[2001-08-05-NJPW G1 Climax, Night Two] Osamu Nishimura vs Satoshi Kojima

[Ma Stump Puller]

These two definitely have their detractors but this for me personally was a great showing. This was the kind of match that you would inevitably expect from both men as they mostly go into Koji's bombs and strikes vs Nishimura's old school limb work, namely to the legs where he can snipe Koji off his feet and wear the man down due to having one leg taped up at this point and time. Koji's selling is also pretty good; he's always been pretty solid at emoting pain and frustration, and he does so a ton here to really showcase Nishimura's control segments well while never going massively into the usual screaming and shouting shit that he can just default to doing in any hold. At one point Kojima lariats Nishimura's leg in a gloriously goofy spot. This match is also helped a lot by a very hot crowd who are firmly behind Nishimura: again making the claim that he "lacks charisma" immensely silly. The guy gets frenzied chants off getting stuck and then struggling in a single leg Boston Crab, you really can't get more over than that unless you want prime Hogan levels. 

We get some nice bombs here and there with a top rope Koji Cutter; the spot where Nishimura finally drops the gameplan and goes for a big top rope dropkick and Koji no sells and just has his sinister expression on his face like "you fucked up" was amazing, as was the crowd exploding when Koji missed the following lariat and got caught in a Cobra Twist. Nishimura gets wrecked near the end with a number of bombs including a rough rebound lariat, but his bad leg stops him from making the pin fast enough so he gets a 2.9. Crowd AGAIN goes ape-shit and finally bursts as Nishimura dodges a second lariat into a Cobra Twist cradle for the pin. This is a pretty good match that helped a ton by the crowd just eating every little bit up and going crazy for Nishimura's antics. Kojima lands some solid bombs and works great as the straight-laced antagonist to shut down hope spots and keep this firmly under control with his usual explosive style. It's a fairly shortish match for Nishimura standards as well (sub-20) so it feels immensely fresh as a result and not too muddled in Nishimura getting his shtick over with numerous extended sequences. Big highlight out of binge-watching Nishimura's G1 outings.