It's been 15 years since I last watched this. I couldn't really remember anything about it specifically but I can tell you for absolute certain that it was still good. As far as first matches in a series go you'll struggle to find many better. The general talking point about this is that it went a long way in legitimising Tiger as more than just a flashy junior, and of course Fujiwara and how he approached the match is a huge part of that. I'm repeating another talking point but at the core of Fujiwara v Super Tiger you have a grappler versus a striker. Even if their series wasn't necessarily a referendum on which approach is superior, their actions every time out certainly provided a window into the strengths of both. Fujiwara was his suffocating best for most of this. It was already established in the July tag that Sayama could obliterate him with the right strikes, but Fujiwara could utterly dominate on the mat if it went there and sure enough Fujiwara wanted to take it there often. Maybe to highlight that dominance there was at least one occasion where he COULD'VE took it down to the mat but decided not to, just releasing Tiger's leg after catching a kick and casually walking away to reset. He wrenched Tiger into a nasty kimura at one point and Sayama was vocal in his desperation to get to the ropes. When Tiger tries to fight back on the ground he really gets nowhere. The best example is when he half secures the mount and tries to grab a kimura of his own. Fujiwara never panics, stays patient while shifting his weight from underneath, forcing Tiger to shift to a cross-armbreaker attempt that goes nowhere, then to a sort of triangle attempt that isn't much better, but by that point Fujiwara is back to his feet and just hoists Sayama into a sick piledriver. The piledriver was actually a big part of the match beyond that as you had this one, then Sayama's tombstone later where it looked like Fujiwara's head got driven through the mat, and then Fujiwara's response to that where he had to fight through stiffer resistance before spiking Tiger with a Gotch-style version. Obviously where Sayama has a shot is the strikes. There was a part early where he rocked Fujiwara and the latter backed up into the corner. If you've seen enough Fujiwara you know he was trying to draw Sayama in, which he did and turned the tables to strike back, going to the headbutts that would always get him out of trouble. But you knew he backed away in the first place because he got caught and needed a reprieve, and just because he turned it into an advantageous situation didn't change that. The kneedrops make an appearance again and this one bounced Fujiwara's head off the mat like a basketball. A truly vile thing and at this stage of the rivalry they weren't even actively trying to kill each other. Like in the July tag Sayama's big shots looked devastating, but it was Fujiwara's selling that put them over the top. There's no better example than just before the finish, as Fujiwara catches Tiger's first roundhouse attempt only to get fucking decapitated with a flipping enziguri, Fujiwara selling it by going rigid and looking completely gone before even hitting the mat. Maybe Tiger knew it was academic after that and decided to submit Fujiwara with the chickenwing to prove a point. Who isn't a submission wrestler again? Stylistically this is still more pro style than what shoot style would become, but it's an awesome hybrid of a thing. The pro style moves came off like world-enders in a way they wouldn't quite if this was happening in New Japan, and things like the missed top rope moves were momentum-changers. And the strikes were lethal. You weren't getting kneedrops like this in no New Japan.
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