Joshi Spotlight: Plum Mariko’s “Retirement Match”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbcWOTR3Oag&ab_channel=JolanaDoe

PLUM MARIKO MEMORIAL- ARIGATO, MARI-CHAN:
* HEY, HERE’S AN UPLIFTING SUBJECT FOR A JOSHI SPOTLIGHT! It’s JWP’s Memorial VHS tape for poor Plum Mariko, who died of an in-ring injury on a house show in the summer. This is set at Korakuen Hall, and is an in-ring ceremony honoring her. JWP’s wrestlers are seen around the ring to start, Dynamite Kansai already failing to hold it together (Devil Masami is much more stoic) and then we take it right to Plum’s debut in 1986 (!) for the original form of JWP (Japan Women’s Pro Wrestling). She’s seen in a pinstriped Jobber Singlet (with red bangs in her hair!) in her debut, then we see video clips from 1988 with her and other rookies like a young short-haired Cutie Suzuki, generic looking young kid “Miss A” (Kansai) and more. Kansai & Cutie do current interviews and we get to see Plum with goofy ’80s hair and a VERY ’80s denim jacket do the mandatory “uncomfortable bad karaoke-tier musical performance”.

1989 sees her win one of the early JWP’s belts, then we’re all the way to 1992 where she joins about 2/3 of the company in forming “JWP Project” with new management. In the inaugural show in some tiny-ass TV studio, a lavender-clad Plum beats Bolshoi Kid in one of those ludicrously long, padded JWP midcard bouts, but does a good job of it considering how green her opponent is. Later, she brings in against Kansai in a JWP Title Match, looking pretty solid in clips until she jobs to a side suplex of all things. Then we see her job to “Super Heel” Devil Masami’s guillotine legdrop, the Undertaker-knockoff character doing a sick grin on the pinfall.

This is clipped in one playlist, and they show only a few minutes of it on this tape- here’s the full version.

MOST SPECIAL PERSONS WRESTLING JAM:
DEVIL MASAMI & PLUM MARIKO vs. CHIGUSA NAGAYO & CUTIE SUZUKI:
* !!!!!! Yes, it’s the in-ring return of former ’80s megastar CHIGUSA NAGAYO, having done some return matches at the Dream Slams, but is now working for JWP, as AJW was kind of giving her the runaround on a big return, I guess. As JWP was hurting for stars and AJW is infamous for just ignoring veterans, and various other political things that probably happened (Chigusa later formed a new company and swiped a lot of AJW stars, including Akira Hokuto), I assume there’s a lot of stuff going down in the room where it happened, to quote Hamilton. This match has got to be a HUGE deal, as Chigusa & Devil are old rivals (and Chigusa’s return match was a losing effort to Devil at Dream Slam), and Cutie & Plum are great supporting stars- Can any team in history define “sympathy heat” better than Chigusa & Cutie? Devil’s in purple & black, Plum’s in purple & turquoise frills, Cutie’s in white & gold, and Chigusa’s in red, black & gold- similar to her GAEA Japan gear.

Pro move: they tease starting with Plum & Cutie, building anticipation when the vets decide to go instead… so Plum missile kicks Chigusa in the back and Devil blasts Cutie off the apron! Plum Germans Cutie and Devil overthrow powerbombs her, as they work a deliberate, powerful pace. They work Cutie over (Plum even teasing a tag and then slapping her ass at Chigusa), but she reverses a powerbomb and in comes the vets! They trade “smart” spots and knowingly stop before moves can hit them, and alternate between dramatic lockups and “I can top you” headbutting. Man, NOBODY can make this simple stuff seem important like these two and their defiant stares and taunts. Plum works the “Goldberg arm & leg hold” on Chigusa, and Devil keeps assisting… and then just drags Cutie into the ring and overthrow powerbombs her onto Chigusa! Chigusa escapes, but Devil Samoan drops Cutie, and Plum missile kicks her but runs into a Ligerbomb trying a Rana. Chigusa adds a Powerbomb & leg lariat, looking at Devil all the while, who chops her while she does the sharpshooter to wear Plum down- Cutie pays back the cheating with a flying kneedrop while Plum’s in that.

A couple minutes of restholds and Cutie seems enthused, but she runs right into Plum’s “reverse to a bridging fallaway slam” move. Plum gets that Rana now, and Devil’s in for a lariat, but Cutie keeps reversing on her until she hits a DRAGON SUPLEX for two, wowing the crowd. They sandwich her with strikes while Chigusa’s on the apron, and a German hits. Devil takes the leg lariat & sharpshooter now, but Plum’s distraction leads to a Doomsday Device Flying Thesz Press. Plum works a dragon sleeper while the fangirls chant for their former idol, then it’s a Devil press slam to Cutie & Powerbomb to Chigusa for two! Chigusa reverses a second one to a rana, but misses her leg lariat! Devil’s lariat misses and Chigusa sets her up for Cutie’s flying knee smash, and Plum has to save! Devil’s “wobble sell” of some of these strikes is just otherworldly good. Chigusa kicks Devil, Plum misses Cutie and hits Devil by mistake, but Devil surges forward anyways and lariats Cutie in a good bit, and Plum slides into Cutie with submissions. Cutie wails in agony while Chigusa does her best “I’m dying; please give me sympathy” sell outside like it’s a team of TWO Ricky Mortons! Devil keeps hammering her to prevent interference, but Chigusa just ducks one and ANNIHILATES her with a huge kick, then charges in with kicks. But Cutie sells the leg so well she can’t even make the tag, Devil bullrushing her down and slapping Chigusa on the apron! So Cutie gets wrapped up again, then Devil murders her with a huge Powerbomb for two.

Cutie FINALLY tags out after dodging a missile kick and rolling up Devil, and the crowd goes nuts… but Devil just catches a foot and locks on a half-crab. Chigusa finally makes the ropes and reverses a strike, plastering Devil with her own shots, Devil actually sinking into the corner and selling it as a KO! She’s up at 8… leg lariat & elbow to the back of the head and she collapses! Chigusa snags her with a sleeper at “7”, Plum running in but getting caught by Cutie’s Dragon Suplex- Devil sells dramatically and finally makes the ropes, but eats a German for two! Another- two! Plum Germans Chigusa to give Devil a shot, but now CUTIE runs in for one on Devil! Double-team punch leads to DEVIL’s sleeperhold, and now Chigusa’s fading- she does her best “silent pleading” sell, fighting up only to get dragged back down again, but Cutie’s second act of interference stops it. Devil Powerbomb- two! Another one, and Cutie runs in at 2… but gets caught in one herself when Devil catches her leg! Another Powerbomb and Plum hits two Germans to set up the Guillotine Legdrop to the back of the head! HOW THE FUCK DID CHIGUSA KICK OUT OF THAT?!? Devil hits a German, but seems to lose the bridge arbitrarily. But another Guillotine Legdrop and that’s that at (33:07). Jesus Christ.

Man, this was a REALLY smartly-paced long-ass match, with EVERY MOVE being milked, so instead of just doing restholds or crowd brawls to waste time, they just made each move COUNT, often with simple facial expressions or the “looking at the person on the apron” thing to taunt them while crushing their partner. Plum did well with her big submissions being treated like killers, but man… DEVIL? She had some of the best selling I’ve ever seen in this match, taking strikes and acting like she was totally punch-drunk, staggering around and collapsing under her own weight as her legs buckle beneath her. That was some otherworldly stuff. Chigusa’s “I’m dead but will still fight” selling was at its peak here as well, getting crushed as Devil just kept coming at her and she had no answer. Eating three Powerbombs & two Germans before kicking out of a Guillotine Legdrop might seem silly, but she sold it like that was the last of her life energy, and she was a quivering mass of jelly for the next two moves, one of which finished her. This was a match full of great “little things”- perhaps too long but somehow lacking much filler beyond two minutes of resting in the middle- the characters bits of Devil & Chigusa made the whole thing, and I can see rating this even higher.

Rating: ****1/2 (some amazing selling by Devil carries half the match, and the best “Deliberate Pacing” 30-minute tag bout you’re likely to see, with every moment milked a ton and phenomenal character work)

PLUM MARIKO vs. CHIGUSA NAGAYO:
(11.02.1994)
* This is an interesting one-off. Chigusa, having returned to wrestling in 1993, was largely unused by AJW, and so she spent a while in JWP, wrestling a handful of opponents. Chigusa comes down to “Hearts On Fire”, which is amazing.

Plum attacks before the bell, tossing Chigusa outside in her ring gear, and “LCOs” the shit out of her, throwing chairs and even drawing blood! Okay, I wasn’t expecting THAT. Then she starts biting the cut! Shit, it’s Plum Matsumoto all up in here. Chigusa comes back with “Bullying Veteran Kicks” and her Sharpshooter, brains her with a chair, then gets on the arena mic and starts shit-talking the fans until she’s now the heel and Plum is the spunky babyface- god Joshi is nuts. Chigusa loudly signals that she’s gonna throw on a Crossface Chickenwing, so it’s hilarious when Plum reverses it immediately to one of her own, nearly dropping the icon after a long struggle (EXACTLY sixty seconds again!), hitting DDT Spam and a Release German before Chigusa bails for a while, then starts reversing the legend’s stuff to submission holds repeatedly. Chigusa finally comes back with a Powerbomb, and uses her bullying kicks to milk ten-counts, but has another couple of moves reversed into holds, dramatically selling all the while until she finally reverses a Flying Thing with a huge kick, then slaps on a Sleeperhold for a finish, as Plum slowly fades and the ref calls it (23:52). Chigusa talks shit after the match, resulting in CUTIE SUZUKI attacking her, and they’re finally pulled apart.

1993-94 Chigusa matches are an… interesting look at “Smoke & Mirrors”. Her charisma & status are so top-shelf that they can carry the day, even as her cardio isn’t great. Here, she sells for the first third of a bout, then taunts Plum for another while, and there’s a lot of standing around and posturing, bailing, and sitting in long submission holds. But it kind of WORKS, as much as it can be dismissed as “lazy”. The match story was interesting as well, as from what I could see, Plum deliberately wrestled like Chigusa’s ’80s foes in hopes of stopping the veteran, and when Chigusa came back, she had to rely on her old standby- snapping on submission reversals. It worked because Chigusa was too slow to keep up with her… but then she tried a high-risk move and she was caught. Chigusa was fascinating, as she was instantly treated like a mega-star by the fans, but worked like a heel to boos… until she was in a submission hold, and then it was 1985 all over again and she was a face because HOLY CRAP she is good at selling agony. Plum did her best to work around an “Undertaker-like” foe (legendary and credible, but past their prime and not fast-paced), and it worked, despite the long run-time and TONS of “outside the ring selling” & restholds.

Rating: ***1/2 (man I was a lot less wordy and recappy back then, haha- either I had way more self-control or I didn’t care about ignoring interesting spots!)

We see a few clips of other matches, then of Plum with her arm in a sling during one of her two collarbone break injuries. A big trios match on her return in 1996 sees her take a MONSTER Powerbomb off the top from Ozaki, then do a shocker job to rookie Reiko Amano’s cross-armbreaker- a great way to show off the new rookie with the “justification” that the veteran Plum is just coming back from injury. She attempts revenge against Ozaki (now Amano’s stablemaster) but takes ANOTHER Superbomb (boy they sure do show a lot of powerbomb bumps in this tape considering how she died) and submits to a regular (if devastating-looking) half-crab of all things. Another match, in a depressingly sparsely-attended show, sees her hit a Super Frankensteiner onto a chair, but Ozaki pins her with a brutal Straightjacket Ligerbomb (WHAT DID I JUST SAY YOU GUYS?). She jobs AGAIN in a “Dress Up Wild Fight” with Ozaki thanks to a Backfist with Oz’s hand wrapped up in like 10 lbs. of chain, but she at last gets a win against Ozaki in a tag match (Bolshoi & Amano are their partners), hitting an Inside Cradle Brainbuster for the three.

Then they show the horrifying botch in a tag match where Plum tries a Super Frankensteiner on Devil but jumps from the side and so her momentum carries her all the way off into a vertical bump to the apron and then the floor. Devil finishes with a brainbuster and ANOTHER huge Ligerbomb. WHO EDITED THIS VIDEO?!?

And then, the worst happens- Aug. 15th sees her take a Ligerbomb in the planned finish, but she never gets up. A still image of her taking a Ligerbomb is shown, then we see her loaded into an ambulance with bandages over her lower face (and a pair of scissors stuck in?). The final match seems to be filmed a bit and then Devil goes over the house mic to mention Plum to the fans, as I would imagine they were informing them that Plum was still alive and that everyone should pray for her (given how they don’t look mortified or broken down).

Clips from the Aug. 17th show (the one after Plum’s death) are shown, and everyone is hugging and smiling after matches.

(About 1:10:00 into this)

DYNAMITE KANSAI & CUTIE SUZUKI vs. MAYUMI OZAKI & “PLUM MARIKO”:
(Oct. 30th 1997)
* And then, on Oct. 30th… Plum’s “Retirement Match”. As it’s Ozaki carries Plum’s gear into the ring with her, and she places it in the corner. To make this even more solemn, Plum’s parents are in the front row, and Kotetsu Yamamoto, who trained the first class of JWP wrestlers (including Plum), is asked to referee the match.

Ozaki quickly gets her ass kicked with running attacks, then gets booted in the ropes while Cutie holds her. Kansai stuffs a comeback with a lariat, but Ozaki finally hits a snap-Northern Lights Bomb-esque move and a kneeling Powerbomb for two on Cutie. She tries a sleeper but Kansai interferes, and Cutie hits a perfect plex to escape and Kansai bludgeons Ozaki all around the ring. Ozaki chokes her way out of a Razor’s Edge and hits a VICIOUS Backfist from the apron to some applause, but she tries a Manami Roll and eats the Razor’s Edge into a flying stomp into KANSAI’s flying stomp and a backdrop driver gets two. But a double-team attempt sees Cutie accidentally flying knee Kansai in the head, but Kansai just stuffs Oz’s comeback with an armbar. Cutie flying stomps the ARM, but Oz backfists her only to run into a Ligerbomb for two. Kansai keeps interfering on the top rope until Oz tries a super rana and gets it turned around into a SUPERBOMB instead, but it gets two.

Kansai taunts and hits lariats, but Oz keeps popping up and counters Splash Mountain, only to eat another flying knee AND a backdrop driver, but pops up and hits a Tequila Sunrise for two. The “story” is becoming increasingly obvious- it’s just Ozaki eating shit except for the occasional no-sell and comeback before it’s time for more beatings. Kansai naturally recovers while Oz can only look at Plum’s gear before getting wrecked by more shots. But she pops up to backfist & Ligerbomb Cutie- Kansai saves with a huge kick, but the ref won’t count the pin. So instead they just hit Splash Mountain AND a Flying Knee simultaneously to score the proper three-count (13:29), Kansai going to the corner to “block” Plum’s gear from breaking up the pin.

Kansai’s a wreck after the match while Devil is like “Hey good job!” to Ozaki, who smiles and carries around Plum’s gear while Cutie holds the photo. Oz is apparently crying too, but much of what I’ve seen just scoots around from place to place or holds the camera too far away to tell. A Quebrada review of this bout has both suggest that Ozaki took a “penance” here for killing Plum by taking this vicious beating (which was STIFF as well as never-ending). And we end things with Ozaki visiting Plum’s grave, lighting incense and praying at it. Even 20+ years later, I’ve seen pictures of other wrestlers visiting it- Takako Inoue showed it on Facebook a couple years back, asking “Are you having fun with Harley?” (Saito, who died of cancer years ago).

Rating: N/A (like hell I’m rating this- I think I’d go to hell just for doing it, lol- it was just them hitting moves until Ozaki finally gets pinned)

WOO UPLIFTING STUFF! The “Retirement Match” is one I’ve been dreading to watch, but thankfully isn’t as harrowing as I expected- it’s more just someone taking an ass-kicking for several minutes before getting pinned. I was like… expecting to see Ozaki crawling towards her corner or something.