[1985-07-25-UWF] Osamu Kido vs Yoshiaki Fujiwara

[Ma Stump Puller]

Kido spends his time pre-match lifting heavy ass weight, Fujiwara spends it trying to break the hand of I think was a very young Tatsuo Nakano (?) though I could be easily wrong given his face was obscured: perfect (if purely accidental) distinction between two made right there between the physically refined professional in Osamu Kido and the torturous demon in Yoshiaki Fujiwara.

This is definitely one of those matchups that people are going to be hit or miss on because it's mostly two middle aged uncles rolling around for pretty much the entire match. Sure, it's two of arguably the most refined and knowledgeable mat-workers in living history, sure Fujiwara is one of the greatest wrestlers ever, but again, it's a lot of rolling about for a good while. If you're a grappling nerd like me then this is going to be good, for anyone else possibly interested in something aside that it's not going to really pander to you much. I guess they were kinda conscious of that given Fujiwara does add in some explosive spots to mix things up (alongside a lot of his signature tricks that keen eyes will particularly notice, like him rubbing his elbow into Kido's back to expose his head for a facelock) and to make this a bit more fresh. It was also cool to see a rather early prototype Sugar Foot attempted by Fuji despite it being unsuccessful as he tries to bait Kido into trying to take his leg in the same manner as such. We get a solid Achilles Tendon exchange as the two try to outmanoeuvre each other on leverage, ultimately having to get back up to their feet after hitting a brick wall in terms of either man getting a lead. Kido follows up with a particularly slick Sakuraba-style double wrist lock off Fujiwara taking his back, getting a loud yell from the guy in response to really establish how dangerously close he is to losing this whole thing.

Good scuffle with Fuji trying to get past Kido's seemingly unbreakable submission (and with a heated crowd following along nicely) but only ends up stuck in side mount, really getting the crowd amped up for the potential of a Fujiwara loss. Builds well to Kido trying for the classic Robertson headscissors when Fuji tries to escape, only for him to go up and over for a Achilles Tendon. The two finally try for strikes, Kido landing a low kick and Fuji trying for some jabs before relenting for more mat stuff. The finish was simple but effective, running around Fuji feigning effort for a double wrist to bait Kido away from defending against his actual play: a cross armbreaker, which forces the submission victory when the deception is revealed.

As I said, if you love this stuff it'll be pretty good all things considered; these two put on a fairly low-impact mat clinic focused around a limited yet surprisingly compelling range of submissions and suplexes. It's definitely a match that plays into the the philosophy regarding the debate of "the struggle of the move being applied" being superior to "the struggle within the move applied" stance because this was mostly just the two jousting for said moves and submissions rather than sitting in them and working from that base. I'm not going to go into that in detail here but needless to say I was way more interested in this than typically these sort of matches tend to turn out.

Is it as good as their late 1985 match? I'd say no, but that's hardly a bad thing given these two have plenty of great work regardless: including this match, of course.