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

Volume 4   

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***3/4

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

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

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

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

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: 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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