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Post by bossrock on May 12, 2019 18:52:21 GMT -5
Mayumi Ozaki vs. Chigusa Nagayo (JWP - 5/22/1994)
I seriously got Hokuto-Kandori vibes from this match. Violence, blood, and drama. Ozaki jumps Nagayo at the beginning and takes the fight into the crowd, bloodying her with a guardrail and a screwdriver! Nagayo is able to get in a few bursts of offense but Ozaki keeps cutting her off and brings the screwdriver back in to play. Eventually Nagayo is able to turn the tables, putting Ozaki in a sharpshooter and nailing her with a chair on the outside. Ozaki looks more frustrated than in pain from both. Normally this would be something I would take issue with, but with the theme of Nagayo repeatedly beating down Ozaki and bloodying her in the process, it comes across as more of a horror movie villain that just keeps coming back. Ozaki staring Nagayo down, her face covered in blood and looking almost delighted, is a pretty stunning visual. The finishing stretch is pretty tremendous but I feel like Ozaki's penultimate comeback lacked something and cooled the pace until the finish. Her final comeback and the finish itself corrected the course though.
Amazing match.
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Post by elliott on May 17, 2019 14:26:40 GMT -5
Forgot about this match. I just rewatched this for the first time in 2 decades and probably need to give it another look because my thoughts are weird...
I see what you're saying with your Hokuto/Kandori comparison, but I don't think this comes within 1000 miles of DreamSlam. It has some similarities in terms of layout, but it doesn't have the high points, selling, atmosphere or drama. Not to say it doesn't have those things, but they don't touch the level of DreamSlam.
I also saw this described as a street fight on PWO, and I get the inclination to describe it as such; both of them bleed, beat the crap out of each other and use some weapons. But it doesn't really strike me that way either. It doesn't have to be Invader I vs Al Perez throwing each other down flights of stairs or Duggan & Sawyer rolling around on the ground to feel like a street fight. Something like Kandori vs Hotta feels much more "street fight but not a street fight" than this one.
They definitely don't like each other, but the hate doesn't feel as palpable as DreamSlam I or Ozaki vs Kansai. Ozaki is hitting Chigusa in the head with the screwdriver and biting the open cut and I'm not thinking its because Ozaki hates Chigusa and is driven to this extreme level of hatred...its Ozaki. She regularly uses weapons and bites peoples faces. She also needed to use that screwdriver early because Oz is so much smaller than Chigusa and just getting her ass kicked. Similarly, it is hard to see bulked up Chigusa Nagayo getting stabbed in the face with a screwdriver by Mayumi Ozaki and see it as putting Chigusa in peril when I watched 21 year old Chigusa take on Dump Matsumoto.
To me this felt a lot more like a traditional pro wrestling grudge match than all out street fight. Lots of big suplexes and throws, stiff pro-wrestling style "shoot kicks" and near falls accentuated by your kind of standard Ozaki violence and Chiggy response. Truthfully (and weirdly) this felt closer in nature to something like a Misawa vs Akiyama in the late 90s than Kandori vs Hokuto. Like in that finishing stretch no matter what Oziyama hit Chisawa with, they were gonna go down easy in the end.
All that said, I thought this was an excellent match and I'd definitely recommend checking it out. Felt like a really fast 27 minutes.
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Post by Cap on Jun 20, 2019 8:16:21 GMT -5
Cagematch has the date as 5/22.... changed, but if I am wrong let me know.
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Post by Cap on Jun 24, 2019 19:16:15 GMT -5
Watched this one the other day and I liked it, but did think that it fell well below what I would seriously consider for this. This is a match that flashes brilliance and hatred that could have carried it to that next level, but there is a choppiness to it. They seem to try to build the drama and the hatred, but something about it isn't quite catching as they let things simmer and breath down the stretch. The violence is pretty high level and I think both women do their part, there just isn't the chemistry here. However, all this is actually complimenting it with fain't criticism. I really loved the match, I am just picking knits. Ozaki is pretty phenomenal here (as always as far as I am concerned) and Nagayo delivers the big, high impact stuff that elevates things well. I think they do sell that they hate each other, but I would agree it is of a different register than something like Kandori/Hokuto. Everything here is stiff. They work hard. This is definitely a great match and well worth considering, its just not likely to make my cut at any point.
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Post by Kadaveri on Aug 22, 2020 21:58:05 GMT -5
This isn't supposed to be a hate-filled match. This is a misguided youngster trying to score a win over a legend by any means necessary, and the veteran hero retaliating with only the level of violence necessary to win and teach the young wrestler a lesson. Chigusa's mid-match promos are her telling Mayumi how to have the mindset of a true wrestler, and in the post-match promo she hopes they can have a rematch without any bloodying, just "pure heart".
If you've seen Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, this is more the Jen Yu vs. Shu Lien duel than Hokuto vs. Kandori.
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Post by Cap on Aug 23, 2020 15:34:25 GMT -5
Perhaps I'll give it another serious look before next year's ballot. I did really like the match and rated it quite high. That context helps some. I perhaps overstated the "hatred" part in my earlier post in terms of how I was judging it, but the discussion of the mid and post match promos and the comparison might help be understand this a bit better out of context. Many thanks.
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Post by Kadaveri on May 23, 2021 20:31:44 GMT -5
I've uploaded this with subtitles for the promos HERE. |
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Post by tetsujin on Aug 19, 2023 18:15:42 GMT -5
This was unique. I don't have any idea of the context of this match (EDIT: thanks Kadaveri!), but just from the very first stare down before the ring bells you can tell the rivalry between the two. Ozaki attacks Chiggy by surprise right after, and she makes her bleed outside the ring. I usually don't do this, but at this point I looked at the duration of the vid and saw +40 minutes and thought "well, they better know how to work a 40-minute bloodbath without dragging it". And boy the knew. Fool of me (the match ended up lasting 30 minutes though but it is still such a risky duration for this kind of matches).
While Chigusa bleeds first, Ozaki gets cocky and allows her to return to the ring on her own, something that obviously leads to Oz being demolished by Nagayo in return. The dynamic was then clearly stablished in the first five minutes: Ozaki needs her speed and brawling, Chigusa has the size advantage and is capable of overpower her with just a couple of attacks.
I liked the pacing for most of the match. It's slow, because both women want to take their time punishing each other. Chigusa's sleepers are really over as a fake finish, and Oz is wonderful playing with the steel bar and biting Chiggy's cut, she's a better mexican brawler here than most I've seen on regular luchas de apuestas. Once Chigusa manages to finally make Ozaki bleed, it's just a matter of time... Or so she thought, because Mayumi's resilience is as unexpected as brave. She even manages to get a great comeback by spamming her sleeper suplex, but Nagayo is just much less weakened than her, she kicks out four times in a row. Ozaki gets desperate and tries something from the top rope, but Chigusa avoids it and finishes her off with a rude as fuck Razor's Edge for the win.
I really liked this overall. It's worked in a very different way than I expected, and also quite different from the usual joshi bloody brawls I've seen. This is slow, calculated violence, with two clear strategies colliding and a feeling of true animosity behind everything. While I hoped for the match to get more urgent later on, and for Ozaki to manage to get closer to a victory, these two women put on such badass performances that I can't help but understand why somebody thought it belongs among the top 100 GME.
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