[2001-03-21-AJPW] Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs Toshiaki Kawada

[GOTNW]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSONU1F9Uuc

 

Ah yes, the infamous "worst Fujiwara match ever", so bad that it apparently made Phil Schneider loathe Fujiwara for years. I had a really hard time imagining a scenario where these two would have a shitty match honestly. I mean I could easily imagine it being disappointing or dull, but actively bad? No way. Let's see what he had to say about it:

 

As much as it pains me to say it, the blame goes pretty squarely on Fujiwara's shoulders. I have run across other bad Fujiwara matches in my travels, but no other match where he is the reason it is bad. He eats Kawada alive here. It is 2001 AJPW, Kawada is clearly the top guy in the promotion, and Fujiwara treats him like shit. He basically no sells almost all of Kawada's offense, Kawada will kick him in the face and he will just look at him, this isn't the Fujiwara tough it out sell, he just waves it off. At one point he gets German Suplexed, rolls out of it and goes on offense. There wasn't even a shitty Takiawa Fighting Spirt yell. He also takes a ton of the match, not really with cool mat holds or nifty punches, but mostly with JYD headbutt stuff. Even when he loses, he kicks out at the three count in a crappy keep his heat kind of way. Kawada seems to be trying pretty hard here, but Fujiwara just doesn't give a fuck. I don't know if this was a NJ v. AJ thing, or Kawada tried to fuck Thundercrack, but this was a total stinker.

Ok. So:

"Fujiwara no sells almost everything"

"gets kicked in the head, starres at Kawada"

"no sells German suplex"

hey! I'm the one guy that likes Tatsuhito Takaiwa! I have a thing for wrestlers with recklessly dangerous offence. It adds to their aura I guess.

"takes a ton of the match with JYD headbutts"

"shitty Choshu finish"

 

Ok. Let's break down the match now.

 

Match starts with Fujiwara playing with the streamers. This is pretty much where I stopped buying this as a potentially bad match.

They grapple a little bit. Kawada gets on top to establish dominance and they slap each other around.

Re-start. More grappling. Fujiwara grabs a neat wristlock, Kawada gets out, grabs a Sleeper and Fujiwara's selling goes from his usual dismissal of the peril of the hold he is in to selling as he fails to get out of the move. Kawada hits a great looking knee drop. This is pretty good so far.

 

Fujiwara is clearly rocked after the big knee drop. This is what is known in professional wrestling as "selling". He gets up and Kawada starts kicking his head in, Fujiwara quickly fires back with punches and great looking headbutts. Fujiwara grabs a Sleeper, Kawada pushes him back in the corner for the break. Fujiwara breaks it with a big slap and Kawada goes after Fujiwara. Fujiwara moves back to the other corner as Kawada is going after him (you could understand this as either him selling the threat of Kawada or as defensive positioning). Kawada kicks him a bit after which Fujiwara makes awesome "fuck you" facial expressions, grabs Kawada by the throat and shoves him into the other corner and starts rocking Kawada with punches and headbutts.

 

First Fujiwara Armbar tease. Fujiwara transitions into a "regular" Armbar instead. Kawada gets out and start kicking Fujiwara in the back with his signature kicks. Fujiwara gets up and goes back into the corner. Kawada starts kicking him again and right as Fujiwara is about to fight back like he did earlier in the match Kawada rocks him with a big chop that Fujiwara sells the shit out of. Another big chop and Fujiwara falls down. Kawada starts stomping Fujiwara's head but Fujiwara counters it by grabbing his leg. It is a theme in Fujiwara matches (especially against kickers) that he will counter their kicks by grabbing their leg often, I remember that making the 1989 UWF match vs. Maeda especially gratifying as Maeda just shitbeat him to hell. That was also played up in the Super Tiger matches and the Hashimoto matches etc.

 

Fujiwara stretches Kawada a little and hits him with a nasty headbutt to the back of the head. They headbutt each other for a bit and Kawada does his awesome staggering selling after headbutting Fujiwara. IDK much about JYD but these dueling headbutts are clearly making real contact.

 

Fujiwara controls the match for a little bit but does nothing of note before Kawada takes over and slams Fujiwara's head into the ringpost. Come on, you're not going to throw "no selling" at that? That's an awesome signature Fujiwara spot, even if it is tehnically no selling. Fujiwara hits a few more headbutts but Kawada hits a huge slap to fight back (Fujiwara is "selling" again). Slap-off! Those are fun! Big Spin Kick from Kawada knocks Fujiwara down. More "selling".

 

Stretch Plum. Ok Fujiwara is totally guilty of no selling here. He kicks-out at 1 and starts headbuttings Kawada as soon as he gets up. I don't really care for the big boot/headbutt battle BUT! They start slapping the taste out of each others mouth again! He does pop up again after the controversial German but at that point I'm fine with it as Kawada quickly cutting off Fujiwara's futile attempt to fight back fits into the narrative to the match and worked for me.

 

Come on. That's not even top 20 for worst Choshu finishes. It's not even a bad Choshu finish. I mean surely everyone watching Fujiwara's pro style matches has grown accustomed to him doing Choshu finishes but come on. His late kick-out was pretty weak and he continued to lay on the mat after doing so. I was expecting he was going to instantly pop up and put Kawada into a Wakigatame or something.

 

 

 

So there you have it. I don't think this was complete shit. Disappointing for a Fujiwara-Kawada match? Sure. But perfectly solid.

[superkix]

This was a good match with a bad finish. Everything up until the Stretch Plum was classic Fujiwara. Fujiwara working the wristlock, Kawada grinding on him with the headlock before dropping that awesome knee to the head. They both fire off some snug shots, and I didn't see most of this as Fujiwara no selling but rather him being the grizzled old grappler who can take a beating better than most. I mean, Kawada selling his own headbutts is obvious enough. Great headbutt exchanges and the old ring bolt headshot. The match fell apart after the Stretch Plum with some blatant no selling from Fujiwara and the finish sucked. But I enjoyed everything up until that point.

[ohtani's jacket]

This wasn't bad. It was a crapload more interesting than some of the other matches Kawada has been in since the beginning of the year. I didn't have high expectations since let's face it, it's Fujiwara in 2001, but I liked the parts where they slapped the shit out of each other. All Fujiwara could really do was weather the storm and dish back headbutts and slaps but he was old and Kawada wasn't exactly going to invite him onto the mat. For the most part, this match seemed perfectly natural. Kawada was aggressive. Fujiwara was cagey. He probably relied on backing into the corner more than he did in his prime but hey, you've got arguably the world's best wrestler trying to knock your head off. What would you do?

[fxnj]

I love Phil for all the great wrestling his writings have turned me to over the years, but he and even the people pushing back by saying this is kind of good missed the boat on this in a big way. This is a great, great, match that serves as a big statement on the incredible storytelling possibilities when you've got 2 skilled performers who are willing to use their imaginations a bit. The crux of the match is pretty much that it inverts the standard formula of lower ranked guy trying to prove himself against higher ranked guy. Fujiwara is definitely a few steps down Kawada on the totem pole, but Kawada still comes in with quite a bit of respect for Fujiwara's matwork and wrestles as if to prove that he's on Fujiwara's level there. Fujiwara shows absolutely no respect in turn, just letting himself get mounted and then simply staring at Kawada until he gets bored and they get into a slap fight. Then after letting Kawada fuck around a bit he gets serious and tortures Kawada's left arm to show him who's boss, which Kawada does an awesome job of selling with a scream.

My favorite part of the match comes a bit later when Kawada gets Fujiwara into a corner and unloads with kicks, but Fujiwara is making all these subtle movements to stop Kawada from getting a clean shot in. Kawada notices this and switches into unloading with some hard chops to get him down before doing some stomps that looked like a downgrade compared to the kicks he was doing before. Fujiwara stares at him as if to say "are you serious" before locking on an armbar at will. I have no idea how anyone can look at that and think it's anything less than masterful pro wrestling. Then we get some headbutt battling, which is also incredible and felt very on-brand for Kawada given his history of trying to trade elbows with Misawa. I've seen the spot of Fujiwara headbutting the turnbuckle steel a fair share of times, but the combination of Kawada's struggle towards getting it as if it's gonna be some big "gotcha" moment, along with the super loud thud when Fujiwara's head hit the steel before the inevitable no sell had me screaming at the screen. 

I'll grant that maybe the finish was a little iffy (a big maybe, as Fujiwara was doing a lot of "trying to pretend he's not in pain while actually being in pain" type selling leading up to it that might not be obvious if you aren't looking), but I completely disagree with the criticisms regarding the german suplex and the stretch plum before that. Given how Fujiwara was going out of his way to treat all of Kawada's grappling as joke, it was natural that he'd make it a point to kick out at 1 and try to get back on the offensive even if he was dazed. Besides, 2001 was way past the point of the stretch plum being a credible finisher on even a guy of Fujiwara's standing. With the german, that looked more like the momentum just rolled Fujiwara through and he was definitely selling the impact with how slow he was to get up. On first watch, the finish seemed like one of those annoying shoot three counts, especially with Fujiwara seemingly kicking out at 2.9, but it makes sense the more I think about it. Fujiwara's body was slowing down faster than his mind, and it's a fitting bit of hubris that he'd be done in by the accumulation of all those hard shots that he'd mostly voluntarily taken instead of by one big bomb he was trying to avoid.