[1997-06-01-NJPW] Jushin Liger vs Koji Kanemoto

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

I thought this was a great match that I liked even better than the February one. Kanemoto keeps Liger grounded for most of this and they work a lot of submission spots, with Liger as the sympathetic guy fighting through an attack on his knee. He put Kanemoto over in almost every exchange, which bothered me in February after seeing him beat Otani in such a convincing way, but didn't bother me here at all in the context of the tournament, especially when Kanemoto was going over in the end. Liger really does a great job of getting over the idea that he has been pushed past his limit. Fun finishing sequence, as Kanemoto plays possum when Liger jumps off the top and tries to finish him off, but Liger was playing possum too and ends up catching him in a nasty release German. They go spot crazy at the end, which really works and makes sense here because Kanemoto is doing a series of big moves to finally put Liger away, and it's going to take something major to get the job done. And he does, scoring a huge upset in my number two juniors match of 1997 at this point.

[Childs]

This was really good, and I'm surprised how much I've liked the Liger-Koji stuff from this year. Kanemoto wrestled with less attitude but more focus than he demonstrated in their February match. And I liked the way they paid that off, with Liger selling that his leg was too weak for him to mount the kind of sustained finishing run he used to win on 2/16. You still had the slight problem of Liger's offense looking a lot nastier than all of Koji's non-kick stuff. But they found a way to advance the rivalry regardless.

[soup23]

Big fan of this also. I was glad that Liger going to the well too many times got cut off by Kanemoto. He kept trying to do his power strikes but was stunted when he gets overzealous. Kanemoto gets a huge win for him and the fans rejoice.

[PeteF3]

Good match that I'm not as high on as the others--the criticisms people had of Kanemoto in earlier bouts, which I hadn't really noticed, seemed to rear their heads here, as he seems to have trouble holding matches together as well as Liger and Otani can. He has some terrific moves but isn't as complete a worker as the best NJ juniors. This is still very good and feels really evenly matched--a lot of these upsets come off as flukes because the guy doing the job gets to control the offense for the bulk of the match. They don't work like that here--Kanemoto is on top for a healthy chunk of this and while Liger gets in some good near-falls, he spends most of this fighting from underneath.