[1980-05-30-NJPW] Tatsumi Fujinami vs Antonio Inoki

[SAMS]

1980-05-30
NJPW
Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Antonio Inoki
MSG Series 1980 Match
Civic Culture Center, Takamatsu, Kagawa, Japan
Card
★★★★

A mouth watering MSG Series matchup here and they did not disappoint. This had that big fight feel you would want and right from the off they shook hands and then Fujinami nailed Inoki with a stiff kick to the leg to set the tone. Without veering over the line Fujinami certainly was the aggressor, and Inoki had to stave him off and keep him contained. They worked at a furious pace and the intensity was reaching a 10. It wasn’t long however before Inoki upped his game to match Fujinami and put him in his place when he started outright tattooing him with some vicious palm strikes right to the face then later on an awesome looking headbutt planted Fujinami firmly in the ropes.
Fujinami looked to have the opening he was looking for as he sent Inoki through the ropes and he immediately set off to hit his tope. He hit it cleanly and found himself alone in the ring. Instead of going for the countout victory however he instead swung for the fences with a plancha on a prone Inoki. The camera didn’t catch the impact but seemingly he missed it as this time Inoki was the first to his feet and back in the ring. He caught Fujinami on the apron as he was clambering back onto the apron and hit a huge backdrop suplex, keeping Fujinami’s shoulders to the mat long enough for the three count.
I really loved all of this. Inoki so far has had some okay performances, specifically against Hansen, but he hasn’t looked as much of a star as he did in this match. After he hit that headbutt on Fujinami he just stood there and preened like only Inoki can and the crowd were lapping it up. Fujinami, for his part, set the tone for this match and was perfect in his role. If this had a tad more time I definitely could go higher on this match as we barely got over ten minutes of action here, but what a ten minutes.