[2018-11-28-Tokyo Gurentai] Osamu Nishimura vs Dory Funk Jr

[Ma Stump Puller]

Behold, a match Nishimura cannot save with all of his talent. (well this and that one promo he had to cut in some dingy hotel room at midnight but I'm not counting that lol)

Dory's last match (listed on Cagematch anyway, he's had matches after this, somehow) is predictively with one of his best known students in Osamu Nishimura for a 10 minute wrestling showcase. By this point Dory is basically part-cyborg, with padding all over himself including weird gloves/sleeves for his arms. The first few minutes of this were painful: they both either very gently grabbed the arm and patiently waited until the other person did something or very slowly moved to the ropes. They eventually go to forearm smashes but even those are fairly mediocre despite these typically being Dory's only consistently good feature for many years. They do start getting some better stuff out as Dory actually does moves, but at the same time he struggles to do much without Nishimura doing most of the motion and can't even get up without the guy helping, which felt a bit sad after a few times. Nishimura like a trooper works in his usual spots slowed to his opponent's pace and this mostly goes off without issues....relative to a match quality like this, anyway. We do get a Spinning Toe Hold reversed into Nishimura's own version before a near fall roll-up followed by Dory not being able to do a backslide and butterfly suplex so they have to awkwardly drop said spots out of the blue.

The finish is complete booty as Nishimura is sent flying from a forearm shot as Dory keeps spamming slow pins over and over without doing anything else until the bell sounds. Post-match has Dory and co have a emotional hug before Nishimura is given the shitty ! Bang TV Title (which, btw, the poor lad is still holding to this day) and we get a short promo of Dory thanking the crowd and whatnot. It's a pretty sad affair given Dory was already given a good retirement back in 2008 (he was even supposed to be training people at AJPW afterwards, apparently) at this point it's painfully clear that this flopped for a final match of any kind, and the fact that the guy is still wrestling even to this day is mind-boggling. Nishimura tries his best but he just can't make this work: and I don't blame him one bit for that fact given what he was working with. It's the ultimate test of his carrying powers and he just can't do it. Watch him vs the Funks in 2013 if you want a good version of this match.