ohtani's jacket

Y'know, the reason for Yumi Ikeshita retiring (maybe kayfabed) was that she was getting married. I remember a Japanese poster saying at the time he or she couldn't believe anyone could love such a woman. So, I definitely believe that some fans bought into the morality of it all. As I mentioned before, Dump's parents were harassed, so the odd person bought into it a little too much. Not everybody hated Dump though. Some people thought Dump and Bull were cool. They had fanclubs. IIRC, Hokuto helped organise the Bull fanclub and they ran an ad in the Women's Gong. And Dump was popular leading into her retirement, which drew a big number. At the height of the feud, however, Dump was a heat machine.

Shiro Abe is the ref you're talking about. He was a heel ref, although, as I recall, Dump used to beat him up regardless. There was a period in AJW where every match ended with either the faces or heels taking their frustrations out on the ref. In the early 80s, titles could change hands on a count out and there wasn't much regard for DQs.

MATCHES Lucy Kayama vs. Mami Kumano Sato/Kumi vs. Ikeshita/Leilani Kai Monster Ripper vs. Jackie Sato (WWWA title, 9/13/79) Monster Ripper vs. Jackie Sato (WWWA title, 3/15/80) Sato/Aoyama vs. Black Pair (1979) Lucy Kayama vs. Tomi Aoyama (All Pacific Title, 1979) -- The first two matches are from the same outdoor show as the Devil/Jaguar rematch. Mami/Lucy is a clipped draw. No improvement over their previous match. Mami was a poor offensive wrestler, actually she barely had any offence at all. Kayama looks to be struggling with the heat and messes up a lot. You can skip the tag, too. The highlight is Ikeshita doing an awesome adlib after slipping. -- The WWWA title matches are heavily clipped. Jackie's selling is awesome in the first match (off some pretty simple heel work; Ripper's voice is cringe worthy.) The finishing stretch is pretty typical of this era... Sato goes on an offensive tear & wins with a screwy finish. Some pretty good cat and mouse stuff, though. Sato works a knee injury & her transition back onto offence was really clever, I thought. They didn't do offensive switches well back then, so that was impressive. Ikeshita really messes Sato up in the second match. The schoolgirls lose it. -- The last two matches are really good. The tag match is pretty much definitive Black Pair. There were still large numbers of schoolgirls going to the shows in '79, so Ikeshita cheats far more than in the 1980 stuff. I liked the handheld camera work in this match. They got in real tight. Aoyama vs. Kayama is a good little partner vs. partner title shot. One of those matches were Kayama looks really good. It's a shame she didn't get a run with the White Belt because offensively she was one of the more interesting and dynamic workers AJW had at the time. Not only that but she could sell.

The young boys scrubbing Baba's ass isn't as bad as it sounds. Japanese people love going to the hot springs. They take the hot springs naked and members of the same sex -- be it friends, family or even co-workers -- have seen each other naked many times. Before getting into the hot spring, they wash themselves and among Baba's generation it wasn't uncommon to get a trainee to wash their senior amongst all of the other menial shit they had to do. It's not like Baba's taking some young boy out back to feel up his balls.

Does this mean we'll get another big money match between Vulcan (Australian Gladiators) and the Wolf Man (UK Gladiators)?

So, I decided to go back and watch more 1991 All Japan, since, IMO, '91 > 93-94. This time I concentrated on the Gordy & Williams vs. Misawa & Kawada feud, including two very good singles matches (Misawa vs. Gordy and Kawada vs. Williams), MVC vs. Misawa/Kobashi and the two Gordy/Williams vs. Misawa/Kawada tag matches. I gotta say I prefer the old heavyweight style more. It's slower, but Gordy and Williams actually get to play heels and there's -- gasp -- matwork. I read a quote from Baba saying one of the reasons they moved in a new direction was the lack of great American wrestlers coming to Japan (i.e. no touring NWA champion and no AWA), but like the Matsunagas, who thought there couldn't be idols anymore, the new All Japan style was unsustainable really. Japanese professional wrestling shot itself in the foot in many respects in the 90s, stylistic changes being one of them, if you ask me. Anyway, this stuff smokes the big, dopey Williams & Ace tag matches I've been watching.

Lots of good stuff in MXNT41's latest uploads. Kayama/Aoyama vs. Ikeshita/Kumano Chino Sato vs. Ayumi Hori Mimi/Aoyama vs. Ikeshita/Noriko Kawakami Lucy Kayama vs. Mami Kumano Sato/Kumi/Yokota vs. Monster Ripper/Masami/Romero Rimi Yokota vs. Tenjin Masami (AJW Jr. title) -- The first match is great stuff. Aoyama is returning from injury and has her knee bandaged up. She's tagging with her old partner and one half of the current WWWA tag team champions, Kayama. The first fall is a sprint, with Ikeshita showing how awesome she is at mixing it up in any style. The second fall is where it gets awesome, with the Black Pair deciding to do a number on Aoyama's knee & boy do they do a number. There's all kinds of mayhem with the ring girls trying to intervene. Needless to say, plenty of girls in red tracksuits go flying. The Black Pair never let up & this is super drama. Ikeshita's afro was unruly. -- Chino Sato has her back bandaged in the match against Hori. Might be an indication as to why she retired. As far as a push goes, seems like she was going nowhere. -- The TV commentator says this is Hagiwara's first television appearance in a while & her back is also bandaged. In her case, she had a problem with her tailbone, and *I believe* she actually had a piece of bone floating around inside. Noriko Kawakami is one of those girls who lasted all of one year. -- Kayama vs. Kumano is OK. Kumano works singles like she does tag matches, so it's mostly Kayama fighting against Kumano & her foreign object. Kayama had a surprisingly big moveset, & although it's not used in a sophisticated way, she keeps busting out moves you don't expect to see in 1980. -- The Six-Woman tag is AJW's version of trios. It's pretty cool except for the fact that Nancy and Jackie are once again in no mood to give anything to the heels. Monster Ripper had won the WWWA title back at this point, but you wouldn't know it unless I told you. -- Finally, it's Jaguar vs. Devil, the rematch. This is more of a straight-up wrestling match and it rules. So much great wrestling from Yokota, with Devil continuing to emerge as the heir to Black Pair. This is from July or thereabouts. A lot of the girls' fortunes have waned so far, but these girls keep growing in confidence.

To be honest, these days I'd be more interested in something like "The Best UK Workers" or the "Best Wrestlers to Work Memphis." Greatest Matches or Greatest Wrestlers polls are predictable, even the revistations. EDIT: Maybe once the Watts thing gets underway at DVDVR, you'll be more interested in wrestling.

Misawa/Kobashi/Kikuchi vs Taue/Fuchi/Ogawa, 7/21/92 Eh, throwaway match. Misawa's injury was a major disruption. Misawa vs Kawada, 10/21/92 I don't think it's fair to judge this match on anything that came before it or anything they did afterwards. It was a particular moment in time when they were trying something new. The first half is like a traditional heavyweight match, which is more or less a feeling out period. The last third or so is where they start kicking out of each other's finishers. The first part is either a slow rhythm builder or meaningless, depending on how you feel about this sort of thing. In a sense it's time killing, but Misawa and Kawada knew as well as anyone that a match has to build to a climax. The opening minutes aren't a great hook, but it builds from there and does so naturally. There wasn't a lot of depth & no amazing story, it was just a match. But it was a match the fans wanted to see, and they wrestled to the best of their ability in October, 1992. The stretch run was just an idea at this point, and like any idea they needed to sketch it out. No, we weren't in Norman Mailer territory here (i.e. his account of Rumble in the Jungle), but it was well paced. All in all, a hell of a lot more positive than most of the All Japan from '92.

MORE 1980 AJW Courtesy of MXNT41 Mimi Hagiwara vs. Chino Sato Rimi Yokota/Ayumi Hori vs. Yumi Ikeshita/Wendi Richter Rimi Yokota vs. Tenjin Masami (AJW Jr. title) Nancy Kumi vs. Monster Ripper Jackie Sato vs. Chabela Romero -- Mimi vs. Chino Sato is OK. Looks like a clipped 30 minute draw. Mimi keeps trying to turn it into a boxing match with her tiny fists of fury. Actually, those tiny fists can pack a punch in Japan, but you gotta hand one first. -- The tag is just a clip, no finish, which is a shame since I wanted to see more Yokota vs. Ikeshita and Richter was one of the better American girls back then. -- The AJW Jr title match was really impressive from the point of view that it a juniors match laid out like a main event. Yokota was The Woman in waiting at this point, and it was interesting to see Jackie mentoring her at the beginning. A few months later and they'd be beating the crap out of each other. Devil was still "Tenjin" Masami here, but it was surfacing... beginning with some awesome outside interference from The Black Pair & continuing with Masami working over Yokota's face... Rimi was on point with everything -- timing, selling, execution -- all the traits that would become synonymnous with her work. Devil & Jaguar would work this match again at WWWA level, before Jaguar perfected it against La Galactica. On one hand that shows how ingrained working styles & match structure were in these girls, but it was still impressive to see them pull it off as juniors. -- Singh was in better ring shape here, even if it cost her some of that "Monster" aura. Nancy may have been hysterical & a bitch, but she was a pretty good worker I've decided. AJW sure loved count outs back then. Still, I always liked that spot where one girl is holding onto the other girl's legs. -- Jackie was a wrestling machine in 1980. Unfortunately that meant she barely gave Romero anything, which sucks because Romero was the type of big girl who knew how to use her size.

Selected matches from All Japan. Jumbo/Taue/Fuchi vs Misawa/Kawada/Kobashi, 1/24/92 Eh, there were early signs here of a move away from heel work, injury angles & face in peril stuff. Kinda makes me wanna jump off the early 90s bandwagon, but I guess this feud was running out of steam. There's only so many times you can rough up a young guy before he needs to show something... That he can not only work through it, but prevent it from happening in the first place. There were a few opportunities for sustained heat here, but it felt like the young guys wanted more of an even keel. Jumbo/Taue vs Kobashi/Kikuchi, 1/26/92 OK, but the intensity wasn't there. Kobashi & Kikuchi's double teaming is really annoying. Kawada vs Taue, 3/31/92 Blah, this is one of those cases where the workers don't know what kind of match they want to work. Jumbo/Taue/Fuchi vs Misawa/Kawada/Kobashi, 5/22/92 A last hurrah? Honestly, there wasn't much life to this feud anymore. There was still a lot of heat, but it wasn't the same shock and surprise as before. Nothing really new about this match, except for Taue's injury angle (which was a shoot & then adlib, if you ask me.) Jumbo/Taue vs Misawa/Kobashi, 6/5/92 Excellent, slow burning tag. This felt like the first "90s" tag match of the era. Jumbo was getting smaller and smaller throughout '92 (both physically & presence wise), but this was a big match performance from him. They managed to blend Jumbo being Jumbo with the kind of big tag build that was pressing. Some kinks, but one of the better matches from '92. Strange year. The work wasn't bad, but there weren't as many epics.

Jumbo vs Kobashi, 5/24/91 Hard to know how good this is... The Sapporo crowd is hot (I guess they didn't get many shows up that way) and what's shown is well laid out. I don't like Kobashi that much (don't like his moveset for a guy that size), but he was perfect in the young wrestler role & the commentating keeps driving that point home. Jumbo/Fuchi/Ogawa vs Misawa/Kawada/Kikuchi, 7/26 Eh, this is an example of them working a 6-man without any story or major booking point. The work is good, but the intensity is several notches below the best 6-mans. The finishing stretch was excellent, as usual. Jumbo/Taue vs Misawa/Kawada, 11/29 Great match. Actually, this might be the most exciting match of the year. This is a match-up I've really come to love, which is strange, because as a tag team I think Misawa and Kawada had very little rapport. Nevertheless, this was great. It was almost like a coda for the entire year -- a year in which these guys really tried to physically hurt each other. The result didn't really matter to me because the intensity never dropped off. As popular a heel as Jumbo was, this was one of those matches where he was just out-and-out pissed & Misawa came into this match with a target on this forehead (or under his eye(s) as the case may be.) On a side note, I thought Taue was brilliant in his secondary role in this match. Dunno what the elbow pad was there for, but the legitmacy of Taue the worker continues.

1991 All Japan Kawada vs Taue, 1/15/91 Such an awesome match. It's like a throwback to 80s brawling, but with cool new spots. Courtesy of Taue. Taue in the early 90s was more visibly "on" or "off" than most wrestlers, but "not so good" workers simply don't have matches like this. Taue owned this match. Hell, that was the story of the match, which made the finish beyond awesome. And that cheap shot at the end was such class. Tenryu would've been proud of that. Jumbo/Taue/Fuchi vs Misawa/Kawada/Kikuchi, 1/27/91 In the grand scheme of All Japan 6-man tags, I guess this is just another good one, but rewatching this stuff I keep finding that the 6-man tags are the best way (for me) to enjoy All Japan. The multiple story threads & shifting dynamics are more engaging than the single match structure. I liked how this shifted from Kawada vs. Taue into Jumbo getting all pissy with Kawada, to the point where he's even shoving Fuchi out of the way. Jumbo/Taue/Fuchi vs Misawa/Kawada/Kobashi, 4/20/91 The type of match that makes me wish I went to shows back in the day, though if this really went past midnight (as the analogy goes), I'd miss the train & that'd be a bitch... I was impressed that they kept up this pace for 50 minutes without running out of ideas. It was held together by two story threads -- the first was Kawada vs. Taue, the second was a reprise of the 10/90 match where Kobashi had his nose broken. The latter came just in time for people like me who have a hard time sitting through long matches. Fuchi was such a prick in this. I gotta say, though, that was dumb of Jumbo to go after Kawada on the outside when his man was in a pinning predicament. Misawa/Kawada vs Jumbo/Taue, 9/4/91 Cool match. It seemed like they were putting a different spin on the 12/90 match, where Jumbo was laid out on the floor. At first I thought Misawa made his comeback too soon, but they beat him down & it was all good. The finish came out of nowhere, similar to Misawa's original victory over Misawa, so either Misawa wasn't good at working to a finish or they wanted to play it that way. The captions at the end are cheesy. I don't know if they're direct quotes or not, but you're not missing out on anything. Jumbo/Fuchi/Taue vs Misawa/Kawada/Kikuchi, 10/15/91 I thought this was the most exciting match of the year. Maybe I'm partial to a big story match, but I really felt like everything came to a head in this match. I mean there was so much shit boiling over in '91, and this was the match where it all got nasty. Interesting that Taue was the calmest guy in the ring, despite the fact he was being a real asshole. Jumbo vs Kawada, 10/24/91 A good match, but it felt a bit stark to me. It didn't have a big arc -- Kawada basically tried to wear Jumbo down, until Jumbo shrugged it off and killed Kawada, reaffirming what we already knew, that Jumbo was still _The Man._ To be honest, I thought their exchanges in the 6-man tags were more exciting than this, and I'd expect a singles match to escalate that, not fall into predictable patterns.

I didn't know about this. Downloads please.

Today's offering from Mr. MXNT41: AJW 2/5/80, Osaka Jackie Sato vs. Yvonne Jennings (WWWA title) Yumi Ikeshita/Mami Kumano vs. Nancy Kumi/Lucy Kayama (WWWA tag titles) -- Sato/Jennings is WAY better than I thought it would be. It's a short match, but they kept it really tight & I like the work they did in close quarters. Jennings does a sweet dropkick & their punching was really cool. -- The pre-match interview where Jennings says her breasts are her favourite thing about her body & the interviewer wonders whether they get in the way is so Japanese. I dug it as a heel promo, though. Gotta love the look on Jennings' face throughout and the interviewer's "Hello" is classic. If you're wondering about Mimi's English, she went to an international school & studied abroad in Switzerland. She spoke several languages & had a bit part in Robert Aldrich's final film All the Marbles/The California Dolls in 1980. -- The tag match is really cool. The Black Pair were such great rudo workers & Kayama is the perfect girl to take a beating, even if her strikes kinda suck. Earlier I said Kayama was cast aside in favour of Aoyama, but she had this run with Nancy Kumi & she was in the All Japan title picture, so they were still using her. -- Nancy Kumi, on the other hand, was struggling to stay relevant at this point. She'd gotten an idol push in the Beauty Pair era, had a bunch of singles, a record, TV drama appearances, everything that entailed, but after the end of the "Pair This, Pair That" era, the young girls regarded her as an oba-san (old Japanese woman) & Dump Matsumoto accused her of being hysterical in her autobiography. There's a really weird story from Dump's book about Nancy forcing Dump to crawl around on all fours like a turtle. -- Still, the pairing of Kumi & Kayama here and the rudos working over the senior's "younger" partner works really well.

In case anyone's wondering, the interview with Aoyama at the beginning of the Ikeshita/Kayama match is about Aoyama's knee injury, which forced the ref to stop her January title match against Jackie Sato. The doctors told her that if she keeps wrestling on her knee, she'll risk not only her career but the possibility of leading a normal life. Even on one leg she wants to fight Sato, but she realises there will be more opportunities in the future (I don't think there ever were), so she vacates the AJW title and the commissioner appoints her March WWWA title shot to Monster Ripper. I forgot to mention that youtube also has one of the Chigusa/Leilani Kai matches that sold me on Chigusa. I think it's the '86 match. Not sure if it's the TV version or from AJW Classics.

Jumbo/Taue vs. Misawa/Kawada, 12/7/90 Enjoyable match, but not as good as the Anniversary show. They tried to work a story of Jumbo being laid out on the floor while Taue got a working over, which is the classic AJPW tag story, but Misawa and Kawada weren't aggressive enough & Taue's selling wasn't the greatest, not that he was given much to work with. The house was rocking at the end, but it didn't have much to do with Taue in Peril. Still, Misawa taking Jumbo out at the end was awesome. I thought Jumbo overplayed it a bit & look like an oyagi (Japanese old man), but it was an awesome spot. Jumbo/Taue/Fuchi vs Misawa/Kawada/Kobashi, 10/19/90 Y'know for a match that's famous for Kobashi getting his nose broken, it really is a short piece of adlib. Nevertheless, that short adlib raised this match from really good to a classic. Timing is the key to these type of matches. Beautiful rhythm and a fantastic match. Taue's sumo ruled. Jumbo vs Misawa, 9/1/90 I never really liked this match. It's one of the biggest matches of the year, and the crowd is hot, but Misawa keeps taking them out of it with aimless, meandering shit. It seems like Misawa had no idea how he was supposed to work this match. Their June match is hardly a perfect piece of wrestling, but it has a more logical build & the characters are more clearly defined.

NEW MATCHES -- Our great friend MXNT41 continues to put up AJW from 1980. Mimi Hagiwara/Chino Sato vs. Tenjin Masami/Hiroko Komine Rimi Yokota/Tomoko Kitamura (Asuka) vs. Wendi Ritcher/Leilani Kai AJW 2/21/80, Nagaoya Tenjin Masami vs. Ayumi Hori Rimi Yokota/Chino Sato vs. Patty Steiger/Hiroko Komine Lucy Kayama vs. Yumi Ikeshita (for the vacant AJW title) Nancy Kumi/Jackie Sato vs. Yvonne Jennings/Mami Kumano Let's see: -- This was an interesting period for AJW from Maki Ueda's retirement in February 1979 to Jaguar winning the Red Belt in February 1981. The Beauty Pair break-up & Ueda's retirement was actually a forced retirement due to injury, so that obviously had an effect on the All Japan booking office. The Matsunagas being younger meant they were a lot better at running the business than in later years, but the Beauty Pair were finished & these were wilderness years. The mood & tone of the promotion are completely different from the "Beauty Sunshine, Beauty Pair" days, and although Jackie was still popular, their efforts to team her with Aoyama (and push Aoyama as the next idol) failed when Tomi retired in August that year. At the same time as their early booking plans to create a new Sato and a new Black Pair were faltering, it seems evident that the seniors (Jackie, Nancy Kumi, Ikeshita, etc.) wanted to push the in-ring work in the direction of serious girl wrestling. Everything goes in cycles, & there's the occasional shot of a Chigusa having the seed planted early. Keeping this in mind, the crowd is more diversified than people might expect. Meltzer used to float the line that men didn't watch women's wrestling in the 80s, but they did. -- From this "serious girl wrestling", the brief Jaguar/Devil/Mimi era emerged... And the fact that Jaguar was never that over with the schoolgirls is probably a result of this (and the fact that Mimi was an idol for men)... At this point, however, nothing was set in stone. What's noticeable is how Jaguar went from strength to strength throughout 1980. Until you see Jaguar in the ring against American girls like Ritcher and Kai, you don't get a sense of how short she really was. She's the same height as Mayumi Ozaki, if you can believe that, but Jaguar in 1980 has to be the fastest I've ever seen a wrestler progress, culminating in the awesome 12/16/80 WWWA title tournament match against Jackie Sato, where it's night and day between the Rimi Yokota of January (in the AJW Jr title match against Chino Sato) and the December Yokota. -- Chino Sato would've played a part in the next era if she hadn't retired, and that may have been a huge break for Mimi Hagiwara, because I can easily conceive of Sato being the girl to beat Ikeshita for the White Belt in '81. As it was, Sato retired on the same show. The first of many retirements in 1981. I guess she was either injured or intended to get married. -- Asuka with big hair is a little strange. Not one of my favourites but she looked like a natural from the start, which is in keeping with the New Wave theme. I was surprised that she sold so much. She learnt some bad habits later on. -- MXNT41 lists Hiroko Komine as the future Tarantula, but Komine only wrestled for a few years & retired around the same time as Hanawa. Tarantula was a girl named Hiroshie Ito, who made her debut in 1980. -- Yumi Ikeshita vs. Lucy Kayama is a really cool match. Simple, but one of the best matches from 1980. Ikeshita was such an awesome worker. Aoyama had to vacant the title due to injury, which is the reason for the drama at the beginning. Perhaps my wife will translate that part later, if we're lucky.

How much people get out of Dump depends on how much they like heat in wrestling, I guess. Dump was a fine actress... From all accounts she's a good natured person & extremely funny, but she played a world class bitch. She joined AJW quite late, trying to help her family buy a house (a working class dream in Japan), and like most girls, she was a fan of Jackie Sato & wanted to be the idolised type. She had her reservations about playing heel, particularly at the height of her run when people hated her guts, but she made it work. She spent her early days in AJW as a driver (despite passing her audition), and general dogsbody (as Mami Kamano's kohai, which basically means she did whatever she was told) & suffered a fair bit of humilation from Nancy Kumi, who didn't like her for some reason. Dump wasn't a particularly good brawler, but there are some matches where the spectacle clicks (the Dump/Bull vs. Chigusa/Lioness, TLTB '85 match comes to mind.) A lot of it was tedious. We tend to think of 80s AJW as a TV product, though, when really it was a houseshow business. I've heard that Devil and Dump used to really go at it in some of the prefectures outside of Kanto (Tokyo), which gave rise to the rumours that the two didn't like each other. Almost everyone considers these matches folklore in AJW regional wrestling, but they're barely highlighted in the TV we have. Dump took Devil's spot & a lot of people felt Devil became insular after that, but as good as Devil was, it's hard to imagine her being as good in Dump's role. The schoolgirls who hated Dump were the same ones crying when she retired. Dump used to whip them into a frenzy and deep down they loved it. That's the reason they tuned in week after week & forced their parents to buy tickets to the shows. In her early matches she was a more mobile and dynamic little big woman. When she slimmed down after '86 and started wearing that badness Samurai get-up, she threw suplexes and was mixing it up on the mat. She sacrificed a lot of what we'd consider "good work" to help fuel a nationwide boom.

BIG MATCH UPDATE -- A guy named MXNT41 on youtube has posted a bunch of stuff from 1980. Some of it might be from '79, since they're still wrestling on the giant sunflower. Monster Ripper vs. Lucy Kayama Nancy Kumi vs. Seiko Hanawa Fujimi/Hagiwara vs. Devi Masami/Cheryl Day Jackie Sato/Aoyama vs. Ikeshita/Kamano (2 falls shown, 3rd fall no finish) Rimi Yokota vs. Ayumi Hori Rimi Yokota vs. Patty Steiger And from the big 1/4/80 New Year's show: Nancy Kumi vs. Rena Blair Rimi Yokota vs. Chino Sato (for the vacant, newly created AJW Jr. title) Jackie Sato vs. Tomi Aoyama (WWWA title) Points of interest: -- Nancy Kumi has more rumours about her than any Japanese wrestler I know of. In terms of how good she was, she was a power wrestler basically, with some good mat skills. What struck me about her match against Hanawa was that it was hold-for-hold the kind of match Devil would later have, which either means she was Devil's senpai (which is highly likely) or this was a standard AJW way of working in a junior (which is also possible.) She had to mix it up a lot more in the Blair match & I thought she did a pretty good job of working a small scale spectacle. -- I dunno if Kayama worked in Mexico, but I'd like to know where she learnt topes and planchas to the outside. -- Victoria Fujimi RULES. Small, compact... She's the original Yumi Ogura. There's a lot of great work with her and Mimi working over Devil's leg. Fujimi is boss. She even does a huracanrana. -- Cheryl Day with the finger jabs. -- I swear Devil Masami has a different hair style in every piece of footage from the 80s. -- The Black Pair rule too. Kumano used to get a lot of heat for looking like a street walker with her hair & make-up & Yumi Ikeshita is the greatest pint-sized heel ever. I've never seen her make a facial expression once. Just cold hard stares from under that perm. Aoyama is pretty good in this as the distraught youngster prevented from tagging in. -- Jaguar and Jumbo had great chemistry together, even as juniors. Really tight match. The Jaguar/Sato match was one of Jaguar's first big singles matches. Sato is a worthy challenger to the AJW Jr. crown and you'd have to say that despite being juniors & losing track of the match at times, it was a fine display of talent. A bunch of their trainers are involved in the commentary, and I'd say they were pleased. The old line of thinking was that Jaguar was the first modern looking worker in All Japan Women's -- not true at all -- but she soaked up wrestling like few rookies ever have. Credit to Sato, though, who wasn't around later on. -- The Jackie/Aoyama match is a long, excellent title bout. Jackie really gave Aoyama this match. It's the best I've seen her look. Not sure if that's tag restrictions, face vs. heel booking or Sato being a great worker, but Aoyama looked like a girl they wanted to push. It's no surprise that she didn't last, however. She was in no way, shape or form made for wrestling. Not as skinny as that.

Harley Saito vs. Takako Inoue, JGP '93, 5/8/93 This is one of the best Joshi matches of the 90s and smokes anything Akira Hokuto did in the 1993 Japan Grand Prix. Here you've got Harley Saito who's best work nobody sees because early JWP was barely recorded & nobody can be fucked watching LLPW, and Takako Inoue, who was the hardest working midcarder in AJW at the time, tearing it up for 30 minutes in a match that shouldn't be anywhere near this good except Saito's a fucking pro & Takako was so game in '93. Beat for beat this is near perfect for 30 mins. I have no idea how they managed this. I guess they just went from one beat to the next, got into a groove & it all flowed together. While I was watching it, I kept thinking some dumb shit was bound to happen, but no... Instinctively, I agreed with every thing they chose to do. Anyway, this is built around some really good themes, the predominant one being a rib injury to Saito. I don't think Takako had any idea how good a worker she could be when her confidence was up. Awesome.

Jumbo/Taue vs. Misawa/Kawada, 9/30/90 Like many people I went through a phase of wanting to get into Misawa vs. Kawada like Norman Mailer got into heavyweight boxing. Now, the older and tireder I become, the more simple I want things to be. That's why Misawa vs. Jumbo is great to kick back to. Jumbo's selling in this match is top shelf. The way he carries himself, the way he fills in the gaps between moves. A lot of wrestlers don't sell well on offence. When Jumbo hits a move, there's always a reaction and it's that beat between moves that paces a match. He's always selling the match -- on the apron, on the floor, when the camera isn't looking... I've seen it described as playing for the front row or playing to the back. Jumbo plays to the house. The camera guy probably sees Jumbo and says, "I need a shot of this" and the director says, "Great, I can cut to Jumbo here." Misawa and Kawada are quite good at this too, but in a more subtle way. Jumbo's theatrical by comparison. It's a good thing too, because if we're being honest Jumbo has some problems with his movement & execution that would be more pronounced if he wasn't so demonstrative while doing moves. Then there's TAUE. Akira Taue is the All Japan wrestler I like most. I don't understand why people think Taue only became a good worker in 1995. He's the same Taue here only less stiff. This is the match where he takes an asskicking from Kawada and Misawa, reopening a cut to the head... He takes his beating like a MAN & his desperation lariats are awesome. Just like his sumo-style tachiais & that tope... I love Taue, so I love Taue offence, but that tope is ridiculously great. So bad. So very, very good. This match has great rhythm and keeps up a nice pace for 40 minutes. The only downer is that it's a draw, and like most draws, loses its shape towards the end.

DUMP MATSUMOTO -- Dump has a rep as a great heel, perhaps the greatest monster heel ever. Some might argue she was the greatest heel full stop. She was certainly one of Joshi's biggest stars ever. Yet, surprisingly, there was almost nothing original about her. Dump's heel act was almost entirely cribbed from The Black Pair, Monster Ripper, Devil Masami & a host of American and Mexican women who came through Japan, most of whom were better workers than Dump & more importantly better brawlers. And while Dump took carnage to new heights, weapon shots, brawling outside the ring & the abuse of referees were all staples of Joshi from the late 70s onwards, perhaps earlier. Even Dumo's Army wasn't an original concept, since Devil had her own Army & heels had always formed allegiences. Probably the most original thing about Dump was her dyed hair and make-up, which, given how impressionable the audience was, can't be underestimated in getting her over. In a sense, Dump was classic AJW heel booking on a much larger scale than ever before, which was fitting given it was the height of the bubble era. But while it's easy to dismiss Dump as booking -- Dump and her cronies were only pushed to give Chigusa and Lioness the type of rivals Beauty Pair had in the earlier Joshi boom -- try imaging someone else in the role. Other girls had the look and even the charisma. What set Dump apart was the intensity. youtube has the second Dump vs. Chigusa hair match from '86. The look on Dump's face while she gets her head shaved is the scariest fucking thing ever. It's like she's staring right through you. The match is an angle basically, but it gives us as good an idea as anything as to why, at the height of her heeldom, a crazed fan tried to break into her parent's home. AJW used to be shown on Sunday evenings during the 80s & apparently the ending to the first Chigusa/Dump hair match was so graphic and so cruel that AJW was taken off the air in many parts of the country. As a result, the postmatch from this match wasn't shown on TV, at least not everywhere. Funnily enough, this was kinda the end for the Dump gimmick. The next era in AJW were the Lioness/Chigusa/Omori years. Dump gradually turned into a babyface leading up to her retirement (which drew a massive TV rating) and shed quite a few pounds. The slicker Dump was a hell of a lot better in the ring to boot. She went into show business after her retirement and was a variety show guest & comedian (along with Omori.) It's a measure of Dump's intensity in the gimmick that Japanese fans still reckon she was a locker room bully & that she had legit heat with Devil Masami. These things may be true & Dump herself released an autobiography where she accused Nancy Kumi of all sorts of shit, but the way she played her gimmick made it all the more believable for the fans.

Mean Gene made that guy put his cigarette out.

Man, Gorilla and Jesse & Gorilla & Heenan would be the last thing I ever criticised in wrestling. The sheer amount of shit they commentated through is staggering. I love Lance Russell and Ken Walton, but Lance would need a whole 'nother carton of cigarettes to get through that shit.