DUMP running riot

Dump Matsumoto v Yukari Ohmori (Hair v Hair) (AJW, 3/20/86)

Well this was...a lot! I'm not really sure what to do with it, honestly. I mean on the one hand it's not really my cup of tea, but on the other hand maybe it is? And then on the third hand it's absolutely one of the wildest spectacles in wrestling history. The whole thing was six shades of bonkers and some of it was sort of jaw-dropping. Dump's entrance with the shogun uniform was godly and then the madness started immediately, with some of the most satisfying *THUNK*s you'll ever hear off of microphone shots. She was absolutely clonking Ohmori with that thing and I've not got a clue what Dump was shouting in between strikes but it felt like people were perhaps aggravated by it ever so slightly. I think where I sometimes struggle with the Dump and Co stuff is the extent to which they run the interference spots. I've seen enough 80s AJW to know that no match is getting thrown out for some good old fashioned chicanery. Referees will routinely be flung about by the wrestlers and once or twice they'll end up getting stabbed by scissors as well, so it's not that I can't suspend my disbelief that the ref' hasn't stopped the match or whatever. I think it's more the frequency of the interference that wears me down. To be fair though, it's the kind of thing I imagine I'd get used to before long, which I guess is true of any tropes associated with a particular wrestling style. If nothing else this crowd lived and died on allll of it and it's hard not to appreciate wrestlers working an audience into such a frenzy that people are literally in tears. The mid-match pull apart lost me a little, but it was certainly frantic and Chigusa walloping Dump with a metal container was amazing. People lost their mind during every second of this in case you were wondering, and the pop for Chigusa and Ohmori hitting the double dropkick was one of the loudest you'll ever hear.

My favourite part of the match came right after the restart (or when they'd cleared everyone else out the ring), with Dump trying to look as amiable as possible for a disgusting psychopath in demonic face paint who'd just tried to choke the life out of someone with a chain, offering a handshake with her most beatific smile. People were shrieking themselves hoarse and pleading with Ohmori not to fall for it and then Dump just grabs her anyway. I never knew she'd hid the scissors in her singlet so I flipped when she produced the things from nowhere and stabbed Ohmori in the face. Honestly, I don't think Dump is really for me, but all things considered her performance here was one of the most extraordinary I've ever seen in a match. Obviously she was a complete maniac and the point that's often made about her being a cartoon villain come to life is true. She has no boundaries and while the constant interference grates a little, there's no doubt that it builds heat and anticipation for comeuppance, because you know that for as disgusting and terrifying as she is, she needs her cronies to bail her out time and again. And even if she DOESN'T need them we're never really given the chance to find out, because they almost always come to her rescue within seconds anyway. The beauty of her performance here, even more than the wanton savagery, was that brief stretch where she actually got to show some vulnerability, when the cronies were held at bay for a minute or two. The way she sold being in danger, how rocked she was by Ohmori finally stringing together some offence, her sell of Ohmori's piledriver, it was pretty phenomenal. I guess that's the double-edged sword -- I might not love watching all the bits of interference, but they make something like that all the more special, how they delay that gratification, really allowing the fleeting comeuppance to resonate. Dump going fully off the rails after that and literally stabbing Ohmori in the arm with scissors was fucking absurd. A pair of bastard scissors just hanging out her arm! And you know what, it tells you Dump was desperate enough to go that far.