[1990-03-24-AJPW] Steve Williams vs Yoshiaki Yatsu

[Ma Stump Puller]

This is a bit of a treat to see a youngish Steve Williams go at it with Yatsu a few mere months before he leaves with Tenryu and co for SWS. In fact it's his last singles match in AJPW EVER, so big big deal. This started off hot as the two scrapped while Doc was doing his entrance and that scrappy pace never truly went away throughout the entire match. Yatsu is always on his ass with headbutts; even right after moves he's still getting up to do them and other strikes, the guy isn't selling much. Williams isn't quite the scary beast he'd be in a few years as well, so he can't just blast him away with his own shots for long: even after a big lariat he still manages to lose the advantage as Yatsu catches him out with headbutts. Doc doing stuff like Fujiwara armbars to counter shoulder charges, dropkicks and even a fucking middle-rope springboard axe-handle to the outside was wild to see in action, dude was just doing whatever he liked here and it was bizarre to see. The middle half is a bit slower as the two wrestle around a bit and exchange holds, namely Yatsu trying to apply the Prison Lock. Williams resists either with wrestling or by just slapping the guy or headbutts or all three sometimes. Williams in particular gets a bit miffed with a stiff one and throws a punch back with bloody lips, so yeah these two definitely weren't holding back much. 

He sells the leg post-leg work as Yatsu beats on it with whatever he can do before just ignoring it to go for a sick Enzuigiri, which I'm not complaining about because, well, it was sick. This doesn't stop Yatsu getting cosy with his legs though so Doc has to roll about to take Yatsu's legs instead for his own submission. Yatsu also spams suplexes and we get to see the two struggle to stop the other from doing anything major bar said suplexes. We get a bulldog out of Yatsu for a near fall, but a second is countered into a particularly mean Dangerous Backdrop by Williams, forcing his opponent to roll out to escape a pin: this apparently injured Yatsu enough for him to take a few months off afterwards. The finish is cool enough: Yatsu almost gets counted out, just manages to get back in and tries for a neat back headbutt + German suplex combo, but Williams keeps dropping elbows on his face and head so it's a bit tricky. He ends things with a corner lariat and a corner bump Stampede to boot. This was a fair bit of fun: seeing a early Williams do a lot that he normally doesn't alongside his usual mean attitude worked, and Yatsu was a relentless brawler who made things insanely back and forth with how everything was performed; it felt difficult, everything felt earned from transition to transition as they had to really bend and hurl weight around to do so, partly because Yatsu really wasn't giving much here at all so they had to really push and shove to get stuff applied. Helped that these two can do stiff striking well on top, which enhanced it a ton. Nothing great, but a solid enough brawl between two guys who could've probably had better with each other had the Tenryu exodus never happened.