Tatsumi Fujinami v Kengo Kimura (New Japan, 1/14/87)
This kind of swung between decent enough and balls out awesome. On the one hand that's a little disappointing because you can't help but want the balls out awesome to be the constant, but on the other hand pretty decent is pretty decent, you know? How loudly can we really complain? I think this feud only lasted about a month and that was definitely nine months too short. I actually thought the best parts of this were even better than the best parts of the January 2nd match, though they were rooted in the same idea (or PHILOSOPHY, if you will). Kimura still has serious ill will for Fujinami and this time Fujinami is less forgiving when his old partner blatantly punches him in the jaw. Fujinami wrestles like someone who'd rather do that - wrestle - than have a fist fight, but he won't give Kimura the same leeway he did before. The early grappling had a nice intensity to it and I loved that they both decided to put that to the side so they could have a stand up exchange in full boxing stance. Moments like that happened throughout, where one or both - though most often it was Kimura - would let their tempers boil over and someone would get cracked in the mouth. The first slap Fujinami threw landed flush and Kimura shot him this look of "I really hate you, you know that?" When Kimura next backed him into the corner everyone knew what was coming, and I love that Fujinami just stood there and braced himself, daring Kimura to throw his best shot and get it over with. It was almost derisory, like even leaving himself open so Kimura could hit him unimpeded wouldn't matter in the long run, confident as he was that he was still The Ace and Kimura never would be. I'm sure that sat brilliantly with Kimura. I'm also sure it added a little mustard to every closed fist he threw at Fujinami after the fact, and he threw a good fucking few of them let me tell you. There was one punch flurry in particular that was incredible and I guess Kengo Kimura is super underrated as a puncher? The leg lariat plays a part again, but I wish they played up the first one that connected a little more. I thought it came off like a bit of an afterthought, which is strange considering it was a huge part of the feud up until now. That might be nitpicky though, because I did really like how Kimura never seemed to be satisfied and would lift Fujinami's shoulders on a few pin attempts (like after the leg lariat). Either he was messing with Fujinami because he knew he wasn't beaten yet anyway or he was messing with him because he thought he was VERY beaten, but as soon as he did it you got the sense he was wrong one way or the other. When Fujinami countered the third leg lariat and put him in the Scorpion you pretty much knew Kimura had fucked up. He held on as long as he could and nearly made it to the ropes, but in the end Fujinami is The Ace and Kimura is not.
Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Kazuo Yamazaki v Akira Maeda & Nobuhiko Takada (New Japan, 5/25/87)
This was pretty awesome, and maybe the best mixture of shoot and pro style in a tag match that New Japan produced from around this time (that '86-'88 period with all the shoot style guys, between the original UWF closing down and the second iteration starting up after Maeda shoot kicked Choshu in the eye socket). I guess it was a little more shoot than pro so it was mostly back and forth the whole way, which is fine when the transitions are this strong, but I would've loved an extended heat segment somewhere to really fire it up a level. After all I'm a 90s kid who was raised on the tag team prowess of the Headshrinkers and Men on a Mission, I can't help but be set in my ways. The roles are pretty well established -- Yamazaki is the young technician with picture perfect striking and rapid fast feet, a real prodigy with the sky as his limit. He's in there with three-quarters of the shoot style Mount Rushmore so you expect him to play whipping boy, but I like that they almost circumvented that with the existing injuries to Maeda and Takada. The former has a taped up forehead from the Strong Machine mugging the previous week and Takada has a bandaged up thigh, so there are a couple bullseyes for Yamazaki to tee off on and tee off on them he does. Those moments worked as plausible momentum swings, where he could drag himself back into the fight with a flurry of kicks to the thigh without it feeling like Takada was giving him too much. Fujiwara was properly fired up as well, maybe because he knew that he was tagging with a kid and might need to carry the load a bit. He's the one who starts tearing at that Maeda bandage, then Yamazaki follows suit because why wouldn't you follow the godfather? Lots of killer strikes, snug submissions attempts, nasty suplexes and a great final pairing to cap it off. One or two weird bits of selling, but when everything else is so on point who really gives a shit?
Man, Saito was the ultimate badass. Someone on PWO described this as Saito working as Arn Anderson and that's totally apt, as he spends the majority of the match trying to wreck Kimura's bandaged up knee. Kimura does not take kindly to this and starts throwing wild potato punches to the cheek, so Saito grabs him and puts him on his head with a backdrop. This was some real mean leg work from Saito. All of the holds were tight and you knew he was looking for that Scorpion Deathlock. He also hit one of the cleanest dragon screws you've ever seen, made even better by the fact it was a reversal to Kimura going for the leg lariat. I liked Kimura's scrappiness as well and you could tell he had a chip on his shoulder in '87. Although you maybe question whether that mean streak hampered his judgment because going for a top rope kneedrop with a bad wheel was probably a risk too great to be taking, especially against the king of the Scorpion Deathlock. Pretty much the ideal 12-minute midcard bout.
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