[1980-02-05-NJPW-New Year Golden Series] Tatsumi Fujinami vs Dynamite Kid

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Superstar Sleeze]

WWF Junior Heavyweight Champion Tatsumi Fujinami vs Dynamite Kid - NJPW 2/5/80

 

I thought this was even better than the Keirn match. I love how loud Dynamite is. On offense every move has more impact from his sound effects and every blow he takes feels that much more painful from his verbal selling. I thought Fujinami sold even better and his comeback felt like an even bigger deal in this match. Dynamite came out to play. His buzzcut in 1980 with everyone else rocking medium-to-long hair gave him a crazed look. He set the tone early with no matwork and focusing on strikes and throws. He definitely wanted to lock in the Octopus, the first time he was met with the Dragon Screw Legwhip and the second time they tumbled out of the ring. Dynamite was persistent, headbutting him during a test of strength. In general, he was such a sadistic prick. This was the big difference between his bomb heavy WWF work and this. This had a lot more grit. He was elbowing, kneeing, headbutt, it was intense. He still threw his suplexes, but it was a lot meaner. He reopens Fujinami's cut with a nasty headbutt. Fujinami sells really well. I like Fujinami trying to fight fire with fire with huge European uppercuts and some of the best dropkicks this side of Jim Brunzell. We are talking pinpoint accuracy right to the head. Dynamite always had a response either attacking the cut or casually walking away from a dropkick or plancha. So that's where Samoa Joe got the idea from! Love that spot. Dynamite gets the Octopus, but Fujinami powers. He also gets his big finish, Diving Headbutt, but Fujinami kicks out! His second try ends in disaster. Great selling from Dynamite! Fujinami is able to get him in quite pinning predicament to win the match.

 

 

I really enjoyed the strike vs strike battle. The Keirn match felt like your standard face vs heel match where Fujinami focused more on selling. This had face vs heel dynamics with a strong Dynamite control, but it also had more Fujinami fighting back and struggling to win. Dynamite's offense and verbal selling made this special. Fujinami bleeding and roaring back definitely met him at Dynamite's level. A little short and anticlimactic to be a true classic, but highly entertaining. ****1/4

[superkix]

The story is a simple but effective one, with the aggressive Dynamite Kid trying to re-open the champ’s bandaged forehead. Fujinami works from underneath for the majority of the match, firing off the occasional uppercut but ultimately being overwhelmed and bloodied by Kid’s snug forearm shots and headbutts. He tries for the dragon suplex hold but Dynamite fights out and continues to target Fujinami’s injury, using kneedrops and fistdrops, knuckling the forehead and at one point, even biting it! Dynamite's such a little shit here -- I mean, the fans are throwing rolls of toilet paper at him! I like that he's seemingly trying for the manjigatame as a heel move. Fujinami does a terrific job of garnering sympathy from the crowd as he sells his injury and the desperation of his retaliations. Dynamite is able to hit the diving headbutt for two but when he tries for the second, Fujinami is able to roll away and the crowd loses their shit. He’s able to dropkick him out of the ring but Dynamite walks away from the follow-up plancha, once again cutting off Fujinami’s momentum as he had through much of the match. But once inside the ring, Fujinami is able to pin him out of nowhere with the Japanese roll leg clutch and Dynamite is pissed. Really good stuff.

[Microstatistics]

Dynamite Kid often gets painted as a workrate guy but he displays a lot of heel charisma and viciousness here. Fujinami turns in a super babyface performance. Great match. ****

[Edwin]

Agree with Microstatistics; i.e.; Dynamite was great here as the foreign vicious heel exploiting Fujinami's bandaged up forehead with some right hands and vicious stomps right into the wound. Dynamite sidestepping Fujinami on a dropkick and a pescado were pretty neat spots. Fujinami usually rules and here it was no different with him bleeding and selling for Dynamite's offense. Finish was a bit abrupt, but made perfect sense. Great match.

[cactus]

I've seen people prefer Dynamite's matches with Fujinami over his more famous series with Tiger Mask and I can see why. For starters Fujinami brings out more of the heel side of Dynamite Kid. Kid would pepper in some stiff headbutts in between the quick and fluid technical exchanges. He would also arrogantly side step out of the way of Fujinami's attacks. This also a clean and satisfying finish, a rarity for a puroresu match from this time. This was brisk, stiff and vicious technical bout that's done and dusted all in under 15 minutes. 

★★★★

 

[SAMS]

1980-02-05
NJPW
Tatsumi Fujinami (c) vs. Dynamite Kid
WWF Junior Heavyweight Title Match
Card
★★★

Maybe to some, but to me it was no surprise that Dynamite was an upgrade on Keirn here as he just brought more violence and intensity to his attacks which added a different dimension to the previous Fujinami/Keirn match.
Fujinami still has the same cut on his forehead and here it opens up much earlier and much more innocuously. Kid works from on top for the majority of the match with Fujinami trying for flash pins, which actually ends up being the finish. Kid misses a diving headbutt which allows Fujinami to mount an attack and he pulls off his patented bridge pin for the win and DK is furious. 
I thought in general the work was good, which pulled it up to a certain level, but there was no real clear sense of escalation or narrative development, so mostly just doing ”stuff” for twenty minutes before the finish which led to it feeling a little dry and lacking that extra je ne sais quoi to push it to the next tier.
Side note: I really hate that falling headbutt move that Dynamite Kid does. In general I hate diving headbutts but the one that both Kid and Harley Race do from a standing position is up there as one of my least favourite moves ever.

[Mr JMML]

This match is just amazing, this is so brutal, it’s way more violent than I expected, they hit each other very hard, the roughness is incredibly surprising, when you hear the names Dynamite Kid and Tatsumi Fujinami you don’t associate those names with roughness, you expect a technical masterpiece from these two and we got that too, this match represents the best of both worlds, on one side you have a catch-as-catch-can contest they are known for and on the other side you can find very hard strikes that got the crowd very involved in the match, they were rooting actively for Tatsumi Fujinami, I love the energy the crowd provided to this one, in the last match (Ryuma Go vs Tatsumi Fujinami) I talked about the aura that Fujinami had and how unbeatable he looked and how Ryuma’s win reminded me why I loved wrestling, I don’t know how but this match is even better, the tone of this match is so different from the last one, there’s hatred in this match, Dynamite Kid looks filled with rage during the match and it was the main reason why he lost, he was so focused on making Fujinami suffer that he lost concentration and let Tatsumi get the win with his pin combination bridge variation, the crowd went nuts, the pop the win produced could be heard all over Japan, they really hated Dynamite Kid, it’s the greatest compliment a heel can receive in my opinion, being so hated that losing a title match as the challenger is a sign of absolute greatness, that’s why he made my Greatest Wrestler Ever list, his ability to make people hate him, I hate him because of what he did outside the ring but I loved what he did in the ring, professional wrestling how it should be.

Everyone should watch this match, it doesn’t matter what you like in wrestling this match has it all.

[tcg91]

This was better than the Steve Keirn match, part of the reason is Dynamite using a different strategy than his partner and aiming to busting Fujinami's forehead as soon as possible (as it was really effective when Keirn did it). Fujinami continuously checks his wound and then sells it really well when he starts bleeding, his strategy went out of the window as he was trying to keep Dynamite off his forehead with some matwork. Dynamite gets to look good, even in defeat, as his pin on the first diving headbutt was too cocky and then missing the second one completely changed the match. They also teased the suicide dive again from a desperate Fujinami, which he missed and seemed to be the end for him before he traps Dynamite with the bridge pin. The crowd was into it all along
****