[2001-08-06-NJPW G1 Climax, Night Three) Manabu Nakanishi vs Tadao Yasuda

[Ma Stump Puller]

Nakanishi matches are at their peak when there's no filler for him to stink up and he's just allowed to go full-ham with beefy stuff until the end. Nakanishi at once shows his strength by lifting up Yasuda and carrying him to the corner, but Yasuda snaps on a dirty front-face Guillotine in the ropes. Yasuda keeps control with knees in side clinch and another attempt at the Guillotine. He thinks he's hot shit until his opponent wrecks him with a one-inch spear before going for bad full mount slaps. We get a good bit where Yasuda out of desperation tries for a dirty closed fist, but that only sets Nakanishi off with a bunch of crazy big slaps and a huge arching German Suplex. He tries for the Backbreaker right away but Yasuda goes right into a near naked choke, popped the crowd huge as it could've been the finish right then and there. We get a good build as Yasuda pulls out a Tiger Driver and second rear naked choke, also both pop the crowd huge despite Nakanishi escaping from these as well. He gets a great comeback with a huge backdrop and some real nasty stomps to hammer in the aggression.

Basically all of the middle half is Yasuda getting beat on the floor with holds and some hard strikes, eventually the two exchange Guillotine attempts and we get some pretty bad-looking spears due to Nakanishi's lack of speed including one where he just runs into Yasuda but doesn't fall down with him, making it look like a weird headbutt attempt. The bit where Yasuda counters another one into a Guillotine was fairly decent for a spot though; as was Nakanishi deadlifting out of it with a huge belly to belly, insane strength there even with the assist. Nakanishi throws out some more stiff blows before Yasuda throws a closed fist and then slaps on yet another Guillotine, only this time is able to then wrench his head right down into a Grovit/front face lock position, which is enough leverage to force his opponent to tap at long last. This was a really explosive 7 minutes with a ton of action: Nakanishi is a pretty good hoss but Yasuda bumps great for the guy as well, and he really gets over just how strong he is with all of his signature big-man bumping. Not going to be for everyone but for a no-filler clash between MMA/wrestling, yeah this was pretty good.