I'm currently reading a manga based on an autobiography by Dump Matsumoto. It's called "Dump the heel" and drawn by Hara Hidenori. There are currently 5 volumes out in japanese. I highly recommend them because they are fun and have plenty of action & drama behind the scenes. Like you explained in the video, Chigusa Nagayo and Dump Matsumoto were really good friends at the beginning of their career as newcomers in the Doujo for example, and Matsumoto has been bullied by some of her elders. Later there was a rift between Chigusa and Matsumoto because of the rumors spread by the company chairman. I don't know if all of this was really true, but it makes the manga more entertaining to read. There's no English translation I'm aware of though, but I still encourage you to order the volumes from Japan. I'm sure you'd like them.
Bruno losing the WWWF title to Ivan Koloff could almost rival this. Story goes that it took a few seconds for it to set in that the vastly loved Bruno actually lost to the point you could hear a pin drop in Madison Square Garden. The shock was the only thing that saved Ivan's hide so he took the opportunity to race out of the ring to the point that he wasn't even awarded the belt in ring.
Legends ! Aspiring female wrestlers should watch this and more 80s and 90s Joshi promotions . They could learn a lot . Even if WWE isnt looking for that style exactly , there is so much they could still take from it and make their own . The more tools you have in your tool box the better .
@@elcondoropinologo9821 Everyone was abusive back then though. That's wrestling for you. They were trying to make everyone mentally strong. Chigusa still trains women to this day and I haven't heard any recent complaints, so I'm sure she's cooled it down.
I am just learning about Dump Mataumoto since there will be a Netflix show about her in September 2024. I've watched wrestling for years and I never heard about her. She reminds me of the original Sheik and Abdullah the Butcher. I am looking forward to her Netflix special.
Hey Kim Justice! I've been a big fan of your wrestling videos since the days before you were forced to moved them away from your main channel and into a Patreon account. Seeing your new video with subtitles, I would be curious to know if you would be interested in having other people translating them in other languages. I think it could be helpful for you to make your videos more accessible
Although AJW is considered the best era of Joshi wrestling. It's unfortunate how badly the talent were treated and with low pay. Considering they're arguably the best wrestlers of all time. Dump Matsumoto, Bull Nakano, Chigusa, Akira Hokuto, inoue. They're top tier
Just 6 minutes into the video, and I need to say something: "... women's wrestling being treated as legitimately as men's wrestling was, and in Japan at least, that became a reality." This bit unfortunately wasn't the case at all, as Joshi was very much pigeonholed as "something for girls", since Fumiake had brought AJW back to TV, to the point when Dave Meltzer first wanted to go to AJW shows, his Japanese friends were shocked, as they told him that was for for teenage girls. Just that. Otherwise I'm enjoying the video, and will watch it to the end.
I am writing this one day after Stardom Midsummer Festival, an event I attended live, which featured Dump 3rd to last on the card, teaming with Zapp and Natsuko Tora and Ruaka of Oedo Tai. Crowd was ELECTRIC for Dump, even though she mostly did her big spots and rested the other half of the match… but those big spots were epic. I want to thank you, Kim, for your videos, giving me (and all of us) context for joshi wrestling and puro in general. You made me a bigger wrestling fan than I was.
Good video I'll say, and I particularly liked how you highlighted how absurdly toxic the AJW locker room (and how it would be for the promotion's entire existence), how much that had an effect on both Chigusa and Dump, and how the Matsunagas manipulated their stars. Those were all factors for what they became. The analogy of Chigusa standing as an avatar for all schoolgirls, and Dump one for ever school bully, was also a major factor for the success of the feud, and you did a good job of highlighting that. One correction I'd like to point out is that the match between Lioness and Jaguar wasn't on the same show as the first Hair vs Hair match, they both happened on August '85, but Lioness/Jaguar was on the 22th in Tokyo (Chigusa wrestled Devil on this show), while the Hair match was on the 28th in Osaka. Something else I want to note is that, from what I know, the 76-78 peak of the Beauty Pair was bigger than the Crush Girls', with bigger TV ratings, and bigger shows too (for example, they ran Budokan Hall, a 16000 sets arena three times during the 70's, 77, 78 and 79, whereas they only booked it once in the 80's, the aforementioned August 22th, '85 show). Great job regardless, so feel proud about yourself.
I don't know live gates from the 70s but the TV ratings in the Crush Gals era were much, much higher, like 12.0 consistently. The 90s also had bigger gates including the Tokyo Dome, doesn't mean they were bigger overall.
@@supersasukemaniac Not OZ Academy, as from 1998 to 2004 it was just a number of shows that Ozaki promoted herself using GAEA wrestlers, and basically being GAEA-Not-GAEA shows. It only became an independent promotion in 2005, after both GAEA and AJW closed down. That being said, the oversaturation of the market (there were 7 competing Joshi Puroresu promotions in 1998) certainly had an impact, though AJW was struggling as early as 1994, as per what Jaguar Yokota has stated on interviews.
Another gem KJ. I remember in the early days of home cable, a small network named Tempo used to carry Women's Wrestling from Japan featuring the tag team of Dump Masumoto and Bull Nakano. It was wild and better than anything the US men's shows had to offer.
In a strange coincidence, I have recently been going through episodes of AJW Classics from the beginning, got to the first hair vs. hair match and was immediately so blown away that I had to upload it to RU-vid because there wasn't a good quality version on here. So here you go if you want to watch the match and post-match in full: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-OOc2S04YiC0.html
Oh man you mentioned ricky morton…. Man your right crush gals were on that rock n roll express feel and dump had that feel similar to brody or the road warriors when they first came in…. But man this style of wrestling was way ahead of its time in terms if the violence and all.
Its still very weird to me that Lioness was as big if not bigger than Chiggy-san in their own time, but history has relegated her to Marty Janety status.
Being new to wrestling learning about the history of Joshi wrestling is interesting. Thanks to videos like these I get to satisfy that gap of knowledge. Thanks wrestling fans! One question though, does anyone know which match is showed in 32:35 ? Is it cutie suzuki?
Here's the unfortunate truth about Joshi. They wrestle so hard for such long matches that their bodies inevitably break down. There are exceptions, but taking Bull Nakano for example, she debuted in 83 at age 15. By the time she retired in 97 at age 29, her body had broken down, and from 93 onward she could be considered semi-retired and wrestling more in the US. Joshi rode two major highs with The Beauty Pair and Crush Gals, both whom their fans saw as singers/idols who just so happened to also be wrestlers (and were teenagers watching the hip, cool thing). Along with them were some incredibly talented women, but Japanese wrestling being what it is, it meant short careers littered with injuries (and not taking care of their bodies). Joshi wrestling is and always will be niche, and nowadays people know the behind the scenes horror stories, and likely can't stand watching it or don't want their daughters getting involved. I still enjoy Joshi, but it's difficult to watch sometimes knowing what I do now.
Eh, all wrestlers bodies eventually break down, and career length in current Joshi is probably longer than it's ever been. Also, there were three booms if you include the interpromotional wars of the early 90s, and it's a little silly to call it niche given how big the Beauty Pair and Crush Gals were. Even as far back as the 50s they were selling out small arenas and had TV coverage.
@@duckmercy11 Beauty Pair and Crush Gals were nearly half a century ago. Joshi hasn't been massively popular in thirty years, and those interpromotional wars didn't exactly last very long. Joshi got BIG among teenage girls for about a decade, but even then, the girls didn't make a whole lot of money. Manami Toyota is probably the greatest Joshi of all-time, but even she admitted recently that her body was already breaking down before the age of 25 in 97, and now spends her days drinking alone to make the pain go away. Athletes' bodies breaking down in their mid-twenties is not normal.
Jackie Sato. Sato was a big star, they even made a short movie about her tag team called "Beauty Pair: A Genuine Youth", but Jaguar Yokota was more innovative in the ring. Yokota invented the suplex powerslam (Goldberg's jackhammer) and trained most of the top joshi stars of the 80s and 90s.
looks like netflix is making a biopic about dump matsumoto, who knows it it'll be any good. Its a bit difficult to re-capture the era. Just like the rikidozan biopic, wasn't too great.
Dump vs Chigusa was not the same night as Lioness vs. Jaguar. Chigusa wrestled Devil Masami that night for the All Pacific Tile in the semi main event.
While it's great to see the history, IMO there's way too much meta-discussion in this video. You don't need to tell us what you could have included, what you didn't include, what you had to include, etc -- just present the information.
Sad that AJW didnt change their retirement age, evolve and ended up folding…. Obviously the competition wouldnt give them advice but i wish they took some… it reminds me of the awa….i loved them but they just didnt evolve fast enough with the marketing and tv and it allowed wwf to just keep running wild along with their heated competition with wcw. Awa created some of the biggest stars.
Why one Earth would you retire athletes just getting near their prime? I'm sure there is some ingrained cultural (sexist) reason, but it seems a waste.
You are absolutely correct. The guys on top of AJW took the traditional belief that after reaching 26, the wrestlers should retire so that they could go and be a wife, have kids and so on. Similar to the idol system.
Kim your doing so good today. Don't get drunk on hyperbole and make these women out to be better than they were. They are great, but you get carried away sometimes
