[1984-04-17-UWF] Akira Maeda vs Yoshiaki Fujiwara

[Ma Stump Puller]

Is Fujiwara going to UWF one of the greatest acquisitions of wrestling talent in history? I'd say so. This debut match was something that the company badly needed; it's all good having Maeda on board, but if he's just going to spend every main event squashing foreign talent that NJPW/AJPW hadn't locked in (and believe me the ones remaining after that aren't worth the trouble for the most part) then that's a bit of a waste all things considered. Fujiwara is not only fresh, he also has that inherent heat from being a outsider native with a fearsome reputation.

I thought what worked about this match was that the two were not only working to get over the dynamic of the match; that is to say, Fujiwara showing up in UWF and just how dangerous he is as a wrestler while also really making something out of the natural heat that springs from such a thing. Maeda is the de-facto ace of the UWF, Fujiwara is to record his first true threat as a tricky defector, and that's very clear from the get-go given how tentative the two are with each other. Match keeps a good pace throughout as the two combine a lot of the proto-shoot style elements that will be refined as time goes on alongside just being really petty with each other. The grappling is nothing special even by the standards of then, but there's a great undercurrent of tension to everything done; Fujiwara is such a danger on the mat, everything Maeda does has a counter of which he doesn't always have a reliable answer against and for the first time he seems in tangible danger at moments here. Fuji of course is absolutely fantastic with his hair pulling and just full on punching dudes in the head when he can't break Maeda on the mat properly, and he keeps the tempo up with some really awesome roughhousing. Maeda as expected in turn keeps up with the tempo of violence, at one point just hammering Fuji with some sick punches of his own when he tried cheap-shotting him again.

I do think there is a required taste in the kind of chaotic style that these two dig into at the latter end of this, especially with the always weird DQ false finish and then subsequent restart that always tends to be a hit/miss factor given it basically turns this into more of a example of politicking than anything else. Maeda wasn't going to lose (not at this point, anyway) and neither was Fujiwara for his debut, so what we end up getting is a messy Southern brawl rather than a UWF match to muddy the waters and to get the crowd going. It's still really solid, mind you, and Maeda gives Fuji a lot of leeway to do his thing in front of a very happy crowd. The double KO finish is expected shit from a 80's main event between two main guys, though I will say it's a LOT better done here than in NJPW or someplace like that and feels at least earned given the beatings these two gave each other. It's a solid match no doubt, however. It's nothing like what UWF will become, yet at the same time you see a lot of the elements that will make it such a powerhouse in later years.