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Post by elliott on Dec 5, 2019 7:54:15 GMT -5
Two of the best wrestlers young wrestlers of the 70s became two of the best wrestlers ever in the 80s. Who ya got?
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Post by elliott on Dec 14, 2019 4:18:48 GMT -5
Cap's Categories:
Top Matches - I would give this to Flair with the caveat that Fujinami is in at least a couple of matches better than my pick for Flair's best. The problem is outside of the classic against Maeda, Fujinami's absolute best matches are almost all 10 man tags or gauntlet matches. Whereas Flair just has this enormously high concentration of all time great singles matches. Other than the Maeda match, the best Fujinami singles matches against folks like Inoki, Kimura, Dynamite, Choshu and Hashimoto are the next tier down compared to Flair's best.
Versatility - Fujinami is probably the most versatile wrestler ever. Setting aside the "Flair Formula" and everything that comes along with that, Fujnami really ticks every box. Junior Ace, Heavyweight on the Rise, Ace, Aging Veteran. Singles, tags, multi mans. Long mat based grapping matches. Short athletic sprints. Crazy brawling juice fests. Fujinami excelled in all of these roles against a ton of opponents.
Consistency - I'm calling this a draw. These guys were two of the most reliably awesome wrestlers in the world for 15ish years and consistently good for years after the fact with occasional spurts of greatness.
Charisma/"It" Factor"- There probably aren't 10 people in wrestling history you'd put before Flair. Fujinami wasn't one of them.
Promos - I don't speak Japanese, but come on.
Elevating Others - Flair simply because he was the Ace such a long period of time. In terms of making their partners/opponents look great in the ring, its really a wash. But Flair was the top of the mountain.
Offense - Fujinami. Flair at his offensive peak in the early 80s was awesome. He dropped basically all of his offense over time. But early 80s stuff you'd get multiple suplex variations, the shitty Flair piledriver (good he dropped that one), more varied leg work setting up the figure 4, I saw him throw a goddamn headbutt in a Portland match. So I think we kinda forget that Flair was a really good offensive wrestler at one point in time. Unfortunately for Flair in this category, Fujinami was probably the most complete offensive (male) wrestler in the entire world until the next generation of guys like Liger, Hase, & the AJPW Pillars became featured players. Really only Jumbo could compete with Fujinami offensively.
Selling - This is actually another really tough one. Again a category where they were two of the best in the world during their era. I would call this a draw too.
Rewatch Valley – Fujinami takes this simply because there’s more variety. If I look at a match list of and a Fujinami match is up next I’m not sure what I’m going to get. With Flair you know what you’re getting. Flair’s hurt by over exposure though.
Bonus Elliott's Question (Brody vs Nigel or best work associated with a crappy wrestler) – I’d have to think to come up with someone for Fujinami. I know some people would be like “Inoki, duh” but I’ve grown to really like Inoki. It took me like 20 years of watching him, but it finally clicked in like year 19. With Flair though, you have an abundance of choices. I’ll just point out that Ric Flair had legitimately great 20+ minute long singles matches against Road Warrior Hawk and who the fuck else ever did that? (And I say that as an enormous fan of the Road Warriors).
Flair - 4
Fujinami - 3
Draw - 2
I didn’t count promos because come on.
That seems about right. I ranked them side by side during GWE and would probably do it again were we to make a list.
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