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Post by elliott on Dec 7, 2017 3:43:09 GMT -5
Akira Maeda vs Tatsumi Fujinami (NJPW - 6/12/1986)
One of the greatest matches of the 80s. This was the height of the NJPW vs UWF feud and had an amazing crowd with two all time greats at their absolute peak. This is Maeda UWF Destroyer of Worlds kicking, suplexing and twisting the fuck out of Fujinami who fights back with traditional pro wrestling. This is soooooo great and will absolutely have a place on my list.
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Post by microstatistics on Jan 6, 2018 5:33:13 GMT -5
UWF top dog delivers a monstrous beating to New Japan's hero, who will not stay down no matter what. Maeda is good as the destroyer but Fujinami's epic selling performance makes this a classic. Top 30.
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Post by exposer on Jan 12, 2018 13:24:27 GMT -5
Thirded. Maeda tortures Fujinami & we end up getting one of the more epic finishes in wrestling history. This is definitely making my list.
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Post by superstarsleeze on Oct 29, 2018 20:33:06 GMT -5
Yes, this is a great asskicking match where Maeda pretty much literally kicks Fujinami's ass once Fujinami's leg is injured. He is just going high to low at will. In my mind what makes this match so great is Fujinami's selling and his hope spots. He times that perfectly and there is always a sense of life left in Fujinami. What hurts this match is I think there are too many superfluous holds that sap the drama. They are not struggled for and they are struggled in. They are just holds that exist and there is nothing compelling about them. It will keep the match off my ballot, but it is a fantastic match with a stellar Fujinami performance.
Akira Maeda vs Tatsumi Fujinami - NJPW 6/12/86
Hey an Akira Maeda classic that finally delivers! Of course it is in pro style with a true pro that brings the heat and excitement from the normally boring Maeda. Fujinami rules so hard in this match. The beginning of the match follows a pretty simple formula of Maeda grabs a hold, Fujinami counters and Maeda counters again before the ropes. It demonstrates Maeda' shoot-style credibility and that Fujinami does have a chance. Fujinami gets his biggest pop when the match goes pro style for a minute with a criss cross spot where Maeda misses a spinning heel kick then Fujinami nails a clothesline and gets a single leg crab. The shoot-style crowd will kill me but this match would be even better if they went full pro style. Basically, Fujinami gives up a deathlock to get Maeda's back loses control to a toehold and then ends up in a kneebar. This fucks up his leg. He tries valiantly to fight from his knees but Maeda does have awesome kicks that target the knee. Maeda goes from low to high as the kicks start flying up to the head of Fujinami knocking him down. The reason why this match is so good is two Fujinami's selling and how he peppers in hope spots. His first is a Scorpion Deathlock attempt but Maeda is too close to the ropes. Again Maeda is beating the hell out of Fujinami. Maeda is so frustrating we are sitting in a armbar/headscissors combo with no heat and some of that is on Fujinami for not selling in the hold. The drama should be applying in the hold not in he hold. Fujinami gets a Bow & Arrow and then lunges in with some kicks before a PILEDRIVER! The crowd wanted a pro style match, great leg selling throughout the piledriver and the aftermath. Maeda wants the Dragon Suplex before he loses control of this match, but Fujinami blocks. Maeda is relentless kicking the bad leg of Fujinami and then catching him with a knee to the face as Fujinami is doubled over. Fujinami is selling like a champ. In what should have been the finish of the match, Maeda hits three RIDICULOUS KICKS to the face of Fujinami! I popped huge for that! I know it is the 80s but instead we get a lame cross armbreaker that is not properly sold and has not dramatic tension. Fujinami kicks out the plant leg of Maeda! Pop! Maeda kicks him in the face! Suplex struggle->Maeda Fujiwara armbar takedown that was exciting, but again they sit in this hold way too long. Fujinami catches and diverts the kick for a GERMAN, 1-2-NO! Cant hold due to the bad leg. Fujinami gets a knockdown on some kicks that I didnt really buy as knockdown worthy kicks. Maeda Capture suplex, kicks to the leg and a kneebar well at least this hold makes sense but again we are just in the hold. Maeda drags from the ropes and reapplies the hold until the ref makes him break on five was a pretty good spot. They tumble over the top rope, I for sure thought we were getting the double countout at this point. Fujinami catches the kick, back heel trip, SCORPION DEATHLOCK! This hold is worked a lot better than the others a lot for demonstrative action. Maeda kicks the bad leg and then what should definitely been the finish...MAEDA BUSTS FUJINAMI OPEN HARDWAY WITH A HEEL KICK! German 1-2-NO! Suplex 1-2-no! At least Maeda is pouring it on. They both hit spinning heel kicks and it is a double knockout.
I feel like I did a fair amount of criticizing in the review, I honestly did think it was great. I am not anti-holds in the least bit, but the way they were being worked was dragging down the really hot stand up portion of this match. Maeda is as dry as the Sahara Desert, but here at least they played to his strengths which is kicking. Whether it was targeting the leg of Fujinami or just blasting him in the face with kicks until drawing blood, Maeda looked like the most proficient striker in pro wrestling. To me it was all about Fujinami, his selling of the leg was awesome, but more importantly it was his dogged determination and hope spots that kept this match alive. Going for the Deathlock, hitting the piledriver, kicking out the plant leg, hitting a German, scoring a knockdown. All those hope spots spaced out over the course of a dominating Maeda offensive performance meant there was always drama in the match because you could never count Fujinami no matter how injured he may be. Take out some of those superfluous holds, make this Maeda literally kicking Fujinami's ass versus Fujinami's desperation hope spots and this is a damn near five star classic. As is, it is still a New Japan classic and one that shows how to put over a compelling asskicking without dying. ****1/2
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Post by dkuchler31096 on Jun 9, 2019 23:33:13 GMT -5
This was a FIGHT. I loved Fujinami's selling throughout that kept me engaged. Maeda is sorta of bland but brings enough to make it good. <Loved the finish too, a battle of two MEN
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Post by Cap on Oct 28, 2019 20:27:10 GMT -5
From my watching project... Akira Maeda vs Tatsumi Fujinami (6/12/1986) Current Rank: 68 Trending: Even If actual Ricky Morton taking a beating in a steal cage wasn’t on this list I’d say Fujinami was doing the best Ricky Morton in all the matches I am reviewing here, and ya know what… he still might win the honor. Fujinami takes a pretty serious ass whoopin through most of this match and his hope spots/comeback are absolutely fantastic, white hot. The strikes early on and some of the early grappling set a tone here, blending the worlds of pro wrestling and shoot wrestling in a much more explicit way as part of the UWF vs NJPW feud. Whereas I know many prefer some of the multi-man matches, I also ran through quite a few of those recently and I found this to be the peak of this feud/rivalry. It’s pure, focused, and just the perfect ratio of shoot wrestling murder work to pro wrestling combacks… *chef’s kiss*. So good. You get Maeda trying to cut Fujinami in half and tear his damn head off with kicks and you also get the fired up babyface shooting off high octane offense. Again, maybe it is because I watched this in the same big lot of matches as Flair v Morton, but also heard a whisper of southern territory wrestling in there. The draw doesn’t bother me a bit, but it also isn’t quite as satisfying as the Suzuki/Sano draw. They are very different and the more I think about it the more I can’t really compare them, but I also can’t help but to compare them. It’s like asking me to compare pizza and steak. I love both and what I want will honestly depend on my mood or the context. Same here. I love that this is the finish to this match and a little part of me doesn’t want any other finish. At the same time, this would infuriate me 999 times out of 1,000. That said, I am really not sure where this match lands. Even in the time it took me to write this paragraph I go back and forth between this match going up or down on my list. It doesn’t jump off the screen to me like Shamrock/Suzuki or Kobashi/Hansen, but the more I talk about it the more I talk myself into thinking it should creep its way up a touch higher. In turn, I guess I’ll go with “even” for now. Full Post: gweproject.freeforums.net/thread/657/caps-watching-project-reports?page=2#ixzz63haxUaou |
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Post by KB8 on Oct 15, 2022 7:26:25 GMT -5
This was the match I might've been most looking forward to re-watching when I decided to go back through all of this stuff. It finished #6 on the DVDVR voting and it was my own #7, so it set a high bar. Seeing everything surrounding it again over the last couple weeks, all of the build with them facing off in tags and multi-mans and gauntlet series, I was ready to jump in again. I don't know if you could really call it a singular match in wrestling history, because at the end of the day it's shooter v pro wrestler and there have been plenty of those, but if nothing else it feels special in a way very few of those do. I think they told their story pretty much perfectly. Maeda is a wrecking ball who has a dozen ways to submit you and a hundred ways to knock you out. Fujinami, like all of the New Japan guys, has been hardened over the last six months just by virtue of being in there with the Maedas, Fujiwaras and Takadas of the world. After being put through the trials of UWF, this crop of New Japan wrestlers are all the better for it, a new dimension added to their game, and Fujinami may have come out the other side better than anyone. Maeda is Maeda though, and learning how to fight off a legbar won't be enough to save you. The early parts are pretty even and I loved Fujinami ducking the wheel kick and running Maeda over with the lariat. A sports analogy would be the underdog team playing on home turf, full of energy and scoring early, their gameplan being implemented exactly the way it was laid out on paper. But in a world of sportswashing where sports teams are backed by literal nation states, that gulf between the best (or at least richest) and the rest has never been bigger. Those moments where it looks like David might be able to topple Goliath are fleeting and before long Maeda reminded everyone why he's Goliath. Fujinami sold that first leg kick like a shotgun blast and it was an avenue for Maeda to exploit the rest of the match. It was a constant uphill struggle for Fujinami and he had to maximise every bit of offence he could muster, take advantage of every lapse in Maeda's concentration, while Maeda was a thresher and could shut him down or wrap him up with cold efficiency. There were parts where I would've liked Maeda to go a little bigger, to really attack openings, to maybe lean into the crowd reaction after they'd exploded for a high kick or a suplex rather than drop into a kneebar, but for Maeda the aim of the game was to win and I can't point to anything he did that wasn't in service of that narrative. Fujinami is damn near heroic down the stretch, the desperation German an incredible moment topped only by his kickout from the dragon suplex, and then the finish is...what it is. If the plan was for them to go to a 30 minute draw then they were building the absolute hell out of it, but Fujinami was bleeding like a spigot so it's hard to conclude they were wrong for calling it early, even if Fujinami probably needed to get a few more licks in to make the double TKO plausible. This isn't my favourite match of the year, but it's still a corker, feels like the main event of 1986 New Japan, and a pretty good place to put a cap on this wee project.
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Post by [Darren] on Oct 16, 2022 3:34:54 GMT -5
I had this at #78 on last year’s ballot and will roughly stay in that spot. I’m fascinated by this one because it’s heavy on holds and has a scary shoot kick in the head spot. Two things that tend to take me out of a match. But, these two have an ability to make this thing so damn compelling. I’d love to rewatch this one before the next cycle.
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Post by puropotsy on Jun 1, 2023 11:17:27 GMT -5
This was a fantastical grapple battle which perfectly blended shoot-style into NJPW. Both guys matched up so well and the kicks and submissions all had impact. The ending with the blood and stoppage felt like it did a lot for both guys. This was like a singles version of 3/26 multi-man match. Will be interesting for me to see if I get this on my list, as of now it’s well-placed at #64.
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Post by mvz on Jun 1, 2023 12:51:21 GMT -5
Yeah I had this at 67 last time around, and I expect it to land right around there again, maybe a touch higher. A memorable story for all the right reasons.
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Post by elliott on Jun 1, 2023 13:38:32 GMT -5
I'll always wonder what the planned last 6 or 7 minutes would've been like. I mean, apparently it was just more back & forth until the time limit expired but that sounds fucking epic.
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Post by mrjmml on Jul 27, 2023 9:56:09 GMT -5
Another match from the NJPW vs UWF feud the last one was a 5v5 elimination match with the best of both worlds, this one is a traditional singles bout involving two of the greatest wrestlers these promotions had to offer, the match took place in NJPW which means that the crowd will be behind Tatsumi Fujinami and they will root against Maeda, both wrestlers were awesome at their respective roles and were able to create a big spectacle with a very underwhelming ending but at this point I’m used to that, I love how shoot guys present themselves in non-shoot style promotions, they always look like a legitimate threat to their opponent, in fact, my favourite match ( Akira Hokuto vs Shinobu Kandori 4/2/1993) could be considered a Shooter vs Ace and the same could be said about my number two (Katsuyori Shibata vs Kazuchika Okada 4/9/2017), so I love this match structure when it’s done correctly and these two nailed it for the most part, I’m sure politics had something to do with this match’s finish, I don’t see Maeda willing to lose to Fujinami neither I see Inoki willing to put Maeda over in his promotion so the middle ground was the draw and they did exactly that, double KO was the final result, it’s dissappointing considering how good the match had been to that point, the crowd was hot during the whole match there was no point in the match where the people in the stands didn’t care about it, the main reason for the crowd’s involvement in the match was the uncertainty, They wouldn’t be as interested if Inoki was the one facing Maeda, the difference between Inoki and Fujinami is that Fujinami can lose matches while Inoki can’t put anyone over him because he’s the japanese version of Hulk Hogan, the people love him and he doesn’t want to give his place on the card to anyone else unless it’s completely necessary ( we’ll get to that point).
Fujinami’s performance as a babyface was amazing and he was able to make Maeda look good.
I’d recommend this to everyone who likes Akira Maeda’s work in the 80’s in UWF and NJPW, this match deserves the high regard its held on, an absolute classic.
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