[1980-01-04-AJW] Jackie Sato vs Tomi Aoyama

[Jetlag]

A great match! Feels like something that should be a staple for the "joshi for people who don't like joshi" pile. It has the legwork/tease the Figure 4-story that so many wrestling fans can understand, plus a classic story with Aoyama having a go at the ace. It also has that "Wow!" factor with state of the art flying moves and big time bumps used for great drama. Aoyama is pretty overzealous, but Sato is pretty much her ideal matchup and Sato has such a tremendous connection to the crowd that anything she's in automatically becomes above average. The matwork is all freaked out and luchariffic with a ton of indian deathlock work and a bunch of twisting around to escape the Figure 4. I imagine this is how they mostly worked big matches at big shows. Notice how easily they fill the time while still ending the match early enough to leave plenty on the table for the future. Just a great main event that would work anywhere in the world.

[Parties]

Agreed - awesome stuff that made me a Sato fan, and one of the first Joshi matches that I saw/liked.

[Kronos]

Two of the people I am most looking forward to seeing in the early 80's are Jaguar Yokota (whose work I have always loved) and Jackie Sato (who I have not seen before - or at least not recently). Sato earns her reputation here, and then some.

 

Both gals throw gorgeous standing drop kicks, and they hit hard. They seem pretty evenly matched, but in the end it's Sato's wily veteran skills that outsmart Tomi. Seriously, though, that dive to the floor Tomi takes to end the match is just plain brutal. Is it possible that Sato was supposed to be there?

[soup23]

Haven't watched Jackie Sato and she left a great impression here. Wonderful match full of psychology. The transition from the leg work to Tomi being able to get a knee up on the diving Sato and it hitting Sato's stomach was perfectly executed. This was a drawn out match but the fever pitch of the crowd made it still feel frantic and that big stakes were involved. The final double KO spot at first bothered me but it does play into the story of the match and the back suplex that it happens on does look brutal and believable that neither woman could continue. Miles ahead of everything else we have seen so far in 1980. **** (7.8)

[drew wardlaw]

I agree with everything said here. I really enjoyed the transitions here, everything felt earned and everything was logical. I wasnt sure how nuanced and stylized 1980 joshi would be but this was just great pro wrestling. I especially liked the finish. I was expecting a double count out or cheap disqualification but the double KO off a duplex isnt something Ive seen before I dont think. Very inventive and logical.

[KB8]

I thought it might've been a bad idea to watch this as the first wrestling I've given eyeballs to in months. I usually find it hard to jump back into joshi and get acclimated to the shifts in momentum and rhythm without a bit of a teething problem. This was a breeze, though. Jackie Sato is a treasure. She carried herself like a Fujinami level ace, cool and confident while selling the danger of Aoyama. I'd never seen Aoyama before but she was all about the dropkicks early and there were two moments where she went for broke only for Sato to calmly walk out of dodge (and on the first occasion Aoyama crashed and burned). This had some cool tricked out matwork, though most of it was built around Aoyama working the leg and going to the figure-four. Sato would repeatedly roll out or manage to block it, so at one point Aoyama grabbed an Indian deathlock type thing and started stomping on Sato's back. She also went to the shin breaker a handful of times and man did that crowd live and die with Jackie Sato. When Sato took over she rolled out a bunch of neat offence. Her backdrops looked killer - super high angle and impactful - and she did a sort of hair-pull Slingblade that ruled. Finish might be a touch anticlimactic, but it certainly looked plausible. Whole match pretty much flew by as well. Feels like way more people should be talking about Jackie Sato. I mean, I know WHY she isn't brought up as often as Ozaki and Kansai and so on, but I guess what I'm saying is someone should do a deep dive on her and chronicle their findings in the Microscope and I nominate Jetlag.

[aaeo_]

Jackie Sato fucking rules. She's an incredible seller, the way she sold the leg in this match was hyper dramatic and effective. Both Sato singles matches that I've seen have her taking hideous beatdowns but I feel like it's impossible not to see her as a quintessential ace with her presence and the insane reaction she gets from the schoolgirls in the audience. The suplex at the end is absolutely nasty and worthy of a double KO finish, as well as Aoyama's missed dive.

[SAMS]

Champion vs champion matchup here as Jackie is the WWW Singles Champion and Aoyama holds the Pacific belt. Much like how Lucha title matches are held up as more technical and with far less brawling, this match definitely had more that feeling compared to the previous one. Aoyama’s work on the arms and legs here was great, doing a brilliant job implying torque when she wrenched on anything and it really conveyed the pain she was inflicting. Her work on the leg was particularly important as Jackie’s arsenal consisted of a series of vicious looking backbreakers that she could potentially nullify. Both took to the sky more often as the urgency of the match built culminating in Jackie hitting a backdrop suplex on Aoyama. Think the idea was for Aoyama to kick the ropes and spin out but she under-rotated and landed right on her head. This fed into a double KO finish which felt a bit off as I’m not sure how you could reasonably say Jackie was out of it at that point. Wouldn’t have surprised me if the call was an audible considering Aoyama looked completely dazed after the head drop. Bit of a dud finish considering, but both showed off some delightful offense and Aoyama’s limb work in particular was satisfyingly focused.

★★★