[2005-01-23-NOAH] Naomichi Marufuji vs Haruka Eigen

[Ma Stump Puller]

I LOVE this match. One can shit on the Openweight Hardcore Belt all you like: it didn't produce very good matches and was too gimmicky for audiences to invest in: but it works perfectly here. Marufuji is one of the top stars on the rise in NOAH, big act, trained by Misawa, all that stuff. Just this same year is when he would drastically start to pick up steam as him and KENTA were quickly getting a bunch of attention from audiences and would be pushed perhaps too quickly into main event stardom. Eigen, on the other hand, hasn't won a title in literal decades and has spent most of his career at this point being in comedy matches: he's also 60 years old by this point. Everything is against him here. Maru tries to catch Eigen out on the mat and takes him lightly but he's surprisingly fast, even catching him out on a double rope run. There's a great spot where Maru gets caught in a arm wrench and does all of these super athletic flips to reverse the hold as per standard for him at the time while Eigen just walks over to the ropes in the same situation. In another, he baits Maru into taking a back bump after faking a big boot on the ropes, giving him enough time to charge him. These are funny on the surface, sure, but it really shows the wisdom against youth theme that both men showcase very nicely here: though Maru is obviously insanely above Eigen on the totem pole, his need to go crazy with spots or flips hurts him here badly as Eigen can outsmart him and even get some offence of his own in, including a diving forearm from the old lad.

Maru spends most of the match trying to end Eigen quickly with big spots (including a tease of a apron Shiranui). This consistent underestimation of his opponent means that Eigen keeps finding ways to get out of them and capitalise. He even gets in some nice technical work with a extended Indian Deathlock spot before he transitions into a nasty neck crank: where was this technical beast version of Eigen before? Either way, looked awesome. Eigen gets some near falls with a surprise Spucken and a Giant Swing but Maru is able to shake them off and use his kicks to gain the advantage, namely with a nasty superkick off the Swing for a shock near fall. They even play off the comedy Baba family 90's six-man tags by having Maru kick Eigen in the chest too hard, causing him to do his dumb spit spot in his face and hit a small package for a very close 3 count. He even teases doing his own Shiranui but obviously that wasn't happening lol. Ultimately Maru recovers and nails a Shiranui for the easy three, with both men giving respect afterwards.

While it is quite obvious that Eigen is super limited (namely in the fact that he barely bumps, albeit he can still roll and move well) he's still reasonably good for a 60 year old and really gets to show off here with some surprisingly good wrestling. Maru carries him through some of the harder sections granted with his speed distracting from said limitations but still, Eigen holds his own here and he very much is able to convince the crowd that he could get a huge upset, even with all of the odds against him; the small package spot especially gets the crowd uber loud. This is a great, Rocky-style match that has Eigen get one last moment in the sun before retiring next year and shows off how well he could actually wrestle when given the time and place.