Yoji Anjo vs Masakatsu Funaki (UWF Newborn - 6/14/1989)

I've never seen this match before (at least not to my recollection), and I was very surprised by how good this was. This was an excellent and spirited match between two young and hungry wrestlers at the time, and Funaki got the best out of Anjo here. Anjo was a great worker when he wanted to be, and really stepped up his game for Funaki. You had some good striking exchanges which got the crowd invested, and the grappling had a lot of commitment and purpose behind it. You got some interesting flavor as well as both wrestlers go into their bag of tricks. Things never got too complicated and they stuck to the basics while having a logical and compelling match. The 19+ minutes flew by, and it's understandable why Funaki was seen as the next big thing during this period in his career. ****1/2