[1980-11-03-NJPW-Toukon Series] Chavo Guerrero vs Kengo Kimura

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[SAMS]

1980-11-03
NJPW
Kengo Kimura (c) vs Chavo Guerrero
NWA International Junior Heavyweight Title Match
Kuramae Kokugikan, Tokyo, Japan
★★★
Card

This was right on the cusp of being a great match, perhaps if the finishing stretch had been elongated just a couple more minutes it would have made it.
This really felt like they were trying to chip away at each other, looking for that opening to hit the killer surprise blow and steal the match. For the first two thirds we had several resets as neither man was able to gain the upper hand and I thought they did an excellent job of positioning both as being equals, without them belabouring the point.
I would say as the bout progressed Kimura became more emboldened, he threw out a sequence of moves that I don’t recall him being able to execute in his previous match with Chavo, nor his match with Fujinami - backdrop suplexes, backbreakers and at one point he hit successive jumping piledrivers that popped me out of my seat. Kimura saw his path to glory and became over eager, and error in judgement had him attempt a plancha which failed catastrophically, Chavo recovered enough to get back into the ring and Kimura wasn’t as lucky. With the countout decision the belt changed hands and it looks like Chavo would be taking it back to the US.
Chavo gave a good account of himself but Kimura really jumped off the screen for me. I was disappointed in how their previous match together went down for a number of reasons, but Kimura, even in defeat, felt like a more fully rounded and legitimate competitor. He feels like he is turning the corner somewhat.

[tcg91]

This was slightly clipped, 3 minutes out of 20 are missing and so it's not a big deal. The contest was solid as a rock, they showed a lot of intensity and created a nice stalemate on the mat. While Kimura slightly got the upper hand, none of them dominated the opponent on the floor and consistently worked on a body part, making it a fluid and balanced match. It's quite rare, actually, to see the struggle for dominance to be the theme for most of the match. This continues until the end, Kimura tries to tame his opponent for good, but he hits the barricades with a dive and so ends up losing by countout. Quite a conservative finish for a title change, but the match was good
***

[G. Badger]

This is a fantastic match! This is another technical struggle for supremacy. There was a segment where Chavo was in control and it seemed like every hold he did was chained into the next. And Kengo comes through again. He's not the ace like Fujinami but damn he can hold his own and then some. I think I'm comfortable calling this a classic match... I really dug this one!