Lucy Kayama

Here’s a random one-off review, as Evito-X has been uploading old-school joshi among the great rarities on his YouTube channel, and I wanted to check it out.

WWWA WORLD TAG TEAM TITLES:
BEST TWO OF THREE FALLS:
THE QUEEN ANGELS (Lucy Kayama & Tomi Aoyama) vs. THE BLACK PAIR (Mami Kumano & Yumi Ikeshita):
(7/31/1979)
* It’s time for some 1970s joshi! The Black Pair were set up as heels in opposition to the Beauty Pair- this is a latter incarnation, with Mami Kumano replacing Shinobu Aso. Yumi’s in black boots and Mami has red boots (both have black swimsuits and ‘fros, so that’s how I can tell them apart, haha). The Queen Angels appear to be babyfaces, with matching swimsuits with white polka-dots on them- Lucy (in red) is one I’ve seen before in a variety of old matches, usually featuring Jackie Sato. I’ve never seen Tomi (in blue) before, but she’s a hell of a high-flier, apparently: https://www.reddit.com/r/stardomjoshi/comments/87xj1c/tomi_aoyamas_springboard/.

Beauty Pair’s signature song, aka “Every anime theme song during the 1970s”.

JOSHI SPOTLIGHT- THE BEAUTY PAIR:
JACKIE SATO
Real Name: Naoko Sato
Billed Height & Weight: 5’8″ 160 lbs.
Career Length: 1975-88

MAKI UEDA
Real Name: Makiko Ueda
Billed Height & Weight: 5’6″ 136 lbs.
Career Length: 1975-79

-Now this is a really deep dive into the history of Joshi- many fans online have no doubt at least HEARD of the Crush Gals, and how big they were in Japan in the 1980s, but it’s much less-known that they were begat (begotten?) by the Beauty Pair- Jackie Sato & Maki Ueda. Both groups were Joshi tag teams who were also “Idols” of a sort- becoming icons to teenage girls and even selling their songs!

Of the two, Sato is by far the most famous and important, so this is largely a bio on Sato herself- she was the one whose career lasted longer, involved a push as AJW’s top star, and became central to another whole company (the first incarnation of Joshi Women’s Pro-Wrestling- JWP). Sato herself was a basketball player who turned to pro wrestling, and became the biggest star in joshi, though Ueda actually became WWWA Champion first.