More of the same from these two, which is very good pro wrestling. It's one of the first UWF showcase matches since they re-joined the New Japan fold and you couldn't have picked a better showcase. If nothing else, in case these crowds had forgotten in the two years they'd been gone, it reminded everyone how dangerous Maeda is as a striker and how much of a lethal counter-wrestler Fujiwara could be. The early going has some great matwork and fighting over holds. Maeda takes Fujiwara over with a sharp hip toss that about puts him on his neck, Fujiwara reverses a half crab by rearing up on his head and booting Maeda away with the free leg, they fight over an arm, a leg, just really good stuff all around. Then as it goes along they start to groove into the tried and true Fujiwara/Maeda dynamic. Maeda is an assassin and starts winging those kicks, roundhouses to the midsection, leg kicks, wheel kicks to the head, dipping all the way into that bag of nasty shit. Nobody absorbs blows like Fujiwara and some of his corner defence was incredible, then he'd try and catch some of those kicks and they'd slip through the guard, partially landing and visibly hurting him or fully landing and almost ending him. After about a dozen of these he starts to get belligerent, smirking and half strutting away from exchanges even though you know he's trying to get under Maeda's skin. Of course it takes next to nothing to get under Maeda's skin, so the latter maybe forces the issue a bit too much and Fujiwara clonks him with a headbutt. Maeda responding with one of his own that landed right in the cheek bone was amazing. Maeda getting a little frustrated and leaving himself open made for an awesome finish, with Fujiwara shooting off an elbow and catching him with the flash armbar. As a matchup this feels almost like the prototype for Ishikawa/Ikeda. Not that there had never been any striker v grappler matchups before Fujiwara/Maeda, but these two had some of that same grey area where Fujiwara could still strike when he needed to and Maeda was no slouch on the mat. Fujiwara/Sayama, for example, was almost entirely grappler v striker, because Sayama had no chance when it came to grappling. Being a proto Ishikawa v Ikeda is a pretty cool thing to be.
Antonio Inoki v Yoshiaki Fujiwara (New Japan, 6/12/86)
A very different match to the February bout, but an awesome one all the same. In February they went for more of a slow cook, where they used their charisma and personalities to bring it to a boil and build drama. This time there was no need to try and build tension - their factions had been going at it for months now and the tension was inherent, a palpable ever-present, so Fujiwara jumped Inoki at the bell, tried to snapmare him into oblivion and then choke him to death. As far as beginnings go it was pretty great. This was more of a pure babyface Inoki, almost the underdog given the way Fujiwara blitzed him early. Fujiwara was the Terminator, an unrelenting force that wasn't to be denied. If it looked like he had to give too much to Inoki in February then he took it all back here and it never once felt like Inoki had the upper hand. There was no shit-talking while locked in a hold, no counters or reversals that he didn't have to fight tooth and nail for. The first time he managed to sneak out of the choke he went straight into an Indian deathlock and the way he fired up the crowd was awe-inspiring. He tried to match Fujiwara with the sleeper and I love that Fujiwara literally went for his throat. They escalated like that the whole way through, Inoki having to throw more and more of his honour out the window to keep pace with someone who never brought any in the first place. When he punched Fujiwara in the back of the head and Fujiwara just grinned at him you kind of knew that the rest of the match would be fought on Fujiwara's terms. And once again nobody works or sells a choke like Fujiwara. He has to be the best ever at both and I loved Inoki trying to shake him by just throwing both of them over the ropes, only for the camera to pan around and there's Fujiwara still wrapped around Inoki, relentless. You think Inoki might finally have slowed Fujiwara down after ramming him into the post, but even gushing blood from his head Fujiwara kept coming forward. It was pure defiance, taking punches to the cut and giving no ground, refusing to even be whipped into the ropes, even getting blasted with the enziguri and walking away grinning, which was about 90% amazing and 10% horrifying. In the end Inoki might've found a way to eek out the win, but he had to walk through fire to do it and Fujiwara was the dragon.
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