant, but she's only really taking about 60% of the match and even then never really gets Masami looking like she's in serious trouble. For example there is a headscissors where Masami tries to counter by doing a forward roll out of it, but when she has her feet in the air Jackie counters it by spiking her in almost a "already on the floor" piledriver. But then Masami attempts a similar escape with more urgency and gets out. 

If anything it looked like Jackie was in more danger at times. The moment that most comes to mind is her selling of her knee by limping slightly on it after Masami  had gone for it with some holds before Jackie made it to the ropes to break. In a relatively minimalist match her doing something like that stands out a bit more. Devil is more heelish, she's targetting an injury and she does stuff like squeezing Jackie's flesh to add a bit more pain that doesn't look strictly legal, but despite all that she does come across like she's just outwrestling Jackie at some points. There's barely any 'cheating' to speak of. 

The biggest moment of the match feels like when Devil goes for a headbutt, but Jackie ducks it and turns it into an abdominal stretch for a nice little pop. She really pulls on it hard. Devil is able to throw her off, but it's to little avail as Jackie is back up soon and hits her with slingblades, vertical-suplex backbreaker, her big signature offense. All this forces Devil to retreat to the outsie and take advantage of the 20 count. When she gets back in there's a higher level of intensity to everything and the crowd seem to be getting behind Jackie a lot harder even though she's losing now. Or at least Devil is on offense for almost the entire time, and Jackie's few hopespots don't go very far. 

That is, until her very last one, which is the most ferocious and has Devil on the backfoot. She's only able to counter by using Jackie's momentum against her to toss her over the top rope, where Jackie lands awkwardly and is apparently 'injured', forcing the referee to award the match to Devil for an upset win. Slightly flukey win but a big win all the same.

***3/4

NB: I hope you liked ending the first volume with the AJW TV closing credits. If you were paying close attention, you might have noticed Jackie being helped to the back by someone in a red shirt with 'C. Nagayo' on the back. You'll be seeing a lot more of her later.

MD: Just a singles match while the tournament is going on. They go through Masami’s history as a wrestler and then talk about how she’s releasing an album on commentary. She is Devil Masami now by the way though I think her graphic says she’s formally Tenjin, and she is the #3 of the black/devil army. Mami is on the outside with a devils jacket with her name on it, so that is established now. 

I enjoyed this. Jackie leaned hard into hierarchical control to start, really flexing as the ace, doing one tricked out takeover after the next on Masami, who struggled from underneath. It opened up midway as Masami targeted a very taped up knee, and she did a lot of punishment with leglocks. From there, it would go like this. They’d build to a very spirited Jackie comeback. Masami would take a powder and then use her strength to take back over. She’d punish Jackie for a bit and Jackie would come back again. They’d go away from the knee until the finish which was fluke-y in that world of sport way as Jackie tumbled to the floor and couldn’t continue due to the knee.

What stood out the most was the intensity however. Jackie was throwing herself into everything she did and her selling was incredibly emotive, working towards the last row in the best way. There’s one comeback where she turns things around into a cobra twist before hitting big moves off the ropes and a belly to back and she looks like the best wrestler in the world over the span of that minute or so, just absolutely electric. And Masami rose to meet her, vicious and decisive in her offense. As devastating as Masami doing a seated/lifting surfboard (for instance) was, I would have rather they go back to the knee once or twice to set up the finish, but this felt like a huge elevation for Masami and one that seemed to be deserved.

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: Jackie! Nancy! Rimi! Romero! Ripper! Masami!

Disc 1 

10. Chabela Romero, Monster Ripper & Tenjin Masami vs. Jackie Sato, Nancy Kumi & Rimi Yokota - 5/80

One of my rules for making this set is I tried to get at least 1 trios match for each year. I'd be surprised if anyone picked one of them as their favourite match (though I've been surprised before), they're more used to build towards a blowoff/give the top stars something to do in between rather than trying to be a great match. But capturing the overall vibe of 80s Joshi was one of my aims, so these matches need to get featured.

It was also common for a trios match to be 2/3 falls if it was the main event of that TV taping. 
So this is mostly about Team Jackie vs. Team Monster. They're building to another title match between these two on 8/8/80, which we won't cover because unfortunately the footage is missing. It's probably because of that their interactions are going to be limited. We do get quite a lot of Masami and Yokota though, who even without the benefit of hindsight I think look like the most promising junior babyface and heel prospects on the roster.

When we do get Jackie vs. Monster in the ring together, Monster is pretty decisively dominant and Masami behaves like a nasty pest on the outside getting her shots in. She makes the mistake of getting in the ring to try fight Jackie instead, and gets hit with a really forceful Irish Whip into a strike. I wish more wrestlers would do Irish Whips with the commitment and conviction Jackie does here. There's also a great little moment where Monster is on the apron facing the crowd yelling at them, which annoys Jackie enough that she comes over and just shoves Monster off the apron to the floor. I found it funny how nonchalant Jackie was about it. 

I also liked the sense of camaraderie from the babyfaces here. Like, Yokota is too small to really put up a fight against Monster on her own, but she's skilled enough to confuse and distract her while Nancy Kumi gets into to hit a dropkick or something. Masami on the other hand, tries to make up for her obviously (in kayfabe) deficiencies as a wrestler but just being crazy and bringing chairs into the ring (only to fail most of the time).

To start off the 3rd fall, we got a fun spot I still see used today. The heels attempt an ambush, but it backfires when they all get trapped in the corner by Jackie & Nancy while Yokota hits them with two consecutive dropkicks. Heel team looking a bit silly again. There isn't much more of this, soon after Jackie Sato hits her awesome vertical suplex into a backbreaker move on Masami for the win.

I guess the other thing I should comment is that Chabela Romero was extremely forgettable in this, ha. Wasn’t bad or anything but felt like a servicable passenger in a good match.

***1/4

MD: I’m always fascinated by where the flowers come from. It’s really only with Japanese wrestling and it’s best when you get a wrestler that interacts with them somehow, like Hansen. We are informed they’re from the Yamanouchi Line Tourism Association, so that’s good to know, right? No? Probably not. You will be glad to know however that Monster Ripper DOES chuck them into the crowd after the kid gives them to her. What a champ. Only other thing of note pre-match is that Yokota has a superhero type eyemask that she takes off on being announced.

This was 2-out-of-3 falls with fairly short falls. They kept it moving. Nancy started. I feel like we haven’t seen as much as others, but she looked good here. Yokota was far smaller than everyone else in the match in a way that was impossible to miss. She came in and got swept under almost immediately, but took all the offense (especially Ripper’s) extremely well. They cycled Jackie in eventually and things were obviously heated throughout between her and Ripper. There was a moment where she reversed a whip where the whole world seemed to change for everyone in that crowd. Just an ace being an ace. 

When they cycled back through again and it came time for Yokota to get press slammed by Ripper once more, she actually managed to land on her feet, which set things up for the babyfaces taking the first fall. Ripper was pretty much able to singlehandedly equalize things though especially once things spilled out to the floor. She had a great torture rack samoan drop that I hadn’t seen her use much before this. Third fall started with everyone holding Ripper in the corner as Yokota pinballed off of her with dropkicks in a nice visual. The heels worked together to have Ripper come off the turnbuckles at people right until that backfired. From there the faces didn’t look back with Jackie winning it with a suplex into a backbreaker which is another new one as best as I can tell. 

This had clear momentum shifts and accomplished a lot in fifteen minutes or so. Everyone felt like they belonged, including Masami who was sufficiently malicious and Romero who had big powerful looking offense. And it kept things moving towards an eventual Ripper vs Jackie rematch. 

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