Joshi Spotlight: Dynamite Kansai vs. Mayumi Ozaki (Dress Up Wild Fight #2)

DYNAMITE KANSAI vs. MAYUMI OZAKI- DRESS UP WILD FIGHT #2:
(July 9th, 1995)

* Hey, look! It’s the sequel to the amazing ****3/4 “Dress Up Wild Fight” brawl from earlier in the year. So JWP’s Ace and the devilish Ozaki face off one more time. Last match, they beat the ever-loving SHIT out of each other, dragging one another all over the arena. Kansai bled buckets, Ozaki bit the cut and then spat the blood at the referee to be a shit about it, and Ozaki nearly died a thousand times but managed a last-second roll-up to win. So this is good old-fashioned revenge, probably selling tickets based off of how great the first match was.

DRESS UP WILD FIGHT #2:
DYNAMITE KANSAI vs. MAYUMI OZAKI:
* Both are in street clothes again, with Ozaki in a black shirt & blue jeans, and Kansai in a white shirt & green army fatigues. Ozaki hangs out in the stands during her entrance theme, so Kansai has to go find her while “Night Creeper” plays- she calls out Oz and soon it’s a brawl using a chain as the bell rings!

The fight goes on, Kansai literally using someone’s umbrella as a weapon (I swear fans bring umbrellas to these shows just for these moments). They tug of war over the chain in the ring, Kansai making like Scorpion (“COME ‘ERE!”) and hauling Ozaki in for a backdrop. Chain-assisted lariat gets two and they brawl outside again, Oz going into a table a bunch, and then she eats a chain-wrapped fist. Kansai methodically wears her down, but the hooking clothesline gets her and she’s smashed into the corner using the chain repeatedly. Kansai gets choked for a while until she finally takes two big chain-shots to the face, the crowd “Ooh”-ing at that one. She gets her hands chained up so Ozaki can throw kicks and a few chairshots, but manages a big kick on a charging Oz. Ozaki comes off the top and Kansai does the cool “catch and immediately hit a Northern Lights suplex” spot for two. Oz dumps her and drags her by the chain, and it’s another brawl in the crowd. Kansai hits a lariat, aaaaaaaand yup- out they go into the arena. I figured they’d do that again.

So Oz goes into the merchandise tables, Kansai throws all sorts of stuff at her… and they’re up the steps! And more steps! Ah, they’re in the balconies now, so of course Kansai attempts to commit murder- Ozaki manages to hang onto the balcony and reverse it, but thankfully no one dies and they speed-walk back to ringside. Oz makes a pile of chairs and facecrushers Kansai into it from a ledge, which is pretty cool, and they’re hidden from the camera for a while, which you know means they’re blading. Sure enough, Kansai’s a mess when she’s visible to the crowd again. We get the “chain-drag” spot again, and Oz clearly revels in the carnage a ton, and throws some big shots to keep Kansai rocked. She wraps the chain around her foot and puts the boots in, but Kansai slowly edges back from the brink until Ozaki just wraps the chain around her knee and kneedrops Kansai in the face off the top rope. And now another call-back, as Ozaki once more uses tools to take off the structure holding the turnbuckle into the corner, sending the top rope to the mat while she uses the giant metal pipe as a melee weapon.

Ozaki’s later wrestling persona/style would be heavily influenced by these “Dress-Up Wild Fights”.

Kansai takes a few shots, but finally makes her comeback, deflecting the pipe with a kick and backdropping Ozaki, giving her time to take off ANOTHER pipe from the corner, and… oh fuck. She TAPES THE PIPES TO HER LEG. Ozaki gonna die! Kansai throws a few kicks at her, and the crowd doesn’t really react like you’d expect, possibly because the kicks were in hyper slo-motion to be safer. Ozaki gets dumped- piledriver through a table! Kansai revenge-drags her around and hits some lariats, avoiding a surprise Tequila Sunrise (half-nelson/tiger suplex), but another lariat is reversed to a German for two. Kansai kicks her back down and brings in a table like last time, and threatens Splash Mountain off of it to a big reaction, but Oz chokeslams her off. They brawl again, Ozaki reversing a backdrop & kick to a leglock, sold dramatically like a potential finish. Wild how that ALWAYS works for a crowd reaction in joshi, even though it almost never leads to a submission win. Oz uses this opportunity to disarm Kansai’s pipe-leg, and of course spears her in the head with the pipe and hits a powerbomb on a flattened table for two. Rolling senton gets two.

Kansai catches her trying another senton, but Splash Mountain onto the table is reversed to a facecrusher, then Ozaki hits a sunset flip powerbomb to the floor. A cannonball dive catches Kansai standing up, but back in the ring she tries too many running kicks and Kansai DESTROYS her with a huge backdrop suplex onto the table. That gets two, and Kansai finally sets up the table and piledrives Ozaki right through it… AGAIN getting two! Kansai booting the table away in disgust at the kickout is such a great character spot. Kansai uses the chain and wraps Ozaki’s arms so she can’t do one of her reversals, but sure enough she reverses Splash Mountain for the same armdrag pin that won her their LAST match, but this time it gets two! Kansai wraps her up again, but it backfires when Oz reverses another try with a hangman’s choke out of the corner, strangling Kansai half to death. Ozaki bludgeons her with the table repeatedly then hits Tequila Sunrise- 2.8! Desperate, Ozaki strangles her using the loose ring rope, and gets a Tequila Sunrise when she’s wrapped in THAT, but again Kansai kicks out! Ozaki ties her to a chair and throws shots, knocking her over for two, and a THIRD Tequila Sunrise picks up the three at (36:41).

This one… really felt like it was trying to live up to the last one, and I think that hurt it a bit. Like, they had to use the chain, go into the back (since the last one hit the streets), make Kansai bleed, etc., and so it didn’t really feel as special. Plus the first ten minutes felt kinda like they were spinning their wheels just using the same weapon all the time- the problem with nearly doubling the match length is that they can’t move as quickly as the first one, so this feels more like a lazy stroll than a true grudge match. This was also ALL OZAKI for the first 3/4, Kansai only taking the lead in their arena-walk, scarcely getting any real offense in until the end. And since most of the spots were repeats, they lacked the importance that made the first match so cool.

There were a couple of great spots, though- this is the first “try to throw someone off the balcony of Korakuen” spot I can recall seeing, and Kansai taping the pipes to her leg should have been amazing, but the obviously lighter kicks she was tossing kind of wrecked the spot… never mind that it was halfway through the match and they just kept going, so it was meaningless to the story. When they start throwing big moves onto that flattened table shit got real, though, so that was nice, especially as they geared up their finishers. And I kinda liked the sense of Ozaki just wearing Kansai down via attrition with her repeated Tequila Sunrises, using increasingly dangerous elements each time. But like… 36 minutes? That’s too long for nearly ANYTHING.

Rating: ***1/2 (like a ** plodding brawl tacked on to a ****+ brawl in the end. Just way too long for what they were going for, but nearly all the ending 15 minutes was rad)

In any case, this sets up Ozaki as the unrivaled queen of the “Dress Up Wild Fight”, meaning they can have all sorts of matches like this in the future. I guess JWP has various invaders coming in trying to take the crown after this point, if I read Mike Lorefice’s notes right.

MAYUMI OZAKI & CUTIE SUZUKI vs. DEVIL MASAMI & HIROMI YAGI:
(Aug. 10th 1995)
* A random small gym show featuring some of the bigger stars in a tag match. The Oz/Cutie team taking on Yagi & Devil kind of puts Devil at a handicap, even if she outranks either of her opponents. Ozakie’s in black & red, Cutie’s in white (looking kinda like Ellis from “Toshinden”, actually), Devil’s in a black bodysuit & Yagi’s in purple.

Team Devil pounces immediately, and Devil press-slams Cutie onto Ozaki, then slams Cutie on a ringside table and shows off to the paying fans like a pro. Yagi takes a beating in the ring for a while, but she escapes- Devil does the “whip ’em when they grab her hair and won’t let go” spot on Cutie and press-slams Ozaki, but Ozaki armdrags out of a powerbomb and hits a “flip up their body” rana for two. Cutie eats a crushing Samoan drop from Devil, though, and Yagi does judo flips and a cross-armbreaker. Cutie manages a jumping knee, and Ozaki adds a cannonball and a Jackknife powerbomb for two-counts, then works the arm in a long hold. Cutie heels it up by using the ropes and just standing on the arm, and Oz happily joins in when the ref’s dealing with an angry Devil over it. Yagi finally makes a quick comeback and bails, so Devil hits the mother of all powerbombs on Ozaki. Ozaki writhes in agony as Devil just looms over her, and takes an overthrow powerbomb, tags out, and CUTIE runs right into another one. Devil tears into her arm, hitting a huge legdrop on it- Cutie misses a top-rope move, but hits a Manami Roll out of a powerbomb for two, escaping. Oz & Yagi go, tearing around and reversing on each other, Yagi hitting a judo flip and then a rollup after Devil swipes at Oz from the apron. Ozaki cannonballs onto Devil when she’s in, then reverses TWO powerbombs in a row, hitting a rana on the second for two.

Devil’s backdrop is reversed to a Tequila Sunrise to a lariat to a German, getting two. Soon as Devil kicks out, Cutie comes off with a Flying Stomp, then a DOUBLE-team one gets two! Cutie’s German gets two. Devil finally clobbers her to stop the assault, still selling the damage. Big Ligerbomb, but Ozaki saves. Yagi comes in for a big German for two, then climbs- Ozaki stalls her, but she manages a sunset powerbomb on Cutie, then hooks a leglock and everyone’s in the ring to break things up. Devil tries to overthrow powerbomb Cutie to the FLOOR, but she hits the ropes and falls backwards into the ring. Cutie rolls to the floor so they can do the next spot- Devil press-slams Yagi at her, but Cutie dodges, then Devil tries a powerbomb on Ozaki but Cutie flies in with the Flying Knee! Ozaki cannonballs onto Devil & Yagi on the floor so a wiped Cutie can recover, and they try Stereo Flying Headbutts on Yagi… and miss! Devil hits a Guillotine Legdrop to the back of Cutie’s head while she sells, but Ozaki saves at 2! Ozaki has to save her from a big Fujiwara armbar too, so Devil comes in to mop up- Triple Powerbomb looks to finish, but Ozaki trips up Devil on the third- Yagi flies in with a dropkick to stop the pin! Devil finally tosses Ozaki and nails a big lariat, but when she climbs, Ozaki has recovered and delays her heavily up top- Cutie comes in and nearly takes Devil’s Super Facecrusher, but at the last second, she spins it around for a Flying Powerbomb- getting three (19:39)- Cutie & Ozaki win!!

Interesting, high-quality match- way more than a “house show effort” here, as they were speeding around the ring and doing all kinds of cool spots, and Cutie looked her best here, too. The name of the game seems to be “training Yagi”, actually, as she spends the majority of the time in the ring in the first half, takes a long heat sequence (three minutes just on the arm), and gets some good moves on the elders while Devil mops up. Pretty impressive to make three minutes of “just holds” entertaining in a style that often treats that as just resting. And then while the idols heel up a storm, Devil comes in and just DESTROYS Ozaki, letting the moment sink in for some great payback. And they boomerang back and forth so strongly on the back part of the match that guessing the ending was impossible. The result is very unexpected, too- Cutie pinning DEVIL is definitely out of the ordinary. Nearly anyone would have guessed that Yagi would be eating the pin on that team.

Rating: ***1/2 (flirted with ***3/4 down the stretch- Devil was spectacular, and even CUTIE brought rare energy and move application to it)

There’s a duo of “JWP Thunder Queen Wonder Land” tapes around June, featuring GAEA wrestlers against JWP’s. GAEA’s Sonoko Kato & Chikayo Nagashima & Maiko Narita beat JWP’s Tomoko Kuzumi & Tomomi Kobayashi & Yuki Miyazaki in (16:29), Rieko Amano beats Tomoko Miyaguchi in (10:45), Bomber Hikari & Sumiyo Toyama beat Toshie Sato & Tsubasa Kuragaki in (11:09), and Fusayo Nochi & Kumiko Maekawa beat Kanako Motoya & Rie Tamada in (10:45).

The Bigger Matches:
CUTIE SUZUKI d. BOLSHOI KID (12:30).
JWP JUNIOR TITLE- 3-WOMAN GAUNTLET MATCH: Hiromi Sugo beats Hiromi Yagi in (1:45), Candy Okutsu beats Sugo in (0:55), and Candy beats Yagi in (7:08), winning the Title.
DEVIL MASAMI & MAYUMI OZAKI d. HIKARI FUKUOKA & KAORU (13:32): in a match I think they repeat in GAEA Japan later in the year (since KAORU wrestles there).
DYNAMITE KANSAI d. CHIGUSA NAGAYO (23:35). Mike Lorefice gave this ****, saying it’s the best match you could get from these two. This is interesting because they teamed up on GAEA’s debut show, and wrestle similar styles.

Hope you enjoyed this two-match look at JWP’s mid-1995 adventures! Next up: Another GAEA show and a quick look at AJW’s Grand Prix 1995!