[2001-05-20-AJPW] Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Masanobu Fuchi vs Masahito Kakihara & Mitsuya Nagai

[superkix]

Is there a better surly old man team than Fujiwara & Fuchi? Probably not and as one might expect, they ruled this match. Unfortunately, it was clipped but you get all the highlights: Nagai and Fujiwara smacking each other silly, Fujiwara and Fuchi faking tag outs, Fuchi wishbone-ing the hell out of Kakihara, with Fujiwara coming in to assist. Brutal looking spot sold well by Kakihara. There are plenty of Fujiwara headbutts, a backdrop by Fuchi, but then the underdogs get some reprieve, with Kakihara taking out Fuchi with the Kakicutter and submitting him with the jujigatame following a double team. I could watch Fuchi and Fujiwara stretch and fuck people up all day long.

[fxnj]

On paper, two shoot-stylists being dragged kicking and screaming into working a southern style tag is not a recipe for success, but Fuchi and Fujiwara are good enough to make it work. The opening matwork is solid and Fuchi looks to have some fun mixing up his style of matwork with the shoot style guys. When it gets going is during the heat segment on Nagai. Fujiwara and Fuchi instantly become deliciously smug working him over. Even a mundane spot like the heels switching without a proper tag becomes a hilarious moment for how charismatic the old guys are. An unfortunate clip (thanks GAORA) means we miss the hot tag, so we just come back to Fuchiwara continuing to dominate but with Kakihara in the ring instead of Nagai. It's still pretty fun for to see him get stretched out. Kind of whatever on the shoot style guys winning after getting in like a minute of offense, though at least it was a submission instead of some lame flash pin.