#3: Fit Finlay

by Eric

This guy is the ultimate no-brainer for me. Finlay has been my favorite worker going on 10+ years now. When he went down injured and retired I was really bummed. I mean, I moved on. There were other favorite workers. Brock Lesnar. SUWA. But it always came back to Finlay. I would be going through old tapes and come across a random 4 minute long Finlay squash match from WCW Saturday Night and I would be enraptured again. And then somehow, at 46 years old, after 6 years on the shelf, he came back as good as ever. If Doc Brown had burst through my door in 2005 and told me that Fit Finlay was coming back full time in 2006 and he would get long TV matches and work as good as ever I wouldn't have believed him. And then it happened, and it's been happening for a few years now. Even now I'm pessimistic about it. "Aw, he's almost 50. How long can he keep going at this pace? He never gets time off and has never gone down with an injury!" Well, he's still doing it.

What I like most about Finlay matches is no matter the pace of the match, he never lets the guy off easy. His opponents seem like they're working hard every match because they know they'll get stomped if they are being too lazy. In the Saturday Night days every match of his started the same: side headlock sequence into rope running/leap frog/hip toss section. He would work it really fast and try and trip the guy up. If the guy didn't blow anything (like in the Barry Houston match), Finlay gave him some offense and sold big for him before putting him away. If the guy leapfrogged and landed on his head (Lorenzo), or blew the hip toss (Johnny Swinger), then you knew it was going to be a real painful 5 minutes for that guy.

He still works things similarly, but WWE is a bit more tightly run ship, so he can't just get away with popping jobbers in the chops. You can tell that he still won't let opponents rest on their laurels though, and those moments lead to the stuff that makes Finlay so much damn fun. Somebody's too slow getting back to his feet? Stomp on his hands. Someone's laying in wimpy elbow shots? Drill them with a hard clothesline. His selling is the best in the WWE, whether selling individual body parts or fatigue or just the way he takes moves. He's one of the few people I watch regularly (Santo being the other that immediately comes to mind) who just never seems to do anything wrong. The execution always looks great, and he pays it back by taking offense great.

I could go on and on gushing about him. Just remember to enjoy every minute of him. I mean, really, how much longer could we be blessed with this guy?

Recommended 2008 Matches:

~vs. JBL (Belfast Brawl, Wrestlemania 24, 3/30/08)
~vs. MVP (WWE Smackdown, 5/9/08)
~vs. Chuck Palumbo (WWE Smackdown, 5/23/08)
~vs. Chuck Palumbo (WWE Smackdown, 5/30/08)
~vs. Matt Hardy vs. The Miz vs. John Morrison (ECW, 7/22/08)
~vs. Mark Henry (ECW, 9/16/08)
~vs. Matt Hardy (ECW, 11/11/08)
~vs. Mark Henry (Belfast Brawl, Armageddon, 12/14/08)

Recommended Career Matches:

~vs. Steven Regal (Parking Lot Brawl, WCW Nitro, 4/29/96)
~w/ Dave Taylor vs. Chris Benoit/Dean Malenko (WCW Nitro, 2/16/99)
~w/ JBL vs. Chris Benoit/Bobby Lashley (WWE Smackdown, 2/16/06)
~w/ JBL/Randy Orton vs. Rey Mysterio/Chris Benoit/Bobby Lashley (WWE Smackdown, 2/23/06)
~vs. Rey Mysterio (WWE Smackdown, 3/20/06)
~vs. Chris Benoit (WWE Judgment Day, 5/21/06)
~vs. Chris Benoit (WWE Smackdown, 11/24/06)
~vs. Chris Benoit vs. MVP (WWE Smackdown, 3/2/07)
~vs. The Undertaker (WWE Smackdown, 3/9/07)
~vs. Matt Hardy (WWE Smackdown, 6/22/07)
~vs. Kane (Belfast Brawl, WWE Smackdown, 9/14/07)
~vs. Rey Mysterio (WWE Smackdown, 11/9/07)


2009 Outlook:

High. Right now he's easily top 5 in WWE (with Rey, Regal, Goldust, and either Christian or Punk), and just recently he's had awesome series with Mike Knox and Dolph Ziggler. I expect another easy top 10 finish for him.

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An Overflow of Good Converts to Yoshiaki Fujiwara

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Keichi Yamada NJ 9/23/87 - EPIC

Real hidden gem from your random bad VQ HH Japanese webpage source. Great story with Yamada as this aggressive little bulldog who was never going to stop coming forward. Fujiwara was countering his attacks, but he could never slow him down. It reminded me of a Clay Guida UFC fight. Yamada didn't have the teqnuqie, but he was going to overwhelm him with pace. I never thought of Yamada as much of a mat wrestler, but he was super fast and impressive in the early exchanges. Fujiwara was totally spectacular here too, taunting Yamada when he would come in recklessly, smacking him with slaps and countering his moves. He also did a great job selling fatigue as you could tell he was frustrated with inability to put this little fucker away. Finish was awesome with Fujiwara countering desperation shot after desperation shot with the Fujiwara armbar, but Yamada would survive, get to the ropes, and charge right back ahead. Until finally Fujiwara trapped both arms and ended it. Too bad this only exists as a tiny poor VQ avi file, as I could see this finishing pretty well on my NJ ballot.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Dan Severn NJ 8/2/96 - GREAT

Very cool power vs. guile match up. Severn really comes off like a monster here, throwing around Fujiwara with big time suplexes. This reminded of the kind of match ups Fujiwara would have with random Russians in PWFG, as he really worked an entertaining contest around Severns limitations. There were a couple of awesome looking Fujiwara counters, Severn shoots for a firemans carry and Fujiwara catches him in armbar using his legs. There is another move where Fujiwara counters a double leg with an mid air armbar while locking the legs as well. Totally beautiful move which I really bought as the finish. The end was just Severn throwing a bunch of overhead tosses, with Fujiwara finally being too weak to kick out. Felt like the finish run was a bit repetitive, but this was about as good a non Tarzan Goto match I have seen from Severn.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Dan Kroffat vs. Steve Williams/Mike Rotundo AJPW 11/19/00 - SKIPPABLE

Nothing much here, total squash with Williams and Rotundo jumping their opponents at the bell, hitting some big power moves on Fujiwara and pinning him after a top rope powerslam. The whole match was just over a minute. Under other circumstances, I would have been intrigued to see Fujiwara work the mat with Rotundo, but not here.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Riki Choshu vs. Ryuji Sai/Kohei Sato Zero-One 10/17/04 - SKIPPABLE

This was during the period where Z1 was running all cage match shows, so this for in a cage for no reason. Pretty much a nothing match, with a couple of decent exchanges from Sato and Fujiwara, but this felt perfunctory and Choshu finishes it rather quickly with a lariat.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE YOSHIAKI FUJIWARA

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