Chigusa Nagayo Gets So Close, but So Far
Chigusa Nagayo Gets So Close, but So Far
Int heir last bout for the red belt, Chigusa Nagayo once again falls to her best friend.
There’s a unique drama to a hero’s loss in professional wrestling.
The innate story that every pro wrestling match tells is one of competition. There’s meant to be a winner and a loser at the end of the day (yes, yes, draws and all that, but we know what I mean). The best matches provide justifications for who ends up on which side of that coin. And in an ideal world, all matches build and react to those reasons for either victory or loss.
The January 29, 1989 red belt match between Chigusa Nagayo and Lioness Asuka might just be one of my favorite examples of this principle at play. I think to fully articulate why I love this match so much, it’s important to lay out some of the history how the Crush Gals were presented as competitors, not partners.
Contrary to how critical consensus would come to remember them in hindsight, Lioness Asuka was often presented as Chigusa’s superior. When tagging together, Chigusa more often than not was cast in the role of babyface-in-peril with Asuka playing the ass-kicking hot tag. When the Crush Gals were booked in major singles title matches on the same card, such as at the August 22, 1985 Budokan show or the April 5, 1986 Sumo Hall show, Asuka would be in the main event challenging for the red belt while Chigusa challenged for the secondary white belt.
In singles action, Asuka also generally kept the advantage. The most famous Crush Gals Explode! matches often went to time limit draws, most notably in 83 , 85, and 87. In the case of the famous bout from February 1987, even after a five minute overtime ended in another draw, the referee decision still gave the victory to Lioness Asuka.
It was really only because of the Crush Gals’ temporary separation in 1986 that Chigusa’s naturally popularity with the fanbase allowed her to surpass Asuka in singles success. Chigusa became the first of the Crush Gals to win the famed red belt by defeating Yukari Omori in October of 1987.
That brings us to an important match that basically sets up the necessary elements for the 1989 bout that we’ll be focusing on. Lioness Asuka would challenge Chigusa Nagayo for the red belt on August 25th, 1988. In the course of the match, Chigusa would legitimately injure her arm, causing a referee stoppage.
Asuka, despite being recognized as having won the title in this match, would refuse to accept the championship due to the circumstances of the finish, thus leaving the red belt vacant for the rest of 1988.
And that brings us to Korakuen Hall in January of 1989. The red belt is on the line yet again, to be contested between the last two women who fought for that belt.
From the get go, there’s something a little different in the air tonight. Chigusa draws first blood, knocking Asuka down with early strikes that feel incredibly purposeful. It sends an incredibly simple message to both Asuka and the viewer: Chigusa’s refusing to eat another loss and live in Asuka’s shadow.
The entire match moves with this ethos in mind. Chigusa and Asuka’s singles matches are famed for the struggle filled mat work that took up a vast majority of the runtime. While it was always mechanically impressive across the board, its implementation feels far more pureposeful in this match than in any of their previous encounters.
For example, much of the early mat work naturally sees Asuka try to go for Chigusa’s previously injured arm. Chigusa seems hyper aware of this tactic, and finds slick and smooth ways to escape Asuka’s attack while also pressing her own advantage. She’s dogged and willful in a way that feels authentic to the energy they’ve shown in past matches, but with a far more concrete motivation behind it this time around. In one of the best early spots in the match, Asuka tries to power her way out of a hammerlock by throwing Chigusa overhead but Chigusa keeps a hold of Asuka’s wrist, dragging her back down to the mat as she falls. Brutal stuff.
At every turn, it seems that Chigusa feels like she’s not only grown more dangerous as an opponent, but also comes prepared with an answer for anything Asuka has to throw at her. When Chigusa goes for an extended headlock, it takes three or four differnet attempts for Asuka to break her grip. When Asuka tries to use her kicks to chip away at Chig and catch her on the bad arm, Chig fires back instantly with a big lariat to cut her off.
The whole while, Asuka struggles to find extended periods of control. When she times it just right, she’s able to bring Chigusa back down to the mat but Chigusa keeps her cool, gets to the ropes, and returns on her onslaught. Even when Asuka looks to escalate proceedings in an attempt to shake Chig’s calm, Chigusa’s happy to fire back on her own. This is perhaps best captured when Asuka throws a very unsportsmanlike straight punch to Chig’s face to escape an attempted belly-to-belly, only for Chig to whallop her in the face right back.
That punch really does seem to spell Chigusa’s doom in the end though. Even though she’s able to rock Asuka back in return, it leads to her rushing into an attempted handspring elbow which Asuka catches into a Dragon Sleeper. After a series of truly gruesome kicks (in a match filled with them), combined with big moves like a piledriver and a back suplex, Asuka finally goes for her biggest bomb: the giant swing.
Chig blocks the damn thing, reaches up with pure upper body strength, and punches Asuka in the face.
I watched a hell of a lot of Crush Gals matches in a very short span of time, and I can tell you that people did not counter that giant swing very often. They certainly didn’t do it quite as impactfully as hauling their own body weight up just for the chance to punch Asuka in the face.
More than ever before when these two wrestled, it felt like Chig’s night.
It wasn’t.
After trying to press her advantage from the giant swing escape with a series of big suplexes, Asuka finds a single opening to hit a back drop that wins her the whole match. It feels anticlimactic, yes, and counterintuitive to what so much of the match had been building to. At the same time, it’s a classic kind of wrestling tragedy that’s been done a million times over. Chigusa improves, becomes stronger and smarter than ever before, but right at the very last moment, gets overtaken by her senior once again. It’s a game of inches, and Asuka only needed the one opening.
There is, of course, another reason why the match was booked this way, one far more frustrating than just the company liking one wrestler more than the other. As of January 29, 1989, Chigusa Nagayo is less than four months away from being forced to retire from AJW. This is in line with the company policy at the time that all women be removed from active competition by their mid-20s. It’s not written down in the official policy, but this follows the cultural norm in Japan of expecting women to settle down into traditional family structures before they turn 30.
It sucks and it’s unfair, and it probably robs us of a great moment where Chigusa finally steps out of Asuka’s shadow.
All in all though, the injustice of that does little to take away from the 95% of this match that just feels so satisfying. Seeing Chig give Asuka so much hell feels so damn good, and it fits so neatly as a follow up to the 1988 title match. As far as matches with the wrong result go, this is one of the best.
IS IT BETTER THAN 6/3/94? I answered this in my Crush Gals vid. Both matches tell the story of a wrestler getting closer than ever to defeating not only their generational rival, but their former tag team partner as well. While 6/3/94 takes the cake when it comes to brutality, I think the Crush Gals edge things out with how smoother their match layout goes in comparison. It’s a close one, but Chig & Asuka take the win here.
Rating: ****1/2