[1980-12-09-NJPW] Antonio Inoki vs Andre the Giant

[SAMS]

1980-12-09
NJPW
Antonio Inoki vs Andre the Giant
Kyuden Memorial Gymnasium, Fukuoka, Japan
★★
Card

It was curious to see a man of Inoki’s standing come across like a mere child, as he did here when faced across from Andre. Obviously Andre’s been in countless matches against smaller men, but at least from what I remember, they’ve mostly been in throwaway squash matches. All his real singles challengers have been bigger - your Hansens, Hogans, Sakaguchis, so the size disparity isn’t so big. Inoki is the first serious opponent who’s been significantly smaller and it certainly was jarring to say the least. It worked in getting across Inoki’s, for lack of a better phrase, “fighting spirit”. Whenever he locked on a move or connected with a strike it felt so much bigger than it would normally. Andre’s offense here also looked tremendous for the most part. Major gripes would be Andre applying too many static holds in the first half of the match and a botched Enzuigiri that missed by several inches but Andre sold like death anyway. Probably not fair but it shows how one wrong move can somewhat ruin a match. This finished with the predictable countout, which they didn’t work towards in any uniquely interesting way, so that would be a demerit too.