[1987-10-04-NJPW] Antonio Inoki vs Masa Saito (Island Death)

[GOTNW]

Ok, so here's the thing. I kinda watched this match. I didn't sit down and stare at the screen for two hours, since not even my love of Inoki is that strong, but I went through the entire match in a span of, idk, 20-30 minutes steadily skipping ahead, because I needed to know what happened in it. And what impressed me more than anything is how badass the whole thing looked-there was prety much an unlimited number of amazing shots. The setting is as big of a part of the match as anything the workers do, as you get these amazing shots of mountains and the ocean while Inoki and Masa Saito are fighting, really it's something you'd expect to see on a "Visit Japan" commercial with no context and just be in awe of what you've just witnessed.

 

 

 

 

 

The biggest accomplishment of that match is probably its strange allure of a symbiosis between man and nature:

 

 

 

 

Why did this image speak so much to me? Is it the nostalgia of my childhood, where I'd often run around parks with grass fields, (play)fighting and so on....or is it just an universal human feeling, something that we truly all sure, when we see a scene like this, of two men settling their issues by duking it out on grass. Will humans still relate to this picture if those futuristic movies ever turn into real life and we're slowly shut down in our own four walls?

 

The shots reach another level when Inoki starts bleeding:

 

 

 

 

 

And peak when they burn a bunch on wood on fire to provide lightning for them, really showing their dedication to evoke a scene of cavemen fighting.

 

 

 

 

 

I guess calling this a shitty match that lasts is easy and the way people got out of even discussing it for so long, but it's about time it's recognized for the incredibly ambitious endeavour it was. These metamodernistic times in which meme wrestling is celebrated so freely give me hope this interpretation won't fall on deaf ears.

[BruiserBrody]

http://culturecrossfire.com/wrestling/antonio-inoki-and-masa-saitos-infamous-island-death-match/

Here's my look at the infamous 1987 battle between Masa Saito and Antonio Inoki.  This includes a brief overview of Inoki's career and his promotional war with Giant Baba, plus Saito's history leading up to this feud. Saito and Inoki engaged in a series of matches where the violence escalated with each step, leading to them settling things on a historically significant island, fighting one on one in a uniquely isolated battleground.  

The length and historical significance of the encounter is compared to one of the most commemorated mixed martial arts fights ever. In addition, I touch upon the follow up island clash that went down four years later. 

You almost have to appreciate Inoki's outside the box booking to generate headlines for himself and his New Japan crew. 

 

[fxnj]

Look up a review for this match elsewhere online and you'll likely find people who watched this because "lol 2 hour island deathmatch" with no clue about the other Inoki/Saito matches that led to this complaining about how boring this match is because these guys just sat around in holds for an hour instead of hitting each other. I myself had long avoided this match due to its poor reputation despite holding their 4/27/87 singles and their interactions as partners in the 9/17/87 elimination match in very high regard. I finally buckled down to watch it today and I can safely say those people bagging on this match are idiots and I was an idiot for taking them seriously. This makes Danielson/Aries, Lee/Justice, and Hero/Punk look like a total amateur efforts as far as 65+ minutes singles matches go and it's a serious 1987 MOTYC.

So, to address the most common complaint about this being built around them working holds instead of it being an immediate blood brawl, if you're trapped on an island with an incredibly dangerous opponent, the last thing you want is to find yourself gassed out. The first half or so was built around wear-down holds and both guys being careful to avoid stuff like rope running to conserve energy. Even though the match was promoted as drawing inspiration from the 17th century Kojiro/Musashi duel, the thing that came to mind while watching this were descriptions I'd read of early 20th century catch wrestling or boxing matches that would go on for hours. Fittingly, a major part of Inoki's strategy is using the Joe Stecher body scissors as a means of wearing down Saito. It's a strat that pays dividends by the end with Saito doing an awesome job of selling exhaustion from the early match body work.

Them going with this sort of strategy works to give the match an air of legitimacy, which they followed through on by working the hell out of every single hold. Often when I see guys go for stuff like armbars or rear naked chokes in worked contexts I have difficulty suspending disbelief because I know in a real fight those would be instant match enders. Here, they do an awesome job of working in enough struggle that I can actually buy into them as holds that can be difficult to apply properly to an opponent who hasn't been worn down. When either guy goes for an armbar, they'll tense up their body like they're putting all their strength into it and make some great facials, but you won't see them fully extend the elbow. And since there's no rope breaks, you always get to see some usually great sequence of the guy on the defensive slowly working his way out of holds through small movements that slowly add up to get them in a better position. For me, this sort of matwork was absolutely heavenly.

Incredible cinematography and scenery as well. Even though it kind of "breaks kayfabe" seeing day turn to night when supposedly only 2 hours have passed, it really makes you feel like you've been on a journey with how you see the passage of time. You go from the surreal aesthetic of daylight and how it at points looks like it could be 2 dudes grappling in a backyard, to a more ritualistic aesthetic of dusk with the torches being lit as the sky turns a beautiful blue, to finally the eeriness of night when both guys bleed buckets and the raw savagery comes to the forefront. It's also during that nighttime portion that the ring itself, a special white one constructed for this match with normal padding removed, comes into view as the crucial 3rd character in this match. Bumps, which they'd smartly avoided taking until the finish stretch, are accompanied with a louder than usual thud to put an exclamation point on the sense of brutality. The last few minutes with Inoki just walking around the island in a dazed state as cameramen and studio lights come into view feel like something out of an arthouse movie.