Tatsumi Fujinami

[WingedEagle]

Looks like he was out from June '89 until September '90.

[Timbo Slice]

Automatically on my list from what I've seen, but I want to dive into the 80's stuff a bit more to see if he's as top tier as everyone is making him out to be. Offhand, he's definitely Top 50, but I wouldn't be surprised he gets up there into the Top 25 range when it's all said and done, maybe even Top 15.

[GOTNW]

Not being great after 1989 is often a criticism against Fujinami, but I don't think it matters that much. Yes, his quality of work dropped off, but he's been a consistently good pro wrestler for TWENTY FIVE fucking years after an amazing 12 or so year peak. Surely longevity alone should compensate for a lack of a higher amount of great matches after his peak?

[InYourCase]

Having a blast going through Fujinami stuff right now. He's already moved into my Top 20 and will continue to climb. The Choshu series was simply excellent. He was such a great babyface. The Dynamite Kid match was really good. I've actually seen very little of Kid and I thought Fujinami came across as a much better worker than him in that match. Will be getting to a lot of his tag work soon.

[Parties]

Not being great after 1989 is often a criticism against Fujinami, but I don't think it matters that much. Yes, his quality of work dropped off, but he's been a consistently good pro wrestler for TWENTY FIVE fucking years after an amazing 12 or so year peak. Surely longevity alone should compensate for a lack of a higher amount of great matches after his peak?

 

He also has stuff like his incredible '06 match with Nishimura in MUGA that shows that he could still have a MOTYC twenty-five years past his prime. Especially given the style he worked, he's been incredibly durable.

[El-P]

Fuji was mostly dull and boring as fuck after 91. He could have a good match once in a while, but he's not even a guy that was fun to watch like Flair was even after he became cliché. It took something like Tenryu breaking his nose to get back some fire out of him. He's a guy who never bothered to update his game at all. And since he couldn't bump or move like he used too, well… Meanwhile, Choshu never ceased to be at least fun to watch, despite doing even less.

 

Fuji was definitely a great worker in the late 70's and 80's though. He's the only guy ever to got *something watchable* out of Tiger Jeet Singh, and that was in 90 or so. His match with Flair at the Tokyo Dome is also pretty underrated.

[Dylan Waco]

I haven't watched enough 90's Fujinami to really be fair about it (watched a bunch of matches some time back and thought he was inoffensive, but clearly not a standout anymore), but I don't agree that Fujinami never updated his game. I think he absolutely did update his game when he moved from junior to heavy. I will grant that he still did a lot of the stuff he did as a junior, but the focus and layout of the matches was really different. Watching him work the Choshu feud, or as a Inoki tag partner, or opposite Maeda, feels a lot different than watching him work ace v. DK in juniors division.

[El-P]

I wasn't talking about when he moved to the heavys. He was obviously a great heavyweight worker before the injury. I meant updating his game like say, Baba, Tenryu or Liger did with age and stayed relevant while working with the younger generation. And he absolutely could have I think. Fuji struck me as lazy in the 90's from what I saw. And he's a guy I always wanted to enjoy more than I did then.

[ohtani's jacket]

Fujinami has looked okay in the Tenryu footage I've been watching, but he kept working the same style after he broke down, and like Flair and a bunch of other workers, it was never a style that was going to age well as he got older. I think modernising it would have been easier said than done, though.

[Parties]

I'm not even sure what him changing his style to "modernize" or get with the times in the 90s/2000s would have looked like. Don't see him becoming a Flair/Funk guy doing tons of bloody hardcore brawls. Really wouldn't have wanted to see him as broken down vet jobbing to the likes of Sasaki and Nagata, and that's rarely how Japan works anyway. Stylistically the ideal might have been for him to leave New Japan earlier than he did (say 98/99 after his retirement into his NJ office gig) and become for BattlARTS what Hamada was to M-Pro.

[El-P]

Hum… just watch that Fuji vs Tenryu match from that WAR show in 93, and if I could find a bunch of matches as good as this, there's a case to be made for Fuji actually not being as dull as fuck as I thought, at least in big matches. This is excellent, and Fuji has some tricks up his sleeves, as this terrific counter for Tenryu's rolling kick. Tenryu's execution really can be problematic at points though, and Fuji was much better in that respect. Honestly, this gives me the urge to revisit a lot of NJ from the 90's to see if Fuji was not actually as good or better than Flair in the 90's after all. Yeah, I'm kind of eating my words after watching this match, but I have no problem doing so if means I'm watching good stuff I wasn't expecting. I still have bad memories of Fuji during that period, including his nostalgia reign in 98 or so. That Tenryu match was only in 93 though, but it smokes pretty much any Flair match/performances from that year apart from the Vader match.

[ohtani's jacket]

The Ryuma Go series from '78 to '79 is frigging awesome. Individually, I wouldn't consider any of the matches among the greatest of all-time, but the series as a whole is one of the best I've seen from the 70s. The matches are mostly worked on the mat, which means the last few minutes are spent ditching all that beautiful matwork and trying to win the match with throws, but the way the matwork escalates over the three match series is phenomenal. The matwork is more shoot style like than other 70s stuff, and when they start using open handed palm strikes and Go's mouth is bloodied hard way, the series tips from exciting juniors work to classic match-up territory. Go was a fantastic worker, but I'm still impressed that Fujinami could have a series this good with a native peer during the same period where so many guys were billed with foreigners. Gem of a series. People should check it out if they haven't.

[ohtani's jacket]

Some of Fujinami's other 70s stuff:

 

The Seoul match against Hoshino is a fairly standard juniors match but has plenty of decent action. The Tony Rocco match from LA is nowhere near as good as their match from the 80s set, but still has its moments and Rocco is definitely a guy I wish we had more of. Fujinami vs. Ted Adams from the Garden is sloppy at times, but I enjoyed Lord Alfred Hayes' play-by-play. Fujinami vs. Mando Guerrero was probably the best match of the stuff I watched this evening, but even I'll admit it's a little dry. Fujinami vs. Greg Valentine was rad, but that may be the Hammer fan in me talking. I also saw a couple of minutes of Dynamite Kid vs. Fujinami from Stampede, but it wasn't a patch on Dynamite's UK stuff. So far, the Go stuff is head and shoulders above the rest of Fujinami's 70s output.

[Childs]

You've seen the Ray Mendoza match, right? That's one of the only others I can think of from the late '70s. But the Go series was the definite highlight.

 

Would you agree Fujinami was a great worker by about '78?

[Parties]

That series w/ Go is a great find. Just watched three singles back to back from 78'/'79 and could watch ten more. Feels like this could have been some of the highest rated stuff on the 80s NJ/UWF sets. Go was a beast here and it was interesting to see Fujinami at times getting mauled by an opponent this early into his golden boy era, esp. by a fellow native. The finish of their 2/10/79 match is as good a hybrid of high spots, mat work, and stiff strikes as I can recall. The legend of Go's career is that of kind of a wild, off-the-reservation character who should have had a better career. Wondering if he's a Kengo Kimura guy where if you see the right matches he seems like a revelation.

[ohtani's jacket]

You've seen the Ray Mendoza match, right? That's one of the only others I can think of from the late '70s. But the Go series was the definite highlight.

 

Would you agree Fujinami was a great worker by about '78?

 

Yeah, I've seen the Mendoza match as well as the Angel Blanco match, though I was probably focusing more on the luchadores at the time. He's certainly a great worker in the '78-79 footage we have. The junior heavyweight style is a bit limiting in terms of the matches being sub 15 minutes for the most part and Fujinami pretty much always winning with a german or dragon suplex instead of on the mat, but he was as good as anyone I've seen from the period.

[ohtani's jacket]

There's a Fujinami vs. Canek match on YouTube that the uploader says is from '78, but I think is actually from '79. It's quite different from the typical Fujinami match in that it's less mat driven and more character based. There's a stronger heel/face dynamic than other Fujinami matches from the 70s and it feels more stereotypical in terms of native vs. foreigner bouts. It's not the best Canek I've seen, but not too shabby either.

[WingedEagle]

Just started going through the 80s set in depth and Fujinami stands out even more than he did in the bits & pieces I'd caught in touted multi-man matches from the decade. Have a lot more to watch and hope to get to it before ballots are due. Would love to see a detailed comparison of his and Jumbo's 80s from someone that's been through both already. Extrapolating from the limited sample I've seen suggest he could very well blow Jumbo out of the water for diversity of performances and sheer volume, but am wondering if he'll come close in classics. Not comfortable putting an 8 or 10 man match on any one guy's record, whereas Jumbo has the Choshu/Yatsu tags, Flair, the Tenryu series, etc.

[InYourCase]

I have Fujinami comfortably ahead of Jumbo on my ballot. I like Jumbo starting with the Choshu tags. His work before that doesn't do a whole lot for me. That peak is short, also. '85 (?) through '91, essentially. I love that era of Jumbo, but Fujinami has great matches spanning from '79 through '93 with solid performances lasting until 1996.

 

And even, for instance, comparing the work the two did against Choshu, I like Fujinami's output much better than Jumbo's. In those tags, I like Choshu/Yatsu/Tenryu better than whatever Jumbo was doing. The 1983 series with Fuji/Choshu is outstanding. One of the first things I went through for this project and still one my favorite discoveries.

 

I'm weird in the way I watch things. Not a huge fan of going through things chronologically for specific wrestlers. I have some late 90's Fujinami work to go through and then the earlier stuff I can find from him on Ditch's site and then I'll be good. As of now, he's on the bubble with Hashimoto and KENTA for my #10

[Microstatistics]

The more I watch of him, the more I am convinced that he was the best wrestler of the 1980s ahead of Jumbo, Flair, Fujiwara and the other usual suspects.

[Microstatistics]

Not being great after 1989 is often a criticism against Fujinami, but I don't think it matters that much. Yes, his quality of work dropped off, but he's been a consistently good pro wrestler for TWENTY FIVE fucking years after an amazing 12 or so year peak. Surely longevity alone should compensate for a lack of a higher amount of great matches after his peak?

Been watching a bunch of post 1989 Fujinami and I completely agree with this. He is certainly much less dynamic than he was before 89 but he is still consistently very good or at worst decent and plays a valuable hand in basically every match. In fact it wouldn't even be crazy to put him on a Top 100 list just based on his post-prime stuff, which is nuts considering how good he was in his prime.

[DR Ackermann]

I'm actually in the process of evaluating Fujinami's work in the 90s and not he's not decent at worst. At worst he sucks. At best, so far, he can be really good. It seems so far that the further we get from his comeback, the better he gets, at least up to 93. I'm digging some of his stuff, but I don't think he could make a top 150 based on what I've seen in the just the 90s. Factor on his wholw career though, and you've got a number 1 contender.

[Microstatistics]

I'm actually in the process of evaluating Fujinami's work in the 90s and not he's not decent at worst. At worst he sucks. At best, so far, he can be really good. It seems so far that the further we get from his comeback, the better he gets, at least up to 93. I'm digging some of his stuff, but I don't think he could make a top 150 based on what I've seen in the just the 90s. Factor on his wholw career though, and you've got a number 1 contender.

Maybe not based on the 1990s alone, but his 2000 onwards work also has a bunch of good stuff, the biggest example being the Nishimura 9/2006 match.

[jdw]

There's a Fujinami vs. Canek match on YouTube that the uploader says is from '78, but I think is actually from '79. It's quite different from the typical Fujinami match in that it's less mat driven and more character based. There's a stronger heel/face dynamic than other Fujinami matches from the 70s and it feels more stereotypical in terms of native vs. foreigner bouts. It's not the best Canek I've seen, but not too shabby either.

 

Looks like it's the 1979 title match. They had a singles match in each of those years that aired on TV:

 

03/17/78 Tatsumi Fujinami dko El Canek (10:11)

06/07/79 WWF Jr Title: Tatsumi Fujinami p Canek (17:02)

 

This looks to line up with the 1979 result and time, and with the trophies coming out at the end.

[Loss]

 

I'm actually in the process of evaluating Fujinami's work in the 90s and not he's not decent at worst. At worst he sucks. At best, so far, he can be really good. It seems so far that the further we get from his comeback, the better he gets, at least up to 93. I'm digging some of his stuff, but I don't think he could make a top 150 based on what I've seen in the just the 90s. Factor on his wholw career though, and you've got a number 1 contender.

Maybe not based on the 1990s alone, but his 2000 onwards work also has a bunch of good stuff, the biggest example being the Nishimura 9/2006 match.

 

 

Are there other examples besides the Nishimura match? Just curious. I'd be interested in checking them out at some point.