Hell is Empty and All the Devils are Yoshiaki Fujiwara

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Great Sasuke v. TAKA Michinoku/El Samurai MPRO 1/22/95-GREAT

The very first thing I ever did on the internet was a Michinoku Pro fan site, and I still have a pretty big soft spot for mid 90's MPRO. This was a fine version of their signature tag match with Fujiwara doing a nice job slotting in. The TAKA v. Sasuke stuff was a big focus, and man do those guys match up well. Really fast beautiful lucha, mixed in with some really stiff kicks, and some crazy dives. Fujiwara kind of worked this match as a Heavyweight in with juniors as he really chucked around both Samurai and especially TAKA. He was really great as a dismissive guy, who was surprised and pissed off everytime TAKA caught him in something.He also did this spot where he fakes a double tope with Sasuke flying over the top and wiping everyone out. Finish was totally awesome with Sasuke hitting his fourth crazy dive of the match to clear out Samurai while TAKA gets snatched out of mid air with a Fujiwara armbar. I really wish that Fujiwara was around for the KDX period as he would have made an awesome member of some of those 10 man tags.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Shinya Hashimoto Zero-One 9/8/01- GREAT

These are my two favorite Japanese professional wrestlers ever, and this is a hell of a confrontation. A total struggle with both guys exerting tremendous force to even get off the simplest moves. Both guys are masters of intensity, and even a collar and elbow lock up feels like a war. Early in the match Fujiwara works a kneebar and it is totally awesome. the countering of a standing Hashimoto, dragging him to the mat, forcing the ankle until he finally gets a good grip, then the losing the hold when Hashimoto kicks him in the shoulder blades. The first part of the match was like that, both guys going for simple holds with the opponent fighting every attempt. The violence kicks up with a nasty exchange of slaps, with Hash landing his spectacular overhand neck chop. Match was well on the way to truly epic status, but the ending kind of comes abruptly with Hash hitting a dropkick, big elbow, nasty DDT and big kick for the pin. Felt like the match had a missing eight or so minutes, as Fujiwara never really had Hashimoto in any trouble. Still well worth watching, but I am still waiting for the 21st century Fujiwara epic.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Yuki Ishikawa/Katsumi Usuda v. Mr. Pogo/Hidoh/Shoji Nakamki- W*ING 3/02- SKIPPABLE

PAS: I was hoping for more of a clash of styles with the Fujiwara team using shootstyle to counter the garbage wrestling. Instead we get a basic W*ING match with a short arena tour and Pogo winning by choking Fujiwara with a chain. This ties the series at 3 and there is some mike work to set up a big Captain’s Fall elimination with everyone from each team. This was basically a big brawl with some fun Usuda asskicking, and a suprsingly good Gran Sheik v. Ishikawa punch exchange, but it ends pretty quickly with Fujiwara tapping Pogo with the armbar. Pretty disappointing for something that looked awesome on paper.

TKG: The opening six man match was really nothing. I don’t even remember the arena tour. Just Pogo taking off his boot hitting Fujiwara and then hanging him. I was kind of stoked to see captain’s fall just for the chance to see more Shimoda. But that never really broke down into individual match ups. Instead you have this all over the place brawl that has almost a Battle royal feel where there is lots of stuff happening but never any focus. Lots of cool Ishikawa exchanges as the section of him vs Hido looked like something I want to see as an actual match, surprisingly the same is true of the section of him vs Gran Sheik. Fujiwara’s exchanges also were also a blast as he traded with Nakamaki, Hido, Shimoda and Pogo.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FUJIWARA