Superstar Sleeze Posted October 31, 2018 Report Share Posted October 31, 2018 Masa Saito vs Kengo Kimura - NJPW 6/10/87 Great little TV match built around Kimura's bum wheel. This reminds me of a great Arn Anderson Saturday Night performance. Kimura tries to out-heel Saito early pulling hair and using closed fists. The punches were in response to Saito making a go at that bad leg. Kimura does not finish the job and Saito hits his Saito Suplex. Saito goes for the arm at first but as he has a double wristlock he looks at the bandaged knee. He drops the arm and pulls on a very tight toehold. Obviously he is thinking Scorpion, but Kimura makes it out alive. Saito pulls out some Bockwinkel tricks from AWA playing King of the Mountain nice shoulderblock off the apron into the railing. Kimura does not really sell the knee on offense as he is running around hitting his finish (the running knee), but Saito RIPS him down with a dragon leg screw. Scorpion Deathlock not quite the finish as Kimura makes the ropes. Kimura misses a kneedrop and a deep toehold gets Saito the win. Just awesome watching Saito do his thing and pick someone apart. ***1/2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WrestlingFan Posted December 13, 2018 Report Share Posted December 13, 2018 I really like Kimura's selling of his injured leg. **** Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KB8 Posted November 11, 2021 Report Share Posted November 11, 2021 Man, Saito was the ultimate badass. Sleeze describes this as Saito working as Arn Anderson and that's totally apt, as he spends the majority of the match trying to wreck Kimura's bandaged up knee. Kimura does not take kindly to this and starts throwing wild potato punches to the cheek, so Saito grabs him and puts him on his head with a backdrop. This was some real mean leg work from Saito. All of the holds were tight and you knew he was looking for that Scorpion Deathlock. He also hit one of the cleanest dragon screws you've ever seen, made even better by the fact it was a reversal to Kimura going for the leg lariat. I liked Kimura's scrappiness as well and you could tell he had a chip on his shoulder in '87. Although you maybe question whether that mean streak hampered his judgment because going for a top rope kneedrop with a bad wheel was probably a risk too great to be taking, especially against the king of the Scorpion Deathlock. Pretty much the ideal 12-minute midcard bout. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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