I'm watching 80s joshi. The Jumping Bomb Angels were very fun!

Dump Matsumoto & Bull Nakano v Jumping Bomb Angels (AJW, 8/22/85)

I think at this point I'm best watching these mid-80s Dump matches in moderation. They're not really my thing as, if I'm being honest with myself, there's just a bunch of different types of wrestling I prefer. That said, like every other style I'm tepid on, when it hits it HITS. I thought this was a real blast and probably my favourite Dump match, and definitely my favourite 80s Bull match. Dump wasn't quite as menacing here as she was against Ohmori, which might be the best individual Dump performance, but she was still a terror and you couldn't sum it up any better than when she wrapped a chain around Yamazaki's neck, hoisted her up in the air and started parading her around the ring, Yamazaki completely helpless. In general I really liked the the Angels as babyface foils, and the dynamic of Bull not being the same sort of dominant lunatic as Dump meant it wasn't quite as one-sided as some of these matches will be. It all got plenty chaotic either way and I love how Yamazaki and Tateno would keep on coming forward, despite being stabbed and clobbered and choked and whatever else. The babyface FIRE~, if you will. Their timing was great, they sold big, brought the heat when they got their chance, made everything feel like a desperate fight, they were awesome. Honestly, I'm going through the 80s joshi stuff with an eye towards the PWO Greatest Wrestler Ever vote and more than anyone else it's Itsuki Yamazaki I feel like I need to see every match of. More than Dump, more than Chigusa, way more than Bull, certainly more than Asuka. Where are the JBA usually talked about relative to the Crush Gals? Because at this point I know who I'd much rather watch and it's not the Crush Gals. I thought the double count out to end the first fall worked well because it meant everything in the second fall had an extra edge, plus the crowd brawling that actually led to it was good and usually I'm ready to tap out on joshi crowd brawling after 10 seconds. The double dropkick into the table ruled as the Angels' big comeback spot and then Tateno flipping and spinning the nunchucks while staring Dump dead in the eyes was fucking amazing. Yamazaki leaping over the rope onto the apron only to get whomped with a metal tin was about as perfectly timed as a spot like that could be. Maybe I need to push the Yamazaki/Dump feud to the top of the to-watch list.

Crush Gals v Jumping Bomb Angels (AJW, 3/20/86)

This is the one right here. I mean, look, I don't LOVE this and it'll never fully be for me stylistically, but as far as HIGH-OCTANE WORKRATE~ tags go it's about as good as you'll get from the era. I watched their match from January 1985 before this and it was fine. It had some good stuff and some stuff that didn't really land and it felt like the first match in a series. I don't know how many (if any) matches they had together between the 1/85 match and this one, but this took everything the first one did and built upon it, added several layers, and upped the difficulty and intensity and pretty much everything else. One thing that always leaves me a little wanting with these tags - although it's by no means only an AJW thing - is that there's very rarely an extended PERIL segment and instead you've got control bouncing back and forth regularly. I get that that's sort of a "judging something for what it doesn't do rather than what it does" observation and my biases are rooted in southern tag formula, but I can't help it. Still, if you're going to work frequent transitions and control shifts then I can deal with it if there's a sense of struggle, and this captured the struggle pretty spectacularly. I could see someone thinking a lot of this is throwing shit at the wall and just doing all sorts of offence, but the mix of almost shoot style uncooperative grappling, nasty striking, impact moves with the suplexes and piledrivers...honestly, it just worked for me. I bought into it and it was always compelling. You really need for the selling to be good for that to happen and I thought the selling was largely excellent. When someone would quickly roll to their corner and make the tag after being hit with something nasty I didn't think it came across as them shirking the selling; it just felt like desperation, like they knew they needed to get out and let their partner pick it up. It was all about momentum and the momentum was a hundred miles an hour straight down the other team's throat. It was keep up or die. I think that's pretty well encapsulated by the finish to the first fall, where Asuka was finally able to reel off a string of bombs to pin Yamazaki before she could tag in Tateno. And these were some BOMBS, including a great looking Hart Attack followed by the tombstone. And that's another thing - piledrivers feel like Big Fuckin Deals here and I'm not sure when they essentially became as dangerous as a body slam in joshi, but these were used as and treated as death moves. Tateno and Asuka slapping the jaw off each other to begin the second fall was great. The finish to the fall was even greater, with Chigusa yelping as Tateno snapped her into that surprise German suplex. I'm a low voter on the Crush Gals overall but Chigusa will usually do at least one thing per match that makes me think "yeah, I get why someone might consider her one of the greatest ever." And to be fair, the Crush Gals might be the most over act in history and these crowds are just full on badgershit for everything so the third fall was every bit as hectic and dramatic as you would want. Lots of big offence, huge nearfalls, Asuka hitting a fucking Jackhammer in 1986, every neck bridge on a pin attempt looking like more of a struggle the longer it went. That tiger suplex at the end was a thing of beauty too.