Dick Murdoch v Antonio Inoki (New Japan, 6/19/86)
I'll be straight with you; I watched this when I woke up this morning and my head is kind of pickled because I think I was/am still drunk as shit, so I'm probably forgetting some stuff about this. What I'm not forgetting is that this match fucking ruled. I loved Murdoch's arm work here, and Inoki sold it like a boss. It never really had a true payoff in the end, but Inoki never let you forget that his arm had been twisted and pulled at, constantly shaking it and stretching it out. Murdoch would go back to it a bunch as well, and everything he was busting out looked super nasty. There were a few armbars in particular that bent the arm in all sorts of weird angles, and at one point Murdoch just kneedrops him right in the armpit. The punches in this were fucking awesome as well. Inoki tries to kick Murdoch in the stomach, so Dick catches the leg and just cracks him square in the nose with a straight right. I'm talking "might be the best worked punch I've ever seen" levels. There's a bit where Murdoch has Inoki on the mat and Inoki shoots him this amazing "fuck you" look and starts jabbing him in the face with his free hand, so Murdoch jabs him back and tries to rip out his eyeballs. I also don't think I could ever get tired of watching Dick Murdoch stumble around the place all jelly-legged. He gets hurled into the ring post and his sell of it is just out of this world, falling into the barricade all reckless and dead on his feet. There's one enziguri sell that is goofy as fuck, but if I have to watch someone take daft flip bumps off of enziguris, I want Dick Murdoch be that guy. Ref' fucks up the finish and the crowd get a bit confused at the end, but whatever, this was killer and I wasn't smoking crack when I ranked this #12 on the New Japan set way back when.
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