[1984-09-07-UWF] Super Tiger vs Yoshiaki Fujiwara

[bradhindsight]

Really strong storytelling here as Fujiwara comes across as the stronger, more-seasoned wrestler, who is content on grinding Super Tiger down at all times. It's a great dynamic for the entire match. He starts the match by grabbing Super Tiger and giving him a huge atomic drop, and then catches his first kick and just releases his grasp. Good dickhead type stuff there. Fujiwara grabs a triangle choke and, while it appeared Super Tiger tapped, the ref breaks the hold and the match continues. I'm not sure what happened there, he didn't seem to be under the ropes. Fujiwara catches a second kick, and turns it into a dragon screw takedown and we're back to the mat. Any time Super Tiger can get a break from having a limb worked over, he fires off exciting kicks which really gets the crowd going. Twice he lands these and goes up for a big move (knee drop was one of them) but Fujiwara moves out of the way. While nothing from the top is executed, there is a payoff later in the match when Super Tiger drops a vicious knee on Fujiwara's skull. Fujiwara hits the first piledriver but Super Tiger's follow-up tombstone later is fantastic, with Fujiwara selling it like death and staying balanced on the top of his head for a slow fall. When Fujiwara fights for another later, there's a great subtle touch of him locking the leg with his arms to be able to lift Super Tiger up for the move. The finish sees another kick caught and we get the big payoff with a huge back spinning kick from Super Tiger. A couple other kill shots are laid in and he locks in an arm and neck submission and Fujiwara gives up. We get a handshake and show of respect post match. This match really resonated with me when I reflected back on it. Lot of connected pieces here that told a good story.

 

This match was ranked 7/75 in the Other Japan 80s poll.

[Phil Schneider]

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Super Tiger UWF 9/7/84-EPIC

This was the opening match of their series, and it was really interesting to watch the different way they approached each other and the style they were working. This was much more of a New Japan style match, then a shootstyle match, although you could see the style starting to evolve. For example while Tiger is still going for top rope moves, he isn't hitting them. Both times he tries, Fujiwara moves. They still are doing piledrivers, but at least Fujiwara's actually is a counter out of a triangle choke, kind of a incubatory Hughes v. Newton spot.

It wasn't just the style that is different, Fujiwara really controls this match way more then their others. Fujiwara really is a heavyweight against a junior, Tiger's stuff really comes in flurries, while Fujiwara is on top for most of this. They are really great flurries, and Fujiwara is a master at selling a surprise knockdown. Just the way he approaches him, there is none of the tentativeness of later matches, he just walks Tiger down, and counters a lot of his offense. Tiger is the scrappy underdog junior heavyweight which is completely counter to the way he is perceived later, I think this match went a long way in establishing him as a peer to Fujiwara and Maeda, and the finish run of big kicks and the chickenwing you can tell sort of shocks the crowd.

[Superstar Sleeze]

Really great reviews. I will echo a lot of these sentiments.

 

Super Tiger vs Yoshiaki Fujiwara - UWF 9/7/84

 

Fujiwara is such a gritty badass and I love that you can hear him snarling throughout this match. Coming off the tag match, I fully expected Super Tiger to control the majority of the match. He seemed to have no problem gaining an advantage and the match felt like a star making vehicle for him. Instead, he was totally gobbled up by the stronger, bigger Fujiwara. Fujiwara threw Super Tiger around at will and was countering him on the mat like it was nothing. At first, I could not make sense of Super Tiger's strategy from a kayfabe standpoint. Fujiwara was murdering him on the mat with wristlocks, triangle chokes and cross armbreakers. Tiger was playing right into it. He needed to use his karate kicks to establish some sort of game, but trying to fight Fujiwara on the mat was silly. He gets a big slap, but again plays into Fujiwara's head. Then he gets a WICKED kick to the head. Fujiwara sells it perfectly. Shocked, rattled and falls to one knee. Again, Tiger tries for a double wristlock, but once Fujiwara regains his wits he easily counters to a position of strength. Somewhere in here, Fujiwara counters a Triangle with a fucking piledriver. Mark Out City! Third time is a charm as Tiger strings a combination of kicks then a Tombstone Piledriver. One of the best Tombstones ever! He goes for a top rope kneedrop, but misses. Fujiwara pissed about the Tombstone nails his own piledriver. It has now morphed into a standard New Japan, which I am totally fine with. Tiger makes for a great underdog and Fujiwara is an excellent no-nonsense shooter. Pele by Tiger and misses the moonsault. Fujiwara does not fuck around and goes after the knee viciously with single leg crabs and figure-4s. I love how everything he does has struggle to it. The struggle over the German was excellent. Super Tiger fighting with everything he had to avoid was great. Fujiwara looks to finish him off and Super Tiger hits a roundhouse kick to the face. Nasty. Then knocks his head off before applying a Crossface Chickenwing for the Upset, come from behind victory.

 

Loved the grappling early that really exploited the styles difference and weight difference. I think the pro-style finish run complemented it perfectly. Super Tiger could have sold the moments better. Selling the fact that he was overwhelmed, then he on top being pumped and then knee selling could have been better. He just kinda did he standard, nothing is wrong floating on his feet routine. He felt very hollow. Fujiwara was excellent. Classic match. ****3/4

[Jetlag]

This was such a beautiful bout.

 

The great thing about shootstyle is that it is japanese wrestling with high end matwork. Gotch's vision was to bring back the focus on wrestling, and this gave Fujiwara the opportunity to go nuts. The grinding, super intense submission hold work here was fantastic as was the use of throws and strikes. So many great moves. This was total peak level performance from Fujiwara. One might have their issues with this kind of prehistoric shootstyle which naturally had some stylistic experimentation, but at no point did they get cute, and the heavyweight vs. junior story was executed in really compelling fashion. Sayama redeems himself for his years of being a spotty gymnast by delivering a strong selling performance. Still, this was all Fujiwara tricks and magic.

[superkix]

The first match in their series. They're obviously still developing the "UWF shoot-style" as this felt mostly pro-wrestling but it's still a great match. Fujiwara sticks like a magnet to Tiger’s arm through the first half of the match, countering Tiger’s offense or executing his own piece of offense before promptly going back to the arm. Tiger realizes he’s not going to be able to take Fujiwara on the mat so he switches to shoot kicks but Fujiwara catches a foot and takes him down with the dragon screw legwhip, immediately going back to the arm. There’s some dirty slaps, nasty high kicks to the heads, and some great piledrivers from Fujiwara, including a counter to the triangle and a Gotch-style variation. Tiger gets a chain of offense, which includes kicks and a jumping tombstone but he can’t follow-up with the dive, allowing Fujiwara to take over again on offense. Fujiwara abandons the armwork in favor of attacking Tiger’s legs to weaken the kicks. Throughout the match, he keeps trying for the German suplex as a finish but Tiger is able to evade it up through the end of the match, ultimately submitting Fujiwara with the crossface chickenwing.

[Makai Club #1]

First match of the Fujiwara vs Super Tiger series is a good ‘un. Both wrestlers’ strengths came out to the front in the match. Fujiwara was super focused on ripping Tiger’s arm apart in the early parts, being laser focused on submissions and grappling while Super Tiger worked from beneath, selling and coming back with flurries of strikes and other submissions. The counters in this are really good. Especially the deadlift into a piledriver counter by Fujiwara against Tiger’s triangle choke attempt. The last exchange for the finish was awesome - Tiger struggling away from Fujiwara’s dreaded holds before hitting a stiff head kick and getting the win via chickenwing. ****1/4

[cactus]

Tiger Mask has left New Japan and wants to try his hand at shoot-style. With his excellent speed and wide array of strikes, he adapts well to the style, but I'm sure Fujiwara's excellent performance carried this. Fujiwara was in the zone and puts Tiger over big time by selling his arse for for Tiger's strikes and eventually giving up when Tiger locks in his brutal looking chickenwing. This match loses steam after Super Tiger misses his top rope attempt, but there's enough Fujiwara awesomeness to make this worth your time. 

★★★½

[Microstatistics]

For a combination of quality and influence, this is probably the quintessential striker vs. grappler match. Sayama wasn’t a bad mat worker. In fact, he was pretty good but every time he took it to the mat, he got absolutely demolished. His striking ability, particularly his kicks, were his bread and butter and kept him in the match. The incorporation of pro-style moves such as piledrivers and top rope dives was well done. This was high end BattlARTS, twelve years before the promotion existed. Eventually, Fujiwara started to shark away at Tiger’s leg and turn the screw. But the kicks to the head took their toll by the end and softened him up enough for the crossface chickenwing, leading to a huge upset. ****1/2