May 1997

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Fujiwara and Fukuda had a very good singles match later in the year, and their story began at Yume Factory. This is a match very much carried by Fujiwara, who is really spry and turns it up to 11, totally being in "I can cripple you in two seconds" mode. Fujiwara brings the stiff fucking punches and matwork and Fukuda proves himself a game opponent. Kamikaze is the guy who'd go on to be in Big Japan and Zero1, and while I'm not going to pretend his exchanges with Kotsubo were good, they weren't dull either, and soon your attention will be back to Fujiwara snapping fools arms. I really liked the finish where Fujiwara kills Fukuda dead and seems to have the match in the bag…

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Clipped by around about 6 to 7 minutes. This is the first real time that Akiyama has taken Misawa to a reasonable distance, and while it's still obvious that the Emerald Ace is going to win, that doesn't mean his opponent isn't going to lay down easily. We start from the middle of the match, which starts hard with Akiyama beating down on Misawa with a ton of big bombs: knee drops, a big Northern Lights Suplex, a pair of German suplexes, nothing does the trick but noticeably does get near falls. Misawa takes control with a big dive to the outside and top rope dropkick. Misawa teases the Tiger Driver but Akiyama braces, making Misawa have to do a Butterfly Suplex instead, o…

Talk about it here.

Yeah this was pretty damn fun also. This is Fujiwara & Nakano working as the Anderson brothers, tough veterans roughing up the young highflyers. Fujiwara and Nakano really can dish out a beating aswell as cut off the ring. I especially liked the spot where Nakano cut off one of Yume boys by grabbing his head and bashing it into into Fujiwara's skull to knock him silly. Nakano in his brief wrestling exchanges looked legit too. He had an awesome side throw. Fukuda & Kamikaze work pretty well as poorest mans Rock'n'Roll express. They even do a segment where Fujiwara & Nakano feed into a bunch of bodyslams and then Kamikaze hits a fucking Sasuke Special because he…

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.