[1977-02-10-NJPW] Antonio Inoki vs Tiger Jeet Singh

[El McKell]

This is a "fence death match". Which is just a regular match with a fence around the ringside area. Plenty of photographers, officials and wrestlers inside the fence. My understanding is the only function of the fence is to keep Umanosuke  Ueda out. Which it does.

This could've been good if it were short. We got a lot of Tiger Jeet Singh grappling here and he's not great at it, I expected him to be awful or incapable at it based on his rep, so I was pleasently suprised when he was merely sorta bad at it. I liked the false finish right at the start, Singh pins Inoki but it gets reversed because the ref realises he used a foreign object. There's a lotta grappling, Inoki clearly has the advantage there, so Singh tries to choke and cheat. At one point he tries to throw Inoki outside to brawl but Inoki instantly slides back in, I like that spot and so did the crowd. Eventually Inoki bloodies up Singh, repeatedly punches him in the head, dropkicks him, suplexs him, and Singh loses by countout. 
Inoki isn't satisfied with a countout win and demands Singh keeps fighting. Surprisingly Singh does keep fighting, he looks like doesn't know where he is & I feel kinda bad for him while Inoki beats the piss out of him until it gets broken up. **1/4