Segunda Caida

Phil Schneider, Eric Ritz, Matt D, Sebastian, and other friends write about pro wrestling. Follow us @segundacaida

Saturday, October 22, 2022

Found Footage Friday: JARRETT~! MOONDOGS~! INOKI~! GOTCH~! SUPERSTAR~! MANNY~! GORO~! UEDA~! ISHINRIKI~!


Antonio Inoki vs. Karl Gotch NJPW 10/4/72

MD: As a general rule we don't look at clipped reel type footage. This is pretty historical and timely however, so even though we just get glimpses here, I'd like to recount a few spots. Inoki hits the front dropkick out of a lock up, which felt like one of his early trademarks. In the singles match between Gotch and Inoki we do have, Gotch hits an amazing German. Here he hits a great butterfly suplex but then Inoki reverses an attempt at a second into a backslide in a smooth and beautiful motion. Equally beautiful was the way they turned the cobra twist into a tumble out of the ring to lead to whatever the finish was. In this we also saw hints of a rolling short arm scissors (probably leading to the Gotch lift), a strike exchange, and a Gotch headstand out of an early hold. We avoid these more to save ourselves the grief of imagining what we don't have, but the bits we see here look look great.


Antonio Inoki vs. Masked Superstar NJPW 9/23/82

MD: Bill Eadie is comfort food pro wrestling. He has good stuff for 1982 (Swinging Neckbreaker, Neck Drape over the top, Russian Leg Sweep, Neckbreaker Drop off the ropes), but he's going to grind you down more than that. There's nothing fancy about his holds or escapes, but they're tight and snug and well-worked and there's weight behind them. He has nasty little inside shots and thudding stomps. He'll bump when it's called for, especially on a missed move, but the flash and flair you might get out of a Dick Murdoch on top of all of that, just isn't there. There'd be just enough stalling, just enough getting under the crowd's skin and taking liberties that they were emotionally connected to the ever-plausible action, but it'd never tip them over the top. He wasn't a UWF style guy, certainly not a wizard, but he was an endlessly credible pro wrestler. Inoki knew how to work against someone like that, holds to begin, escapes and counters, slow and steady. Eadie went underhanded and took over and leaned and leaned and leaned. Inoki came back once, got his shots in, even a figure-four, but then was cut off. Finally, Eadie missed a diving headbutt off the ropes and it was ritual from there: the back-brain kick, the flying octopus hold, the elated crowd. Eadie was the match. Inoki was the spark. Together they made fire. Simple, straight-forward, elemental pro wrestling.


Jerry Lawler/Jeff Jarrett vs. Moondog Spot/Big Black Dog USWA 4/8/92

MD: Armstrong Alley/goc/KrisPLettuce has been doing heroic work over the last few years gathering and disseminating footage in the back pages of tape catalogs that were never put online. A lot of that turns out to be oddball promotions which don't have a ton of matches that make sense for what we do for FFF, but here's one that does. This was a handheld from Evansville. It was a street fight, part of a feud a few years before its time in Jarrett/Lawler vs Moondogs, a real predecessor to the hardcore style we'd get a few years later. Richard Lee was seconding the Moondogs, which was the story of the match as they had a numbers advantage. This was probably Jarrett's career year, generally for the sorts of matches he was in and how he was positioned as a babyface fighting valiantly from underneath, and we see a lot more of him, matched with Spot, than we do Lawler, who was goozled in the corner by the Big Black Dog. Whoever was taping this went so far as to say that Lawler hadn't come to work tonight to which his friend asked when did he ever? That was funny. Still, it was a babyface team meant to draw sympathy against not just larger opponents but entirely unfair numbers game in a properly chaotic and violent environment with lumber and chairs used freely. When the time came, there was a fiery chair-laden comeback from Jarrett and enough miscommunication for Lawler to come back and drop the strap. Jarrett led the fans in a count before they crotched Big Black Dog from the inside out, before another Moondog (Cujo or Spike) ran out to draw the DQ. A nice, chaotic ten minute example (even if occasionally hard to see) of just what they were running here and why it's historically important.

ER: This really did feel a lot the exact same thing you would see several years later in ECW, and then in bastardized version several years after that in WWF. Moondog Spot and Jarrett were really swinging on these chair shots. Usually when there's any kind of brawling tag with Lawler in the ring, his punches are going to be the best thing in the match. Well, outside of him running across the ring to punch Spot in the face to start the fray, he's mostly tangled up with Big Black the entire match. And, while there was small joy to be had in Dog holding Lawler up in a big choke and Lawler throwing a couple punches to try to stagger him, all of the fire was brought by Jarrett and Spot. Jarrett wails on Spot with a chair, Jarrett gets run face first into a 2x4, and the trash can used to beat Jarrett senseless at the finish looked like it weighed 30 pounds. Jarrett took a pounding, but Richard Lee was a real megastar here, taking a miscommunication clothesline from Spot that sends him violently back into the ropes, then later takes a clothesline from Big Black to the side of his head. He's the agent of chaos who will take a couple painful bumps and then be dodging punches while tying the ref up in complaints. The whole thing rules, filmed in a dark arena by some guy and now watched in bathrooms on phones by weird guys 30 years later. 


Goro Tsurumi/Ishinriki vs. Manny Fernandez/Umanosuke Ueda NOW 11/8/92

MD: Wild bloody scene with some strange starts and stops, a finish missed due to the Ebony Experience menacing the ringside area, and a few memorable images. Half of this was a weapons-laden bloody brawl. Half was Manny and Ishinriki running spots. It began with women (and a little boy) with flowers and escalated almost instantly to crazy violence as Manny, the sides of his head shaved, rushed in with a kendo stick. A minute or two later, he was having Nam flashbacks (let's all pretend, ok?) trying to stop an already bloody Ueda from stabbing everyone with a butcher's knife. It was all pretty gripping stuff. The exchanges with Ishinriki were pretty good, size and some finesse vs speed and brutal kicks. Ishinriki had a couple of nice dives too. There were a few moments where Tsurumi and Manny were just hanging around waiting to hit each other but there were also flying chairs and plenty of blood to go around. I couldn't rate this one if I tried due to the chaotic nature of the shooting and the stilted nature of the action but it was still quite the spectacle.


Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,


Read more!

Sunday, October 02, 2022

70s Inoki was Extreme before Extreme was Extreme: RIP Antonio Inoki

Antonio Inoki vs Umanoseke Ueda - Nail Floor Death Match - 2/8/78

MD: The first five or six minutes of this footage was the crew laboriously laying down board covered with nails after board covered with nails around the ring. Ultimately, it served as a deterrent and a tease more than anything else, which worked for the crowd in 1978. It felt like the early stages of an Onita exploding cage match where there's so much effort to avoid the cage at all times, where it's a looming presence hovering over the wrestlers that affects their strategy but that doesn't actually come into play, until it does. Here, it actually doesn't, maybe until Ueda is knocked to the floor post match, but even then he lands on his feet. 

That said, this match contains within it a wonderful example of what made Inoki so special. The first six minutes or so were primarily on the mat. Ueda could go and a lot of the tactics people remember him for were more about standing out and getting over than necessity. In going through 1986 recently, when he faced the UWF guys +after his turn, he could hang with them better than you'd have expected. Here, he traded holds and advantages with Inoki. When it became obvious he wasn't making any inroads though, he took advantage of the looser rules for a gimmick match like this and blatantly went low. Three shots to the groin, a choke, and then the stomps. Here's where the nails came into play, the tease of it as he stomped away trying to press Inoki out of the ring as the fans buzzed and Inoki scrambled on his back on the apron, fighting for what seemed like his literal life. He was never afraid to look vulnerable. He saw the strength in it not necessarily to build sympathy, like Terry Funk in Japan might do, for Antonio Inoki did not need sympathy, but instead to build anticipation in the hearts of the crowd for when he would fire back.

Here it was by dodging Ueda's shots around the ringpost while still on the apron, a fairly unique visual in all the annals of wrestling history. One shot from Ueda, if landed, might knock him off into the nails, but in dodging and weaving, he made Ueda overstretch and he caught the arm, slamming it down over the metal connective tissue of the ring. From there, everything turned. It was an electric moment and Inoki followed up with decisive deliberative tearing apart of Ueda's arm. It was intense, focused, enraged, but so measured. He lifted an arm, paused, allowed the crowd to understand what was happening and then drove it down. He wrenched the arm, pulled it high over his head, paused for the buzz, and then jammed it down over his shoulder. It was an interactive experience, a collaborative ritual of violence and revenge. At no point does it become about Inoki trying to toss Ueda into the nails. Inoki did not need to stoop to such levels when he had complete control and chose the means of his vengeance. In the end, Ueda suffered an even greater affront to his honor than having his body torn apart by the nails. Tiger Jeet Singh, unable to reach the ring due to the nails, threw in the towel to save the arm and the career of his compatriot. Such surrender from two such monsters must have been unthinkable to the crowd and here the drama of the nails became not about laceration of the flesh but instead of the spirit, with Inoki knowing how to milk every moment of the emotion like only a true wrestling mastermind could.

Antonio Inoki vs Tiger Jeet Singh Fence Death Match 2/10/77

MD: This was a title match as well, and had to be worked as one. The gimmick (a steel fence around the ring) came into play after the halfway point, but again, primarily so that Singh could get his long-deserved comeuppance. He deserved it too as he started the match rushing in and nailing Inoki with an object, shocking everyone with a very quick pin before the ref noticed it and restarted the match. After that, Inoki played towards his strength as he recovered and it was generally them trading holds. Singh began with a long top wristlock, using a slam or an unabashed hairpull to maintain control. Inoki met the moment with a short arm scissors. Both ended up on their feet stalking and fighting for positioning until Inoki got the toehold. Here, the VQ gave us a great look of wrenching agony on Singh's face. He's obviously not known for his matwork and I wouldn't say he was Ueda's equal, for instance, but the selling was pretty gripping as he scrambled from underneath. Inoki would press the advantage with a deathlock, again letting everything sink in and building the crowd's anticipation for when he would drop back and put on the pressure. Moreso than a martial artist or a warrior or a carny operator, he was a preacher conducting the hearts of his faithful. 

At one point, Singh tosses him out, prepared to use the fence, but Inoki slides back in. Later on, he can't avoid it though and Singh tosses him in and uses a cord to choke him. Ultimately, Singh knew that he couldn't outwrestle Inoki and his one trick to beat him quickly with the weapon failed, so he went back to that well again. This time Inoki reversed it and posted him, opening him up. From there, it was a matter of time. Each time Singh went for another trick, like moving the corner protection away to uncover the steel, Inoki blocked it and gave him at taste of his own medicine, leaving him a bloody mess ultimately unable to answer the call. Post-match, Inoki wanted more and kept on him. Singh looked tough in that he would keep coming, only to get slammed or dropkicked or simply punched, but it was obvious that this was Inoki's (and therefore the crowd's, if not all of Japan's) supreme victory and Singh's absolute defeat. This wasn't quite as visceral and straightforward as the Ueda match but it had to balance being a title match as well. As such, it still leaned into the spirit of the gimmick match, even if not the reality of it, and went far over the top to prove its point. Inoki absolutely knew what he was doing and he could channel and control a crowd as well as anyone.

Labels: , , ,


Read more!

Friday, July 08, 2022

Found Footage Friday: 1986 NJPW BATTLE ROYAL~! SID~! EATON~! GOLGA~! SEVERN~!

Battle Royal NJPW 6/20/86

MD: I've been spending a lot of time with 1986 NJPW in a DVDVR thread with quick reviews that aren't quite SC worthy. While there is a ton of NJPW vs. UWF that you've seen and heard and would expect, there was other stuff going on. Most of that involved KY Wakamatsu doing his best megaphone Jimmy Hart impression managing the foreigners of the tour, which ranged from von Erichs to Samu to yes, Andre. On the same card as the 5/1 gauntlet tag is Andre/Wakamatsu vs. Inoki/Ueda (with Ueda's face turn being one of the real angles of the first half of the year). That said, past the image of Andre hitting guys with a bullwhip, there isn't a lot of actual comedy that's made tape, either TV or handhelds, in the year. That's why this lone battle royal, buried on a handheld disc that contains most of the Sagawa Express Cup one-night tournament, was so surprising. Sagawa Express was a company that Inoki got to invest in New Japan and the tournament has a nice Kimura vs. Maeda double DQ sprint and some good selling by Inoki against guys like Eadie and Murdoch. It also had some short, unsatisfying CMLL type tournament matches. 

And it had this battle royal, with some guys easier to recognize than others, given the video quality: Kido, Fujiwara, Hoshino, Ueda, Cuban Assassin, for instance. It's Japan style so everyone can dogpile one wrestler, and that happens almost immediately to Klaus Wallas, who we have only a few Japanese matches of plus some German stuff I really need to C+A because he was awesome here, killing everyone before the pool had enough of it. They then take out his partner on the tour, Cuban Assassin, just for the hell of it. From there, they do comedy spots putting shine on the ref with him getting boots up in the corner and Hoshino raising his hand, and even him causing Ueda's elimination by back body dropping him, keeping in mind that Ueda was an upper mid-carder at worst here. They do an alley oop spot with everyone tossing one wrestler in the air by grabbing a limb each. They do a goofy 2000s indy multiple headlocks at once spot in 1986! Fujiwara does an airplane spin! I get how they convinced Kido to be in this (a trophy; can't get enough of those), but it's obvious Fujiwara's overjoyed to participate just to mess with everyone, even after he gets eliminated. It's about ten minutes and even living and breathing this stuff for the last few months, I couldn't identify all of the undercard guys who never made TV or tape. But this is a strange burst of fun in the midst of a fairly serious, dour time in the company.


Sid Vicious vs. Bobby Eaton SCW 5/14/05

MD: The back half of this one had the sound ten seconds off. I don't think it was an issue for the first half but I had to stop it and start it at one point. Point being, that feels exactly how one should watch Sid matches. The impact isn't going to be there on any of his strikes, so best to imagine what you're hearing and average out the two. In a lot of ways, it doesn't matter. No one imposes his reality into a match quite like Sid. This was one of his first matches back after the leg injury, with the premise being: Eaton was his friend and he had claimed to give him a chance to walk away and then attacked him from behind on the way out of the ring. It was all Sid, and I'd argue that the focus on the back was effective as an overall whole, even if you wouldn't want to isolate and gif any of the individual strikes. Eaton treated everything like it was devastating. The announcers were selling it like an all time mauling. There was the visual spectacle of the size difference and of Sid with his jeans with knee braces over them. Bobby's hope spots (and he got two) were a blocked punch, some shots fired back, and attempts at slams where the back gave away, but he almost got him the second time. Wrestling is about getting people to suspend disbelief and when you have a giant imposing emperor that believes completely in his own lumbering strikes and a guy like Bobby Eaton working with him from underneath, it doesn't matter if he's naked or not; we're all going to agree with one another that he's got some of the finest clothes we've ever seen.

ER: The people that want to hate Sid (and I don't think I associate with any of them) never want to give credit to Sid for the intangibles. Sid was someone who always had terrible strikes, but bad stomach kicks and arm strikes that don't even attempt to approximate punches don't really matter when you can connect with people the way Sid could. Sid is someone who had It, and had the confidence to get across his persona without ever needing to refine his skillset. Growing up, my next door neighbors two houses down were the Nordstrom Family, and the Nordstrom children were my best friends. Mr. Nordstrom had curly hair exactly like Sid (styled the same, only brown), he was an electrician, and he had served in 'Nam. He was the kind of man who was so physically intimidating that I didn't realize until well into my adult years that he was only an average sized man. He was not a mean man, but when we were causing ruckus and he raised his voice, there was no parent in the neighborhood you listened to quicker than Mr. Nordstrom. Years later, at a party nowhere near my home, some guy found out I was neighbors with them and it turned into a half dozen different people all telling stories about how scared they were of Mr. Nordstrom when they were kids/teens. And I think that's the same kind of way that Sid worked. I never saw Mr. Nordstrom get physically violent in any way with anyone, and yet everyone knew this man was the toughest dude around. 

Now, I suppose that having Bobby Eaton selling every kneelift and clubbing shot could make anyone appear like a monster. Eaton's selling is divine. As Matt illustrated, he has basically no offense in this match, but for 10 minutes you get to smile while he sells ribs and his back and every single Sid strike. I loved how he fell back into the corner after a Sid kneelift, or how the pain twisted across his face when Sid ran at him with a boot to the ribs. Bobby Eaton is one of the most gifted salesmen in wrestling, and you combine that with one of the most physically charismatic wrestling in history, and you can work a fun match with basically zero offense. 


Dan Severn vs. Golga WPW 9/1/99 

MD: The match itself was just a couple of minutes, but they left me wanting more. Severn, for a guy so legitimate, absolutely embraced bullshit pro wrestling villainy here. He had a pre-match gym coach style promo where he said he'd win and then destroy the Cartman doll. He appealed to the fans after they popped for Golga's hands in the air waving. He celebrated after hitting moves that didn't deserve celebration. Just real shitheel stuff. You never know with Golga matches if it's really Tenta, but there's no one in the world that could miss an elbow drop quite like him. It's still crazy how much weight he had lost. You lament that we never got that Austin vs. Tenta run when they wanted to bring back Earthquake, but you also get how that wouldn't work. It doesn't mean he couldn't have figured something else out, because even smaller Tenta was great at knowing when to give and when to take, at making stuff look credible. Just having the strength to snatch a guy like Severn out of mid-air, and then you had the bonus that he'd go up for hip tosses as he did here. The match paid off the promo work as the second Severn actually was able to slam Golga, he took a powder and that was the match. It was a bizarre match-up on paper but they worked pretty well together. 

ER: I'm the guy who hates that we didn't get Yokozuna/Austin in 1999 so I'm definitely someone who would have loved Austin/Tenta regardless of Tenta's weight. Tenta still had size no matter how thin he got, and you could see him use some real strength here against Severn that would have lead to some great Steve Austin bumps. I need to go back and find all the 2002/2003 All Japan Tenta that I can get my hands on. I miss that guy and the way he leans into ring ropes. I love how Severn works this match like a small town indy Iron Mike Sharpe. Bet you never thought about how similarly Sharpe and Severn move in a ring, and I bet you never thought about how they're dressed identically. You're now putting it together that Severn is actually an Iron Mike Sharpe acolyte at heart and that's why he always seemed so uncomfortable and rigid during his WWF run. There isn't a single actual Dan Severn WWF classic, and yet every Dan Severn indy match we have footage of over a 25 year span is great. His speech impediment makes him an even better sneering heel, and I want more of Severn as the bratty kid whose dad owns several car dealerships. 

When they made contact and mixed it up, the match was great fun. All of Tenta's contact looked good: nice shoulder thrusts in the corner, high avalanche, big legdrop, walking all around the ring holding Severn up before finishing the rotation of a powerslam. He also clearly still knows how to build to a couple of big bumps. His missed elbow was a great miss, great crash, and there was an awesome Severn hiptoss that Tenta bumped really heavy for. Severn put his whole body into it and they made a hiptoss look like a violent Red Bull Army throw, like a guy throwing a tree stump on a World's Strongest Man competition. The ending is one of the more frustrating pro wrestling finisher I've witnessed, a way to leave all of the fans confused and annoyed. After that Severn hiptoss, he hits an impressively quick bodyslam...and then Golga just rolls out of the ring, grabs his large size Eric Cartman doll, and runs to the back, out of sight, and does not return. The literal only explanation is that Golga shit his pants and had to get the hell out of there. If you shit your pants in a match against Dan The Beast Severn, you don't stick around to be put in a rear naked choke. Nobody would voluntarily do this finish. Mine is the only explanation that makes sense. 



Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , ,


Read more!

Saturday, January 06, 2018

Yoshiaki Fujiwara is God's Field, God's Building

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Kazuo Yamazaki vs. Keichi Yamada/Umanosuke Ueda NJPW 5/16/87 - EPIC


PAS: The first real unearthed classic from the batch of NJ handhelds. I loved every second of this. Ueda is surprisingly adept at shootstyle matwork as he has some very fun exchanges with both Yamazaki and Fujiwara where he uses his size to counter their skill. At one point there seems to be a bit of chippiness between him and Yamazaki and he puts on this nasty hammerlock that looked like he was teaching the kid a lesson. There was a similar vibe with the Fujiwara and Yamada exchanges. Yamada is a bulldog, moving forward super aggressively and Fujiwara taking advantage of the kid's aggressiveness to counter him and punish him on the mat. We also get some very cool youngster battles with Yamada and Yamazaki moving at warp speed against each other. Finish was another Fujiwara symphony. Yamada catches him with a tombstone, but is only able to get two, Fujiwara fights back with some headbutts, hits a nasty piledriver, but pulls him up at two, hits this lightning fast judo throw, and spins quickly into a nasty Fujiwara armbar. Just a spectacular show of craft, such a nifty discovery. 

Labels: , , , ,


Read more!

Wednesday, March 08, 2017

1986 Match of the Year

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Osamu Kido/Nobuhiko Takada/Kazuo Yamazaki/Akira Maeda v. Antonio Inoki/Tatsumi Fujinami/Kengo Kimura/Umanosuke Ueda/Kantaro Hoshino NJPW 3/26/86

PAS: One of the most famous matches in Japanese history this is the first major collision in the New Japan v. UWF feud. It is an elimination tag with to the floor eliminations allowed. Tremendous match, great performances by everyone involved. Our man Fujiwara was great, his section vs. Fujinami was yet another cocktease for the 80’s singles match which never happened, and I loved how he and Hoshino would pot shot each other. Inoki is so over, and comes off like a huge star, any time he tags in the crowd goes bananas, same with Maeda, sort of criminal we never got a big singles between those two as well. Most of the eliminations were really great, including Fujiwara and Fujinami just tearing it up until they both going tumbling over the top. We then get one of my favorite spots in wrestling history as Ueda (who is an ex-garbage guy who barely wrestles at this point) tags in to square off with Maeda, Ueda hadn’t been in the match much at all, and was playing the role of the outclassed older legend. He locks up with Maeda, eats a kick or two, realizes he is out of his league and tackles Maeda to the floor eliminating them both. Just such a cool moment, with Ueda sacrificing himself for New Japan. I could totally see Eddie Marlin in the same role in a big Memphis v. Knoxville 10 man. Finish is the only down part, as Inoki is left with Kido and Takada and I don't really buy him in any trouble, even down 2 to 1.


ER: This was my #2 match on the NJPW 80s ballot, with only Hansen/Andre edging it out. Pretty sure my #3 match will be our 1987 MOTY, and I believe what will be our 1984 MOTY landed in my top 10 of the set. So, you heard it here first, there was some pretty high end stuff in 1980s Japanese pro wrestling. Inter-promotional matches always have a much higher floor than most matches, and this was huge. Imagine if WCW invaded WWF in their prime and how hot the crowds would be as these disrespectful punks invaded (wait, actually don't think about that). If any invasion angle leads to a match half as hot as this, you did something right. Just the before bell drama alone is worth it, with Maeda lobbing air kicks at the NJ guys while trash talking. And their ring work backs up the trash talking.


This isn't like those UFC hype shows where they build up a violent fight and then work a points fight, this is a loudmouth contingent being loudmouths, and then fighting like asskickers. Every tag in brought new excitement as everyone had goals and the fans were hot for the new match-ups. Maeda and Inoki had an absurd amount of charisma, and Fujiwara looked downright giddy to be a part of it. He always knows how to stand out in these kind of matches and his chuckling thug vibe brought an outlaw quality to the UWF invaders. Every segment hit the right note, with unexpected standouts like Kimura/Yamazaki working a compelling short story that ended with a flash desperation pin from Kimura, followed by him crawling back to the corner and essentially being done for the match. The Ueda moment was amazing, and incredible wrestling moment and one of the all time great moments of psychology (arguably my second favorite piece of wrestling psychology ever, right behind Rude getting DQ'd for coming off the top rope against Steamboat, but immediately getting the pinfall back due to the damage he caused). Ueda was the clear, unspoken weak link on Team NJ, and over the first 30 minutes of the match all he had done was tag in, then tag right back out. It's like the team wanted to thin UWF's herd before they let Ueda in there. The admiration and respect from fans when he walked through the ropes was huge, and it would be hard to not feel sympathy for him as Maeda kicks the hell out of him, with Ueda clearly trying to catch kicks but his reactions being too slow. Him essentially smothering and falling on Maeda is the ultimate desperation tactic, the ultimate example of taking advantage of a weird match stip (and Phil is so right, feels like some weird stip they would have in Memphis), and just the best. My favorite guy in the match was Hoshino. He was a real revelation for me when watching 80s New Japan, and he's possibly my favorite fired up underdog babyface in wrestling. Here he's so good on the apron, a team man until the end, and in the ring he doesn't ever seem to notice that's he's the smallest guy in the match. He's spirited, wild, dangerous, and sympathetic. You get the sense that he's no match for the UWF guys, but HE doesn't get that sense. The ending IS a little anticlimactic, as aside from one good nearfall Inoki didn't seem in much trouble, and no matter how good he looked here I'm not sure there was one person watching who believed Osamu Kido would be the lone survivor. You can roll around different endings, have Maeda survive to end the match with an Inoki showdown, but that would deprive us of the Ueda moment, and it's easier to just appreciate the match for the all time great pro wrestling that it already is.


ALL TIME MOTY MASTER LIST



Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , ,


Read more!