[1980-04-AJW] Rimi Yokota vs Tenjin Masami

[SAMS]

1980-04-XX
AJW
Rimi Yokota vs. Tenjin Masami
Junior Heavyweight Title Match
★★

This was a Junior Heavyweight Title match. Yokota ended up outside early and the Black Pair, supporting Masami at ringside, were all over her. Yokota managed to scramble back into the ring and the referee actually paused the action so the other seconds at ringside could wrangle the two ne'er-do-wellers and escort them back to the locker room.
Once the match was back underway Masami channelled her inner Jerry Lawler (with a citrus twist) as she played hide-the-lemon with the referee, rubbing it right in Yokota’s eyes when he got the chance. I can usually take it or leave it with the hide-the-foreign object routine, as I’ve seen it done poorly more times than well. Here, other than the unusual fact that she was using a lemon, I didn't really enjoy it. By the time we actually got the two women going at it properly and we’d dispensed of all fruits, more than half of the match time had been eaten up. 
Both women seemed physically exhausted by the time we got to the final five minutes and it felt like they were spinning their wheels a bit. It wasn’t bad, just very directionless. It was clear we were heading to a draw, and even then the final minute was basically Masami slowly trying to get into the ring, so we missed out on any high level tension at the end to see if anybody could grab a late victory.
Not bad, but instead disappointing. It had more bells and whistles than it should have and each one I thought was an unnecessary distraction that actually made the match worse.