Chigusa Nagayo

[Ma Stump Puller]

One match that I would highly recommend is actually her last official match back in Marvelous against Iroha. Despite the fact that she's obviously very limited, she puts in a great performance against her younger apprentice with raw intensity and crowd connection. It's a solid showing for her ability to work a match without her amazing ring skill that she had in earlier decades and not only do well, but knock it out of the park while doing pretty little in terms of big workrate spots. It's a bit hard to find but definitely give it a watch, it's very good.

 

[club]

Thanks for the match recommendations all.

Mid 80s Chigusa is amongst the best babyfaces I’ve ever seen. Such a great blend of vulnerability and kick-ass. That glassy eyed stagger about sell she does in the Dump matches, oh my god. Her connection to her fans - living and dying on her every move - is incredible and make for an amazing atmosphere. Her arc from this era, her setbacks and eventual climb to the top is incredible. l As far as a project like this, she sets an incredibly high bar, and when I put together a list there’s no doubt she’ll rank very highly.

The post retirement bit of her career I find tricky. My first exposure to joshi was the big 90s shows, the Dream Slams and what have you. WIthout the 80s context she never stood out as an obvious star. One look at Bull and you know she’s a star, you see how Kandori carries herself and you know she’s a star. I never got that from Chigusa back then.

Delving into 80s AJW over the past year or so, I understand why she’d be a big deal in the 90s. To me though star power seems rooted in what she was in the 80s rather than what she brought in the 90s. A special living legend type, equivalent to say 90s Tatsumi Fujinami. I like some of her matches - the singles matches with Ozaki and Bull, the GAEA debut show, some rookie squashes. But still she offers a lot less than the top tier 90s contemporaries or her 80s high point.

[ohtani's jacket]

At some point in the mid to late 80s, Chigusa made the conscious decision to move away from the super babyface idol role to something of a more serious pro-wrestler. It wasn't something that happened over night. She had always been a serious wrestler even at the height of the Dump feud, but there was a gradual transformation that saw her put on weight and start incorporating shoot style influences. This would eventually spawn imitators like Hotta and Yamada. The Chigusa from '88-89 was very different from the Chigusa from '84. When she made her comeback in '93, she was even heavier. She didn't really have a home at first. It doesn't seem that AJW were all that keen on using her, or that she was all that keen on working with them. I can't remember if AJW had scrapped their early retirement rule by then, but in any event the initial idea was that Chigusa would "invade" JWP, so to speak, and go through a series of wrestlers until she got to Kansai. They sold it like stages in a video game. Unfortunately, it didn't really pan out like a video game. Perhaps JWP didn't want Chigusa going over all of their talent. I believe she lost to Devil Masami before reaching Kansai, and later on challenged again and eventually lost to Kansai.

As much as I love JWP, Chigusa trying to invade the promotion and go over their ace didn't have quite the same weight as if she had invaded AJW and tried to reclaim the Big Red Belt from Aja. Kansai challenging Aja as the ace of JWP worked because it was similar to Tenryu invading New Japan. It would have felt strange if Aja had tried to run roughshod over the smaller JWP. I would agree that Chigusa's 90s interpromotional work isn't the greatest, but once she settled into her own promotion, I think she had a definite aura that she carried about her. Chigusa vs. her students, and the younger generation against the older Showa workers, is one of the more interesting parts of late 90s-early 00s Joshi. 

[El-P]

20 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

Chigusa vs. her students, and the younger generation against the older Showa workers, is one of the more interesting parts of late 90s-early 00s Joshi. 

It was the big hype at the time, as was GAEA in general, and back then I never quite figured it out, it was kinda cool but also pretty overrated (then again, in a scene that was totally self-destroying, there wasn't much left to be excited about). In retrospect it really seems it was a huge nostalgia ride in which Chiggy (and Lioness, always in the corner where she can put herself over everyone) reclaim that role of the biggest star in the scene that she had 15 years before. She never really put anyone over, letting Aja, Kansai and Hokuto make Satomura and rode the wave of her past glory in a rather tired Crush Gals comeback. Sure, the big shows were cool because they packed so much big names of the 90's and 80's, but the in-ring stuff wasn't always the most interesting. Again, haven't watched that stuff in 20 years, so I have no idea what I would think about Chiggy's work from this period now (from memory her stuff in JWP in the early/mid 90's was much better).

I was much more interested back then in the first years or so of ARSION, which had a cool concept (but didn't draw at all), and it's pretty interesting that, not unlike NJPW which 10's really are way removed from its past, the most successful women's promotion in Japan in 20 years ended up being another Rossy Ogawa creation, with the same philosophy which you can criticize (aka : focusing on mostly attractive young women, which was also one of ARSION's selling point) and seemingly a strong disconnect from the past eras in term of audience.

[club]

That context is very useful, thanks both.

The differing opinions of her in GAEA are interesting. What matches would you recommend - half a dozen or so - as an overview of GAEA Chigusa?

[Brian Elliott]

On 4/30/2021 at 1:34 AM, elliott said:

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. 

Very well summed up.

[ohtani's jacket]

6 hours ago, club said:

That context is very useful, thanks both.

The differing opinions of her in GAEA are interesting. What matches would you recommend - half a dozen or so - as an overview of GAEA Chigusa?

Hopefully, Jetlag will chime in because he's been watching a lot of that stuff recently. I personally loved a lot of the OZ Academy vs. GAEA matches from '96-97 that revolved around Ozaki & girls vs. Chigusa & girls. If you're going to watch Chigusa from this period, it's probably better to start with Chigusa in tags and six-mans. Originally, a lot of these matches were clipped or JIP, but fortunately, GAEA's official YouTube channel has begun uploading full matches. It's worth noting that Chigusa's style changed again in the 90s. She became more a bruiser -- you hit me, I'll hit you, and we'll see who hits harder. This is particularly true against the younger girls where the vets are always screaming at them to hit them harder. You don't get the great babyface work of the Crush Girls era or the shoot style-influenced workrate of the late 80s. It's not for everyone, especially if you love 80s babyface Chigusa, but it represents a big chunk of her career (at least a third of it), so it's worth sampling. 

[club]

Big fan of Ozaki so OZ vs GAEA sounds promising. The you hit me I hit you premise is interesting - the 93 Chigusa v Ozaki was similar to that in the sense that the story was was whatever Ozaki dishes out, Chigusa will dish back. GAEAISM it is.

[ohtani's jacket]

The death of Yoko Shimada, of Shogun fame, led to a bit of interesting info about Chigusa. They starred in a movie together in 1993 that was an adaptation of a play that was written about Chigusa by the famous Japanese playwright, Kohei Tsuka. Chigusa had been cast in one of Tsuka's plays in 1990 and 1991, and apparently Tsuka was so impressed by her that he wrote a role entirely for her. When they shot the film, they used real wrestling venues with real fans, which apparently inspired Chigusa to make her comeback. Pretty cool that she was so highly thought of by one of Japan's most important playwrights. 

[Mr JMML]

All the Chigusa stuff here is great: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kE94L6jW6TIoxjnxjYGgR1rGQaiESFIt_1dRDY-ZExI/edit#gid=0 

Thanks to https://spinningwheelkick.wordpress.com/. The man behind this wordpress made the list I believe, so thank him.

[Kadaveri]

I just wanted a post an example of Chigusa's stagger selling & her version of Hulking up. I really think she's one of the best ever at it, strikes the perfect balance between being animated/selling for all four sides of the crowd but without coming across as goofy. I also love the way she spreads her shoulders out as she's squaring up to Kai, makes her look all cool and tough.

[fxnj]

On 12/22/2023 at 2:15 AM, Kadaveri said:

 

I just wanted a post an example of Chigusa's stagger selling & her version of Hulking up. I really think she's one of the best ever at it, strikes the perfect balance between being animated/selling for all four sides of the crowd but without coming across as goofy. I also love the way she spreads her shoulders out as she's squaring up to Kai, makes her look all cool and tough.

 

 

 

I wonder if Kobashi was a fan of her work. Feels like I've seen him do this exact same sell numerous times.

[Grimmas]

Seeing her now well into the 90s, and early 2000s. Chigusa has a great case for top 3, even #1. The way she could adapt from greatest babyface ever in the 80s to such a great badass heel and babyface so much later. It's so impressive. Heck she even had good matches into 2019.