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The Pacific Rim Pro Wrestling Podcast is back!
Fumi Saito talks to me about the success of both Queen of Villains in Japan — the story of wrestling legend Dump Matsumoto — as well as the Mr. McMahon docuseries on Netflix.
Plus, CIMA & Shingo, Davey Boy Smith Jr., Wrestle Kingdom & Wrestle Dynasty take shape, NOAH’s Yoshiki Inamura heads to NXT, Fumi’s new book on Rikidozan, and much more.
We’ve been gone awhile, so we tried to make up a lot of ground.
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Wrestling Observer Radio with Bryan Alvarez and Dave Meltzer is back with tons to talk about including more on the Vince McMahon Netflix bio, the Dump Matsumoto bio, ratings, TNA moving their shows due to inclement weather, AEW and NXT TV reports and tons more. A fun show as always so check it out~!
Timestamps:
Start: Update on Granny
3:16: More thoughts on Vince McMahon docuseries
19:00: Dave’s thoughts on the Dump Matsumoto series
24:58: TNA changes schedule due to severe weather, ratings
31:32: CMLL this Friday
35:18: AEW Dynamite Grand Slam recap
56:17: WWE NXT recap
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Wrestling Observer Radio with Bryan Alvarez and Dave Meltzer is back with tons to talk about including the Dump Matsumoto series, the Vince McMahon series, Pentagon, Fenix and Miro, Smackdown potentially going to three hours, Collision and Smackdown reviews, and more. A fun show as always so check it out~!
Timestamps:
Start: Dump Matsumoto Netflix series out, Vince McMahon docuseries out this week
11:31: Pentagon, Rey Fenix, Miro updates
18:19: Will we see a third hour of WWE SmackDown?
21:36: Lineups for the week
26:22: WWE SmackDown recap
41:22: AEW Collision recap
A new trailer for the upcoming Dump Matsumoto series has been unveiled.
Netflix on Tuesday released the new trailer for The Queen of Villains, which focuses on the life of Matsumoto. The five-part series will premiere on the platform on September 19.
The trailer shows Mastumoto attending All Japan Women shows as a child, wishing one day to wrestle for the promotion while enduring abuse at home. Footage is then shown of Matsumoto adopting her heel persona that became widely known across professional wrestling.
Netflix officially announced the series last month. From the press release:
From the ‘70s to the ‘80s, female pro-wrestling tag teams like “Beauty Pair” (Jackie Sato and Maki Ueda) and “Crush Gals” (Chigusa Nagayo and Lioness Asuka) became national icons. They captivated Japan not only by competing but also by singing and dancing in the ring. On the other side of this was Dump Matsumoto, the sworn rival of the “Crush Gals.” She made all of Japan her enemy, wreaking havoc in and outside of the ring. But once upon a time, young Dump Matsumoto was told she was too kind to be a villain. What events made her one of the most disliked figures in Japanese wrestling history?
Matsumoto began wrestling in 1980 and has continued to wrestle to this day. For her work in All Japan Women, she was among the first inductees into the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame in 1996.
Image: Netflix
A dramatic series on the career of Japanese women’s star Dump Matsumoto will be debuting on Netflix this fall.
Announced by the streaming giant Wednesday, the five-part series will drop on Thursday, September 19th and will focus on Matsumoto’s rise to prominence in the 1970s and 1980s. News first broke about the show this past April.
From the release:
“From the ‘70s to the ‘80s, female pro-wrestling tag teams like “Beauty Pair” (Jackie Sato and Maki Ueda) and “Crush Gals” (Chigusa Nagayo and Lioness Asuka) became national icons. They captivated Japan not only by competing but also by singing and dancing in the ring. On the other side of this was Dump Matsumoto, the sworn rival of the “Crush Gals.” She made all of Japan her enemy, wreaking havoc in and outside of the ring. But once upon a time, young Dump Matsumoto was told she was too kind to be a villain. What events made her one of the most disliked figures in Japanese wrestling history?”
Nagayo had a behind the scenes role in training the actors and watching over the wrestling scenes.
Now 63, Matsumoto is still competing in Japan but has wrestled just twice this year. The All-Japan Women’s Pro Wrestling standout was inducted into the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame in 1996.
