Top 30 Thursday - Other Japan #30. Super Tiger vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara, UWF 6/24/85

Does watching Fujiwara pull out a buzzer beater ever get old?

These two always match up awesomely against each other, and they really represent UWF's two ideologies: more kicking vs. more submissions. I'm not sure there was anybody who put over Sayama's kicks as well as Fujiwara did, and Kicking vs. Subs is really the tale of the match here, with Fujiwara dancing away from kicks while Tiger occasionally leaves his neck out too far or Fujiwara can reach out and snatch an arm. Tiger takes him down with a DDT/suplex kinda thing, but doesn't seem to know what to do from the top. Fujiwara knows this and you can see him just biding his time from the bottom, that omnipresent half-smirk of his almost too telling. Sure enough he sweeps into an armbar but we're too close to the ropes. Back up and Fujiwara goes for the single leg only to have Tiger counter with an enzuigiri. It only grazes his head though, and Fujiwara being the greatest wrestler ever that he is, just kinda slicks his hair down and struts it off, showing Tiger that he only damaged a couple hair follicles. He struts around so awesomely afterwards that it makes me wish he had a long Snidely Whiplash mustache that he could twirl cockily.

Tiger fights fire with fire as Fujiwara tries grappling with him and Tiger does an insanely awesome suplex, like an arm-captured overhead belly to belly, bridging over and trying to snap Fujiwara's arm off. Fujiwara easily sweeps out again though, but this time Tiger nails a spin kick to the face (which Fujiwara sells greater than any man has ever sold a spin kick to the face, running himself into the ground like someone who just played that "spin around the bat and then try running in a straight line" game at a picnic).

That spin kick allows Tiger to start landing kicks way easier, as Fujiwara starts turtling up in the corner, getting picked apart by leg kicks, slaps to the back of his head, and snapping kicks to the kidneys. Fujiwara keeps trying for some desperation single legs, some more successful than others. At one point he gets Tiger down, into a crucifix and while transitioning to the Fujiwara armbar Tiger rolls through and kicks him right in the face. Tiger seems to be getting stronger as Fujiwara is getting caught more and more......until one mistake costs him the match. While picking Fujiwara apart with leg kicks that he just couldn't defend, Tiger decides to kick him right in the chest. Except his kick lands right in the waiting arms of Fujiwara, who then trips him down and locks on a kneebar right in the center of the ring. The look on Tiger's face is classic as he literally looks desperately at every single side of the ring, trying to size up which ropes are closest, before just screaming and tapping out.

I think I could watch these two wrestle each other just on a loop. They're a real yin yang to each other, and I think Fujiwara brings out the best elements of Tiger. Instead of flippy stumbly spots you get kicks with real bite and honest to god aggression. I don't ever remember writing up "aggression" as one of Tiger's traits in NJPW, but here there are plenty of moments where he just unleashes on Fujiwara. And what more can I say about Fujiwara that Phil hasn't said in 75-odd Fujiwara write-ups. It's just fascinating watching him work, really. Half the time it looks like he's shooting or calling a match and then tricking his opponent, I sit there and wonder how many times his opponent knew he was getting taken down, or if Fujiwara just shot in for single legs on a whim to see if he could catch someone sleeping. I wonder if he did this stuff on purpose during his matches, to kinda piss off his opponents, to make them more aggressive, to make me BUY THE HATE...because I do. Everything Fujiwara does looks real to me, and I don't care if that makes me a rube. He's one of the only guys that I can still have conversations like I did in the 4th grade, where we'd always wonder who was hitting "for real". 25 year old Fujiwara matches still make me suspend disbelief, and I love it.