[1993-08-03-NJPW-G1 Climax] Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs Akitoshi Saito

[GOTNW]

Fujiwara looks like such a badass here. This is a match built as a battle of Saito’s striking and kicking and Fujiwara’s submissions, and Fujiwara just overwhelms Saito with his badassery. Early on as they’re making their first moves he checks Saito’s kicks and then just explodes with brutal chokes, making great use of Saito’s gi and surely making whoever his judo coach was proud with sweet collar chokes. Saito takes the gi off but Fujiwara then just uses the belt to choke him even more violently, really the whole match is just a sweet Fujiwara showcase, Saito has really nice kicks and body blows, and he busts Fujiwara open with punches to the forehead, which just results in Fujiwara rising up like a vampire and headbutting the hell out of him, as well as often just brushing off Saito’s kicks. Fujiwara also basically no-sells Saito when he goes to argue with his second instead of paying attention to Saito and totally super rekts him when he fakes being stunned by body shots to lure Saito in, and Saito takes the bait like a faithless fool. A little bit too one sided to reach “greatness” but a great time to be had watching it. What are ratings anyway? ***3/4

[Phil Schneider]

Holy hell was this awesome. Fujiwara attacks Saito at the bell and starts choking him with his black belt and it was on. Fujiwara versus a kicker is always the best, and Saito wasn't afraid to throw huge kicks especially to Fujiwara's belly. Fujiwara is the greatest body shot seller in wrestling history, he always sells them like he is about to throw up, but is keeping it down to fight through a Crossfit workout. Saito gets Fujiwara down and opens him up with knuckle punches to the head. Then a pissed off Fujiwara fires back with big headbutts as blood is running down his face. Finish was great Fujiwara crumple to the ground after a couple of nasty body kicks and Saito comes into finish him off, Fujiwara though grabs the next body kick and turns it into a nasty ankle lock for the tap. He then does this awesome strut around the ring with a shit eating grin on his face. He jaws a bit with Aoyagi who was seconding Saito and then offers his hand. Saito throws a kick at him, and Fujiwara has this great "look at the tough guy" smirk and struts out of the ring. I saw this on Ditch's site and got excited, but it totally exceeded my pretty high expectations.