Wendi Richter vs. Monster Ripper (Cage Match) (June 1987)

Come on, you can’t put this on right after Hansen vs Colon in a cage not fair. Pretty damn brutal to start with both of them throwing stiff shots. Fatal flaw by Richter as she tries to slam Ripper but can’t. Ripper takes over with her own slam and then slamming Richter into the cage but Richter is able to come back with elbows and a lot of kicks. Lots of kicks. Ripper takes back over going after Richter’s arm. Arm work is pretty solid with several legdrops to the arm. Cool hopespot as Wendi reverses into almost a triangle choke. Awesome dramatic near escapes by both women. I need to rewatch this because I watched it right after Hansen vs Colon because this looks like a very good match but nothing could really follow Hansen vs Colon. I’ll rewatch eventually with non-cloudy eyes.

I must echo the above sentiments re this one coming straight after Hansen Colon as i'm still exhausted from watching that one. Perhaps I should have waited a while before watching this so I could focus more. Both women worked hard and this was more full on than I expected it to be. I loved the dramatic kind of surprise out of nowhere ending and the post match brawl. I'll need to watch this again.

What chance have you got trying to follow Colon/Hansen? This was actually a pretty fun scrap, but I was still on a high after the last match. Monster Ripper is Bertha Faye of WWF fame and she managed to seem fairly imposing and dangerous in this. She drops big legdrops and sold Richter's stuff okay. Richter was giving off some Mayumi Ozaki vibes only not in insufferable ways. Some of her offence looked rough, but it was frantic and at points it felt like she was just trying to claw herself free of Ripper's GIRTH. I actually liked the finish as well, and because this is Puerto Rico I fully expected someone to get chucked down a stairwell post-match.

I don't have the set, but am familiar and have seen the majority of these matches and a lot of them are online, so I thought it'd be OK if I shared my opinion on some of them...

 

This is one I don't recall ever watching, however this was a little odd... The cage is awfully small and also seemed it could fall apart at some point. It's so small the ladies can extend their hands and grab the top of it. I'm guessing neither tried to escape climbing over the top as the cage was so small they could climb out fairly easily.

 

Not a great match, but not a significantly horrendous match either. Women's wrestling was never big in the territory. AJW has put on way better cage matches than this with real size cages. They teased the big slam from Wendi on Monster Ripper, but they never delivered. The escape teases did bring in the drama though. The finish I thought was excellent though. They managed to make a normal escape significant and different from the norm.

Good enough cage, but I have to echo the sentiments regarding the previous. Hard to top Hansen vs. Colon.