Cry Yoshiaki Fujiwara and Let Slip the Dogs of War

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Steve Wright NJ 10/7/83-GREAT

Fujiwara spent the first part of the 1980's working in Germany and I imagine this is the closest we will get, to seeing what that stuff looked like. This had tons of very fast juniors style reversals and matwork. Not the kind of thing you normally see Fujiwara do, but man was he awesome at it. This looked as good as the best Eddie Guerrerro and Dean Malenko exchanges, as opposed to all the kind of terrible pastiches of Malenko v. Guerrerro we were stuck watching post ECW. I might contain the best knucklock monkey flip roll up exchange I have seen, and I have seen a million of them. Wright could get down and dirty too, as both guys exchanged some thudding uppercuts. Finish could have used a bit more pop, as this was clearly a slickly worked undercard match, rather then a big time main event.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Genichiro Tenryu WAR 11/24/97- GREAT


Man there is no one better and working a grim violent seedy match then Genichiro Tenryu. Match starts a little light hearted with Fujiwara complaining about Tenryu having too much grease, but gets violent quick. Tenryu traps Fujiwara in the corner with his sumo slaps, and finishes it off with a kick right between the eyes. Fujiwara gets a smile on his face like "OK motherfucker, you want to call this shit WAR, let's go to war." He drops in some nasty bodyshots and finishes up with a headbutt right on the eyebrow which cuts Tenryu open hardway. From that point on Fujiwara is like a hunting dog bringing down a wounded bear, he alternates between tearing and smashing the cut, and ripping at Tenryu's arm.

Most of the time the Fujiwara armbar is used as a quick counter, very rarely is he this focused on a bodypart through out the match. He drags Tenryu over the top rope and to the floor with an armbar, returning constantly to that arm throughout. Tenryu is pretty dominated, he fires back with nasty jabs and rights, and keeps going for kappo kicks, but a lot of that is shrugged off. One of the few faults with Tenryu as a wrestler is that occasionally his stuff isn't hit cleanly and looks weak. The cool thing about the way Fujiwara sells, is that if you don't land, he isn't going for it. Tenryu hits a crappy powerbomb, Fujiwara transitions slickly into an armbar, he wiffs a kappo kick, Fujiwara punches him in the eye. It isn't no-selling exactly because you never see him shrug off something landed solidly (except in that weird Kawada match), but it adds a realism to his fights. Finish was the only thing that kept this off the Epic list. Tenryu is finally firing back after eating an asskicking, he hits some nasty chops which Fujiwara grits through, until he catches him in the throat which stuns Fujiwara enough to get a flash pin. Kind of conceptually interesting, but it just looked sudden and off here. I get that a chop to the throat will stun you, but I just wanted something bigger.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Masa Fuchi v. Mitsu Nagai/Masahito Kakihara All Japan 5/20/01- FUN

Fujiwara and Fuchi are an awesome old man team. They basically worked like a pair of prison camp guards from a World War II movie. Fuchi especially was coming up with some really sick ways to stretch the fuck out of both guys. Kakihara was really flexible as his legs were wishboned far apart in a bunch of groin pully ways. Unfortunately the young guys team didn't bring a ton to the table, Kakihara vs. Fujiwara was so awesome in the UWFI match from 1995, here it was a nothing. The finish was on paper cool, after being tortured all match they isolate one guy and take him out, but the execution of it was stinky. I want to see more of Fujiwara and Fuchi, but sort of a disappointing match.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FUJIWARA