[1984-10-17-UWF] Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs Cuban Assassin

[Ma Stump Puller]

Caught on fancam, almost fully preserved bar minute or so cut off due to some minor corruption. Cuban's hardly much to talk about in terms of how he fits into UWF (even this super early incarnation of it where we were still having random lucha guys showing up) not to worry; he's with Fujiwara who can make exchanges over who can stick a hammerlock on look actually cool and engaging. After a few minutes of the two on the mat (surprisingly half-decent!) we go into more scrappy/comedic work as Fuji gets a lot of mileage out of Cuban's usual brawler shtick while throwing some pretty hard shots when it comes down to the handbag slinging with his usual headbutts and stiff slaps to the face. Cuban can't do much there either and after more grinding on the mat, he basically goes right to cheating via nut shots and giving Fuji sumo wedgies lol. He gets his own back after with headbutts and choking alongside his own attacks on the groin for revenge as he toys around with the ref in doing so.

Last few minutes are basically just Cuban getting wrecked as he uses a lot of rope breaks to escape numerous submission attempts. Cuban gets maybe a few shots in before Fuji finishes up with a good second piledriver and modified namesake armbar to finish up. Mostly just a showcase for Fujiwara but man is it fun. Cuban's a game heel prat-bumper alongside Fuji just easily moving this along with basic but smooth technical work, getting the crowd fired up for what was for his standards a pretty basic performance. One of the better early showings for UWF Original in terms of foreigner/native matchups and a good example of how a match doesn't need to have amazing workrate to be fun or engaging.