[1993-01-24-NJPW-Dream Win IV] Akitoshi Saito vs Hiroshi Hase

[Ma Stump Puller]

Saito as a bald uncooperative karateka is probably his greatest work despite his relative green nature. Hase is his usual awesome self and really gives Saito a lot here despite the fact that he's already worked a match on the same night and could've easily just ran over the guy in a few minutes; he's a unproven WAR guy with barely any rep to speak of, this should've been a squash, but Hase's a nice guy so he wanted to give the guy a fairly strong showing despite the obvious loss. He lets Saito get in his sharp strikes and suplexes and gives that back with his own surprisingly good work around pseudo-shoot style stuff, namely lots of leg submissions or takedowns directed towards grounding Saito away from his best weapons. There are one or two fairly big botches (Saito fucks up going up for a suplex, for example, so they have to awkwardly reset) but honestly the roughness of the match as a whole really adds to what the two were trying to go for here in terms of this being more of a improv scrap than a wrestling match. Saito has great facials as he just pushes through Hase's punishing blows with sheer anger despite obviously being outclassed by the vet. 

Hase's piledriver into rear naked choke spot definitely rules as does Saito countering the eventual backdrop and going into more sick kicks to the body. Hase's big push at the end as he just easily escapes the single-leg Boston Crab and runs into a sequence of fast slaps might bug some as being a bit too goofy but it works for the frantic nature of the match; Saito's amateur instincts make him commit to a bad submission game rather than strikes, and he's massively punished for that mistake. Hase finishes off with a smooth German suplex + Uranage for the win. Frantic sprint that really got some solid violence out of the usually pretty cool and collected Hase who mostly kept this under control with his assortment of holds and whatnot. Definitely not the cleanest match one could see between the two, but I'd much rather have this intense Saito than the later one that got content working the undercards with a really tiresome formula when he's not in a good spot on the card. This angry Saito that just wants to blast whoever is in front of him with fire and fury is so much more compelling and this match is pretty much perfect proof of that concept in practise kicking ass.