| Kaoru Matsumoto | |
|---|---|
| Ring name(s) | Dump Matsumoto |
| Billed height | 1.63 m (5 ft 4 in) |
| Billed weight | 91 kg (200 lb) |
| Born | November 11, 1960 Kumagaya, Saitama, Japan |
| Debut | 1980 |
| Retired | February 25, 1988 |
Kaoru Matsumoto is a semi-retired Japanese professional wrestler, known by her ringname Dump Matsumoto, who competed in All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling as one of the leading female wrestlers during the 1980s. The longtime leader of the stable Gokuaku Domei—which included Crane Yu, Condor Saito and Bull Nakano—she was one of the main rivals of the popular tag team Crush Gals. Their long running feud would become extremely popular in Japan during the 1980s, with their televised matches resulting in some of the highest rated in Japanese television as well as the promotion regularly selling out arenas. Such was her fame in Japan, she was often referred to as the Niall Quinn of joshi.[1]
Contents |
Making her debut in 1980, within three years she defeated Lioness Asuka for the AJW Championship on January 8 and held the title for almost six months before losing the title back to Asuka on June 1, 1983.
During her feud with the Crush Gals, she would often team with Bull Nakano and Crane Yu, who Matsumoto teamed with to defeat Lioness Asuka and Chigusa Nagayo for the WWWA Tag Team title on February 25, 1985 although the two were forced to vacate the title two months later following Yu's retirement.
She later made an unsuccessful bid for the vacant WWWA World Heavyweight Championship losing to Devil Masami on December 12, 1985.[2] She later lost to rival Chigusa Nagayo for the All Pacific Championship in Tokyo, Japan on April 5, 1986.[3]
In early 1986, she and Nakano made a brief appearance in the World Wrestling Federation as The Devils of Japan, defeating Velvet McIntyre in two separate tag team matches with Dawn Marie in Boston, Massachusetts on March 8 and with Linda Gonzales in New York City, New York on March 16, 1986.[4]
Once back in Japan, Matsumoto resumed her feud with the Crush Gals teaming with Bull Nakano to defeat Lioness Asuka and Kazue Nagahori (substituting for an injured Chigusa Nagayo) for the WWWA Tag Team title on August 23, 1986 however the two would eventually be forced to vacate the title the following year. Although Matsumoto officially announced her retirement on February 25, 1988 in which she wrestled the Crush Gals in a tag team match with Yukari Ohmori and then siding against her partner by switching with Nagayo against Asuka and Ohmori, she wrestled her final match against Bull Nakano and Condor Saito on February 28.
She has since appeared on several All Japan Women "legends reunions", and in August 1998, Matsumoto and Crane Yu came out of retirement wrestling in a ten minute exhibition tag team match against Combat Toyoda and Hyper Cat. She also made several appearances for the now defunct GAEA promotion, and as recently as November 11, 2007, ran her own show under the banner of Atrocious Alliance Produce at Shinjuku FACE.
Matsumoto lent her ring name and likeness to the Sega arcade game Gokuaku Doumei Dump Matsumoto, which was released in some Western countries under the title Body Slam. The game was later ported to the Sega Master System, but Western localized versions (renamed simply Pro Wrestling) removed her likeness and replaced the entirely female cast with male wrestlers.
Since her retirement from professional wrestling, she has appeared in a number of Japanese films during the late 1980s and early 1990s most notably portraying the character Bái Yá-Shàn in Ryoichi Ikegami and Kazuo Koike's Crying Freeman series which includes Crying Freeman 2: Shades of Death, Part 1 (1989), Crying Freeman 3: Shades of Death, Part 2 (1990) and Crying Freeman 5: Abduction in Chinatown (1992). She has also starred in Scorpion Woman Prisoner: Death Threat (1991) and Okoge (1992).