[1980-04-AJW] Lucy Kayama vs Mami Kumano

[SAMS]

1980-04-XX
AJW
Lucy Kayama vs. Mami Kumano
★★★★

Now this was a great match. This was a fucking war. The first few minutes had them running through some holds, Kayama was chucked to the outside and we got the usual interference from the other women at ringside, they did the running spot where they disappeared into the back rows and rammed her into the wall and I was like great, here we go again. Then we finally got back into the ring for the restart and suddenly everything just jumped up a couple levels and it never dropped for a second.
First things first, Kumano might easily be the best heel in AJW at this point. I thought her partner Ikeshita’s singles match against Kayama was a dud but here Kumano proved that not only could she be great in a tag setting but she could deliver in singles as well. As a point of comparison, I think at this point in time, a contemporary like Masami is playing being a heel, while Kumano embodies it. She has the casual arrogance and that air of superiority that is important for the character that she’s portraying. The Masami vs Yokota match had an example of a middle of the road version of the hide-the-foreign-object routine, here they did an amazing rendition of it. For a good solid 8-10 minutes she teased it and I actually don’t think there was an object at all. In fact I wasn’t sure they were doing the routine at all. But there were murmurings from the crowd and the punch motion from Kumano was too strange to be a normal punch. I kept looking for her to pull it out or conceal it between strikes but I saw nothing. Then after a brief foray to the outside for a little brawling, she suddenly was wielding a very clear and visible miniature spanner, which she certainly wasn’t using before. I don’t know about other people but I thought the fake object into a real object worked a charm and she pulled it off expertly.
For Kayama, this was definitely her breakout performance for me. She made a simple hair-pull toss, that all the women in AJW do, look like absolute death. That moment when they returned to the ring early on and the levels suddenly jumped, it was these bumps she took that were the trigger. The audience immediately responded and they knew that they were gonna see something good. Secondly, boy does she have some moves. She had a version of the Bubba Bomb that looked great and she might have one of the best looking neckbreakers ever? How have I not seen her pull this out up to this point? I thought this was an excellent babyface performance from her as she was amazing selling; amazing bumping; when she got the upper hand she brought the intensity, the hatred, and she had those killer moves. Really displayed the whole package. I was incredibly down on her before but now I’m keen to catch her again asap.
Finally, this is the first match where I thought the outside interference actually did add a layer to the match. It was the most even between the heels and the faces. Both got involved, had their moments, worked to support their girl and it didn’t spill over into being overkill but instead was merely a little additional seasoning.