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Chigusa Nagayo


Grimmas

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Chigusa was hands-down the greatest beneficiary of the AJW Classics run... she had everything you want in a top babyface: charisma, sympathetic selling, strong offence, etc, and if I were to break down Joshi into generations she absolutely has a chance of being my #1 for the '80s, even above Jaguar. Asuka I'm much less fond of but what I'd do to have got Chigusa/Jaguar right before the latter retired, and perhaps even more-so Chigusa/Bull in early '89. I'm on my lunch break now but I'll chip back in during the week having watched a few of her matches with something more substantial.

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  • 1 year later...

If anyone has any recommendations from her prime, I'd appreciate it.

Here's the must-watch Chigusa:

 

Chigusa Nagayo vs. Devil Masami (08/22/85)

 

Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka (The Crush Gals) vs. Noriyo Tateno & Itsuki Yamazaki (The Jumping Bomb Angels) (03/20/86)

 

And her singles matches against Lioness Asuka and Yukari Omori from 85-87 are also worth your time.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 5 years later...

In 2016, Chigusa was one of the wrestlers I came out hating the most after watching many of her hyped up matches. After watching lots of GAEA, I've come around to her as she is undoubtedly one of the greatest rookie squash workers of all time, and is in some expertly laid out tag matches. Her big matches  are still a mess though, I'm afraid.

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15 minutes ago, Jetlag said:

After watching lots of GAEA, I've come around to her as she is undoubtedly one of the greatest rookie squash workers of all time

Do you have some examples I can check out? I've just started looking more deeply into GAEA and I really enjoyed the 02/16/97 tag I think you recommended.

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11 minutes ago, Kadaveri said:

 

Do you have some examples I can check out? I've just started looking more deeply into GAEA and I really enjoyed the 02/16/97 tag I think you recommended.

I'm doing a series of 1997 GAEA reviews which feature some strong Chiggy performances on my blog. The best I've seen so far was her & Hokuto vs. KAORU & Maiko Matsumoto, which I reviewed over at the GWE board. There is more good stuff coming up as I'm reviewing 1 1997 GAEA show per week from now on.

 

I also watched all of 1998 GAEA and the Chigusa matches that stood out to me enough to write them up on here were:

vs. Maiko Matsumoto, 10/23/1998

vs. Toshie Uematsu, 1/15/1998

vs. Makie Numao, 2/22/1998

vs. Sonoko Kato 2/21/1998

 

 

 

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Early Chigusa has definitely risen in stock after watching more and more of 80s AJW. And that run is one of the greatest babyface runs someone could have. She was really versatile as well. The Dump hair matches were built around her selling for Dump in a chaotic brawl with a screaming crowd and crooked ref while the Devil Masami Budokan Hall match was mostly built around submissions. Two matches that couldn't be more opposite from each other. 

But I've virtually watched nothing of her second run post return except one or two matches that don't even come to mind currently. 

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Chigusa is solidly on the list of wrestlers I regret omitting the last time around. I need to take a fresh spin through '80s Joshi to figure out where to situate those workers. I think Masami was the only one who made my final 100, which feels wrong. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I ranked Chigusa 26th in 2016 and I'm happy with that, but its about 20 spots too low. Chigusa has maybe the most impressive peak I've ever seen. From 84-87 she's in some of the best brawls of all time, some of the best classic clean title matches of all time, some of the best tag matches of all time, she's the most over wrestler on the planet (Show me 1000s of people literally crying at a Hulk Hogan match) and stylistically she's basically creating BattlArts hybrid pro/shoot style one night mixed with the most incredible emotional spectacles in the history of wrestling another night. Her 84-87 is so good it basically gets her in the top 10 alone and everything else is gravy. 

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I know, but I really believe it. When I went through all of the old Samurai Classics, there reached a point where eveytime I got to a Chigusa match I was expecting it to be awesome and she delivers time and again. And they aren't all the same like I said. The Dump matches are 100% different from the Lioness matches or the Devil match. She hits about the highest possibly peak and within it shows about the widest variance of high end match type possible. Like Misawa vs Kobashi is "different" from Misawa vs Kawada. But its all of the same style. Chigusa vs Dump and then Chigusa vs Lioness are in different universes from each other. Its the best brawling AND the best title match of its era happening at the same time. 

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She snuck up on me in a way, but when I look back on it she has tons of high-end matches and I never, ever regret watching any match she is in. You can't ask for much more than that out of a high-end candidate.

I haven't been let down by a Crush Gals tag match yet, and I have two on deck to watch right now, so I am jazzed.

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42 minutes ago, elliott said:

I know, but I really believe it. When I went through all of the old Samurai Classics, there reached a point where eveytime I got to a Chigusa match I was expecting it to be awesome and she delivers time and again. And they aren't all the same like I said. The Dump matches are 100% different from the Lioness matches or the Devil match. She hits about the highest possibly peak and within it shows about the widest variance of high end match type possible. Like Misawa vs Kobashi is "different" from Misawa vs Kawada. But its all of the same style. Chigusa vs Dump and then Chigusa vs Lioness are in different universes from each other. Its the best brawling AND the best title match of its era happening at the same time. 

Nobody ever talks about the Lelani Kai matches. Those were always my favorites. 

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I've been watching everything on tape of the 1986 Japan Grand Prix this week and you can add having great matches with 17 year olds while maintaining hierarchy to Chigusa's portfolio. She has a wonderful performance against Kazue Nagahori here where she controls like 90% of the match as she should. But it's not a squash. She balances being totally focused yet relatively relaxed about the whole thing. Like she knows Nagahori is way below her skill level, but she's not gonna take any risks of even getting hurt because this is a long gruelling Round Robin tournament so she needs to pick up those 2 points as cost-free as she can, and this approach lets Nagahori get just enough to show some fighting underdog spirit and get herself over a bit, without ever looking like she might win. I don't this match could possibly have been better without undermining its purpose within the promotion's wider narratives, achieving that's exactly what I'm looking for in GWE.

Chigusa's so so good and it blows my mind that anyone ever thought that Lioness was better.

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