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Post by jetlag on Mar 15, 2018 3:04:58 GMT -5
tl;dr 70s style grappling epic with a strong story in front of a molten crowd. Actually like this better than many actual 70s matches, including Robinson/Inoki.
This was a pure 70s grappling epic with an absolutely molten last 10 minutes or so. The grappling here wasn't intricate or anything, but they worked an ultra tight contest and did a good job bringing the intensity up and down. Most importantly, the match never felt slow or dry, so I'll take this over your Dory Funk Jr snoozefest. Inoki is very dominant early on, running through his holds including a great briding indian deathlock, but then Fujinami slaps him like a bitch and finally starts bringing the fight. I especially liked the sequence where Inoki teases the Butterfly Suplex and goes for a fireman carry. He didn't even hit that butterfly suplex later! Inoki's defensiveness ends up backfiring on him and Fujinami puts him in a Figure 4. The Figure 4 segment eats up a good chunk of thise 35 minuteish match so better have a good book ready. I didn't have a problem with it though because the payoff was strong and Inoki's selling was right on the money. Seeing Fujinami pushing the mythical Inoki to the limit was spectacular and the crowd was surface of the sun level hot for the possible dethroning. The finish was inevitable but atleast we get a massive pop for Fujinami powering out of the Octopus Hold. This went over half an hour with barely a bump in it but it was still totally spectacular pro wrestling.
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Post by mrjmml on Jul 25, 2023 11:02:24 GMT -5
This match is the first of two matches between the two wrestlers, the other one being the famous 8/8/88 60 minute time limit draw, the last time Antonio Inoki challenged for the IWGP Heavyweight Title, this one is worse than that match unfortunately, it’s awesome still but there’s a few moments during the match that dragged it to this spectrum of great matches with potential to be masterpieces but alas they weren’t, the crowd isn’t as involved as they were in the gauntlet match, their intensity wasn’t even close, in the gauntlet match they cheered regardless of who was in the ring and they went nuts when Antonio Inoki and Riki Choshu faced each other, nobody is chanting it felt like they don’t care about who wins and who loses, that’s understandable considering how New Japan was booked in the 1980’s but I don’t think that the average fan at the time had any idea about how booking worked, don’t tell me they didn’t chant because the japanese crowds are silent and respectful because if that’s true there’s no way to explain their chants and involvement in the gauntlet match and don’t tell me it was a fluke because then you can’t explain why they were cheering so much in the legendary match between Stan Hansen and Andre the Giant, to be fair those two matches had something in common they were way better than this one, it wasn’t all bad, Tatsumi Fujinami looked very good and Antonio Inoki actually sold his offense very well, he was suprisingly generous by his standards (they are very low), Fujinami’s great performance wasn’t rewarded with a win, Antonio had an amazing comeback (even though the crowd didn’t care) and was able to submit Fujinami with his octopus hold.
I’d recommend this match to every fan of NJPW in the 80’s, I think it represents well the best and worst parts of this company.
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Post by cfos on Oct 4, 2023 16:22:28 GMT -5
Third. Not as good as the 1988 match but it's close, which says a lot about how good it was. Amazing match
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