[1978-08-13 NJPW] Ray Mendoza vs Tatsumi Fujinami

[Mr JMML]

This match is 2/3 falls for Fujinami’s WWF Junior Heavyweight Title, Ray Mendoza, the lucha legend is the challenger for Tatsumi’s crown, he is the father of the Villanos, this match is the only complete match we have from him, there weren’t any cameras in Arena Mexico until 1983, considering he was in his twilight years in 1978 (when this match took place), this match is even more impressive because of that, if this is what he was capable of doing in 1978 imagine how good he was in 1965, Ray debuted in 1943 so this match came 35 years into his career, that’s wild if you think about it, that’s Black Terry levels of longevity, we have clips of Ray Mendoza’s best matches since 1964, we have a clip from a mexican movie from 1966 of a match he had against Mil Máscaras when he was 24 years old, his legacy is being carried on by his children and grandchildren, in AAA Triplemania XXX Villano IV lost his mask to Pentagon Jr in one of the greatest matches Mexico produced last year and Villano III Jr had a classic against Aéreo in 2019, the Villanos are here to stay for a long time. Fujinami was as good as he was in the previous two matches, what made this match better than those matches was the opponent’s quality, Ray Mendoza is way better than Ryuma Go or Mando Guerrero, Fujinami still had a tremendous performance selling, on the mat and adapting his style to fit his opponent’s, Tatsumi Fujinami is a brilliant wrestler.

The first fall lasted around nine minutes and ended when Fujinami applied a pin combination for the three count in a very fast paced affair with a lot of big offense being thrown.

The second fall lasted three minutes and ended when Ray Mendoza submitted Fujinami with his trademark submission to tie the contest 1-1.

The third and last fall lasted six minutes and ended with a bridge pin combination by Fujinami to win the match and retain his title.

I recommend this match to every lucha fan out there, if you haven’t watched it yet do it, here’s the link: https://vk.com/video375541216_456239026 .