[1984-10-17-UWF] Akira Maeda & Osamu Kido vs Phil Lafleur & Tapu Samoa

[Ma Stump Puller]

With this match being fancam recorded in-full I am very certain that this is the earliest footage of Danny/Dan Kroffat we have around of an actual full match in action (there is earlier with him showing up for a televised Stampede taping last year, but only for sparingly few minutes and most of it involving him talking than wrestling). so that's cool. Match is eh, alright. Even someone with as little experience as Kroffat still looks good enough when him and Maeda are having solid ground work focused around Maeda attacking the arm with key/double wrist locks, and of course Kido is as smooth as expected. Tapu is the odd one out here; he's a short stubby guy who's past his best years and mostly acts like it, doing a lot of bashing around for Maeda and co at a pace I guess you could call glacial. At one point Maeda in particular randomly does the Scorpion Death Lock on Tapu for shits and giggles as a possible dig at a certain Mr Choshu. I guess the issue is that a "babyface duo in control" segment isn't exactly one prone to producing much heat so the crowd are mostly just watching and waiting. Kroffat gets in after a good while and does Johnny Smith's signature top rope dropkick/kip-up before he'd even become a wrestler, but he does botch the kip-up part. B-minus for trying I suppose.

He also bumps super well after going chest-first into the turnbuckle while running, which is another thing that a certain other Canadian might have also been doing at the time. Aside from that, it's just the natives slowly running over them again with occasional moments from Kroffat where he's able to do a move until he tags out. Tapu slaps on a bearhug on Kido which some in the crowd laugh at for looking particularly silly and I'd have to agree; even at this point a bearhug was well and beyond reasonability as a move people thought was threatening, let alone in the UWF lol. Maeda gets in and wrecks Tapu with all of his signature offence before finishing up with a Cobra Twist for the submission victory. While the stuff outside of the match is interesting, this really wasn't by itself. It's the definition of a house show style "get your shit in and leave" scenario as that's exactly what happens, with most of the match dominated by Maeda and Kido just having little time to mess around trying to pretend this could go either way. The other duo aren't even given the dignity to be presented as threats, just annoying detours to a inevitable win. I suppose Kroffat even this early looked solid if naturally green. Not as good as he'd be in his next taped appearance in the company, but that's for another time....