The very best Fujiwara v Super Tiger?

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v Super Tiger (UWF, 12/5/84)

I'm not going to once again beat the dead horse and talk about how this is a grappler versus striker affair. What I WILL do, however, is suggest that this might be the very best grappler versus striker affair there's ever been. There's really nothing complicated about this. It continues where their first match left off in September, with Fujiwara dominating on the mat and Tiger wanting to keep everything on the feet. The progression here is that at some point in the past three months Sayama decided he was going to try and kill Fujiwara and if he couldn't keep things standing then Fujiwara being on the ground was good enough. You can still kick a man to death while he lies in the foetal position after all and Sayama tried to do that many times. The match from September was tremendous but it was still the first match in the series and felt like it. Amazing table-setting, the sort of thing necessary to set up what they'd do in future, but you knew they had another gear in them and it made you eager to see it. The other gear was the violence and Sayama went from being somewhat hesitant to somewhat murderous. This was as much a precursor to Battlarts or FUTEN as anything. The kneedrops were truly disgusting, there were Wanderlei kicks to the back of Fujiwara's head and neck, kicks to the liver and just about anywhere else that was exposed. Obviously Fujiwara's selling was immaculate, both while lying on the ground at death's door but also while standing and absorbing blows. There'll often be moments in a Fujiwara match against a striker where he gets rocked and backs into the corner, partly for a reprieve, partly to draw the opponent in. He did that again here and ripped off a string of body shots, then later when he had Sayama reeling he brained him with a headbutt. There was one roundhouse kick from Tiger that nearly took Fujiwara's head off and the way Fujiwara sold it was perfect. They must've also had the ring mic'd up differently than normal here because at various points you could hear the struggle on the mat, usually from Sayama trying to fight off Fujiwara. The choking and spluttering as Fujiwara tried to sink in a choke was ghastly and for a minute or two after that Sayama tried to keep as much distance as possible. The look of relief at the end when the ref' finally called for the bell was telling. It wasn't so much a victory as opposed to a case of survival.