[1981-04-23-NJPW] Tiger Mask vs Dynamite Kid

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Beast]

My first exposure to this series, and I wasn't aware until after watching it that this was literally Sayama's debut as the Tiger Mask character in NJPW.

Great, easy to follow story. Dynamite is wary of the fast paced kicks of Tiger Mask, and even when he's able to catch one, Tiger Mask still turns it into an enziguri. Dynamite tries to match Tiger Mask move for move, until switching game plans and going more aggressive. He clamps on some holds and eventually tries to tear off the titular mask. He lays in some clubbering blows, but Tiger Mask is always able to bounce back. Dug the nice selling of Mask's knee after getting out of a leg hold.

A couple mistimed spots, but that's easy to forgive considering this must have been Sayama's first time under the mask, as well as against Dynamite. The ending sequence is spiffy, with Dynamite missing the headbutt, Mask throws him outside, Dynamite takes control and tries to bring Mask back in with a suplex which is reversed into one of the better German's I've ever seen. Mask gets the win, but Dynamite recovers and throws another kick. Mask responds in kind before the ref breaks it up and declares Mask the winner.

Left me wanting more, especially to see if and how their feud evolves. A good taster of what was to come I imagine. Will especially be interested to see if Dynamite becomes more and more aggressive as he becomes more familiar with Tiger Mask.

[fxnj]

Carryjob probably isn't the right way to describe this being that Sayama brought a lot to the table with his athleticism and the match was clearly booked as a showcase for that, but Dynamite Kid's performance here has to be in the conversation as one of the best examples of covering some very glaring holes in your opponent's game and making them look like a million bucks in the process. Sayama botches a shit ton here, some of it just being some kicks that didn't land properly, while others are a lot more noticeable, but Dynamite Kid never misses a beat. Seeing the things he did to cover for his opponent were the best part of the match for me. A big one is when Sayama is on Kid's shoulder and attempts some sort of counter, but he just ends up unceremoniously falling down. Kid's response is to sell the impact on his arm as preventing him from following up, thereby giving Mask plausible time to recover and go for something else. Kid's character work is also tremendous in building up Sayama's aura as a real life superhero. Right from the opening bell he's showing how scared he is to engage and selling every one of Sayama's kicks as dealing serious damage even when it's just a grazing blow. The athletics sequences themselves aren't all bad and some of them still stand as legitimately impressive. There was one armlock sequence they did that looked like something out of WoS in its elaborateness but it was executed at breathtaking speed. I was also a fan of the finishing sequence that saw Kid land hard on the mat off a missed headbutt, eat some stiff head kicks on the outside, and then lose to a beautiful German suplex coming back in.

[tcg91]

You could tell that the fans were quite intrigued about this one, as Tiger Mask's debut has been quite hyped and he was wrestling the best heel junior heavyweight around. As a 10 minutes showcase of what they could do, this was good and, more importantly, left fans with with a lot more yet to be seen (which easily sets up rematches). The anticipation was created thanks to Dynamite's mean actions, compared to Tiger's unique style and quickness. This is still ground-breaking to this day and I liked the fact that they only scratched the surface, ending the match with a clean finish, but still not using all the tricks they knew
***1/4