Hakata Star Lanes, Fukuoka
24th July, 1989
att. 4000
Clutching a dozen or so random bootleg selections purchased from the wrestling VHS shop in the Colliseum on Church St. in Manchester (now: Light Aparthotel), I opted to watch the one that I hadn't heard anything about. It was this show that I am about to review the first hour of - I know it exists in full because on that rainy day at the turn of the century I sat through the whole thing, rapt.
 |
| Proust watching Ronda Rousey armbar people |
Seeing Fighting Square Hakata in approximately 2001 wouldn't change my life and seeing it now doesn't have some kind of Proustian effect, but it did offer a taste of something I've subtly hoped for in wrestling ever since: not shoot-style as such but a glimpse of the real, unmediated as possible, slicing through the artifice.
It's a reason that underpins many of my top ten favourite matches of all time, a list I hastily constructed one afternoon while chatting online, despite their stylistic disparities. Mick Foley's bump off the cell cuts through that world WWE bullshit more than any number of CZW self-atrocities. The relationship between Bret and Owen Hart cannot be faked, nor can the meeting-of-worlds between Kiyoshi Tamura and Tsuyoshi Kohsaka in RINGS or even Hiroshi Tanahashi and Minoru Suzuki in New Japan.
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| A sacred text |
But the artifice needs to be there, to give something to slice through, as well as offering an illusion of framework and order and control over direction: this is why despite the excellent scholarship performed by KS on TK Scissors (he is now delving into PRIDE and Quintet with signature flair), I retain favour with UWF over RINGS and its parallel shoot-stylists in UWF-i, PWFG, Kingdom, and BattlARTS (though I love and respect all).
A note: I previously wrote a 2000 word essay on one of these matches. I will be cherry-picking the less florid parts (it was very florid) and adding little bits here and there, in case you're thinking you might have read some of this before.
Last time we were in Fukuoka was ten months ago. Akira Maeda blasted Kazuo Yamazaki into space with kicks, Nobuhiko Takada played along with Norman Smiley for six minutes before ending him, and Tatsuo Nakano genuinely ended the UWF career of trainee Tsunehito Naito in 2 minutes of pure violence. It clearly worked a treat as the house is sold out and thirsty as hell for more.
A great opening for those who have purchased the home VHS version: black & white footage of an escalator, spotting someone famous comes up into view and...mock paparrazzi noises to pap UWF mid-card superstar Yoji Anjo looking like he's mislaid his hotel keys.
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| OH YOU DIDN'T ANJO? YOUR ASS BETTER CALL A PORTER |
Akira Maeda puffs his cheeks as the camera sees him saunter by. Fukuoka is a summer destination in the south and there's only one look that can be pulled off, and here is Yoshiaki Fujiwara with your seasonal lookbook.
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| MURDERDAD VII: REMURDERED |
There are a dozen great shots in this comic intro and another dozen in the montage that advertises our top two matches for this evening - sadly, I do not think we will see either of them in this blog, so I will skip this part for now.
The traditional fighter parade occurs and it is clear to me at this time that this crowd is insane with joy. The sound is at the point of peaking nearly throughout, but it isn't bad sound. The audience are incredibly loud and vocal all evening and it should be stated here that this plays into the feverish rising violence that occurs throughout. This audience are jackals, they love the scent of blood, but they're also ripe for a fun parade of ten wrestlers. Yoji Anjo, Hero Of Nagoya, gives an oration so rapturously met that he could have just read from a menu and got a positive hand. I love it.
Even Kiyoshi Tamura (here 1 fight into his career) and another unidentified wrestler's rules demonstration is met with the appreciative uhhhhhhhhhh sound.
The fighting properly starts with Minoru Suzuki taking on Mark Rush, in his 4th visit to UWF (W/L: 1-2). At the outset I feel it is important to remark that this match is a 30 minute draw and that it is not super well-regarded by most. It isn't the opinion of others that is terribly important here and more the fact that throughout this only intermittently-entertaining match the crowd are glued and vocal.
Things begin with a slick, if slightly-loose, series of grapples exchanged. The crowd treat everything with reverence, as if one of these gentle side-locks could result in devastation. Suzuki hoiks Rush over in a very crisp German suplex before we're even 3 minutes deep and everything is really pleasant and quite good here.
For the next 27 minutes the pattern remains much the same, only with slightly diminishing returns and massive accumulations of sweat. At ten minutes there is a standing tentative grip fight as if in the opening moments of a match, while at fifteen the space between grapples is punctured by Mark Rush's slow enziguri. Near the 20 minute mark, Suzuki scores the first down by piledriving Rush.
In the final ten minutes the grapples start to feel a little more manic and meaningful, with rope breaks saving one or the other from certain death. But the draw feels inevitable from the outset, as I remark here in 2019 as I did in 2001 when I first saw this tape. There are some cool bits, like when Rush attempts to stomp a mudhole in Suzuki only to have his leg caught and transposed into a heel hook. Fans of casual and skilled grappling would surely enjoy this while fans of pro wrestling in the classic sense would find this anathema.
After a brief video introduction we see our next two combatants in the ring, psyching themselves up. As the referee reads the riot act at arms length, Masakatsu Funaki extends his palm in a professional and comradely courtesy. Tatsuo Nakano, inches shorter, doughier, less handsome, refutes the palm with a hard kick. The Fukuoka crowd explodes, at once disturbed and delighted by the crushing of convention.
Nakano, replete with both mullet and pompadour, sets about his man in an ungainly fashion, exchanging forceful open-handed slaps before changing tack and shooting for one of his opponent's legs. Standing his ground, Funaki adroitly raises his knee to meet the barrelling Nakano square in the head, arrowing between his windmilling arms. For the opening 30 seconds or more, both men are locked in a struggle.
These mentions of the physical appearance and stylistic approach of Tatsuo Nakano are not designed to diminish. The contrasts between Nakano and Funaki are immediately recognised by the 4000 people crowded into the Hakata Star Lanes bowling alley. Masakatsu Funaki is handsome, princely, tall, chiselled, without a clear hole in his all-around fighting game. All conceivable aces have been dealt into Funaki's hands at birth and added to in life. He is a company man. Fighter Josh Barnett would later, piling on the praise of his fighting prowess, describe Funaki as 'the symbol of Japan.'
Nakano takes the leg but has a problem developing anything like a workable position. Funaki scissors him and neutralises the fight on the ground, carefully working to his back whilst keeping Nakano's head squished tight between his thighs. Realising that pretence of Plan B is silly, Nakano pretends to get caught in the finicky business of gaining grip as he works to his feet before letting go entirely and slapping the prone Funaki in the face three times.
The crowd roar NA-KA-NO in delight (as they do continuously) at this development. As strikes go it is merely a fine line in a rap battle or the overwhelming of a lowly-paid counter assistant at the DVLA / DMV. Nonetheless, it signifies shots fired and a hope for a knockout blow.
Working back to his feet, Funaki remains under torrential assault. Nakano lurches for a front facelock and quickly raises a knee to the chest to open Funaki up, gliding quickly into a double-underhook position. The Man, being The Man for a reason, has defences stout enough to resist an initial charge. It is too early for the suplex Nakano attempts. Funaki resists and, as Nakano falls backward to perform the sacrificial element of a suplex, lands atop in the perfect position to clean the belligerent underdog's clock. Panic stations.
An overhand slap crushes the stricken Nakano. Funaki takes to the vertical to kick and stamp the life out of Nakano. Funaki pauses, perhaps mistaking the cheers for his opponent as a plea for mercy, allowing Nakano to catch a kick and attempt an impudent dragon screw. It fails and Funaki's regal disposition drops. Nakano's head becomes both volleyball and football, struck vigorously with hand and foot.
Nakano lands his blows throughout, favouring intense slaps and cocky takedowns, but he cannot land a lasting psychic wound upon Funaki. Meanwhile, less than three minutes into the contest, Nakano is bloodied from the nose and technically exposed from his efforts. The doctor, in this context a mere ombudsman of health, is called in to fix the superficial damage. A vigorous fistpump to the crowd after treatment shows that the champion of the people is still ready to fight.
Funaki's follow-through never emerges and Nakano breaks the hold with a humdinger of a slap and leaps to his feet to add a couple more and a vicious, coruscating kick to the face. Funaki seeks the upright but staggers and topples over, taking a mandatory count (UWF rules reminder: knockouts and submissions only, no pinfalls).
Nakano swarms after Funaki as soon as he gets up, slapping his opponent hard and going after that double-underhook suplex anew. He lands it, securing a picture perfect kesa getame (side control headlock), putting Funaki deep in trouble. But really, anger, perhaps misplaced anger is all that fuels Nakano. His ground game is shoddy, allowing Funaki not just the chance to get up, but to return fire. Once again, Nakano attempts a desperation dragon screw that is rebuffed even more violently than the first, as Funaki stands directly on his head mid-technique.
Fans of Kazushi Sakuraba's most suicidal victories (such as his final victory against Zelg Galešić at DREAM 12) will find much to adore in Nakano's adhesiveness in the next section. Nakano is a barnacle to Funaki's left leg in spite of a barrage of strikes from all remaining limbs and points of articulation. He only lets go under the duress of Funaki's rear naked choke and face rakes that spread the blood around his face like jam on a slice of toast.
Back to feet and another moment that highlights disparity. Funaki attempts a back suplex but Nakano slams on the breaks, sagging like a year-old bag of cement. Funaki rolls around, hits a physics-defying wheel kick to the back of Nakano's head, and then re-attempts the back suplex successfully. These are not the careful neck-bridging suplexes of weeks in the training school either, rather they're low-angled and designed to rattle the bones of the recipient as they skid across the canvas. Funaki is dangerously in control now as Nakano takes a brief count.
Visibly sapped of energy, Nakano puts up his dukes only to expose his lower half to an easy take-down that is comfortably progressed into a vicious single leg crab. We see behind the machinery at Funaki's contorted pain, eager to end the contest, eager to suppress the hostility mounting against him, to stamp out Nakano's life force. The crowd never give up voicing their approval, even though their emblem is bleeding profusely and unaware of which town he is in. Nakano makes the ropes for momentary relief and the referee motions to the doctor, who looks like OJ Simpson trial judge Lance Ito, to tend to the pulped Nakano.
Nakano remonstrates with the doctor, referee, and a wrestler who joins them in the ring, demonstrating his ability to continue despite a glaze about the eyes. Sensing the kill, Funaki steps forward and straight into Nakano's trap. A pair of high kicks floor Funaki. We are dreaming. We have wrested control from the state. We have beaten the company that mistreated us. A revolution is in the offing. The Man is face down and taking a count and The People are rapt.
The dream continues. On Funaki getting up, Nakano steals a leaf from his opponent's playbook, attacking the moment both soles touch the floor. This attack causes the referee to step in as Nakano smirks, whilst Funaki staggers backwards, contemplating defeat. Nakano goes wild with knees, slaps both impertinent and focused, another grim suplex atop Funaki's head, before destroying all known repression with a pair of gruesome kicks that see Funaki take a third count. Blood streams from Nakano's face and it tastes of the dawn.
But this daylight never breaks. After absorbing a stiff German suplex, Funaki powers up, seemingly from nowhere. A cold wind blows. Funaki simply lifts Nakano high above his head and drops him onto his back. In swift and expert fashion, Funaki rolls Nakano over for a Texas Cloverleaf. It is late and the temperature drops rapidly.
Cinched in a tight arc, Nakano, despite the ascendancy, despite the will of the people, despite the aesthetic, cannot escape the fate designated for him and indeed is proved a fool for ever deigning to try. Funaki wins. The promise of the slap that curtailed pleasantries at the outset, threatening delivery into a different era, never materialises.
TL;DR - super match, *****.
extra note: this match is ranked 3rd on UWF's top ten matches as of the end of 1989. the match in 2nd place is later on this show. I am thankful that it isn't here otherwise my fingers would fall off.
Nobuhiko Takada and Shigeo Miyato are in the third match, but it is only a couple of minutes old, with Takada in expected control, when the tape shuts off. We shall save it for another day.
-----------
UPDATE: 16/04/2019
I demand an award for services to obscure blogs, having dropped a not-trivial amount of money to procure six UWF events. Five are from 1990 and will be dripped out on here over the next few months, but I also splashed just to see the final hour of this one.
The first two matches in this second hour are remarkably similar. Both feature a headline act big guy (the aforementioned Takada and Akira Maeda) taking on a middleweight mid-carder (Miyato and Yoji Anjo). Both matches are laid out in similar ways, with the expected winner dominating large stretches and their opponents having some fiery comebacks that the house screams approvingly at. It has been a strong point of this particular show - everyone gets over tonight, win or lose.
Takada's match with Miyato is mostly strikes, while Maeda does some rough-house groundwork before firing up the suplex machine, but both go 10 minutes and are really solid exponents of the general UWF house style and hierarchy. Here are some pictures of both matches.
Tonight's main event rated #2 on the official UWF Best Matches (up to the end of 1989), one ahead of the barnstormer between Funaki and Nakano that took place earlier on this evening. The personnel offers suggestion of a mouthwatering classic too: versatile nearlyman Kazuo Yamazaki takes on the smiling waza-psychopath Yoshiaki Fujiwara.
Both gentlemen are rapturously received at the introduction; you can barely slide a metaphorical cigarette paper between their adulation.
The match is pretty good too, but it isn't as great as UWF would have you believe. It's not just because the crowd are very quiet during this match for long stretches - they're super attentive and they explode appropriately. It's a slow burn with a few stretches of flinty leg-locking and submission reversals off the back of three furious 9-10 minuters, pitting two premier league guys of pro-wrestling-as-real-feeling against each other.
But it becomes, quite explicitly, a Fujiwara match that Yamazaki is in. Yamazaki backs Fujiwara into a corner multiple times, despite this being more-or-less a Fujiwara "spot" - get backed up, lighting counter and - BAM! - Uncle Murdergrip is wringing the shit out of you once again.
Segunda Caida had a really interesting write-up of this match, and I'd like to quote twice from it:
But, the rub for this match: I like Yamazaki a lot and yet here he is just there because Yamazaki is high-ranked and therefore it is a good win for Fujiwara. It could have been anyone with the basic skills. Fujiwara plays heel, not taking Yamazaki seriously, and rather than it rising sympathy for Yamazaki it just serves to make him seem a little more anonymous.
What is also interesting to me is this paradox outlined here:
Anyway, it's a really good match, but I think both have had better in these walls.
NEXT: UWF enters 1990.
Things begin with a slick, if slightly-loose, series of grapples exchanged. The crowd treat everything with reverence, as if one of these gentle side-locks could result in devastation. Suzuki hoiks Rush over in a very crisp German suplex before we're even 3 minutes deep and everything is really pleasant and quite good here.
 |
| I loved you in Old Joy |
For the next 27 minutes the pattern remains much the same, only with slightly diminishing returns and massive accumulations of sweat. At ten minutes there is a standing tentative grip fight as if in the opening moments of a match, while at fifteen the space between grapples is punctured by Mark Rush's slow enziguri. Near the 20 minute mark, Suzuki scores the first down by piledriving Rush.
In the final ten minutes the grapples start to feel a little more manic and meaningful, with rope breaks saving one or the other from certain death. But the draw feels inevitable from the outset, as I remark here in 2019 as I did in 2001 when I first saw this tape. There are some cool bits, like when Rush attempts to stomp a mudhole in Suzuki only to have his leg caught and transposed into a heel hook. Fans of casual and skilled grappling would surely enjoy this while fans of pro wrestling in the classic sense would find this anathema.
After a brief video introduction we see our next two combatants in the ring, psyching themselves up. As the referee reads the riot act at arms length, Masakatsu Funaki extends his palm in a professional and comradely courtesy. Tatsuo Nakano, inches shorter, doughier, less handsome, refutes the palm with a hard kick. The Fukuoka crowd explodes, at once disturbed and delighted by the crushing of convention.
 |
| in a way, Nakano IS a fighting square |
Nakano, replete with both mullet and pompadour, sets about his man in an ungainly fashion, exchanging forceful open-handed slaps before changing tack and shooting for one of his opponent's legs. Standing his ground, Funaki adroitly raises his knee to meet the barrelling Nakano square in the head, arrowing between his windmilling arms. For the opening 30 seconds or more, both men are locked in a struggle.
 |
| the first... |
 |
| ...three... |
 |
| ...seconds. |
These mentions of the physical appearance and stylistic approach of Tatsuo Nakano are not designed to diminish. The contrasts between Nakano and Funaki are immediately recognised by the 4000 people crowded into the Hakata Star Lanes bowling alley. Masakatsu Funaki is handsome, princely, tall, chiselled, without a clear hole in his all-around fighting game. All conceivable aces have been dealt into Funaki's hands at birth and added to in life. He is a company man. Fighter Josh Barnett would later, piling on the praise of his fighting prowess, describe Funaki as 'the symbol of Japan.'
 |
| "the symbol of Japan" |
Nakano takes the leg but has a problem developing anything like a workable position. Funaki scissors him and neutralises the fight on the ground, carefully working to his back whilst keeping Nakano's head squished tight between his thighs. Realising that pretence of Plan B is silly, Nakano pretends to get caught in the finicky business of gaining grip as he works to his feet before letting go entirely and slapping the prone Funaki in the face three times.
The crowd roar NA-KA-NO in delight (as they do continuously) at this development. As strikes go it is merely a fine line in a rap battle or the overwhelming of a lowly-paid counter assistant at the DVLA / DMV. Nonetheless, it signifies shots fired and a hope for a knockout blow.
Working back to his feet, Funaki remains under torrential assault. Nakano lurches for a front facelock and quickly raises a knee to the chest to open Funaki up, gliding quickly into a double-underhook position. The Man, being The Man for a reason, has defences stout enough to resist an initial charge. It is too early for the suplex Nakano attempts. Funaki resists and, as Nakano falls backward to perform the sacrificial element of a suplex, lands atop in the perfect position to clean the belligerent underdog's clock. Panic stations.
 |
| Beefcake in repose |
An overhand slap crushes the stricken Nakano. Funaki takes to the vertical to kick and stamp the life out of Nakano. Funaki pauses, perhaps mistaking the cheers for his opponent as a plea for mercy, allowing Nakano to catch a kick and attempt an impudent dragon screw. It fails and Funaki's regal disposition drops. Nakano's head becomes both volleyball and football, struck vigorously with hand and foot.
Nakano lands his blows throughout, favouring intense slaps and cocky takedowns, but he cannot land a lasting psychic wound upon Funaki. Meanwhile, less than three minutes into the contest, Nakano is bloodied from the nose and technically exposed from his efforts. The doctor, in this context a mere ombudsman of health, is called in to fix the superficial damage. A vigorous fistpump to the crowd after treatment shows that the champion of the people is still ready to fight.
Funaki's follow-through never emerges and Nakano breaks the hold with a humdinger of a slap and leaps to his feet to add a couple more and a vicious, coruscating kick to the face. Funaki seeks the upright but staggers and topples over, taking a mandatory count (UWF rules reminder: knockouts and submissions only, no pinfalls).
Nakano swarms after Funaki as soon as he gets up, slapping his opponent hard and going after that double-underhook suplex anew. He lands it, securing a picture perfect kesa getame (side control headlock), putting Funaki deep in trouble. But really, anger, perhaps misplaced anger is all that fuels Nakano. His ground game is shoddy, allowing Funaki not just the chance to get up, but to return fire. Once again, Nakano attempts a desperation dragon screw that is rebuffed even more violently than the first, as Funaki stands directly on his head mid-technique.
Fans of Kazushi Sakuraba's most suicidal victories (such as his final victory against Zelg Galešić at DREAM 12) will find much to adore in Nakano's adhesiveness in the next section. Nakano is a barnacle to Funaki's left leg in spite of a barrage of strikes from all remaining limbs and points of articulation. He only lets go under the duress of Funaki's rear naked choke and face rakes that spread the blood around his face like jam on a slice of toast.
Back to feet and another moment that highlights disparity. Funaki attempts a back suplex but Nakano slams on the breaks, sagging like a year-old bag of cement. Funaki rolls around, hits a physics-defying wheel kick to the back of Nakano's head, and then re-attempts the back suplex successfully. These are not the careful neck-bridging suplexes of weeks in the training school either, rather they're low-angled and designed to rattle the bones of the recipient as they skid across the canvas. Funaki is dangerously in control now as Nakano takes a brief count.
Visibly sapped of energy, Nakano puts up his dukes only to expose his lower half to an easy take-down that is comfortably progressed into a vicious single leg crab. We see behind the machinery at Funaki's contorted pain, eager to end the contest, eager to suppress the hostility mounting against him, to stamp out Nakano's life force. The crowd never give up voicing their approval, even though their emblem is bleeding profusely and unaware of which town he is in. Nakano makes the ropes for momentary relief and the referee motions to the doctor, who looks like OJ Simpson trial judge Lance Ito, to tend to the pulped Nakano.
Nakano remonstrates with the doctor, referee, and a wrestler who joins them in the ring, demonstrating his ability to continue despite a glaze about the eyes. Sensing the kill, Funaki steps forward and straight into Nakano's trap. A pair of high kicks floor Funaki. We are dreaming. We have wrested control from the state. We have beaten the company that mistreated us. A revolution is in the offing. The Man is face down and taking a count and The People are rapt.
The dream continues. On Funaki getting up, Nakano steals a leaf from his opponent's playbook, attacking the moment both soles touch the floor. This attack causes the referee to step in as Nakano smirks, whilst Funaki staggers backwards, contemplating defeat. Nakano goes wild with knees, slaps both impertinent and focused, another grim suplex atop Funaki's head, before destroying all known repression with a pair of gruesome kicks that see Funaki take a third count. Blood streams from Nakano's face and it tastes of the dawn.
But this daylight never breaks. After absorbing a stiff German suplex, Funaki powers up, seemingly from nowhere. A cold wind blows. Funaki simply lifts Nakano high above his head and drops him onto his back. In swift and expert fashion, Funaki rolls Nakano over for a Texas Cloverleaf. It is late and the temperature drops rapidly.
Cinched in a tight arc, Nakano, despite the ascendancy, despite the will of the people, despite the aesthetic, cannot escape the fate designated for him and indeed is proved a fool for ever deigning to try. Funaki wins. The promise of the slap that curtailed pleasantries at the outset, threatening delivery into a different era, never materialises.
TL;DR - super match, *****.
extra note: this match is ranked 3rd on UWF's top ten matches as of the end of 1989. the match in 2nd place is later on this show. I am thankful that it isn't here otherwise my fingers would fall off.
 |
| k i l l s c r e e n |
Nobuhiko Takada and Shigeo Miyato are in the third match, but it is only a couple of minutes old, with Takada in expected control, when the tape shuts off. We shall save it for another day.
-----------
UPDATE: 16/04/2019
I demand an award for services to obscure blogs, having dropped a not-trivial amount of money to procure six UWF events. Five are from 1990 and will be dripped out on here over the next few months, but I also splashed just to see the final hour of this one.
The first two matches in this second hour are remarkably similar. Both feature a headline act big guy (the aforementioned Takada and Akira Maeda) taking on a middleweight mid-carder (Miyato and Yoji Anjo). Both matches are laid out in similar ways, with the expected winner dominating large stretches and their opponents having some fiery comebacks that the house screams approvingly at. It has been a strong point of this particular show - everyone gets over tonight, win or lose.
Takada's match with Miyato is mostly strikes, while Maeda does some rough-house groundwork before firing up the suplex machine, but both go 10 minutes and are really solid exponents of the general UWF house style and hierarchy. Here are some pictures of both matches.
Tonight's main event rated #2 on the official UWF Best Matches (up to the end of 1989), one ahead of the barnstormer between Funaki and Nakano that took place earlier on this evening. The personnel offers suggestion of a mouthwatering classic too: versatile nearlyman Kazuo Yamazaki takes on the smiling waza-psychopath Yoshiaki Fujiwara.
Both gentlemen are rapturously received at the introduction; you can barely slide a metaphorical cigarette paper between their adulation.
 |
| MURDERDAD VIII: YOU DO YOUR MURDER FOR NOTHING GET YOUR CHICKS FOR FREE |
The match is pretty good too, but it isn't as great as UWF would have you believe. It's not just because the crowd are very quiet during this match for long stretches - they're super attentive and they explode appropriately. It's a slow burn with a few stretches of flinty leg-locking and submission reversals off the back of three furious 9-10 minuters, pitting two premier league guys of pro-wrestling-as-real-feeling against each other.
But it becomes, quite explicitly, a Fujiwara match that Yamazaki is in. Yamazaki backs Fujiwara into a corner multiple times, despite this being more-or-less a Fujiwara "spot" - get backed up, lighting counter and - BAM! - Uncle Murdergrip is wringing the shit out of you once again.
Segunda Caida had a really interesting write-up of this match, and I'd like to quote twice from it:
This was my number one match in the Other Japan Best of the 90's voting, and truly a beautiful piece of professional wrestling. It is paced differently then any of the other matches in the Top 15, and I am guessing the odd pacing may have been a reason it finished low on some peoples ballots. Fujiwara, especially in the late 80's and 90's does this really stop-start almost Fugazish pacing, where you have big exchanges or moves, and then lulls, where both guys would circle or feint, before the next attack. I really like this kind of pacing, it is the kind of thing you often see in shootfights or boxing matches, really brings drama to the moments of action.The analysis of Fujiwara here is true: his matches are like this, and as I have mentioned before - it is when Fujiwara and his guys turn up in UWF that there is a real quantum leap in the art of shoot-style wrestling. Not in the star power necessarily, but in just incorporating fundamentals and strategy into pro-wrestling.
But, the rub for this match: I like Yamazaki a lot and yet here he is just there because Yamazaki is high-ranked and therefore it is a good win for Fujiwara. It could have been anyone with the basic skills. Fujiwara plays heel, not taking Yamazaki seriously, and rather than it rising sympathy for Yamazaki it just serves to make him seem a little more anonymous.
What is also interesting to me is this paradox outlined here:
So we are at 28 minutes and Yamazaki unloads with nasty headbut right to Fujiwara's mouth. Now this is a clearly a receipt for the headbutts earlier in the show. Fujiwara comes up with blood dripping from his mouth, and this look on his face "So were throwing headbutts now, Motherfucker," and he just unloads with three nasty headbutts including one right to the eye for the TKO at 29 minutes 30 seconds. Yamazaki was technically fine here, but this was the Fujiwara show. Just an artist at telling a story with smirks and eye rolls and sneers. Every action had a reaction, great great stuff.This is all true. Especially it being 'the Fujiwara show'. Fujiwara, this guy who heightened the believability of shoot-style, is a pro-wrestling guy at heart. His face moves a mile a minute compared to Yamazaki's ever-stoic militarism.
Anyway, it's a really good match, but I think both have had better in these walls.
NEXT: UWF enters 1990.
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