Yoshiaki Fujiwara is Close to the Brokenhearted and Saves Those Who Are Crushed in Spirit

 Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Tiger Mask Showa Pro 12/18/08 - EPIC

This is Fujiwara's return match after recovering from stomach cancer, and he picks a match against the greatest stomach destroyer wrestler ever, fat pissed off Sayama. Just an incredible performance, Sayama seems determined to act as human chemotherapy, attempting to spin kick all remaining cancer cells out of Fujiwara's belly. Crushing shot after crushing shot on an old sick man. Of course the old sick man has some tricks of his own, and there are some great moments where he snatches an arm or a leg and tries to end the suffering by snapping a limb. There is an incredible moment where Liger acting as Fujiwara's second tries to throw in the towel, and Fujiwara snatches it out of the air and furiously throws it back at him. He already stared death in the eyes, he is not backing down from it again.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FUJIWARA

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Found Footage Friday: FUJIWARA~! ANDRE~! SAYAMA~! MAEDA~! KIDO~! HOSHINO~! KURISU~!

Tiger Mask/Osamu Kido vs. Kantaro Hoshino/Masanobu Kurisu NJPW 12/19/82

MD: I always get a little surprised when a new NJPW Tiger Mask HH comes up because I just assume they had a pro shot of it that they released on a twenty disc DVD set at some point. This does seem new though, and it's a great collection of talent. Overall, it's a little formless and exhbition-y, except for a stretch where Kido and Tiger Mask were working over Kurisu in the corner. That was my favorite part, by the way, as Tiger Mask was working like a flittering chickenshit heel to some degree, sneaking in shots that didn't do damage to distract him so Kido could hit more substantial cutoffs. Then when Kurisu rolled over to Hoshino finally, Tiger Mask got right out of the ring and tagged Kido back in. I think he was just having fun on an untelevised show for a bit though, hard to say.

In general, every exchange looked good and while they could change speeds and switch from strikes to holds to rope running, each pairing felt a little different. You could see it even in just how they moved. Kurisu found the path of least reistance with his takedowns, just a percussive series of thuds as he worked in tight or dropped a couple of knees. Tiger Mask was loose and fast to the point where sometimes he wasn't even hanging on to anything as he was spinning and you just had to sort of go with it. He came off like a movie fencer whipping the sword around wildly while Kurisu was an Olympic fencer, precise and with the smallest motion necessary. Kido and Hoshino were somewhere in the middle; Hoshino especially had to base for Tiger Mask and make it all somehow work. Sometimes things didn't feel resonant enough as they moved on to the next move. There was a pile driver from one side and a tombstone from the other in short order and I don't remember who took either. Tiger Mask pulled out his fairly rare slingshot 450 (that I only really remember Scorpio also using) for the win. It wasn't the sort of match that was ever going to come together but you can't really fault the action.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Osamu Kido vs. Super Tiger/Akira Maeda UWF 11/15/84 - EPIC

PAS: I can't believe we are still getting brand new incredible HH matches from 40 years ago. God bless the guy sneaking in a video camera. This is as great as it looks on paper, four all timers in their prime, having a hideously violent proto-shootstyle match. Kido is a bit dry, but a tremendous technician, kind of the Tim Duncan of the UWF, Maeda is one of the most charismatic offensive dynamos in wrestling history, although he played a bit of a supporting role here. The focus of this match is Fujiwara vs. Super Tiger, which is truly one of the all time great matchups ever. It is the incubatory version of Ishikawa vs. Ikeda, a brilliant tactician looking for every opening to take advantage of, against a hellacious violence dynamo trying to knock his opponents brains out of their ears. The Sayama kneedrop on Fujiwara is one of the most violent signature spots ever, I don't understand the magic, he lands so hard right on the temple, Fujiwara looks like he should have his skull flattened like when Christopher Lloyd got run over by the tractor in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Meanwhile Fujiwara is dishing out shots of his own, working Tiger's body in the corner like a heavy bag, drilling him with headbutts, yanking and pulling at his limbs. Every moment of it was special and we got a lot of them. The finish run is a bit clipped sadly (I imagine the HH guy was running out of film.) So we don't see every moment of Fujiwara maneuvering into submissions (which is a shame because he is the greatest small movement wrestler ever), but what we got was such a mitzvah.  

MD: Phil likens Super Tiger vs Fujiwara to Ishikawa and Ikeda and man, I don't know. It felt more like Buddy Rose vs Matt Borne during those few months where Buddy Rose was allegedly engaging in frequent acts of domestic violence against Borne's sister and they were trying to draw money off of it. Does Sayama have a sister? Because that's the level of violence he was rising to in the way he was beating on Fujiwara. In the NJPW tag below, Sayama wins with a crazy slingshot 450 that you don't see almost anyone do ever. The moment where Fujiwara starts to come back out of the corner and hit his headbutts and Sayama just clocks him in the jaw to cut him off just blows that out of the water when it comes to pro wrestling being amazing. Maeda and Kido do their part here too. I know Kido's dry, but he's dry like the desert. You can't get one over on him. He stretches for as far as the eye can see and you have to walk a thousand miles to endure all of his takedown attempts. Each of the pairings here were different and when he was in there against Super Tiger, he even tried to match him in stand up striking (he failed) which is not what you usually see out of Kido. Meanwhile, Maeda and Fujiwara contrasted with the dangerous explosiveness of the Sayama/Fujiwara pairing. It was all about positioning and little bits of leverage, constant hand motion, Maeda using his reach to press his hand upon Fujiwara's head and Fujiwara trying to slip around and lock something on. And yeah, when Fujiwara finally did get the chance to get revenge (which had previously been cut off with that Sayama punch) it's grisly, gripping stuff. The clipping's unfortunate but I figure the camcorder just couldn't handle much more of what it was seeing. It switches from wrestling found footage to a found footage snuff film, where we blink and Fujiwara's trying another attempt at the chicken wing, blink again and he's turning it into a headscissors. After all we just saw, it almost even worked in its own startling way.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Andre the Giant NJPW 5/27/86 - EPIC

MD: When you watch mid-80s New Japan, that month of the IWGP league when you get a bunch of weird singles matches alongside the usual tags is a treat. Granted, we didn't get to see most of these on the TV but that's the miracle of HHs still sneaking their way through (you get the same thing with the CC in AJPW where you'll suddenly get Misawa vs Cactus Jack or something, just like how with the tag league you'll get all the possible pairings if you're lucky). Therefore, seen minutes of Fujiwara vs Andre. It's only seven minutes, really only five given the entrances. You wish it was fourteen, but the taste that we do get is pretty much as iconic as you'd hope that it'd be.

Andre contains Fujiwara in the corner, tries to treat him like any other opponent he might manhandle, as if he was in there against 86 Kengo Kimura. Fujiwara constantly works his way to a neutral point causing Andre to shift holds repeatedly. He has the advantage, is able to shut Fujiwara down when he tries to headbutt, but is also forced to use escalating offense, including a mean shot to the gut off the ropes you rarely see Andre do. There a sense that if Andre lets up for one second Fujiwara is going to come back and cut him down to size. While Andre is unquestionably dominant and winning by points, Fujiwara through presence and motion, makes it seem closer than it ought to be. That leads Andre to take a risk, one that backfires, setting things up for Fujiwara's comeback headbutts. Andre's just too big though and is able to pull them both out and once out, Wakamatsu gets involved forcing the countout. You watch this and almost can imagine what a WrestleMania 3 match between these two might have looked like.

PAS: These two are 15 best wrestlers of all time (10 best? Maybe 5 best?) and while the version of this in my head is an all time great main event collision, this 6 minute undercard match is still pretty great. We get Fujiwara, an all time great pro-wrestling problem solver, tasked with lumbering Andre, an all time great wrestling problem. He prods and pokes looking for openings, and even makes the mistake of trying to hit Andre with a headbutt, which goes as well as one would expect. The match goes to a count out before Fujiwara finds a solution, which is a bit of buzzkill, I can imagine how amazing a UWF main event between these two would have been two years earlier or three years later, but it is amazing we got it at all.

ER: I actually think we're all being a bit too calm about this match. This is the literal only Andre the Giant/Yoshiaki Fujiwara match that ever happened. Andre the Giant and Yoshiaki Fujiwara, two guys who are even more than Top 5 Guys, they are two guys with a legitimate claim to #1. Andre the Giant is my #1 wrestler, and if not now I believe Fujiwara was Phil's #1 at some point. For me, expectations were out the window. The literal only singles match between two giants of my wrestling fandom, a match nobody could have reasonably expected would have ever shown up on tape after nearly 40 years, is suddenly in our hands and it looks, plays, and feels like Yoshiaki Fujiwara forcing Andre the Giant to wrestle shootstyle. 

Yes, I repeat, Yoshiaki Fujiwara prods Andre into wrestling shootstyle, and it is incredible. You want to watch the most fearless knee ripper in wrestling history force Andre to standing grapple for almost an entire match? I sure as hell did. I should have been shocked that Fujiwara walked straight up to Andre and tried to put him in a headlock. Did you see how huge Andre looked in this match? How was Andre the Giant even possible? You know supposedly the Big Show was physically larger than Andre? It makes no sense. Andre looks like a forest ogre forced into working double underhooks with a shooter, Big Show looks like a really big guy stocking shelves at Costco. Andre is shaped like the perfect Giant, the thick legs and comic book distended torso, a Popeye Goon fleshed out into a God. Have we ever seen anyone try to grapple with him as long as Fujiwara did here? 

That's at the core of why I think this match should be so celebrated. To me, this felt like one of the greatest examples of someone Lasting With Andre while taking the game directly to Andre. Fujiwara is perhaps the greatest worker of all time at biding his time for a winning shot, a thing he does against men his own size all the damn time, and here he is against the opponent who makes the literal most sense to avoid while remaining as coiled and prepared at all times to strike one cobra shot. Andre presents Fujiwara with the most logical opponent ever to work a classic Fujiwara lay in wait, and this All Time Motherfucker goes at Andre from go and works for fucking single legs against a Fujiwara size leg of a man. Fujiwara forces Andre to work shootstyle and grapple and be a Force against him for what feels like longer than I've seen anyone do in any other match. Looking at this match as a potential all timer cut short into a 6 minute taste, is not seeing how rare it was to get a six minute stretch in any Andre match where someone takes it to him the way Fujiwara pushed him here. 

Do you know how quick I scooted forward in my chair when Fujiwara looked like he was going to topple Andre onto his butt with that single leg? Can you imagine headbutting the Stay Puft marshmallow man in the stomach? Did you see Andre drop to a fucking knee to clothesline Fujiwara in the stomach? Have you ever seen something so cool? How does every single year of Andre have him doing things that nobody has ever been able to do as well as Andre the Giant? That drop to one knee clothesline I've never seen before leading to one of the all time greatest missed headbutt spots is one of thousands of Andre moments that illustrate his creative brilliance. Nobody has worked with their aging body more creatively than Andre, giving more than any other wrestler has ever physically given and finding new vaudeville acts when he no longer had the reflexes to juggle. He lugged that trunk to all parts of the globe. 

Imagine Andre the Giant navigating Japan during the worst most painful physical year of his life! Andre turned 40 years old as a man knowing he wasn't seeing 50, and a week later was forced to be the largest shootstyle wrestler we've ever gotten to see in a match we didn't know existed until now. This is two Number Ones strengthening their status as Number Ones in a way we haven't seen. The greatest wrestler of all time against the greatest wrestler of all time and every second felt like they understood each other's importance to pro wrestling. 

 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE YOSHIAKI FUJIWARA

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE ANDRE THE GIANT

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Found Footage Friday: TIGER MASK~! DYNAMITE~! HOSHINO~! GAETANO~! DANIELSON~! SWIFT~! SAMOANS~! SANTANA~! PUTSKI~!

MD: Brief programming note here at Segunda Caida. Expect some disruptions over the next few weeks as we have some vacations and big life events coming up. As noted a few weeks ago we've done NFF/FFF every single week straight for five years. I can see that lapsing in the near future and we may miss a week here or there. Likewise with Panama. We have an awesome match for everyone next, something so good that it might be one of the top lucha trios of the 80s period. We'll get there soon. Plus there's another project coming later in the summer that I think people will enjoy, very on brand. So stick with us. Thanks for reading.

Tito Santana/Ivan Putski vs. Wild Samoans WWF 4/12/80

MD: If this actually had a finish, it'd be a pretty solid find. There are certain formulas in wrestling that always, always work. One of the best is a tag match where a guy gets taken out mid match and then comes charging back, taped up and bloody. That happened with Putski here and, like always, it was awesome, right until it wasn't when the ref called for an instant DQ. Then it was just sort of ok. The match up to that was fun though. Putski and Tito were the champs. I don't think Tito was quite there yet. He had fire but his stuff didn't fully back it up. He was well on his way though. Putski is probably a guy we have to dig deeper on given what we've seen lately. Under a certain definition of pro wrestling, he was lacking, but if you ask me, it's that definition that's lacking, not him. 

This is an aside, but I was talking to someone the other day who didn't think Buddy Rose's matwork was up to par with Fujinami's. He was comparing the two of them because they both end the 70s and start the 80s against a wide and varied range of opponents. Point being, there's matwork which is all about tight holds and complex reversals and then there's matwork that's about being active in a hold, making engaging facial expressions, using your body language to rouse the crowd, and creating an emotional effect. Probably the absolute best would be when both things happen at once, but if you got too far in either direction, you can create some unique magic despite it all, and that's exactly what Putski was able to do here just with a seated arm puller. 

This had a fun structure too, with the Samoans ambushing early and both teams playing the numbers game back and forth until they finally got some heat on Tito and Putski got a hot tag and the Hammer. It got broken up and he got opened up but it was a pretty complete match before they went into the high two-on-one struggle setting up Putski's return. It was a big moment when Tito helped Putski to the back and then rushed back into the ring to fight off both Samoans himself and a bigger one when Putski stormed back. It's just a shame they couldn't give this thing a real finish in front of a crowd in Landover, Maryland. What's the harm?

Tiger Mask/Kantaro Hoshino vs. Dynamite Kid/Bobby Gaetano NJPW 4/1/83

MD: This was on the road to the last Dynamite vs. Tiger Mask match. Gaetano is not someone we've written a lot about but he's a lot of fun to watch. Very unique in how he moves, how he comes at offense, how he balances technique and style. You know what you'll get with Tiger Mask and Dynamite, but it was the other pairings I found most interesting. There was a level of abrupt violence with Hoshino and Dynamite and that mix of over the top movement and grounded hanging on to a limb when Tiger Mask and Gaetano were in there. The match did feel somewhat like it was building to a clash between Dynamite and Tiger Mask, with both having a chance mid-match to dominate their rival's partner. It opened up to heat when Dynamite came in to save Gaetano in the midst of that and then built to an eventual recovery comeback from Hoshino two tags later. Maybe my favorite bit in all of this was when Tiger Mask got a tag mid-heat and Gaetano wanted out quickly and Dynamite wanted nothing to do with it. Those little moments of character go a long way in a match that leans towards being all action.

Bryan Danielson vs. Dave Swift (Cage Match) ECCW 9/29/01

MD: As cage matches go, this was a match that happened to be in a cage. Past a couple of nods to the escape possibility (pinfalls counted too) over the last couple of minutes, it didn't come into play at all. It came into play less than it did in Luger vs. Windham from the 91 Bash, and that's saying something. That sort of follows Danielson's attitude here, so it's ok. The match itself was okay. Swift had a ton of 01 indy power offense and it all looked ok and Danielson took it well. Danielson's kicks weren't quite what they would be and his top rope elbow drop was dubious but the forearm/elbow he won with looked like a million bucks. The best stuff, however, was Danielson's histrionics, whether it was an eyepoke or hanging on to the ropes as Swift was trying to drag him off or doing the Rick Rude swivel before dropping back onto the leg, he was certainly flexing his heel mannerisms. The promo before the match when he tried to discuss why they shouldn't be having a cage match set the tone. It's unfortunate watching this back twenty two years later that the tone was a back and forth sprint instead of the two of them grinding their heads into a cage, but for a match that just happened to occur within a cage, this was still pretty good.

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New Footage Friday: New Japan Hand Held 8/3/83

New Japan 8/3/84 Yokosuka, Summer Fight Series

 
Kuniaki Kobayashi vs. El Halcón

MD: Solid juniors match. Both guys come out swinging, Kobayashi with a wild spin kick attempt and Halcon with some cool rolling takedowns. Neither guy is afraid to toss each other into the railing on the outside and they get pretty chippy with each other with headbutts. Kobayashi goes after the mask and this whole thing ends up more heated than you'd expect while they still work a number of quick exchanges and big moves.

PAS: This was fun although had some moments that looked a bit awkward especially by Halcon who looked a bit lost at points. I liked the nasty headbutt by Kobayashi, and Halcon took a nice hard bump into the guard rail. This was the least of the three matches, but that isn't really isn't a criticism.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Pete Roberts - GREAT

MD: Technical and skilled chain wrestling and mat wrestling here. When they hit, they hit hard (especially Roberts' European uppercuts) but it never reaches a level of real animosity or leaves the realm of sportsmanship. There are a few really nice bits of subtle positioning or counters, including one hammerlock that Fujiwara really gets out of absolutely nowhere and an up and over headscissors by Fujiwara out of an arm hold that's out of the catch footage playbook. Roberts' cravat and 84 Fujiwara's bridges and overall flexibility also both stand out as well. It feels like a very good first chunk of a rounds match that never quite boils over.

PAS: This did feel like a first act to a great match, but it was a very cool first act. I really enjoy Fujiwara testing himself against other mat wizards, and it is fun to watch the variation in style between Roberts WOS stuff and Fujiwara's more shoot wrestling style. I am a fan of well executed knuckle lock sequences and headscissors escapes and we some good ones here, and a couple of nasty Roberts uppercuts as the match moved on. Abrupt ending kept this from top tier Fujiwara status, Fujiwara is such a master of finished that a roll up out of nowhere is pretty disappointing. Still a fun discovery as we don't have a ton of Fujiwara from this early

Fit Finlay vs. Tiger Mask

MD: Great bullying performance by Finlay here. He targets the arm early on and uses his relative size and power to really tear it apart, including lifting armbars and an awesome dropkick to a held arm where the physics shouldn't work but it still looked great. Nothing sportsmanlike here, as he's more than happy to slam it over guardrail too. When they move into the finishing stretch, it's one huge bomb after the next. Interesting that both this and the Halcon match ended with lucha style quebradoras.

PAS: I loved this, it was one of my favorite New Japan Tiger Mask matches. Finlay is an absolute savage going after Tiger Mask's arm, slamming it, cranking it, smashing it into a guardrail, just focused and violent limb work. Sayama hits all of his super athletic stuff really cleanly, kicks looked good, reversals were slick. Finlay matches him in the fast spots, including bolting up to the top rope for a missed headbutt with crazy speed. I usually don't say this about juniors matches, but I would have liked an even crazier finishing run. But these guys had great charisma and there feels like an alternative world big match Finlay vs. Tiger Mask feud which would have been even greater then Dynamite vs. Tiger Mask.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FINLAY

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FUJIWARA

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Fujiwara Family: UFO 3 3/14/99

UFO 3

Tiger Mask IV vs. Jean-Pierre David

PAS: This was nifty stuff, Mask was throwing sharp kicks and punches, while David would try to grab him and take him down. There was a couple of pretty wild shootstyle highspots, including David judo tossing Mask off of the weird UFO circular ring apron to the floor, and Tiger responding by kicking and punching him off the apron on the other side. Finish had David working for an armbar only to see Mask get his back and choke him out. This had the fun choppiness of a good RINGS match, like David in this, he had some good throws and a French Canadian chippiness which made for a fun opponent. 

ER: I've never seen TM4 work any kind of shootstyle, but this had that cool shootstyle feel where things start out normal and keep escalating to a clearly unprofessional peak when one guy stops playing around. This all looked very normal, David working for armbars, TM using cool pro wrestling strikes to back him off. The finish looked fantastic, as TM just starts wailing punches at the back of David's head, and not just one or two. Tiger Mask starts using punches to the back of the head to set up his other strikes, including a cool use of a Tiger Mask solebutt and a great high kick that knocks David swiftly to the mat. Then, more TM punches to the back of the head to set up a nasty rear naked choke. 

Sean McCully vs. Orlando Wiet

ER: We at Segunda Caida are big fans of pro wrestler Sean McCully, but this is probably the first actual shootstyle match of his we've written about. And it is good! But in a different way than his pro wrestling is good. Weit had the obvious size and reach advantage, but that did not prevent McCully from charging right in and keeping things close, negating the reach, and literally dragging Weit to the mat. The ropes are really the only thing that allowed Weit to last long enough to finish, as he just kept hooking them to prevent takedowns, leading to McCully just dragging him down anyway. I loved this one moment where Weit would not unhook his arm, and McCully just punched him in the teeth. Weit has really explosive ground and pound and landed several quick shots, and he finally used that reach to drag McCully down with a nice guillotine. 

PAS: Love to see McCully, he looks like an Irish mob legbreaker who ends up getting 15 years in Framingham because he tried to knock over a cigarette truck drunk. Cool story with McCully's aggression versus Wiet's skill, and the finish made a ton of sense, as the aggression  eventually backfired and he got caught in a nasty choke for the tap.

Koichiro Kimura vs. Richard Roland Loux

ER: Mostly one-sided shootstyle squash, with some stand up leading to a dueling leglock (it was 1999-2002 MMA, so there's going to be a dueling leglock). I do like dueling leglocks though, especially when someone like Kimura adds in a couple twists to show how stubborn he is, making it look like both guys really did want to end it right there. After the stand up it doesn't take long for Kimura to get an armbar. 

PAS: Loux was a big bald fat guy in a gi, and had one great throw, but it is hard to get a sense of someone in such a short match. Weird to watch Kimura as such an overdog while watching all of the RINGS stuff where he is sort of a jobber.

Tiger Mask vs. Alexander Otsuka

ER: I liked this, even though there were some moments of disconnect that I would have roasted some unknown indy worker for doing. And I guess that makes me a hypocrite, because I like these guys (that said, Sayama had some ground and pound that looked like he was intentionally trying to not hit Otsuka). But I think the match would have been better if they leaned harder into having either a shootstyle match, or a pro wrestling match. They kind of combined the two and sometimes it worked and other times it looked a bit silly. I liked Sayama breaking out a bunch of cool Tiger Mask spinkicks, and Otsuka was great at getting his head in the way of catching them. But I also think Sayama went to them too often, and Otsuka kind of had to just keep leaning in and keeping them, and not all of them hit as well and he had to sell them anyway. If they had gone full shootstyle it would have been cool to see Otsuka take a glancing blow and then punish Sayama for missing. 

We got a weird mix of them seemingly treating the shootstyle stuff seriously, but then also mixing in their signature pro wrestling spots. We probably didn't need to see Otsuka's big swing, but I liked the realism they brought to other exchanges, like the way Otsuka looked to sandbag a Tiger suplex before getting dropped. Otsuka's rolling kneebars looked fantastic, really hyperextending Sayama's leg, and yet I was still really surprised Otsuka got the tap. Otsuka really should have made an even bigger mark in 90s/00s wrestling than he did, but it seems like his desire to control his own schedule was more important, and that just makes him cooler. 

PAS: I though this was pretty great, Sayama wasn't throwing the same level of heat as he did fifteen years earlier against Fujiwara, but he still had some big swings which landed hard, and spiked Otsuka with the dragon suplex. I also could have done without the giant swing, but otherwise thought Otsuka was brilliant. I loved his constant activity on the ground, adjusting his attacks, landing nasty body shots to readjust and move Sayama. The final kneebar was amazing, rolling it into nastier and deeper locks until he nearly ripped Tiger's leg off. Awesome shit, and a real mark on Otsuka's impressive resume. 

Kazunari Murakami vs. Gerard Gordeau

ER: This was cool, but would have been even better a year later. Murakami was totally evolved into his best self by 2000, here he was still a little bit more of a normal MMA-based wrestler. And while Gordeau clearly worked heel (including pretending he had no clue who Murakami was in a pre-fight interview), outside of one questionable eye attack he really wasn't as brazen about his heel attacks as he had been. Still, this was a cool fight made up of bizarre grappling and tumbling over and through ropes, and an apparently loose set of rules that allows for submissions to be applied outside of the ring. They kept getting tied up in the ropes, but it always lead to something weird and unique, like Gordeau shoving Murakami until Murakami flipped over the ropes to the rounded apron, or another time where Gordeau went after Murakami's eye (UFO was always really smart or really stupid to not show the eye attacks up close, never giving us the camera angle of the suspected gouge). Murakami came out of it blinking a lot, and Gordeau swung with his biggest strike attempt of the match, a high kick that would have decapitated Murakami had it been an inch or two closer. Murakami grabs a kneebar and Gordeau tries to tie him in the ropes, but they roll out to the ample, rounded apron and the ref just allows the hold to continue, and Gordeau finally has to get Murakami to drop off the apron, allowing him to pounce. This whole thing gets ruled a no contest after both men refuse to break on the floor, and it's a shame they never did a bigger rematch. I have to assume that negotiations broke down, because you do the no contest to set up the big triumphant Murakami win, but instead Murakami just beat UWFI guy Billy Scott. 

PAS: I agree that this would have been better with the terrorist taking on the nazi, but I did love it. Gordeau is awesome at bringing that out of control aura to his matches which Murakami would master later, you can almost see Murakami in this match thinking "shit I can just do this stuff for 20 years". I am a fan of the weird UFO ring with the big circular ring aprons, which allow a lot of shit to be done on the edges and off the sides, it is almost like a no ropes match but with ropes. Gordeau made a career out of cowardly blinding a guy, it is like if Invader 1 had a spot in every match where he hid a knife in his trunks, which in hindsight would rule, and this ruled too. Liked how this just ended in oblivion with both guys on the floor tied up and Gordeau trying to melon scoop Murakami's peepers. 

Dan Severn vs. Naoya Ogawa

ER: You remember that awesome match you love where the referee kept involving himself in the action the entire time? Of course you don't, because no good match can ever come from referees overly involving themselves. This match keeps threatening to get violent many different times, and every single one of those times Special Guest Referee Dory Funk Jr. literally wedges his body in the middle of these two, pulls one away from the other, grabs arms to prevent strikes, just completely breaks up any sort of conflict whatsoever. Funk was like Tirantes, if Tirantes had no charisma, shitty hair, and a ball cap that he purchased when he and his wife visited a retired aircraft carrier. Severn would grab Ogawa, back him into the ropes, fight for control...and then Funk would separate them. Ogawa would reverse Severn on the mat, get in the mount, and Funk would interject his body. The whole match was like being at your favorite restaurant, and every time the waiter comes walking up with your food he just keeps walking past you, letting you really see and smell this great food before not giving it to you. I don't think we got to see one single sequence worked to any kind of finish. At one point they spilled through the ropes onto the entrance ramp, and things looked like they were ready to unravel as they kept rolling and struggling down the ramp...and Funk comes running out of the ring with a freaking whistle, blowing it like he was breaking up a fight on an elementary school playground. Ogawa hits a nasty pump kick to the back of Severn's head and sinks a choke for the finish, but this entire match had all the guts ripped out of it. There has to be a story behind this, as this may be the most intrusive guest ref performance in wrestling history. 

FUJIWARA FAMILY

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Fujiwara Family: BattlArts Project B Master Plan 1/21/97

Project B Master Plan

Shoichi Funaki vs. Ikuto Hidaka 

PAS: This was Hidaka's debut match and he comes in wearing already wearinf pressure bandage which tell something about the training at the BattlArts dojo. As you might expect this was mostly a squash, although Hidaka gets a big dropkick and super fast flip before being dispatched. Funaki is not the optimal guy you want to see beat on a rookie (I imagine Hidaka was happy he didn't draw Ikeda for his debut) but this was fun.

Naohiro Hoshikawa  vs. Alexander Otsuka

PAS: This was a styles clash with Hoshikawa representing MPRO against Otsuka's BattlArts style, and they really meshed those styles well I liked Otsuka refusing to run the ropes early, only for Hoshikawa to force him and crack him with a jump kick. There was also a fun spot where Hoshikawa throws these theatrical kicks which don't hit clean only to finish the combo with a soccer kick to Otsuka's face, that was a style I was taught in boxing, throw the first couple with speed and land the last couple with force (I was much better with the force then the speed). You come to an Otsuka match primarily for the suplexes and there were some corkers, we get his great hanging German, a blindingly fast high angle capture suplex and a dragon to finish it off which looked incredible, fast forceful and violent, one the greatest dragon suplexes I have seen, Otsuka was a marvel. 

The Great Sasuke/Gran Hamada/Gran Naniwa/Masato Yakushiji vs. Kaientai DX (TAKA Michinoku/ MEN's Teioh/Dick Togo/Shiryu) - EPIC

PAS: This is one of the all time great combinations of guys in wrestling history, just true magic anytime you get a KDX team against a group of MPRO babyfaces. This starts a little diffThis ierent then the traditional matchup with KDX jumping Sasuke's team before the bell and taking them on a destructive arena tour, tossing them into walls, Sasuke gets launched back first into chairs, Yakushiji gets bodyslammed on a table, after that KDX struts back into the ring triumphant. When the babyfaces appear we get some of the fast forward speed action that you would expect from these teams, everybody hitting everything with such grace and force, with just impeccable timing. Much of 2020 wrestling aspires for this level of grace, athleticsim and beauty but no one does it like these guys did it. Awesome Yakushiji performance, he really was Rey Jr., La Petit Prince level fast and agile, and had a perfect group of rudos to work with, He hits a whip kick in this match where he looked like he had super speed. Out of nowhere this match takes a turn, Naniwa get's his mask ripped and gets sliced by Togo and all of a sudden a waterfall of gore just streams out of his forehead (Shiryu looks like he got slammed into barbedwire with the blood on his back, which was all from Naniwa's head). It takes a real turn, with Naniwa getting his head wrapped and coming back triumphant, with no mask to get the win. It's crazy that these guys can still add that kind of wrinkle to their amazing formula.  

ER: What a match. My friend Charlie was over at my house to record a podcast episode, and when we were done he just wanted to hang out for awhile and decompress. He is as casual a wrestling fan as you can get, would never watch wrestling on his own, but always enjoys and immediately gets into it whenever I put it on. And are there really many better styles of wrestling at reaching across that aisle of casual fandom, than a vintage all cylinders MPro multiman? He took to it immediately, and how could anyone not? This is not really even a heralded Mpro multiman, but it's on the level of the greatest ones I have seen, and it is a match I seek out and love. At its heart it has a tremendous bloody fighting babyface Naniwa performance, and it had a tremendous dickhead heel performance from Taka. Everybody else added nothing but positive segments, we built to a fever pitch where guys were flying in and out like a chaotic fight in Enter the Dragon. 

There really isn't a misstep in the whole thing, a real tight 20 minutes that - like the best of this style - felt like a bottomless bag of tricks to pull from. The crowd brawl was a fun diversion and really set the KDX tone, camera cutting all over Korakuen to see them inflicting violence, as Sasuke gets thrown through chairs and has chairs thrown onto him, and Taka instructs everyone to learn from him as he bounces a chair off the side of Naniwa's head. Taka takes that attitude back into the ring as we settle down into pairings, and Taka is the guy out there kicking people in the head and really separating himself from the pack. As Charlie observed while watching, "Some of these guys are hitting a lot harder than the others." Taka especially targets Naniwa, not just smacking him down and landing everything harder than necessary, but every time Naniwa is down Taka just mockingly kicks at his head, just shoving Naniwa's head around with the bottom of his boot. And it leads to a tremendous moment where Naniwa stands up and just wastes Taka with a falling clothesline. Naniwa hits a couple of big clotheslines in this match, but telling Taka he wasn't going to take his shit anymore is one of those immaculate pure babyface moments. Naniwa gets his masked ripped right off his head and bleeds a gusher, all building to him spiking Shiryu with some great sitout gutwrench powerbombs (each one landing higher and higher on Shiryu's shoulders) for the win. Everyone had great moments in this, that shouldn't be a shock. Sasuke had big bumps into chairs and a couple of wild Sasuke dives; Yakushiji reminded me of how damn quick he was and how bananas his headscissor and armdrag variations were, the kind where as he's spinning you don't have any idea what direction either he or his opponent will fly. Everyone looked good, but adding in a huge gusher and triumphant Naniwa return (with big head bandage!) made this one of the greatest MPro multimans ever. It just happened in BattlArts. 

First Tiger Mask vs. Minoru Tanaka 

PAS: It was pretty crazy that the most pure shootstyle match on this card was an old fat guy in a puffy silver mask. This was excellent stuff, old tubby Sayama is my favorite of all Sayama's and he was a machine in this match, constantly coming forward, working the guard, trying to take Tanaka's back and using his hips and foot movement to stay away from Tanaka's kicks. I loved all of the fight for the chicken wing, Sayama really yanked on the neck and arm and kept adjusting to tighten the grip, and then whipped off a beautiful snap german suplex which landed Tanaka directly on the back of his neck, before finally sinking it in. Really cool stuff, one of my favorite Tanaka matches ever, and better then anything Sayama did in his first New Japan run.

 Daisuke Ikeda/Katsumi Usuda vs. Yuki Ishikawa/Takeshi Ono - EPIC

PAS: My god is this match something. The utter reckless disregard for their opponents, the speed and athleticism of the attacks, the clever ways to mix in moments of true horror with moments of beauty.s. This was a battle of four all time greats at their absolute athletic peaks. All of these guys remained great wrestlers well into the 2000s, but their style slowed down a bit as they moved into their 40s and 50s. Here they are all in their mid 20s and the exchanges are so much faster and explosive without surrendering any of the chilling violence. The opening of this match is a great example of the brilliance of this style, Usuda and Ono have this lighting quick intricate exchange of kneebar counters, with Ono getting the advantage, which was quickly snuffed out by Ikeda running in and kicking Ono's head into the fourth row. A Sunday of skill and speed with a cherry of brutality on top. The match continues on that vein, with great exchanges by all of the participants, with all four looking great. Ikeda throws some of his classic crowbar lariats along with nasty kicks and some really good desperate leg selling, selling which was instigated by Ono throwing some of the nastiest leg kicks I have seen in either wrestling or MMA, you could see Ikeda's kneecap shift with each shot. Every move in this match was remarkable, just the force Usuda used to yank in a choke, or the wild reckless punch exchange between Ikeda and Ishikawa which looked like something out a Necro Butcher brawl, to Ono working Usuda's body like a heavy bag. Just perfection.  If this match happened in the 2010s it would be match of the decade material, and it was just another day in the office for the BattlArts boys.

ER: This was tremendous, exactly what I wanted from everyone involved. The MPro showcase earlier, followed by an excellent Tiger Mask/Minoru Tanaka match, felt like a difficult set to follow. But this delivered in an entirely different way, and I'm sure there haven't been many better straight hours of pro wrestling than these three matches. This match has no problem following those matches, as everyone here is in a mood to throw kicks and eat kicks. Takeshi Ono was not nearly as heralded as his contemporaries when these matches were actually happening. Ikeda, Ishikawa, Tanaka, Hidaka, Malenko, and Otsuka were the acclaimed BattlArts guys which didn't leave a lot of room for Ono at the time. Catching up and getting more shootstyle opinions into the wrestling web allows us to reevaluate and find new high value and joy in guys like Ono. Ono is a fantastic shootstyle wrestler, and one of the most compelling juniors wrestlers of the last 25 years. His wrestling instincts are great, he knows when to dramatically go in for the kill, knows how to milk drama out of rope breaks and knock down selling. Having he and Ikeda on opposite sides means you have guys on each side who specialize in kicking people in the face while breaking up pinfalls, and I think everyone in this match takes at least three kicks somewhere directly behind their ears. Ikeda gets his leg attacked and bent in painful ways, Ikeda and Ishikawa dragged things down into the gutter with a nose busting punch exchange, four absolute legends of shootstyle all working at top gear. 

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New Japan HandHeld Bonanza: Lucha Cherry Picking

Pete over at PWO has gotten his hands on a ton of New Japan HHs from the 80s. I am posting the Fujiwara matches in C+A posts, but I figured I would do some reviews of the lucha guys showing up and my buddy MattD showed up as well!


Tiger Mask/George Takano v. Brazo De Oro/Brazo De Plata 9/6/81

PAS: Slim and trim Brazos looking great. We have a couple of other 1981 Brazos New Japan matches and we don't have any lucha Brazos this early. They are here to serve as foils for the technicos and they do a great job eating fancy arm drags. We get a nasty Plata top rope senton which is less lung collapsing in 1981 then it was later. Takano is a big dude and he flies around quite a bit with some nice arm drags. Mask is at his best when he comes in, hits his stuff and leaves and he had some cool flipping sentons. Nothing mindblowing, but a great chance to see a couple of lucha greats early in their career.

MD: I'm going at this in a more comprehensive way than Phil, watching everything (including Tiger Jeet Singh handheld matches). He is a wiser man than I. For 81 Brazos, I jumped the line though. The setting on this is amazing. It's some sort of outdoor bathhouse with steam rising up in the foreground and a crowd that seems eager for all of the Brazos' relatively outlandish stuff. Tanako competently takes most of the match with Tiger Mask hitting just enough of his signature stuff at the beginning and end to leave you satisfied. Oro and Plata, despite being very young here, base perfectly both on offense in taking stuff (goofus and gallant) and fit in just as well as they would in Japan ten years later.

Tiger Mask/Gran Hamada/Kengo Kimura vs. Steve Wright/Coloso Colosetti/Black Man 3/5/82

Totally fun trios match, that was a better finishing run away from being a real lost classic. Black Man had a couple of fun lucha exchanges with Hamada, which included Hamada taking a couple of his legendarily high backdrops. Colosetti wasn't in a ton, but I liked his exchanges with Tiger Mask where he kept trying to brawl like a rudo, and kept getting caught with spin kicks, I loved how he finally got frustrated and just palm thrusted TM in the eye. The rudo star of this match was Wright, totally awesome performance, he may look like an accounts payable manager, but he is remarkable agile, at points looking more agile then Tiger Mask. He has really great looking cartwheels out of arm bars and a cool kipup, and when it got time to get nasty, he through some really nice uppercuts and some vicious bodyslams and an awesome looking judo throw. Match kind of ended abruptly, which is a problem for a lot of Tiger Mask matches, but it was a real treat to watch.

Junji Hirata v. Luis Mariscal 8/29/82

Mariscal is a 70s and 80s luchadore who worked as a Baby Face and Scorpio trios partner and lost his hair to Villano IV and Perro Aguayo, I don't remember seeing him before, but he was a fun discovery. Young Hirata was svelte but hit hard, and these two had a nice scrap. It started with some basic but solid grappling, and then Hirata actually got snippy and they had a bunch of nice punch and chop exchanges. This was an undercard match with little heat, but I could visualize Mariscal having similar exchanges with Enirique Vera and tearing the house down. Really liked the multiple in ring topes by Mariscal to set up the pin

Kantaro Hoshino v. Villano III 8/29/82

PAS: Pretty strange match, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. V3 jumps Hoshino at the bell throws him to the floor, posts him, and hits a plancha. The match never felt in control, with Hoshino ripping at Villanos mask and Villano constantly biting Hoshino's head. It really felt like someone should be bleeding, and I enjoyed seeing a real lucha brawl in New Japan. Finish had Hoshino DQed for trying to rip off Villano's mask, and he goes nuts and beats up the ref. Then he ties up V3 in the ropes and tries to tear off the mask again. Really felt like a match setting up an apuestas, and I guess we need another batch of handhelds for that.

MD: Yeah, this was enjoyable. V3 rushes Hoshino and just doesn't let up for a few minutes. Pure rudo beatdown to start a match. I love how he keeps things moving, using the ring as a weapon, leaping off the ropes inside and out for extra leverage, pulling Hoshino half out to hit a knee on the apron, bulldogging him into the turnbuckle, etc. If Villano was doing this here against a guy working a different style, what the heck was he doing in Mexico at this time, right? When it's Hoshino's time to fight back, he goes straight to the mask and then follows it up with some revenge usage of the ring as well. The finish is where the weirdness sets in as they move on to rope running and submissions, like the end of a title match primera. Thankfully, it cycles back to hate with the mask ripping finish and the never-ending post match with the two trying to get their hands on each other. This left me wanting to see about three dozen more 1982 V3 matches. Then I made the mistake of looking at what else he did in 82. Not much, just, you know, feuding with Los Misioneros, including apuestas matches with Signo and Texano. This was definitely better than nothing though.

Black Cat/Isamu Teranishi/Kuniaki Kobayashi v. El Signo/Negro Navarro/El Texano 1/1/83

PAS: This was one of the most exciting matches to show up on this batch of footage. We have so little prime Missonaires de la Muerte, we know how awesome all these guys were as oldsters, and their rep is so great, that any time 80s MDM shows up it is a lucha fan holiday. This was more like an awesome first fall of a great trios match, then a great match on its own, but it was a awesome demonstration of what made this team so special. They were just relentless, attacking at the bell and always moving forward. Their pace was really something to watch, never not moving, never not attacking. They didn't take many bumps but every bump was athletic and crazy. We don't get a ton of offense from the Japan team, Kobayashi has a couple of cool armdrags, which Texano bumps huge for. For some reason Kobayashi and Teranishi start brawling post match, as the MDM just strut out victorious.

MD: Los Missionaries were the prototype for a rudo trios side for a reason and here you can so clearly see why. Relentless is exactly the word I'd use, too. This was just the perfect combination of complex spots and improvisational bridging. They kept working back into their corner, kept switching up, kept helping each other whenever possible while their opponents weren't on the same page at all. This would have played well as a Guerreros primera twenty years later (give or take a powerbomb), maybe even thirty. You saw hints of the stooging and miscommunication that would have, in another match, been part of a tecnico shine or comeback. You saw hints of them basing and bumping. At times they were moving so fast that you'd think that there was no way they'd feed an armdrag in time, but they do. Primarily, though, this was their showcase and they brought it, from the initial ambush to the triple team hanging seated senton on the floor and the nasty, nasty tombstone that finished things. Again, it just leads you to imagine all the things we don't have.

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Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Satoru Sayama Rikidozan Memorial 3/11/00 - GREAT

PAS: This is worked more like a Fujiwara v. Karate guy mixed match, which is always a fun match up. Sayama was basically all tubby spin kicks. Fujiwara was awesome in aggressively taking Sayama down, basically Sayama would throw big kicks and Fujiwara would absorb or dodge the kicks until he could grab a single or double leg and drag Sayama down into a submission. Sayama would drag himself to the ropes and get stood up and we would restart. The match came down to whether Fujiwara could tap him before Sayama knocked him out. The finish was a super brutal ankle pick which felt like a finish. Sayama was a little tubby and rusty, and the match needed a more dramatic ending to put it up there with their classics against each other, but it was a fine addition to the canon.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Dan Kroffat vs. Mitsuya Nagai/Masahito Kakihara AJPW 12/6/00 - GREAT

PAS: This is a JIP match from the All Japan tag league, we get about 7 minutes of a 12 minute match. Really fun Fujiwara performance as one might expect. Early part of the match Fujiwara works almost like a heel manager, cheap shotting Nagai and Kakihara from the outside, including doing a figure four on the ringpost while Kroffat distracted the ref. Finish run was pretty great as both Nagai and Kakihara try to KO Fujiwara with kicks, and no one is better at selling and countering big then Fujiwara. Finish was a Fujiwara classic as he caught a Nagai kick and turned it into a leg catch armbar for the tap.

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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.

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