[1982-10-22-NJPW] Tiger Mask vs Les Thornton

[Ma Stump Puller]

This was a really amusing match despite only going about 4 and a half minutes. They get the ongoing Tiger Mask/Kuniaki Kobayashi feud over by having him attack mid-entrance, and the two have a scrappy back and forth with Kobayashi getting the lead with some nasty kicks. That's the story going into this; Sayama is hurt, Les is not, albeit the latter sells it more like a head blow than general fatigue, so he's not really any slower or less capable, just hurting. These two had a match last year and it was....decent, but nothing special: the two don't really work that well together despite being fairly well respected wrestlers in their own right. They start off with Mask hurling out kicks and whatnot like normal, but can't overpower Thornton just hurling him down to the mat. Boston Crab gets countered into a throw out of the ring and a Tiger Feint, business as usual.

Some leg work between the two as Thornton counters with some clubs to the back and a backbreaker that gets oversold by Sayama like he got shot or something. Some knees to the head before Thornton has to hold hands with his opponent so they can do the fancy monkey flip off the floor spot, which fair play to both men, it looked great. Thornton hooks the arm for a key lock but Mask goes into a standing headscissors, which Thornton just powers out into a armbar instead. Eventually he gets out of it by doing a full on backflip into a hip toss and some knee drops. Moment of truth as we get a Tombstone out of Mask which almost is botched, but they manage to bounce off the ropes to get some extra time to get the leverage right and it goes off without a problem. 

Now this was going smoothly.....but things fall off for the finish lol. Sayama primes the Diving Headbutt for a near fall, Thornton just stands up abruptly for no reason other than for him to land the German suplex for the pin, but he sandbags the shit out of him for it and immediately no sells by springing right up with no issues as soon as the pin is counted. Sayama plays ball for a bit as he sells afterwards, but when he notices that Thornton is right up when talking to the ref, this dude gets MAD. Like I've seen the trainee footage, I've seen him kick Maeda's head like a football so hard he fell over, but he was especially violent here as he walks up to Thornton and kicks him hard as anything in the back of the head, and once in the stomach. Thornton isn't badly hurt, but he quickly gets out when Sayama squares up. That's probably the most entertaining part of this match, but for a sprint-form of their (IIRC much slower and worse last year match) I thought it worked, even though Thornton was essentially getting jobbed out here with how quick the entire thing was. Reasonably fun for what it was, and the violence post-match was daft but definitely fascinating.