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.
 

Read more!

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.

Read more!

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.
 

Read more!

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.

Read more!

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. 

Read more!