[1995-07-08-CWA] Tony St. Clair vs Yoshihiro Takayama

[Ma Stump Puller]

Other Deep Dive stuff???

Entertaining but awkward encounter. Now me personally I'd like to think that these two could really have had a good to great match if this was, say, at least 1999/2000 Takayama and St. Clair was a bit younger. There's a good mix between the pair's technical backgrounds (Clair's WoS antics opposed to Takayama's UWF/Takada training) that COULD have worked. The issue is that this is a German Catch match, so effort is already not going to be particularly immense on either side. The other is Takayama; this is way too early for him to have a great match; he'd only had at this point a couple of years of fairly mediocre matches in UWF-I undercards wherein he definitely didn't feel like a finished product. He's still very gangly and a bit all over the place here quality-wise, making it hard for him to really get a groove going with how awkward he is. Clair though in seemingly uncharted waters with this being a Shoot-style match is actually fairly well equipped given his legitimate grappling background, being able to throw a couple of cool takedowns to kick things off.

He's mostly working on the outside by getting kicked and hit with knees a bunch by his opponent, however. The best way I can describe Tony here is that he's basically playing the Fujiwara role; having to rely on smart takedowns and occasional cheeky antics to circumvent having zero stand-up to work with. That comparison grew ever stronger when I seen him rope Taka into trying for a knuckle lock only to pull into a Fujiwara armbar instead which is a beat for beat spot the guy would throw out. Things got more interesting on the ground as Taka tried to take control with wrestling only for Clair to take his back and try for a facelock, leading to him knocking Taka down with some goofy kicks for his own that admittedly didn't look great lol. He still sells great for some knees and roundhouses to the head, eating yet another knockdown. While recovering Taka ambushes him with a near naked choke, presumably getting a yellow card in the process. Tony throws in some more exciting offence in the last third with a cool Enzuigiri counter to a single leg attempt and a back suplex that he tells Taka to no sell while he frumps on the ground. I'm not quite sure what the thought process was with that, was he trying to sell the head work or what?

Tony gets up and gets in a awesome leg-catch takedown into a toe hold to force a rope break. What happens after, however, is unfortunately one of those examples of just bad luck spoiling things. The two get tangled in the ropes and exchange knees. Tony's to Taka's chest, while his is right to the groin, getting him a red card and the DQ loss by the ref. I thought initially that this was worked, but when I seen Takayama clearly very apologetic and breaking character as the heel enforcer he'd been this entire match to help the guy up I knew otherwise. It's a unfortunate thing because this was really picking up just before that moment and probably would've carried itself to a solid enough match what with the more urgent pacing. As it stands it's more of a fascinating odd-couple pairing than anything else with a great performance by St. Clair to really get over the young (ish) big lad with huge bumps and a smart structure, never got firmly off the ground though.