[1993-11-18-JWP-Thunder Queen Battle] Devil Masami & Plum Mariko vs Chigusa Nagayo & Cutie Suzuki

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

The Devil Masami stuff in 1993 is such a breath of fresh air because she wrestles in a more psychologically sound way than everyone else around her, yet she can still keep up the action. And it's good to see Chigusa Nagayo show up! Mariko countering Suzuki's high-cross body into a bridge pin is awesome! This match is filled with stuff like that. But it's the Chigusa/Devil interactions that steal the show. I love how much drama they are able to get out of the sleeper -- twice. This crowd even sounds more like an 80s crowd than a 90s one. Loved this!

[MJH]

11/18. 11/20 is the TV air date.

 

I thought this would've benefitted from being ~25' instead of ~35', and I'd say Masami was less flashy rather than necessarilly "more psychologically sound", but this was still a really good match. I always found Hokuto/Ozaki and Kansai/Kyoko somewhat underwhelming on this show, so it's probably the best match on it.

[Loss]

I think more psychologically sound is accurate. Compare her to someone like Toyota, and it's not really favorable for Toyota. Devil does less, but most of what she does is very memorable. Toyota does more impressive spots, but 90% of them are forgotten by the time the match is over.

[MJH]

Sure. But the only really fair comparison would be to Bull and I wouldn't call her notably stronger in any regard to her.

[Kevin Ridge]

It has been a while since I have been drawn into the use of a sleeperhold. They really made it believable with Chigusa's facial expressions with the wide eyes closing as if about to pass out. The mouth gasping for air. I wish it was the finish.

[PeteF3]

I think Devil's awesome and she embodies a lot of what I love about JWP. But this is two times now where she's been heavily involved in a major match that simply went too long for its own good. She's like the Ricky Steamboat-wrestling-Haku-for-20-minutes of joshi. And truthfully the first half or so of this match I could have taken or left. Just a lot of disjointed and meandering trading of holds, though the work itself was fine. Then this picks up when Devil and Chigusa start trading near-falls, with the partners acting as accessories to make saves or participate in double-teams. That leads to a bunch of hot near-falls, and some really cool submission work with the dueling sleepers and Plum's leg submissions. I could have forgiven how indulgent this gets but the girls start messing things up down the stretch--first Plum doesn't position Chigusa properly for Devil to dive off the top and we have a really awkward, drawn-out reset. Then a groanworthy spot where Devil German suplexes her and just releases at 2, without even an inkling of an attempt by Chigusa to kick out. Incidentally, after her miracle series with the Scorpion, Cutie Suzuki has seemingly been less and less impressive every time out. She kind of stays out of the way here, but she works SO ridiculously loose--like WWE diva loose--that it grossly stands out in a world of Nagayos and Kansais kicking the shit out of people.

 

All this to say that while parts of this were great, the previous JWP tag was so much more enjoyable because it was tighter and still conveyed everything that needed to be conveyed.

[Zenjo]

Chigusa makes her debut appearance for JWP, and even brought some schoolgirls along with her. She'd had a couple of matches at the Dreamslams, but this was the proper start of her comeback. Chiggy showed here that she still had it big time. The psychology between her and Devil was superb and they had the crowd in their proverbial palms. They were ably assisted by the two Lieutenants who factored into the equation perfectly. Since when was Plum this good? She was at the peak of her career at this point in time.

 

I liked how even when the stars weren't in the ring they still felt involved in proceedings. I've seen many matches like this die a quick death when it's the two Junior partners squaring off, yet that didn't happen here. The pacing was a little on the loose side and there were minor errors in the execution. It never dragged though as they paced the big moves out and the rivalry always kept me intrigued. And Nagayo getting pinned for the finish was ideal after such a long battle. A JWP mini-classic.

[...TG]

Never seen Chigusa before - looks like I have some catching up to do. She has some amazing presence and charisma. My favorite joshi match on the set since Dreamslam.

[garretta]

The sleeper spots were impressive, but Kevin's right when he says that one of them should have been the finish. I kept yelling for each side in turn to go back to the sleeper instead of going for the predictable suplexes and powerbombs, but to no avail. It's almost like Japanese women don't know how else to win matches. Quite frankly, I'm surprised Chigusa got pinned off of the legdrop without yet another German suplex as insurance. Juniors often have the same problem, but at least they can fly and do matwork spots, which are hit and miss with the ladies.

 

This also would have been helped if I'd been more familiar with the workers. We've had a ton more AJW than JWP when it comes to these Yearbooks, so I'm much more familiar with Aja, Bull, and the like. I think I even got Devil and Plum mixed up; I assumed that Plum was wearing the purple singlet, but from the comments about the interaction between Devil and Chigusa, I guess it was Devil in the purple and Plum in the flowered getup.

 

This was actually a very good bout, but its main spot didn't really pay off, so it gets knocked down a bit in my eyes. I'm willing to give this group another chance, though, as this is the first of their matches that I was entertained by from beginning to end. I hope there are plenty more where this one came from!

[G. Badger]

Cuty is pretty crumby in general but she played her role here as did Plum who is a bit better than Cuty as she actually understands ring positioning, taking bumps properly etc. But let's be honest this is all about Devil & Chigusa and it did not disappoint. There was a real strong focus on submissions and it really seemed any of the later ones could have done it for both women. Chiggy & Devil show why they are wrestling heroes...especially when the Crush Gal almost got murdered with powerbombs & suplexes. She legitimately looked F'ed Up at the end. This is really cool considering I'm using their classic match from '85 as my primer for this one! A lost joshi classic

[soup23]

I have been on a big Devil vs Chigusa kick the past week or so and this match lived up as an entry into that great feud. This really centered around them but used Cutie and Mariko as flies in the ointment of the respective big guns and having them break up double team moves and pin attempts. The sleeper stuff in the finish was interesting and compelling to me and led to a great climax at the finish. Can be sort of cliche, but another great 1993 joshi match. ****

[Jetlag]

I've enjoyed 3 out of these 4 workers in the JWP that I've watched, but this was awful long and didn't exactly deliver in terms of Devil/Chigusa interactions. Match had it's moments, but there was nothing substantial going on and they kept losing the crowd with the constant restholds. It didn't build credibly into it's length, they just went "well, still got another 5 minutes to go, here's a half crab". The sleeper hold spots where a nice touch but after 10 seconds it was clear they were killing time. Then there's that butchered sequence where Devil wants Plum to hit another suplex for whatever reason, and Devil letting go off her pin before Chigusa was kicking out. Whenever Chigusa's involved things gotta be melodramatic so a slew of big moves being thrown out before the finish was to be expected, I guess.