He Who Bravely Fails Must Risk Yoshiaki Fujiwara

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Minoru Suzuki PWFG 11/3/91-EPIC

PAS: Fujiwara had been mostly working undercards up to this point, but man does he deliver in a main event spot. Suzuki is your young guy desperate to overtake the veteran ace of the company, and he dominates here, although he is never able to put Fujiwara away. This is really all about Fujiwara as a defensive wrestler, he blocks and eludes and counters and while Suzuki would easily win a decision, there are no judges in PWFG. There are a ton of nifty little things in this match, but I especially loved the way Fujiwara used hand and wrist control. Suzuki is rarely ever able to lock anything in solid, as he is always getting his wrists and hands grabbed and twisted. I am not a big fan of the draw booking, but the finish here was great, Suzuki is getting more and more frustrated, and he and Fujiwara start shit talking at each other, and then at the end they both are working on ankle locks as the bell rings, and Suzuki refuse to let go. Then when he does he is punching the mat in anguish and frustration. Just great stuff.

TKG: Both guys were working defensively as you had sense that Suzuki was fighting to block headbutts before they were unleashed. Fujiwara tries to establish distance to headbutt and Suzuki pulls him in. Really Phil’s covered the whole story here so pretty much all left to talk about are the cool little pieces like that, the multiple ways Fujiwara fights out of a choke (my favorite being this thing where he uses his feet to push his way out). Cameraman did a pretty great job here getting really expressive shots during long sleeper segment where Fujiwara spouts different types of bubbles till getting to the ropes. For a show that really had only two matches,,,this was a fucking great match.


Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Jushin Liger NJ 9/23/94- GREAT

This was kind of the 90's version of the Fujiwara v. Tiger Mask matchup. Liger is the striker flurrying with palm strikes and slipping in sneaky kappo kicks, while Fujiwara is trying to take him down and slow him down. Some very cool stuff here, including Fujiwara being pretty punishing, landing a big right hand in the corner, and really laying in a beating on Liger when he had the mount, including some nasty bodyshots. Finish run was pretty nifty with Liger having Fujiwara on the ropes with a big kappo kick and a nasty dropkick to the knee, Fujiwara however reverses an irish whip and when Liger dives off the ropes, he side steps him and slaps on the Fujiwara armbar for the finish, it is the kind of counter wrestling finish which Fujiwara is the master of.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Tatsumi Fujinami v. Nobuhiko Takada/Masahito Kakihara UWFI 6/26/96-GREAT

This was a main event of a UWFI show during the UWFI v. NJ feud, with Fujiwara and Fujinami representing NJ. Pretty cool match with the frisson between the styles providing a bunch of neat moments. Of course Fujiwara is a master at shootstyle wrestling, but it was cool to see Fujinami throw in stuff like top rope diving knees and clotheslines off of the ropes. The crowd reacted big whenever Fujinami used pro moves, and it nicely demonstrated the battle of styles. I haven't watched any UWFI in years, and I was impressed in Takada here, he was still a little bland, but he was laying in the kicks and he projects a big star aura in a way he didn't in the 80's. Kakihara has impressively fast hands, and I loved the little story that he and Fujiwara were telling throughout the match. In the early part of the match you could tell that Kakihara's hand speed was bothering Fujiwara, he was getting caught with flurries and kicks and got knocked down several times. By the end of the match though he had started to time Kakihara and was able to block and avoid most of his shots. The finish was awesome with Fujiwara dancing away from an increasingly desperate and reckless Kakihara until he catches a leg on a kick and sinks in a kneebar for the tap. Totally cool story, reminded me of the Juan Manuel Marquez v. Juan Diaz fight, with the wily veteran initially overwhelmed by the athletic freak, but able to use his guile to adjust.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/TARU v. Minoru Suzuki/Yoshihiro Takayama RING SOUL 4/19/07-SKIPPABLE

This is from a TARU vanity fed, and the concept behind this match is TARU wanting to work a UWF style match. TARU is a guy who is fun in a pro-style brawl, but is really out of his element here. Takayama and Suzuki are kind of walking through this as you might expect them to, with Takayama looking especially shot. Fujiwara and Suzuki have a couple of fun exchanges, including kind of a nifty knuckle lock where Suzuki keeps parrying the Fujiwara headbutt. Still this is a 20 minute match, and 17 minutes or so were pretty dull.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE YOSHIAKI FUJIWARA

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XCW Midwest 8/4/09

2 Tough Tony v. Marc Houston

TKG: This is the best Two Tuff Tony has looked in XCW. Last time these two matched up Two Tuff worked like a Dustyish babyface. Here he works more like a highflying face, getting leg worked over and struggling to knock down the brawler by catching him with highspots. Houston is really good at working powerhouse stopping a highflyers comebacks. I especially liked the section where Tony was selling the leg during an Irish whip attempt which Houston reversed into a leg sweep.

PAS: This has some highs and some lows, Tony has been inconsistent in XCW but he was at his best here, he hits two big highspots, his flipping lariat and a quebrada and has impressively fast rotation on both. They also do a great out of the ring brawl with Tony holding Houston so he can be chopped by the fans, there was one old dude in the crowd who might have been a pompadoured Ron Garvin because he chopped the fuck out of Houston. Houston is a guy who I think is going to be really good, but is probably a year away. He had some great individual moves including a beautiful powerslam, and a rake to the back of Tony’s bald head. However there was a couple of moments where he looked out of place or awkward including seemingly having no idea how to eat Tony’s finisher. Still pretty good match for a rookie and I am looking forward to watching him progress.

Manbeast v. Cody Hawk

PAS: Manbeast is one half of the Mobile Homers and Hawk is one half of the XCW tag champs, so this is setting up a future tag match I assume. Hawk is a guy with a ton of amusing horseshit to fill a match, but I got no sense of Manbeast at all, he took one nice bump, but he was mostly just a guy standing around while Hawk stooged.

TKG: Hawk has added a more douchey mime spots, mimeing taking guns out and spinning them, mimeing looking for opponents head after a lariat etc. He also had an absolutely nasty double knee to opponents face and a reverse calf branding. When Manbeast did get his end run of offense it wasn’t something you wanted to see.

Revolver v. Sexy Shawn Cook

TKG: This was super short and mostly Shawn Cook flying around eating stuff. Cook is good at eating stuff and Revolver looks to be the Mobile Homer with the better execution, as he has a nice punch, a pretty dropkick and a fine suplex.

PAS: Manbeast was better as a second then in the ring, but this was basically just setting up the tag

Mobile Homers v. Cody Hawk/Sexy Shawn Cook

TKG: In theory you want your better face wrestler to work face in peril and have your lesser guy working as hot tag. But Manbeast is a guy who can eat stuff while Revolver has nice offense. Using Manbeast as hot tag just messed this up. I did like all the leg work on Revolver and Manbeast did have amusing overacting begging to get into ring. But yeah…

PAS: I think I liked this more then Tom, Hawk and Cook are good enough at heel shtick that they can work an entertaining match with pretty much any face tag team. Still after the long Irish Airborne series and now this series I really want to see the level they could get against a really good pair of faces. PG-13 v. Hawk and Cook could be awesome.

Chris Michaels v. Mitch Ryder

PAS: Ryder is having a hell of year. This is another in the line of great 2009 Mitch Ryder brawls. Both guys really had a toe to toe fight, not a lot of fancy moves, but great looking punches and kicks. Michaels is a guy who was supposed to have retired because of a bad back, but he was flying around the ring here. The mikework was hard to hear, but it appeared they had a really hot angle with Morton, Cook, Hawk and Michaels beating Ryder while the screamed and intimidated his mother and son. Very cool shit and got me excited to see Ryder get his revenge.

TKG: Yeah there were points where I thought the stressof promoting was going to prematurely age Ryder. But he looked especially sharp and youthful here. His opening floor brawling really made this feel like a fight. Ryder controlled a lot of this match and for a guy who has been working second from the top type feuds this year looked like a guy you want to see in title contention.

Wolfie D v. Chase Stevens

TKG: Wolfie D looks to be off the roids since TNA, while Stevens looks even more gassed up XCW keeps on brining in Chase Stevens and Andy Douglas to work singles matches and watching this made me really want to see PG-13 v Naturals or Stevens/Cassidey O Reilly. Stevens works heel here and does lots of jawing with the crowd and stalling to begin…backing Wolfie D into corner punching him and then running out of ring. Wolfie D takes pretty big bumps and the payoffs for all the stalling are really rewarding.

PAS: This match goes maybe 10 minutes before anything really happens, however I would rather watch someone stall well then watch people do stuff poorly. Wolfie just flies out of the ring with his bumps, and the crowd was pretty hot by the end mainly because Stevens enraged the crowd.

Bull Pain v. Todd Morton

TKG: This was awesome. This was a chain match worked dog collar style (instead of touching corner they are guys just tied together by chain). The two just beat on each other with Morton unable to escape. The two brawl in the ring and then go to the floor where Morton takes a huge bump where he gets thrown into a garage door. They brawl on the floor till Morton ties Pain to the post and beats on him. Morton takes a huge piledriver on top of the chain and then the booking comes in.

PAS: This was the culmination of this feud and was the closet we have gotten to a match that lived up to the potential of the match up. The brawling in the crowd was pretty amazing, Morton was taking some nutty bumps, including flying into the garage door. Bull Pain threw on of the nastiest snap suplexes I have ever seen right on the floor. Morton has done a lot of really great stooging matches this year, but he is deadly serious and violent here. The match was a finish away from being a real match of the year candidate. . It is a booking problem I have noticed before in XCW. Sometimes they seem so intent on setting up the next show, that the matches on the current show seem to be backdrops. They have been running the Pain v. Morton feud off and on for almost a year, but we got no closure to it, they just moved right into the next feud. I don’t see any reason why this couldn’t have had another 10 minutes and a finish and then run the angle. Still well worth watching and a hell of a match.

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