Jesus this was good. Pre-match Tajiri comes to the ring and Guido taunts him by slapping him in the face and begging Tajiri to tag him. That sort of sets the tone for this as they work a weird cross of BattleARTS and highspot heavy junior wrestling but it really clicks. The early matwork is fairly flashy for the time period and really rugged with some cool counters and escapes. Guido targets the arm and keeps coming back to it throughout the match, including a really cool cutoff spot off of a Tajiri dive attempt. There is also a great spot where Guido hits a dropkick to the arm knocking Tajiri to the floor and then Tajiri just sidesteps a plancha for one of many awesome Guido bumps. Tons of great spots in this including an insane faceplant on the ramp by Guido, a really sweet tarantula out of a sunset flip attempt, and an awesome Guido full nelson into armbar mat sequence that was really impressive. Even Big Sal was good in this as he was used sparingly, but set up an effective segment where Guido built heat on Tajiri leading to his big offensive barrage of brutal kicks and a brainbuster for the finish. Strong match. Unless I'm missing something this didn't get a single vote at SC which surprises me. I've seen a few matches between these two guys but I don't think I've seen a single one better than this. Easy nomination.

I pretty much agree with what you said. Maybe my favorite Tajiri match tonight but I have liked all of them. Need to make that Tajiri comp. Easy nomination.

Yoshihiro Tajiri vs. Little Guido (5/16/99)

 

This was one of Tajiri's best ECW matches not against Super Crazy and it played to Guido's strengths as a wrestler because he had UWFi experience so was able to hang with Tajiri in a quasi BattlARTS style. There was some great action here and even went into normal wrestling psychology mode with Guido getting a heel control section using Big Sal E. as a buffer before Tajiri made a great comeback leading to the fun finish. Easy nomination.