[1991-08-24-UWF-Moving On 5] Nobuhiko Takada & Billy Scott vs Kazuo Yamazaki & Tatsuo Nakano

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

This was okay, but at best it was too much of a good thing. A 30-minute draw in this style is tough unless there's a lot of drama and playing to the crowd, which there wasn't here. Weird choice to headline a show too. Tabe called it "a keeper", which I know isn't a ringing endorsement, but I wasn't a fan.

[Zenjo]

I just don't "get" shoot style tag matches at all. Maybe someone could recommend an exception, but they never seem to work as a format at all. With the original UWF there were a few decent tags but that was closer to pro style than UWFI. Whenever anyone tagged out in this it lost all of the flow and any of the momentum they'd built up.

[PeteF3]

I like most of the UWFI I've seen, but I'll pass on a 30-minute draw that consists of Takada and 3 mid-card types.

[Kevin Ridge]

Volume is really low. Is Mel Funn directing/producing this show? Takada got himself a lousy haircut so I really want Yamazaki to kick him in the head as much as possible. I’m with Zenjo on the tag matches in this format. They just don’t work.

[soup23]

This felt like guys going out and doing moves for 28 minutes instead of telling much of a story. The tease of the draw could have been done much better and Takada looked a level above the rest from a importance level standpoint. I hate Billy scott's facials.

[garretta]

This wasn't a draw. Yamazaki got the submission on Scott with the crossface chicken wing at 28:09.

 

That said, count me with those who don't see the point of shoot-style tags, mostly because they occur so rarely and the wrestlers are so not used to them that there's no real continuity. Two of the wrestlers go until their time is done, then tag out. There's no teamwork or doubleteaming (although how you could doubleteam in a match like this escapes me). This is more like four separate interlocking singles bouts more than a "regular" professional tag team match. I could only discern one rule difference between these and singles shoot-style bouts: If a wrestler tags out while in a hold, it counts as a rope break and their team loses a point.

 

This was interesting to see as a curiosity, and the fact that the score was posted after every point was "unscored" made it easier to follow. It was a very even bout until the final submission, which kept me on the edge of my seat. At the same time, I don't think I'd like to sit through a whole card of this kind of match; it's just too much of a departure from what I consider tag team wrestling.

[dawho5]

Tag team shootstyle match is just wrong. I can recommend the 2008/2009 Battlarts tags as much, much better than this. But also violent in really almost disturbing ways. This match is...why is it on the set? Scott hits some nice amateur moves early. Nakano does almost nothing of note. Yamazaki and have some okay striking exchanges. And that's all I thought was noteworthy in 28 minutes. I noticed something with suplexes counting as a point deduction for the team that took them. That seemed like a new thing.

[superkix]

This was probably too long but it had some cool moments and it seems like Scott is improving in the shoot-style environment. He delivers a neat uranage early on and then later, he and Nakano trade German suplexes. Yamazaki and Takada had some decent strike exchanges and at one point, Yamazaki drops Scott with a very cool leg-trap Saito suplex. The groundwork was mostly filler and no one tries to break up the holds, which is why the BattlArts tags were so much fun. No one could keep a hold locked on long enough before someone ran in and punted them in the face.