[2010-07-10-New Pride Ishinomaki Tournament] First Tiger Mask & Kazushi Miyamoto vs Mitsuya Nagai & Rikiya Fudo

[Ma Stump Puller]

(source here, possible epilepsy warning given the lights for the match keep flickering) 

Looking at these four you KNOW you're going to get at least something entertaining, what with Miyamoto's hoss antics alongside Nagai's shoot-style, First Tiger's stiff kicks and tubby lucha work and Fudo's beat the shit out of you-style all blending nicely here for a really hidden gem of a x-list indie. Miya hasn't quite hit the juice hard yet, still being fairly beefy but not to the insanity that we know of him today, no. Him and Fudo do bring in some stiff shots but mostly play it safe for the opener, so shoulder presses and a chinlock will do. Nagai's scum-shooter gimmick is golden, immediately getting his ass kicked with stiff Tiger kicks before pratfalling out of the ring and getting scared by a Tiger Feint spot so badly he tries bringing in a chair lol. He cheap shots in the corner and slams Sayama down pretty damn hard before Fudo gets in. 

Fudo and Miya hit each other pretty hard, shocker. We get some great sleeze as Miya pulls out some closed-fist punches while Fudo does a leg drop while he's standing to "accidently" hit the guy in the balls, which is probably the weirdest version of that spot I've seen yet. Fun brawl with Nagai as they go around the tables and endless rows of empty chairs, Miya works the crowd more for the middle half as he eats stiff slaps and kicks. Knowing from his AJPW stint, he's pretty good at getting his ass kicked so this is fairly effective. Probably the highlight is Miya doing the Orton powerslam on Fudo, quite slick despite the size difference. First Tiger's hot tag is just a few kicks/cross chop/rolling senton, but these are done with some fair urgency: Sayama by this point had more or less mastered how to work his spots in without interrupting the flow of the match, so it went fine. Nagai gets goofy with some more shit-talking and pays for it with a Tiger DDT. The lead-in for the finish is all on Miya in danger again as Fudo beats him down with gloriously lumpy offence. The highlight is probably Mask landing a diving headbutt before Miya follows up with a lazy Kobashi lariat and Kawada brainbuster to finish things out. 

This match wasn't much to talk about, but I still think it was fairly good. I kinda wish we got more First Tiger because him with Fudo could've cooked something real good, even this late in the game, the interactions between the two seemed promising. Lots of typical indie stuff to expect though, lots of fairly low-impact work and Nagai focusing more on being a annoying heel than anything else. Miyamoto is a good talent! It's just a shame he wasted a lot of his career due to his AJPW defection though; he showed some good selling and he could've definitely been a asset to the company.