70s Joshi on Wednesday: Tomi! Ikeshita!

66. 1979.10.17 - 01 Tomi Aoyama vs. Yumi Ikeshita

MD: Commentary gave me a bit on this one. First, They say Tomi has the Hawaiian Pacific title and I have no idea when or how that happened (or even what that is). Second, they say this is for 3rd/4th place in the league and count Ikeshita on the US side actually. The finals between Vicki Williams and Jackie would come later. It does give you some sense of hierarchy, both in Tomi being second behind Jackie (we more or less knew that) and Yumi being above Mami though it might have been a wash really. Third, Yumi has a cool new jacket with tassels on one arm which kind of matches Mami’s cutoff jacket in its own way. Important stuff here. 

K: This is a big match on paper, but unfortunately it’s 16 minutes (if I heard the timekeeper right) cut down to 5 for TV, so I can’t meaningfully assess it. It didn’t feel like they were putting in any special effort even in the short amount we saw, that it was ending in a double countout anyway usually puts a cap on these matches. Yumi Ikeshita goes through her hide the weapon routine but in a kinda going through the motions way. I wasn’t even sure what weapon she was hiding she was doing it a little too well. Then things spill out to the outside, with Ikeshita actually being the one to go for a big dive to the outside but pays the price when she misses, then Tomi gets a more impressive looking one over the ropes (with hands) before they’re counted out. Looked like it might have been part of an exciting last few minutes, but what else can you say when you know you didn’t see most of it.

No rating.  

MD: Clipping is definitely unfortunate here. You’d almost buy that this was one coherent piece but you didn’t get any of Tomi comeback attempts and obviously less of Ikeshita grinding down on her. Tomi came in hot but got headbutted to oblivion and beat around the ring. The second act was all Ikeshita hiding an object in four different pieces of her gear. Then the last act was everything going crazy on the outside with Kumano interfering. This had Ikeshita miss a nasty kneedrop from the apron to the very hard floor and Tomi hitting her angel dive to (I think) the interfering Kumano before both of them got counted out as Ikeshita wouldn’t let Tomi get back in. Ikeshita had a nasty bruise on her leg on the finish. Bet this was pretty good overall but we’ll never know. It is a great snapshot look at just how versatile Ikeshita was as a heel though.