[2024-12-05-SSPW] Kazunari Murakami vs Super Tiger

[Ma Stump Puller]

This like recent SSPW events hasn't been officially aired however there is a good fancam by fellow wrestling fan fxnj that thankfully captures this epic main event.

Murakami in 2024 is certainly not one for quality; he isn't going to hand you a lovely steaming Battlarts pie full of intricate grappling or complex stand-up work; but what this version is especially good at is projecting a unique chaotic vibe into these kind of matches. The way he swaggers around, dressed in a completely ugly dress combo with slacks, MMA gloves at the ready to stumble in and punch someone in the head is not only incredibly based, but it's something that you simply cannot find anywhere else unless you went to Japan's deepest underbelly and found a couple of drunk Yakuza guys. Most of us don't have those opportunities though so I guess this'll do. Super Tiger has stayed basically where he's always been, a consistently good but underperforming talent that only really seems to give a damn if the mat has the Battlarts logo on it.

The start of this is a very entertaining brawl as Mura runs in before the match starts and goes at it with Tiger in a striking exchange, ending in him winning with a hook to the head. Outside stuff is more or less what you'd expect from this style of Murakami matches (throwing into stacks of chairs, the odd punch) but it does have a very cool bit where he just smacks Tiger in the back with kicks over and over in a fairly brutal fashion. The crowd feed off this energy in such a way that Murakami de-facto becomes the face here, getting consistent chants and applause despite eternal hometown babyface Super Tiger being right there. That lad in question does fine enough selling from what's shown throwing in a couple of nice strike combos but being too fatigued to really capitalise properly. There's some mask work here as well with it being teased getting yanked off and that predictively going absolutely nowhere as per expected.

They get back in and Murakami tries to do his corner stomp: bless him, he's really past the age of being able to just pounce onto someone's head like he used to be able to do even a decade ago instead gingerly plopping his legs onto Tiger for a few seconds. They kinda incorporate that into the big comeback spot as Mura is too busy trying to get his stomps right that Tiger is able to hurl him off. One scuffed STO spot later and we get the first big spot of the match as Tiger carefully lands a head kick to counter a punch. This is followed up by a random (but definitely awesome) brainbuster into GTS spot that gets the upset pinfall in less than 8 minutes! Definitely not a classic (in fact having Super Tiger get his ass beat for most of a match before abruptly winning is pretty much beat for beat ripped off from his Fujita feud) but I thought this was a fun enough romp for what it was. In a world of incredibly long strung-out epics that go long purely just to go long, having a title match just end with a convincing finish is VERY refreshing.