La Galactica on the rampage!

Jaguar Yokota v La Galactica (AJW, 2/27/85)

I'll get the stuff I wasn't so hot on out the way first. I've watched about three dozen 80s AJW matches over the last couple weeks and I'm very over the interference shtick. It doesn't kill matches for me, but it's always the thing I find least interesting in any of them and some of them have LOTS of it. Still, watch enough of even a good thing and you're liable to get fed up somewhere along the way, right? It is what it is. Thankfully there wasn't a ton of it here, and once or twice it was even quite enjoyable! And really, that was about it for the things I could've done without because pretty much everything else was good or fucking awesome. Jaguar was great here, from rolling out 1995, 2005 and 2015 offence in 1985 to bumping and bringing the intensity in her comebacks. Her selling was incredible at points and if she was disappointingly subdued in the last match of hers I watched (from 1997), she was not at all subdued here. Right at the bell Galactica grabs a pair of nunchucks, but Jaguar manages to steal them and unloads on Galactica first, then tries to rip her whole mask off. The way she sold her arm in the back half had people believing the thing needed to be amputated. Of course the way La Galactica went after that arm had people believing even more so that, if it didn't NEED to be amputated, one way or another it was GOING to be. Galactica was amazing in this. The first half of the match has some snug grappling, and even if it didn't last very long Galactica was adding all sorts of nasty touches to things, clawing Jaguar's face like she was trying to peel a giant tangerine, digging the point of her elbow right into Jaguar's eye socket, biting her fingers to break holds, she was an animal. She took Jaguar to the floor at one point and rammed her head into a table, then when Jaguar tried to climb back in Galactica stood on one of her hands before grabbing the other and trying to chew the fingers off it. Then about halfway in we get my favourite bit of interference in all of the stuff I've watched, as Jaguar climbs to the top and from out of nowhere one of Galactica's goons jumps up on the apron and shoves her off, Jaguar coming down awkwardly across the top rope. As far as outside interference goes it wasn't exactly furtive, but it was unexpected even in a promotion where it happens all the time, and she did it with such casualness, right at a moment where Jaguar was about to hit a home run, that it came off as the perfect cheapshot. And from there Galactica turns into the demented lovechild of Pirata Morgan and Mr Pogo. She stabs a hole in Jaguar's shoulder and starts digging her fingers in there like she's trying to flay skin, grabs a big piece of metal and shanks her with it, just ridiculously nasty stuff. Jaguar is bleeding freely from this gash in her shoulder and Galactica is lapping up the blood and spitting it in the air like mist, grinning like a hideous freak, teeth and mask stained blood-red, people shrieking in terror and disgust. Jaguar's slow comeback is great, then in the last few minutes we get some nuclear nearfalls and La Galactica taking a fucking flip senton to the concrete floor and Yokota wiping out half a dozen face-painted ghouls with a plancha. This is up there with the very best 80s joshi I've seen.