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

Volume 4  

4. Devil Masami & Tarantula vs. Jumbo Hori & Mimi Hagiwara (WWWA Tag Team Titles) - 10/5/82

K: Mimi Hagiwara is gunning to win back the tag titles. She's not very loyal though and has dumped Yukari Omori to tag with Jumbo Hori instead. 

Devil vs. Mimi is definitely the central feud in the promotion now. Their bouts for the tag titles are main-eventing the bigger shows above whatever Jaguar is doing, and have more of a narrative thread to them than the Singles Title scene does. We know what kind of a match this is going to be from the previous encounters, and this time it feels like they just get straight to it. The babyfaces get worn down and isolated with Devil especially showing a cool variety of heel offense. Mimi is there to get beaten down, or at least she does a better job of selling it than Jumbo does. I liked when Devil had Mimi by the hair and was dragging her around the ring, then she passes her hair over to Tarantula so she can have a turn.

Jumbo's role here is a bit unclear. She could be seen as the lesser star to Mimi, or she could be seen as the giant enforcer. But she doesn't come across as either. Mostly she just wrestles like everyone else, but it looks a bit strange sometimes because she's so much bigger.

They're brawling on the outside earlier than usual, and this time it felt like the Devil Army made sure to do most of it in front of the announcer's table, or ever on it.

Devil has this very sinister grin on her face to start up the 2nd fall. She also does a highly impressive military press drop where she actually launches Mimi up a fair distance for her to fall on her face. I know Mimi must be the lightest wrestler on the roster but it's still quite the feat of strength. They escalate on the fighting on the announcer table from last time by this time choking Mimi with a chain right in front of announcer Shiono, who tries to intervene a bit but is shoved away.

Devil totally loses it in the chaos that she gets herself disqualified for using her cane. It all just gets really intense between the 2nd and 3rd fall. Mimi is absolutely furious at the antics Devil Army were able to get away with before they got DQ'd and shouts abuse at the officials. Jumbo beats up the referee and we have an entertaining standoff where it's announced that the match will not be restarted until Devil Masami surrenders her weapon, which she eventually does with a massive strop. They channel all that intensity and anger into the 3rd fall and make it feel a bit more on edge than the previous two. When Tarantula gets a dirty pin to win you feel the room almost explode immediately when Mimi runs in to protest vehemently. Another injustice! Devil Army can't keep getting away with this.

****

MD: I tend to see these matches in a bubble of sorts. I know we’ll start to get more storytelling over time in 84 or pieces we can tie together better at least. I have no idea where this is going but one thing I’ve noticed over time is Mimi getting more and more frustrated at Devil’s antics and what she and her cronies are just able to get away with. Some of the wrestlers will simply take the fight to them, and she will too, but she also goes to the announce table and yells at the commissioner and anyone else even while, sometimes, her partner is getting mangled by a weapon or mob tactics. It’s a little reminiscent of Nancy Kumi getting fed up with the American heel referee in 1979. This is, of course, the big frustration with the style, even more so than limbwork not going anywhere, the idea that the heels can just do whatever. It’s not a rudo/tecnico split where it’s stylistic and the tecnicos are held to a high standard. There’s much more of a sense that the authority figures/referees are afraid of the heels (and I imagine that only gets more defined with Dump’s reign of terror to come). 

Long story short, Mimi gets so frustrated at Masami using a chair/the kendo sword, that she really has it out towards the end of the second fall with the commissioner, and it makes enough of a difference that they call for the DQ for that fall for Devil and Tarantula. At the same time, Hori tosses the ref around. It gave the third fall a completely different feel where it seemed like the babyfaces, given that the heels didn’t dare cheat as much as usual, might actually win it and take back the belts. But then Tarantula hits a couple of rolls into moves (first a dropkick and then a sunset flip) and despite Hori’s legs clearly being on the ropes, the ref counts three. Mimi is beside herself post match and has to be dragged out before she causes a riot. I have no idea where this is going but it was a nice bit of heatseeking to make it seem like the babyfaces would triumph and then finding another way to pull it out from under them. If a company was being carefully booked, you’d lead to a special ref or other sort of stipulation match here to draw the next big house, but I have no idea how they were doing things at this point. 

The match itself was very good. Mimi had an immediate advantage by charging in, but Devil and Tarantula could turn things around at a moment’s notice. Devil might take over just by stopping in the ropes on a Hori whip for instance. They took things outside and from there, Hori and Mimi would have to work from underneath. Pretty cruel stuff with Devil stepping on Mimi’s hand as she reached for the ropes or standing on Jumbo’s hair from the outside. Plenty of choking (including with her shin) on Jumbo. Mimi finally took back over and Hori pressed with her size, but tragically, Mimi missed a cross body off the ropes (Devil ducked) and with a scream went skidding to the floor. She then got slammed onto her pelvis on a table by Devil (it looked brutal). She came back one last time but Devil dropped back with her on a victory roll attempt to end the first fall.

Second fall was brutal with endless headbutts from Tarantula and Devil, a Devil press slam, a killer Tarantula front dropkick. Jumbo caught her off the ropes and then put her on the top to toss her off but Devil came in with the kendo stick and then a chair and that is when Mimi finally had enough to force the commissioner and ref to call for a DQ. That opened things up for the third fall, and it was subsequently exciting, with some really good nearfalls for Jumbo and Mimi. Devil was able to sidestep Jumbo though and floor her with a headbutt. That let Tarantula hit a missile dropkick, roll through into a dropkick, and roll through into a sunset flip for the win. Of course, Jumbo was tied up in the ropes which led to Mimi losing it again. You certainly were feeling the emotion she was putting forward here. Between her offense, her presence, her emoting, and her selling, she comes off as really exceptional in 1982.

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

Volume 4 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***3/4

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

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

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

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

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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: Mimi! Yukari! Martel! Martin!

 Volume 3

3. Judy Martin & Sherri Martel vs. Mimi Hagiwara & Yukari Omori (WWWA Tag Team Titles) 

K: I'll forever associate this match with DEAN. It was one of the last matches he reviewed on the DVDVR board before we lost him and in his classic hyperbolic style he declared it the GREATEST MATCH OF THE 80s. 

Before the match starts Sherri steals the tag belts and runs outside with them, apparently thinking the rules in Japan are that the winner is just whichever team is able to physically take possession of the belts. They both act so insane it makes you feel like anything could happen here, this atmosphere is helped along by them getting in the ring and getting immediately ambushed by Hagiwara and Omori and thrown into the crowd to big applause.

When we finally get something you could definitely call 'wrestling' (no value judgement here) Sherri is targeting Hagiwara's throat dropping her on the ropes, and later when she has Hagiwara grounded she's seemingly biting her in the face. She just comes across as a nutcase, and then Devil Masami gets involved on the outside whacking Mimi with her big cane. I should add for a bit of context from matches not on the set that Devil Masami seems to have given herself a personal quest to make Mimi's life a living hell. This is far from the only time Mimi will be wrestling someone else but Devil keeps getting involved in her matches just to torment her. She's obsessed. It's like she had a premonition that after her wrestling career was done Mimi would become a Christian evangelical preacher (not joking that actually happened).

I really like Mimi's selling here. For example the more hurt she is, the more she wobbles/looks a bit unco-ordinated when she's running off an Irish whip.

This is not a famous match, but if it were to become one, it should be famous for the spot where Sherri and Judy put Mimi's head between the ropes, put the middle rope over the top rope, and then swing back and forth with her head stuck like they're trying to break her neck. I'm watching this thinking "why does nobody steal this?", think about it a bit more and decide "ok, this does look legitimately dangerous" so maybe that's why. Still it looks absolutely awesome, brutal and makes the heels look like psychopaths.

Oh also, sick piledriver by Mimi to take the 1st fall. This alone would have been a really good and memorable match. This is for the tag titles so it's 2/3 falls.

In AJW tradition, the babyfaces are 1 fall up, so the heels go crazier, take things to the outside and try causing carnage. It's so wild it's hard to follow what's going on. At one point Devil Masami is on the outside swinging her cane at people. I think Mimi gets a chair up to the protect herself from the shots meanwhile someone else is being thrown into the seats. For whatever reason Devil is so enraged she comes into the ring swinging her cane around, and the heels FOR THE SECOND TIME now put Mimi's head in the rope trap of death like they're trying to kill her. Things are so damn out of control and someone is gonna die so the referee DISQUALIFIES the heel team, which almost never happens in AJW. 

Not the most important thing I know, but there's a 2/3 falls match which ended 2-0.

Is this the greatest match of the 80s? Well no. That’s a little silly. It’s relatively limited in what it’s trying to achieve, that Martel & Martin are homicidal maniacs and Hagiwara and Omori are such heroes for being willing to fight them. It did most of that. The big flaw is I don’t think Omori really got herself over here, in fact I barely remember her doing anything. Devil Masami probably had a better contribution to this than she did. It was certainly entertaining and not one you’ll forget soon.

***1/2

MD: Hey, I’ve seen this one! DEAN gave it to me during a Secret Santo in 2023. 

Here’s what DEAN said about it when giving it to me:

“This match is fucking INSANE.  It's the fucking DREAM tagteam of Sherri Martel and Judy Martin aligning with total lunatic Devil Masami at ringside trying to murder the hell out of Mimi Hagewara and Yukari Omori in 1982.  GREATEST MATCH OF THE 80s!”

Here’s what I said about it then: 

“The big thing I learned from this however was that Martin and Martel were basically Raging and Ravishing. I'm a big Glamour Girls fan, but Kai and Martin were pretty similar, great bullies, incredibly credible offense, big bumps, great pacing. Martin is basically the most credible Moolah-ism wrestler ever. Sherri on the other hand, is wildly over the top. Her punch to the gut may have been goofy, but she was all antics, all the time, starting from stealing the belts and refusing to give them back to just screaming, fighting with fans, heatseeking like wild. Then Martin would come in and just assert control and leave things for Sherri to cause havoc.

After the whole belt stealing thing, the faces got the early offensive advantage, but then Martin/Martel took most of the rest. Whenever the faces tried to comeback it became an absolute gang scene with everything completely breaking down. Devil would interfere liberally. So that meant whenever comebacks actually did take, they ended up being super violent. Structure here ended up being comebacks and quick cutoffs, and then a real comeback for the first fall victory as they switched up on top rope leaps and then hit a kneeling pile driver. There was more heat again right at the start of the second fall and it all broke down into chaos. Mimi and Omori looked fine but it was hard to get much sense out of them other than getting battered around a few moments of fiery comebacks. Sherri, however, came off as a generational heatseeker; obviously she was as a manager but I think she couldn't flex quite as much in the AWA and WWF as a wrestler maybe? Here she had a lot of freedom to just toss poise completely out the window and go wild.”

Here’s what I think about it now:

What I have now that I didn’t back then is a much better understanding of Hagiwara and a much better sense of the chaos in Black Army matches from 78-81 or so. And honestly, even compared to those, this was pretty wild. Sherri is such a natural. She understood pro wrestling so well, bursting out of the ring with the belt and parading around with it, snatching it away when anyone tries to take it from her. What a natural heatseeker, just perfect in her role.

They controlled most of this, and on Mimi for most of it as well. Lots of choking, both naturally and in the ropes which formed a sieve around her neck. Brutal stuff. Lots of beating them around the ringside area too. Whenever they started to fight back for more than a second, everything would break down into chaos. Omori actually got to flex her strength a bit here on comebacks. Eventually, Mimi finally had enough and unloaded fists and neckbreaker drops on Martin, Omori hit a Vader Bomb and Mimi a nasty looking kneeling pile driver, where you could see Martin’s life flash before her eyes. That was the end of the first fall. Second went quite well for Martin and Sherri until Devil accidentally clocked Sherri with the pole. It still went pretty well for them after that though and eventually everything really broke down and they just choked their opponents in the ropes until the ref called for the DQ. I’d say this was pretty clearly the best showing of any American women so far. Martin hit like a truck and ground things down and Sherri was just as over the top as she’d be ten years later. And at least Omori and Hagiwara survived it to stand tall with their belts in the end.

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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: Mimi! Kai!

Disc 2 

12. Leilani Kai vs. Mimi Hagiwara (All Pacific Title) 8/25/81

K: I'd say Mimi Hagiwara is the earliest Joshi wrestler who was obviously pushed for being conventionally attractive to male fans. Her gimmick was that she an 'idol wrestler', but I'd argue she is not truly a precursor of Idol Wrestling (capitalisation deliberate) as we know it today. It was a gimmick, something to make her stand out. She wasn't working in a company full of idols, she still had to operate under pro-wrestling logic. Especially now that she's being pushed as the company's #2 babyface.

My first thought on the opening is how it's laid out to make Mimi look strong and should be taken seriously. Leilani makes the first attack, but Mimi just starts throwing strikes back in retaliation and doesn't even seem phased by the attempted ambush. She doesn't just win the striking battle though, but she gets to throw in a few impressive take downs as well like her flying headscissors, and counter-wrestles Kai to beat her on the mat. Watching this in kayfabe, you'd have to reach the conclusion that anyone dismissing Mimi's wrestling ability is a fool, but even outside of kayfabe, she hits all of this with pretty good execution. She's not Jaguar Yokota but it's all good enough for me to buy into it.

Kai's comeback is that move where she just throws her opponent chest first into the top rope. I've never liked that move and it's a weak transition here and didn't play off well everything that'd happened before (i.e. Mimi steamrolling her). It barely goes anywhere though, as Mimi's back on offense soon enough, this time looking even more dominant taking things to the outside and throwing Kai into the chairs. And when Kai gets in the ring, Mimi pulls out her boxing skills and pummels her with a flurry of body-shots which I thought Kai sold very well. She looked like the air had been punched out of her.

The finish is a double countout after Mimi apparently got so carried away beating up Leilani on the outside that she forgot about the 20 count. I don't know how else to read it as Kai was hardly stopping her from getting back in the ring. I guess there was a bit of politics involved, even if it is a bit funny to me that it was ok for Kai to look totally dominated by a skinny pretty girl so long as she didn't take a pin. 

***

MD: Well, this was a match. Mimi took about 80% of it over 14 minutes or so, maybe even more. They slugged it out to start and Mimi took over with a great headstand ‘rana/flying headscissors takeover combo and she really never looked back. There were two bits of Kai coming back and she looked pretty credible when she did, but this was not shine/heat/comeback. It was a mauling. First time she missed a splash after maybe two or three chained moves and the second she missed a top rope splash after a (nice) suplex and body slam.

Meanwhile, Hagiwara was a force, inside the ring, outside the ring. Her offense started to loop a bit because she could only do so much to Kai. She hit a bunch of neckbreakers, a couple of suplexes, had an octopus hold, some pinning combos, and so on. Jackie was on commentary and I wouldn’t say Haigwara looked like an ace here, but when she was tossing Kai around the outside without any real opposition she looked like a force. Finish had them roll out on the figure-four and brawl with Mimi just missing the count back in to make this a face-saving draw for Kai. Kind of a weird one, honestly.

13. Mimi Hagiwara Sings Stand Up 1/4/82

K: I’m not going to review the singing performance ha. There is an old DVDVR thread discussing a potential 80s Joshi set where someone comments that each disc must have a song, and they’re right. You’re missing too big an element of the promotion without them. If you watch the original TVs (which were 1 hour or 30 minutes) almost every episode has a song on it. So they actually take up a much smaller proportion of screen-time on the set.

MD: And just like that, we’re in 1982. And Mimi Hagiwara is commanding the room, or the ring, singing Stand Up. I’ve seen Jackie and others sing as part of this and you don’t get quite as much of their in-ring personalities, but I think you do get that more with Hagiwara, but I am not going to go much deeper than that here, sorry.

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: Mimi! Nancy!

Disc 2   

10. Mimi Hagiwara vs. Nancy Kumi 8/81

K: 1981 after Jackie Sato drops the belt is the period of AJW where it's most difficult to date anything precisely. The company is at a relative lowpoint in popularity, and for whatever reason I've struggled to find many sources referencing it so have had to just depend on what's on the footage itself, which for some reason is even more sporadic than 1979 or 1980 was. Hopefully the matches on the set are at least in the correct airing order, but it's hard to give much more context of what's going on. We're just watching a good match here.

Having debuted in 1976, Nancy Kumi is now the most senior wrestler on the roster and the only one left who debuted before the 'classes' system introduced when the company was overwhelmed with applicants inspired by the Beauty Pair boom. This cool and collected veteran role is the best fit for her talents than anything else I've seen her do. She's dominant on the mat, twisting Mimi up (mostly targetting her arm) and coming across like she's clearly just superior in this field and Mimi's going to have to pull something out of left field to get the better of her. 

I never feel like there's much effort to get Mimi over as anything other than a sympathetic babyface. She sells well, a bit melodramatic and screamy sometimes but it never gets too much for me that I find it annoying. She never gets anywhere near the passionate reactions Beauty Pair used to get, but that might be a harsh comparison as she's clearly still over.

There's a cool moment where Mimi attempts a flying crossbody off an Irish whip, but Nancy ducks out of the way with excellent timing (it really looked like Mimi intended to hit that crossbody), and with impressive speed Nancy quickly grabs Mimi off the mat, throws her to outside and dumps her into chairs, for which Mimi does a committed bump and sell. That's how they end Mimi's brief respite, as when she gets back in the Nancy locks in her a figure four, and this gives Mimi and opportunity to sell and scream her head off.

Mimi's second respite comes when she counters Nancy into a rollup. In what feels like more emotion and revenge than a well thought-out gameplan, Mimi immediately throws Nancy out of the ring when she's still a bit dazed from kicking out of the rollup, and tries to throw her into chairs. It doesn't pay off, as Nancy just blocks it and Mimi eats chair once again. In cool fighting babyface energy, Mimi doesn't just let the momentum fall away from here. She keeps fighting and when they're back in the ring, does another counter which leads to her doing a big elevated backdrop from Nancy being up on the ropes. The announcer puts this move over as the 'Mimi Special'. Looks like something Misawa could have used as a secondary finisher.

There's not much time left so they go right into the desperation cover attempts after this trying to sneak out a win. This is probably the best example of that we've seen so far. It's lots of kickouts but nobody hits anything big enough that it makes it feel excessive/cheapening moves. It's a time limit draw. A result which puts Mimi over a little bit.

***1/2

MD: This felt like a pretty strong one overall. Kumi had a strength advantage. Hagiwara had a speed/agility advantage. They met in the middle on technique. What stood out the most were transitions, so essential in a babyface vs babyface match like this, especially one going to a draw. You need those momentum shifts to give it all substance. 

They were even early, with both wrestlers really scrapping. Kumi tried to heft her up into a gorilla press but she got out of it. Maybe Kumi had a slight advantage from the get go but Hagiwara was able to open things up with a front dropkick to the gut and a great headscissors takeover followed by a bridging surfboard. Kumi came back with a kick off the ropes and cemented it with power moves (including two fireman’s carry lawn darts across the ring) and then went in hard on the arm including a short arm scissors. Hagiwara was able to come back off the ropes and started in on the leg. That would pay off later with a revenge figure-four from Kumi but not before Hagiwara missed a body press and Kumi beat her around ringside, tossing her into chairs multiple times.

They went into a hot finishing stretch after the figure-four (and Haigwara getting some revenge on the floor as we’re seeing more symmetry in these matches) with a lot of nearfalls and shooty pin counters, before time ran out. Kumi probably looked a little stronger and might have won it on points but Hagiwara had no quit in her. 

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: Mimi! Ikeshita!

Disc 2 

6. Mimi Hagiwara vs. Yumi Ikeshita (All Pacific Title) 2/25/81

This was a major show, it's hard to know for sure but I'd guess it was the biggest AJW show of 1981. They have some retired stars providing guest commentary. Also on this show was Chino Sato's retirement ceremony and the team of Ayumi Hori & Nancy Kumi defeating Devil Masami & Mami Kumano to win the vacated WWWA Tag Team Titles. It's quite annoying that Yumi Ikeshita has been All Pacific Champion for over a year yet this is the first footage we have of her defending the title. We know she defended it against Mami Kumano on 12/17/80 (at the same venue Jackie Sato won the WWWA Singles Title tournament the day before) and went to a time limit draw with Rimi Yokota on 8/8/80. Both those shows appear to have been broadcast but footage has just never surfaced online. Oh well. 

Mimi starts this swinging. I mean literally, she does almost nothing but throw punches in the opening portion of the match while the commentary puts over her 'boxing style'. That Ikeshita reacts by dodging and throwing some punches of her own makes this feel a lot more sporting than her matches usually do. Makes me suspect we're missing a big part of the picture with her other title defences being missing as the contrast with this and her 'regular' matches reminds me how Stan Hansen would work more technically and slower-paced when wrestling for the Triple Crown.

We later get a long section where they're both repeatedly trying to get the other in a figure four. There's one where it's counted by rolling over, but rather than both lying on the mat they've both got their legs high in the air with their faces to mat, I don't remember ever seeing a figure four end up like that. Mimi rolls out to the outside, takes her time to regain her compromise and very carefully creeps backs into the ring, and goes for a figure four again! Wasn't expecting that to keep going as it felt like Mimi was conveying she was seriously thinking about what tactics she was gonna try next. Yumi gets out of this one, but Mimi turns it into a catapult before she can properly escape and sends her launching out of the ring. I thought Ikeshita bumped really well for that, it's a bit of a silly move but she made it look about as believable as I've ever seen. 

Skip a bit, and they do the thing. Mimi drops Ikeshita flat on the mat, turns so she's standing facing horizontally over Ikeshita's body, and falls onto her flat for a pin attempt, which Ikeshita very quickly bridges out of. A minute later, Ikeshita does the same thing, but I notice Mimi cheats a bit as she already had her shoulder up a split second before the pin connected.
It's one of those matches.

Then almost right after, Mimi does a small package and Ikeshita gets counted for maybe 1 before she gets her shoulder so far off the mat that she's practically on her side, but the referee keeps counting to 3 anyway. Mimi wins, looks as shocked as Shawn Michaels in Montreal and Ikeshita just immediately storms off to the back.

Well it's hard to give much of an assessment to a match which finishes like that. For one thing this felt like it had at least another 5 minutes to go, it had been just about ‘good’ up to this point but nothing they’d established so far had paid off in any meaningful way so the finish kinda killed it. As far as I know no one involved has ever done an interview explaining what went down there, but yeah, obvious bullshit. In 1981 Mimi Hagiwara was drawing and Yumi Ikeshita wasn't, speculate away.

MD: This followed well with the two biggest in-ring changes between the 70s and 80s that I’ve noticed so far. The first is that the babyfaces were better at fighting back and pushing back against the heels. That happened almost immediately here as Mimi started with her punching, got tossed over the top in response, but then pulled Ikeshita out and she beat her around ringside until Ikeshita was able to fight back and outdo her there. 

The second is that there’s more familiarity in general. More reversals, more comeuppance for going back to the well. We saw that here too as Mimi went for her flying cross chop early but Ikeshita was able to sidestep/swat it away and take over from there. Mimi would get it later though. I thought the transitions were good overall and stood out in this match, things like Mimi getting back into the ring and ducking a punch to put on a cobra twist or Ikeshita turning a bodyscissors right into a crab in a very cool reversal. 

What hasn’t changed (and what might never change?) is that no one set them aside and put the idea in their head that if a hold is important in the match or if a body part is focused on, then maybe, just maybe, it can have some long term selling within the narrative of the match. The middle of this match is dominated by battles over the figure four and the battles are absolutely excellent. Ikeshita tries everything to put it on, advancing again and again and working different approaches. Once she gets it, Mimi’s selling and emoting is best in the world stuff for 1980. Then she turns it over and they fight over that, ending in the two of them bridged up from their bellies in an image I’ve never seen before but that I bought to be excruciating in the moment. Ikeshita followed her out after the break and continued to work over the leg on a chair. What followed was Mimi rushing back into the ring and putting a figure-four on herself and it was a great moment but that, and what followed with Ikeshita completely tossed any long-term or even medium-term (or even short-term?) selling out the window. I tend to forgive it in most of these matches because it’s just not a hallmark of the style and I’m seeing this as more of a historical journey than a critical one as we build towards the peak years, but when things are done so well, I really would enjoy it more if there’s consequence and payoff to the excellent work.

What did remain was the struggle between the two down the stretch and what did pay off, at least to a degree, was the sense of struggle: pressing each other’s shoulders down, bridging out of pins, etc. It led to a strange finish where Mimi got a small package out of nowhere but Ikeshita clearly had her shoulder up and Mimi seemed as surprised as anyone that she won. A lot to like in here overall, even if it wasn’t exactly what I wanted and the finish was strange. 

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: Jackie! Mimi! Rimi! Kai! Kumano! Ikeshita!

Disc 2 

3. Jackie Sato, Mimi Hagiwara & Rimi Yokota vs. Leilani Kai, Mami Kumano & Yumi Ikeshita 1/4/81

K: AJW traditionally do a good Korakuen show on or around January 4th where you’re almost guaranteed to get a quality main event even if they’re not almost the most consequential. This match is such a good example of what these shows were going for. Here we have probably the top 3 babyfaces in a company going up against the top 2 heels and one of the currently residing foreigners (who almost always align with heels) in a ⅔ falls match, which the main event tag matches usually were. 

Another note, Rimi Yokota vacated the Junior Title before this show to focus on challenging for the WWWA Singles Title (and I guess, outside of kayfabe, no one at the junior level was ever going to beat her for it). Before this match Tomoko Kitamura (later Lioness Asuka) defeated the obscure Noriko Kawakami to win the vacated title.

The heels are in control for an unusually long time to start off with here, especially since it’s Jackie Sato who they’re dominating first. I thought it was cool how Leilani Kai would have a lot of choking-centred offense, and when Yumi Ikeshita came in, she continued on that theme by switching up her offense to target the throat. For example she just stands on Sato’s neck disdainfully, and a bit later she changes her “plant opponent’s face onto sticking up toes” move so that she plants Jackie’s throat on it instead. When Rimi is able to tag in, there is no hot tag, as she just gets dominated as well. The comeback actually comes from Mimi Hagiwara, whose new gimmick is that she’s taken up boxing training and is now a fearsome striker. It’s a bit ridiculous when you describe it when she has such spaghetti arms, but I think it works at neutering a weakness by insisting in kayfabe actually Mimi is strong and punches really hard. The conviction she puts behind those haymakers and that they actually work in taking down Kai and getting the comeback going after everything else had fails puts her punches over as legit. You can make all kinds of things work in wrestling if you commit to them. They even come back to this in the 2nd fall, when Mimi clenches a fist at Kai and that’s enough to get Kai to back off into her corner.

The 2nd fall has a fantastic final few minutes where Jackie manages to tie up Leilani Kai and Mami Kumano in the ropes and so they can’t help their partner. Then we get ‘Flew Too Close To The Sun’ sequence where Yumi Ikeshita just gets battered with one move after another by Jackie & Rimi making quick tags in and out, before she gets pinned with a very spectacular move where Rimi runs at the corner pad and kinda dropkicks it to spin around into a running splash but with extra oompf. Great stuff.

In the 3rd fall all the tension and violence we’d seen building up in the first 2 just explodes. They’re quickly on the outside brawling and just punching each other hard like rival football hooligans. A chair gets introduced to Yokota’s neck. There is an unfortunate bit after this where Mimi Hagiwara’s in the ring with Leilani Kai and goes for a few poorly executed takedowns which hurt the previously ferocious momentum a bit, but Rimi rushes into to rectify that. We get a more measured cooldown when the heels take over on Mimi and get a measure of revenge when they trap her in the ropes and drop her throat first into it. This lasts just about enough for the crowd to get their energy back because before you know it all hell breaks loose, they’re all running into the ring and brawling and Jackie Sato & Yumi Ikeshita look like they’re damn trying to murder each other choking over out on the floor. The match fall gets thrown out and the match is called a draw.

Great match. Exciting all the way through, we got memorable interactions in a bunch of pairings and Mimi Hagiwara’s boxing deal is getting over (she’d done it before this but this is the first time you’ll see it on this set). They achieved all that without giving anything away, not even a real finish.

****

MD: On the one hand this devolved into chaos and got thrown out. On the other, some of the checkpoints along the way felt almost evolutionary as we move into 1981. Moving into 1981, I am acutely aware that we’re on borrowed time with some of these wrestlers. We’ll lose Kumano and (for the most part) Jackie, of course, by the end of the year. So I guess we appreciate what we have while we have it. 

Kai seems like she’d come along in the year or so since we’ve seen her. Still a lot of choking and Moolah-ism but more presence and confidence. The start was clever as she went to the floor to call out Jackie only to set up a distraction so the Black Pair could nail her from behind. They controlled from there on Jackie then Yokota (whose frame makes her a great FIP) and then Mimi. But apparently Mimi had developed as well because she had gloves on her hands and was now a great puncher apparently. She ducked a Kai shot and laid in a bunch of blows to turn things around. That let them do a big corner spot where Jackie and Mimi held all three of the heels so Yokota could come flying at them repeatedly. Ikeshita took back over with a nasty headbutt though and they dismantled Mimi with missile dropkicks, Ikeshita’s fall away slam, release bombs from Kumano, and then a big suplex by Kai to win the first fall.

Jackie asserted herself right at the start of the second fall, but the heels took back over, including with an Ikeshita seated senton out of nowhere. The babyfaces turned it around with one of the best things I’ve seen out of all of the footage so far. Kai and Kumano came over to menace Jackie on the apron but she and Mimi were able to get their heads tied up in between the ropes, allowing the babyfaces to switch around and completely demolish Ikeshita finishing with Yokota pressing back off the top turnbuckle with a ricocheting splash. The third fall had some spirited stuff on the outside, including a chair getting stuffed down upon Yokota by Kai’s partner (maybe Wendi Richter in overalls?), but it devolved into chaos and got thrown out. This built to some great moments and, like most of the 80s matches was a little more even than the 70s beatdowns so felt more complete. It was a good way to start the year. 

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: Yokota! Mimi!

Disc 1 

11. Mimi Hagiwara vs. Rimi Yokota - 8/80

K: Before I go into the match, I’ll fill in a bit of missing context. Shortly before this match we’re covering was the biggest AJW show of 1980, which was on 8/8/80 at the Denen Coliseum. The claimed attendance was 10,000 fans, almost certainly exaggerated, but it gives you an idea. The main event was Jackie Sato vs. Monster Ripper for the WWWA Singles Title, the semi-main was Rimi Yokota vs. Yumi Ikeshita vs. the All Pacific Title. Because this is early 80s Japan, both matches ended in draws. The WWWA Title match was a double countout/no contest, and the decision was that the belt would be vacated and a tournament held to crown a new champion. The All Pacific Title match was a 60 minute draw, which tells you how much of a push Yokota was already getting that they’d book her in such a match.

Other significant things about that show include Tomi Aoyama’s retirement ceremony (sayonara, we barely knew you), and the opener being Chigusa Nagayo vs. Yukari Omori, both of whom were making their in-ring debuts, and would go on to become very important wrestlers. The company also did a bit of a reset by putting everyone into three factions, Dynamic Jaguars, Red Phoenix and Black Devils. Here is how they’re split:

Dynamite Jaguars = Jackie Sato, Mimi Hagiwara, Rimi Yokota, Yukari Omori, Tomoko Kitamura
Red Phoenix = Nancy Kumi, Lucy Kayama, Chino Sato, Ayumi Hori, Chigusa Nagayo
Black Devils = Yumi Ikeshita, Mami Kumano, Tenjin/Devil Masami, Hiroe Itoe, Kaoru Matsumoto.
Plus a bunch of rookies who we won’t see on this set. This 3 way split of the roster (they travelled separately, the stable names came from the tour buses) would remain for the next few years.

Now to the match:

This opens with Rimi Yokota going all raging bull immediately on Mimi. Beating her to the floor, then kicks her out of the ring, and then chases after her on the outside and throws her into some chairs. She looks like she's barely capable of restraining herself she's got so worked up. Mimi gets herself back into things with a fancy rollup through the ropes, but not much in the way of offense.

That opening was a microcosm of how this whole match plays out. Yokota is a dominating force of nature that Hagiwara can barely hold out against. There's a bit of heeling in there, for example Yokota sneaks in some biting where she can while working on Mimi's leg. She has a very interesting submission hold where she pulls Mimi's knee out between her own legs and just pulls at it, I don't recall seeing that anywhere else except from her.

Mimi has a good performance, although she's mostly just selling and hobbling on her leg. There's one moment where she attempts a rollup, and I'm not sure if this was deliberate or not, but she screws it up and just lies down holding her leg for Yokota to get back at attacking it. It's not like her rollups ever lead to much at anyway. Shortly after we get the closest thing Mimi's got to a comeback when she hits a couple of flying neckbreakers and follows it up with a tiger driver style sideslam, that's really all we get though, as Yokota bridges out of the pin and then one-ups Mimi by hitting a far more impressive version of that same move before getting the win.

This was very one-sided. It established Rimi Yokota as a rising force to be reckoned with, Mimi came across as a sympathetic personality, but she just couldn't hang.

***1/2

MD: Very glad to have the context, though even with it, I'm not 100% sure why the new stablemates are so heated here. But it was heated. Yokota didn't just bite, she bit three different places, the fingers in one of her early holds where she was really wrenching Mimi every which way; the knee! which makes no sense, but it did play into that weird knee submission she did; and then the foot, which got her chastised hard from the ref. I swear she also stepped on the hair and pulled at one point too, and tossed Mimi around by her hair too. 

 We haven't seen a ton of Hagiwara as of late but what I remember of her is that her strong point is her emotive selling and that was absolutely at play here. I'm not sure if her background (acting I think?) but she's excellent at it. She also had hope spots that were almost exclusively roll ups, which was interesting in a Ricky Morton sort of way. I can't say her offense was awe inspiring though, and really, when it came down to it, Yokota just cut through her. You can almost see her moving into the Aoyoma role in the hierarchy maybe?  I guess time will tell (for me at least; it's history for others but mostly new for me). This was a great showcase for her, bolstered by Mimi's selling.

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70s Joshi on Wednesday: Mimi! Victoria! Day! Masami!

45. 1979.08.XX2 - 02 Cheryl Day & Tenjin Masami vs. Mimi Hagiwara & Victoria Fujimi

K: This has a crazy start where Victoria Fujimi just recklessly launches herself through the air only to splat herself on the match. Well that set the scene for a wild match. Strangely though, she tags out for Mimi Hagiwara soon afterwards and then barely does anything for the first half of it, and this is a very long one.

There’s little to criticise about the work in the moment here. Mimi’s selling of strikes stands out as particularly good. But this is just way too long and they aren’t able to structure things out for us to have anything to really dig our teeth into. It feels like they keep backtracking on themselves to pad the length out. For example there’s two separate segments where the match spills out into a brawl on the floor, but the 2nd time they do this it’s played out so similarly it’s also as if they forgot they’d already done this. So you don’t get any feel of progression watching it, they’re just doing stuff. It’s never exactly ‘boring’ but it doesn’t exactly suck you in either.

If anyone felt like the weak link here it was Tenjin Masami. She’d go on to be a far greater wrestler than any of these three, and she does clearly have a good presence about her here. But she just hasn’t really figured out how to wrestle properly yet. You won’t hear this said about a young wrestler very often, but she actually seems like she’s less of an athlete here than she’d become several years down the road. She’s a bit stiff in the way she moves, and she doesn’t seem to have the strength to just launch her opponents. Obviously I’m watching this being familiar with her peak and maybe it’d be better if I didn’t think about things that way, but I can’t really help it.

I liked the finish though. Cheryl covers Mimi after a butterfly suplex and Masami dashes across the ring to cut Victoria off before she can break it up. It felt like the finish to a shorter match though, which this should have been.

*3/4

MD: Long tag match that probably would have benefited from being two-out-of-three falls instead of just the one fall tag it was. It went probably around 24 minutes which is as long as just about any tag we’ve seen I think. It was structured with heel offense early after Fujimi crashed and burned at the start, a long heel-in-peril bit in the middle and then chaos over the final third. You could have inserted falls in between each of those segments and it would have flowed better.

Masami was still just showing us the start of who she’s going to become, but she’s weighty and solid here. She hit hard. Her stuff had heft and force behind it. Day had a lot of throat based offense (even her one foot dropkicks) and she struck a bit more like a surgeon. The two of them together, even as things were breaking down in the end, never portray the same sense of mayhem that the Black Pair do.

Fujimi had come a ways since we first saw her. She even had her own cheering section! I like her hefting gourdbuster that she used down the stretch a lot. The middle section here was the two of them working over the legs and Hagiwara is a natural figure-four user. Masami kept trying to interfere and the ref stopped her which was a little odd since usually the heels get to do whatever they want. The biggest chaos in the match actually took place with Yokota, seconding Mimi and Victoria, zeroing in on Masami and dragging her around the ring to inflict violence upon her. That led to the heels finally coming back though by then it was a 50-50 stretch. Day was able to split Mimi and Victoria apart well enough to pick up the win though. I’d argue that this was probably structured backwards and if it was ⅔ falls then it probably wouldn’t have mattered as much, but since it wasn’t, it did. That’s not to say they didn’t fill the time in an entertaining manner though.

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70s Joshi on Wednesday: Day! Tsumaki! Masami! Mimi! Jaguar! Victoria!

35. 1979.07.XX - 01 Cheryl Day, Masumi Tsumaki & Tenjin Masami vs. Mimi Hagiwara, Rimi Yokota & Victoria Fujimi

K: This one looks a bit different as it’s outdoors, you can see the odd tree peaking up in between the stands. Anyway I’m in very familiar territory from the jump as we get a bit of outside brawling and then Tenjin Masami taking great delight in noisily beating up Mimi Hagiwara. I keep my knowledge of future events on these pieces to a minimum, but seeing how this is the earliest footage we have of Masami, it’s too fitting to leave unmentioned how she was torturing poor Mimi from the start. Sometimes two wrestlers are just made for one another.

We get a really long period of control from the heel team. The execution of everything in the micro was quite good, but the whole thing went on a bit too long without the faces getting any hint of a comeback at all so by the last couple of minutes I was waiting for it to end. A flawed structure can undermine something even if the wrestlers are really doing anything bad in the moment.

Referee Miyuki Yanagi tries to stop the heels cheating but is thwarted when Masumi Tsumaki gets sick of her and just throws her out the way. This actually got a bit of laugh from the crowd, which doesn’t usually happen. They then double down on this bit by doing it a few more times, getting increasingly overtly comedic and more laughs. It’s not clear to me if the wrestlers planned to do that from the start or they just saw the crowd seemed to enjoy that so gave them some more, but it was pretty interesting to me.

Once Yokota gets the comeback spot in and tags out the match becomes a lot more enjoyable. Everyone gets to show their stuff now but the heels aren’t just totally dominated. Mimi’s cute armbar takedown thing (I’ve always been bad with move names…) is certainly aesthetically pleasing here. Tenjin Masami doesn’t look out of place at all, in fact she may be the strongest performer of the heel side in this. She has been wrestling almost a year at this point though, even if it’s the first time we’re seeing her wrestle. She does a really great but simple bodyslam on Yokota towards the end of the match where she’s holds her up in the air just for a couple of seconds after her shout gets your attention, and it just builds a bit of suspense for her hitting the move and makes it feel bigger than if she just did it immediately.

The finish was Rimi Yokota just hitting a frantic flurry of flying offense and then a big butterfly suplex to get the win. I don’t remember her ever hitting a sequence of moves with such urgency before this. What really made it hit home is when she did a flying crossbody onto Masumi Tsumaki from behind rather than wait for her to turn around to take it normally, which made it look a lot more violence and certainly got a reaction from the commentator.

Slow start, turns into a good match and a strong showing from Yokota and Masami at this stage in their careers.

**3/4

MD: Spirited match here with our first look at Tenjin (Devil) Masami. Assuming that she and Tsumaki were the up and coming bad guy bench for AJW, they were in good shape. Again, we get a mismash of heroes with the Young Pair, the Golden Pair, and the ever-adaptable Mimi coming together. Everyone was civil until the bell but then chaos ensued. It seemed like Mimi and co. would turn things around but they got swept under early and spent most of the rest of the match working from underneath with a few big comebacks interspersed.

Day came off as credible with big mares and face rakes. Tsumaki had some very nice neck twists and imposed as you’d want her to (including taking out the ref at least once), but all eyes ended up on Masami. She was pretty formidable already, with a few different choke variations, one of the knee and a nasty hanging tree choke. During one of the comeback bursts, she went rope running with Yokota (including Rimi sneaking around for a slick pin). The comebacks, when they came, were energetic. Lots of big moves (Fujimi’s bodyscissors rana and goardbusters, Mimi’s neckbreakers and gutwrench suplexes, Yokota with big flapjacks). The cutoffs came quick though and the overall story more or less flowed. The finish had Fujimi hitt some butt butts out of nowhere setting things up for Yokota to get the pin on Tsumaki after a dangling butterfly suplex. It’s well worth noting how far the babyface side had come in the last year or two.

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