This review was commissioned by Joe B over on my Ko-fi account.
This is Megumi Kudo’s first ever singles deathmatch. By this point, FMW’s identity has been well established through its high stakes, deathmatch-style main events all filtered through the sharp visual aesthetic from the mind of Atsushi Onita. Of course, the wrestlers leading the charge on that front have all been men, so women beginning to join the ranks of deathmatch workers was a fairly big deal at the time. Kudo herself appears to be leading the charge as one of the company’s top female wrestlers.
Kudo and Tsuchiya had already wrestled earlier in the year in a handicap tag that saw the ring covered in barbed wire, but for this bout the ropes are taken down entirely and replaced with barbed wire. As a mission statement for what women can do as deathmatch wrestlers, Kudo acquits herself well here. Perhaps most notably, she gets a real fucking gusher going with her bladejob here. Beautiful stuff, blood just pouring from her, staining her hair and her ring gear, exactly the kind of thing one expects of a heroic babyface in this setting. She’s also incredibly sympathetic throughout the entire bout, really putting her all into those big bumps into the wire, and reacting to the horror of getting sliced up by Tsuchiya throughout.
Her comebacks also serve as the highlight of the match. When it’s Kudo’s time to push the pace, she’s believable as a fiery babyface, and her bigger offense adds a lot of impact to the final moments of this bout. It even culminates with the Kudo Driver, perhaps one of the most influential moves in pro wrestling history.
It’s a shame then that Tsuchiya feels like a relative let down here. She’s cast in the Dump Matsumoto role here, torturing the hero, beating her up, and shamelessly inviting the aid of her friends at ringside. The dynamic of the role functions well enough as it gives Kudo the space to draw in sympathy, but Tsuchiya’s actual performance doesn’t offer much for me here. Her scythe as a weapon rocks, but elsewhere, Tsuchiya feels timid and slow. Note all the times she bumps into the wire ropes and how ginger she feels compared to Kudo putting her whole body into the crash. Tsuchiya’s never enough to make this cross into bad especially when she’s sticking to a fairly rigid and classic shine/heat/comeback structure here, but she does keep a ceiling on this that bars it from the “great” status.
That said, the promo Kudo cuts backstage after the match? Now that’s fucking great. An incredible combo of sincerity that’s vulnerable enough to feel true and a heroism power enough to be admirable. A real reminder that it’s a one-woman show, and she’s the woman for the job.
Rating: ***1/2
