[2001-01-02-AJPW] Masa Fuchi vs Hiroshi Hase

[soup23]

Screw you GAORA TV. The only singles match between two of the top 100 wrestlers of all time and we only get 7 minutes out of 20.  But I’m glad Johnny Smith vs The Cedman is in full. What we see is what you expect of Hase taking it to the mat with his stoicism and Fuchi using his devious facials and emoting pain to give a contrast to that.  It looked like beautiful wrestling that I only hope at some points presents itself in full but I’m not holding my breath.  This was the first match for the promotion in the entire year and had an underlying playful nature without feeling like an exhibition at all.  NR

[superkix]

I'll take what we can get but I WISH it was more. What we got was a neat snapshot into what was probably a very fun match. The matwork with Hase tying up Fuchi was good, and then that finish, with Fuchi passing out after trying to give Hase the giant swing was worth checking this out. 

[fxnj]

I see that this match happened and I am happy. I see the length of the video and I am slightly less happy. I see the massive cut made on this match from the 5 minute mark up to the final minute of a 20 minute draw and I am absolutely enraged. I can't fathom why GAORA would so heavily cut what looked like a great match between two of the most important guys to the promotion at this point. The matwork in those 5 minutes does look really good, though. We got a neat leg lock sequence, and I loved the struggle from Hase in preventing Fuchi from applying his STF. Them trading giant swings at the end was also fun. Just hard to enjoy it when you know so much has been clipped out.

Edit: Looks like the last 9 minutes were included on a commercial tape. Obviously still not ideal and the quality on the upload is terrible, but if we combine it with the GAORA version we can get a pretty good feel for the match. The comm version shows some awesome struggling for leg locks and some hilarious Fuchi selling.