[1994-01-09-JWP] Devil Masami & Dynamite Kansai & Chigusa Nagayo vs Mayumi Ozaki & Cutie Suzuki & Plum Mariko

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

I really love the dynamic of this match. Kansai teams with legends against Ozaki and young guns. Oz's team takes a pretty big beating to build sympathy, and the stalwart/underdog dynamic is only helped by the size difference between the two sides.

 

It's here that you really see all the things Ozaki does well, as even when she's not in the match, she works the apron like a champ.

 

Devil breaking out the Argentine backbreaker on Cutie, only for Cutie to counter with the octopus, was tremendous. You also don't expect Cutie Suzuki to be so aggressive -- because of her name and look -- but she goes toe-to-toe with Devil and it's pretty fun.

 

Plum Mariko looks excellent here in terms of fluidly executing moves. From a purely mechanics perspective, she is probably the best wrestler in this match, which is no small feat. She's not as spastic or exciting as Toyota, but she reminds me of her athletically.

 

There are times when there is quite a bit going on in this match, yet it doesn't really become a clusterfuck. There is *a lot* of synchronized wrestling, and if that's not your thing, you'll have some problems with this. I think it's fun when it's not set up in a contrived way, and it does feel natural here for the most part.

 

Chig and Ozaki getting in a shouting match on the apron because Oz is a little too close for comfort when trying to cheer for her troubled teammates is lots of fun, especially because it feels like a setup when Oz comes in and immediately takes a big beating. She does eventually rally her team to make a big comeback on Kansai, but they have trouble sustaining any momentum.

 

Plum catching Chigusa out of nowhere in some really weird leglock was awesome and had the crowd going crazy. Devil doing everything she can to try to break the hold gets her jeered like crazy. Cutie finally gets her to stop interfering by kicking Kansai every time Devil runs in. Devil is dying to get in and finally does, and she's all "If you want to do painful legholds on the mat, I'll show you painful legholds on the mat" and ties her in knots for a while.

 

Devil's ragdoll powerbombs on Ozaki look brutal, which is a credit to how Ozaki is taking the move as much as it is how Devil is applying it. Team Kansai just barely eeks out a win, but they had to earn it.

 

(I realize Kansai and Oz aren't really "captains" of their team, but it's the best way to explain what makes this match work, and I don't think it's completely off the mark. It's probably more true for Ozaki's team than Dynamite's team.)

 

What makes this match work is the hierarchy at play not only across teams, but within teams. Ozaki is pretty clearly directing traffic on her side, and this is one of her finest performances. And you also have the veterans outsmarting their younger, more athletic opponents quite often, which I always love. Wrestling doesn't get much better than this, and this is the first classic match of the year. Maybe my favorite of all the JWP on the yearbooks so far.

[FLIK]

Yeah great match, nothing to add on that front but a few random bits of info for context

 

Worth noting that this is a 2 count to win match

 

You also don't expect Cutie Suzuki to be so aggressive -- because of her name and look -- but she goes toe-to-toe with Devil and it's pretty fun.

Yeah, Cutie had her moments whear she'd play up to her gimmick but sometimes just as often she was a little mini pitbull who'd try and rip your face off. Her feud with Takako has that fun "hot chicks who will murder you" dynamic to it.

 

I really love the dynamic of this match. Kansai teams with legends against Ozaki and young guns.

In terms of the heirarchy, Plum was the oldest (26 at the time of this match) but her, OZ & Cutie all debued in the same class (1986, Kansai was also same class too). OZ was the highest booked at the time on her team however but Cutie wasn't that far behind and until recently they were about equall. Plum was always behind in terms of push but not by much.

 

Cutie & OZ were also the JWP tag champs at this point (their 2nd reign) and had been a reg team for years.

 

Plum Mariko looks excellent here in terms of fluidly executing moves. From a purely mechanics perspective, she is probably the best wrestler in this match, which is no small feat.

Between this, Plum & Devil vs Chiggy & Cutie 2 months earlier and the awesome Plum vs Chigusa match in Feb (hands down Plum's best singles ever, on the tv after she passed away this is the one they chose to air highlights of), Plum was on the biggest hot streak of her career at this point.

 

Chig and Ozaki getting in a shouting match on the apron because Oz is a little too close for comfort when trying to cheer for her troubled teammates is lots of fun, especially because it feels like a setup when Oz comes in and immediately takes a big beating

Yeah, 94 was the start of the Chigusa vs Ozaki feud that would last on and off for the next 10-11 years. They had a match on 1/11/94 which i've heard is great but never seen since it's only available via a hard to find fan cam. And they had an amazingly great blood bath match on 5/22/94 which along with Chigusa vs Plum i'd consider 2 of the top 10-15 joshi matches of the year.

[Childs]

I did not like the synchronized stuff but did like the match overall because they never lost sight of the fundamental dynamic between the two sides. There were lots of cool examples of the big asskickers tossing the little girls around, and enough neat counters from the smaller, swifter team to keep the match feeling competitive. Ozaki and Masami were my two favorite performers, but everyone got to shine. My only complaint is that it could have been little shorter given that I never believed the Devil/Dynamite/Chiggy team was losing.

[Exposer]

I'm admittedly not a big fan of the synchronized stuff but this was still a tremendously great match. Ozaki was terrific throughout the entire match cheering her teammates on the apron and getting in an awesome argument with Chigusa. Devil's vicious powerbombs on Ozaki were fucking sweet. The beatings Plum, Cutie, and Ozaki take are intense as hell and really create a lot of sympathy. This match ruled.

[ohtani's jacket]

Ozaki and Masami had a really good singles match in 1994 during the Body Heat tournament.

[soup23]

Didn't really know what to expect from this since my joshi viewing is limited and I was not very familiar at all with Cutie and Plum, but this turned out great. Ozaki really was excellent as the captain and her and Chig really portrayed a dislike for each other. The look Devil has on her face when she has Cutie in the half crap is so amazing. This was a match with a lot of moves and saves but never left the fundamental of the story being told behind and ended in a great match.

[PeteF3]

I had trouble getting into this at first--the synch stuff wasn't working with me, and there were a *lot* of spots that doubtless sounded better on paper than in actual execution (e.g., Dynamite doing the Kyoko Inoue reverse-elbow thing off the top onto two people, and barely making contact with either). It all just seemed very haphazard. When this really picked up was when Team Oz started isolating Chigusa and working her to death--I love it when strategery pays off, as it mostly did here. The smaller, less experienced team having to use the numbers game and ring smarts to keep their heads above water. We get a big dash of saves after that before Plum is leveled with a second-rope power bomb for the pin. Everyone looked really good here. I loved Devil just chucking people all over the place, I loved Plum's spunk and tenacity (and yes, very Toyota-like even if she's more about holds than flying), Dynamite kicked ass, and Oz was a champ on the apron as well as taking a beating. I don't think this will end up in a Year-End Top 10 simply because it took awhile to get going, but it will be hard to displace as Match of the Month at the very least.

[Zenjo]

Judging by the lack of mentions in the reviews it doesn't sound like everyone realised that this was a 2 count match. The wrestlers did well to remember it. Changing one of the fundamental rules of pro wrestling like that could take anyone out of their comfort zone. There was no way the underdogs were going over normally, so it made an upset seem possible. The Oz team were able to hang with the heavyweights for 30m because they fought for one another and worked as a unit. Guest star Chigusa had a rivalry going against all of the opposition members. Her victory over Plum would set up a singles encounter the following month.

 

This had its good moments, yet didn't live up to the rewatch for me. Shouldn't the rule change make the duration shorter? It ran 10m too long. Also they had endless broken up one counts, which got repetitive. It was a novel idea as a one off. Surely the underdog team should've won it though to make the idea worthwhile?

[G. Badger]

This is a really slept on tag match (as is the 12/93 tag). People really need to go out of the AJW bubble because JWP has got the great stuff too. The only problem with this match was that Ozaki was paired with really lesser wrestlers. She was at a disadvantage but a few times it looked like they had the win on Chigusa who wasn't necessarily treated on the level of Dynamite & Devil. Plum was very good here & Cuty was only in enough that you wouldn't get tired of her. I thought she was better than Takako in the 7/31/93 Thunderqueen match & she might have been but, overall she is worse than Takako. She is quite limited in the basics of pro-wrestling where Takako is AJW trained goodness. Everyone else here was amazing especially Ozaki, Devil, and Chigusa. And to top it off the 2 count rule was worked to perfection, almost to the point where I think they should use it all the time in 6-person tags. Classic gimmick match