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

Read more!

Yoshiaki Fujiwara is a Servant of God An Avenger Who Carries God's Wrath Against On the Wrongdoer

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Katsushi Takemura vs. Kazunari Murakami/Mistu Nagai Nihei Gumi 2/11/07 - EPIC

PAS: There is a real treasure trove of small room Japanese indies on Archive.org. I was in a Fujiwara mood, so I decided to scroll around and watch something I haven't seen before. Fujiwara and Murakami in the ring together has a pretty high floor, at a minimum you are going to get two of the great face makers in pro-wrestling history making faces at each other, at a maximum you are going to get whatever the fuck this was. The first part of the match chugs away as a fun BattlArts adjacent puro indy tag. The first Murakami and Fujiwara exchange is pretty great, they do some sneering at each other, Fujiwara gets dropped with a hard punch, gets his bearings and takes Murakami down to the mat. Their finishing run is what makes this so incredible. Fujiwara drops Nagai with a headbutt, Murakami tags in and it devolves into some of the most visceral and violent pro-wrestling of all time. They smash each other with headbutts until both are split open and soaked in blood, Fujiwara gets mounted and smashed with full force punches, he counters, not with a bit of defensive mat wizardry, but with a hard straight right to Murakami's dick, the match ends on a DQ with Fujiwara trying to jam both of his thumbs through Murakami's eye sockets. I didn't think wrestling still had the capacity to shock me, I was wrong. 

MD: This one takes a real, real turn at the end, and we'll talk about that shortly. To start, a fairly undeniable statement: past maybe Inoki and Baba, Yoshiaki Fujiwara was the most self-aware wrestler of his generation. We have footage from 1987 that shows it, and it becomes even more true as time goes on. 

Here, in 2007, he absolutely milks the first exchange between himself and Murakami. After Takemura and Nagai hit each other like trucks for a minute or two, Takemura reaches out for the tag. Time grinds to a halt. Fujiwara blinks, just blinks, and somehow the world gets even slower. He comes in, faces off with Murakami, and gets absolutely clocked with a punch. He goes down, rides out the count, comes up, and we enter a binary situation. We all know Murakami's going to throw another punch. Is Fujiawara going down again? Or has he had enough already? Fujiwara knows the power of his presence, his skill, his reputation, the expectations of the fans. He knows what he has with Murakami across from the ring from him. He sidesteps and drops him with the armbar, and then they both get out of the way so Takemura and Nagai can throw bombs at each other some more. And if that was the only interaction between the two, this match would still have value for it.

It's not. Takemura let himself get swept under, was double teamed, but finally came back enough to make a tag. That brought us back to Fujiwara and Murakami. We've seen Fujiwara come in after a hot tag before. He leads with his head, and again, he knows what he has with that head, what crowds have come to expect from it. Impenetrable, indominable, stronger than steel, a perfect tool for both viciousness and comedy. 

But Murakami doesn't waver. He doesn't back down. He leans in instead. He headbutts through it. In all of wrestling, there's maybe nothing more horrific, knowing what we do, than a headbutt war so gnarly and grisly that both competitors draw blood from it. We are a captive audience. This was 2007. There's nothing we can do but bear witness to horrors long gone by. You can shout at your screen but it will do no good. And in truth, were we there, were we shouting in the moment, it would not have halted Fujiwara and Murakami on this day.

We see the blood on Fujiwara's forehead first, an eggshell cracking, a rock split asunder. When we next see Murakami we realize the damage was mutual. As the blood turns from a trickle to a stream down Fujiwara's face, the battle becomes more intimate, slow, steady, hate-filled grappling. 

Fujiwara ends up on top of him, and brandishes his thumb for all to see. Again, even in the midst of this bestial state to which they've unleashed upon this world, Fujiwara knows who he is, what he is, the value of it all. He knows the importance of showing the crowd, the camera, Murakami, God himself, his thumb, to ensure everyone knows that what is about to happen will happen in the first degree and should be prosecuted as such. Intent established, he drives his thumb straight into Murakami's eye. Its brother falls in beside the first immediately thereafter. Murakami, as with the headbutts, drives his own fingers up to create an unholy unison with Fujiwara, a matrimony of mutual mutilation and destruction.

The referee tries to call off the match. In the background, music that sounds a bit like the Peter Gunn theme, a jazzy bebopping riff, plays, evoking an awards ceremony where they producers are increasingly desperate to play off-stage an out of control acceptance speech. Fujiwara and Murakami keep fighting off anyone in their way, violent desire verging on the farcical, like the end credits of a Benny Hill episode if the goal was blood and death instead of ribald comedy.

Once things took a turn, all of this had a gradual, almost glacial, sense of inevitability. It took its time, announced its intentions. There was no room for confusion or ambiguity. Its power was not just in the brutal impacts or bloody aftermath, but in how methodological it all was. What do you even do with something like this? All we can do is share it, document it, ensure that others carry the weight with us. In the end, what is it truly but yet another unforgettable page in the astonishing book of Yoshiaki Fujiwara?

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE YOSHIAKI FUJIWARA

Read more!

Found Footage Friday: Wrestle Yume Factory~!

Wrestle Yume Factory 8/11/96

Pick this up from @itako18jp on Twitter, he is doing god's work

The Madness vs. The Wolf/Cosmo Soldier

MD: A handicap match. Madness is a huge guy with a skeleton mask that he adjusts all the time. Wolf and Soldier start well with Soldier drawing him in with a test of strength challenge and Wolf attacking from behind. They have a flurry of offense but get tossed off on a double pin and really this is just a matter of time until he catches them, and catches them he does. Some of his stuff looks great. He has this suplex into a bodyslam of sorts which is brutal. Some, like his strikes, just kind of look ok. There's a great moment of Soldier bursting off from the side of the screen to break up a pin at one point, and another great one of a roll through pin out of nowhere which almost works. It goes on a bit too long after that though and even though they get one more flurry including a tornado DDT, it's inevitable and after a power bomb, Madness drops one on top of the other for the pin. This had a pretty good balance of protecting Madness but having Wolf and Soldier chip away at him effectively, I thought.

Basara vs. Masakazu Fukuda

MD: I'm not sure we've ever written about Basara here but he had a mask with a big white mustache coming out of it and hair on top the head. Fukuda was mid 20s here and died tragically in 2000. Basara controlled early. He had an answer for everything Fukuda tried and Fukada didn't have an answer. Fukada would take Basara down and try strikes but get his arm caught. They'd get in a headbutt war and Fukuda would get crushed and bump across the ring. When he took over it was by getting in and under and hitting a uranage, first a throw which opened up the match, and then the rock bottom version to win it later. In the middle Basara asserted himself as they ended up hitting bombs to a degree. Basara had a second rope senton and power slam and Fukuda got under him to take him over in a sort of Beach Break. They both threw dropkicks (Basara's surprisingly good). I'm not sure this kept the same narrative focus once it opened up but in general it was fun just to see them throw things at one another. 

Shinichi Shino vs. Shinigami

MD: Shino is later on Fukumen Taro. Shinigami is a blast. He's got caked on grey/green makeup like a ghoul and it's honestly a great look that no one really uses. Plus the gloves and the black coat/pants that makes him look as much like a Castlevania monster as a movie monster. He lumbered down to the ring upsetting chairs and driving fans away. Shono was all pluck and fire. Powerslams and clotheslines but he threw himself into all of them. He capitalized on a missed dropkick and took it to Shinigami, including tossing chairs on him on the outside, but nothing really worked. Shinigami turned it around, buried him under a row of chairs, and then splashed the chairs. Looked like a great bit but it was on the wrong side of the ring so we only had the sense of it. His big move was a claw-assisted uranage and frankly, it's a wonderful piece of business. He dragged Shino into the ring with the claw before hitting it and then down the stretch hit a top rope one before pulling him up and hitting a bridging one. Post-match he went after the timekeeper for no reason and I quite enjoyed the time I spent with Shinigami.

Hector Garza/Silver King/Onryo vs. Masayoshi Motegi/Super Crazy/Kamikaze

MD: All action trios with some great names. I'd say everyone looked pretty good here (Crazy maybe the most dubious if I was pressed), but Silver King looked like one of the best in the world. He was matched up with Kamikaze early and that was the best of the pairings. Everything broke down and we had some very loose rudo beatdown structure on Onryo a couple of times especially, but this was the sort of match where Silver King was just going to super kick someone in the face and take over. Dive train was sensational and Garza looked great in the final pairing. You knew what you were going to most likely get here, but they gave it to you, and that's the important thing. There was also this great bit where Silver King went for a powerbomb onto Garza (his own partner) and alley-ooped him into a splash which looked so smooth that people should reverse engineer and steal it. Variety is the spice of life and this absolutely fit into such a weird and varied card.

Horiyoshi Kotsubo vs. Hirofumi Miura

MD: (EDIT: According to Sebastian I got Kotsubo and Miura confused, so just flip them in the below. I haven't done that in a while). Horiyoshi Kotsubo is Tsubo Genjin. Here he has a karate gimmick with a black gi, the sides of his head shaved, a goatee, and nunchucks. But it's Miura who's fun here. It's scrambly to start, but Miura goes to the slaps first. Then he hits a great spinning backfist and later on a very quick tree-of-woe/short dropkick combo. Kotsubo has some nice pokey punches in a mount at least, and he wins it with a submission that is very hard to explain but certainly novel, starting with a STF but then barring the other leg. Not a ton to say about this one but I need to watch that Aoyagi vs. Miura match Phil covered here now. 

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Shinichi Nakano - GREAT

MD: I've spent a lot of time with 1989-1990 Shinichi Nakano, and quite a bit with him from the years prior, and there isn't a whole lot there, let me tell you. He was fine. Absolutely fine. Inoffensive. Sometimes could show some fire. He wasn't the guy you wanted in a Jr. Title match (not relative to Fuchi or Momota or Inoue or Joe Malenko) or in a tag, except for maybe if that tag was against guys like Hansen and Tenryu. Then he could take a beating and come back with a bit of fire only to get beaten down once more. Actually, 1989 Fujiwara vs 1989 Nakano would have been a blast.

Thankfully, this was pretty good along those lines too. Nakano was older, more grizzled, but a ton of this match was him doing something, paying for it, and getting beaten and stretched by Fujiwara, which really, is exactly what you'd want. Early on, he tried to push Fujiwara into the corner. That didn't go well for him. Fujiwara turned him around, punched him in the face, and then played to the crowd that he slapped him instead, all before goozling him in the ropes. Later on, Nakano tried again to stomp Fujiwara in the corner and the greatest defensive wrestler of all time, snatched his foot midstomp and hit a rare dragon screw leg whip, just like that.

At one point, he did have some success with things Fujiwara had less defense against, armdrags, leading to a cross arm breaker and Fujiwara escaping to the outside. He then got some nice clubbering in with Fujiwara on the apron stretched over the top rope. All well and good if he didn't try for a posting, but he did, and you can't slam Fujiwara's head into the metal connector obviously. Headbutts ensued, followed by Fujiwara doing his own mirrored clubbering and then hilariously teasing a dive. 

What else did Nakano try? Oh, a leglock. Went ok for a bit until Fujiwara snatched a leg of his own and slowly and patiently worked things all the way around so that Nakano was on his stomach and Fujiwara was bending a leg back. And then down the stretch, he hit a power bomb and a suplex and locked in a half crab, but he couldn't put Fujiwara away and when he went back to the well for another suplex, everyone watching knew exactly what was going to happen. Fujiwara jammed it and jammed Nakano down right into the armbar. While I may have hoped that Nakano had become some sort of secret master over the 90s, what I can say about him instead is that he was still a good sport, and that gave Fujiwara lots of room to stretch (figuratively, literally, metaphorically, however you want it).

PAS: This was pretty much a Fujiwara one man show, Nakano was a fine sparring partner, wrestling chicken stock but Fujiwara bought all of the spices here. Of course those are incredible spices, countering everything Nakano tried, backing him into the corner and working him over. I have written time and time again about how Fujiwara is the greatest defensive wrestler of all time, and here he is again throwing up another countering masterpiece as easy as a Nikola Jokic 40/14/12 stat line. The kind of thing that would be legendary for anyone else is pedestrian for him.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FUJIWARA

Read more!

Yoshiaki Fujiwara Will Gather All the Nations

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Seiji Sakaguchi/Kantaro Hoshino/Antonio Inoki/Keiji Muto vs. Akira Maeda/Kengo Kimura/Super Strong Machine/Riki Choshu/Tatsumi Fujinami NJPW 8/19/87- EPIC

These multi-man elimination 80s NJ matches are as certified as a wrestling match gets. At this point New Japan had shifted from the UWF vs. NJ feud, into kind of a generations feud, with Maeda on one side and Fujiwara on the other, and Choshu and Fujinami teaming up. Young Muto is a bit out of place repping the old school, which was a fun wrinkle to this match. The energy of these matches is always a standout, everyone is super charged and going at it with such intensity. Hoshino is always a highlight, this little sawed off batamweight getting into everyones face with great looking punches. Our guy Fujiwara gets some great match ups, throwing hands with Kimura, diving in and out of holds with Fujinami. Fujiwara is such a great slow paced technical worker, it is fun to see him thrown into a whirlwind like this. I love how Choshu is used at this time, that lariat is a game ender and the threat of it is always there.  There were some great eliminations, including Maeda calling Inoki into the ring squaring off with him, and eventually sacrificing himself with a headscissors which sent them both over the top rope. The match ended up with Muto against Fujinami and Choshu, and that is drawing dead, Muto had a moment or two, but eventually fell. 

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Masaji Aoyagi WDF 8/9/97-GREAT

A little minor key for a pair of guys who have the capacity to blow it out, but it had a lot of nifty stuff in there. I always dig kickboxer Fujiwara and it was fun to watch him square off with Aoyagi and realized that he didn't want the smoke. Similarly Aoyagi didn't want to be down on the mat with Fujiwara, to the point where he takes a bite of Fujiwara's leg while he is in a cross armbreaker. I really liked the finish with Fujiwara just dragging Aoyagi down to the mat, transitioning into side control, moving to his back and just sinking in a rear naked choke, it felt like the way a mid 2000s MMA fight with a  jujitsu black belt tapping a kickboxer who didn't train ground defense. Both of these guys are such great spectacle wrestlers, I was hoping for something bigger, but I dug what we got.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FUJIWARA

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE AOYAGI

Read more!

Let Us Examine Our Ways and Test Them and Let Us Return to Yoshiaki Fujiwara

 

Been a while since I added to my Fujiwara C+A, which I started 15 years ago,  so I decided to look around the internet and find some things I hadn't watched and reviewed from my favorite guy ever

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Johnny Mantell NJPW 2/7/80 - GREAT

This is some of the earliest Fujiwara footage we have, and he hadn't become full caps FUJIWARA yet, and it was cool to see him try out some unfamiliar stuff. He hits Mantell with some cool half judo throw, half Ricky Steamboat armdrags, and some nasty looking European uppercuts, he even tries a running splash. There was a lot of cool grappling too, with Mantel working a more territory mat wrestling style, and Fujiwara breaking out some mat counters. The great looking Fujiwara selling was there, he sold the Mantell knees to the guy the same way he would sell a Sayama spin kick. Mantell looked good too, he had great looking Southern undercard guy punches and there is a nasty box off in the ropes. He also one with a out of context sick finish, lifting Fujiwara up for a traditional piledriver and then landing like a tombstone on his knees, these guys were just chugging along having an undercard scrap, and then Mantell breaks out some insane death move. Cool shit, better then some of the other earlier Fujiwara matches against Slaughter and Kimura.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Tatsuhito Takaiwa Zero-One 10/25/01 - GREAT

This is only five minutes, but kind of what you want from these two guys in a five minute match. Takaiwa tries to shoot in on Fujiwara a couple of times and gets caught twice in a nasty keylock and a kneebar. Takaiwa responds with some of his crowbar forearms causing Fujiwara to lay in body shots and headbutts. Takaiwa is able to life him up and hit a couple of sick death valley drivers, but as always if you don't put Fujiwara down when you can, he is going to put you down, and he sneaks in a Fujiwara armbar for a tap. Love both of these guys and dug them matching up.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE YOSHIAKI FUJIWARA

Read more!

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

Read more!

Found Footage Friday: RIP BUTCH~! FUJIWARA~! SUPER TIGER~! VALENTINE~!

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Super Tiger 10/12/97

MD: This was quite the spectacle, over ten years off from their classic series of matches. This never really gets the chance to get going, as it's stopped and started a couple of times, the most meaningful being when Inoki charges forth to demand it. That said, there are interesting wrinkles, like Sayama putting so much of his efforts (once the kicks fail to work given Fujiwara's defense) on a rear naked choke. That makes sense given the time and it's interesting to watch Fujiwara try to play defense and escape while he's in that specific hold put on by this specific wrestler. You get glimpses, specifically him tossing his head back repeatedly and the flip side, being Sayama throwing his fists into Fujiwara's ribs or his elbows down upon his head over and over. Given time, it would have been interesting how Fujiwara's defense might have turned the tide but this was too disjointed to have that play out. Post match, Inoki slaps Fujiwara and that's as fitting an end to this one as anything else I guess. 

Los Pastores vs. Joe Savoldi/Al Perez WWC 1985

MD: Thought it would be good to look at a few crates matches for Butch since he just passed away. For Puerto Rico, either things have been covered or they're just clips. I'd love full matches from the 97 run, for instance, but we're not going to get those. This was posted a year or so ago and even if it was out there previously, I doubt it was looked at heavily. Savoldi and Perez are Los Rockeros, both with mustaches and pastels. This was more or less to set up the Invaders running in after the match got thrown out but it's fairly complete and a good look at just how good Luke and Butch were playing the basic beats. They fed early, leaned in the middle, and backpedaled on a comeback before chaos took over, but the timing was spot on with the cutoffs and there was a wonderful brutality to just jamming a knee down onto Savoldi's skull again and again and again. All the while they were making the alien facial expressions that would let them be beloved babyfaces later, here inspiring horrified reactions instead. Savoldi and Perez were the dropkick heavy Fabs clones, not nearly as good as the Rock'n'Roll RPMs would be a few years later in Puerto Rico but certainly passable with a team like this and Savoldi took a beating well. This wasn't a bloody spectacle but it was pretty damn professional and likely set up something with real heat.

Bushwhackers vs. Greg Valentine/Larry "Ace" Green WPW 6/12/99

MD: The narrative has come pretty far in accepting that the Sheepherders' retirement package, dealing with the same brutal travel schedule that the rest of the WWF teams had to but being the beloved Bushwhackers, wasn't, in fact, the worst thing in the history of wrestling, but instead something to be cherished and approved of. That said, it still leaves behind that they were pretty damn good at being the Bushwhackers and accomplishing what they set out to do in their matches. It meant relying upon different muscles and instincts than what they did before, but it still took two experienced journeymen to pull it off, especially when you consider that their matches were going to be lacking so much of what contemporary babyface teams like the Hart Foundation and Rockers were doing. Without action, they had to rely upon timing and selling, building up that tension for the hot tag and relying upon their opponents to stooge and feed and help them come up as credible, no matter who they might have once been.

From the look of it, this was a pretty well attended event in Fort Smith, AR, and the crowd was up for the whole thing. Some of that was the star power involved. A lot of it was Butch working the apron. And probably more was Luke flailing and writhing and being a constant ball of concentrated motion in his selling. There were no big bumps but he simulated pain and desperation as he tried to fight back. Meanwhile, you had Greg Valentine, conductor of so many professional Brutus Beefcake tags there to direct traffic. He may have been 46 himself, but he just had to drop elbows upon Bushwhacker skulls and work over that leg and cut off the ring even when you thought Luke was going to make it through his legs for a tag. Green was a game partner, more than happy to miss a legdrop or a big splash when the match required a bump and with a look and offense that made him feel like he fit in the match. When the hot tag finally came, the crowd popped for it and for the entire revenge laden finishing stretch, right down to the heel miscommunication that spelled the end for Green. Again, there was nothing complicated about this act, but that doesn't mean it was easy. If they weren't as good at their craft, there was no way the Bushwhackers could have distilled so much from so little to such effect.

Read more!

Found Footage Friday: FUJIWARA~! ROBERTS~! WRIGHT~! LAWLER~! VALIANT~! SAITO~! KHAN~!

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Pete Roberts NJPW 9/19/82 - GREAT

MD: We covered a 1983 handheld between these two previously and that was solid but unexciting. This was solid and absolutely exciting, top notch wrestling the whole way through. The first half of this was the two of them chaining hold after hold and counter after counter, hanging on whenever possible. That was exciting when we saw it in the French footage, but here it was Fujiwara, one of the best defensive wrestlers of all time having to escape again and again. He had a couple of absolutely breathtaking ones, bridging and flipping, or even doing his own version of the French Catch up and over escape which we almost never see outside of France. Roberts was more than game in hanging on and whenever it was time for Fujiwara to take him over it was with electric decisiveness. Halfway through, Fujiwara started in with a short arm scissors and Roberts' limp-wristed selling for the rest of the match really put it over, even when there was a lull or a switch in momentum and he didn't have to. It helped that first Fujiwara and then later on Roberts in revenge were escalating things to these nasty whips across the ring where they put a twist on the wrist at the last second to force a flip bump and the illusion of grisly damage to the arm. Things picked up towards the finish with an escape that sent Roberts soaring out of the ring, his jumping kick back in, and some rope running before he got an unsatisfactory win given that Fujiwara's arm was under the ropes. Great stuff here and clear and crisp enough for an 82 handheld that we could see every detail. 

PAS: This was awesome, just a pair of maestros grabbing and twisting at each others arms and wrists and finding cool ways to reverse and escape. Those whips on the arm were sick stuff but really the only aggressive part of the match, everything else was pure craft and really great to watch. The seemingly botched finish was the only thing that kept this from an EPIC rating, and it felt more like an awesome Primera Caida then a full match, but it was an awesome Primera Caida.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Steve Wright NJPW 10/7/83

MD: This didn't have the sharp angles of Fujiwara vs Roberts but it ended up more strike heavy and maybe more imaginative as well. Interestingly, Wright drove the action here which was the opposite of the Roberts match, staying on top for most of it and even doing some of the specific moves that Fujiwara had done in the 82 match above. For instance, it was Wright that utilized a headstand escape right into a sliding grounded side headlock or that locked in the short arm scissors. In the Roberts match, there was the promise of a potential Gotch Lift. Here, there was the actuality of it as Fujiwara hefted him up and they went half tumbling over the ropes. Overall, this was a good look at Wright, a legendary figure, against a game opponent than anything else. After that Gotch Lift spot, he clapped and appealed to the crowd to show appreciation for what they had just seen. He laid his shots in with high low combos of forearms followed by a headbutt to the guts. He went to the top twice, once for a jumping kick; the second time, Fujiwara, ever the defensive wrestler, decided to defend by putting the ref between himself and Wright until he got down. Fujiwara came back primarily with a few strikes of his own and a huge headbutt that Wright sold like a falling tree, but this was a relatively one-sided affair all the way to Wright's very nice snap gutwrench suplex out of the corner to end it.

Jerry Lawler/Jimmy Valiant vs. Killer Khan/Masa Saito AJPW 2/1/85

MD: Not pretty. Lawler took a beating right from the get go, and he was savvy enough to know that he had to fire up quick and not take and take. He did and started firing his punches at Khan, but despite the punches looking as good as ever, the magic just wasn't there in Japan. I don't know if that was the crowd being used to a different sort of strike from guys like Jumbo or just a lack of head-snapping selling, but nothing was registering. Then Valiant came in, gave his sweeping but very light looking clubbers, and stumbled immediately on his first attempt to whip Khan, drawing laughter (and not for the first time). The match never really recovered and later on, when Valiant missed an elbow drop, the reaction was even more uproarious laughter. In between Lawler fought from underneath, but the crowd just wasn't buying what he was selling. Unless I'm mistaken, this was Lawler's third match ever in Japan and he'd only get this tour (tagging with Valiant the whole way) and then a New Japan tour in 89. It's Jerry Lawler, so I'm convinced that if he had enough time and maybe wasn't tied to Valiant here, he would have solved the puzzle eventually, but he never really got the chance.

Read more!

Found Footage Friday: LAWLER~! DUNDEE~! FABS~! BACKLUND~! INOKI~! FUJINAMI~! IRON MIKE~! 87 NJPW 5x5~!

Antonio Inoki/Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Bob Backlund/Iron Mike Sharpe NJPW 5/18/85

MD: There was some bluster between Sharpe and Inoki, as a foreigner punching above his weight class by trying to call Inoki into a match was common for mid-80s NJPW, but this was really about Backlund and Fujinami. You'll get through this and you'll remember their rope running and chain wrestling to a degree, as they were pretty perfectly matched up against one another. You'll probably note the moment when Sharpe and Backlund took over and how Backlund was more aggressive than usual, sportsmanlike but still something of a de facto heel, which is interesting in 85. His running powerslam was especially great. What will stick with you the most - and really what you should watch this for - is the long short arm scissors sequence towards the end. You watch a hundred Backlund matches and half of them, at least, will be about him working towards picking someone up from a short arm scissors. But this was still really well worked, with the fans going up for every attempt and Fujinami believably maintaining control, even if he wasn't the world's heaviest guy. I really love Backlund's footwork and positioning here as he tries to work into the Gotch lift, which is more elaborate than what I remember out of WWF Title era. It feels like a huge deal when he finally muscles Fujinami onto the top rope. Of course, not long after, Sharpe gets kicked in the back of the head by Inoki, but what are you going to do? 

ER: I didn't plan on falling in love with Iron Mike Sharpe over the past year, but I think it's important to follow your heart wherever it might take you. My love of Iron Mike Sharpe has, up until this point, never ventured outside of the States. It hasn't really ventured that far outside of New York State, specifically. I love Sharpe most in his early 90s house and Raw appearances, when he's at his best combination of big bumping stooge and local institution. I've never seen a single Mike Sharpe match from Japan, so this is a very exciting find for me. And whatever my thoughts on the match, you have to love that at one time Sharpe was doing his near constant grunting and growling through a sold out Korakuen main event. Inoki actively avoids Backlund and Sharpe takes on a lot of dirty work, No No No No No'ing his way through an Inoki octopus and several ankle picks that left him defenseless. This was no cheating, stooging Sharpe, this was a guy who shook his head and yelled in submissions while hoping to land big swinging body blows and heavy kneelifts when able to stand. 

The one amusing piece of offense Sharpe got in on Inoki was while Inoki was bending his leg, and Sharpe fought free from the move by clasping both hands around Inoki's chin. Clasping onto Inoki's chin is at least tantamount to tugging on Superman's cape, so I call this a win. The fans were excited to see Backlund, and after this one week New Japan tour his visits would all be separated by periods of several years. Backlund and Fujinami had several singles matches against each other and had nice rhythm. Backlund's headscissors had a nice snap and I like how he bumped dropkicks sideways into the ropes. Their rhythm is most apparent during the short arm scissors sequence, with Backlund working through it with an on the nose promptness. He begins every scissor legged roll through lift attempt at near exact 80 second intervals, with each 80 second stretch containing different obstacles, all building to the successful lift. Sharpe was run over soon after, but I liked his and Backlund's excitingly simple finishing stretch of hard bodyslams. Imagine Bob Backlund and Mike Sharpe representing North America to the fine people of Japan, two weirdos who made a whole nation believe we all constantly make Popeye sounds.  

Elimination: Tatsumi Fujinami/Riki Choshu/Akira Maeda/Kiyoshi Kimura/Super Strong Machine vs. Seiji Sakaguchi/Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Nobuhiko Takada/George Takano/Keiji Mutoh NJPW 10/6/87

MD: This only really gets fifteen minutes bell to bell, which isn't *nearly* enough time for one of these, especially given who's in there. But it does give the match a sort of sprint feel, with a lot of quick action and a lot quick switches. Honestly, this almost felt like a Survivor Series version of a classic New Japan 5x5, only with more violence and harder strikes. It's also a lot more one sided than most of these that I've seen, which sort of makes sense when you realize the murderer's row of NJPW stars on the one side of the ring, and George Takano and Keiji Mutoh on the other. You could have stacked a couple more minutes at almost any point of this and it would have been good wrestling, but where I wish they did more was right at the end. You had Fujinami, Choshu, Maeda, and Kimura all on one side, with only Fujiwara on the other. Fujiwara survived for a bit but even he couldn't last long against those four. Given the numbers game and the lack of big stakes and big narratives, it ended up like the exception that allows for the rule on other elimination matches which all end up as one on one big drama affairs.

Jerry Lawler/Bill Dundee vs. The Fabulous Ones MCW 5/1/99

ER: I had never seen this, and it was so great. The ultimate crowd pleaser, in front of one of those great big Nashville Fairgrounds crowds. It wasn't a super common thing to see Lawler and Dundee tagging, but this crowd couldn't care less because it was WAY less common to see the Fabulous Ones.  They hadn't tagged for nearly 4 years at this point, and neither were what you'd call Active since that last tag. Lane was fully retired and Keirn mostly ran his wrestling school in Florida, occasionally (very occasionally) working. It probably also helped that Lane and Keirn showed up and actually looked good for their age. This wasn't a paunchy retirement tour, these were two guys in their late 40s who looked GOOD for their late 40s. The fans are loud for the Fabs the whole match, and Dundee and Lawler lean into it. Lawler took two great backdrops and would run squealing to Dundee on the apron, and Dundee stooged around for the Fabs, always getting caught with a Lane kick after gloating about something (the best was when he banana peeled after getting his legs swept by Lane while strutting). 

Stacy Carter starts passing a weapon back and forth to Lawler, and it rules. He hits a bunch of great short right uppercuts to Lane. Lawler keeps cutting Lane off from Keirn, and it just makes the fans chant louder for Steve and Stan. We even get an extra tease before Stan makes it over to Steve! I love when the hot tag doesn't come when it looks like it's going to come, and here Lawler knocks Lane into the ropes while Dundee runs all the way around the ring to knock him to the floor. The hot tag to Keirn is hot as expected, and the finish is a perfect fusion of 1999 Jerry Springer wrestling with classic Tennessee: Carter gets on the apron and starts a striptease, drawing all of the Fabs' attention, meanwhile Lawler and Dundee are gathering the high heels that she's thrown. It leads to the hilarious moment of Lawler getting brained by a high heel at the hands of Dundee, and immediately pinned. A heel Lawler/Dundee team against a babyface Fabs was the exact thing I needed, and I wish we had more heel Lawler from this era.

MD: Eric had watched this years ago but it's finally back up again thanks to Bryan Turner. He hit the high points really well, but I'd like to add an overall feeling I had for it. I think there was a certain freedom to Memphis in 1999 that may not have existed ten years earlier. It was always broad, of course, but it was always well aware of its broadness, well aware of what worked for the crowd, but still having to balance that with the understanding of how it was viewed by the rest of wrestling. That meant that even as they had the Bruise Brothers strut around or Kamala tromping through a back yard or the House of Gullen or Hector Guerrero and his chili powder, it never quite let itself go all the way over the top in the ring. They always wanted Lawler to be world champion somehow someday. By this point, though, the ship had sailed, the ambitions had shrunk, and it wasn't even about survival anymore. It was a cherry on top, and that let this match really sing and soar and go wildly over the top in being as Memphis as something could possibly be in all the best ways. It felt like this perfect cross-section of masters still being able to go at a high level and any semblance of forced legitimacy just totally gone from their antics. In short, it was a blast.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE JERRY LAWLER

Read more!

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. 

Read more!

Found Footage Friday: TIGER~! MAEDA~! FUJIWARA~! KIDO~! TENRYU~! KABUKI~! MOCHIZUKI~! FUKUDA~!

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Osamu Kido vs Super Tiger/Akira Maeda UWF 10/5/84-GREAT

MD: You could more or less sum this one up as two of the most dynamic offensive wrestlers of all time against two of the greatest defensive ones, though that would be understating Kido and Fujiwara, both in general and in this match. It's undeniable that Tiger and Maeda were the aggressors here for the most part though, constantly driving forward, constantly throwing kicks and suplexes and leaps from the top, all with varying levels of complexity. Meanwhile, Kido and Fujiwara would get battered, would endure, would capitalize on a mistake or create an opening and would fire back, Kido with forearms or Fujiwara with his headbutts, only to get cut off once again. The magic of this style and the magic of the Fujiwara/Kido team is that you know that no matter how thoroughly Maeda and Tiger might run up the score all it would take one moment, one mistake, one opportunity for Kido to escape or Fujiwara to win the day. So while you watched the cumulative damage rack up, the tension always increased. Unfortunately, the finish was almost perfectly clipped to make it look like Fujiwara was pure magic, but you can connect the dots in your head to figure out how they got there. Still, a little frustrating after almost thirty minutes, but you can hardly fault the journey for a technical blip upon arriving at the destination.

PAS: New Fujiwara is basically Christmas for me, and especially this period where he was smack dab in the middle of his prime, lots of tiny little moments of genius from him, along with some great stuff from Kido who is kind of the Dick Slater to Fujiwara's Terry Funk. The highlight of this match for me was Super Tiger, I have no time at all for NJPW Sayama, but UWF Sayama, a Sayama where he just embraced his inner crowbar was perfection. He is just killing Kido and Fujiwara with sick unpulled kicks to the head and stomach and some uncalled for jumping knees, at one point he splits Fujiwara with a knee, and we get see our guy Yoshiaki work his way through the blood in his eyes. So amazing that there is still new HH from 1984 which just show up on the internet on a random Tuesday

Genichiro Tenryu vs. Great Kabuki WAR 11/9/93

MD: As a general rule, I prefer Kabuki in tag matches over singles. He's great at coming in and disrupting things, with two of the great sudden strikes in wrestling history between his uppercut and the cut off kick to the face, but sometimes he has a tendency to take a relatively short singles match and eat up too much time with holds when you'd rather see him scrapping. I wasn't too worried about that here since he was up against Tenryu so you know that one, the holds will all be full of struggle and two, eventually, Tenryu will get him up and to the ropes and will throw some killer chops. Then, you know, Kabuki will come back with the uppercut and things will be off to the races. That's what happened here after a methodological start. It bled into mid match heat where Tenryu got roughed up on the outside and a great comeback where he blocked the uppercut and drove forward with the sumo palm strikes across the ring. Finishing stretch was Tenryu overwhelming Kabuki and Kabuki just getting points for surviving as long as he did. Nothing overly surprising here, but you don't watch something like this for a surprise. You watch it to see Kabuki and Tenryu hit each other repeatedly.

SR: These two could have just punched and kicked each other and done some staredowns and it would‘ve been a quite good match, but we got something more neat here. Tenryus resume of great houseshow matches is for sure impressive. We get a fun opening with Kabuki trying to stand up to Tenryu with his great uppercuts, and Tenryu just chops and lariats him in the throat with Kabuki sells passionately. Tenryu seems to have this in the bag easily but then Kabuki catches him with a surprise thrust kick and Tenryu tumbles outside. Immediately a bunch of Heisei Ishingun goons start swarming Tenryu and brawling with his seconds. Tenryu eats chair shots while Kabuki cuts a promo. Back in the ring Tenryu is bleeding and Kabuki takes him apart punching and kicking the cut. Tenryu is able to snap a Fujiwara armbar but has to let go of the hold because his blood is blinding him in a really neat moment. Tenryus facial expressions and body language are outstanding even on a blurry handheld. His exhausted surprise abisegiris were really cool, also. Great little match due to structure and grit.

Masaaki Mochizuki vs. Masakazu Fukuda Yume Factory 8/4/98

MD:  This went a little over 11 minutes but I wouldn't necessarily call it a sprint. There was just a bit too much substance to it for that. Mainly, it was Mochizuki's kicks against Fukuda's throws (and general sense of resilience because Mochizuki struck first and frequently), but what I loved the most about it was how well it implemented pro wrestling tropes or spots to make them feel organic and natural. Mochizuki would cycle his brutal kicks right into a ten punch in the corner. The match turned on him missing a clothesline into the post but it wasn't telegraphed or set up or winking. Nothing about it felt like a spot, but instead a thing that just happened to occur during this fight. Tack on to that a really strong finishing stretch with a few near-falls that got me and you get a great hidden gem.

SR: This thing getting uploaded by the cameraman almost 25 years later has to be a near miracle, but then we‘ve seen a lot of miracles by now when it comes to highly improbable things ending up on the internet. This was a great striker vs. grappler matchup. Seeing Mochizuki here makes one sour that he retired to Dragon Gate, as he was throwing kicks and hands in a totally unpredictable and non-choreographed way here that was really cool, coupled with some swank agility. Fukuda's style is really unique, he is this lanky tall guy who just glues himself to opponents when he grabs them and drags them into his throws and submissions. He also absolutely rattled Mochizukis shit with a nasty dropkick and some stiff strikes, but Mochizuki kept firing back. The match had a few Hondaish moments, at one point Mochizuki went for a punch to Fukuda and Fukuda attached himself to Mochis arm and dragged him into another hold. When Mochizuki went to recuperate Fukuda just dragged him over the ropes and threw him, with Mochizuki landing hard on all his throws. This was to the point and absolutely no nonsense with both guys giving each other little space a nd all the offense looking like it required zero cooperation, I get WYF was a niche indy back then, but this kind of indy match is a real breath of fresh air these days.

PAS: This was really cool, Fukuda has kind of a tragic story, but he was on his way to being one of the coolest Japanese wrestlers of the 90s. I just love how he would clasp and throw Mochizuki. Always finding cool ways to cut off Mochi's flurries of offense. Mochizuki is pretty great here, as he is just a kicking machine and not a spot guy. His big kicks meshed really nicely with Fukuda's grappling, and you never got a sense of who was going over and the finishing slam by Fukuda was a great coup de grace on a very exciting finish run. Really makes me want to see more WYF stuff. 

 

Read more!

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

Read more!

New Footage Friday: FLAIR! MURDOCH! DOUGIE! FUJIWARA! TAKADA! BURKE! GORDY! ULTRAMAN

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Nobuhiko Takada vs. Rocky Della Serra/Leo Burke UWF 7/24/84 - GREAT

PAS: This was early UWF, before they were really a shootstyle fed, so this was a standard pro-wrestling tag match. It was mostly hard head Fujiwara, which is far from my favorite Fujiwara, but he does hard head spots really well. Burke especially leaned into stooging big from punching or elbowing Fujiwara in his rock hard dome. Takada continued to underwhelm me, lots of kicks which only semi-hit (although he did waste Burke with a top rope dropkick).Burke was the revelation here, he has a big rep, but not a ton of footage, and he was on one here. Great looking bumps, awesome offense (he hit the best inverted atomic drop I have ever seen) totally looked like a super worker. 

MD: Fun stuff. Della Serra is a guy we've seen pop up in a few places since we started doing this and Burke is obviously one of the greatest journeymen of the 80s. What I liked about them here is that this, in early days UWF, felt almost like a different style battle where they were utilizing the sort of pro wrestling they'd do anywhere else and Fujiwara and Takada were Fujiwara and Takada. That might be a series of overdramatic elbow drops from Della Serra or an inverted atomic drop from Burke or whatever. It obviously meant that they knew how to play into all of Fujiwara's head spots for the best effect. Adding to this you had Takada bringing a little more flash with whips and dropkicks on top of things like the belly to belly right into a submission. It all came together pretty well despite it all.

Ric Flair vs. Dick Murdoch NWA 9/11/86

MD: Maybe not the best week to cover Flair, but what the hell, it's footage, it's new, it's Friday, and it's of historical value since, unless I'm mistaken, we just have a couple of minutes of garbage footage from 78 over two matches of Flair vs Murdoch, so this is a new, iconic pairing. I liked the creativity and the variation here, much of which I'll credit to Murdoch. After the initial matwork (not Flair's best, but it was fine) they made the most of the relatively short fifteen minutes of match time, just throwing out interesting transition after interesting transition to the point where it never felt like a your turn/my turn match but like a real struggle where both guys were trying to outfox the other. My favorites were probably Murdoch catching the knee on an early knee drop attempt and Flair causing Murdoch's elbow drop to the leg to overshoot forcing him to wipe out on it. But Murdoch also got a snap turning backslide counter and Flair jammed him on a fireman's carry attempt by punching him in the face, and so on, combined with what you'd expect like Murdoch answering the chops with punches out of the corner or Flair getting a cheapshot in after begging off towards the ropes. 

The finishing stretch was, of course, BS, but still had enough wrinkles to feel creative. Murdoch hit a running power slam instead of slamming Ric off the top. They had a ref bump, Flair tossing Murdoch over the top, a phantom pin off a punch by Murdoch, before the actual finish of Murdoch inadvertently back body dropping Flair off the top onto Tommy Young and then hitting the brainbuster but getting DQed. If you're going to have a finishing minute like that, at least it was dynamic. You didn't know if Flair would win by cheating after Young went down or if it'd be Flair tossing Murdoch over the top that would cause the finish or if Flair would win after the phantom pinfall, etc. On the other hand, if you're having to stack elements of a Dusty finish one on top of the other on top of the other to keep it fresh, maybe there's something problematic with your booking?

ER: I thought this was excellent, just the panacea I needed after a long work week with some late nights. The chemistry between the two was great and they kept upping the ante in ways I wasn't expecting. This match had a ton of activity to it and they kept pulling off sequences that I hadn't seen done quite this way. That always excites me, when I see a new match with two guys I've seen a ton. I can't really get excited about Flair matches these days. I imagine if an unseen Flair/Steamboat there's a good chance I'd watch it, but probably a better chance that I would just watch a random episode of Sunday Night Heat instead. And yet I loved everything Flair did here and loved even more how Murdoch worked with him. The opening was some light matwork with them moving in the familiar ways, but it really kicks up when Murdoch catches and blocks a Flair kneedrop inches from his nose, drags himself to his feet by Ric's leg, and before long is dropping elbows on Ric's leg. That leads to Dick missing one of them when Flair shifts and then Flair starts working over Murdoch's side from his nasty spill. 

Now, this match had a lot of "stuff". Murdoch and Flair are guys with a lot of stuff, and Flair more than most is a guy who is going to get his stuff in no matter what. But this match managed to have a ton of stuff while feeling like all of the stuff served the match. This didn't feel like Flair giving the fans Flair, it felt like Flair giving the fans a good match with memorable Flair moments. And Murdoch was there with some incredible selling and super impressive body work to make Flair look even better. Murdoch's execution was all time great in this match. His misses landed like a man who didn't expect to miss, his punches looked as punishing and sharp as ever, but his technical ability was amazing. He had a nice tight reversal on a Flair abdominal stretch that he then rolled into a tight cradle, and later he hit one of the most finely executed sunset flips I've ever seen. Murdoch understood the physics of wrestling, and his move execution legitimized his fighting. It wasn't just his offense, but the way he took Flair's offense was a real mastery of physics. Murdoch is able to look heavy while taking offense but you can tell he's getting up for everything with ease. He hangs in the air taking a Flair back suplex, and makes a hiptoss look like Flair really has to muscle him over. Murdoch's selling was excellent throughout, taking a Flair kneelift and holding the left side of his belly like he got stuck, or the painful grimaces when Flair would raise his arm and punch him in his left side. 

The dedication to every small spot made every big spot look fantastic, with the best being Flair going up top and Murdoch running across the ring to plant him with a huge powerslam. And we got an all time great punch out, with Flair dishing a hard knife edge in the corner that sends Murdoch responds instinctively to with a three punch combo, and Flair bumps his way through these fists in great ways, leading to ref Tommy Young stopping Murdoch from hitting his big wind up right, only to have Murdoch throw a just-as-nasty left jab over Young's shoulder. It wouldn't have looked better if it was a Bugs Bunny cartoon, and I'm not sure Bugs could work that punching sequence as expertly as Murdoch or Flair. I loved all of this match, bullshit finishes don't bother me when the journey is this much fun. 

PAS: There is an apocryphal Murdoch vs. Flair match from Mid-South which Joel Watts called the best match he has ever seen, but the tape melted in a hot car. From this relatively abbreviated version you can really tell that they had special chemistry. This was way more reversal heavy then I expect from Flair matches, with lots of cool counter wrestling by both guys. This was counter wrestling which felt organic rather then two guys waiting around to dance into another spot. Murdoch especially found neat ways to pick the leg or sneak in punches. I loved Young catching the haymaker and Murdoch sneaking in a jab, I love when punchers have a bunch of different signature punches and Murdoch unloads the arsenal. 

Doug Gilbert/Keizo Matsuda/Tiger Jeet Singh?/Ultraseven/Takashi Uwano vs. Terry Gordy/Shoichi Ichiyama/YUJI KITO/Yukihide Ueno/Tomohiro Ishii IWA Japan 2/4/01

 
MD: Full disclosure: I'm not super familiar with some of these guys, but I found this overall pretty compelling. The story here was good, with eliminations possible by going over the top too, which meant Gordy was a beast here just due to the size differential. I know he was diminished, but you put him in a tag like this where he could be dangerous in the corner or come in and have some guys run into his stuff or just throw his body around and he could still be incredibly effective. I wouldn't want him working a twenty minute singles match necessarily but he had size and presence and meant something to the crowd: when Ultraseven (who was bigger but could still move pretty well) faced off against him the crowd had a real buzz. Anyway, this was ultimately the Keizo Matsuda show. Mostly thanks to Gordy it became 5 on 2 pretty quickly, with a long beatdown on Matsuda, to the point I thought we'd get ten minutes of Gilbert vs the World, but they were able to get it to 4 on 2 and then Gilbert did his job by double eliminating himself and Gordy. After that, Matsuda had some real hope and momentum and it looked like there might be some heel communication and another elimination but the double teaming works and then works more and then works even more and after a valiant attempt to hang in there, the numbers game ends up as just too much. Matsuda is probably stronger for his showing though.

PAS: This was a couple of months before Gordy's death, a full year after his last listed Cagematch match (Hardy Boys vs. Gordy/Hayes, which is pretty intriguing). I thought he looked great. In some of his 90s work he looked addled, but here he moved well, hit some big hard shots, great clotheslines, nice suplex. I liked how he was a real obstacle for everyone he faced, and I dug Dougie needing to sacrifice himself just to give Matsuda a chance. That was definitely not Tiger Jeet Singh btw, it was some guy in a mask, which is always the trouble with translated match listings. Matsuda was fun as a guy dying on his sword, but be valiant all you want, you are still dead. 

Read more!

New Footage Friday/Fujiwara Family UWF 4/23/85

PAS: A whole new UWF 1 handheld got unearthed, lots of British guys worked the early tours, but not much of the footage is available. Finlay and Rudge in UWF is still the holy grail, but it's cool to see guys like Singh and Martin as well.

Ray Steele vs. Osamu Kido

MD: I'm fairly high on Steele generally but I like him most in matches with contrast, him vs a scoundrel. Here, despite doing a fairly solid visual John Saxon impression, the actual work was sort of lacking that. It came off dry and exhibition like, with fair struggle but no real fire. When they built to something, like the Scorpion Deathlock, it ended up really not mattering. The finish of Steele grabbing a late headlock and getting suplexed felt pretty lazy for the setting too, even if they twisted it slightly with the submission after the suplex.

Caswell Martin vs. Nobuhiko Takada

MD: I had seen the Steele vs Kido match before this one and I was sort of wondering if it'd just been a while since I'd seen UWF undercard footage and things were just more laconic than I was remembering. No, no they were not. This was top notch. Right from the get go, it had a different sort of aggression, even with Martin's first press into the ropes. Martin really stood out here. There was the sense that Takada had him on holds, on strikes, maybe even on leverage and trickiness, but Martin came off like a true powerhouse with a ton of throws, including this great spin out deadlift gutwrench. My favorite Takada moment here was him slapping Martin in the face on a reset and then drawing him in to stand up striking through it which wasn't at all to Martin's advantage. Just a dynamic match all around. This felt like a real find.

PAS: This was really excellent, Martin fit this style perfectly and I am not a Takada guy, but he was great too. Martin had some killer throws, just popped his hips deadlifted and threw. I also thought he had some fun nifty tricks from the bottom, including grabbing and turning the arm. I liked Takada targeting Martin's gut with spin kicks and whip kicks which really looked like they sucked. He had some nice throws as well, and had his moments on the mat, and never really sat in kneebar which can be the downfall of Takada, in fact his one kneebar attempt had Martin working hard to twist out and counter and was a highpoint of the match. Real gem of a match.

Super Tiger vs. Masami Soronaka

MD: In my head, this was about Sayama being incredibly dangerous and explosive and Soronaka mainly trying to contain him as Sayama worked from underneath. The work mostly bore that out. Sayama just came at you in so many differnet ways. He had the kicks, the lethal headlock suplex, a nasty headlock takeover that took Soronaka's face off, a lightning cross arm breaker, and the northern lights style throw that set up the finish. From underneath, he struggled a bit but could still all but flip out of things. Soronaka put up a pretty solid effort and might have come out close to even on points, but it was just a matter of time before Sayama took him down.

PAS: This was structurally very similar to the all timer Tiger vs. Fujiwara series, with the wily mat wrestler attempting to subdue and ground the explosive striker. Soronaka is very much not Yoshiaki Fujiwara, and I mostly ended up resenting him stifling Sayama and all that he can do.When Sayama gets him in the corner and finally unloads it was very cool, and Soronaka had a trick or two, but I needed a bit more pop.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Akira Maeda vs. Omar Atlas/Tiger Dalibar Singh - FUN

MD: Interesting dynamics here. There was a solid Atlas/Maeda exchange to start, smooth but competitive. Singh was clunkier but his stuff had impact. Fujiwara seemed fairly content to feed for him. On the other hand, he leaned on Atlas a little more. For instance, when Atlas didn't quite hit him hard enough in the corner, he turned it around and smacked him on the face. This faded off towards the finish with Fujiwara and Maeda firmly in charge, with crabs and countless great Fujiwara headbutts, which is as good a final image as any if you're going to have a tape abruptly end.

PAS: Definitely a bummer that this gets cut off, because I would have liked to see where it was heading. I as usual am going to focus on Fujiwara and what he brought to the match. I really loved his section with Atlas, he really dominated the standing grappling, locking in the double underhooks and not really letting him go anywhere, shifting and countering any attempts to escape. When Singh gets the hot tag he really puts over those uppercuts and the big suplex, something which meant more considering how tough Fujiwara looked before. It did feel like it was building to something, which we didn't get, but what we got was pretty neat.

Read more!

New Footage Friday: FUJIWARA! SUPER TIGER! MASCARA CONTRA MASCARA! JUMBO! TAUE! FUCHI! MISAWA! KAWADA KIKUCHI!

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Super Tiger UWF 1/16/85 - EPIC

PAS: Tiger vs. Fujiwara is in the discussion with Lawler vs. Dundee, Santo vs. Casas, Misawa vs. Kawada of all time greatest matchups. Our pal Charles from PWO DM's me and says "I think I found a HH Tiger vs. Fujiwara that wasn't out there before" 2021 is already turning the corner.  

I am not sure where this stands in the pantheon of their matchups, but it was a hand to god wrestling treasure. The story in this is familiar, Fujiwara works for various submissions, while Sayama unloads a Dresden level firebombing on his body.  Can Fujiwara find a tendon to snap before Tiger beats him to death? Sayama just mauls Fujiwara's thigh with gross kneedrops and kicks. It is so relentless and violent looking that it seems like Fujiwara might never walk without a cane.  Fujiwara does land some nasty body shots, but he is mostly overwhelmed on his feet. There are very few wrestlers in history who are as brutal strikers as UWF era Sayama and some of the kicks and punches seemed to violate the unspoken agreement of professional wrestling. Despite that onslaught, Fujiwara is who he is, he can be getting blown out and beaten up, but if you stick out your arm or leg even a little bit, it is getting snatched. Fujiwara looks absolutely done, he is lying on his stomach while Tiger whip kicks him in the head and drops knees on his thigh. The ref pulls Tiger off to give Fujiwara a count, Fujiwara stumbles into the corner glassy eyed, but as Tiger approaches to put him down, Fujiwara catches the spin kick, grabs a fast waistlock and pulls him down. He then tries several attacks on the arm, until he maneuvers it into a key lock and snaps it like a breadstick. Wonderful mix of violence and skill. I am a Fujiwara guy, and finding a unseen prime classic like this, what a treat. 

MD: Absolutely elemental battle. Sayama is the wind, absolutely relentless, constantly driving forward, battering Fujiwara with piercing kicks, tearing apart the knee again and again and again, squeezing out of holds to restart the assault at the earliest opportunity. Fujiwara is the sea, repeatedly dissipated by Sayama's barrage but ever reassembling, patiently enduring the storm, calm and consistent, the wave of his arm able to reach around at any moment to pry off one of Sayama's limbs and recover the advantage. For all of the effusive, medium-criticism-defining praise of decades for Sayama's grace and execution, I connect with him most when he's tearing away at Fujiwara in the corner with his kicks. Later on, Fujiwara fluidly seeps out around Sayama's attempt to contain him and returns the favor with brutal punches in the corner; there's none of his occasional playfulness here given the stakes and the ferocity of Sayama's offense. Sayama wins on points by never stopping, by absolutely decimating Fujiwara's leg, but he's never able to fully take advantage of it, and all it takes is one opening, one mistake, one possibility for the sea to sweep forth and swallow the wind whole.

ER: This is listed as a Death Match, and while I'm not sure what that means within 1985 UWF, it's awesome that Fujiwara worked something billed as that sandwiched between days where he fought Terry Rudge. Can you imagine that schedule? How insanely tough is this man, who was taking on perhaps his greatest rival in a Death Match on a Wednesday, while no doubt getting pummeled on Tuesday and Thursday by Rudge. Handhelds are a pretty amazing glimpse at how our favorites worked when the cameras weren't on, and they almost always show us that a lot of them never held back no matter who was watching. Fujiwara is a punisher, but the most iconic images of him are of him taking a punishing beating. I loved the shots we got of him lying on his side, covering his body with one arm while keeping a hand in front of his face, only surviving because Tiger decided to catch his breath lest he get too tired kicking Fujiwara's ass. Fujiwara is the man this crowd wanted to see, hearing them chant his name while Ride of the Valkyries hit was like hearing AJ crowds go crazy for Misawa. And they kept willing him back into things even when Tiger looked like he was trying to cripple him. Tiger was a real monster here, and it occurred to me that there are probably a ton of people who know Tiger from the Dynamite Kid matches, that have never seen him in full UWF asskicker mode. His kicks to a grounded Fujiwara's head were disgusting, but his leg attacks were what really set this apart. His knee drops were incredibly cruel, dropping down as hard as possible on Fujiwara's hamstrings, including off the middle buckle. You knew at a certain point that Fujiwara was only going to target a keylock, and I loved seeing him weather this awful storm to get there. 

Aguila Solitario vs. Al Rojo Vivo CMLL 12/15/85

PAS: An unseen 80s mask match is pretty exciting, it gives you hope that more is still out there to be unearthed. This was pretty formulaic, but it is a great formula to watch. Rojo takes the first fall entirely rips the mask and bloodies Solitario a bit. Solitario is able to fight back and take the second fall leading a near fall heavy third. I liked the Solitario superfly splash he used to take the segunda, and how he came up short trying it again in the tercera. I could have used one more big moment, a huge bump, a crazy dive, a ton of blood. It was just missing the hook which would push this to another level. Still it was really cool to see, and a big moment in two wrestler's lives we got see play out.

MD: This was exactly what I wanted it to be and hugely refreshing to watch. Rojo Vivo launched the ambush right at the start and controlled the primera with a very solid beatdown. Very little pomp or bs. Aguila's comeback spot in the segunda was actually worked for more than you'd usually see in these. It wasn't a bolt of lightning but instead an errant, desperate backhand followed up by more desperate swipes and revenge-driven offense that really embraced selling the damage already done. At the same time, Aguila threw himself into it, making even armdrags feel like punishing revenge spots. The tercera was exciting, full of nearfalls that had me for a moment. Rojo Vivo turned the tide with a low blow on the outside and Aguila used that to express vulnerability and peril off and on in the stretch. He didn't have the world's best execution but it really didn't matter here because everything was believable and he kept the crowd connected.

Akira Taue/Jumbo Tsuruta/Masanobu Fuchi vs. Mitsuhara Misawa/Toshiaki Kawada/Tsuyoshi Kikuchi AJPW 3/29/92

MD: Great lost six man here. You look for the big things and the little ones with these. For big ones, you get the relative novelty of Kawada and Misawa working together, Kawada going at it with Taue, the huge feel of of Jumbo vs Misawa, and after spending a good chunk of the match avoding everyone and getting little shots in, the sheer inevitability of Jumbo crushing Kikuchi starting a really enjoyable peril segment for him where Fuchi demolishes him (including an amazing neckbreaker hold over the top rope) and Taue lawn darts him into the turnbuckle. The little stuff would be the specifics, like Misawa doing his headstand flip and going for a tag early on, only to realize he'd lost his ring positioning and was in the wrong corner, or Fuchi playing his usual bulldog self from the apron and rushing in to go straight for Kawada's eye to break a hold, that sort of thing. I thought the finishing stretch went on a bit too long, maybe, but that's a me thing. Otherwise, this was really good stuff with a pretty legendary four minute beatdown on Kikuchi that everyone should see.

PAS: Pissed off at the kids Jumbo is my all time favorite Jumbo. He seems to take such glee in brutalizing Kikuchi and man does he kill him here. Kikuchi taking these beatings multiple times a week really shortened his career, but he was one of the best ever at spunkily taking a pasting. Fuchi was a real fucker in this match too, he comes in and tries to rip Kawada's eye out, and enziguiris him right in the kidneys. Kawada was a great supporting player in this match, he was a level below then his opponents at this point, and it was fun to see the ultimate asskicker coming off the back foot instead of firing forward.  This was a Kikuchi show, bravely dying on his shield, and the barbarians who slaughtered him. 

ER: I love these six mans, and it's so incredible to see them working their charismatic, easy to follow formula at every house show. A special thing about this nearly 30 minute handheld, is that we have a genuine wrestling handheld maestro behind the camera. Our footage  shakes wildly for the first 30 seconds, and by the time the match starts the guy is doing perfect framing zooms, keeping all the action perfectly squared up the entire LONG match. When the match would break down and everyone would pair off, he'd manage to jump between all three pairs without missing action. This guy did some shots that made it seem like he knew exactly what moves were going to be happening, just an awesome familiarity with these guys. I honestly don't think I've ever seen a handheld match keep the action this well. I have to imagine he was part of some kind of community, the way Grateful Dead fans know the names of certain prominent tapers who got the best sound mix. I want to see his other work. 

The match was an awesome heel performance from grumpy Jumbo and his goons, Masa Fuchi and Akira Taue. This is the era of Jumbo I love, such a magnetic superstar in that ring. The handheld really gets you in with the crowd, and every time Jumbo showed off just why he still had reasonable claim to being the top dog, the crowd OOOOOOHHH'd along with him every time he pumped his fist. The whole match really picks up when Jumbo's team gets Kikuchi away from the pack and really lay in the kind of beating that Kikuchi took in 1992. Kikuchi is one of the toughest lunatics in wrestling history, and most prisoners don't see the kind of abuse this guy took in the early 90s. Taue lawn darts him face first into the turnbuckles, Fuchi hung him out to dry on the ropes, and Jumbo confidently injured him with a stiff Boston crab while keeping him away from his corner. We get the great fakeouts where Kikuchi is held back from making the tag, and all of it works really well. 

You really get to see how far Misawa came when you see him here versus him as the absolute top guy. Jumbo still comes off like the main hoss in All Japan here, and Misawa doesn't have quite the impact for me he would just a couple years later. Jumbo was practically out of wrestling just a few months after this match. Misawa is such a boss within two years, but here he still looked like a guy who wasn't quite able to move Jumbo around the way he wanted. Fuchi is so good as the second in command ass kicker, behind Jumbo. He never uses Jumbo to hide behind, but you can sense he feels emboldened having Jumbo there. He really rips at Kawada, and you always get a sense of glee when you know he's standing across from Kikuchi, like Kikuchi is his violence muse. But really this left me feeling like the perfect kind of match to soak in the 1992 brilliance of nearly/suddenly retired Jumbo and what might have been in the 90s, with more from a great year of underdog babyface work from Kikuchi. A great find, and a more complete look at one of the most fruitful rosters in wrestling history. 

Read more!