PRO WRESTLING FUJIWARA-GUMI SHOW #22 10/29/93

Antonio Inoki v. Yoshiaki Fujiwara

PAS: This appeared to be a cipher, but I don't speak Japanese so I don't know who won. They also appeared to be doing shots, which can't be a great thing before a match.

Carl Greco v. Katsumi Usuda

PAS: Shootstyle is this weird style where you can be really great right out of the blocks. This is possibly Usuda's first match and he was already awesome. Greco is really fun here too, as he has really athletic mat work. Really great flipping counters and attempts. Usuda wasn't kicking the shit out people like he would in BattlArts, but his mat stuff was super too, I especially loved the double hammerlock submission. This was a draw that didn't feel like a draw and made me want to see the rematch badly.

TKG: Usuda was kicking pretty damn hard but yeah a lot of this was about Greco's really athletic counters and stuff. I especially liked his head stand flip to get to the ropes. Usuda also caught Greco's knee at one point and Greco leaped up to knock Usuda with the other one. Neat athletic escapes and counters. At no point in this match did I think it was going to a draw. Really surprised when it happens.

Charlie Anderson v. Diuseul Berto

PAS: I wasn't expecting much from this match, but this was a blast. Berto was rocking a Force MD's style hightop and appeared to be as yoked as a member of the Force MD's as well. He looked like he had gotten good at this point, as he had some nice takedowns, and made his Karate Kid striking look nasty, he drilled Anderson with a crane kick. I am not sold on Anderson yet, although he was fine here, the reversal finish did look great.

TKG: The reversal finish was neat but I don't know if I bought Anderson being able to turn Diuseul that easily. Anderson did a have a bunch of nice throws and throw attempts early in. I'm not sure if Diuseul has actually gotten better or if he just strung together a bunch of neat stuff in the middle section. His slaps and kicks looked stiff.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Masaji Aoyagi

TKG: This is worked rounds style with Fujiwara wrestling barefoot. First round is the two exchanging kicks until Fujiwara gets take down and moves toward submission when bell rings. Second round is Aoyagi dominating standup with Fujiwara fighting off a ten count when the bell rings. Third round ends with Aoyagi caught in submission in center of ring struggling to fight off the pain till the bell rings. Fourth has this amazing strike exchange section in corner where Aoyagi hammers Fujiwara with karate strikes to the guts and kidneys and Fujiwara fights back with nasty punches to the kidneys. I liked this alot although on some level it was disappointing. I don't think it was as good as the better Fujiawara vs. Sayama matches and well Aoyagi is better than Sayama. Part of the problem is that Fujiwara works as kickboxer for lots of this so you don't have the kicker vs. wrestler dynamic that the Sayama v. Fujiwara and Aoyagi vs. Onita matches have. Instead you have a match where Fujiwara is the more well rounded mixed martial arts fighter vs. Aoyagi working as the more one dimensional MMA guy. Fight between two one dimensional guys with different one dimension is gonna be more intriguing than one dimensional guy vs. multidimensional one.

PAS: The first part of this felt a little too much like a mixed match, like Aoyagi was playing the Mo Smith role, and he brings way more to the table then Mo Smith. It really kicked into gear though, and Aoyagi clearly saw Fujiwara drinking earlier as he seemed to be targeting his kidneys. Which is a spot I am shocked no one ever used with either Sandman or Austin. While I didn't like Fujiwara's kickboxing that much, his punch exchanges with Aoyagi at the end were spectacular.

Joe Malenko vs. Yuki Ishikawa:

TKG: This is an odd match in several ways. On one level its worked like a lucha slow burn match where two guys are working technico v technico and slowly getting more and more pissed. It is also being worked in a real master vs. student way with Joe Malenko really twisting and slapping around Ishikawa as though he were trying to toughen up the youngster. Those are two odd stories to be working simultaneously. Then you get the weirdness of Malenko controlling most of the match while losing on points. For first half of match Malenko always seems to be more in control but he's the guy who has eaten more downs and gone for rope breaks more. Malenko' stuff is really cool and he does this one takedown that is like an inverted Russian leg sweep that is absolutely spectacular. I dug this a bunch but one of those matches where you watch it excited more about the prospect of rematch than you are excited by the actual match your watching. After match it looks like they have a post match pull apart that they decided to edit out.

PAS: I thought it was worked less like a lucha techinico v. technico match, then a face v. face technical U.S. match, where you were waiting for the tempers to flare. You almost needed Bobby Heenan calling this and rooting for one guy to punch the other in the mouth. It did kind of end before it really broke down, which almost gave the match kind of a cock teasing feel. You wanted them to break down, and they never fully did. Man was alot of the stuff spectacular though, Malenko will have at least three spectacular things per match that I have never seen before.