WOTD - DEAN CELEBRATION WEEK: CHIGUSA NAGAYO

[RIPPA]

I remember when Dean used to get excited about things

 

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xc0qag_madusa-vs-zero-wcw-nitro-1996_sport

 

 

Nitro ruled because CHIGUSA WAS ON MY GODDAM TV SCREEN ON FUCKIN BASIC CABLE! I dunno about this Zero stuff, but if Hokuto is wrestling as Jubuki maybe they are going for the whole hog elaborate costumed wrestles division, which worked for Michinoku. I'm waiting and seeing, because if anybody can pull off a Women's Division in the US, Chigusa can. But Phil had a good point about 1 face and seven heels. I'm guessing they are gonna have to use Toshie Uematsu and KAORU as faces if they are bringing them in because Toshie ain't working any other way, that I can see. I also read that Mayumi Ozaki isn't in it and she would rule as a heel if she can freak out like she does in GAEA. I guessing the final will be Bull Nakano vs Medusa, if Bull has signed with GAEA or WCW, and then I would turn Bull and make Chigusa the #1 heel, since she is the fucking heat machine.

DVDVR #13

 

 

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2hnzdj_lioness-asuka-vs-chigusa-nagoya-04-07-85_sport

 

 

[Matt D]

I watched Chigusa vs Dump for the first time back in October or so. I'd never really seen any Joshi before.

 

Chigusa vs Dump (8/28/85):

 

I made it through the first hair match. I'm going to need a bit of time before I tackle the second. It was quite possibly the most manipulative wrestling experience I've ever witnessed. It's sort of insane to think that right around this time Baby Doll was riding off on Dusty's horse. Is that a weird thought?

 

The audience is full of young girls. The violence is extreme, far more than was needed, and we all know this because we've seen so many wrestling matches where the violence wasn't there but the emotion was. That's not to say it wasn't effective. It was hugely effective. They go to extremes but they don't waste them at all. They led with the chain and they never looked back. There was escalation but they started already in the orange danger zone. They take deep shortcuts but that just means that they get further along the road sooner and quicker and once they get there they stay there. They make it their home.

 

Dump's entrance is amazing. I watched a lot of anime when i was younger, and I watch some with my kid now, so I picked up a familiar vibe from it. I thought Chigusa entrance was somewhat underwhelming in comparison. It's unquestionably a good wrestling match with a mismatch, and heat, and hope spots, and build, the fight for the Scorpion Deathlock, so that when Chigusa puts it on, it's almost like a victory in itself, even if it doesn't win her the match. She's defying her opponent by putting it on, defying her opponent who hurt her leg by using it herself. It's a triumphant moment, with the blood running down her face, even if it's an ultimately futile one. It's actually hard to separate the non-wrestling stuff from the wrestling here. The entrances are part of this. Chigusa defiantly screaming on the house mic after the match is part of this. 

 

Knowing all that I do about wrestling, AND Japan, AND the 80s, and today's twerking pop culture and everything, I still can't entirely wrap my head around the fact that something so manipulative and violent and targeted exactly how it was targeted could have existed. I'm not glad that it did. I'll move on to the next match but I don't think I'll revisit this one any time soon. It was well-structured, well-executed, primal wrestling, though. It definitely wasn't what I was expecting.

 

Chigusa vs Dump 2 (11/7/86): 

 

I watched the second Chigusa/Dump hair match. Diminishing returns played in a little, but only a little. I've got various things I want to talk about.

 

The build is something I love, and the reason for it is because it's so outlandish. It's sort of like the world's most violent episode of Jem. I don't even like sports much. I don't. I don't want real sports build in my wrestling, not often. Sometimes it works because it's logical, but that's the only reason why I ever like it, because I like logical narratives. I want stories. I want narratives. I want fiction that is true to itself. I said before that I, when younger (and now with my kid too), watched a lot of anime, and that's very much what I liken this to. It was like a high school drama where you had the bully who has been driven to extremes but really just wants to be loved terrorizing the school, and all of the teachers (or in this case the officials and the ref) and no one can stand up to her but the one student with a huge heart and endless courage. It's that. Just with, you know, scissors and a chain (though that's not out of the realm of possibility for those either). What we have here then is this strange intersection of over the top, pure pop storytelling and this obscenely visceral "real" exploitative violence. 

 

The match itself. The structure was fine. Dump spits the Water(malt whisky?) in Chigusa's face to begin which KOs the immediate revenge element. It's all pretty minimalist. Ref threatening and violence. A few concealed weapon shots. A piledriver. The people outside trying to stop the carnage when they can only to suffer for their trouble. The hope spots all mean so much: Chigusa gets one sole comeback because the ref found the courage to stand up to Dump. Later, after the cut off, she moves out of the ring and walks around the barricade to draw more strength from the crowd. Dump comes after her with a chain though. She powers up out of a bear hug because the fans cheer for her and chant her name once the hold is locked on which is beautiful babyface wrestling. Dump pulls her off the ropes and puts her right back in it but she has the power of the fans within her now and she puts on the Scorpion with a brutally bloody face. It's to no avail though. The match cycles to a repeat of the end of the previous one. Dump brings in an object, forces Chigusa down, prances around the ring in victory, but this time Chigusa beats the count, hits a quick roll up, and the ref ignores the shoulder being blatantly up for three because it's the right thing to do. 

 

I didn't love the finish. It was good for a second match out of three, maybe, but there was no sense at all that Dump couldn't have just killed her. She had her comeuppance because of her arrogance (and maybe because the ref found his courage due to Chigusa) but you got the sense that she was playing with Chigusa the whole time and since wrestling isn't a story that ends, necessarily, that next time she got her hands on her, she'd kill her dead. It felt like a fluke, not like something meaningful that was built to. Maybe that was a way of keeping Dump's heat but it wasn't satisfying at all.

 

Now, were this some sort of drama meant for the core audience, here's what would happen: Dump would reluctantly admit respect for Chigusa after this, stemming from the fact that she wasn't just a popular girl, but that she was TOUGH to have beat the ten count. Like I said, all Dump really ever wanted, like any true bully, was to be loved. Bull would see this as a sign of weakness, and more than that, as outright blasphemy, because while Dump was organically created, Bull was a monster of her own making, someone that Dump shaped into the person she had become. She turns on Dump, takes the faction, and Chigusa makes the save, which would then lead into some sort of crazy reluctant tag of Chigusa and Dump, with the former offering true friendship to the latter (which is a huge trope for this sort of thing) against Bull and someone even more visibly monstrous like, I don't know, Mad Maxine. 

 

I don't think that happened though. 

[DEAN]

Somebody is posting Pro Wrestling This Week so THIS would have been the first time I would have seen Chigusa- back in the beer-drenched year of 1987.

EDIT: I would have actually only seen her at ringside, but STILL!

[MADCAP]

Funny enough, PWTW was the first time I saw any joshi too.  PWTW was the shit, and I miss the 80's...

[Ryan]

Last I read about her was fighting game competition level dorks going bonkers over her wearing one of the SNK fighting game bosses gear to the ring back in the early 1990's. She was dressed as Wolfgang Krauser I believe. No, they had no clue who she was, I linked the match in particular anyway.

 

(My friend/cousin is the wife of one of the people who is bigger into that scene, creator of Divekick, works on the current KI season, etc.)

 

Edit: Godawful video grab, probably from the match on youtube which is about 19th gen VHS transferred from Dean's private stock of BetaMAX.

[J.T.]

I loved Chigusa's Zero gimmick.  The installation firewall hates Dailymotion so I will nab the Zero vs. Malia Hosaka and Zero vs. Madusa matches when i get home..

 

Or someone will beat me to it between now and 3:30 EST.

[RIPPA]

I totally forgot about the Zero fiasco until doing this thread

 

 

[lostinube]

Back when WinMX was still a thing, I could never find any joshi matches and always ended up finding the same Mecha Ike stuff. So now, here are Lioness and Chigusa versus two guys cosplaying as Bull and Dump with a cameo by the real Dump later on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmpNZwFidV4

It's interesting that the female audience has sort of moved on and whatever nostalgia for the heyday of joshi is mainly fueled by men these days.