Refrain From Anger and Turn From Wrath; Do Not Fret it Turns Only to Yoshiaki Fujiwara

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Kazou Yamazaki UWF 4/15/90 – GREAT

PAS: Not a Fujiwara classic, but match of the show for sure. This is Yamazaki’s big win, so Fujiwara worked from the top more. This also had a lot of dueling leg work, with Fujiwara really struggling and cranking for each submission. Yamazaki was landing a lot of body blows which Fujiwara sold with some of his awesome drooling sells. Still this was a match with a similar story to Nakano v. Maeda from the same show and Nakano was way more demonstrative and energetic then Yamazaki. I liked the post match show of emotion by Yamazaki, but it felt like I needed more of that in the match.

TKG: The vibe I got from this was oddly different than the one Phil got. This was worked the opposite of Takada v Fujiwara from the last show. There Takada is the younger guy who is stronger and faster and Fujiwara needs to be defensive. This match was all about Fujiwara being fast and relentless on attack with Yamazaki placed in position of guy who wants to slow it down and work more deliberate. Yamazaki comes off as heavier hitter but not the more active fighter. The more deliberate young fighter beating the fast and relentless veteran is an odd story.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Ryuma Go/Tatsuo Nakano v. Yoshiaki Yatsu/Hiroshi Itakura/Shigeo Okumura Indy World 7/22/98-GREAT

Man remember when Japanese Indy wrestlers looked like tubby asskickers instead of thai lady boys? This was a pretty spectacular WAR style main event. Lots of hard hitting violence with everyone looking great. Go especially was awesome here, as kind of a poor man’s Fujiwara, dumping people with suplexes and landing nasty headbutts. We get a couple of very cool Yatsu v. Fujiwara exchanges which sort of had that wrestler vs. jujitsu feel you get in MMA sometimes. The Fujiwara team isolated Itakura for a while and layed in a nasty asskicking. At one point Fujiwara was in the mount and was punching him really hard in the temples and ears. We also got duel Fujiwara and Ryuma Go headbutts to the sides of the dudes head. Finish was fun too, with everyone hitting big moves and Go getting the dragon sleeper tap out. Exactly as good as it looks on paper.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Tiger Mask v. Tatsumi Fujinami/Ultimo Dragon IGF 11/3/09-FUN

Nifty little match which was pretty much a showcase for awesome fat Sayama. After watching all of the early 80’s juniors Tiger Mask, current Chris Christiesque Sayama smokes his overrated slim incarnation like a cheap cigar. He can still execute all of his athletic moves, but it is way more impressive when such a lardass does a kip up or a leap frog. Plus his kicks have some Hashimoto style heft behind them now. Fujiwara has a couple of spirited exchanges with Ultimo and Fujinami including a sweet knuckle lock sequence with Tatsumi which had a real MUGA v. UWF feel to it. Still you watch this to see Hortio Sanz hit a Tiger fake and it delivered that.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE YOSHIAKI FUJIWARA