[1992-01-21-AJPW-New Year's Giant Series] Mitsuharu Misawa vs Masanobu Fuchi

[GOTNW]

Man oh man I LOVED this one. Such an amazing performance from Fuchi trying to survive against a higher ranked opponent by destroying his leg. His early control segment ruled, he was just viciously slamming Misawa's leg onto the announce table. The legwork set Fuchi up for both his future control segments giving him a good base to work on by stretching Misawa and also provided with him a way to easily and believably transition back into offence. Misawa's selling was sublime, just a perfect example of how selling doesn't have to black or white (and in most cases when such selling is used it takes away from the match more than anything), he limped and slowed down but still went for all his big stuff regardless like you would in a fight and recognized the pain both by not being able to follow up a great looking frog splash with a cover and by modifying his flip lariat (usually he would use a dashing start, here he just kind of threw himself at Fuchi). We get a few nearfalls that didn't use "big" moves but were extremely well set up and the crowd bought into them before a cool and (for All Japan) unique finish. A lot of stars.

[Richeyedwards]

This is an unheralded masterpiece of a match, Now the first few minutes are cut as this is joined in progress so it is impossible to get a complete picture of the match but we can get fairly close.

Here in 92 Fuchi is just within touching distance of Misawa he is not in the position yet where it would be impossible to win he just needs to put in the performance of a lifetime to have a chance at victory. Thankfully he puts in just that.

He tears at Misawas leg putting it through a myriad of holds, stomps and throws, using the ropes and the tables at ringside. Misawa's selling is impeccable showing real pain at every attempted move. The comeback when it comes is brilliant it uses nuanced but very simple selling, Misawa tries to do his normal moves but just edited to cater for his leg, for example instead of doing his running twisting lariat he just throws Fuchi into the ropes and jumps at him as he is unable to run.

This is a rarely talked about absolute classic, I loved this for the entire 10 minutes it lasted this is exactly what I want from wrestling and Fuchi is forever underrated as one of the best ever.