80s AJW

[ohtani's jacket]

Shiro Abe is the ref you're talking about. He was a heel ref, although, as I recall, Dump used to beat him up regardless. There was a period in AJW where every match ended with either the faces or heels taking their frustrations out on the ref. In the early 80s, titles could change hands on a count out and there wasn't much regard for DQs.

[Loss]

From 08/23/86 Kawasaki:

 

JB Angels vs. Yukari Omori & Hisako Uno (2/3)

 

I'm not overly excited about it, but it's still a very good match, especially when Omori and Yamazaki are in there. Also fun to see early Hokuto. Omori is older than pretty much everyone else and tends to take a beating as much as or more than everyone else. She's going to be a standout on this set in a good way. If you're familiar with the WWF version of the JBAs, this is a different dynamic, as Yamazaki is super aggressive and full of fire while Tateno is more demure and reserved. She makes the mistake of reluctantly calling out Omori, which really just seals her fate.

 

WWWA Tag Team titles: Chigusa Nagayo & Kazue Nagahori vs. Dump Matsumoto & Bull Nakano

 

This match is awesome and is the first match I've watched so far that really feels like an 80s AJW match. I always like Dump, but I like her even more when she doesn't have scissors in the ring trying to cut everyone's hair. Nagahori gets flattened like a pancake in a very, very, very quick first fall, and Chigusa's chances seem pretty slim, especially when even with the one-woman advantage, she's still having to deal with outside interference (triple spike piledriver!). Nagahori eventually comes back, but is basically just a punching bag. Lots has been said the past few years about people overanalyzing wrestling, but this stuff is such a nuanced morality play that there's probably a few essays worth of material in this whole feud. Dump and Bull bring out the best in each other as a team.

[ohtani's jacket]

Lots has been said the past few years about people overanalyzing wrestling, but this stuff is such a nuanced morality play that there's probably a few essays worth of material in this whole feud.

Y'know, the reason for Yumi Ikeshita retiring (maybe kayfabed) was that she was getting married. I remember a Japanese poster saying at the time he or she couldn't believe anyone could love such a woman. So, I definitely believe that some fans bought into the morality of it all. As I mentioned before, Dump's parents were harassed, so the odd person bought into it a little too much.

 

Not everybody hated Dump though. Some people thought Dump and Bull were cool. They had fanclubs. IIRC, Hokuto helped organise the Bull fanclub and they ran an ad in the Women's Gong. And Dump was popular leading into her retirement, which drew a big number. At the height of the feud, however, Dump was a heat machine.

[Loss]

Dump is mindblowing and terrifying. I have never seen a wrestler who is anywhere near as good a heel as her.

 

Dump Matsumoto & Crane Yu vs. Lioness Asuka & Jumbo Hori

 

This is NUTS! My favorite match so far, with Dump and Crane both awesome and using everything from the microphone, tables and garbage cans as weapons, while Lioness and Jumbo try in vain to fight back with actual wrestling moves. Imagine Choshu/Yatsu vs Lawler/Dundee taking place in FMW. My favorite match so far.

[WingedEagle]

This may be 5 years old and I haven't vetted any of the links, but this is a great resource and I plan on looking up a lot of this shortly time permitting. Great info and primer.

[Badlittlekitten]

Glad this topic came up because 80s AJW is all I've been watching recently, although I've focused on from about 84 onwards. Youtube is a godssend for this stuff. The matches haven't been at the same standard as the (limited) 90's stuff I've seen but when I get through to watching the later AJW I am sure going to miss a lot - Dump and her crew, Crush Girls and in particular Chigusa's astonishing ability to draw sympathy, Bull looking like the hottest girl in the building, the brilliant/cheesy entrance music everyone seems to have (I know Hokuto would go on to have one of the best themes ever but, seriously, everybody's theme here is magic. If there was some kind of cd comp and it included Tokyo Sweethearts and Dream Orca themes I think my life may be complete) and most of all i'll miss those crowds. Were did the schoolgirls go? Did they leave with the Crush Girls or is it just a case of their male/adult fanbase growing larger?

 

Out of all the girls I've discovered from this period the one that I've come to love, like truly LOVE, is Dump Matsumoto. Why do I never see her in any GOAT discussion? Every match involving her is a blast, the liberal weapons use, the ref beatings and the hilarious no selling are golden and the anarchy and heat she brings never gets stale. I know O.J made a point earlier in the thread that nothing she did was original which is fair enough but I can't see anybody being near this great in this role. The most terrifying heel I've ever seen. And funny as fuck to boot.

 

One match that I really enjoyed but have never seen discussed is the Jaguar Yokota vs La Galactica from Feb 85. I espeascially liked La Galactica and her relentless abuse of Yokota's arm, which looked a state by the end.

[Indikator]

Girls/Women fans are absolutely missing in todays wrestling business. I've seen a couple of articles stating that in Europe in the 1950s the majority of the fans were (sometimes sexually frustrated) housewives. But with boy groups and other ways to see the bodies of foreign bodybuilders there is no necessity for wrestling anymore like back then.

[ohtani's jacket]

Were did the schoolgirls go? Did they leave with the Crush Girls or is it just a case of their male/adult fanbase growing larger?

They tried to create new idols for the schoolgirls but no-one caught on. There were diehard schoolgirls who stuck around to around '92 or so, but as a fad it ended with the retirement of Dump in '88 and then petered out as Lioness and Chigusa followed her into retirement the following year. They couldn't create any stars to keep their golden television spot, so they moved their attention to the male wrestling fans. The rationale at the time was that you had young men with disposable income who would pay for tickets rather than having to rely on parents and that you didn't need to have a prime television spot because they could afford expensive VHS tapes. Ogawa produced the video tapes at the time and was probably pushing that idea. I think there was also a belief that the men would stick around as opposed to the schoolgirls who got caught up in the fad then turned to something else after a few years, but that proved to be untrue. They cashed in while they had that audience and probably made more money than at any other point in the company's history, but it was as much a fad for the male audience as it had been for the schoolgirls. Retirements, non-retirements, poor booking, repetitive match-ups, a stale in-ring style, terrible show management and poor investments killed attendance and then the company.

[FLIK]

Girls/Women fans are absolutely missing in todays wrestling business. I've seen a couple of articles stating that in Europe in the 1950s the majority of the fans were (sometimes sexually frustrated) housewives. But with boy groups and other ways to see the bodies of foreign bodybuilders there is no necessity for wrestling anymore like back then.

Toryumon & Dragon Gate has had the female fan base on lock for years & years. Watching NJPW shows and really, lots of other current Japan plenty of female fans show up to their shows too.

 

I think there was also a belief that the men would stick around as opposed to the schoolgirls who got caught up in the fad then turned to something else after a few years, but that proved to be untrue. They cashed in while they had that audience and probably made more money than at any other point in the company's history, but it was as much a fad for the male audience as it had been for the schoolgirls.

The primary audiance of modern day joshi is now older males, so while there's less of them, they weren't completely abandoned by that demo like the school girls.

 

On that subject, there have been pockets of time whear they recaptured a little bit of the young girl audiance but it never lasted or caught on big like it did before. Off the top of my head Hikaru in latter day AJW had a pretty noticable female audiance but it was a too little too late type situation since it happened so late into the companies lifespan. Also should note that a whole ton of now grown former 80's school girls came back around during the inital Crush reuinion angle during the early 2000's.

[El-P]

Hey, Rossy Ogawa and poor managment is the same sentence. Feels like 2001 again.

[ohtani's jacket]

The primary audiance of modern day joshi is now older males, so while there's less of them, they weren't completely abandoned by that demo like the school girls.

 

On that subject, there have been pockets of time whear they recaptured a little bit of the young girl audiance but it never lasted or caught on big like it did before. Off the top of my head Hikaru in latter day AJW had a pretty noticable female audiance but it was a too little too late type situation since it happened so late into the companies lifespan. Also should note that a whole ton of now grown former 80's school girls came back around during the inital Crush reuinion angle during the early 2000's.

The audience for any pro-wrestling event in Japanese these days is pretty disparate. I don't think it fits easily into any sort of demographic.

[FLIK]

Hey, Rossy Ogawa and poor managment is the same sentence. Feels like 2001 again.

Heh, I actually like Rossy these days despite his shaky past, atleast he's done a good job with Stardom, the #2 (arguably #1) current joshi promotion.

[Badlittlekitten]

Thanks for the information re: schoolgirl following. It's a shame we'll likely never see atmospheres like that again.

[rzombie1988]

I've been to alot of shows in Japan and the female audience seems to rise by the year. There were equal amounts of men and women at the non-joshi shows I've been to and the women beat the men on some shows like DDT and Dragon Gate. I'd love to know how some of these girls found and got into wrestling. I swear I was living the dream when I had TWO good looking girls talking to me about Toryumon 2000 storylines at a DG event in July.

 

Rossy Ogawa has done a great job with Stardom. I posted a long time ago about how to make a successful joshi promotion and he pretty much followed it. I feel bad for him though that his #1 and #2 are gone.

[pantherwagner]

The audience for any pro-wrestling event in Japanese these days is pretty disparate. I don't think it fits easily into any sort of demographic.

I haven't followed this at all since the demise of ARSION so I could be wrong, but based on the (very few, admittedly) references I can find to it in Tokyo, isn't the audience for women's wrestling in Japan pretty clear? Probably 25 to close to 40 year old single males? If you think about it probably the same as ECW in its heyday.

[ohtani's jacket]

I've only ever been to GAEA and Osaka Pro and they had an interesting cross section of fans. Rob would know more about the average Joshi show.

[rzombie1988]

Joshi is all males, mostly mid-20's-50's. I've seen a couple of pre-teen girls there but usually they are with their family. It makes sense though because there is no way teenage girls would ever know about the shows unless they had Samurai TV or specifically searched them out.