Cast Your Cares on Yoshiaki Fujiwara, He Will Never Let The Righteous Fail

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Haruka Eigen NJ 7/16/83-GREAT

This is another chance to see early Fujiwara off the random tiny Japanese HH site. This was structured as basic undercard NJ match, but a nice step above the norm with Fujiwara bringing another level to the opening matwork. I haven't seen a ton of non comedy Eigen, but he was perfectly comfortable working legs and arms. Fujiwara was rocking some great judo throws and knuckle locks. The later part of the match is off the mat and a bit more pedestrian, but it was really neat to get a chance to see these guys early in their careers.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Hiroshi Hase NJ 8/8/93-EPIC

I just love the way these two match up, Hase is one of Fujiwara's better dance partners. The match starts out with both guys scrambling to establish wrist control, it is one of those little moments that make wrestling cool, and the kind of thing Fujiwara matches are loaded with. We get another one when Fujiwara gets taken down and actually calls time out, like he was Arn Anderson. Hase responds with a Sumo dance. It starts to get chippy with Fujiwara responding to getting out grappled by throwing a nasty left hook, and Hase doing the bolt spot so hard that it busts Fujiwara open. We ended with a great finishing run, including a spectacular Fujiwara armbar counter of a german suplex, and Hase reversing a standing armbar with a nasty Dragon suplex. Great discovery, well worth checking out.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Riki Choshu/Tomohiro Ishii v. Shinya Hashimoto/Naoya Ogawa/Tatsuhito Takaiwa Zero One 3/14/04-GREAT

This had a really ragged interpromotional feel. There were multiple parts of the match where guys would just square off and slap each other in the mouth. I especially enjoyed watching Fujiwara and Hashimoto crack each other in the chops. I could watch those two guys pound on each other all day. The match seemed to be setting up Choshu v. Ogawa and we got to see the expected amount of STO's and lariats. Match could have used some more Hashimoto and Takiawa did some things that annoyed me, still these kinds of uncooperative awkward violent matches are what Japanese wrestling does best, and even a minor version of that is going to be well worth checking out.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE YOSHIAKI FUJIWARA