[1986-04-29-NJPW] Akira Maeda vs Andre the Giant

[fxnj]

Am I crazy or is this 2/3's of a pretty good shoot-style match? I wouldn't want all wrestling to be like this, but knowing the real-life reputations of these two guys there's a real "anything can happen" type feel to this. The enforcer of the old guard trying to shoot on the new kid known for his shooting skills. My interpretation of what happened was that Maeda came to work but Andre wanted to teach him a lesson ala the Iron Sheik match by smothering him with his size and refusing to sell anything. Maeda gets tired of it and shows he can effortlessly takedown Andre before going for some shoot grappling. Andre successfully defends the initial armbar attempt because he's just too damn big for Maeda to get a good enough grip on his arm, but Maeda seems to legit jack up Andre's ankle once he starts working on Andre's legs. Notice how Andre seems to move a bit more gingerly after that. I think Maeda picked up on that as well, hence that he just kept things standing in the hopes that Andre would start working, which never happens. This is when things go downhill. It is kind of cool to see Andre try to shrug off Maeda's kicks even though he's pretty clearly in pain, but them standing around and circling each other gets old pretty fast. Inoki coming out just as Maeda manages to stagger Andre would have been a good point to end the match, and I'm not sure why it didn't just end there. Still, they keep going with a few more minutes of nothing happening until Maeda scores another takedown, which leads Andre to trying to egg on Maeda to grapple with him again. Maeda stays standing and the match just ends, which is a pretty big anti-climax. Not on the level of their 1983 match but worth watching at least once.