[1985-09-02-UWF] Akira Maeda vs Super Tiger

[GOTNW]

The infamous shoot. I searched j-web too but this 4 minute JIP seems to be the most complete video of the match there is online. There are some nice potatoes in there and Maeda's final blow is vicious.

[MikeCampbell]

This seems to be famous for Maeda's groin shot, more than anything else. The stiffness is off the charts, and that says something when it comes to Sayama. But, the actual groin shot doesn't look like it's anything too out of the ordinary, they face off after getting stood up, and Maeda's knee catches Sayama low. I'm not trying to say it wasn't intentional or anything, Maeda's loose cannon reputation is well deserved and UWF turfed him over this. But, I've seen similar looking shots, completely accidental in MMA.

[Superstar Sleeze]

Some crazy stiff shots from Maeda early on. Then some boring matwork. Then the groin shot from Maeda. You can tell Sayama felt it, but at the same time he is masking the pain. Man he wont even fucking sell being shoot kneed in the balls. My Lord! Maeda looks like a giant next to Sayama.

 

So whats the deal here? UWF closes on 9/11 just nine days after. Was business already in the shitter? Did this cause UWF to close? Did the boys side with Maeda? Did Maeda see the writing on the wall and go into business for himself? Was Maeda just sick of jobbing to a dude a foot shorter than him? Did he think Inoki would push him harder because of this? Everybody besides Sayama returns to New Japan January of 86. are we sure this was not a work?

 

What the hell is going?

[fxnj]

Full match is available on the Super Tiger UWF comm that's on the Real Hero Archive. The video above has enough stiffness to have made me want to seek out the match, but I don't really think it does justice to the match overall.

 

The first 10 minutes of this are some off the charts stuff. There had been a lot of backstage animosity between the two building before this match over what direction the promotion should take, and this match feels like the boiling point. Maeda throws an insanely stiff slap at the beginning off a rope break and it's off to the races from there with all kinds of rough shots. They also have some hard fought mat exchanges with the highlight being Maeda getting in a painful looking kimura from guard that forces Tiger to take a rope break. Lots of drama with Maeda as the noticeably bigger man just shrugging off any of Tiger's kicks and Tiger trying whatever he can to survive. My favorite moment is when Tiger tries that spin kick he used to do in NJPW only to fall down and eat some hard kicks on the ground for his troubles. The match is really an amazing spectacle with things constantly looking they're straddling the line between work and a shoot. Honestly thought I might have been watching a shoot fight during the first half of this.

 

Things eventually settle down a bit with them seemingly beginning to gas out and cooperate more in the 2nd half. They work less aggressively and it becomes obvious that they're feeding each other limbs. Towards the end, Maeda decides to just start laying around in a prone position and playing defensively while Tiger seems clueless on what he can do to press the advantages. It reminded of when I was a white belt in BJJ and the blue and purple belts would do the same thing to play around with me. I got the impression Maeda was trying to embarrass Tiger by showing the crowd he was clueless on the mat, though it seemed the crowd had no idea what to make of the whole thing. Anyway, this leads to Maeda getting bored and hitting Tiger with a hard knee to the mid-section for the finish. I've played back the finish a shitload of times in slow motion and honestly don't think it looked like a low blow, or if it was it was nowhere near as bad as Tiger was selling. I think the low blow sell might have just been Tiger's way of saving face after being so clearly outclassed for the match, hence Maeda leaving the ring frustrated like he does. Not everyone's cup of tea but I loved the hell out of this. Impossible to rate, though.

 

This match didn't really kill UWF. Lack of a TV deal did. Maeda quitting after this match was just kind of the nail in the coffin. The UWF was originally set up by Inoki as a scheme so he could get TV money by running both UWF and NJPW. He got found out and whole thing fell apart, hence Maeda et al being allowed back to NJPW so easily.

[Superstar Sleeze]

Wait. Is that really true? Did Inoki create his own civil war? Because that's fucking genius. I have never heard this before.

[fxnj]

So, a few years back Sayama published a book on his career which included a recap of this match featuring comments from him and Maeda. I haven't read the whole book, but I skipped ahead to the part where it talks about this match and it seems to break things down pretty well. 

The account in the book completely goes against the common narrative of Sayama and Maeda as the two top guys in the promotion having some shoot fight in the ring. Instead, Maeda is portrayed as a younger guy who was firmly below the vets but dissatisfied with his position. Maeda claims that two of the business higher-ups in the promotion (Toshio Isahaya and Fumihiko Uwai) took advantage of this and pressured Maeda into shooting on Sayama in their match in order to embarrass him, because they felt Sayama was becoming problematic. Maeda claimed that he was unsure of what to do but gave in when he saw said higher-ups watching the match.

Sayama disputes Maeda's claimed reluctance. He notes that he didn't feel a whole lot of reluctance with how hard Maeda hit him. He also mentions Maeda refusing to communicate with him in the ring, only saying "辞める、辞める," which can be translated as either "stop," "quit," or "retire," so not exactly clear on his intentions. Sayama mentions instinctively grabbing a hara-gatame, but otherwise wrestling firmly in "working" mode. He mentions that even during the striking sections he was throwing pro wrestling kicks instead of shoot fighting ones. 

Special attention is also given to Maeda's actions in the 2nd half, where he spends lengthy sections in turtle position and refuses to attack Sayama, even while Sayama does some of the most obvious limb feeding you'll see in a match. Maeda claims that he did this as a means of embarrassing Sayama by showing how clueless he was when confronted with this position. Sayama again disputes this, noting that Maeda never communicated with him that he was doing that during the match. He also notes that he could have picked multiple attack methods if it were a shoot, among them kicking Maeda's head while he was on the ground, as such a move was legal under UWF rules.

Regarding the ending Maeda claims that he felt he'd done what he set out to do with casting shame on Sayama and came up with a low blow disqualification finish on the spot to avoid doing serious damage. This is the part that I still don't really get as the footage shows Maeda's final knee as being aimed more at Sayama's body than his privates. At the same time the footage isn't from the greatest angle, so I guess it's possible Maeda grazed him with his toe or something and Sayama exaggerated his selling because he was tired of Maeda's shit.

One more point brought up regarding the match's ending is a quote from a different book by Maeda where he mentions immediately upon returning to the locker room finding Fujiwara and Kido. He then apologizes for what he did and quits due to it. This is mentioned as drawing suspicion to Maeda's claim about being pressured into the shoot as there'd be no reason to apologize or quit over something that higher-ups had told him to do for the good of the promotion. It's thus claimed that Maeda must have had some deep seated jealousy for Sayama's place on the card, which would be the real reason he did what he did, or at least the reason he was willing to go along with it when it was suggested to him.

So, there's still a bit of ambiguity regarding the low blow finish and Maeda's actual intentions, but I think this covers about 80% of what happened. I have to admit that having the curtain pulled back like this makes the match a lot less fun to watch. Instead of being an epic fight for the future of the style it's just kind of a sad example of backstage drama bleeding into the ring.