Joshi Spotlight: Rie Tamada

Why did it take so long to do a Spotlight on Rie Tamada? Well, I forgot I hadn’t already done one! Which… really says it all about Rie Tamada, if you think about it.

JOSHI SPOTLIGHT- RIE TAMADA:
Billed Height & Weight: 5’2″ 125 lbs.
Career Length: 1991-2004

-Rie Tamada is… really one of those weird forgotten wrestlers who stuck around FOREVER, but never really left any kind of a defining mark. A wrestler for All Japan Women’s Pro Wrestling, then ARSION, he peaked at “just okay” to “pretty good”, never showed much charisma, didn’t have the physical credibility to be a bigger star in her era, nor was she fast enough to make up for being kinda small. Just one of those Eternal Midcarder roles you still actually need in a good, healthy company, but nothing to write home about. Like she doesn’t SUCK or anything, but she’s just never even in the top five most interesting wrestlers on a card.

Of particular note: Rie doesn’t develop any UNIQUE MOVES. It’s a standard thing in joshi for a wrestler to start to eke out their own offense, making up the occasional thing or having some “specialty” stuff. But she’s just using the Communal Joshi Offense in every single match I’ve ever seen her in- missile dropkicks, DDTs, etc.- ending matches with a Dragon Suplex, which is a pretty common upper-tier move. It’s not the WORST thing in the world, but it’s really notable when someone who is already pretty vanilla just does the same basic stuff that half the joshi industry is doing.

Rie is in a tough spot- she’s fast, but certainly not mind-blowing- her high-flying is not more impressive than Chaparrita ASARI’s, and not even moreso than Manami Toyota (who is four inches taller and far more physically credible and explosive). She can hit all the suplexes but they just look pretty basic. She’s not a botch machine, but nor is she super impressive in her execution. Like, she ends up peaking as a ***-***1/2 performer, with the latter end of the scale being so rare I can’t think of any examples off the top of my head. So she’s never embarrassing but she’s certainly never that INTERESTING, either. And it seems like once she realizes that no push is ever really forthcoming, she just settles into that “midcard” role and never leaves it, dropping her effort level down. Notably, you can see stuff in ARSION where everyone is trying their asses off and there’s this brand new precision submission style going on, and instead of trying to learn that style she’s just doing the same basic Zenjo restholds as before.

CAREER TRAJECTORY:
-Rie Tamada debuted for All Japan Women’s Pro Wrestling (Zenjo) in 1991, which was a pretty odd year- a few wrestlers washed out quickly and Michiko Omukai retired due to injury, only to debut for LLPW later, but this one also had Kumiko Maekawa & Chikako Shiratori. They were all pretty hopeless by 1992-93, as you might expect- Kumiko was the star of the class, with a legit karate background, and she eventually got a push and became the Ace in the 2000s. Chikako was pretty and made an “Idol” of sorts, but never got a push and quit for JD’- Rie stuck it out for ages.

Rie becomes the AJW Junior Champion in Aug. 1992, defeating Akemi Torisu of the previous generation, but holds it for only a month before losing to Kumiko- as the official “Rookie Title”, quick changes sometimes happen. 1993 hits and Rie’s still a rookie, but Zenjo also hits the “Interpromotional Era”, which means the entire pecking order of the company sits in stasis for about three years- NOBODY moves up the ranks at this point as the various joshi companies pit their stars against each other in Dream Matches. Rie notably gets heavily delayed in what would be expected to be her “push”- Kumiko is made one of the WWWA Tag Champions in early 1996 and is in all kinds of big matches while Rie is just farting around in the midcard. One issue is the previous generations of top stars hasn’t stepped down, and nobody there is jobbing to undersized Rie Tamada, you know? Ideally by 1995 she should be getting her big push, and she should be beating veterans by 1996, going through “the people who job to the next generation” (any veterans who are tumbling down the card). But it just doesn’t happen.

It’s 1995 before Rie matters, teaming with Mariko Yoshida (returned from injury) to win the Japanese Tag Titles from Carol Midori & Michiko Omukai of LLPW in March 1995. They vacate them in the summer for some reason (possibly Yoshida “ages out”), and by December Rie now teams with Yumi Fukawa from the latter generation to win the Japanese Tag Team Titles (2) back, forming “TamaFuka” as an undercard tag team with matching gear. This time they hold the belts for 272 days before losing to GAEA Japan’s Chikayo Nagashima & Sugar Sato in fall 1996. She manages to defeat Kumiko Maekawa for the AJW Title in November, holding it for about a year until vacating it when…

Rie in some hideous tassel monstrosity. She’s usually wearing “army-colored gear” or matching gear with Yumi Fukawa in most of the stuff I’ve seen.

1997 sees the destruction of AJW as it goes bankrupt, and Rie quits along with numerous other wrestlers, moving off with Aja Kong to help form Hyper Visual Fighting ARSION in 1997. Rie vacates her AJW Title and forms part of the backbone of the new company, though it’s clear she’s not really getting pushed- she does prominent jobs to Reggie Bennett & Candy Okutsu on early shows. As its founder Rossy Ogawa was big on “Idols”, Rie was kind of pushed that way, but not as much as the more model-esque girls.

Rie’s only real push seems to come from the tag team division, where she’s one of the definitive stars, winning it four different times. It seems she was just easy to be “that person you slot in”, winning the belts to keep them warm. So Rie teams up with Hiromi Yagi and wins the Twin Star of ARSION Titles in June 1998, holding them for 202 days before losing to CAZAI (Ayako Hamada & Mika Akino), the new big rising stars. She & GAMI (Mikiko Futagami) team up to beat Michiko Omukai & Mima Shimoda for the Twin Star of ARSION Titles (2) in Aug. 2000, holding them for 105 days before losing to Las Cachorras Orientales. A year later, she & GAMI would win the vacant Twin Star of ARSION Titles (3), holding them now for only 71 days before losing to Ai Fujita & Michiko Omukai. She teams with Takako Inoue to win the Twin Star of ARSION Titles (4) again, beating GAMI & Lioness Asuka- holding the belts for 187 days until the promotion dies. The two are the final Tag Champions of ARSION.

Interestingly, she also shows up in Zenjo’s Japan Grand Prix round-robin tournament in 2002, scoring “10” alongside three other women, all tied for first. She doesn’t end up in the four-person tournament at the end, though- Nanae Takahashi wins it.

(haha okay my bio initially stopped there before my final edit- I just trailed off with the death of ARSION and forgot to write the rest of her career! Again, emblematic of Rie’s career)

So with the death of ARSION in the summer of 2003 comes Major Girl’s Fighting AtoZ. This was also run by Rossy Ogawa, but had Yumiko Hotta as the top star. Checking out Rie, she again forms the “backbone”, beating rookies I’ve never heard of in matches under 10 minutes. She wins more than she loses but it’s not big ones- she loses to Momoe Nakanishi of Zenjo and trades wins in tags (often teaming with GAMI again). She beats anyone on a lower-tier, like some newbie named “Kana” (that’s Asuka to you WWE fans), but never seems to beat anyone who’s actually been elevated.

Rie finally retires in Aug. 2004, getting a full show- “AtoZ Rie Tamada’s Retirement Show”. She wrestles multiple matches in one night, teaming with GAMI to defeat Bullfight Sora, Kana & Mirai, then just Sora & Mira. She then teams with Kumiko & Omukai (hey! Her Class of 1991 classmates!) and beats AKINO, GAMI & Mariko Yoshida. Finally, she & Aja Kong team up in the final match, losing to Manami Toyota & Takako Inoue. And that’s it for Rie- she appears on no other wrestling show as far as I can see- a 13-year career.

MOVESET:
DDT, Missile Dropkick, Rolling Elbow, Dragon Suplex

THE MATCHES:

MANAMI TOYOTA vs. RIE TAMADA:
(AJW TV, Jan. 3rd 1997)
* This is Rie’s biggest singles match yet, taking on the recently-dethroned WWWA Champion. Toyota’s still a “name” and Rie has yet to prove herself, so this will be a good look at where she sits in the pecking order. Also it’ll be interesting to see if “Toyota the Rookieslayer” comes out- the one who laughs at her opponents and bullies the shit out of them. Rie now has really long hair and good, solid gear- a yellow leotard with a complex two-toned blue design on the front. The size difference here is immense, though- Manami effectively looks like a giant version of her opponent.

Straight away Toyota takes the Mulkey Bump to the floor, leading to Rie launching herself outside with a missile dropkick! Rie misses a splash, but so does Manami- Rie barely dropkicking her in mid-air. Rie tries to press the advantage but Manami just Godzillas her and acts like a bully, yanking the hair and dropkicking her in the spine while she’s tied in the ropes. Manami works a figure-four and taunts her, even pulling her back from a rope break. Manami yanks on the hair with her spinning grip and stands on her, but Rie gets a great reaction for doing the same hairpull to the star, whipping her around and throwing on camel clutches using the hair, Toyota sporting the most “HEY WAIT…” look on her face. Manami gives her a 30-second Rolling Cradle for that one, and Rie sells her ass off flying around off some missile dropkicks (a far cry from the usual “they get up immediately so Manami can speedblitz them” style). She nearly reverses on her but gets missiled kicked in the BACK of the head this time… but manages a JB Angels bridge-out and reverses a German for two! Rie keeps it up, but eventually takes the Mandatory German off the Middle Rope for two.

But when Manami tries a Moonsault, Rie tries the move to HER, but resists and so Rie just shoves her to the floor in a very nasty-looking tumble. Rie follows with a plancha, but Toyota powers out of a Dragon Suplex, tries to deck Rie, then charges across the ring and boots HER straight off the top, hooking her leg on the top rope in a nasty stretch. Tope suicida! Running No-Hands Springboard Plancha! Missile Dropkick Suicida! Manami, SUPER proud of herself, now waits Rie out in the ring by sitting down cross-legged. And of course immediately misses a Moonsault and takes a huge bump on a Bridging German for two. Rie now missile kicks HER in the back of the head, and Toyota has to yank the ropes to avoid a Dragon suplex. Manami Germans her to end that stuff, but in a great bit, she goes for the Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex and Rie leaps behind her and THEN hits the Dragon Suplex- two! Rie desperately tries another and Manami reverses to her own, but Rie manages yet another rollup for two- Toyota just boots her out of a charge and brings back her weird ’92 reverse-grip bridging butterfly suplex for two. Third try at the Moonsault finally hits, but Rie “F*ck YOU!” bridges out… and Toyota hauls her down to try again, getting the same result. Then does it AGAIN, getting frustrated. Don’t see THAT in joshi very often. Rie’s got the fight taken out of her though, so Toyota just hauls her into the Ocean Cyclone for the win at (14:21 of 18:37 shown).

Another bit of great fun with Manami beating up a subordinate, just flattening Rie every chance she can, but getting caught with stuff and even eating some revenge spots, like Rie whipping her around by the hair or repeating the fantastic “Missile dropkick to the back of the head” spot. And she totally carried the kid to her best match ever, setting up revenge spots and Rie getting sudden reversals. Rie fought for most of her big moves, but took advantage of Manami’s arrogance and slack attempts at ensuring her opponent was actually beaten. It’s fun because you can see Manami slowing down physically since ’93-95 (she’s hitting her knees on the ropes trying her springboard now, and is about to start using her hand as well), but little things here show you she can add psychology at least a bit. Toyota looking like a giant brute against a child is an oddly fun vibe after years of her fighting from underneath.

Rating: ***1/2 (fantastic match by Rie’s standards with a good “Rookie vs. Asshole Veteran” vibe going through it)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLQOJdrIdqhW3SGh0BHbpW6JpizKCp46ER&v=R72n0AOPQYQ

(about halfway through)

REGGIE BENNETT vs. RIE TAMADA:
(ARSION’s Debut Show, Feb. 1998)
* A foregone conclusion, but an interesting one- Tamada was in the mid-tier in AJW and probably wasn’t going much further there, so has something to prove. Reggie is back in Japan and becomes a regular in ARSION as a top contender- sort of a Lance Archer-type in AEW today where they never win belts but they bring people to the limit and are a different sort of opponent- she was an upper-midcard wrestler in AJW. She’s now wearing a Bam Bam Bigelow-esque fire singlet (but, um, with a different cut) while Rie’s in military fatigue gear now.

They immediately go SHOOT-STYLE, all grappling with each other, which looks kinda funny as Reggie might weigh twice what Tamada does, and picks her up out of the triangle and launches her like Aja did Omukai. Reggie works the back and hits a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker off the ropes, but Rie gets a missile kick. Reggie swats another down and hits a spinning slam, but Rie’s able to armdrag out of another one and goes for a cross-armbreaker a few times. She even gets a springboard rana and immediately tries again, then again after armdragging Reggie when she attempts a Flair Toss off the top. Reggie catches her off the top with a fallaway slam and hits the 2nd-rope Splash for two. Reggie Rack (tilt-a-whirl into a torture rack) is attempted but Rie spins out and NOW can hit the cross-armbreaker! But Reggie makes the ropes quickly, at least putting over the move. Reggie catches her running again and gets the mother of all chokeslams (just BOMBING her and jumping forwards) for two, then a devastating powerbomb. The ref checks for signs of life, stalling Reggie, but she attempts a big finish with another… but Rie ranas out, only to be caught half-way and Reggie just bends her back in the middle from that position, and that’s the submission at (7:25).

This one shows off the “ARSION Style” a bit, but has a bit of weirdness to it, where it’s like half-Shoot Style and then they ignore it completely and just do standard spots- like they pick and choose when they’re using that style because all the usual stuff is threaded into it. In the end it’s just Rie doing running attacks and reversing to the cross-armbreaker, hoping to get it, but Reggie keeps hoping to catch her and often does- this leads right into the ending sequence where she flattens her with the chokeslam and then hits the finishing run.

Rating: **1/2 (good little Big vs. Little match that let Rie be competitive but still an underdog)