Guest
February 1988 - October 1988 We start off with the retirement show of Dump Matsumoto & Yukari Omori. They actually had their last matches a few days after this but this is their last televised match. This is how the retirement show was covered in the Wrestling Observer: “Dump’s retirement was such a big deal that Fuji TV Network ran a 30 minute television special chronicalling the career of Dump, showing her from her early matches in 1980 and some of the big feuds and angles of her career... This group is really going to lose a lot of its drama and steam without Matsumoto and I have a feeling we’ll see TV ratings drop significantly.“ (WON 3/14) “Dump Matsumoto’s final televised match, which aired in Japan on 3/6, drew an incredible 13.2 national rating which will no doubt be the second most highly rated wrestling TV show in either the US or Japan (No. 1 of course was Vince McMahon’s prime time special on NBC on 2/5) during this year barring anything unforeseen. The rating is even more impressive because the show aired on a Sunday afternoon (the girls normal time slot is on Saturday afternoon), thus wasn’t in prime time as both the men’s groups in Japan still are (but not for long).“ (WON 3/28) Condor Saito also retires shortly after this, so her and Bull have to vacate the WWWA Tag Team Titles. Bull Nakano & Kumiko Iwamoto win the vacated titles on 2/25/88 and then drop them to the Fire Jets (Mitsuko Nishiwaki & Yumiko Hotta) on 7/19/88. These matches were televised but are so heavily clipped they’re weren’t worth including. Dynamite Jack is Yukari Honjo, aka Masked Yu, aka Crane Yu. She’s part of a new heel group called the Dynamites, who seem to be Bull Nakano’s underlings. This video also has the first appearance of Japan Women’s Pro-wrestling or JWP. The company was founded in 1986 when the massive success of AJW led another business group to think there was money in a 2nd women’s promotion. They started by hiring former AJW stars Jackie Sato & Nancy Kumi and with their help train a new batch of rookies to start the promotion. One of these was Shinobu Kandori, who was a national judo champion and had won bronze at the 1984 World Judo Championships. She had a notorious match with Jackie Sato on 7/18/87, there’s multiple sides of the story on what actually happened so I won’t go into details, but the end result was Jackie Sato broke her arm, retired from wrestling and Kandori was put on some kind of hiatus. After retiring from AJW, Devil Masami soon joined JWP and will wrestle Shinobu Kandori in her return match on 7/14/88. We have just the 1 new AJW wrestler making their first appearance in the set: 1. Toshiyo Yamada - Debut 1987. An accomplished amateur wrestler who won silver in the 70kg category of the 1987 All Japan Wrestling Championships (which is a national amateur wrestling tournament) just before joining AJW. She debuted on 7/27/87 and defeated Miori Kamiya to win the AJW Junior Title on 7/19/88 Here are the contents of the video with timestamps. I can’t provide this without some slight spoilers, so if you wanna watch without major clues on how things unfold, maybe just don’t read it :) 1. Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka vs. Dump Matsumoto & Yukari Omori (Dump Matsumoto & Yukari Omori Retirement) 2/25/88 - 00:00:00 2. Bull Nakano vs. Chigusa Nagayo (All Pacific Title) 4/2/88 - 00:29:49 3. Bull Nakano vs. Yumi Ogura (Japan Grand Prix) 5/15/88 - 00:53:50 4. Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka vs. Itsuki Yamazaki & Noriyo Tateno 5/15/88 - 01:03:13 5. Devil Masami vs. Shinobu Kandori JWP 7/14/88 - 01:20:08 6. Fire Jets sing We Fire Jets 7/19/88 - 02:00:59 7. Chigusa Nagayo vs. Noriyo Tateno (All Pacific Title) 7/19/88 - 02:03:33 8. Itsuki Yamazaki & Noriyo Tateno vs. Mitsuko Nishiwaki & Yumiko Hotta 8/6/88 - 02:20:26 9. Mika Komatsu & Yumi Ogura vs. Mitsuko Nishiwaki & Yumiko Hotta (WWWA Tag Team Titles) 8/25/88 - 02:31:44 10. Chigusa Nagayo vs. Lioness Asuka (WWWA Singles Title) 8/25/88 - 02:46:44 11. Bull Nakano & Dynamite Jack vs. Hisako Uno & Mika Suzuki (Tag League The Best) 10/10/88 - 03:33:33 12. Chigusa Nagayo vs. Toshiyo Yamada 10/10/88 - 03:49:51
