[1998-02-03-BJW-Indy Hyper J Tournament] Yoshihiro Taijiri vs Minoru Tanaka

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[soup23]

This was a real hybrid style match that didn't last long but packed a lot of punch. Tanaka utilized multiple submission and strike attempts and Tajiri was there to just hang on. Tajiri ends up picking up the victory and advances vs. Gedo. Solid stuff for 7-8 minutes. (**1/4)

[Loss]

I liked this match, but yeah, it was too short to really amount to much.

[tim]

This felt to me like an NJ juniors version of a really good B-show match. Short, all action with a lot of unique stuff. Some consistent trends in the match like Tanaka always going for the armbar and Tajiri always looking for the dragon suplex added some nice cohesion to the match. Tajiri trying to turn that tilt-a-whirl back submission into a dragon suplex was a great spot. Tajiri finally hits the dragon suplex for the win. Very good short match.

[PeteF3]

They packed a hell of a lot into 8 minutes, with Tanaka working a hard-nosed BattlArts style and Tajiri working as a more typical Japanese junior with a few lucha flourishes--not to mention the Yearbook debut of the Tarantula. As far as 8-minute junior matches go I thought this smoked the Thunder tag, and that was pretty good in its own right.

[TravJ1979]

I was so bored by Tanaka here. He was like the living embodiment of Jericho's 1,001 holds list. 1.) Arm bar 2.) Arm bar 3.) Knee bar 4.) Arm bar.... He has a match next year against Taka Michinoku that I remember being great and he does get better, but this was more of an exhibition.

[Edwin]

They packed a hell of a lot into 8 minutes, with Tanaka working a hard-nosed BattlArts style and Tajiri working as a more typical Japanese junior with a few lucha flourishes...

This pretty much summarizes what this is, so this isn't really anything mind blowing that you should go out of your way to see.