[1998-11-16-NJPW] Shinya Hashimoto & Tatsumi Fujinami vs Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi

[Jetlag]

This starts really nice with about 8 minutes of really cool opening matwork. I especially loved the sections with Hashimoto as he is so fast and at the same time such a behemoth that he provides a great challenge as half the stuff you try on him you won't pull off, so you have to think fast and give your best. Soon the youngsters take over by putting the boots to the veterans, which sets up the second half of the match in which Hashimoto absolutely mauls Nagata. You really can't praise Hashimoto enough, as his offense is all kinds of furious and amazing chop-your-head-off type, but at the same time he does a great job putting over Nagata as this gutsy bloke with enough firepower to possibly put him away. Fujinami is secondary role here as he mostly serves as a foil for the young punks to show off their punkiness, but he is such a fun tricky wrestler too as he always has a counter in his sleeve and will slap your shit if you push him too far. Also his huge kneedrop off the top has become one of my favourite spots. Great signature performance from the old guys here and really good spunkiness from the young guns.