April 1980

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I LOVE 80s JUNIOR WRESTLING! And this has prime Fujinami in a match with interpromotional flavor. We know junior Hara is game from his match with Zrno the year before, and he was game here once again. But this match was less about matwork and more about building intensity, as they would work uncooperative holds, slap eachother, stare and make you root for Fujinami kicking Hara in the mouth. In terms of technical work this bout isn't on the level of the high end 1980 stuff, but the general sense of "these two really are about to kick the shit out of eachother" is awesome in it's own way. Like all great old junior wrestling the timing is great, as they really build towards…

1980-04-04 AJPW Jumbo Tsuruta vs Terry Funk Champion Carnival 1980 Match Tendai Town Gymnasium, Chiba, Japan Card ★★★ Terry is often described as the Gaijin babyface ace of All Japan but I wanted to see how the crowd responded when he matched up against somebody like Jumbo and it was pretty clear from the start, and throughout the match, that Terry was, in fact, the fan favourite between the two and he generated far stronger reactions at various points. I think they spent far too long on the mat-work portion of the match, and what they did was rather poor. It felt at times that they were completely out of sync and it was hard to figure out what they wer…

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1980-04-04 NJPW Mike Graham (c) vs. Tatsumi Fujinami NWA International Junior Heavyweight Title Match City Gymnasium, Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan Card ★★★ Graham was rocking this spectacular 70s afro perm complete with the porno moustache. He tried his best but he didn’t quite match the sleaze factor Steamboat managed with his moustache at this time. Fujinami must have taken around 90% of this, working over the arm again and again and thoroughly controlling Graham every step of the way. The pacing was very staccato, Graham trying to make comebacks every once in a while but each time Fujinami would efficiently cut him off. The fact that this dynamic con…

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Wendy is known as the Dallas Cowgirl. Wendy on the arm to start. Rope break and we have some grappling. Loved Wendy's kickoff. The counter wrestling has been solid. Wendy switches her focus on the leg. Wendy really working the leg. Wendy's work on the leg has been active. Kai escapes and starts choking Wendy. Wendy switches over to a front face lock to control. Kai with a bit of offense , only for Wendy to cut her off. Kai with a hair pull to set up her heat. Kai working over Wendy. Big miss by Kai. Wendy clamps om a body scissor. They blow this spot twice in a row. The finish was really clunky. They were pretty solid up until the last spot or 2. 1 3/4*

1980-04-18 AJPW Abdullah The Butcher vs. Terry Funk Champion Carnival 1980 Match Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium, Osaka, Japan Card ★★ Can’t say this was good but it definitely was a spectacle. Both guys were pouring blood by the end of it. There was no messing around and they got right to it off the bat. Abby can barely sell a thing but with Terry shrieking like a banshee throughout it was never less than compelling viewing. After the inevitable double count out they even had to cut away because the ensuing attack on Terry was too violent to be shown. This is exactly what you would expect a Funk vs Abby match to be and it was a whole lot of fun, if you don’t…

1980-04-19 CWA Bill Dundee vs. Larry Latham ★★★ Easily the best TV match from Memphis and most likely the longest so far in ‘80. Definitely the only one I recall exceeding the 10 minute mark. For some reason Dundee was extremely serious going into this one, against your random jobber he usually had a more easy going vibe. This was an exceptional performance from Dundee. He made Latham, who I thought was the least interesting member of the Blonde Bombers, look like a legitimate threat. Latham’s punches did look great but Dundee sold Latham’s offense like a champ. Earlier on Latham worked the arm, then Dundee between his own offense would sell that arm. Later …

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1980-04-XX AJW Lucy Kayama vs. Mami Kumano ★★★★ Now this was a great match. This was a fucking war. The first few minutes had them running through some holds, Kayama was chucked to the outside and we got the usual interference from the other women at ringside, they did the running spot where they disappeared into the back rows and rammed her into the wall and I was like great, here we go again. Then we finally got back into the ring for the restart and suddenly everything just jumped up a couple levels and it never dropped for a second. First things first, Kumano might easily be the best heel in AJW at this point. I thought her partner Ikeshita’s singles matc…

1980-04-XX AJW Rimi Yokota vs. Tenjin Masami Junior Heavyweight Title Match ★★ This was a Junior Heavyweight Title match. Yokota ended up outside early and the Black Pair, supporting Masami at ringside, were all over her. Yokota managed to scramble back into the ring and the referee actually paused the action so the other seconds at ringside could wrangle the two ne'er-do-wellers and escort them back to the locker room. Once the match was back underway Masami channelled her inner Jerry Lawler (with a citrus twist) as she played hide-the-lemon with the referee, rubbing it right in Yokota’s eyes when he got the chance. I can usually take it or leave it with t…

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