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So, a few years back Sayama published a book on his career which included a recap of this match featuring comments from him and Maeda. I haven't read the whole book, but I skipped ahead to the part where it talks about this match and it seems to break things down pretty well. The account in the book completely goes against the common narrative of Sayama and Maeda as the two top guys in the promotion having some shoot fight in the ring. Instead, Maeda is portrayed as a younger guy who was firmly below the vets but dissatisfied with his position. Maeda claims that two of the business higher-ups in the promotion (Toshio Isahaya and Fumihiko Uwai) took advantage of this and pressured Maeda into shooting on Sayama in their match in order to embarrass him, because they felt Sayama was becoming problematic. Maeda claimed that he was unsure of what to do but gave in when he saw said higher-ups watching the match. Sayama disputes Maeda's claimed reluctance. He notes that he didn't feel a whole lot of reluctance with how hard Maeda hit him. He also mentions Maeda refusing to communicate with him in the ring, only saying "辞める、辞める," which can be translated as either "stop," "quit," or "retire," so not exactly clear on his intentions. Sayama mentions instinctively grabbing a hara-gatame, but otherwise wrestling firmly in "working" mode. He mentions that even during the striking sections he was throwing pro wrestling kicks instead of shoot fighting ones. Special attention is also given to Maeda's actions in the 2nd half, where he spends lengthy sections in turtle position and refuses to attack Sayama, even while Sayama does some of the most obvious limb feeding you'll see in a match. Maeda claims that he did this as a means of embarrassing Sayama by showing how clueless he was when confronted with this position. Sayama again disputes this, noting that Maeda never communicated with him that he was doing that during the match. He also notes that he could have picked multiple attack methods if it were a shoot, among them kicking Maeda's head while he was on the ground, as such a move was legal under UWF rules. Regarding the ending Maeda claims that he felt he'd done what he set out to do with casting shame on Sayama and came up with a low blow disqualification finish on the spot to avoid doing serious damage. This is the part that I still don't really get as the footage shows Maeda's final knee as being aimed more at Sayama's body than his privates. At the same time the footage isn't from the greatest angle, so I guess it's possible Maeda grazed him with his toe or something and Sayama exaggerated his selling because he was tired of Maeda's shit. One more point brought up regarding the match's ending is a quote from a different book by Maeda where he mentions immediately upon returning to the locker room finding Fujiwara and Kido. He then apologizes for what he did and quits due to it. This is mentioned as drawing suspicion to Maeda's claim about being pressured into the shoot as there'd be no reason to apologize or quit over something that higher-ups had told him to do for the good of the promotion. It's thus claimed that Maeda must have had some deep seated jealousy for Sayama's place on the card, which would be the real reason he did what he did, or at least the reason he was willing to go along with it when it was suggested to him. So, there's still a bit of ambiguity regarding the low blow finish and Maeda's actual intentions, but I think this covers about 80% of what happened. I have to admit that having the curtain pulled back like this makes the match a lot less fun to watch. Instead of being an epic fight for the future of the style it's just kind of a sad example of backstage drama bleeding into the ring.

Not sure if this is just too much of a deep cut for people who aren't already big into the style to bother with, but I wasn't feeling this at all. It seems very representative of the problems usually floated with joshi matches from this period. Boring filler matwork, non-existent selling, and incredibly spotty. I'm not expecting them to do shoot-style, but I thought the opening with Toyota just letting herself get stretched while making no attempt to counter wavered between being laughably bad to just plain bad once she racketed up the obnoxious screaming. Predictably, no attempt is made to make said stretches feel like anything more than a waste of time and the rest of the first match is just a straight spot fest. Second match starts and I'm shocked at how they managed to make me care so little about seeing Toyota eat 6 backdrop drivers on her head. No attempt to struggle out of any of them, just taking them one after the other. Then that's where she decides to bust out a neck bridge to get out of a pin attempt. Just Toyota things. I'm also not exactly sure where the rep for Hokuto as some more psychologically sound counterpart to Toyota comes from, as she was just as bad as Toyota with sitting around screaming when her opponents put her in leg holds and then doing a bunch of flying moves right afterwards. I guess she deserves some credit for actually staying down after eating a tombstone on the floor instead of getting up and casually adjusting her kneepad like Toyota did, but that's a pretty low bar to set. I can see the argument for taking an open mind to certain styles treating certain moves differently, but I think with matches like this that sort of argument quickly looks like a cop-out for wrestlers making 0 effort to create a sense of struggle for moves or sell anything like it matters. I'll say that they showed impressive cardio, got some impressive speed on both giant swings, and some of the near falls in the 2nd match were believable, but that's about the extent of the praise I have for this. As a spotfest, this lacks the compact violence of Toyota/Yamada 1992 or the thoughtful creativity of something like Omega/Naito 2017

I have no memory of the posts I made earlier in here about Brody being a great mat worker, and I certainly wouldn't say that now. What I will say is that Inoki/Brody is one of the most fascinating match series I've discovered recently and a massive example of why you can't quantify art. The premise is basically the two having these great spectacles with some of the loudest sustained crowd heat I've ever seen in a decent sized arena, whilst Brody is doing just about all the things we'd normally associate with bad wrestling. He's making goofy faces and noises, refusing to sell most of time, sandbagging on moves, sitting in holds with often poor technique, and doing some of the worst looking leg drops I've seen. Initially I attributed the crowd response and overall entertainment value to Inoki giving an absolutely masterful performance, which is true, but once I read Sleaze's review of their first match and watched their rematch (which features one of the greatest entrances ever from Brody, BTW), I realized there was something far more interesting in play. All those things I listed off as normally being done in bad wrestling (minus the shitty leg drops) are actually the reason why the crowd is going so apeshit and are really what serves as the launching pad for Inoki's genius. The goofy faces and barking pretty much set the tone for the whole thing by making Brody come across as this alien entity within the pure sports world of NJPW. Brody refusing to sell gets him across as an Undertaker-esque horror monster and makes all of Inoki's offense feel that much sweeter, whilst also helping make it believable for Inoki to lose his cool. The sandbagging on moves like a butterfly suplex is actually a cool bit of underutilized realism that further gets across Brody as a monster by showing how standard big moves don't always go smoothly on him. Brody sitting around in poorly applied holds is normally something I'd hate, but Inoki selling like he does gets Brody over as a guy who's so strong he doesn't need proper technique, and seeing Inoki sell big for a not great looking arm lock applied to his bandaged elbow in their first match also helps sell the seriousness of the injury. Simply put, swap out Brody for someone doing the exact opposite of all the things mentioned above, and the match wouldn't be as good. He undeniably had the "it" factor with the crowd, and it was the result of his carefully protected character and his willingness to break the rules of wrestling. It's truly a series only Inoki and Brody could have. For his detractors confused on why he's so highly regarded by older fans and workers, I think this series offers probably the most accessible route to understanding his work.

Hash is probably the most frustrating worker I've seen, though I mainly say that because I tend to have sky high expectations for him between the hype surrounding him and the fact that I started out with what seems to be his best stuff (vs. Zangiev 1989, Choshu G1 96, Ogawa 1999-2000 series, Kawada 2004). I have immense respect for his performances in those matches, with the Kawada one being one of the best performances I've ever seen from anyone. I just wish he hit that level more often. The biggest thing seems to be a similar issue with what people see in Brody where you want him to just be a badass brawler who stiffs people and does epic staredowns, but instead you often get him spending huge chunks of the match doing a bunch of matwork that he sucks at. I have no idea how anyone can watch Hash/Hase G1 93 back-to-back with pretty much any one of Inoki's big matches vs. Andre/Fujinami/Choshu/Saito and think Hash's matwork looks good. He wasn't exactly some beacon of consistency in smaller tags/6-mans either. There's probably some gems if you know where to look, but I recently watched several 1994 tags and a 6-man opposite Fujiwara, and all of them had Fujiwara working circles around him. None of them were nearly as good as Inoki/Hase vs. Fujiwara/Ishikawa also from 1994 either. Inoki seems a very misunderstood worker. I've seen it implied that Hash was a guy who was every bit as good as the best AJPW guys but rubes just didn't get his work because not enough head drops or flippies. That description seems far more apt for Inoki. Often when I read others talk about Inoki I'm wondering if I even watched the same match others are talking about. I've been looking for these mythical Inoki matches brought down by his ego since the DVDVR 80's set and I've yet to find them. The story of the Saito matches, for example, is pretty much the opposite of that with Inoki allowing Saito to out-wrestle him for large portions of their matches before something happens at the end that stops Saito from putting him away. It seems that what others take as ego-tripping I see as him knowing how to play the ace role better than anyone else and using that ability to create unforgettable moments. For a guy with a rep for refusing to give anything, he also has amazing understanding of when and how much to sell for an opponent to get the crowd involved. Like, just watch the 4/85 Brody match and see Inoki put on a masterclass in crowd control. I really can't imagine Hash getting a match nearly that good out of Brody. Basically, I see Inoki as a much more well-rounded worker who also does Hash's calling card of simply worked cinematic spectacles better than Hash himself.

This was a match I'd known about for a long time, figured it was probably great, and, unlike a lot of the 90's/2000's NJPW stuff I'd also held off on, this actually was quite great. Unique setting with it being in Brazil with lots of Japanese immigrants in attendance. Seemed they wanted to market Inoki's background in the country. It's one of those matches that's pretty simple in terms of play-by-play but works tremendously well because of the great character work, strong execution, and a simple but engaging story. It comes across as the predecessor to PRIDE freak show fights. Andre dwarfs Inoki in terms of overall size, but the difference is really apparent when they go for a knuckle lock and Inoki's hand looks like a toddler's compared to Andre. Inoki is great working little things to put over the size difference, like how he sells every hold he goes for as a titanic struggle just putting it on, and he isn't always successful like with the bow and arrow attempt. It looks so violent every time Andre throws Inoki into the ropes. Andre takes most of the match on the mat and he shows some impressive skills with how works the holds and keeps it entertaining by changing his attack up. Thought the headlock takedown he did looked really hard and I liked how he used it to wrench Inoki's neck. Some fun comedy too. Inoki discovers he can use his power and defensive quickness to get the slight edge in the striking game, and ends up getting his best success by going for punches and drop kicks, which Andre shows some great selling for. I love the finish where Inoki finally starts finding openings on the mat and just holds on for dear life on the first real submission hold he can lock in (a short arm scissors/biceps slicer), and through a series of events manages to parlay that into a count-out win.

Watching lots of 70s/80s NJPW seems to have left me jaded and spoiled for most Heisei era NJPW matwork, because I had "get on with it" thoughts watching the opening section of this back-to-back with the 2002 match. I expected something like the second coming of Frye/Takayama after hearing about Takayama's stroke, but it was pretty far from that and I'm now very skeptical about this match being the direct cause of the stroke. Instead of a straight shoot-out like the 2002 match, this was more carefully built with its own peaks and valleys to make the bombs stand out. I felt a lot of weariness in how Takayama sold for Sasaki's strikes and in his execution of his bombs down the stretch, which slightly pushed it past the 2002 match for me despite the slow start.

Didn't expect I'd be the low voter on this to such an extent. On first watch, this felt like the missing link of stylistic degradation between the amazing proto-shoot style matches of Inoki and Fujinami and the soulless big matches of Tanahashi and Okada with first halves dedicated to meaningless and boring limbwork. I've seen people give Kurt Angle shit by saying the drama is in applying holds rather than sitting in them, but this is a far worse example of that mantra than anything I've seen Angle do. Instead of just 1 ankle lock at the end, here we've got an entire match where guys move in and out of leg holds at will just so they can spend all this time heatlessly sitting in them. There's one part where Hase grabs what looks like a nasty ankle lock (not the Kurt Angle version) while in a leg hold, and Hashimoto is just aimlessly looking around like nothing is happening. The dueling figure fours stuff didn't really do it for me either and got pretty repetitive. While watching the figure fours I couldn't stop thinking about how much better the figure four and the general leg work was in Akiyama/Hase. That match had an intensity which I didn't really feel from this in how they'd struggle and emote while in the holds. Hash and Hase spent all this time working over each others' legs just so they could almost completely ignore it when they stood up and wrestle what felt like an entirely different match with Hash freely using his kicks and Hase running the ropes. Admittedly, Hash stiffing Hase was pretty good, but I had no idea why had to pack in all the stuff in-between that with them sitting in leg locks in front of a dead crowd. Should have just been a violent sprint. The flash pin finish did nothing for me here, but I think it would have worked much better in the context of a shorter match as well. With regards to the earlier conversation in this thread, I watched Muto/Hase 01 for the first time about a month ago. I think it was actually reading the talk about it in this thread that made me want to watch it a few years ago, but I never got around to it since I couldn't find it online at the time. Anyway, the matwork in the first 20 minutes of that blew me away. So many innovative counters, a sense of tension and struggle in how they go for moves, and an amazingly fast pace that unfortunately results in them being gassed out after those first 20 minutes and having to switch to bomb throwing. Still a far better match than this.

Bret's explanation of the promo makes sense to me. He did seem aware of the situation with WCW's glass ceiling and did what he could to help Booker and Benoit get over. Not much of a stretch that that would extend to an admiration for the undercard lucha guys who always tried to put on a good show with the 3 minutes they got whilst being treated like a joke.

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.

That's hilarious if true. I always thought he enjoyed putting Ogawa over between how hard worked to make him look good in their matches and them becoming friends afterwards.

Forgot Santo/Casas?

Setting aside the weirdness of this being presented as homegrown guy trying to take back the belt from an invader when they were both established NJPW main eventers just a few years before this and the match being structured more like an IWPG title match than a TC one, this was great. I wasn't really into the initial feeling out holds, but it worked retroactively as a calm before the storm and to foreshadow the arm vs leg story that the rest of the match followed. I really got into it when they did the back-and-forth neck chop exchange. It's cliche, but I wish it was more common for guys to work strike exchanges with a fraction of the energy and charisma these guys showed there. I felt like Kojima really brought his A-game here with the arm selling and some exciting offensive moments. Hashimoto was right there with a performance that's right up there with his best, bringing the stiff and weighty strikes, awesome selling, cool visuals, and epic cut-offs that I love him from.

I enjoyed the hell out of this. We've all heard of the story about how its just 15 rounds of Inoki kicking Ali's leg while butt scooting, but there's actually quite a bit more to it than that. First 1/3 or so is all about Ali's attempted mind games. He digs deep into his playbook with so much great trash talk, funny faces, and goading Inoki to hit him on the ropes. None of it really works, but it's entertaining as hell to watch. I also noticed Blassie in his corner giving him advice between rounds, which had me howling with laughter. Inoki came across as the ultimate badass with how he just remained stoic and stuck to his gameplan through all this. Here he is against the guy universally regarded as the best fighter and most famous man on the planet trying the same psychological tactics that brought down Liston and Foreman, and he just refuses to let it affect him. Felt very inspirational. Besides that, the narrative of Inoki kicking Ali from his back the whole fight is actually pretty wrong. Most of his best shots seemed to come from him performing some sort of dropkick aimed at the knee from standing, and I enjoyed seeing him find ways to setup the move while staying out of Ali's range. The middle rounds saw more of the same offensively from Inoki. It really started to become apparent here that Ali's leg was in rough shape and it slowly becomes a regular occurrence for Inoki's kicks to stagger Ali, if not knock him down. In what felt like something that should be remembered as one of the most iconic combat sports moments and the real birth of MMA, Inoki even scores a takedown at one point and goes for a submission, which leads to Ali looking more vulnerable than he has in any of his boxing fights to this point when he desperately grabs the ropes for a break. I love how satisfied Karl Gotch looks in Inoki's corner between rounds, like he's seeing his dream come to fruition. The overall entertainment takes a hit between Ali mostly stopping his trash talk and the fight being stopped to tape up Inoki's boot, but it wasn't too bad and we also get to see a funny ankle lock attempt from Ali. Ali having to be convinced by LeBelle to not walk out of the fight after an Inoki low blow was also a cool moment. Ali's attempts to defend his bad leg don't really work (why didn't he just switch stances? lol), and by the later rounds the leg becomes ridiculously swollen to the point that they should have just stopped the fight. The action also slows down as Inoki, seemingly sensing that he's ahead on points, starts kicking less and starts looking for takedown attempts so he can get a sub. Ali manages to avoid getting taken down by just circling Inoki from near the ropes and Inoki has to to revert to the kicking strat at points. This is the point where Ali actually starts hitting Inoki, and by that I mean by the end of the fight he's managed like 3 or 4 clean jabs in the entire thing. I've seen complaints about Inoki not being more aggressive with trying to wrestle down Ali, but I felt it actually made a lot of sense why he fought like he did. Trying to go for Ali while on the ropes would be a no-win situation as he'd be wide open for punches and Ali could easily force a break even if things went to the ground. At the same time, Ali trying to meet Inoki in the middle and go for a KO would also be a bad idea with the condition his leg was in. The fight would probably be kind of boring at this point if not for just how impressive it was that Ali was even standing up by this point. He even does the shuffle, which had to hurt like hell. While the earlier part of the fight brought out the Inoki mark in me for seeing him out-fight Ali, the end part brings out the Ali mark in me for seeing him refuse to quit. Neat finish with Ali finally managing to score a punch on Inoki in the midst of one of his dropkicks to the leg. So, yeah, fantastic wrestling match/boxing fight/MMA fight/whatever. It's a thoroughly entertaining and unique spectacle with massive significance in cementing Inoki as a legend and the origins of MMA. Don't believe the haters, this is great stuff.

Ace of 80's NJPW vs the 90s. Who you got?

Did you miss Yoshida/Fujiwara vs Ishikawa/Amano from Chigusa Nagayo Produce or are you just not including that because it's not family friendly?

Am I missing something about Bret's year? He seems a super obvious choice for a US focused list for being the best in-ring guy and making massive strides to improve his promo work. I always thought he was also beloved by smarks at the time.

Kyoko Kimura One of the best joshi workers of the overlooked late 2000s-early 2010s period. Very diverse worker who could do solid matwork sections, work an uncomfortably violent brawl, and also be a trailblazer for intergender deathmatch wrestling. vs. Abdullah Kobayashi 7/30/2006 vs. Meiko Satomura 12/3/2006 and 3/11/2015 vs. Kana 8/16/2008 and 3/4/2014 w/ Command Bolshoi vs. Arisa Nakajima & Kana 3/2/2014

Look up a review for this match elsewhere online and you'll likely find people who watched this because "lol 2 hour island deathmatch" with no clue about the other Inoki/Saito matches that led to this complaining about how boring this match is because these guys just sat around in holds for an hour instead of hitting each other. I myself had long avoided this match due to its poor reputation despite holding their 4/27/87 singles and their interactions as partners in the 9/17/87 elimination match in very high regard. I finally buckled down to watch it today and I can safely say those people bagging on this match are idiots and I was an idiot for taking them seriously. This makes Danielson/Aries, Lee/Justice, and Hero/Punk look like a total amateur efforts as far as 65+ minutes singles matches go and it's a serious 1987 MOTYC. So, to address the most common complaint about this being built around them working holds instead of it being an immediate blood brawl, if you're trapped on an island with an incredibly dangerous opponent, the last thing you want is to find yourself gassed out. The first half or so was built around wear-down holds and both guys being careful to avoid stuff like rope running to conserve energy. Even though the match was promoted as drawing inspiration from the 17th century Kojiro/Musashi duel, the thing that came to mind while watching this were descriptions I'd read of early 20th century catch wrestling or boxing matches that would go on for hours. Fittingly, a major part of Inoki's strategy is using the Joe Stecher body scissors as a means of wearing down Saito. It's a strat that pays dividends by the end with Saito doing an awesome job of selling exhaustion from the early match body work. Them going with this sort of strategy works to give the match an air of legitimacy, which they followed through on by working the hell out of every single hold. Often when I see guys go for stuff like armbars or rear naked chokes in worked contexts I have difficulty suspending disbelief because I know in a real fight those would be instant match enders. Here, they do an awesome job of working in enough struggle that I can actually buy into them as holds that can be difficult to apply properly to an opponent who hasn't been worn down. When either guy goes for an armbar, they'll tense up their body like they're putting all their strength into it and make some great facials, but you won't see them fully extend the elbow. And since there's no rope breaks, you always get to see some usually great sequence of the guy on the defensive slowly working his way out of holds through small movements that slowly add up to get them in a better position. For me, this sort of matwork was absolutely heavenly. Incredible cinematography and scenery as well. Even though it kind of "breaks kayfabe" seeing day turn to night when supposedly only 2 hours have passed, it really makes you feel like you've been on a journey with how you see the passage of time. You go from the surreal aesthetic of daylight and how it at points looks like it could be 2 dudes grappling in a backyard, to a more ritualistic aesthetic of dusk with the torches being lit as the sky turns a beautiful blue, to finally the eeriness of night when both guys bleed buckets and the raw savagery comes to the forefront. It's also during that nighttime portion that the ring itself, a special white one constructed for this match with normal padding removed, comes into view as the crucial 3rd character in this match. Bumps, which they'd smartly avoided taking until the finish stretch, are accompanied with a louder than usual thud to put an exclamation point on the sense of brutality. The last few minutes with Inoki just walking around the island in a dazed state as cameramen and studio lights come into view feel like something out of an arthouse movie.

Was anybody else pissed at the ref involvement here? I felt Takayama could have won if the ref didn't force him into a corner that one time he had Kobashi down near the ropes and made him wait for a 10 count. Making him do that unfairly gave Kobashi crucial time to recover so he could mount a comeback. It's still real to me, damnit. I've long been in the camp that this was a great match brought down by a somewhat dull first 15 minutes, but watching this in the context of some other Kobashi defenses, specifically the Honda match, I can see how that's completely wrong. The first half was actually quite brilliant for getting over the dynamic and showing how Takayama is different from Kobashi's other opponents without giving away too much. The big moment for me was Kobashi's side headlock/neck crank. That served as Kobashi's great equalizer on the mat when he initially struggled against Honda's Olympic wrestling techniques, as well as even further back in the 6/12/98 Kawada match. In this, he struggles to keep Takayama down with it and quickly has to move onto something else when it doesn't prove as effective as before. Even as he still has the advantage after that, Takayama has that power to turn things around at a moment's notice. It's a dynamic that they slowly build off and keep a constant of the match well into the molten stretch run. There's loads of iconic Takayama moments here (THAT knee lift, the Everest German near fall, the punch flurry), but the one that's always hit me most viscerally is his grabbing Kobashi from the outside while Kobashi is trying to crawl into the ring and desperately clinging to the ring ropes, and yanking him away to hit a backdrop. It's yet another showing of NOAH's dogshit production that they missed the point of impact on that move, but that spot pretty well encapsulates the story of this match. Takayama wrestles this like a horror movie villain and Kobashi gives a masterful selling performance to get him over. Add in some awesome body part psychology with Takayama brutalizing Kobashi's injured elbow and knees, and it's a match where I'm still left biting on the near falls even after I've seen this numerous times before.

I don't think I agree with anything in that 2nd paragraph. Rewatching Kobashi's reign, I'd have either this or the Takayama match as his best defense and a big reason for that is how the match deviates from tired Epic Match formulas and goes a more personal route. Saito acts like he's get a massive chip on his shoulder and he backs it up by not only how he dominates Kobashi from the start but manages to maintain control even while playing to the crowd and giving Kobashi time to recover. It's surreal to see this guy who spent most of his career before and after this getting lost in the midcard shuffle hang with Kobashi like this, and I could feel real emotion driving his performance here. Of course, it helps tremendously that Kobashi sells his ass off for most of the match and is willing to put his body through absolute hell. That apron bump doesn't lose any impact on rewatches. In fact, it just comes across even nastier because of how this time around I noticed the part of his back that hit the apron turn a sickening red/purple later in the match. It's a bit hard to make out on lower quality encodes of this, but it's there if you look for it. Then there's also that insane German suplex bump. Besides a somewhat underwhelming Kobashi control segment around the mid-point, all of Kobashi's stuff on his comebacks looks fittingly brutal and the end sequence is absolutely perfect. I also wouldn't really say that Kobashi does Misawa formula better than Misawa here just because he's nowhere near as good at nuanced type selling as Misawa is in those types of matches, but there's enough unique stuff here that this matches stands out fine regardless. I would still put it a smidge above Misawa/Sano 2007, but that's another match I've come around to big recently.

Am I crazy or is this 2/3's of a pretty good shoot-style match? I wouldn't want all wrestling to be like this, but knowing the real-life reputations of these two guys there's a real "anything can happen" type feel to this. The enforcer of the old guard trying to shoot on the new kid known for his shooting skills. My interpretation of what happened was that Maeda came to work but Andre wanted to teach him a lesson ala the Iron Sheik match by smothering him with his size and refusing to sell anything. Maeda gets tired of it and shows he can effortlessly takedown Andre before going for some shoot grappling. Andre successfully defends the initial armbar attempt because he's just too damn big for Maeda to get a good enough grip on his arm, but Maeda seems to legit jack up Andre's ankle once he starts working on Andre's legs. Notice how Andre seems to move a bit more gingerly after that. I think Maeda picked up on that as well, hence that he just kept things standing in the hopes that Andre would start working, which never happens. This is when things go downhill. It is kind of cool to see Andre try to shrug off Maeda's kicks even though he's pretty clearly in pain, but them standing around and circling each other gets old pretty fast. Inoki coming out just as Maeda manages to stagger Andre would have been a good point to end the match, and I'm not sure why it didn't just end there. Still, they keep going with a few more minutes of nothing happening until Maeda scores another takedown, which leads Andre to trying to egg on Maeda to grapple with him again. Maeda stays standing and the match just ends, which is a pretty big anti-climax. Not on the level of their 1983 match but worth watching at least once.

Maybe this match feels a little better than it actually is just in comparison to the bloated NOAH matches I've been watching recently, but this struck me as a great sub 10-minute match that probably would have done well were it included on the DVDVR set. They work a really tight structure that packs an epic feel into a short match time. It's very simple work: Andre works the crowd into a frenzy -> they do some cat and mouse stuff -> Andre demonstrates his power by downing Maeda with a single chop -> Maeda gets in some licks and takes the giant off his feet -> Andre gets serious and demolishes him. Andre's body language makes everything he does feel so big and the crowd bites on all of it. This is when Andre still had some athleticism, so he takes some great awkward looking bumps and works a couple neat counter sequences that you wouldn't get in his later work. Maeda also deserves credit for giving a pretty selfless performance taking big bumps and selling every Andre strike like a gunshot. Probably the best I've seen pre-UWF Maeda look.

Who do you people side with on the BATB 2000 debacle? Russo is Russo, but Bischoff also came across pretty bad between thinking that just having Jarrett lay down on a PPV match without doing Jarrett/Booker T later was a great idea and wanting to keep the title vacant until Halloween Havoc so Hogan can swoop in.

His massive drop-off since signing with WWE is surprising and sad, but match-for-match he has to have one of the best, if not the best, resumes out there for that 2004-2014 singles break-out period. That 2004 10 match series of him vs. heavyweights just produced banger after banger, the 2009 run is probably one of the best years anyone has had since 2000, and his 2013 GHC run was highly underrated with him getting good-great stuff out of a variety of opponents of sometimes questionable quality. The 2008 Sasaki singles match is also secretly better than any of the 2008 Kobashi/Sasaki tags. The more I revisit his work, the more I'm convinced the criticisms of him stem more from the performances of the guys he'd frequently partner with/wrestle (Marufuji, Kanemaru) instead of the man himself. Highly technical and hurty looking kick-based offense, realistic selling that he knew how to vary depending on move/opponent/stage of the match, underrated character work as a young punk with a chip on his shoulder. Basically a total package who excelled working 2 very different roles within 2 styles at the same time (ace of the juniors divison + overmatched little man in the heavyweight division). I also think the Nakajima singles series really needs to be re-evaluated. I've written a detailed review of 3/1/09 on GME already, but basically I feel it's a match that combines insanely high athleticism with remarkably deep match-to-match psychology and bodypart selling that's been unfairly maligned by people who can't look past predisposed ideas of how body parts should be sold. Their other matches didn't seem far behind to me in terms of greatness either.

Lucha matwork is best enjoyed as a style where you just turn off your brain and watch for cool shit. Think like a high flying spot fest but done by old guys on the mat. The more you think about it, the less you'll enjoy it. This pin counter makes little sense in terms of physics and looks highly cooperative, but bah gawd does it look cool.